D. Mitchell - The King of Terrors

He had never considered himself ruled by ambition, unlike others on the force. They were in it for the careers. No, in the beginning Detective Chief Inspector John Stafford’s ambitions had been pretty basic; to provide a roof over his family’s heads, enough money to pay for a decent holiday each year, and time enough to spend with his wife. True, the job had given him financial security — same couldn’t be easily said for the younger generation coming through, some already facing redundancy due to the need to make efficiency savings, piling more pressure on the officers remaining, and everyone knowing they were working longer and coming out with less at the end of it all. He didn’t envy the new lot.

Sure, he’d had a good income, but it came at a cost. He’d missed out on seeing his two kids grow up, and now with them married and off their hands they realised as a couple they had precious little left in common. When he retired in four months he knew it would be a case of painfully rebuilding the relationship with his wife his job had dismantled brick by emotional brick.

Stafford had allowed events to take him where they would; he’d never driven himself purposely towards promotion. That was just a natural by-product of being good at his job. He had the same feeling about his job as when driving his car and not being able to recount much of the actual journey he’d just travelled. He remembered starting out, and arriving, but the bit in between was almost a blank. Same for his career. He got quite alarmed when he thought about it too long.

But he wasn’t unhappy. Not entirely. He’d got to the stage when he was glad to be counting down the weeks to his retirement. He had it in mind that, of all things, he’d buy a camper van and they’d spend time touring around. They talked about it when they were younger but never had the money or the time. He hung onto that thought though, even though the time when it would have meant a great deal to them had long passed. But it was the one thing that gave him some kind of hope when he finally quit and they were thrown back together again. She humoured him, he could see that, but beyond that what else was there to look forward to? She said she’d like him to take up ballroom dancing. Ballroom dancing! Jesus, that gave him the shivers.

He was disturbed in his thoughts by a knocking at his office door. It was DI Styles. The guy had recently been transferred from the Met and the Super had insisted he be part of Stafford’s team investigating the Polish woman’s murder.

‘I’ve already got twenty-three good men on the case,’ he argued, ‘I don’t need another.’

‘Well you’ve got twenty-four now,’ he got in reply. ‘He’s on for DCI. Treat him good. Old dog, young dog, and all that. No point in kicking up a fuss about it.’

So reluctantly he had to take on the ambitious newcomer and already they’d managed to rub each other up the wrong way. Stafford nicknamed him Nobby after Nobby Stiles, he of the England squad that won the 1966 World Cup final. That went down badly; Styles loathed the nickname, which prompted Stafford to use it all the more. Though he did concede Styles appeared to be good at his job it didn’t hurt to put the youngsters in their place, let them know who was boss. If only for another four months.

In truth he felt he needed all the help he could get. The murder case kept hitting dead ends and questions were beginning to be asked about his capability. The murdered Polish girl, Ania Dabrowska, had been working late nights and early mornings, doing cash-in-hand at pubs and clubs for a while. From all accounts she didn’t have a habit, wasn’t a prostitute, but had few friends and kept herself to herself. She had one hell of an enemy though, Stafford thought grimly. They’d had her ex-boyfriend in for questioning, one Heniek Pawlowski, a rather more dodgy character. One-time pimp, pusher, sentenced for carving up a man with a knife; not the sort of guy you’d want as your soul mate. Had she been on the run from him and he’d caught her up? That’s what they initially thought but his alibis appeared to stack up. So too did those of the Davies guy. Never any proof he’d even been to Manchester, and no motive or anything. His background was clear. Not even a speeding ticket. But how to account for the false papers found in the murdered woman’s flat which had his photo on the driver’s licence, and the blasted symbol on his cottage wall was anyone’s guess at the moment. There was some evidence that the Polish woman shared the flat with another woman for a time. Was there really a connection between this woman and the woman whom Davies ran over and nearly killed that night? So many damned loose ends, he thought.

‘Parcel for you,’ Styles said, handing Stafford a box wrapped in brown paper.

‘Who is it from?’

‘Dunno. Handed in at the desk this morning. Early retirement present? Golf tees?’ he said with a wry grin. ‘Been through the scanner so won’t blow up in your face.’

Stafford ignored the comment. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Styles leave. He began to take the paper from the box.

That’s the trouble with this job, he thought, the one thing they didn’t really tell him when he started out, not like they do these days. They prepare you better for it. Back then they didn’t tell you some people simply can’t take all the crap that human beings are capable of. It makes them cynical, despairing. Sure, there are nice guys out there, but they’re the ones being dumped on by the bad ones. And that was the dirt he’d had to deal with for decades. Enough dirt and you start to sink into it and never feel clean. Some of his colleagues, well they just let it all wash over them. Came with the turf, they said. Shrugged it off like a filthy overcoat when they got home. But he’d never quite been able to do that. His overcoat got filthier and filthier and in the end he never took it off. He knew closing a camper van door on it would never make it go away when it was all finally over, because it was all he’d ever known. He knew it, his wife knew it.

He took the lid off the cardboard box to reveal a book. Nothing else in there. He lifted it out. A damp musty smell he associated with second-hand bookshops hit his nostrils. The green, jacketless boards were darkened with age; the title sat in faded gold on the spine — True Crimes . He checked out the publisher: Arrow Press. Never heard of them, he thought. Same for the author, Justin Symons. The publishing date was 1935. He was drawn, however, to a slip of paper sticking out like a bookmark. He opened it at the page and saw the title of the chapter: The Body in the Barn . He frowned, sliding out the paper. He was surprised to see it had writing on it in block capitals:

TIME IS RUNNING OUT. HE IS GETTING CLOSER. READ THE MARKED CHAPTER THEN TELEPHONE ME ON THE NUMBER BELOW AT 6PM TONIGHT. PLEASE KEEP THIS INFORMATION TO YOURSELF.

C.W.

Stafford’s frown went deeper and he began to read the chapter, The Body in the Barn . His eyes widened as he delved deeper into the tale. A short time later he gasped. ‘Christ!’ he said. He went to the door and called Styles in.

‘What’s the matter, boss, didn’t they leave you a receipt so you could change it?’ he said, smiling. His smile faded quickly when he saw Stafford’s serious expression.

He handed the book to Styles. ‘Get me everything you can on this Body in the Barn case. Looks like we’ve got ourselves a copycat killer on our hands.’

‘Copycat?’ said Styles, poring over the book. ‘You serious?’

‘The two cases are just too similar. Check it out. Someone read this and took it on themselves to repeat the same kind of murder eighty years later. The symbol on the wall, the dismembered body, the arrangement of the limbs, even the quick lime — everything matches.’