Steve Wilson - The Element Of Death

Slowly, as if to savour every last second, he takes the knife and slits open her blouse and her skirt, flicking the halves to either side to reveal her pale skin. Her chest rises and falls like an express train; his calmness is more than surpassed by her panic. Even more slowly, he begins to trace a line around her body, starting at the nape of her neck, just below the necklace that contains her initial in gold: an ornate letter M that is becoming moist with her sweat. He moves the blade lightly across the ribs on her left-hand side, scoring it over her flat stomach and down to her thighs, before returning along a similar route up the right-hand side. As careful as he is, he cannot prevent the occasional piercings, and soon droplets of blood are standing up in more than a dozen separate locations. He looks at his handiwork. The image isn't quite right.

Forcing himself to remain calm, he repeats the process, tracing a route a fraction of an inch inside the first line. He knows he has to take it slowly and carefully. Even though the previous murders occurred some years ago, he has standards to live up to. Besides, the police have to be one hundred per cent certain who it is they are dealing with. He wants them to know. He needs them to know. He doesn’t want them to waste any time looking for somebody else. That would take away all his enjoyment.

He remains dissatisfied with the shapes that he has carved, and begins again. After three more circuits, five ovals of decreasing diameter can now be seen, the angry red swellings standing out against the woman’s porcelain body. The picture isn’t perfect, but she is prepared. He takes the knife again, and this time he gently pushes the point until it is located in the loose skin between the second and third oval; with a well-practised motion, he twirls the knife handle and an inch of skin curls around the point, forming a cylindrical cone around the silver blade. Then he begins to pull.

*

It doesn’t take as long as he expects. He looks at his handiwork, and is surprised that a single body can contain so much flesh. Or so much blood. He wipes his brow inadvertently; his hand still holds the knife, and he is fortunate not to cut himself. A single hair floats down and settles on her blood-stained fingers. He makes no attempt to remove the strand. Indeed, he wants it to be found; there must be no doubt as to who they are dealing with.

But, just in case they are too stupid to see what is before their eyes, he will leave them a message. He knows how they will react; they will see his name and they will call him. It will begin, and, eventually, his vengeance will be complete.

He takes an artist’s paintbrush from his tool bag and dips it in the congealing blood before beginning to write on the walls. It is a short message, but it has to be written ever so carefully. He takes his time, checking and rechecking to ensure there are no mistakes. At last, he is satisfied. He returns the brush to the bag, then cleans the knife thoroughly and replaces it on its stand. Finally, he removes his blood-encrusted outer clothing and packs it away carefully inside the bag, which also holds two bottles. He has already used the one containing chloroform, and now he takes out the second bottle, filled with what looks like water. He removes the stopper and pours its contents, an oily, colourless liquid, all over the butchered body. A strong smell of ammonia fills the air.

Then, taking care to make sure that everything is left exactly as it should be, he leaves the flat. It is just before a quarter to five in the morning and everywhere is in silence. It has taken exactly forty minutes. He steps out into the streets and, sticking to the shadows, he heads for home.

Everything is in motion now; let it begin, he thinks as he climbs into bed.

One – Goblins and Elves

The phone rang shortly after six p.m. and I replaced my bookmark before putting my novel down on the table. I hadn’t spoken to anybody for a couple of days, so my voice was a bit throaty as I answered. “Ben Watson speaking.”

“Watson. There’s been a…it’s a bit difficult to talk about on the phone. There’s been an incident and it involves you.”

I knew straight away who the caller was: DI Jordan Creswell, my former boss; it was rare for any of those bods to call anybody from my department. There could only be one reason. “Is it anything to do with Gregory?” I asked. “He hasn’t been seen, has he?”

“Not exactly, but there’s been a murder which fits his MO and there’s something you need to see.”

“Why me? I’m back-office now, I don’t do crime scenes. Besides, I’m…not at work at the moment.”

“I know all about your situation, Watson, and I know you’re not a front-line officer any more. Normally, I’d leave you geek-guys to your computers and puzzles, but this isn’t normally. You’ve been named, specifically. There was a message, scrawled on the wall in the victim’s blood, and it was for ‘Holmes’ lapdog’. Get down here. Now.”

I shuddered. It was beginning. “Okay, I’ll get straight over. It’ll be good to get out of here. I know that might sound odd, considering what you just said, but we’ve all been expecting something like this and nothing is worse than sitting around waiting for it to happen.” I was about to put the phone down, when I added, “Hadn’t you better tell me where ‘here’ is? I know I’m a technical guru, but that doesn’t make me a mind-reader.”

He gave me the address and I jotted it down. The murder had occurred in the Sherwood district of Fulwood, one of the more select areas of Preston, and they were waiting for me to get there.

Despite the urgency, there were things I had to do before I could leave. I was a bit like Rupert Penry-Jones’ character in television’s Whitechapel , who was sometimes unable to function as a result of his neat-freak OCD tendencies. I wasn’t as bad as he was, but I couldn’t leave without tidying up. I picked up the novel I had been reading, Conan Doyle’s The Return of Sherlock Holmes , and removed the bookmark; I would have to finish The Adventure of the Dancing Men another day. I placed it on its shelf in the ceiling-high bookcase, and also put Christie’s The ABC Murders back in its correct place, in between 4:50 from Paddington and The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding . Finally, I returned The Da Vinci Code to sit alongside Brown’s other Robert Langdon novels. Then, and only then, did I set off for the car. As I headed towards it I let my mind wander over the events of the last couple of weeks; I had thought about them a lot during those fourteen days.

*

Gregory’s escape had been headline news for most of the past fortnight. The public were aghast at the fact that such a notorious serial killer could be on the loose again, and debating continued long into the night in parliament as the coalition government tried in vain to justify their policy on private security firms being given responsibility for the country’s most evil criminals.

At a local level, Lancashire was on high alert, and all police leave was cancelled while the local constabulary set about house-to-house searches in a bid to catch him before he began a new killing spree. Everybody remembered the chilling words that he uttered from the witness box during his trial: You haven’t heard the last of me. I would have been happy if I’d finished them all, but you stopped me before the final one. When I return, I will start again, and it will be a longer sequence next time. Bear that in mind, and tell Holmes’ lapdog that I’ll arrange something special, just for him.

Holmes’ lapdog. That was what he had derisively called me throughout the trial. He maintained that his capture owed nothing to good policing methods and everything to a blundering patrolman who struck lucky. The man on the beat will be a deadbeat by the time I’m through with him was one of his more printable statements.