Steve Wilson - The Element Of Death

*

I arrived at HQ shortly after eight a.m. the following morning. Any awkwardness that might have been felt at my return had gone; this case was far more important than petty jealousies. I was relieved to find that Atkins was still on sick leave, and, as he had never been the most popular detective at the station — only Eddie Parkinson took his side — the sympathies were well and truly with me.

Creswell was pacing nervously up and down as I arrived. “Any luck, Ben? Have you cracked it?”

I didn’t usually like it when he called me Ben instead of Watson; it usually meant he was in desperate need of help, and I lost a little respect for him each time he verbally grovelled to his team. This time, though, I understood his need.

“Yes, it was straightforward. Let’s start with an easy one—”

“There’s no need to flaunt your cleverness over the rest of us. It might be easy to you, but to us more normal mortals—”

“No, sir, you don’t understand. That’s how the message begins. ‘Let’s start with an easy one.’” I pointed to the photograph of the message from the crime scene, which was on the incident board:

Kds’r rszqs vhsg zm dzrx nmd. Sghr hr sgd ehqrs ne lzmx. Gnv lzmx? Ad z fnakhm gdmbglzm, dke. Knnj enq Zmcx vgdm sgd mdws nmd nbbtqr.

“In cryptology terms, the killer has used a Caesarian Shift cypher. In this case, it’s a simple one-letter backward displacement code, so ‘Kds’r’ is actually ‘Let’s’.”

“You’re losing me already, Watson.” Now that I had given him something, the more formal and in control Creswell returned. I knew that he probably did know what I was talking about, but he was an old-school copper who felt it didn’t suit his image to take note of all the ‘poncy university gobbledygook’ that people like me spouted.

“I know you don’t want all the details, but this really is a straightforward code. For every letter in your message, you substitute the one before it in the alphabet, so instead of writing ‘b’ you write ‘a’. Look, I’ll write the two alphabets out for you as it might make it easier.”

I wrote, on two lines:

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

ZABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXY

Creswell made a grunting noise as he cleared his throat. “I see that you understand what you’re talking about, but, as far as I’m concerned, the message is just a jumble of letters. How did you know he’d used that sort of code?”

“If you look at it, it’s easier than you think. You see that single ‘z’ in the message? Well, you can assume that’s a word on its own, and it will either be ‘a’ or ‘I’ — if we assume it isn’t text speak for ‘u’. Think of the alphabet as circular. As z then comes immediately before a, it makes sense to assume that the word is ‘a’ and the one-letter displacement is being used. The message then translates to: ‘Let’s start with an easy one. This is the first of many. How many? Be a goblin henchman elf. Look for Andy when the next one occurs.’”

Creswell rubbed his chin. “Who the hell’s Andy? And what does that bit about goblins and elves mean? This isn’t Lord of the Rings .”

I flinched at the name, and he gave me a strange look; he wasn’t to know that his mentioning Tolkien’s novel reminded me of the afternoon when Monika left while we were watching The Hobbit . I tried to sound calm and collected. “There’s nothing that springs to mind from the book that could explain the ‘Andy’ part. Maybe one of the actors in the film was called Andy? Andy Serkis perhaps? Even if it is supposed to be him, I really don’t know the connection.”

“If you don’t know, then I doubt it can refer to an actor. It was aimed at you, so he must expect you to be able to understand it.”

Parkinson had been standing quietly off to the side, but he began to speak animatedly to rebuff the DI’s suggestion.

“Why must he? Watson’s decoded the message, so surely the rest is up to us real detectives, He’s back office now, remember. Besides, we know Gregory was mentally unstable, so why should we expect any message he leaves to actually make sense?”

I could see the veins bulging in Creswell’s neck. He didn’t like being interrupted, and he especially didn’t like being contradicted. I could tell that it was taking all of his effort to speak calmly and clearly as he responded. “You’re wrong, Eddie. Yes, Gregory claimed to be mentally unstable, but you know as well as I do that it was all just an act for the jury. His detailed level of planning proved, to me at least, that he was eminently sane. This message was intended for Ben, so I’m certain there’s something there that he can make sense of.”

Creswell turned to face me. “About the back-office part,” he said, putting an arm around my shoulder. “We’re going to need every man we have on this case, Ben, so I want you to go back out there with the team. We’re already two down — Atkins is on long-term sick, and Monika has returned to Germany. We all thought it best, considering what had happened. So I need you to be with us. With your experience, and as you have encountered Gregory before, I want you to be my right-hand man.”

He didn’t specifically say I was to blame for the team being short-handed, but the implication was evident. I wasn’t bothered about Atkins in the slightest, but the Monika situation was different. I tried to keep my voice calm and measured. “I didn’t think she’d leave. Can’t we do anything about it?”

“No, it’s all been sorted at the top level. She’s gone back to work with her previous section for a year’s secondment. It’ll give everybody some time to come to terms with things. I know she meant a lot to you, but, like I said, it’s for the best.”

My mind was in turmoil. I hadn’t expected this. She was going to be out of my life for a whole year. I had made plans, and she was central to them all. Now they were crumbling before my eyes. “When will she be back,” I asked, trying to keep the rising panic out of my voice.

“She left the day after the incident occurred. Like I said, we all thought it was for the best, and it was all sorted with a couple of top-level phone calls. She’s due to return next October.”

I considered what that meant, and took a deep breath. “I thought that she was with Atkins. Didn’t that mean anything after all?”

The DI paused before replying. “He’s gone over there as well. Once he’s fit for active duty again, he’ll be on secondment to the Bundespolizei. We’ve owed them that ever since we poached Monika from them. He’s due to return on the same day as Monika, October seventeenth next year.”

I forced myself to relax. “I guess I didn’t realise how much I would miss her. I assumed she’d be around, and I suppose I assumed things would find their way back to how they used to be.”

“It’s time to move on. You’re how old — thirty-eight, thirty-nine? There are plenty more women out there. Forget her.”

“I’ll try, boss.” As if that were possible. “Anyway, it looks like we might have our hands full trying to catch a psychopath. Next October will be here before you know it.”

Just then, a junior officer came in. “I’ve brought the lab report on the Norris death, sir,” he said, handing a manila folder to the DI.

Creswell opened it and read the two A4 sheets thoroughly. “Not a great deal to surprise us here. DNA shows traces of the victim and her boyfriend, naturally, and also Gregory. The only surprise, I suppose, is that there isn’t much of Gregory’s DNA at the scene.”

“I see what you mean,” I said. “He isn’t making any attempt to hide the fact that he’s behind this, so why wasn’t there more to find?”