TICK TICK TICK Read online

  ‘Uncle Rob, Uncle Rob!’ squeals Garrett in delight. He’s Mack’s only grandson, and a chip off the old block. He’s also the only person I know that calls me Rob; everyone else just uses my last name. He’s a sharp kid, bright as a button. His straw coloured hair falls in wisps, sea-blue eyes of an angel that hide a deep mischievousness. I love this kid, the sheer exuberance that he has for life, where everything is interesting, exciting, everything and everyone holds a purpose for him. If I had a son, I would want one just like Garrett. I glance across at Connie who’s already helping Betty set the table and chatting nineteen to the dozen. Who am I kidding? At forty one I’m too old to start a family now. Aren’t I?

  ‘Come outside, come outside,’ yells Garrett, jumping up and down. Mack laughs as I’m dragged outside, his little hands pulling me with all their might.

  ‘Come and see the butterflies.’Butterflies in January, I think?

  Outside, hanging between the two large oak trees, Garrett has made a string of paper butterflies; shiny, metallic, deep greens splashed with purple and reds, even purple tissue ones with every tiny little detail included. They swing in the breeze and lift high into the trees, the sunlight catching the sparkling paper, each thread glistening like a newly-spun crystal cobweb. He dances around and around them.

  ‘We’re studying their life cycle in school; do you think mine look like real butterflies?’ he asks, his little eyes shining up at me.

  ‘Definitely, they look real to me.’

  ‘Honest?’ he asks.

  I laugh. ‘Honest!’

  ‘Have I done a good job?’ he says. ‘Do they fly?’

  ‘These are going to fly all the way to the moon,’ I chuckle. ‘You always do a great job Garrett,’ I reply, stroking his head.

  ‘Copy,’ his little voice laughs, as he races around.

  Lunch is called and we sit down to huge helpings of Betty’s meat pie, with creamed butter mash and an assortment of glorious steamed vegetables, although I notice that Mack concentrates mainly on the meat pie. Beers and wine flow and the famous home-made apple pie follows. You can’t beat Betty’s apple pie, no one anywhere even gets close, and believe me I’ve tasted quite a few. We move into the garden room and watch the kids play outside; how I wish I had half of their energy. Talk soon drifts around to work, and Betty just ignores us. It’s always the same; she simply doesn’t like work being brought home. Home was meant to be a sanctuary, so I feel a little uneasy when Mack starts up his conversation.

  ‘So,’ says Mack, popping open another beer, froth floating to the surface. ‘Tell me Connie, what do you think of the latest cases? Any thoughts?’

  Connie sips her coffee slowly, mulling over the question.

  ‘I have a hunch, but you’re sadly lacking in any evidence.’

  ‘Could it be a serial? Or a spree killer?’ Mack asks her but looks directly at me. I avoid his eyes.

  ‘Probably, but too early to tell. Serials have their own little world, but it’s always done with intent, with planning. He or she will have followed someone, got to know their habits, got to know the areas, and then he’ll plan it meticulously. He’ll probably get smarter as he goes along. The more practice he gets, the better he becomes.’

  ‘So the old adage of practice makes perfect could be true. Now isn’t that a depressing thought in this case?’ I reply. I knew I sounded petulant, but I don’t care.

  Silence.

  I don’t totally agree with her, she knows it – they all know it. Mack presses on.

  ‘What about a spree killer?’

  Connie purposefully places her mug down, clanking on the table.

  ‘Random shootings, totally unplanned, normally deep suppressed anger which finally peaks and overflows and he or she just goes berserk.’ She looks pointedly at me. ‘Nothing anyone could really do in these sorts of cases.’

  I scrape my fingers along the furniture, making a hollow grating sound. Connie chooses to ignore my bad temper.

  ‘What about the riddles?’ asks Mack – I’d already given him a copy of the second one.

  ‘Now here you might have some trouble,’ she replies, her expression set but calm.

  Mack leans his head to one side. ‘Exactly what kind of trouble are we talking about?’

  Connie sinks further into her chair, crossing her legs; I know this manoeuvre and wait for the inevitable hypothesis. ‘This type of personal contact with the police; it’s a well known fact that serial killers have a history of leaving calling cards, signatures marking their killings to announce to the world that they have struck again. They do this to inflict fear that they will kill again and also to feed their depraved egos.’

  ‘But why send the riddles, and why only to Downey?’ says Mack.

  ‘If they are truly sent by the killer, he is trying to draw Downey into his game; catch me if you can, solve the riddles, and find me. Of course, the riddles are sent by one with a historically depraved mind, so what might seem a rational answer to you and I, could in all likelihood be the wrong answer for him.’ She leans back in her chair, staring at me, waiting to see if she’s going to get a reaction. My blood temperature has notched up a couple of levels but I manage to stay outwardly calm.

  ‘So what you’re saying,’ presses Mack, ‘is that the riddles might have been sent as a message to the police, or they might just as easily have been sent to throw them on some sort of wild goose chase.’

  Connie nods her head. ‘That about sums it up.’

  Garrett comes romping back through the door at speed and tosses a football at me.

  ‘Kicking time,’ he announces.

  I’m going to freeze my backside off out there, but I don’t give a damn. Anything to get me away from these probing questions and the not-so-subtle innuendos that I don’t have any answer for – yet.

  CHAPTER 9

  It’s Monday morning again, and the alarm pierces though my head like an electric shock. Obviously far too much booze last night, and I’m getting far too old for it. Connie’s already up and about. I can hear her in the kitchen, smell the soothing aroma of hot percolated coffee and home-baked croissants. I hurry to the shower, wanting to feel the burst of the hot jets release some of the tension in my knotted shoulders and the throbbing headache that’s starting to take hold. After the shower I mosey on through, slipping my shirt over my chest as I walked barefoot into the kitchen. She stares at me and runs a finger over my taut muscles before they disappear behind the buttons. I like to think that she admires my physique, but perhaps I’m deluding myself.

  ‘Are you at the office today?’ she asks offhand, while handing me a buttered croissant. I grab at it quickly as it burns my fingers.

  ‘An enlightening squad meeting with Grimes,’ I reply, as the hot butter drips lazily down my lips and my tongue flicks it inside.

  ‘What about you?’ I ask, as I reach for another one.

  ‘I’ll keep trawling through the information, see what I can turn up.’ She smiles.

  I simply nod, not holding out any hope, not wanting to upset her again. Just as I’m grabbing my keys, my mobile phone rings. I listen to the voice at the other end, with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Snapping the phone shut, I turn and say ‘Forget the squad meeting – there’s been another murder.’

  Her mouth sags at the corners, the coffee still moist on her lips.

  ‘Another hyoid bone snapped?’ she asks.

  I really don’t want to discuss it, but she stands waiting for an answer.

  ‘I don’t know… he’s been dismembered.’

  Her face turns pale, the blood seeping from her, and I can tell that she thinks I’m in danger. I’m thinking exactly the same thing, but about her.

  ‘Don’t go out of the house today unless you have to,’ I tell her.

  ‘I’m meeting Mel for lunch.’

  ‘Cancel it,’ I say.

  She puts her hands on her hips, and glares at me. ‘I’m not going to be a prisoner for any damn son of a bitch,�
�� she snaps.

  ‘Does that include me?’

  I bang the door behind me on the way out, trying to drive my point home.

  Jamming the Alfa into reverse, I screech the wheels in sheer temper and race into the road, causing a few horns to go off thanks to the concern of other drivers. I want to yell at them, hey guys, be my guest. If you want to go and take a look at this crime scene, please go right ahead – feel free, it’s all yours. The traffic is thick and heavy as I make my way back into the city. My pager’s bleeping constantly and I ignore it, trying to concentrate on not smashing the car up someone else’s rear end. Manchester’s finest drivers give me the finger – now aren’t they something else.

  I swing on to King Street – home to many of the banking institutions in the city, passing the former Bank of England branch building and the Lloyds TSB building, and think wouldn’t that be a nice place to keep all your money safe and secure. Well it would if I had any – I wasn’t particularly good at saving, but show me a policeman on our pittance of a salary who is.

  I finally make it down to the north side of the city. I see many different immigrants here, working hard, one generation helping another get a new start. I never begrudge anyone success, just as long as it’s all done legally.

  Finally I locate the housing block, and see Mack waiting for me outside, the never-ending cigarette dangling between his fat lips. The crime scene tape flaps in the wind and I spot the FME’s van and forensics. Nice to know they are on form this early. Parking the car, I slam the door shut, not looking forward to this one. Nope, not one tiny little bit.

  ‘Morning,’ says Mack, still puffing away.

  ‘Who called it in?’ I ask, not in a mood to be messed with. I think he can tell. I’m stilled pissed with Connie and her damn stubbornness.

  ‘The daughter hadn’t heard from him in a couple of days and didn’t get any answer from the door, so she let herself in.’

  ‘Oh shit. Is she okay?’ Dumb question really, I know.

  ‘What do you think?’ says Mack, tossing his cigarette butt onto the ground and stamping it out.

  ‘Everyone already in?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s like the whole of the Manchester establishment is waiting just for you.’ He smiles.

  Better not let them down then, I think. ‘Let’s get on with it.’

  The house is tired, like time has ravaged the very heart of it, eating away at its soul. We suit up outside and think this is getting to be too regular a habit; Mack is still stuffing his belly inside the zipper as I take my first steps inside. Look at everything, discard nothing. Clues are always waiting to be found. Just find them, Downey.

  The carpet is worn; almost threadbare in patches, but clean. The house, although old, has an air of tidiness to it. I think of the old man who’s tried to keep up appearances despite his age and obvious lack of money. This proves to me that he had an orderly mind; he would not have left his door unlocked, yet the lock had not been broken. Once again was it someone he knew, or someone pretending to be a necessary visitor, like the meter guy? It’s easily done. Either that… or it was a professional, and that thought makes my blood run cold.

  Mack joins me, and together we make our way to the back room. I almost gag – Frankie Bush lies prostrate on his bed, his head severed brutally – and missing. There is nothing worse than looking at a headless body; the sheer brutality of the killing is easy to see. The blood has exploded everywhere, up the walls, onto the ceiling, over the carpet and has seeped throughout the bed. It’s as though every drop in his body is now lying outside, as though the very essence of the man has been extracted. I’ve never seen anything like it and I struggle to keep my composure.

  The stench of blood fills my nose and mouth, making it difficult to breathe; Mack just stands there, his pupils dilated in horror. It’s obvious that someone has used exceptional strength in decapitating the victim. I can tell that the blows were slanted upward from the chin by the slashing cuts on his old coat, the protruding bones that gape from his neck and the large, yawning hole around the spine. Strangely, I recall a lecture on dismemberment that I was at way back with an eminent professor. He said that the interval of consciousness after the head is severed was disputed. In France, in the days of the guillotine, some of the victims were asked to blink their eyes if they were still conscious after the blade fell. Some reports stated that the eyes blinked for as much as thirty seconds. How much of that was due to involuntary nerve action was of course a matter of speculation, but then no one really knows until you’ve had it done yourself. So, was Frankie already dead before the execution took place? Dear God, I hope so.

  My lucky lady FME is back with us today, but I don’t think either of us is in the mood for flirting. She’s finishing up the routine tests when she sees me.

  ‘This is getting to be a habit,’ I say, still admiring her lithe frame.

  ‘One I could do without,’ she replies. I know she doesn’t mean any offence.

  ‘Please tell me that he was he dead before the cut.’

  ‘I’d say by the bruises on the snapped hyoid, and the bruising around the tissues at the top of his neck, that he was still alive when he severed the head.’

  Jesus mother of God, I think… tick, tick, tick.

  ‘What about the bruises, same size as we’ve had before?’

  ‘It looks like it, but I’ll be able to measure them more accurately at the morgue and compare them to the others there.’ I simply nod my acceptance.

  ‘Any ideas on what he used?’

  ‘From the cuts I’d say that this was an axe or a meat clever.’

  Great, now the son of a bitch is starting to change his techniques. We’re motioned out of the room so that forensics can get on with their grid search. What’s the old saying? No one enters a crime scene without leaving some trace of his presence, and without carrying away some trace of the crime scene. I have a feeling that this swine hasn’t read our manual.

  We do a quick scout around the house, trying to concentrate on what doesn’t lie – the evidence. But all we come up with is the shopping bag dumped in the hallway, which indicates the killer was already in and waiting for Frankie when he got home. There goes the theory about the meter guy. I ask forensics to double-check the door and all the windows, any opening of any kind that this bastard could have got through; maybe we’ll get lucky this time.

  The forensic video guys are taking in every scene, every frame of the house. We can’t do much more until they’ve finished up, and by the looks of it, that’s going to take all day. The local neighbourhood is being canvassed, but somehow I already know that this isn’t going to bring in any new leads. I nod to Mack to leave; I’ve never seen the old man move so fast in my life.

  Mack sucks in the fresh air for a change just as the media starts to arrive. Time to get the hell out of here. I can’t help but think of the daughter. Jesus, what a way to have to remember your father. There’s no way that this picture is going to blur with the ages of time. Might as well go get the meeting with Grimes over with. This time I just know the Doberman will be sitting on my desk, waiting for me with bared teeth and spitting drool.

  Turns out I’m right.

  CHAPTER 10

  Grimes is stalking around my desk, pacing like a man demented. His cheeks are flushed with rage, the sweat has dribbled from his brow down onto the grubby white collar – the marks of a man under huge pressure from the big chiefs at the top.

  ‘Get your arses into my office now,’ he barks.

  Both Mack and I know we’re in for a bollocking that isn’t our fault.

  ‘So what you got now?’ he yells. ‘Any brainwaves from my number one murder detectives?’

  Do I detect a note of sarcasm there?

  Mack pipes up. ‘I definitely think it’s a serial.’

  ‘No shit,’ he replies. ‘Go to the top of the class.’ He drums his fingers repeatedly on the desk, agitation festering through him.

  ‘This time he was definitely w
aiting inside the house,’ I say.

  ‘Proving what?’

  ‘That either he knew the old man and had a key, or he sure knows how to open a door using something else.’

  ‘Any prints?’

  ‘Nope, nothing. Forensics were doing a grid sweep, but the lumanol and usual searches so far had turned up nothing. No hairs, no prints, not one single fibre that looked out of place.’

  ‘What about the daughter?’ Now his fists are clenching, and I’m getting a little nervous.

  ‘She only had one key, and kept it with her on her own chain all the time. No one would’ve had a chance to make a copy.’

  ‘Any riddles arrived for you yet?’ I haven’t thought about it, my mind has been too filled with memories of an old man whose life has just been brutally cut off.

  ‘I haven’t checked my mail.’

  ‘I have,’ he replies. ‘Nothing there.’ Jesus, you wouldn’t want to have any secrets here, I think.

  ‘How about at home?’

  ‘Connie would’ve phoned.’ I’m still pissed off that he went through my mail.

  ‘So let me get this right – so far we have three dead bodies, all with a trophy taken, all victims were as clean as a whistle, no priors, no debts, good friends. No one knows or heard anything. We haven’t got a goddamn clue how the son of a bitch is getting in or out, but when he does he doesn’t as much as sneeze.’