Tickled to Death and Other Stories of Crime and Suspense (23 page)

She remembered Mr Laker's name from her time with the insurance company, but she couldn't remember which one he was or what he looked like. To her, they had all been just old men.

T
HE WOMAN WALKED
into St Mary's churchyard at a quarter past one in the morning on 13 February, and felt the crackle of money in her coat pocket. It was reassuring, but not reassuring enough. Not enough money, in fact. One five-pound note and four ones. The second man had said he only had four, and, since the job was done and he had threatened to throw her out of the car, she had been in no position to argue.

Just two punters—not a lot for a cold night's work. Two depressed kerb-crawlers, desperate for their perfunctory relief. She knew she had been working a bad pitch, but the other girls had been around for a long time and had territorial rights. Most of them had protectors to enforce those rights, too. Couldn't expect it to be easy starting up in a new town.

And she'd had to leave London. The size of the rents had driven her out of Soho, and none of the club-owners were going to offer her anything now her looks had gone. It was ironic to think that only eight years before she'd been Big Tony's girl and queened it at the Salamander Club. But cancer had wasted Big Tony away to nothing, the Salamander had been sold up and reopened as a specialist cinema club, and now she was just a tired old whore trying to make another start.

She'd chosen the town deliberately because of the Thirteenth Killer. Since he'd started his reign of terror, it was said that the girls were keeping off the streets. Meant there might be a chance for someone who was brave enough, or desperate enough, to move in and clean up. She was certainly desperate enough; she tried not to think about the need for bravery.

But nine pounds for a night's work was hardly cleaning up. The rent on her room was 23 a week. And it wasn't even a room she could work from; it was a good couple of miles from the best pickings. Besides, the landlord lived on the premises, and she'd soon be out on her ear if she started bringing men back. She'd tried to get a place in Nelson Avenue, the so-called “Red Light Area”, but once again she had been up against a lot of girls with traditional rights. It meant her only chance was working the streets, working in cars, with all the attendant risks.

But she didn't let it depress her. Depression required the exercise of imagination, and that was something she had deliberately curbed all her life. She knew she would survive, and things might get better. That thought wasn't born of optimism—optimism again was a function of imagination—but it was a logical assessment of her chances.

Because now she had another source of income. A chance encounter had opened up new possibilities. Her hard face wrinkled into a smile as her worn-down heels clacked across the path between the tombstones.

She was so engrossed in her thoughts that she didn't see the tall figure detach himself from the yew tree's shadow. Nor did she hear his swift approach across the deadening grass beside the path.

The harsh smile was still on her lips as the brand-new bicycle chain was whipped over her head and snatched tight round her neck. Only a clicking noise came from her mouth as the hands in their blue rubber gloves pulled the chain tighter and tighter.

When she slumped, the tall figure, still maintaining the tension on her neck but keeping at arm's length, started to drag her body across the grass to the yew tree. Here he stopped and continued to pull on the chain with all his strength for a full three minutes.

Then he let the body drop to the ground. She lay dead on her side. He rolled her over on to her back, then the blue rubber fingers deftly straightened the legs and crossed the arms on her chest.

They reached into the pocket of his dark blue jacket and withdrew a polythene bag. From this they extracted a slip of blue paper. It was two inches long and one inch wide, and had been cut with kitchen scissors from a sheet of Basildon Bond Azure notepaper. In the middle of it were three words, typed in capitals by an IBM electric typewriter fitted with a Bookface Academic golf-ball.

The words were “
THE THIRTEENTH KILLER
”.

The woman gaped horribly. Pushing down the swollen tongue with one blue rubber finger, he inserted the slip of paper into her mouth.

He looked round to see that there was no one in sight, checked that he had omitted nothing from the ritual with the corpse, then, keeping in the shadows of the wall, moved silently out of the churchyard.

The body would be discovered in the morning. And, when the police had examined it, there would be no doubt that the Thirteenth Killer had struck again.

At one twenty-five on the morning of 13 February, on the other side of St Mary's churchyard wall, Constable Norton spoke into his walkie-talkie. “Sergeant, just reporting that I've found the front door open at Wainwright's, the newsagents in Lechlade Road. I'm going in to investigate.”

The tiny speaker crackled back at him. “Do you want me to get one of the squad cars round?”

“No, don't bother. Mr Wainwright's an absent-minded old sod at the best of times, and when he's been drinking . . . He's forgotten to lock up more than once before now. I'll go in and check. If I don't call again in fifteen minutes, then send a car round.”

“Okay. As you know, we want all cars on the alert tonight for . . .”

“Yes, I know, it's the thirteenth. Cheerio, Sarge.” The whole Police Force knew it was the 13th, the whole town knew, gradually the whole country was getting to know the date's significance.

The other murders had taken place on the 13th, the first two only a month apart, and then the third after a three-month gap. It had taken three for the pattern to become clear, three before the police got a special “Thirteenth Squad” organized to investigate, three before the press caught on and some reporter managed to extract the name, “The Thirteenth Killer”, to swell his headlines.

Since then, nothing. Nine months had passed and vigilance naturally relaxed. The whores were slowly coming out on the streets again. It was Constable Norton's belief that the Thirteenth Killer wouldn't strike again. The increased police effort, the publicity, it had all scared him off.

For nine months every cop in the town had been on the alert, his head ringing with “privileged information”. That's what the Superintendent they put in charge of the Thirteenth Squad had called it—privileged information. They all knew about the stranglings with a bicycle chain, the laying-out of the bodies, the macabre message in the mouth on Basildon Bond Azure notepaper, typed by a Bookface Academic golf-ball. They even knew about the blue rubber gloves, which had left traces on the chains.

And they all knew they must never give away any of this privileged information. Not to their wives, not to their lovers, not to their priests, to no one. There was always the danger of some nut trying a carbon copy murder.

Constable Norton didn't expect a carbon copy murder by a nut, any more than he expected another authentic attack. In his view, the case was over, stale and over.

And, increasingly, the rest of the Force was coming round to his opinion. Oh, some of the young ones—like that Constable Tate—they still thought there'd be another. Tate obviously thought he was going to solve the case single-handed, kept volunteering for nights down round Nelson Avenue, even snooping there when he was off-duty. He saw himself as the great hero who was going to nail the bastard. He was young and ambitious.

Norton remembered when he had been like that, when he'd joined the Force and for his first few years in London. Seemed a long time ago. Anyway, he'd had to leave London. And he was better off here. Nice quiet manor most of the time, even a good chance of promotion. Married a few years back, two kids. Not as much money as back in the London days, but safer.

It took him five minutes to reach Wainwright's, the newsagents.

The door was locked, but he had a key that fitted. As he raised it to the lock, he noticed he was still wearing the blue rubber gloves.

They were safely in his trouser pocket when he knocked on Mr Wainwright's bedroom door. The old man took a bit of rousing from his alcohol- and pill-induced slumbers. He opened the door, half-heartedly clutching a poker, still too bleary even to be frightened.

“Don't worry, Mr Wainwright, it's only me, Constable Norton.”

The old man grunted, uncomprehending.

“You left your front door unlocked again, you naughty boy.”

“Oh. I thought I'd . . .”

“Well, you hadn't. Less of the bottle and a bit more concentration, me old lad, or you'll have all the villains in the area helping themselves to your takings.”

“Yes, I . . .” The old man's head was aching. “What time is it?”

Norton flashed a look at his watch, deducted nine minutes, and said, “One twenty-six.”

“Ah. I . . . should I come down and . . .?”

“No, no, I'll slip the latch, don't worry. You just get back to bed. But don't let it happen again, eh?”

“No, I . . . er . . .” But, given permission to go back to bed, the old man was already on his way. As he slumped under the covers, he mumbled a “Thank you”, and immediately started breathing deeply. Norton waited a couple of minutes until the breathing had swelled to snores, and then went back down to the shop.

That's the advantage of being a good cop, he thought wryly—knowing all the people on your manor, knowing who drinks too much, who's on sleeping pills, who's likely to be a bit vague about time.

He slipped the latch on the door and checked it was firmly locked, then looked at his watch. Twelve minutes since his last call to the station.

“Sergeant, Constable Norton. All okay at Wainwright's. As I thought, old fool had been hitting the bottle and forgot to lock up. So I gave him a telling-off and he's gone back to bed.”

“Okay, Norton. Thanks for calling in. And don't forget, it's the thirteenth. Keep a look-out for . . .”

“Yes, Sarge, of course, Sarge.” A brief pause. “You know, I don't think it's going to happen again.”

“Don't tell anyone on the Thirteenth Squad, Norton, but, actually, neither do I.”

As he paced his beat, Constable Norton went through what he had to do. The main thing was to keep calm, and he didn't think that'd be a problem. He'd been calm enough when he'd pocketed the Bookface Academic golf-ball from that insurance office where there'd been a break-in. He'd been calm enough when he sent his son out to buy a new bicycle chain; and calm enough when he'd said he'd broken it and sent the boy out for another. He'd been calm when he'd asked his wife to buy some rubber gloves for cleaning the car.

Come to that, he'd been calm enough while he killed the woman.

And he knew he'd had to do that. He'd been over the problem many times in the last three weeks, and he couldn't see any other way round it.

He'd thought, when he got transferred from the Metropolitan, he was okay. The bribery enquiries were getting close, but not close enough. He reckoned he got out just in time.

He'd been lucky, too. The only person who could really point the finger at him was Big Tony, and Big Tony had died of cancer just at the most convenient moment. So Norton had started in the new town with a clean slate, and seemed to be making a success of it.

Or rather, was making a success of it until he picked up the woman for soliciting. Her recognition of him had been instantaneous, and she'd come up with far too much detail of meetings at the Salamander Club, dates, times, the sums of money involved. What he'd expected to be a quick trip down to the station to charge her had ended with him pleading and agreeing to a hundred-pound pay-off the next night.

There had been another pay-off each week since then. Three hundred quid. That was a lot on his pay. The wife hadn't yet realized what was happening to their savings; when she did, he'd have to invent some story about losing it on the horses.

But it couldn't go on like that. The woman was likely to get more greedy rather than less. She was used to a lot of money from her days with Big Tony, and the idea of screwing it out of a cop was one that would appeal to her.

It was after the first pay-off that he had thought of the Thirteenth Killer idea, and the more he thought about the idea, the better it seemed.

The woman was, after all, an ideal victim. Shiftless, unattached, a prostitute like the others. A second-class citizen, the sort whom most of the population righteously reckoned invited danger by her choice of work. No one would mourn her and, so long as the details of the murder were right, no one would be suspected, except for the Thirteenth Killer. The press would have a field day, the whores would go back off the streets for a few weeks, and one more unsolved murder would join a sequence that Norton reckoned had already stopped.

So he just had to keep calm, and it'd be all right. Sure, he'd be questioned, because the murder had taken place on his patch, but he knew who'd do the questioning and he knew they'd be sympathetic. The Thirteenth Killer had made a point of doing the other women in well-patrolled areas, but no one in the Force wanted to draw attention to this. The police were already looking silly enough, as the deaths accumulated.

No, it'd be all right.

He didn't think the body would be found till daylight. A lot of commuters went through St Mary's churchyard on their way to the station. Norton went off duty at six, so he didn't reckon he'd be called to the scene of the crime.

The only important thing he had to do was to get rid of the blue rubber gloves. And that had to be managed with care. He knew enough about the workings of the forensic boys—once again his “privileged information” was helping—to realize the traces he might have left on the gloves, prints, minute hairs, a whole collection of microscopic clues that could link him to the murder.