TEN
THE GHOUL
Saturday 26 December 2008.
“Where the hell do we begin with this mess?” Detective Inspector Bob Chalmers growled.
He was chewing on a stick of celery. It was one of his many attempts to eat more healthily; it never lasted and it always made him grumpy.
“Smith,” he said, “you seem to be in charge of this investigation; what have we got so far?”
Smith looked confused.
“Sir?” he said.
“Let me put it another way,” Chalmers said, “you are now in charge of this investigation. What have we got?”
Smith opened his notebook and closed it again; he was not a PC anymore.
“Dead student,” he began, “made to look like suicide but now it seems like murder. Straight A student. Pregnant.”
“Ok,” Chalmers said, “and the other one.”
“Blood bath sir. Worst one I’ve ever seen. Mother dead, daughter critical and the father seems ok physically but otherwise he’s a complete wreck.”
“Two murders in York in twenty four hours”, Chalmers said, “I don’t like it one little bit. Do you think they’re connected?”
“I’d stake Thompson’s career on it sir.”
The whole room erupted. Thompson glared at Smith.
“The dead student was the Willow’s babysitter,” Smith quickly said, “She was supposed to work for them on Christmas Eve but she called in sick. Also, she was a student of Martin Willow’s at the University. The most baffling part though is the note.”
“What note?” Chalmers asked.
“Suicide note sir. It read: ‘I AM SO SORRY MARTIN’. It doesn’t feel quite right somehow; I don’t think Lauren, the student, wrote it.”
“Enlighten us Smith.”
“Just a gut feeling sir.”
“I’m not basing a case on your hunch Smith. Get it checked out against anything else she may have written. Do students actually write stuff down anymore? So, where are we going to start then?”
DS Thompson stood up. He looked very tired.
“Sir,” he said, “I think it’s pretty obvious that the father,” he opened his notebook, “Martin Willow. I think it’s clear he killed his wife and tried to kill his daughter.”
“But why?” Smith interrupted, “and what about the babysitter?”
“That I don’t know yet.”
“Very helpful Thompson.” Smith cleared his throat. “As I’m in charge here, I want you and Bridge to go and have a chat to the man who found the carnage at the Willow’s place yesterday evening, Frank Paxton.”
He handed Thompson Paxton’s business card.
“Is he a suspect sir?” DC Bridge asked.
He was new to the team.
“At this moment,” Smith said, “you’re a bloody suspect. Watch and learn from DS Thompson; you’re in for a real treat. Whitton, you’re coming with me to the hospital.”
Detective Constable Erica Whitton stood up. Smith had worked with her for over a year and she had proven herself to be a very competent police officer.
“Thompson,” Smith said as Thompson was about to leave, “be very wary of this Paxton character; there’s something odd about him.”
“Your woman’s intuition again,” Thompson joked.
He looked around but nobody was laughing.
“Just be careful,” Smith said, “and get him to write something down; preferably something including the word ‘Martin’.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” Thompson asked.
“You’ll think of something. Come on Whitton, we’ll go in my car.”
“Your car smells funny sir,” DC Whitton remarked as they drove to the hospital.
“Thanks Whitton,” Smith replied, “I’ve just got myself a puppy.”
“Where is it? You can’t just leave a puppy on its own. It’ll chew anything.”
“He’s staying at a pub at the moment. I got him just as this shit started.”
“What’s his name?”
“Theakston.”
Whitton laughed. “Like the beer?” she said.
“It’s a long story. We’re here. Now listen, let me do the talking. If you have anything to say, tell me in private ok?”
“Fair Dinkum sir.”
“Not funny Whitton.”
Smith hated this hospital. He had watched as it had drawn the last breath out of the only member of his family he had left that he cared about. It had been six years since his Gran had died here. She had broken a hip and developed pneumonia. Her lungs had just given up.
The woman in reception at the hospital was a dour, frump of a woman in her mid-forties. Smith had dealt with her before; this was not going to be easy. He approached her and flashed his warmest antipodean smile. It did not work. The woman glared at him.
“Could you please tell us where they took the Willow family,” he said.
“You can’t see them,” she scowled.
Smith took out his ID.
“I know who you are,” she said, “you still can’t see them; the daughter is still unconscious, the father is very heavily sedated and you know the mother is dead don’t you?”
Smith tried to keep his composure.
“I am well aware of that,” he said, “who’s the doctor in charge?”
“Doctor Simmons. He’s not due in for another two hours.”
“We’ll come back in two hours then,” Smith said.
The woman shrugged her shoulders and returned to her filing.
Whitton looked confused.
“Don’t worry,” Smith assured her, “we’re not going to wait around for two hours when there are a couple of murders to figure out. Have you ever been to the morgue?”
“We call it a mortuary sir,” she replied, “and no I haven’t. This is my first murder too.”
“It’s not that bad really, the pathologists are a bit weird at first but you soon get used to them.”
The mortuary was on the other side of the hospital. Smith showed his ID to the girl on the front desk.
“Is the ghoul in?” He asked her.
“The ghoul is always in,” she replied, “go through.”
“Whitton,” Smith said, “you’re about to meet a full blown creature of the night. Everybody knows him as The Ghoul. I’m sure even his mother calls him that. He’s a bit repulsive and he has a bit of a foul mouth but he’s a brilliant pathologist and he can drink more beer than anyone I’ve ever met.”
Smith led her down a corridor. He stopped and knocked on a door.
“If you’re alive, you’ve got no frigging business here!” a booming voice could be heard from within.
Whitton’s eyes widened.
“Morgue humour,” Smith said, “its DS Smith,” he said.
“Mr Smith”, The Ghoul said, “Come in. I’ve been expecting you.”
Smith opened the door and gestured for Whitton to go in first. She hesitated then slowly went inside. She could see the back of a man sitting at a desk. He was wearing a stained lab coat. There was a peculiar smell in the room; Whitton could not quite place it. The man in the lab coat was typing frantically on a computer keyboard. Whitton looked at Smith. He smiled at her.
“Just wait,” he whispered.
The man raised an abnormally long index finger in the air and, with as much theatrics as humanly possible, slammed it down onto the ‘Enter’ key.
“You frigging beauty!” he bellowed.
“How much this time?” Smith said.
The man swivelled round in his chair and faced them. Whitton gasped, not because the man was repulsive as Smith had warned but because what she saw was not what she had anticipated. The Ghoul could not have been more than thirty, he was quite chubby but he had the kind of photogenic good looks that could land him a role in any B-Grade movie. The Ghoul noticed Whitton’s surprise and smiled. He had perfect teeth. Nobody in York has perfect
teeth, Whitton thought.
“Eight big ones,” the Ghoul replied in that booming voice of his.
“Our friend, the Ghoul here likes to play the stock exchange,” Smith said, “He’s getting to be quite good at it.”
The Ghoul picked up the telephone on his desk.
“Cindy,” he said. Cindy was the woman on the front desk. “I seem to have broken another keyboard, could you bring me another one please – the strongest one you can find.” He sighed, “They don’t make anything to last these days.”
He stood up; he was almost as tall as Smith’s six feet.
“Please tell us you have something interesting for us,” Smith said.
“That depends,” the Ghoul replied, “on what you consider interesting. For instance, I find the existence of certain fungal bacteria absolutely fascinating whereas the mere mention of our parasitical so-called frigging Royal family sends me into an instant semi-coma. If I were a detective such as you, the first thing out of the ordinary would be these.”
He picked up a pile of papers from the top of a filing cabinet, quickly leafed through them and passed two to Smith.
“What do you make of that?” he gestured dramatically as if he had pulled a rabbit out of a hat.
Smith looked confused.
“I completed two years of a law degree,” he said, “science was never my forte.”
The Ghoul paused for effect. He then produced his impressive index finger and pointed to something on one of the papers.
“Benzodiazepine,” Smith gasped.
“Give that man a fat frigging cigar,” the Ghoul said, “We found traces of it in both Wendy Willow and her daughter and, just for the hell of it and because I could, I tested some of Martin Willow’s blood. Guess what? He had traces in his system too. What were they doing? Sprinkling it on their frigging cornflakes in the mornings?”
“This complicates things,” Smith said.
“You bet it does. That poor man in the hospital had a very impressive blood alcohol count even by my very high standards. The combined effects of the alcohol and the benzodiazepine would have paralysed him. That man would have barely been able to move. There’s no way he could have attacked anyone. Your killer is still on the loose, as they say in the movies.”
“Can I say something,” Whitton said.
“It talks,” the Ghoul chuckled.
“Go ahead Whitton,” Smith urged.
“We had a case a few months back,” Whitton began, “a so-called date rape. The drug Rohypnol was used. Isn’t that the same thing?”
“Rohypnol is a commercial name for a derivative of Benzodiazepine,” the Ghoul replied, “I’m impressed but what’s your point?”
“Nothing could be proven because the woman who claimed she had been raped had no memory at all of the assault. Martin Willow could be the only witness we have to this murder, what if he can’t remember anything either?”
Smith checked his watch.
“That’s what we are going to find out,” he said. “Thanks doc, I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again soon.”
“Good luck Smith,” the Ghoul said, “and Miss Whitton, you’ll go far.”
“It’s DC Whitton,” she said and led Smith out the door.
“Why do they call him the Ghoul?” Whitton asked as they walked towards the main wing of the hospital, “He’s not that scary at all, a bit on the eccentric side but that must come with working with dead people all the time.”
“Another time,” Smith insisted, “we need to get moving on this one.”
The dour woman on reception at the hospital sighed as Smith and Whitton approached her.
“Doctor Simmons has just arrived,” she said, “He’s busy organising his appointments for the day, you can’t see him.”
“Could you phone him and tell him we’re here?” Smith asked.
“He’s too busy. I told you.”
Smith was becoming irritated.
“Listen, “he said calmly, “we all have our jobs to do. You have your particular, anally-retentive way of doing things and I am normally very patient when I carry out my duties. From time to time, however, especially when I am hindered in my work, another side of me emerges. You don’t want to see the Mr Hyde side of me.”
“The woman looked terrified.
“Are you threatening me?” she said. Her voice was trembling.
“Yes I am,” Smith said matter-of-factly, “technically, you are interfering with the course of justice. Now please get Doctor Simmons on the phone and tell him we need to speak to him. Do you understand?”
She picked up the phone and did as she was told.
“Doctor Simmons will be right out,” she said as she replaced the hand set.
“Thank you,” Smith said.
He smiled at her. She looked at him as if he were a serial-killer.
“Detectives, detectives,” a friendly voice announced the presence of Doctor Pete Simmons. “I’ve been expecting you. Come with me to the canteen, the coffee is very good; just stay away from the tea.”
“You must excuse Miss Lamb,” Doctor Simmons said in the hospital canteen, “she guards me like the hounds of hell protect the devil himself.”
The canteen was empty as they sat at a table next to a window. It was still raining outside.
“They reckon we’re in for the wettest winter on record,” Simmons said, “I can’t wait to retire to somewhere warmer.”
“Doctor Simmons,” Smith said. “My name is DS Smith and this is DC Whitton. Thank you for your time.”
“Terrible business all of this,” Simmons said, “in York of all places.”
“How’s the little girl doing?” Smith asked.
“Difficult to say, she’s still unconscious. She had a few very nasty blows to the head and there’s swelling on the brain. Her left arm is also broken; to me it looks like she tried to defend herself. Poor thing, she must have been terrified when her father attacked her.”
“We’re still not sure it was Martin Willow who did it, “Whitton said.
“Do you have any idea what they were attacked with?” Smith asked.
“Yes I do,” Simmons answered immediately, “a claw hammer, without doubt. “Both ends of the hammer were used. This was a very brutal attack. The same weapon was used on the mother too although the mother had no defensive wounds.”
“She was already unconscious when she was attacked?” Whitton suggested.
“Looks like it,” Simmons agreed, “whoever did do this acted with a fury. Some of the wounds were inflicted after the heart had stopped. I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job but we’re looking at a complete maniac here.”
“And the father,” Smith said, “Martin Willow, was he hurt at all?”
“That’s the odd thing, with the amount of blood he had on him when he was brought in, we feared the worst but he didn’t have a scratch on him. The blood was not his.”
“We need to talk to him,” Smith said.
“I know, but not for a while. His mental state is quite disturbing, he’s still heavily sedated and he has that wild look in his eyes. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until his condition improves.”
“But you’ll let us know as soon as it does,” Smith said, “we have a maniac out there after all.”
“Of course, will that be all?”
“For now,” Smith replied, “we’ll be in touch. Thank you again for your time.”
“Not at all detective, and please be gentle with Miss Lamb next time.”
They stood up and shook hands.
“By the way,” Simmons added as Smith was about to leave, “where’s that accent from?”
“Same place as me,” Smith replied and walked out of the canteen.