4. The Method of Execution

DS Vega and DI Rosen push the investigation forward. With precious little to go on, they find themselves comparing the murder with that of Tom Healy.

4

Vega squinted under the fluorescent lights of the BP garage as Rosen stuck change in the vending machine for two coffees. It wasn’t to the same standard as Bishop’s espresso but it was nearly two AM and caffeine was caffeine.
     ‘We should grab a couple of sandwiches too,’ she said. ‘I don’t know when we’re next going to have a chance to eat. Ploughman’s for you?’
      ‘Tuna mayo,’ he said. He couldn’t stand tuna. The smell of it, the slimy texture…it was repulsive, but it was the first filling that came to mind and it was still somehow better than her knowing his sandwich preference; when she had left him he’d taken back his vinyl and his books and that t-shirt she used to sleep in, but she still had all that intimate knowledge of him. Rosen gave him a questioning look but he stared her down and so she shrugged and picked out a sandwich.
     ‘Tuna mayo it is. You want crisps with that? We could do the meal deal?’
     ‘Best not.’
      Rosen grabbed a packet of salt and vinegar and a Mars bar. By rights she should be about two stone heavier than she was, but Vega had resigned himself to little injustices like that. On the way to the till Rosen picked up a couple of energy drinks. ‘And some filters, please.’ She turned to look at him, ‘you need any tobacco?’
     ‘No.’ He did, actually. ‘I thought you quit?’
     ‘I didn’t enjoy fresh air as much as I thought I would,’ she smiled. ‘Maybe next year.’
    They crossed the forecourt and slipped into the leather seats of his BMW, stifling yawns in sleeves and taking tentative sips of powdery, too-hot coffee.
     ‘So you know it was a kid called Shane Johnson who we sent down for killing Tom, right?’
      ‘Yes, and he was released from Rochester Young Offenders a fortnight ago.’ Rosen shook her head. ‘Six years for taking a life is pretty lenient.’
      ‘We’re lucky he got as much as that, given he’d only just turned twelve when he did it.’ Vega pulled out and turned right, letting the car roll slowly down the hill towards the lights at Grosvenor Bridge. ‘I’m guessing it’s too much to hope that Shane is culpable for this boy as well?’
      ‘Wouldn’t that be useful? Not possible, though. I called the probation officer attached to his case and although they wouldn’t tell me where they’ve relocated him to, they did tell me that he was tagged as part of his license. They’re certain that he hasn’t been more than a mile from the property since his release.’
       ‘I thought as much,’ Vega muttered. ‘Good luck to whoever he’s living near now. He’s a nasty piece of work. Even before Tom, he had a list of offences long as your arm.’
     ‘Maybe he’s rehabilitated.’
     ‘Yeah, maybe. And maybe Bishop is principal dancer with the Royal Ballet.’
     Rosen chuckled. ‘That bad, was he?’
     ‘And then some.’
     It hadn’t been the most difficult investigation Vega had ever been involved with. They had identified Johnson as a person of interest within the first week and brought it to the CPS within eight. It had been a good, solid case built upon enough forensic evidence to convince the jury, who had deliberated only a handful of hours before returning with a guilty verdict. Justice, for all intents and purposes, had been done.
     All the same there were nights, fewer now than there had been, when Vega lay sleepless as he attempted to separate the sterile facts of the case from the dirt of it, the emotion of it. Something had never fit quite right, but he couldn’t stick a pin in what.
       ‘Tom was found almost exactly as our unknown boy was,’ he said to Rosen as they waited on a red light. ‘Same spot, more or less, same sort of position. You know that much. At first we figured the entry wound at the back of Tom’s skull had been caused by a bullet. For a time there was some talk of an execution style killing, which made no sense given who the victim was; an eleven year old boy from a normal family with no money to speak of and no criminal connections.’
      ‘But it wasn’t a gunshot wound, was it?’
      ‘Not exactly. It was caused by a penetrating captive bolt pistol.’
      Rosen pulled a face. ‘That sounds suitably unpleasant. How exactly does it differ from a regular gun?’
     ‘Well, it’s used to stun pigs and cattle, primarily,’ Vega said, watching a muscular, kebab-fattened fox meander across the road in front of him. He revved the engine and it turned its lazy eyes on him, entirely unconcerned. ‘The pistol fires a bolt into the animal’s skull. Generally the slaughterer aims for the bit at the back which controls movement or whatever, but they look to leave the brain stem unharmed.’
   ‘So…the animal doesn’t die, not immediately?’
    ‘No. They bleed.’
      Rosen was quiet for a minute or more. The lights changed and Vega inched forward, overtaken by the black VW which had materialised behind him.
     ‘Is that what happened to Tom?’ Rosen asked. ‘Did he bleed to death?’
     ‘The skull of an eleven year old kid is more fragile than a cow’s,’ Vega said. ‘The consensus was he didn’t suffer. He would have sparked out in a second.’
     ‘Not like our boy.’
     ‘No.’
     The cabbies had their office down by High Brooms station. It was a red brick building with arched windows, one of which was boarded up.  Vega parked up alongside it in one of the bays reserved for the taxis. The cold of the night outside pressed against the windows and kept them fixed in their seats for a little longer.
      ‘It was a different time of year, when Tom died,’ Vega said, speaking quietly into his cup. ‘It was summer. Sweltering. His body was found just a day after he was reported missing but he was in a worse state than our boy is. The flies had got to him, he was seething with maggots.’
     ‘How did the team identify Shane as his killer?’ Rosen asked. ‘I’m sorry, I haven’t had a chance to read the file in full.’
    ‘Initially we went around farms and abattoirs and interviewed the workers, our thinking being that they’d be most likely to have access to bolt pistols. We cross-matched them with kids Tom knew and got Sean Johnson, Shane Johnson’s dad. Shane was in Tom’s class at school. His dad had a pretty solid alibi for the murder �" he was off in Lanzarote or Magaluf or somewhere with his mates �" and so we pulled in Shane.’
      ‘And you found the pistol?’
      ‘Yeah, a little way from the crime scene. He’d nicked it off his dad who’d brought it home one day to show off at his local. After Shane had killed Tom he tried to bury it but the dogs found it in the first few days. Shane’s prints were on it, along with Tom’s blood. He might as well have gift-wrapped it.’
     ‘Do you think it will turn out that this boy was killed by a bolt pistol too?’ Rosen asked. Vega shrugged.
    ‘From memory, I’d say the wounds looked similar. Tom hadn’t been beaten though. His hands were bound with cable ties, like our boy’s, but apart from the obvious injury he wasn’t harmed.’
      Rosen finished the last of her coffee and mentally filed away the details of the Healy investigation. Six years ago she had been working with the Met; Tom’s death hadn’t even been on her radar. She thought she dimly recalled reading something about it, but she couldn’t be sure she hadn’t confused it with another case. ‘We should go through what was in the press at the time, what details were made public,’ she said. ‘With Shane’s release the case has been back in the news lately.’
     ‘You’re thinking this could be a copy-cat killing?’
     ‘It would be unusual but not unheard of.’
     Vega crumpled his empty cup and chucked it in the backseat. ‘There’s one other thing; Shane never told us why he did it. He and Tom were friends, by all accounts. They had the odd fight as kids do, but according to the teachers they were inseparable. His solicitor tried to pass it off as a game gone wrong which is probably why he got off so lightly…but I was never convinced by that.’
     ‘No?’
     ‘No.’
     ‘Who was the SIO?’ Rosen asked as she unwrapped her Mars bar. ‘DCI Keogh, wasn’t it?’
      ‘Yeah. He’s working in Manchester now, I think.’
     ‘Was he satisfied? That Johnson just got carried away and Tom’s death was an unintended consequence of that?’
     ‘He was, yes.’
     Rosen nodded and said nothing else on the matter. Vega knew what that meant. She agreed with Keogh, and he couldn’t blame her.
     ‘We’d best get a move on,’ she said once she’d finished her chocolate and tucked the wrapper in his car’s ashtray. Vega followed her out and looked up into the previously clear sky. The streetlights lit the underbelly of the low, jaundiced clouds. There would be snow before the week was out, he was certain of it.
      The door of the taxi firm was ajar and light and chatter spilled out onto the pavement. Rosen strode straight inside, past a portly man with neatly parted hair and a groomed moustache who was smoking outside. He removed the cigarette from his mouth to call out to her, ‘in there is only for drivers, madam!’ The detective inspector paused long enough to extract the warrant card from inside her jacket when the driver recognised the man behind her. ‘Sergeant Vega! How are you?’
     ‘All right, Girish?’ Vega smiled. ‘How are you holding up?’
     ‘Can’t complain, can’t complain!’
     ‘Glad to hear it. Speaking of, how’s your ear?’
     ‘Pardon me?’
     ‘I said how’s your �" ah, funny. You’re a funny man.’
     Girish chuckled. He flicked away his cigarette and took out his pack to light another. He offered it to Vega who accepted gratefully. Rosen looked between them, bemused.
     ‘I’ll go in ahead, shall I?’
      ‘Sorry, Dar,’ Vega apologised, tucking the cigarette behind his ear. She shook her head.
     ‘No, it’s fine. I’ll see if I can corner a manager, you have your smoke.’ She stepped in alone and Vega leant into the flame of Girish’s lighter.
     ‘Are you here on business?’ the driver asked. Vega nodded, inhaling greedily.
    ‘Afraid so. You been down Vauxhall Lane in the last three days?’
     ‘Yes, certainly. Many times.’
     ‘Seen anything odd?’
      Girish tilted his head, sticking his finger in his ear and twiddling it. It was a habit more than anything, it didn’t silence the persistent whine which had whistled through his head ever since the assault. It hadn’t been the first attack he’d been victim of while working for the firm, but it had been the most sustained. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said eventually. ‘I will think on it, but I don’t remember anything out of the ordinary.’
      ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Vega assured him, ‘but maybe put word out, eh? You still have my number?’
     ‘I do, yes.’
     Rosen reappeared in the doorway, still trying to pat down her hair which was beginning to break free from the knot she’d restrained it in. ‘No manager in and they can’t find me a shift rota, so I’ve left my card with the call-desk guy. Let’s go.’
      Vega shook hands with Girish and strolled back to the car which was illuminated by the headlights of a taxi, waiting impatiently for the bay. They pulled away and it sounded its horn.
     ‘Do you know everyone in this town?’
     ‘I’m sure there are a few faces who have evaded me, but Girish I know professionally; I headed the team investigating an attack on him and another cabbie a couple of years back. And when I say investigating, I mean dragging the privileged little s**t who did it through the courts by his nose. Girish couldn’t drive for a few weeks after, we hoped the beak might award him some compensation.’
     ‘And did he?’ Rosen asked as she reached across to turn on the radio.
     ‘Yeah. Seventy five whole quid. Girish tried to buy me a pint after the trial. He’s a nice chap.’ Vega strummed his fingers on the steering wheel to the rhythm of the song playing, whose tune he knew but the performer he forgot.
      ‘I knew what you meant,’ Daria said after a mile or so. ‘Back at the wood. I knew what you meant and you were right. This is a bad one.’ Vega drove on silently as she cracked open an energy drink and took a neat sip. ‘And call it intuition, but I think it’s going to get worse.’

Author's Note

All constructive criticism gratefully received.

Reviews

[Stephen]

Amazing work as usual!! This time, I watched a short movie scene through this write. I think, now you`re gripping the theme strongly .. wonderful chapter. What all I love about you`s you never leave the suspense of your stuffs ALONE ~~ hovering over the edges of sun-filled pavements. Great job!! ;)

[SLD Bailey]

Thanks so much, Stephen :)

[IK]

This is the best chapter yet for me. Really good and I can't really think of any point where anything jumped out at me. Only once - after thinking about it - could I say maybe do something different. And thats when Vega is thinking about why he has issues about the guilty verdict on Johnson. Perhaps a bit more backstory on Vega and also more exploration (not too much) on why he was uncomfortable.

Other than that, great.

Also - we just got the internet so sorry about the lack of action. your reviews are much appreciated as always!

[SLD Bailey]

I get huge nerves when introducing back story. Its something I've overloaded on in the past and it was what made my work seem amateurish, so I've fought the urge to avoid it. Still, you probably have a point.

[NoelHC]

Another good chapter, well written. As w k k observed it got a little stiff in the bolt gun part, but not a huge problem. I know your target market will be the UK, and I am familiar with many of the police abbreviations you use, from reading authors such as P. D. James, or watching British police dramas broadcast over on this side of the pond. I would recommend if you pursue an international market that an abbreviation guide in the front would be a nice gesture towards your readers.
Well written, enjoyed this chapter as well.

[SLD Bailey]

Thanks, Noel! You're a P.D James fan? I love her work. I've always liked how she writes commercial crime fiction but in an almost literary fashion, definitely someone I aspire to! It's a good idea about the abbreviations, actually...if I'm ever in a position to pursue any market, I will definitely include a guide :)

[NoelHC]

P.D. James is a master. As to her writing being so "literary" her "Death comes to Pemberley" was a classic, literally, taking all Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" characters and making a murder mystery happen with them, all written in Austen"s style. A tour de force. Looking forward to the next chapter.

[W.k.kortas]

By and large, you do dialogue very well, which is an awfully hard thing to do. There are a couple of spots--where your character are discussing when and where Tom was found and the bolt pistol--where it gets a wee bit technical and not as conversational; I found the difference in tone was very noticeable. You mant to try to make that section a little more conversational; you may lose a little of the technical accuracy of the section, but I think it would be a valuable trade-off.

[SLD Bailey]

Do you know, I had wondered this myself so I'm glad you've pointed this out. As ever, thanks for sticking with it and taking the time to review :)