Saxon (29 page)

Saxon looked up from his plate. ‘Carry on, Parker, you talk – I’ll eat, if I have anything interesting to add to the conversation I’ll tell you.’

Parker continued after taking another mouthful of bacon and egg. ‘One thing has been bugging me ever since we heard the first voice message from our shape shifter. I have been looking
into the type of computer that can simulate the voice he’s using. I’ve been doing a bit of research and the nearest match I’ve come up with is an artificial voice called “Bruce”; it’s a free bit of software that comes with an Apple Macintosh computer. So he either owns an Apple Mac or he has access to one.’ Parker dived in to his breakfast again before he was asked to talk any more.

‘Impressive…does Jake Dalton have one of these Apple computers?’ said Saxon, as he chased the last bits of his breakfast around the plate.

‘No, sir, I’ve already checked,’ he said, pleased that he had pre-empted one of Saxon’s questions. ‘Anyway, sir, STI said that he couldn’t have popped over to paint things on your door yesterday because they had him in their sights all day. He got up, drove to work and stayed there. Then he drove home, and there was no evidence to suggest that he had a pot of blood and a paint brush on or about his person.’

‘Does he have access to one where he works?’

‘Now that, I don’t know – but I suppose there would be blood in a mortuary. But I thought we’d decided someone was setting him up?’ said Parker.

‘Actually, Parker, I meant does he have access to an Apple computer, not pots of blood. But that’s an interesting point…I suppose there would be plenty of blood in a mortuary. Maybe, someone he works with is jealous of his position.’ Saxon sounded unconvincing.

‘I hardly think that’s the answer, sir, have you seen the state of them down at the mortuary? Besides, Jake is a very popular bloke. They all seem to like him a lot. It’s geek and nerd city rolled into one – a physical impossibility, there’s not one of them that could lift any one of our victims single-handed.’ Parker added, ‘I was wondering, sir, what are you intending to do about your personal protection while this threat is hanging over you?’

Saxon pulled open the front of his jacket to show the handle of a standard police-issue handgun tucked under his left arm. ‘Just
this, plus I’m thinking that maybe I will leave my apartment door open tonight in the hope that I may get a visit from the friendly neighbourhood murderer.’

Parker finished eating and pushed his plate away. ‘I think, sir, that I should stay with you – just in case.’ He knew what the answer would be…and he was right.

‘I appreciate your concern, but if he’s watching me – and I have no doubt he is, then we don’t want to frighten him off. If he saw you anywhere near my apartment, there’s no way he’d show up. I’ll be okay, Parker, because you, my friend will be sitting in a car watching my front door from the seafront with a nice big pair of night-vision binoculars.’

Parker was about to say what he thought of the idea. He didn’t relish the thought of spending the night cooped up in his car on the promenade. Apart from the obvious attention it would draw to him, as he sat there looking inland instead of out to sea. If he were needed in Saxon’s apartment quickly, how long would it take him to drive up the square – would it be quicker to run? He didn’t like the sound of it at all. ‘But, sir I don’t think—’ was all he had time to utter as his mobile started to play a tune by Mozart. He answered it as several officers on adjacent tables chuckled at his choice of ring tone.

‘Sorry, sir,’ he muttered. ‘Parker,’ he said abruptly into the phone. ‘Shit, okay when? – we’re on our way.’ He stuffed the phone back in his pocket. ‘Quick, sir, we’ve got to get to the so-called safe house. Someone’s pinned a wreath and a note to the front door.’

The colour drained from Saxon’s face as he raced across the canteen and out to the car park at the rear of the station. As soon as they were on their way through the traffic, Parker called for a SOCO to meet them there. Saxon then handed him his own phone. ‘Call Francesca, the number’s programmed in – find out where she is and tell her to go to the nearest police station and wait for us to pick her up, and tell her to trust no one. It doesn’t
matter how familiar or friendly someone may seem to her, she’s to wait for us – understand?’ he shouted over the sound of the siren.

Parker was holding on to the handle over the door with one hand and operating the phone with the other, and trying not to look too stressed. At least breakfast appeared to be staying put. Saxon drove skilfully but faster than Parker was used to. ‘God, I hate mobile phones,’ yelled Parker, unable to get a signal. He picked up the police radio, gave control Francesca’s phone number and told them to try a landline. After a few minutes, they were successful and patched the call through. Parker relayed the message and fortunately, Francesca had been out on a photographic assignment with one of her WPC minders. They were driving back to the secure house. Parker told them not to go back to the house – they were to go to Brighton Police Station and wait there. He and Saxon would be along later to explain.

Once they were out of the centre of Brighton, Saxon turned the siren off and slowed down. Soon they pulled into the quiet leafy suburban road where the secure house stood, looking just like all of the other rather plain-looking medium-sized houses. The only thing about it that would give anyone cause to take a second look was the wreath hanging on the front door. Saxon parked the car and with Parker behind, walked up the path to the door. Winnie Short, one of the WPCs who lived in the house, opened the door when they were halfway along the path.

‘Hello, Commander, Sergeant.’ She looked grim. ‘Well, I guess we aren’t as secure as we thought we were.’ She shrugged.

‘No, I suppose you could be right there, Winnie,’ replied Parker, lighting a cigarette and looking up and down the road. ‘I guess you didn’t hear or see anything.’

‘Sorry, Sarge, not a thing – I was in the kitchen and the washing machine was going. The old lady next door popped round to offer her condolences, then I noticed it…not that you could miss it. Shame the dog wasn’t here, he’d have kicked up a
hell of a stink even if someone opened the gate.’

‘Not your fault, Winnie,’ said Saxon as he examined the envelope attached to the centre of the wreath. The bastard must have followed us here the other night. ‘How do you feel about staying here now that this has happened?’ said Saxon sympathetically.

‘I didn’t join the police to go hiding away if things got a bit sticky, Commander. I’m quite capable of taking care of myself. But, I am trained to carry a gun, if that’s all right with you, sir.’

‘You’ll have one within the hour – how about your colleague?’ said Saxon as he looked up and down the road wondering where the SOCO had got to.

‘Jenny – she went for dogs, and I went for guns,’ she said with a smile.

Saxon took a pair of rubber gloves from his pocket and slipped them on. He carefully lifted the edge of the envelope and looked at the other side. ‘Shit!’ he exclaimed. ‘He didn’t seal the damn thing, so no saliva to check for DNA; and I’ll bet there’s not a single print on it either. Bastard, why can’t you make one tiny mistake – not much to ask for is it,’ he mumbled.

They didn’t notice Pinky Palmer park his white van three houses up the road and they certainly didn’t hear him walking up the garden path. ‘Oh, what have we got here then?’ he said loudly, causing Saxon’s hand to move towards his gun for a brief moment. Parker’s reaction was more verbal. ‘Fucking hell, Pinky, you know better than to creep up on armed police officers, and where’ve you been; we’ve been waiting for you?’

‘Sorry, Sarge, got stuck in traffic.’

‘Just get on with it, Pinky, and for Christ’s sake find something, anything will do; especially a large thumbprint.’ Parker had started to see the funny side of what had just happened.

Pinky put his briefcase on the ground and opened it; he took out some tweezers and pulled at the envelope, which was
attached to the wreath with a strip of sticky tape. ‘Well, there are no prints on the tape – not even marks from a rubber glove. He must have pulled a long strip from his roll of tape and stuck it to the envelope, then cut off the excess with a sharp knife or a scalpel.’

‘Why do you say that?’ said Saxon, moving forward to take a closer look.

‘It’s simple – if you stretch a piece of tape and then cut it with a pair of scissors, the cut will be straight. If you do the same thing, but use a blade – like a scalpel for instance, the cut will have a slight wiggle in it. Believe me, I run tests like that in my spare time…and before you say anything, Sarge, yes I know I need to get out more.’

Parker didn’t react. ‘What about the lettering on the envelope?’

‘It looks like the sort of typeface you’d get built into a computer; it’s called a System Font. It’s called Courier. It could have come from any computer, but the good news is that it can only have come from one particular printer. If you can find the printer, there’s a chance I may be able to match each individual letter – could be his first mistake.’

Saxon was hearing the sort of news he had been waiting for and was impatient to read the note inside the envelope. ‘Sorry, Commander, I don’t think I should open it here; there’s too much chance that the evidence could become contaminated. I should bag the whole thing up and take it back to the lab.’ Reluctantly they could only agree and they helped him to bag it.

Saxon took Parker to one side. ‘Get some uniforms out here and have them do a house to house. I want to know if any of the local curtain twitchers saw our friend delivering the wreath.’

Back at the police station, the first thing on Saxon’s mind was to check on Francesca. He found her sitting in the canteen with WPC Jenny Hedges and Ralph, one of the largest German shepherd dogs he’d ever clapped eyes on. Saxon asked her to
finish her lunch and then he would be back to figure out a better protection plan for her. Francesca smiled as he put his hand on hers. She looked up at him and said, ‘And I feel safer now I know you are here.’

Saxon blushed and smiled back. As he left the canteen, he thought he heard Jenny laugh, followed by, ‘I can’t believe you said that.’ But he wasn’t sure.

He went back to the lab where Pinky had already unwrapped the wreath and laid it out on a large sheet of white paper. He gave it a gentle shake to see if anything fell out. There was nothing to fall out. As Saxon and Parker looked on, he opened the envelope using two pairs of tweezers. Inside was a sheet of A4 paper. On it, a few lines of writing. But no ordinary hand had written it. It was in reverse.

Pinky checked it for prints, but it was possibly the cleanest piece of paper in the country. ‘The problem with this writing is that it isn’t written with ink – not this copy anyway,’ Pinky said leaning over a light box and gazing through a small magnifying lens.

‘Run that by us again, but in English this time,’ said Saxon, feeling that it was time to make progress a little faster.

‘It’s a photocopy of some writing, so we can’t check each stroke of the pen. With handwriting analysis, it’s important to see the ink build-up on each side of a stroke of the pen as well as the overall character of the writing. By making a copy of the text, he has wiped out any subtleties. All we have are solid black lines.’

‘And the fact that it’s written in reverse – what does that tell us?’

‘Commander, I think you’ll need to get a shrink to answer that one. But at least we can read it.’ Pinky flipped the paper over on the light box and, as if holding it up to a mirror, the words became legible.

‘Wow, sicko bastard or what,’ exclaimed Parker.

Saxon poked the wreath with a pencil. ‘Looks as though it’s seen better days.’ He moved his face closer. ‘Looks like mud and a few blades of grass here.’ He teased the grass out of the wreath and it fell onto the paper. ‘The clever bastard must have picked this up in the cemetery, so there’s no way we can trace it to him. God, this shithead is pissing me off – why can’t he just slip up once?’ Saxon turned to Parker. ‘Get on the phone to Prof Ercott, tell him what we’ve got here and fax a copy of the note to him, he may be able to see things that we can’t.’

Pinky photocopied the note onto a sheet of clear film, and then from that, back onto a piece of paper to reverse it. Fifteen minutes later Ercott was on the phone to Saxon.

‘Hello, Paul, well, one thing I can tell you is that he is showing all the signs of paranoia. The main one being, excessive self-importance – he isn’t interested in the truth. Do you see how he’s shifting the responsibility onto you? He’s without a doubt…completely barking.’

‘What about the fact that it was written in mirror writing?’ added Saxon.

‘Now, that is interesting, your sergeant didn’t mention that – but, you’ve told me now so don’t reprimand him too much. This phenomenon is very rare indeed, very rare. I’ve only come across it once or twice and that was years ago. Children can quite often do it, some of them don’t realise that they are doing it. Sometimes the ability carries over into adulthood and when it does, the person is usually ambidextrous, and has a high IQ. But we already knew that he was clever anyway.’

‘What about the writing itself, I suppose I’ll need to find a handwriting specialist for that? I don’t suppose you can recommend one?’

‘Sure can – me. I spend a good chunk of my time nowadays, working for multi-national companies, checking job applications from people who have applied for top executive positions – sort of, spot the crook before he’s in control of your finances stuff. Before I can do anything more I’ll need to see the actual document though; the fax you kindly sent me isn’t good enough to do a proper analysis on. Be with you in about half an hour.’ Click, and he hung up.