PLEASE NOTE: THIS MURDER MYSTERY/ CRIME STORY IS NOT SUITABLE FOR READERS UNDER FIFTEEN YEARS OLD
For the story so far, click here
Friday 24 April
Fran grabbed her jacket and headed for the door. “I’m going for a drive.”
Toby scribbled a note for Bonner and hurried out after her. By the time he caught up she was reversing out of her space so he pulled at the passenger door handle. It was locked. He banged on the window. “I’m coming with you! Let me in!”
The roads were pretty busy but traffic was still moving at a steady thirty. Fran headed north towards the industrial estate. “Got the results back from the paint traces on Kerdy’s car. The murderer was driving a dark grey vehicle.”
“Wow. Specific.”
“Ha haa. It could be valuable trace evidence once we’ve -” a drink can, thrown from the vehicle in front, hit the windscreen. Fran switched on the siren and blue lights for a second, instructing the vehicle to pull over. She parked a few feet behind it and, over the loudspeaker, instructed the driver to switch off his engine.
“Have we got time for this?” Toby asked.
“It won’t take a minute.” Fran got out of the car, walked up to the other driver’s door and held up her warrant card. “Wind down your window.”
The white male, approximately thirty to thirty-five years old, was wearing a shirt and tie. His suit jacket was hanging on a hook behind him. He smiled. “I’m sorry officer,” he said, “I didn’t realise I had a police car behind me.”
“Littering is an offence whether you have a police car behind you or not,” Fran told him sternly. “Driving licence please.”
He took it out of his wallet. “Is this really necessary? I’m late for an important meeting.”
“That is not my concern Mr Ellis. My concern is that you have thrown hazardous material into the road.”
“Hazardous? Come on!”
“It hit my windscreen at speed. If I had been a pedestrian or cyclist it may have caused serious injury.”
“I wouldn’t have tossed it if there were pedestrians about.”
“Because you’re so conscientious?” Fran handed his licence back to him and proceeded to write a Fixed Penalty Notice. “There are all sorts of pedestrians, Mr Ellis. Many have been severely injured, trapped, mutilated and choked by litter. That’s why dropping it is against the law.” She gave him the penalty notice. “Sixty hours community service, to be completed in not more than one month. You can start by walking back along this road to pick up your drink can.”
The driver was incredulous. “You can’t do this! I’ve got a full time job! I haven’t got time -”
Fran was unmoved. “Eight hours a day on Saturday and Sunday for four weeks will suffice.”
He swore and started his engine.
“Mr Ellis.” Fran pointed to the traffic camera at the side of the road. “I will be checking the footage from that camera when I get back to the office and if I find that you did not go back to pick up the can you tossed, I will increase your community service to six hundred hours.”
Fran walked back to her car.
“That was longer than a minute,” Toby told her.
She smiled and started the engine. “It was worth it.”
They continued towards the old Little Rollingham road and, almost five miles later, passed the quarry and saw the level crossing sign up ahead. Fran slowed down. “It must have been somewhere around here, where Carter’s van pulled up alongside the murderer’s car. They probably exchanged a few words. The murderer told Carter to get Kerdy off his back.”
Toby looked around. “Still, there’s no way of knowing where he came from. I mean, the distance.”
“Isn’t there?” said Fran. “The murderer had probably known Kerdy was following him since he left the crime scene. He needed help to get rid of him so he called Carter from the car. If Carter had been any great distance away he wouldn’t have got here in the ten to fifteen minutes it took the the murderer and Kerdy to reach here.”
Toby nodded. It was sound logic.
Fran pulled into the station car park. The branch line had been closed for over a decade and the old waiting room and ticket office were fastened with rusty padlocks. They were also covered in ivy and brambles. Flowering weeds grew through the cracks in the old concrete platforms and, on the other side of the tracks, the roof of the old engine shed looked down on a spiky white skirt of blackthorn. From the far end of the platform though, Fran could see something else. Something not derelict. Something out of place. She tossed a small stone at Toby and pointed across the tracks. From where he was standing he couldn’t see what she was pointing at so he hurried down the platform to join her. Just visible behind the engine shed was the back end of a blue and yellow van.
***
Organ Grinder Incident Room,
Kilridge Police Station,
Saturday 25 April
DCI Wicket updated the team. “Thank you all for giving up your weekend. Our suspect is Michael Carter – forty-eight year old electrician – who was caught guarding eleven captives: eight adults and three juveniles including one newborn. There was also another newborn, dead at the scene. Also found were restraints, medical equipment and a small fridge containing vials of what we have every reason to believe is his male captives’ semen.” He paused to allow various expressions of disgust to subside. “We await confirmation from the lab. We have sufficient evidence to charge him with false imprisonment and numerous counts of assault by penetration, contrary to section 2 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Fran and Toby are interviewing him right now in an effort to get the conspiracy to murder and accessory to murder charges, as well as, hopefully, the name of his accomplice.
“All we know about the accomplice is that he drives a dark grey hatchback that was involved in a minor collision with a red car. Find out if any of Carter’s colleagues, relatives or neighbours has a grey hatchback, and call every garage in a thirty mile radius to ask if they’ve repaired any grey hatchbacks since the fifteenth of this month.”
“We’re also searching Carter’s house,” added Ann, “so listen out for updates. I’ll put them on the board.”
***
“Michael,” Fran sounded calm and unemotional, “can you tell us exactly what you were doing when we found you at Little Rollingham station yesterday?”
“You know what I was doing.”
“We saw you, yes, but we didn’t really understand what was happening. Could you explain what you were doing and why?”
“No comment.”
Fran opened her yellow folder and pulled out some photographs. “Okay, let’s start with something a little easier. What’s this?” she pushed one of the photos towards him. “I am showing Mr Carter a photograph – exhibit 14A.”
Carter looked away. “No comment.”
“Looks like some kind of restraint.”
“No. Comment.”
“In fact we know it’s a restraint.” She pushed another photograph towards him. “I’m showing Mr Carter exhibit 13B which is a photograph of someone being restrained by the object in exhibit 14A. And that’s you isn’t it Michael? In the picture, that’s you, fastening the restraint around his neck.”
“No. Comment.”
***
“Hanson’s Motors.”
“Hello, I’m DC Bonner, calling from Kilridge police station. Could you tell me whether you’ve repaired a grey hatchback that was damaged in a collision, within the last two weeks?”
“Hang on a minute, I’ll check.”
Bonner doodled on his notebook while he listened impatiently and repeatedly to the Hanson’s Motors jingle.
“Hello, sorry to keep you waiting. No, we haven’t repaired a grey hatchback recently.”
“Okay, thanks for your -”
“But on the sixteenth of April one of our regular customers purchased an aerosol can of grey paint, and a new headlight. Does that help?”
“Could you give me their name and address please?”
Bonner slammed the phone down. “Boss! I’ve got one! Peter Wood, 241 Conway Avenue. Owns a dark grey Vauxhall Astra!”
Ann covered her phone with her hand. “Any connection to Carter?”
“We’re about to find out!” Moving faster than he had in weeks, Bonner left the room, closely followed by three other detectives.
“I’ll get Tactical to meet you there!” Ann called after them.
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‘The Organ Grinder’ is a story by Violet Plum © 2024
Violet’s Vegan Comics – creating vegan-friendly stories for readers of all ages since 2012
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