PLEASE NOTE: THIS MURDER MYSTERY/ CRIME STORY IS NOT SUITABLE FOR READERS UNDER FIFTEEN YEARS OLD
For the story so far, click here
*
“Bamboo.” The coded message over the intercom indicated to Fran and Toby that there was an update.
“Interview suspended at 14:23.” Fran got up to leave.
“Tea break?” asked Carter miserably, “Two sugars in mine.”
“Not a tea break, no.” said Toby, “just an update. I expect they’ve found the other murderer and they’ll tell us we don’t need to waste our time with you anymore.”
“Other murderer? You mean THE murderer! I’m not a murderer. Never murdered anybody. Never harmed a hair on their heads!”
“Never harmed …? Without you there would have been no one to murder.” Toby did not hide his disgust. “For over a year you have kept slaves, sexually abused th-”
“Sexually -? You have no idea what I was doing. I’m not a pervert! I was administering fertility treatments. They do it in hospitals every day.”
“Yes, to consenting females who wish to get pregnant. And to consenting males who are indulged with a general anaesthetic before being electro-shocked up the arse. Not to unconsenting slaves who are held in restraints for the procedures; who are never free to leave; and whose kids are abducted and butchered!”
Carter shook his head. “I’m just paid to look after them. That’s all I do. You can see they’ve been well looked after. They’re well fed, and not a mark on ’em.”
Carter’s solicitor tried to silence him “Michael, don’t say-”
“Are you actually pretending you don’t know what happens to them after you hand them over to him?” Toby continued.
“I don’t. It’s none of my business. I can’t be held responsible for what happens after they leave my care.”
“Your care?” Fran could no longer stay out of it. “You don’t care about them. You cause them to be born so that you can sell them. They are commodities to you.”
“I don’t sell them! I work for him! I don’t know where they go when he takes them away. I didn’t know it was anything bad!”
“Oh gimme a break! What about their mothers? They stayed with you. You knew they were suffering. But you cling to wilful ignorance about what he does to them because you want to get paid!”
Carter started to panic. “Well ‘course I wanna get paid – so do doctors and nurses – don’t mean I don’t care. I look aft-”
“He’s an evil, sick bastard – he’s a monster! – but you’re just as bad. No, you’re worse. Because you pretend you’re the good guy.”
Toby looked concerned. “Perhaps we should switch the tape back on.”
“I didn’t turn it off.”
***
DC Bonner stood with DC Abbott at the front door of 241 Conway Avenue. Two of their colleagues were at the back door and members of the armed Tactical Response Team surrounded the house. Bonner knocked on the door.
“Coming,” a small voice came from within but no one opened the door.
Bonner looked at Abbott who was on the phone to the Chief. “He said Go!”
Bonner banged on the door with the side of his fist. “This is Kilridge Police. Open -” The door began to open.
“Hello?” Muriel Wood, a petite woman with a walking frame opened the door and smiled. “Sorry, it takes me a long time to get to the door these days.”
Another woman’s voice emerged from a room at the end of the hallway. “Who is it Muriel?”
Mrs Wood looked at Bonner. “Who is it?”
“I’m Detective Constable Bonner, and this is DC Abbott. We’d like to talk to Peter Wood if we may.”
“Oh yes, well, he’s not here at the moment. But you can certainly come in and wait if you like.”
“Thank you very much madam, that’s very kind. Do you think he’ll be long?”
“Not long, no, he’s gone to meet the boys from school.”
Abbott stepped back to pass that information to the rest of the team, before following Bonner and Muriel into the house.
“It rarely takes him longer than ten minutes, unless someone gets him talking of course.” She laughed and directed them to the living room. “Make yourselves comfortable, I’ll get Margaret to make us some tea.” The detectives stepped into the living room. “Margaret,” Muriel called to the kitchen. “Could you get some tea and biscuits for the nice policemen.”
“I’m sorry but we don’t have time for tea,” Abbott told her. “Is he driving to pick up the children? In his Vauxhall Astra?”
“Oh no, he always walks. Good for the heart you know.”
Bonner looked at the photographs on the wall. “Is this him?” He pointed at one of them. “Is this Peter?”
Muriel smiled proudly, “yes, that’s my Peter.”
A younger woman popped her head around the door. “Oh, hello, can I help you?” she asked them.
“Have you made the tea dear?”
Margaret put her hand on Muriel’s shoulder and looked to the detectives for answers. Bonner told her they needed to talk to Peter and that Mrs Wood had invited them in to wait for him.
“Shall we all sit down?” Muriel suggested. “Margaret, bring the good biscuits.”
“Actually Muriel, I can’t remember where you put them. Would you mind?”
Muriel tutted. “If you want something done right, do it yourself. Excuse me gentlemen,” and she slowly left the room.
“That photo you’re holding is Giles Wood,” Margaret said, “Muriel’s son.”
“She said it was Peter.”
“She gets confused sometimes and it’s best to just play along. We don’t want to upset her. I believe Giles looks a lot like his dad at that age.”
“Is Peter around?”
“Peter died two years ago.”
Bonner looked at his colleague. “Do you know what happened to Peter’s car?” he asked Margaret. “A grey Vauxhall Astra?”
“Yes. It’s in the garage I think. I keep telling her to sell it but she says Geoffrey likes to borrow it sometimes.”
“Geoffrey?”
“Her nephew. Geoffrey Norman.”
***
“No comment.”
“Oh, we’re back to that again are we?” Fran looked at Toby.
Toby was tired. “Sergeant, can’t we just charge him?” He looked at his notes. “We’ve got him on the false imprisonment and penetration without consent, and when a jury sees this tape, they’ll know he took part in the murders as well. I mean, he shows no remorse.”
“Amateur hour,” mumbled Carter with disdain. “Have you actually been trained for this?”
“A confession would be nice,” Toby went on, “but we don’t actually need it. He must have taken part in the murders.”
“What do you mean?” Fran was genuinely curious.
“They couldn’t have been done by just one person. I mean, the victims wouldn’t have made it easy. They would have struggled. And yet, there was no sign of struggle. They were all killed by a clean cut to the throat.”
Fran nodded. “There had to be someone else there, to hold them still.”
Carter shook his head. “Even if there was, it wasn’t me!”
“You’re all we’ve got.”
“You can’t do that! I didn’t kill anyone! You know it wasn’t me!”
“We don’t. We know at least two people were involved. We know you were one of them. And we know you know who the other one was. Face it Michael, you’re looking at twenty years for false imprisonment and numerous counts of sexual assault.”
“At least,” said Toby.
Fran nodded. “Yeah, at least. The only thing I haven’t decided is whether to charge you with murder or accessory to murder. Either of which would mean the rest of your life living in the same conditions as your victims.” She paused for a moment, tilting her head and pushing her chin up under her bottom lip. “Come to think about it, that seems a very appropriate outcome.”
“I didn’t do anything!” Carter insisted, “I wasn’t there! If he needed ’em to keep still he prob’ly tied ’em up!”
“They weren’t tied up. There were no ligature marks on the bodies.” Fran turned to Toby. “He was there. Let’s get him charged.”
“Cuffs don’t leave marks!”
Fran and Toby waited in silence for their suspect to realise what he’d done. It took barely a moment.
“He uses cuffs.” Carter looked defeated. “Smooth, round, metal. They don’t cut into them. They don’t leave marks. He showed them to me, made them himself. With cuffs on, they’re immobilised.”
“Who is he?”
“Geoff Norman.”
“Where does he live?”
“I know where he lives,” said Fran. “Interview terminated at 16.03.”
***
Geoff stood back to admire his gleaming motor. It was perfect. Two and a half hours of painstaking work and attention to detail had paid off. In spite of the fact that it was almost three years old, it looked like new. Smiling, he went inside to put the kettle on but before he had time to decide between chamomile and Darjeeling, there was a loud knock at the door.
***
Sunday 26th April
“Congratulations ladies and gentlemen, you’ve done it.” Ted’s smile was sad and exhausted. “The SOCOs – sorry Ann, CSIs – said it was the easiest search they ever made. The bastard was so complacent he hadn’t hidden anything. Everything was neat, tidy and on display. On a shelf in his dust-free garage they found labelled jars filled with various items of hardware – screws, nails and the like – including one labelled ‘cuffs’. They are so clean we’re not likely to find any forensic evidence on them, but in an album of photos in his magazine rack we found a picture of one of the victims wearing them. If wearing is the right word.” Everyone waited while he drank a pint of water without pause. “But that’s not all.” He nodded at Ann.
“We now know why he took his victims’ organs and feet.” She held up the bagged and labelled exhibit number 23D. “We found this on a shelf in the kitchen with all his other recipe books. It’s filled with more than thirty hand-written recipes. His favourites – he’s underlined them twice and put an asterisk next to them – are ‘Fried liver with ginger and garlic’, ‘Slow-cooked liver and onions with gravy’, ‘Braised, stuffed hearts’, and ‘Feet with chickpeas’.”
Toby rushed from the room but Bonner didn’t have time. He threw up in his waste paper basket.
“And,” Ann continued, “two drawers in his freezer were filled with these meals, labelled and dated.”
“So,” said Fran, “he wasn’t doing it for money. He’s just a psycho.” She picked up her bag, took her empty mug to the sink, and went home.
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The End
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‘The Organ Grinder’, a story inspired by many true crimes, was written by Violet Plum © 2024
Violet’s Vegan Comics – creating vegan-friendly stories for readers of all ages since 2012
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