VENUS, DETECTIVE AT WORK

I introduce DCI Desmond Venus and a serial killer.

DCI Desmond Venus lay on his bed, on top of the quilt on account of the summer heat that had been an ominous presence it seemed for ever, and sighed. Even naked, he felt overdressed.

Tomorrow was going to be a rather special day, if it ever came, that is. He must catch the killer who was taunting the force before he killed again. But there was still a sweaty night to get through. If only Juliet was here. But she was at the other end of the Earth having an adventure without him. But he had tried to get out of work to be with her and failed because of with the way things were at the moment.

There were two bodies in the morgue, and one of them was the Reverend Eva Price with a blade in her heart. That must be solved: you can’t have lady clergy being murdered for no obvious reason even if the killer was no more than disrespected God. Then there was the farmer, Joe Pickering, and his fancy pseudo-French vineyard. He was dead too, with an identical blade through his chest. But why? The question raged round his mind and sent sleep into another dimension.

The phone in the room downstairs rang. Who in the name of goodness could that be? Surely no-one from work would ring him at this hour, knowing how busy he was? Everyone that mattered knew he needed his sleep, what with the two murders that were occupying every moment of the working day as well as the efforts of the many men he had scrounged to work them.

The phone stopped, then started again, and he swore. There was only one thing he could do or it would be ringing all night. He knew it. So he sweated out of bed and struggled down the stairs.

“Venus!” he snapped when he had the mouthpiece appropriately placed.

“Guvnor,” came a voice.

He didn’t like being called Guvnor, not even by sergeant Annie Moon. So, “Who did you say?” he barked.

“Sorry sir. I was shattered and about to get home when I was given a big lead by an observant plod who was keeping his eyes open.” she told him. “I’ve been ordered by the Super to notify you and you’re to come in. It’s Drake, the nutter we thought might have something to do with the other two but couldn’t identify or begin to pin anything on because he was someone who was little more than a shadow with a name, but I’ve grabbed him an and he’s being shoved into Interview room Two.”

“Drake, you say? Well, that’s good work by somebody, Moon!”

“Thank you, sir. PC Good, the constable with 20/20 vision, had an inkling he’d be in the Fox and Mitre because it seemed he was nowhere else, and so Jimmy and I sneaked in after closing, and there he was having a crafty free pint, and I doubt he thought of paying, what with the landlord being dead on the floor at his feet with a very familiar knife sticking out of him.”

“And you grabbed him all on your own? That’s quite a feat!”

“I’m not a fool, sir. I had a couple of lads with me, sir.”

“Even so… well done, Annie, well done indeed. I tell you what, I’ll be there by the time I’ve dragged some kegs on. I’m starkers in this heat!”

“Now there’s a thought,” she replied, and giggled. “You being Romeo, then?”

“Afraid not. Juliet’s somewhere south of the Equator and will be until she’s done whatever it is she’s got to do.”

“It’s a hard life, sir,” she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice as he pulled his work trousers on and tucked his shirt in. “Give me ten and I’ll be there,” he told her, “and get the kettle on!”

“Thought you said it was already too hot, sir,” she laughed, and he grinned as he hung the phone up.

It was shy of midnight but it felt like it was the middle of a bad night. So there was another body, was there? The landlord of the Fox and Mitre according to Annie. A decent bloke, he was, and ran an equally decent boozer. But they’ve got Drake for it, so not everything’s bad. If Drake was the animal that had seen to all three killings then he might get an hour or two in bed some time soon with three cares sorted. But Drake? They’d shadowed a figure called Drake, been led hither and dither after him, but never seen him. So who exactly was he? How did they even know he was called Drake?

There was little traffic as he made his way to the station and tried not to burst through the doors in, but did so anyway.

“So where is he, Sergeant?” he demanded of Annie Moon.

”Thanks Annie, for hanging around for you half the night,” she muttered, and a wave of guilt swept over him. He’d been in bed, and she hadn’t.

“Sorry, love,” he said.

“I’m not your love, sir, though I wouldn’t mind a few moments of it,” she replied.

“That’s enough of that kind of talk,” he said quietly, and added “love.”

“Room two, you said. Come on, we’ll start the interview and get over the opening hurdles before coming back tomorrow to finish him off.”

“It could be that easy, sir”

But if he thought Drake, a scruffy young man in his twenties with virtually no charisma and in need of a good wash was going to be easy to crack, he was mistaken.

After the opening round of caution and reminding the man he was being recorded, he started.

“Well, Drake…” he began, “so you’re the nightmare who put blades into three decent citizens, are you? And a lady cleric amongst them. Have you got something against the church, the bible, that sort of thing?”

“I don’t know what you’re on about,” replied the prisoner. “I never hurt no-one.”

“You were in the Fox and Mitre with the landlord dead at your feet, and he was a friend of mine, so be careful what you say,” put in Annie.

“I never did it. He were lying there when I got there. In the bog, I was, and when I’d finished I went back to my glass an’ there he was, bleedin’ on the floor…”

“So you reported it?” asked the DCI, “you picked up the phone, look, there was one on the bar so you could have phoned even if you didn’t have one of your own, and got an ambulance and the police. So you did that, did you, or did you simply sit on a chair, rest your feet on his inert body, and finish your beer?”

“I don’t drink!”

“Now that’s a patent lie. Sergeant Moon saw you with a glass in your hand and raising it to your lips!”

“And drinking, sir, he was most definitely drinking,” confirmed Annie.

The to and fro between the officers and their prisoner went on for some time before Venus decided it was time to call it a night and had the prisoner, smirking and smelling of old urine, sent to a cell.

“He needs a clean-up before I see him again,” he told the night duty officer, “there are some stinks I can’t stand and he’s got all of them.”

“You’re off home then, Annie?” he asked his sergeant when they were clear of the station.

“Probably,” she said.

“When we’ve both got a few moments spare I’d like to share whatever thoughts we’ve got between us,” he murmured. “Your input is always… well, I’ve come to respect it.”

“That’s kind of you sir. What about now? I’ve a bottle of malt waiting for you to sample if you’re in the mood. You said that Juliet was away on one of her rambles?”

He frowned. “Maybe, but no more than half an hour,” he said.

She grinned back at him. “That suits me,” she said, “you park outside my place and I’ll use my drive.”

It was the way they often saw each other, but formalising it in words seemed to make it more acceptable. Desmond Venus was, after all, a married man, though his wife’s work took her all over the globe.

Annie poured drinks, not too much for the DCI because he’d be driving soon, and they sat on opposing chairs in her comfortable front room.

“I’ve had an idea,” she said suddenly.

“Well?”

“There’s something that connects the victims. What was the Reverend Price doing when that blade found its way through her surplice?”

He looked at her thoughtfully. “It was the churchy wine thing, the way they sip from a glass of wine as if it was the blood of Christ. She’d just finished the ceremony when somehow that blade found its way into her and although the church was far from empty nobody saw who did it. I suppose they mostly had their eyes shut.”

“Exactly!” she grinned, “then there was the farmer with a vineyard and a small winery… Then the landlord of the Fox and Mitre, a high class drinking establishment…”

DCI Venus whistled. “Booze… there’s a theme there, a link between the three victims. Clever girl, Annie. And it might be the one...”

“Do you think that’s it, sir?”

“It’s one thing. Look, I’ll get back to my pad and if I don’t oversleep tomorrow I’ll see you first thing, and we’ll take it to Drake, with, maybe a prop or two.”

She frowned. “Better finish your malt first though, sir. It’s too good to waste.”

“As if I’d do any such thing as waste the dew of the highlands,” he grinned, and then when he’d drained the glass said “I’m damned lucky to have you in my team, Annie, I want you to know that I understand that,” before making his way out of her semi-detached home and to his car.

Next morning he woke earlier than he thought he would, breakfasted in virtually no time flat and beat Annie to his desk. But only by a few seconds. Sergeant Annie Moon was never anything but early.

When they faced Drake in the interview room he’d been given a chance to clean himself up a bit, but hadn’t been particularly successful when it came to the smells.

“You stink, Drake,” he growled. “So what have you got to tell me? How you’re sorry you pricked a lady vicar? How you regret the farmer losing his life at your hand? How the landlord of the Fox and Mitre deserved to die?”

“I don’t know nothing…” Drake muttered, with a greasy grin.

“Of course you don’t,” snapped Venus, “now, Mr Drake, I’ve something to show you. I’ve raided my own personal bar at home and brought you a bottle to admire, and a couple of glasses that we may or may not share…”

He placed a half-full bottle of red wine and two cheap glasses in front of him. “What do you make of these, then?”

The effect on Drake was staggering. He leapt into the air as if propelled by an explosive and shouted “Filth! Take that filth away from me… don’t you flippin’ know what you’re doin’ to me, bringing it all back!”

The constable sitting near the door in a chair leapt up and grabbed hold of him as he continued raving.

In the end he slumped back into the chair, and Desmond Venus looked him straight in the eyes.

“So that’s your story, is it?” he asked. “You’re a weakling, mentally as well as physically, and you blame everything that’s made you that way on the bottle, do you?”

“Not too weak to do what I did to the purveyors of poison,” the prisoner replied, “yes, you’ve got me, I suppose you’d say bang to rights… but if you’d been brought up by parents who’re both dead and buried because the booze killed them and you were just a teen, stuff that came out of bottles and got into their blood and poisoned it, then you might hate the stuff an’ everything to do with it…”

So that was it. Brought up by alcoholics, and probably one himself when he could blind himself to what he was drinking.

Drake was charged then with three murders and returned to the cell that already suffered from his unappealing aroma. After the paperwork was finished the DCI and his sergeant retired to the Fox and Mitre which had opened despite the tragedy of the previous night. The landlord’s wife knew that it was what her late husband would have wanted, and the police had no objections seeing that Drake had been charged with the crime.

“This can be evil stuff,” remarked Venus as he sipped his pint.

“In the wrong hands,” agreed Annie.

“And the sun’s gone in for a bit, thank goodness and I might get some kip tonight,” added Desmond, “fancy a refill?”

© Peter Rogerson 25.08.22

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