19. P***y Wake Up

DC Amelia Pincher is out on her own, not liking her chief's thinking about the case.

The day was becoming a nightmare so far as David was concerned. He’d done just about everything imaginable to unintentionally draw attention to himself and he fully expected to see his own face on a WANTED FOR MURDER poster at any moment. Because that’s what people thought, that he had murdered a few souls when in actual fact he’d been kind and generous and helped them on their way out of the darkness of misery and into light.

He had few options as he saw it. If he stayed on the street in public view he’d get exhausted and have to curl up on a park bench or somewhere equally in the open, and pray that the weather stayed both mild or dry. But that didn’t appeal to him because he was fully aware that a search for him would involve helmeted policemen with flickering torches after daylight had faded, shining them onto the sleeping faces of down-and-outs, strangers like himself, lost in the world. And then if they saw him his goose would be truly cooked, or whatever happened to big white lies that involved murder and death.

That was his trouble. Judging others and doing his best to help them on their way out of life and into whatever comes their ways in the unknown hereafter whilst he himself had to remain alive, and suffer.

But I’m right, aren’t I? That was the question that tormented him because if the answer turned out to suggest he was far from being right then what was he? A man with faulty judgement? A killer…

A murdering teacher… a mentally diseased schoolmaster…

No! he wasn’t anything like that, and to keep his anonymity until society came round to see things his way, the right way, then he’d best keep out hidden.

“I’ll go home,” he whispered to himself, and a woman jostling past heard him and muttered “you do that, love, and leave more space for the rest of us on this here path.”

But he ignored her and his thoughts persisted: “I’ll go to the old home, our family home, where I lived with my real mum and dad, even though they won’t be there because, well, because I did what I knew they wanted and helped them on their ways. When I was just a small boy they loved taking me with small boats to the lake, and so I arranged their eternity to be spent with the lake waters seeping down to where I lovingly laid them… I know they’re happy now...”

He knew it was an embellishment of the truth, but then, so are most gifts…

So he set off to furtively walk the several streets to where he’d spent the greater part of his life. He’d deal with that Tania woman another day when he had less to worry him on his mind.

Meanwhile, DC Amelia Pincher arrived in a determined mood back at the police station, to find it was in quiet chaos. DI Glumpy, though, was c**k-a-hoop with perceived victory.

“We’ve put the murderous b***h in a cell,” he shouted at Amelia when he saw her, “and I expected you to make more effort when I call you in! There have been murders, girl, and we need all hands on deck to apprehend the killer. But without your help, madam, we’ve done just that! I caught her red-handed about to stick something into that teacher fellow, and it’s no wonder he’s gone missing with the likes of her, armed and vicious and after him!”

“What about the clergyman, sir?” asked Amelia, seething inside because in her opinion the leader of the enquiry was totally ignoring facts.

“A different MO,” grinned the DI, “while you’re bothering yourself wondering if a highly trained and respected school teacher could turn into a serial killer, I’ve got the real culprit under lock and key!”

“So you don’t want to cancel the recall from my day off if you’ve sorted it out yourself and have solved the case,” she said defiantly, I can carry on what I was doing?.

“Don’t forget there’s paperwork to be done!” he snapped. “Evidence to be collated! Questions to be asked, like what did she do with the schoolgirl it seems she’s got to be responsible for? Is she dead, or did she just leave the poor child somewhere, lost and alone, and nobody’s found her? And the woman in the bin, incidentally her bin… what had she done to upset her? Then there’s the man rolled down the slope at the park, that dead woman’s husband, it turns out, what was the quarrel there? And finally, the teacher who happened to be a lodger with those same neighbours, where is he? Hiding, I warrant, from the b***h in the cells!”

“I thought you saw him when you apprehended the young woman?” suggested Amelia, “didn’t I understand you to say your culprit was about to stab him? With a sharp blade?”

“She was, but the b***h tripped and fell!! True, then, he was, and me, having to apprehend the killer, I momentarily took my eyes off the man I saved, and somehow he managed to merge with the crowds. I was on my own, for goodness’ sake, without backup, so there’s no need to look at me like that! You could have been accompanying me and thus saved the day!”

“I wish I had been, sir…” she said, wishing she didn’t have to sound remotely apologetic but knowing her own future in the police force might be at stake, especially if she was wrong and the DI was, surprisingly right.

“There’s the case of the clergyman that needs tidying up, though,” mused Glumpy, “I’ve sent Dedbeat to the church, but he’s as useful as a weed in a crash-forest of trees… maybe you could take a look at that? The Bishop will be on his way to oversee that enquiry and I don’t want him to think I’m not taking it seriously,”

Amelia could see a way out for her own ideas, and nodded. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said, chirpily. “I think I’ve already got the whisper of a lead…”

And she was already out of the station door before the DI could ask her about that whisper and whether she trusted it.

She pulled the post it note on which the school secretary had scribbled the teacher’s address from a pocket in her skirt and glanced at it. Yes, she knew where that was all right. So she made for the car park and her little rather ancient car and set off for it.

When she arrived there it was to find the house boarded up. Clearly it was known to be deserted. but she had to be careful because if she was right a mass-murderer might well be lurking within its seemingly blind walls. But she looked on herself as being strong enough to face any man if she was forewarned of danger, and the fact that she was thinking that way meant that she was.

She parked outside the house and climbed out of her car. For a few moments she stood looking at the property. It was a semi-detached house looking to be one of a great number that were built following the second world war to ease the housing crisis back then. And there didn’t seem to be any sign of an occupant, though with the boards over the windows it was hard to tell whether her eyes told her the whole story.

There was nothing to it. She needed to look closer to be sure, or rethink her ideas, so she quietly walked through the front gate and up to the board covering, no doubt, a front door. There was no sign of anyone having gone into the house this blocked-off way. So she walked round the path that took her to a rear entrance, and here there was a different story.

The boarding covering the rear entrance had been jemmied loose and the door was actually open.

And from it came the quiet sound of a person sobbing.

She looked in and there was Mr Rozelle, and he was cradling a dead cat and tears were streaming down his face as he whispered p***y wake up to it.

© Peter Rogerson, 07.06.24