Slice (24 page)

At the same moment, as he stood there gasping on the residues of oxygen still left in his depleted lungs, he heard a muffled whimpering, like that of a child in distress. Gently pushing the door open, he peered round the edge into a small vaulted room, graced with long narrow windows. Strands of moonlight filtered through the shattered panes and, at floor level, strategically placed paraffin lamps which smothered the damp smell of the tower with a powerful sickly-sweet odour of their own, provided more substantial illumination.

The room was unfurnished, except for a couple of wooden chairs and several square boxes of varying heights, which he immediately recognized as similar to those he had been forced to stand on as a child when ringing the bells. To his surprise, the wooden spider, the hooks of which would normally have secured the bell ropes at ceiling level for reasons of safety, had been released and lowered on its pulley so that the noosed ends of the ropes now hung free, casting sinister shadows across the walls, like those of some early eighteenth-century scaffold rigged for a mass hanging.

Twenty feet up the wooden ceiling itself and part of the bell chamber floor above it had been stripped away from the massive supporting beams, with the lengths of timber and what he assumed to be soundproofing material piled up against the wall to his left, indicating that the renovation programme referred to in the write-up he had seen on the LIO’s computer a few days before had been very much in full swing before being halted by the legal wrangling over ownership of the building.

More significantly, the moonlight filtering through the slatted windows of the bell-ringing chamber revealed that at least two of the bells were still
in situ
– and that surprised him a whole lot more, even though the note on the tower door had already suggested as much. As far as he knew, it was the usual practice for bells to be removed to a safe place when a church was decommissioned, as those enormous crafted domes could be worth a small fortune – particularly the huge tenors, often weighing in excess of a ton – so someone seemed to have slipped up badly here.

A much more serious slip-up was evident, however. Though one of the bells appeared to be right side up – its mouth gaping at him through the gap and its uvula-like clapper clearly visible – another (a big tenor bell, Fulton thought) had been left in the upside-down position, with its mouth pointing upwards. This amounted to a dangerous and irresponsible lapse on someone’s part now that the bell ropes were so accessible, and he couldn’t help wondering whether the stay restricting the bell’s movement was still intact. He visualized with a shiver what was likely to happen if it had been removed or was broken and the rope was given a determined pull, for this would allow the bell to achieve a full revolution – with disastrous consequences for the person holding on to a ton of Whitechapel cast iron turning over on itself.

Then he saw the thin figure of Norman Skellet and realized in a flash that that was precisely the killer’s intention. The elderly ACC was in his dressing-gown and pyjamas, his hands secured in some way (probably cuffed) behind his back as he sat on a high three-legged stool with the noose of the tenor bell rope round his neck. A hard pull on the rope was all that was required to wrench him off the stool and up towards the gaping bell chamber, as if on the end of the recoiling rubber band of a macabre bungee jump, initiating a hanging in reverse and snapping his neck like a piece of crisp celery.

Fulton felt sick as he pushed through the doorway, but he immediately froze when a second figure, crouched behind Skellet, straightened up, something glinting in his right hand.

‘Jack,’ the killer greeted him softly. ‘How nice of you to join us.’

Fulton stared at him for a moment, his eyes drawn with a sort of horrible fascination to the cut-throat razor he was holding. Although the figure was still largely buried in shadow, Fulton did not need to see his face to know his identity. ‘Hello, George,’ he said at last. ‘It’s all over now, you know that, don’t you?’

George Oates stepped directly into the light, perspiration glistening on his domed forehead, blood dripping from the bandage wrapped round the hand holding the razor. ‘On the contrary, Jack,’ he replied, ‘the party has just started.’

NORMAN SKELLET COULD
honestly claim never to have been frightened by anything – mainly because he had never been put in any frightening positions to start with. A few short years at university, then selection for the police service under the graduate entry scheme and speedy ascent through the ranks to chief-officer status, had ensured that the only scary moments he had had to face were in his disputes with his dominant wife, Eunice, who had finally walked out on him after ten years of matrimonial disharmony.

But all good things tend to come to an end eventually and Assistant Chief Constable Norman Skellet BA was frightened now – terrified, in fact – and his whole body shook fitfully as his bladder continued to empty sporadically on the floor at his feet. Even the gag held in place across his thin lips with sticky tape failed to suppress the whimpering of this former high-powered flier whose atomic escalator had suddenly collapsed beneath him.

Fulton felt no real sympathy for his boss – which was hardly surprising after the way the head of force operations had treated him in the last few days – but, however despicable Skellet was, he did not deserve the fate that had been reserved for him and the big man determined to do his utmost to try to save that scrawny neck, whether he wanted to or not.

Oates was ahead of him, however, and even as he tensed his huge frame, the moon-faced LIO brought the hand holding the razor to a point just below Skellet’s chin. ‘Steady, Jack,’ he warned. ‘You don’t want me to slip now, do you?’

Only a few feet separated them, but Fulton recognized the futility of trying to get to Skellet before the blade managed to slice through his windpipe. He relaxed his taut muscles after just a moment’s hesitation.

‘So what put you on to me in the end?’ Oates continued, his tone surprisingly conversational despite the circumstances. ‘I must admit, I’m curious.’

A cautionary voice in Fulton’s head cut in on his chaotic thoughts.

Take it easy. Play him along while you figure out what to do
.

‘I suddenly remembered something you said,’ he replied at length, clearing his throat.

Oates straightened. ‘Something
I
said?’

Fulton slipped a hand into his pocket, pausing when the other stiffened suspiciously. ‘Cigarette?’ he queried as blandly as he could manage. On receiving a curt assenting nod, he produced his packet of filter-tips and lighter, hoping Oates hadn’t noticed his trembling fingers.

‘Straight after Lenny Baker was stiffed, you suggested we were dealing with a serial killer,’ he continued, ‘but how would you have known that unless you were the killer himself? We hadn’t announced a link between Baker’s death and that of Judge Lyall, and the full SP on the snout’s murder had not been given out anyway – not even to the control room. As for Cotter, he was not even in the picture then.’

The big man leaned a shoulder against a supporting wooden pillar, lighting up and taking a long greedy pull on the cigarette (hell, he’d needed that). ‘But what really put you in the frame as far as I was concerned was your comment about the killer’s MO being “in the Sweeney Todd tradition”. At that time, no one, except the killer, knew enough about the crimes to be able to make that sort of analogy.’

Oates grinned. ‘Oops!’

‘And going on to claim you’d never heard of Drew House – even finding difficulty in spelling the name properly – was just plain stupid. You must have known the service record in your P/F would show you had been the local ABO for Little Culham on the night of the fire, which meant that Drew House would have been on your patch?’

Oates raised both arms, with the razor blade still extended in his right hand, and made a show of a slow clap. ‘So, it’s clever old Jack after all then, is it?’ he sneered. ‘Took you long enough to pull everything together though, didn’t it?’

Almost too casually, the psychopath reached up to grip the bell rope sally above his head with his free hand. ‘And I’ve still won the final round,’ he added.

Fulton swallowed hard, dropping the half-smoked cigarette on to the floor and quickly coming off the wooden pillar, his eyes locked on to the rope with an anxious intensity.

Steady! Say something – anything to distract him
.

‘Maybe,’ he agreed, his voice strangely constricted, ‘but it won’t do you much good unless you get some medical help pretty soon. You’re bleeding like a fractured drainpipe.’

Oates glanced at his injured hand, which still appeared to be dripping, and drew a muffled choking cry from Skellet when he gave a sharp tug on the rope. ‘
His
bloody Dobermann,’ he explained with feeling. ‘Thought I had totalled the thing, but that was a big mistake. Still, I enjoyed finishing it off.’

Fulton’s eyes flicked desperately round the room, looking for something – anything – that would give him an edge. But there was nothing.

He eyed the noose round Skellet’s neck and grimaced. ‘Don’t you think you’ve got enough blood on your hands already, without his as well?’ he rasped.

Oates grinned again. ‘No blood this time, Jack – quite clean really – and old Norman here deserves a proper send-off after what he did. That’s why I decided on a different sort of exit from the others.’

‘Perverting the course of justice in exchange for a hefty bribe is hardly a hanging offence.’

Oates was unable to conceal the admiration in his voice. ‘Very good, Jack,’ he said. ‘You’re certainly on the ball tonight.’

‘It wasn’t that difficult to work out, George,’ he retorted. ‘With Halloran as the SIO, there had to be corruption involved somewhere and I was able to put the rest of the bits together when I screwed your house.’

‘Ah, you found the crime file then?’

‘Yeah, and it put you right at the scene of the Drew House fire with Skellet and Halloran. Surprised you live in that dive in Rafferty Close after the bung you must have received, though.’

Oates affected an exaggerated sigh. ‘Blame the old gee-gees for that, Jack. Blew most of my cut paying off bad debts incurred at Cheltenham and Ascot. Still, the deal for me was not just about money; it was also my ticket to CID, all courtesy of good old
Corkscrew
—’

‘Which you later cocked up by falling asleep on the job,’ Fulton sniped, then changed tack when he saw Oates’s expression harden.

Careful, man. Don’t wind him up
!

‘So what made you suddenly decide to turn on the others, then? Conscience catch up with you, did it?’

‘No, Jack, testicular cancer did. Second hit. Matter of weeks left, I’m told.’

As with Skellet, Fulton was fresh out of sympathy. ‘So that’s why you mutilated Lyall and Cotter,’ he said, more as a statement than a question.

There was an unholy light in Oates’s eyes now, a backlit madness which made Fulton’s flesh creep. ‘The whole lot of them needed to be punished and publicly humiliated for what they’d done,’ he rasped. ‘Score and Halloran had already got their just deserts, so it was time the others were called to account. After all, why should they escape retribution? Be allowed to carry on with their nice comfortable lives as if nothing had happened, while I’ve just an early grave to look forward to?’

But Fulton only half-heard him, his eyes flicking involuntarily towards the roof as he detected the unmistakable thud of approaching rotor blades.

Damn it, the cavalry! The last thing he needed was for the force helicopter to zoom in with all the panache of
Top Gun
and spook razor boy before he could get to him
.

‘Go to church, as a child, did you, Jack?’ Oates queried, giving another light pull on the bell rope and eliciting a further predictable choking cry from Skellet.

The question was sudden and unexpected and with his mind already focused on the approach of the helicopter, Fulton was thrown for a couple of seconds. ‘What if I did?’ he replied.

‘Do any bell-ringing, did you?’

What the hell was he on about now? Surely he had to be aware of the helicopter closing in?

‘Some.’

Oates sighed. ‘Me too. Happy days, weren’t they? Innocent, uncomplicated.’ He peered up towards the ceiling, as if searching for something. ‘Not like today, eh?’

The sound of the helicopter was unmistakable now and the thud of its rotor blades had been joined by the faint wail of sirens.

Damn the idiots! Whatever had happened to the so-called silent approach?

Oates cocked an ear in the direction of the sounds and his grin returned with a vengeance. It was obvious that in some perverse way he was enjoying the brinkmanship of the situation, especially the frustration it engendered in Fulton. ‘You see, I got to thinking,’ he said, ‘that deep down, old Norman here might like to try his hand at a bit of campanology.’ He chuckled. ‘After all, going by the look of him, it must be ages since anyone rang
his
bell. That’s why I thought I might ring it for him.’

The rope tensed slightly as Oates’s left hand almost imperceptibly adjusted its grip on the sally. The movement was not lost on Fulton.

He’s going for it, man, move!

The voice in his brain galvanized him into immediate action, but even as his toes dug into the soles of his scuffed suede shoes, Oates sprang on to one of the wooden boxes behind Skellet, his right hand still clutching the open razor and joining his left on the sally as he hauled on the bell rope with all his strength.

The thunderous roar of the helicopter, now hovering directly overhead, was accompanied by the erratic clanging of the heavy tenor bell. Fulton glimpsed an ethereal shape, writhing and twisting like some grotesque string-puppet as it sprang upward in front of him through the sudden blinding whiteout created by the chopper’s powerful spotlight lancing through one of the windows.

Something struck him a sickening blow on the side of the head, bringing him down on to one knee, and a wet stickiness (blood?) began dribbling down his forehead into one eye. Though dazed and bewildered from the blow, some inbuilt sense of self-preservation kicked in and he managed to throw himself to one side, into the protection of the doorway, as a hail of debris rained down from the bell chamber and Norman Skellet’s body, somehow parting company with the rope, was deposited on the floor just feet away.

At the same moment a choking scream came from somewhere in the midst of it all. Fulton wiped a sleeve across his clouded eye, and as his good eye tried desperately to adjust to the glare, his myopic gaze was instinctively drawn upwards. Like a vision from a nightmare, a huge domed shape had torn itself free of the bell chamber’s massive A-frame and, with a tortured shrieking of twisted severed metal, was tumbling downwards through a tangle of displaced beams, which snapped like matchsticks in its path.

Oates did not stand a chance and his upraised arms were a futile defence against the ton of Whitechapel cast iron which bore down on him. The next instant the thing seemed to swallow him whole, smashing through the rotten floorboards of the bell-ringing room with the explosive impact of a depth charge, missing Skellet’s prostrate body by a fraction, and carrying the psychopath before it – to spread his mangled remains over the unyielding stone flags at the foot of the tower.

For several seconds after the tenor bell’s destructive plunge Fulton did not move. Instead, he sat there as if in a trance, staring through the glittering specks whirling like the grains of a mini sandstorm in the Cyclopean eye of the helicopter’s spotlight. His gaze remained fixed, unseeing, on the gaping hole where the floor had once been, and on Norman Skellet lying beside it, miraculously still alive and jerking fitfully in a series of grotesque spasms as he desperately sucked in lungfuls of the stale polluted air he had been denied.

Then came the sound of heavy boots hammering on the stone steps of the tower and the intense red spot from the infra-red sights of a police Heckler-Koch sub-machinegun fastened on his right cheek, as a hoarse voice shouted: ‘Armed police. Don’t move!’ That sharp menacing command prompted mental re-engagement with reality and the sudden realization that the nightmare was over. After the worst week of butchery he had encountered in his service – which had seen his own life torn apart and his career reduced to tatters – someone of a much higher authority than the English justice system had decided to ring the final bell!