The Facebook Killer (16 page)

It was one of those horrible downstairs flats
where the front door opened directly into the living room, no
entrance hall. Before Farooq answered the knock, Albert could hear
some foreign news channel blaring out from the other side. When the
door opened Albert didn’t mess about. He shot Farooq in the neck.
When his wife came out of the kitchen to see what the fuss was
about he had already reloaded and he shot her point blank in the
chest. As she hit the floor on top of her husband he felt a little
guilty noticing her pregnancy bump.

Albert checked the flat, the bedrooms and
bathroom. There was nobody else, thank God. He pulled the bodies
into the living room and threw them onto the couch. He felt his
back go as he tried to lift Farooq but the adrenalin, rage and
vodka kept him going. He made sure the curtains were firmly closed
and lowered the lights, he then quietly opened the front door,
checking the alley was clear, he pulled in the two boxes and
started to unpack. One for the kitchen one for the living room.

Farooq’s wife was the first to come around.
Bound, blindfolded and gagged next to her husband. “Enough to knock
out a Siberian tiger for six hours,” Serge had bragged but the
tranquiliser dart had only lasted two hours on Mrs. Farooq. Her
husband soon followed suit. Albert waited for them to start
struggling, then he knew that the effects had truly worn off.

Farooq was violently jerking one way then the
other, crashing into his wife each time, trying desperately to
wriggle free. Albert had loaded another dart into the gun. If this
bloke got free he knew he would have a job on his hands.

“Good morning Mr. Farooq,” Albert said
quietly, “I do hope you slept well.”

Farooq kept struggling. Grunting. The veins
on his neck and arms bulging.

“Now, now, Mr. Farooq. Please calm down,
after all, you’re not going anywhere.”

The struggling was becoming ferocious, the
grunts animal-like.

“Mr. Farooq,” Albert said more sternly this
time, “If you insist on carrying on like this I will be forced to
kill your wife and your unborn baby." Albert was smiling.

The struggling stopped. Farooq slumped back
on the couch in resignation. His wife didn’t even flinch at
Albert’s statement, a good indication that she didn’t understand
English, he thought.

“Mr. Farooq I am going to remove the tape
from your mouth in a moment but I feel I must warn you that if you
make so much as a squeak I will shoot you again but this time it is
not a tranquillizer it is industrial strength cyanide. Are we
clear?”

Farooq nodded. Albert approached him. He
stuck the muzzle of the gun firmly in his forehead and started to
peel off the duct tape. Not a sound. Not a word, even though half
of his moustache came off with it. Farooq gasped for air.

“What do you want with us?” he asked calmly,
“We have nothing. No money. Nothing. I only work at the
airport.”

“And that is the reason, Sir, why I am here,”
Albert replied.

“Who are you?”

“Anti Terrorist Squad Mr. Farooq.”

Farooq burst out laughing, “Anti Terrorist
Squad? I think you’ve got the wrong house mate.”

“Oh I don’t think so. You are Imran Farooq,
are you not?”

“Yes, but I don’t think I’m the one you’re
looking for.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Albert snapped,
“ now tell me Mr. Farooq, do you know the current whereabouts of
one Abdul Hamid?”

“Abdul? No man I haven’t seen him for
months.”

“Well our intelligence indicates the
contrary. In fact, we have footage of you two together only a few
weeks ago.” Albert was guessing but after all he was in a position
to do whatever he wanted at the moment.

“Yeah OK. I went to that party his folks
threw when he got off.”

“Got off?”

“You know, when his court case got chucked
out.”

Albert had visions of the bath filled with
the best bottles of champagne. Probably caviar and all other manner
of exorbitant luxuries. The congratulations, the backslapping, fun
and jokes. He crept forward and leaned down next to Farooq’s ear,
pressing the gun to his neck. The rage was surfacing again.
Bubbling, like magma.

“Where is he?” Albert demanded.

“Honest I don’t know,” Farooq pleaded.

“But you can find him, can’t you?”

Silence. Farooq knew that he was innocent of
any crime except attending a party. Why should he tell the police
anything?

“Fuck off! I want my lawyer and I want him
now,” he screamed.

The exact reaction Albert had expected. We
had gone over Farooq’s thought processes for two days. We put
ourselves in his position, his reactions, and he had just proved to
us what a worthless piece of shit robotic society we were living
in. Well his preconceived ideas of the way things work were about
to be radically altered.

“I think you will
need
a lawyer Mr. Farooq
when my colleagues see what you’ve been up to in your
flat.”

“What are you talking about man?”

“Stand up!” Albert ordered.

Farooq bounced forward on the couch a couple
of times to gain momentum then managed to get to his feet. Albert
pulled the balaclava from his pocket and pulled it over his head.
We had already lost Kalif I couldn’t risk having another one
identified. Albert reached behind Farooq’s head, which made him
flinch and pulled off his blindfold. Farooq could only stare in
disbelief.

Above the fireplace was strung a Jihad
banner, a video camera on a tripod was set up ready for Farooq to
film his martyrdom message before the bombing. Paperwork and
laptops were on the sideboard and coffee table. Albert took him at
gunpoint into the kitchen where it now resembled a bomb factory.
Chemical tanks, packages, wires, a mobile phone and detonators.

“What the fuck?” cried Farooq.

Albert forced him back into the living
room.

“Sit down,” he ordered, “now let me explain.
You have enough C4 in this flat to blow up two Boeing 747s. You
also have two laptops with blueprints of Heathrow airport and 216
emails between yourself and a mystery terrorist cell in Pakistan.
Your paperwork includes downloads of radical Jihadist preachings as
well as bomb making instructions, everything is covered in your
DNA; from your toothbrush to your fingerprints which you so kindly
donated when you were asleep. Oh and by the way, this evening, you
just applied for a job as cabin crew for British Airways. I would
say we’re looking at a minimum of forty years inside here.

“This is bullshit man. Get this crap out of
my house,” he screamed.

“Mr. Farooq. Where is he?”

“Why are you so concerned?”

“Mr. Farooq I am the one asking the questions
here. I am going to give you two choices. Either tell me where he
is or I will make that phone call and I guarantee you won’t see
your child until he’s older than you are now.”

All this time Farooq’s wife hadn’t moved.

“Does she speak English?” Albert asked.

Farooq shook his head.

“No, she’s only been in the country for six
months.”

Good, thought Albert.

“OK, look I’ll tell you what I know. Abdul
starting getting some shit after he was found not guilty. He told
me he was going to go and stay at his cousin’s house in Brighton
for a while until things calmed down.”

“And?”

“What do you mean, and?”

“What’s this cousin’s name?”

“Ahmet something. I thing it might be Hamid
as well. Are you gonna let me go now. You know my wife’s
pregnant.”

Albert took a seat opposite the Farooqs. The
distant sound of sirens could be heard.

“Hear that?” he asked pointing one finger in
the air, “that’s your forty year jail sentence on it’s way.”

Farooq looked terrified, he was starting to
shake.

“Please,” he begged.

“Tell me one more thing and this will finish
now.”

“What? Anything? Just get this shit out of
here please”

“Did Abdul commit those crimes?”

Albert was grinding his teeth. Even though he
knew what the outcome of this scenario would be he still felt angry
being so close to one of Hamid’s apples. He should have been
dehumanized by now. Just get on with the job.

“Well…at the party he kind of said that
he..erm..was lucky.”

“Lucky?”

The sirens were drawing closer.

“Yes! Alright! He did do it. Fuck I don’t
know why I’m defending him when I’m sitting in the middle of the
biggest fit-up in fucking history. He did it! He bragged about it
and he said she squealed like a baby when he raped her….Happy?”

BOOM! Albert’s head exploded. He fired the
dart into Farooq’s chest, as close to the heart as his shaking hand
would allow. He stood up and grabbed Farooq’s wife. Throwing her
over his shoulder he opened the front door. He didn’t look left or
right, he didn’t care if anyone saw him now. The magma was
erupting. The first bin was full. The second had room. He tossed
her in and wheeled it to the end of the alley. He pushed it across
the road, ignoring the blasting horns. He wheeled Mrs. Farooq and
her unborn a hundred and fifty yards down the road and left them
outside of a pizza shop. Then he dialed the number. The phone on
the kitchen worktop vibrated. Albert felt the vibrations of the
blast as shop and car alarms started ringing and the sky lit up
like a volcano.

Albert pointed the key fob at the Jeep. The
wailing alarm stopped, the lights turned off. He opened the door,
grabbed the remainder of his concoction and threw the CD onto the
backseat along with Kalif’s face. He then wandered to the nearest
payphone and made the call to the police.

Chapter 21

Albert spent the night in the camper van. The
next morning he showered, made a breakfast of beans and Spam, then
walked to the campsite shop to buy some newspapers.

He looked quite pleased with himself when he
returned to Laputa. It appeared his little idea had worked.

The front pages were plastered with a picture
of Adrian Devoy. “Britain’s Most Wanted” said one, “The Face of
Madness” read another but my favourite was The Daily Mail, “The
Facebook Killer: Is this man responsible for at least twelve
murders?” it asked. And so the game started. Cat and mouse. The
police were the mice and I considered myself the very smart
cat.

“The Metropolitan Police have launched a
nationwide manhunt for a man they believe to be responsible for the
torture and murder of the Bridgewater family in Bermondsey last
week.

Adrian Devoy, 38, of St. Albans is believed
to have gone on the run last night after an explosion tore through
a house on Hatter’s Lane, Clapham. His black Jeep Cherokee was
discovered abandoned in a nearby car park following an anonymous
tip off from a member of the public. A police spokesman told the
Mail that evidence found inside the vehicle had strong, verifiable
links to the Bridgewater slaughter as well as several other
unsolved murders and suspicious deaths. The evidence includes a
rubber mask, which has been identified by a key witness as the
person who stalked the flat on Harwich Road in Bermondsey. A
computer disk was also found containing details of the planned
murder and several others of which the police have not yet released
the details.

Assistant Chief Constable Peter Burgess
released the following statement: “At 11:39 last night. An
explosion occurred in a property in the Clapham district of the
city. Shortly afterwards we were notified of the whereabouts of a
suspicious vehicle. That vehicle belongs to Mr. Adrian Devoy who
has since disappeared. As a result of evidence found within, we
strongly believe that Mr. Devoy may be the perpetrator of the
triple murders committed in Bermondsey last week. He is believed to
be armed and extremely dangerous and by no means should be
approached by any member of the public. As a result of these
findings we are in the process of reviewing several other recent
deaths in the city. We believe that Mr. Devoy has every intention
to work his way through a list of people connected on a well-known
social networking site. Based on this theory we have taken twenty
nine people into protective custody….”

Yes, but they’re the wrong people! You’ve got
the lemons; the apples are still out there. Let me explain. The CD
that Albert put in the Jeep had all the details and plans for
picking the apples, which had already been picked. The rest of the
“hit list” we had picked randomly, the only common denominator was
that they each had over one thousand friends. With Hamid and all of
his friends’ pages erased it would take the police weeks to piece
it together, if they ever could.

What’s more we had mailed Devoy’s mobile
phone, five grand in cash and a good luck note to a house in John
O’Groats, which was advertised for sale on the Internet with vacant
possession. As soon as the police call his number and trace it,
which they will, believe me, they’ll end up wasting a couple of
weeks on stake outs and searching for him up there.

I had asked Albert to clean out the soil,
which he had left in the camper van. I decided it was probably safe
to start using it again now that the attention had been diverted.
We drove to the lock up to check on Devoy. The Doctor was there and
confirmed that he was being drip-fed by the machine three times a
day and watered five times a day. Albert noticed that one of the UV
bulbs had blown in the overhead lights. He found the spares and
quickly changed it before saying his goodbyes. He couldn’t wait to
get back home; after all he had two days off. It was Norman’s shift
now.

Chapter 22

Norman listened to Radio London all the way
to work. They kept banging on about Devoy, calling him a possible
serial killer and basically trying to scare the hell out of the
whole city. Some police smart arse revealed that a lot of “vital
information” had been lost but wouldn’t elaborate on the fact; he
did however say that they were working closely with the UK Facebook
Administrators to try and recover it. Fat chance. It was gone. Bill
had dispersed it into the ether. Never to return. Kill Family
Robinson: 1 Coppers: 0.