The Door is Still Ajar Read online

  They had just sat down on an upturned and rotting wooden boat when the young man noticed to his horror a half decomposed body of a woman in the reeds behind them. The body of Nadine Barber had been found.

  Both the Manchester and Hampshire police had exchanged information and the unbelievable results of the autopsies performed on both woman. Both of the bodies had been found completely naked, but there was no sign of sexual assault on either of them. Both women had bruising on the sole of their right foot. Their bodies had been drained of about three pints of blood. There had been a deep puncture wound, just below the rib cage in both bodies, about the size of a pen and no other forms of violation. The police now knew that they were dealing with a serial killer, an extremely cunning serial killer.

  It was now time to reopen the case of Lisa Noonan, who had disappeared somewhere around Clacton Essex and Point Clear in July 1973. Now the police had two bodies as evidence, they would pull out all stops to catch the killer. The problem that they had now was that they absolutely no leads to go on. No witnesses, nobody had been seen acting suspicous around the immediate vicinities of their disappearances, nothing. The stolen car from Eccles, which had turned up in Portsmouth was now of interest.

  CHAPTER 6

  Blumer was brought back from his thoughts and reflections by the by a knock on the door of his office. A slim young man dressed in a bright violet coloured suit walked in and greeted him.

  “Good morning John, glad to find you here. I knew you were probably here, because you was wasn’t at home. Got some very good news for you old boy.”

  Blumer had to a supress a laugh when he saw Tristan’s regalia. The trousers were so tight that he looked like Max Wall just about to go on stage. His hair had obviously been permed, and his purple, patent winkle-picker shoes must have been difficult to walk in. Tristan; Blumer’s publishers agent was one of the very few people who could actually make him laugh, even when he was trying to be serious. But Blumer was also painfully aware that he had met Pamela through Tristan, when she had worked for him as a typist and an unofficial secretary when they had worked together at Loomers & Braddocks Publishers. Tristan indeed was a very talented man. He had his ran his own true crime magazine called Scene Of The Crime, which was quite popular with true crime buffs. But in his own way he had a similar, relentless and dogged determination about him to see a task through to the end. He was also brutally honest.

  “Mornin’ Tristan, like the suit. Anybody can see you comin’ from a mile off. Well lets hear some good news. I could use some, the way things have been goin’ lateley.”

  Tristan sat down in front of Blumer, adjusted his scarlet cravat, crossed his legs and smiled.

  “Loomers & Braddocks want to publish your book now. The edited and and re-done version, which Aubrey worked on. Aubrey told me that some of the chapters in the original script were too much like a policeman’s report log. So, how do you like that? Behind The Crime can finally be published. You deserve it John. There’s stuff in there that the public never could have known about. It just needed to be expressed in a more readable and digestive format.”

  Blumer leaned back in his chair and took some time to digest what Tristan had just told him.

  “Well I’ll be... you did it Tristan, you actually pulled it off. There’s things in there that could of got me trouble, if I had wriiten it while I still in the Met. Thing is opinions, speculations and gut instict sure don’t tally with hard evidence, meticulous research and endless investigations into a suspect. Even if we were pretty sure the perpatrator was guilty. I stepped outa’ line one too many times and boy did it cost me. I put my neck out when maybe I shoulda’ kept stumm.”

  Tristan pulled out a rolled up contract from inside of his jacket pocket and slipped off the rubber band and laid in it on the desk in front of Blumer for him to sign. Blumer only glanced over the contract and signed along the dotted line at the bottom.

  “Price of fame, John. You knew that you would rub some people up the wrong way with your way of doing things. By the way how’s your lady friend? I’m sure She’ll be glad when she hears the good news.”

  “She’s gone Tristan. She left a few weeks ago. I was expecting it anyway. It was only a mutual arrangement til’ she found somewhere to live. And I knew it and she knew it. Unlike Pamela who only left me a good-bye John note under my favourite tea-pot. Such is life.”

  Tristan raised is eyebrows, smiled and with an air of caution said, “I had lunch with Pamela last week. She’s had her own problems. Never thought she would do it, but she finally threw Damion out. Turns out Sir Galahad turned out to be more like Sir Lancelot. Liked to use his lance for jousting with too many woman, from what she told me. The last straw was when she caught him in bed with a woman using his lance. She should have dumped him when his true colours became blatently obvious; but I suppose she thought he might change. We go back a long way, as you know John. I couldn’t ask for a better friend.”

  Tristan waited patiently for Blumer’s reaction, because he was well aware that John Blumer rarely gave much away. Even if he was confronted by the ‘sensational’ or melodramatic.

  “Oh well, maybe she could have paid me to investagite Sir Lancelot. Bit of a come down, but I’m gettin’ pretty good at investigating marital monkey buisness. I know you mean well Tristan, but Pamela was just a bit too quick to burn her boats. She knew that we were up to our necks with the sweetshop killer and then the stripper killer. And then as bad luck would have the Leon Boyd case was dropped on us like a bomb. A copper’s job is not a nine to five job. We have to put in the hours when a serious crime happens and we’re lookin’ for leads. Friction and desperation can take over when a bloke is on the job for eighteen hours a day. And we are being scrutinized, criticized and hounded by the press if we can’t catch the bastard like a cricket ball. It’s never, ever is as simple as that. Sometimes I’m glad I’m out of it completely.”

  “I think you’ve addressed some that in your book. That is why I was interested in pitching it to Loomers & Braddock. I would have tried to pitch it with another publishers if they had turned it down. Sometimes it’s best to step back and look at things, John. I think that three of the most terrible murder cases that happened almost in concert deserve to be looked at through the eyes of somebody who was actually in the middle of them. The public at least deserve to know that.”

  Blumer quietly contemplated what Tristan had said and realised that he had a point. Anger and bitterness had clouded Blumers judgement and Tristan had a deft way of expressing his own opinions without insulting, or offending an already wounded person.

  “Yeah you’re right Tristan. But I’m afraid I can’t feel much sympathy for Pamela. It wasn’t perfect, but why couldn’t she just have it out? Why just leave me in the lurch?”

  “She misses you, John.I suspected it, but I really found out when Aubrey dropped a clanger and mentioned something which he shouldn’t have, when we were having lunch. I have warned him about is lack of diplomacy when he drinks too much. I wanted to slap his bloody face. He mentioned that you had taken in a stripper as a lodger. Nudge, nudge, nod’s as good as a wink. The silly bitch just let it slip out. I had to hang back from coshing him over the head with a sauce bottle. Well Pamela nearly fell out of her chair and her jaw dropped and nearly bounced off the table. She then ran to the toilet, so we didn’t see her cry.”

  Well Aubrey may drink too much, but he bloody well doesn’t hang fire with his opinions. I only took Audrey in cause’ she got sacked from the strip club she was workin’ in. And I only found out she had a temper when I passed a remark, when she mentioned something.”

  “Well what was that John? I thought that you were a master at diplomacy.”

  “Well she said that the owner of the club had sacked her because she was sporting a rather large posterior, which had been visibly expanding. And all I said was what he really meant was you’ve got a fat bum. She hit the f
ackin’ roof and tried to slap me around the face.”

  “Bloody hell, John. You and Aubrey would make a good double act. You should both apply for a diplomatic post at the foreign office. You could cause an international incident between you.”

  With that they both burst out laughing, and Blumers realised that this was the first time he had laughed for years.

  CHAPTER 7

  It had been an eventful day and Blumer had felt buoyed by the visit from Tristan. Well, if Pamela got so emotional about him living with a stripper that was her problem. But deep down inside he knew that it was partly his fault. On the way home he stopped of at a fish & chip shop and ate at a table inside. He didn’t fancy washing plates tonight. When he got home he opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of Ben Truman. Only four left. He would have to stock up. Fortunately he had given up the whiskey a few months ago, because too much of it was making him too lethargic and brooding. He opened the bottle and planted himself down in his ancient, but comfortable armchair and began to reflect on his book and the effect it may have, if it sells very well. He had written it in a way that did not imply that he was ‘blowing his own trumpet’. The press had done that. And it had cost him dearly. If he had not single handedly solved the sweetshop case and the stripper case, both killers would have almost certainly struck again. The Leon Boyd case was a completely different scenario and it had sat with him like a nagging pain in his stomach. Seeing the monstrous brute Leon Boyd impaled through the base of his back, with his gigantic body doubled back over the railings had not been the end of the matter for Blumer. Boyd was guilty without any doubt. But there had been a few anomalies, albiet obscure ones that Blumer had noted and taken stock of.

  As a young teenager Blumer had never much interest, or ambition in anyhing at all. That would change in a dramatic way when he was still only eighteen years old. It had happened while he was doing his national service in the Army. He had had only less than three months to serve and was looking forward to getting outside. There had been really lively party at a dance hall in the centre of Aldershot that had got out of hand. His regiment were in there celebrating just coming back from a hard excercise and were letting off stream. There was too many drunken soldiers and only a few local girls who had come. Things got really out of hand when Murray, a big, bawdy soldier from Wandsworth had started baring his backside in front of a table of several disgusted girls. But when he gave them a full frontal; that was time for the staff to step in. The table with the girls had decided to leave anyway. Murray was told by the manager of the dance hall to either leave right away, or he would call the police. Murray had staggered out after the girls with his trousers below his bum-cleavage. Everybody was too drunk to even notice Murray following the girls out. But somebody from another regiment had. Blumer had drank a lot of beer, like the rest and after about half an hour he had decided to make his way back to barracks. Luckily for him Dalton who was also under the influence had decided to go with them. They both had an alibi for what was about to unfold. The next morning they were not woken by reveille, but by several Police officers, a plain clothes detective, followed by highly alarmed RSM and CO bursting into the barrack room. After a lot of questioning, that would be a one on one interview later on with the Detective; It turned out that Murray was under lock and key at the police station under suspicion of rape and murder. This is where Blumer had learnt his first lesson in ‘never jump to conclusions until the evidence you have is damning’. And he would learn this from listening to DC Lawrence’s final summery of the case with the regiments CO.

  All of them had been questioned by DC Lawrence and Blumer was one of the last to be interviewed. He had told the DC the same story as Dalton. But the inspector kept grilling. him anyway. ‘Had he seen Murray leave after the girls; had anybody else left, shortly after Murray?’ To which the answer was a simple no. But then just as the inspector was about to let him go, something completely surprising happened. Three loud raps on the CO’s door and a young PC entered. Blumer would remember every word that he had said loud and clear. ‘I think we’ve got a witness sir.’ The DC raised his eyebrows and simply said, ‘Good, at last.’

  It turned out that a lady cleaner who had been watching from a first floor window opposite the dance hall had indeed seen the girls leave, and then saw Murray stagger out with his trousers hanging low. But this is where the crucial piece of evidence swung right back in Murray’s favour. The cleaner had told the police that another man had followed Murray out and had been watching his every move. And the cleaner had a very good description of the man. The girls had chatted for a while and then had departed. Four had turned left and were followed by Murray. But one of them had turned right and the man who had been observing Murray had suddenly lost interest in Murray and had followed the girl. Murray had been found in an alley by dustmen at five o’clock in the morning sound asleep. And the body of the girl was found twenty minutes later by the same dustmen in an alley very close to where Murray had been found.

  The police now knew that they were looking for a man of about six feet, with ginger hair and a heavy jaw. The cleaner had even noticed that he had an ugly scare that crossed his upper and lower lips. The police had then interviewed the staff of the dance floor and sure enough a barmaid remembered serving a man of that very description, but she had not seen him leave, due to the pandamonium that was going on. The cleaner had identified the man straight away in a line-up and the whole regiment breathed a sigh of relief when the man confessed to the crime under careful scrutiny by DC Lawrence.

  On the morning that DC Lawrence held the last meeting with the CO, Blumer had had the good fortune to be working from the CO’s office as a runner and messenger, due to all of the high drama that the regiment had undergone. Blumer would remember the exchange between DC Lawrence and the CO word for word. It would be indelibly stamped on his subconscious mind for the rest of his life. ‘When were you sure that Murray wasn’t guilty. inspector?’ ‘I wasn’t, but I did not think there was hardly enough evidence against him. It comes down to a process of elimination, deduction and the evidence has to be damning against the perpertrator. Curcumstantial evidence is simply not enough in a case like this. We owe a lot to the witness. And of course the perpertrator confessed to the crime.’

  What would happen next would hit Blumer like a sledge hammer. When Murray had been released and returned to barracks the rest of the boys had turned out to greet him. But Murray was in no mood for consolation. He simply stood there and said, with tears rolling down his cheeks. ‘You BASTARDS! You all thought I did it, didn’t you? Not one of you even doubted for one minute that I might be innocent. Not one of you.’

  Blumer had become perplexed and felt a terrible pang of guilt in his solar-plexus. Because he knew that Murray had been right. What if Murray had been convicted of a crime that he did not commit? A long prison sentence and a terrible cross to bear for the rest of his life. There was no more doubt in Blumer’s mind about what he wanted to do now. His calling had been signed and stamped in his mind. He wanted to follow in the footsteps of somebody like DC Inspector Mike Lawrence. There would be no reluctance to join the police. He would start right at the bottom and doggedly work his way up. One of the most ingenious and dedicated murder investigators that there would ever be had been born.

  As soon as he left the army he had joined the a police acadamy and had passed all of the training with flying colours. A bobby on the beat would be his first excursion into police work around London.

  CHAPTER 8

  The visit from Tristan had done him good and he would be interested to hear readers reaction to his stance on the sweetshop murders and the stripper murders. The sweet shop killer was when Blumer had first met the notorious East London gang boss Harry Parkes. Because the second victim had been Harry Parkes’s ten year old nephew. Parkes had come to visit him at the station without any bodyguards. And much to Blumer’s surprise he found Parkes quite congenial and very grateful
to Blumer. He was also angry and confused as how could anybody could even contemplate doing something so heinous. Blumer had given Parkes a brief rundown of how he had nailed Stewert Briggs for the murders. Parkes had listened intently; looking intrigued and galvanized at the same time. The police had eliminated the prime suspect Ian Cummings, a serial child molester, because he had an alibi and witnesses. He had been in a AirFix model shop in Edmunton; exactly at the same time as the sweetshop owner had served Stephen, Parkes’s nephew. When the first victim had disappeared Cummings had been at home with his mother. Cummings had just completed a two year sentence in Wandsworth Prison for molesting two eight year old boys and was taking a low profile. He had suffered two years in Wandsworth, being battered and beaten up. And he did not want any more of that. Blumer had doubted that Cummings had done the murders anyway, because whoever had strangled the boys must have had big and very strong hands. Cummings hands were delicate and slim; like a pianist, or a muscians.

  At the time Blumer had nailed Briggs, the police had gone through the motions of hauling in any known sex offenders, comparing fingerprints and endless interviews with anybody who lived in the immediate area. All the police had was a large handprint on a dustbin lid, complete with thumb and fingerprints. None of the fingerprints that the police had matched the prints that were found on the dustbin lid. Blumer had gone down by himself to the first scene of the crime with his polaroid camera in hand. The boy’s body had been found in an alley that ran between two terraced houses. There had been a lot of junk in the alley; broken prams, a rusty old bike and discarded old beds. The sweetshop owner had already been interviewed and he had known the boy well. He even remembered the time that the boy had entered the shop. But the boy had been alone and nobody else had entered the shop while he was in there. Blumer negotiated the junk through the alley and started taking a few snaps, until he came to the spot where the body was found. He quickly established that the boy must of been carried over the junk, because none of it had been disturbed. But the dead give away was that the grass underneath the junk was all yellow. Green grass and tall weeds were growing undisturbed through the junk and all around it. He had then established by walking slowly that to get to the sweetshop from the boy’s house, which was only about two hundred yards away, and just around the corner that it would have taken about two minutes either way. Whoever had abducted and killed him must live close and be familiar with the boy’s movements.