Manchester Vice E-Book

Jack D. McLean

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

After a dramatic change in character, a rather usual middle-aged man begins carrying out a series of rather unusual murders.

Meanwhile Brad Shape, a crime beat reporter for the Manchester Daily News, is looking for the big scoop to revive his flagging career - and his crumbling marriage.

But when he finds one of England's most notorious serial killers, it will be Brad's biggest break... in more ways than one.

Note: this taut, edge-of-your-seat thriller contains graphic violence, and is not for the faint of heart. You've been warned.

Leseprobe

MANCHESTER VICE

JACK D MCLEAN

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Liner Notes

To my readers:

Acknowledgments

You may also like

About the Author

Copyright (C) 2020 Jack D. McLean

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2022 by Next Chapter

Published 2022 by Next Chapter

Edited by Robert Bose

Cover art by CoverMint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

For Sheila (you know why) and Jeremy (so do you)

1

I have become a stone-cold killer, or something very much like one.

It beggars belief that only a year ago I was a mild-mannered family man. An ordinary man in an ordinary job, with nothing more sensational to do during the average week than read the Sunday newspapers.

How did I turn into the monster I hardly recognise?

My journey, if you could call it that, began last year on February seventh.

The day I met Jim Kennedy.

2

I met him in my role as a volunteer prison visitor.

Prison visitors are people who befriend prisoners in the hope that this will help to steer them back onto the straight and narrow. The hope is almost always forlorn, as most criminals re-offend, often within days of getting out.

When I sat down opposite Jim in the Visitors’ Centre at Strangeways, he barely acknowledged me. He was dark and sullen looking. Between us was a small grey table, and all around us criminals and family members mingled together.

I introduced myself with a practised cheeriness.

“Hello Jim,” I said, “I’m Bradley Sharpe. You can call me Brad.”

He looked at me with sadness in his dull eyes. He had good reason to be sad. He was dying of cancer and had been given only months to live. He’d been hoping to be released on compassionate grounds before the year was up, and to spend the last days of his life on the outside, but this had been refused. I’d agreed to provide him with the support he needed to remain positive, or at least something short of suicidal, during the short period he had left.

“Hello,” he replied. “Pleased to meet you, Brad.”

He didn’t look particularly pleased, but at least he was trying.

I wondered how to begin our conversation. I’d thought of a number of opening gambits to get him talking, but I didn't end up needing any of them. We’d both been briefed about each other before the meeting, and this had evidently put an idea into Jim’s mind.

“I suppose you know I’m dying,” he told me.

“Yes, I’ve been informed.”

“I’ve been giving it a lot of thought.” He leaned closer to me. “I have secrets, Brad, profound secrets that will change the course of history. There’s no point in keeping them to myself any more. I’ve been told I’m not getting out of here. My time is nearly up and I want the world to know all about me. I’d like you to handle my story. You’re a newspaperman. You’ve got the skills to get it published.”

I took out the pen and notepad I always carried and poised the pen theatrically over the pad. It seemed unlikely that Jim would have a story worth telling, far less one that would change the course of history, but I decided I ought to humour him to make him feel better about himself.

“What are these secrets of yours, Jim?” I asked. “The sooner you tell me, the sooner I can get to work on your story.”

He looked right and left. When he’d satisfied himself that no-one was close enough to overhear, he said:

“You don’t have to waste your time writing anything. I’ve done it all for you. It’s in my journal.”

“Where’s your journal?”

“It’s in my house.”

I tried not to appear sceptical; I’m not sure I succeeded.

“Won’t the police have taken it?”

A sly smile formed at the corners of his mouth.

“They don’t know about my house,” he replied.

Far-fetched as this statement was, I nevertheless found myself wondering if it could be true.

“You better give me the address.”

He hesitated.

“There’s something else,” he said. “I want you to promise me that you won’t publish anything about me until I’m dead.”

This was a condition to which I could readily agree. Jim probably had nothing useful to give me in journalistic terms, and if he did, well, I wouldn’t have long to wait until he was gone.

“Agreed.”

His response was brief and to the point.

“Give me your pen and a piece of paper.”

I handed him my black ballpoint pen and a page torn from my notebook. This was strictly against the rules, but no-one seemed to notice, or if they did, they didn’t give a monkey’s. Jim wrote what looked like a number of Chinese characters on the notepaper and returned it to me with the pen.

“Go to Chinatown, to a Medicine Store called Chu’s Herbs,” he said, “and ask to speak to the owner. Tell him that Jim sent you and show him what I’ve written. Chu will give you a set of keys to the house. The address is the Old Chapel, Palatine Road.”

At my age, pushing sixty, I no longer had the confidence to rely on my memory, so I noted that down.

“This may be the last time you see me,” said Jim. “My mission is nearly over. I don’t think I’m going to last much longer.”

When I left Jim, I headed straight for Chinatown.

3

As I pushed open the door to Chu’s Herbs, a bell tinkled. His shop, I discovered, was little more than a long ill-lit room with a counter to one side. A couple of customers chatted in low voices and a Chinese man wearing a grey suit and a scowl stood behind the counter.

“I’d like to speak to the owner,” I said to him.

He looked me up and down.

“I’m Chu, the owner. What do you want?”

I felt faintly ridiculous at the prospect of doing what I was about to do, but I thought that, having come this far, I might as well get on with it, so I furtively showed him the sheet of paper with the Chinese characters on it.

“Jim sent me,” I said.

I half expected him to question my sanity. Instead, he nodded, and then disappeared into another room. He came back clutching something which he pressed into my hand.

“You must go now,” he told me.

As I returned to my car, I inspected what Chu had given me. It was a key fob, a remote control of some kind, with two small keys dangling from it.

You might suppose I should have gone to the police with these items, and you’d be right. However, being a journalist, my main concern was to find out if they would lead to a story I could use. I reasoned that I could always bring the police in at a later stage if necessary.

I keyed the ‘Old Chapel, Palatine Road’ into my GPS and set off through the dark streets.

By the time I reached Didsbury, my destination, night had fallen and the prospect of entering a strange house on my own was far from appealing. I forced myself not to dwell on the dangers and located the Old Chapel. I couldn’t see the house itself, only the roof. The rest of it was hidden from view by a high brick wall crowned by metal uprights strung with razor wire. The wooden gates, as high as the wall, were similarly topped off.

On an impulse I pointed the key fob at the gates and pressed the button. They swung smoothly open, closing behind me as I drove through. I proceeded slowly up a gravel drive towards the front of the house, which was, as the name suggested, a converted Victorian chapel set in a tree-lined garden. There were no lights in the garden, but enough illumination entered from the street to reveal windows covered by steel shutters – the sort you install to keep vandals out when you own an empty property.

I left the car and tried one of the keys on the front door. It worked. With the aid of the second key I opened a further lock, went inside, and switched on the lights. Before me lay a grand hall with a tiled floor.

At that stage I experienced a moment of paranoia and wondered if I might be walking into a trap, so I listened carefully. There was no sound, other than for the creaking of trees in the wind outside. If anyone was already in the house, they were keeping very quiet.

I walked along the hall and entered a room to my left. It contained a desk and chair, and little else.

There was a ledger of some kind on the desk, the journal Jim had been talking about. I couldn’t resist dipping into it, and soon enough I got to the bottom of Jim’s horrifying secrets.

I don’t have the journal to hand, but I know there was a passage that revealed everything. This is what it said, as best as I can piece together from memory:

4

EXTRACT FROM JIM’S JOURNAL:

JULY 10

I caught the eye of a young man and smiled at him. He came over to my table, took hold of my hands with his, and pulled me to my feet. I went with him willingly and he led me onto the dance floor, where he gyrated his hips in front of me.

“I’m going to the bar,” I said. “Would you like a drink?”

“Yes please,” he replied. “A bottle of Peroni.”

I bought his Peroni and a glass of tonic water for myself. Before leaving the bar area, I operated the dispensing device strapped to my wrist and discharged a small amount of GHB into his drink. Then I quickly located my new friend.

He grinned as I handed him his Peroni.

“What’s your name?” He asked.

That was a question to which I couldn’t give an honest answer. I can imagine the reaction if I did: “I’m Gabriel, strong man of God, one of the seven archangels.” No, that wouldn’t go down at all well.

“Terry,” I lied. “But I like to be called Tel. What’s yours?”

“Tel. That’s a nice name. I’m Simon. Call me Si.”

I nibbled at his ear.

“What are you up to?” he asked, with a big grin on his face.

“I think you can guess,” I said. “Would you like to go somewhere quieter – my place for example?”

“You don’t waste any time. Go on then.”

I led him outside. Night had fallen, but the air was still warm and the street was no less crowded than it had been an hour or so before when I’d wandered into the gay village.

“Where are we going?” He asked.

“To my car. I’m parked just round the corner.”

“Are you driving me to your plaish?”

He was beginning to slur his speech because of the combination of alcohol and GHB.

“That’s right.”

“And what will you do with me when we get there?”

“I’ll fuck your brains out.”

By the time we got to the Old Chapel, Simon was fast asleep. With the aid of my specially adapted sack cart I wheeled him into the house and down the cellar steps. Then I got him strapped into the chair and turned the handle of the vice, locking his head into an upright position in its jaws.

JULY 11

I paid him a visit.

“What is this?” He demanded. “Some sick sado-masochistic game or something? I’m not into anything like that!”

“I have something here for you to drink,” I answered calmly.

I put a bottle on the table next to him with a long straw in it that he could just reach with his tongue. He used his tongue to get the end of the straw in his mouth and gulped the fluid down eagerly. Then he looked at me with rage and fear in his eyes.

“Fucking let me out now!” He demanded. “Right fucking now!”

“If it was up to me, I would,” I replied. “But you are in God’s hands. I am His Instrument and He has given me signs to tell me that you must be purified.”

He tried to wriggle his arms and legs free but soon gave up.

JULY 18

I tightened the vice. The massive jaws at either side of his head moved fractionally closer together.

“What are you doing?” He asked. His voice became shrill. “What the fuck are you doing?”

I ignored him and carried on with my work.

I took my razor and shaved the top of his head. Then, using a sharp knife, I cut the shape of a cross in the bare skin I’d just exposed and peeled it back to reveal the bone beneath it. When I was satisfied I’d done a good job, I got my brace and bit from the table and began drilling a good-sized hole in the top of his head. His screams as I did this were enough to wake the dead. When the hole was sufficiently deep, I lit my incense burner and paced around the cellar swinging it gently, as I chanted the Holy words that would put his Demon to flight.

It was time for the spatula. I used it to scoop out the area of brain tissue in which the Demon had made his home. During this part of the ceremony, Simon somehow found the strength to scream even more loudly than he had done before.

After that, I tightened the jaws of the vice until I heard his skull crack.

Later, I took his body through the tunnel and laid him to rest in the catacombs.”

END OF EXTRACT FROM JIM’S JOURNAL

5

My god, I thought, was this some kind of sick fantasy. or has Jim really killed someone- maybe more than one person - in such a vicious and painful way?

As a conventional family man, I felt horrified by what I was reading.

As a Journalist – I worked for the Manchester Daily News – I must admit that my reaction was rather different. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I found myself actually hoping that Jim might have removed Demons from several ‘patients’, and that I might be the one to reveal his crimes, by way of an exclusive story.

I cast my mind back to the notes I’d been given about him. He was in prison for the attempted abduction of a young man. It was possible that the police hadn’t uncovered the full extent of his criminal activities and it wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibility that he was a serial killer, the most prolific in the history of Manchester, or even the U.K.

I looked up from the journal. Two hours had passed very quickly. My eyes were tired and I was beginning to feel I wanted to get home. Moreover, if truth be told, once my mind was no longer occupied by the act of reading, I became concerned for my safety. There is something rather unsettling about being on your own in a strange house late at night.

I decided to make a quick search of the place then get on my way.

There was a stash of Heroin in the kitchen, and, concealed at the rear of an old pantry, a door leading down a flight of steps to a cellar. I decided to take a look. As I descended into the gloom at the bottom of the stairs my instincts screamed at me to leave, but in the interests of journalism I ignored them.

A single naked bulb lit the cellar and the walls were bare brick. There was a crude wooden cupboard in one corner and a faint but lingering smell of incense in the air.

And more.

There was a chair.

It horrified and excited me in equal measure.

The coarse-looking wooden armchair had leather straps with metal buckles on the arms and legs. On top of the back of the chair was a rusting cast-iron vice, its two massive jaws positioned to clamp on either side of the head of anyone sitting in it. A handle much like that of an old fashioned wringing machine could be turned to bring the jaws of the vice together. I cranked the handle: the action felt smooth and powerful.

Nearby sat a wooden table with a cut-throat razor, a knife, and a curved spatula. Next to those items was a brace and bit.

The bit must have been an inch in diameter, and the spatula resembled a spoon with razor sharp edges. All the tools were caked in dried blood. I didn't have to ask myself why that should be, because I remembered Jim’s chilling words.

It seemed the account in his journal wasn’t a sick fantasy. It was an accurate record of events that had actually taken place. The discovery set my nerves on edge.

Nevertheless, I examined the chair.

There were spots of dried blood on it and large encrustations of the stuff all over the vice.

I shivered and my knees began to weaken.

I wanted to run away, but I knew that I had to look in the cupboard. Thankfully it contained only shelves, a large number of jars full of pickled cauliflower, and nothing more.

In time I would come to understand the full significance of that cupboard.

But on this, my first visit to the cellar, I was too disorientated with fear to inspect it further.

Having more than satisfied my curiosity, I fled up the steps as fast as I could, ran through the entrance hall, and shot out the front door. Then I breathed deeply, in an effort to calm myself down. With feelings of trepidation, I returned for the journal and took it back to my car.

Finally, and not a moment too soon, I drove back to my home in Chorlton.

It was late when I got there. My wife Sandra was out with her friends and our children were being looked after by a teenage girl who lived down the street. After paying her for her troubles, I began reading Jim’s journal, intending to read it from beginning to end and make notes. Although exhausted, I was so excited by what I might find that I managed to keep from nodding off.

Sandra didn’t get in until about 2.00 a.m., dressed to the nines, as she usually was on Friday nights when she went out. I glanced in her direction, and saw killer heels and a short skirt.

She never made that effort with me, I reflected sadly. When we were out together, she dressed like a frump. An attractive frump, but a frump nonetheless. The eye-catching makeup she wore tonight was never in evidence when the only person she needed to impress was me.

She said hello, her mobile beeping, so she reached into her bag and looked at it, greeting her new text message with a careful smile.

“Something funny?” I asked.

“Not really,” she said, avoiding my eyes.

She went into the kitchen and I heard her pottering around before going upstairs. I went to the kitchen myself to make a coffee, and noticed her bag on the table. A sudden desire seized me to check the messages on her mobile. Some sort of instinct, I suppose. I opened her bag and looked inside. She hadn’t left the mobile in it.

I spent another hour perusing Jim’s journal before turning in.

I appreciate that I should have gone straight to the police with my findings, but other matters were preying on my mind.

And it may be, that at some subconscious level, I was already contemplating a use for the implements I had found in Jim’s cellar.

6

At some time prior to all of this, Sandra had started getting home late from work more frequently. She put it down to a promotion she’d been given which had brought with it more responsibility.

I couldn’t help but notice the way she dressed for work had changed in recent months. It was business-like, but sexier than before. I often wondered why she was making such a special effort all of a sudden. I put it down to the need to impress her colleagues. But sometimes I speculated that it might be something else.

Things came to a head the day after I discovered Jim’s journals. I went to a pub for a few beers, and Sandra told me she was going out ‘with the girls’. These were friends of hers from her University days.

We both got ready, said goodbye to the kids and the babysitter, and went our separate ways. I went to a pub in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, and Sandra went God knows where with her youthful friends. She was over twenty years younger than me, and one problem I’d encountered with our age difference was that, in some ways, our worlds were totally different.

I like to go to traditional pubs and enjoy real ale and conversation, mostly about sport and trivia, whereas Sandra enjoys clubbing.

For many years I’ve gone to the same pubs and bars with the same small group of male friends. On this particular night I was forced to break with tradition because of Mike Rudd, a newcomer amongst our crowd. He’d joined the Manchester Daily News a couple of years before as an Associate Editor. He was forty-five, but thought he was twenty-five.

Rudd dragged us to a combination of club and wine bar. The drinks were overpriced and there was no draught beer, but at least there were places to sit, and I have to admit the scenery, which included a large number of well turned-out young women, was rather eye-catching.

Two of the women in particular caught my eye – Laura and Zoe – the two Sandra was meant to be out with that evening. At least, that’s what she’d told me. But there was no sign of Sandra. I wondered if she was in the Ladies. I kept looking towards the corner where the toilets were located, but Sandra didn’t appear.

When I got home that night, she was still out, so I read some more of Jim’s journal. Eventually I heard Sandra open the front door. She must have noticed I was still up, because she came into the front room. Jenny, the family cat, raised her head lazily to check who it was, and when she saw that it was only Sandra, she settled down for another kip.

“How was your night?” I asked.

I confess my eyes wandered up and down her body, taking in her shape, and her – I couldn’t help but use the word in my head – packaging. I have always been an admirer of good packaging on a woman, and Sandra’s was better than most. She was wearing a close-fitting silk dress that showed off many of the features I most admired about her, including the tempting valley between her breasts.

“Really good,” she replied.

“And how about your friends, how’s Laura?” I asked, watching the expression on her face closely.

“She’s fine, still at the agency, still enjoying it.”

“And Zoe?” Sandra’s brow furrowed at this point, but she didn’t miss a beat.

“Zoe’s still having problems with Clive, but she’s happy enough.”

Either she was lying to me, or maybe she had been with Laura and Zoe, parting company with them to enjoy a night out with someone else. Either way, she was keeping something from me. But I didn’t try to interrogate her; softly, softly catchee monkey.

7

The following Friday I told Sandra that I was going out earlier than usual. I ordered a taxi, took it only as far as the end of our road, then got out and climbed into a parked car. I’d borrowed it from a friend at work and parked it there earlier that day. I jammed a baseball cap on my head, pulling it down so low that it covered my eyebrows, and hoped that this would constitute a disguise of sorts.

Half-an-hour later, a taxi passed by with Sandra in the passenger seat. I pulled out and followed her. Due to my career in journalism I’ve acquired some basic detective skills, and was able to follow her to her destination without making it too obvious.

It turned out that her destination was a block of flats, the same block where my brother Brian had his apartment. She left the taxi and went inside.

I parked on the opposite side of the street and remained in my car, keeping watch over the entrance.

I sat there for hours but she didn’t emerge. Maybe she’d left by a back entrance, or maybe she was in there for the long haul. I had no chance of finding out, as I was busting for a piss and desperate to go home.

I concluded there was a strong possibility that Sandra was having an affair with someone who lived in the same block of flats as Brian, and I determined to find out, one way or another, what was going on.

The following week I met with Jed Barker, the private investigator who worked for the Manchester Daily News on stories requiring professional surveillance.

“Jed,” I told him,” I need a favour.”

He looked up at me from behind his desk, munching on a sandwich. He had a droopy face like a bloodhound and a temperament to match. Once you put him on the trail of something, he’d follow the scent until he’d tracked it down, come what may.

“What is it Brad?” He asked, wiping mayonnaise from his jowls.

“I need you to do some surveillance for me, something a bit different to the usual stuff.”

“How different?”

He finished his sandwich, wiped the crumbs from his desk, then licked them from the palm of his beefy hand.

“I’d like you to find out if my wife is having an affair.”

He didn’t answer immediately. He swallowed the crumbs he’d just put in his mouth, paused, and put his hand to his chin.

“You know I don’t do that kind of work, Brad.”

That disappointed me. I wanted to use Jed because I knew he was professional and I could rely on him to do a good job. Furthermore, he’d be discreet. I didn’t know anybody else who was paid to snoop, and I felt I wouldn’t be able to put my trust in a stranger.

I decided to appeal to his better nature – and his self-interest.

“Well, do me a favour, just this once,” I said. “Bear in mind that you’re happy enough to take on all the jobs I give you from the Manchester Daily News. It won’t hurt you to do this extra one for me, even if it’s not your usual line of work. And by the way, mate’s rates would be appreciated.”

Jed took a while to answer. He was probably thinking about all the work I’d put his way over the years, and the catastrophic effect it’d have on his income if I took the MDN account elsewhere.

“All right Brad, you’ve persuaded me,” he said at last.

He took out a pen and notebook.

“What’s the background? I’ll need addresses, dates, times, and anything else you think might be relevant.”

I reeled off all I knew, which was very little. Namely, that Sandra was frequently coming home from work later than she’d done previously, that she might be spending her Friday nights elsewhere than she was letting on, and that her Lothario might occupy the same block of flats as my brother Brian.

“It’s a bit thin,” he said. “But I’ll see what I can do. I’ll get onto it this week.”

He was as good as his word. Within a matter of days I was in his office again, sitting opposite him at his desk.

“What did you find out, Jed?” I asked.

He didn’t reply. Instead, he pushed an A4 brown manila envelope across the desk towards me. I picked it up and examined the contents, a series of photographs taken in a minimalist apartment – Brian’s apartment. My stomach did a somersault. Brian and Sandra – I couldn’t believe it.

Brian and Sandra.

Some of those images were tantamount to hard-core pornography. My hands, with the photos in them, began to shake.

“I’m sorry, Brad,” said Jed. “I was hoping I wouldn’t find anything.”

I waited a moment before I replied. I knew it would be hard getting my words past the lump that had formed in my throat.

“Don’t worry, it’s not as if it’s your fault, Jed,” I mumbled.

My voice didn’t sound like my own.

It was impossible to steady my hands, no matter how hard I tried. Tears welled up in my eyes, but I was brought up old-school, so I suppressed them. I could feel my cheeks getting hot, though.

“How much do I owe you?”

I tried to sound casual, but there was a stress tremor in my voice.

“Nothing, it’s on the house,” he replied. “Like you said, you give me a lot of work from the MDN. This is my way of repaying the favour.”

“Thanks, Jed. You’re a star.”