Redemption of the Dead: A DI Sean Corrigan short story

He headed back to his own corner where his trainers and team waited with water bottles and towels, only to be intercepted by a man in a suit carrying a microphone who’d stepped under the ropes, grabbing him by the wrist and pulling his gloved fist aloft. He tried to pull away, but was held firm, the man’s beaming face contrasting starkly with his own grimace, the white gum-shield making his mouth appear swollen and ape-like as he peered through his head-guard into the crowd of hundreds of people who’d packed in to the York Hall, Battersea to watch their own kind fighting each other while they drank heavily; some to forget, some for enjoyment and some to escape from the realities of the job they all shared, even if just for a short time. The booze made them brave, almost every member of the crowd now convinced they too could climb into the ring and fight as mercilessly and efficiently as he had.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ the suited man sang into the microphone, ‘the winner of this year’s Metropolitan Police Lafone Cup, for the middle-weight category – representing ‘3’ Area – a round of applause please for PC Sean Corrigan.’ Cheering mixed with boos, and hand clapping with the sound of stomping feet as Sean scanned the crowd – confused by the faces surrounding him – some smiling joyously while others were twisted with hate and anger, until he remembered where he was and that the fight had only been a boxing match – not like the fights he’d had on the streets of East Dulwich before he’d joined the police, where the right to live in peace, to walk to and from school without losing what little he’d had to the other near-feral children had to be earned with his fists and whatever else it was necessary to use to vanquish any would-be assailant. He wrenched his arm free from the man in the suit and paced back to his corner, continually scanning the faces in the crowd, recognizing a few of them, pushing past the men who waited for him with water and towels, their faces confused by the lack of joy in his as he ducked under the ropes and pushed his way through their small crowd.

‘Sean?’ the head trainer asked, only to be ignored. ‘Sean?’ he shouted above the sound of the crowd, at last making him look around, his eyes red and glassy as if he’d just spent days in armed combat. ‘You alright, son?’ Still no answer, just the coldest of stares from Sean’s deep blue eyes. ‘What the fuck’s the matter with you?’

‘Nothing,’ he finally replied. ‘Just get me out of here.’ The trainer nodded as if he understood, even though he didn’t. He draped a wet towel over Sean’s head and began to lead him through the crowd towards the changing room, oblivious to the two men sat at the back of the hall watching them – studying them.

* * *

‘He did well – your boy,’ Detective Chief Superintendent Charlie Bannan told the stocky, muscular man sitting next to him. ‘Is he as good an Old Bill as he is a boxer?’

‘He is that,’ Detective Sergeant Dave Donnelly answered. ‘One of our rising stars, you might say. He’s only been out of uniform a few months, but he’s certainly getting himself noticed. He was dragged up in East Dulwich, so he already knows the streets. He’s going to make a fine detective one day, so long as he can keep his nose clean.’

‘A trouble causer?’

‘Not really, but he has a bit of a temper – from time to time.’

‘Don’t we all,’ Bannan dismissed it, missing the deeper look of concern in Donnelly’s eyes.

‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ Donnelly told him, ‘he’s instinctive. I mean the boy’s really fucking unbelievable – like he just seems to know. I’ve seen him identify suspects for residential burglaries without a shred of evidence just by flicking through intelligence records. He has some talent – I’ll tell you that.’

‘One of those?’

‘Excuse me?’ Donnelly questioned.

‘Nothing,’ Bannan told him.

‘You know what I’m working on at the moment?’

‘Aye. The Parkside rapes.’

‘It’s a big old enquiry and it’s going to get bigger before it’s over. Do you think your boy would benefit from an attachment? I could use an extra body.’

‘Sure,’ Donnelly agreed. ‘I’ll send him over tomorrow. But remember he’s still very green. Don’t over expose him – nothing too heavy.’

‘Of course. I’ll keep him away from the front line – door-to-door and canvassing only. He’ll be bored, but he needs to learn his trade somewhere.’

‘That he does.’

Bannan smoothed his golden-blond bushy moustache and then pushed his longer than normal hair back from his eyes before pulling a packet of tobacco and rolling paper from his jacket pocket. He nimbly constructed a thin cigarette and lit up, inhaling deeply into his chest. Despite only being five-foot-eight-inches tall he always seemed much bigger – his deep London accent, intelligent eyes and standing amongst other detectives made him appear twice his size. ‘What about you,’ he asked as he blew a plume of smoke into the hall that was already heavy with man-made smog, ‘fancy an attachment to the enquiry? I could use a DS I can trust.’

‘No thanks, guv’nor. As soon as I’ve served my time on division I’ll be looking to get back on the Flying Squad.’

‘Fair enough,’ Bannan told him. ‘And how is life as a DS, by the way?’

‘Grand. Certainly beats being a DC and getting all the shit jobs.’

‘Well, you know what they say about shit? It always rolls down hill. DS – best rank in the Met. Think very carefully before taking the next rank and tying yourself to a desk.’

‘Not me, guv’nor,’ Donnelly explained. ‘A DS will do me nicely for the rest of my career. I’m not planning on chasing promotion.’

‘Very wise,’ Bannan told him, rising from his wooden seat and offering his hand to Donnelly who gratefully accepted it, hoping other detectives in the hall would notice the seal of approval a handshake from Bannan implied. ‘Send the boy over in the morning. And take my advice – grow a moustache – it’ll make you look more the part – hide that fresh face of yours.’ He released Donnelly’s hand and seemed to instantly disappear into the crowd.

‘Well, Sean my boy,’ Donnelly spoke to himself, ‘get ready to meet a legend, son. Get ready to meet a legend.’

Chapter Two (#u591d2fe2-3e1d-5f68-9e00-37ba61873f4c)

Tuesday morning, and an apprehensive Police Constable Sean Corrigan approached the smallish open plan office usually used for training lectures, which was where the Area Major Investigation Team would be based until the Parkside Rapist was found and convicted. His normal place of work was inside the same police station in Plumstead, south-east London, on the floor below, with the Crime Squad – primarily made up of officers who had recently been selected from the uniform branch to be trained as future detectives. They may have all been in plain clothes, but they still wore a uniform – jeans, leather jacket, trainers – and Sean was no different. He was learning to fit in. Over the next two years his job would be to constantly harass and harangue the local drug dealers, handlers and low-lifes, with the occasional attachment to major enquiries including murders, hopefully proving he had what it took to become a fully fledged detective.

He’d expected and feared his arrival would cause more of a stir, anticipating the office might fall silent as he entered, all inquiring eyes on him, but he was largely ignored. Donnelly had told him to find and introduce himself to the detective sergeant who was the Office Manager. He scanned the office until he found a man sitting at a desk who seemed to be conducting most of the business around him, handing out pieces of paper with one hand as he collected those handed to him with the other, while giving clear, rapid instructions to whoever approached his cluttered desk before dispatching them with their tasks for the day. Sean waited for a break in the flow of human traffic before jumping in and introducing himself.

‘PC Sean Corrigan,’ he told the detective, who had slim arms and legs, but a swollen beer-gut, ‘from the Crime Squad here. My DS … DS Donnelly said you needed people to help on this enquiry.’

‘He did, did he?’ the detective asked. ‘So why are you here?’

‘I’m supposed to be attached to the investigation.’

‘You are, are you?’ the detective continued to tease him.

‘I was told to find the Office Manager,’ Sean told him, resisting the temptation to bite.

‘Well then you must be some detective, son, because you’ve already found him.’ The detective allowed himself a wry smile. ‘I’m DS Ray Melody. You come to me first thing in the morning and I’ll give you your actions for the day, and then you come to me last thing before you go home – if you ever get to go home – and hand me your completed actions. Simple. Understand?’

Sean swallowed his embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry – what are actions?’

‘Christ,’ Melody cursed. ‘What have they sent me? Actions, son, are exactly that. Listen – an investigation of this size creates thousands of leads, tens of thousands of pieces of information, hundreds of people who need to be found and spoken to – understand?’

‘Yes, Sarge,’ Sean answered, trying to keep up.

‘Bloody hell, you are just out of uniform aren’t you?’ Melody laughed. ‘You’re in the CID now, son – you call me Ray, alright?’ Sean nodded. ‘Together with the DI and the Detective Superintendent, it’s my job to co-ordinate the investigation and make sure everybody knows what they’re doing and that nothing gets duplicated – understand?’ Sean nodded again. ‘I do that by using these,’ he said, waving a green piece of paper in front of Sean. ‘This is an action. I write on here what the action is, meaning what the job is. I give it to you and you tootle off and do whatever job the action tells you to do. When it’s done you give it back to me and I take a look at it. Now, this is the important bit: if in completing an action you discover something else that needs to be investigated – do not run off and try to solve the thing yourself, because you might have discovered something we already know about and are looking into. You’ll only cause duplication. Understand?’

‘What do I do then?’ Sean asked. ‘If I discover something that needs checking out.’

Melody swapped the green sheet of paper for a pink one and again waved it in front of Sean’s face. ‘If that happens,’ he explained, ‘you fill out one of these. This is called an Information Report. You attach it to the original action, cross reference it and hand it to me. If I’m not here you place both in that box over in the corner.’ Melody pointed to a cut-down cardboard box labeled Completed Actions. ‘Then, when I get a chance, I’ll read your Information Report and if necessary create a new action to be completed, that I may or may not assign to you – got it?’ Sean shrugged his shoulders to let Melody know he understood. ‘In fact,’ Melody continued, ‘I have the perfect job to get you started.’ A mischievous smile spread across his face as he searched for the action he needed on his cluttered desk. ‘Here it is,’ he declared, handing Sean the piece of green paper. ‘There you go, son. I think this will be right up your street.’

* * *

An hour later and Sean was alone in Chinbrook Meadows, Hither Green, close to the scene of the latest attack attributed to the as yet unidentified serial offender dubbed the Parkside Rapist by the media. The attack had happened over four days ago now and the park was quiet, the police and forensic circus long since packed up and moved on. Except for Sean – his mission to stop and question everyone walking through the park in the forlorn hope of discovering an untraced witness or even a possible suspect. He knew the chances of either were slim. Most likely Melody had given him the action to keep him out of the way while the real detectives got on with the job in hand. He exhaled deeply, tucking his newly acquired clip-board under his armpit and rubbing his hands together to ward off the approaching winter’s chill as he looked around the deserted park. The usually busy place had been abandoned by the women joggers and the mothers who only days ago walked their children along the paths – their one-time sanctuary within the sprawling city tainted by the spectre of the man who had pulled a young mother into the dense trees, leaving her child sleeping in its pushchair. Even the men had forsaken the park – fearful of being tarnished with the stigma of accusing eyes. The monster’s crimes had stained the ground forever.

Sean absentmindedly began to walk along the path that cut across the park, noticing that it wound closer to the trees in some places – places where it would have been easier to ambush an unsuspecting victim. He found himself slipping the map of the crime scene from his jacket pocket and examining it, trying to get his bearings and identify the area marked as the crime scene. After using the distant tower blocks on the urban horizon as north, he headed further along the path to the south-west corner of the park, just as the victim would have – pushing her toddler and filling her lungs with air the trees had cleansed, thinking of what she would cook her husband for tea, imagining relaxing with her nightly glass of wine – before he dragged her to hell.

As he approached the place where the victim had first been attacked he noticed the path did indeed pass closer to the surrounding trees here, allowing the predator to close in on his chosen victim before bursting from the woods and seizing her. Sean studied the woods either side of the path, the tall trees shedding gold, red and brown leaves, their branches casting tiger-stripe shadows that would have hidden the maniac stalking his prey. Sean imagined him moving quickly through the trees, periodically stopping, hiding behind the thicker tree-trunks, peering out from the shadows at the attractive young woman walking her sleeping child, watching every step she took in an ever increasing state of excitement and anticipation, the adrenalin and blood a torrent through his body, his longing for her unbearable, until finally she reached the place he’d chosen – the narrowing of the path that brought her so close he could smell her – smell the child. And then he’d burst from the tree-line like a leopard and taken her, threatening to do unimaginable things to her and the child if she resisted – things he did to her anyway, despite her co-operation. But at least the child had been spared.

Sean blinked the images away as he began to walk into the trees, his own heart rate increasing just as the attacker’s had, an uncontrollable sense of understanding sweeping over him as he drew closer to the scene of the final assault – his imagination and dark experiences opening a window to the crime through which he could witness it happening all over again. He could feel the attacker – his uncontrollable, surging power as he raged over the woman. He reached the exact spot where instinct told him the main assault had taken place and after first checking he was alone, he crouched as close as he could to the ground and examined the longish grass that still showed the signs of disturbance, lying flattened in places where the attacker had forced her to lie down, the dagger-style combat knife pressed against her throat as he rutted like a wild boar.

Still crouching, Sean swapped the map in his hand for another piece of paper he’d pulled from his jacket pocket and began to read the notes he’d scribbled about the case before heading to the park. All the victims of the Parkside Rapist so far had been attractive young women, some still little older than girls, and his latest victim was no different. Each had been threatened with a dagger-style knife and seriously sexually assaulted, although none had been severely harmed in any other physical way. Sean looked back through the trees to where the sleeping infant would have remained throughout the ordeal, sparking sudden images of the maniac doing the exact same thing, looking from the woman lying under him to the child and back. Hurriedly he read through his notes again and soon found what he was looking for – the latest victim was not the first to have been with her child when she was attacked. Out of the dozens of attacks to date, at least six other women had been with their young children.

‘Everybody thinks you attacked the women with children in spite of the fact they were with them, but you didn’t, did you?’ he said to himself. ‘You attacked them because of the children, didn’t you, you sick bastard? But why? What do the children give you?’ Sean stood and closed his eyes, waiting for answers to form in the darkness of his mind. ‘Power,’ he suddenly said. ‘Not just the power over them, to do anything you want to them, but the power to take away the most precious thing in their lives – their children. You raped the others without children because you lack control. Once the urges and desires take hold they control you, not you them. You can’t wait for perfection. You can’t wait for one to come along with a child. But when they do …’ He suddenly fell silent again, as if his clear direction of thought had been snared on a barbed hook. ‘But why let them live? You have the knife. You have the anger and the rage. Isn’t killing the absolute show of power – so why don’t you – at least the mother, or maybe the child while you make the mother watch? You’re not making sense,’ he accused the maniac. ‘Why, why, why?’ he whispered to himself as he looked around the trees, breathing deeply through his nose, trying to clear his mind, grateful to be alone so he could think. ‘Because … because … you have – you have killed before. You raped someone and then you killed them – in the past – in, in their home or somewhere else where you could have privacy. And all the women you’ve raped were threatened with a large combat knife, so whoever you killed, you killed with the same knife, didn’t you? You couldn’t have killed them any other way, because the knife’s too personal to you. Nothing else would have satisfied your fantasy. So why haven’t you killed again since? You don’t have the control to suddenly stop. Just raping can’t be enough for you now you’ve killed, so why haven’t you killed any of the women you’ve raped since?’ Sean stood totally still, hoping, praying the answer would reveal itself. ‘Because of the blood,’ he finally answered his own question. ‘Because there would have been too much blood. You had to use the knife, but it would have meant too much blood. You couldn’t be seen running through the park, through the streets covered in blood – the risk of being caught would have been too great, so you let them live, but it killed you to do it. But the time you did kill you were inside – you were inside so you could clean yourself up – wash the blood from your hands and skin, taking your time to clean yourself and maybe even change your clothes. Then you left – you left feeling calm and in control – feeling like you’d never felt before.