Chapter 23 A Visit to the Laundromat
It must have been a bit of a shock for Dodd when he went to the garage to get his rifle. There was no bike and the garage was locked tight. He couldn’t understand how that had happened as he had been in the kitchen preparing his meal and on several occasions had peeped through the glass window on the door and everything seemed normal. He knew then that Wragg had turned the tables on him and struck first. Dodd decided to brazen it out, after all the rifle was a short range weapon used in practice. It was termed as a pea shooter compared with the real McCoy that Dodd had securely locked away. He had built a secret place within the house and it would take a month of Sundays to try and locate it.
Dodd was clever with metalwork and he thought of a way in which he might be able to turn everything around to his advantage. He was going to make a special fishing rod out of lightweight metal that could come apart but when pieced together would be capable of firing a bullet. He remembered recently seeing a film regarding such a weapon – but made from crutches. Had Dodd left it too late and was this all wishful thinking?
During the night his bike was returned and the gun was still there under the pillion seat. Dodd was again very surprised to see it and exactly in the same place. He wasn’t sure whether the gun was in one piece until he put it together. No doubt it was all there, surely there had to be a catch. He dismantled the rifle and placed it back in the box.
He decided to utilise his parents’ house as a workshop. He built a cellar and had to dig out all the earth by hand and bring it to the surface in Waitrose shopping bags. No-one knew of the house his parents owned and it would be out of the search area. There were moments when nosy neighbours wanted to see what was going on and he informed them he was landscaping the back garden and the amount of earth that had accumulated from the cellar seemed to answer their concerns. It was a difficult time and as everything was below the house it took some time for four walls and concrete flooring to dry out. Once that procedure had finished he nailed wooden slats against the walls and electric wiring to power points and lighting and then plastered the walls. Furnishing the cellar with heavy wooden benches and electrical appliances and specialist tools was the next step. There were two entrances to the cellar, one outside hidden by hedges and one inside under the stairs. This entrance was padlocked from underneath.
All this work he undertook while he was waiting for his application to the police was being monitored. It was going to be a hit or miss situation and if he didn’t get a position with the police force, there was no harm done. He would have to find another way in. As luck would have it, he was picked from the short list to join them.
* * *
Dodd needed to face the day at Scotland Yard. He rode into the parking bay and padlocked up his bike. He strode into the changing rooms and dressed in his police uniform and was told to report to Chief Superintendent Wragg.
Bracing himself he knocked at the Chief’s door. ‘Come in!’ Dodd walked into the Lion’s den.
‘Ah P.C. Dodd! Thank you for coming in! I have some news to impart. Unfortunately Lodge has had some bad news from home. His father has passed away and I have allowed him to go home and plan the funeral as his mother is in a wheelchair and as he comes from Scotland, he has been posted there so I’m afraid you will have to work alone until we get a replacement.’
The look on Dodd’s face was enough and it made Wragg’s day. It was a shame he didn’t have a camera to capture it. ‘That’s all!’ said Wragg. Dodd saluted and slouched out of the office.
* * *
Dodd had to think on his feet and fast and the burning question was “had Lodge informed on him regarding his plans?” He thought about the place Lodge had said that he came from. Surely he said it was Kilburn – no mention of Scotland or perhaps he lived in Scotland and had digs in Kilburn. Dodd was confused and he didn’t like it one little bit. Everything he had planned had been dashed to pieces. He needed to contact his nemesis Roger Grey.
* * *
Steven Cropp was slim and short. He decided that to move away from London would be the worst thing he could do. Moving to his parents’ place out in the countryside would be fatal. It was such a quiet area and if someone was murdered there, nobody would have noticed for a year that someone was missing. Steven was under the foolish apprehension as there were so many people living in London and he was one of the millions, that it would be hard for anyone to locate him. Of course he was wrong and each day he was being trailed to discover his movements during the day and night. Roger Grey had found a weak link in Steven’s schedule of events.
It was one of the worst crime scenes that Chief Superintendent Wragg had witnessed. He felt physically sick and three women who had been in the Laundromat were crying their eyes out sitting on the kerb and one was even rocking backwards and forwards. Trying to pacify each person were Paramedics who were having a difficult time in calming each of them down to normality. It was a macabre killing. The head and two legs in one machine and the body and arms in another were whirling round with clothes and each of the ladies using the late night Laundromat had seen the peering sightless eyes looking through the glass front of the machine.
It was obvious that the actual killing had been done elsewhere and when the machines were switched off from the main switch and the glass doors forced open, Simon Crook came into his own as he searched the inside pocket of the headless man’s jacket, taking out the wallet and handed it to Wragg.
Wragg knew the identity of the man, he just wanted the victim’s home address so that he could send another unit off to search the premises, hoping they would be able to find some clues to the identity of this killer.
P.C. Dodd was astride his motorcycle straddled across the entrance of the road making sure that no-one drove down the road. Dodd saw someone trying to sneak pass him on the pavement, even though tape was attached across the whole width of the road with words stating “Crime Scene – Do Not Enter.” Dodd thought he recognised the figure all hunched up in a large anorak with a hood and shouted across ‘Hey – you!’ The figure turned and looked at Dodd – it was Roger Grey. Grey did something that was uncharacteristic in his nature, he ran away. Dodd withdrew his firearm and shot at the fleeing figure. The bullet whistled past Roger Grey and he felt his ear hurt and blood began to pour from the wound. Either he was a good shot or it was a fluke and Roger thought it was a fluke as no-one could see that well down a darkened street and perhaps he was trying hard to gain bonus points with his group of officers and Wragg.
Dodd hadn’t seen what Roger Grey had done at the Laundromat. Had he seen what a macabre killing he had perpetrated, he might have aimed his gun a little more to the right. Of course he had missed the target on purpose, everyone knew that, even Wragg knew it – but Wragg being generous with his words and not letting on his real feelings about Dodd, commended him on his quick reaction to the situation.
