The Atlas Murders (7 page)

“My conservative estimation,”
she wrinkled up her nose and upper lip and looked up at the corniced ceiling as
if in calculated concentration, “I’d say really pushing it, two to three weeks.”

“That’s pretty good.”

Just then, the outside door
opened, and closed.

“There is someone in the
outside office; just wait here.” She went to the outer office. Henry could hear
her telling someone about the arrangements to sign on the S.S.Kowloon. He
looked at the beautiful brass ship's clock on the wall. It showed five minutes
to five. They finish up here at five o’clock, he thought. He walked around the
dark timber paneled room admiring the paintings of the old company ships. He
began to realize he would be living with crew members who had sailed on these
ships for years and realized he was looking at one of his future homes. Vera
was now standing behind him; he hadn’t heard her come in.

“There’s a lot of history on
those bulkheads.” she said.

“Yes, I was just admiring the
old steamers.”

She gave him a peck on the
cheek.

“We’ll have to leave the
building now as our trusted night watchman comes round to lock up. Henry, will
you phone before coming to see me or Captain Leavy-Hobbs. I think we should
meet outside this office to be on the right side of caution. I cannot ask you
to my house because I have relatives staying overnight, but could you call
tomorrow evening to see if you have further news.”

"Thanks again Vera, I'll
call you in a day or two."

Chapter Ten

Henry decided to go home for a
couple of days and see Katherine and Denis; he was anxious about Katherine.

He went straight to their
house and sure enough, when he met them he found Katherine had slipped back
into her quiet and unresponsive state.

She reminded him of his
mother as she slowly sank into a state of senile dementia. He told her of the progress
he had made in London. She seemed unimpressed and uninterested. She turned to
him and smiled.

"I saw Shirley last
night she came to me in a dream."

Katherine looked away,
turning her face up towards the ceiling; her eyes were glazed over in dreamlike
stare. “She was in a beautiful garden, the sun shone warm on her hair and she
laughed, calling out to me with outstretched arms, but I couldn't reach her.
She kept moving away and then she faded into a bright silvery mist in the
garden, but I know I'll see her again soon."

Henry held her hands in his
and looked into her beautiful but disturbed, azure eyes. "Katherine, I see
Shirley all the time; her lovely happy face is part of my everyday existence. We
have to be strong and live with the memories and try to bear the pain of her
loss. She will always be with us looking down from her place in heaven."

"Yes Henry, that's where
I saw her, it was heaven. It was so peaceful and beautiful."

Denis shouted in from the
kitchen. "Tea’s ready."

Henry gently pulled her up
from the armchair. "Come on, we'll have a cup of tea."

He was shocked by her severe weight
loss as he pulled her up. She must have lost around 30 pounds since he last saw
her. I'll have to talk to Denis about her when I get him alone, he thought.

In the kitchen, Henry tried
to engage her in conversation, searching for a bit of local gossip, but she
seemed remote and uninterested.

Katherine decided to retire
to bed early making an excuse she had a headache.

"But Katherine, I'll be
going away again in the morning. Could you not stay and keep us company for a
little longer?"

"I'll see you in the
morning before you go."

When she was out of earshot,
Denis turned to Henry, he had tears in his eyes and his lips trembled. "I
don't know how to say this, but she's fading away before our very eyes, and
there seems to be nothing we can do to help her."

"What did the doctor
say, what medication is she on?"

"He's been wonderful. He
calls at least every three days and does his best to assess her medication. If
he thinks it’s not working he'll leave her on it for about a week and then
change to something else. He's done this about three times now and nothing
seems to be helping her. Her appetite is gone. The doctor has put her on a
tonic to try to get her eating, but she won't take the tonic; she says it makes
her feel sick. She's also taking sleeping tablets so I must go and give her one
now. I don’t allow her to keep them. I have to be careful that she doesn’t
accidently overdose on them."

Denis left the room to go to
Katherine. Henry sat lonely and disconsolate staring at a large photograph of
Shirley, her bright happy smile lighting up a world of youth and dreams. He
began to visualize a ship sailing through a dark sea with heavy thunder and
lightning all round and this evil monster lurking along the deck and peeping
out from behind the bulwarks. He saw a beautiful girl in a cage with golden
bars. The monster was trying to reach and snatch her from the safety of her
gilded prison. Then Denis came back into the room.

"Denis, could you pour
me a stiff scotch, my nerves seem to be running riot with me."

As they sat and drank their
scotches, the silence between the two men was palpable.

Denis broke the silence.

"Henry, the doctor says
she has gone into an incurable state of self-destruction, and if it cannot be
checked, she will extinguish her life. He suggested to her to go for counseling
but she refused. I wanted the two of us to go together but she wouldn't hear of
it. You see Henry, it's tearing my insides out watching her dying before my
very eyes and not being able to do anything to help her." Henry covered
his face with his hands and laid his head onto his knees. Denis had never seen a
grown man cry or sob so heart-brokenly, a shy private person, he floundered in
the slipstream of henry’s sorrow.

He refilled the glasses of
scotch.

"Have another drop of
scotch Henry."

He lifted his head and with a
large check handkerchief he wiped the tears. "I'm so sorry Denis; it's
just the helplessness that seems to have me trapped. It’s like being in a
straight-jacket and watching a tragedy unfold before you.”

The train journey back to
London gave Henry space and time to fill. The monumental task to somehow
apprehend the evil killer evoked a momentary feeling of despair. He was glad
when he arrived at Euston Station. By this time he had shaken off any negative
thoughts as he purposefully made his way to Scotland Yard to see what
developments there were.

Vincent and Tom were already
in the office.

 Tom laid a folder on the
desk. Vincent opened a drawer and took out some sheets of A4 settled on his
horn rimmed glasses and took up page one. "Now Henry, we've been busy
little beavers since we last met. If it's alright with you Tom, I'll start."

"Go ahead."

"Well, we'll leave out
Oswyn Welland; we've already gone through his background. So I'll start with
Gary Conrad, assistant steward. He is twenty-five years of age, born in
Hastings East Sussex, was married to a Mary Hayden when he was twenty-one. He
has been divorced one and a half years and lives back home with his parents in
Hastings. Now one of the reasons cited by Mary Hayden in her divorce case was
mental cruelty and physical abuse. I have a report here from the local hospital
of injuries she received from her husband; injuries that kept her hospitalized
for three days. This abuse was very deliberate and akin to torture. He bound
her hands behind her back and her legs. Tied to a bedpost, he stripped her
naked, gagged her and systematically beat her with his fists and a leather
belt. During the initial beatings he'd have sex with her, and proceed then to
abuse her verbally. He would leave her tied like this for maybe four or five
hours, going out to his local pub to get drunk. On returning he would beat and
maybe burn her with his lighted cigarette, before sodomizing her. He put up no defense
at the divorce hearing, and the judge asked Mary Hayden's legal team if they
were pursuing a prosecution against this man on the grounds of criminal abuse.
As yet, there hasn’t been any charges brought against him, but maybe this is
one reason he doesn't take leave when the ship arrives back here in Britain."

 "Next we have Sean
Sweeney, the radio operator. He was born in Galway, in the West of Ireland. He
is aged twenty-four and has been sailing with Carlisle Brent Shipping for the
last two years, during which time he has only taken leave when the ship was in
dry dock for overhaul and repairs. His mother died when he was five years of
age and he was put into an orphanage called Letterfrack in the West of Ireland.
This place is run by Catholic clergy and we have very confidential information
that's not normally available in Ireland because of the stranglehold the
Catholic Church has on the powers that be. Physical abuse is common but sexual
abuse is also believed to be rife. I will leave Tom to explain later what this
type of treatment can do to young men.” Vincent shifted himself in his chair as
if this account of the young man’s upbringing was causing him discomfort. He
gave a little cough and continued.

“He studied for his radio
operator's exam in Dublin and took up employment with Marconi. This is a
peculiarity with shipping companies, they don’t directly employ their radiomen
they lease the equipment and operators from Marconi. Well, his present address
is Drumcondra Dublin where he lives with an aunt, a sister of his mother. She
took him from this orphanage when he was twelve years of age. Apparently, she would
visit him in the orphanage a few times a year, and having only one child, a son
a little older than Sean, she thought they would be company for one another.
There was a statement we got from an undercover man that she made to a Garda
Superintendent but was never acted on. She was very upset with the treatment
she saw meted out to one young boy on one of her visits.” He stopped and looked
at Henry whose face was mask like. Then he continued by reading out a summary
of the aunt’s statement.

 “She arrived at the school
at mid-morning as most boys were in class. This was not normally a visiting
time and her unannounced walk along a corridor brought her to a door where she
heard a boy screaming. Like any concerned mother she pushed open the door and
to her utter horror she saw the young boy spread face down over a low desk with
his pants pulled down to his ankles. A Christian brother stood behind him with
his back to her, fumbling at his buttons. She could not believe what she‘d seen.
The man then grabbed the young boy and stood him upright, pulling up his pants
and then ordered the boy to go back to his class.

The aunt stopped the young boy
and took out her handkerchief to wipe tears from the sobbing child. A brother
appeared at the door and tried to make out the boy had been misbehaving.

She was infuriated by his
feeble utterances and asked where Sean Sweeney was. He pointed to a classroom
door further down the corridor.

She entered the classroom and
Sean raced over to her. She marched him out of the building and down the rough
country road to wait for the bus to Dublin.”

Vincent turned the page over
and looked for reaction from Henry, who was silent with a look of incredulity
written all over his face. Then he continued.

 "Next we have Hadar
Tukola. He grew up in East London, but was born in Singapore to a Singaporean
mother and father from the Celebes Islands - a place called Paloo. The father
didn't come to Britain. His mother arrived with her son some six years back,
and has worked in a factory. She has a live-in boyfriend from Pakistan. It is rumored
that the young Hadar and this man don’t get on too well, so this might account
for his infrequent home visits. We have enquired to the police in Singapore to
see if there are records for any of his family. However, there's not much point
in contacting the powers in underdeveloped, Celebes; they wouldn't have
records, they are still very tribal."

Fearing a bad reaction from
Henry, Vincent had deliberately saved Tom’s report to last.

 "Now Tom, you have the
chair. You’ll need to be seated when you hear what Tom has discovered."

Taking his seat, Tom opened
up his folder, shifted around a little on his chair and began to read: "I
have a report from the chief of police in Karachi, Pakistan. A young girl’s
body was found behind some warehouses on the docks, estimated to have been dead
some three days. If this timing is correct our ship Rangoon was in port at that
dock when she was killed. "

Henry was writing on a note
pad; he stopped and looked up at Tom. "How did she die?"

"Her death would bear
some of the similarities of Shirley's murder. She was strangled, sexually
assaulted, severe bruising on her body, particularly her face. But strangely,
she had some of her cloths stuffed into her mouth. She also had three fishing
hooks stuck in around her nose and ears.”

Henry sat up and laid his
note pad and pen on the desk - he looked visibly shaken. "I'm sorry
gentlemen but I never disclosed the full extent of the post mortem report on
Shirley's body. I have a copy here for each of you. You will see that her clothes
were stuffed into her mouth and also that fish hooks were attached to her nose
and ears."

"So" Vincent said,
"this is a replica of Shirley's crime."

Tom turned over a page.
"We have more of the same. A port on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt, Rosetta,
had a similar case. A young girl murdered and her body found near the dock area
half buried in loose sand. It was estimated she was dead two days when a search
discovered her body. She was only thirteen years old. The Rangoon sailed four
hours after the discovery, and the police would have liked to question some of
her crew as she was the only ship docked in that area. The same brutal rape and
murder, also the same fish hooks and clothes stuffed into her mouth."

"My God," exclaimed
Henry, "the fish hooks again."

"I have three more all
the same. A young girl was found in Port Louis on the island of Mauritius, her
body was found floating in a shallow part of the harbor. The Rangoon was in
port at the same time and the exact replica of mutilation as the other bodies
including the fish hooks. Another body was found in the port of Lomo, in Togo,
West Africa. A young girl just fifteen years of age. The same tell-tale fish
hooks and cloths stuffed into her mouth. Her body was found hidden under bales
of cotton. The pathologist estimated she had been dead for approximately seven
days, and that is how long she was reported missing. The police think she was
working as a prostitute in and around the dock area. The Rangoon was in port
until two days after the supposed murder date. The next victim was in the port
of Pak Phanang, Thailand. She was sixteen and believed to be working as a
street prostitute. Her body was found in a drain on a road about half mile away
from the dock area, with the same mutilations as the others. The Rangoon sailed
the day after the body was found. The local chief of police said he suspected
it could have been a crewman from that ship. He didn't elaborate why, but he
must have had some reason. If the ship had still been in port he would have
questioned the crew, but by the time the autopsy was complete, the ship had
sailed. That then gentlemen is the grim and gruesome report, and may I add,
very disturbing."