Desperately Wicked

By Anthony Van

When Detective Burton worked for the Armed Robbery squad he was seen as a talented misfit. His uncanny ability to discern seemingly irrelevant clues and string them together into a coherent narrative of criminal behaviour made him a valued, effective asset and at the same time, despised by those of meaner character and skill. He escaped the dysfunctional unit in time to avoid its restructuring.
His life seemed to be charmed until a spiteful parting with his girlfriend. Though transferred to the more prestigious homicide squad, his obsession with the admiration of peers, physical appearance and material security had lost its lustre. His unique investigative skills were ignored for some time and the young detective became frustrated with being on the outer and doing mundane tasks.
All this changed rapidly when he was thrust into one case after another under the auspices of the new superintendent. Adrian was solving puzzling crimes while struggling with the conundrum of affection for a girl whose faith challenged his rationale for life. Ally presented a mystery about the central purpose for human existence that challenged his pride and his intellect. Could he treat the evidence for Christianity with the same hard-nosed reason and intuitive leaps that he used when investigating crimes? The challenge of a dangerous road ahead would give the answer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anthony Van
• Release date: Jun 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463626580

Anthony Van

What does a retired teacher do? Especially a teacher with a hyperactive imagination and ingrained work habits. Well this one writes. And being a Christian, each novel I have written necessarily is pieced together from a Christian perspective.I have a broad range of interests which include science and technology, mathematics, travel, sports and the interrelationship of people. Much of what intrigues me about people is that some pursue truth with the determination of a bloodhound while others almost ignore existential ideas and while away their short time spent on earth being distracted by people or pleasures or possessions or power.Writing is a hobby. It allows me to research and self educate, and it also permits me to refine my perspectives of concepts existential and theological.

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Desperately Wicked

Published by Anthony Van at Smashwords

Copyright Anthony Van 2017

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favourite authorised retailer. Thank you for your support.

Chapter 1

Legs peddled madly, sweat soaked his tee shirt as he gave it one final burst. Go, go, go… he urged himself. Adrian’s legs were aching, his muscles were knotting and still he pushed himself. That was it. He didn’t have anything left. Leaning on the handles, legs resting on the floor, he was gasping for air.

He’d pushed himself hard but as he regained his breath, Adrian knew he was ready for more. Straightening up, he got off the exercise bike and threw his towel around his neck, mopping the drips from his face. As he sauntered over to the weights, he examined his physique in a mirror. There was a certain smugness in his look about his muscular torso. His personal vanity was something he’d never admit to but he seldom walked past a mirror without admiring his slightly wedge shape tall frame. He wouldn’t concede to being vain but he was proud that his body mass index was optimum; his cardio vascular fitness was apparent in the rapid post-exercise normal heartbeat recovery, and there wasn’t a trace of excess body fat. His secret joy was that many a girl at the gym turned her head to look at him as he walked by.

It had been a boring day writing up case notes in his job as a detective senior constable with the Armed Robbery Squad. Because of the sedentary nature of his work day, he was determined to give himself a real workout. Adrian stood in his regular spot to lift weights. His biceps bulged at each barbell curl, as he raised each forearm and the weights were pressed to his chest. Each movement was slow and deliberate making the muscles do the work. He couldn’t help grinning as two girls wandered past and seemed to make appreciative comments to each other about him.

After completing his weights routine with barbells and then cable, he pushed himself for a frenetic fifteen minutes punching a speedball. When he was well and truly lathered in perspiration, he headed off to the showers.

Dried and dressed, Adrian was again checking the mirror, this time ensuring that his hair was cheekily mussed. He jerked with surprise when his new bulky mobile phone clamoured for his attention. Reaching in, he retrieved the relatively novel device from his sports bag. It was a phone call from Candice. She told him she was cancelling their dinner date. She had to work late. He smiled. Candace was beautiful. She was a high flyer in advertising, flirty, and had been delightful company for him over the year that he’d known her. So much so that he was beginning to view their relationship as something substantial. It was ironic that she had cancelled out. He had pulled the plug on the last three dates they had made because of being called out to crime scenes so he was philosophical about having to forgo a romantic evening with his girlfriend.

***

Hazarding his refrigerator for a frozen meal, of which he ate half before abandoning the move as an assault on his taste buds, Adrian was thumbing through the newspaper television guide when his home phone rang.

Work again! he complained, before moving to lift the device from its cradle.

Hello, he answered unenthusiastically.

Is that you Ade?

Yes…who’s this? He was thinking how primitive his response was."

It’s Ben. Hey…do you sound down. What’s wrong?

Nothin’…thought it was work…and…well…I’m not in the mood.

How ‘bout a movie? Might cheer you up.

What’s on?

Shawshank Redemption…looks okay.

Never heard of it.

Joe said it was pretty good.

Okay…I can’t be bothered watching TV anyway.

***

Ben picked Adrian up in his dilapidated jeep. Some of the canvas was torn and the trip was a bit breezy. At Adrian’s suggestion that it was time to upgrade, he became defensive saying that it was a family heirloom.

You mean you inherited it from your dad.

Same thing.

Hardly.

How do you pick up a date in this, Adrian objected.

He answered doggedly, Any girl who can’t cope with this, couldn’t cope with me.

There was a certain homespun logic in his statement that the detective couldn’t deny.

At a café, eroding the time before the next screening, there was some banter about how serious Adrian’s relationship with Candice was becoming. Then Ben shared how he had met a girl the previous week who was a social worker. Her visits to the hospital were semi regular so next time he was going to muster courage to ask her out.

Doctor and social worker… does that work?

Probably better than policeman and advertising executive.

Why?

Well, we’re both caring professions.

And we’re not?

Ben tilted his head and gave a wry grin. Think about it.

Adrian grumbled all the way to the theatre about his friend’s pejorative point of view of his job. He desperately tried to argue some redeemable qualities of policing and the advertising industry. The latter was near impossible. Even while they were stocking up on popcorn, he was growling some contention that police were community minded.

They…they provide educational programs…They…

Adrian froze. Mid-sentence he stopped and stared across the foyer. Ben was busy buying some soft drink and didn’t notice his friend’s paralysis.

On the other side, wending their way into another cinema, was Candace and a companion. She was wrapped in the clutches of a tall, dark haired man; both were chuckling. His chiselled facial features showed briefly as he turned and kissed her forehead. She reciprocated by drawing him nearer with an arm about his waist. He watched them disappear down the dark corridor.

Adrian was numb. A vacuous ache in his stomach made it difficult to breathe. Questions flooded his mind. Working? She lied? Was this the end?

Sounds seemed muffled amidst his tumultuous emotions. Ben’s hand shook his shoulder.

Ade…you all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.

Yeah, he grated.

We better go in…it’s starting soon.

Yeah. He was more deflated now. A prison film would match his mood.

The plot and drama of the film vaguely penetrated but the thing he would always remember about the Shawshank Redemption was that it was the day Candace dumped him. By the conclusion, when he should have been exhilarated with the poetic justice dealt to the villain and the triumph for the protagonist, Adrian was no longer merely heartbroken. He now swung haphazardly from despair to seething rage, to maudlin reminiscence, and back to being pathetic.

When Ben quizzed him on his moodiness he mumbled something about feeling off. He couldn’t admit to being dumped. It portrayed him as pitiful and he wouldn’t cope with Ben’s consolation. Especially since, for almost the whole year, he’d been crowing about his attractive girlfriend.

Normally, he’d ask his friend in for a coffee but this night Adrian said he was going straight to bed. It was a convenient lie to escape scrutiny and wallow in his woes.

Hope you’re not coming down with anything, declared Ben through the car window as he was heading to his unit.

I’ll be fine. Just need a good sleep I guess, he called back as he waved. Ben drove off unsure what had happened that night. Was he such bad company?

One thing that Adrian didn’t get that night was a good sleep. He tossed and turned, running the incident through over and over in his mind. How would he confront her? Part of him wanted to avoid the encounter completely. Call it ego or inflated pride but he even contemplated ringing Candace and telling her he was dumping her. That was bravado that was fanciful. He wouldn’t be so blatant. He’d say maybe they should step back a bit and evaluate the relationship. Or, he’d say, he wasn’t certain where they were heading. Another part of him didn’t want to let her off the hook. He wanted to corner her on ‘how work went’ and then challenge her about her deceit.

Still awake in the early hours of the morning, Adrian abandoned his anger and admitted he was hurt. Maybe they could reconcile, make up and start again. Maybe he could pretend it didn’t happen and be more attentive. It still gnawed away at him. A restive sleep finally came.

By morning he was jaded and grumpy. Work was going to be a chore. He hoped an exciting case would distract him and dull the pain he was feeling. His unit, not far from the bay, allowed for a jog along the seashore. It was the first time that he felt life wasn’t sticking to the script. In a couple of years he was meant to have a great wife, a great career as a senior detective and have enough saved so he didn’t have to rent his father’s investment unit.

Tasks at work were mundane. The last of his paperwork was completed. He was asked to sit in on a procedural integrity meeting where they were reminded again about non-violence and accountability when it came to treatment of suspects. Adrian was content with his own approach knowing that his success in interviews was largely due to outsmarting suspects. But he also knew that the squad culture had, over the years, been built on intimidation and rough treatment during interrogations. He cringed, sometimes, at the way the squad had their own motif or crest they used on paperwork and swaggered around like hardnosed New York detectives. Because he didn’t align himself with the thuggery—what they referred to as ‘law enforcement’—he was a bit on the outer. Only his superior, Detective Senior Sergeant Wilcox, appreciated him. It was not because of his passivity because Wilcox was as wild and woolly as the rest of them. It was because he had a knack for discovering clues, using deductive reasoning, suggesting plausible scenarios and solving crimes.

So Adrian worked closely with the senior sergeant and was shielded from overt ragging by Wilcox’s fearsome reputation. His boss was the key beneficiary of the arrangement because he got the kudos when arrests were made. All that being the case, Adrian still knew that this undisciplined squad would be brought to heel one day. He was hoping he was gone before it came to a head.

After the meeting, when the team had dispersed with fluent grumblings and curses out of earshot of the brass, Adrian consigned himself off to the files and paging through past cases still open. Most of his contemporaries hated old cases since they meant a lot of legwork and reviewing evidence and it involved little crime scene excitement. He sat quietly and wrote notes on possible courses of action. The others strung out the appearance of being busy, feigning completing case write ups when, in essence, they were finished. A few griped quietly over the bureaucracy’s lack of understanding of the reality ‘on the street’. ‘You just couldn’t pussy-foot around with hardened criminals’; and if an innocent got caught in the rough and tumble of the law …well that was unfortunate.

***

Half an hour before the end of work, Adrian gave Candace a call at work.

Hi, it’s me. There was a slight pause and he wondered if Candace was deciding ‘which me’ was calling her.

Oh, hi Ade.

His throat constricted as he tried to sound natural.

So…can we get together tonight? I mean…I think we need to meet.

I’m not sure. I think I have to work.

Like last night. He’d said it before even thinking. Bottled up inside him was a simmering fury.

You don’t have to say it like that. You work late too you know. The duplicity galled him.

How was the movie? Adrian couldn’t help himself now.

What? There wasn’t the same indignation this time.

I saw you and the guy you were with working real hard.

A momentary hesitation indicated Candace knew she had been sprung.

Well…I can explain…You’ve been so busy lately that…that when Jarrod asked me out…well…I thought I deserved a break—

Fine…if it’s a break you want…goodbye…

Ade… Adrian slammed the headset into its cradle. Several heads around the office looked up at the violent conclusion of the conversation.

‘Argh!’ was the cry of angst ringing in his head. He hated public spectacles. Also, he hated the idea of losing control, and he had lost it this time. He had spiralled into a death spin without any warning.

He burrowed in his draw as if looking for something and when that ruse had run its course, he collected the files he had been reading and strolled over to the filing room again. Now it took an inordinate amount of time to correctly replace them. He took so much time that the next shift had arrived and had settled in as he prepared to leave.

***

Adrian was at home brooding. It was ostensibly a day off, though he was on call. Several messages had been left on his phone by Candace saying she was sorry, they should get together and talk, and what they had was too precious to lose over a little misunderstanding. He ignored them all. The betrayal he felt, the intimacy he’d seen between her and Jarrod and the lies she’d told all condemned her. He had opened up to her and become vulnerable. Now he was desolate.

Moping and sighing and wondering what would happen to the ideal future he had envisioned for Candace and himself made him even more upset. He tried to read. He thought about giving his parents, who lived on a relic historic property in one of the older suburbs, a call. He stalled because there would be awkward questions about Candace. He wasn’t prepared to get pity or sympathy while the wound was so raw. He watched mindless daytime television without registering what he was watching. For most of the day he thought ahead and feared the night. It was then his mind would replay endless versions of what he should have said or done to remedy the situation.

Answering the phone changed his night dramatically. A robbery in the city summoned him. He changed quickly and turned up at MetroBank. Before exiting the car he put a police notice on his dashboard and then hastened to the crime scene. Police tape surrounded the building. A uniformed constable guarded the entry. He flashed his ID as he went in. Wilcox was talking to a group of detectives. They all had dark suits, something Adrian didn’t conform to. He wore a grey suit and pale blue shirt. He approached the group. His individualism irked the others and a few pulled away from the huddle in a clear demonstration of their distaste of him.

It must be said that Wilcox wasn’t a fan of his young renegade either. When Adrian first started working in the squad, he saw him as his protégé. But now, a couple of years in, the young prodigy was more and more distinguished by his peculiarities. For instance, while everyone else discussed the evidence and consulted the forensic experts, it was said Burton would wander slowly around the crime scene in a reflective trance, as if, somehow, a video recording of the evidence was being filmed by his brain.

That being said, the detective senior sergeant wasn’t about to alienate his bright spark investigator. With the credit going to him from the super, he was sitting pretty. Adrian walked up to him. To an outsider it may have looked strange. The older man greeted the younger and then Wilcox began to brief his junior.

It’s gotta be an inside job Ade. They knew the combinations. They knew about the keys. The power went off to the bank and the alarms. The timer would have secured the safe if they’d been half an hour later. It was split second timing. They were pros. We’re taking the staff one by one for interviews. Ken and Jack are doing background checks on them all. There may be a link, family and stuff, to some criminal element.

All the while Adrian nodded, more to acknowledge his boss’s words than to take on board everything he said. He was about to head off when Wilcox grabbed his arm. I don’t think you’ll find anything this time. They all had gloves and masks and sawn-off shotguns. They came in right on closing time, emptied the safe of cash and drove off in what looked like a bank armoured car.

How much did they get?

Not sure yet. The manager says about six million.

Adrian whistled. I saw an ambulance leave as I arrived. Someone hurt?

One of the tellers picked up a phone and got beaten for his troubles. Nothin’ too severe…they took him for observation.

Despite the fact that his superior had said he’d find nothing, Adrian walked slowly into the back offices. Forensic police were taking photos. Curtin was getting details about the four robbers in the bank from the manager. He was trying to determine if there was anything distinctive about the way they spoke and the way they moved. Adrian looked around the main office. It was unremarkable and, largely, undisturbed. In the security room there was a vault at the back of the room. It was still open and another photographer was taking pictures.

He moved to the vault and looked in. Several cash boxes were upended, stray notes were on the floor, one box had marks from a bolt cutter and two boxes were unopened.

Disciplined, murmured Adrian.

What was that? asked the photographer, thinking he was speaking to him.

Nothing.

He exited and looked about the small security room with the heavy door. There were filing cupboards on both sides, untouched. A computer sat on a table to one side. The chair was tucked in. A large picture of some dark forest with a mountain landscape in the background hung above and to the right of the doorway. A clock was above the door. It now showed six thirty pm. The picture was a little askew. He wanted to straighten it but knew that the less he touched the better. It was a funny compulsion he had. He wouldn’t call himself obsessive but he often found himself straightening things that were out of alignment.

Next, Adrian examined the grey carpeted floor and then slowly turned and looked back at the vault again. For once nothing jumped out at him. Surely collusion with a bank staff member was the most likely explanation. He studied the return journey to the customer service desk. There he saw smudges of blood from the injured teller. He looked up surprised to see the super looking at him while talking to Wilcox. He overheard his boss talking.

Yeah…he wanders around…thinks he’s a Sherlock Holmes type. But…well…I think it’s good to give the men a bit of leeway…gets the best out of them. Superintendent Glenn grumbled something out of Adrian’s hearing and Wilcox replied.

Yeah…I know it’s important to get on top of this quick before the trail goes cold. It’s gotta be an inside job.

At the teller’s station, Adrian scanned the bank. What would he have seen? What did he know of the security arrangements inside? Could they have done something to thwart the robbery? He went to each of the stations and then back into the office and asked himself the same questions. Adrian replayed the event, as he would have done it, in his mind. ‘Pulled up in an armoured car. Rushed the bank, locking the door behind them. Threatened everyone with shotguns. Made them lie down. Three would enter the back office and demand the keys—did they know who to ask? Somehow, they knew the combination. The timer wasn’t due to engage for another half hour.’ Adrian wondered how many customers were still inside. He continued reconstructing. ‘They opened the vault. Used bolt cutters to open cash boxes and removed stacked cash from shelving in the vault. Sticking to a plan, the robbers stopped when a time limit was reached. At some point the teller grabbing the phone was hit. They exited with bags full of money, and drove off.’

He closed his eyes momentarily. They must have known or anticipated a recent delivery of cash in locked security boxes. Wilcox was right. Everything pointed to an insider. The super had gone over to talk to the head of forensics at the scene and Wilcox came over to him.

Well?

It’ll be interesting to hear what the witnesses have to say.

No idea, hey? scoffed his boss.

Adrian merely smiled. It was a strange relationship. He was petted for information and then ridiculed when he didn’t provide a magic solution.

Come on, said Wilcox gruffly. Let’s go and do some real police work.

***

Back at the station several interviews were starting. Most were preliminary statements that would be followed up by more intensive questions the next day. Adrian sat in on the interview with one of the female tellers. She was fair haired—not naturally— and in her early twenties, which made her the youngest member of staff. Her name tag on her stripy bank shirt said Angie Grant. She had a pleasant face but Adrian thought she had overdone the eye makeup. Angie had been working next to Graeme Blackburn, the teller still in hospital.

After she had given her version of the robbery—which was fairly consistent with the way he imagined it to be—Detective Bauer began asking questions about the men, the guns and whether she knew the vault combination.

Do you have any questions Burton? asked Bauer.

Adrian leaned forward. Miss Grant, did you see Mr Blackburn reach for the phone?

Yes.

When did he do that?

Just after they shouted ‘Everyone down on the floor’. She shuddered as she said it.

Had he started dialling? Bauer rolled his eyes at the direction the questioning was going.

Er…I think so…I can’t be sure.

What did they hit him with?

The back of the hand.

Where did they hit him…what part of the body?

It was his face. I think they gave him a blood nose.

Adrian twisted his mouth thoughtfully. When was the last cash delivery to the bank?

This morning.

Did you or any other staff have private phone calls today?

She wasn’t slow. Her eyes opened wide and she protested, "What are you