Serial Killer: Epilogue

A retired cop is on to Dave, plus a scathing email from Maj. (Ret.) Sinclair Angus of Angus, Angus & Angus.

EPILOGUE

Detective Inspector ‘Fiddy’ Ferguson finished his Sidney Sheldon novel and leaned back in his deckchair with a satisfied smile. It had been a real page-turner, and he hadn’t been able to put it down since they’d arrived at Sol Tower Hotel, near Estepona in Spain. Now he was looking forward to picking up James Clavell’s Shōgun the next time he went shopping.

He liked the hotel: it reminded him of the tower blocks on his old manor. For the same reason, he liked the beach chalets nearby, used by the Spanish army as holiday homes: they reminded him of Butlin’s chalets. While they were staying at Sol Tower, he and the wife were looking around for a villa to buy. He felt really at home on the Costa del Sol. There were so many retired villains and retired cops like himself there. He had never really wanted to retire, but had been persuaded by his superiors. Especially when they pointed out the alternative.

A new chapter of Serial Killer drops every week – sign up for free so you don’t miss it!

If you’re new to Serial Killer, start at Chapter 1.

He was tall and silver-haired with piercing, Husky-like, pale-blue eyes that had scared the bejesus out of more than one villain. There was just a hint of heavy drinking in the burst blood vessels in his cheeks. He was quite anonymous in the multi-national, Costa del Golf community. It was only when he got onto the subject of Enoch Powell and told his favourite racist joke that anyone realised he was, of course, British.

He watched his seven-year-old grandson, Tim, the apple of his eye, running around on the stony beach in front of him. The boy was wearing a teacher’s mortarboard and was wrapped in a black cloak. He had insisted on bringing this outfit on holiday with him. It was some comic book character he was crazy about. Now he was lost in make-believe, waving a stick and yelling something Ferguson couldn’t quite make out.

He fell asleep in the warm winter sun. In his dream, he was back in the Flying Squad, once again drinking with Dennis Waterman and John Thaw. To prepare them for their starring roles in the TV series The Sweeney, the actors had spent many happy hours drinking with the lads on the squad. The detectives were huge fans of the series and, after watching the show, they’d all go into work the next morning whistling the famous theme tune.

Ferguson was suddenly awoken by cries of pain and saw, to his dismay, that Tim was caning a sunbathing holidaymaker on his bottom, and snarling at him. He could make out his battle cry this time: it was ‘It’s time to Carpet Bum the Hun!’

Fiddy quickly intervened, restrained Tim, and apologised to the tourist, who turned out to be Norwegian. That was how the problem had arisen. Tim had heard the Norwegian talking to his wife and believed he was German and therefore a legitimate target of someone called the Caning Commando. It was all rather embarrassing, but the Norwegians were very good about it and said ‘boys will be boys’.

But it set Ferguson wondering just who was this Caning Commando his grandson admired so much? Later, in the hotel, Tim proudly produced the latest issues of the The Spanker, and the policeman decided to take them back to his room and have a read of them. He had nothing else to read, now he’d finished The Other Side of Midnight.

He found The Caning Commando stories amusing enough in a Carry On-film sort of way. But then the story of Lord Ow! Ow! caught his eye. In particular, the way the Caning Commando described to his half-wit companion, Alf Mast, how to prepare and detonate a pipe bomb. It was completely authentic, and showed the readers, in precise detail, just how they could construct such a bomb themselves.

He looked at the stories more closely now, and then he came across the Commando’s battle with Von Vroom, the inventor of the Arsenripper. He saw, once again, there was detailed information on how kids could obtain and prepare a tasteless and odourless poison.

He recalled there had been a story in the newspapers about a chemistry teacher drinking that very same poison by mistake. Yes, it would have been shortly after the comic appeared. Coincidence …? Or maybe not …?

He stared thoughtfully out the window for a long while, looking at the crashing winter waves hurling themselves at the beach.

His family were keen for him to join them down in the bar and normally he would have done so. He liked to extol the virtues of Enoch Powell with other expats and talk about just why the old country was going to the dogs. But he needed some time to himself to work out what was really going on in The Caning Commando. Just who was including these lethal ideas in a kids’ comic, and why? The writer? The editor? Old instincts and old habits were kicking in. He couldn’t help himself. He had to figure out what was going on.

Finally, he joined the dots.

Then he made a phone call to Britain, to one of his old colleagues on the squad. As he waited to be put through, he whistled a certain theme tune.

---

APPENDIX

From: AngusAngus&Angus@Angus.com

To: Pat Mills; Kevin O’Neill

Date: 20 September 2016 13:30:15 GMT+01:00

Subject: Read Em and Weep

Dear Mr. Mills and Mr. O’Neill,

Thank you for sending us an advance copy of Read Em And Weep 1: Serial Killer, which you asked us to review. I am sorry to say it was not to our liking. Or anyone’s, frankly. What were you thinking of? You describe it as ‘humour’, but I found it deeply offensive. Are you well?

At the centre of your story is David Maudling, whom you allege is a serial killer; a notion that you seem to think is funny. You suggest that his homicidal tendencies and strange obsession with fur is due to a childhood trauma involving comics and his mother. For shame!

You also refer – with some glee – to the brief period of time when Maudling was employed by us as a sub-editor, before moving to London to work for Fleetpit Publications, with which your account is primarily concerned. Our records show he was summarily dismissed in 1971 for gross misconduct. And what could be more gross than the incident you describe, with such unpleasant relish, involving Maudling and Mrs Angus’s fur coat?

I turn now to the comics Maudling was responsible for, commencing with The Spanker. As a former serviceman, I took particular exception to the comic-strip character you enthuse about, known as The Caning Commando, a teacher who canes his way through Nazi hordes to Berlin and proclaims, “I see Germany as one big a*** that needs a colossal thrashing.” I found his obsession with caning Germans unwholesome and suggestive of what I believe is referred to as ‘The English Disease’.

The series denigrates Her Majesty’s Forces to the point of libel. May I tell you, sirs, my father gave up a leg for his country? His good leg. Mr. Gordon Angus’s father gave up an arm. And Mr. Brian Angus Sr, an eye. Between us, we lost an entire Angus in the field. Many Anguses gave up their limbs in the service of their country, and they are spinning as we speak.

Furthermore, in the girls’ comic, Shandy, there was Feral Meryl, the story of a Wild Girl brought up by the Wolves of Berkshire. You clearly have very sick minds to think a young lassie choke-chained like a rabid dog by her best friend is a cause for amusement.

As if this were not enough, you say you intend to relate, over four books, the story of British comics, through Maudling’s involvement. Commencing in 1975 with Blitzkrieg!, the abortive and unpatriotic war comic featuring German heroes, then the notorious Aaagh!, followed by the truly warped Space Warp and, finally, the unwholesome Raven, a girls horror comic.

I believe you both to be a menace to society and certainly a menace to publishing and I give Read Em And Weep 1: Serial Killer one star, the lowest possible rating it can be awarded, and that is one star too many.

Yours sincerely,

Sinclair Angus

Maj. (Ret.)

General Manager

ANGUS, ANGUS & ANGUS & Co. Ltd

Bleek House, Caber Passage, Aberdeen, Scotland

---

Serial Killer by Pat Mills & Kevin O’Neill is the first book in the Read Em And Weep series and is on sale digitally or as paperback.