Chapter 12: Chris Beaker

Detective Andy O'Neil shook his head - ever since he heard of this Chris Beaker person his whole world had taken a nose-dive, first there was the fiasco on the train when his two men not only allowed Beaker to escape, but also managed to create a riot on the train. He'd been able to downplay the problem, but was still hauled over the coals about it.

When they did actually get Beaker behind bars what happened? Somehow he managed to contact some high rolling solicitor who turned things all around. Now Beaker was hiding in the same hospital facility that he was going to send him to. AND HE COULDN'T GET THE MAN OUT!

To say he was annoyed wouldn't even touch his feelings, and now he was being assigned to some childish duties, trying to find out what was happening in the city centre, he went over the reports again.

First of all there were the car incidents, officers complaining of their cars being restricted to the national speed limits, until they were involved in an incident requiring them to be on site as quickly as possible, mechanics had gone over all the cars involved trying to find some kind of electronic shunt stopping the cars but being released for 'blues and two's' calls without luck.

Then there were the normal 'boy' racers, those who stole cars just to break the speed limits and endanger life, the cars would just seize up and the doors and windows lock — until officers arrived when the doors would open, again no reason for this was found. Even cars used in getaways were being affected, in a way this was helping the force, but there was no reason why this was happening.

And then people were complaining of bicycles either seizing up, or even being reduced by sudden rusting. It seemed that somehow somebody was running around with a spray attacking cyclists. He went through some of the reports; many of them were from youths who had been riding their bikes in the middle of town — which was against the law anyway — only to have the bikes reduced down to piles of rust.

Children under Nine were unaffected; up to twelve then their bikes would not move, over fifteen then the bikes rusted away to nothing. If he didn't know better he would have suggested witchcraft, but that was preposterous.

The remains of several bikes had been sent to forensics, but they couldn't find any trace of accelerants in the rust, so it appeared they just aged within seconds. He went back to the first recorded incident.

A 'young adult' was cycling through the city, against the by-laws, and nearly ran a man over. The incident had been captured on CCTV and so he went to the council offices to where the CCTV office was, filled out several forms to get permission to see the tapes and then was shown into a locked room.

Finding the tape took time but once he had it he fed it into a tape machine and began playing it. The tape followed the youth until he met up with a man, nearly hitting him, the youth fell off the bike which started to rust away. The man bent close to the youth and said something, before turning and walking away. O'Neil managed to see the man's face ... it was Beaker!

At last a physical link between Beaker and these bikes, it had to be Beaker that had started this whole thing. He must have sprayed the bike with something to make it rust so quickly, it could have been done so quickly that the camera didn't catch it.

O'Neil asked for the tape telling the man there that it was now part of a criminal investigation. "Well this is all very irregular; I mean there are channels for this. You have to submit a court order signed by three judges, because this all comes under the data protection act you know." The man said confused.

"If you don't let me take this then I'll arrest you for perverting the course of justice. The evidence on this tape is enough to convict my suspect. Now I'll take this tape." O'Neil said forcefully although he didn't really have enough from one tape to get a conviction, but it might be enough to make Beaker confess.

Before the man could make any further complaints O'Neil had left taking the tape with him, ensuring that he didn't sign for the tape and so couldn't be traced. In his haste he forgot the forms he'd signed to gain access to the tape library.

When O'Neil arrived back at the Police Station the desk sergeant stopped him. "You've got a visitor Sir." He said but his face was troubled as he said this.

O'Neil looked around the area but there was nobody waiting there. "So where is he?" He asked, automatically assuming that any visitor would be male.

"He said he knew the way and would see you in your office, Sir." The desk Sergeant said his forehead furrowed into a frown, he knew this was wrong but there wasn't anything that he could do about this.

"You let him through? Where was his identification? Where is he from?" O'Neil said angrily.

"Oh, it was that Chris Beaker bloke; he said he came straight from the hospital. I don't know why but I knew it was okay to let him in." The Sergeant said but his eyes were still troubled.

"Let me get this straight. Mr. Chris Beaker - a known maniac - who's been under observation in the mental ward at the hospital, is not only allowed to enter this station, without supervision. He's not logged in?" The Sergeant shook his head — it didn't seem necessary for Chris to sign into the station. "Great! Raise the alarm, we've got an intruder in the building, search everywhere and get him arrested. I'll get the Chief Constable to have a word with you later." O'Neil said and stormed through the entry door into the Station proper as alarms began to ring.

Officers were running around the corridors looking for the intruder as O'Neil unlocked and entered his office, sitting in a chair reading a confidential report was Chris Beaker, he smiled as O'Neil entered.

"Ah, Detective Inspector O'Neil, I understand you wanted to see me urgently." Chris said putting the report down beside him.

"How the hell did you get into this office? You should be under arrest!" O'Neil said going to his desk and picking up the phone, the earpiece was dead.

"I told the door to open and I don't think I'd like being under arrest, the last time I was here you lost me." Chris said watching as O'Neil sprang from his desk and ran to the door, finding it was locked again; he fumbled for his keys to open the door and couldn't find them. "You left your keys on the desk Mr. O'Neil, but I wouldn't worry nobody is going to interrupt us." Chris added with his smile still in place.

O'Neil weighed up his options and realised that the Desk Sergeant knew that Beaker was going to be near his office and would send someone here first and so he returned to his desk and sat behind it.

"You wouldn't believe the stories I've been hearing since I entered this Station, criminals being caught easily, muggers giving themselves up, I must say the normal person out there must really want the law to be followed." Chris said which confused O'Neil.

"What do you mean, I've got two reasons for arresting you, the first is the riot you caused on the train, and the second is the criminal damage to bicycles in this city, I know you're the one who started it." O'Neil watched Chris as he said this.

Chris didn't even change his face, "Oh really? But it was your men who told the train to carry on; I didn't even take part in the 'riot' as you call it." He said.

O'Neil raised the tape he'd taken from the CCTV rooms, "But this tape here will show you spraying the first bicycle, I've got you dead to rights." He gloated and was pleased to see Chris start to mutter under his breath, "I see you're worried now. Let me show you what I mean." He got up and went to a corner where there was a television with a VCR attached to it. He loaded the tape and started to search for his desired action.

Chris made a gesture that was too small for O'Neil to see.

"It's about here ... there, that youth riding his bike on the pavement, he just misses ... hold on ... that's wrong you're not there!" O'Neil quickly rewound the tape and played it back, the cyclist was riding on the pavement and then just fell off, but there was nobody near him. "But when I watched that tape you were there. I saw you. You went to the kid and said something and his bike rusted away!" on the screen the bicycle began to dissolve.

Chris smiled, "All I did was to set up the spell, and now all those who believe in the law will find that they are contributing to the spell, as long as the majority of people obey the law it will be enforced automatically, even those who uphold the law will be affected, that's why your police cars can't just chase around without a reason, why normal drivers will stick to the speed limits and watch out for hazards as they should. I won't say it will stop accidents ... but they won't be as bad."

"So in your delusional way you think that you're controlling people, making them do what you want. Wilkinson was right, you are dangerous. I should have you killed off right now." O'Neil said his eyes wide with fear.

"Really Mr. O'Neil, it seems that you have some kind of grudge against me, and why would that be?" Chris asked him his hand making another small gesture which O'Neil missed, what it did was to channel O'Neil's phone to the staff canteen and the Chief Constable's intercom while keeping the microphone on O'Neil's phone active.

"I'll tell you why Mr. Oh So Clever Beaker, my group owe Wilkinson a lot for getting rid of ... certain people, when you ran from her office she contacted a friend of mine who managed to mobilise us to find you. It didn't matter where you went as sooner or later one of us would get you; it was just my luck that you came into my area. But it won't matter, because soon you will vanish and I'll just wipe my hands of you. Wilkinson will owe us again and we'll all prosper." O'Neil said watching Chris' face as he realised what was being said.

"Oh so this is more than I thought. I really believed you were some stupid flatfoot who couldn't arrange a piss-up in a brewery. I'm afraid I'm going to have to stop you. Who are the others in your group?" Chris asked seriously.

O'Neil gave a laugh, "You must be really crazy, just where the hell do you think you are? You're in my office, unguarded. All I have to say is that you broke in with ... this gun," he took a pistol from his drawer showing it to Chris, "which I managed to take away from you but in the meantime you were seriously injured after trying to attack me. Goodbye Mr. Beaker." He pulled the trigger and a shot was heard.