The Flaming Girls Ch. 03

Chapter Three - Blue Star

Walter Middleton had just released himself into a Pretty Polly stocking and the garment hung pathetically from his still engorged penis. A gobbet of thick creamy semen had burst through the sheer fabric of the stocking when he ejaculated and threatened to spatter on the workshop's concrete floor.

Walter took the panties away from his face and carefully put them back inside the resealable bag, carefully folding them and treating them with the deference they deserved. The turquoise ring went back into the same bag and he resealed it.

He carefully removed the stocking from his penis, dabbing at his cock with it to wipe off his spend and it went into the bin. He took the bin-liner, nothing more than a disposable plastic shopping bag, out of the bin and tied it off to throw it in the big bin outside the kitchen. These new plastic bags that all of the shops were using now instead of paper bags were supposed to save the planet because the forests were being destroyed to make paper. To him it was all a load of bollocks anyway, every time they thought they'd saved the world some other new-found catastrophe awaited. Apparently a new ice age was around the corner and the world was soon to be a frozen wasteland.

Walter looked down at the green satin knickers and the cheap turquoise ring now safely ensconced in their plastic bag and thought it ironic that the colour of his second victim's knickers matched the colour of the ring she was wearing. Quite a coincidence. There wasn't much scent left on the knickers, just a scintilla of her fruity perfume and a hint of vaginal odour embedded in the flaky stain in the crotch.

He remembered she was a big Scottish girl with unruly ginger hair. He'd seen her standing outside the cinema studying a movie poster when she had flamed for him. Once she became one of his Flaming Girls he had to have her and he had followed her for three days before he managed to catch her early one morning taking a shortcut through a park on her way to work. He was prepared for any eventuality and he'd managed to drag her into the toilet block and take his time with her.

He liked that she was wearing a business suit and that she was stout girl with billowy tits and thick legs, her makeup professionally applied ready for work; sheer tights and high heels and that gorgeous ginger hair. She put up a fight but he had managed to come inside her pressed against the rough brick wall with her tights and knickers pulled down and her skirt torn away.

The Scottish girl had flamed, her body a burning torch when he climaxed and slit her throat and then like the others the flames had died. He'd struggled to remove her knickers and in the end had balled them up with her tights around her ankles and ripped them off. The ring was stubborn too but he'd got it.

Not counting his mother the Scottish lass was only his second Flaming Girl back when he was still learning his trade.

He carefully replaced the trophy in its correct place in the drawer of the large toolbox and admired his collection.

The headache that had plagued him all morning had retreated. Relieving himself whilst fondling his trophies brought temporary relief but the headaches would soon become migraines and he would need to find another Flaming Girl to appease the demons in his head.

*****

Charlie Ringwald had fellated the doctor on four consecutive days just so she could keep her private room in the hospital. On the fifth day the doctor had told her that she had recovered enough so that she could bend over and let him take her 'up the wrong 'un', to which she had replied if she was well enough to be fucked she was well enough to work and had promptly discharged herself.

She came home to her bedsit flat located in the dodgy end of Chelmsford, well away from where the more affluent east enders lived. The terrace housing where she lived had once been council flats but greedy slumlords had moved in and converted the two up - two downs into bedsits.

Charlie was lucky that she could afford a room to herself and now that she had her windfall from Ruffe she was able to get ahead with her rent. Unlike most of the prostitutes working the streets Charlie had neither a drug habit, children, nor a lazy husband to support, every penny she made she was able to keep for herself.

She was saving up for breast implant surgery and she thought she might get a few other bits and bobs done at the same time; a tracheal shave perhaps? She knew that more complicated and expensive gender reassignment surgery was probably beyond her means but she had been using female hormones obtained illegally from a sympathetic doctor ever since she had started work.

Charlie's body had changed subtly as the doctor said it would. She first noticed that even though she had no beard to speak of, she had stopped developing almost any body hair at all and she had gained weight which seemed to redistribute itself on her lithe frame, giving her a slimmer waist, wider hips and plumper buttocks. Her flat chest sprouted two little protuberances with pink sensitive nubbins that could hardly be called boobs but they filled a padded B-cup and gave shape to her décolletage.

Shakespeare had written that 'misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows' and Detective Sargent Sparrow, WPC Glenda Savage, Ruffe Ingersoll and Charlie Ringwald were certainly that. They were a Special Crime Investigation team or SCI that was the brainchild of Glenda Savage and reluctantly approved by the Chief Constable but only after Glenda had effectively blackmailed him.

Glenda wanted to work a high profile case with the hopes of promotion or appointment to the CID. Ruffe had been contacted by the Essex Slasher but stymied in his attempt to publish the letter but he got on well with Charlie and Glenda and he hoped he would get more titbits from them to inform his newspaper stories. Charlie was along because she needed protection as the Slasher had made a veiled threat to finish her off having failed to kill her during his attack. Detective Sargent Sparrow had been titularly put in charge; a penance for receiving bad press when he was quoted in the newspapers as telling Charlie, the sole surviving Slasher victim, that she was better off dead than living transgender.

"No way Glenda! You've got your little band of merry men but two of them are civilians and shouldn't really be working the crimes, so your SCI will not be operating out of any of my police stations. Find somewhere unobtrusive to work from but make sure it's secure," Edward replied to Glenda when she came to him for more resources.

So the ragtag little group set up at Glenda Savage's flat. During the first days after they had formed their SCI, Robin had taken copies of anything useful from the Slasher task force, while Glenda had purloined some essentials such as stationary, copies of related crime files, and police hardware. She had turned the spare bedroom of her flat into a temporary office, put up a crime wall including timelines, survey maps and other useful scraps of evidence and created a filing system. Ruffe had taken copies of all of the Essex Slasher stories written since the first murder and filed them in chronological order. He had written another newspaper article regarding the letter he had received from the Slasher, paraphrasing the content and speculating that the Slasher was far from done.

Charlie meantime was still recovering and other than giving the doctor his daily blowjob, didn't have anything to do. Glenda, Robin or Ruffe was usually in attendance at the hospital to keep her company and offer her protection. When she discharged herself from hospital, with Ruffe's assistance avoiding the small crowd of reporters who had been tipped off that she was leaving, she was glad to be home and reluctantly part of the team, although she wondered what role she would play.

The four of them met at Glenda's flat the afternoon that Charlie was released and Charlie had made tea while Glenda set up seating around an old wooden dining table she had put in the centre of the room as their workspace. Folding tables and chairs had been arranged along two of the walls to hold all of their files, paperwork and other detritus relevant to the crimes. One wall was taken up with the crime wall; coloured woollen yarn and drawing pins linking various documents to the timeline of the murders.

Charlie, Glenda and Ruffe sat at the table sipping tea while Robin Savage paced up and down in front of a large blackboard resting on a wooden easel.

"Ok, let's get started. It's no secret that I don't want to be here, but here I am and at least I'm still working the Slasher case," he began.

"Credit where it's due, WPC Savage has done an amazing job putting together our crime office here in her flat. Even Ruffe has contributed, collating every single newspaper story about the Slasher and his murders. Just a reminder Ruffe that anything we uncover must be handed over to CID and the Chief Constable needs to approve anything you want to print."

Ruffe nodded but his smile was far from genuine.

Robin just smiled back at him and continued.

"We also have err... Miss Ringwald here to assist us. She is the only person who is able to identify the Slasher and of course as the only survivor, has first-hand experience with his modus operandi. We are also to some extent, although neither CID nor the Chief Constable are taking the threat seriously, acting as protection for her just in case the Slasher returns to finish what he started," Robin nodded at Charlie who self-consciously rubbed at the scar on her neck.

It was obvious to everyone that Robin Savage barely tolerated Charlie Ringwald and begrudgingly called her 'her, Miss or she', even though Charlie was undoubtedly feminine and attractive.

"WPC Savage and myself as serving police officers still have our day jobs to do and will be working the SCI part time. Miss Ringwald and Ruffe you are obviously here as volunteers and we appreciate your support and request that you attend our regular meetings," Robin continued.

Charlie didn't care. Working this case gave her something to do with her days other than sleep because even though she hadn't told anyone here, she fully intended on going back to work. She needed the money for her surgery and she wanted to move into a better place than her bedsit. In 1975 there were very few ways for a full-time transvestite to make money other than on her knees or her back. Charlie had dreams of becoming a hairdresser one day; maybe after she had her breast augmentation surgery.

"I've been thinking long and hard about what we know about the Slasher and especially the information provided to us by Miss Ringwald," Robin turned to the backboard.

"He referred to his victims as Flaming Girls in the letter, and he also told Charlie that she was his Flaming Girl. All of the victims have red hair," he wrote on the blackboard.

"They all have green or blue eyes," he wrote that.

"My hair is dyed," Charlie called out.

"I know and one of the other victims dyed her hair too. I think it's the bright red colour that attracts him, natural or otherwise," Robin answered.

"We know he takes trophies, the victim's knickers and a piece of jewellery. These are likely fetishes he uses to re-enact the crimes, to relive the thrill and excitement he gets during the rape and murder," Robin wrote the word 'trophies' on the board.

"Were all the women raped? For all intents and purposes I wasn't. He paid me and I gave him what he paid for," Charlie blushed.

"Good point Charlie. Two of the victims were prostitutes and there was no sign of a struggle so he likely paid them too. Two of the other women were found in their own homes with their throats cut and disembowelled but no signs of forced entry or a struggle so he may have charmed his way into their beds," Robin nodded sagely.

"Two were definitely raped before he killed them; there is evidence that they tried to fight him off."

"We think he uses the same knife because it has never been found at the scene and the wounds are identical, but that's not certain. The knife itself might be a fetish."

"What about the locations? Is there any connection to rail schedules, bus routes or traffic patterns?" Ruffe asked

Robin was impressed. His little cadre were actually contributing useful information and asking pertinent questions.

They all looked at the map on the crime wall. The locations of the attacks were localised around Chelmsford with two occurring in the city itself including Charlie's and the others at random locations not necessarily on the bus or rail routes.

Ruffe got up and pointed to the railway underpass.

"When I spoke to Deirdre Edwards she said that she thought the man walked down Duke Street and turned into Victoria Road."

"She told the same story to CID. She said he was wearing a duffle coat and seemed in no rush. That ties in with your description right?" Robin looked at Charlie.

"That's right a duffle coat and coveralls but he didn't talk with a working class accent, sounded posh to me," Charlie shivered as she recalled the mental image of the man approaching her.

"So if he didn't take the train he might have parked on Victoria Road or here in the railway car park," Ruffe pointed at the map.

"All of the other murder sites are accessible by car but not all are accessible by bus or train, so let's assume our man drives," Robin wrote this up on the blackboard.

"Not many working class men around here would own motors. Charlie said he sounded posh, so he could be middle class," Ruffe said and Robin chalked that on the blackboard too.

"The coveralls and duffle coat are nondescript and perfect clothing for what he does. He must get a lot of blood on himself. The clothes would work both as a disguise and provide protection from blood spatter. My guess is he ditches them after each crime; it would be too risky to wash the coveralls or dry-clean the duffle coat," Glenda chipped in.

"Especially if he's married or living with someone else," she added.

Robin nodded sagely.

"Let's get back to the theory that he might be middle-class, passing himself off as working class. That would fit in with the murders of the women he killed in public places and the prostitutes he attacked," he nodded deferentially to Charlie.

"Elspeth Morrison and Winnie Fletcher were both murdered in their homes and were last seen at work, one was a secretary and the other a nurse. They were respectable women," Robin pointed to the grainy black and white pictures of the victims on the crime wall.

"Tall, dark haired, handsome and well-built was how you described him Charlie?" Robin looked at her.

Today she was wearing jeans and a tight sweater with platform heels. Her makeup was a little heavier than what she had worn in the hospital and her red hair framed her pretty face. It was the first time Robin had seen her fully-clothed and up and walking around. He had to admit that if he didn't know otherwise he would swear she was a woman... a pretty woman.

"So victims are picked at random not by where they live or their demographic," Robin tapped his teeth with the chalk.

"He told us in the letter he wrote to me. Red hair and green eyes. All of the women had red hair and blue or green eyes, the same colours found in a flame, hence the Flaming Girls? So he sees them and becomes smitten and if the opportunity presents, he takes them like he did Charlie. If not he follows them until he can get them alone or he somehow gets into their houses and does the job in private so to speak," Ruffe surmised.

"So... two brasses, a nurse and secretary in their own home, an accountant he overpowered and dragged into a toilet block in Admirals Park, a shopgirl found on the grounds of the Cathedral. What if there are more? What if these aren't his only victims?" Glenda speculated.

There was no criminal profiling per se in the UK at this time but police still collated information and consulted psychologists and medical experts to help them with high profile cases.

"The physiologist that CID is using noted that the Slasher's crimes are becoming more violent, he didn't disembowel his first two victims and the period between crimes is getting less. He also speculated that the Slasher likely started off committing sexual assaults and then progressed to murder," Robin added.

"Do we have anything that CID doesn't have? Is there something we need to handover to them?" Glenda asked.

"They have everything we have pretty much; but believe it or not we have a better hypothesis. And with deference to you Glenda I think it's because of our diverse approach to the crimes. CID have a bunch of old suits rehashing the same evidence but don't really have the coordinated approach we are using," Robin admitted.

"Fuck em. Let's keep the ideas we have to ourselves," Robin grinned.

"Over there are the case files and press cuttings from similar rapes and murders throughout Britain; we don't know for sure that the Slasher has always lived near Chelmsford," Robin pointed to a stack of files on the table.

"Well this is where I bow out fellow team members. I need to write a story for tomorrow's Daily Sun. Can I print that all the victims have red hair and green or blue eyes?" Ruffe asked Robin.

Robin and Glenda looked at each other quizzically.

"It would be common knowledge if anyone was to look at colour pictures of the victims so I don't see why not?" Robin looked at Glenda for confirmation; she was going to have to tell the Chief Constable.

"We're doing a community service I think and we should make the information public so that red-haired women fitting the demographic can take precautions; he said in his letter that he was going to keep killing," Glenda agreed with Robin.

"Ok; I'm off to the Sun," Ruffe reached for his coat.

"And I'm going home. I'm no copper so I have no idea what to look for in those files," Charlie pulled on the new faux fur coat she had bought with Ruffe's money.

"Can you walk Charlie home?" Glenda asked Ruffe.

"Sorry, wrong direction luv and I have a deadline," Ruffe grinned.

"I can walk myself home," Charlie complained.

"Bollocks to that! I'll do it and when you get home lock the door and don't answer it," Robin surprised them all by volunteering.

"I'll bring back an Indian and a couple of bottles of lager from the off licence. We can work the files until you tell me to piss off home," Robin said to Glenda.

"Works for me," Glenda's stomach rumbled at the thought of a curry.

"I don't need to be walked home," Charlie said petulantly.

"Well you're getting an escort whether you like one or not," Robin reached for his thick woollen trench coat.

Ruffe had bolted while Robin and Charlie were preparing to leave.

"Get some poppadoms and naan bread," Glenda called after them as they left.

"That woman likes to eat," Robin said to Charlie as they made their way downstairs.

Charlie stopped at the bottom of staircase and turned to Robin.

"Don't talk to me like I'm your friend. You told me I'd be better off dead," Charlie self-consciously tightened the scarf around her neck.

"I'm a pratt," Robin said and reached around Charlie to unlock the front door of the terrace house.

Charlie flinched involuntarily and Robin smiled wanly. Her perfume was exotic; this was the closest he'd been to her since the hospital.

"Sorry," he whispered and stepped past her so he could check outside.

They walked in an uncomfortable silence on the cold cobbled streets. It was getting on for dusk and there were few pedestrians.

Charlie's faux fur coat was all style and no substance and before long she started to shiver. Robin took off his trench coat and put it around Charlie's shoulders. At first she resisted but when the warmth of the garment enveloped her she conceded. Robin had her stop and adjusted the coat around Charlie, pulling it closed around her; it was too big to button.