BLACK WIND FROM THE NORTH

Hailey Collins, a blonde teenager, made a distressed call to the North Manchester Division Police Station on October 15th, 2023, at 8:15 a.m.

She reported that her mother drugged herself with tablets of antidepressants.

It was a crackling and tear-shedding voice that fired Inspector James Johnson off from his black leather chair to the sight of the scene.

Before setting off, he told his secretary to photocopy criminal records and arranged the files on his polished table.

It was a bright morning; the skies were woolly, as an unchastised white garment of baptism, and the trees rustled among the wind, rustling decayed leaves on the wretched earth.

Throughout his twenty years as an office, he has recorded thirty suicide cases, and this was no exception. He called two of his sergeants to come along. The two young men have barely spent a year on the job after their graduation from college. James too remembered his first day on the job on 15th February, 2003, then he just graduated from Berkeley College, where he studied psychology. He desired to become a police officer since his early childhood in the 80s.

Alone in 1973 in North Manchester, seventeen children got missing and only eight of them survived.

In those days, Johnson’s uncle Inspector McCarthy, a slim, tall, brandish police officer, told his father what was happening in the force, especially with question on missing children.

His father, who showed more interest in liquors and cigarettes, just pointed fingers at the government for using the children for rituals.

He believed there were underground tunnels in specific places across the country, where abducted children are destructive elements sodomized, trafficked, and offered as sacrifices.

Johnson doubted him because he didn’t have evidence. One day he said his father will face libel. Unlike his drunk father, who uttered any gibberish after sipping his liquor, his uncle was a contrast. He was always busy trying to solve one criminal case or the other, and he admired his wits.

The two boys got into the van and the youngest officer drove, while Johnson arranged the materials he needed at the scene. Then they drove for twenty minutes before getting to the house. It was a brick-cottage in Downing Street, Northern Manchester.

Outside, a scrawny, brown dog continued scratching and barking as if possessed by a demon. The dog fixed a gaze on them, but he scared him with the trigger.

On entering, a stench of acidic antidepressants flossed their nostrils, and the deceased daughters sobbed in front of her in the humid living room. He exchanged pleasantries with them, ordering the officers to tape the entrance. Then the young coroner wasted no time in getting forensic details from here. He took a thumbprint of her lifeless body and wrote reports on plain paper, while the officer turned to the older girl who called him on the phone.

“What time did she die?” He queried, peering deeply into her eyes.

She mopped the phlegm on her nose and composed herself. Despite her crackling, she still said something.

“I and my sister Hailey returned from our grandma’s house this morning, only to find her overdosed with antidepressants and we found a syringe on her bed.” Her eldest daughter said.

John knew there was more to this. She must have had depression, as most people do, because of the high cost of living in the country.

“What did she tell you before taking her life? I meant, was she having depression? The girls exchanged glances, trembling.

“For a month now we have seen her taking anti-depressants, and each time we asked her why she did, she said the pills calmed her nerves. But we were unaware of her travails.” She added.

“Ah!” His jaws dropped, thinking why she took her life.

“Yes, sir.” She replied.

John told the boys to search the other rooms for exhibits, knowing something was fishy. Of course, the fledgling economy was partly to be blamed.

“What’s her job?” He fizzled.

“She was a factory worker. She worked as a cleaner in a chocolate factory.”

“What was her schedule?” He jotted her statement.

“Six hours. I often heard her grumble because of the pay.”

“Do you know her pay?”

“Five pounds an hour. She complained to her male colleagues who do the same work as her received higher pay.”

“Do you think it could have resulted in her death?” He turned to the window, looking for other exhibits.

“I don’t know, sir. Three days ago, before visiting our grandma’s house, I told her of my college fees, because I recently gained admission to the University of Manchester to study Business Administration. She remained mute, and thought of giving it an afterthought. Then I returned to bed that night and never discussed it.”

The officer gave a deep breath and waggled his head.

“So tell me a brief history of her life and the relationship between you.”

“She was born in Chester, and married to my dad Francis, who died five years ago of lung cancer. My father was an irresponsible drunkard.. As for my mom, she was a gentle and hardworking woman. She always taught us the virtuous ways and ensured we dressed decently and respected others. I remembered when I failed in the Grade Eight and felt the skies were going to unleash their fury on me. She came to the rescue. She encouraged me and my sister to strive for excellence in our studies and don’t dally with boys. Though she never hated them, but wanted us to stay away from the forbidden apple, just as every caring mother would do.” She stared at her blackening skin with tremors, her lips wriggling.

“She must have been a caring mother.” He said.

“She was.” Hailey replied.

“So tell me, does she have any addiction history?”

“Like I said, sir, I only saw her twice with the addiction, and she said she only wanted to calm her nerves with them. But I think her meagre wages, coupled with the death of my father, caused her death.”

Hailey interrupted.

“She told me one night she was going through depression, over her hectic job and poor pay, which was raising her blood pressure. We struggled to have delightful meals.”

The officer forced back the raging storm from his crystal balls, knowing how tough life was to him growing under a single, poor mother.

“It’s alright. I know how pained it was for you to her at this moment of your life.”

“She was everything to us. I don’t know how we will cope without her.” Hailey burst into tears, her sister put her head on her chest.

The Investigator collected a few samples of her saliva with a ball of cotton wool and put them in a plastic bag.

“Are you almost done, sir?” He turned to the young man.

“Yes sir. I have to document something.” He scribbled on a file.

The two other police officers returned with a green rope, two small brown bottles of antidepressants and a pack of syringes.

“Sir, these are what we found in her room.”

He collected and marked them as exhibits.

“It’s strange how many people take their lives nowadays. Suicide isn’t the way out.”

“The high cost of living is partly to be blamed, sir.” An officer added.

“Of course. The wages are nothing. Bills are piling, school fees, feeding, rents, and other miscellaneous expenses. It isn’t a platter for working-class couples, let alone a poor, single parent. Our government needs to work on gender equality on pay, and soften the taxes.” He wrapped the exhibits in a black bag.

“We can go now.” The coroner said.

The girls led the way and two ambulance medics wrapped the body in a white wrapper, with the hope of the officers getting to the crust of the matter.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐

There were always strange feelings regarding the resolution of suicide mysteries, and that was the insider. Such pretentious individual camouflaged among the curtains of the dead, and in his twenty years of expertise, Johnson knew she didn’t just swallow the pills. Something was behind it. He returned to the office to begin the investigation. There were several pictures of murders and suicide addicts he solved in the past, and every detail mattered.

He peered at the photos of the mysterious people on the wall. The youngest was a boy of fifteen who killed his father because he always nagged at him, spending endless hours playing video games.

After ripping his skin with a sharp knife, he cooked and ate him. When he came before a judge, he asked him a few questions about why he killed his father. He told the court his father was intruding in his privacy of playing video games, and his yelling caused him a migraine.

The people present that day opened their jaws in wild bewilderment, wondering the demonic spirit that overtook the predator. He wondered how a child would stab his father to death if not possession by odd spirits. Growing up as a child, he once saw a child possessed by evil spirits in his neighbourhood.

The child in question was a quiet one and loved sitting at the window of his house watching passers-by, until the morning of August 21st, 1994, when strange things began happening in the house. The drawers shuttered, curtains danced, light flickered, and he elevated. When his mother saw this, she called Rev. Fr. Facci, a bald Franciscan exorcist to exorcise the dark spirits from her daughter.

On arriving at the scene, the man saw things for himself as the girl began speaking in strange poltergeist tongues.

The priest went straight to the task at hand, dressed in a brown hoodie, along with a wooden crucifix, a rosary, a bottle of holy water and a bible. He began exorcising, chanting the Lord’s prayer, Hail Mary and the Athanasian creed. But the demon wasn’t going down without a fight. It compressed the teenager with clumsy dances, awkward trembling and eerie ventriloquism, reminding the clergy the body wasn’t a lumbering beast, but a cumbersome sinister that wanted to stay.

So, after battling with the body for three hours, the ogre from hell left and beads of sweat covered her entire body. The priest, too, was exhausted, his cassock soaked and eyes bleary. It was the toughest exorcism he witnessed. Johnson leaned his back on his revolving chair, wondering how the demon entered her body. But his biggest suspicion was the Ouija board, which many children used to summon aliens.

He remained himself and spread the six monochrome photographs of the deceased on his table, examining the cause of her death.

“How will she take her life because of the downturn in the country? I know we are all in the same bandwagon of unending travails. That doesn’t justify one to take one’s life.” He looked at the photographs closely. “Are you sure her children said the truth? They could be lying. I have seen many innocent faces spilled lies. But this is complex. There’s more to this, more than my ears have heard. I will get to the root of this case.” He promised.

In the evening, when he got home, he told his wife, Lilian, about the case. Lilian, a brilliant psychologist and caring wife, who helped him solved five suicide mysteries in the past, glared at the pictures of the woman and her two daughters. She took them to the bedroom, taking a clearer view because of the incandescent light there. Being a thorough psychologist, she studied every bodily feature of the photographs, the eyes, noses and palms.

Momentarily, with the squinted eyes and cropped palms of Hailey, the eldest girl caught her attention.

“Why did she squint? Was the light too dim or bright? Her palms were nervy as well.” She returned to her husband having his dinner.

“Honey, we have to re-investigate those children. I smell a rat.”

“Why do you say so?” Johnson stopped chewing his chicken for a moment.

“Look at the girl’s eyes. Don’t you see the squint? Look at her nervy palms. They are telling. You need to begin a thorough investigation before they escape.” She warned.

“I thought as much, and will summon them for another hearing tomorrow. I know they will reveal the truth.” He said.

The night came with a warmth springing from the full moon, and the constellations shone in disarrays, holding back the days to remain. A barn owl and two bats perched howling and squeaking on a sycamore facing their windows. He hated those creatures for their bad omen. He winded down the curtains and thought about the mysterious cases at his office. There were several of them waiting to be resolved on his office table. But in this exact case, he would definitely get to the bottom. He switched off the lights and dozed off.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Officer Johnson waited two and a half months before collecting the autopsy result from the coroner. The result showed the victim took seven cyanide capsules. But he was still unconvinced she committed the act on her own. For weeks he questioned her daughters, but they kept denying the allegations. So, he thought of closing the case since the coroner said she caused her death. He has exhausted every means of finding out the truth.

He cast his mind off the matter and began studying the case of a criminal who had robbed a bank. For a year, the criminal was nowhere in the city, and people said he travelled to London to continue his exploits. Johnson knew he must catch him else the thief will continue to terrorize the country.

“Humphrey Venison. 40-year-old!” He tapped his fingers.

The information he got from his neighbours was that Humphrey had a terrible childhood and his parents divorced when he was a child. So he grew with Elizabeth, his mother a substance addict, who cursed him at a slightest compunction. The thief never had a good upbringing and stole food and money from his classmates. Because of this, his head of school sent him away when he was in grade nine.

Dejected and separated from his alcoholic mother, he joined the Cheetham Hill gang, a notable armed robbery cult in the 1990s in Northern Manchester. Together with his gang members, they assault pedestrians, broke into houses, and killed the residents. At seventeen, the county police jailed him for five years for robbing a lady one night on a pedestrian. After his jail term expired, he returned to his vomit.

“How has he escaped for two years and no one knew his hideout, and how certain is he in London? I remembered before the county promoted me as an inspector, I wanted to pursue this case, but my superiors said it was too big for me. Now I that the mantle has fallen on me, I will pursue the case.” He said.

He rang his bell, signalling his secretary to enter and do this when he needed her attention.

“Do you need anything, sir?” The pretty secretary asked.

“Yes. Get me a cup of coffee.” He said.

“Alright sir.” She closed the door, leaving him with his thoughts.

The officer continued thinking of the files before him.

“Humphrey can’t escape my wrath. When I catch him, I will not scruple and throw him in the bin.” He grinned.

While drafting his plots on a yellow paper, his secretary interrupted.

“Here is your coffee, sir.” She puts the tray of coffee on the table.

“Thank you.” He watched her leave.

The coffee was a rustic brown clay, an aroma of soulfulness that infiltrated the innermost core of his senses. Without the brownish liquid, he wouldn’t be able to work overnight on his job. He added a cube of sugar, even though he disliked it because his maternal grandfather died of diabetes mellitus. Then glared at the man’s picture again with the thoughts of capturing him. He continued ruminating on these thoughts when the secretary knocked again.

“Enter.” He said.

“Sir, there’s a man outside. He wants to see you.”

“His name?” He raised his brows.

“Armstrong Fowler.” She replied.

“Armstrong Fowler?” He repeated. “Let him enter.”

“Alright sir.” She shut the door quietly.

The man entered. He was five point four metres with a Mohican hair, crescent eyebrow and wore a white vest. He has a suspicious blink.

“Good morning, sir.” He shook his hands.

“It’s a pleasure meeting you. Kindly sit.”

“Thank you.” The man sat.

“So may I know you?”

“I am Armstrong Fowler, an inhabitant of this neighbourhood. I have lived here all my lives. But I am here to make a confession. It’s been bothering me for two weeks now.” His voice went silent.

“Go ahead.” Johnson sat upright.

“I remembered a few months ago you came to Cottage 54 to investigate a crime scene of the woman suspected to have died from antidepressants.”

“Yes... that’s right.” Johnson replied.

“Well, what if I tell you I know what happened that night?

The words shot Johnson off his feet as he his body trembled.

“So what happened?” He begged.

The man paused a while as he tried to regain his composure. He knew telling the truth and backing it with evidence was all the case needed.

“But before I proceed, I want you to promise you won't charge me to a court of law for coming out now when I ought to have done so.”

“As long as we can get to the root. Or do you care for a cup of coffee?” Johnson promised.

“No. Thanks.” He breathed with relief. “A fortnight ago, I saw two girls yelling at each other outside a cafe at Downing street. At first, I thought they were arguing over a boyfriend. But on closer look, I saw Bridget, the younger sister of Hailey, blaming her for their mother’s death. I don’t know how she killed her, but both threw tantrums at each other before walking away. Then I remembered you carried out an investigation at their house. I was in my apartment that morning watching what was ongoing. As I earlier said, I could have come here right away, but I tensed, knowing I would bear witness to a stranger, and victimized if the accused didn’t commit the atrocity.” The man bowed, his forehead furrowed.

Johnson’s face creased into smiles, knowing he’s gradually getting enough details to prosecute the case.

“The police are your friend. Next time, you can walk to the station.” He said.

Inspector Johnson invited the two girls for another interrogation at his office. It was 9:00 a.m. and the radiant morning cast reflecting beams on everything in the town. The girls sat on the same cushion, but right apart.

“How have you been feeling since your mother’s death?” He glanced at them.

“It’s been tragic. We think about her every day. I can’t imagine living a day without recalling the glorious moments we shared.” Bridget grinned.

“I know how you feel. Losing one’s mother to the chilly hands of death is the worse feelings that can happen to someone. But there is a new twist and I want you to comply.”

“What twists, sir?” Hailey wondered if he knew the truth.

“I called you into my office to get the truth, and I shall record everything you say. Is that clear?” He said querulously.

The girls shook their heads as an intense fear crawled underneath their skins.

“We will comply.” Hailey answered.

The officer stood, his flaming eyes fixated on the girls.

“Tell me one more time. Who killed your mother?”

The girls glanced at each other as if someone spilled the truth, and the room went into a grave silence. Seeing their trembling lips and palpitating hands, Johnson understood the girls knew what killed their mother. So he called in the witness. When the man entered, Hailey remembered his face. He was the man staring at them at the café.

“Please have a sit.” He pointed at a chair. So tell me what you know about the murder.”

The man gawked at the two suspects, and his face smouldered with resentment.

“Both of you killed your mother.” He thundered.

“Please don’t say that, sir. How can we murder our loving mother? She was our world and treasure.” Hailey sobbed, her lips curling inwards.

“These are crocodile tears. By not telling us the truth, I will parade both of you in the court, and certain to get lengthy sentences. But by telling the truth, you could lessen your punishment. One last time, who murdered her?” He walked towards the window with a pale face.

They began biting their fingers.

“Hum! It was a mistake. We did.” Hailey shuddered.

“It was all your ideas. You told us to kill her.” An enraged Bridget barked at her.

“This is getting interesting. I am glad you conceded to the crime. It’s the first step in the right direction. So tell us why you took her life?” He whispered.

“Speak witch! Tell them the entire truth. I felt miserable being an accomplice to this. I wished the earth would swallow me.” Bridget held her head in horror.

“It was all my fault. Our mother was an exceptional woman who loved us. Even though things were difficult, she went out of the way to make us happy. I remembered she collecting loans to pay the bills. But she nagged at us when she was moody or saw us doing wrong things. I remembered me inviting my boyfriend, Jerry to our house. Jerry is a quiet young man I so much loved. We have been lovers for three years and I have invited him since my mother was at work. I don’t know what brought my mother home. Maybe she forgot her bank credit score slip, which she wanted to tender for a new loan? When she saw me kissing my boyfriend, her jaws dropped, eyes widened and a furnace of fury splotched on her face. She hunted for him with a knife on the table, but he escaped through the window. The next day, my boyfriend broke up with me and told me he can’t have a substance addict as a mother-in-law. I begged him to stay since he was my first lover and the one that popped the cherry. But he never accepted me back. Because of this I coup with my sister to take her off the line since our mother had done similar thing to her. So on the windy night of her death, I drugged her coffee with seven antidepressants tablets. After sipping the coffee, she felt dizzy and exhausted. Then I told my sister to get a green rope, which we tied on her neck before she gassed out.” She concluded.

The two men pretended not to hear the breakdown because they pressed against their ears.

“But why will you murder her? Because she protected you against an unwanted pregnancy. I don’t know what the world is turning into every day.” He hit his fist on the table. “Did you regret your actions?”

“Every bit. The world is no longer for me.” She cried.

Three days later when the officer presented the atrocity before a judge. He couldn’t believe his ears and almost threw his hammer at them.

“How can you kill your mother? It’s barbaric. Because of your confession, I sentenced you to thirty years in prison. I rest my case.” He dashed away.

On hearing the pronouncement, Bridget fainted and Hailey gasped for breath. The deceased elder sister rattled on the floor after learning the girls killed their mother. Two burly female warders led them away as the ambience turned into unending mumblings. The county frowned against the children’s action. But for Johnson it was one of the few mysteries he encoded, thinking a black wind has really blown into the north.