Sledgehammer to crack a nut

John Masters did not like being called out by homicide in the middle of the night. He used to think it was exiting but now that he was due for retirement in a few weeks the disturbed sleep was getting to him. He was starting to like his bed and was looking forward to winding down from his long and successful career with the New York Police force.

He arrived at the scene of the crime at three in the morning. It was a calm night with not a breath of wind, but he still felt shivery. He always felt like this. It was the thrill of the unknown.

When the call first came into the ambulance control room the details were sketchy and the operator reported that a male had rung but she could hardly hear him as there was a lot of background noise that sounded like children singing 'La,la,la,la,la!" Other officers had listened to the recording of the emergency call and reported the same thing. The sound of joyful singing.

Climbing to the roof of Belvedere Castle was a hard slog and John Masters was glad when he finally reached the top. He caught his breath and steadied himself against the door frame. On his way up the stairs he saw that some other officers were examining some strange contraptions in the ground floor room of the building. It seemed to have something to do with 'Exfoliating' He just thought that it was a bit too over the top for getting rid of a few areas of rough skin.

Looking out across to the centre of the roof area he could see that the forensics department had already set up a white tent over the crime scene and several officers in white suits were milling around the roof, looking for any scraps of evidence. They had found lots of household items such as knitting needles, large pins, forks, some spent fireworks, an apple covered in spikes, a frying pan tied to a string and a model of the Empire State building. But the strangest thing of all were all the unopened lipstick samples from a local cosmetics company that were found scattered next to the body.

An officer came up to him and gave him a white suit to put on. He climbed into it and zipped up the front. Next he put some examination gloves on and a face mask. He entered the tent where the body was still lying in situ covered with a bloodstained white sheet. His deputy of forensics a Miss Caroline Fischer came towards him and spoke through her mask.

"Thank you for coming out so late, Sir. I've got to warn you this is the most disturbing murder that I've ever come across. This man's head has been utterly crushed beyond recognition by a large 15kg bowling ball that seems to have been dropped from a height of several meters."

"Thank you Miss Fischer, we'll get to the bottom of this. Even gangland rivals don't do this kind of thing. I just wonder what he had done to deserve this? His clothing seems very old and worn and to be honest he looks like a monk of some sort. Put a call out to all the local monasteries and ask if they are missing anyone."

John Masters moved closer to the prone body on the floor and moved the white cloth from the area where there would have been a head, except that there wasn't one. Just a large bowling ball with its three holes staring up at him like some sick parody of a face. He quickly recovered the body and gave an involuntary shiver. Yes it was indeed a gruesome sight.

Whoever had done this murder was not human that was sure, dropping a large bowling ball on another person was just overkill. It was a well known fact that even a coin dropped from a tall building could become a fatal missile. But a bowling ball, his mind boggled at the thought. They meant to kill this man and he was going to find out why and bring them to justice.

He exited the tent and took off the white forensic suit and handed it to another police officer. He went over to a group of other senior officers and he learnt that the paramedics had found a ginger cat with a bleeding torn ear trapped under an overturned metal cage. They had left it there until someone from the animal shelter came to take it away. Maybe it had belonged to the victim?

It was midday by the time John Masters came away from Belvedere Castle. The forensics guys had gathered all the evidence, marked out the positions of every single foreign object found on that roof. Photographs were taken of all their relative positions to the victim's body and the later was removed by the Coroner to be taken to the central mortuary. Its was not as if they didn't know the cause of death but they still had to perform a post mortem as it was an unexplained homicide. The label on his toe tag and mortuary draw simply said ' The Monk'.

Back at the crime scene all that was left as a reminder of that gruesome night was the outline of a spread eagled body and a large crater in the concrete floor that was several shades darker. No amount of scrubbing would get rid of that mark.

John Masters was glad to get back to his bed that evening. But one thing kept puzzling him. How on earth did they manage to drop the bowling ball in the first place? It could not have been thrown and there was no other obvious way of doing the deed. The body was right in the middle of the roof for goodness sake!

The discovery several days later of a large bunch of deflated balloons and a toy helicopter caught in a tree five miles away gave the police the breakthrough they were looking for. The murderers had floated the bowling ball up into the air and had manoeuvred it using the helicopter which was more of an executive toy.

They could still not work out how the bowling ball would have been deployed as it seemed that the strings holding it had been cut.

A day later after the discovery of the balloons the mortuary reported that the morning shift had found a small bunch of flowers and a tiny note with three words scribbled on it.

'Sorry you missed!'

It was tied to the drawer containing the remains of 'The Monk' Many years after his retirement he still wondered what that man had done to make someone hate him so much. Whoever it was, they must have felt a tiny bit of guilt hence the flowers and the note. John Masters was just glad that he did not have powerful enemies that could do such a thing and never be brought to justice.

The crater on the roof of Belvedere Castle was filled in several times over the years but the stain kept creeping back up to the surface and caused the concrete to crumble.

The Monk was not going to rest in peace.