The Liver Killer

It had been ten years since Sophie Langdon’s parents were murdered. The culprit was left unknown and at large. He was known as the Liver Killer, for his trademark cutting out of the liver of all his victims. Middle-class families in London were the target and there had been at least twelve victims.

There was nothing that she could do except sweep the rosewood floors of her master's manor in silence. She relied on the police to catch the man responsible, something that looked bleak with the little amount of evidence they had.

‘Cut that out, Sophie. I told you about making noise when I am writing. Scratch, scratch, scratch. All I can hear from your relentless sweeping.’

‘Sorry Master Edgerton.’ She said, quietly as she moved away from his office.

He was a difficult man to work for, but he took her in when she had no one. When she was just an orphan girl with no living relatives. It was better to be sweeping his manor than out on the streets or ripping her fingers raw in the workhouses. Even if he could be a little handsy after too much sherry.

Sophie headed downstairs. The further away she was from Master Edgerton, the less likely she was to incur his wrath. She needed to wash the marble hearth of the fireplace. Master liked to read in the evenings by the lit fire and heaven forbid there be any mess.

She swept and washed the hearth ensuring all dust and ash was gone from sight. As she swept, she noticed a brick loose on the wall above the hearth. She pulled at the brick until it came loose.

A thin, black device was inside the wall. Sophie pulled it out and it immediately flashed with a photograph of a happy, German Shepherd dog. Bizarrely, the photograph was in colour.

As she lifted the device towards her, it flashed with ten white circles with numbers written on them. Above the numbers, it was written ‘Touch ID or Enter Passcode’. Sophie hovered her fingers over the circles and touched them on the brick. As her finger grazed the numbers, they were activated by her touch and one of the six small dots at the top of the screen lit up.

‘Perhaps this is a puzzle of some sort.’ She thought out loud.

She pressed the numbers trying to guess the secret code. After six numbers were pressed, the device vibrated, and the puzzle reset. She had guessed wrong. Sophie pondered what the six-digit code could be.

She looked back into the hole in the wall and found a strip of paper with the numbers 13 02 88. That was the date that her parents were murdered and six numbers long. She tapped that date into the puzzle, and it changed. Small squares with images on them took up the screen – one was a calendar which when clicked said the date was 8^th February 2024. Another gave the weather as sunny which was the rain outside begged to differ.

As Sophie played with the strange device, a large rectangle popped up on the screen. She clicked on it to reveal a message.

‘Do not be alarmed. I am a relative from the future and I send this device to you to provide evidence of your parent’s and my great grandparent’s murders. The identity of the Liver Killer has only recently been uncovered due to improvements in forensic science. Please click on the icon on the main menu named files. If you look through the files, then it will reveal the culprit. Use this evidence to incriminate the man and send him to jail where he belongs.’

Sophie was far from the kind of woman to believe in superstitious nonsense such as time travel and magic. Yet in the palm of her hand was a machine that she could not explain, that was far beyond anything the scientists of her time had created.

If she could find the man who had killed her parents and destroyed her life, she would do anything no matter how far-fetched.

She pressed on the word ‘back’ and it took her back to the original screen. As her mystery messenger had said, there was an icon labelled ‘files’. She clicked on the icon, and it took her to a white screen with a thin grey box at the bottom. She frantically pressed on the device trying to activate it to find her parent’s killer. As her finger grazed over the grey box at the top of the screen, it activated another puzzle.

The grey box now said, ‘Search files’. The messenger had told her to search for the Liver Killer, so she pressed the letters to spell this on the screen.

As she pressed enter, the white page filled with words.

‘Identity of Liver Killer Finally Found Through Fingerprint Evidence’

‘Liver Killer Caught too Late’

‘Grave of infamous Liver Killer Defiled by Vandals’

She pressed her finger over one of the sentences, hoping for more information.

As she pressed, the screen turned white before revealing a new set of words. The screen had ‘BBC News’ written in large letter, at the top of the screen. The screen was written in a similar way to the newspapers that her master would read on a morning with a cup of Earl Grey.

As Sophie moved her finger down the screen, she saw two photographs of the supposed Liver Killer.

His stern brow, scraggly beard and bushy brow were unmistakable. It was the same photograph displayed in the newspapers to highlight his best-selling novels. Alfred Edgerton was looking straight into her soul above the words ‘Liver Killer’.

‘World-renowned author and respected literary figure by day, and twisted sociopath by night. Alfred Edgerton led a double life unknown to his numerous fans. Unfortunately for his victims and their family, he was never caught.’

Sophie stared at the machine taking in the words in front of her.

Master Edgerton was a stern man, but he took her in after her parent’s deaths. It couldn’t be him.

Sophie thought about his long weekends away. The women he had over who seemed to enter his manor but never leave. The blood stains on his clothing that he couldn’t explain. His penchant for liver and onions.

The Liver Killer had been under her nose the entire time. She had been feeding him supper, ironing his suits and fluffing his pillows. Rage engulfed Sophie and she could not think rationally. She needed to confront her parent’s killer.

She marched into his study. She no longer cared about making a sound.

‘Christ, girl. I told you to keep the noise down.’ Alfred screamed.

‘It was you. You killed them.’

He stared at her in shock.

‘What in the bloody hells are you talking about?’

‘You’re the Liver Killer, you killed my parents and ate their livers.’

‘Have you been sampling my absinthe? Dear girl, I think you need to have a lie-down, you are talking absolute nonsense.’

‘I have evidence. I’ll go to the police.’

His face scanned her, taking in her seriousness.

‘This is preposterous. Please don’t make me restrain you.’

Sophie lunged towards him with a sharp knife she had taken from the kitchen. Alfred darted out of the way. As she fell forward, he hit her head with a blunt object causing her to fall onto the wooden floor.

­(#)

Sophie started to come to as her vision cleared. She was still lying on the wooden floor with her hands restrained. Visions of men standing over her sleeping body started to clear.

‘She just attacked me out of nowhere. She’s been through a lot after her parent’s deaths. Obsessed with the Liver Killer. I never expected her to turn violent.’

‘Perhaps it would be best if she was put away. The mental institution is better than it used to be, she’ll have a bed and food.’

‘I just wanted to do right by her parents, give her a home and job. I didn’t even think about how she might be coping mentally.’

‘You’ve done the right thing by calling us, Alfred. Women can’t handle trauma like us men can, they always go a bit loopy. ’

Sophie sat up and looked at the police officers surrounding her.  

‘Ah the crazy lady rise from her sleep. George, grab her. We’ll have to take her to the station for questioning first, but the looney bin will be where she spends the night.’

‘No, please I have evidence that he is the Liver Killer. Just listen’

‘Sophie, lets not make this more difficult than it needs to be. You’re being hysterical.’

‘Please just let me show you. If you don’t think it’s enough then by all means take me, but I need to show you this before I go with you.’

Alfred looked panicked. He had no idea what evidence she could possess.

‘I don’t see why we should bother with this.’ He said. ‘Just take her away.’

The officer named George released her from his grip.

‘Go on then, you have two seconds to show us your evidence before we go. Get cracking.’

He smirked at the other guards. They didn’t take her seriously, they had already decided that she was as mad as a hatter.

Sophie quickly reached into her pockets, and as she fumbled, she felt a sigh of relief as she found the thin black machine.

‘Here’ She said.

‘What in the bloody hell is that?’

‘A device from the future. It shows that Alfred is the Liver Killer.’

The men all laughed.

‘A device from the future. She’s even worse than we thought.’

‘No look, see here.’ She pressed onto the screen desperately trying to show them the article or even the calendar showing that the date of the device was in the future. Despite how many times she pressed, nothing changed on the black machine.

‘No, it should work, just wait.’

She pressed down on all the buttons around the machine hoping to bring it back to life. The screen flashed, she had made it work again.

A white rectangle with a slim red bar and a lightning bolt flashed onto the screen.

Sophie kept pressing the button but nothing more was shown.

‘Look see, it’s a machine from the future. I just can’t get it to work like before.’

The police officer took the machine from Sophie and examined it.

‘While this machine is queer, I don’t see how it shows Alfred is the Liver Killer.’

‘It does! It does! I just need to get it working again.’

The police officers burst into hysterics.

‘I’m sorry love, we’ll take you somewhere nice and safe where the Liver Killer can’t get you. Come on poppet.’

‘Have a nice day, Alfred.’ George said, as they grabbed Sophie by her arms and dragged her out of her Master’s office.

‘Don’t treat her too roughly, poor girl.’ He said, smiling as his office door closed.

(#)

For his evening meal, Alfred Tennyson had no maid to cook for him. He’d had to make it by himself. He sat at his dining room table and tucked into his favourite meal – liver and onions with a glass of sherry.

‘At least I will finally be able to get some peace and quiet.’