She turned, hesitated, waiting for Gayther to move away from the woman, too. He did not. Instead he took a notebook and pen from his pocket and wrote in it before tearing out the sheet of paper.
“The Scribbler … you remember The Scribbler, don’t you, Angela … He killed again on the first of October and possibly last night. We’re investigating. He’ll kill again. We need to speak to Simon.”
He turned to his side and placed the sheet of paper on the draining board.
“We’re going to leave now, as you’ve asked us to do, but I’m putting this here, with my name and number on it. We can come back and, as you’re obstructing our line of enquiry, we can take you in for questioning … and forensics can come in here and search the place inch by inch from top to bottom. Turn it all over. Floorboards and all. See what they can find. I think that would be interesting. But I don’t think you’d want that, would you?”
He turned away, as if to leave, but then stopped and said, almost as an afterthought, over his shoulder.
“Or you can just text me an address for Simon – that’s my personal number – and we’ll leave you in peace.”
Carrie walked out of the kitchen into the living room and through to the front door.
She thought Gayther was there as well, a step or two behind her.
Stopped and turned back as she heard a groaning noise from the woman.
“I don’t know anything,” the old woman said forcefully. “I don’t know where he is. He left the best part of two years ago and I’ve not heard a thing from him since.”
Gayther turned back to speak to her.
“Years ago, Angela, you said, you told us he was The Scribbler, then you changed your mind when you fell pregnant.” He paused. “Is he The Scribbler?”
Carrie looked at the old woman, who seemed to be torn by terrible indecision, not sure what to say next.
“Your child, Angela?” Gayther asked. “What did you have, a boy or a girl? They’d be, what, thirty-something now?”
Carrie kept watching the old woman, seeing her face change from uncertainty and doubt – on the edge of revealing the truth – into anger and fury.
“If you’re not out of this house in ten seconds, I am going to call the police. 999. Get out now!”
Gayther hesitated, watching the old woman move across and take the landline phone from its wall bracket.
She looked back at him as she put her finger on the 9, ready to press it for the first of three times.
Gayther nodded at her and turned to leave, saying “Come on” to Carrie as he passed her. Carrie followed him out, but couldn’t help noticing the old woman smiling grimly as she put the phone back on the wall.
“Guv, shouldn’t we have taken the shotgun off her?”
Gayther waved her away. “More important things to worry about than that, Carrie. We’re chasing a serial killer. Remember?”
Carrie shook her head and bit her lip as they walked to the car.
“Okay, so what do you reckon, guv? About Simon Burgess?” Carrie asked, as she opened the car door and climbed in next to Gayther.
He blew out a breath loudly as he started the car and began to reverse it. “Mark my words, Carrie. It’ll be him.”
“Oh yes?” she asked, putting on her seat belt.
“I’ve been a copper for thirty years and after a while you get an instinct for these things. There’s something about it that tells me it’s him. Simon Alan Burgess … wherever you are, we’re coming to get you.”
Carrie turned away and pulled a face.
12. WEDNESDAY 14 NOVEMBER, 4.43PM
The man, wearing latex gloves, stood at a urinal in the public toilets in a park in Ipswich as dusk was falling.
He had been there, like this, as if he were urinating, for the best part of five minutes, maybe closer to ten.
He was listening to two other men who had gone into a cubicle at the far end of the toilets.
He knew what they were doing. Had sat on a bench nearby, an old War of the Worlds paperback in hand, as if watching the world go by, for close to two hours before he saw them go in.
One man, the one he wanted, mid-fifties, grey and balding, in a dark, ill-fitting suit, went in first. Casting furtive looks around as he did so.
The other, younger, mid-thirties, rougher, maybe a labourer, followed a minute or two later, walking, almost striding in, with more confidence. Only the last-moment, tell-tale look back gave away his intentions.
Now he was just waiting for the moment he hoped would come. He kept his hands in his jacket pockets. Could feel the Phillips screwdriver in one pocket, the Stanley knife in the other.
He wondered, as he often did at such times, exactly what he would say if he were stopped by a policeman, asked what he was doing sitting on that park bench for so long, told to turn out his pockets. Why, the police officer would ask, do you have these tools in your jacket pockets? They could be used as dangerous weapons. And why do you have refuse sacks and tape in your trouser pockets?
Why?
Why?
Why?
He still, after all these years, did not really know what he would say to that. What explanation he could give. He knew he shouldn’t carry both, could possibly explain away one, or the other, but not the two of them. Nor the bags and tape. But, in a way, the thought excited him. It added a frisson to what he was doing. And he needed both for what he was going to do.
He could hear movements in one of the cubicles. Back and forth, the sense of some sort of rhythm.
But no words were spoken at all. It was all done in silence.
And then he heard a sudden cry, muffled quickly, and the low voice of one of them hushing the other.
He had thought today that he could have tucked them, the screwdriver and the knife, inside his long winter socks, one left, one right, but he was not sure if he could reach them quickly, especially the screwdriver, if he had to. And if he had to run, to chase, or even be chased, as had happened once or twice over the years, he thought that they might fall out and he might stumble and fall to the ground. And then, one way or the other, he would be done for.
He liked the feel of them, too, as he stood there ready for the moment. The weight of them. The cold strong length of the screwdriver and the thought that he would later, when the time was right, plunge it in again and again. The sharpness of the blade that he would touch occasionally with his thumb through latex glove, imagining it cutting and shaping ageing flesh into some form of likeness.
He heard a low mumble of words from within the cubicle. “It’s on the wall,” one said.
Then another voice, low, harder-to-hear, “You go, I’ll wait five minutes.”
He turned to face the urinal and removed his hands from his pockets, as if now holding himself while urinating.
He heard the cubicle door being opened, another mumble of words he did not catch, and dipped his head as if he were concentrating. He did not want the man who was now leaving to see his face, to even notice he was there.
Good, he was in luck. The first time in such a long time. He could see, out of the corner of his eye, the younger man, the workman, fiddling with his trouser zip as he walked behind him. Quick, brisk, keen to be on his way, to distance himself from what had just taken place. The man’s departure thrilled him. It gave him a chance.
It was just a matter of waiting now, for the older man. Tired and flabby, he would, if he showed interest, be easy. Would put up less of a struggle. This old man would do very nicely. Yes, indeed. He would rely on the element of surprise. He just had to decide whether to stand and wait for him to come out of the cubicle or to tap on the door, nudge it gently open and stand there with a smile.
He was not sure if the older man would wait the full five minutes. Maybe not. There was always the chance he might rush by suddenly and be gone, out of the toilets and into the park and away. Or that someone may come in, perhaps young boys, playing with skateboards, and the moment would be lost. Or a policeman. He had al
ways feared the hand on the shoulder. Knew it would come one day. His luck finally breaking after so many years.
He heard the older man, still in the cubicle, coughing now, a smoker’s cough, full of mucus and phlegm. He snorted loudly and spat.
Then a strong and steady flow of urine splashing into the bowl. The flushing of the toilet a moment later.
The cubicle door opened and the old man stepped out.
He zipped himself up carefully and then turned to face the old man. He was older than he first thought now they were face-to-face. Maybe in his sixties. He had had one like this eighteen months ago in Hertfordshire. A brief flurry of news and then, like all the rest, the story faded away.
He checked his pockets, taking pleasure again from the feel of the tools in his hands.
Smiled at the old man.
Stood there hoping he would meet his eye and smile back.
* * *
It was these glorious thirty to forty seconds of delicious anticipation.
Before he plunged the screwdriver into his unsuspecting victim.
That the man with the latex gloves liked the most.
This one, the old man picked up from a public toilet in Ipswich, had been the easiest for ages. Maybe ever. He had returned his smile and made eye contact. A movement of the head to suggest going back into the toilet cubicle. A shake of the head and a mention of somewhere nicer plus a promise to bring him back here later was all that was needed. Then they were walking through the park and out to the anonymous small dark van parked in a shady, tree-lined side street.
Stilted conversation. The exchange of first names, both false.
A short journey. No more than four or five miles.
Down a maze of country lanes into thick woods, where he pulled in and parked among trees. Hidden away.
“It’s nice here.” The older man looked across at the trees and nodded agreement. He had a thin sheen of sweat on his face and upper lip. Inexperienced, thought the man with the gloves. Can’t believe his luck. Two in one day. And him so old and flaccid, a washed-up nobody in his cheap, department store suit. Hanging around filthy public toilets.
“This way,” said the man with the gloves, getting out of the car and walking into the woods. “The van’s fine here, no one will ever notice it.”
He turned and smiled at the older man climbing slowly, reluctantly now, out of the van. “I don’t normally do this kind of …” he tailed off.
“I’ve been here before; I know a little place. It’s nice. Private. Just the two of us. It’s a minute’s walk, no more.”
And so they walked together, one confident, the other less so, through the trees into the deepest part of the wood. The man in front turned on to a little path to the left, led the older man along and then stepped to the side and into a thicket of shrubs. He held the swathe of shrubs back as they moved on to a patch of grass, no bigger than a blanket, surrounded and protected from view by six-foot shrubbery.
“Do you c … come here often?” the older man asked, trying to sound relaxed and jovial, although the brief stutter gave him away. “This is new to me, this is.”
The man with the gloves shook his head.
“Once or twice, that’s all. It’s good here. Safe. The van’s hidden away from the road and I’ve never seen anyone in this part of the woods.”
The man with the gloves sat down on the ground. He beckoned the older man to sit next to him. After a moment’s pause, he did so and, side-by-side, they made more small talk, the weather, cold and crisp, and the patch of grass, quite lush and green considering, for a few minutes. Then, as a second or two of silence between them moved towards uncertainty and second thoughts, the man with the gloves gestured to the older man to undress. He hesitated, not sure what to do.
“What do you want …?”
The man with the gloves smiled, “Just take your jacket off and lie it on the ground. Then loosen your trousers and lie down on top of it … on your front. Leave the rest to me.”
“I don’t want to get anything on my jacket … any stuff.”
The man with the gloves smiled again, helping the older man off with his jacket and lying it on its front on the grass. The older man crouched carefully on his knees. “My … wife will want to know why I’ve got muddy …” The man with the gloves, controlling his excitement, hushed him down as the older man undid the top button of his trousers and then lay forward. “Gloves,” the older man said as he did so. “Why do you wear gloves … do you have dermatitis?”
“Ssshhh,” the man with the gloves said as he crouched down and put his hands on the older man’s trousers. “Lift yourself up a little. Wriggle.”
The older man did as he was asked as his trousers and his underwear were pulled slowly down exposing his buttocks.
“Bring your knees up nice and slowly,” added the man with the gloves, smiling to himself as the older man did so.
Perfect, he thought as he took a Stanley knife out of one pocket of his fleece and then, relishing every moment, the screwdriver from the other.
He knew, from so many times in the past, that he had about thirty to forty seconds of crouching here, anticipating, enjoying the moment, relishing it. before the old man turned his head with a ‘what are you doing?’ look on his face.
And he leaned forward and pushed a cloth from his trouser pocket into the older man’s mouth at the exact moment that he struck the first savage blow.
* * *
The man with the latex gloves had taken many lives.
This was the thirtieth, something of a milestone.
So many that he knew by now how each would unfold.
The first stabbing, the second, even the third, fourth and fifth, were carried out on the brink of ecstasy. The element of surprise and the fury of attack close to taking the life of the old man. Pinned down by the man with the gloves, he had made a series of squeals and gasping noises with each stabbing blow. Further blows, this time to the middle of the man’s back, six, seven, eight, nine, ten and more seemed to extinguish the life from him. As they always did.
Rolled over, the man with the gloves listened to the old man’s breathing.
It seemed still, gone, the man was all but dead.
But the man with the gloves pushed the screwdriver into the man’s chest several more times. To be sure. Probing, searching for the heart, pressing hard time and again. To be certain.
The man with the gloves then looked at the old man’s face. He needed to see what he looked like, this ‘Edward’, even though he knew that would not be his real name. Reaching out, he lifted up the man’s lolling head, tipped it forward to see, really see, how he looked.
Dyed hair, a clumsy ginger, eyes staring and bloodshot, cheeks sunken, he had a hooked nose and protruding ears. The man with the gloves let the head fall back with a thud. He reached for his Stanley knife on the ground next to the body.
Ripped open the old man’s shirt.
Wiped at the skin with his arm, scratched the man’s likeness, all exaggerated nose and ears, into the fleshy part of his stomach.
Sat back, satisfied.
After a minute, perhaps two, he suddenly began scratching angrily at the caricature, over and over, until he fell back exhausted, now spent.
It was this time, after he had finished.
That the man with the gloves loathed so much.
A slowly growing, sickening fear of getting caught.
He knew, as the darkness fell, that he had to be business-like, professional – and keep busy. Not dwell on it. There were times in the past, early on, where he had meticulously gone through pockets, wallets, even bags, to find out more about the other man. His name. His age. Where he lived. What he did. To confirm he was like Father.
Leading a double life.
Public respectability.
Private horror.
But he had learned not to do it any more, just to imagine the man’s secret life in his mind. He had, as one man took his final breaths, once come across a t
iny card, written in a small child’s hand, tucked inside his wallet. ‘I love you’ in a mix of large and little, skewed and straight, felt-tipped letters.
He knew he had to see these men for what they were.
Lying to their wives. Cheating. Shaming their children.
And maybe more, like Father, maybe much more. Monsters.
He started by picking up a button from the man’s shirt that was on the ground and a comb that had fallen from his pocket. He tucked these into the old man’s bloodied jacket and then struggled to put the jacket back on him, cursing quietly until he had managed it.
He then took folded-up, heavy-duty black bags from one trouser pocket and a small roll of black tape from the other. Pulled one bag over the torso of the body. The other bag, a harder struggle with bent and uncooperative legs, from the feet to the man’s waist.
Taped the bags together, then round and round and round with the black tape until it was all used up. An imperfect shroud, with the fingers from one hand stretching the plastic close to splitting, but sufficient for his needs.
He ignored his own dark fleece, spattered with the man’s blood, for the time being. He’d burn that, with everything else, later.
The blood on the grass seemed to have soaked through and into the dirt. Nothing else there on the ground around him.
In the failing light, he knew he just had to wait until darkness to go to the van. Check the path was clear. That there was nobody about. Then back to collect the body, up and over his shoulder, and return to the van.
And home. To the cesspit in the old outhouse building.
Tipped in with all of the others. Left to rot and decompose.
And then the burning of the clothes. And the endless washing.
* * *
The man with the latex gloves stood up on the blanket-sized piece of grass and listened long and hard. His ears strained for the sounds of people walking, talking, moving about.
He could hear the wind in the trees close by and the cars on the main road not so very far away.
But nothing closer. No old men and their dogs. Couples in the bushes. Hikers striding out along the path.
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