No, nothing. He pushed his way carefully out of the shrubbery and onto the path; no more than an overgrown dirt track, really. It seemed darker here, the pathway lined by tall trees seeming to reach up to the sky. Again he waited, listening, looking both ways, for any signs of life.
A rustle.
A clicking noise.
Slight movement in the undergrowth.
Nothing of note. A rabbit maybe, no more. He checked both ways, peering into the fading light. Stood for a moment and saw the dark shadow of a figure down to the left, standing there watching him. He swallowed. Raised his hand in greeting. But the shadow, the dark solid shape, did not respond in kind nor move. A moment longer. Spooked, and as his eyes adjusted to the light, he could see it for what it was. A bush, no more.
Moving now. Striding. As quickly as he could.
Halfway to the van.
But still looking. Listening.
This was the time he feared the most. He was, he knew, analytical before, able to suppress his urges as he assessed the park, the toilets, the possibilities. As he killed, in the midst of ecstasy and release, he had a fleeting sense of happiness. Afterwards, there was a feeling of sickness, the anticipation that, after everything, all that he had done, he might be seen and everything could unravel in seconds.
And then he was there.
At the van, tucked off the road and into the trees.
Close to safety again, just a few strides away.
He stood back, in the dark now, just watching the road, checking the passing traffic. A car going one way, too fast. Another, a minute, maybe two, later, going the other. Not so much, not at this time of the evening, on this back road to nowhere. He would be safe if he were quick.
He doubled back as fast as he could, walking not running, listening and watching.
Back through the shrubbery into the grassy place with the dead body wrapped in bags.
A fireman’s lift, dead weight across his shoulders, a struggle these days, but still just possible.
The man with the gloves walked steadily, step-by-step, along the path towards the van. This he thought, he knew, was his last kill. Too many close calls, more in recent times. The vicar at the home. So risky to go back. And now this weight on his back, his knees almost buckling, too heavy for him these days.
But he could see the van, not far in front of him, could make it there without having to stop, falling to his knees, the body lying beside him as he gathered his strength for one final lift and walk. Almost there, just a few more steps.
He stopped briefly, checking the road. All quiet. Could not wait longer, the body on his shoulders close to making his legs give way. He stumbled to the van, the bagged body sliding off his back to the ground as he fell forward onto his knees. Opened the doors, half dragging, half lifting the body up and onto the floor, rolling it in.
He stood up, pushing the doors closed, snatching at breath.
Looked back towards the woods.
A young fair-haired boy, maybe ten or eleven years old, was standing there, holding a lead attached to a Jack Russell dog.
The dog started barking.
PART THREE
THE HOUSE
13. WEDNESDAY 14 NOVEMBER, 6.27PM
The man with the latex gloves drove his van slowly along the main road into the forest. He kept his speed at a steady twenty-seven or twenty-eight miles per hour, had done since he had slammed the van doors shut back in the woods and set off for home.
Knew this drive would seem to take forever.
Breath held. Eyes on the rear-view mirror. Heart thumping.
Some thirty to thirty-five minutes stretching out endlessly.
This was a quiet road that twisted and turned its way through the forest. Cars were few and far between, racing up behind him as often as not, slowing to his pace and then accelerating fast as they turned a bend and saw a long, straight stretch ahead. He watched as the last one disappeared and the next one appeared in the rear-view mirror a few seconds later, still some way off. He checked the speedometer and slowed the van a touch back to twenty-seven miles per hour.
The boy and the dog had troubled him. He had jumped when he saw them, never imagining for a moment that anyone would be there. Looking. Watching him. Seeing everything. It had never happened before. He knew he had always been lucky. Realised his luck could not last forever. But he did not expect it to end like this. The boy with his big saucer eyes. The dog yapping and yelping. He did not know what to do, how to respond.
The car behind was close now, tucked in at the same speed, twenty-seven, twenty-eight miles an hour.
It annoyed him, the car, up so close against his van. He wished it would pass him by.
Leave him alone with his thoughts on his journey home.
His instinct, with the boy and the dog, was to ignore them, to carry on as if what he was doing were perfectly normal. The bagged body, if the boy had seen it, no more than a shot deer. A dead Bambi. As he had stood there thinking, looking at the boy, he finally moved, breaking the moment, towards his van door.
As he got to the door and looked back at the boy, still watching him, and the dog, now quieter but pawing at the ground, he thought he might say something, perhaps making a jokey reference to a dead deer. “Oh dear, a doe, a female deer.”
But he hesitated, not exactly sure if that were the best thing to do. Then he thought he might shoo the boy away, gesturing with his arms as if to say, ‘Go on, clear off, you bloody nuisance, you shouldn’t be here. Be off with you.’ But he hesitated again, struggling to form the right words, the correct tone.
The car was still behind him as he turned a bend and looked towards a straightish stretch of road.
So close that he could barely see its lights.
He slowed a little, down to twenty-six, twenty-five, twenty-four, to encourage the car behind to overtake and pull away.
When he had got into the van and sat down, he looked once more at the boy. He could not, in the fading light, quite make out the expression on the boy’s face, but he was still there, looking back, taking it all in. He sat there for a moment longer, looking out through the windscreen, staring the boy down so that he would turn away, tugging at the dog’s lead, to disappear back into the woods, forgetting about the man and the van and what was in the black bin bags.
But the boy did not move, and the dog settled down, sitting there, waiting for the boy’s instructions. The man moved his left hand and turned on the van’s lights, adjusting the dipped beams to headlights shining in the boy’s face. The boy looked startled, scared even, raising his hands to his face to shield his eyes. The dog moved back, at first frightened and then growling again. Still the boy stood there, as if defiant, refusing to move.
The car was behind him, so precise, adjusting its speed as he moved faster and then slower to shake it off.
He knew that whoever was in the car was playing with him, trying to scare him. Teenage boys going on a night out. Having fun at his expense.
He pushed the car up to thirty, thirty-two and then thirty-five. The car behind came with him, almost nudging his bumper now.
It was at this point, with the boy standing there and the dog growling and pulling at its lead, that he had decided what to do. He would grab the boy and the dog, put them in the van and take them away. He thought about this and decided it was the best course of action. He would not harm the boy or the dog. He would lock them up for the night. That would teach the boy a lesson. A short, sharp shock. To teach him to behave himself. To keep quiet.
But the more he had thought about this, the more it bothered him. The boy’s family might call the police when he didn’t return home from walking the dog. The idea of bringing the boy back to the place in the woods a day or two later and then leaving him here troubled him more. The boy would be questioned, for sure, and he might well remember all sorts of incriminating things.
So, although it sickened him and broke every principle he had ever held dear, he decided he would have to ki
ll them both and bury the corpses. A terrible choice, but there was nothing else to be done. It was not what he wanted. But he could not risk exposure. It would be the end of everything. He had to do it.
He looked ahead, knowing that his turning was coming up, when he’d move off the main road and into a side lane.
By row upon row upon row of Christmas trees.
He checked his wing mirrors again. The car was still there. He kept watching even as the road twisted and turned. A glimpse of light from the moon, between the trees, and he suddenly saw that it was a police car.
* * *
The man with the gloves knew this moment had been coming for a long time now. Had known, one way or the other, for almost half his lifetime. He had thought, on and off, how it might all end. Being overpowered by someone stronger than him, most likely. Or spotted with somebody who was later reported missing. His van seen, the registration noted down carefully. Two and two put together. The knock on the front door late one night.
And he had thought about what he would do when it did. He’d rush out of the kitchen through the living room to the back door by the vegetable garden to get away. But he knew there would be other police out there, maybe armed, just waiting, in hiding for him.
There were other possible endings. He would fight back if he were overpowered and held down by his planned victim as they called the police on their mobile phone. He’d struggle endlessly for the chance to escape. He’d never give up.
But, of all the various permutations, he had never imagined it would end this way. A police patrol car on his tail, playing with him, toying, as they closed in on his van.
He looked again at the wing mirror, saw the police car was still there, so close to him now that if he braked, it would be sure to crash into his van.
Did not know what to do. A sense of helplessness.
He could accelerate away, racing for his life. But they would most likely keep pace, forcing him off the road. An unseemly scramble as he tried, unsuccessfully, to get out of the van and run. Even if he got away, where would he go? They had his registration number, knew who he was, where he lived.
Brake sharply then. The police driver and passenger, taken by surprise, shaken by the crash. Dazed and bewildered, he could take his chances with them, armed with his screwdriver and Stanley knife. Up and out of his van fast, to the police car, tugging open doors, slashing and stabbing them. It was quiet here, on this road. No one around. Nobody to see. No one to interrupt him. If he were quick, could brace himself for the crash, have the element of surprise on his side, he could just about manage it.
Then what? These days, they’d probably have some sort of recording device, a dash-cam they call it, that would film the van, the crash and his fast approach towards the police car armed with the screwdriver and the Stanley knife. He could take it out and smash it into a million pieces. But maybe the recordings were held somewhere else, perhaps they went straight back to the police’s main computer. He did not know. He did not really understand such things. He did not have a computer. Nor a mobile phone. Nothing like that.
His was an old-fashioned life of BBC TV and newspapers, cash and cheque books.
He knew it.
He liked it that way. He did not like the modern world.
The van approached the turning to the lane. A little way along now on the left. And then by the Christmas trees. Or straight on this road, through the forest towards the coast. The police car playing with him, cat and mouse, ready to pounce.
He did not know what to do. Felt paralysed. His mind and body failing him when he needed them most.
All he could think about at this moment was how dry his mouth was and that he did not seem to be able to swallow. And he realised how tight he was gripping the wheel. So inconsequential, such nonsense, when everything was about to end for him.
And then the police car pulled out from behind his van. He kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead, ignoring the sweat pouring down the side of his face, as the car pulled alongside him. A brief second, and he could sense the police car passenger’s eyes upon him. He held his breath, five ten, fifteen seconds and more. And then the police car accelerated and moved away, up to forty, fifty and sixty miles per hour, disappearing into the distance.
He turned the van left, on to the side lane, heading towards the Christmas trees.
Breathed out, long and endless, realising suddenly that he had not been breathing properly since he had first seen the police car in the moonlight.
Knew how close a call this had been, the police stopping the van, opening the back doors, seeing the old man’s body wrapped in bin blacks. “What’s this here then?” signalling the end.
He had not killed the boy or the dog. Was suddenly glad of it. Knew in his heart he could not have done it. He was neither proud nor ashamed of killing the old man, nor any of the other middle-aged men over the years. It was just what he did. He saw it as a culling. Of men who led respectable lives by day and sordid ones at night. And of monsters, like Father. They did not deserve to live. Such monsters. Their families were better off without them.
But he had never killed – culled – anyone else. He had never laid a finger on a woman, young or old. Had always respected them. He had learned much about women from Mother. Their ways. But he had never been with one, physically, at least not for a long time. And even then, not much more than teenage fumblings. He had got as far as the girl’s breasts, but they had reminded him of cow udders dripping with milk from when he had worked with farm animals years ago. He had recoiled and gone no further with her, pulling her blouse to cover her breasts and apologising for being so forward. She had laughed, sourly, at him.
He did, at times over the years, think that he would have liked to have been a father. Would have been a good one for sure. He would have raised them well, a boy and a girl, the boy older, the girl younger, perhaps two years between them. He could see them clearly in his head. He would have been a firm but caring father, a proper one. Strong but loving. But for that he would have need a wife and he did not think he could be with a woman with her wants and needs.
The idea – of being a father, with children, perhaps even a young grandfather these days – troubled him. He did not like to think about being a father and having children, Robert and Susan he would have called them, because it made him feel sad. There were occasions when he would cry about it, knowing somehow that something in his life was missing.
He did not like men, not like that anyway. Not in any way, really. He had never made friends easily. There was a boy at school whom he had liked, and they had played together for a while in the playground. But the boy, Andrew, had said that, when they were wrestling, he had been too rough and had hurt him and so he did not play with him again. It did not matter, not really. He had never felt the need for friends. Could not see the point of them.
He looked across as he passed the old familiar rows of Christmas trees. Almost home now.
Two, three more minutes and he swung the car to the left again and pulled over onto a long driveway of gravel and churned-over mud.
He looked towards the trees and saw a man standing there with an axe. Waiting. The man with the axe walked quickly towards him.
* * *
The man with the latex gloves climbed out of the van and moved to the doors at the back. He trod heavily through the gravelly mud.
He looked across at the man with the axe and nodded at him.
The man with the axe gazed back with a child-like expression of hope on his face. A child on Christmas Eve. “Did you get one? Did you get one,” he asked excitedly.
“Yes.”
“Like Father?”
“Yes.”
“A bad man?”
“Yes, very bad.”
The man with the axe rested it on the ground next to him, thought slowly for a moment and then carried on with his questions.
“Did he hurt children?”
“Yes.”
“Did he touch them in the
ir private places?”
“Yes.”
“Did he hit them?”
The man with the axe touched the side of his head as he stared vacantly at the man with the gloves.
Brothers.
“One smart, one simple,” as Father used to say.
Before he started his beatings. And more.
“Help me unlock the doors, get the bad man out of the van.” The man with the gloves gestured the man with the axe forward.
“Can I see his face?”
“Not yet, help me to get him to the cesspit and you can have a look before we tip him in.”
“Promise?”
Between them, they opened the van’s doors and the man with the gloves reached in towards the bagged-up body. He dragged it out by its feet, the head and shoulders bumping along the van’s floor, over the edge and hitting the ground before the man with the axe could catch hold.
“Sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter, leave the axe there and pick up that end, share the load.”
“Yes I will.”
Together they lifted the body, struggling with its awkward bulk and then, once they had got to grips with it, to get into an easier stride. The man with the axe was clumsy and they had to stop once, twice, three times.
“Tell me what happened.”
“Not now,” the man with the gloves puffed. “Later, when we’ve tipped him in.”
“Was he hurting a little boy or a little girl?”
“Both, he was hurting both,” the man with the gloves replied. “He was like Father. He hit them and hurt them, and he made them do things they did not want to do.”
The man with the axe stopped and looked across with tears in his eyes. “I hate him,” he said. “I hate him. I hate him.”
They carried on, walking slowly. Dark now, all they could see was a light from the farmhouse ahead of them. Follow that, and they would stay in a straight line. And come out near the outbuilding with the cesspit.
The man with the axe looked again at his brother. “Tell me what happened. Tell me.”
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