by David Evans
Sebastian had taken the soft option and joined the multitude of visitors to the Dead Sea, where he first observed Melissa.
What attracted Sebastian was her demeanor. While not that tall and with a lithe, slim body, she seemed to take up all the space around her as the long mane of black hair swirled from side to side as she alerted everyone in line of sight to her presence. She showered beside the walkway down to the Dead Sea, swatting away the numerous flies from her skimpily covered body, which had the eyes of every heterosexual male between the ages of ten and ninety fixated.
When Melissa immersed herself in the Dead Sea, she jumped up and yelped a little as the salt initially stung her openings. The second wave of pain was caused by the areas she had shaved prior to departing the ship that morning. She settled down and soon followed the others in the dense salty water, trying to float. They were not floating in the Dead Sea, but on top of the sea, as it is virtually impossible to submerge oneself in the saltiest sea in the world. Her hair turned white, as did her slim body as it was covered and baked in the salt.
Looking down at her from the hill overlooking the spot was a stone structure, supposedly the remains of Lot’s wife, as this was the setting of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot’s wife died because she looked back to the forsaken city. Melissa would be killed for just being there, and not by God, but by ice-cold Sebastian.
Sebastian was not one to strip off and get in the water. He did not want everyone to know his hair-pulling habit, and had he stripped, the scarring over his body would have been a clear indicator that something was not right with the pianist. The scar tissue was still there after many years of abuse, tender to the touch, and Sebastian would be in agony in the water.
Sebastian watched Melissa from the comfort of the air-conditioned balcony of a bistro while sipping on a lime and soda and chewing on the cashews the hotel provided for free.
He shielded his eyes from the intense glare of the sun behind his mirrored Ray-Ban sunglasses, watching Melissa intently as his excitement began to grow.
Melissa would be an important kill, Sebastian realized as he sat on the balcony. It was the stalking of his prey; the hunting and planning were becoming an important and exciting part of the experience. Plus, her hair spread over her body from her head to her waist in the saline sea, the strands magnificent even coated in the salt.
Sebastian was patient; he followed Melissa and her husband back on to the Bonny Prince Charlie. He saw the security officer insert her cabin card key into the computer, to check her identity and allow her back on-board the ship. The database was updated as soon as a card was swiped, and this would show who was on board, who had returned, and who had not.
“Welcome back, Mrs Rodrigues,” Sebastian heard the security guard say. He now had a name, and thanks to his access to all areas on the ship, in an hour he had the cabin number.
Sebastian waited five more days before he attacked her in her cabin. Mr Rodrigues was a man of habit; each morning after breakfast, at 8 am, he would swim ten lengths of the short pool, and then sit in the warmth of the Jacuzzi. He was several decks above her when she died.
As with all his kills, Sebastian had planned it down to the last detail. First, he gained entry purporting to be room service; borrowing the black pants and white top room service wore.
Melissa did wonder why room service would bring a laundry trolley into her cabin. Before she could raise the question, he immobilized her by forcing the heel of his hand quickly and violently to her forehead. Melissa dropped like a rock He pulled her to the shower and within fifteen minutes she was plucked clean. The pain had awoken her from the concussion only for Sebastian to kill her with a fist to the throat. It was quick; too fast for him to reach the elated state he yearned for, but he could not afford to take longer.
The inside cabin was on a lower deck and to the rear of the passageway. He placed her inside the laundry trolley, placing the sheet from their bed on top of her. Sebastian exited the cabin with the trolley across the passageway and into the service area. This area was restricted to staff. Sebastian knew at this time of the morning they would all be in the lower deck canteen, enjoying breakfast before the start of another long day.
Once inside the restricted area, he placed the trolley into the service elevator. Sebastian was on his way to the waste disposal area on the bottom deck of the ship. He had discovered that all ships have garbage dumping zones, and they were nearly always in the lowermost deck of the vessel. This was his favourite, and well-used means of disposal for cadavers.
Problems began to emerge for Sebastian as the elevator slammed to a halt between decks. Sebastian was aware of the dangers this created and wondered at the lack of fear he felt.
Did this mean he wanted to be caught? Or was he just fearless? He thought he would soon find out. It was a half-hour before the elevator began to move to the lower deck. When the door opened, Sebastian was met by a young Romanian engineer, Alexandros Blaga.
“Fuse had blown; hope you weren’t too worried in there,” the engineer said.
Sebastian moved away with the trolley, shaking his head no.
“Hang on, you’re the pianist! I watched you play last night. They let us grease monkeys up there now and again. Are you doubling up as a cabin boy now, or have you got a little smuggling project on the go?” the engineer said as he walked toward Sebastian.
“You got me,” Sebastian replied.
“Well, let’s see what you have in the laundry trolley; that will decide the levy,” said the now eager engineer.
The engineer was of medium height but was solid, obviously through either training or steroid abuse. He would be capable of putting up a good fight if required. But slogging it out fist to fist, body to body, was not Sebastian’s way. As the engineer’s eyes opened in shock when Sebastian pulled back the covering, he turned automatically towards Sebastian. That was the final act of his life; not that he died there immediately. It took time for his brain to bleed out.
Sebastian used a ‘phoenix eye punch’, or feng an choi, as it is known in its country of origin. Sebastian had instantly and sequentially closed his fingers into a fist, with the little finger on up to the middle finger, and then folding his forefinger back upon the support of the thumb. This pushed the knuckle of the forefinger outwards, and Sebastian thrust this not once but twice in a rapid movement into the left temple of the engineer. The engineer’s eyes widened in shock and pain; he felt his vision going and began to fade away into unconsciousness. Just before his legs gave way, Sebastian steered his body into the laundry basket atop the dead girl’s body.
The trip to the waste room was uneventful after that, and Sebastian set about disposing of the bodies.
His original plan was he would have returned sometime later for the disposal, but he could not wait, as the engineer would be missed, and his last whereabouts were on this deck. He opened the access hatch on the port side of the hull slightly and looked out. He could see they were navigating the Suez Canal. He knew it was the canal, as the banks of the canal side were only some six metres away from the hull hatch. The bank was two metres above him, but he could see there was no one in the vicinity looking down on him.
Sebastian slid her body out first, and then after a little struggle, he dropped the engineer into the water. As with Melissa, the engineer was immediately sucked down beneath the massive hull and into the spinning bronze blades of the propeller.
The other vital lesson Sebastian learned on that trip was that the cruise company investigates the loss of an employee far more thoroughly than that of a guest. It may have something to do with death pay-outs, but the cruise liner sent company representatives to the Port of Suez to investigate.
Due to the depth of the Suez Canal and its position, it was not long before both bodies had been recovered. The bodies were surprisingly intact due to the nature of the canal structure. There had obviously been a propeller strike on the female body, as her left arm and head were missing, stated the post-mortem carried ou
t by a local Egyptian pathologist.
The local police took several weeks to conclude their report. They said it was a clear case of murder. It could not be an accident, as post-mortem showed that Melissa had been killed before she hit the water as there was no water in her lungs.
The engineer had a previous conviction back in Romania for putting his hand up a waitress’s skirt on a drunken night out. His conviction had been noted down as a sexual assault, and this had emerged during the investigation. He had lured and attacked Melissa down there in the depths of the ship; she had died during the attack. When the engineer tried to get rid of her body, he had slipped in and been dragged under the steel hull.
The owners of Bonny Prince Charlie paid out a sizeable sum to Melissa’s husband. The story got six lines on page nine in the pages of a tabloid in England, and page two in the main broadsheet in Romania, which had a readership of less than five thousand.
Sebastian realized that it was not that he was fearless, it was just a matter of expediency. He would kill anyone who got in his way; woman, man, boy or girl.
He carried on his killing spree. Jane was dumped into the Pacific off the coast of Hawaii. Helga in the deep Atlantic Ocean west of Madeira; Serena in the waters of the Persian Gulf; Deborah in the English Channel; Corby in the Aegean Sea; Crystal in the Bay of Biscay; Ulrika in the Bay of Islands in New Zealand; and on and on.
Sebastian was a most proficient serial killer, probably one of the leading serial killers at large in the twenty-first century, he thought.
Chapter Thirteen
The months that followed seemed to pass by in a haze for Cutler. In some respects, he felt guilty because he was happy that his parents had died together, and he had what was left of his parents’ bodies there to bury. The same could not be said for Elisa. After months had gone by there was still no evidence of her body. Still nothing had washed up on shore, and the longer it went on, the less likely it was that he would ever have some part of her to bury.
Cutler’s parents’ funeral went as well as a funeral can, but what should have been an occasion to celebrate their lives turned into a barrage of non-stop questions from family and friends concerning Elisa.
A few days later, he attended the funerals of the pilot in Vancouver and the paramedics in Frazer Island, as a mark of respect.
Cutler had thought long and hard about a memorial service for Elisa but could not quite get around to organizing one. This was due to the finality of the process; Cutler still hoped as each new day dawned that news would come about Elisa. He was not naïve and knew she was not coming home alive, but to have a body to bury would help him come to terms with his loss.
As would be expected in any walk of life, the escalating bad news and tragedy had affected Cutler’s work. He had done what needed to be done to keep the loose ends of his inquiries to a minimum.
A week after the funeral, Cutler took the US flight from Seattle to Chicago, where he had boarded a United Airlines flight to Geneva to visit Richter. The plan was to use the money Richter had fled with to force Werner’s partner’s hand. Cutler’s goal was to bring down the silent partner who hid behind the scenes. Cutler knew it was a delegate in the government, but it could have been any one of three, and Cutler needed to know who.
Richter had been panicking; he had no idea what was going on in Cutler’s life, nor did he care. The money was placed in a Swiss bank with Cutler as the signatory, less one hundred thousand euros, which would keep Richter in house and home for the next few years.
Cutler had brought a whole new identity along with him for Richter. He had a bona fide English passport and driving license for him, courtesy of his English counterparts. They flew into Glasgow Airport from Geneva, and as Cutler expected, had no problems with the border officers.
Cutler had used his contacts in the American embassy to find him secluded cottages in the rural area not too far from Glasgow. He had picked the area as an unusual place to put an informant. They had found a cottage on the outskirts of a small Scottish town in the highlands, called Newtonmore. The town was busy enough to have a good transport network. The population was small in the winter but increased through tourism in the summer. The cottage lay on the road leading to Aviemore, and his nearest neighbours were a mile away.
It was a week Cutler could have done without, but he had to stay with Richter to mentor him in his new identity. He accompanied Richter to the local pub, and generally ensured that he was accepted. For all intents and purposes, Richter was Karl Smitt, an immigrant from Dresden, who moved there after the fall of Communism. He was a technical author, someone who drew up plans for buildings, and thus could work from his home.
Richter was uneasy when Cutler finally left, but with the rent paid for three years and enough funds to keep him in sufficient comfort for several years, he was not that unhappy. Cutler had promised more funds later if he kept his nose clean and his head down. For now, any thoughts or plans involving Werner and his delegate partner would have to be put on hold.
Cutler had been given permission to use any surplus funds from the Werner operation as needed, to bring the gang down; pay informants, hire in specialists as required, etc. Nobody asked how much that was, as they wanted the deniability on the operation should it turn sour. Cutler never offered the information that he had put twenty-four million dollars in the bank. The money he had paid Richter had more than been made up by interest payments.
Four months after Elisa had gone missing, four months since that horrendous flight back from Germany, he arrived back in Seattle. With Richter settled in Scotland, he had to move forward. Cutler felt like he was walking through wet mud, and he needed to feel lighter if he were to get on with finding his sister’s killer.
In all that time, his only comfort had come from Cathy, the stewardess on the awful flight back from Germany, hours after he had heard of Elisa’s disappearance. Cathy had been pleasantly surprised by the phone call from Cutler, and even more so when a couple of days later he was true to his promise and visited her in her apartment in Seattle.
Cathy lived in a spacious, second-floor apartment on Westlake, near the Space Needle. Due to its location near the landmark tower, Cutler had found it quite quickly, and was able to park his rented sedan quite near to the building.
Cathy had just completed a flight back from Moscow and, although tired, outwardly she looked stunning when Cutler arrived. She wore a starched, crisp white blouse and a short, navy blue skirt and she looked every inch the glamorous flight attendant. Cutler felt guilty as, for the first time in months, he had looked at a woman and had immediately had the subconscious conversation with himself; the answer was yes, he definitely would like to get closer to her.
He initially had set about visiting her for some additional information. The conversation Cathy and he had on-board the flight back from Gander had played on his mind ever since. She had been a revelation, although he did not know it at the time. The comments about the number of missing persons from cruise ships had become more profound as time passed; maybe she would be able to tell him more.
Ever the gentleman, Cutler took Cathy to the local bistro, where they ate and exchanged small talk. Cathy flirted with Cutler; she was attracted by his strong outer shell, and she had seen the soft centre on that flight several months previous. She looked at him in a new light. Although apparently coping with grief, he still radiated energy and made her feel safe. He was good-looking, tall, and boyish; he would turn heads wherever he went.
Cathy had changed from her work outfit to go out. She had dressed to attract; a short, snow-white dress, which accentuated her long, black hair as it cascaded down onto her shoulders. Her almond skin was faultless, and there was not a freckle or spot that Cutler could see on her exposed skin. She was twenty-eight years old but had the skin of a sixteen-year-old; he could see her cheeks redden when he complimented her on her beauty. While he drank his Jack Daniels, he could not break contact with those enormous, oval brown eyes.
It wa
s inevitable. For the first time since he had heard Elisa had gone missing, Cutler felt something like his old self. Her skin was magnetizing for him; he wanted to touch her, touch her anywhere, as long as he could feel that silky skin beneath his hands. She wanted to press her lips tightly around his, to connect with him, to feel more excited than she already was.
They had half-undressed each other by the time they had got through her apartment door. The lamp on the table just inside the door fell to the floor and broke into several pieces as they meandered blindly backward towards the bedroom. Cutler had pulled the straps of the white dress over her shoulders, and this now lay on the floor beside the shards of glass from the lamp. Inexpertly for a woman of her age, she struggled with the belt on his Chinos. Her bedroom was on the same level, and she steered Cutler blindly toward the door while still locked in a passionate embrace. By the time, they fell on the oversized bed he was left in his stretched Pierre Cardin white boxer shorts, and she had a flimsy pair of white satin panties being gently pulled down over her thighs.
Cutler was a generous lover. Repressing the massive urge to make love to her, he waited; he kissed her, he touched her. Taking his time he caressed and fondled her gently until her back was arching as she climaxed. Eager to please, he brought her to another, more intense orgasm. It was Cathy who could not wait any longer, and she flipped him on his back and mounted him. She sat astride him; she had control of the pace of their lovemaking. She was in awe; she had felt Cutler reach his peak, but he just kept on going, and going.
All the men she had slept with previously—and there had been eight of them—had either turned over and gone to sleep or needed a good hour to recover. Cutler just carried on for the next forty-five incredible minutes.