A Step Into The Dark

by Vince Vogel

  Currently, Kline was on one of his favorite topics. Jack Sheridan. The man who put the cuffs on him and the man who persuaded Kline’s own daughter to give a DNA sample so they could compare it with those found on the victims. The fact that Lambeth forensics concluded there was a ninety-nine percent possibility that the man who raped those women was closely related to the daughter had given Scotland Yard the confidence to issue an arrest warrant for Kline.

  “That bastard drilled me.” Kline was currently telling Jonny about the police interview in which he ended up confessing. “Wound me up. He’d secretly recorded me with some whore I was seein’.”

  It was true. When Jack Sheridan had first suspected Kline, he’d found out that the man was a regular visitor of the street walkers. He found out that Kline had a regular girl. Jack knew this girl. He knew her and he got her to record their conversations. Got Kline to open up and brag about killing.

  “I loved that bitch,” Kline complained. “Spent a fortune on her.”

  “You mean what you stole off the women whose homes you broke into?”

  Kline narrowed his evil eyes at Jonny.

  “Some of it. Not all of it,” he grunted. “Anyway, I spilled my guts an’ she gave it all to the cops. Then my bitch daughter gave them a sample an’ I was fucked.”

  “But you do realize that you had to be caught, Robert?”

  Jonny was studying him across the table. He was tired of this complete lack of conscience on the part of Robert Kline. Except for the description of his first rape and then the killing of Betsy Eden, he’d shown little sorrow for the damage he’d done to so many families. Ended so many lives in brutal fashion. Traumatized for life those victims he did leave on this Earth. Though he was largely cynical, Jonny was like most of us. He wanted to see some remorse in the man. A drop of humanity behind all the horror. But all he got was the sense that he was sitting opposite an animal. A dumb, indiscriminate predator that merely roamed its natural environment killing and raping because that was the only time it ever felt anything. It seemed to Jonny that the only thing that gave Robert Kline any sense of life was his victims’ deaths.

  “Why would I have wanted to be caught?” Kline eventually said. “I was enjoying myself. I had everything I wanted.”

  Jonny looked the killer dead in his dead eyes.

  “Then thank God Jack Sheridan got to you when he did.”

  “Jack Sheridan was a bastard,” Kline spat back. “He taunted me and abused me. He tricked and played dirty. A dirty fuckin’ cop.”

  “Come on,” Jonny retorted. “You abused and taunted old ladies who never hurt a fly. You did that before raping and killing them. You did that to children. To talk about someone doing the same to you makes me wanna be sick.”

  Jonny was getting angry. He wanted to leave. The guard at the door looked on nervously as Kline moved his bulk forward with an angry look on his mug. He was an old man but still an intimidating one if he wanted to be.

  “He could’ve caught me clean,” Kline complained.

  Jonny threw his arms up and sat back exhausted in his chair.

  “Look,” he began in a calmer, almost worn-out voice, “I’m getting bored of this. I’ve got enough for the tapes, but that’s not really why I’m here. You said you had something. Now, please, what is it?”

  Kline also relaxed. He sat back with his arms strung across his chest and his face softened.

  “I been gettin’ mail,” he said with a grin.

  “What mail?”

  “A pen-pal. Though he never leaves a returning address, so I’ve so far been unable to write back. In fact, he don’t even leave a name. Just writes me about his thoughts.” He was grinning from ear to ear when he said this. It made Jonny think of a cut throat. “Oh, and what thoughts he writes,” Kline added joyfully. “He tells me of his adventures.”

  “What sort of adventures?”

  “The ones that end with death.”“A killer is sending you letters?”

  “Oh, yeah. A good one, too. Better than me. This one’s killed ten that I can count. Though he never mentions it outright. Only ever hints at what he’s up to. Must be why this lot haven’t pulled any of his letters in the three years he’s been sendin’ them. He must be good too, because the coppers don’t even know he’s out there. He even says it himself. That he’s invisible.”

  “Show me one of these letters,” Jonny demanded.

  “O’ course.”

  Kline sunk his paw into the pocket of his jumpsuit and drew out a crumpled piece of paper folded in four. He then looked over Jonny’s shoulder at the guard and the latter nodded. With that, Kline passed the note across to Jonny. It was covered in fingerprints. He’d read it countless times, Jonny was sure of that. The journalist opened it and read the short letter scribbled down in blue pen.

  I feel the entity growing stronger inside me. I’ve begun to drink heavily. But it’s not to silence the entity. No. It’s to silence myself. The little piece of man that still exists inside. It was while I was drunk that I saw a boy walking across a field with a ball. No one else was around. It was as though God himself wanted me to have him. The entity didn’t even have to speak. I took him away and made him disappear. Got him to write a letter to his ma. Do you think we’ll be together in the afterlife? Me and the boy as one soul, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. I hope so. I feel that by sharing his last moment together, we combined somehow. It felt like a schism were opening up. A tear in the world. His soul escaping and merging into mine. Did you know that some tribes of Native Americans and also some Polynesian tribes believe that when you kill, you absorb the soul of your victim? They used to believe that when they went into battle they were consuming their defeated enemies’ souls. I like that. I feel that. Feel them with me. Whispering. I’ve always been so lonely but not anymore. Not now that I have them with me.

  “It came two years ago,” Kline informed Jonny once he’d reached its bottom.

  “You have the envelope?” Jonny asked, lifting his eyes from the letter.

  Kline reached into his jumpsuit pocket and brought it out. It was crumpled and falling apart, but Jonny could clearly see the date on the stamp. He’d told the truth. It was from two years ago.

  “Any more?” Jonny asked next.

  “I wanna help,” was the answer he got.

  “Then why not go to the police?”

  “They won’t see me. You would.”

  “I take it you didn’t mention to them that you were receiving letters from a killer?”

  “Of course not. All I said is that I wanted to talk about the possibility of making a deal. They said they wouldn’t talk unless I told them exactly what I had. If I did that, they would’ve raided my cell.”

  “They might still do that,” Jonny put back with a knowing look. “How many more of these letters are there?”

  “Lots more. And, like I said, at least ten kills in there. But I wanna help with this.”

  “Then hand over the letters.”

  “Not without a deal.” There was an element of desperation in his voice. “I wanna get out of this horrible place. I wanna be in a psychiatric hospital. I’m sick. I don’t belong here with these animals. I’ve only got a few years left. I wanna see some dignity.”

  “Tell that to your victims.”

  Jonny got up in disgust. He took his dictaphone and everything else and threw it all into his rucksack. He turned to the guard and the man went to open the door.

  “He’s planning something big,” Kline cried out as Jonny went to walk away from the table. “Says he’s gonna rain fire down on London. In his last letter, he said he got a gun.”

  Jonny turned to him as the guard fumbled with the lock on the door.

  “How do I know it isn’t you getting someone to send you those letters?” he put to the killer. “How do I know this is legit?”

  “Check out the killings. The boy with the ball. Take the letter. Find the boy. He said he had the boy write a letter to his folks.
Surely they would have gone to the police with it. Find him.”

  “I’ll see what turns up,” was all Jonny replied, before turning and walking out the door.

  He entered a long corridor that ended in a set of bars reaching up to the curved ceiling.

  “What turns up!?” Kline cried out from the cell behind him, his voice chasing after Jonny. “He’s killin’ people an’ he’s gonna kill more. I wanna help. Let me help!”

  11

  Tommy Lewis lived in a mansion on the edge of the city, in Enfield, a borough at the very north of London. The Georgian style house was gated with a brick-paved yard at the front where Lewis’ red Alfa Romeo stood.

  Alice parked on the road outside and she and Jack got out. The gate was unlocked and they easily slipped through. At the porch, they found that the door was open slightly. Looking at each other, the detectives silently agreed to go inside. Alice placed gloves on and pushed the door.

  They stood in the hallway for a moment and listened. Someone was in the kitchen. The clattering of dishes could be heard. The kitchen stood through an open door at the hallway’s end. The two of them stepped forward and made their way to it.

  Alice was first to enter.

  She immediately saw the naked girl retrieving something from the fridge. She was blonde, her wet, shoulder-length hair draped down her back. Early teens. Her bosoms and hips not yet fully formed. Alice noticed bruising down her back. Near her shoulders, too.

  “Hello?” the detective called out.

  The girl jumped and turned around sharply. She stood staring at the two detectives for a moment. She seemed dazed. On something. Her eyes resembled two black holes in the snow of her freckled face.

  “Is Thomas Lewis here?” Alice asked.

  “He’s upstairs,” the girl nonchalantly replied.

  She then turned back to the fridge and continued loading up a plate she held in the crook of one arm.

  “What happened to your neck?” Jack inquired.

  “I fell,” she replied with a shrug, not turning from the food.

  “Must’ve been one hell of a fall.”

  “Yeah.”

  Alice turned to Jack.

  “You stay here with her,” she said. “I’ll go check the rest of the house.”

  Jack nodded and she left. He looked about the kitchen and saw some laundry. A large man’s T-shirt lay folded up. He took it and then offered it to the girl, who had continued to raid the fridge.

  “You must be cold,” he said softly when she turned to him.

  The girl smiled. She came away from the fridge and put the plate down before taking the T-shirt and covering herself.

  Upstairs, Alice was emerging onto the landing. Alarm rose inside of her the second she saw blood smeared into the carpet. Footprints ran through it. Small footprints.

  “You okay down there?” she called out to Jack.

  “Sure,” he called back.

  “What’s she doing now?”

  “Making a sandwich.”

  “Keep an eye on her, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  Alice moved along the landing, avoiding the blood that appeared to run around a corner at the end, handprints all up the mauve walls. It all ran towards a bathroom on the other end. When she glanced through the open door, she recoiled at the blood-stained tiles, floor and sink. Towels soaked in claret draped about the place.

  Around the corner was a closed door. It was covered in bloody handprints that had dried, drips running down them. Like the footprints, they looked small. Childlike.

  Alice twisted the handle and pushed the door open. She saw him immediately.

  He was lying with his back on the bed holding his throat. His eyes were bloated. He looked surprised. All the way up until the end. There was blood everywhere. She’d run it into the floor when she’d jumped off the bed. A small knife lay on the carpet. Other things lay down there too. A length of cord. Several sex toys of differing brutality. Drugs. Pills of differing color and white powder. The air smelled sordid. Enamel nitrate and fetid sweat.

  Alice left the room and went back downstairs. She emerged into the kitchen to find the girl sitting at a breakfast bar eating a sandwich. Jack was by the door watching her.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to put the sandwich down,” Alice said to the girl.

  The latter paused with a full mouthful. A look of realization appeared to be coming over her. The dull eyes concentrated and narrowed. She swallowed the sandwich and spoke.

  “I just didn’t want him strangling me anymore was all.”

  “You’ll have to come with us, I’m afraid.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “Yes. And I’ll need you to get up from the stool and come over here.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  The girl placed the sandwich on the plate, got up from her stool and did as asked, a sulky listlessness to her movements. When she reached Alice, the detective abruptly turned her around by the shoulder and quickly cuffed her hands together.

  “What’s happening?” Jack asked.

  “Tommy Lewis is dead upstairs.”

  12

  The warden looked like a morose man. He was tall and gangly. Virtually emaciated. He had gray skin that changed shade on his shaved chin and shaved head. It was drawn in at the jutting cheekbones and almost black around the eyes. He leaned back in his chair, a slimline brown suit hanging from him, his matching gray eyes burning into Jonny.

  “So what did the old fart have to say?” he asked while his fingers played with a silver ballpoint pen.

  “He’s been getting letters,” Jonny replied. “Letters that detail crimes. I don’t understand how they’re getting through to him.”

  “You’ve seen these letters?” He’d rocked forward in the chair, the black around the eyes pinching in as he narrowed them at the journalist.

  “Yeah. One.”

  “And what did it state?”

  “It detailed a crime. A boy’s disappearance. Surely your lot read them.”

  “Yes. His mail is checked. It’s mostly the usual fan letters. You know, lonely women who believe they can change him. Fanatics wanting to glory in his crimes. The usual mad shit.”

  “But these letters are much worse. The sender claims to have killed people.”

  “What proof do you have?”

  Jonny frowned at the man. He wasn’t going to give up the letter.

  “I don’t, but surely you have to take it seriously?”

  “Do you know how many men—mostly violent category A prisoners—I have in this facility?”

  “A lot.”

  “Nine hundred and ten highly dangerous men. Do you know how many staff?”

  “Keep going.”

  “Two-hundred and sixty. That’s usually eighty members on duty at any time. Eighty people to control nearly a thousand dangerous men. Not quite Rorke’s Drift statistics, but close.”

  “So I take it you’re not actively checking his mail then?”

  “We check most of it for contraband. Have the dogs go over it. Check it through with the X-ray machine. But as far as reading it attentively for any little mention of crime, I’m afraid we don’t have the time. And as well as that, in the past when we’ve gone to the police about things we’ve found in his letters—boasts of murder—it’s turned out to be utter bollocks. Just fantasy and boasting.”

  Jonny nodded his head. He’d thought of that himself. Thought that it could be nothing but blow from some sycophantic fan. Some lonely guy full of anger and bragging to a known monster about him being one too. When in truth he was only what he was: an angry and frustrated little man.

  “I’ll look into the letter he showed me,” Jonny said. “But if it turns out to be true, you may want to reconsider your stance on not giving his mail a serious read.”

  “You give me enough reason,” the warden said, tilting his head forward, “and I’ll make the old bastard pay.”

  13

  A parame
dic had seen to the girl at the house. She was lightly sedated. Lewis had laced a drink with diazepam. “To relax me,” the girl had told them. After a short deliberation, it was decided that she would be able to be interviewed. So Jack stayed at the house with forensics while Alice took the girl to a local police station. She was now dressed in paper coveralls, not because Alice wanted to treat her like a killer, but because they were more suitable than anything else they had for her. Her former clothes, of course, were covered in blood and had been taken as evidence.

  She gave her name as Tina Shaw. She was fifteen and had been reported missing a year ago after she ran away from her home in the northern town of Barnsley. Her parents had been informed, but it appeared they were dysfunctional. They were already under supervision from the social services. The first thing they’d done when a constable had contacted them was to complain about having to travel all the way down south “in the middle of the bleedin’ night.” Therefore, it was arranged for someone to come in the morning.

  Tina was currently sitting at a dogeared table next to a social worker—a gray-haired woman with a soft face. They were in an interview room with walls painted the color of cigarette ash. The girl wore a slightly perturbed look on her face, her legs jogging up and down to a manic beat, fingers tracing innumerable words on the scratched table.

  Alice entered the room holding a cheese sandwich, a packet of crisps, and a can of Coke. The girl immediately looked up from her invisible writing and smiled. The detective then held off the interview for several minutes while the girl ate.