Knife After Death: A chilling crime thriller

by Irvine, Ian C. P.

  And he also had to jot down a description of the woman from his vision so that he could hand it over to Alex when they next met.

  Peter got up, walked over to the desk in his room, found a pen and some headed hotel paper, and started to write down the description of the poor woman that his 'kidney killer' had murdered.

  He chuckled to himself. He liked that name. From now on he would call the bastard that had given him his kidneys, "Mr Kidney Killer" ...or "KK" for short. It was high time that he had a name!

  He sat down on the chair, closed his eyes, and tried to project himself back into the flat.

  Suddenly he was once again in the bedroom.

  He was standing by the window,...there was a sound, the bathroom door opening...the woman was coming towards him, dressed sexily, very sexily...Peter found himself catching his breath at the sight of her. Was he getting aroused?

  Her breasts were round, heavy and beautiful...

  "No, no, I don't like big breasts!" Peter swore aloud to himself, immediately opening his eyes, and shaking his head vigorously. "Fuck, that is KK's taste, not mine! I like small breasts, small breasts...!"'

  He swore aloud again, and then after taking a few breaths, closed his eyes once again...

  The woman in the vision is walking towards him,

  They kiss. Peter starts to caress her hair and head. He whispers something into her ear..."Valentia... VALENTIA!"

  Her name is VALENTIA!

  Peter opened his eyes, and hurriedly wrote down the name on the paper. His hands were shaking now...was it from discovering the name or because of the erotic dream?...Peter closed his eyes, hurrying back to the bedroom scene in his mind.

  He was removing her bra...kissing her breasts...her body...they moved to the bed, he was lowering himself on to her..., for a second he was looking into her eyes...blue, deep blue eyes...another detail he had not noticed before...

  They start to make love...just like before, just like always when he recounts the scene in his head. But this time, as he turns her round in front of him so that he can take her from behind, he notices a tattoo on her back, at the base of the spine, above her bottom...

  Peter tries to look at it, to see more detail, but he can't...

  Then the rest of the dream sequence is the same.

  In the past, whenever he had recounted this vision, the last few moments always created a feeling of disgust and nausea within him. This time, however, there is no such feeling. No wanting to avoid the brutality of the last few seconds of the dream.

  Instead, this time, he knowingly goes with it, letting himself see every second of the action.

  And when it finishes, to Peter's absolute horror, he realises that he is aroused.

  .

  Opening his eyes, and ignoring his arousal, Peter hurriedly scribbled down some notes describing the woman he had seen. The description was not too long: 'Tall, slim, short black hair in a bob. Big breasts. Very attractive. Deep blue eyes. A tattoo on her back at the base of her spine. And a long, unmissable cut across her neck, that ran from one ear to another...

  As he wrote the last part he laughed aloud.

  Peter dropped the pen on the paper...why had he laughed? What was funny about what he had just written?

  He picked up the pen, and scored the sentence out, then ripped the piece of paper off the pad, crumpled it into a ball and threw it across the room against the curtains.

  "FUCK...what is happening to me?" he shouted loudly.

  Hurriedly, he rewrote the description, folded the paper up and put it in his wallet. A few minutes later he was in the shower, letting the water run over him, soothing him, helping him to relax.

  Ten minutes later he was in bed, and sleep came quickly.

  .

  He was in the forest. It was dark, but thankfully it was a clear night, and there was enough moonlight to see by. His breathing was heavy, and he was carrying something. Something large, draped over his shoulder. It was heavy, very heavy.

  He slipped, and swore, stumbling forward and losing his balance.

  The long, heavy weight on his shoulders fell to the ground, in front of him, and Peter realised, with a shock, what it was.

  Another body. Another person that KK had killed.

  And this was another evening spent in a forest, disposing of a body and laying it to rest. Although, from what he now knew of KK, the concept of laying a body to rest and helping its owner find peace would be the last thing on his mind. Frankly, KK wouldn't give a shit.

  KK swore, he had landed on an old branch, and cut his leg. It was a large branch. KK looked up and saw that it had fallen from a tree that had been hit by lighting, the branch at one end still attached and hanging from the tree by a twisted chord of stretched bark.

  Peter didn't understand the words that KK used to swear. They were alien to him.

  Then KK has heaving at the large, wrapped parcel, picking up the body and hoisting it back onto his shoulder.

  He walked forward, and eventually came to the base of a large radio mast tower in a small clearing. He walked past it about fifty metres, now back in the forest, and came to a small area of stones. In the middle there was one large, thin, raised stone that stuck up and pointed to the moon. KK turned to his left, walked five metres and came to a large hole.

  Placing the body down on the edge of the hole, he jumped in, swearing as he landed uncomfortably on the leg he had cut on the tree branch. Another swear word that he could not understand.

  Dragging, pulling the body into the hole.

  A thud as it fell in.

  Blackness.

  Heavy stones. Lifting heavy stones...pulling them into the hole...

  Blackness.

  Digging, lifting earth up with a spade, throwing it into the hole. Digging, throwing. Digging, throwing.

  Blackness.

  Walking back through the forest now. Hobbling. Lights ahead. A sound. Diving quickly to the ground and casting his spade to the side so that he does not land on it. Listening.

  Waiting for something to go past.

  A fox.

  Fuck, just a fox.

  Standing up...ouch. pain in the leg, reaching down and touching the thigh...blood.

  An odd thing next...KK licks the blood on his hand...tastes salty...

  Walks forward...Climbing a fence...

  Crossing a road...

  Blackness.

  .

  When his alarm went off later that morning Peter was already awake.

  He had been lying there thinking about his dream for several hours having woken shortly after the dream sequence had finished, shaking and scared.

  The dream or vision, or whatever the fuck it was, had really upset Peter. For several reasons...

  Firstly, since he had arrived in the gorge, the frequency of the visions and dreams had increased. It was becoming unbearable. Very possibly, it occurred to Peter, he could be going mad. How much more could he take? It was almost as if the KK inside was surfacing within him...Peter realised that a very plausible reason for the increase in dream frequency was because Peter was 'hot': as a child, Peter had played a game with his friends called 'hot' and 'cold'. While one child looked for a hidden object, the others would shout 'you're cold' if the child walked away from it, or 'you're getting warm', 'you're hot' or 'you're boiling' as the child got closer and closer to finding it.

  In the same way, Peter was getting 'hot'. The dreams were increasing in frequency, and he must be getting closer to finding something important.

  Secondly, before, the dreams would take a while to surface and come together, morphing over a period of days from indecipherable rubbish to recognisable sequences of movement and action. Today and last night, he been able to close his eyes and see dream sequences almost on demand. When he slept, the dream was almost in real-time. It was immediately understandable and clear. So very, very clear.

  Thirdly, the feelings that KK must have had were now becoming more dominant within Peter. They were affecti
ng Peter. Was Peter changing into KK? Were the mind and experiences of KK going to grow so strong that Peter would lose his sanity, becoming possessed by a knife-wielding murderer?

  Things were getting out of control.

  He looked at his watch.

  8.45 a.m.

  He needed to talk to someone.

  He pulled out his Smartphone, and called the only person who could possibly understand him just now.

  She answered.

  Peter started to talk, then burst into tears.

  The woman at the other end, listened, spoke to him, soothed him.

  Calmed him down.

  They talked for a long time.

  When he eventually hung up, Peter realised just how much he now missed Susie.

  Chapter Fifty Five

  .

  .

  Knuttsford Council Meeting

  May 2nd

  9.30 a.m. GMT

  .

  .

  The Council meeting opened on time, which in itself was a small miracle. The Knuttsford Town Council was not normally noted for its punctuality and efficiency.

  Knuttsford was a small town, the people who made up the council did wield significant power in the local area, but most of them also had day jobs. Being on the Town Council was an honour and a privilege, but almost invariably, council duties came second to those of day-to-day life.

  The first item on the agenda, the allocation of an extra £5000 to the local primary school for some new swings for the playground, was agreed unanimously. Most of the council members had a relative or a child of their own at the school.

  The second item of the day was going to be more heated. A proposal had been put forward last year, and contested vigorously since, to build a small wind farm on the top of Forest View. It was part of a greater redevelopment plan for the whole area around Forest View, which (Item 3 and Item 4 on the agenda) also included granting planning permission for new houses, and some small offices on the Forest Rise. Whereas Item 3 and Item 4 were not expected to raise many objections-the existing cottage houses on Forest Rise were run down and mostly derelict-, Item 2 was not popular.

  Knuttsford was a quaint town, a small and quintessential part of England that remained truly English: English customs, beautiful old thatched cottages, a marketplace, a cricket pitch beside a village pond, its very own stone circle in the forest (albeit small and not very impressive), and lovely fields and hills that went on for miles and miles.

  So far, the new, modern world had not yet rampaged through the town.

  The application to build a wind farm at the top of the hill not far outside of Knuttsford was the first time that the new world had come to their town.

  The people of Knuttsford had felt threatened. They were worried.

  If they granted approval for the development, what would happen next? Was this just the thin edge of the wedge?

  Admittedly, Forest View was an ideal place to build a wind farm. Up there on the top of the hill it was windy. Very windy.

  Which was one of the main reasons that the houses on Forest Rise remained derelict. It was pretty up there, but not many people wanted to live there in a constant gale! It had lacked investment for years.

  The Council had denied the application for three years in a row, but the development company just kept coming back. Today they were back again.

  But this time, there was a twist to their application. A sweetener.

  The Big Green Wind Company, the corporation behind the application, had agreed that if they were given permission to build the wind farm, then they would provide free electricity to the school, Knuttsford's small hospital, and all the council owned buildings in the area. Which meant that the council could still charge tenants for electricity, but make 100% profit in doing so. The Big Green Wind Company had shown them projections for energy costs and associated profits to the council over the next ten years, which made very sobering reading.

  It was an offer that the council would find difficult to reject.

  After three hours of discussion, the council approved the application, subject to a string of conditions that would be drawn up by the lawyers. The Big Green Wind Company then also agreed to pay for the cost of the lawyers!

  There were smiles all around.

  Subject to final signatories in the next few days, work would be able to commence soon.

  Very soon indeed.

  Chapter Fifty Six

  .

  .

  StemPharma Bunker

  Delaware

  May 2nd

  7 p.m. E.S.T.

  .

  .

  Nic White was off duty. He was sitting in his private apartment in the bunker, feet up on his reclining chair, watching a rerun of 'Band of Brothers', one of his favourite war film series.

  It had been a good day. He had started to prepare for his meeting with Philip Grant, and he felt comfortable that at long last, he had a better understanding of what was going on with SP-X4.

  He didn't completely understand it, but he was certainly beginning to put together the picture, taken as if from a thousand feet up: getting closer in, developing a more granular understanding at a more microscopic level would take new equipment, new research, ...and new funding.

  Nic was excited.

  The 'problem with SP-X4' was pointing him towards a new discovery, a new understanding that could potentially change the whole way they view the human 'being'. If Nic White was right, he would be able to start a new course of research that could probe the essence of the human soul. To delve deep into what makes a person a specific person. To see and better understand the process of memory creation, and to explore a new field of research: 'latent memory encoding' - he was already beginning to play with names for his new research! It had a good ring to it: 'Latent Memory Encoding'...or 'LME' for short.

  The only problem was, that if he was right, as a company, StemPharma would be morally obligated to disclose some detail about the SP-X4 treatment, in particular the effect it was having on patients, and the 'why' as to what that effect was.

  There was still a lot to think about...a lot of implications to size up, measure, and quantify, but Nic was excited about the future.

  The realisation that before they moved onto further research they would have to disclose the details about the SP-X4 treatment, and that such a course of action would probably result in suspension of its production and deployment, was problematic. Once they made the announcement, full scale deployment would be postponed or cancelled, the stock-markets would react negatively, and StemPharma’s shares would plummet.

  StemPharma would be finished. Or most likely, it would be taken over and assimilated by a rival or competitor.

  Nic White pressed the button on his electronic armchair, and the recliner slid together, allowing Nic to stand up. He walked across to the desk in his small private office, and flicked open his laptop, touching the keypad with his forefinger and letting it read his fingerprint.

  "Nic White," he said aloud, and the voice recognition software correlated his sound wav-file with the fingerprint, and then granted him access to the system.

  He moved the mouse over to his E-trade app and clicked on it.

  He signed into his stock account, and went to his portfolio for the fourth time that day.

  Nic White was excited about the future, but he was also nervous about the financial impact this future would have on him personally. Unnecessarily so. Nic White was rich. Independently wealthy.

  He had been for over a year now.

  Twelve months ago, his vested stock granted to him by his previous company DuPont had risen dramatically and he had sold it all. Then over the past year, two large tranches of share options that he had been granted by StemPharma had also vested. He had sold the lot.

  Nick White was a rich man, sitting on a comfortable $9.5 m.

  He still had over $18m of unvested stock in StemPharma, and he knew that in a few months time, that $18m would collapse in value
. Perhaps to nothing.

  Still, $9.5 m was a lot. It was enough to enable Nic to live the life he wanted to lead, and not the life he would otherwise be forced to lead.

  Nic White was a man of morals.

  .

  He knew he could afford to do the right thing.

  Chapter Fifty Seven

  .

  .

  Ironbridge

  May 2nd

  10 a.m. GMT

  .

  .

  Peter knocked softly on the door of the little cottage on the other side of the bridge. Kayleigh answered it a few moments later, a colourful pinny wrapped around her waist and her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, her hands covered in white flour.

  "Just doing some baking. Come in... Did Alex call you yet?"

  "No. I thought I would just come around and knock, to see if he was here. I hope you don't mind."

  "Not at all. A cup of tea?"

  "Yes please, that would be great. Shall I make us both one... save you washing your hands?"

  "Yes please. And then, if you pick up the phone over there and press M1, you can get straight through to Alex. He's at work just now."

  Peter made them both a cup of tea, and then called the policeman. He picked up straight away, and explained that Kayleigh couldn't talk just now but had given him the phone to call.

  "I've got some good news for you. The SIO says that it's okay to show you the flat, on condition that you let us know any new thoughts from your clairvoyant as to what happened there."

  "Done. When?"

  "I'll be there in ten minutes...Ironbridge is not that big, and I'm not too far away."

  .

  True to his word, Alex walked through the door nine minutes later. They shook hands, Peter handed him a cup of tea that Kayleigh had suggested he make, and they both sat down.

  "Kayleigh and I had a chat last night...you quite inspired us. She thinks I was a bit tough on you. Perhaps there is more to this clairvoyance lark than I think there is...it's not hard to guess that I am the world's biggest sceptic...so I'm going to cut you some slack and see if in comparison with the good old Boys from the Blue, if perhaps your clairvoyant's clairvoyance can dig up more than traditional policing can. Anyway, quite honestly...we're stumped as what to do next, so we've really got nothing to lose..."