by Michael Kerr
He thought that never had more truer words been spoken in jest. “S’okay. I’m happy to have some company for a while. Christmas can be a lonely time.”
“Tell me about it?” Anita said, somehow able to talk through half-masticated bacon and egg, which he would have been happier not to have seen being pulverised between her small and busy teeth. “I’ve got no friends, no money, and nowhere to sleep.”
“Why is that, er...?”
“Anita Weller. What’s your name?”
“Paul.”
“Well, Paul, I just had to get away from home, you know. My mum got herself a new live-in boyfriend, an’ he started messin’ about with me whenever she wasn’t around. I tried tellin’ her, you know, but she wouldn’t have any of it. Made out like I was comin’ on to him. Can you imagine me wantin’ to get it on with a...”
Blah-blah-blah. There was no smoking, but he lit a cigarette anyway. None of the women serving behind the counter were about to give a shit at this time of night. Who needed a confrontation at Christmas? Anita’s droning voice was getting to him. He tried to work out where the off switch was located. The little cow’s vocal cords seemed to be fuelled by the food. He didn’t want to hear about her miserable life. He nodded and shook his head in turn and waited until she finally talked herself out.
“Why are you out so late on your ownsome on Christmas night, Paul?”
I was planning on eviscerating the wife of a high court judge, but had to postpone. “I needed to get away from the house for awhile,” he said. “My mother died last month, and Christmas isn’t something I can come to terms with. There was just her and me, and being alone was really upsetting me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You have your own problems.” This was crunch time. She would be sizing him up and deciding whether the chance of a warm bed was on the cards. As long as he didn’t look or act like her idea of an axe murderer, then she would walk to the sacrificial alter like a fatted calf.
“If you want, I could, you know, come home with you and stay the night,” Anita said, holding off with a loaded forkful of sausage that dripped egg yolk like a string of yellow snot onto her plate.
She thought he was kind and harmless. He had a nervous, boyish disposition, and was obviously not going to try anything funny. Not that she was averse to fooling around, should he want to.
“I’d like that,” he said. “You could sleep in my mother’s room.”
Anita smiled, thrust her tongue out salaciously and licked the viscous yolk off the underside of the thick, round end of the sausage, before sucking the brown-skinned morsel into her mouth with a slurping whoosh. She had lied to him. The reason she was living rough was because her mother had taken offence when walking in unexpectedly to find her humping Stanley, the foreman of the local meat-processing plant. Seems that Vera Weller was happy enough to share clothes and makeup with her daughter, but not the current man in her life.
It was raining when they ran from the doorway to the Toyota. Some Christmas. The reality of it didn’t live up to the projected images of red robins bobbing along in the snow, reindeers pulling sleighs, and all the hype that only existed on naff greetings cards and in commercials on the box.
He lifted his killing kit off the seat and hefted it over into the rear foot well. Wouldn’t do for Anita to see the bag’s contents. He didn’t want her to start thinking he might be a Charlie Manson type. She would come to know that he was, soon enough, when it was too late by far for her to change the course of events he planned.
As he headed for home, she reached over and put her hand on his thigh. The touch was electric. He gasped as her fingers lightly stroked his crotch. Jesus, this was living. Who said a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush? He had two of them in his clutches. One in the car and the other at home, spaced-out in the cellar.
The lane leading to the house was thick with mud, and the rain was falling so heavily that the wipers were almost useless. He pulled up to the gates, thinking for a moment that he might skid into them as the old, smooth tyres spun and fought to find purchase.
Anita unbuckled her belt and waited while her saviour got out to open the gates, then climbed back into the car, drove forward and once more got out to lock them again, before driving across a yard that was pitted with holes that were now deep puddles of rainwater. As the car swung left towards the house, the headlight beams illuminated the shadowy hulks that were stacked in rows; an above-ground graveyard of vehicles. Anita thought of how each and every one of the wrecks had started out as a showroom model, polished, shiny, and smelling as only a new car can, waiting to serve its first owner. Everything had to have an end as well as a beginning, but she was saddened to think that every mile clocked-up had brought these once proudly driven automobiles a little nearer to this ignominious fate.
“You own this place?” Anita said.
“Yeah. Though not for much longer. I plan to sell up and move.”
They climbed out of the Toyota, and Anita ran after him to the dark doorway. She cried out in fear and surprise as a large shape bounded towards her, only to be snapped back in its tracks with a choked yelp as it reached the limit of the chain that was fastened to its collar.
“S’only Hanny,” Paul said as he pushed the key into the lock and opened the door. “He’s a big softie really, for a junkyard dog.”
“You could’ve fooled me,” Anita said, following him into the hallway. “I think I would have been its supper if it’d been loose.”
He closed the door, turned on the light and faced his prey. “He, not it, you dumb bitch. Hannibal is worth a hundred of your kind,” he said. “You’re just one of life’s fucking losers, who nobody will miss or give a shit about.”
She looked into his face. All pretence of congeniality was gone. He no longer appeared boyish, or harmless. His expression reminded her of Jack Nicholson in The Shining, as he had become progressively more possessed and homicidal. Even as she thought to make a move for the door, he lashed out with his fist. She tried to turn away, then lost all feeling in her legs and collapsed to the floor as the blow to her temple dazed her.
He waited until she regained her senses and rose up on her hands and knees, then stepped forward and booted her in the midriff as though she were a rugby ball, putting all his weight behind the kick. She rose up, then expelled a whooping cry and slumped back down to the floor.
Kirstie’s brain unwittingly conjured up every demon that could be imagined to terrorise her. Fanciful figures and monsters materialised from the darkness. Her mind was contaminated by the powerful drug. It had even stripped her of all knowledge of who or where she was. If possible, the last ethereal visitor was the worst.
She smelt it first; a stomach-churning stink of blood, wet animal fur and sulphur. The deep gloom lightened to a bordello-red, and from a mound of quivering crimson gelatine on the cellar floor, a mass began to rise up and take shape, as if it were being sculpted by invisible hands. When fully formed, it became alive and sniffed at the rancid air with an elongated snout, before moving towards her spastically on bowed, muscular legs.
Oh, please, no! Kirstie closed her eyes, but could still see the monstrosity. It was not human, but resembled her conception of what a werewolf might look like: a jackal’s head, pale yellow eyes with only pinhead-sized black pupils, slavering jaws packed with overlarge conical teeth, and coarse fur covering it from head to foot. It leapt on her, held her throat in its mouth and impaled her with a foot-long, blue-skinned penis that moved independently to search out and penetrate her centre; to slide into her as though it were a gopher snake entering a burrow in search of its warm-blooded occupant.
Sensation! She could feel the searching member deep inside, and had to suffer the probing, thrusting atrocity. Her brain rebelled as the effects of the ketamine began to dissipate. Awareness of reality slowly, mercifully returned, dispelling the delusion. The grip of the beast’s jaws slackened, and the muscular hardness within her dissolved. The hide
ous vagary lost its solidity and withdrew to merge with the gloom to leave her once more alone in the crushing pitch blackness. The numbness in her limbs lessened, though she still felt an overwhelming sense of hopelessness as she contemplated the plight she was in. She had taken her chance and blown it. Had it not been for the fucking dog, then she was certain that she would have gained her freedom. Instead, her captor would surely keep her shackled and drugged until he decided to kill her. This was no longer a cellar she was confined in. She screamed out, but the sound seemed to be swallowed up by the damp air, or absorbed by the unseen walls of what she now thought of as a crypt; her own personal burial chamber. Hope died. Her resolve had been depleted to a point that negated any possibility of survival. Her burgeoning despondency was unrelenting. All her thoughts were for Dennis and Faye, who would have to somehow come to terms with and get past their loss.
Time unfolded. She fell in and out of sleep, as a patient in a hospital bed might, to allay the boredom and uneasiness of the dire surroundings and escape from an intolerable state of events.
When the rectangle of bright yellow light appeared in the gloom, she could not be sure if it was another drug-induced product of her imagination, or reality.
The naked bulb came alive to dispel the darkness in an instant. Kirstie screwed her eyes shut against the intense refulgence that invaded her brain and temporarily blinded her. When she was able to squint through slitted lids, she saw that her tormentor was standing beside her. The still figure of a girl was draped over his shoulder.
“You awake?” Paul said.
Kirstie opened and closed her mouth, as a fish would to pass water over its gills, then groaned and pretended to be out of it.
Leaning sideways, he shrugged Anita off onto the bed. Kirstie felt the body across her legs. It was not heavy. She sensed that the girl was still alive.
“I found you some company, Kirstie,” Paul said as he quickly removed his new acquisition’s clothes. “You’ll have someone to swap stories with for a little while.”
She kept silent and still, feeling marginally safer by playing possum. Something cold touched her ankle, and there was a metallic series of clicks. Still she forced herself to remain motionless.
“Aaaghh!” The pretence was painfully brought to an end. Her hands shot to the seat of the sudden pain as she came up into a sitting position.
“Nice try,” Paul said, opening his hand to examine the fine hairs he had ripped from her pubes, before blowing them at her face. “How was your trip?”
“You bastard!” she screamed in frustration. “You and your dog need putting down.”
He laughed. “I’m going to overlook that outburst. I realise you’re not quite yourself yet. Would you like a nice cup of tea?”
“I’m cold,” she said.
“All part of the treatment. You shouldn’t have ruined a nice day by attacking your host. Now I know just how dangerous you are, and can promise that you won’t get another chance to hurt me. You blew it, honey. And think on this, it’s you and Anita here who are going to be put down. Neither of you will be around to see in the New Year.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
MATT dozed fitfully for an hour, then slid out of bed, pulled his jeans on and headed for the door. Sleep was out of the question. He was agitated, consumed by thoughts of what might be happening to Kirstie Marshall. Was she already dead? Had the warped killer done the wet work with his knife and reduced the woman to just so much steaming offal? Could he have hastened her death and caused her even more suffering by taunting Sutton? Maybe if he had been more condescending.
“You staying up?” Beth said, switching on the bedside lamp.
“Yeah. I thought I might have a coffee and try to come up with a new approach to the case.”
Beth got out of bed and walked around it to where he was standing by the door. She held him tightly for a few seconds, felt safe in his arms, and relished the warmth of his muscled abdomen against her breasts. “You feel good,” she said, before reaching past him to unhook her robe from the back of the door. “Lets go burn the midnight oil and see what we can work out.”
Matt turned on the coffeemaker while Beth gathered together hard copy of the ongoing evaluation and profile she had worked-up on Sutton.
Sitting at the kitchen table, they scoured every word of every line on every page.
“It’s no good,” Matt said after more than an hour had passed. “There’s nothing to lead us to him.”
“Could be a lot worse,” Beth offered. “We have everything but his bloody address.”
“That won’t help Kirstie Marshall.”
“Nothing you could have said to him would alter the position she’s in now, Matt. He took her to punish her husband. She might have even been dead when he phoned you.”
“I doubt that. He would have taped it and almost certainly played an excerpt when I started to wind him up.”
“If he has kept her alive for the time being, then it may be because she has managed to develop a relationship with him.”
Matt went across to the counter, poured them more coffee, then lit a cigarette before sitting back down. “You always say that serial murderers tend not to see their victims as individuals. That they mentally depersonalise them.”
“It isn’t carved out on stone tablets. And he isn’t a typical ritual or serial murderer. He’s a disturbed young man with a grudge against specific individuals. This isn’t precisely stranger-on-stranger killing. He has what he regards as a good reason for what he’s doing, and therefore strong motive to commit these crimes. And the MO has no signature, apart from the taping, which is done to cause further torment to the people he really wants to suffer, and also to goad those looking for him. He needs to show off what he has done. And you are now obviously his chosen figurehead of the forces against him. Kirstie will be no apparent threat to him. He will feel in total control of her.”
“But he said that he intended to kill her before morning, and―”
“He said exactly what he needed to, Matt. The threat has had the desired effect. You can’t afford to start believing anything he says. Just concentrate on the investigation and don’t let his mind games blow you off course.”
“Okay. So what do you think his next move will be?”
“I think he’ll target another juror or the judge. If we’re lucky, he’ll get lifted when he tries. Though I would have to give him more credit than that. Stupid doesn’t appear to be one of his shortcomings.”
“Waiting for him to kill again isn’t a very proactive strategy.”
“So chase what you’ve got. Maybe it will turn out that some vet in the target area has treated his mutt, and seen him. And those that haven’t been contacted should be located, even if they’re out of the country for the holiday. Any young man with a German shepherd is potentially Sutton.”
Matt nodded. Beth was right. All they could do was work with what they had and hope it was enough, and that Sutton would make a mistake. He yawned and looked up at the wall clock. It was almost three-thirty a.m. He stubbed his cigarette out. “C’mon let’s try to get a couple of hours’ sleep,” he said. “I’m knackered.”
Anita awoke to a cramping pain in her stomach, and a headache that surpassed any hangover she had ever suffered from an overindulgence of lager and whisky chasers. She attempted to put both hands up to her head to hold it together, but only her left hand reached its target. She took in her predicament. Her right wrist was handcuffed to a shackle that in turn encircled an ankle. Not her own ankle. Moving her head very slowly, she let her aching eyes follow the shapely leg up to take in the naked woman who lay on the mattress with her.
Kirstie had been intrigued as to who the teenage girl could be. Was this the daughter of another juror? What was the maniac doing, assembling a harem?
Anita was consumed by panic. All she knew was that something was very, very wrong. She thought she might throw up, or maybe lose consciousness again. Her mind raced. She was disoriented and una
ble to fathom out where she was. She had no short-term memory. She fought to recall how from being in a café, she could wind up bare-arsed on a camp bed cuffed to the foot of another woman, who was similarly starkers.
It flooded back. She remembered the slim young man who had bought her a meal and subsequently driven her to his home. It seemed bizarre. He had appeared to be gentle, conversational, a trifle sad and in need of company. As they had entered the house his personality had changed. He’d struck her in the face, knocking her to the floor, and as she tried to stand up, he had kicked her in the stomach. God, her head felt huge, splitting like a swollen piece of festering fruit.
“Are you all right?” Kirstie asked the staring girl, who looked as if she might scream, be sick, or maybe take flight and go berserk in an effort to break free.
“No. I’m far from all-fuckin’ all right,” Anita said. “Where the fuck am I? And who the fuck are you?”
“My name is Kirstie Marshall, and I’m a prisoner here, the same as you are. We’re in a cellar, and the man who brought you here is a psychopath.”
“I’m Anita. Why has he picked on us?” she said. “What does he want?”
“His stepfather was found guilty of rape. He served his sentence but died shortly after being released. Now, this nutter is planning to kill everyone he holds responsible for what happened. Or people close to them.”
“But why me? I’ve only just come to London, and nobody I know has been on a jury. I was just sittin’ in a café mindin’ my own business when he...”
“He what?” Kirstie said as the girl looked down and began to chew at the inside of her cheek.
Anita slowly raised her face, there were tears flowing down her cheeks. “It was my own fault. He looked lonely. I went to him, scrounged a cigarette, then let him buy me a meal. I even came up with the idea of comin’ back to his place.”
“You had no way of knowing what he was.”
“I don’t want to die. How can we stop it from happenin’?”