Killing by Colours

by Wonny Lea

  The killer looked at the sleeves of his showerproof jacket and could see the marks left by Arthur’s nails as he had clawed at them, had even attempted to take the knife. He knew that fibres of his jacket would be found under his victim’s nails but he had prevented Arthur from getting his nails anywhere near his face so he was sure none of his own DNA had been left behind.

  The fibres from the jacket would keep the police busy, but they would soon find out that the jacket was one of thousands sold on market stalls all over the country and they would have no way of connecting this particular one to him. He had been worried that the shambles of this killing would put the rest of his plans in jeopardy, but he was now returning to his more logical and ruthless way of thinking and he believed he had nothing to fear.

  Nevertheless, he couldn’t prevent his mind from jumping all over the place and it settled for a moment on the woman he was planning to be his next victim. He remembered how, several years ago when he had been drinking alone in his club, he had overheard some of the committee members chatting and laughing. He had listened with distain to their juvenile banter but the proverbial red mist had descended when he realised that he was the subject of their petty amusement.

  The woman who was now on his black list had not been with the group but she had obviously told them that he was pretty useless on the golf course and that being rubbish at golf was not his only

  handicap.

  He had memories of leaving the club that day and contemplating suicide. He still couldn’t figure why, in his usual bullish way, he had not challenged the gossipers, but it was quite likely that he was at that time suffering from chronic depression and the conversation he had overheard tipped his balance.

  Before he had even got home from the club all thoughts of self-harm had vanished and a germ of an idea was hatching. Like many men who turn out to be bullies he had memories of being bullied himself, and that evening he had sat down and made a list of the people who had, in one way or another, really pissed him off at various times of his life.

  It had given him a new focus and for the first time in many years he felt as if he was once again the kingpin, as he was now in control of these people’s lives and they didn’t even know it. He contemplated getting a gun and simply putting bullets in their heads, but what would be the fun in that? It would all be over with far too quickly.

  After compiling a list of seven people, he had circled the fifth name with a red pen. The name of Detective Chief Inspector Martin Phelps. How the killer regretted the day their paths had crossed, and he fretted upon how different his life would have turned out if Phelps had asked fewer questions. Phelps would be the centre of whatever plan he put in place to annihilate his tormentors. He spent days and months, following the hatching of his plan, deciding on how he would murder this man who had caused him so much grief.

  Eventually he decided that killing the DCI first would be too good for him, and came up with the idea that murdering his illustrious career would be more painful. Once Phelps knew what it was like to be a public failure the killer would be only too happy to put him out of his misery.

  The killer was not in a hurry and subscribed to the theory that revenge is a dish best served cold. He had an imaginative and agile brain and jotted down, alongside the names on his list, a few adjectives that in some way related to each of them.

  For some inexplicable reason colours kept on cropping up, such as red when he thought of Miss Rossiter as a dragon, the greens of the golf club, and the uniforms of the boys in blue. His evil mind soon put those innocent colours into a definite pattern and for the next two years he meticulously worked out every detail of his plan. It was not until he was completely ready and his plan had been checked and rechecked that he began his evil programme of killing by colours.

  He would make a fool of Phelps – that would be one of his prime objectives – and the idea of sending personal clues in the form of poems appealed to the killer’s warped sense of humour. He knew where Martin lived. He even knew that the cottage in Llantwit Major had been left to Phelps by his Aunt Pat. He knew enough about the nature of Martin Phelps to believe that receiving such poisonous mail at his beloved home address would be sickening to the play-it-by-the-book detective.

  He had no trouble remembering why he hated the people on his list, and although he had been just seven years old when he was in Miss Rossiter’s class at Penbryn Primary School he could still recall her voice. She had always seemed to be singling him out for attention and although the killer had been a big boy even then, he had also been anything but confident. He’d struggled with maths and in one of her classes she had made him give the answer to the sum of seven and nine. He had mistakenly given the answer as fifteen and she had gone ballistic.

  Still traumatised by the memory, he shuddered as he recalled being hauled out of his seat and positioned in front of a class full of giggling children. As he stood there, feeling totally let down by some kids he had considered to be his friends, something else had let him down. It was his bladder – and to the sound of Miss Rossiter’s voice pouring yet more scorn on his head he had run from the classroom leaving a warm puddle of urine behind.

  Children can be very cruel, and instead of curbing the way in which the killer was teased by his classmates Miss Rossiter seemed to encourage it. She had her pets, they were always the kids who did well, and there were a few others who, like the killer, were open targets. Inevitably the teacher’s misfits grouped together and the killer remembered how he had learned that there is safety in numbers and a single swot was no match for a gang of Miss Rossiter’s duffers.

  Maybe he should be grateful to his teacher, as she had sent him down a road where he learned that lying and manipulating others could in fact be rewarding. It was a skill he honed well, and used to further his career, but it was her repeated humiliation of him that made Miss Rossiter number one on his list.

  It hadn’t been difficult to track her down and organise her killing at the Red Dragon Centre. He simply made a phone call and told her that her remarkable achievements concerning the value she had added to the lives of children was going to be recognised. He posed as someone who needed to speak to her possibly being a recipient in the Queen’s birthday honours list, and had given her an exact time and place for their meeting.

  He laughed as he remembered her surprise at the venue but it had been easy to convince her of the need for secrecy and she had agreed not to tell anyone about the fact she had been approached for fear of upsetting ‘Her Majesty’. What a vain, pompous woman – but what a shock she had received when the killer had approached her car, not with news of a gong from the Queen but with a long sharp knife and a suggestion that she could now wet her pants.

  Tracking down Mr Davies hadn’t been that difficult, as the killer still had lots of contacts and could easily manipulate many of them. It took just three phone calls and the threat of revealing someone’s involvement in a scam before he got the Watch Towers address of his second victim.

  The killer’s initiation to sex had been when he was just eleven years old, and it had not been as a result of a quick, innocent fumble with one of the girls in his class.

  It had been courtesy of the sickening attention paid to him by Mr Davies, who had been one of the scoutmasters at the killer’s first camping holiday. He had been surprised when Mr Davies had offered him a place in his own tent and had suggested helping with the problems the killer was having with tying knots, as it was something the scoutmaster usually taunted him about. He remembered the looks on some of the boys’ faces as he lauded this over them. One of them even tried to dissuade him from taking up Mr Davies’ offer, but the killer had put that down to sheer jealousy because the other boy hadn’t been chosen by the scoutmaster himself.

  By the following morning the killer knew exactly what he had been chosen for, and he still felt sick as he remembered how his young body had been violated. He understood the knowing glances that were exchanged between some of the scouts and won
dered how many of them had suffered Mr Davies’ unique take on a lesson in tying knots.

  Mr Davies had told him that no one would believe him if he said anything and so the killer joined the other ‘special’ boy scouts in a vile conspiracy of silence.

  Getting Victor Davies to turn up for his own execution really had been as simple as sending out the letter. Although there had been a lot of gossip about possible abuse of his position in the scout troop, nothing had ever been proven, and he would do anything to ensure that the full depth of his perversion was not discovered.

  Mr Davies had not even recognised the killer when he joined him at the side entrance of Freshly Squeezed, but he understood the knife that was pointed in the direction of his heart. A heart that was already beating fast as a result of hearing an almighty great bang from the front of the building, just before the killer had arrived.

  Within seconds he had been introduced to his own ‘liquidator’ and left in no doubt about what was going to happen to him. As the knife entered his body, Victor Davies was told that the killer regretted not being able to cause him as much suffering as others had endured by being the victims of his grotesque sexual behaviour. Davies accepted his fate without a struggle, and it was a bit of a disappointment to the murderer to realise that his victim was possibly even grateful to be out of the picture for good.

  The killer continued to recall bits and pieces from the last three weeks, and from the darkest archives of his life. He firmly believed that his recent actions gave him the moral high ground. He was championing the cause of all the others who had suffered by the hands of his victims. These people deserved to die.

  He had a sudden urge to get home, and he looked down at his hands as they rested on the steering wheel. The sleeves of his jacket were stained with blood but his hands were clean, both physically and psychologically. He had stuffed a pair of latex gloves that were thickly coated with blood into an empty cardboard coffee cup, and he was struggling to agree with himself on the next course of action.

  He knew that he couldn’t yet risk going back to his flat for fear of one of his prying neighbours catching sight of his blood-stained clothing. It was bad enough that some pathetic little girl with her scruffy mongrel had spotted it earlier and he half wished now that he had silenced the girl and her bedraggled pet. He convinced himself that there was no way that anyone would be interested in the imagination of a kid, especially if she had gone home and told her mother that Count Dracula had kicked her dog.

  The killer was unaware that the two women he had seen driving past him as he walked towards the garden centre had been instrumental in helping the police make contact with the young girl. If he had been aware he would most likely have added three more names to his hit list.

  He thought again about why he had not enjoyed this killing. He remembered how after he had made that first upward thrust with his knife Arthur had stared him in the face and managed to knee him in the groin. It had been painful, but not enough to stop him, and he managed to release the knife and randomly stabbed at whatever part of the body his knife made contact with. Although the two men had not seen each other for many years Arthur knew his attacker and realised he would be unlikely to overcome him in an ordinary fight, not to mention one where his assailant had a knife.

  However he fought back with every ounce of his being and clawed at the waxy material of the killer’s jacket. Unfortunately for Arthur all efforts to make contact with his attacker’s face were thwarted and when a final stab wound to the neck found the carotid artery his fight was all over.

  The killer spoke aloud and reprimanded himself. ‘You made a bloody fucking mess of that. You should have used a longer, sharper, knife, but no matter, the job has been done. What matters now is getting the other four sorted.’

  He pondered what DCI Phelps would be doing at that very moment and allowed himself a mental pat on the back. For the past three weeks he had read every inch of newspaper coverage and listened to and watched every item of radio and television reporting on the first two murders and he knew that Phelps was getting a hard time – just as planned. It would be even worse for the detective when this latest murder came to light and the killer’s mood lightened at that prospect.

  Perhaps they would have another re-enactment. He had enjoyed the other two and had personally attended both of them. It had been one of the biggest laughs of his life. At the very moment the news presenter was making a public appeal for help in identifying the killer he had been standing just a few feet from her and she had actually spoken to him. She had given out a description that fitted the man looking straight at her but she had failed to notice his presence – what an idiot!

  He turned on his car radio and catching the news he received instant gratification. The newscaster was expressing the public outrage that another of the so-called ‘Bard murders’ had occurred, and this time at a popular garden centre in Rookwood. It was explained that the victim had not yet been formally identified and that more information would be made available at the next full news session.

  It was the last sentence of the brief report that made the killer sit up and take notice.

  The reporter said that the police had reason to believe that the killer drove a grey BMW 525i SE Saloon and asked for the public’s cooperation in tracking down the vehicle.

  The killer froze, and it was almost as if he expected members of the public to instantly start thumping on the doors of his car. He looked around, but he had driven to a piece of wasteland about a mile from his home and there was not a soul in sight. However he knew instantly that he would have to do something about his car, as he suspected that it was likely anyone grey BMW would be stopped.

  There was no chance he could just leave it, though, as within minutes of it being found the registration number would bring the police to his door. Even if he took the bloodstained gloves with him he knew enough about modern-day forensics to realise that some evidence of his latest victim’s blood might be found in the car. In any case there was no chance he could walk from there to his flat in his current bloodstained state.

  How in the fucking name of hell did the police know the exact make and colour of his car? It had to be something to do with that kid walking her dog. She must have watched him get back into the car – but then he was sure he had seen her disappear around the corner before he started up the engine. His first instincts, to stick the knife into her and her mongrel, had been right, and he thought what an idiot he had been not to do as he usually did and follow his gut instincts.

  During all the time he had planned his killing game the thought of getting caught had never been seriously considered, but he was intelligent enough to know that it was now on the cards.

  ‘Not before I finish off what I set out to do,’ he told himself. ‘No one is going to be able to stop me, it’s just a question of moving the planned timescale and getting the job finished.’

  His only plan in terms of dates for the murders had been to make sure they would all happen on a Saturday, simply to cause as much disruption to DCI Phelps and his team as possible. Now the killer would have to set aside that objective, as he thought about the possibility of killing the remaining four people quickly, before he was discovered. He had an exit plan, but he didn’t really want to spend the rest of his life in some remote corner of Poland – and certainly not before he had fulfilled his mission.

  He looked at the rain that was now easing off and remembered that a forecast he had heard earlier was promising a return to fine weather within a day or so. That would make it easier to keep to his game plan and kill in the order of the colours he had planned. If it stayed wet he would have to jump to his blue victim – namely DCI Phelps.

  He didn’t want to think too much about the reasons he had for wanting to get rid of Phelps. There was no moral high ground to be taken in that particular case. It was one hundred per cent personal.

  It was getting darker. The rain had almost completely stopped, and the killer brought his focus sha
rply back to the here and now. He would give himself another ten minutes or so and then drive back to his flat. He knew that his neighbours went out quite early on a Saturday night, so he would soon be able to risk going home. After all, even murderers had human needs, and right now he needed a pee – and was relaxed enough to be considering the bacon and eggs that had become part of his post-killing ritual.

  Less than a quarter of an hour later he had driven the car to his home and locked it in the garage. Luck had been with him and he’d been able to get inside without being seen. He wouldn’t be using the car again for a very long time and would see about hiring one tomorrow.

  He stripped off for a shower and bagged all his clothes with the intention of getting rid of them the following day. The television provided some more information and he saw with dismay a reporter standing on the very spot where he had parked his car before walking to the kill. To add to the killer’s frustration, there was a very brief interview with Martin Phelps in which he looked far from embarrassed by the case’s lack of progress.

  Facing the cameras with confidence, Phelps expressed his regret that there had been another killing, but told the public that he and his team were very close to solving the crimes and putting away one of the most deranged killers he had ever had the misfortune to come across.

  In conclusion, Phelps had said, ‘Whoever you are and wherever you are, we are now in a position to put a stop to your macabre games and to ensure that you will soon be paying the price for your actions.’

  The killer made a fist and thrust it under Martin’s face as the news item faded and he was left with his fist aimed at the image of a brick wall. He yelled at the screen. ‘Laying down the gauntlet are you, DCI Phelps? Well, let’s see how your public image holds up after next Tuesday.’