by China, Max
Tony looked at the tattoo - confused for a second, then his eyes lowered an inch. Inked onto the knuckle of the cocked thumb below, the letter H completed the word for him: WRATH.
Tony suddenly felt the chill air of Dyson's menace, and as he stepped forward, he gambled the doormen would restrain him, that way not losing face. The bigger doorman planted himself between them; another two appeared out of nowhere.
They showed Dyson the door.
He didn't care; he already had what he wanted.
Lynch answered his phone as he drew into the club car park.
"Mel, you okay? I've just arrived at the club."
She began hesitantly. "You know I never talk about Kennedy, 'cause I know you don't like it." Lynch bunched his fists at the mention of the name. "But he said something about this operation he's working on . . ."
"What did he say?"
"I just think you need to watch Tony, that's all."
"I said, what did he say, not what you think. Come on Mel; let's have the rest of it . . . all of it. "
"The police arrested Billy Wharton a little while back and he talked, something about a shipment of arms and drugs . . . I don't know . . . I couldn't look like I was too interested. Apparently they think Tony is going to hijack the shipment and use the proceeds to start his own operation . . ."
"Do they now?" he said.
"Danny, what will you do . . .?" After a long pause, she said, "I don't like it when you go quiet like this, you're not angry with me are you?"
"No, not with you. I'll tell you what I'm going to do; I'm going to give him enough rope. Then we'll see him hang himself."
Melissa refrained from any comment. She wanted to tell him that she'd been instructed under duress to tell him those things, but she dared not. Suddenly, the apprehension she felt about the game she'd been drawn into, moved to a terrifying new level, and the consequences scared her more than she'd thought possible.
Relieved she hadn't told him all of it, she was supposed to have said Tony kept coming round to see her behind his back. She shivered at the thought of what he might do if she had told him that.
Lynch sat in the car for a few minutes after the call ended. Why would Kennedy tell her something like that? It had to be a scam to start trouble between him and Tony, but why? He always knew there would come a point in time, when the DCI would try to use her against him and in truth, he'd considered using her to feed him with fake information, just to see if she would. At the beginning, apart from the sex, it was the only reason he kept with her, the possibility of using her like a Mata Hari type figure, but over time, he'd grown fond of her. Lately, the possibility of making a respectable woman out of her had crossed his mind with a frequency that disturbed him. Now, he had to find out exactly where her true loyalties lay. Tonight, he was stuck entertaining VIP's from the criminal fraternity tonight. Tomorrow he would sort it out with her.
He locked the car and as he walked away, still deep in thought, he almost collided with a powerfully built man crammed into an ill-fitting suit. Lynch scowled at him, although he was the one at fault. The man tipped an imaginary cap at him.
For a second, the gangster wondered whose minder he was.
Later, in the club, Tony told his boss about this great idea he'd had. Lynch listened, his eyes narrowing as mumbled his way through a brief outline of his plan.
He clapped Tony on the back. "You know what Tony? I can see you going places with ideas like that, mate!" They shook hands vigorously. Lynch called out to a waitress who was hovering attentively nearby.
"Let's have some more shampoo!"
Chapter 89
Friday night 23rd March
At precisely 8:30, the telephone rang persistently. She was already with Kennedy and remembered the caller had instructed her not to answer it.
Grunting with irritation, he stretched over to pick it up. She'd anticipated he would do that and rolled him back, getting herself on top of him.
"You don't really want me to take a call right now . . ." she said and reached down between her legs, her hand encircling him. "Do you?"
"No, I don't think I do now . . ." he gasped as she manoeuvred herself onto his length. The answer phone seemed to take forever to kick in. She rode him slowly at first, looking deep into his eyes. He stared at her in child-like wonder. Reaching over to the bedside table, she saw a message icon appear on the phone display. Curiosity threatened to get the better of her. The caller had told her she was not to listen to it. Now she was more interested than ever in what it said. Kennedy began thrusting faster, a look of grim determination on his face. She slowed him down.
"Whoa, you forgot to put this on." She waggled the condom she'd just unwrapped.
"Shit!" he said, as she withdrew herself from him.
"We don't usually?"
"No, but I lost my pills yesterday. I can't take the chance, you know that."
"Okay," he whispered. "Put it on with your mouth . . ."
Just after 10 p.m. Melissa rang the telephone number the caller gave her.
"He's gone. I did as you asked."
"Excellent, then I'll bring your stuff back to you, right away."
"Hang on a minute, I'm really tired. Can't this wait until the morning?" She wanted her possessions back; she also wanted more time to think. She had toyed with the idea of having a reception committee for him, when he came, and she suspected the police would be more than happy to oblige, but she soon dismissed it when she realised she might lose all the money and her dossier on Danny. They’d have a field day, and he would probably kill her. She also thought about having Danny's men meet him, but that was also out of the question. What could she possibly fabricate to tell him without arousing suspicion? Besides, what would happen if one of his men got hold of the files she'd been keeping?
Melissa realised how tightly wrapped the caller had her.
"I'll see you in a couple of minutes."
If she'd looked through her door viewer, she would have seen him standing there already. Kennedy had left, and he was concerned that she hadn't called him straight away.
He couldn't risk her listening to the message he’d left; she might delete it. He rang the bell.
She saw the back of him through the security viewer; he had a carrier bag with him, the same Harrods bag she'd stashed the money away into, in the first place.
She let him in.
Face to face and fully in the light, although his ugliness scared her; she found herself strangely turned on by the power he held over her.
They moved down to her lounge. He sat uninvited placing her bag and another one he was carrying between his feet. She noticed he was dressed strangely.
He saw her looking at his taped up wrists and ankles. "It's okay; I'm on the job, just diverted round here, no time to change . . ." his lips tightened, baring his teeth. His eyes grew colder.
She'd just begun to read the newspaper when he rang. Gasman strikes for the third time.
She was feeling uneasy, bordering on dread; she wanted him out of there as quick as possible.
"That's my money and stuff I presume?" She saw something she was unable to make out in the other bag; it looked floppy the way it laid, reminding her of the deflated armbands she used to carry in a bag to the beach when she was a kid. There was something else in there too, the size of a large tin of beer.
He handed her the money and her files. She looked relieved. "You see, I keep my promises, now what do you have for me?"
"I'll get it," she said, getting up.
In the kitchen, she opened the fridge; it was one of those huge American style ones, with a drinks dispenser and icemaker on one side. She retrieved the package she put there earlier, double wrapped as instructed, the outer layer wrapped in cling film. She closed the fridge door and turned.
He clamped her with a huge gloved hand, sealing her mouth shut, driving her back into the fridge. Her scream was stifled. She realised who he was for the first time.
Her eyes were wid
e with terror, as he explained.
"I told you I'm on a job. I'm here to fix a leak."
"What leak?" She tried to say, but only succeeded in mumbling unintelligibly, into the muffle of his hand. Seeing him now, newspaper headlines flashed before her. She already knew the answer.
With one hand, he pinned her and poured the liquid into the delivery apparatus with the other. The sweet, cloying, dangerous odour of chloroform snatched her life's breath away.
He held it clamped over her nose and mouth, long after she'd stopped breathing.
Afterwards, he calmly dismantled the Gasman's trademark apparatus and left the jar in the kitchen.
He picked up the money and the diary and then put it back into his own bag.
"I told you I'd give your money back, didn't I?"
Going to her bedroom, he collected her safe keys and robbed her all over again. He pored over the new diary she'd begun, which included him, before taking it. She referred to him simply as the 'Caller', until the last entry; there she referred to him, as 'Condom man.'
He smirked. The press would have a field day with that name. Dumb blonde.
He extracted roughly half the semen from the condom with a syringe, transferred it to another; he left a bubble of it in the syringe and inserted it into her vagina, injecting her with it. He stopped to admire her neatly trimmed and shaven pussy. Now that is neat. He wondered if she trimmed it to make it look like Monroe's. He began to salivate. Controlling himself, he forced himself to think about what he still had to do.
An echo of his mother's voice sounded in the vast halls of his memories, summoned by the shred of guilt she instilled in him. Temptation is a trap for the weak . . . Tell me about weakness, mother. I'm stronger than you ever were.
He split the rubber at the end of the original condom, just a tiny nick, big enough to have allowed the seepage into her, small enough to retain the semen. Then he left it, unflushed down the toilet.
Chapter 90
In the darkness at the back of the house, the man pulled on his disposable boiler suit and then his latex gloves. He taped the gloves with masking tape at the wrists, sealing them to the to the paper suit. He repeated the process, taping the over shoes where they joined the trousers at the ankles. Once he'd pulled up the suit's hood and tightened the cord, only his mouth, nose and eyes were visible.
The sound of his breathing changed as he donned the mask, reminiscent of gasping into a cardboard box. He'd spotted her while trawling through Facebook. Nice revealing photographs. She was an aspiring model, happy for anyone to look at her portfolio. Her wall postings revealed that she liked to drink, and that made it easy to track her down. Sifting through the photos of places he discovered one of her taken underneath a pub sign, there were other shots throughout the season taken outside in varying locations, but clearly the same place. Concluding she was a regular at the pub, he turned up there on two separate occasions before he finally saw her there. Two hours later, he followed her home. It was that simple. He stalked her over the next few days, getting to know her. She was a drunk. When she wasn't out; she drank to excess in her own home, and she often paraded about the house naked. A couple of times he found himself sorely tempted . . .
She lived alone, no dog, no cat. The house wasn't alarmed, and it would be a breeze for him to break into. He thought back to how he used to be before he changed his methods. In those days, he would lay in wait for victims at remote beauty spots around the country. It amazed him how few of the girls ever fought him. It wouldn't have made a difference anyway. He was too powerful. In those days, his unexpected appearance would terrify them, and he would go to great lengths to ensure he appeared in such a way as to register the shock on their faces, capture the scream in their mouths as it started . . . The memories stimulated him time and again, and then he would think about her. The Cornwall Girl. He'd never left a shred of evidence anywhere until that day. If he hadn't been disturbed, he would have killed her. No doubt about that. He got away with it and so did she. After that, he changed. It was a warning shot. He learned to get his kicks in other ways. The suits, gloves and overshoes, were the same as he wore when he was an asbestos removal contractor. The mask graded suitable for all dusts and fibres especially asbestos. It was also force-ventilated from the inside via a battery pack, so not much chance of him accidentally inhaling any chloroform. He carried his business card with him for the benefit of the police if they stopped and searched him. In his entire life that only happened once and that night he'd come close to killing the officer concerned. The urge was on him, but he'd controlled it. The fifth and final Gasman attack was to be the last one. After that, he'd evolve into something else. He rarely grinned, but he congratulated himself on spotting a gap in the market using DNA technology. It was great. He had the sex; someone else would get the blame. With no one else around to hear him, he said aloud, "You have to agree, you're a genius!"
When he reached her room, she was naked, half out of the bed, he tried to rouse her, but she was so drunk, he probably need not have gassed her.
Gasman strikes twice in one night. He was pleased with himself. When he was finished, he carefully withdrew with his condom intact. He put it into a small plastic bag, to take away with him and sealed it.
He undid the small package he had with him and then transferred the contents of the condom Marilyn had given him into a syringe; which he carefully inserted into her vagina, and then slowly pushing the plunger as he withdrew it, allowed a small amount to dribble down onto the bed beneath her.
Leaving the trademark jar at the scene, he gathered up the rest of the apparatus and took it with him. Later, he stashed it alongside the mask and the seven remaining jars that he'd planted in Kennedy's garage some time back.
She was still unconscious when he left.
Chapter 91
It was late. Lynch had been trying to reach Melissa all night. It was unlike her to ignore his calls. At first, he didn't let it bother him. After the fifth successive unanswered call, he decided he would check up on her. She always took his calls, if not straightaway, she'd get back to him usually within an hour or so. There had to be something wrong.
He arrived a little after 11 o'clock. He'd wanted to talk to her about staying on Saturdays nights as well, he'd tried talking about it earlier, but she became evasive. He imagined what he would do if he caught her with another man. Then he remembered what she'd told him the night before. Maybe Kennedy was round there, and that was why she wouldn't take his calls. He was firing himself up for trouble.
As he approached the entrance, he looked up. All her lights were on. He pressed redial as he ascended the stairs. Her telephone was ringing. It sounded different, louder, he started taking the steps two at a time without quite knowing why.
The front door was open. A burst of adrenaline surged through him. He bunched his fists and not wanting to alert the neighbours to his presence, pushed the door noiselessly all the way back against the wall.
Satisfied no one was hiding behind it, he called out, "Melissa - are you there?" Senses in overdrive, he marched down the hallway to the lounge. The TV was on low. A newspaper lay on the couch. An opened bottle of tonic water sat on the coffee table with the lid next to it as if she'd left the room only moments ago. An unfamiliar feeling descended on him. For a moment, he felt afraid. Anxiety evident in his voice, he called out, "Mel, stop messing about…" He knew, even as he said it that she couldn't be messing around with him. She hadn't known he was coming. He paused in the hallway and looked at her bedroom door; it was ajar, and the light was on. A disembodied question from a TV interviewer filtered down the hall and registered in his consciousness. 'Do you think there was anything you could have done about it at the time?' The answer failed to register. He cocked his right fist to his shoulder and using his left hand, opened the door fully.
Nobody. No sign of her in the bedroom. No one was hiding behind the bedroom door. He approached the wardrobe where she kept her safe; he wouldn't want someone snea
king out behind him after he left the room. The thought made him check under the bed first.
Nothing. The mirror door rumbled on its runners as he quickly slid it open.
No one. Then he saw the safe door. It was open, the key still in the lock, the safe empty. Apprehension turned to anger in the instant it took for his brain to comprehend. She's run out on me! Then he saw her car keys. Why didn't she take her car?
He ran out into the hall. Guided by some instinct, he went into the kitchen and there he found her, naked and lifeless, sprawled across the floor.
"Mel!" Lynch was not a man known for expressing any emotion other than anger or hatred, but he cried out for her, raw and without restraint. He sank to his knees next to her; he knew death when he saw it.
Someone had found out about the money . . . Killed her for the money, and when he found out who it was, they'd better hope the Old Bill got them first.
He needed to think. His hands floated above her body. He wanted to caress her one last time. The urge to touch her was almost too much. Standing up, he looked down at her. "Jesus, Mel . . ." he said, wiping his face with his palm. "I'm going to get whoever did this, I swear - whoever they are."
On the worktop, was an empty plastic shopping bag, he put his hand inside and used it to pick up the red-cased telephone. There were five missed calls, and all of them were his. He checked the call register. There was one number other than his recorded there . . . JFK. Using the camera on his mobile, he photographed the entry on its screen and put it back to where he’d found it. Next, he checked her white phone; there was a message icon on the display. He listened to it. It was Tony trying to smooth his way in with her. "Listen, I got to be with you again. I'll call round in an hour . . . See you."