Chosen To Kill (DI Matt Barnes Book 4)

by Michael Kerr

  “I know how you work, Doctor. You study the wills, thoughts, intentions and reactions of people like me that have suffered severe personality disorders. But I’m an individual, not some specimen in a jar that you can take out from time to time and write notes about. I was ill and suffered from severe schizophrenia that caused me to be highly dangerous, but I’m well now, and yet you keep me locked up like some common criminal.”

  Beth was a little alarmed at the difference in Peter’s disposition. He was usually calm and acquiescent, but was now challenging and obviously perturbed. “By your own admission you raped and murdered at least thirteen young women,” she said. “We have a duty to the public to be positive that you are no longer a threat to society before we consider allowing you to be a part of it again.”

  “So you think that I’m still mentally ill?” Peter said.

  “It isn’t what I as an individual thinks that counts, Peter. If you had been considered fit to plead and gone to prison for life, then you know that you would probably never have been released.”

  “But I wasn’t fit to plead, that’s the point. I was ill, and not responsible for my actions, and yet I’ll probably die in this fucking place, because people like you will never have the balls to release me.”

  Beth felt that she was on the cusp of determining that Peter Mullins was indeed still a real threat, and that he had spent his time at Northfield presenting a wholly fictitious persona.

  “An integral part of any incarcerated person’s bid to be paroled is that they show genuine remorse for what they have done,” Beth said. “Do you feel any measure of regret for what you did?”

  Peter looked at his hands, which were palm down on top of the table and as still as if they had been sculpted from marble. He smiled and shrugged his meaty shoulders. “How can I feel sorry for something that I did when I was not responsible for my actions, due to being mentally ill?”

  “If you are now truly as well as you profess to be, then surely you feel appalled by what you did to those women.”

  “What I or anybody else feels about anything is totally irrelevant,” Peter said. “Many people have bad thoughts and fantasise over committing acts that are illegal. That they do not carry them out does not make them nice, well-balanced people. They hide the darkness within themselves and only obey the law, and somehow harness their actions, because they are scared that they would be caught. Rape and murder are common occurrences, and always have been. It’s part of who we are, Doctor. We have the innate capacity to harm one another. And this psychological game that you and I play is beginning to seriously piss me off. Tell me, if you lived to be a hundred, could you envisage recommending that I was mentally well enough to be integrated back into society?”

  “I write it up as I see it, Peter. Should I ever consider you to be no longer a risk to young women, then I would, as part of your care team, look at how best to―”

  “Bullshit,” he said. “What would Matt Barnes think if you had any part in effecting the release of a man like me?”

  “How do you―?”

  “Give us lunatics some credit, Beth. This human zoo is our home; our little universe. We have all the time in the world to study our keepers. It’s not a one-way street. Just a snippet of overheard conversation here and there between staff members builds a picture of your pathetic lives. Over the years we learn more about you than you do about us. Unguarded phone calls and conversations can be very enlightening. Like you, we share knowledge and have mental dossiers on you all.

  “For instance, did you know that Dr. Crenshaw has a piece of skirt on the side? Her name is Natalie, and she works here at the freak show, in the pharmacy. I’m sure his wife and children would not be amused to be informed that some of the long hours’ that he supposedly works are spent fucking the hired help. And the assistant director of Northfield has a proclivity for prepubescent girls. Check him out. As you know he’s single and is very protective of his private life, as he should be, because he makes Jimmy Savile look like an also-ran. And isn’t paedophilia looked upon as a psychiatric disorder by you lot? Shouldn’t he be in a place like this, or at very least serving a prison sentence for what he’s doing?”

  Beth was aghast to realise that although all employees were educated to be extremely careful in what they said in earshot of patients, Mullins and obviously many others picked up on odd unguarded snippets and built up their own kind of profiles on the staff that they came into contact with. Walls obviously had ears. She would have to bring the matter up at the next meeting with her peers, but did not know what the hell she should do in the meantime with regard to the allegation made by Mullins against the assistant director of the facility, Claude Reeves. It could be no more than a malicious lie made up on a whim. She would talk it over with Matt.

  “I think that we’re through here, Peter,” Beth said.

  Peter glared at her. “Nice when you can just walk away with my fate in your hands. How will you write-up today’s little session? Have you anything constructive to scribble down in my file, or will it just be another negative report?”

  “Personally, I actually believe you to be legally sane, Peter. You have a full review scheduled for next month, at which you will be reassessed. Maybe your future lies in the mainstream prison system.”

  There was no warning. As Beth made to stand up, Mullins seemed to fly across the table, to grasp her by the throat as they fell to the floor. Beth had attempted to push the panic button located under the overhang of the tabletop, but was not sure that she had been able to apply enough pressure to set it off.

  “You sanctimonious bitch,” Mullins said as he tightened his grip on her neck and she gazed up into his face, which now displayed an expression of pure hatred. “You’re going to be dead in seconds, and then I’ll rape you if I have time before the goon squad arrives.”

  They heard radio transmissions. Beth knew that help was only seconds away. She needed to buy time. Mullins was sitting on her with his legs either side of her waist. She lashed out with her left hand clenched and felt his grip lessen as the blow caught him in the temple and the solitaire diamond of her engagement ring ripped through the skin. Fight to live, she thought, and brought her head up from the floor with all the force she could muster, to head butt him on his top lip and nose. His hands lost their grip on her and she felt a surge of hope as she scuttled back away from him.

  Recoiling at the unexpected attack, Peter tasted blood and felt a powerful rush of adrenaline flow through his muscles as he once more stretched out his arms to reach for her throat. It had been a long time since he had strangled a woman. For years he had rerun all the past acts of rape and murder he had committed in fine detail; had found that he could recollect every second of the crimes, as if he were returned to the scenes. But the mental repeats had no solidity, and he needed to kill again, to diminish the homicidal urges that he could not purge himself of.

  The door opened and male nurses entered the room as Beth kicked out with both of her feet together and knocked Mullins backwards.

  It was over. Screaming obscenities, Mullins was physically restrained and taken away, as one nurse, Neil Wilmot, helped Beth to her feet and asked if she was alright.

  “I’ve been better, Neil,” Beth said. “But that was too close for comfort. Mullins has always been a passive and seemingly nonaggressive character.”

  “I think of them as all being potentially dangerous,” Neil said as he guided her out into the corridor and headed for the treatment room. “They’re as unpredictable as sleeping volcanoes. I remind myself constantly why they’re in here, and that gives me an edge.”

  Beth opened her eyes and found that she was smoking another cigarette, although she had no recollection of lighting it. She opened the window and tossed it out, then coughed. She could still feel the phantom grip of Mullins’s fingers around her throat, and knew that he would have left his mark on her by way of bruising.

  Driving off, she decided to adopt Neil Wilmot’s outlook. She ha
d obviously become a little complacent and thought that she could read the patients. It was apparent that her ability to assess their complex personalities was woefully short of being sure-fire. They had damaged psyches, were in the main cunning, and their actions could not always be accurately estimated.

  Stopping at the butcher’s shop in the village, Beth bought a large piece of prime steak. She had decided to celebrate the near fatal incident by cooking a nice meal for her and Matt. She would serve it with all the trimmings, and enjoy it with an expensive bottle of wine.

  Matt texted Beth when he left the Yard: ON MY WAY xx

  By the time he arrived home the meal was less than twenty minutes from being put out. He gave Beth a hug and a kiss and went upstairs for a quick shower and a change of clothes, before returning to the kitchen to pour the wine that Beth had opened earlier to let breathe. It was as she put the loaded plates on the table in the nook that he saw the plum-coloured bruises on her neck.

  “Who did that?” he said, setting down his glass and going to her.

  “I’m okay, honest,” Beth said. “A patient lost his temper and attacked me.”

  “Patient! You mean a homicidal fucking psychopath attempted to strangle you. Tell me what happened.”

  “I’ll discuss it if you sit down and eat. If you waste that steak, my lips are sealed.”

  Matt gave her one of his intimidating looks, but she just smiled. “That icy stare doesn’t work on me Barnes, so park your bum and dig in.”

  The combined aroma of the steak, pepper sauce and the onion rings and sautéed mushrooms made him almost drool. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and then only a couple of slices of toast. He was starving.

  “So talk,” he said as he ate.

  Beth finished chewing a piece of the tender steak and took a sip of the French Pinot Noir. “A patient didn’t like the way the discussion was going, so dived over the table. I managed to press the panic button and he was restrained and removed. That’s all there was to it.”

  “Tell me his name.”

  “No, Matt. He isn’t important. And what he did will ensure that he stays where he belongs. Finish your meal.”

  They cleaned their plates and drank the bottle of wine. Later, in bed, Matt asked Beth to quit her job at Northfield, and she said that she would, when he quit the force. It was an impasse, and Matt knew that Beth’s work was as important to her as his was to him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  John freed Ruth and Doug at just after seven-thirty a.m., and told Ruth to make breakfast for the three of them. He kept the sawn-off pointed at Ruth and was confident that Doug loved her too much to risk losing her. He kept his distance from them, though, not wanting to give either of them a chance to disarm him. They had seen what he’d done to Gill, and were therefore in no doubt that he was capable of killing them without any compunction.

  Standing at the counter next to the sink he ate the omelette using a fork in his left hand. Ruth and Doug were sitting at the table. No one spoke. The portable TV was switched on, tuned to the BBC News channel with the volume muted. A photo of John’s face was displayed periodically, as was outside broadcast footage of police searching the forest.

  It was while the couple were washing up that they heard a vehicle pull up at the front of the cottage.

  John had expected them to come. He told Doug to go to the window in the lounge and confirm that it was a police car.

  “Yes,” Doug said. “Two officers have just got out and are walking towards the front door.”

  “Okay Dougie, now’s your chance to save a lot of grief. Act natural and convince them that everything is fine here and that you’ve seen no one. Keep your arms down and your hands in view. Ask a few pertinent questions and appear a little nervous at the thought of a killer being in the area. And remember, if I even think that you’re trying to warn them, Ruthie gets blown away.”

  Doug took deep breaths and composed himself. He waited until one of the officers knocked at the door, and then strolled down the hall and opened it, after first pulling the net curtain – that covered the window in the top half – aside as if to check on who was there.

  He knew the sergeant, Rob Baxter, but did not recognise the young WPC standing a couple of paces back and to the side.

  “Good morning, Doug,” Rob said. “I reckon you’ll know why we’re here.”

  “I’ve got the TV on now, Rob,” Doug said. “Do you really think that the guy you’re looking for is in the forest?”

  “Who knows? He could be anywhere by now, but his car was fished out of the reservoir, and the powers that be think that he’ll be laying low, hoping that he can make a break for it when the initial hullabaloo dies down. How’s Ruth?”

  “Fine. Just having a shower. We may go over to Harlow later to pick up some timber. I’ve got a few days off, so I plan on building a chicken shed.”

  “Have you checked your outbuildings?” Rob said.

  “There’s only the woodshed, and I keep it locked.”

  “Best give me the key. We’ll check it while we’re here.”

  Doug went back to the kitchen and took the key to the padlock on the shed off a cup hook and returned to the door.

  “I’ll take it,” Rob said. “Just in case you’ve got uninvited company hiding in there.”

  “Like I said, it’s locked,” Doug said as he handed Rob the key and stayed at the door as the two police officers walked over to the woodshed.

  “So far, so good,” John said from behind him. “They seem happy enough. And when they’ve had a quick look inside the shed they should be on their merry way. They’re just going through the motions.”

  Rob noticed that the padlock had been moved up a couple of inches. The wood was lighter where the hasp had been, and the holes from the screws were visible. The damage to the timber made him a little wary. Why would Doug have prised the hasp from the door?

  Opening the padlock, Rob found a rocker switch inside at shoulder height on the jamb. He thumbed it on and two fluorescent tubes flickered to life to brighten the gloomy interior.

  Everything looked as he imagined that it would. There was a large pile of logs at the far end of what was basically a forty by twenty foot room. Dozens of tools decorated the walls, and he noticed a wood lathe, a solid timber bench and a large sit-on lawnmower. The smell of pine and motor oil and petrol filled the dusty air.

  “Sarge,” WPC Lucy Knight said, pointing at the ground. “Could that be what I think it is?”

  Rob hunkered down and gently ran his finger over the dark spot on the layer of sawdust that coated the floor. He rubbed his finger and thumb together. The residue was barely damp, but smeared. He sniffed his fingers and frowned. “I think it could be blood, Luce,” he said.

  Lucy visually checked the area. The only thing that caught her eye was another teardrop-shaped spot of what appeared to be blood on the side of one of the paint cans under the bench. It showed up on the otherwise white container. Kneeling down, she used the edge of her hand to brush away some of the sawdust under the bench, and found the soil beneath it to be loose; not as hard packed as the rest of the ground seemed to be.

  “What’s your take on it, Luce?” Rob said.

  “Blood and loose soil. If I let my imagination run away with me, I’d think that someone or something had been buried. How daft is that?”

  “What the fuck is keeping them?” John said to Ruth and Doug, as if they would have a clue as to why the two police officers were still inside the woodshed.

  Lucy stood up, looked around the shed and took a garden trowel from where it was suspended on a nail. She also noticed more blood: fine lines of it drying on the dark timber walls. Back on her knees, she started digging at the loose earth, stopping when the pointed end of the trowel met resistance. She used her hand to scoop more soil away and uncovered what appeared to be plastic.

  Rob turned as he heard the door of the shed scrape on the dirt as it was pushed open. Doug and Ruth walked in, followed by a ma
n holding a sawn-off shotgun.

  Lucy climbed to her feet and instantly recognised the man as being John Gibson, the wanted murderer.

  “Put the gun down,” Rob said.

  “Is that an order or a last request?” John asked.

  “An order,” Rob said. “The area is full of officers. Pull the trigger and the noise will bring them here. It’s over.”

  John pushed the shortened barrels into Doug’s back. “I think I’ll take my chances,” he said, using his free hand to push the door closed. “I’ve got nothing to lose. Lay face down on the ground, both of you, or Dougie here will have his spine blown out of his stomach.”

  Rob and Lucy looked at each other, and Rob nodded. They both got down and stretched out on the ground.

  “Go and get some of those plastic ties out of the can on the bench, Ruthie,” John said. “You know what to do with them.”

  Within a minute both Rob and Lucy were bound and helpless.

  “Take the handcuffs out of their pouches and toss them over here,” John said. “And find the keys to them.”

  John relaxed a little when all four of his prisoners were sitting up against the far wall. He had instructed Ruth to use one pair of cuffs to secure her right ankle to Doug’s left, and then to repeat the procedure on their wrists with the other pair. All he had to do now was find a solution to the biggest problem of his life. It would probably only be a matter of minutes before somebody tried to make radio contact with one of the cops. He was going to have to play it by ear.

  “What’s the procedure?” he said to Rob.

  Rob said nothing.

  John approached them, saw the Taser fastened to Lucy’s belt, withdrew it and guessed that all he had to do was point it at the target and pull the trigger. He tried it, but nothing happened. Examining the device, he saw the safety catch, thumbed it down and pulled the trigger again.

  Lucy fell sideways and appeared to be having a seizure as the two barbed, dart-like electrodes embedded in her neck. They were attached to the Taser by conductive wires.