by Michael Kerr
“I’m truly sorry,” Tony said. “The man that murdered Neil Connolly is continuing to kill people, and so it’s big news. Unfortunately the connection between Connolly and Josie is in the public domain. There’s no way we can keep it under wraps. But once this killer is caught it will be yesterday’s news again.”
Matt faced David and laid it on the line. “This is off the record, Mr Madsen,” he said. “The man that killed your daughter’s murderer just struck again. Problem being, an elderly woman showed up at the wrong time and had her throat cut from ear to ear. He’s lost the plot, and now innocent people are in danger of dying, not just the men he’s targeting.”
“And what has that got to do with me?”
“Maybe nothing, but he set off by torturing and murdering the man that had just been released from prison after serving a sentence for what he did to your daughter. That was the starting point, and now he’s an up and running, fully fledged serial killer.”
“How could I help? I have no idea who he is.”
“He could be someone that you left off the list of friends and ex-work mates you gave DI Underwood. Like you said before, you’re glad that it happened. If you had an inkling of who killed Connolly, you’d want to pat him on the back, not see him arrested.”
David nodded. He had left one or two names off the list. But it was going too far. If the killer was someone he knew, then although the act of revenge on his behalf was on some dark and basic level appreciated, it had to stop. No one sane made a career out of brutally killing other people, and worse, anyone who happened to witness him doing it.
“Let’s go back in the kitchen,” Matt said. “And you can sit down and write the names of those that…slipped your mind.”
Matt left David to write out a new and comprehensive list. Tony and Mrs Madsen were sitting in the lounge. On the TV, the rolling banner below the talking head caught Matt’s eye. It said: ‘Man dead after jumping in front of train from platform of London tube station’. It didn’t ring any bells, just caused Matt to think how desperate some people were, to make the decision to end it all. He recalled that there was an average of about eighty people a year that chose to pull the plug by jumping off platforms on the underground. Several thousand people in the UK chose to end it all every year by one means or another, with hanging being the most popular method employed.
David came through a couple of minutes later and handed Matt a page torn from a spiral notebook with a list of names on it, and where he knew the people from. It was another lead. Hopefully the name of The Clown was included.
He was aching. Brawling with potential prey had been a new and frightening experience. The kick that had caught him on the side of his neck had been hard and painful, and now it hurt to turn his head or raise his right arm. Rolling around the floor with a desperate man who knew that he was in a life or death situation was not something that he intended repeating. Choosing to go to Danby’s bedsit had been a mistake. From now on he would go back to the tried and true methods used in taking the first two men. A surprise attack from behind was the most effective way to stun someone for long enough to bind them up and place them in the boot of his car. Once the lid was closed he was safe. Once back inside his large garage he could deal with them at his leisure and take all the time he needed, before dumping the corpse at a predetermined drop site.
Now, after closing and locking the up-and-over door, he went into the partitioned off area at the rear of the garage, to strip off his outer clothes and trainers and place them in a plastic bin bag. He would have a garden fire in the morning and burn everything that could possibly have blood or other trace from the bedsit. His back garden was quite large, and enclosed by thick coniferous hedging to afford maximum privacy.
In the house, he petted Rascal, gave him a chewy beef twist, and rinsed out his best friend’s water bowl and filled it with fresh. Dogs were his favourite ‘people’. They were faithful and did not judge you. If humans had a tenth of the average dog’s good qualities, then perhaps there could be peace on earth, and it would be a safer place for all men. But men were and always had been uncivilised and barbaric. He adjudged himself to be just as guilty, and yet rationalised his actions. The men that he’d killed had not been fit to live…not fit for purpose. He had found an extreme but effective way to deal with them. He acknowledged that he had developed a passion to kill. Did that make him evil? He thought not, for those that he preyed on were fully deserving of whatever fate they met. That could not be said for the old woman, though. Her appearance at the door of the bedsit had caused him to panic. But he had not killed her with malice, only to safeguard his freedom, to be able to continue his good work.
He showered, rubbed Deep Heat into his bruised shoulder and neck, and slipped on a chunky robe and his slippers, before making a cheese and tomato sandwich and a pot of tea. He switched the radio on, that was tuned to Classic FM, and settled back, sore but satisfied overall with his evening’s work.
After a while, when he had finished his sandwich and poured a second cup of tea, he took the file from its hidey-hole and put a line through the name of Craig Danby on his ‘people to kill’ list. The next victim-in-waiting was Dewey Marvin, a guy who had been acquitted twice on charges of grooming young girls for prostitution. Key witnesses were believed to have been threatened, and a sixteen year old Asian girl had been found in an alley with a hypodermic syringe in her left eye. Cause of death had been a massive overdose of heroin.
Marvin had walked out of the Old Bailey after the case fell apart. A picture featured in most of the papers had shown him grinning and giving the middle finger to all the gathered media. He was a purveyor of sex and drugs, and was responsible for many deaths, but having witnesses terrorised or killed had kept him from going to prison, and that was wholly unacceptable.
The drug-peddling pimp would not be easy to isolate and abduct. But where there’s a will, there’s a way. He determined to stalk Marvin, acquaint himself with the man’s habits, and decide how, where and when it would be best to take him alive to deal with. No rush. He had plenty to keep him occupied. An order from the local bowling club for a hardwood display cabinet was his next project in the workshop, once he had put the finishing touches to the doll’s house for the playgroup in Chadwell Heath.
Later, lying in the darkness of his bedroom, he heard the hinges of the door creak, and smiled. Rascal would be pushing it open with his nose, to sneak in and climb up on the bed to curl up next to him.
Matt had got home at nine p.m. after a long day that had been in the main spent checking out Craig Danby’s past in detail and personally putting everything on a fresh whiteboard. The team had been chasing shadows as they attempted to pin down the motive for the murders of Danielle Cooper and Jeff Goodwin, but were still unsure as to whether it was related to their work on the City Crime show or of a more personal nature. No one that the two presenters had known looked good for it, and yet the manner in which they had been murdered pointed to the killer being familiar to them. If Jeff Goodwin had been pushed off the roof of the apartment building he’d lived in, then how was he forced to go up there and be coerced into doing it?
Beth gave Matt a hug and a kiss and could tell by the tenseness of his muscles that he was still in work mode. She knew that it was almost impossible for him to be truly relaxed when a case was proving hard to get a fix on.
“How about a large Scotch to chill you out a little?”
Matt smiled. “That’s the best offer I’ve had all day. Sorry if I seem uptight, but it’s because I am. The Clown struck again, and this time some old dear must have witnessed what he was doing, so he killed her.”
“Talk me through it,” Beth said. “Was it the same MO?”
“Yeah, with modifications. The body hadn’t been kept and then dumped. The two victims were dealt with at the bedsit that Danby lived at.”
“Who’s Danby?” Beth asked as she placed two glasses on the table in the nook.
“Craig Danby. He was a fort
y-three year old paedophile who’d served time and was on the sex offenders’ register. He was known to have sodomised a ten year old boy, shortly after finishing his last stretch, but there wasn’t enough proof to charge him.”
“So he made it onto the vigilante’s list?”
“Exactly. And it wasn’t a walk in the park for the killer. There’d been a struggle before he overcame Danby. Hopefully there will be trace at the scene. Danby had a broken nose, a lot of bruising, and his penis had been cut off. As per usual the word guilty had been carved in his back, and there was a mask on his face.”
Matt had got Tam to send copies of the images he had taken in the bedsit to his phone. He took the Nokia from his pocket, brought up the files and handed the phone to Beth.
Beth studied the horrific murder scene. The disparity between the physical injuries inflicted on the man and the beautiful mask were somehow incompatible.
“What do you think?” Matt asked after she had scrolled through the photos twice.
“That the first killing was in some way personal to him, and committed to punish the killer of the teenage girl. I wouldn’t think that he had decided to embark on a series of murders until he had dealt with Connolly. Getting away with it must have given him the incentive to do it again, and now he’s a serial killer. Although I very much doubt that he views himself as such.”
“He phoned me,” Matt said.
Beth slapped the mobile down hard on the tabletop and swept it across to him like a puck on ice. Matt stopped it from falling onto the floor and then frowned at her.
“Why did he call you?” Beth asked.
“Because he wanted us to find Danby. Maybe he needed to grandstand and share what he’d done. Tam took the call and was told that it was a concerned member of the public with information, who then asked to speak to the officer in charge of The Clown case. I had no idea that it would be the killer. He told me who was dead, and even apologised for what had happened to the pensioner, and gave me the address.”
Beth sighed. This brought back the fear that past events had instilled in her. It was not Matt’s fault that another homicidal psychopath had contacted him, but that didn’t lessen the chilling awareness that he could become a target if he provoked the killer.
“Do not goad him, or set yourself up as someone that he decides to zero in on, Matt. Promise me that you’ll keep him out of our lives.”
“I have no intention of having anything to do with him,” Matt said. “But I can’t stop him from contacting me, if that floats his boat.”
“How did he sound?”
“Very rational and quietly spoken. He didn’t stay on long. Just gave me the details and hung up. The phone box was processed, but he probably wore gloves, and you wouldn’t believe how many fingerprints and other more distasteful trace is found in those things.”
“I tend to think that he will definitely know or at one time knew David Madsen,” Beth said. “So you’re probably looking for a man of approximately the same age as him. And he has somewhere to take his chosen prey. The first two had been dead for awhile before he dumped them. He has privacy, which is an indicator that he lives alone. That all three bodies were within the same geographical area is telling.”
“So we’re looking for a middle-aged guy who could be single, divorced or a widower and lives in the Romford area?”
“I think so. He puts a lot of planning into his crimes. He doesn’t just kill them, he wants to control and manipulate them before they die. It wouldn’t surprise me if he talks to them at length before he does anything. The brutality of carving letters in their backs and cutting their throats is premeditated, but the removal of this man’s penis…well, that shows an escalation of emotion. He despises them for the crimes that they’ve committed, and feels morally justified in what action he takes.”
“And the masks?”
“A signature. Wearing a mask is to pretend to be someone else, or more simplistically, to hide your real identity. To a degree everybody is motivated to show the face that they believe others wish to see; to sometimes form expressions that are no more than manufactured and inventive masks to conceal their true feelings. It’s misdirection. The best poker players can screen their emotions from fellow players. I think the killer is hiding the ugliness and falseness that he sees in his victims’ faces.”
Matt finished his Scotch. He needed another. What Beth was saying gave him more insight. The Clown had probably ‒ until just before Christmas ‒ been a regular guy. And he must know David and Nancy Madsen, and also have known just how distraught the couple had been when their daughter’s murderer had been released from prison. But why the hell he had developed a passion for the bizarre killings that had followed the initial slaying of Connolly was as yet unknown. It was almost a foregone conclusion that if they couldn’t identify him, and quickly, then they would find another corpse wearing a mask, with the proclamation that the victim was guilty carved into his back, and his throat cut.
CHAPTER TWELVE
DAWN was breaking. Grey light filtered through the cotton curtains at the window, and the corpse on the floor in the corner seemed to be reanimated by it, to jerkily rise to its knees, and then clumsily climb to its feet, to stand with a bemused expression on its green face as it looked around the room, before finally settling its gaze on the figure lying as still as a rock in the bed.
Blood dripped down from the head to saturate the loose, rotting clothing as the zombie-like creature stretched out its arms and slowly advanced.
She was transfixed, not only by a deep sense of terror, but because unknown to her she was suffering from a neurological phenomenon resulting from a hyper-vigilant state created in the midbrain, which in her case was RISP: recurrent isolated sleep paralysis, with the added fillip of horrific hallucinations.
The state was a parasomnia stemming from a dysfunctional overlap of the REM and waking stages of sleep.
A soundless scream filled Abby’s mind, and as the imagined figure of her dead father lost cohesion, grew fainter and finally disappeared, she felt her muscles loosen and was able to move, to sit up and hug Eeyore in a vicelike grip. The episode left her trembling and feeling morose. It was always the same. Every night Abby fought against sleep, just in case that on waking she would be unable to move, and would see her dad as a corpse. If he ever reached her, and held her, or kissed her, then she would go insane.
Abby had told no one of the paralysis or visions. It was easier not to talk to anyone. Initially the shock of the accident had actually left her unable to speak; such was the grief that she was suffering. But now it had become a habit that she chose to indulge. Her dad was dead and in the ground, and her mum had totally freaked out and was now in hospital, in a part of it that she had heard her grandparents call a ‘psych’ ward. Perhaps she too was insane. A part of her wanted to talk to someone, but it seemed safer not to. The new doctor was nice, though. Not pushy, and wasn’t always asking her questions.
Beth arrived at Morning Star just before seven-thirty a.m., and she had a friend with her. After the morning meeting, that Beth now called ‘Catch-up and Coffee’, she went down to the residential section and spent thirty minutes talking to the children, before they began classes. As usual, Abby was not present. Sylvia Mitchell had told Beth that the little girl seemed more disconcerted than usual, but would still not lower the wall that she had put up and talk about what was disturbing her.
Abby was in her room, dressed and sitting near the window, just staring out with her head tilted up, probably watching the low, scudding clouds that were being rushed through the sky by a strong March wind.
“Hi, Abby,” Beth said as she reached into the plastic bag she carried and withdrew what she hoped would be a big step towards breaking through the girl’s defences, to create a crack in the dam of self-imposed withdrawal, which was obviously a sad and lonely place to be. “I’ve brought a very dear friend of mine to meet you. He told me that he knows Eeyore very well.”
Curiosity
got the better of Abby, and as the old, stuffed Tigger appeared in Beth’s hand, she looked round, saw it and her eyes widened.
The toy tiger was not Beth’s, in as much as it hadn’t been given to her when she had been a child. She had bought it from a local charity shop situated just a few hundred yards from the clinic.
The Disney-style Tigger was a little worse for wear, having been roughly played with and hugged for a long time, before the child that owned it had presumably outgrown it, for it to become redundant and of no further use, and therefore bagged up with other unwanted articles for the shop. One of its ears had been chewed, and its black-striped orange nylon fur was grubby and scuffed in parts. But Tigger’s big and winning smile was still beguiling.
“I’m sure that Eeyore and Tig would enjoy being together to talk about old times, and all the fun they had in Hundred Acre Wood,” Beth said, placing the cuddly toy on the windowsill. “Shall we leave them together for awhile and go for a walk in the gardens?”
Abby wanted to reply; to tell the beautiful lady doctor that she wasn’t stupid, and that she knew Eeyore and Tigger were just stuffed toys. It took all her willpower to remain silent. She swallowed hard and held back. It was just a ploy to make her talk and lure her back out into a world that she couldn’t bear to face. And yet as time had gone by she’d realised that she could not stay separate from everyone and everything forever. She needed to tell someone how she felt. The pressure of holding her emotions back was making her feel ill.
“I’d like it if you called me Beth, when you decide to talk to me. I want you to know that I’m not trying to trick you into anything. You have been through a very bad experience, and that makes me feel very sad. I care about you, Abby, and I want to get to know you and be your friend.”
Abby said nothing, but blinked as a single tear leaked out from her left eye and ran down her cheek.
Beth went over to the narrow wardrobe, opened it and selected a hooded thermal padded coat, took it off the hanger and went back to where Abby had placed Eeyore next to Tigger on the windowsill.