by Matt Drabble
He knew that they couldn’t keep her hidden from him forever; he would find her, no matter how many monsters they threw in his path. He had the patience of a saint and he would prevail.
The young girl under the woman’s care threw a small plastic ball into the woodland that encased the play area. The au pair laughed with an angel’s grace as she chased the ball into the undergrowth. The man saw his opportunity and slipped away unnoticed. One of his greatest assets had always been to blend into the background. He was a man who went through life without attracting attention and had to reintroduce himself on several occasions to people that he had previously met. It was further proof to him that he was special and his ability made his work possible. Those here today would not remember him; there would be no description of his appearance to the police, no tales of the odd childless man hanging around suspiciously. He checked on the demon sentry before following the au pair into the woods.
The sun struggled to penetrate the foliage cover and sunlight filtered through the thick leaves with a misty haze. He moved with stealth and lightness of touch that seemed to make him at one with his surroundings. The glow up ahead showed him his prize and he quickened his pace to catch her, all the while maintaining an iron grip on his emotions. He could not let his excitement ruin him when he was so close.
A branch snapped under his foot and cracked monstrously loud. The young woman immediately spun around to see him. Her face was a mask of light as blinding beams burst from her eyes and mouth. The man held up a hand to block the fierce rays as he stepped to her. Her arms opened wide to greet him and he ran to her embrace with an open heart that sang songs of glory, but it was not her. He raged in torturous pain at yet another deception that had fooled him once more. He had failed again and God’s love and patience with him must surely be growing thin now.
The harlot tried to speak with her forked tongue but he struck her down with furious vengeance. The hammer was in his hand with slick, well-practised ease and his arm thrummed with the glory and the power. He struck her down and shattered her delicate surface features, exposing the darkness behind.
He knelt over her fallen form, swinging again and again until the steel hammer head struck soft earth under broken bone. A rainbow spray of blood and yellowish gore flew every time that he brought the hammer up and his face was soon warm and sticky. Finally, his arm grew weak as the power retreated and he knew that this monster was done.
He stretched her arms out to the sides and took two metal pegs from his pocket and hammered them through her palms into the ground. He laid the hammer aside and withdrew the small sharp knife from his back pocket. He tore apart her thin blouse, which was now soaked in crimson, and held the blade to her soft flesh. A small shudder tickled through his groin as he stared down at the small mounds beneath the white bra; he always took his pleasure as a reward for a job well done.
He carved the symbol carefully into her chest, the crucifix encased inside the pentagram. It was a calling card that told the demons just who had struck down another of their dark flock. He moved aside and pulled her legs down straight before crossing her right foot across her left. Her spread her arms out to the side and raised them slightly before lowering her head and tilting it to the right.
He stood back pleased with his work, knowing that they would be proud and promising himself that this would be the last false alarm. The next time, he would find her. The next time.
CHAPTER FIVE
TIME TO PLAY THE GAME
Randall Zerneck worked long into the night putting together his story. He soon began to realise just how much he had actually missed the job. There was a pace and a tempo to his writing that consumed him as the words flowed effortlessly from his hands to the page or, at least these days, the screen.
He was sat at a small desk at The Globe newspaper’s offices. His old editor had retired several years ago and the new woman in place had initially taken the meeting only as a courtesy to an old hack. She was a shark in a smart business suit which probably cost more than he’d made last year. Her eyes were dark to the point of almost being black and he could hear her calculator brain ticking along as he laid out his thoughts. He had originally wanted to pursue his story alone, but his health seemed to be failing more and more each day and he was worried that his time was short. He still hadn’t actually been to a doctor but he knew in his heart that it would be pointless; his batteries were fading fast and he needed help.
He had hoped that his old editor would still be in place. Mitchell Davies had been a burly Welshman who cared little for the new way of doing things and longed for the past. Davies would have been easy to deal with and control, but this woman looked like she would be able to run rings around him if he wasn’t careful.
Marion Ramsey hovered around in the background as he typed away furiously. Whatever doubts she’d had about his ability, and they were written all over her face, she’d not allowed them to interfere with the potential money making opportunity that he was dropping in her lap. They had agreed on a 60-40 split in his favour, and frankly he thought that he had been lucky to get that much. Ms Ramsey, as she insisted on being called, had offered him the resources of the paper, but much more importantly, she offered credibility. The Globe was only a small part of a national conglomerate called “Newscore” that encompassed several smaller papers dotted around the country. She had the ability to spread his story nationwide in a heartbeat and shoot him back into the stratosphere where he belonged. As an added bonus, there was also a publishing arm to Newscore that would happily publish his book, a book told from inside the investigation thanks to the sources that Ms Ramsey had promised him.
He had only given her a taste of what he had, mainly because at present he didn’t have much more than taste to give. As far as he knew though, he did have the photographs to link the brutal slaying of Lana Genovese to the original Crucifier killings. The young woman had been only a child when she’d been rescued from the Crucifier’s clutches 8 years ago and now someone was back to finish the job. Ms Ramsey had agreed that right now they had a large canvas with too many questions to be sure, but they certainly had enough to exploit the fears of the population. Bad news always sold more than good and when they splashed a potential new serial killer across the country, one that raked over the grave of the most infamous, all bets would be off.
He pushed his chair back from the desk and rubbed his tired eyes. The body may be willing, but his flesh was weak and this was taking a toll, one that he was not sure if he could pay. But, dammit, the story was good and his writing was as clean and crisp as it had ever been. He felt a smug satisfaction over his work. just as he felt Ms Ramsey’s presence behind him.
“Not bad,” she mused aloud as her eyes scanned the screen.
“My contract?” Randall asked as he turned to face her.
She took two sheets of pristine white printed paper from inside the case that she carried and placed both in his hands. He read over the contracts carefully, checking every line and on the lookout for any hidden pitfalls, even comparing the seemingly identical copies. Ms Ramsey had already signed both copies; her handwriting was curt and brutal. His hands shook as he held the paper and he felt that he had never needed a drink as much as did right now. But he also knew that he needed his wits sharp; there would time for celebration later.
Eventually, he withdrew a pen from his pocket and scrawled his signature on both copies under hers and handed one back to her.
“And the photograph for our front cover?” she demanded, rather than asked.
Randall handed over his prize and saw with satisfaction that Ms Ramsey baulked slightly at the image. At least she was human - just about.
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Jane just managed to make it into the bathroom before she threw up. The images had taken her unawares again, despite her best intention to block out any invasion. She still couldn’t understand how this man was able to enter her mind, seemingly at will. This time she had not known the victim but she knew
the killer. His scent was still wrapped thickly around her tongue and he tasted bad. She spat the remains of acidic vomit from her mouth into the sink and stared down at the splattered white porcelain, gripping the edges fiercely. The odd thing was that she had no sense of the here and now about this murder. It was almost as though she was watching a delayed playback. Quite how this was possible was only the latest in a growing list of questions.
She had hoped to enlist the help of Karl Meyers’ son, but Detective Inspector Danny was carrying a deep-seated grudge against her based on the past, and in truth she couldn’t blame him. At least Lana Genovese had found something more interesting to do and had disappeared for now. Perhaps the dead woman was satisfied that she had taken the case and would leave her to work it in peace.
She rinsed her mouth from the tap and spat the last of the bad taste out. Her first thought had been to leave town until the whole thing passed over, but she knew that there was no way place she could run to that would be far enough away. For whatever reason, this killer was locked onto her. She was seeing through his eyes and that wasn’t about to stop any time soon.
The other problem with running was that once she started, she was not sure that she could stop. 8 years ago she had foolishly rushed into the basement of Arthur Durage convinced that he was the Crucifier serial killer. Her actions had led directly to the deaths of both Karl Meyers and Arthur Durage himself. After that night, she had been buried by the police and pushed aside by Karl’s family to the point that she had only been able to observe her friend’s funeral from a safe distance.
The phone rang in the other room and she wandered to pick it up without much enthusiasm. There was a tight knot in her stomach that told her that the point of no return was about to be passed. She knew who was on the other end of the line without picking it up, just as she knew that the news was bad.
“Hello, Danny,” she answered.
“Ms Parkes,” he began unsurely, before pausing.
Jane waited patiently in the silence, instinctively knowing that the man was having trouble coming to terms with calling her.
“Shit…, I don’t even know why I’m calling,” he finally said, sighing heavily. “Look, there’s been another murder. I’ve just spent the last hour at a very unpleasant crime scene. Fortunately for you, the doc puts the time of death at around about when I was with you late yesterday or just a little after. Certainly you wouldn’t have had time to reach the crime scene so as alibis go, that’s a pretty good one.”
“I know, I saw it happen, just like the first one,” Jane ventured. “Well … almost.”
This time the silence was even longer.
“Look. I don’t know what any of this means or just what your motives are. I know that my father was usually a pretty good judge of character and that was one of the things that he passed down to me. Everything in my gut says that you’re on the level or, at the very least, you believe that you are.”
“Danny, I don’t expect you to believe any of what I’ve got to say - you don’t have to. All I ask is that you listen and keep whatever I tell you in mind during your investigation. I never received a penny from the police or your father. I never wrote a book or did a talk show or tried to cash in in any way and I don’t plan on starting now.”
“Can I come and see you later this afternoon, say around 5?” he asked politely.
“Sure, swing by and I’ll try and tell you what I can.”
“Ms Parkes?”
“How did I know about you being gay?”
“Was it something in my manner? My walk? The way I talk?”
“Sometimes I just know things, Danny, and they’re not always bad.”
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Danny Meyers headed into the station, still confused by his conversation with the Parkes woman. He’d spent so long picturing her as the charlatan who’d been responsible for his father’s death, but now he couldn’t marry the image that he’d carried with the woman that he’d finally met. He had indeed inherited many things from his father and his gut instincts had served him well during his career. It was those instincts that were now telling him to listen. He pushed aside these thoughts for now; he had far more pressing matters to attend to.
Faircliff station was a large and modern building with its superintendant sitting perched high upon his perch on the top floor. As far as Danny was concerned, Chalmers’ best position was in his office far removed from the day-to-day grind of the job. The man was an effective paper pusher and could officiate with the best of them, but he was no copper.
Detective Constable Tim Selleck met him as he passed through the lobby area, opening the secure door that led into the station beyond the public access.
“Is the team gathered?” Danny asked, knowing full well that it would have been. Selleck was a reliable officer and his right hand.
“Yes, Boss,” the young man answered.
Danny had no use for “Sir” amongst his team. They were on the front lines together and “Boss” sufficed.
He headed upstairs and along the corridor towards the large communal office that the investigative team shared. Faircliff was a relatively small town with thankfully only a limited amount of serious crime and most of that was in the hands of amateurs.
There were 5 of them in total, including him. Selleck was a DC and what was commonly referred to as a “bagman”, a guy who carried the metaphorical bags for the boss. There was Kim Croft, the resident civilian admin assistant. Danny had plucked her from the secretarial pool, recognising a fiercely bright woman who was wasting away without challenges. Sergeant Eileen Landing was a short, somewhat rotund, woman with a bulldog attitude that never quit once she’d sunk her teeth into something, be it a case or a sandwich. Her partner was DC Bryan Wilson, a veteran of the force but one who had never risen above his rather junior rank. He was a man who had forgotten more about the job than most of them would ever know but his personal life had not sat well with their superiors. Wilson had worked Vice back in the day and had formed a romantic attachment to a working girl that he had rescued from a particularly vicious pimp. The fact that Wilson and the girl had been married for over 20 years now still didn’t offset her previous occupation as far as the bosses were concerned. Danny had nothing but admiration for the man who had stuck to his guns no matter the cost to his career, and he was a valuable asset.
Danny knew that a lot of his admiration for Wilson derived from the fact that his own personal life was a closely-guarded secret. Just how Jane Parkes had managed to deduce his sexual orientation from one brief look still mystified him. It wasn’t that he was in any way ashamed of being gay, it was just that no matter what the posters said on the outside when he’d joined, the police force was still some way behind the times when it came to accepting anything new. He had realised from the very beginning that there was a low tolerance for his kind and as the years had passed and the glass ceiling began to lift, he wanted no part of any promotion that came as a direct result of his sexuality. He was no one’s poster boy and wouldn’t be pushed out in front of the cameras like a dancing monkey. Everything that he had, he’d earned through intelligence and hard work.
The chatter stopped as he entered the room and he was met with a respectful silence as upturned eyes looked to him for leadership. It always gave him a sense of great pride.
He had been called out of a warm bed, and even warmer embrace, in the early hours of this morning to attend the scene of the latest murder. His first impression had immediately been that this killer was in serious danger of devolving. The scene was still carefully arranged, but the attack had been far more brutal than the first. He had been a student of the first Crucifier case, partly because of his father’s involvement and partly because it was one of the most significant cases that the country had ever known.
He uncharacteristically closed the door behind him as he entered, to several raised eyebrows. “Okay. First things first,” he started commandingly. “There is to be no mention of the Crucifier outsid
e of this office. None. Clear?”
Heads quickly bobbed up and down in silent agreement.
“Alright. Let’s get to work,” Danny said as he approached the huge whiteboard that dominated the room.
As useful as computerised systems were, he needed to see the case in front of him. Pieces were strewn seemingly at random around the board. Photographs and reports were held in place by magnets as the images of before and after mingled perversely. Lana Genovese smiled down atop the board, her face happy and warm. Below that were images from her crime scene and autopsy mocking the life in her eyes. There were black lines drawn between her involvement in the original Crucifier case and the new. There was little reason to doubt that there was a connection.
Danny had little interest in ghost stories. As far as he was concerned, his father had brought down the Crucifier. Whoever had gone after Lana Genovese had intimate knowledge of the original case and that would only narrow the field.
“Anything come in on Lana Genovese?” he asked hopefully.
“Nothing, Boss,” Kim Croft shrugged.
“She was killed in the woods, no witnesses, nothing to suggest a motive as yet,” Wilson started. “Well … outside of the original case, that is,” he finished uncomfortably.
Danny had already set Wilson to work delving into the young woman’s life, but so far nothing had raised any red flags. She had been a quiet woman who’d kept to herself, no jealous angry boyfriend, no disputes, just a life lived below the radar. They wouldn’t stop looking for a motive, no matter how tempting it was to concentrate on her connection to Arthur Durage’s basement. “Okay, last night’s murder. What have we got so far?”
“Donna Moss,” DS Landing said, starting to read from her notes.
Danny winced at the sergeant’s ketchup stains on her blouse. He always felt like he could almost tell the time of day by the remnants on her clothing. She favoured a bacon or sausage sandwich for breakfast and she always seemed to end up wearing part of it. He made sure that all of his detectives wore suits and projected an aura of professionalism at all times.