by Michael Kerr
In the garage, he started up the Jeep he’d stolen over a year ago. He had acquired it for just such an emergency. Forward planning was his forte. The vehicle was regularly serviced, by him, and he drove it around the farm every week or so, to ensure that it didn’t seize up. He would now use it for a single one way trip that night, before dumping it. The engine purred, and after a couple of minutes he turned the ignition off, satisfied that it would not let him down.
After showering, he wrapped sandwiches in sheets of paper kitchen towel, poured milk into a splinter proof Perspex beaker, and headed for the cellar with them on a tray. The stone beneath his now bare feet was cool. He felt totally relaxed and in control. Now that he had formulated a plan, the idea of starting a new life was exhilarating. He had been in a rut and needed to spread his wings and start over.
She was where he knew she would be, on the bed, sitting with her legs drawn up, arms hugging her knees. He placed the food and milk on the coffee table, and then sat down on the edge of the bed next to her.
“Take your shorts off and kneel, Trish,” he said. “I haven’t got long, so this will have to be a quickie.”
Trish obediently removed the shorts and presented her rear to him, gripping the iron rail of the headboard and clenching her teeth in readiness.
It was over with in seconds. He didn’t hurt her, and seemed preoccupied. He left without saying another word.
It was much later when she drank the milk. She could not face the food; too nauseous and petrified by the look that he had given her before leaving the cellar. Instinct told her that her time was nearly up. He had become more detached, distant and thoughtful. To her way of thinking, his overall demeanour was a portent of doom. She had the impression that she was suddenly of no more interest to him; had become a liability or inconvenience. Intuition – that she was not about to ignore – told her that the next time he entered the cellar might well be to kill her. If she was going to make a move, then it would have to be then.
A few minutes later she heard the distant sound of a car start up, and waited until the engine noise had completely faded before setting to work assembling a makeshift weapon. She determined not to just acquiesce to whatever fate he had planned for her. She had suffered too much at his hands to just meekly allow him to slaughter her like an animal. Somewhere deep within her was an as yet unfound reserve of strength that was rising up, to aid her in what would be a last ditch effort to survive.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
HE pulled the Jeep off the road, through a gap in the decaying split-wood stake fencing, cutting the lights as he manoeuvred the vehicle uphill and swung it into high bracken between the trunks of mature firs. After turning off the ignition, he lit a cheroot, happy to smoke in the stolen vehicle; a practise that was taboo in his sweet-smelling Mondeo. Only Laura had got away with lighting up inside it. Now, sitting in the darkness and listening to the tink of hot metal as the engine began to cool, he visualised his impending actions, mentally rehearsing what he regarded to be a delicate mission, that he would rather not have been forced into executing.
It was twelve-fifty a.m., and he was maybe five minutes on foot away from Laura’s place. Moonlight filtered through thin cloud cover, giving him enough ambient light to pick his way through the forest to the solitary cottage. He was dressed in black from the Balaclava that he wore pulled down over his face, to the trainers on his feet.
Stopping at the edge of the tree line behind a fallen and rotted pine, he looked through the screen of evergreen foliage that separated him from the dark silhouette of Laura’s retreat. He listened to the night, but heard nothing, save for the soft sigh of the breeze that whispered through the needled branches, and to the fast thud of his heart beating in his ears as the adrenaline level rose in anticipation of the deed he was about to carry out.
Sitting on the decaying tree trunk, he swung his legs over it and stopped again as his foot snapped a dry branch, resulting in a loud pistol-shot crack that echoed through the darkness. Shit! He waited awhile, and then moved on, a shadow among shadows, seeming to glide over the small lawn at the rear of the cottage to the kitchen door.
The window next to the door was open an inch, and the blade of his knife quickly slipped the antiquated arm loose from the metal post that was screwed to the wood frame securing it. Was Laura stupid? Being a cop, she should know better than to go to bed without locking everything. No one was safe in this day and age. Burglars were like vermin, skulking in the night, ever ready to take advantage of easy pickings. One had even broken into the farmhouse eighteen months ago. The creak of a stair had roused him, and he had waited, standing behind the bedroom door, to let the intruder enter the room and shine a torch around it, before grasping the guy by the back of his overlong, greasy hair and jerking him backwards off his feet. Two hard blows from his fist had knocked the trespasser unconscious.
Ronnie Smithers had come to in the barn, naked and chained to the concrete block.
Hugh wasn’t even angry. All’s well that ends well. He spent over two hours with Ronnie; talked to the young man, to partly get to know the individual that he had decided to punish, after first confirming that he was working alone, and being told where he had parked his vehicle. He pointed out the error of Ronnie’s ways, and explained that he was to be made an example of.
Before having his lips stapled together, Jimmy had cried a lot and begged to be released. But as Hugh had told him, you had to be prepared to face the consequences for your actions in life.
Ronnie’s threshold to pain had proved to be very low. And the fear that he exuded in invisible waves was as tangible as the smell of his sour sweat and strong-smelling waste. He had passed out several times under the ministrations of the knife, before blood loss eventually sapped the life from him. Hugh had buried the partly flayed corpse in the barn, then driven the late Ronnie’s beat-up old Cortina to a flooded sand pit and committed it to the murky depths, on the bottom of which all manner of discarded junk was rotting and rusting away. Hugh reasoned that crime would be dramatically reduced, if not wholly eradicated, if all wrongdoers were subjected to his harsh but effective form of justice. The law needed to get real and stop mollycoddling the shit of the Earth.
Enough reminiscing. He donned latex gloves and pulled the Balaclava back up to his forehead before easing himself up and through the open window, moving a vase of cut flowers farther along the sill before slipping over and dropping lightly to the vinyl-covered floor. It was an entry without any fear of the unexpected. He knew that Laura had no pets, and that she lived by herself. No Doberman was waiting, muscles bunched, its body quivering as it tensed to leap at him from the black wedges of shadow that filled the room. And no cat would trip him, or howl with pain as he inadvertently stood on its tail or a paw.
The cottage was silent, save for the hum of a fridge, and an old wood-cased clock, its resonant tick-tock calming, soothing; a measured cadence that lowered his heart rate.
He moved to the spiral staircase, the soles of his trainers noiseless on the iron treads as he ascended with all due care. He knew the layout well, having been inside on several occasions; the last time less than a month ago, to pick Laura up for duty when her car was off the road. He had once even stayed the night, and not even tried to get his leg over. She had been well-oiled, but he had too much respect for her to try it on. It would also have complicated their working relationship; a negative move, so he had kept the status quo. It had not been that he did not find her alluring. He did. She was a very attractive and intelligent woman. But sometimes it was prudent to keep business and pleasure completely separate from one another. He had known that there could be no future in getting involved romantically with Laura. Although it crossed his mind that being with someone like her may annul the need he felt to kill and kill again. To fall in love may dispel the systematic, deadly compulsion he had to punish his mother. But should he ever find someone with the qualities to effect a modification in his personality, it would not be Laura. He had
seen how she looked at the Yank. There was history between them. He recognised that she still felt something for the man.
Pausing on the landing, he drew his knife and then moved unhurriedly to the open door of her bedroom.
The sudden loud trill of a telephone pierced the syrup-thick silence. He flattened himself to the wall, not breathing, heart racing again like a jackhammer. As she stirred, he slipped into the room. He had his night vision and could make out her shape. She was propped up on one elbow, holding the receiver and talking with the slur of sleep. He waited, and as she reached for the bedside lamp, her call finished, he moved to her and pressed the flat, cold side of the blade against her throat.
Laura couldn’t breathe. Sudden shock and fear coursed through her entire body. She was paralysed, unable to move, her lungs and muscles cramping. She felt the sensation of her chest expanding to the point of bursting like an over inflated balloon.
She had become almost paralysed, and had to consciously force herself to take air in small snatches, her mouth opening and closing like that of a fish out of water. She wanted to jerk back from whatever was touching her skin, to kick out against the presence that she could now feel as a solid form in what should have been an empty space. Messages from her brain demanded that she act, but her body was less responsive than a frozen carcass hung in the frosty air of a butcher’s walk-in cold room.
“Go on, boss, turn on the light, I won’t bite,” Hugh’s disembodied voice said from the murk, so close that she could feel his warm breath on the rim of her ear.
It was funny how the mind reacted to unexpected intimidation. She was at once twelve again, sitting by herself in the local flea pit; the Gaumont. She had often gone to the cinema unaccompanied during school holidays, to enjoy the solitude and the awe-inspiring magic of the movie stars on the giant silver screen. As a youngster, going to the pictures and reading books were her chosen avenues of escape from the less than exciting reality of day-to-day life. She didn’t just watch the films or read the books, but was absorbed by them; to almost become one of the fictional lead characters.
Sucked back through the years, Laura gazed at the giant, patched screen, engrossed and entranced by the much larger-than-life images and the booming soundtrack. She was unaware of the middle-aged man who had walked the full length of a row of seats that only she occupied, to sit next to her in the ill-lit stalls.
She had felt a slight tickle on her right leg, just below the hem of her pleated skirt, and had scratched absently, squirming a little on the maroon, velveteen seat covering. A few seconds passed, and the tickle was back, higher up, under the material on the inside of her thigh. Sudden comprehension of what was happening had frozen her solid. She could not move as trembling fingers stroked the front of her panties, and the heavy breathing of the man who was molesting her, quickened. A hot digit slid under the elastic and searched out her centre, and she had remained rigid, incapable of any action. While one clammy hand invaded her, the other took her hand and gently guided it to his lap, to place it on something warm, firm, smooth and...and sticky, like the paper glue she used to paste pictures of pop stars she had cut from magazines into her scrapbook. The shock-sensation of touching something unseen yet throbbing with life, gave her the jolt needed to break the spell. Pulling away, she half fell into the aisle, stumbled to the exit at the rear of the cinema, and broke free into the brightly lit foyer. Without once looking behind her, she had fled the theatre and run all the way home.
That singular experience at the Gaumont stole a part of her childhood, and left her with a dislike for cinemas that still persisted. She had not mentioned what had happened to anyone, feeling ashamed, as though she had in some way been partly to blame for the assault; not just the innocent victim of a paedophile. And now, all these years later, she was transfixed again, back in the dark stalls of the cinema, unable to speak and numb with fearful expectation. This was now only the second time in her life that she had found herself unable to react against someone who was intimidating her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
JIM’S eyes snapped open. He stared into the gloom with the face from his dream still vivid in his mind. He leapt from the bed, glancing at the glaring, green display on his alarm clock: 1:50 A.M. He ran through to the lounge, picked up the phone, tapped in Laura’s number and listened impatiently to the ringing tone as he gathered his thoughts.
It had not just been a dream that had drawn him from the rim of troubled sleep. His mind had been sifting through and filing information, collating all the facts of the Tacker case and piecing them together as he dozed. The conclusion that his subconscious mind had woken him with was a numbing revelation: Hugh Parfitt, Laura’s DS, was the killer.
Jim replayed his brief meeting with the young cop and remembered the stony, fleeting gaze that had quickly been masked by a bland expression; a mask coating the cop’s face and softening the look in his piercing blue eyes.
It all fitted. Parfitt was the right height, right colouring, and had been in a prime inside position to have selected suspects in the area that Jim had targeted. He had no doubt that the detective had planted the rope in Cox’s garage. Not only was he positive that it was a cop now, he knew which cop. Closing his eyes, he reran the encounter, flicking through every word that he had exchanged with Hugh in the York pub, pausing, freeze-framing each moment with near photographic memory. ‘Once a cop, always a cop’, Parfitt had said, before turning and walking off towards the bar. He had done something else; he had reached into his trouser pocket, presumably for cash. It had been his left-hand pocket, ergo, he was left-handed.
With no capacity to consider coincidence, Jim put it all together, and was certain that Detective Sergeant Hugh Parfitt was the serial killer whom they sought.
‘Hi. I can’t get to the phone at this moment, but please leave your name, number or a message after the tone and I’ll call you back’. Laura’s sultry, taped voice answered.
“Pick up, Laura, it’s Jim,” he said, then waited, to be answered by a beep and mind-numbing static, and so he left a message, “Phone me on my mobile number. It’s urgent.” He then rang her mobile. No answer. He phoned the police station in York, to be advised that she was off duty.
He quickly dressed: Blue chambray shirt, beige chinos and crème loafers. Snatched up his car keys and holdall and left the flat on the run, to rocket down the six flights of stairs to the ground floor – too impatient to summon and wait for the lift – and out of the rear of the building to the car park. Less than fifteen minutes after waking he was on the road, ignoring speed limits, but keeping a watchful eye out for police patrol cars. His only concern was to reach Laura, knowing that if she managed to look beyond her close working relationship with Hugh and put it together, then she would be in mortal danger if she handled it wrong and put him on his guard.
By the time he reached the M1 he was wound too tight, almost on the edge of panic, his hands aching from the vicelike grip he had on the steering wheel. He fought to relax, turned on the radio for distraction and tuned into a night-caller style of programme, its fodder; the bitching of phone-ins from insomniacs, bored shift workers and borderline crazies, mixed with middle-of-the-road music to sustain them through till dawn. It was instantly forgettable fare of the kind which was vomited over the airways world-wide. People were people with the same hang-ups and problems, whatever the country or language. After thirty minutes of listening to the puerile remarks of the callers, he could understand from their comments why they were without love, hope or friendship. In his opinion, only sad bastards rang radio stations to bare their souls to total strangers. Unable to stomach any more, he changed station, running through the preset buttons and finally settling for Radio 4 and the World Service.
All being well, he expected to be at Laura’s by five-thirty a.m., and was already anticipating hammering on her door and seeing her look out through the bedroom window, before rushing down to let him in, bleary-eyed, but hopefully pleasantly surprised. He was sure that
once he could get her to think outside the box and view her sergeant with professional detachment, then she would have to agree that Hugh at least merited checking out. They would have to scrutinise his past, and turn over every stone. Should he be found to be whiter than white, then nothing would have been lost, though Jim expected a trail of pointers from his childhood that would expose his personality disorder and prove him to be the killer. He had glimpsed the alter ego behind the facade of normality; should have recognised the psycho who dwelt within the mind of Hugh Parfitt.
It should be easy to wrap up. Hugh would be unsuspecting and in the lion’s den; apprehended in the police station as he pretended to investigate the crimes that he was guilty of committing. But nothing in life ever seemed to pan out as expected. Bitter experience told Jim that very few things went down as planned. The art was to try and be prepared for all possible connotations and complications; to appreciate that if it could go wrong, then as sure as night followed day, it would. The bonus in this case was that Parfitt was on the inside, feeling secure in the belief that he was in control, leading the team away from himself.
Jim slowed as the Cherokee’s headlights bounced back at him from a hovering white wall of luminescence, and drove – eyes straining – for the next half hour at less than twenty miles an hour through low banks of fog that were sitting at irregular intervals across the six lanes of the motorway. It was as if it had been sent, a nefarious obstacle, to keep him at bay; a manifestation to show him from the outset that he was in danger of being thwarted in his mission.
Ceding to fatigue and conditions that could result in a multi-vehicle pileup Jim stopped at Woodall service area near Sheffield. His bladder was throbbing to be relieved, and he needed caffeine in the form of black coffee to give him a jolt and wake him up. The concentration of driving through the early morning summer fog had given him a headache, and threatened to lull him to sleep.