by Linda Mather
He had thought about it, he’d thought about going up and punching the fucker on the nose, showing him up in front of his girlfriend, the girlfriend who incidentally was the therapist to our current murder suspect.
She was a sex therapist at that, he had kept that quiet. How had he met her, probably accessing treatment himself?
She was all smiles and flowery talk, she wasn’t miss sweetie pie he could tell, probably had sex with her clients to show them how it should be done. Hope she gave him a dose of the clap!
He had still been fuming about Stephen’s comment on Thursday when he’d asked to interview the suspect, covertly suggested that he would make a fuck up of it, and then letting bloody Laurel and Hardy do the deed. Now this, Stephen had added fuel to an already burning fire, now he would pay. Paul didn’t know how or when but what he did believe in was Karma and he felt sure that Karma would come through.
He believed that in the end Karma would catch him up and dish him right back all that he has dished out to others, and when it did Paul would laugh.
Derek and John, or Laurel and Hardy as he liked to call them, hadn’t done much better, they hadn’t got a confession out of the suspect, but rather than admit that this was probably because he was innocent, they think he’s clever and covering his back.
They were just a pair of bully boys, who manipulated suspects, twisted their words to fit the crime and then boasted about it in the office afterwards. There was probably many an innocent man doing time in prison due to their handy work. And any dumb fool could see that this man is innocent.
“They just ain’t got a fucking clue” he laughed “sent that bottle away to the lab for testing; all the twats had to do was smell it. They were time and money wasters and complete wastes of space.” He was talking to himself now, something he had started to do since he began living alone particularly when he was mad.
Paul had gone into the station that morning and got an update on the recent events. He had already been to the evidence room the day before and took a whiff of the liquid in the bottle.
It was liquid nitrogen otherwise known as ‘poppers,’ it had gone straight to his head as soon as he had smelt it and he’d known straight away what it was from his drug taking days. But no-one had asked for his opinion, so he wasn’t going to give it!
They had thought it might be Rohypnol, for fucks sake how thick are they? Rohypnol is a small white tablet with no taste or odor. They only had to bleeding Google it for Christ’s sake. But no they’d sent it to the lab at a cost of lord knows what to have it tested. Money was tight anyway, they had to buy their own pens because there was never any in the stationary cupboard and they were wasting their precious resources like this.
They really do deserve a pat on the head he thought….. With a fucking shovel!
And the fucking twats have now arrested and charged the wrong man, they were too quick to make an arrest, score points, they hadn’t thought things through.
Not like he had.
Serial killers were psychopaths, and psychopaths didn’t go into therapy.
Psychotherapy, involved trust and a relationship with the therapist, this was out of the question, because psychopaths were incapable of opening up to people, let alone a therapist.
Also they don’t want to change, don’t think they need to change, and even he knew that therapy was primarily about change.
Psychopaths were incapable of having meaningful relationships, they view others as fodder for manipulation and exploitation and this guy Ivan, was in therapy trying to improve his relationships with women.
And last but not least psychopaths are diagnosed by their purposeless and irrational antisocial behavior, their lack of conscience, and emotional vacuity. They were thrill seekers, literally fearless. They were impulsive by nature and fearless of the consequences.
This guy Ivan was not demonstrating any of these behaviors’, he had not got any previous convictions for anti social behaviors’, he’d had a bar fight and a measly driving offence that was all, and ironically psychopaths are a great success with the ladies. This guy was having therapy because of his lack of success with the ladies.
The whole team were just gullible fools; they listened to and acted on everything Stephen fucking Roberts said. They hadn’t got an ounce of psychological awareness between them.
“Gut instinct!” that’s what he had said on more than one occasion. They had to rely on their gut instinct. Did they not know that they had to use their head too, their mind, their brains.
If they had any brains, there was not a decent brain cell between the lot of them he concurred.
Paul rolled a joint; he needed something to calm him down. He would need several tonight the mood he was in.
He took a long deep drag of the cannabis packed cigarette and settled back in his chair. This man was a massive trigger for his drug use; he was smoking more now than he ever did.
He closed his eyes and made a sensible decision.
He was going to have to solve this case by himself, he realized this now. He couldn’t rely on anyone on that team, not even Vera although she was the brightest, she was a people pleaser and would follow the majority and he was unmistakably the minority. So it was down to him and him alone.
They had arrested the wrong man, he was even more certain of that, than he was anything.
This meant of course that there would without any doubt be another murder, and he was going to try and prevent that. He wasn’t sure how or when, but he would.
Paul fell into a contented sleep induced by the depressant he was now becoming more and more dependent on.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Bloody stupid that’s what they are, they’ve arrested the wrong bloody man, not that I hoped they’d arrest me but I wanted that ‘prick’ to know who I am, know what this was about.
Why not? He wouldn’t recognise me now anyway, I’ve changed. No he’d never know me now, not in a million years. Well he knows me sort of, but he doesn’t really know me.
But we’ll see when I give a little clue next time. I planned it on the third and so I will do it on the third.
Do you wanna know?
What the clue is?
I bet you do, don’t you.
Curiosity killed the cat, and I’m Curiosity you know……………………. and you’re the fucking Cat!
Bet you’re worried now. I bet you’re shaking in your boots.
Is it dark outside? It is isn’t it?
Have you looked out your window?
Go on,
You could be my next victim!
I’m watching you…………………………………………….
Gotcha!
Well enough of my silly games, let’s get serious.
‘God gives every bird a worm, but he does not throw it into the nest”
You’ll have to work that one out for yourself like he will.
My life is so much better now that I am in control. I was so out of control when I was a kid.
I’ll tell you now of the worst thing that she ever did to me,
I don’t want you to feel sorry for me, but I would like you to understand why I have done some of the things that I have done.
It was worse than any of the sexual or physical abuse, it was when I realised that one day I would kill her, over, and over and over again.
I was ten years old, maybe eleven. We were sat watching the television, she was drinking as usual, and I was fetching and carrying as usual.
“Get me another drink dickhead”
“Fetch me a biscuit twat face”
“Go and have a piss for me Son!”
I sat trying to work out how I was going to do that, I thought she meant it and I was about to get up and do it. Or try to at least, until she laughed out loud, that croaky laugh that ended up with her coughing her guts up from all the fags that she smoked.
We were watching a documentary on television. It was about all these young children that had been ab
ducted from their parents, on parks, beaches, and back gardens.
Their mothers had only taken their eyes off them for a minute, and whoosh they were gone, never to be seen again. The mothers devastated and talking on the television, wondering what they looked like now at sixteen, nineteen, twenty five.
I remember thinking I wish someone had done that to me, but fat chance I’d never been out the house, since that day at the park, never even been in the garden, not that anyone would see me if I had, the grass had always been overgrown, five or six feet high.
If I’d been abducted I would have had a better life, anything was better than this.
Once the credits rolled and the programme was over, my mother looked at me sadly, she hadn’t done that before, she’d never looked at me sadly, only ever looked at me with contempt.
Then she said it, it was then she gave me a shred of hope:
“That happened to you son, I abducted you”
“When, from where” I asked.
“Fetch us another drink and then I‘ll tell you, no second thoughts fetch us the bloody bottle”
I rushed into the kitchen and got her what she had asked. I was not hers I had another mother somewhere, a mother that was probably looking for me.
I felt elated. I could visualise my impending freedom. I could almost sense the strength of my real mother’s arms around me, the warmth of her tears falling on to my cheeks. I could feel her undying love oozing into my wounds, her soft hands touching them and healing them.
I poured her a drink and gave her the bottle. Glaring at her waiting, knowing that she would only speak when she was ready and if I asked too many questions, she would shut down completely.
And then she told me,
“Well son when you was about one, I was looking for a child, I couldn’t have them you see, I had an illness when I was younger that made me infertile.
I was a cleaner for people with money, lots of money at the time.
One day as I was walking home from work, I saw you, playing in the garden of this lovely house, with swings and slides and a swimming pool in the garden.
I stood and watched you for a while and your mummy came out, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Not fair that, not fair that some women should have it all, beauty, money, nice house, children, handsome husband. I remember thinking that at the time, not fair that she should have everything and I should have nothing.
I watched you playing contentedly with all these wonderful toys, and her looking at you with love in her eyes, and then she turned and went inside.
That’s when I did it! I snatched you, ran away with you and kept you for myself”
I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes, not from sadness, from happiness. I had another mummy, a better mummy, a mummy that was out there looking for me.
“Off to bed now son” she said serious and deep in thought.
I hopped, skipped and jumped up those stairs feeling happier than I ever had.
For the next two weeks I lay awake waiting, waiting for her to find me, to come and get me. I dreamed the most picturesque and exquisite dreams of my mother, my home and the wonderful life that I would have, once I was found.
Then in my dark moments I would figure out how unrealistic this was. How would she ever find me, no-one even knew I existed.
My mother had never mentioned it again, and I knew better than to ask.
That’s when I came up with my plan, if Mohammed couldn’t come to the mountain, if my mummy couldn’t come to me then the mountain would go to her.
I waited tolerantly until Friday night came when I knew she would be out the house from seven thirty until eleven thirty. I’d never done this before and knew the consequences of my actions would be catastrophic if I was to be caught. But I didn’t care, I had something to cling on to now, I had the promise of another life, a better life.
Friday night came and I watched her get ready, dancing around the kitchen in an animated way, as she always did on a Friday night, made up like a clown, skirts just below the knicker line and tops just above the nipple.
I was energised today too. Today I was going to find who my real mother was then I was going to run away and find her.
It was hard to keep my excitement contained, but I did, I was a good actor, I’d learned from one of the best.
As soon as she left I was up on my feet and headed for my destination, her room.
My mother was a narcissist you see, if there had been any media coverage about me, she would have kept it, it would have thrilled her, and gained her some kind of covert negative attention.
I knew she kept all her personal stuff in her wardrobe, so I took one box out after another, there were old photographs of a child, her I assumed, with stern looking adults, her parents maybe.
I rummaged through old bills and old bank statements and memorabilia from her schooldays. There was a newspaper cutting of her when she was in her teens describing her as a bit of a tearaway and uproar that as part of her punishment she was going to be sent to a holiday camp.
There were some old love letters from a guy she had been writing to in prison eight years ago.
Minutes passed into hours until all these boxes of what to me was rubbish lay spewed all over the bedroom floor.
Nothing! I felt so disheartened. I was sure I would find something here. But eternal optimist that I am, I didn’t stop, I emptied her drawers of all her clothes searching, hoping and then I found it, a locked old wooden box in the bottom drawer of her tall boy. Yes this was where she would keep her most hidden secrets.
I ran downstairs two steps at a time and got a kitchen knife and ran back to the bedroom almost wetting my pants with anticipation and I broke open the box, all of its contents falling on to the floor, fumbling through them like there was no tomorrow.
Then I found it, there would be no tomorrow……………………..
In my hands lay my birth certificate with her name down as my mother.
She had lied…….. she had fucking lied.
I sat on the floor that night in the midst of all that mess and I cried, and cried and cried.
I picked up a lighter off her bedside table and I set light to my birth certificate and watched it burn.
I was still crying and watching the flames turn my birth certificate into ashes and spread to the other papers on the floor, when I heard her come home and climb the stairs with her next conquest. I didn’t care, my life was over anyway.
I still recall the look on her face when she came into the bedroom, and I still recall the consequences of my actions.
This is when I developed an interest in fire.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Thursday 10 April
Tanya was on the Leicester to Birmingham train, it was extremely busy she was lucky to get a seat, just managed to grab one with a table near the window. She had spent most of the journey gazing out of the window deep in thought as the trees and houses whizzed by.
She hadn’t told Stephen that she was coming to Birmingham. She didn’t know what he would say, how he would react and most of all she did not want the interrogation when she got back.
She had been totally surprised to get the visiting order and the desperate letter from Ivan for her to visit. She’d contemplated not going but the curiosity would have killed her, she hated being out of control, the not knowing would have been worse. She wanted to know what he wanted. She needed to know if his defence team were going to try and use her.
“The next stop will be Birmingham New Street” came over the train’s tannoy system. She grabbed her bag and waited for the train to slow down as it was entering the station.
She needed to then get to Winson Green Prison where Ivan was being held on remand. She was feeling anxious, she had never been to a prison before and didn’t relish the idea of it now, didn’t know what to do when she got there, what the procedure was and how she would feel.
She had spent most of last night lying awake, going through
the conversations that they may have so that she had prepared answers. She would rather have this conversation with him now to prevent any surprise subpoenas. If that happened, God she couldn’t bear thinking about that, the truth would undoubtedly come out.
She recalled a client telling her about his experience in court. He had been trying to claim compensation for an accident he’d had at work. He was faking it and he’d been comfortable disclosing that to her knowing that their sessions were confidential.
He was claiming that the accident had damaged his right leg to a point where he could hardly use it.
The whole case went up in flames when the employer’s barristers produced an application form that he had filled in four weeks previously for a job as a bus driver, where they hastened to add that he would have to use his right leg quite a lot for this line of employment.
He’d been gob smacked, couldn’t understand how they had got hold of this material, and even more dumbfounded when the judge ordered him to pay court costs which amounted to more than his compensation claim would have been.
This was a double murder case, there would be even more scrutiny, more need to discredit witnesses from either side.
The barristers would have a field day if they looked into her background.
NO this could not happen, she would move away before she would step foot in a court of law.
The train slowly pulled into the station and she pushed through the crowds that were trying to get on as she was getting off, why they can’t just wait until we’ve got off she thought, exasperated by the ignorance of people.
Birmingham was busy, people rushing about reminiscent of an ant colony, shoving and pushing to get to their own destinations no consideration for anyone else.
She hailed a taxi and asked for Winson Green Prison.
Thirty minutes later, a journey that should have only taken ten if it wasn’t for all the traffic, and she was outside the prison.