‘Did you need the money, doctor? I always thought that psychotherapy was lucrative?’
When had detectives started using such big words? Adam hesitated. ‘It’s well paid but it’s like any freelance work – the number of patients fluctuates whereas weekly rent money is reliable. There was also a security aspect. I take up to four short holidays a year and worried about being burgled. I felt much more secure after John moved in.’
‘So his living here worked out well.’
‘It worked out brilliantly. In fact, we’d often phone out for a pizza and open a few beers.’
‘In other words, he had numerous options to confide in you?’
Damn. He’d suggested earlier that he didn’t see much of John.
‘No, we usually kicked back, watched comedy or sport. After all, I’d have been talking at work all day and he’d have been exercising hard so we were both tired out and needed to relax.’
‘Was he bad-tempered when he was tired?’
‘John? No, really easy-going.’
‘Did anything rattle him?’
‘He was desperately distraught that he’d never had a girlfriend.’
‘It wasn’t a girl who did this. It took strength to lift such a tall bloke up a tree,’ one of the detectives murmured.
‘I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt John. He was an amicable, if confused, young man.’
‘Keep thinking about it, doc,’ the older detective said, handing over the inevitable business card after getting heavily to his feet.
He would find it hard, Adam thought wearily, to think of anything else.
THIRTY-TWO
‘And now the police say that it wasn’t suicide,’ Beth finished.
She looked at Matthew, assuming that he’d feel as shocked as she was, but his face remained neutral. ‘Adam’s devastated,’ she added, ‘to lose a friend and find that it was foul play.’
‘People always seem to be getting murdered here. It’s a lot safer in Clevedon,’ Matthew said, opening his second beer of the evening.
‘It’s not just here. Apparently they found a woman’s body in Bristol the other day.’
‘I hate these big cities – people always seem to be getting drunk and attacking each other.’
‘But they’ve got fantastic theatres and restaurants,’ Beth said. He looked unconvinced so she decided to change the subject. ‘Did I tell you about Adam’s little nephew? His mother found him dead in bed.’
‘Don’t you think that too much of your life revolves around death?’
Beth stared at her lover in surprise. The question had never occurred to her. ‘Not at all. I mean, I counsel widows in order that they can carry on living. The hospital and the hospice deals with death – I help people cope with the aftermath. It’s life-affirming in a way.’
‘It’s been three years since your husband died. Isn’t it like constantly reopening a wound?’
He’d never said anything like this before. Beth set down her wine glass on the occasional table and gave him her undivided attention.
‘Do I seem wounded to you?’
‘No.’ He didn’t sound convinced.
‘I know that I cry sometimes when certain songs are played on the radio, but that goes with the territory, Matt. I’ve friends who have been widowed for five or even ten years and they still weep at times for their beloved and feel really sad. The sense of loss is permanent. It’s a recognized condition, the widow’s low.’
‘OK.’
Did he think that she didn’t have feelings for him because she was still in love with her late husband?
‘I do care for you. You know that?’ she said. She had a vague memory of using the same words to him before when they were in bed, of him hugging her and looking pleased.
‘I know,’ he said, but he didn’t hug her this time, just returned his attention to the television and to his beer.
Should she ask him if he was having second thoughts? Try harder to reassure him? Beth was still wondering what to do when he spoke again.
‘There’s a big ice show coming to Bristol next year if you fancy it.’
Hadn’t he just rejected the city as a den of iniquity? Or was it acceptable for a day trip but not as a place to live?
‘Count me in!’ she said lightly, glad that he was still thinking ahead, still planning their future leisure activities. Maybe she was overreacting to his mood swings? Beth sat back on the settee and tried to relax.
THIRTY-THREE
Damn, they’d found Kylie’s body now: it had featured on the south west news and they’d mentioned that Hannah’s killer was also still undiscovered, but there was no suggestion that police were linking the two or that they had any reason to add John’s death to the mix.
He’d have to wait a bit longer before he drugged and raped Olivia, though, the way things were going, she’d probably perform cartwheels for him, naked, without the need for Rohypnol. She seemed to have the biggest crush on him imaginable, and always tried to extend their hourly sessions by a few minutes, hovering cutely at the door.
He’d thought that the baby might curtail their sessions, but she always put him before the little brat, whom she’d called Mia. He’d bumped into her one day close to the bereavement centre and she’d had the wailing child in a pram.
‘Free to go for a drink? I can drop her at the crèche,’ she’d said boldly.
Unfortunately he’d had a client to see or he might well have enjoyed a little afternoon delight.
Without drugs, he reckoned that she’d be happy to have vanilla sex and would maybe go down on him. With drugs, he could go up the chocolate freeway and he wouldn’t have the hassle of having to make her come. It took some women ages to have an orgasm, no matter how much they fancied you. He’d read somewhere that it could take twenty-three minutes to get them there with your tongue. He’d much rather be fucking than sucking them during that twenty-three minutes, wanted to be in charge rather than taking the subservient role. He only brought them to climax if he fancied them enough to want to see them again, a comparatively rare event. The rest of the time, he put his own pleasure first.
He’d got a new batch of Rohypnol now, bought in a Portishead bar, but had to make sure that it wasn’t an inadvertent murder weapon. To play safe, he intended to try it out on an easy target, someone who was unconnected to himself and therefore completely disposable.
As the shadows lengthened, Adam walked up to Grove Park and strolled to an area often frequented by the homeless, rough sleepers by any other name. He soon found a man who looked sixtyish – probably a forty-year-old who’d had a hard life – propped up against a bench.
‘Want a drink, mate?’ The tramp eyed him blearily then snatched the adulterated can. Drinking it down in a few gulps, he muttered something unintelligible and went to sleep.
The following morning, Adam returned to the scene of the potential crime. Excellent – the man was awake and importuning various dog walkers for money. This batch, then, would do for Olivia and anyone else who appealed to him.
That night, he listened to the news but this time Kylie’s murder wasn’t even mentioned in the same bulletin as Hannah’s. Good. He’d gotten away with murder yet again.
Now that Kylie’s body had been discovered, the Major Incident Room was busier than ever. Detective Superintendent Winston studied the evidence. Both women had been found in the woods – albeit one in Weston and one in Bristol – and had been rolled down steep inclines after presumably being transported to the dump site in a car or van. Hannah had been found naked, but had previously been wrapped in a sheet, probably to keep her concealed in the back seat of a vehicle: minute threads on her body had testified to this. Kylie had also been wrapped in a sheet before being put in a freezer: she’d still been sheathed in it when she was found.
They’d continue to liaise with Bristol police and had warned women in both areas to be especially careful as there was a killer on the loose. As head of the enquiry, he’d spoken to a psycho
logist in-depth about the murderer, and apparently some men didn’t start killing until their forties, although the mid to late thirties was more usual, and even the late teens wasn’t unknown. That put an awful lot of Weston men under the microscope, as well as those who visited the town for leisure or work.
He’d had a couple of firm favourites in mind, including Adam Neave, but the man was proving to be a perfect gentleman, hadn’t behaved in the least bit inappropriately with Olivia. Their other chief suspect, a lifelong bachelor, was also leading an exemplary life. There were many other strange characters out there, Detective Superintendent Winston admitted wearily to himself, who were much more obviously misogynistic. He’d better not get tunnel vision, should widen his net.
THIRTY-FOUR
They thought that they could control him now that he was taking a tablet after breakfast, one at lunch and a final half-dose after school. They wanted him neutered, zombified. The school feared his ferocious intellect so tried to bring him down to their level; they were producing tomorrow’s factory fodder and mindless civil servants whilst his parents needed an obedient, personality-less son. No one liked the real him, the fast-moving, free-thinking embryonic genius. Everyone wanted the real Brandon to die.
His mother kept checking up on him at night and his father had taken away his computer yesterday because he hadn’t kept his room tidy. Had Einstein kept his room tidy? Had Bill Gates? His teachers were equally vapid, merely going through the motions until they reached pensionable age.
He’d show them, make them sorry. One day they would tremble as they recognized his latent power. He was in a state of constant tension by the time that he reached the pet shop but forced himself to breathe evenly, slow down. A sign said that they wouldn’t sell animals to minors but he’d been in here before and they had been keen to offload various small furry rodents to anyone with ready cash. Everyone had their price, and it was low during a recession. Today, they were grateful to sell him a small white mouse.
Afterwards, when it was dead, he felt almost sorry. He’d enjoyed its squealing, its frantic abortive efforts to escape, the seismic change as the light finally faded from its little pink eyes. Brandon wiped the blood from his knife onto the grass and threw the tiny cadaver under a bush; he’d return nightly on his way home from school and check up on the stages of putrefaction and decomposition of the skeleton, the ever-changing colours and scents of a body as it broke down. It would be his own biology lesson, something far more up close and personal than the bulls’ eyes and locusts which they dissected in the lab.
Next week, when he got his monthly allowance, he might treat himself to a large white rat or a degus, though he’d probably have to drug it before getting his blade out. After all, he didn’t want to get bitten or scratched.
What on earth was she supposed to do with a single sheet of toilet paper? Olivia stared at the almost-finished roll in exasperation. Why didn’t Marc replace the roll from the stock in the hall cupboard? If she hadn’t had a couple of paper handkerchiefs in her jeans pocket, she’d have been left in a disgusting state. After washing her hands (he’d left toothpaste smears on the sink, as per usual), she fetched a new roll, stopping enroute to remove a pair of dirty socks which were sticking out of his boots.
Walking into the lounge, she was immediately confronted by empty beer cans, Pringles cartons and the remains of what looked like a Chinese chow mein. He’d had his friends round last night to watch the football and the room stank of alcohol and stale male sweat. His breakfast mug, perched precariously on the arm of the settee, was still warm, proof that he’d been in here today before going to work. Would it have killed him to clear up?
Adam’s house, she thought, was very different – neat and clean – and she was glad that she was going there this morning. Oh, she’d only seen his study and the kitchen so far, but she sensed that he was methodical and tidy. He was neat in his appearance too, whereas Marc regularly got mud on his trouser hems and egg yolk on his shirt.
As usual, she thought about the therapist on the train journey to his place. It was hard not to. He’d started off as a work project, someone she’d expected to secretly despise, but she was increasingly thinking of him in much more positive terms. He actively listened to her troubles and seemed to remember them from visit to visit: she’d never once seen him consult his notes. He also remembered their various shared humorous moments and referred to them, helping to further build their rapport. Sometimes they made eye contact for longer than was strictly necessary and she was aware that her heartbeat was speeding up by the time that she looked away. Was she the most compelling and attractive of his patients? Did he think of her as often as she thought of him? And, if she did walk into his thoughts, did he ever have the urge to touch himself and wonder what it would be like to touch her equally intimately?
THIRTY-FIVE
Matthew smiled at his latest customer, a woman of around forty who had locked herself out. She was wearing a close-fitting shift dress, a waist-skimming jacket and black patent heels with a matching clutch bag. Her shoes were polished, whereas Beth’s were invariably scuffed and dull. Not that appearance was everything, but it mattered to him and he took care of his footwear and clothes.
Beth wasn’t as feminine as he’d originally thought, had spent most of the warm weather in cotton culottes and vest tops. Now that it was December, albeit an incredibly mild one, she’d settled for a uniform-like jumper and jeans. He liked women who wore gypsy skirts and pretty, midriff-skimming tops in summer and cuddly, cashmere jumpers in winter. Although she was much younger than him, she still wasn’t girlish enough.
‘Almost finished,’ he said to his customer as she sat, watching, from the bottom of the stairs. He wouldn’t ask her out as he didn’t cheat and, anyway, it was unethical to proposition a customer. But if he was single and in a pub and they started chatting, he’d definitely be up for it.
‘I’ve never done this before,’ she murmured. ‘I mean, I always keep my key in my bag and I never leave home without it. But last night I popped out to post my Christmas cards, so just put the key in my jacket pocket, meaning to transfer it when I got back.’
‘At least it’s daytime. Last week, I had a phone call from a woman who locked herself out at four a.m.’
‘Had she come back from clubbing?’
‘No, she’d been in bed for hours when she thought she heard her cat fighting with another in the garden. She went to investigate – and she has a door like yours which locks on closing. She had to wake up a neighbour and call me out.’
‘You must hate those late calls.’
He shrugged. ‘They pay the mortgage. Anyway, they are few and far between. Most calls are made a day or two in advance for locks which have started to stick, so the home owner is being proactive. I always change my own locks as soon as they start to play up.’
The customer looked at his heavy tool kit. ‘Hoisting that around must keep you fit.’
‘It does. I never have to go to the gym.’
Even Beth, for all her faults, seemed to appreciate his body. She was always telling him how cute he looked. Perhaps cuter than she?
‘So, what do I owe you?’ the woman asked as he swept up the pieces of metal filing around the door.
He wrote her out a receipt, not charging for the last fifteen minutes. She had been good for his ego and he appreciated it.
‘I’ll recommend you to my friends,’ she said.
‘I should put you on commission!’
‘I’d like that,’ she murmured, then grinned.
He’d tell Beth about the encounter, Matthew thought, as he walked back to his van. Maybe if she realized how many offers he got in a typical month, she’d try harder. She’d put on a bit more make-up – preferably understated – and buy some sexier shoes.
He’d also like her to spend less time with other widows, to see herself as young, free and single. Why couldn’t she just move on, as he had after his divorce? He had no feelings for his ex-wife othe
r than that of derision; it had been a dead marriage long before she ended it. He’d stayed because of some old-fashioned sense of loyalty and because of the children, plus he hated uncertainty so rarely initiated change. He was glad now that he was a bachelor with a future. He enjoyed having a revitalized social life.
But his girlfriend wasn’t quite shaping up, so he’d have to make his criticisms more vocal. She had potential, simply had to raise her game. He wanted her to be a partner of whom he could be truly proud, deserved to be the envy of his friends.
Drat – the sun had suddenly disappeared and the temperature was plummeting. They’d had a sunny start to December but now, mid-month, it was really cold. Everyone had been lulled into a false sense of security by the long, hot summer but now winter had arrived and, with it, the usual stomach bugs and colds.
Beth blew her nose for the umpteenth time that morning and put two little packets of tissues and a tube of menthol lozenges in her bag. She replaced the lightweight jacket that she’d planned to wear to Gloucestershire today with a heavier suede garment. They were planning to walk by the water and she couldn’t afford to get chilled. She’d gone down with a cold on Monday and missed three days off work. Matthew had brought her comfort foods and collected a parcel from the post office delivery centre for her but he, too, didn’t seem to be his usual happy self.
She added a small bottle of energy drink to the growing pharmacy in her bag. She still felt slightly weak and had considered suggesting that they just curl up and watch a DVD together, but he seemed keen to check out the clothing outlets at Gloucester Quays Shopping Centre; they were both atheists who avoided Christmas shopping so presumably he wanted something for himself. She could vaguely remember him mentioning that he wanted another winter coat, liked the fashionable military style.
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