by Paul Kelly
***
“Tobias ... Margaret Tobias, now she was a pain in the arse … if ever I knew one and she had a cousin too. The both of them used to laugh together, arm in arm they did, the silly sods. Now what was her cousin’s name ... Tobias ... No …it wasn’t that. They didn’t have the same surname. . Ah! I remember it was Smith ... plain ordinary Jane Smith. Now how the hell could I forget that?”
Two for the price of one, he thought as he polished his knife again.
“Is that Miss Tobias? Miss Margaret Tobias?”
“Yes ...who is that?”
“You don’t know me Margaret but I’ve been talking to your cousin ... Jane Smith. You were at school together and I remember a show you were in one Christmas. It was a sort of pantomime that the children did for charity and I noticed how talented you and your cousin were in that show ... and I wondered if you’d like to do the same again ... but of course in an adult pantomime?”
Margaret preened where she stood with the phone in her hand. Of course she was prepared to do what she did before, for charity of course. What girl wouldn’t … and William smiled.
“Hello, is that Miss Smith? Miss Jane Smith?”
“Yea ... That’s my name . . . whose zat …whose askin’”
William went through the story again about the children’s pantomime for charity, telling Jane Smith who he was sure she would only have remembered him vaguely anyway as she taunted him just a little less than her cousin did and by this time, William was beginning to feel confident about his actions and a certain arrogance came into it as he mentioned his name with a sense of pride and well-being. Would Jane like to do the same again, with her obvious talents, but this time for an adult show and needless to say …and just as he had anticipated, Jane was delighted …
The arrangement was that they should both turn up for a primary rehearsal. Margaret was to be there at 7.30pm the following Thursday and Jane at 9.0 pm. The reason for the different times of rehearsal was so that each should show their individual talent and William assured them that there was no doubt they would each have a part to play, but this was the way the show was run.
Vanity played its part in William’s ruse and the girls turned up exactly at the times proposed. ... He looked into Jane Smith’s eyes and stuttered in his arrogance …
“You … c.. c .. c ... can call me what … y... y ... like now as you … w... w ... won’t ever open your …p ... p ... p ... pretty little … m ... m ... mouth again, darling ...” he said, but the girls never got to play in the pantomime ... and William smiled as he left them, skimpily dressed and gasping for breath as a pool of water formed around Jane Smith’s feet.
“Oh God, another one” … he whispered into the cold night air… “She’s pissed herself,” William muttered, “How bloody undignified for these girls to do a thing like that.”
***
“Is that Joseph Bertrand?”
“Yes, this is he, who are you?”
“This is the telephone directory service Sir.” William raised his voice a pitch in an effort to confuse his listener. “The new directory is now published and I just wanted to confirm that your address is as it was in last year’s edition. Would you confirm your address for me please?”
Mr. Bertrand obliged very readily and William took down the address in his little book. ***
Two days later . . .
“Hello ...Is that Mr. Bertrand? Mr. Joseph Bertrand and do you live at 43 Grosvenor Street?”
“Yes. I am Joseph Bertrand and that is my address. What do you want?”
“You don’t know me Sir, but I believe you may have met my sister.”
“Your sister ... who the hell are you?
William smiled. J.B. was beginning to get annoyed and the plan was working.
“My sister is Maya Broomfield. She told me you had proposed to her and I want to know why you didn’t keep your promise . . .
There was, as expected a very long silence on the phone before Mr. Bertrand spoke again.
“Proposal …Propose to your sister. I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous. I’m a married man, for God’s sake and your sister must be soft in the head if she thought I intended to marry her. Yes, I know Maya alright, but who doesn’t?
I think she’s had more men than I’ve had hot dinners . . . Now fuck off and tell your story to some other idiot ...”
William was furious with the message he received from Mr. Bertrand and he was sure he needed to make a visit to number 43 Grosvenor Street, before very long and before not very long indeed, as he went back to the house a couple of days later, but when he approached Mr. Bertrand again, this time knowing what he would do and not expecting any resistance from his victim, he got a volume of verbal abuse as soon as Bertrand opened his door and William could hear someone in the back ground enquiring who the visitor was, as well as a dog barking ferociously, somewhere inside the hallway.
“Get the fuck”, but that was more than William could stand and the conversation, if you could call it that, was ended within a few moments, with Joseph Bertrand sliding down the wall outside his front door, with blood sprayed everywhere across the walls and with the dog leaping wildly over Bertrand’s body and lounging himself at William. William lost balance for a few moments before he took to his heels with the dog racing after him and after a chase of about five minutes … the dog gave up and returned to Bertrand’s house.
William went into a telephone booth to make sure that he was intact and that there was no blood stains around him for Fiona to notice, but there was nothing that he could see.
***
“You’re late this evening William,” Fiona called out as he came into the flat, “I think they should pay you overtime for all the long hours you work,” but William pulled his jacket from his shoulders and spread it across the settee to make a second check to see that it was ‘clean’ . . .
“I get paid well enough for what I do,” he answered, “I’m only a shelf stacker, not the Managing Director. I thought you knew that.”
Fiona laughed as she asked William if he was ready to eat.
“Whenever you’re ready,” he replied and tucked into a plate of lasagna and chips.
***
“Another victim to the serial killer,” Fiona read in the paper “Last night the serial killer struck again and with the same pattern as always. A sharp cut to the jugular. There were no witnesses, but the victim’s wife said she heard an argument before her husband was struck down ... and that their pet dog, a large German shepherd had chased a man into the darkness.”
“This is a terrible thing to be happening around these parts, isn’t it William?
Fiona said as she was drinking her coffee, but William didn’t seem to hear anything.. “These murders,” Fiona repeated, “It’s not safe to walk out in the streets after dark with this maniac around, is it?”
“No ... I don’t suppose it is, but how do they know this person, man or woman whoever they might be, is a serial killer? It could be a one-off act of revenge or anything like that,” he said, but Fiona was sure there was more to the story than William supposed . . .
“I think it very strange,” she went on, “That all the victims with their throats cut are men. There doesn’t appear to be any women, does there?”
“Only those few girls who ….” William stopped talking suddenly and Fiona looked up at him from her newspaper.
“What girls?” she asked and William sipped his coffee without answering. “Oh! I suppose you are referring to those girls who were strangled recently,” she went on, “but that was a different type of killing. They were strangled. No knife was used on them and this man, or woman ... goes around with a sharp knife attacking people around the throat ... Aiming for the jugular, it seems and so ensuring a quick, clean death ... if you can call it that. Ugh! I think i
t’s terrible.”
William smiled. It was a pity they couldn’t put a name to this ‘maniac’ who was roaming around the streets at night. It would be excellent publicity for some poor old sod ... he thought before he slipped his jacket over his shoulders and left for the supermarket.
As he went, he could hear the Salvation Army singing at a street corner. They had strong lusty voices for what they believed. “Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war,” they sang and one of the choristers came up to William, shaking a tin that obviously contained some money “Are you saved Sir?” cried one young girl from the front row of the singers and William sniggered as he raised his eyes to heaven.
“I hope so darling,” he replied, “but you can pray for me, if you like.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Good evening. Is that 020 494 6767? I would like to speak to Mr. Abbot, if I may?”
William put on his best accent and strained hard to stifle the stammer.
“I am sorry …” a thin little voice answered . . . “I think you have the wrong number. What number did you want?”
“Oh! Mr. Abbot doesn’t live there then?”
“No there is no-one of that name here. This is a private address.”
“Thank you. Good evening. Sorry to have troubled you.”
“No trouble at all … Good evening, Sir.”
William was about to score through the name of Abbot in his little book, but before he did, he decided to try another option and use the telephone numbers in a different way, reflecting back on his dyslexia, which hadn’t given him any trouble in the past.
“Is that 020 494 7676,” he asked and the answer came back to him in the affirmative, with just a simple, “Yes.”
“Oh Mr. Abbot … I think I may be in some way related to you and I’m trying to trace my family tree. Would you know if you originally came from Devon?”
William thought he could hear someone giggling in the background as he waited for his answer and this annoyed him greatly.
“No ... I don’t think that’s possible darlin’ … You see, my name is … or rather WAS Abbot, but I’ve been divorced for over four years now and I don’t know where my husband is. He was a bastard anyway,” she added hastily before she continued to speak … “Where did you get my telephone number? It must be an old directory. I’ve been using my maiden name since we parted. My name is Summers, darlin’ not Mrs. I can assure you. I’ve finished with that entire bloody lark . . . Iris Summers and you can always get me on this number. Bye for now.”
William breathed a sigh of relief that he had only spoken to the dear Miss Summers on the telephone. God knows how he would have reacted if he had met her in the flesh . . . He was about to put the matter to rest and take the name Abbot from his little notebook when a thought suddenly occurred to him and he scratched his head . . .
“Summers … Summers, he repeated aloud … IRIS SUMMERS . . . It couldn’t be, could it?
Two days later, William met Iris Summers at a restaurant quite near where she lived. He had presumed correctly when he rang her number for the second time that she would accept any invitation to dinner from any stranger . . . at any time . . . and he was right. He remembered how she had asked him if he wanted to fuck her when he was a boy at school and he smiled … “Of course, my darling, of course,” he whispered into the air . . . I’ll fuck you alright . . .
***
“Well, that’s a turn up for the book,” said Fiona as she prepared breakfast the following morning. William yawned and threw his arms up in the air.
“What’s that?” he asked and Fiona gasped as she started to read the newspaper with its startling news. “The serial killer has struck again,” she said, “And this time it IS a woman . . . would you believe it . . .” William raised his eyebrows and yawned again, but he didn’t show any particular interest in the latest news as Fiona read the details to him as she munched her toast. “A young woman was found dead outside the ‘Scarecrow restaurant last night just as it was getting dark. She had been savagely strangled and her body was stripped of her clothes. This is the first woman to be murdered in this way and there is no sign of any sexual involvement, but the police are investigating the possibility that this woman was murdered by the serial killer of recent dates …”
William sipped his coffee and rubbed his hands together.
“Chilly morning …isn’t it . . .” he commented before he rose to go to the toilet.
***
“Is that Mr. Murphy? Mr. Patrick Murphy?”
A very Irish voice answered when William asked his question.
“Junior or Senior,” the woman asked and William was perplexed for the moment before the woman allayed his fears, “Because Junior is seven and the other has done a runner.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t follow ... I just wanted to speak to Mr. Patrick Murphy and now I presume it must be the senior Mr. Murphy I’m looking for.”
“You’re not the only one mate ... My old man took off with a girl younger than his own daughter, just about six months ago to the day. Silly old bastard, he was and she’s welcome to him. Couldn’t even piss straight, could that one. No catch for any girl, but she’s an old ... or rather young bag, anyway, so it doesn’t matter much does it?”
William wanted to smile. His efforts were aborted, but not without a laugh as he put the phone down after apologising to the lady, whose husband had a twist somewhere in his water works.
William sat comfortably in his arm chair at Fiona’s flat, feeling quite pleased with himself and with a certain pleasure in his ‘doings’ or ‘goings on’ since Maya had died. He still missed her and became angry when he thought of the other men who had been with her. They could never have loved her as he did and he had proved that time after time. With an angry thought, he felt around his jacket pocket for his Stanley knife, but without success and then he remembered the struggle he had with Iris Summers … or could it have been lost with his affray with Bertrand’s giant of a dog. He began to get worried as he was always most careful where he put that knife and had always wrapped it in a leather scabbard for safety.
“I must have dropped it when I ran away from that bloody beast,” he whispered hoping that Fiona hadn’t heard what he had said, but Fiona was singing in the bath upstairs so he was quite safe. “I’m sure I didn’t have it with the Summers girl … No, I didn’t use it on her …” he concluded with a smug grin and a nod of his head.
“It’s the girls who drove me to it,” he said making every excuse for his recent actions. “Yes, it’s the girls who started all this trouble,” he muttered under his breath and decided he could do without the Stanley knife for the time being and that in the fullness of time, he would get another one.
***
“Is that Shirley Valentine?” he joked into the line, knowing full well the response he would get ... or what someone else would have got?
“Any …oh Andy darling . . .I thought I’d never hear from you again. Yes this is your own Shirley Valentine ... Throw me a kiss darling.”
William smiled. He was dyslexic but there was nothing wrong with his memory and the thought of Shirley Bangs and Andy Hastings making eyes at each other in the classroom and then doing whatever they did behind the school toilets … before they told him what an idiot he was …Yes, he would remember . . . It made him feel sick to think of it, as it had done before. He had heard that they had split up, but when you are desperate, you can’t rely on hunches and what a man has to do a man has to do…
“Meet me tonight then, darling ... At Morley’s Night Club. ... You remember that don’t you?”
“Of course I do, you wicked bastard. How could I ever forget . . . Love you darling. See you tonight.”
William put the phone down and licked his lips. This vengeance was getting more exciting by the minute and he was look
ing forward to a snog at Morley’s before he did what he knew he had to do. He took out his fiddle and played a few notes.
Later that evening at the arranged time of the meet, he could see the lovely Shirley preening herself and adjusting her tights. It was time to strike and he couldn’t wait as he whistled softly into the dark and watched Shirley as she pricked up her ears.
“Is that you darling?” she called out softly into the night and William whistled once more, to see his victim rushing towards him and to a moment she would never experience again. This love meeting was beginning to excite William. It was death he wanted and sex was only a second fiddle ... if that.
The embrace was quick and William could smell the cheap perfume and toothpaste as Shirley slowly fell to the ground. Her legs fell out onto the pavement and he kicked them back into the shadows near the Club. No need for anyone to be disturbed until the morning . . .was there? Everyone should enjoy a good night out when they attend Morley’s, but he laughed aloud when he thought of what some poor sod was going to find in the morning ...
Chapter Thirty-Four
A Murder Enquiry. June 2003
“There’s someone to see you William,” Fiona called out as William came through the front door of the flat. He looked around, wondering who on earth would want to see him and then for a moment, he panicked thinking it might be his mother, but as he walked into the lounge he got quite a shock to see Reggie Gardner sitting, leg-crossed and smoking a cigarette.
“Hi William ... Long-time no see. How are you, young man?”
William was more than surprised to see his visitor. Chief Inspector Reggie Gardner was the last person he had thought he would ever meet again as he looked from Fiona to Reggie as if between them he would find out the reason for the unexplained visit.