by Michael Kerr
Tom lifted his cup, found it empty, got up and went to get them both a refill.
While Tom queued behind a group of nurses, Matt reviewed what they had. It was known what the killer looked like, and that he had distinguishing marks in the form of scars on both of his wrists. He was most likely based in the London area, and may have done time, or received treatment for mental illness. They had leads to follow and every chance of coming up with a name.
“There you go,” Tom said, placing a fresh brew in front of Matt. “I’m beginning to feel like a bloody manservant. The sooner you get that pot off your leg, the happier I’ll be.”
“You and me both,” Matt said. “And Tom, don’t mention the sketches to McClane. Let’s keep that card close to our chests. With a little luck, we can cold-cock the bastard and lift him like a sleeping baby.”
“I don’t like it, Matt. If we don’t splash his face all over the tabloids, you and Penny Page are still loose ends.”
“I know. I’ll be ready for him. But you’ll have to put Penny under tighter wraps. Move her and the baby, and don’t even let her parents know where she is.”
“She might not go for it.”
“She will. Did you see the look on her face when you showed her the sketch? She’ll do anything to guarantee not meeting up with this flake again.”
“We can’t give her any guarantees, Matt. I’ll put the description on hold for another forty-eight hours. But if we’re still drawing a blank, it goes out.”
CHAPTER NINE
SHE couldn’t wait. The next scheduled meeting was only days away, but she wanted to be with him. Every hour was an eternity, and her resolve to take it softly-softly went by the board. Just the thought of them fucking was driving her crazy. She had been able to somehow suppress the built-up frustration that had been like a mild itch; one that she had been able to relieve herself of when need be. But now it was as if an internal dam had overflowed and could not be held back. She had picked up the phone three times and put it back down, but was only fending off the inevitable and torturing herself in the process.
Her hands shook as she tapped in his number. She held her breath as the ringing tone sounded six, seven, eight times. She willed him to be in, and to pick up.
“Gary Noon.”
“Gary, it’s Marion. If it’s convenient, I need to run over your care plan with you, due to, er, new guidelines that have just been circulated. I wondered if I might drop by and talk it through.”
He could hear the sexual tension in her voice. She was feeding him bullshit. What she wanted to visit for was more of what she hadn’t been getting for a long time. He had hit her spot, and she was aching for a rematch.
“No problem, Marion. When would be good for you?”
“I could be there in less than an hour,” she said, trying not to sound excited or anything other than professional.
“I’ll be waiting,” Gary said, and then cradled the phone.
She felt like a million dollars in her brand new, sexy underwear. And could hardly contain herself as she drove towards Putney. Christ! She went through red lights. Her concentration was shot to pieces. That dam inside her had now given way under pressure, and the resulting flood of emotions was unbounded, sweeping all before it in a rushing, roaring deluge. It was irrational to allow carnal desire to overrule common-sense. But it was as if an inner flame had been fanned and was raging out of control. She burned with a compulsion that would not be denied. If anything, the danger and attendant subterfuge heightened the reward. Not since being a child had she felt so driven. At school, she had stolen from fellow pupils who teased her over her weight and called her Porky Peterson. They’d deserved to have their possessions and money taken. In the showers after PE, they would slap, pull and pinch at her rolls of fat, laughing, jibing; mentally and physically hurting her more than they could ever know. Stealing from their lockers was the only way she could retaliate. And the risk of being caught was electrifying, enhancing the actual act of forcing the doors open with a penknife and removing any valuables. She had not been found out. Every item she stole – apart from money – was secreted behind a panel above the false ceiling in the cloakroom. She had even reported some of her own stuff missing, to allay suspicion. Her new-found and illicit sexual relationship with Gary gave her the same thrill. Putting herself in jeopardy intensified the pleasure of the act. It was how she imagined bungee jumpers must feel as they readied themselves to leap into space from a high bridge or crane.
Gary didn’t go down to let her in this time. Just told her to come on up, and pressed the button to unlock the outer door to the building. Wearing just shorts, he went out onto the landing and watched her plod up the stairs, grunting as she laboured.
Jesus! If her eyes had teeth they would have eaten him alive. As she reached him, he put his arms around her, cupping her sagging buttocks with his hands and pulling her tight up against him.
She responded, ground herself against him and slipped a chubby hand down the back of his shorts.
Gary backed up, kicking the flat door closed when they were inside.
“Can I get you anything, Marion?” he asked. “Maybe a nice cup of tea?”
“Later,” she gasped, kissing him hungrily on the lips before pushing her tongue into his mouth, jabbing it in and out as she tilted her hips up and pressed even closer. Oh, yes...yes! She felt like a bitch in heat; wanton and consumed by need.
He led her through to the bedroom, slipped off his shorts, and helped her to remove her blouse and skirt.
“You look gorgeous and sexy,” he said, surveying her stood before him in her new black bra, matching panties, suspender belt and smoke-grey nylons. He smiled at the obvious pleasure his words generated. The insincere flattery raised bright patches of colour on her distended cheeks. She now looked like an overfed gerbil with high blood pressure. And yet, knowing that every second was being captured on videotape added a new dimension to the proceedings. Truth was, if Marion had worn a tutu, she could have been one of the hippos in The Dance of Hours sequence from Disney’s Fantasia. In bed, she came into her own, though. For her size, she was extraordinarily athletic and able. She actually turned him on, knowing exactly which buttons to press. He had the fleeting notion that if she cut out the garlic and slimmed down, their relationship could be a long-term and mutually satisfying venture. Being wanted and needed inspired a profound and meaningful sense of belonging that he had never previously experienced. It was disturbing.
He would enjoy watching the action replay. Maybe he would let her see it, but not yet, not today. Secretly filming their antics was another aspect of control to relish.
“Would you like to visit my place, Gary?” Marion asked, later, as they sat unclothed in the kitchen, talking and drinking tea.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “Do you think that would be wise? What would happen if it was found out you were screwing around with a patient? I don’t want you to lose your job because of me.”
“No one would know. You could stay the weekend. Please say you will, Gary.”
“All right, I will,” he said at length, making her wait for his reply. “But I still think it’s risky.”
She came to him, knelt on the floor and buried her face in his lap, which led to further activity that he passively enjoyed. He decided that the relationship could be much more than just an insurance of exemplary reports as to the state of his mental health. Over a period, Marion could be trained to enjoy a certain amount of pain, to enhance the pleasure of their lovemaking. He would enlighten her; teach her to need the prick of the thorn as much as the bouquet of the rose.
When she had squeezed her bulk into the little Honda and driven away, he fed Simon, using his fingers to select one of the crickets, all but crushing it as he transferred it from the prey tank to the vivarium. The insect chirruped, its back legs rubbing together as it prepared to jump away from danger. The large arachnid appeared from the dark entrance of its bark tunnel to
appraise the living meal. Simon stayed still until the cricket settled, then rushed forward to envelop the hapless creature and drag it back to the shelter of its lair.
Enjoying a fresh cup of tea, and snacking on a plate of chocolate digestives, Gary watched the video, amazed to see the spectacle from a totally different viewpoint. He felt like a third person; a voyeur surreptitiously spying on strangers making out, which was a pastime he had enjoyed as a teenager, frequenting lovers’ lanes under cover of darkness. It had been his favourite undertaking for a while. Sneaking up on couples who spent summer nights on a blanket in the bracken, he would find unparalleled relief as he watched and listened to their clandestine activities. Once in a while, he would still frequent wooded areas, where lovers with nowhere else to go would – ignorant to his near presence – put on an uninhibited display, which gave him as much gratification as they were undoubtedly enjoying. To be like a fly on the wall was an addictive, dramatic pursuit, almost as rewarding as killing in its own way. And some of the lovers had died where they lay, bludgeoned unmercifully, to add agony to their prior ecstasy. His mood at the time determined their fate. The masses got off by watching the escapades of exhibitionists on Big Brother and similar tacky reality shows on the box, which amounted to the same thing in his book. Although the participants always got out alive. The world was full of closet perverts. No one was who they purported to be. Everyone had secrets, and like onions, were many-layered.
After showering, he donned a thin cotton robe, went through to the kitchen and ate tuna sandwiches and drank milk while he watched the main ITN news. The cop shootings were not even mentioned. It was old and cold news now, superseded by other fresh atrocities and political intrigue. Today’s main events were the discovery of a teenage girl’s body that had popped up in a reservoir near Croydon. She had been snatched on her way home from school, three months prior to washing up on the shore in her rotting birthday suit. Next up were details of more killing in the Middle East; boring, repetitious crap. Would the west, and in particular the Yanks, give a flying fuck what happened out there if oil was taken out of the equation? No way, Jose.
After watching the dumb-looking weather girl wave her hands about and give details of the expected high pollen count, he turned the set off. It was obvious that the cop who had survived the shooting could not have seen him. Their investigation was a non-starter.
“Don’t count on it,” a voice said, startling him with its loudness, even though it came from within his own mind. He dropped the tumbler, heard it shatter, and felt fragments of the glass sting his legs, as they and the chilled milk splashed off the vinyl floor covering.
“You clumsy, pitiful, disgusting little boy,” the voice rasped. It was his mother speaking. She was dead, but had taken up residence in his head – which was a crowded place – where so many voices were a constant background static. He would take his medication and be rid of her.
“What do you mean, don’t count on it?” he asked himself.
“I mean that the police won’t let go of this. You murdered six people, four of them cops. And the one who lived did see you. Remember? He looked straight into your eyes before you shot at him. And the woman from the house next door knows exactly what you look like. They’ll convince her to talk and describe you.”
“That wouldn’t help them. Outwardly I look average. And I have no criminal record. If the bitch had talked, or the cop had got a good look at me, they would have been showing photofits on the box.”
“That’s it, Gary. Put your head in the sand like a fucking ostrich, and you won’t see any bad shit coming till it bites you in the arse.”
“You’re dead, you stupid bitch. I don’t have to listen to this crap.”
He got up, turned on the tuner of his midi-system, cranked up the volume and sang along to the old Beatles’ number that was playing; “I NEVER NEEDED ANYBODY’S HELP IN ANY WAY,” he shouted, drowning out the voice of John Lennon. The lyrics of the Fab Four’s song were true. He needed no one, or any help. He opened a wall unit cupboard and took out the box containing his clozapine tablets. Popped a couple from their foil blisters, swallowed them and washed them down with water that he drank straight from the tap. That would shut his mother’s and all the other voices up.
After cleaning up the glass and mopping the floor, he waited for the drug to kick in and mollify him.
His mother was up front in his thoughts now. One of the best days’ work he had ever done was to push her down the stairs of their terrace house at Streatham. The incident coalesced in his mind. He was back there, a fourteen year old again, standing at his bedroom door, listening to the grunts and moans and heavy breathing.
His mother finished up with the punter, led him down to the front door and saw him out, before locking up for the night. She trudged back up to the landing, wearing only a flimsy red nightdress and fluffy, pink slippers. He despised her. His father had been one of her countless clients, who she had obviously allowed to ride her bareback, so to speak. To know that he was the result of a quickie for money with a total stranger was not conducive to a healthy, balanced state of mind, or the basis for a normal mother and son relationship.
“Do it,” an authorative voice in his brain had insisted. “DO IT, NOW!”
It was as if the act had been sanctioned by a higher power. He ran across the small landing, to meet her as she reached the top. And as she gave him a lopsided, drunken smile, he stuck both arms out straight, to feel her soft breasts compress under his palms as he pushed hard, causing her to fall back into space. She wind milled her arms, teetered for a second, let out a shriek of terror, and then appeared to perform an ungainly back flip that resulted in a loud crack as her head hit a stair and her neck snapped. She came to rest in an unnatural, contorted position; her head at an impossible angle for anyone alive to adopt.
Gary allowed himself to be there, crouched on the bottom stair, looking down into the slack face and unseeing eyes. The makeup was too thick, the glossy lipstick too red. She could have been a child’s doll, cast aside and broken beyond repair. It had been so simple. The exercise made it clear that anything undesirable could easily be eradicated; made to go away forever.
After pulling the nightdress down to cover the shaven centre of what had been her sole means of income, he called the emergency services, then ran next door screaming for help. He was shaking and crying as he told the neighbour that his mother had fallen down the stairs, and that he could not wake her up.
Due to the level of alcohol in her blood, the coroner’s verdict on Tracy Noon was death by misadventure, which to Gary’s mind was exactly what it had been.
Back in the present, he sighed. The voices had faded to become a low and unintelligible murmur. He went through to the bedroom and stretched out on the bed. Marion had worn him out. Resting on the cool, cotton cover of the duvet, he closed his eyes. He would have to change the bedding later. He could smell Miss Piggy’s garlic-laden sweat and the musk of her sex. The stink was contaminating his private space.
CHAPTER TEN
“I want you to work with Beth Holder, Tom. See what she can contribute,” Detective Chief Superintendent Jack McClane said in a way that Tom knew was not a request or suggestion.
“We’ve got leads to follow up, Jack. Isn’t it a bit soon to start involving a bloody shrink?”
“She’s not a shrink, Tom, and you know it. She’s a criminal psychologist, who might just be able to give us a handle on what turns this guy’s wheels.”
Tom shifted restlessly on the small but heavy chair that was placed strategically in front of his super’s desk. It was far enough away to prevent visitors from leaning forward and resting their elbows on the polished surface, and was intended to be disconcerting. The space was a buffer. Tom shook his head. He didn’t like civilians on the team, or in his face. Especially women with an attitude, which was what he considered Dr. Beth Holder to be. “I just don’t think¯”
“Then don’t, Tom. This is
n’t open for debate. I’ve already briefed her. She’ll be in your office within the hour, and I want her to see everything you’ve got.”
Tom managed a smile, and Jack allowed himself a wry grin. “You know what I mean, you perv. Mind you, she is a looker.”
“Too self-opinionated and imperious for my taste, Jack.”
“Yeah, but she’s good at what she does. We need closure on this, Tom. If she can give us a pointer that helps, then I want it. We need to break this. Okay?”
Tom nodded, resigned to having to work alongside a woman who talked in riddles and came up with probabilities, which to him were little more than educated guesses wrapped up in supposition.
“Good,” Jack said. “How’s Barnes doing?”
“He’s on the mend, but hurting over what went down. I’m keeping him up to speed with developments.”
Jack sucked at his teeth. “That might not be such a good idea. He’s too close to it. It could give him an agenda we don’t need.”
“He’s an integral part of what happened. He saw the perp, Jack. He deserves to be on the inside. We’ve talked it through. He’ll be fine.”
“I hope so. Don’t underestimate human nature, Tom. This will be personal in Barnes’ book. He’s always been the squad’s answer to Harry Callaghan. I think he watched too many Eastwood movies as a kid.”
Jack got up and walked over to a large fish tank that was set into a teak unit on the back wall. He took the top off a cylindrical container and sprinkled what looked to be ground pepper or fine sawdust onto the surface of the water, and watched as the light glinted off the brightly coloured tropical fish that darted up to gulp at the food.
Tom was convinced that McClane was a control freak. The rotund little Jock even held dominion over his bloody fish, and treated most of his minions as if they were no more than pawns on a chessboard. The troops’ nickname for him was Chairman Mac, in part due to the little red book he filled with copious notes. If someone slighted him, even unintentionally, the misdemeanour was duly recorded, to be acted on weeks, months or in some cases years later. Promotion was a lost cause if an adverse entry had been made. Tom held back a smile as he remembered the far-reaching internal inquiry a decade ago, which had been instigated by Jack following the theft of his diary. Having gone for a dump in a fourth floor men’s room, he had hung his jacket outside the stall, only to find his pockets as empty as his bowels when he’d finished up. There had been so many entries in the purloined diary that he couldn’t narrow his field of suspects, but had interrogated everyone of lesser rank whom he suspected. It was believed that these days he transferred his notes to disk, with a backup copy on a flash drive. Tom knew the identity of the diary thief, and might even tell Jack who it was, on the day the super retired and could not take his revenge.