The Principle of Evil: A Fast-Paced Serial Killer Thriller (DCI Claire Winters, Book 2)

by T. M. E. Walsh

  ‘Don’t you ever fucking knock?’ She turned her attention back to the mirror, not waiting for a reply, and started to adjust her eyebrow stud.

  ‘You got another speeding ticket, and this time I’m not paying for it or taking the points on my licence. You’re nineteen, an adult, so start taking some responsibility.’

  He waited for her to respond but she acted as though she hadn’t heard him, busying herself by changing the stud in her eyebrow.

  ‘Fallon.’

  ‘I heard you the first time, Dad.’

  ‘Then look at me when I’m speaking to you.’

  Fallon swung her body around in a sulk, her face pulled into a sneer, her fingers pointing at her body. ‘Mind if I get dressed first?’

  It was only at this point that he noticed that his daughter stood before him wearing only her bra and jeans. Normally he would have turned his head, embarrassed by seeing her exposed, but something caught his eye.

  ‘What is that?’ he said, pointing to her lower torso. Fallon looked down and remembered the latest addition to her pale body.

  ‘Fuck…’

  Richard shook his head. ‘Fallon, we’ve been over this. How much more of this… this filth are you going to have inked into your skin?’ He looked exasperated. ‘Your mother won’t approve.’

  ‘Mum left. She has no say in how I live my life any more, and neither do you. I’m nineteen and I’ll do what I want.’

  ‘Whilst you’re under my roof, you ungrateful brat, you will do as I say. I’m not paying out all this money for your education just to have you piss it all up the wall, wasting it getting inked up and pierced everywhere.’

  Fallon ignored him and reached out for her top, yanking it over her head. She pulled the hem down over her tattooed belly and glared back at him.

  ‘There, happy now?’ She turned her back, grabbed a pot of hair gel and began working it into her dyed dirty-blonde hair, spiking her pixie-style crop. ‘Oh, in future, with piercing, I’ll just get done the parts of my body that don’t show… I was thinking about my labia next time.’

  Richard’s face contorted with disgust. ‘Don’t be so repulsive. I never raised you this way, Fallon.’

  ‘That’s right. You barely raised me at all.’

  Richard was visibly hurt by her words. How could he argue with that? It was true. Rather than being a real father to her, he’d spent most of her life investing all his time and effort into his property business and had tried to compensate for never being there for his only child by showering her with money and material things. It was no wonder she’d turned into a rich spoilt brat. It had been one of the many reasons his wife, Ellen, had walked out on them.

  Fallon was unruly, selfish and plain spiteful, having no respect for anyone, and this was how she liked it. She thought she did no wrong. All she had to do was wind her dad around her finger and she could continue to work him to her advantage, like a puppet.

  Fallon always held the strings.

  She never worked for anything, and always got her own way. Why work and contribute when she had the ‘Bank of Dad’ at her disposal?

  A look of defiance swept over her, when she caught her father’s sad face in the reflection in the mirror. She grinned.

  ‘Changing the subject… I need cash.’

  Richard acted as though he’d barely heard her, and studied her face hard. ‘It’s for the party I’m throwing,’ she added. Instead of the response she was expecting from him, Richard almost immediately produced his wallet from his trouser pocket, pulled out some notes and handed them to her.

  She grabbed them, pushing them into her pocket. When she turned her back on him again, he knew it was her signal for him to leave. Like a whipped and beaten dog, he made for the door. Just as he was about to close it behind him, she called him back.

  ‘My licence is in the Merc, by the way,’ she said, now piling black eyeliner around her dark eyes. ‘You wanna get me banned from driving, be my guest. It’ll be your money you’re wasting in the long run. You paid for all those hours of lessons for me.’

  Richard looked down at the floor, sighed and shut her away out of his sight. He couldn’t bear to look at her right now. She disgusted him.

  Fallon smiled at her reflection in the mirror, knowing full well Dad would bail her out yet again.

  Downstairs, Richard poured himself another large measure of vodka, his third for the morning, and knocked it back. He let out a long sigh. It had been three years since Ellen had walked out on them and since then she’d barely been in their lives.

  She would send Fallon birthday cards, when she remembered, and they had received the odd Christmas card, but other than making a brief appearance, maybe once a year, she was estranged from her husband and daughter. And it never seemed to bother her unless she was trying to score points against him.

  Richard poured another shot of the clear liquid into his glass, stopping short of drinking it when his eyes landed on a photograph of the three of them when Fallon was aged ten.

  Those were happier times in the Dockley household. Sometimes he wondered what he could do to make his daughter love him again. He had lost count of how many times he had lain awake at night wishing she could be a better person, the kind and wonderful daughter she used to be.

  As her iPod sounded a thundering beat above him, he raised the glass to his lips. The strong liquor burnt the back of his throat. These days he didn’t seem to notice any more. He relished the discomfort. After all, he deserved it.

  CHAPTER 40

  As Richard Dockley pulled his car up the drive towards F. B. C. and drove into a car parking space, he heard his daughter let out a groan from the back seat.

  He risked a glance behind him.

  She’d slouched down in her seat, her legs now pulled up towards her chest. One foot was pushed up against the back of the front passenger seat, leaving a trail of muck from her trainer sole, while the other was pulling against her open seatbelt. The strap was looped over her foot and she was stretching it to its full capacity.

  Richard whisked his arm round and swatted her feet hard, and she let out a yelp in surprise.

  ‘What was that for?’ She violently pulled her earphones from her ears and sat forward as he parked the car. She reached out and smacked him hard across the back of the shoulders.

  She stared at the building ahead and groaned.

  ‘All my friends are out getting ready for parties and where the fuck am I? Here at this fucking nuthouse. I’m nineteen, why do you have to treat me like a kid?’

  Richard gripped the steering wheel hard, his knuckles turning white. He remembered what their psychotherapist, Mitchell Curran, had said at their last session about taking deep breaths and working out how to defuse a potentially volatile situation with Fallon before it escalated into a full-blown fit of rage.

  Whilst he knew the man was right in theory, he found it took every ounce of his strength to follow it through and put in practice.

  ‘It’s not a nuthouse. Watch your mouth and act your age,’ he said, keeping his face focused dead ahead. ‘Mr Curran is trying to help us and we would make more headway if you stopped putting up a brick wall.’

  ‘I missed the Bonfire Night party my friends had and now I’m missing out again.’

  ‘Shame,’ he said.

  Fallon was half out of the car, but his words stopped her. She glared at him, before a sly grin pulled across her face and she deliberately slammed the car door.

  ‘Watch the paintwork.’

  ‘Fuck the fucking paintwork.’

  ‘Just get in there, we’re already late. Our appointment started ten minutes ago,’ he snapped, conscious that people in the grounds were beginning to stare.

  Fallon began waltzing off in a strop in front of him. It took a few large strides to catch her up.

  ‘You’re supposed to be grounded, remember? You’re not going anywhere.’ He pushed her arm forcefully, moving her across the forecourt. ‘Quite why you wanted to celebrate an
act of terrorism the other week is beyond me.’

  Fallon threw her arm up, exaggeratedly shoving his hand away, and said, ‘What you on about?’

  ‘All the money I’ve ploughed into your education and you don’t know about the Gunpowder Plot?’

  ‘Like, obviously I do,’ she said, her voice childish.

  ‘Then you know it was a failed act of terrorism. What’s to celebrate? Now,’ he said, pushing her through the entrance to the building, ‘I don’t want a repeat of last week. It’s only an hour. Try to behave.’

  *

  Mitchell Curran sat with a large hardback notebook propped up against one leg, which was folded across the other. He was giving the impression that he was relaxed, in control, with his pen poised for action. He liked to appear as if he had all the time in the world but inside he wished the time he spent once a week with the Dockleys would speed up.

  Staring at the sullen expression on Fallon’s face made him feel depressed himself. She was spoiled, and very immature. She was baby-faced and unless someone saw her date of birth on an official document, she could still easily pass for a lot younger than her nineteen years. She looked about fifteen.

  Mitchell then gazed at her father, who sat awkwardly next to his daughter, fingers laced together and resting on his belly. His eyes were fixed on the floor.

  ‘Richard, how about we start with you this week?’ he said, willing Richard’s eyes from the floor. ‘How has your week been? Have you put into practice any of the exercises we discussed at our last session?’ Richard looked back into Mitchell’s dark eyes and forced a smile.

  ‘It’s been difficult, I’ll admit. I have tried the breathing exercises and sometimes it works,’ he said, then left a long pause. ‘Sometimes not.’

  Mitchell gave a short, sharp nod, then looked at Fallon, who was now gazing out of the large window to the side of her.

  ‘Fallon, I’m interested to hear how you feel this week has gone. Have your father’s breathing techniques helped how he responds to you? Is he thinking before he reacts?’

  She turned to look at him. She studied his face as if it were the first time she had ever laid eyes on him and guessed he was around forty-five years old. Practically ancient, obviously.

  His dark hair was well groomed, and he used the gym regularly, judging by his physique. She didn’t hate him personally, but more what he represented. Her life had no meaning, her relationship with her father was virtually non-existent and she bitterly resented her mother.

  The fact her father had enrolled them both at the F. B. C. had done little for her self-esteem. Outside she portrayed the cocky, brazen rebel without a cause, but inside she was screaming, and she felt nobody could hear her, no matter how loud she cried.

  ‘You don’t want know what I think, Mitch,’ she muttered, and stifled a yawn.

  ‘That’s Mr Curran, Fallon. You will address him as such,’ said Richard.

  Mitchell smiled at him and shook his head.

  ‘It’s fine, really. Mitch is as good a name as any.’ He gestured to Fallon. ‘Please, explain. I am here to listen.’ She sighed heavily but didn’t respond.

  Mitchell decided to try another method.

  ‘Here,’ he said, getting up and placing a sheet of paper and a pen on the table on the far side of the room. ‘If you have difficulty expressing yourself vocally, we can try writing things down instead.’

  ‘She doesn’t usually have that problem. It’s getting her to shut up that’s the trouble,’ Richard scoffed. He folded his arms tight across his chest.

  Mitchell shook his head. ‘We’re not here to get Fallon to “shut up”, Richard. Sometimes it’s hard for a young woman, such as Fallon, to find her voice.’

  ‘Believe me, she doesn’t have that problem. She’s just being stubborn, not to mention rude,’ he said, turning to glare at her.

  ‘You’re not helping, Mr Dockley.’ Richard noticed that Mitchell always dropped the use of his Christian name when he was losing his patience.

  ‘Why are you making out that she’s the injured party here?’

  ‘Let’s not start pointing the blame, it isn’t helpful. I’m merely trying to bring your daughter out of her shell. To encourage her to open up and express how she feels.’

  ‘Would you stop talking about me as if I wasn’t here?’ Fallon got up and marched towards the table. She picked up the pen as she sat on the chair beside the table. ‘What do you want me to write?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that, Fallon. You alone must write what comes from here,’ he said, gesturing to his head, then his heart, ‘and in here.’

  ‘What, just random words?’

  ‘Yes, exactly. The first words that come into your head.’

  She grinned. ‘Can I swear?’

  *

  An hour later, Richard walked to the reception desk and waited patiently behind a young couple. When it was his turn, he smiled warmly at the man behind the counter.

  ‘Hello, Joseph. I’d like to change my next appointment, please.’

  ‘Certainly, Mr. Dockley.’ Joseph smiled as he tapped a few commands into the computer system, and scrolled through several pages. He glanced up and over Richard’s shoulder.

  ‘Hi, Fallon,’ he said.

  Fallon looked up from her phone. ‘Hey, Joe.’ Richard gave her the once over. The only thing Fallon seemed not to mind about going there was chatting to Joseph, but today he knew not even he could keep her attention.

  Fallon nudged him and held out her hand. He reached into his trouser pocket and gave her his car keys without saying a word. He watched her skulk out of the building and sighed, rubbing his fingers over his eyes.

  ‘Today’s session didn’t go so well, I take it?’ Joseph tapped further instructions into the computer. He looked up and saw Richard shake his head, too choked to speak. ‘Give it time. Mr. Curran is ever so good. You’ll see.’

  CHAPTER 41

  23rd November

  It had been barely eight the previous morning when Sara’s body had been discovered by a man out walking his dog.

  Her body had looked like a statue.

  Heavy snow had obscured any chance of finding a footprint pattern to capture and lift. Claire knew their killer would’ve planned to use the terrible weather to his advantage.

  As she addressed her team, she voiced what they were all thinking. ‘I think he’s just getting warmed up… Donahue’s already talking about bringing in a bloody profiler.’

  Murmurs of discord started to surface around the room.

  As the SIO, Claire had to remain open-minded and focused, and she felt that bringing in someone to anticipate the moves and hazard a guess at the type of person the killer was likely to be, based on two murder victims, was rather pointless. She’d no intention of being blindsided by a set of ‘rules’ about a serial killer’s profile.

  These profiles had been compiled based on killers that had been caught and after their psyches had been examined. Then she always asked the question, what about the profile of killers that are never caught? There were no set rules for what could potentially be a new breed of killer. There was always someone waiting to bend the rules and become something the police hadn’t seen before.

  As members of the team started to all talk at once and raise their voices, Claire’s voice rose several notches.

  ‘Settle down!’ All eyes fell on her. ‘Let’s look at what we know is probably the case,’ she said. ‘The killer’s probably from a working-class background and may have priors for low-level crimes, and although intelligent has been an underachiever in life.’

  She paused to stare at the map that was pinned to another board, with circles and pins indicating key areas of the investigation.

  ‘If we think he’s working locally, then he must be employed locally. He knows the surrounding areas well and he must make a living somehow. He’s also, probably, very charming, maybe even respected. He blends into society perfectly and is able to gain trust easily.’

&nbs
p; Elias leaned back against his chair and sighed.

  Claire caught his eye. ‘Something to add, Crest?’

  ‘I’m starting to go with your theory that maybe this killer has no specific MO.’

  A look of surprise flickered across her face, but quickly disappeared. ‘I don’t think the killer’s been doing it long. Serial killers tend to work over a period of years, with gaps in between.’

  ‘But he’s killed two women in quick succession,’ DC Harper said.

  Claire nodded. ‘Yes, and that’s why we shouldn’t assume he’ll stick to any particular modus operandi. If he were an established killer he’d take his time.

  ‘The post mortem has confirmed we’re looking at the same killer. We’ve got the same ligature marks around both Sara’s wrists and ankles.’

  She pointed to the photographs of Sara’s body on the wall. ‘She was suspended by her ankles, like Nola, and there were no signs of sexual assault. Death was caused by the same expert cut to the throat using the same knife.’

  Stefan looked at the close up shots of Sara’s hands.

  ‘What about her nails?’

  ‘Some were damaged but someone went to great lengths to clean them. Danika’s taken swabs. With Nola, there was little to extract but Sara’s body was looked after. No make-up traces, no dirt. Even the grazes and cuts on her knuckles and elbow had been thoroughly cleaned.’

  Elias caught her eye. ‘If the killer’s taking the time to care for the bodies that may give us a clue to his identity or profession. It provides clues to his mental state.’

  ‘But,’ Stefan cut in, ‘we don’t know the types of women he’s stalking. There’re no similarities in lifestyle, appearance, or job that links these women. They’re in their twenties, that’s about all we’ve got.’

  Claire shook her head. ‘We can’t fall into the trap of assuming there’s no common link.’

  ‘So what’s your theory?’ Elias asked, an air of arrogance in his voice.

  Claire held his stare. ‘They might have more in common than you think… both these women were broken women.’