Without Conscience

by Michael Kerr

  Built into the wall was a large mailbox with four hinged flaps and attendant label holders that advertised the occupants’ names on slivers of paper beneath clear plastic. L. HOLDEN was the tenant of flat 3. The entrance door was closed, but not locked. He entered and checked the ground floor. 1 and 2. The inconsiderate bastard lived on the first floor, and the stairs seemed to stretch upwards, endlessly before him, making his knee complain in reluctance at the prospect of having to mount them.

  At the top, on the landing outside number 3, now bathed in sweat from head to foot, he put his ear to the door and listened. There was no sound from within. After donning a pair of cellophane gloves, he took a lock knife from a pocket of his quilted parka, released the serrated blade and slid it into the narrow gap between the jamb and door edge. It was a Mickey Mouse lock, and within seconds he was closing the door behind him. He moved silently through the flat and found only one internal door closed. A sliver of red light escaped from the narrow gap at the bottom of it, and from behind it, as if on cue, someone sneezed, making Bobby smile, despite the discomfort he was in.

  Larry was feeling more optimistic than he had done in years. The exclusive shots and interview with Mark had been very lucrative and had been syndicated around the world. The Park Killer was now international news, and he had the goose – in the shape of Mark Ross – that was laying the golden eggs. This was an upturn in fortune that he had not envisaged in his wildest dreams. Maybe he could get back on track. He suddenly had a name that editors of city desks were sitting up and taking notice of. Funny how from being a pariah one day, he could be in such demand the next. Knowledge is power that can open doors, and in this case was generating funds to dramatically bolster his overdrawn bank account. If he could just get off the sauce, then he may be able to put things right, as they should be. If he could convince Hannah and Annette that he was a changed man, then he might just get a second chance. It would take time, but he wanted his life back, which equated to being with his wife...ex-wife, and daughter.

  With a smile on his face and hope in his heart, Larry pegged up a wet print of Bruce Willis, who had been in town to promote his latest movie. The star was doing nothing outlandish, and knew how to handle the press and paparazzi. His eyes were hidden by the long bill of a baseball cap, and the lopsided smile beneath it showed that the temperamental actor was in a mellow frame of mind.

  Larry had no time to formulate any constructive thought as the door swung open. He turned towards it, mouthing ‘shit’ as natural light threatened to ruin an open box of highly sensitive and expensive photographic paper. In the instant after he saw the figure and a blur of movement, a bright detonation robbed him of all sensibility.

  Bobby dropped the empty whisky bottle, which he had found on the bedroom floor and employed to swing one-handed against Larry’s forehead. He then grasped the fallen man by the ankles and dragged him through to the kitchen, to ready him for a pleasant chat.

  When Larry regained consciousness, he was sitting with his head slumped forward on his chest and pounding with a splitting pain that made him cry out. He opened his eyes slowly, couldn’t focus, but recognised the top of his kitchen table, which was only a few inches from his face.

  The combined flash and familiar whir of a camera made him lift his head, to where a figure was sitting at the other side of the table, his face obscured by an old 35mm Nikon. Larry tried to stand, but could not move. His arms had been secured behind the chair’s back, and his ankles were bound to its thick wooden legs.

  “Say cheese,” Bobby said, grinning broadly as Larry squinted across at him, trying to clear his vision. Whir. “That’s another one for the album.”

  Larry coughed, and a paroxysm of nausea made him gag and swallow hard. When able, he said, “Who are you?”

  “You know who I am, Larry. The one you chose to call a human monster. The one who you wrote all those lies about, that were fed to you by Ross,” Bobby said, placing the camera down next to an ugly knife, its blade glittering blue and silver under the fluorescent tube that hummed above them.

  “Oh, God!”

  “I guarantee that God can’t hear you, Larry. He doesn’t do fuck all for the righteous or anyone else, so what chance have you got of divine intervention? Only I can hear your confession and decide what might be a suitable act of contrition.”

  “W... What are you going to do?”

  “Whatever I choose to. My choices are limitless, whereas yours are extremely limited, in fact nonexistent. What do you think I might do?”

  “I think you’re going to kill me,” Larry murmured, before losing the fight with his stomach, to throw-up on the edge of the table, which acted as a splash back, resulting in the front of his shirt and trousers being soaked.

  “You’ve been out cold for over half an hour,” Bobby said in a conversational tone. “I thought for a while that I’d hit you too hard with that empty bottle. Do you have a full one?”

  Larry finished retching, spat strings of bile from his mouth, and then nodded towards a wall unit. “In there,” he croaked.

  Bobby poured a large measure of the Scotch into a glass that he first rinsed out and dried with a sheet of kitchen towel, before sitting back down and sipping it.

  “Don’t I get one?” Larry said, needing a drink more now than he had ever needed one in his life. “I thought a condemned man got to pick his last meal.”

  “Maybe later,” Bobby said. “After you’ve told me all about Ross, and what he and the police have got on me.”

  “I don’t know anything,” Larry protested, but the lie sounded unconvincing, even to him.

  Bobby set down the glass, lifted a thick roll of duct tape out of the bag at his feet, and getting up, moved behind Larry. He wound the tape around his captive’s head, covering his mouth and nostrils, to then hold Larry’s shoulders and wait until the frantic thrashing became weaker, and the head stopped jerking from side to side, before ripping the tape free as Larry lost consciousness again.

  Pouring another drink and lighting a cigarette, Bobby waited until Larry once more surfaced from the safety and respite of dark unawareness, to face his inescapable plight.

  “This is a learning curve, Larry,” Bobby said. “I’m feeling a little tetchy, so the quicker you grasp the ground rules of the game, the better. When I ask you a question, you answer it, honestly, fully and immediately. If I even think that you’re lying or holding out on me, I’ll start cutting pieces off you.”

  To make his point, he picked the knife up and stroked the keen blade across Larry’s cheek.

  Initially, Larry felt less pain than a paper cut might cause, but a lot of blood ran out from the laceration, to merge with the puke already on his shirt.

  Bobby swapped the knife for the camera, taking another shot of Larry, hoping that the lens would capture the stark fear in the man’s eyes; to record it faithfully on the emulsion coated film behind the shutter. He then went back to his chair, in no hurry, content to let the nonentity fully appreciate the gravity of the situation he was in.

  Blink.

  Larry waited, confused as the maniac stared unblinking, as though he were in a trance. After a few seconds he said to his captor, “What do you want to know?” No reply or reaction. Please, Christ, let him have just suffered a massive heart attack or stroke and died.

  Leaning forward until his head was no more than an inch from the surface of the table, Larry strained, pulling his arms up behind him, to try to slip them over the back of the chair. So near, yet so far. With his legs taped to the chair, he could not raise his arms the extra fraction required. His shoulder joints cracked in protest. He tried to stand, heaving forward, but lost his balance and fell sideways, crashing to the floor and crying out as his right arm was crushed between the edges of the chair’s back and the unyielding surface.

  “What happened?” Bobby said; a synaesthesia taking place as the scream stimulated his mental processes and brought him instantly back to full awareness.

  “I fel
l over,” Larry said.

  Bobby went to him, lifted him back up into a sitting position, then poured two fingers of Scotch into a second glass and held it to Larry’s lips.

  The spirit burned its way down into his stomach, scouring away the sour residue that being sick had left.

  “Let’s start again,” Bobby said. “And remember that the truth will out, and that telling it is good for your soul. Do you want to live through this?”

  “Y... Yes.”

  “Good man. Now, in your own time, tell me all about the Yank.”

  “He’s an ex-FBI profiler. The police asked him to consult on the Park Killer case.”

  “I know that. Who’s in charge of the case?”

  “A DCI by the name of Barney Bowen.”

  “Tell me about Ross. Who he is, not what he does. I know his profession. Start with his home address and telephone number.”

  “In my address book. It’s on the top shelf of the bookcase in the living room.”

  Bobby had already searched the flat while Larry was out cold, and had been surprised not to find an address book in the vicinity of the phone.

  “A little paranoid, eh?” Bobby said, going through to the small living room and retrieving the book from where it had been squeezed between Bill Bryson’s: A Walk in the Woods, and Kurt Vonnegut’s Hocus Pocus.

  “What does he drive?” Bobby said, returning and pushing the book into his bag.

  “A black Jeep Cherokee.”

  “Is he a queer?”

  “What?”

  “Is he a fag, homo, fruit, pufter, shirt lifter, faggot, gay, shit stabber? You know what a queer is, don’t you, Larry?”

  “No... I mean, yes. Ross is straight.”

  “And does he have a lady friend?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The glass hit him in the mouth, thrown full force, whip lashing his head back. He felt his lips burst and his front teeth shatter.

  “Your eyes can’t lie, Larry. Forget about trying to protect anyone. Just be sensible and concentrate on saving your own stinking, worthless skin. Now answer the question.”

  “Yes. She’s an ex-cop,” Larry slurred through lips that he could feel swelling. “Her name is Amy Egan. I think she lives in Richmond, but I don’t have her address.”

  Bobby believed him. “What does our gallant American friend think he has on me?”

  “He believes that you work for the BBC, and that you drive a Toyota.”

  “Why a Toyota?”

  “The police found carpet fibres at two of the scenes.”

  “Clever. Why did Yankee Doodle do the interview with you?”

  “To bait you. Bring you out.”

  “Well, it certainly worked, my friend. I think I’ll call Dr Mark, now. Let him know that we’re getting acquainted, and maybe let you have a few words with him. Does that sound good?”

  “Then you kill me, right?”

  “Not necessarily. While you were taking a nap, I had a look around this shithole. I found a framed photo of you with a good-looking woman and young girl. Who are they?”

  “My ex-wife and daughter.”

  “If I let you live, would you believe that they would be in mortal danger if you ever described me to the police?”

  Larry nodded. Please...Please, not Hannah and Annette. He had already hurt them enough, without being responsible for introducing this raving lunatic into their lives.

  Bobby made the call, talked to Mark, and then held the receiver to Larry’s ear.

  Larry wailed, “Mark...Mark. Oh, Christ, no. Stop. Pleeease,” as the blade of the knife was being slowly thrust into his side; the point of it puncturing his right kidney.

  After Ross slagged him off and hung up on him, Bobby had to vent his rage, to leave a graphic reminder of just what he was capable of doing to another lesser being. “Time for some serious atonement for your sins, Larry,” he said, once again reaching for the duct tape. “Any last words before I start the wet work?”

  “Rot in hell, you sick bastard,” Larry said before Bobby wound the tape several times around his bleeding head, to cover his mouth and suppress the unbridled screams that he would be unable to stifle, given the pain that he was about to endure.

  Bobby went through to the living room, to undress and leave his clothes folded on a cushion of a grubby two-seater settee; not wanting them to be covered in what he knew would be a very large amount of blood.

  Naked and standing in front of Larry with the knife held loosely in his hand, he smiled. “You’re a lucky son of a gun, Larry,” he said. “I’m pressed for time. I’d have preferred to make a real meal of this, but you’ll appreciate that your good friend Dr Mark will be calling the police as I speak. Just take this last thought to the grave with you. I’m going to make a point of looking up your ex and your daughter, and introducing them both to Mr Knife.”

  Showtime. He was euphoric at the look of pure primal dread in his intended victim’s eyes, as he set to work with a vengeance.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  After phoning Barney, Mark punched in Amy’s landline number on his mobile phone as he ran across the staff car park to JC. Her recorded voice invited him to leave a message.

  “If you’re in, pick up, Amy, it’s urgent.”

  No response.

  “Call me soonest. I have to talk to you,” he said, then climbed into the Cherokee and tried her mobile number. It was turned off.

  “Jesus H Christ!” he shouted at his phone, throwing it aside as panic spiked his heart. He viciously plunged the ignition key into the slot and wrenched it clockwise. The engine fired. He grated the gears in haste and accelerated away so fast that he left two lines of black rubber on the grey asphalt road surface.

  The unsub had killed Larry, of that there was absolutely no doubt in his mind. But first he would have made the poor bastard talk, and would now know everything that Larry knew. Mark’s mind raced, and his fingers hammered on the steering wheel with impatience as he waited what seemed an age for the facility’s gates to slowly slide apart. Miscalculating, he shot forward too soon, clipping a wing mirror, inciting the security guard in the gate-house to shake his head in disdain, as he sped away, leaving a cloud of oily exhaust fumes and shattered glass in his wake.

  What could Larry have given up? Too much. Mark’s home address and phone number. He did not know Amy’s address, but knew of her, and her name. Since leaving the force she was not ex-directory. He had to presume that both of their lives were now on the line. They could be in imminent danger, at the whim of a creature whose next move could not be determined, and who might not even know himself what course of action he would take. Playing cat and mouse on the killer’s terms was a weak position to be in, and now Amy was involved. In effect she was his Achilles heel. Protecting her was far more important than going head-to-head with an unpredictable psycho. All Mark could hope for was that the killer was lifted soon, or that he would make a play for Caroline next, where armed protection squad officers were ready and waiting. Mark also knew that hopes were like wishes, and in the real-world wishes had a bad habit of not coming true.

  Barney and Mike climbed the stairs to find half a dozen uniformed officers on the landing outside an open door that had a plastic 3 hung upside down, fastened to the wood surface by a single loose screw.

  DC Eddie McKay appeared out of the pack to meet them, his face pale, and an unlit cigarette gripped tightly between bloodless lips. “Jesus, boss, it’s like a fucking slaughterhouse in there,” he said, stepping over to the banister, removing the cigarette from his mouth and taking deep breaths to try to settle his nerves and stomach.

  “Give me a clue, Eddie,” Barney said.

  “We have one victim, tied to a chair. I assume it’s the stringer, Larry Holden.”

  “Meaning?” Barney said.

  “Meaning, it’s a mess, boss.”

  Followed by Mike, Barney entered the kitchen. From where he was standing, he could see the rear view of a man slumped in a
wooden chair, restrained to it by tape that bound his wrists behind the ladder-back. Blood pooled beneath the still figure, and also striped the walls, units and ceiling in abstract spatters.

  Barney breathed through his mouth to lessen the heavy, still warm and cloying smell. Approaching from both sides, and staying far enough back to not step into the sanguineous slick, he and Mike almost crept up alongside the corpse, to be met by a scene from a horror movie or hell.

  Mike emitted a strangulated choking sound, then stepped back, turned and gripped the edge of the dish-filled sink tightly with both hands.

  Barney fought to pull his gaze away from the two staring eyeballs and the bared teeth, that were the only facial features left to distinguish the pulpy red mass as having been of human origin. It was with difficulty that he finally looked away from the ghastly yet hypnotic sight, to see a sheet of paper on the table, held in place by a small canister which he recognised as being the container for a 35 mm roll of film. Fumbling in the inside pocket of his jacket, he found his glasses, put them on and leaned forward to read the hand-written note. It said, in block capitals:

  HI THERE, BARNEY,

  THE HACK DIED BADLY. YOU MIGHT WANT TO HAVE

  THIS OLD FILM DEVELOPED TO SEE A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE

  TO FACIAL FLENSING IN FABULOUS FUJICOLOUR.

  GIVE DR MARK AND AMY MY REGARDS. I INTEND TO MAKE

  THEIR ACQUAINTANCE WHEN TIME ALLOWS.

  “Eddie,” Barney shouted.

  “Yeah, boss,” the DC said, appearing at the door, but making no move to cross the threshold.

  “I want Jane Beatty here. She dealt with this nutter’s first three victims.”

  “Okay, boss, I’ll see to it,” Eddie said, vanishing from view as he reached for his smart phone.

  “Come on, Mike, let’s get out of here, I’ve seen enough,” Barney said, removing his glasses and stepping back, away from the body that he found more abhorrent than any dissected cadaver he had ever seen in an autopsy suite. A fully dressed man bound to a chair with no face was an incongruous spectacle; the stuff of nightmares.