The Death Pictures

by Simon Hall

  Title Page

  The Death Pictures

  Simon Hall

  Publisher Information

  Published by Accent Press Ltd

  Digital Edition converted and published by Andrews UK Limited 2010

  Copyright © Simon Hall 2008

  The right of Simon Hall to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  The story contained within this book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers: Accent Press Ltd, The Old School, Upper High St, Bedlinog, Mid Glamorgan, CF46 6SA.

  Cover Design by The Design House

  Dedication

  For both our fathers,

  laid low but no less loved

  Acknowledgements

  Paul Hill for his indispensable critiques, Darin Jewell, my agent, for continual help and encouragement, Dr Susan Taheri for medical advice, Dr Abi Burridge for psychological insights, Hazel and Bob Cushion for their faith and guidance, Carol Ackroyd and Maureen Twose for their wonderful support, Simon Read, my editor, for his feedback, Devon and Cornwall CID for advice and assistance, Al Stewart for his excellent photography and of course Jess, my writing widow, for all your love, help and patience.

  Prologue

  He was amazed at his calm. After so many long weeks of painstaking research and careful planning, it was finally his moment. He’d come to think of himself as the star of a show he was about to launch. He’d expected to shake with nerves, find his mouth dry, his body rigid and breathless, like an actor on the opening night of a spectacular. But no nerves had bitten. There was just control, a vacant calm. The cool detachment of the professional he had become.

  They would label him a rapist, psychopath, monster. Avenger was the word he preferred.

  She had the honour of being the first. The winner of his glorious league. He allowed himself a smile at the memory of why, the beautiful day they had met, two months and four days ago.

  She was alone of the six chosen ones to score full marks in every category he’d decided to assess. He’d mentally checked them through as he sat in the café, next to her, pretending to be engrossed in the racing section of the paper. She was stirring brown sugar into a cappuccino and moaning about her ex-husband to her vacuous, over made-up nodding friend. He could hardly believe it when he heard her words, had to force himself not to react, to stare intently at the paper.

  The 3.20 at Exeter racecourse, he still remembered even that. Remembered too the bitter, stewed tannin tea, the sticky chessboard lino floor and the tubby, bumbling waitress who smelt of turning sweat. The blackboard with the changing chalk, the ghosted outlines of the week’s tasteless offerings. Shepherd’s Pie was the special that day. Three pounds ninety-five, with two veg. It was a squalid hunting ground, but necessary.

  ‘He still bothers me every week you know. Every week he wants to take James out,’ she’d bleated. ‘The court gave him fortnightly visits, but he’s always on about seeing James more. Doesn’t he understand we’ve got a new life to live?’

  * * *

  She had branded herself. He wrote ‘bitching about spurned victim’ carefully in the margin of the paper and lovingly shaped a slow tick next to it. The highest scoring offence of the five rankings, and her the only one on his list to achieve it. Five points. She was already setting herself apart as his champion.

  He checked his watch. She must have the allocated ten minutes of all his potential contenders. It was important to be fair. He wasn’t picking his targets. They were choosing themselves.

  He took a last drag at his cigarette and stubbed it out in the dirty plastic ashtray. The final seconds ran down. Time now to test the four other categories. He stood quietly, left the tea half drunk, folded his paper and walked out into the street. No one had noticed him. An ordinary man in an unremarkable place on an average day. Six different cafes he’d chosen for his interviews, in six different areas of the city. The police would look for links between the women. They’d find none. His plan was perfect.

  Opposite, he noticed a newsagent. Buying some chewing gum and studying the notice board of cards in the window would give him the required time to see what she did next.

  Seventeen minutes she took, the slow bitch. He’d read about the new ironing service three times before her reflection emerged from the café. She hugged her friend, took her son’s hand, then set off along the pavement and up the hill.

  He followed on the opposite side of the road, just as they did in those military magazines he’d studied. He’d done his research. She passed a bus stop, didn’t hesitate. She was walking home. Good. He had the leisure of time to measure her against all the categories and give her a fair ranking. But he already suspected she was going to be the new leader. He liked her. She was becoming his favourite. He was looking forward to getting to know her better.

  He stopped to admire the sleek power of the new touring bikes gleaming proudly outside the motorcycle shop. An admiring finger ran over the handlebars of a red Yamaha, but he walked on before the hovering young assistant could trap him in sales talk. He had a greater purpose.

  He increased his pace a little to close the gap, needed to study her as she walked. He couldn’t mark the four point category until she got to her house. Did she merit the three points for dressing provocatively? He knew he wanted to award them, but restrained himself. He had to be fair, impartial.

  It was neither a warm nor cool day, classic English springtime. Her top was cropped and tight under that fitted denim jacket. It rode with her walk, waving flashes of the taut, pale skin of her waist. He screwed up his eyes to focus and hissed softly. A small spider’s web of grey-green stretched from the base of her back. He didn’t allow himself to wonder again why tattoos so angered him, forced his thoughts back to the assessment. Her jeans were figure-hugging and she wore high-heeled, open-toed sandals. It was a simple judgement. It had to be three points.

  Did she have the contrived wiggle? That too always goaded him. Waving their bloody arses around in the hope men would stare, then those pathetic protestations of outrage if a guy had the cheek to do exactly as they wanted. He calmed himself and glanced over as she bent down to talk to her son, then walked on. He turned away, caught his breath. Yes, definitely, the bitch. Another two points.

  They all got one mark in the final category. It was what distinguished them for his attention. It was their starter question, the warm-up, just like on the old quiz shows he used to watch with his Dad so many years ago. All had a child, but no partner. An abandoned father, discarded somewhere in their past. Just like him.

  He often imagined the men as he went about his beautiful work. They were the audience he played to. He’d like to meet them, put a brotherly hand on their shoulders. ‘Don’t worry, mate,’ he’d tell them. ‘I’m on your side. I know what it’s like. I understand. I’ll make them pay for what they’ve done.’

  He lit another cigarette, cupping his hand around it against the awakening breeze. Only one more issue to resolve now. The second most important. Her house. The grander the home, the more money she’d leeched from her ex. Four points for this.

  A sudden surging urge hit him, to sprint across the road, catch her, slap her, do
it now, but he forced himself to wait, breathe, relax. He stopped at a Pelican crossing, pressed the button, counted the seconds until the lights turned. She wasn’t moving fast, couldn’t get away. The traffic growled to a reluctant halt and he crossed. Ahead, she turned off the main road. He lengthened his stride.

  He reached the corner of the street, stopped, checked carefully around it. Fifty yards down, on the opposite side of the road, she was fumbling a key into a front door. Her son stood on the wall, balancing his way along it, arms outstretched, calling for her to watch. He ducked back, waited a moment. There was no one around, but he pretended to tie his shoelace, just to be safe. He counted to 13, his lucky number, turned down the street and strolled past her house.

  He allowed himself three sideways glances, no more. Each blink of his practised eye captured it like a photograph. Semi-detached, at least three bedrooms, possibly four if the loft was converted. Late Victorian, he estimated. Double-glazing. Satellite TV. A new slate roof, whitewashed stone and duck-egg blue paint on the windowsills. Mannamead, a very good area this. A well tended front garden. Probably a nice little enclosed lawn at the back too. A valuable house. That gorgeous iron gate at the side, his warm invitation into the back garden and, when the time was right, the house itself. He walked on contentedly, filled with the warming satisfaction of awarding her the final four points.

  His smile crept wider at the delight of the memory. It was two months and four days ago now, but still so fresh, so vivid in his mind. She’d scored a full house. She’d won his league. She’d hit the jackpot. And now it was time for her reward.

  The strength was within him, he was sure, but he took a moment to be certain of his purpose and to reinforce his will. He knew just how.

  He thought back to a summer’s night, so similar to that which caressed him this evening, the time when he had first met the one whose name was now never mentioned, whose face was just a black, scarred silhouette, when they had first held hands and kissed in the hiding place between the stretching plates of sentinel rock on the deserted beach. He wound the memories on to the first night they had made love, semi-drunken after that awful Italian meal, laughing about it as they walked home, the first time she had accepted his invitation to come in for coffee. On further, to the night the baby was born and the wonder so heady in his addled brain as to make him doubt it had really happened, only the screams from that tiny, wrinkled ball of fresh humanity insisting on existence in its newly found world. He let the memories drift, fill him, and then summoned the one he needed, the day she had announced she was leaving.

  He reached out and stroked his knuckles over the rough red brick of the patio’s low wall. He felt its edges scratch and scrape at his skin. It was a delightful pain. He pressed a cheek against the cold glass of the window, closed his eyes and enjoyed a second’s anticipation.

  He felt as he imagined a great predator must, relaxed in the certainty of his power. The oblivious prey was chosen, never suspecting its fate. Now it was just up to him to decide the moment of his victory. It was a just and God-like emotion and it was delicious.

  She was there, stretching out, he could see her through the tapering slit of the draped curtains. The chair hid her body, but there was a ruffling of damp, dark hair about its back. The flickering light of the television shone from the smooth white legs that stretched out under her burgundy dressing gown. Her toenails were red, newly varnished. He knew her son would be in bed now, she would have had her bath, be relaxing in front of the TV with a glass of red wine. She’d be warmed from the soaking waters, clean, a faint smell of scented soap drifting around her from the gentle night air slipping through the welcoming window. The thought stirred him. He could taste her flesh now.

  He reached out carefully, felt the latch. This was further than he’d gone before, no turning back now. No turning back. It was time. The long controlled rage bit at him, eager to be released. And at last, at last, it could finally run loose.

  He reached into his jacket, pulled the stocking over his head and snapped the surgical gloves onto his fingers. A momentary shot of panic as he fumbled for the sacred object, searched the inside pocket, checked the other side, relaxed in a wash of relief. It was there, bending, creaking slightly under his loving touch.

  He ran his fingers up the plastic to its pinnacle, allowed himself another smile. His calling card. The summary of his triumph, how he would become known, first by the police who would hunt him, then the journalists who would write about him, then, most of all, by the thousands of people who would gather on street corners, in pubs and outside shops to talk, hushed words, looks cast quickly over shoulders, shocked. His fingers rubbed again around the sharp plastic peak. The first of his set of calling cards.

  He slid it back inside his jacket, reached for the other object, held it out and tipped it up. The slow oil oozed softly onto the hinges. His calm fingers found the catch. It shifted silently. A soundless shoe found the certainty of the window ledge and he levered himself up. The boom of an advert break startled him into stillness, but the figure in front of the TV didn’t move, the legs still stretched out, languid on the servile leather pouf. The first thrill of the surging excitement hit him as he rode the expectation of those legs buckling under his pounding weight, her eyes wide with silent horror.

  A second’s darkness, silence, then another advert illuminated into life, rang out and he was inside the room, striding, quick and careful over the carpet, breathless with the anticipation, his heart banging now, so hard he thought she would hear. And finally the figure moved, turning, the damp hair swinging slow as the head faced him, the fine cheekbones rising, the mouth slowly opening, readying for the scream, but his shaking hands were on her, stifling, the only sound her strangled gasp, his rushing breath of exulted release, the cheerful theme tune of the flickering television and the bumping tumble of the glass, gushing its bloody liquid across the cream carpet.

  Sometimes it was difficult not to cry, but he couldn’t say exactly why the tears were gathering now. Before him was a masterpiece that he had created and which would live on for hundreds of years, perhaps even thousands. And he was dying. Which was the reason for the tears? A little of both perhaps, he thought. Whatever, it didn’t matter. All that was important now was the completion of his grand vision, the wondrous legacy he would leave.

  He swallowed and felt the tumour, hard and alien within him. It was always there, deep inside, always growing, hungrily eating away at his life. It was a cowardly enemy, but an insurmountable one. It would never show itself and it could not be defeated. And its victory was near now as the momentum of its lethality grew. His only consolation was that the cancer would die with him.

  The familiar watering stung at his eyes and he wiped them with a sleeve. She would not see it. She was suffering enough, readying herself for life alone. No more breathless walks on the dizzying, jewelled coast, shared bottles of heady wine in the warm snug of a stone-walled pub, even the mundane yet strangely precious nights just watching the television together. And she was prepared for what he had asked her to do. It was a daunting sacrifice for one as good as her. Her role was vital and he knew she was heavy with doubt, but she had promised. He trusted her to carry it through. It was his last wish, the way he wanted to be remembered. His lesson.

  He reached out with the fine brush and mixed a little white into the fluid gold crescent of paint on his pallet. Above the head of the younger of the two images of himself, he added a point to a star. It was complete. The final picture was finished, the last clue to the riddle, the closing detail in the spectacular epitaph he was writing for himself.

  He laid the pallet down, reached for the light switch and turned to walk back into the house. Another persistent tear tickled his eye. He hesitated. He couldn’t face her yet. Not yet, she couldn’t see him suffering. It hurt her too much.

  He gazed back at the picture and relived the anticipation of the sensation he
would never see. It was a fantasy he couldn’t tire of. No one would solve the riddle, he was sure of that. It was too clever, too perfect. In a lifetime of wonder, this was the zenith.

  He would achieve immortality, joining the exalted ranks of the finest artists, with the timeless works they left behind. He still wasn’t quite sure which was the most powerful motivation. That, or the opportunity to enforce some justice in an immoral world. He licked a finger and smoothed a spraying eyebrow into order. It didn’t matter. The historians could argue about his reasons, and they would, for many long years. All that was important was that it happened.

  The thought cheered him, as it always did. He would die within days now. His hand rose to his chest. The tumour had almost finished gorging itself, but time enough remained for all that was required. He reached for the light switch again and this time flicked it off. He could face her now. The knowledge of the amazement, fascination and scandal that he would leave behind had given him strength. It always did.

  He glanced back at the silhouette of the canvas and the dark outlines of the two images of himself. Whatever they claimed about him, it could never be said that Joseph McCluskey’s death had no meaning.

  Chapter One

  The screech cut through the air, bounced off the walls and sliced into Dan’s skull. Lizzie slammed the phone down and sprung to her feet. She looked tall today, her icicle stilettos four inches high, a bad sign. The newsroom fell quiet as she glared around. Journalists began to sink below the safety line of their computer screens, like soldiers in their trenches, fearful of the coming barrage.

  ‘We’ve lost one of the top stories,’ she barked, a sharpened fingernail jabbing accusingly at the air. ‘The bloody lawyers have vetoed the exclusive on the shagging councillor. So there’s a three-minute hole in the programme. Who’s got something that can fill it, and fast? Come on, quick, quick, quick!’