Deadly Obsession

by Michael Kerr

  “I was just acknowledging that I’m capable of going too far. I have stepped over the line when it seemed necessary. Sometimes even when it wasn’t. I always come up with some lame justification. Maybe I am as bad as the animals I hunt.”

  “It can be a thin line,” Lisa said. “The ‘Moors Murderer’, Ian Brady, is on record as believing that even though he was aware of his actions, he felt detached from his mind. That’s a common experience of many repeat killers. They see it as a division between the self that can commit the crimes and the self that is wholly separate. In many instances they may appear to be sane and caring. But their other self is lonely and empty, with depraved ideas that won’t go away and keep repeating over and over, demanding to be acted out.”

  “That sounds like a cop out. Everyone is ultimately responsible for their own actions.”

  “Not so, Ryder. In the main, as society becomes more fragmented and prone to violence, a greater number of disturbed sociopaths are on the rampage, killing purely for the self-gratification that the act or acts generate. A large percentage of them choose to turn their fantasies to reality. They know it’s considered to be wrong, but go ahead and do it anyway. But it’s not always easy to determine mens rea: the state of mind of the defendant at the time of the offences. Suffering from mental disease is not an automatic get-out clause. They have to be unaware of the significance of what they did. Not many can convince a court that they were without emotional understanding, or could not control their behaviour. I call it the Kill Factor; a built-in condition that actually promotes the taking of life.”

  “Who spins a coin and decides whether they’re nuts or not?”

  “Barristers use an armoury of expert witnesses, and rely heavily on weighty tomes like the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders to adduce, rightly or wrongly, which mental disease is applicable. It’s usually a pick and mix undertaking, with prosecution and defence attempting to slant it to their advantage. Nothing is black and white. It’s all down to who can put on the best show for the jury. A lot of really ill offenders slip through the net. And many a sane person ends up being labelled criminally insane. Maybe the difference is unimportant at the end of the day. Bad or mad doesn’t help the victims.”

  “Your work must be more frustrating than mine. All I have to do is catch them. I don’t have to live in their world and fathom out why their fuses shorted.”

  “I’m fascinated by what motivates them. Once their plug has been pulled, I get to use them as a learning aid. You can only fix something if you understand how it is put together, and that requires examining the components.”

  “And come up with a guide on how to deactivate a sexual predator?”

  “No. They don’t change. Being incarcerated and closely supervised stops them from evolving, but it doesn’t stop them from wanting to pursue the fantasies that drive them. All I try to do is recognise the symptoms that triggered their chosen course. That’s why I consult with the police. If I can bring to bear even one significant aspect that helps to uncover a killer’s identity, then I deem what I do as being worthwhile.”

  “You want another drink?” Jack said.

  Lisa knew that what he was really saying was, ‘Enough. Let’s save all this for the office. I didn’t come here tonight to talk shop’.

  “Sure,” she said. “I’ll put some music on. What do you like?”

  “Anything that doesn’t need listening to. Just background. I like mellow. Maybe Bobby Darin or Willie Nelson.”

  “Prehistoric. My grandfather used to like them.”

  “Quality stands the test of time. Those singers are like Hitler or Mother Teresa; good or bad, they don’t get forgotten. Most people are the proverbial hand in a bucket of water. Once it’s taken out, it might never have been there.”

  “Very philosophical, for a copper, but I don’t have anything of Darin or that old, long-haired outlaw. The best ‘mellow’ I’ve got is Lionel Ritchie and Norah Jones.”

  Jack took her glass and shucked his shoulders. “Whatever.”

  They had a couple more drinks. Talked about lightweight stuff; movies, books, things they liked and things they didn’t. It was one a.m. when they went to the back door for some fresh air. Lisa opened it and both saw and felt the first snow of winter as it drifted down out of the black. The fat flakes fell lazily. The heath was a winter wonderland, coated in pristine white. The little girl that still resided in her remembered hair-raising toboggan rides, and building snowmen that would come alive with the application of a few small pieces of coal for eyes and a mouth; a carrot for a nose, and any old cap or woolly hat she could procure.

  Virgin snow transformed all that it covered, to obscure the dismal landscape, dress the mainly leaf-denuded trees, and gladden anyone possessing the ability to be young at heart.

  “I want to build a snowman,” she whispered.

  Jack put his arms around her waist from behind. Kissed her neck. “So, go get some warm clothes on and let’s do it,” he said.

  She was stunned. “You mean it?”

  “Hell, yeah. Must be the JB kicking in. I love the snow. Always have.”

  They were free spirits for a while. All normality was suspended. They created a corpulent, five-foot-tall snowman, put a baseball cap on his head, a scarf around his neck, and used stones for eyes and buttons, in lieu of coal. A piece of bent twig gave Frank – as Lisa christened him – a crooked smile. And an old red plastic Children in Need nose made him look somewhere between a circus clown and heavy drinker.

  Having cast off the burden of responsible adulthood and taken time out to let the repressed spirit of childhood prevail, they giggled, threw snowballs lightly at each other, and even laid down on their backs side by side and made snow angels.

  With chattering teeth and numb fingers and toes, they eventually went back inside the cottage. Lisa made hot chocolate before taking her turn in the steamed-up bathroom after Jack had showered. She was warm and tingling, elated at what they had done, and knew that it would remain in her mind as a magical spontaneous interlude for the rest of her days, as all the best things do. She was soon back downstairs, sitting alongside Jack at the kitchen table.

  “That isn’t the sort of thing I would have thought a psychologist and cop would do in the middle of a December night,” she said.

  “It’s too easy to forget the basics and get bogged down with playing at being grownup,” Jack said. “Whoever it was that said ‘it’s time to put away childish things’ was talking through his or her arse. I got waylaid with all this cop stuff. My son, Danny, is eight, and I hardly see him. Out there just now I realised I’d never done anything like that with him.”

  “Why not?” Lisa said.

  “There’s no one answer to that. I just didn’t make the time. I was too busy letting my marriage go to hell in a wheelbarrow. Danny was pig-in-the-middle, caught up in the slow but sure breakdown of what should have been a stable and loving environment.”

  “Why don’t you amend your priorities and put him first, Ryder?”

  “I keep meaning to. Too many things get in the way.”

  “That really is a cop out, literally. If you can find time to see me, then you can be the father to Danny that you want to be.”

  “You sound like an agony aunt. I’ll work on it.”

  “It isn’t something you should have to work on. If you think of seeing him as a chore, then it’s a lost cause. In a few years’ time you’ll wish you’d done things differently. Don’t end up with regrets that you can’t go back and put right.”

  “You’re right, Lisa. I’ll give Sharon a bell and arrange to pick him up on Sunday and take him somewhere.”

  “Good. Now let’s go to bed. It’s late.”

  “You tired?”

  “No. But I will be by the time we eventually get to sleep.”

  The grey light of dawn was brighter than usual, due to the reflected light bouncing off the snow. They stood and looked out of the kitchen window. Frank’s
red nose was the brightest colour in sight. A crow was sitting on his head, inanely picking at the bill of the cap.

  “Last night was really special,” Jack said. “All of it.”

  “I was thinking that,” Lisa said. “Are we an item?”

  “As in, are we a couple?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yeah. I think we should see a lot more of each other.”

  “There’s not a lot more of each other to see, Ryder.”

  “Funny. I mean...hell, you know what I mean.”

  They drove to the Yard in their own cars and met up in the squad room. Mike Hewson strode over to them. His expression was one of pained urgency. He either desperately needed a dump, or they had big trouble.

  “I was just going to get on the blower, boss,” he said. “We’ve got another murder. Stratford CID phoned it in. They found a message on a mirror and knew it was our boy the Mimic’s handiwork.”

  “What did they tell you?”

  “That a young woman who lived in a third-floor flat had been mutilated and murdered. The DS who called it in said it was a fucking nightmare. Like a scene out of a horror movie. Says we’re welcome to it.”

  “What’s the status?”

  “The house is taped off. Forensics and the pathologist are on the way.”

  “So let’s go,” Jack said to Mike. And to Lisa. “You coming?”

  She nodded. They went down to the car pool and piled into an unmarked Cosworth. Mike drove.

  “Who was the victim?” Jack asked Mike.

  “A tenant by the name of Penny Douglas, they think.”

  “Think?”

  “The DS I spoke with said it was a mess. Definitely a female, but not readily identifiable. Said that road kill came to mind when he saw it.”

  “Any witnesses?”

  “No. A tenant from the next flat noticed her door was open when he got home. He found her and called it in.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  HE drove around to the block of garages located at the rear of the row of Victorian terraced houses. Got out of the car and unlocked and opened the up-and-over door. Once the vehicle was safely concealed from prying eyes, he walked across the alley, entered the overgrown back garden and let himself into the kitchen door of his flat. What should have been an episode to cherish forever had instead turned out to be a disconcerting and disturbing event. For the first time he had not truly been in possession of himself. A powerful, terrible force had overwhelmed him and acted almost independently. He stayed near the door, standing on the faded linoleum as he stripped off his bloody clothes, before going over to the sink to rinse his hands. He then opened a cupboard door to find and rip a bin bag from the thick, black roll. He emptied the pockets of his jeans and dumped them into the bag, along with every other item of clothing he had worn that evening, including his Nike trainers.

  Leaving the bag near the back door, he scrubbed the floor with hot water and disinfectant, went for another shower, and returned to the kitchen, nude, to sit and deliberate. He spread out the Polaroids he had taken onto the table in front of him like playing cards. The camera. Fuck! Missing. He must have left it at the scene. No matter, he had been wearing gloves. And he had wiped the camera after putting them on. He was careful. It was the attention to detail that ensured his continued freedom of action. He arranged the photographs in order. Idly touched himself. The first showed Penny naked and bound. The second was more posed. He had made her spread her legs to expose herself fully. The colour shots were mementoes, to use to relive his conquests and heighten his arousal. And yet the real pleasure was in taking them. Maybe he was a frustrated photographer; a would-be David Bailey. He stopped his ministrations. The last of the six snaps dulled his ardour. It was proof that he had ventured beyond anything he had ever done before. Cutting Emily’s feet off had been to dress a set for the police. It was part of the erroneous tie-in to the artist, Bosch, who he had no particular interest in, and whose work, though in some instances humorously grotesque, was not a real factor in his life. He wasn’t into art.

  The body in the photograph might have been a lump of raw, marbled beef, were it not for the characteristics that denoted its human origin. This was not sexually stimulating. His need for relief was wholly diminished. He took the Polaroid over to the sink, set light to it and watched it curl, burn and become transformed, to drop it as the flames reached the ends of his finger and thumb. He then ran the cold tap, stirred the charred square with his hand to break it down into a dark grey soup, and made sure that every trace of ash was swirled away down the plughole.

  He would be more controlled in future. Lapses could not be excused. The car would have to be thoroughly cleaned, and then got rid of. Forensic science had magical aids, like Luminol, that would expose where blood had been however carefully one tried to remove it. He would regroup and perhaps telephone a girl who had smiled at him in a city pub a couple of months ago. She was one of the barmaids, and had gone out her way to serve him every time he ordered a drink. She was a little buxom, but pretty, and had shiny dark hair, and eyes that sparkled with a love for life; a more plump version of Dawn, absolutely usable, though far from being in the same class. She, Anita Brewster, would be another diversion. He had followed her home once to a modern semi off Kilburn Lane, and subsequently broken in while she was at work, satisfied himself that she lived alone – apart from a moth-eaten looking ginger Tom, which was so fat that it waddled on bowed legs – and went through her belongings to familiarise himself with the little things that individualised her, including her address book, passport and bank statements. He examined what she collected, and anything that would give him access to her life. He always needed a hook to aid him in making that first contact. But Anita would have to wait a while longer, he decided. It had been a very busy, messy day. Unsettling. He had strayed from his plan. He needed to sleep, but could not relax. His self-confidence had been dented. If Penny had phoned the police after tailing him home, then he would now be in big trouble. He had to get his act together. He would not let chance bring about his downfall. It was time to batten down the hatches. The book on Bosch – that he had stolen from a public library – and his cherished photograph albums were incriminating evidence. They had to go. He placed the book in the bin liner with the bloody clothes, ready for burning. But he could not bring himself to destroy the albums or his diary. They were a visual record; a handwritten account of the most meaningful acts of his life; the only material things that meant anything to him. They were priceless and irreplaceable. They were his legacy. He needed to keep them.

  He turned off the lights and walked through the dark rooms. The gloom helped him to think. There was nowhere in the flat to safely conceal the four thick albums and diary. If by some quirk of fate he was ever suspected of wrongdoing, then they would need proof. He had to ensure that there would be none. A storage unit! He would rent a small unit on a long term basis. He could use false ID and pay cash. No one would know about it, and he would have peace of mind. It amazed him that he hadn’t thought of it before. But until the now dead bitch had got too smart for her own good, he hadn’t been able to contemplate any threat. After all, who would suspect him?

  With everything worked out in his mind, he climbed into bed and fell asleep, more content now, and with a small smile on his face.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  THE uniform at the door looked pale and distracted.

  “Who’s up there?” Jack said to him, holding out his warrant card.

  “The Home Office pathologist and the SOCOs, sir,” PC Tony Napier said as he handed Jack, Lisa and Mike cellophane gloves and plastic booties.

  “You took a look, huh?” Jack said.

  “Yes, sir, I wish I hadn’t. I don’t think I’ll ever see anythin’ that bad again if I live to be a hundred.”

  “Are you going to be okay?” Lisa said, aware that the young constable was only just managing to hold it together. The look in his eyes was that of a startled horse about to bolt.

/>   “Yes, thanks,” Tony said without an ounce of conviction.

  After donning the boots and gloves, Jack led the way up to the third floor landing, where another uniform was standing at the flat door, looking like a commissionaire outside a swank hotel. He recognised Jack and Mike, nodded and moved aside to let them and Lisa enter. There were two Tyvek-suited forensic science officers going about their business, and Jane Keating was in attendance wearing similar attire and knelt next to the corpse with what looked to be an open toolbox at her side.

  Jack said nothing, just waited until she finished whatever procedure she was carrying out. She glanced up and gave him a mirthless smile.

  “Hi, Jack,” Jane said. “I’m nearly through here. Ask me what you need to.”

  Jack introduced Lisa to her. She already knew Mike. Squatting down next to Jane, Jack could feel the carpet sticking to the soles of the booties. There was a lake of dark blood already drying; degenerating. Its ripe smell was both sweet and sour, an iron and raw meat combo. It took time to assimilate what he was looking at. Penny Douglas – if that was who she had been – was on her back on the carpet. She was nude. And someone had butchered her. He might have been back in time, in Whitechapel; a Victorian bobby looking at what another Jack had done to one of his victims. It was by far the worst crime scene he had ever attended. He’d seen plenty of dead people, and would no doubt see a lot more. But this was singularly revolting.

  The wet work had surely been carried out by a raving lunatic. Both breasts had been removed. They lay nipple-up on the carpet like the bodies of jellyfish that had washed up on a beach to sag under their own weight as they dried out. And the body was opened from neck to groin. The intestines had extruded from the incision; a ball of glistening and unmoving stillborn snakes. All of that was bad enough, but paled in comparison to the head. The face, complete with hair, had been removed. All that was left was a bright red glob of meat, with eyeballs and teeth that appeared to float in it.