If When

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  “Perhaps she’s frightened of you?”

  “Don’t care,” Lionel answered, hardly moving. “I hit her around a bit but I’ve never done real stuff to her. Too useful as an alibi.” He sat a little straighter, leaning forwards, his elbows to his jutting knees. “I’ll finish you off in a few minutes. Then your wife can cry for you. Reckon she will? But you won’t ever know, will you!”

  “You said you’d never killed a man before. Why start now. If I promise not to reveal your name or position, would you let me go?” Most unlikely, but everything had to be considered.

  “Don’t be an idiot. As if I’d believe that humgudgeon. Only place you’re going is down the sewer. I’ve got a septic tank, plenty big enough. Full of shit but you’ll be shit as well by then.”

  Although unable to stand, Harry managed to shift backwards and lean against a wall. It was blood stained, but he knew he’d faint if he didn’t get some kind of support. He wondered what time it was. “Got a watch? Do you know the time?”

  The man looked up at a clock hanging over Harry’s head. “Four o’clock. You’ll be dead before half past.” He thought a moment. “Do you want something to eat first? Reckon you’d like what I’ve been stewing.”

  “No. Nothing.” Harry gagged. Eating or drinking would make him ill, and he could imagine what he might be forced to eat.

  “Bits of tit,” the man smiled. “A dollop of arse. A few fingers. Comes with onions and potatoes. The liver’s all gone already but it was sour. I liked the kidneys best. But this lot smells good enough.”

  Every single wisp of smell was so disgusting that Harry wondered if the aroma alone might poison him. It crept into his clothes, into his skin, into his eyes and nose and mouth. He said, “If you cut these ropes, at least I could look at your – games. The young lady. You know I can’t run away. If you start to kill me, I’ll defend myself but I’m twice your age and half your size and I have no weapon.”

  Lionel thought about this. Clearly an idea attracted him. Perhaps the thought of this small and ancient creature trying to fight back, while he, the lion, showed his power all seemed mightily appealing. Playing with him. Then carving him up. He said, “Maybe your legs. Maybe.”

  Nothing happened. So Harry said, “You’re an intelligent man, Mr. Sullivan. That’s – obvious.”

  “Yer.”

  “So you know about psychology. Do you know the definition of a psychopath? Or a sociopath?”

  “I know what you’re saying.” He planted those huge hands on his knees. His knees were dwarfed. “You’re implying I’m a madman.” He grinned. “Of course I’m not. I work long hours. I ‘m reliable. I look after my wife. I pay rent for this shed. I’m no madman just because I like different stuff to you.” He shook his head. “You like wine? I bet you do. Well, I don’t. I like beer. We all have different tastes.”

  Harry couldn’t hide the gulp. “Are you trying to convince me that this is just a harmless pastime?”

  “I don’t care what you think.” Lionel growled, then sank back in the chair. “Killing’s wrong. Oh, yes, I know all that shit they say in court about right and wrong. I’m not mad. I know what’s wrong and what’s right. But I reckon it’s wrong to expect a man to spend all his life in misery, because he can’t do what he yearns to do. The girls suffer. I know it. It’s part of the game. But why should I suffer? Tell me that? Am I less important? Just because I’m ugly, I don’t deserve a life of misery, do I? I reckon I deserve more pleasure, since I’ve been given naught else.”

  Almost, Harry had no answer. “How many have you killed?”

  “A few.” Smiling again. Then quite suddenly he stood, pulled a small knife from his jeans pocket and bent. Harry closed his eyes, waiting for the end. But the large man cut the ropes around his ankles, then with a powerful jerk, rolled Harry over and cut the other ropes holding his wrists and elbows prisoner.

  Harry rolled back, rubbing his wrists. He was still wearing the thick padded duffel jacket, and this had protected the skin of his elbows, but his wrists and ankles were painful. He did not try to get up.

  Lionel moved back and sat once again on the chair. “Pleased, little man? Bet you are. Well, make the most of it. You got about quarter of an hour at most. But I fancy a little wriggle.” He paused, thinking, then added, “Maybe I’ll strangle you. I enjoyed the last one.”

  Very slowly, exceedingly wary, Harry stood, and shook the blood back into each hand and each foot. The floorboards creaked. “if I get a choice,” he said carefully, “I suppose strangulation would be the best.”

  Not admitting it had been a conversation he’d occasionally had with himself, Lionel said, “A shot in the ear is the easiest, I reckon. Or in the mouth. But I ain’t got a gun. Strangulation is the best you’ll get.”

  “Do you have another chair in the meantime?”

  Lionel chortled again. “Sit on the bloody floor.” The floor was certainly bloody, and Harry sat on the part that showed fewer stains. He also faced away from the body parts lying by the empty hearth. But Lionel reached over, cradling the lower part of a recently dismantled female. He sat the thing on his lap. Harry stared, disgusted, yet somehow unable to look away. The waist had been severed by a manual saw, and the rough edges of flesh were obvious. From the navel down, over the flat belly to the thighs and knees and calves below, the body appeared intact. Both feet had been removed with an axe, but the other parts appeared almost normal.

  The ravaged cut across the waist was leaking thick liquids, fat perhaps, or something from the bowel, not blood, although the flesh was bloody and dark. Harry, knowing little about anatomy, did not wish to understand, and turned his head, staring fixedly at his own feet. Lionel jiggled the legs on his lap as though amusing a child. “She’s got holes in her buttocks,” he said, “But mostly the bitch is all here. The two bits I like raping, anyway. The rest is all carved up. I’ll carve this lot up later when it stinks a bit more. But I’ve got three more days before work starts again.”

  “If you’re just hoping to shock me,” said Harry, still staring firmly at his socks, “you’ll be disappointed. I believe you’re cruel. And I believe you’re – mentally unnatural. But I’m not going to puke, whatever you show me.”

  “You used to be a doctor?” Lionel asked, interested. “Forensics something or other? Accustomed to the bits and inside pieces?”

  “I worked with very early computers.” Harry shook his head. “Do you have a computer?”

  “Nah. Don’t want one.”

  “Kids?” Harry hoped not.

  “I had the wife sterilized. Private job. Paid. Didn’t want kids – no way.”

  Desperate to think of something else to say, Harry looked around. “You’ve got everything here. But it’s small. And – smelly. Do you stay here all the time, or go to a hotel at night?”

  Lionel snorted. “I love this place. It’s my little heaven. I’ve got a bed in here and a lav outside. Running water from the tank. Not hot water, mind, but I don’t care about that. A gas ring and an oven. This fire. My comfy chair. I go home when I’m working. Otherwise I’m here.” He lowered his voice, sounding genuine. “I love it.”

  Pretending interest, desperate to stretch any conversation and needing to stretch, Harry staggered to his feet again and began, very slowly, to walk around. He made a silent note of anything he thought might be useful in escape. The walls were planked in old shipped wood and seemed so weak they might break if kicked. But not with feet wearing only woolly socks. He forced himself to look into the pot sitting on the gas ring. The dark slop within, cold now, smelled of rotting pork. Throwing the contents in the killer’s face would do no good, and just get himself murdered quicker.

  There was a window, but it was closed in with wooden shutters and Harry could hear nothing outside, not even the wind. Midwinter and gone four in the afternoon it would be almost dark. Below the window was the bed. It also stank. He wondered if the killer had taken pieces of his victims beneath the blankets with him, then ban
ished the thought. But there was blood on the only sheet, on the two flat pillows, and on the two blankets. Apart from blood, there was simple filth. Everything was grimed with dust and dirt. He saw an earthenware bowl beside the bed, filled with long sewing pins, many blood stained, their heads in varying colours. Then a large brown cockroach scuttled from beneath the bed and then hurried back.

  He looked up at the tools hanging on the walls, attached to hooks, each one bloody. But most hung too high to grab easily. Then, beside the small oven, Harry saw a shelf holding two knives for cooking. One was a bread knife, and other a large carving knife. His back to Lionel, Harry managed to pick up both and shove them down the neck of his jumper beneath his jacket. He peered over the pot of noisome stew, pretending to be interested, and said, “Smells vile.” Then, straightening up, he walked past the door. It was shut but it did not seem to have a lock inside. The keys to the padlocks hung on another small hook.

  “You can come away from there,” roared Lionel. “No silly ideas about making a run for it. I’d squeeze your tongue right out of your throat in a count to three.”

  Harry moved at once. He walked back, looking down at the man. He had made the point of being twice his age and half his size, but, Harry thought, neither was true. The madman was in his forties, possibly nearing fifty. And they were of a similar height. Harry was not hard muscled, but nor was Lionel. The width of his shoulders was no proof of strength, and he looked flabby and overweight. With a sickening lurch of fear, thinking of what he had to do, Harry walked around behind the chair, and immediately pulled the carving knife from his jumper, and held it behind his back. As Lionel turned, the knife was hidden.

  “Come round here,” Lionel demanded. “I don’t like people creeping behind where I can’t see them.”

  “My hands certainly aren’t strong enough to strangle, not from any place,” Harry once again managed a bedraggled smile. He walked around to face Lionel, again shifting the knife away from sight. But there was nowhere to sit. He said, “I suppose you got teased as a kid. But it’s a medical condition you have, isn’t it? I mean the over-active growth hormone. They should have been sympathetic.”

  It was a subject Lionel disliked. “Mind your own fucking business,” he said. “I got no sympathy, right? I got no help from my parents, nor the doctors, nor the teachers, nor the kids. Now – shut your fucking mouth.”

  “Sorry.” Harry kept walking as though aimlessly. “Not even your parents? And doctors, well, I suppose there was a lot of ignorance in those days. But there’d be new better treatments available now, wouldn’t there. You should go and ask.” Stepping quickly away to the side, Harry continued, “But your wife must have loved you and didn’t care about the problems. And you got a good job.” The knife was still held behind his back, and his grip on the hilt was now firm.

  Angry, Lionel wagged a large finger at him. “Shut your mouth, stupid little bugger, or I’ll spear you. And shit on what’s left.”

  With faint reproach, Harry said, “But I understand how hard life can be. I sympathise.”

  “Don’t you pity me, snivelling piss-bag,” shouted Lionel, and leapt to his feet. It wasn’t the reaction Harry had hoped for, but something worked, for Lionel marched to the shelf by the oven from where Harry had grabbed both knives, and peered into the dirt. As fast and as determined, Harry lunged, thrusting the carving knife directly into the creature’s back.

  Naked to the waist, Lionel wore nothing to hinder the blade’s passage. Plunging directly into the fat between two ribs, its point sliced clean and deep. Lionel roared, and turned. He grabbed Harry’s neck, picking him bodily from the ground. Harry kicked out but even to the groin, his unshod toes managed little damage. Struggling, he managed to tug out the other knife from the neck of his jacket, and swipe it into Lionel’s face. A ragged cut to his nose made Lionel drop Harry, who thumped to the filth directly over a young woman’s handless arm, slender and thick in blood and ripped flesh, the shoulder joint smashed and the lower arm showing a long line of small burns.

  Harry yelled and rolled back, climbed to his feet and waved the bread knife once more. But Lionel, the carving knife still up to its hilt in his back, jumped directly onto him. Feeling the soft pliable flesh and the stink of the maniac’s black acid breath so close, Harry heaved but heard something crash, and, sidestepping, tripped over the fallen oven, its tin echoing on the floor, and the hotplate on top crashing beside it. The pot of stinking muck tipped over Harry’s legs, and quite suddenly, his control gone, he was violently sick. Lionel, barefoot, slipped in the bilious mess and slammed into the fallen debris, his massive toes numbed as they crashed.

  In panic and turmoil, Harry grabbed the empty cooking pot and threw it. It hit the hilt of the knife protruding from Lionel’s back, plunging the blade even deeper, and the man screeched. Running directly at him, Harry tried to grab the man’s nose, punch into it, stab his eyes, fingers stretched. But the man turned on Harry, who was holding the bread knife blade out before him, and Lionel swiped it from his hands, picked him up, and tossed him to the hearth. This time landing in filthy ashes and the chopped hands and feet of the dead girl, Harry tried to get up but fell forwards onto his knees. A great pile of soot and stinking grouts fell from the shaking chimney, covering Harry who coughed, wheezing and was unable to catch his breath. For a breathless moment he stayed where he was on his knees in front of the fireplace, head down, and choking.

  Immediately Lionel kicked Harry in the face and pushed him over, Harry fell flat on his back. With wide black electrical tape, Lionel once again bound his wrists and ankles, thrust him deeper into the hearth. He curled there amongst the tortured flesh and rotting sores.

  With a twist and a wrench, the madman was able to draw out the carving knife, inch by inch, from his own back. It poured with blood. The blood pumped like a broken water pipe, but Lionel thumped onto his chair and leaned sideways, surveying the scene within the fireplace, so covered in black filth that little remained clear.

  Harry managed to regain his breath and although his wrists were taped together, he was able to raise his hands and wipe his face and eyes.

  “Well now,” said Lionel between his teeth, and looking around at the chaos in his shed, “that was a bit of fun. I like games. And I don’t mind a sting and a bit of blood. But you; you’re a right little shit, old man, and I’ll kill you now. Maybe a drink first. Then death, and a slow nasty one I reckon. I’d decided on easy strangulation, but now I’ve changed my mind. I’ll castrate you first, then cut off pieces, one by one.” With a puff he heaved himself up again and crossed to a small cupboard. He had to step over body parts, fallen tools, the wrecked oven and cooking ring, smashed lamp and the tumbled bed clothes. From the cupboard he took out a bottle of dark liquid and carried it back to the chair with him. “Home-made wine.” He lifted the bottle as if raising his glass in salute. “I don’t like wine. But this is more like a dessert, I reckon, and ought to be nice and sweet.”

  Gulping the first half of the bottle with one long appreciative smile, he nodded, belched, and said. “Yeh. Good. Sweet. Sugar gives energy, they say. Just what I need while I saw you up.” And tipped the bottle to his mouth again.

  Two more small slurps, and he wiped his mouth on the back of his naked wrist, smiling. Yet within a confused instant, his expression changed, and the smile hung lopsided. He lurched, flinging out one massive hand to steady himself.

  Suddenly the bottle crashed from his fingers, falling to the ground and smashing. Lionel’s large bony profile turned white, then green and he grabbed his stomach, bending over and retching violently. He puked up the dark sludge of human liver and kidneys which he had eaten earlier that day. Then with a reverberating thump he fell to the blood stained rug, his head in his own vomit.

  Chapter Thirty

  Struggling desperately with the binding of his hands and feet, Harry tried to crawl from the hearth. He put his wrists to his mouth, biting the tape. But it was wound six times around his arms and
he could not rip it. He kept trying.

  While he tried, he watched the large bloated man on the ground. Lionel writhed, grunting and puking, cursing and screaming. But he seemed unable to rise, and stayed curled, knees to his belly and hands to his crotch.

  Then they both heard the car. It screeched to a halt and feet pounded outside, then someone slammed open the shed door. First Sylvia and then Arthur rushed into the horrific pandemonium inside the torture chamber. Sylvia ran straight to Harry, and Arthur followed, grabbed the bloody carving knife from the floor and cut Harry’s bindings.

  The relief was so enormous, he collapsed backwards and wasn’t even conscious of the pain as the tape pulled out the short body hair on his arms, only vaguely aware of a very familiar dressing gown and warm clad arms grasping and embracing him. “Where’s the madman?” It was just a whisper for he could hardly speak and was still gagging on the terrible stench of decomposition and rotting flesh.

  The man on the floor was twitching, but now hardly moving, and the muscles of his face appeared paralysed. He could not speak. Only his eyes, pleading and desperate, seemed alive. Arthur leaned down, stared close, then kicked. Lionel could not react.

  Walking away, Arthur pulled Harry to his feet, called Sylvia, and marched outside. The police cars were already there. Four cars, three bikes. Morrison and Tammy with fifteen coppers surrounded the shed. “There’s an ambulance coming.” One of the coppers pointed behind him. “Is he bad hurt?”

  “No,” Arthur said. “Don’t look like it. But bad shocked, I reckon. Best look after him. This is your proper hero.”

  Two ambulance sirens were ringing loud through the trees. Harry tried to sit up but was pushed into the first ambulance. “Now, now, sir. You’ve been through a bad experience.”

  “Then Sylvia has to come with me.”

  Lionel Sullivan was carried to the second ambulance. “He’s been poisoned,” called Harry. “I don’t understand how. But that’s the Welsh Ripper and he’s slaughtered at least twelve women. Chain him. Have a police guard.”