Closer Than You Think

by Darren O’Sullivan

  I paused, focusing on my fingertips.

  ‘And I may never forgive myself for it. With Killian Jones behind bars where he belongs, I will recover, in time. Respectfully, I ask that after today my family are left alone. That I’m left alone. Surviving is hard, learning Mrs Brinck died at the hand of someone I know is hard. And I request the space to deal with what has happened privately. The news of Killian being charged with her murder shouldn’t have been about me, it should be about that poor woman, and her family.’

  As I stepped back, it being clear I had finished what I needed to say, the cameras flashed with more intensity and the press erupted as questions fired towards me. Their shouts like a wall of noise, pressing against my head. I felt my blood boil; I had just asked for peace and it was so quickly forgotten. Stepping back up I couldn’t hide the anger in my voice as I addressed the reporter nearest me.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  He seemed stunned I had addressed him directly.

  ‘Rupert.’

  ‘Rupert, have you ever had someone try to kill you?’

  My question was greeted with a stunned silence, not just from him, but from everyone.

  ‘What about you?’ I addressed the woman next to him; she held my eye and shook her head.

  ‘You?’ I said again to the next along. He looked down.

  ‘Any of you?’

  My question was greeted with silence.

  ‘No, I thought not. You’re all very lucky. I know I am too, I survived. But it comes with a price none of you know how to pay.’

  Again, my statement was received silently, and I walked away from the press back into the house, Penny wrapped her arms around me.

  ‘Claire, that was so brave.’

  I couldn’t respond but nodded and walked into the lounge.

  Mum, Geoff and finally Paul stepped inside, and the front door was closed. Mum sat beside me on the sofa and rubbed my back. I suddenly felt exhausted, and so flopped onto my side. Then, without knowing it was coming, I cried. I didn’t know why exactly; I wasn’t thinking of anything at all. But I cried regardless, I cried unapologetically, with every fibre in every muscle, every atom. And, strangely, no one tried to comfort me, no one tried to quell the outburst. They gave me the space to express myself that I needed, and I couldn’t have loved the people surrounding me more for granting it.

  Chapter 42

  1st October 2018

  Wrexham, Wales

  The ninth

  Fate had once again delivered. After Claire Moore’s emotional, if not desperate, press interview the previous night, he knew they had charged Killian with his crime. It was hard viewing, watching her struggle. The details were still sketchy, but they didn’t matter. What mattered was the country believed they had their man. The best part was, the news of Killian being charged was released on a Sunday and therefore, his target’s husband would be out the following night with his young mistress. Fate, or destiny once again, showing him how his plans were vitally important. After seeing Claire, he slept deeply and soundly, knowing he could end the ninth quickly, just over twenty-four hours after Killian was charged.

  Oh, how they would crumble.

  The day had gone according to his schedule, his rucksack was packed with all the tools he would need for the night. Each one had a place in the bag that was its own, like a seasoned traveller would pack a suitcase. He was ready, and, as with the eighth, the excitement, anticipation and adrenaline of another kill meant he left his house early. The extra week’s wait fuelled his desire.

  As he left the house he listened to ‘Careless Whisper’, the ninth’s favourite song. The sun was filtering into nothing along the horizon. It was still too early to enact his plan. The houses on her road usually turned off their lights around 10.30 p.m., meaning he would have to be patient until near that time. The drive to her street took thirty minutes, but that still meant he was ninety minutes early. So, he parked his car in a layby around ten miles from her house and waited.

  Looking out of his car window to the west, the sun just throwing the last of its light into the sky, bouncing off the clouds in the most beautiful colours. He wondered how anyone could doubt God with such a sight, and for a moment he forgot what he was doing, where he was, and let himself be wrapped up in it. And in that moment, he pictured his mother with him, watching the colours float in the sky.

  Tonight, he would make her proud, tonight he would leave his message, and men would once again have to work to be kinder, and women would once again be brave enough to escape if they couldn’t. Because tonight he would leave something undeniable for the police to find. A note, explaining it was never Tommy Kay. That there was no copycat. To prove it he would leave three Polaroid pictures outside the premises for the police to find. The first had Blair Patterson’s mutilated body. The second Jamie Connell, and the third, Charlotte and Jack Merrill. Pictures taken moments before he set them on fire. Then, he would leak the information to the press and the police would think they had a leak from the inside. Someone selling the proof that the Black-Out Killer wasn’t Tommy Kay, and it wasn’t a copycat. The world would know that he had never been caught.

  And it would be as beautiful as the setting sun.

  It was at this point he knew he needed to walk through the evening in his mind; the steps he would need to take to successfully complete his task. He closed his eyes and watched himself drive the ten miles to the green sub-generator behind the locked fence, only two hundred metres from her house. Then he saw himself cutting the lock before stepping inside and opening the housing to the substation, which supplied around four hundred homes. He visualised killing the power; the world plunging into consuming, absolute darkness. Then, he would walk, the fear leaking through the gaps under front doors and keyholes of the houses he passed tasting sweet on the tip of his tongue. He knew the route to the ninth’s house and paced it in his mind. He saw himself climbing over the back fence, approaching the rear door and breaking in, knowing the husband would be out fucking his young mistress. He let himself visualise the moment he stepped into her lounge. The ninth lighting candles on the coffee table, fear leaking from every pore. But as he tried to visualise her face, it was Claire’s in front of him instead. Seeing her pathetic and desperate on the news was like a thorn that kept catching. He expected more. He wanted the press to want to be around her. Hounding her, waiting outside her door to glimpse her. But now, after her plea, it worried him they would back off, like she wanted.

  When he returned to kill her right under their noses, they would remember him for all time. She would be the eleventh, the same number as Jack the Ripper by a favorable coincidence. They would draw comparisons between him and the Ripper because of the number. They would assume there was a link, but there wasn’t. It would result in them finding themselves even more in the dark as to who he truly was, ironically, just like old Jack himself. And Claire Moore would be the last, Claire Moore would be his swan song.

  He tried to refocus on visualising the kill he would perform in an hour, but he couldn’t shake the image of Claire. She’d presented herself first as desperate, then confrontational. He understood what she was trying to do; she was trying to appear brave, bold. But she had failed. Her desperation wasn’t who she was, and he wanted no one to think that was the case. She presented the wrong version of herself, and he knew, from experience, that self-deception can eat away at who you are. That press conference on her lawn would have eaten her up inside.

  The same way it had eaten at his mother.

  When his mother died, his family told him she was funny, bright, a woman who lit up a room as soon as she stepped into it. He could just about remember that side of her. When they were out, on rare occasions, as a family, men would stand taller, attracted to her. Women would smile at her, unthreatened. Everyone liked her, and everyone wanted to be a little like her. In public, she had it all. And he often wondered, if she’d been allowed to show the truth, to show she was sad, scared, hurting, would someone ha
ve helped her? Would someone have been able to stop what happened? Would they have told her to leave her husband, take her son and start again? He would never know. And even if he could, he wouldn’t want to anyway. Because the answer would have probably been yes, and then he wouldn’t have found his mother dead that day.

  After they buried her, his father wasn’t the same man. Instead of shouting, he stopped talking. Stopped being visible. He came and went as he pleased, often staying out till after dark, wandering the streets, drinking himself into oblivion. On a cold night, exactly a year after she was gone, a year to the day, he tried to talk to his father for the final time. He told his dad he needed him; he told him he was sad and lonely, and his dad replied by telling him it was his fault he felt those things because he was the reason she was dead.

  ‘Our life, before you, was good,’ he slurred, a bottle of wine in his hand, half empty, sloshing around as he spoke. ‘Your mum and I were happy until she gave birth to you. And you fucked it up.’

  He ran out of the house and to Kanturk Castle, the ancient bricks being his only safe refuge. Being there reminded him of the feeling he had when he had killed the injured bird. And without giving it much thought he hunted in the grounds of the castle for a nest in a tree. When he eventually found one he climbed, hearing the chirps of hungry chicks waiting for their next meal.

  He knew he should think about what he was doing right now and the life he was about to end, but he couldn’t stop himself recalling the moment he saw the seven raven chicks in the nest. He picked up the first chick, its feathers not fully formed, and held its little fragile body in his hands. He cradled it in his palms. The little animal was confused, but it wasn’t afraid. He wondered if it could fly, if it could soar above the clouds, and for a moment, he wished he could himself. He would fly away somewhere where he was loved and cared for, somewhere he would be allowed a night-light after the sun had set. Holding the chick out, he opened his palms and watched as it tried to spread its wings and fly, its instincts teaching it to survive. But its little body was too small, and he watched as it somersaulted to the ground, its head hitting the stony path below with a dull thud.

  The sound somehow made him feel better, stronger, like the actions and words of his father couldn’t hurt him anymore. He picked up a second and tried again, and again it plummeted to the ground. He picked up the third, this time throwing it up in the air, so he could watch it fall past him, and again it hurtled to the ground. Thud. Grabbing the fourth roughly, he squeezed as he held and instead of dropping or throwing upwards, he threw it like a cricket ball and watched it arch away, disappearing from sight behind a small wall. The fifth he launched towards the tree beside the one he was in, and listened to it smash into the trunk. Thud. Seeing it tumble to the ground after made him laugh. Only two left in the nest. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. The left one. Picking it up he squeezed, and the little animal didn’t fight. He squeezed harder still, feeling its little body crush inside his hand. And still the little animal didn’t struggle but stayed perfectly still as its ribs popped and broke. Opening his hand, he dropped the carcass, its blood staining his palm. He knew he should have felt bad about what he had just done, but he didn’t, he felt in control, he felt safe. Leaving the last bird to chirp alone, perhaps chirp out his story, he climbed down from the tree. As he did, he couldn’t help but wonder – if he squeezed his father in the same way, would he go pop too?

  Then, he returned home to his father, who never spoke to him again, apart from when it was absolutely necessary. Lying in bed that night, he knew, if his mother had just presented the right, honest version of herself, none of it would have happened.

  His watch alarm sounding snapped him away from his memories and he looked at the time on the car clock. Glancing to his left, the sun had died for another day. It was time to leave, and he fired up his car heading east, towards the darkness. Towards the ninth.

  Chapter 43

  2nd October 2018

  St Ives, Cambridgeshire

  As I opened my eyes to the light coming through my bedroom curtains, I could hear a noise, but feeling foggy, I couldn’t place what it was. It was from somewhere in the house and after a moment I realised it was a TV playing, the voices indistinguishable. Weirdly, even with a groggy head, because of the sleeping tablets I had been taking for the last couple of nights, the world felt calm – speaking to the press had given them what they wanted. I wouldn’t be the story anymore because, with Killian in jail, and my resulting press conference, there was no story left to tell.

  Rolling out of bed I planted both feet, my right foot less sore than usual, on the floor. Slowly I made my way out to the window to look outside. I expected to see the quiet street, with maybe a car, or a bike pass by, or someone walking their dog in the sunshine, I couldn’t hide my shock when the roads were still full of press, and once I was spotted, a fierce-looking woman pointing in my direction, they raised their cameras. Snapping the curtains shut I staggered back and fell onto the bed. I couldn’t fathom why they were still there. I had said my piece; the story was over. They had charged Killian. My life should be back to what it was only a few weeks ago. I should have vanished back into the background.

  I called out, first Mum, then Geoff and then Paul. But there was no response. My jeans, the ones I wore last night, were folded at the bottom of my bed and picking them up I rifled through the pockets until I found my mobile.

  There were several missed calls.

  Several messages.

  Several Facebook notifications. All of which came from the support page.

  The same thing happened when I found out about the death of Kath Brinck. I felt my heart drop into the stomach, the icy hand able to grab hold and squeeze.

  It couldn’t be…

  I couldn’t bring myself to open the messages, I didn’t dare. I put on my clothes and moved towards the stairs, each step feeling heavy, like someone had poured lead into my thigh muscles. As I reached the top I called out again, and Geoff emerged from the lounge. I tried to smile, to appear calm, but it probably looked more like a grimace. When he didn’t smile back, I knew. I knew Killian wasn’t the copycat killer. And I knew whoever it was, had killed again.

  My voice cracked. ‘Where’s Mum?’

  ‘In the living room.’

  ‘And Paul?’

  ‘After you went to bed, he had a call from work and had to leave. I told him I would stay here, so you didn’t wake up alone.’

  ‘He went to work?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘About nine, nine-thirty. He didn’t want to, and insisted he would stay here, but I told him he should go. He called earlier, saying he would be back as soon as he could.’

  ‘Geoff, has it happened again?’ I asked, hoping I was just being paranoid.

  He didn’t reply and instead, lowered his head. Slowly and deliberately, I descended the stairs, trying to hang on to the warm feeling I’d had only minutes before. Geoff stood motionless, his eyes once more on me as I came down. When I reached the bottom, he said nothing but wrapped his arms around me.

  ‘We should probably get you out of here,’ he said.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I asked, hoping my fears were wrong. But the look on Geoff’s face told me they were right.

  ‘There has been another power cut, another fire. They say a woman was in the house.’

  ‘It’s happened again?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh God. It’s not Killian!’

  ‘No, no, it’s not. Claire, I think you need to sit down,’ Geoff mumbled as he let go and walked into the lounge. I followed and as I sat next to Mum, who offered me a tired and sad smile, he turned off the TV. Sitting on the chair opposite I could see he was tense, and that made the icy hand climb over my diaphragm and squeeze my heart. I glanced at Mum, who was on the verge of tears, and by the look of her, not for the first time this morning. She moved closer and hugged me.

  ‘Mum, Geoff? What?’

&nb
sp; ‘It’s him,’ Geoff whispered. Holding my eye. Trying to be strong.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s not a copycat. It’s him. it’s the same person who was in Ireland.’

  ‘What?’ I said again, unable to process what Geoff was telling me. ‘No, it can’t be. Tommy Kay died in prison four years ago.’

  ‘Claire, they got it wrong. Kay didn’t do it,’ Mum interjected, before breaking down in tears.

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘It’s on the news. They are saying the police have proof that suggests it’s the same person as ten years ago.’

  ‘But the news will say that,’ I said, my voice raising, almost shouting at Geoff. ‘They always try to make it something it’s…’

  ‘Claire.’ Geoff cut me off. ‘I’ve spoken with the police, with Peter. He confirmed that although they didn’t want it to be public knowledge, they have had a leak from within the force. He said it’s undeniable, he said it’s the same man as in Ireland. It’s the Black-Out Killer.’

  ‘How – how can they be sure? They have been wrong about everything?’

  ‘Photos were left for the police to find. Photos of his first four victims right before he killed them.’

  Geoff’s words echoed in my head as I tried to stand, my flight mechanism kicking in, but as I did, my vision blurred, and the world went black.

  Hello, Claire,

  So, now you know the truth, or some of it. I wish I could have seen your face when you discovered it. I wanted to be there, close by. I wanted to comfort you. But I was otherwise engaged. I’m sure you understand. But I wonder, Claire, did you know all along I was still out there? I like to think you did, and you are not letting yourself listen.

  I came to your house recently, such is my curious nature. I wanted to see you, to watch you move around your home. I wanted to enjoy you clutch those keys around your neck. I like to think that when you hold those keys, you think of me. I intended to observe you, and then leave you be. But you were not there. It’s interesting that you have cameras outside the front of your house, but not inside. I wonder if you have noticed I’ve been in? That I’ve sat on your sofa, I’ve looked in your cupboards. I took a few things from your home, small things. I wonder if you will notice they’re gone. As I left, I saw your cat. It approached me so calm, so curious. You know what they say, Claire, about a curious cat.