The Domino Killer

by Neil White

  Proctor stood up and paced.

  ‘Do I look like a cliché?’ he went on. ‘This is where you had it wrong. Most people are about the splash, the desire, the dreaming, then the release. But it’s followed by shame, because they know they were driven by something they couldn’t control. A need to be fulfilled, an explosion beyond their power.’ He stopped pacing. ‘I’m much better than that.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Because the splash is over too soon. Don’t you get it? The ripples are better, the shockwaves.’

  ‘You did it because you enjoyed the distress of the families.’

  He wagged his finger and grinned. ‘You’re catching on. I like to observe, to see how people are; people interest me.’

  ‘You talk as if we’re a different species.’

  ‘You know, Gina, sometimes it feels like that, as if I’m looking at it from the outside. I can’t help that. Like how a cat plays with a mouse. It doesn’t want to eat the mouse. It’s just a game. That’s all this is, a big game, played out my way.’

  Gina grimaced as she shook her head. ‘No, it’s not that,’ she said, gasping. ‘You’re needy. You killed them because you’re exactly like all the rest, because the victims are always the same; teenage girls, all unfulfilled potential. If it had been about the ripples, there’d be boys and women, and maybe even men. No, you’re driven by what drives all the ones like you: you want young girls. But you despise yourself for it, so you build up a legend like this so you can make yourself sound better than the rest.’ She spat blood onto the floor. ‘It’s just your imagination fooling yourself.’

  Proctor stayed silent but his hands balled into fists, his fingers white with tension.

  Gina stared at the ceiling. The voices on the radio still prattled away in the kitchen. At that moment, she craved the inanity of it, the loneliness she fought hard not to admit suddenly seeming simplistic.

  ‘Who’ll feel your ripples?’ Proctor said beautifully. ‘Who’ll be there to weep at your funeral?’

  Gina’s eyes closed but tears squeezed out, wetting her cheeks. She tried to sniffle to stop them, but her nose hurt too much.

  He stood over her. He blocked out the light so that all she could see was a dark outline.

  ‘Hit a nerve, didn’t I?’ he said. ‘This is the only ripple I get from you. A few tears. No one to miss you. No parents. No children. Probably a cousin or two, maybe a sibling, but they’ll only show up to see if they get a share of whatever you leave behind.’

  ‘Why would you kill me?’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘If it’s all about what you leave behind, the chaos you leave, what purpose will I serve? Like you said, I leave no ripple, no trace, nothing to enjoy.’ She took more deep breaths to combat the fear that was sweeping through her, adrenalin forcing back the pain. ‘Just let me go.’

  ‘No, I can’t do that.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because sometimes it’s as cheap as revenge.’ He shrugged. ‘We all have our weaknesses. Do you think I didn’t know Joe Parker was watching me yesterday? I know he saw me all those years ago, and I know he recognised me. He tried to disguise it, tried to claim it was a migraine, but I knew. When you’ve lived my life you have to be constantly alert. I asked for him, remember, so I was testing him, and then I knew. He was going to come after me. So why not discredit him?’

  Proctor backed away and went to the dining-room table, watching Gina all the time. He rummaged in her handbag until he found her phone. He turned it on but it was protected by a passcode.

  He raised it in the air. ‘Tell me the code.’

  Gina paused so he knelt over her and put his hand around her throat. He squeezed. Sweat broke out on her forehead.

  She gulped and gave him the number. He put it in and smiled when the phone came to life.

  ‘I followed Joe last night,’ he said. ‘He thought he was following me, but he hadn’t planned on the decoy. So he was there when poor Greg was killed. What did he do? Call the police, the ambulance?’ He shook his head. ‘No, he drove here; I know that because I was behind him, but the police took a long time to get to the body. Why was that? My guess is that he didn’t want you to call the police. But you did it anyway.’

  Proctor went to Gina’s call logs and then held up the phone in triumph.

  ‘There they are. He called you, then you called the police. The timings are perfect. The police will think he came here tonight in a rage, angry at your betrayal, desperate for revenge.’

  ‘No,’ Gina said. ‘He wouldn’t do that. They’ll know it’s you.’

  ‘But why would they? I’ll call him when I leave here, and a call is so much better than a text. No record of the content, only that the call was made from here. He won’t dare call for help, the police are looking for him, and he’ll want to be the hero too much. He’ll rush up here and leave his traces everywhere.’

  Gina’s breaths came fast now. ‘What will you do to him?’

  He cocked his head. ‘Him? Nothing. The system will take care of him, when it accuses him of your murder.’

  He threw the phone onto the floor and lunged at her. He put both hands around her throat. Her eyes bulged as he squeezed. His teeth were bared, spittle flicking onto her as she bucked and thrashed, but her bindings made it too hard to get away.

  The pain in her chest was like a deep burn as she fought to suck in air. She tried to shout out but she couldn’t. Proctor’s eyes bulged, his face contorted with effort.

  The room went hazy and blurred. She felt hot as she struggled, her clothes twisting round her body.

  The light hanging from the ceiling seemed to move, except she knew it was still. She tried to focus, hoping to defeat the clouding of her brain as Proctor squeezed the air from her body, but she couldn’t fight nature. Her mind flew back through her life. A happy childhood. Some failed romances. First kiss. Last kiss, too far in the past to remember it properly. The people she arrested, like a fast-moving mugshot gallery, mixed in with the victims she left behind. Tearful, scared, angry.

  It started as a white dot. Tears wet her cheeks but she didn’t feel them. Another cough. A shiver. The dot grew, as if she was advancing towards it, the dot becoming a circle, a bright light.

  There was a noise. Someone banging on the window. Proctor slackened his grip. Air rushed back into her and she gasped and coughed.

  Proctor turned towards the noise. Some long-forgotten training kicked in and Gina jabbed out with her bound feet, catching Proctor on the knee, making him shout in pain.

  There was another bang on the window, louder this time, more frantic. There were shouts. Proctor scrambled backwards, looking for a way out.

  As the front door opened, Proctor got to his feet and limped towards the door at the back of the house. He clicked open the patio doors and the noises from outside rushed into the house.

  Gina lay down again as her neighbour rushed to her. His arms enveloped her and he pulled her to his chest, comforting her.

  For a moment, she wanted that human contact, but then she thought about Proctor and where he might go next.

  She looked up and nodded towards the bindings round her ankles. ‘Stop hugging me and get me a fucking knife.’

  Sixty-six

  Joe kept checking his rear-view mirror as he drove to Melissa’s apartment, nervous of the police stopping him, but there was just the evening traffic, a mixture of late shoppers and young men cruising. Melissa looked tired when he got there, as if the news about her brother had been on her mind all day, rearranging how she saw her life. Her skin appeared drawn and her eyes were red, as if she’d spent some of the time crying.

  Joe rushed past her and held up the metal box. ‘I got it.’

  When Melissa didn’t respond, he said, ‘You all right?’

  Melissa exhaled and sat down. There was a half-empty glass of wine in front of her. ‘I’m not going to like this,’ she said. Then she apologised. ‘I’m sorry, I know it’s worse for you. What is it?’

 
‘Like I thought, his box of souvenirs. Dead girls.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Eleven. Not all dead. The more recent ones are all missing persons. He must have found he enjoyed their misery more.’

  Melissa swallowed and put her hand to her mouth. ‘Eleven?’ she said, her voice barely a whisper. She closed her eyes and said, ‘Are you sure they’re all down to Mark?’

  ‘I found pictures of my sister,’ Joe said. ‘He’d stalked her, photographed her, as if he’d singled her out, but why would he do that? But there was one picture of her that makes it certain. It was Ellie on the floor, taken before the police arrived, because she was still wearing the necklace we hadn’t known she was wearing on the day, one never returned to us by the police. And the necklace was in the envelope.’

  He reached into his pocket and dangled the necklace from his finger.

  ‘It was as if I could see her pain, even though her eyes were closed. She didn’t look at peace. She looked contorted and frightened, and it’s something I wish I hadn’t seen. And I can’t remove it from my head now. So yes, I’m sure.’

  ‘But how has he got away with it for so long? Eleven? That’s inhumane. A slaughter.’

  ‘Look out of your window,’ Joe said, pointing towards the lights of office blocks and apartment buildings. ‘Look at all the counties you can see from here. Hit that motorway just a couple of miles away and you’re in West Yorkshire, or Lancashire, Merseyside, and South Yorkshire just over that way. He travels around, county to county, knowing the police forces don’t share information well. All those different police areas within forty-five minutes from here – less probably – so easy to avoid having them linked. A few years ago, some of the forces didn’t even use the same computer systems.’

  Melissa leaned forward to take a drink of wine. ‘I’ve been trying to get things straight in my head, thinking back through his life, at least what I know of it, looking for clues, answers. Things that had no importance back then now seem magnified, things I haven’t told anyone.’

  ‘About Mark?’

  She nodded.

  ‘You can’t blame yourself.’

  ‘But I’m a part of it, don’t you see. I know it doesn’t make me responsible, but it makes me wish I’d seen it so I could’ve stopped it.’

  Joe put the box on the floor and sat down opposite. ‘Talk to me.’

  Melissa went to the fridge and returned with the bottle and an extra glass. She poured Joe a glass of wine and topped up her own. She ran her finger around the rim of the glass before she started talking.

  ‘Our house was cramped. There were three of us children, but I was the only girl, so Mark always had to share with my other brother, Dan. He was older than Mark by a couple of years and used to bully him. When I was really small, I’d lie in bed and hear Mark crying, or the sound of a fist being struck, or Dan taunting him. It was different for me, because I was in my own little cocoon, the baby sister, my bedroom all pink and fluffy. As they got older, Dan became a bit of a lad, going out boozing, but when he was home he would be getting at Mark all the time. When I was around ten I realised that Mark was a little different. He’ll have been around nineteen then but he was a loner. He used to disappear for hours at a time and not tell anyone where he was going. I remember Dan teasing him that he was going off to his den, his little hiding place.’

  ‘How did you get on with him?’

  ‘Really well, which is why this is so upsetting. I can’t believe it. When I got older and started getting upset over boys and stupid stuff like that, he was always there for me. He’d listen to me, comfort me.’ She shook her head. ‘I can see it now. I understand.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Something he once said.’ She took another drink. ‘I’d split up with someone, just a boy who broke my heart but was soon forgotten about, because that’s what being a teenager is about, strong reactions. Mark was great. He made me drinks, checked on me, let me talk about this boy, whose name I don’t even remember now. Then I met someone else and it was all forgotten. Mark was angry with me. He said I was selfish, that I only ever noticed him when I was sad and ignored him when life was back to normal.’

  ‘This is all about attention?’ Joe said. ‘I can’t believe it.’ He laughed, short and bitter. ‘No, I can believe it. That’s the whole damn point. He was Mr Anonymous, picked on by his older brother so he used to find secret places where no one could hurt him. No one noticed him until they needed him.’

  ‘We should have spotted that we were damaging him.’

  ‘No!’

  Melissa looked shocked.

  ‘Don’t make it your fault,’ Joe said. ‘Big brothers pick on little brothers, it’s part of life. Little sisters can ignore them. Families are complicated, but most people get through it all somehow. For your brother, it just went a different way. Doesn’t Carrie ask about her uncle?’

  ‘Sometimes, but I just say we don’t get on. One day she might understand, but she’s too young to know, just fourteen, and that was even before I knew about all this?’ She pointed towards the box. ‘You have to take it to the police. Let them deal with it.’

  She was right. Those were the thoughts he’d had as he stared out of the windscreen on the moors, not really looking at anything, just letting his thoughts wash over him, like whether he could carry on being a lawyer, or whether Proctor was worth giving it all up for. The photograph of Ellie dead on the ground told him that his career would mean nothing if he didn’t get justice for her.

  ‘I want to understand it first,’ he said.

  ‘No, please, Joe. Do the right thing.’

  ‘How much do you think the police will do? So he takes an interest in murdered teenagers? He’s a grief counsellor, the perfect cover, wouldn’t you say? Some defence lawyer like me will say it.’

  Melissa didn’t respond.

  Joe put his hand on the box. The contents were precious.

  ‘There is one more thing,’ Joe said. ‘There’s an extra envelope. It has no press clippings or death photograph.’

  ‘What, someone who might still be alive?’

  ‘That’s my thinking. He’s been watching someone.’

  ‘There’s someone to save.’

  ‘Only by stopping your brother.’

  ‘So take this to police.’

  She was right again. He could save the girl by killing Proctor, but he didn’t want to do it that way. Joe had seen the pain in Gerald’s eyes, the knowledge that he’d ended a life. However much Proctor deserved it, Joe didn’t want to live his own life with torment like Gerald’s for company. He’d take the box to the police, but he’d find the girl too and warn her in case the police can’t act. For Joe, it was personal. It was about doing for this stranger what he hadn’t done for Ellie.

  Joe lifted the metal box onto the wooden table between them. Melissa was leaning back in her chair, uncertain, both hands clasped around her wine glass.

  ‘I’m not sure I can do this,’ she said.

  ‘This is your brother in here,’ Joe said, putting his hand on the box. ‘If you thought you knew him, this might be where you find out you didn’t know him at all.’

  ‘But somewhere in there might be some blame for me, something I should have noticed.’

  ‘You can’t blame yourself. I carry more blame than you, because I could have said something that might have caught him earlier. This box is like something I let him do.’

  Melissa stared at the box for a few seconds more and then said, ‘I need to know.’

  ‘Are you sure? This will rewrite your childhood, make you see everything differently.’

  ‘Show me. I need to make sense of it all.’

  Joe opened the lid and reached in. He produced an envelope with Ellie’s name on the front. He let the contents fall onto the table without looking. ‘This is my sister.’

  The pictures of Ellie landed face up. Melissa leaned forward, transfixed by the images, eyes wide. She picked up the first one. It was
Ellie outside the local shop, puffing gingerly on a cigarette. Melissa traced her finger on the image. ‘I can see her soul in that picture,’ she said. ‘She looks so alive, a girl trying to become a woman.’

  ‘She was doing just that,’ he said. Then he pulled out the press cuttings, scattering them onto the table. ‘This was his real thing, though. It wasn’t about the murder; it was about the effect it had on everyone else. His grief counselling was just a way of wallowing in it. Why do you think he killed your cat? Because he liked the cruelty? No – it was because he liked your distress. And I bet he tried to be more supportive, to be there for you. But it was just about getting close so that he could feel your pain.’