by T F Muir
A nail. About two inches in length. Orange with rust.
He held it between his thumb and forefinger and rubbed its discoloured surface. He shone his light on it. The nail glinted with a metallic sheen where his fingers had—
Something moved.
From behind.
He spun around, breath locked in his throat.
The sudden movement stopped Pitter dead in her tracks, her body settling low to the grass. Amber eyes glowed at him from the dark.
‘Jesus,’ whispered Gilchrist. ‘You little rascal.’
Pitter’s glowing eyes vanished in a long blink, then she high-pawed it over the long grass, tinkling in the dark like fairy music and leapt onto the coal bunker, then the kitchen window sill, where she settled on her haunches, as if waiting for the window to be opened in the morning.
Gilchrist switched off his torch and dropped the nail into his pocket. His watch read 10:57. He slid the grille back into its slot, crimped the chicken wire into place. From the window ledge, Pitter eyed him with feline indifference.
Gilchrist retraced his steps.
At the rear wall, he eyed the scene.
The unkempt grass looked flattened where he had trodden through it. Dark patches lay like whorled love-nests. In the morning, evidence of his prying might be noticeable.
But he could do nothing about that now.
He pulled himself back over the wall and crept through the neighbouring gardens until he reached Gregory Lane. Seconds later he was back on North Street, shoes and jeans soaked through. Icy dampness at his knees worked its way to his feet. A hot shower was what he needed.
He walked quickly, for warmth, his thoughts firing with possibilities. The trail to the ventilation grille could be important. McLaren’s son had seen Garvie in her back garden around midnight. But she had denied that, saying she was on sleeping pills. Out like a light. Wouldn’t have heard a bomb go off in the kitchen. But the trail looked no more than a day or two old. If not Garvie, then who? Or was she lying?
Gilchrist thought he had a knack for reading guilt. If Garvie had been hiding something from him, he felt certain he would have known. He had seen it before in a thousand faces – the fear of being caught – but he had seen nothing in Garvie’s manner to persuade him she was burdened with the secrets of a serial killer.
The east end of Market Street was not much more than a cobbled alley bordered by centuries-old homes. This was a popular route of Gilchrist’s, a historical part of the town that conjured up images of beggars and thieves and horse-drawn carts, women with babies wrapped in shawls, town skies thick with the grey murk of damp smoke.
His route took him past the spot where they had found the Stabber’s fourth victim, Johnny Gillespie. Less than thirty feet ahead, two women strolled shoulder to shoulder. As he approached, they parted, their hands slipping away to touch with only the tips of their fingers, then drift farther apart until a gap separated them.
They were younger than he had first imagined. Maybe early twenties. Probably students out for an evening stroll. He mumbled ‘Good evening’ as he overtook them and thought he caught a smile from one of them.
He reached the end of the lane where Market Street widened into a thoroughfare, and looked back. The girls were shoulder to shoulder once again, the press of their bodies suggesting more than just friends on a midnight stroll.
Lex Garvie was a lesbian. Did that make any difference as to how she would be profiled as a serial killer? Probably not. But it could provide an answer to the question that was haunting him. Ian McLaren had assumed he’d seen Garvie in her back garden the night of Granton’s murder. But what if that woman had not been Garvie? What if she had been a friend of hers? Someone with whom she might have had a close relationship. A relationship so close that the friend had ready access to Garvie’s home. Even when Garvie was upstairs, drugged into unconsciousness by sleeping pills.
Had young Ian unknowingly seen the Stabber?
And if so, what had the Stabber been doing in Lex Garvie’s garden?
CHAPTER 21
My sense of panic has passed. I have regained control of my emotions. But something has changed. I feel it. And it makes me shiver, not from fear, but from the certain knowledge of what it is.
My needs have changed.
My need to kill has risen. My need to feed this burning hunger inside me has become more urgent, more relentless, more gripping, as if my mind can think only of my next victim and of ending his abusive existence. My need to kill is driving me, controlling me, and I can no longer wait for the weather to turn foul.
I need to kill soon. I need to kill now.
I think of my next victim and feel relief calm me, as if my murderous thoughts alone are enough to satiate my hunger, like a prisoner calmed on the dawning of the day of his release by the certain knowledge he is about to be freed.
That is how I feel. Soon, my needs will be freed. Soon my hunger will be satisfied. Soon, I will strike again.
I read his name on my list and smile.
Taking this man’s life will give me great pleasure.
Sebbie needed to change his plans. He needed a place to stay, needed someone to look after him, someone who would love him the way his mother had. And he knew that soon everything would be all right. Soon he would be home.
He gripped the knife tight, took hold of the door handle with his free hand. He puzzled at the tremor in his fingers and told himself he was not afraid. Only cold. That was all.
He entered a small room barely warmer than the street outside. A smoked-glass-panelled inner door separated the hall from the entrance vestibule. He took hold of the lever handle, eased it down.
The door cracked open.
The stupid bitch. Now he was going to show her why she should keep her door locked. Oh, he would show her all right. She was going to wish she had never known him. The bitch.
Voices drifted from an open door at the end of the long hallway, making him pause for a moment at the thought of how to handle her visitors. Then he heard a gun go off and an engine rev, and he realized she must be watching television.
He crept forward, his new trainers silent on the thick carpet. His fingers brushed wallpaper that smelled of fresh emulsion. A fragrance of flowers and lemon reminded him of the sickening air freshener his mother used to keep in their bathroom.
The bitch. She thinks she has come up in the world. But she does not belong here. She is way above her real station in life.
He reached the end of the hallway and stood in the open doorway, the knife secure in his grip. She was alone, watching television. As he was watching her now. Her hair looked thicker than he remembered, her face fuller. Yes, she had been living the good life, while he suffered. He eased closer, silent as a ghost, and closer still, until he could almost reach out and touch her, close enough to see the steady tick of her lifeblood pulse beneath the skin of her white neck.
‘Hello, Alice.’
Her body jerked to the side as she spun round, her eyes wide with shock. In the stunned silence, time ceased to exist, as if her physical image was frozen and framed in space.
Then her lips moved, but no words came.
‘Switch the television off,’ he ordered.
She looked as if he had spoken in a foreign language, but she picked up the remote from the arm of the settee and the picture disappeared.
Rain whispered against the window.
‘I’ve come for something,’ he said.
‘What?’
He stepped closer.
‘Stop.’ She held up her hand.
‘You never used to tell me to stop, Alice.’
‘Dieter’ll be back soon,’ she said, her voice rising. ‘He won’t like you being here.’
‘Dieter?’ Sebbie let out a forced laugh.
Then her mouth twisted in a thin grimace of disgust. ‘What have you done?’ she said. ‘You look awful. Your hair.’ She screwed up her face and eyed the length of him. ‘You’ve lost so much weight. And your clothes. Oh
, my God.’
Sebbie reached for her.
‘Stay away,’ she shouted. ‘I mean it, Sebbie. Stay away from me.’ She placed her hands over her mouth. ‘Oh, my God,’ she said. ‘What’s that smell? Oh, my God.’ She closed her eyes.
‘Look at me.’
She shook her head.
‘Look at me.’
‘Go away, Sebbie. Just go away.’ Then she peered at him through half-opened eyes. ‘Oh, my God. You’re disgusting. Just look at yourself.’
It may have been her hurtful words that did it. Or her ugly look. Or the pain in his gut that had returned and now burned like a raging fire. But things seemed to happen then, almost out of body, as if he was watching some other person walk forward and take hold of her hair and pull her head back so that he could see the bobble of her throat as she tried to swallow her fear. And it puzzled him that he felt no anger toward her, despite her comments. He had loved her once. A long time ago, it seemed. When things were different. But he felt no love for her now. No anger. No love.
Nothing.
Her gaze was transfixed on something by his waist, and he looked down at the black-handled knife in his hand and wondered how it had got there.
‘Don’t, Sebbie.’ She shook her head. ‘Please don’t.’
She was begging him. Alice, who lived in this house with that poncy prick Dieter, was begging him not to hurt her. Something surged through him then, and he pulled her head farther back so the sinews in her neck stuck out in thin cords. Her hands were no longer over her mouth, but raised by the side of her face, as if wanting to tear his grip free but somehow unable to do so.
‘Please don’t, please don’t, please.’
He leaned toward her, and her eyes closed, as if she could not bear the sight of him.
‘Open your eyes.’
Her head shivered.
‘Open them.’
She opened her eyes and stared at the knife in his hand.
He squeezed her hair, jerked her head. ‘Look at me.’
She peered at him from behind the pain. ‘I’ll scream,’ she tried. ‘I will. I’ll scream.’ But her words came out in a strangled choke.
‘You won’t,’ Sebbie said. ‘You never scream. You like it too much. You’ve always liked it. Haven’t you?’
He watched realization shift across her face with the slowness of a vanishing smile, pleased that she seemed no longer concerned with his looks or personal hygiene.
He brandished the serrated blade by her throat, swishing it left then right. Her eyes followed, tried not to lose it, then widened as he brought the blade closer and pressed it against her skin. Tears trickled down her cheeks.
‘Please don’t,’ she whispered.
‘If I don’t, will you tell anyone about me?’
‘No.’
‘Not even Dieter?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t lie to me.’
‘I’m not lying honest I’m not.’ Her voice livened with the glimmer of hope.
‘You used to lie to me, bitch.’ He paused, to see if his words triggered her memory. ‘Do you remember?’
‘I won’t tell anyone. Cross my heart and hope to die.’
He turned the knife so that the blade lay flat against her skin. Her carotid artery pulsed with fear. He slid the gleaming metal across her neck and raised a drop of blood from the tiniest of nicks.
‘Cross your heart and hope to die?’
‘Please. Sebbie. Please.’
‘You lied to me about Dieter.’ He ran the blade up her neck and across her jawline so that her tears found their way onto the shining metal.
‘I’m sorry—’
‘What are you sorry for?’
‘I’m sorry for ... for, lying.’
‘You lied to me?’
She hesitated, as if trapped by his question, knowing that any response would only worsen her predicament.
Then she whispered, ‘Yes.’
‘Why tell me now, bitch? Why tell me now that you’re sorry? You weren’t sorry then. Were you?’
‘I didn’t mean it, Sebbie. I’m sorry now. Truly I am.’
‘If I couldn’t trust you then, bitch, why should I trust you now?’
‘I won’t tell Dieter. I won’t tell anyone. Please. Sebbie. Please. Let me go.’
He pulled the knife from her skin and stood back. She opened her eyes. With a suddenness that made her start, he reached forward, grabbed her hair, pulled her head back, and lifted the knife high.
‘I know you won’t tell anyone, Alice. Not this time.’
He flashed the knife down to her neck.
Her scream never surfaced, locked in her throat.
He released her hair, the point of his blade millimetres from the pale skin of her neck. She held her head still, as if waiting for the pain to hit. Then the tiniest of tremors took hold of her hands, spread to her arms, her shoulders, her chest, until her entire body trembled.
‘Look at me,’ he said.
‘Oh, my God. Please don’t.’
‘Look at me, bitch.’
She looked at him.
‘Will you tell anyone?’
‘No.’
‘Promise?’
She squeezed her eyes shut, spilling tears down her face, and nodded.
‘You won’t tell anyone?’
She shook her head.
‘Say it.’
‘I won’t tell anyone.’
‘Say it.’
‘I promise I won’t tell anyone.’
‘That’s better,’ he said, and cupped her left breast. She opened her eyes. Her breast felt full, supple and soft, and his arousal sent a rush of urgency through his system.
‘Take off your clothes.’
‘Please. Don’t do this.’
He ran the flat of his blade over her throat. ‘Take them off.’
Her fingers trembled as she fumbled with the top button of her blouse, then the next.
Sebbie watched her slow unveiling in silence, and could do nothing to prevent the stirring in his crotch. It had been a long time, such a long time. With insolent reluctance, it seemed, Alice slipped off her blouse, twisted her arms behind her back, and removed her bra.
Sebbie’s breath caught at the sight of her nakedness. She looked more full than he remembered, no longer a teenage girl, but a mature woman. Her breasts were white where her tan ended, making her nipples seem large and dark. She looked up at him, cheeks glittering, eyes pleading.
He pointed the knife at her. ‘Get up.’
She stood, arms drooping by her side as if exhausted from the effort.
‘Everything.’
‘Please.’
He held the knife up. ‘Don’t make me have to ask again.’
She twisted to the side, unzipped her skirt, let it slip to the carpet. Then she hooked her thumbs over the top of her tights and eased them down her thighs. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to do this.’
He watched the uncovering of the white meat of her thighs as she undressed to her knees, then down and onto the carpet where she kicked her feet free. His gaze locked on tiny silk panties that seemed wrongly sized for her thighs. He gave an involuntary swallow as he eyed her pubic mound and tried to remember what her bush felt like, how he used to bury his face into her and search for her wetness.
He fingered his zipper and pulled out his erection and watched her eyes darken with the knowledge of what was about to happen. Somewhere in the dark chasms of his broken mind he heard a voice whisper to him, urging him on. His head tilted to the side like a curious dog, as if to confirm he was hearing her instructions correctly.
It felt good knowing his mother approved.
‘Yes,’ he whispered back to her. ‘Yes, I will.’
Then he faced Alice. ‘On your knees, bitch.’
CHAPTER 22
Gilchrist lay still, trying to figure out where he was. Then he caught the cold reflection of a glass moon and realized he was looking at the Velux window on the
sloped ceiling of his own bedroom.
Something had wakened him.
On the floor beside his cupboard door he caught the shadow of Chloe’s painting, its vortices even more wild in the dim light, as if the image had a mind of its own and was trying to cry out to him. He had a vague recollection of bringing it in from his car last night and placing it there before crashing out. And dreaming.
That’s what had wakened him. A dream.
A dream about Chloe’s painting. Images came to him, as faint as wisps of cloud. A shape closed in. Then vanished.
With a spurt of dismay, he realized he was still wearing his shirt and underpants. He swung his legs to the floor and peered at his digital alarm clock: 6:33. He switched on his bedside lamp, pulled open the drawer, slammed it shut. Why did he always search for a cigarette first thing? He had not smoked in twelve years. Surely his brain should have adjusted by now.
His dream floated by. Shifting shadows. He almost had it. Then lost it. It was as if he held something then laid it down, only to find moments later he could not locate it and the memory of what he had held, where he had put it, vanished like a morning haar.
He tottered through to the bathroom on stiff legs that felt cramped, as if he had over-exercised. He straightened his back, then remembered pulling himself up and over stone walls, and lying on damp grass. Then the walk to his car with icy feet, shoes and socks sodden.
He stripped off his shirt and underpants and stood naked. The bathroom was heated by an oversized radiator on the back wall, over which hung four bath-towels. He removed one and wrapped it around his waist like a sarong, loving its soft warmth against his skin. He ran his tongue over the fur on his teeth and reached for his toothbrush, its bristles splayed and clogged. Time to buy a new one. He squeezed out a dollop of toothpaste and scrubbed hard and fast, forcing his thoughts into gear.
Chloe’s painting. Faded dreams. What did it all mean?
He almost caught his dream again, watched something slink away from him like a frightened animal, then evaporate in the neural mist. He rinsed out his mouth, swabbed the sink, and returned to his bedroom.
He lifted Chloe’s painting and held it at arm’s length. What had been going on in her head when she had painted that image? He twisted it to the side, focused on the hole for a mouth ...
