by Ryan Casey
My stomach tightened up. I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch the rest of this tape.
The camera stopped right outside the container.
A hand reached out and pulled open a hatch.
I jumped back away from the lens when I saw what was inside.
It was a woman. Only it took me a few seconds to recognise it as a woman because of the state she was in.
Took me a few more seconds to recognise her as James Scotts’ wife.
Her head was shaven. Shaven so close that there were cuts all over, the trace of any hair long gone.
Her face was covered in little nicks too, which cried blood down her cheeks.
But it was her mouth that made me want to vom. Her mouth that made my throat tighten.
It was open wide. Open so wide that it was unnatural. There was something metal attached to her chin, which held her undoubtedly broken jaw on to her neck.
And her teeth. Well, her lack of teeth, and the bloody stumps that remained.
I figured that must’ve happened in the last twenty-four hours, too.
“This is what happens when you fail to please Hose.” A modified, robotic voice sounded through the tinny speakers.
And then the person holding the camera stuffed the hose into Denise Scotts’ mouth so far that she puked.
And then he turned the nozzle.
I looked away from the screen as the water filled up Denise Scotts’ lungs. But I caught a glance every few seconds.
A glance at her purpling face.
A glance at her neck, glugging away for survival.
A glance at her bloodshot, dying eyes.
“How long does this go on?” I asked.
Lenny looked at his watch. “Five minutes and thirty-two seconds, I counted earlier. But my watch is slow. Swatch Watch. Ever owned a Swatch Watch?”
Lenny’s speech was interrupted by a quick flash of images.
Denise Scotts being held down, a green hose tightening around her neck.
Denise Scotts’ head being pressed against as a sharp razor sliced the hair from her scalp.
“Ah, you reached the blooper reel,” Lenny said.
I looked away. I couldn’t watch this anymore. “Psycho. Poor girl.”
“Right,” Lenny said. “Which is why I need your help catching this nutjob.”
I shook my head and walked away. “I… I don’t know how I can help. I mean I’ve seen as much as you.”
“Yeah but, like, you see things. Like, extra things. You have that weird vision thing going on.”
“Standard detective inquisition?”
“Yeah. Something like that.”
I scratched my neck. The images of Denise Scotts blubbering for life as the water entered her body scratched at my mind. “I… I can’t, Lenny. Not after Chipps. I’ve… I’ve got things I care about now. People I care about. I’m sorry. I don’t do this kind of investigation anymore.”
Lenny shook his head. Tutted. “Goddammit. My promotion, Blake. Don’t you care about your friend’s promotion?”
“Not particularly.”
“Then what about the kid? Poor little baby boy, Sebastian in that cot who lost his mummy and his daddy to this psychopath? What about him?”
I grabbed the handle of the lost property closet door. I needed to get out of here. I needed to binge away on a comedy series to get those awful images out of my head. “I wish you all the best, Lenny. Seriously, I do.”
I lowered the handle.
“Jesus, man. I think I preferred you when I had leverage over you.”
“I take the well wishes back,” I said.
I opened the door.
Someone flew into me, almost knocked me to my feet.
“Jenkins?” Lenny said. He stood in front of the camcorder. Did up his top button, his cheeks going red.
This gaunt, ginger officer looked at me and then at Lenny and then back at me again. “What were you two, er…”
“Man stuff,” Lenny said. He cleared his throat. “Just… just playing around with the boy’s toys in here. Clearing the… clearing the dust from the pipes. Right, Blakey?”
My face was on fire, as Jenkins looked at me and Lenny as if he’d walked in on something sexual. “I was just leaving.”
“Right. See you later, Blake,” Lenny said.
“No I won’t.” I looked at Jenkins. “We really won’t be seeing each other later.”
I walked out from the door, my cheeks burning, my heart pounding.
I needed to get outside.
I needed to get away from involving myself in this case because I knew what involving myself in these cases meant: danger.
Just before I left, I couldn’t help but hear Jenkins utter four stomach-sinking words to Lenny.
“We’ve got another tape,” he said.
SEVEN
“Honey, you haven’t even had a full can and already you’re looking white as a mannequin. What’s up with you?”
I sat in Martha’s conservatory with a Fosters in hand. It had gone flat long ago. I’d slipped in a few Lockets to try and make it taste nicer, but even the sweetness of the menthol was dulled.
“Just tired,” I said. “Been a… been a tiring few days.”
I sipped back on the Fosters. Almost gagged.
Martha frowned. She sat beside me with a glass of red wine. She had her dark hair tied back as golden hoop earrings dangled from her ears. She was wearing a long purple dress, which I found a little discomforting because all I could see was Mart in a dress.
Meh. I was getting used to my trans friend the more time passed.
“Tired running a smoothie stall?” She raised her well-trimmed eyebrow.
I shook my head. “Just… just general tiredness. Just… I dunno. Not been sleeping so well.”
Of course, I was lying. I couldn’t get the images of Denise Scotts out of my head.
The video of the hosepipe worming its way down her trachea, making her puke.
The shots of her face being snipped at, the hosepipe tightening around her neck.
And James Scotts’ desperate voice when he’d called me looking for help.
What kind of a shitty human being was I?
“I’ll tell you what you need, babe.”
“What do I need?”
“Ecstacia. New herbal sleeping pill that’s all the rage. It’ll have you out like a light and awake in the morning fresher than ever.”
I gulped on my Fosters and stared out of Martha’s conservatory windows into the darkness of her little garden. “I’ll pass on the sleeping pills.”
Martha sighed. She shook her head.
“What?”
“Just you ain’t in the birthday spirit, that’s all.”
“It’s your birthday, not mine.”
“Oh you know what I mean, Blake. What’s up with you? Wait. You ain’t having lady troubles, are you?”
I looked away. But not quick enough to avoid the turning of her smile.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Martha asked. She punched me in the arm with the force that she’d saved over from her Mart days.
“Exactly this reason,” I said, rubbing at my arm. “I don’t need advice.”
“Come on, hun. Nothing like a woman’s perspective to solve a few lady problems.”
I glared at Martha. Stared right into her eyes. Noticed the mole under her left eye that always made me see Mart, no matter what.
“I just… I don’t think I want any advice from—”
“From a transsexual?” Martha asked.
I waved her away. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Blake, I’m a woman. I always have been a woman. That stubbly old Mart skin I had over me, that was just a disguise. Like a Slitheen. Did you see the episode of Doctor Who with the Slitheen?”
“I did, yeah. Only they were way more attractive than Mart, to be fair.”
She punched me again and made me wince.
“So what’s the problem?” she asked.
; I put my beer down on the hard tiled floor of the conservatory and sighed. I figured a relationship trouble chat was a good way to avoid a conversation about the tapes I’d seen, and the guilt I felt for James Scotts’ suicide. “She… I dunno. She wants more from me. Commitment. I just—”
“‘She?’ Who are we talking about here? Your girlfriend or some shit you walked in from the street?”
“And that’s my problem exactly,” I said. “I can’t… I can’t say the right things. I can’t be honest because if I’m honest, she’ll just pull the plug on me.”
Martha sipped at her wine. “And what is being honest, hmm?”
I squeezed the near-empty can. “I want my space. My home. I want to keep that and I want to protect that. I like her… Danielle, don’t get me wrong. Like Danielle a lot. But I just… I like my space too.”
Martha laughed.
“What’s that snicker for?”
She shook her head and raised her eyebrows.
“No, you tell me what that snicker was for. I’ve heard that snicker before and I—”
“You’re scared of change, aren’t you hun? Scared of growing up?”
I looked away. Felt my throat tightening. “No. I’m not scared of—”
“You want to live the rest of your life collecting bloody BlackBerries and Xboxes.”
“Well, I’m not really a BlackBerry fan, but—”
“You don’t want to grow up. To ‘settle down,’ to use a term you hate. But now you’ve met someone, you don’t know how to handle it. All these weird and wild emotions, it’s cause you sense someone’s creeping inside your little bubble. And you’re worried what’s gonna happen when it goes ‘pop!’”
I fiddled around with the Fosters can. Thought about drinking some more of it, but the flat metallic taste was not something I wanted to experience again anytime soon if I wanted to keep the contents of my guts inside me. “Well,” I said, unable to look at Martha. “Aren’t you just the emotional detective?”
“And I charge half what a therapist charges. But seriously, hun. You have a choice. You live your life the way you’ve been living it for the past however many years. Or you take a risk.”
I laughed.
“Now it’s my turn to ask what you’re snickering about?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. It’s just, er, Danielle said the exact same thing. About taking risks. And it just baffles me why people say that with all the bounties and investigations I’ve done. I mean, even today I saw a…”
I stopped myself talking. Hoped to God Martha hadn’t noticed.
When I saw her twitchy eyeing me, I knew she’d noticed.
“What did you see today? Is that what’s really happening, Blake? Did you get a job offer? Something else?”
“No, it’s just…” Fuck it. Might as well spill the beans. “I saw Lenny today.”
“Lenny Kole? Oh God, no wonder you look pale. Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have bought you a condolences gift or something.”
“He came to tell me he’s getting a promotion. A promotion he wants a hand with.”
“Two words: ‘horrifying,’ and ‘naturally.’ You told him to stuff it, right?”
I couldn’t help myself swallowing some of the Fosters now. It was so flat it was like piss-tasting water.
“You told him to stuff it? Please, after last time, tell me you told him to stuff it?”
“I did,” I said. “And that’s when he told me that someone who’d desperately been seeking my help was found with a belt around his neck earlier today.”
I told Martha the details. Told her about poor Denise Scotts, about the videotapes and the letter, and about the guy who went by the name, “Hose.”
And about the whisperings I’d heard about another tape being found.
Another tape, which meant another victim.
She just sat there shaking her head the entire time.
“Are you a nodding dog or something? Or whatever the opposite to a nodding dog is?”
“You stay away from that case, hun. I know you’re intrigued.”
“I’m not intrigued.”
“You’re doing your intrigued face. You are intrigued.”
I fast became aware of my face and noted any signs of intrigue to iron out in future. “What I saw on these tapes, Martha. I—”
“You might be the public’s new elected hero, but remember where your morals are.”
I frowned. “In money and electronics?”
“Exactly. Don’t go thinking you have some kind of duty to do all the police’s work for them. Or they’ll start using you. Just think what nearly happened last time, hun. Think about how much you had to lose back then. And then think now—you’ve got a ton more to lose. You’ve got Danielle to lose.”
I thought back to the Chipps case. Thought back to how close I’d come to death on a number of occasions while pursuing that nutcase. How close Martha had come to dying, too.
“Let the city sort itself out,” Martha said. She walked over to her kitchen worktop and topped her wine glass up, now well into her second bottle. “And stick to the tame stuff like stalking cheating husbands, or whatever it is you do these days.”
I wanted to argue. Every part of my body wanted to argue.
But I knew Martha was right.
She handed me a fresh can of Fosters. Less flat, but still just as horrible.
“I just feel guilty,” I said, sipping it back and feeling a lightness in my head. “I just… that guy. James Scotts. He came to me. Came to me for help and I… I told him to go away.”
Martha rested a hand on my shoulder. “When I said grow up, hun, I meant channel your best qualities and carry them forward with your new ones.”
I tilted my head from side to side. “And my best qualities are?”
Martha puffed out her lips. “You’re a cold, emotionless, heartless bastard who only ever feels any duty or responsibility towards himself.”
I raised my Fosters can. “I’ll drink to that.”
But as I sipped, the images of Denise Scotts still lingered in my mind.
EIGHT
He ejaculates as her eyes glaze over.
He gasps and lowers the camera. Hits the stop button, takes a moment to himself. His second kill was so good. Subject B was even more fun than Subject A. Harder to sneak in and catch, harder to hurt.
He likes them when they have higher pain thresholds. It just means he can inflict more pain.
He takes in some deep breaths of the damp air. Steps away from the black box. The hose is still stuck down Subject B’s throat, but he knows she is dead. She has that dead look about her. That greyness in her eyes that separates waxwork dummies from real humans.
The light of life that was so subtle yet so… there.
Blood trickles out of her dead mouth with the overflowing water, so he knows she must’ve burst a lung, something like that.
He smiles. Poor girl.
Made for excellent footage, though.
He walks over to the tap and turns it off. Takes out the hosepipe, rolls it back up, and hides it under a blue tarpaulin sheet in the corner of this dark, windowless room. Not that he’s worried about anyone finding this place. He’ll be all done by the time anyone finds this place.
It just adds to the theatricality. Pulling back that blue tarp and seeing all his favourite toys laid out in front of him before a kill… it turned him on, got him in the mood for a kill even more.
He walks over to the black box. Unlocks the back of it and drags Subject B’s limp body free. Her dark, damp hair tastes like sweat and fear. She is still slightly warm.
Good. He can have more fun with them when they are still warm.
As he drags her through the black doorway at the back of the room, takes her down a set of stairs, he catches a glance of his watch. 1.14 a.m. Dammit. He is running late. He goes by a tight schedule, no time to waste.
He reaches the bottom step. Feels her limp muscles rub against his erection.
&
nbsp; Maybe there will be ten minutes to spare. Ten minutes of fun.
He opens another door. Backs inside it, into the darkness, Subject B’s heels scraping along the tiled floor.
He stops and lets go when he hits a solid wall. Steps away and rubs his hands.
He reaches for the light switch. He can taste his own sweat. Feel his hands shaking with want, with need.
He presses the switch.
When he sees Subject A and Subject B’s perfect dead bodies frozen like naked statues in front of him, he knows he can’t resist.
He unzips his flies. Steps towards them.
Just ten minutes. Just a quickie.
And then on to Subject C.
Subject C will be the funnest of all.
NINE
I knew six beers probably wasn’t a good idea but hell—I’d done it now, and I was paying for it.
I staggered down some street in the dark. Forgot the name of it. It was clouded in my mind, thanks to all the alcohol running through my system.
Everything had been going so well until Martha got the Coronas out.
I preferred Coronas to Fosters. Much preferred.
I watched the streetlights move above me as I walked. Cars honked their horns to my left, maybe at me, but I didn’t care.
I was smiling. I was happy.
Danielle made me happy.
I looked at my watch. 1.30 a.m. Would it be too late to ring her? Too late to go round to her place and surprise her?
If I was sober, probably. She’d be fast asleep. Snoozing away as she prepared for her early shift tomorrow.
But I wasn’t sober so I was going round there whether she had work or not.
I forced my legs to take a left turn, to cross the road. Even more cars honked at me, but again, I didn’t care.
Just had to get to Danielle.
Just had to tell her what she meant to me. ‘Cause shit, I bloody loved her. Martha was right. All that stuff about growing up… I could grow up.
I tripped on the kerb and landed face flat on the concrete.
Okay. Maybe I could grow up another time.
I got up and walked until I reached Danielle’s street. It was darker down here, but I knew it was Danielle’s street because there was a van on the corner of the road with Wilkinson’s Repairs written on it in red. That van was always on Danielle’s road.
