Killing Pretties

by Rob Ashman

  ‘Morning,’ Malice said opening his locker. He was greeted by another smell, the odour of festering week-old clothes. He pulled out a suit and shirt. His watch read: 6.55 a.m.

  Shit. No time for a shower.

  He stripped down to his underwear, throwing his jeans, trainers and hoody into the locker to join the others. He tugged the shirt over his head and wrestled with the trousers. His shoes and socks were next. In his haste he pulled too hard on the lace and it snapped.

  ‘Bollocks,’ he muttered, tossing the broken shoelace onto the floor. He tucked in his shirt and pulled the jacket from the hanger, then fished a tie from the inside pocket and forced the knotted loop over his head and around his collar. He scraped his fingers through his closely cropped hair. The dreadlocks of his teens were long gone, having hit the floor in his mother’s kitchen floor when she’d declared that he had to smarten himself up. Now the barber’s clippers kept the unruly mess under control.

  Malice dashed out the changing room and up the stairs to the conference room at the top. The sound of voices drifted down the stairwell, telling him the briefing was already underway. He opened the door and walked in. Fifteen faces turned to greet him.

  ‘Yaay!’ someone said as he took his seat. He looked at his watch – 7.04 a.m.

  Shit!

  ‘As I was saying,’ Detective Superintendent Samantha Waite, a woman in her late thirties, was standing at the front. She’d been with the force for around nine months and was forging herself a formidable reputation. She was uncompromising and blunt to the point of rudeness and was certainly making a name for herself; but not one which could be used in polite conversation.

  Behind her, a large TV screen was mounted on a stand, showing a street map with two houses highlighted in yellow.

  ‘We believe both the properties will be occupied, so please be sure we don’t lose anyone. As far as we know there are no minors involved. There could be anything up to fifteen, maybe twenty people in each house. Remember, they could be victims of trafficking and forced labour so they must be treated as vulnerable adults. We also have a translator on hand. Is everybody clear?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ the room replied in unison.

  ‘We have five vehicles on standby to transfer the occupants to the processing centre. There will be four teams; two for each property. DS Beech has a list of who goes where. Are there any questions?’ A collective shaking of heads told her they were ready. ‘Okay let’s go.’

  The men and women rose from their seats and made their way out the door. Malice joined them.

  ‘Not so fast Mally,’ Waite instructed, crooking her finger at him. ‘I got a job for you.’

  ‘Morning guv, sorry–’

  ‘Is that the same shirt you had on yesterday?’

  ‘Erm, no. I have two the same,’ Malice lied.

  ‘We have a missing person I want you to take a look at. A woman reported missing three days ago. The Sign of Life Team have confirmed there’s been nil activity.’

  ‘Oh, why me, ma’am?’

  ‘Because you were the last one into the briefing. I’ve left the file on your desk.’

  ‘So, you were always going to give me the missing person the job?’

  ‘That’s right. Because you were always going to be late.’

  Chapter 3

  It was the day I discovered the horrifying truth…

  F inding body parts in the wall cavity of our house was not the worst thing to happen that day.

  It was the summer of 1976. I was ten years of age and thought the blazing sun would last forever. I remember ice cream dripping onto my hand and the tarmac melting into black mirrored puddles.

  My dad had passed away the summer before and we were getting ourselves back on track. Cancer took him from diagnosis to crematorium in less than six months. I’m an only child and lived with my mum in a sprawling converted farmhouse in the countryside. I had no friends, other than the ones I made up in my head, and school was a forty-minute bus ride away. Dad dying only served to increase my sense of isolation.

  He’d been a high powered criminal barrister and worked away in London during the week. He would come home on a Friday night exhausted, then work all weekend preparing for Monday. The vast fees he commanded put a grand roof over our heads and meant mum didn’t have to work.

  My parents argued about everything. They even fought about money, which was absurd as we had more than we could spend. While they kept the truth from me, I suspect theirs was not a happy marriage.

  On the days when he wasn’t preparing briefs, or practising his court speeches, dad would throw himself into DIY. He always said he was secretly a frustrated builder — a stud wall here, a false ceiling there. He loved it and threw himself into the projects with child-like enthusiasm. However, even at a young age, it struck me that for someone with such a passion for home improvements he seemed to be particularly crap at it.

  I would lend a hand when he went into renovation mode. It was the only time me and dad interacted like father and son. The rest of the time he was cold and distant. There was something dark about my father I could never quite put my finger on. All I knew was, for the most part of my childhood, he was not a man I wanted to get too close to.

  Growing up I lived a largely solitary existence at the cottage. The friends in my head were rampant. I started setting fires in the woods nearby but my inbuilt reticence prevented me from going too far. I harboured fantasies of burning down the school, or some other public building, but never had the conviction to see it through. I trapped animals to torture and kill, which led to me thinking what it would be like to trap and kill a classmate. Despite the encouragement of my malicious friends, that never came to fruition either.

  My make-believe pals would goad me, driving me to escalating heights of cruelty. I knew it wasn’t right but it felt like a release every time I watched the life extinguish from the eyes of something struggling to free itself.

  I would love to say that I was abused as a child and that’s the reason for me being the way I am, or that I was subjected to an immense trauma, which fractured my personality, releasing my inner demon. But, none of that is true. I had to content myself with knowing I am the way I am because… just because.

  When we went into town I would spend the time in the public library while mum did her shopping. I devoured every book I could find about real life killers. I wasn’t interested in fictional crime novels. I wanted to read about the real thing – The Zodiac Killer, Donald Henry Gaskins, the Casanova Killer. They held me in a macabre grip of fascination.

  What made them tick? How did they get caught?

  All the while, searching for the answer to a question: Why did I feel this way? Was it a phase of growing up that would pass or would it stay with me for life?

  Eventually the librarian alerted my mum, telling her that she didn’t consider my reading habits appropriate for a boy of my age. So, that put an end to that. But I couldn’t switch off what was raging in my head. I would sit in class wondering if the children around me harboured the same thoughts. I would have asked, had it not been for the fact that no-one spoke to me.

  My earliest memory of feeling this way was when I stabbed a boy in the chest with the stem of a daffodil. I was six years of age and I didn’t know it wouldn’t kill him. I can remember him sitting next to me crying. He wouldn’t shut up. No matter what the teacher did, he kept on wailing. The stem broke and he stared at me in shock, his eyes as wide as saucers. Even now I can still feel the intense sense of disappointment.

  Mum waited a year after my dad’s death before turning her attention to the house. She must have considered twelve months to be a suitable mourning period. She went through our home itemising what needed to change.

  ‘That fireplace is so 1950’s and that arch has to go,’ I remember her saying. ‘No-one has a serving hatch between the kitchen and the dining room anymore and that wall can come down to open up the back of the house.’

  She scribbled notes
onto a pad as she went from room to room itemising the work to be done. I watched her with is distant curiosity,

  ‘We’re going to do the house up and sell it,’ she announced one day. ‘Move to a city where I can get a job and you can make new friends. You’d like that, Damien, wouldn’t you?’

  How the hell should I know? I’ve never lived in a city and I’ve never had any friends. And anyway, if that’s what you want to do, why not sell the bloody place?

  I suppose, it was mum’s way of making a fresh start, and knocking the house about was her way of exercising the ghost of my father.

  I can remember one morning sitting on my swing under the tree, watching as the builders arrived. Mum was excited and her voice carried over the sound of the flatbed lorry as it parked on the drive. The workmen bundled wheelbarrows, drills and toolboxes into the house. I envied them their hand tools and my mind turned to the damage I could inflict if I had them to play with in the woods.

  A big bloke walked to the house carrying two heavy sledge hammers, one in each hand. This guy wasn’t pissing about. The peace was shattered by the cacophony of thumping and banging as they were put to good use.

  Twenty minutes later everything was on stop. I went into the house to find mum sitting on the sofa crying and the builders mulling around in the next room.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘Mum, what’s the matter?’

  ‘Go to your room.’

  ‘But, what—’

  ‘Go to your room!’ she snapped. I knew it was serious because mum never yelled.

  I did as I was told and half an hour later I saw a police car pull up outside and two uniformed officers got out. I sat at the top of the stairs to listen to the murmured conversation. One of the coppers came into the hallway to use our telephone.

  ‘It looks like a human femur wrapped in plastic… yes, that’s right, Guv. It was hidden in the wall cavity… it fell onto the floor when they knocked a… yeah that’s right, she’s at the property now… I can see what looks like more body parts, you’d better get a team down here.’

  Uncovering human remains was not part of the contract and the builders made a sharp exit. Mum and I were moved into a hotel in town, which was great because I could walk to school.

  Two days later we were escorted back to the house to collect more of our belongings to find it looking like a giant block of Swiss cheese. There were holes everywhere, so many I wondered if the house might fall down. The police told mum they had discovered more body parts hidden in the wall cavities. I later found out that the remains of five people were lying in the morgue. I say remains because, despite the number of limbs, none of them matched to complete a full set.

  I remember mum was livid, more because her long-awaited renovation project was on hold rather than the consequence of finding out her husband was a killer. After a couple of days her moral compass corrected itself and she was devastated.

  Finding body parts in the wall cavity of our house was not the worst thing to happen that day. The worst thing was realising it was genetic. This was no temporary aberration. I was pre-disposed to feel the way I did.

  Killing was in my genes.

  Chapter 4

  I ’m sitting in court room number one — ready to go. Securing a guilty verdict when there’s no body is always a challenge, but in this case I’m relishing the battle. It’s my second celebrity trial and I have a vested interest in making this one stick.

  Well, when I say celebrity, I maybe over egging the pudding. Two second-rate models with ambitions way above their abilities wouldn’t normally flicker the paparazzi needle. But when one of them is accused of murdering the other it makes for great headlines.

  Despite my lack of sleep, I’m feeling remarkably fresh. The defence team have the floor today and are going all out to discredit the evidence and rubbish my arguments. They have their work cut out. I’m damned good at this game, even if I do say so myself.

  The judge lifted the reporting restrictions two weeks ago and the red-tops have had a field day. The best tag line to date has been to label the accused ‘The Catwalk Killer’ which is jumping the gun a little. After such an inflammatory start, the article was suitably vague to keep themselves out of court, though the nickname stuck. There are days when I arrive at court and have to fight my way through the forest of cameras waiting for the circus to roll into town.

  The defence have done a good job under difficult circumstances but by my estimation I have my neck in front and a guilty verdict is on the cards. The absence of a body goes in their favour but their relationship background goes in mine.

  Brendan and Tracey Bairstow married four years ago in a Hello magazine extravaganza designed to showcase two beautiful people on their magical day. However, the stunning photographs failed to depict a toxic relationship where serial infidelity was used as a weapon and physical abuse was the order of the day.

  Brendan worked for Peccadillo Associates, a leading fashion designer and model agency, while Tracey strutted her stuff for Welbourn Parade. Each one trying to out-do the other, each one busting a gut to elbow the other out of the limelight. But together they were the driving force behind Brand Bairstow which supplied an extensive make-up and clothing range to the young and trendy. She was the brains of the outfit and he hung onto her coattails and enjoyed the ride. Neither of them wanted to end their marriage however venomous it became; killing the golden goose was not part of the plan.

  Shackled together in the headlong pursuit of fame and fortune brought them into constant conflict from which neither shied away. That was until Brendan went missing six months ago.

  Before the trial started I had made the preliminary legal arguments that their previous violent behaviour and misconduct should be heard. The defence said it was inadmissible. I won and they lost.

  Strike one to me.

  Brendan had been reported missing by his agent when he failed to show up for work. I can’t wait to ask Tracey the question: ‘So, Ms Bairstow, can you explain to the court why you failed to report your husband missing, despite the fact that you were residing at the family home at the time?’

  She will burble an incomplete answer, providing me the opportunity to roast her at the stake. She’ll be a gibbering wreck when I’ve finished.

  Strike two to me.

  The defence team have coached her well and Tracey is nothing like her public persona. In the courtroom she is softly spoken and demure to the point of coyness; but in the public eye she’s a hard drinking, coke sniffing diva who flaunts her infidelity for all to see. In a society where woman-power is lauded over like a new religion, it serves to boost the brand. When she was snapped kissing her latest acquisition the headlines read ‘You Go Girl!’. Though I suspect a lot of what’s been reported is for show, a great deal of it is genuine. It would appear that blatant infidelity is the true badge of female empowerment.

  Brendan on the other hand has had to keep his tit-for-tat dalliances out of the papers. A man caught doing the same would be subject to a media flogging which would do the brand no good at all.

  The couple have had a field day playing out their pantomime of a life together in the full glare of the press while watching their brand develop a cult following. But their relationship hides an even darker side. Hospital admissions and police records tell a history of physical abuse on both sides and while her defence are trying to paint Tracey as the victim, it’s impossible to discount the evidence.

  In her statement Tracey will say that Brendan left the house one Saturday morning and she hasn’t seen him since. My guess is the jury will remain stony faced and not buy a word of it.

  My argument will be that she attacked her husband in a jealous rage, killed him and disposed of his body and his car. Her catalogue of violent behaviour will provide a background and context that will be hard to deny.

  Strike three to me.

  The trial is in its fourth week. I’ve been practising my closing remarks for some time and I’m confident I can sway the jury i
n my favour. The defence want to paint Tracey as a wronged-woman but it’s not working. I know it, and they know it. But they’re ploughing on regardless. She is due to take the stand in the next few days – I can’t wait.

  It makes my heart sing to see two people so deserving of their misfortune. She is beautiful, calculating and clever. He is equally beautiful and fucking useless.

  It’s important for me to convince the jury to deliver a guilty verdict even though I know Tracey Bairstow is an innocent woman. I can, hand on heart, confirm that Brendan left the family home fit and well on that Saturday morning and was a million miles way from being dead.

  In many ways Tracey Bairstow is as much of a victim as her dork of a husband.

  She didn’t kill Brendan.

  I did.

  Chapter 5

  M alice was the product of a Jamaican mother and English father. His family had come to Britain as part of the Windrush project and had made it their home. The marriage of a black woman to a white man had not gone down well in either camp and when they produced Khenan he was one of a kind in his neighbourhood.

  ‘So, are you white or black?’ his friends would ask.

  ‘Both I suppose,’ he would reply.

  ‘Kinda coffee like?’

  ‘Yeah, kinda.’

  ‘That’s cool. Let’s go play footie.’

  His dual heritage had never been an issue until he reached his teenage years, then the racial divide bit him in the arse like a rabid dog. Having friends of both colours no longer worked, you had to pick a side. Malice chose black. Mainly because, where he lived, they were in the majority. Life was easier that way.

  Malice pressed the doorbell and heard a melodic chime on the other side of the door. Waite had been right. Belinda Garrett had been missing for three days with no activity on her social media accounts, no phone calls or messages and no transactions on her bank account or credit cards — the woman had gone AWOL.