by Morton Bain
I really should get some sleep. I could have a wank as a way of inducing tiredness, but the thought of waking Lucy up and forcing myself on her appeals to me more. We haven’t had sex in about a year. If I don’t stick something up her cunt soon it will probably heal over.
I start shaking my wife’s shoulder. She grunts. I shake her more violently. An arm swings out and catches me in the face. ‘Oi, you bitch,’ I mutter. She still isn’t properly awake. There’s a glass of water on my bedside table, so I slosh its contents over her.
‘Whaaaat?’ she moans, hoisting herself up onto an elbow.
‘Sorry, darling,’ I say. ‘I was having a sip of water, and had a little accident.’
Lucy turns her bedside lamp on and stares at me through half-closed eyes. ‘What time is it?’
‘No idea.’
She switches the lamp off and puts her head back on the pillow. I snuggle into her and put a hand down her pyjama bottoms. Her arse is so hot you could boil an egg on it.
‘Not now, sweetie. I need to sleep.’
‘We haven’t made love for ages,’ I whisper. ‘I hope our relationship isn’t being damaged by our lack of closeness.’
Lucy nestles into me. I’ve just pressed a BUTTON. A big button, one that always jolts her. She puts an arm around me and purrs. I’ve just been flashed a green light, but now I’ve lost interest. She should have put up a bit more of fight, pleaded tiredness for longer. I’ve got her to agree to fuck me, and now I’m going to pour a bucket of water on her misguided passion.
‘I don’t want to force you,’ I whisper.
‘No,’ she says with pussy-warmth. ‘You’re not forcing me. I want sex.’
‘I feel bad. I’m going to let you sleep.’
Lucy puts her hand on my cock. ‘You can’t sleep yet.’
‘Goodnight,’ I say, before turning over.
Lucy paws at me for a few minutes, but I remain motionless, and after a while she turns away from me. I hear a whimper and a strangled sob, but a few minutes later her breathing regulates to that of a sleeper.
I give it another couple of minutes, then pull my boxers down and grab my cock. I prefer to masturbate to pornography, but I can’t be arsed to get up and switch my laptop on. The bed starts to squeak and rock as I get going. I find the thought of Lucy waking up and finding me pleasuring myself a turn-on, and consequently the rocking soon stops. I wipe a smear of cum on Lucy’s pyjamas, then turn over to rub the rest onto the sheet. I would get up and take a shower, but I can’t be arsed. I’m now feeling like I can probably get some sleep.
The next morning I decide to check out the cashpoint and make sure it really is going to be a suitable means of victim selection. Walking down a dusty Bethnal Green Road, I become aware for the first time of the huge number of CCTV cameras trained on shoppers. There seems to be a camera every twenty yards, and I’m sure there are plenty of concealed ones that I don’t spot. Watching crime documentaries and reading the paper are enough to have taught me that when I start murdering CCTV will be crucial to the cops in trying to collar me. I have to neutralise this threat. I’m well enough known in the community to be recognisable to a significant proportion of local residents. Just as I’m having this thought a woman in a niqab walks past, and I have a light bulb moment. What a perfect disguise. Could I . . .? I’m five ten – taller than most Muslim women, but not so tall I would look ridiculous. I don’t have womanly proportions, but some padding around the backside and a pair of those fake tits would probably do the trick.
I go into the chosen cafe opposite and order a coffee, taking a stool at a counter that runs the length of the window, and which gives me a perfect view of the bank. It’s just after eleven o’clock, and I observe that the machine is in steady use. Never a queue, but someone seems to come along every couple of minutes or so. Most people withdrawing cash seem to be over fifty, which I guess makes sense given that most people under that age are at work, school or in nappies.
I’m so busy with my thoughts I don’t notice the figure looming over me at first. I turn, and with a start see that Malcolm is waiting to join me. Malcolm is a member of my congregation who I’ve socialised with on a number of occasions since joining my church. We have a relationship of mutual tolerance, which sometimes tips into full-blown liking. Malcolm works as a social worker.
‘Malcolm!’ I say. ‘Not at work?’
‘Day off. Haven’t taken enough time off this year and was in danger of losing some paid leave.’ The man scratches his beard, an annoying habit that leaves me feeling I’ve got an itchy face if I spend too long in his company.
‘Well, we can’t have that. You need to be properly rested to look after your caseload.’
‘Most of my caseload are beyond helping, but that’s another story.’ Malcolm plonks himself onto a stool. ‘I was going to ask you, where’s that Julia Walker been recently? Haven’t seen her at church in about a month.’
Malcolm’s primary reason for regular church attendance is to prey on single middle aged women that attend – a reason that I applaud because when he’s sticking his dick into a given member of my congregation she’ll likely be making fewer demands on me – and Julia Walker is an attractive forty-four year old divorcee that he’s had his eyes on for some time. She’s also recently become a Buddhist and ceased attending church. I break the news as gently as I can.
‘Buddhism?’
‘Yeah, apparently. I heard through Jackie Smarteens.’
Malcolm pauses to allow this news to sink in, then has another beard scratch, before saying, ‘What a shame.’
‘You’re referring to her spiritual wellbeing, no doubt?’
‘Yes. Yes, of course. A real shame.’
‘There are other waverers you could be reaching out to,’ I comment.
‘Mary Chambers, I suppose. She used to be a Page 3 Girl. Did you know that?’
‘No, but it’s not altogether surprising.’
‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ Malcolm asks. ‘Unlike you to be whiling away the morning over a cappuccino.’
I stir my coffee. ‘Just pausing for thought. Watching the world go by.’
‘A question for you,’ Malcolm says. ‘Do you think Hell really exists?’
‘I hope not,’ I reply, a little too quickly.
‘You mean that?’
‘Well, not exactly. It would put us vicars out of business if there weren’t a Hell or a Devil. Why do you ask?’
‘I dunno. Had a dream last night. Can’t remember all the details, but I think it involved me being in Hell.’
‘Hasn’t regular attendance at church for the last twenty years convinced you that Hell exists, but that you’re not going there?’ I ask.
‘Not really.’
I have to admire Malcolm’s honesty. ‘Well, I wouldn’t worry about it too much. If you’re going there, so are most people.’
Malcolm opens his mouth to say something, and I fear it will be more Hell waffle, but I distract him by saying, ‘Hey, look. Isn’t that your brother?’ I point to an untidy looking man in a grey suit who is walking on the side of the pavement farthest from us.
‘Yes, that’s Graham. Must have popped out for an early lunch.’
I only know Graham through having married him. He got hitched to his third wife the year before. He is a fairly unremarkable person from what I can gather, and I would normally have no interest in talking about him. He is, however, a policeman, and in light of my recent plans I now have a few questions. ‘How long has your brother been a copper?’ I ask Malcolm.
‘He went into the force straight from school. Had his heart set on wearing the uniform from the age of about eight.’
‘What does he do in the force?’
‘He’s a detective. I’m not sure which area he’s working in at the moment, but he’s done vice, murder – robbery as well.’
‘He must have a few interesting stories to tell.’
‘Yeah, but he only talks about the really juicy cases
he’s worked on if he’s had a few drinks. Otherwise he’s really hush-hush about it all.’
‘I remember someone telling me that the psychological make-up of detectives is often very similar to that of criminals. I wonder if there’s anything to that?’
‘I wouldn’t know. Saying that, I know a lot of cops are a bit crazy. They sleep around a lot, and loads of them have a drinking problem.’
After we’ve finished our coffees we leave and go our separate ways. I’m in state of excitement as I drift down the road, as if I’m just about to slit a throat, not several weeks away from my first kill, as is probably the case. As I stare through the window of a stationery shop I suddenly remember the recurring dream that has haunted me since my youth. In it I have killed someone – sometimes recently, sometimes many years before – and I am now confronted by the imminent risk of the body being found. Normally I’m aware of some digging going on in the vicinity of the buried body, and am convinced the corpse is on the verge of being discovered. I wonder idly whether these dreams were foretelling my new ambition, or whether they are just symbolic of a subconscious urge. I can’t say I really care either way.
Approaching my car, parked on a residential road that runs at right angles to the main shopping drag, I notice a shadow over my left shoulder. I turn, expecting to see a tall man about to overtake me, but there’s no-one there. The shadow reappears as I’m walking up to the front door of my house. Again I turn, and again there’s no-one there. I begin to wonder whether there’s something wrong with my eyesight. The dark blur is not totally unlike the halo effect I used to get when I suffered from migraines during my teens – just that it’s darker, and affects only my peripheral vision.
The memory of my teenage affliction brings back all sorts of stuff. I remember my first girlfriend, a fatty called Polly Anderson. I went out with her for two weeks, just long enough to lose my virginity, after which I dumped her. At about the same time that I was going out with Polly I killed a cat. A neighbour had a fat tabby, which I befriended over a number of weeks by leaving saucers of milk and pieces of fish for it in the back garden. Eventually, when it was used to me, I grabbed it. Feeling the warmth of the cat’s body through its fur, I struggled with the animal for a few moments as it struggled to get away. The cat clawed and struggled like crazy; I think it sensed that my intentions were not good. Eventually I managed to get it into a sports bag, which I zipped up with some difficulty. The cat kept sticking its paws in the way of the zipper, clawing at my fingers as I tried to get the bag closed. The cat became so frantic after it had been contained that the bag began to move as it lay on the grass of our back garden. My mother came out of the house at this point to hang up some laundry, and I had to quickly move the bag to the little alley at the side of our house. The cat stayed there for about half an hour while I waited for my mother to finish outside. I was dying to get on with my fun, but having this stay of execution forced me to put some thought into the disposal process. When my mother went back inside the house I was ready. It was summer, and we had a paddling pool in the back yard. My younger sister Clare had been using it the day before, so it still had six inches of water in it. I grabbed the bag and tossed it into the pool. I could see straight away that the depth of water would do no more than soak the pussy, so I got the garden hose and started to fill the pool up. The cat really started going for it as the water got deeper, limbs pummelling the bag as water rose around it. I actually almost dragged the cat out at this point. I felt what must be a feeling akin to sympathy, just for the briefest of moments. I didn’t though. I let the water rise until the bag was fully submerged, and the cat’s struggles had pretty much ceased, then turned the hose off. I waited about thirty seconds, then pulled the bag out of the pool.
At this point Mrs Jackson from next door stuck her head over the fence and asked me what I was doing. She said is with a smile on her face, so I knew she didn’t have a clue what I was up to. It was her cat I was torturing. Just mucking around, I told her. She raised a hand in acknowledgement, then disappeared, as if a decapitated head had just fallen off the fence. Turning my attention to the bag, a total lack of movement from within made me think I’d gone and drowned the cat. I was just about to give up and throw the bag in the rubbish, when a barely detectible bulging of the carrier showed that the cat still had one of its lives left. The next step was daring, even by my standards. I attached a long section of cord to the bag’s handle, then took the bag out to the front of the house, crossed the road with it, and dumped it on the footpath. Walking back to our front garden, I took up a position by the hedge that separated the small square of grass from the pavement. I wasn’t ready when the first car passed, and missed my opportunity to pull the cord. There followed a wait of about ten minutes, until finally a yellow Volkswagen van came into sight. When it was about twenty metres from the bag, I gave the rope an almighty tug, and the cat lurched onto the road. I had applied just the right amount of force, as the front left wheel of the vehicle passed over the centre of the bag. Even from where I was crouching, I could hear the crack of bones as the cat was run over.
This reverie has so totally consumed me that I suddenly find myself in the kitchen with a knife in my hand, no memory of having walked into this room or picking up this implement. I realise I am hungry, and guess that I must have been planning on making a sandwich. I get on with this, grabbing a loaf and starting to saw off a couple of thick slices. As I cut the bread I revel in the feel of the knife’s handle. It fits my hand perfectly. I imagine that instead of cutting bread I’m taking off someone’s limb. I know an arm could never be chopped off as easily, but it’s fun to imagine.
I hear footsteps and whirl around, knife brandished offensively. It’s only Lucy, and she looks at me with alarm as I hold the knife between us, point aimed at her.
‘Put that thing down,’ she says. ‘You look like you’re about to attack me.’
The thought occurs to me that I could do just that. Lunge at her, stab her four or five times, then stand back and watch as she bleeds out on the floor. This healthy woman of thirty-eight could be stiff and cold in a matter of minutes. The instinct is getting stronger all the time. I could kill Lucy very easily this afternoon, but by tomorrow morning I’d be in a prison cell. No, killing will not be done at the expense of my liberty.
‘Sorry, darling,’ I say, putting the knife down. ‘You gave me a fright.’
Lucy pokes her tongue out at me.
‘You look tired,’ I say. ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’ I love this sort of thing, having evil thoughts, but masking them so completely in my well-rehearsed nice act. No-one does it better than me.
Lucy smiles. ‘You could wash up, I guess. And think about getting someone out to fix the dishwasher. It’s only since it broke that I’ve come to realise how much I rely on it.’
‘Leave it to me,’ I reply, reaching for the kitchen gloves.
‘Don’t you want to finish making your sandwich?’ Lucy asks.
‘No, let me get this out of the way first.’
As I wash up, Lucy humming in the background, my thoughts return to the question of exercising self-control and taking precautions when I commence my killing. I’m going to have to do some research, I realise, on things like forensic science, police investigative methods, and clear-up rates for murder. I know that detection rates for murders involving people who know each other are very high – probably over ninety-five percent – but I’ll be interested to see what they are for stranger killings. My experience of the police up to this point has led me to have a very low opinion of them. I’ve only really encountered them following a couple of burglaries, and they’ve always come across as being quite thick – certainly not the sort of people I’d have much faith in to solve a crime committed by a clever and careful person. Detective shows and the media give the impression that the police are pro-active and successful crime-fighters, but I suspect this flatters them. What sort of person becomes a policeman? Someone who isn’t smart
enough to become a lawyer or doctor, who likes bossing people around (due to low self-esteem most of the time), and who has a calcified sense of right and wrong. The very last person I’d want to spend any time with, in other words. Nevertheless, amongst proper detectives there are bound to be a few smart cookies, so I’m going to need to be careful. Even if I don’t come up against sharp cops, the police have man-hours, CCTV and the media on their side.
I eat my sandwich in the living room with the news on the television. The second item in the broadcast is a report on the arrest of a man for the murder of his ex-partner. An unflattering photograph of a bald fatty flashes up on the screen. Talk about the very stupid making the police’s job easy for them. You have a bust up with your old lady, who kicks you out of the house. What do you not do? What you do not do is go around there and stab her. The guy was probably better off without her, anyhow, something he would have realised after the shock of being dumped had passed, and now, because of this idiot’s rashness, he has to spend the next twenty years behind bars, watching his back lest he get bummed. Actually, this particular man is unlikely to get bummed. Even the most short-sighted gay would think twice about anally violating him. I’m really getting quite impatient to start killing, so I can show the rest of the country’s murderers how it’s done.
I remember reading the novel ‘American Psycho’ about ten years earlier. Now that’s a book that definitely wasn’t written by a real psycho. ‘American Poof’ would have been a better title for it. My memory of the storyline is hazy, but the fact that a scene involving business cards is foremost in my mind says it all. The novel’s main character is obsessed with material objects and looking good, presumably because the author read somewhere that narcissism is on the same psychological spectrum as psychopathy. What he fails to realise, because he isn’t a proper psycho, is that the sort of narcissism that overlaps with psychopathy is the type that transcends physical objects. It is my spiritual destiny to kill, I’m coming to realise, a birthright that I inherited on account of my innate ability to see society’s rules for what they are – bullshit. Any muppet can wear an Armani suit. Only I and a select group of others view the world in the way I do.
