by Morton Bain
‘The match was probably out when it landed,’ I say.
Courtney grunts. ‘This should do it.’ He picks up a muddy piece of newspaper. Without rain for the last few days it’s dry. The man strikes another match and holds it to one corner of the paper. Flames rapidly take hold, and Courtney has to move quickly to throw it into the car before burning his fingers. This second attempt works, and within seconds flames have filled the interior of the vehicle. ‘Get well back,’ Courtney shouts. ‘It’s got a full tank of gas.’
I move backwards, marvelling at how quickly the flames are taking hold.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ Courtney says. ‘We should go different ways so we’re not seen together.’
‘You head left at the bottom of the road,’ I say. ‘I’ll give you five minutes then go right.’
‘Okay my man. Be in touch. Keep safe.’
Twenty minutes later I’ve put half a mile between the burning car and myself. I jump on a bus that takes me to within ten minutes walk of my house. I’m not quite ready to go home, though. The excitement of the last few hours hasn’t left me, and I can think of only one way of quickly dissipating it. I’m going to get laid. My experience enables me to quickly navigate to a good brothel; I even have a good idea who’s going to be on this afternoon. I press a door buzzer and a crackly voice says, ‘Hello?’
‘Hello,’ I say in return.
‘Push the door, darling.’
I do as instructed, and find myself in a whore-lock. A short stretch of corridor separates the outer door from an inner door. A sign on the wall instructs visitors to look up at the camera above the inner door, which I duly do. Image of my face captured, the inner door is released and I push through to a flight of steps that takes me up to the flat’s first floor.
A middle-aged maid wearing a stained T-shirt greets me at the top of the stairs. ‘Hey, babe.’
‘Hi there.’
‘Haven’t seen you in a couple of weeks . . . How you been?’
‘Bearing up.’
‘Come on through. Yes, into that bedroom there. I’ll get the girls to come and introduce themselves.’
I sit on the bed in a room that is quite neutral in its decoration. Apart from the pile of condoms and tube of KY Jelly on the bedside table there is little to suggest I’m in a brothel. After a couple of minutes the first girl appears. ‘Hello, I’m Monica,’ she says, with a smile that seems quite genuine. She’s about five foot eight with shoulder length brown hair and a nice figure. Accent suggests she’s Eastern European.
‘Hello,’ I say. So far so good.
The next girl in is called Sandy. She’s shorter than Monica, with quite a big arse. Very pretty face, though. Blonde hair and blue eyes. She sounds like a Londoner.
The maid appears shortly after Sandy leaves. ‘So, sweetheart. Either of our girls appeal to you today?’
‘Yes, I think I’ll go with Sandy.’
‘You won’t be disappointed. I’ll send her in.’
Sandy walks in a couple of moments later with a smirk on her face. She does a little jig in the in the centre of the room and performs a mock-curtsey. I like it when whores are in a playful mood like this. It normally means the sex is going to be good.
‘So, what’s it going to be?’ she asks.
‘Straight sex for half an hour should be fine. If I’m having lots of fun I might extend.’
‘Oh, you will be having lots of fun.’
‘I hope so!’
I hand over the agreed payment, and Sandy walks out to deliver this to the maid. I use her brief absence to disrobe and make myself comfortable on the bed, lying face down. Soon I hear the door squeak, and footsteps making their way towards me. A hand slaps me on the arse, making me start. The blow doesn’t exactly hurt, but I certainly feel it.
‘That woke you up,’ Sandy says, straddling me. She gets to work on my neck, massaging it firmly. Every time she leans forward I can feel her nipples graze my back. I groan appreciatively.
‘How long you been doing this?’ I ask. I can’t help making small talk with working girls.
‘About three years. I only work two days a week. Putting some money aside to start my own business.’
This is what they all say. They’re all doing it part-time to fund their Big Dream. The reality is normally that they’re doing it full-time to fund their Big Habit.
‘How about you?’ Sandy asks.
‘Me?’
‘How long you been doing it?’
I laugh. ‘Of course. Longer than you. About ten years. It’s just so much more convenient than wining and dining women.’
‘I guess . . .’ Sandy falls silent as she concentrates on massaging my back. After a few minutes of digital manipulation she says, ‘The house I worked at until a month ago had the weirdest thing going on . . .’
‘How so?’
‘There was a woman working there in her forties. Really pretty. She could have passed for thirty-two. Anyway, one of her regulars was her son!’
‘What?’
‘Yeah. Her son was blind and used to come every two weeks with a friend. He really liked this woman who happened to be his mother. Used to keep coming every second Friday when she was on. We couldn’t believe she would fuck him. She was pretty screwed up. We couldn’t believe the son didn’t figure out who he was screwing either. You know, blind people are meant to have a really good sense of smell and all that. You’d have thought her smell and her voice would have given her away.’
‘That’s sick,’ I say. ‘She must have gotten a kick out of it. And the son must have guessed who he was screwing. You wonder why they just didn’t just do it at home and save all the hassle.’
‘Yeah . . .’
We fall silent as Sandy concentrates on my back. Her massage technique is a rough and arrhythmic. She alternates between being too hard and too soft. My mind wanders to the blind punter. And I think I’m fucked up . . .
‘You ready to turn over?’ Sandy asks.
I oblige, grabbing a handful of tit in the process.
‘Naughty!’ Sandy says. ‘Do you like my labia reduction?’ She lifts herself up to make her groin region more visible.
‘Your what?’
‘I used to have a big labia that flapped around. Some men liked it, but it always used to bother me. Got it reduced to about half its original size.’ She leans back and splays her pussy.
‘It’s looking pretty tidy now,’ I concede.
‘Wanna suck it?’
I don’t normally like going down on whores, but what the hell. While I’m slurping away I think ‘forget whorehouse, I’m in a nuthouse’. I come up for air and say, ‘Did they put you to sleep to do the reduction?’
‘No, local anaesthetic. They stick a needle into your flaps – which hurts like hell – then ten minutes later you don’t feel anything. Only took about fifteen minutes.’
‘Pretty quick.’
‘Yeah. Took about two months to heal up properly. Couldn’t work during that time – obviously.’
I stare down at Sandy’s pussy for a second, before giving it another lick.
Sandy continues, ‘I screamed like hell when they put the needle in me. It was kind of weird, ‘cos I’m used to screaming when men put long things that squirt liquid in my pussy, and there I was, screaming when a man put a long thing that squirted liquid in my pussy.’
‘Interesting observation,’ I say. Then I fuck her properly.
The phone rings soon after I get home. It’s Marcus, an old acquaintance from university. ‘You’ll never guess what,’ he says.
‘What?’
‘Jake’s out.’
I allow a few seconds for this news to sink in before saying, ‘How do you know?’
‘James got a call from him.’
‘Shit. I mean, that’s great.’
This isn’t unexpected news, but I thought his release date was a few months off. Everything seems to be happening at the same time, I think to myself. I make small t
alk with Marcus for a few minutes before ending the call with an excuse about needing to go to the toilet.
Jake’s release gives me plenty to think about. I don’t want to have to kill him, because the connection between us is too strong and too well known. At the same time, if I have to make a choice between killing and being killed, I know which one I’ll go for.
That night I’m surprised to see a report on the news about another killer who has been operating in East London. He’s been dubbed the Bouquet Killer, because he always leaves a bunch of flowers on the torso of his victims. The news item says that he’s killed five times, and that there are no solid leads as to his identity. An obvious thought occurs to me. Why don’t I imitate this person? Kill and leave a bouquet of flowers? It will muck up the police’s investigation by introducing a random element into any pattern identification they’ve been trying to use as part of their attempt to catch this person, and might make my capture less likely as well.
This thought develops over the coming days until I feel I’m almost ready for action. How, then, to select my next victim? From visiting an elderly woman who attends my church I know of another lady who lives alone in the bungalow next to hers. She’s in her early eighties, quite infirm, and gets very few visits. My parishioner once even mentioned that she keeps a spare door key under a flowerpot by her front door. And why wouldn’t she mention this in passing? How’s a vicar going to abuse this information? An ideal target in many respects. I settle on the following Monday evening as my kill date. I decide to buy my wife a large bouquet of flowers the next day (Friday). That way if the purchase of flowers is traced to me I’ll have the perfect explanation for my actions. The flowers I leave on the old lady will come from Lucy’s bunch.
Monday evening arrives, and I’m pretty much ready to rock. My excuse to Lucy for being out in the evening is a spot of night fishing – something I am genuinely fond of but haven’t done for many months. Having a tackle box to load into the car is useful, as I can pack my killing paraphernalia away in it. ‘Shouldn’t be more than five or six hours,’ I tell Lucy before leaving the house. ‘Depends on how busy the fish are.’
I park my car a good two minute walk from my target’s house. I take facemask, surgical gloves, snooker ball, a pair of shoe protectors, bunch of flowers and large knife from my tackle box – then return the knife. My intended victim is elderly and I should be able to send her on her way with my bare hands if I need to. Better to leave potential evidence behind and rely on knives I’ll be able to find at her house. I pack my stuff into a Tesco bag and head off.
Approaching the house, I’m pleased to see that it’s dark. Some of these old coots are night owls, and I don’t want to have to hang around until four am. I do a circuit of the dwelling, checking there aren’t any lights on. There aren’t. I head to the rear garden where I’m pretty much hidden from neighbours and passers-by and prepare myself for entry. On go shoe-protectors (cheaper than discarding every pair of shoes I wear on these sorties), facemask, surgical gloves and cap. I’m wearing a long waterproof coat designed to protect decorators from paint. Each of these items is designed to protect me from shedding DNA evidence, and will be burnt after I’m done.
Looking like a cross between a doctor and painter, I walk around to the front of the house. I should have checked that the key I’m expecting to find is actually there before donning my killing garb, but I locate it easily enough, under the flowerpot as expected. Looking around to check I’m not being observed, I unlock the front door and enter the house.
The house has a musty, old-lady smell about it. It reminds me of summer homes that aren’t lived in much. I guess at eighty-two my target isn’t living in it as much as she would have been thirty years ago. There’s less movement, less laughter, less consumption, less of a future. The front door opens onto an open plan living area. I peer around, making out plenty of dated furniture, but not the house owner. There are two doors to the left, both closed. I begin to turn the handle of the first, when I realise I haven’t armed myself. Scanning the living area, I see a serving hatch that indicates the location of the kitchen. I creep into this room, quickly locating a large carving knife. Returning to the living room, I place my bouquet of flowers on the carpet, then turn the handle of the door nearest the front door. It opens to reveal a bedroom, but obviously a spare bedroom, as it contains a single bed, which is unoccupied. I move onto the second door, which opens with a squeak. A lump under the duvet and the sound of snoring indicates I’ve hit gold. I turn the light on. The old lady doesn’t stir, so I walk over to her and say loudly, ‘Your time has come!’
The woman jerks and sits up in bed. ‘Who? What? Who is this?’
‘It’s time for you to be reunited with Ethel and Audrey and Rose,’ I say. My voice is somewhat muffled by my facemask.
‘Who are you?’ the old woman asks. She still hasn’t screamed, I have to give her credit for that.
‘I’m a full stop.’
‘A what?’ She draws the duvet up, covering her face from the nose down.
‘A full stop. Your full stop. You know the punctuation mark? I’m going to bring you to an end. Now!’ I lift the knife high, and bring it down with a smooth sweeping action, its point connecting with the woman’s throat.
The old lady tries to scream, but the sound comes out as a gurgle. I jump excitedly, then hop around to the other side of the bed. The woman tries to get out of bed, but collapses face down on the carpet. I want to be able to see my victim as I stab her, so I roll her over, then start to stab her in a frenzy. Pretty soon her face and torso are reduced to a bloody pulp. Torn shreds of nightdress mingle seamlessly with scraps of pulverised flesh. I don’t clock the moment she expires, but I imagine it’s pretty quickly. Her face is so mashed up it wouldn’t easily reveal the moment of her passing.
When I’m finished I stand up, panting. The woman’s motionless body lies in a pool of blood. I can really smell the iron in the blood. I look down at my own body and see plenty of blood spattering my clothes protector and hands. I feel a wonderful stillness, like the world’s suddenly stopped turning. Before I forget, I open the woman’s mouth and pop a yellow snooker ball into her gob. I then retrieve the bouquet of flowers from the living room and throw them on the dead lady’s chest. Figure that one out, plod.
On the basis that the newly deceased woman is unlikely to get visitors in the early hours of the morning, I don’t rush my departure. I first of all grab a toothbrush from the bathroom, after which I decide to have a bit of a snoop around. I go back to the woman’s bedroom and open a cupboard door. It’s full of old lady clothes. A shelf at the top is stacked high with shoe boxes, and I pull one of these down. Opening it up, I see it’s full of old black and white photographs. I tip them on the floor and spread them out. Most of them are boring snaps of people, with a few of coastal scenes – Devon or Cornwall at a guess – but I’m surprised to see a couple of nudes and even some showing sexual activity. I pick up one which shows a buxom woman kneeling before a man with a scar running down his thigh. She’s giving him head. Could this woman be the old lady I’ve just killed? If so, I’m not sorry for her, but I do have more respect for her. We’re all young once. The wrinkled face deceives. It suggests an innocence and incapacity for action that is misleading.
I pull down another shoe box. This one contains several old books – early Aldous Huxley titles complete with their dustwrappers – along with a handgun. What the fuck? I swing the chamber open and see it contains six bullets. I decide I’ll keep the gun. It might come in handy later.
I almost help myself to a large sherry before leaving, but realise that leaving DNA on a glass wouldn’t be a clever idea. I make a final sweep of the house to check that I haven’t left any evidence behind, then make my way to the front door. I open it a crack and spend a few moments watching the road for anyone that might be walking around. When I’m sure I won’t be observed I leave.
Chapter Six
The next Sunday I make an announ
cement at church, asking for volunteers to take in kids from Haiti for a week. The kids will actually be in the U.K. for two weeks, but I figure I’ll get more takers if I say a week to begin with. I’ll let any families that come forward know the proper stay length after they’re committed. ‘These children have had a truly traumatic time,’ I explain to my congregation. ‘Since the earthquake they’ve been living in camps, with little food and no sanitation. What’s worse, crocodiles have moved in, snapping up anyone that isn’t fast enough to outrun them. The reptiles particularly like albinos, whom scientists think they mistake for fish that walk on land.’ This, of course, is bullshit, but I want plenty of hands up for this one. ‘So please, remember the privileges we enjoy living in this country, and consider whether you’d be willing to help these poor children . . .’ By five o’clock that afternoon I have eight emails from people with a bed to spare.
The next day I head over to Joey’s place for a business meeting. We have the whores to talk about, plus the coke-smuggling nuns. Joey’s particularly concerned about the girls who have been staying at the convent. Some of them are getting a bit stroppy about being kept there, and not all of the nuns are convinced about having them as guests either. ‘I want you to go over and smooth things over with everyone,’ Joey says to me. ‘Use the Bible, use money, use your dick. We need to be able to store those bitches there. Those whores I had in my cellar drove me crazy after about a week. The place stank.’ Turning to Courtney he says, ‘Can you hurry up some of our buyers? If they place an order for women, I want them picked within a week. If they’re not ready to take delivery of the girls they shouldn’t be ordering.’
Courtney and I nod our understanding.
‘I don’t want to have to get New Jersey involved in the logistics here,’ Joey continues. ‘We have to be able to show that we can handle things on our own. Which leads me to another thing. We probably need some more manpower. Anyone know of someone who might be able to help out?’
