by Guy N Smith
“Midday, here in my office.”
“I’ll be there,” Ford promise.
He’d never talked to a shrink before. At least, it would be a new experience.
19.
Kate panicked. The board door of her secret cupboard would not slot in fully, possibly it had warped or else there was some dirt in the groove. Almost, but not quite. It wedged, balanced precariously. She was about to go back into the kitchen to fetch a knife to scrape out the shallow groove when she heard a key turn in the outer door. The lock clicked.
Fuck you, Paul, you’re not supposed to be home for another hour yet!
She had not anticipated him coming straight through to the bathroom. Until he was standing there in the open doorway, his expression one of surprise at seeming her climbing down from the footstool.
“What’s the matter, Kay?”
She moved the stool away with her foot, it gave her a second or two in which to come up with a plausible explanation. “The ball cock had stuck.”
“Run out of water, then?”
“Yes, but it’s okay now.”
“Maybe I’d better just check and …”
“No!” She grabbed up the stool a fraction too quickly; there was an air of desperation about her movements.
“All right, I bloody well won’t bother, then!” His gaze was uplifted. “Except that you haven’t put the board back properly. It’ll fall off any minute.”
She was aware of how she was sweating, she felt slightly dizzy. “I couldn’t give a shit if it does!”
“Fair enough,” he shrugged his shoulders petulantly. “In a pinky-pooh, are you?”
Anger, her fist balled, she got an urge to hit him, punch him full in his stupid, grinning face. And then bash him over the head with the stool. And then … No, please!
“I wasn’t expecting you back for another hour yet.”
“And I caught you hiding your stolen booty in your secret cache!” He laughed.
A joke, but it knotted her guts, had her feeling sick. “All right, go ahead and bloody well look, if you want to!” Oh, Jesus, don’t!
“I couldn’t give a shit!” his expression was suddenly serious, “I’ve got more than the header tank to worry about, I just wish you had got a secret hoard of cash up there.”
“Why?” A sudden sinking feeling that something was terribly wrong and it might affect herself. It was only herself that mattered. And the ducks on the lake.
“Finished!” He spread his hands wide. “That’s it, no more work. Instant redundancy and a fortnight’s wages to go through the door with!”
Oh, shitfire, that meant he’d be home all day with time on his hands. Starting tomorrow.
“Why’ve they made you redundant?” As if it bleeding well mattered, suffice that they had inflicted him on her privacy.
“Cost cutting. The recession. The local teams will send in their own match reports from now on. After all, who but the players and their relatives are interested in local football? Print a few names and everybody’s happy. Apparently, the Herald’s made a big loss; they’re getting rid of most of the junior reporters, just keeping the YTS kids. Cheap labour.”
So you won’t be able to afford the upkeep of a flat even if you can find one! The implication hit her hard. Spontaneously, she said, “I’ve come to a decision today. I’m giving up this place!”
“Whatever for?” He was incredulous.
“Too expensive. I can get a bedsit for half the money. Or one of those tiny tower block apartments which they can’t find tenants for because they’re damp and there’s a major design fault. They’re going to have to knock ‘em down, rebuild ‘em eventually. But in the meantime, anybody except dossers is welcome.” And I’ll see that you don’t have a free doss, not even on the floor.
“We’d better sit down and discuss what we’re going to do.”
“I phoned the council this morning.” Liar, but I’m calling them first thing tomorrow.
“Okay, if that’s the way you want it, fair enough. In the meantime, I’m starving. I’ll buy us a takeaway out of my fuck-off cheque.”
“I’d really like that,” she smiled. And whilst you’re gone I’ll fix that bloody board.
* * * *
It was almost like it had been between them weeks ago, sitting at the flimsy dining table, eating sweet and sour out of foil containers, slurping coke from cans. Almost, but not quite.
“All the newsroom can think about at the moment is this Black Mantis, as they call her,” Paul broke the awkward silence. “Doug wrote the front page leader, ‘Circumciser Turns To Murder – Police Hunt Black Mantis’. The Herald have already sold the story to three dailies, they’ll make a fortune out of it. More than enough to keep on a junior sports reporter.”
“The Black who?” Kate hoped that she made a good job of her feigned surprise.
“Christ, don’t tell me you haven’t heard!”
“I don’t read the papers, they’re all full of hyped gloom. They wouldn’t sell ‘em if they just stuck to the facts.”
“Well, this is fact with a capital ‘F’,” he spoke with a full mouth, something else which she had found increasingly irritating during their relationship. “Some avenging angel, or rather, a whore with a grudge, so the police think, circumcised a couple of her clients. A week ago she got another, only this time she amputated his dick; they found him in the old gasworks yard, bled to death and lay on a clump of nettles for a week. Downtown, apparently, they’ve got the jitters. Men are scared to go after tarts, so the tarts are going out of business. They won’t be able to buy their fixes so the druggies will be hit, too. Best thing that ever happened as far as the cops are concerned only they won’t admit it. I don’t reckon, personally, that they’ll catch her, any more than they’ll catch the Amanda Chapman killer. She’ll just go to ground. Unless she’s a complete nutter with a lust for slicing off foreskins and cocks.” He laughed, sprayed some grains of fried rice across the table.
“Charming, I don’t think,” Kate masticated steadily. “If that’s what sells the papers then we live in an even sicker society that I thought.”
“Which reminds me,” he dropped a hand below the table. “I’m still bloody sore, even now.”
“What are you on about?” She hoped she sounded bored with the conversation. Her stomach had knotted again, she didn’t know if she’d be able to finish her meal.
“What you did to me.”
“Oh , that! I’m sorry. I was asleep and angry.”
“Maybe you’re this mysterious circumciser,” he laughed coarsely. “Perhaps it’s just as well that I sleep on the living room floor!”
“Very funny!” She pushed the remnants of her food away from her. “This disgusting story has put me right off my food.”
“I’m sorry, Kay.”
I do apologise. Kate’s vision swam for a second. She scraped back her chair. “I’d be grateful in future if you’d keep your disgusting stories to yourself. In the meantime, I want to get a couple of pictures finished tonight.”
“I’m going down to the Aristocrat for a pint,” he spooned the last of the rice. “After tonight I might have to cut back on that, too.”
Which, for Kate was a very disconcerting thought.
* * * *
Paul was in the bedroom.
Kate stirred restlessly, sensed his presence in the darkness, heard him breathing, moving stealthily in bare feet. She tensed. Oh, shit, this was all she needed.
The ducks on the lake were fine, in her dream she had been down to the park to check. More had flown in from surrounding ponds, were feeding voraciously on a mass of soggy white bread. The shooters would not be coming because the gates were unlocked. Everything was fine.
Until now.
He must’ve somehow managed to wriggle the bolt loose. Or else she had forgotten to shoot it into place. That was more likely, his return from work and the news of his redundancy had been a shock, had distracted her.
She trembled.
With excitement.
Listening. She sensed him moving closer to the bed, smelled him. She knew that he was aroused because his body always gave off those faint, pleasant odours. Damn him.
“Are you asleep?” A whisper, he was leaning over the bed. Because if you are I’m going to wake you up.
“Uh-huh”, she groaned, whispered, “what the hell are you doing in here?”
“I don’t like sleeping out there on my own.”
“That was the agreement we made if you want to stay on here.”
“I know, but I was wondering if you would make an exception tonight. Just this once.”
“Why should I?”
He hesitated. “I’ve fixed that board in the bathroom. It fell off when I went in for a piss.”
Jesus! She sat up, grabbed the light pull over the bed, flooded the room with stark light from the unshaded bulb. Paul was standing there naked, fully aroused. Smiling.
Oh, shit. He knows!
She knew that he knew by the way he was smiling. Implied blackmail; screw or else.
She threw back the duvet, turned over on to her back. She always slept in an extra long T-shirt; a black one. It reached down almost to her knees. She grasped it with fingers that shook, drew it slowly upwards until its folds lay rumpled just below her navel. Her thighs moved, parted slowly until they were stretched lewdly. Hands behind her head, she regarded him steadily. Go on, look as much as you like, you bastard.
He knelt up against her, he was mocking her now. “The ball cock’s working fine,” he laughed.
“I’m delighted to hear it.”
“So Big Kay’s the Black Mantis!” He shook his head in amazement. “I should have guessed after what you did to me the last time. But you can’t do anything lying in bed, can you? I think maybe we can come to some arrangement so that the police don’t find your little cache!”
She wanted to scream ‘Don’t touch me. I can’t stand it,’ but instead she closed her eyes, resigned to the inevitable. Sex. I can take it or leave it, just help yourself and get it over with. Tell me when you’ve finished.
She blanked out her mind, it wasn’t hard to do in view of Paul’s discovery. Trying to work out a plan, remembering how it had taken them a week to find the guy in the gas works. They’d trace Paul back here, for sure, though. Which ruled out killing him.
“A partnership?” She spoke her thoughts aloud.
There was no reply. She peeped through half-closed eyelids. He was taking her steadily, savouring her, an expression of ecstasy on his face like there always used to be. And that was when her hand crept under the pillow, located the chunky oblong object, curled her fingers round it. She tested the blade, clicked it out, back in again. He was totally oblivious to what she was doing.
She felt him jerking, shuddering, looked again and saw how his back arched, his head was back and his eyes were closed. He had obviously finished. She waited for him to withdraw, pushed the blade out again.
She struck with unbelievable swiftness in one perfectly co-ordinated movement. Her body came upright with a litheness that belied her size, her left hand grabbed, her fingers found what they sought and stretched the elasticated, slippery flesh. Her right hand struck true, a sideways slash that severed with expertise.
With one bound she was off the bed, leaping for the door. Strange, it was bolted, he must have secured it behind him to trap her in the bedroom. She wriggled it free, stumbled for the bathroom. Behind her she heard him screaming, writhing on the blood splashed duvet, clutching his wound.
He was yelling. “Kay, Kay!”
She ignored his cries, struggled with the bathroom door handle; it was always temperamental, it needed a new spring. One day it would snap and either lock somebody in or out. It wouldn’t budge; she used her shoulder as a lever, still holding that piece of treasured, bloody flesh. You’ve seen, Paul, now you’re one of them.
Dizziness hit her, now she was using the handle to support herself, feeling consciousness ebbing from her. Her vision blurred, everything was going black. Just for a second, then it was light again; blinding light that seared her eyeballs, had her turning her head away.
“Kay, what’s the matter?”
Christ, he had followed her out here; she didn’t want to see him. A pang of pity, remorse, her lust had got the better of her, in a moment of impetuousness she had circumcised her lover. Her ex-lover. But it was his own fault, he had only himself to blame. He had forced his way into her bedroom, blackmailed her. Raped her.
I do apologise.
No. It’s too late to be sorry, you got what you asked for, you can’t complain.
“Kay, are you all right?”
“I’m fine, it’s you that’s …” That was when she turned and saw him, stared in disbelief, felt suddenly faint again.
Paul stood there, wearing just a pair of polka dot boxer shorts, concern rather than pain and anguish in his expression. There was no blood, he wasn’t clutching his groin.
The living room gyrated, steadied. Kate looked down at her hands. She wasn’t holding a length of severed flesh between her forefinger and thumb, flexed her fingers just to make sure. Something hard and cold nestled in the palm of her right hand; she gripped it, slid it behind her back just in case he noticed.
“I … I don’t understand …”
“You were sleepwalking,” he took her arm, held it firmly but gently. “Your shout woke me up, I heard you rush out of the bedroom. You look absolutely dreadful.”
“I … I feel sick, that’s all,” she pushed him away, tried the door handle again and this time it clicked downwards. “I guess I was feeling sick in my sleep, rushed for the bathroom. Just woke up, I’ll be okay, really I will. Please go back to bed, Paul, and leave me in peace.”
Reluctantly, he turned away. She let herself into the bathroom, bolted the door behind her. She glanced up almost afraid of what she might see. But the crude cupboard door was still wedged in place, jammed at the same angle which she had left it earlier. Precarious, but it had not been touched.
She walked unsteadily across to the bowl and threw up.
20.
Loony Liz hoped fervently that she might see something unusual in the red light area of the city. Because if she did, then she would be able to phone Mister Ford, tell him and talk to him. She even thought about a contrived call, making up something. Lying.
She changed her mind. He was a policeman, if he found out then he might arrest her for wasting police time. Not that she objected to being arrested by him because he touched her then, sent a tingling feeling all over her. He had taken her in for soliciting on more than one occasion. But she decided to play it by the rules, really try to see something which she could report.
They had found a dead man in the compound of the old gas works; it would have worried her if the corpse had been female because that would have meant that Amanda Chapman’s killer had struck again. If another dead prostitute was found then Liz would keep off the streets. Most of the other girls on this beat had ducked for cover already but that was because of the latest police purge. If you were picked up then you might find yourself charged with murder. The pressure was on the cops to find the Black Mantis; she was more important to them now than the killer or a whore. They wanted a conviction at any cost.
They said she was in her mid to late twenties, big and fair and always dressed in black. Liz didn’t know what a Black Mantis was but it sounded scary.
Neither did she understand about circumcision. Why would any man want to have his foreskin cut off? And why would a woman want to circumcise a man against his will? And now this mystery woman had cut off a guy’s prick . That was understandable, the way some men treated street girls.
Still, the Black Mantis wouldn’t hurt her, she didn’t bother with women, she only preyed on men. And Sergeant Ford wouldn’t arrest Liz for soliciting, that was exactly what he has asked her to do. It was like an amnesty, the only time when you could stand and wait for a client without fear of prosecut
ion.
Liz decided to make the most of it, and if she noticed anything suspicious, however insignificant, then she would walk down to the kiosk on the corner of Barker Street and ring Ford. And he would come down right away. Whichever way you looked at it, tonight was an unprecedented bonus.
She pulled up the hood of her duffel coat, hid her face in shadow. She was under no delusion about her looks; she liked to have a bloke’s money in her pocket before she let him see her. That way he wouldn’t ask for his money back. She was ugly, all right, but she didn’t have BO. She had certainly never been aware of it.
She only saw a couple of prostitutes on her way down the street, usually every doorway and alley was occupied. One of the girls called out as Liz passed by; she ignored the insult, the other just didn’t like competition.
On a good night Liz might have up to ten clients. All quickies. She offered them a stand-up job much cheaper than one on the back seat of a crawler’s car. After all, it was only mating, like cats and dogs did and they didn’t make a lengthy process of it. That cost you money. By the time a bloke had found a suitable place to park up, done what he wanted and, hopefully, driven you back to where he’d picked you up, you could have served another couple of customers. Another thing, the risk was greater in a car, he could do you in, drive your body to wherever he wanted to dump it. That way you ended up like Amanda Chapman.
So, Liz always stuck to the straightforward, nothing fancy. If a client wanted to play about then there were plenty of other women who would give him what he wanted, and charge him for it. She wouldn’t do anything outside the norm. No, sir! Except, perhaps, for Ford. She’d do just anything he asked.
Strewth! The man gave her a start; he must have come up the alley from the bottom end by the demolition site. She jumped, peered in the dim orange glow cast by the streetlights.
“Is that …” for a moment she half thought that it was Ford but this guy was even shorter than the detective.
