Without Conscience

by Michael Kerr

  Gemma had been playing tennis on a warm spring day with a girlfriend from Middleburg, Virginia, who was on vacation in the UK. She had thrown herself sideways in an attempt to return a serve, and suffered massive heart attack. The friend had phoned the emergency services, and attempted to revive Gemma with CPR, but she was gone. All dreams can be snuffed out quicker than a candle. Gemma was taken from him in an instant. That she had not suffered was the only small comfort he could salvage from such a grievous event. Her passing gave him a new perspective; a cynical scrutiny of existence in general, in which he believed life and death to be a perverted lottery, in which at some point everyone became losers. But with time, and since meeting Amy, his outlook was again modified. He dared to envisage a positive future, though accepted that it would be of indeterminate duration.

  “I love you, Amy,” he said with a depth of sincerity that both of them knew had removed a shadow, and now allowed them to metaphorically bathe in the full light of the sun.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  A near state of panic combined with the electric thrum of excitement had galvanised both mind and body into action as the bitch made a pathetic bid for freedom. She had crawled through the murk, across the dew-clad road, gasping and moaning.

  “No. No. No” She repeated the word over and over in hardly more than a whisper. It would have been a very basic and dull mantra, had the element of sheer terror not lent the word erotic weight. If she had not tripped and fallen, then she would have escaped, but if was the difference between what might have been and what was.

  A satisfying thrust of the sharpened branch was rewarded by a tremor that ran out of the speared body in unseen waves, to vibrate through hand, wrist and arm.

  She had become still, posed on all fours, as if turned instantly to a solid sculpture of salt; the fate of Lot’s wife for gazing upon the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Slowly, as a felled tree will, she toppled on to her side.

  A quick but sure look in every direction. No one. Fingers around the victim’s soft throat; thumbs aching with the sustained pressure that sealed her windpipe and robbed her of all further hopes and fears and dreams and schemes. Knife now, sawing through the flesh and muscle under her ribcage. Hands inside, enveloped by slick, liquid warmth. Back on to the grass, away from the corpse, to place gloves, smooth-soled canvas trainers, knife and steaming trophy into a heavy-duty black plastic bin liner, before jogging back to the car.

  Home, to strip off and look into the bathroom mirror at the damage where the whore-bitch-cow had left her mark, or in this case, marks. The iodine stung, staining the bloody scratches sulphurous yellow. The police would reclaim blood and skin samples from the corpse’s fingernails. To have been so careful and now to have given up a genetic fingerprint was annoying, but their forensic evidence was worthless. There was no link to the victims, and no obvious connection to Caroline Sellars. No need to be a silly old worry bear. Wouldn’t, shouldn’t and couldn’t be caught. Never, ever. The police were morons. One more kill, to instil even greater arse-puckering fear into the Jezebel Caroline, before taking her from under the coppers’ noses and introducing her to Mr Stake and Mr Knife. It had to be a done deal before midnight on New Year’s Eve. January first was to be a fresh start; a new year and a new beginning. The future held such possibilities, hope, and untold happiness; a renascence with all scores settled and consigned to the past.

  Blink.

  Now standing over the open chest freezer, with no memory of having left the bathroom, or of time passing. Icy vapour, numbing naked skin. Hand stuck to the hoar-frosted freezer bag containing the now solid heart, which felt like a small, frozen supermarket pullet.

  Blink.

  Daylight.

  Sitting on the bed. Time lost again. several hours. The fugue periods were becoming more frequent and of longer duration. Probably a symptom of stress, which would relent when the business at hand was brought to a satisfactory conclusion. The capacity for, and execution of violent retribution was a release that sated a gnawing hunger. Vengeance was the only way to relieve the mental pain of being done wrong by. Natural justice had no equal.

  While Mark got ready for the drive back to Kent, Amy went for milk and papers. Walking down the avenue to the mini-mart on the main road she was consumed with a sense of well-being. Mark had undergone a dramatic change. The part of him that cared for her had always been guarded. She had known that he loved her, but it was with a reservation, as though his past were a barricade that could not be stormed or dismantled. Standing under the shower in the circle of his arms, she had experienced an almost spiritual event as the invisible fortifications that protected his emotions crumbled and fell away, to symbolically be sluiced down the plug hole with the hot water and soapsuds. The change was indefinable, but momentous. She now felt as though she had been placed on a pedestal that had always been the gilded tower reserved for the memory of Gemma. For the first time during their relationship she could envisage a bright and happy future, with true commitment to hang their hats on.

  On entering the shop, her high spirits were immediately dashed. Multiple images of Mark stared back at her from a rack of newspapers. His eyes radiated menace that had been directed towards the furtive photographer who had appeared from the darkness in front of them. Her own features were almost hidden behind Mark’s shoulder, with just a startled eye and a spot of light highlighting a cheekbone. Mark’s face had been the subject, and was lit in stark relief against the velvet blackness, which although unrecognisable, she knew to be a small and grisly corner of Hyde Park.

  Walking back to the house with her full concentration on the article, she slammed into a lamppost, reeled away from it, and cursed under her breath as pain exploded in her shoulder. She plucked the dropped newspaper from the pavement, tucked it under her arm and jogged the last few yards to the open garden gate.

  “That’s all we need,” Mark said after reading the report under the picture. “Thank Christ you can’t be recognised.”

  “It’s no big deal,” Amy said without conviction.

  “It could be. It gives the killer an edge. He or she now knows the identity of an individual who is on the case, big time. It takes away an advantage, and may make him...or her, more cautious.”

  He read part of the article for a third time, aloud: “Park murderer strikes again. Our exclusive photograph shows ex-FBI profiler Dr Mark Ross at the murder scene in Hyde Park. Official sources confirm that the now UK-based psychologist and supposedly retired manhunter – who also wrote the bestseller, Missing Conscience – is working as a police consultant, in an all-out bid to apprehend the...” Mark stopped and threw the newspaper on to the top of the kitchen table in disgust. “I’m out of this,” he said. “My only stipulation was that I remain anonymous, and Barney blew it.”

  “It wasn’t Barney’s fault that a bloody photographer gate-crashed the crime scene,” Amy said.

  Mark smashed his right fist into the palm of his left hand. “Maybe not,” he seethed. “But I don’t work under these conditions.”

  “That’s rubbish, Mark. You’ve got to take the cards that are dealt,” Amy said, her voice as abrasive as sharkskin. “You’re the best chance that Caroline Sellars has. If you walk away from it now and she ends up like the others, you’ll have a hard time living with it.”

  “I’m not responsible for her life.”

  “You are in part. You took on a certain amount of accountability when you decided to stick your nose into this case. Caroline has got a lot more on the line than a bruised ego or hurt feelings.”

  “Why don’t you just kick me in the balls?”

  “I did, figuratively.”

  Mark sighed. “I thought that you didn’t want me to get involved with this in the first place, uh?”

  “I didn’t. But that was then. We have to see it through, now. And you know it, so lighten up and get back on track.”

  Mark picked up his holdall and headed for the door. Amy followed him out to the car. He climbed in
, opened the window and said, “Your place or mine on Saturday?”

  Amy moved back from JC after kissing him good-bye for the fourth or fifth time. “Your place,” she said as he keyed the engine to life. “We’ll go feed those ducks again.”

  “No pushing people off jetties. Agreed?”

  “No guarantees.”

  “I don’t like unpredictable.”

  “Life is unpredictable. You’d better take a towel and a change of clothes in a carrier bag, just in case.”

  Mark grinned. “Take care,” he said, pulling away from the kerb.

  “And you. I’ll give you a bell tonight.”

  “Missing you already.”

  Mark was in his office at the hospital playing catch-up with paperwork when his secretary buzzed him.

  “Yeah, Ruth?”

  “One of the orderlies, Martin, wants a word, Dr Ross. It’s concerning one of your patients.”

  “Okay, put him through.”

  “Dr Ross?”

  “Shoot, Martin.”

  “It’s Billy Hicks, Doctor. He’s in a state. Says he needs to talk to you urgently. He just saw your photo in a newspaper and went apesh...er, ballistic.”

  “Apeshit hits the spot, Martin. Tell him I’m on my way.”

  Billy was standing at the window in his room, wearing only underpants – that were pee-stained and grubby-grey, not the white that they had once been – and a pair of odd socks. He looked malnourished; bony, pale, covered in a welter of dark brown moles that rashed his back and neck. He was staring out through the bars and the thick, shatterproof plastic pane behind them, that did not open to allow fresh air invade, contaminate and play havoc with the thermostatically controlled temperature. It also negated the sound of birdsong, the wind buffeting tree trunks, whispering through their branches, and the distant buzz of traffic on an unseen road.

  “What’s the problem, Billy?” Mark said, entering the small room which had a stale-fart and sour sweat smell that caused him to spontaneously begin to breathe through his mouth; nostrils closing down for the duration.

  Billy whipped around, removing his hand from the front of his pants, as though he’d been caught with it in the cookie jar, and faced Mark. He did not make eye contact, but appeared to study Mark’s outline from head to foot.

  “Y... You’ve got an aura, Dr Ross, same as in the p... picture, look,” he said, snatching up the crumpled newspaper from his unmade bed, to hold out at arms’ length.

  Mark studied the quivering front page, but could see nothing remarkable, save for the side of Amy’s face peeping out from behind his shoulder in the photograph.

  “Sit down Billy, and run this past me. I’m not following your line of thought.”

  Mark pulled up a plastic contour chair, which would have looked more at home in a garden or on a patio. Billy sat down on the edge of his bed and started to rock backwards and forwards like those big-beaked birds you stand next to a glass of water. He then began to scratch at his cheek with the nail of his middle finger, drawing blood.

  “Stop that, please, Billy,” Mark said.

  Billy obeyed, tucking his hands into his armpits and clamping his arms tightly to his sides, to trap them and curtail their independent and wayward antics.

  “Now, tell me what it is that’s upsetting you.”

  “The auras. Everybody h... has auras, and I c... can see them.”

  Mark frowned. This was a new development. “You haven’t mentioned this before,” he said. “Tell me about it.”

  “The Visitor t... told me not to. He said that it’s a secret,” Billy said, eyes wide behind his grimy spectacle lenses, studying the grey vinyl floor covering as though it were alive with cockroaches, or something even worse.

  “So why are you sharing it?” Mark said.

  “Because you’re in d... danger, Dr Ross. And if it’s my secret, then I c... can tell it to who I want to. Now it’s your s... secret as well.”

  “Can you explain what the secret is, Billy?”

  “I’ve always s... seen colours around p... people and animals. It’s like a th...thin, quarter inch outline. When I realised that no one else c... could see it, I knew that I had a g... gift. But I’ve never told anyone, till now,” he said with a cunning, lopsided smile revealing his small, tartar-stained teeth.

  “What do the colours mean, Billy?”

  “Green is good, the darker the shade the healthier and safer someone is. But yellow isn’t nice. You can’t trust yellow. I know a lot about everyone I meet, just by the colour or mixture of colours that they’re surrounded by.”

  “And what’s my colour, Billy?”

  “Dark red for danger, tinged with black for death.”

  “Meaning I’m in danger, and I’m going to die. Is that what you see?”

  “You’re in danger, and you might die,” Billy said.

  Mark noted that his patient was more relaxed, and that his stammer had completely gone. Billy was exuding a confidence that was uncharacteristic.

  “When did you first notice this, uh, aura around me?”

  “You always have one. It’s usually turquoise, which is okay. It was only when I saw your picture in the paper that I saw the change.”

  “Do you know why it would change to a bad colour?”

  “Yes. The Park Killer has seen the picture of you, and considers you a threat.”

  “What else do you know about the killer?”

  “Nothing,” Billy said, standing up and going back to the window to look out. “Murderers are surrounded by purple, though.”

  An interesting and unusual turn of events, Mark thought, never truly surprised, but still able to appreciate the hallucinatory workings of a malfunctioning intellect.

  “Quick, Dr Ross, look at this,” Billy said, pointing down towards the lawn outside.

  “What do you see, Billy?” Mark said, getting up and moving to his side.

  “That song thrush on the birdbath is about to die,” Billy said in a small, sad voice. And as if on cue a sparrow hawk stooped out of the ash grey sky, knocked the thrush to the grass, then took off with its still living meal flapping weakly, mortally punctured by razor-sharp talons.

  Mark’s mouth was instantly powder dry, and the hairs on the back of his neck stiffened.

  “You didn’t believe me before,” Billy observed, smiling at Mark and watching the swirling hues that emanated from him. “But I can see by your colour that you’re beginning to.”

  “Will you look at some photographs for me, Billy?” Mark said.

  “Sure, Dr Ross. But I want a favour in return.”

  “Such as?”

  “An hour down by the lake. I want to sit and feel free for a while.”

  “That’s out of bounds to you. You have an exercise area.”

  “Yeah, a fuckin’ quadrangle with brick walls and barred windows to look at. I want a change from being with psychos and killers. It’s called give and take; a compromise. A ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’ kind of situation. An hour by the lake won’t hurt anyone. And I might even tell you the colour that’s surrounding the young woman standing behind you in the newspaper picture.”

  Back at his desk, Mark tried to work out the odds of the thrush being taken by a hawk just a split-second following Billy’s prophecy of its death. There were no odds. It was a zillion to one. Pure Twilight Zone stuff. He picked up the phone and waited almost three minutes before being patched through to Barney.

  “Yeah, Mark?”

  “I need a photo of Ellen Garner, and one of Jason Tyler, ASAP.”

  “I’ll send you a fax,” Barney said. “Have you got something?”

  “I just need to see what they look like,” Mark said.

  “You might want to factor-in that fibres from two of the scenes came up identical,” Barney said. “They’re from carpeting that Toyota used in Corollas between oh-nine and oh-fifteen.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The car’s windows were steamed up with his
breath and smoke. The ashtray was full, and the temperature was freezing cold. He switched on the engine, and as he did, a column of ash dropped down onto his lap. “Shit!” He brushed at his trousers in the dark, then wound the window down two inches and threw the cigarette end out into the night. Breathing in the chill air, he coughed, brought up a mouthful of greasy, bitter phlegm, and cranked the window down further, to spit out a gobbet of what had the consistency of a prairie oyster, to aim at but miss the already extinguished butt of the cigarette.

  This might well be a total waste of time, petrol and lost earnings, he thought. The Yank would probably tell him to piss off, or even try to do more than bend one of his fingers back this time. If or when the good doctor turned up, he decided to leave his camera in the car and try a friendly, low-key approach. He opened the glove box and scrabbled around until he found a fresh pack of cigarettes, to rip the cellophane off and impatiently pull out the foil and drop it, before plucking a cancer stick out with his finger and thumb nails, to fire it up with his Bic lighter as he wished that he was at home with a bottle of Scotch and the willpower to take a night off and watch TV, or read a pot-boiler. It would never happen. He liked to be out on the prowl, looking for the shot or scoop that would prove to be an international money-spinner. He seemed to have spent most of his adult years tear-arsing about and getting nowhere fast; maybe even going backwards. As he rubbed at the condensation on the inside of the windscreen with his coat sleeve to create a blurry circle to look out through, headlights blinded him for a second before arcing away. Brake lights flared ruby red for a couple of seconds, before blinking out as if they had been doused by the fine rain that had fallen for over two hours with no sign of respite. But his heart quickened. It was the black Cherokee he had been waiting for.