by Lee McGeorge
The kids looked at each other. “Give us the money,” the older looking one said. Paul handed them two hundred in small bills. “Three hundred,” he said as he pushed the cash onto the kids. At least the car had keys. He was in and away before they discovered how short changed he’d left them.
He drove a short way across town to the squat and paid for a parking ticket. There was no reason to get stopped or clamped now.
Nisha would ride in this car tonight.
There were still things to do in preparation to hurt her. At the squat he checked the fittings and chains he’d made to the basement that would entomb her. Then he bought a bag of ice cubes from the supermarket to begin his chemistry preparations.
There were so many ways he’d fantasised of hurting Nisha that were enjoyable, but these tasks and preparations as he put the final hardware in place heightened his excitement. There was an eroticism to it, a sexual undertone of knowing he would soon have a defenceless girl to abuse on a whim. Within hours he would be able to play with her and make her cry and scream and beg.
He moved his materials into the small yard by placing a large bottle of industrial bleach into a bucket and packing it with ice. The bleach was strong, nine point nine percent from a cleaning supplies store and the fumes burned his throat the moment it was opened. Into the bleach he dripped acetone and stirred it through the neck using a plastic straw. The bleach bottle heated rapidly and began melting the ice. He stirred and added more ice for ten minutes until the reaction slowed and the bottle cooled. He left it for an hour to settle and went back to the basement to recheck the eye-bolts he’d fitted to the ceiling and wall. He checked the hacked telephone on the staircase.
Nisha. This will be the last room you ever know.
Returning to the bleach, he carefully discarded the top ninety percent of the fluid then poured the rest into a separatory funnel, the only piece of laboratory equipment he’d needed to buy. The bleach looked different in here. At the top of the glass funnel it looked like water, if the recipe was correct then this was alkaline salt water with trace amounts of bleach, but the lower half, closer to the spout was a completely different fluid. It was clear but somehow it looked purer and had a strange viscous looking quality, it reminded him of Cointreau, like a syrupy liqueur that held the light different to water. He left it to stand for thirty minutes to separate further then drained off this fluid into a small brown glass bottle.
It was the final part of the preparation. He was ready for her.
----- X -----
There was still a slight alcohol burn in Corneliu’s stomach but his nerves were steadied. He was smartly dressed and looking every bit the policeman he barely was.
“Detective Latis? I’m D.C.I. Peter Blackwell.” The handshake was firm.
Scotland Yard. Meeting room. Another officer came in and Corneliu immediately forgot his name seconds after being introduced.
“We’ve already been asked to investigate,” Blackwell began. “But I have to ask, is there something more to this than we’re led to believe?”
“How do you mean?” Latis asked.
Blackwell smiled and raised his hands. “You tell me.”
Corneliu thought for a few seconds. “To be honest, I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”
“That makes three of us,” said the third man.
Blackwell had an easy way about him that oozed professionalism. On the one hand he was a police officer, an investigator, but on the other hand he seemed a warm and likeable person. Right now he was walking the line between friend and inquisitor and he dominated the room with a subtle but firm command.
“Is there something you want to ask me?” Latis asked as he pulled The Book from his bag.
“Is this political?”
“Political?” he responded with just the right degree of shock. “What makes you say that?”
The British officers looked to each other. “The Romanian department of justice has been in touch... and the Romanian police... and the department of health for some reason which made us suspicious that this Paul McGovern may have an infectious disease; and if that wasn’t enough, then the politicians got involved.”
“Really?”
The third man said, “The Romanian minister of the interior spoke directly with our foreign office, who has spoken to the head of The Yard who has told us to give priority to your problem of finding Paul McGovern. Yet nobody seems to know why.”
“Naturally, we’re curious,” Blackwell said.
Latis looked genuinely surprised as he rested the book on the table. “I had no idea... If I’m honest with you I actually thought I’d been sent here to get me off somebody’s budget. I thought this was a wild goose chase.”
“You do analysis of networking don’t you?” the third man asked. “You track the traffickers.”
“I do... I did, until yesterday... Now I’m here.”
“I know your work,” the third man continued. “It’s valuable.”
Corneliu held the silence a few seconds then flipped the book open. It was an inch thick and made up mostly of photographs, all spiral bound together as a work document. Page one, Nealla frozen in snow with his innards splayed.
“Good Lord!” Blackwood exclaimed.
“These two men were found dead. They’re nobodies, hopeless losers with criminal records as long as your arm and brief stints in prison as juveniles and adults. The prime suspect is Paul McGovern, he was seen quarrelling and fighting with these two on a few occasions. These men are found dead, McGovern’s home is found empty. There were some blood spots in the bathroom that belong to the two victims and a third person we believe may be McGovern himself but we’re waiting on getting a confirmed DNA sample from him. McGovern fled immediately after the murders.”
The nameless man flicked through the book. “Any other forensics?”
“Yes. The murder weapon was a kitchen knife that has some DNA that, again, we’re waiting for a confirmed DNA sample from McGovern to match.”
“Any other suspects?” Blackwell asked.
“None. There are no witnesses to the murders but the circumstantial evidence paints a pretty damning picture.”
“Did he have a motive?”
“Nothing other than the low grade conflict. But witnesses describe McGovern having a mental breakdown in the lead up to this. He had a girlfriend, a Romanian girl. She says that in the lead up to the deaths McGovern had become unstable, confused and aggressive. Just before the murders he sexually assaulted her and it seems that this was out of character. If the timeline we have is right, McGovern had some kind of mental breakdown, sexually molested his girlfriend, killed these two men, then travelled to Bucharest for the first flight to London.”
“A killer and a sex offender.” Blackwell placed the emphasis on the word ‘and’.
“He’s a butcher,” the third man said staring at the book.
“We suspect he may have moved on to America, although I understand he hasn’t exited Britain on his own passport.”
“Why are we only seeing this now? This savagery, this potential for violence. It’s more than a month after Romania asked us to look for him, but we were never informed as to how dangerous he is. Why weren’t we made aware of that?” Blackwood spoke to Latis but his eyes were locked to the murder photos in the book.
“I have no answer to that. Perhaps that could be why so much is happening right now. Politics. We’ve known this for over a month, we’ve known how much of a danger he is. Somebody dropped the ball and forgot to tell you.”
“You forgot to tell us about a lunatic killer?”
Latis shrugged. “I discovered yesterday and was packed on a plane to London within hours. This happened in a small town. A village. You know, small town police with an unexplained murder that they want to solve themselves. It’s probably taken this long for it to filter up through the bureaucracy.”
“So it would be quite unfortunate if Mr. McGovern were to kill people here in Britain after Ro
mania forgot to tell us how dangerous he is.”
Latis furrowed his brow. “I would say, Sir, that would explain the politics and sudden interest you mentioned.”
“Right then,” Blackwell closed the book and slid it back. “Let’s find him.”
----- X -----
The street was dark. The sodium glow from the streetlights were the only illumination. Paul was sat in the car in the dark, parked up in a long line of cars down both sides of the road. Suburban West London. Three story terraced houses. Curtains pulled closed on every downstairs room to conserve privacy. Paul had been here for the last three nights in a row. He’d been here nine times in all, surveilling, learning, getting an understanding for her commuting routine.
She would be here soon.
He checked his watch for the fourth time in five minutes. He double checked his equipment and this time pulled on rubber gloves. He checked the surroundings using the mirrors. He was checking constantly; rear-view, side mirrors, straight ahead. He was sitting as still as possible but looking in every direction for movement and listening through the slightly opened windows for every sound.
A fox moved between cars into the middle of the road and trotted along the white dividing line until a car pulled into the far end of the road. The fox darted to a garden bolthole and the car passed. For a moment its headlights dazzled. Paul closed his eyes softly to preserve his night vision. It passed. The street went quiet again.
Movement behind. A pedestrian on his side of the road. A woman in a long beige coat and a beret. She was less than a hundred yards away. Paul felt his heart lurch with a sudden pounding. He checked the mirrors again and listened. He allowed himself ten seconds to double check everything. All was clear.
On the seat beside him was a small zip lock bag for travel documents, inside was a fine cotton handkerchief. He unzipped the bag and held it between his legs as he screwed off the cap of the brown glass bottle and poured the fluid into the document purse. His fingers trembled out of apprehension. There was an instant smell, a sweet hospital smell. He held his breath until he sealed up the plastic purse
Look ahead. Clear. Check the mirrors, clear… Jesus Christ, he was really going to do this.
He pulled his baseball cap tighter onto his head then held his hands over his mouth as though to stifle a scream.
He could hear her footsteps.
Wait.
He could see her in the mirror.
Wait...
He got out of the car and ambled to the back. He took his time to fumble with the keys before opening the boot. The light came on inside the space. He put the plastic purse down. He prepared a zip tie, threading the end of the wire through the clasp to make a wide noose. He was too early, too much time to kill. He made another zip tie slowly to keep his hands busy and placed it beside the first, tucking them against the far left corner of the boot space.
She was getting closer, her footsteps getting clearer.
Check the street. Look forward. Clear. He couldn’t check behind until the very last moment. He stood upright with the purse and casually glanced back as she approached just to make sure it was Nisha. It was. The purple beret, the swagger in her step. The street was empty except for she and he. He opened the purse and withdrew the soaking handkerchief catching the anaesthetic smell. It was dripping, saturated. Nisha walked to his side, she may have glanced at him casually.
He moved.
He had her from behind with the rag to her mouth and nose and was overcome by a desire to snap her neck right now. She fought, panicking, resisting. He pulled her hard to the back of the car finding her no more troublesome to move than a child, his strength massive against hers. She was kicking out, lashing, strong. The liquid hadn’t worked, it was supposed to subdue her but she was fighting hard, trying to scream, making muffled noises against his hand... his hand... he was holding too tight. He had her nose pinched with his hand, strapped across her face like he was crushing her jaw. He eased off a fraction to allow the vapours in. She sucked in air to try and raise a scream and with the inhalation something happened. She went woozy, drunken. She tried to fight but she didn’t scream. She moaned and became heavy as the vapours subdued her not to unconsciousness, but to a dopey, mumbling state. She breathed some more, loosening as she did, taking long deep breaths through the handkerchief and becoming more limp and immobile with each breath. Paul slumped her against the car boot letting her fall forward into the space. The beret fell off her head. He continued to hold the rag against her mouth and pressed his crotch against her ass to hold her in place.
He had her.
He released the cloth and let her face press it into the carpet upholstery of the boot. She was unmoving, still breathing vapours from the fabric against her face. He pulled a zip tie from the corner. Her delicate little wrists locked together as the noose of plastic tightened around them. He thought to put the second one around her ankles but by the time he’d heaved her body into the boot she was in such a contorted position it was barely worth doing.
He pushed and rolled her, struggling with the awkwardness.
That was when he realised she wasn’t breathing. Her eyelids were open, her eyes rolled over to white. She was lifeless.
He’d killed her.
“No... No, don’t you fucking dare,” he rasped as he slammed his palm onto the centre of her chest and pressed down to try and revive her.
She couldn’t die yet... He had to revive her, needed to. He had to have his fun first. Furiously, he pressed her ribs hard and bounced the back of the car’s suspension as he did so.
There was no movement. Then he saw the blisters forming on her lip, a reaction to the chemical already. A shock reaction. It had burned her. Chemical burns to her lips, to her mouth and throat. She had scarred and blistered in seconds.
“Oh fuck... oh fucking hell!”
Paul grabbed her and lifted, she breathed in as her head fell back to open the airway. It was a ragged, weakened breath. Her airway must be swollen. The chemicals had reacted and the swelling was closing the airway, but it was her position and unconsciousness that had stopped her breathing rather than the chemistry.
Paul pulled her, positioning her in a way that tilted her head backwards to keep her airway open. She was still alive, barely. She may not survive.
A car pulled around the far corner of the road making Paul slam the boot before he was satisfied her position allowed her to breathe.
Fuck it.
He walked the long way to the drivers side of the car, moving onto the pavement and into shadow as the car passed. Paul dipped his head, watching the car from under the peak of his cap. The car didn’t slow or show any undue attention. He saw Nisha’s handbag and picked it up.
It would take thirty or forty minutes to get across town to the squat. If she woke up in the boot and started shouting he would pull over and slice her throat with the knives. If she had died when they arrived he would just abandon the car. There was no reason to risk getting caught. After all, it was only Nisha. She was as good as dead anyway.
----- X -----
There were too many people in the street. Paul had been parked up in front of the squat for over ten minutes waiting for them to thin out. It was only a handful of people here and there, but he would have to be careful if he were to lift an unconscious girl from the boot without arousing suspicion.
There had been no signs or sounds from Nisha. No moans or shuffles. He decided to open it and check. People further up the street wouldn’t be able to see. He left the keys in the ignition and rolled the window down a little with the hope the car would get stolen again and be driven far away from here. He brought her handbag and checked the interior to make sure he hadn’t left anything obvious behind.
As the boot opened he was hit by a combination smell of vomit and antiseptic that made him gag. Nisha looked up at him with her eyes rolling in her head, confused, disoriented, but quiet. Dried vomit was on her chin and coat. She made eye contact with him and let out a
very soft moan, frightened, but too doped to physically resist. He hoped she understood what was happening; the thought of her being consciously aware but incapacitated was… arousing.
The alley leading to the back of the squat was only ten yards away. He pulled Nisha harshly to lift her over the lip of the boot and allowed her head and torso to hang over the side of the car. The knife came from under his coat and sliced through the nylon zip tie. Her arms flopped forward to the road. He pulled her harder over the lip until gravity dropped her across the edge and onto the floor like she was stone drunk.
Her purple beret was in the boot. He took it and quickly checked for any other obvious items left behind. He found the second nylon zip tie and brought that too.
He lifted Nisha by putting her arm around the back of his neck and gripping her wrist whilst wrapping his other arm around her waist to walk her. Her legs moved but her feet made no purchase with the ground. They shuffled and dragged, tripping over themselves. It was only Paul’s increased strength that got her the ten yards to the alley and off the street.
Nisha made moans with every step. Her head lifted to look forward then flopped backwards and rolled back to the front. She made a loud snoring noise as the position of her head closed her airway. Paul decided it was better to just drag her than try to walk. He laid her on her back and left her for a few seconds to unlock the back gate. Still holding her handbag and beret, he hooked his hands under her arms and dragged her backwards until inside the yard. She was heavy and awkward and the effort was making him sweat despite his strength.
He pulled her down the stairs into the cellar.
It was prepared.
A single damp mattress and a few blankets. Eye-bolts fixed to the ceiling and wall. Chain and padlocks. The table lamp he had used upstairs in the squat was plugged in for illumination. A perfect concrete prison cell for a girl about to die.
