The One

by John Marrs

  Chapter 37

  CHRISTOPHER

  Christopher wasn’t sure how to react when Amy walked through his front door and threw her arms around him.

  He couldn’t read her facial expressions, so he responded by mimicking her movements and wrapped his arms around her in response. It appeared to be the correct move.

  ‘It’s been a horrible day,’ she began quietly, releasing her grip and making her way through the hallway and into the lounge. She unzipped her boots, discarded them in the corner of the room, and tossed her keys on a circular wooden side table. Christopher straightened each key and her footwear when she wasn’t looking.

  ‘They found another girl last night,’ Amy began, pouring a large measure of vodka into a tumbler from his drinks cabinet. The splash of tonic was less generous. Wrong glass, he thought, but it didn’t seem appropriate to point that out. ‘South London this time.’

  ‘Why has this one upset you?’ he replied, and attempted to rein in his fevered anticipation about the conversation to come.

  ‘Because he upped the ante this time. The poor girl had been beaten to a pulp, her teeth were smashed in, her ribs were broken and bleach poured down her throat. He stabbed her in the eyes.’

  It was a necessity, thought Christopher.

  ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d raped her too,’ Amy added.

  Christopher was offended by the suggestion. ‘Gosh,’ he replied instead. ‘How do you know all this? I didn’t think you were working on that case?’

  ‘I’m not, but a handful of us were asked to conduct some door-to-door enquiries today because it’s all hands on deck until they catch him. This was his ninth victim. Can you believe it, Christopher? Nine poor girls.’

  They’ll find Number Ten soon, Christopher thought and folded his arms in satisfaction.

  ‘Before we talked to her neighbours, the DI leading the case showed us the pictures of the girls. I’ve never seen so many bodies relating to one case.’

  Christopher only just contained a smile at the thought of how the police were discussing the fruits of his labour. And, even better, they were being discussed with someone he was close to.

  ‘All the others had just been strangled,’ Amy said. ‘But this attack was personal, like he knew her … like he really wanted to make her suffer. It’s totally changed our psychological understanding of him.’

  That wasn’t the plan, thought Christopher, but it’s a useful little diversion.

  ‘In what way?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, there’s no doubt that he’s an evil fuck up,’ she replied, making Christopher bristle. ‘But now it appears he’s a vindictive one too. Not only does he focus on women, but it seems that he has a deep, ingrained hatred of them as well, which is why this attack was so vicious. I don’t know, maybe his mum abused him as a child or something.’

  Christopher forced himself to keep a straight face – she couldn’t have been further from the truth. He identified himself as a primary psychopath, one who had been born with the condition – or gift as he’d come to think of it – as opposed to being a secondary psychopath and a product of his environment. His environment had been perfectly suburban, with two parents who often told him they loved him, even if he couldn’t actually feel it.

  He dealt with their premature loss to cancer and heart disease as matter-of-factly as losing a pet rabbit. He remained in sporadic contact with his brothers, specifically Oliver, the eldest. Try as he might, Christopher never got to grips with the importance of money and it was Oliver who’d assisted him with his share of the substantial inheritance each son received. With the correct investments, it gave Christopher a regular monthly income that was enough for him to take on graphic design work only when he wanted to.

  ‘Did they find a picture of the next victim on her?’ he inquired. He hated the word ‘victim’ because it implied they were innocent in all of this. In his eyes they were volunteers, as they had offered him their telephone numbers when they chatted on dating apps; they’d made themselves too available and there were consequences in doing so. None of them had Matches; they were all seen as second-class citizens, pitied by those who had found true love.

  But it was a win-win situation for all involved – when this was over, he’d be happy with his continued anonymity while the ‘victims’, as Amy called them, would be rewarded by being part of a case that would go down in British criminal history. They’d become the subjects of books, featured in TV documentaries and dramas, and the case would be theorised for decades. They’d have accomplished so much more in their deaths than they ever could have hoped to in their pedestrian lives.

  ‘Yes, there was another photo,’ Amy replied, and took a seat at the dining room table, propping her head up with her hands. ‘It’s pretty much a certainty she’s dead, of course, but there’s no indication of where the body could be. We’re now playing the waiting game, hoping that somebody’s going to spot a stencil painted on the pavement.’

  ‘Why can’t you release her photo to the media?’

  ‘Because none of the newspapers or television channels will show the face of what’s probably a dead girl. Thankfully the Internet doesn’t have such high moral standards and every victim is now online. We’ve done an artist’s impression of the latest girl for the papers and TV, so maybe that’ll speed things up.’

  The spray-painted stencils left by Christopher had certainly captured the public’s imagination, he realised. He had reached Number Five before the police had linked them, but in making it public, there’d been a smattering of copycat paintings around the capital.

  Investigators had yet to connect all the women with the same dating app, UFlirt. It was an off-shoot of Match Your DNA, designed for those who’d yet to find a Match to meet others in the same, lonely boat. Back when he was making long and shortlists, Christopher experimented with other apps and found some of the girls were registered there too, so maybe it was too difficult for the police to narrow it down to one common link.

  Even when the police examined their phones, they would find no link to Christopher among their messages. He had created more than one hundred email addresses, assigned to dozens of untraceable burner smartphones, hidden away in a disused freezer in his basement.

  He’d used software downloaded from the dark web to keep tabs on their texts, photographs, social media, cloud storage devices and GPS locations, but he had never spoken to them again. It seemed incredible to him that people were stupid enough to store their entire lives on five inches of plastic for anyone to poke about in.

  ‘I just don’t think I’ll ever understand it,’ said Amy. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever get my head around why someone could be compelled to take so many lives. What’s the point?’

  For the challenge, Christopher thought to himself. For the fun of it. For the history books. For having the balls and ambition to decide to be a serial killer rather than fall into it or be compelled to do it. To actively choose this life and then to actively stop it. Because nobody has ever done it like this before. And because there’s no other feeling quite like being in control of someone else’s life.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he instead replied, and thought it best to comfort her again. He stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, bringing her towards him. ‘Maybe it’s because he simply can,’ he added, kissing the top of her head. ‘So he does.’

  Amy clung to the security of her boyfriend’s strong, warm arms for a moment as he remained behind her, wishing he could have seen the expression on her face when she first saw a photo of what he was capable of. Even he might have identified what revulsion looked like.

  Chapter 38

  JADE

  Jade was awake for much of her first night in Australia and not just because of the jetlag.

  Coming to terms with the news of Kevin’s terminal illness and the realisation that she didn’t love him had left her bewildered; angry at him and even more angry at herself.

  In the quietness of th
e farm’s guest house, she turned on the bedside lamp and logged on to the Wi-Fi to research whether this was normal – not feeling anything for her Match. She knew there was a love between them but she hadn’t experienced the deafening, booming, colourful fireworks or rainbows that the films and TV programmes she’d watched depicted. Fictional couples with a DNA Match always fell hook, line and sinker for one another the instant they came into contact. Why wasn’t it happening to her?

  She checked the official Match Your DNA website: ‘The emotions felt between two Matches can vary from couple to couple,’ it read. ‘For some, it happens in an instant; for others, it can take several meetings or several days before the connection is made. This can sometimes be due to the mental capacity of a couple or an individual, or an illness, which can affect the production of pheromones and receptors. A change in a Match’s body clock can also affect the way they process their emotions.’

  Jade began to feel a little better about herself knowing her predicament wasn’t uncommon. She’d begun to worry it was Kevin’s condition and how little he resembled the photos that were delaying her feelings, and the fact that she was a shallow, superficial cow. Now armed with new knowledge, she felt much more relieved. It would happen, she just had to wait for it. Although in the long run, she acknowledged that it would be hard being head over heels in love with a man who wouldn’t see out the summer.

  Suddenly there came a gentle knocking on her door. ‘Come in,’ she replied and propped herself up on her elbows. The door slowly opened and Kevin’s smiling face appeared.

  ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I saw your light was still on. Do you want to come and see something?’

  ‘Sure,’ she said. The clock on the wall read 3.56am.

  ‘I’ll meet you by your car in fifteen minutes. Bring a jumper. Early mornings are cold as ice out here. Oh, and your keys, of course.’

  Kevin was already standing by the car and leaning against his walking frame when Jade appeared. ‘Let’s go,’ he said chirpily.

  He directed them as she drove along the dirt track driveway and back onto the highway. They travelled for around ten minutes until they reached a flat region by the side of the road.

  ‘You can’t come to Australia without seeing the sun rise,’ Kevin said. ‘It’s like nothing on earth.’

  They sat together, listening to a playlist of soul classics as the darkness gradually lifted and was replaced by a purple and orange hew.

  ‘How often do you come out here?’ she asked.

  ‘Quite a lot when I was first diagnosed,’ he said. ‘Then I went into a dark place for a while. I was angry at everything, especially thinking that everyone else would have a lifetime of sunrises and sunsets, while mine were limited. Then I began to understand that being here to see any sunrise was a major accomplishment. It means I’ve lived for one more day.’

  Jade instinctively placed her head on Kevin’s shoulder, where it remained until the sun rose and he’d long drifted off to sleep. His hand was cold, his skin parchment-like and she wondered how he might have felt to the touch before cancer started eating away at him.

  While the intense Match Your DNA love was still undoubtedly missing, there was no doubt that she felt relaxed around him. They’d shared so many intense conversations by phone that she’d come to see him as a best friend as well as her Match. Maybe that was more important than anything else, she thought. Maybe when you took it back to basics, that’s what love really was: just being there for someone when the sun rises and sets.

  Jade arrived back at the farm with her sleeping partner and was greeted by his brother who opened the passenger door and unclipped Kevin’s seatbelt. He scooped him into his arms and carried him back into the house as Jade looked on, suddenly feeling the first pangs of something that she couldn’t identify.

  Chapter 39

  NICK

  Nick nursed the steaming polystyrene cup of hot chocolate he’d bought from the kiosk a safe distance away from the grass pitches. He’d contemplated buying himself a burger too until he spotted the filthy fingernails of the man serving behind the counter.

  It was the first rugby game he’d ever attended – his school had been keener to teach hockey than rugby – and it was as cold as hell outside. He pulled the grey cashmere scarf Sally had bought for his birthday tightly around his neck and his hoodie up over his head to keep his ears warm.

  What am I doing here? he wondered, having no clue what the game’s rules were or what the state of play was on the pitch. All he knew was that he could barely keep his eyes off the one player in front of him.

  Nick’s eyes moved from Alex’s calves to his thick, tree trunk thighs and then his solid torso. He almost willed himself to be turned on by Alex’s physical appearance so their Match might start making sense. If they had been pre-determined to be together, surely he’d feel at least a mild sexual arousal? But there was nothing.

  On a whim, Nick had decided to spend his morning watching the game. He’d recalled the framed photo of the team on the wall of Alex’s office and had searched online for their fixtures list to see when they were playing next. The location was a community rugby pitch in Birmingham’s suburbs but, aware of how creepy it might appear if he suddenly turned up unannounced, Nick stood a distance away from the other supporters to watch Alex from afar.

  A week had passed since they’d met at the bar, where they’d stayed for much of the evening, becoming acquainted with one another. They’d both grown steadily drunk, gradually discovering more things they had in common, from artists to architecture, from travel to rock music. The only subject both were reticent to go into any detail about was their relationships with their partners. And as the conversation flowed, neither of them brought up their Match again, although it wasn’t far from their thoughts.

  Their time together had only been cut short when Alex’s girlfriend Mary called asking when to expect him home. For the briefest of moments, Nick felt jealous.

  They had parted with a polite but lingering handshake, each secretly fearing that this touch might be their last. Neither suggested meeting again, nor keeping in contact; however, it seemed to be enough, for now, to know the other was out there, albeit leading their lives independently of one another.

  In the meantime, Sally had arranged for her and Nick to take a surprise trip to Bruges. The first Nick knew of it was when on a Friday afternoon, she turned up at his office with two suitcases, Eurostar tickets and print-out confirmation of a hotel she’d booked. There’d been a distance in their relationship recently and he felt that he’d let this business with Alex come between them. But the way Sally had arranged their sexy getaway made him feel as if she were trying to make up for something too. She was much more distracted than usual and he could only assume it was that she was upset he had been Matched. He tried to put the thought to the back of his mind.

  In Bruges, her sexual appetite was almost insatiable and, when they weren’t sightseeing, they were in bed. Part of him wondered if she suspected he had seen Alex again and that she was trying to compete. But neither mentioned his name.

  On their return to Birmingham, Nick didn’t just want to see Alex again, he needed to. It had been eight days since they had last been in each other’s company.

  Suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by a rugby ball flying through the air which smacked him square on the shoulder. ‘Shit,’ he yelled in surprise. The crowd in front of him parted and left him exposed.

  ‘Pass us the ball, mate?’ a stocky, shaven-headed man yelled through his gum-shield and, just as Nick threw it clumsily in the player’s direction, Alex saw him. Nick looked back apprehensively, promptly regretting his decision to crowbar his way into Alex’s private world.

  But when Nick saw the smile slowly creeping across Alex’s face, his own didn’t lag far behind.

  Chapter 40

  ELLIE

  Tim had a bowl of cereal in his hand when he answered the front door.

  Ellie could just about imagine how it looked to
him, to discover a tall, shaven-headed burly man standing rigid alongside a nervous-looking Ellie. Two black Range Rovers with tinted windows were parked on the kerb outside Tim’s modest semi-detached home. She didn’t know if he could make out the shapes of people in both of them.

  ‘Hi,’ Tim mumbled, and swallowed his mouthful of breakfast. His shirt sleeves were rolled up and a yellow tie hung loosely around his neck. He looked taken aback by her sudden appearance, probably wondering how she’d gotten his address.

  ‘Hello,’ Ellie said. ‘I’m sorry to turn up unannounced. Do you have a few minutes before you go to work?’

  ‘I’ve been trying to talk to you for the last few days but you’ve been ignoring me.’

  ‘I know, and I’m sorry. That’s why I’m here to explain. Please?’

  Tim moved to one side. Andrei was the first to enter. He removed his dark glasses and scanned the entrance hall and various rooms before he let Ellie follow. Tim frowned at the man-mountain, then at his DNA Match.

  ‘He’s my security detail,’ she offered, almost apologetically.

  ‘In that case I should make you aware of the family of ninjas living in the dining room and the barrels of mustard gas I’ve been cooking up in the conservatory.’

  An unamused Andrei shot him a disapproving glance.

  Ellie had taken four days to muster the courage to approach Tim after the events of their second date had culminated in red paint being hurled at them. She’d bunkered down in her London townhouse since and remained there, embarrassed and deeply humiliated.

  Had Tim been just a run-of-the-mill date, she’d have made sure to never see him again. However, he was far from ordinary. Besides, she liked spending time getting to know him and the kiss they shared shortly before the attack was nothing short of wonderful.

  Ellie was accustomed to public speaking, and thousands of people had attended some of her keynote speeches around the world. But, try as she might, as she had in her many rehearsals in front of the bathroom mirror, she still didn’t know how to begin to explain to Tim what had happened.