Was he any of the descriptions he’d just heard? No, he most certainly was not. Whilst aspects were true – he was a student and he could be arrogant – he was not ‘posh’ or ‘a cunt’ and certainly not a ‘wanker’. But then, did the opinion of everyday, low-intelligence nobodies really matter to the likes of him? Again, no, they did not.
Was he different? Above the general mass of humanity? Yes, he absolutely believed that he was.
Did he care what they or anybody else thought? Or felt? No, he absolutely did not.
So, what did he care about? That was an interesting question with an equally interesting and complex answer.
What he cared about was stopping the feelings of shame and embarrassment he had felt earlier that evening and for all of his young adult life. What he cared about was having something akin to intimate relations with a woman. Specifically, he wanted intimate relations with her, although he knew that was a distant and unobtainable dream. What he cared about was being free from his past and free from the crippling thoughts that plagued his dreams.
And again, it came back to her. He could not excise her from his mind or psyche. She loomed large whenever he came close to any form of actual sexual contact. He could kiss a girl, that was fine, he could stroke her arm or even her neck, but beyond that she reared her beautiful, angelic, innocent head.
And then she laughed.
And then, unbidden, the thoughts he’d been avoiding all evening – at the party, after the party and indeed during every sleepless night for close to six years – raised their ugly head. They disturbed him and yet at the same time elated him. They took him somewhere he felt he could never go – although if ever questioned he was not sure why he felt he couldn’t go there. They transported him to a place where she was laid to rest. Where she – hah! – was put to bed. Sent away with a finality that meant he could rest, relax and maybe even forgive.
Could he forgive her?
Did he have the capacity – the level of projection and feeling, the required forethought to see her as she would be now? Could he bring himself to talk to her, try to explain, maybe even allow her to explain? Was there an ounce of forgiveness left in him that would allow him to simply let go and end his nightmare?
And the answer boomed in his mind.
NO.
No – there was no forgiveness, no reconciliation and no rest until she was expunged entirely.
She would pay.
There were, of course, others. She was not the sole reason for this, not the whole story. There were his father and mother, whom he couldn’t bring himself to think of as his parents. Parents loved and nurtured their children. Parents cared for their welfare and worried over their future wellbeing. Parents hoped that their children would become well-rounded, happy and capable of making their way in society. But, not his…. not his…. begetters. They would pay thrice-fold, they would pay in tears and shame and doubt – exactly as they had poured it, unrelentingly, on him.
His hatred and anger rose to a pitch he had never experienced before. Yes, those three would pay and suffer and feel what he was now feeling. He would wipe them from the Earth, and he would cleanse his soul with their suffering.
And then the final piece fell into place. They would burn, yes – but burn with guilt and horror at the suffering of others. There would be proxies. They would take her place and when they did, they would feel all of his torment. He would Deliver them up. They, these others, would be the sacrificial lambs which would cleanse his soul.
And he would not rest until he had Delivered the ultimate image of her … and Delivered it in a way that his pathetic, cruel and deluded begetters would recognise as their own. He would make sure that they knew, understood and then felt the same shame, guilt and humiliation. He would score this into the very thing he could not bring himself to touch, the very flesh of woman.
He would carve it into them all.
AND THEY WOULD ALL BURN.
That night in his dreams her laugh was crueller and more mocking than it had ever been. He woke to it ringing in his ears and knew that unless he acted, she would never stop.
Chapter Eight
Fran Pearson was sitting at his desk, an untouched report in front of him, lost in thoughts from many years ago. As he accrued his years in the force, he had become proud of his ability to disassociate from the cases he worked on, the aftermaths of vicious crimes he had witnessed, the victims and the predators, the lambs and the jackals that – given the slightest chance – would devour them. He was bothered by them at the time of course, who could feel nothing when faced with the dead face of an innocent young girl, who by chance was in the wrong place at the wrong time? Who could not feel hate for the man that had killed her?
But despite all this, Pearson didn’t carry that hate or remorse or guilt along the way with him. He knew intrinsically that he would do his best for every victim, he would work their case until there was simply nothing left that could be done. And then, if no one was apprehended, if they could not find the man or woman responsible, he would file the details away in a part of his mind set aside especially for those ‘unsolveds’. And, if anything ever came up that sparked one of those memories then woe betide the person who had done the sparking!
Still, it allowed him to move on and not be weighed down by all those files, all those memories, all those ghosts.
Except one.
The Charmer.
He hated the name, had hated it when it was coined. It made this monster, this cold and calculating psychopath, sound like a roguish Lesley Phillips type character – getting into scrapes and capers but never really meaning any harm. That was most certainly not The Charmer. Pearson himself had seen the results of this man’s ‘charm’. The women ripped and torn on their beds, the cold and calculated way he covered his tracks, the casual disregard for human life. Not just the lives of the women he killed but the lives of those they had touched, those who had loved them and in a number of cases had relied on them for care and safety and life. He knew of one young girl whose mother had been an early victim, and at the tender age of 14 – unable to live with knowing the nature of her mother’s killing and that she was in the house at the time (all be it as a babe in arms) – had taken her own life. That victim, the one The Charmer probably knew nothing of, that was the one Fran Pearson was determined to get him for. It was the death of that young girl that he would nail through the heart of that bastard.
When he found him.
If he found him.
It hadn’t weighed on him for some time now, day-to-day monotony had taken care of that, but now it had reared its ugly head again. When the old reports and case files were brought back up to his desk, he dusted off the front covers along with all the old thoughts and feelings in his mind.
If he found him.
He had been proud of being astute enough to go looking for similar killings to the London ones he had attended. Had felt elated when specific searches had resulted in cases in Manchester, Birmingham, Southampton, Edinburgh and York all having a high probability of being a series of crimes committed by the same man. Had been even prouder when he was asked to head up the nation-spanning team being put together to hunt this man down. The teams would all remain in their respective areas but would report all findings to him and his team. He was to lead one of the biggest manhunts in the history of policing. It earned him a promotion from DCI to Detective Superintendent.
And yet, all those people, all those teams, all that information hadn’t got them anywhere near the man responsible. Early apparent breakthroughs, forensic and otherwise, had all turned into red herrings left by the killer or had simply turned to dust under closer inspection.
He always suspected that his much slower climb to Detective Chief Superintendent was because of his failure to capture this man or even get close to who and where he was.
Now he had a chance to lay to rest his only demon. The one ugly, deformed excuse for a human being that he knew would haunt his every waking and s
leeping hour, for the rest of his days, unless he took this second chance.
If he failed this time, he hated to think what he would do.
If he failed this time, he knew that would be the end of his policing career; he couldn’t continue in the job if he failed again and would never be able to look himself in the mirror and convince himself he was up to the job.
With a faraway look still in his eyes, he shut down his computer, pulled on his jacket and slipped quietly out the building.
’18
Recollections
She remembered how the months following Melissa’s arrival had probably been the hardest and happiest of their lives. Neither of them came from big families or had any experience of babies and their needs and demands. Night after night of next to no sleep, spending hours trying to work out what she was screaming about – was she hungry, cold, needing a nappy change or simply awake and wanting her parent’s attention? And those times when one of them thought they had worked out the reasons and settled her down, only to despair when – as they crept back to bed – she had started to wail again.
But they had both adored her, doted on her and smothered her in love. She was to their eyes the most beautiful child in the world and they had talked about how, when they looked at her, they both felt their life was now replete. Marcus had at all times carried his share of parental duties, regardless of whether his work demanded he needed to rise early. He had organised it so that he wouldn’t have to travel or be away for more than two days at a stretch, during the first six months of Melissa’s life. Often, in the middle of the night, she found he was already rising from bed as she awoke to the familiar sound of the baby crying. Every evening, when he returned from work, he would immediately take the baby from her and tell her to go rest and relax and that he would take care of things for the next few hours.
She laughed aloud when she remembered the first time he had had to change a particularly full and pungent nappy, how he had gagged and coughed his way through the whole thing. And when eventually he sat back from the changing mat, proud at having survived the whole horrendous ordeal, his look of dismay on realising he had put the nappy on back to front. Then his look of resigned horror as Melissa had promptly filled the new nappy and he had to gag his way through the whole procedure anew. But he never shied from changing her, even after that particular ordeal.
Charlotte’s love for Marcus had grown every time she saw him with Melissa. When he had cradled her in his arms, she looked so small and vulnerable whilst he had looked so huge and strong and protective and at the same time gentle and adoring. She saw a fierce protectiveness in him and realised it was part of the love a father showed his child, that he would kill or be killed in order to keep her safe, and her heart melted every time she saw it.
He had been the same when Callum had eventually come along – every inch the attentive, loving father, all the while ensuring that Melissa never lacked for attention or love.
As she thought about this period of their lives, she realised that all their attention had been directed towards the children and not each other. It was strange that whilst in many ways they had seemed closer than ever before they were also slowly drifting apart. Their conversations, once long and rambling, had become short and perfunctory, mainly centred around the children or the requirements of the house and their day-to-day lives. Sex, when it occurred, was utilitarian, simply serving a basic need and not forging bonds or living up to the tag of making love.
Maybe that was when it had started – whatever ‘it’ was. Had that been when he had finally drifted away, when he had started the affair, if affair it was, with this Julia? Or had it begun much, much earlier than that? Had Marcus simply not found the way or the courage to end their marriage before it was too late and they had had children? And had he only stayed after that because of them?
How could she reconcile the images and feelings associated with this man that she loved – and that she had also watched love their children – with a man she now believed had been lying to her, for God-only-knew how long?
As with all her recent recollections, she had become resigned to their bittersweet nature and the love and betrayal that surfaced with every one – that toxic mixture that formed in her mind whenever she tried to recall Marcus and the way they had been, the way she had thought they were still.
They were a blessing, though, these mixed feelings. They were driving her on to find that point in time, the very moment it had all gone wrong: the month, the week, the day or – if necessary – the second it had all changed, when Marcus had gone from being hers to someone else’s, or when his life had changed so irreconcilably that he had to leave and run. Then she felt she might know, through this process and through using her insight and intelligence, she might know the answer to the most important question of all. She would know the reason why.
Chapter Nine
Handley sat looking at his screen without taking anything in. This, it seemed, had become his default work position of the last few weeks. Seemingly getting somewhere, in reality getting nowhere. Cycling round the same problems, orbiting around a cluster of assumptions and probabilities but never getting any closer to the answers. They were still no further in finding Marcus Travers. Julia was equally elusive – more so, in fact, as they didn’t even have a surname for her. The re-investigation into the Charmer also appeared to be stalling with, as yet, no forensic or profile coming up with anything that might help find the man, even after the new light shed by their Belgian colleagues.
Then all the unanswered questions came back to mind: was Marcus Travers the killer, or was he running scared, having been complicit in some way? Or was all of this a blind alley, nothing whatsoever to do with the Charmer? Was Marcus Travers simply a man who, for whatever reason, had had enough and walked out on his life?
And then there was the Charmer himself – why suddenly appear in Belgium, if indeed he had? Just what sort of man were they looking for? Clearly very intelligent, forensically aware and always, always a non-entity. None of the re-tested DNA, blood, hair or fibre samples had thrown up anything new. Those that had been identified in the past had been removed in the hope that their man had been arrested for something else since, but none of the remaining samples had matched anyone on the database. Some of these samples matched each other but not all, so again it was impossible to pinpoint a profile that could be placed at every scene. And even if there were a single matching profile in all cases, there was still the possibility that this wasn’t their killer but just another planted red herring.
Given the mismatch of forensic evidence, the latest theory was that the killer didn’t appear to ejaculate when he killed. This explained why semen samples didn’t match – they were all from different people. He may, of course, have used a condom or avoided ejaculating onto or inside his victims, enabling him to clean away any usable evidence.
There was also the fact that he made sure, as much as was possible, that he removed his own hair from the scene before replacing it with hair from other people – or perhaps he wore overalls similar to those worn by SOCO, ensuring no hair contaminated the scene. Hours had been spent comparing hair samples found at the different scenes; some matched in a number of cases but without a suspect to compare the matching samples to they had nothing.
They couldn’t even pinpoint a locale for him. The killings were so diverse in location – Belgium, for Christ’s sake – that there was no identifiable locus. He could be anywhere in the country or, now, abroad, anywhere in the rest of Europe. In fact, that was the one thing they knew – he could travel extensively and not rouse suspicion. But then countless hours spent by tens of officers trawling the obvious occupations – reps, lorry drivers et al – had drawn a total blank. Not that anyone expected a Ripper-style, freak arrest when a car is stopped for a minor misdemeanour and suddenly a plethora of evidence emerges.
This, Handley knew, had been why it had taken so long in the first place to identify that they were indeed looki
ng for one killer. The murders had been so far apart that each force worked the cases as isolated incidents, perpetrated by a local – there had been no obvious pattern and no recurrence in any given area. It was only when the then DI Pearson spotted a link between two and then three cases that had taken place in and around London that any links were even considered.
Handley, like his boss and his Detective Superintendent above him, was at a total loss. They couldn’t trace the killer without evidence but they wouldn’t have any evidence until they traced the killer – a Gordian knot, one that didn’t allow them to use scissors to solve.
He realised with a start that his phone was ringing and probably had been for a while. He snatched up the receiver.
‘DC Handley,’ he said, summoning the best impersonation he could of someone who was hard at work, someone who hadn’t – until that moment – been sitting apparently idly worrying over problems they couldn’t solve.
‘Ah, DC Handley, so glad I’ve caught you. It’s Frederick.’
Handley sat for a second, eyes wide – the expression on his face the universal one made by every human on the planet desperately trying to identify a voice on the other end of the line – as he thought, ‘Frederick? Frederick? Do I know a Frederick?’
Three seconds of silence were stopped when the person at the other end of the line qualified, ‘Frederick Derringham,’ and then the voice, tone and intonation all clicked into place.
‘Oh, Sir Frederick …’ Handley found himself sitting up straighter in his chair and clearing his throat. ‘Um, it’s good to hear from you. How can I help?’
‘Well, old chap, it’s more how I can help you.’ Sir Frederick sounded somewhat smug and a little triumphant. ‘Firstly, however, an apology, it has taken Agatha a little longer to gather the information you requested but I am pleased to say I shall be emailing it to you forthwith. I hope the delay hasn’t been too inconvenient?’
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