A Need To Kill (DI Matt Barnes) (2 page)

“
What did Farley have to say?” Matt asked Tom, pulling a pack of cigarettes and a Zippo lighter from a pocket of his fleece and lighting up.

Tom turned to face
Matt.  “Nat found nothing that you haven’t just seen for yourself. Some psycho punter beat the shit out of her, burned her with cigarettes and then offed her with a pair of tights.  Same MO that was used on the other victim.”

“
Who found the body?”

“
We got a phone call.  Whoever rang it in used some gizmo to make his voice sound like a fucking Dalek.  Gave the location and said we’d find a fallen woman who had, through suffering, repented and was now beyond all weakness of the flesh.  It’s on tape.”

“
What else do we know?”

“
That it would appear nothing was taken, apart from the pages from her address book.  You saw her clothes and shoulder bag in the lockup.  There’s over four hundred quid in her purse.  And her earrings, two finger rings and a gold chain were removed and placed with the cash.”

“
Who was the first victim?”

“
A teenager who solicited kerb crawlers.  Not in the same league as this one, though. She was a runaway from somewhere up north.  Leeds, I think.  The only thing that they had in common was their line of work.  Now that it’s our case we’ll get all the paperwork and see where it leads.”

“
What about the book?  You think he might try and blackmail some of the punters?”

“
If he gave a shit about money, why would he have left a wad of it and the jewellery in the victim’s purse?”

Matt
shrugged.  It didn’t add up.  He dropped the cigarette end and ground it into the pavement with his heel. Squinted his eyes and turned his head away from the glare of an approaching car’s headlights.

Pete Deakin got out of his Vectra and walked towards them.  Behind him, Marci Clark parked up and hurried to where they were standing outside the lockup
’s doors.

Matt
nodded in greeting.  He was pissed at them both.  Knew that they were an item, and that as leader of the team he should transfer one of them out.  He’d waited for Pete to satisfy his lust with Marci and move on, but his sergeant had subtly changed since being shot and nearly killed three months ago.  It was as if nearly cashing in his chips had concentrated his mind.  He was steadying down and looking at life from a different angle.  They were both first class cops.  Matt didn’t want to lose either of them, but might have to.  You couldn’t be effective in this line of work if you cared
too
much about a colleague.

“
I’m out of here,” Tom said.  “Get the wheels moving, Matt.  I’ll catch you later.”

“
Was it something I said?” Pete asked Matt, a little peeved that the DCI had walked off without acknowledging his and Marci’s arrival.

“
No.  I think he’s just a little shell-shocked.  He’s not used to being up and about in the wee small hours’,” Matt said to them both.  “Why don’t you two go inside and look at how some citizen gets his rocks off.  And Marci, take plenty of pictures.”

Marci delved into a pocket
for her digital camera.  “Smile, boss,” she said and took a shot. The flash blinded Matt.  He nearly snapped, but bit it back.  “If I come out looking like a hunk, I want an 8x10 glossy of that,” he said, instead of bollocking her.

They all grinned, then got to work.  Investigating violent death was what they did.

When
she had stopped wheezing and flopping around he removed the penlight torch from his mouth and searched her bag.  He found the slim address book, opened it and recognised a few of the names, including a bigwig MP who had been on the box a lot and was an arrogant, self-opinionated bastard.  He chuckled to think that the balding old fart had to pay to get a decent lay.  On a whim, he tore out a few pages and stuffed them into a pocket of his boiler suit with a gloved hand.  Maybe he could fuck up the politician’s life. As he recalled, Nigel Villiers was always running off at the mouth about family values and community spirit.  No doubt his wife would not be amused to find out where he hung his trousers on some of the nights he was supposedly at a late sitting in the House.

He checked the lockup thoroughly.  He had left nothing.  The
balaclava, clothing and gloves were a safeguard to his leaving any trace evidence that the morons would painstakingly search for.  Even the cigarette ends were all retrieved.  Murder was like flying.  Taking off and landing held the most potential risk when travelling by air. And with murder, the abduction and then leaving a killing site was the same.  Once he had quit the area, he was home free.  He was the police’s worst nightmare: a murderer who only took prey unknown to him.  His victims could not be traced back to his door.  There was absolutely no way he could be connected to them.

He slid back the switch on the barrel of the torch and let his eyes grow accustomed to the murk before opening the door and surveying the immediate area.  A car backfired in the distance, but the coast was clear.  He walked away from the graffiti-covered garage block, across the narrow street that was fronted by condemned terrace houses
, which were no doubt now home to rats and to the flotsam of humanity that had opted out of society and now lived on its underbelly, like fleas on a dog.

Once
in the back of the nondescript green panel van, he removed what he thought of as his killing suit.  Even changed his shoes.  Put everything into a plastic carrier bag before climbing over into the driver’s seat.

His demons were pacified, for now.  The gnawing, unrelenting and undeniable need to kill had
been placated.  For an indeterminate period he would relish this night and not have the urge to take another.  But he knew that with time, he would once more experience the growing rage and craving that was always simmering, ready to boil over.

He stopped, went into a phone box and rang the police.  Ignored the request for his name.  Held the phone well away from his face and let the slight echo from air that stank of stale sweat, tobacco and piss aid his clipped words to relay his latest deed.  He hung up and began to giggle.  What would they make of a voice that sounded like that of a
robot?  He had practised talking with no accent and leaving a half second pause between each word.

Back home, he garaged the van, retrieved the carrier bag from the rear and entered the house by the back door.  He was up
; hyper.  Could still hear the plaintive, pleading voice of the whore as she begged him to spare her.  They were all so full of crap, luring and using punters to line their purses with dirty money.  They thought that they had a power over all men, but he was like no man they had ever met.  He was totally repelled by their wanton proclivity to spread their legs for profit.

With a large milky coffee on the table in front of him, he placed the three slightly crumpled folios he had removed from the address book onto the Formica tabletop and smoothed them out with his hand.  Studying the entries, he recognised six other names, including that of Villiers.  Knowledge was power.  He was in a position to cause these sad celebrities, sportsmen, politicians, and even a high-ranking cop to rue keeping their brains in their
trousers.  He would not attempt to blackmail them, but might contact them and discuss their less than decent behaviour.  Let them know that they had been found out, and that their affluent homes, fat-cat lifestyles and position in society were now in danger of being undermined.  Scandal involving such notables as these was manna from heaven to the tabloids.

He put the sheets of paper together and folded them in half.  As a rule, he did not keep mementoes of his crimes.  Overconfidence was the undoing of most
repeat offenders.  They could not envisage being found out, and so kept something from their victims as a trophy.  He needed nothing but his memories.  He closed his eyes and went back in his mind to eight p.m. the previous evening, to the point in time when he had taken her from outside the front door of the swish apartment block in Pimlico...

A lot of the pleasure was in the anticipation.  Eagerly looking forward to any event was in some ways more rewarding than the actual culmination of the act.  He was a watcher, a stalker; the whole package.  Preparation was all-important.

Marsha Freeman, a.k.a. Trudi Jameson was an ex-catwalk model who, though still only twenty-eight, had past her shelf life in that profession.  The trend-setters wanted anorexic-looking waifs, the younger the better.  That was not to say that Marsha was not a looker.  She had pulling power.  Her background in modelling had given her poise and grace, and her name had been associated with those on the so-called ‘A’ list, and she was au fait with the life that they led and the recreational scene they enjoyed.  She was no stranger to places like Cannes, or to polo matches that attracted at least a brace of princes.

Marsha’s
second career had been as a ‘meeter and greeter’ at Stringfellows, pumping flesh, flashing her Colgate-white teeth and firm, bronzed thighs, and making sure a good time was had by all.  It was not long after that when she realised her charms could be far more profitable.  She planned to make enough money to open her own model recruitment agency and secure her future for when the unforgiving ravages of time made her less able to attract the well-heeled punters that were currently lining up to bed her.

The blow to her temple caused her to sag at the knees.  She was not aware of what had happened
and could not think straight.

He bundled her into the back of the van and pulled the doors shut with the speed of a trapdoor spider snatching its prey and retreating into its lair.  It took him only seconds to secure her wrists and ankles and affix a broad strip of silver duct tape tightly around her head, overlaying her mouth.  He covered her with a sheet of tarpaulin and drove away into the night.  In his
rear-view mirror he saw a white limo pull up to the kerb outside the apartment block.  But he had not been seen.  To all intents and purpose Marsha, in her persona as Trudi, had dropped off the planet and would not survive the fall into personal oblivion.

The subsequent quality time spent in the lockup had been an unmitigated success.
He had berated her for the path she had chosen to follow; taught her the error of her ways, punctuating his words by applying the glowing tip of a cigarette to her flawless skin.  Even removed the tape from her ankles to spread her legs and burn her most intimate parts. The smell of fear in the air was as tangible as that of the smoking flesh.  It was much later that he wrapped the tights around her neck and removed the tape from her mouth, to allow her to beg for life and repent for all she had done to incur his wrath.  And then he had slowly...ever so slowly garrotted her, all the while watching the expression on her face and in her coin-round eyes.  He was astride her, and stiffened as she bucked and twisted beneath him.  He undid the bottom two buttons of the boiler suit to release his throbbing member and roll a condom down its length, before proceeding, though prolonging the act by pausing and even relaxing his latex-gloved hands several times to let her suck in a ragged breath.  Eventually, as he came, he simultaneously wrenched the ends of the tights with all his strength.  The finale was soon over, and yet he sat there for awhile, emotionally drained and at one with the stillness that followed such frenetic exertion.  He wanted to pull back the mask, lean forward and kiss her damp brow.  She was now without sin.  He refrained.  The merest, infinitesimal trace of saliva would result in his DNA being recovered.  There could be no intimacy without a barrier.

He sighed and let the events fade.  Time to catch a few hours
’ sleep.  The coffee was now almost cold, but he drank it anyway.

Lying in bed, he dozed and was once more atop Marsha at the climactic moment.
As he gazed down into her eyes, she began to smile, and her features metamorphosed into those of his late mother.

“
You can’t murder me again, you pathetic little boy,” his mother said.  “I’m already dead.”

As the vagary reared up and reached out to him with clawing fingers, he covered his face and screamed out.  There would be no sleep.  Night terrors waited in the wings of his mind, ready to take centre stage and rekindle past horror he did not want to confront.

Matt
, Pete and Marci left the lockup at dawn.  Bored and weary looking uniformed officers guarded the scene, and the meat wagon was on the way.  The body would soon be bagged, tagged and heading for the mortuary.  The autopsy would no doubt result in giving up details that were not apparent by just carrying out a physical inspection.

“
I want you to arrange for a fingertip search of the area for the missing cigarette butts, and a house-to-house for witnesses,” Matt said to Marci.

“
What wits, boss?  All that’s left of this neighbourhood is boarded up and falling down.”

“
I’ve got eyes, Marci.  But it’s a haven for junkies to shoot up.  Or for winos to squat in.”

Marci nodded and got on the phone to jack it up.

“Come on, let’s head back to the ranch and get this case up on the boards,” Matt said to Pete, ducking under the tape, wincing, trying not to limp as he walked slowly across the street to his Discovery.