A Thousand Small Explosions (12 page)

CHAPTER 34

NICK

The feeling Nick and Alex had shared in Alex’s clinic wasn’t a fluke, solitary event for either of them.

From the moment he spotted Alex in the trendy Birmingham bar, Nick was scared his legs might give way beneath him before he’d even reached the table. The two men politely shook hands and gave each other awkward smiles.

‘Can I get you a drink?’ Nick asked.

‘Sure, another one of these thanks mate,’ Alex replied, and lifted up his bottle of lager.

Nick nodded and headed to the bar. As he ordered drinks he noticed Alex’s reflection in the mirror behind the spirits. His girlfriend Sally was right when she saw Alex’s Facebook profile picture and commented on his handsome appearance. Even as a straight man, Nick could appreciate he was a good-looking guy and much more masculine than him. He checked his phone to see if she’d received the text he’d sent her informing her he’d be late home because of a client meeting. It was a plausible lie, he thought, as he often had to wine and dine existing and prospective clients alongside his MDs and fellow account managers. ‘Ok babe, luv u,’ Sally had replied. He didn’t respond.

Nick returned to the booth with their drinks, sat down and removed his coat.

Neither knew where to begin.

‘So how’ve you been?’ Nick said eventually.

‘Good thanks, pretty busy at work, you know. You?’

‘Yeah, same here, same here.’

Both men simultaneously looked down at their drinks, unable to maintain prolonged eye contact and risk a repeat of what they’d felt the first time they’d met. Two choruses of an old Oasis song played in the background before either of them said another word, both feeling cripplingly self-aware.

‘Actually, things aren’t good,’ said Nick, breaking the silence first. ‘There’s no easy way for me to say this without sounding like a total weirdo, but I need to get this off my chest because the more I try not to think about it, the more it becomes the only thing on my mind. It’s about what happened… the first time we met.’

He paused, realising how ridiculous it sounded when he expressed his thoughts. He looked at Alex hoping for confirmation that he might have gone through something identical, but Alex gave little away. “In for a penny, in for a pound,” Nick thought and continued regardless. ‘That feeling I got when I looked at you as I was leaving; I’ve been through it a thousand times and I still can’t explain it properly. None of it make sense because I’m not gay.’

‘I’m not gay either,’ Alex replied.

‘So why do we have this link?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I’ve not so much as kissed a guy, not even for a laugh or when I was drunk.’

‘Me neither.’

‘So if neither of us are into blokes, then what’s happening here?’

‘It’s simple. The test is fucked up, they got us mixed up with other people.’

‘That’s what I said. I even emailed them to check but they sent out this standard reply saying the test isn’t flawed and to date they haven’t had one mismatch. Besides, it doesn’t explain what I felt. What I think
we
felt.’ Are we in denial or something?’

Alex shifted uncomfortably in his seat and took several gulps from his bottle, before leaning forward and lowering his voice. ‘Mate, all I know is that something inexplicable happened after I gave you physio. I didn’t feel anything when we met, when you took your top off, when I came into physical contact with you, when I was working on you or when we shook hands afterwards, but then, … I dunno…
something
happened.’

Nick breathed a sigh of relief, pleased to hear Alex explain what he’d felt.

‘What was it like for you?’ he asked.

‘Honestly? Like a thousand small explosions going off inside me all at once but not in a bad way… it was like they woke me up. I suddenly felt more alive than I’ve ever been before and that’s the only way I can describe it, as lame as it sounds.’

‘No, no, it’s cool, I know what you mean because it was exactly the same for me.’

‘But why you and me? From the conversation we had last time, what do we even have in common? I love sport, you love computer games, I’m going back home to live in New Zealand in a couple of months and you love your city life.’

‘And we both have girlfriends.’

‘And we both have girlfriends,’ Alex repeated.

‘So why am I sitting here with butterflies the size of eagles circling my stomach and barely able to look at you and then when I do, I can’t take my eyes off you?’

Alex shuffled his leg and felt his knee brush against Nick’s. For a split second, Nick felt like goosebumps were spreading to each pore in his body. Alex left it for a moment, but then slid it back so their legs were touching.

They looked at each other square in the eye, neither needing to say a word to know what the other was feeling.

CHAPTER 35

ELLIE

Time passed as swiftly as the click of a finger as Ellie and Tim tucked into their meal at the Notting Hill brasserie where he’d booked them a table for their second date.

Ellie had dined in Yam ‘Tcha, Le Sergent Recruteur and La Tour d’Argent - some of the most critically acclaimed restaurants in Paris - and Jean-Christophe Novelli and Helene Darroze had cooked for her in her own home. But she couldn’t remember a meal she’d savoured more than the one she was sharing with Tim. It certainly wasn’t the menu she found appealing as everything she’d ordered had either been cremated or doused in garlic. But she ate it without complaint because she appreciated the effort he’d made in organising their night.

Tim was a kind, sweet, genuine man; the kind she hadn’t met in a long, long time. But was she attracted to him? Yes, she decided, but not in the way she’d expected to be. She had spent enough time in the company of couples who’d met through Match Your DNA to know what two people who were head-over-heels in love looked like. And she wasn’t one of them.

With the meal completed and their coffees drained, Ellie had allowed Tim to pay for dinner before he held her vintage Alexander McQueen coat open for her to slip her arms into. She suddenly felt guilty for wearing it in his company as it had likely cost what he’d earn in a month. In fact she knew for sure that it did, as her private detectives’ report had revealed to her Tim’s bank statements long before they’d met.

But while she regretted intrusively checking up on him, she knew she shouldn’t feel guilty for buying nice things. It was her hard-earned money to do with as she pleased and if she expected Tim to be who he was around her, then she should be who she was too. And she was a girl who loved her clothes.

Tim held the door as they left and she gave in to the urge to entwine her arm inside his, immediately feeling the radiating warmth of his body. Suddenly he stopped in his tracks and offered her the widest grin, then leaned towards her to kiss her. She closed her eyes and as their lips met, she felt an unexpected release of pheromones surge around her body making her nerves tingle and her heart flutter. For a second, she thought she might have even seen stars.

‘You fucking bitch!’ a female voice shrieked from behind them.

They turned together to see a scowling, middle-aged woman with a container in her hand, hurling something in their direction. Immediately Tim tried to step between the woman and Ellie, and got the brunt of two and a half litres of red paint, which covered his face, shirt and jacket. A generous amount also hit Ellie too, splashing against her arms, hair, cheeks and the restaurant window behind them.

‘You’ve got blood on your hands for what you’ve done,’ the woman yelled at Ellie before throwing the can into the gutter and scurrying away along the road and into the night.

Ellie remained frozen in place as a stunned Tim wiped paint from his face onto his trousers and glared at her.

‘What did you do?’ he asked in disbelief.

CHAPTER 36

AMANDA

Amanda was fixated by her niece Bella sitting in a high chair around her parents’ dining table with a group of other small children, all unable to comprehend the celebrations before them.

Bella’s chubby legs kicked with excitement as the lights dimmed, before her mother Karen entered the room with a pink birthday cake and a large illuminated number ‘1’ candle. Everyone gathered around to sing “Happy Birthday” while Bella blew a huge spit bubble and reached out to grab the cake as Amanda’s sister Paula helped her to blow out the flame.

Amanda adored all three of her nieces and nephews and no more than a few days at a time passed without her stopping by to play with them. And since they’d been born, she had spent more on designer label clothes for them than for herself. But lately she was finding it increasingly difficult to be around them because it made her heart ache knowing that she would never have a child with her DNA Match like her sisters had.

Even if she did meet someone to start a family with, he would never be Mister Right because Mister Right was dead. It worried her that she wouldn’t be able to love a baby she’d have with someone else in the same way she might have loved a child she’d made with Richard.

‘Right Missy, just what are you playing at?’ asked Paula, grabbing Amanda firmly by the arm and frog-marching her out into the garden, down the path and into a plastic Wendy house. Once inside, they crouched to sit on tiny furniture and shared a cigarette Paula had sparked up.

‘What do you mean what am I playing at?’ asked Amanda. She attempted feigning innocence but knew just what her sister was getting at. 

‘Richard, your Match. You promised we’d get to meet him today then last minute you say he’s suddenly “busy with an urgent personal training booking.” Who needs a personal training session urgently? Bullshit.’

Amanda swallowed hard. She’d told her family almost everything there was to know about Richard with one exception – that he was no longer living. She stared at Paula, unsure of how to reply.

‘It’s been two months since you met the love of your life and we haven’t seen hide nor hair of him,’ Paula continued and blew smoke from the open window. ‘So what’s wrong with him?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with him,’ Amanda replied and took a deep drag from the cigarette she hadn’t realised she’d needed until she felt the smoke hit the back of her throat.

‘Is there a massive mole on his forehead? Tattoos all over his body? Is he missing a limb? Is he a foot shorter than you? Is he black? You do know that even our old racist grandpa could get his head around Richard’s colour if he knew you were happy.’

‘No, no, it’s none of those.’ Amanda wished it were that easy.

‘Well can I at least see a picture of him?’

Amanda thought about it then decided it could do no harm, so she removed her phone from her pocket and flicked through her library.

‘Bloody hell, he’s a fit little bugger!’ gasped Paula, staring at Richard’s shirtless, post-surfing picture. ‘But now I can see why you haven’t introduced him to us yet. He must be about a decade younger than you! You have a toy boy, you’re one of those cougars aren’t you?’

Amanda pretended to laugh and was quietly grateful her sister had come up with a reason for her not to tell the family the truth about Richard just yet.

‘You think we’re going to scare the poor boy off, don’t you?’ continued Paula.

‘Well you girls can be a bit full-on sometimes and he’s quite shy, so I’ll introduce him when I think he’s ready.’

‘Okay, fair enough,’ Paula replied, seemingly satisfied with the response. ‘But let’s not leave it ‘til Bella’s second birthday before I get to meet my brother-in-law-to-be, okay?’

‘No, of course not,’ said Amanda, aware that her lies had an expiration date attached to them.

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 facial expressions unless they were glaringly obvious, so he responded by mimicking her movements and wrapping 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 it looks like 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 that he was a common sex offender who thought with his cock and not his head. ‘Wow,’ he replied instead. ‘How do you know all this? I didn’t think you were working on that case?’

‘I’m not but DS Brooks and I 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 went out to talk 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 as he heard first-hand how the fruits of his labour were being discussed by those investigating them. And even better, they were being shared with someone he was close to.

‘All the others had just been strangled,’ Amy replied, ‘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 continued, making Christopher bristle. ‘But now it appears he’s a vindictive one too. That not only does he focus on women, but it seems that he has some deep, ingrained hatred of them as well, which is why this attack was so vicious. I don’t know, maybe he was abused as a child by his mother or something.’

Christopher forced himself to keep a straight face as she couldn’t have been further from the truth if she’d tried. He recalled when he first indentified 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 had never been able to get to grips with the importance of money and it was Oliver who’d assisted him with his share of the substantial inheritance each son had 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 on her of the next victim?’ he inquired. He hated the word “victim” because it implied they were innocent in all of this. In his eyes they were volunteers because they had offered him their telephone numbers when they chatted on Apps; they’d made themselves available and there were consequences in doing so. None of them had Matches, they were all second class citizens, pitied by those who had found true love.

But it was a win-win situation for all involved because when this was over, he’d be happy with his continued anonymity while they’d be rewarded by being part of a case that would go down in British criminal history. They’d become the subjects of books, they’d be 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 regular, 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 moral standards and every victim is now online. We’ve done an artist’s impression of how the latest looks 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 put two and two together and linked them to the case 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 social media dating App, UFlirt. 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 amongst 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 deep web sources to keep tabs on their texts, their photographs, their social media, their cloud storage devices and their GPS locations, but 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 and glass and in clouds for anyone to poke around 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 fucking life.”

‘I don’t know,’ he 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 hands 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.