A Thousand Small Explosions (20 page)

CHAPTER 61

AMANDA

Amanda recognised Michelle from her online photographs and the naked selfies she’d sent to Richard as soon as the café door opened.

She was immediately irked that Richard’s former girlfriend was even prettier in the flesh than she was in her pictures; her hair was shorter and blonder and she wore skinny jeans and a figure-hugging top. Her fake tan gave her a healthy glow and showed off her bleached white teeth. ‘Bitch,’ Amanda mumbled to herself and subconsciously wrapped her coat tighter over her pregnant belly. As much as she was looking forward to the prospect of impending motherhood, the sacrifice of fashion for elasticated comfort clothing was getting on her nerves and she longed to slip on a pair of heels and skinny jeans that would fit over her swollen ankles.

She waved at Michelle and put on an artificial smile, beckoning her over to a table at the rear of the café. It had taken a week of messaging before Michelle would agree to meet Amanda. Even now, Amanda couldn’t be sure why she felt compelled to come face to face with a significant part of Richard’s past, but some invisible force inside her told her to pursue it.

‘Can I order you a coffee?’ Amanda began.

‘No, I can’t stop for long as I’m on my lunch break,’ Michelle replied, politely but curtly. ‘I’m still not really sure why you wanted to meet me.’

‘Like I said in my messages, I was Matched with Richard and wanted to know more about him. We’ll never get the chance to meet and I know the two of you were … close.’

Michelle cautiously eyed Amanda up and down before she hunched forward on her chair. ‘Rich and I had an on and off relationship. I was in my last year at university and he was working at the gym when we first hooked up. I was pretty much in love with him, but Rich? Well, I think he might have been at first but then he started pulling away. In the end, I felt like he was just using me for hook ups.’

‘Really?’ said Amanda, surprised by Richard’s treatment of her but secretly satisfied that even pretty girls sometimes get used.

‘Yeah, and I got the feeling he had a few of us on the go, like some of the older women he trained at the gym. They were always trying it on with him, especially the married ones. I just don’t reckon he was the type to settle down and have one regular girlfriend.’

‘Oh,’ said Amanda, feeling suddenly very deflated. ‘Maybe that’s when he did the Match Your DNA test. He knew you weren’t the one and didn’t see any point in continuing it.’

When she saw a glimmer of hurt in Michelle’s eyes, she regretted her choice of words.

‘Maybe,’ she conceded, ‘but I was surprised when you said on Facebook you’d been Matched because Rich was adamant he never wanted to do the test.’

‘Really? Why?’

‘He said something like it’d take all the thrill out of the chase; that life was a gamble and a life without risks was a life not worth living. So there was no way in hell he’d be told who he was supposed to fall in love with.’

‘Maybe he changed his mind.’

‘Possibly, but I doubt it.’

Amanda leaned back in her chair and stared at the table as the picture of Richard she’d spent months painting, with the help of Jenny and Emma, faded before her.

‘I guess I knew in my heart of hearts he wasn’t the one,’ continued Michelle, ‘I’ve read about how it feels when you meet your Match, and I didn’t get any of that with Richard. But he was a nice boy and we had a lot of fun. And can I be honest with you?’

‘Please do.’

‘And I’m not saying this because I’m jealous you’ve been Matched with him or anything, but no matter how much the two of you might have been in love if things had been different, I still don’t reckon Rich was the type of guy who’d throw all his eggs in one basket. He’d have always played around on you.’

‘Really,’ Amanda replied, her tone flat. ‘Now you just sound bitter.’

‘Honestly, I’m not. He was just too much of a free spirit. He wanted to travel the world again and the last thing on his mind would have been settling down and having kids. He didn’t even like them that much.’

‘Didn’t like what, children?’

‘Uh-huh. They got on his nerves. We once had to walk out of a TGI Friday after the starters because there was a children’s party on the next table. They drove him mad. He even admitted – although he did say he was ashamed of himself – that he was glad his sister couldn’t have kids so he wouldn’t have to pretend to like being around them.’

‘Why did he get his sperm stored then? His mum and Emma told me all he wanted was a family of his own?’

Michelle’s eyes suddenly widened and she looked Amanda directly in the eye. ‘You know them?’ Amanda nodded.

‘Then take my advice and steer well clear as they’re a couple of bloody nutters those two, no wonder Rich never wanted me to meet them.’

‘Nutters? Why, what did they do?’

Michelle moved closer to Amanda, her voice low and her expression grave. ‘A few weeks after Rich’s accident they found out where I lived and turned up on my doorstep. The conversation began a lot like this one, wanting to find out more about Richard that maybe they didn’t know, but by the end of the night, they were offering me his sperm to have his baby. What the hell is that all about?’

Amanda felt her blood run cold and the hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention. ‘They wanted you to have his baby?’ she asked quietly.

‘Wanted? They became pretty bloody insistent. It was the most awkward conversation I’ve ever had in my life.’

Amanda’s fists clenched and she tried to control her breathing and prevent herself from breaking into a panic attack.

‘When I said no, they got a bit… I don’t know… pushy about it and even offered me money to do it and covering the cost of everything,’ Michelle continued. ‘They’d really thought it through and said I could move in with them until I had it. It went on for weeks – calls, texts, tweets, emails … in the end I threatened to go to the police if they didn’t leave me alone and they finally stopped. It weirded me out though and that’s why I was reluctant to meet you at first, I thought they’d sent you.’

‘I guess that’s understandable,’ Amanda replied and desperately tried to justify the actions of the two people she thought of as family. ‘Maybe they weren’t thinking straight and were still grieving Richard’s death.’

‘Death?’ repeated Michelle. ‘Who told you Rich was dead? He’s still very much alive.’

CHAPTER 62

CHRISTOPHER

‘Jesus Christ, how much do you weigh?’ Christopher panted as he dragged Number Twenty across the hallway floor and towards the kitchen.

He was a physically fit man but felt the sweat beading above his brow being absorbed into his balaclava. Her App profile pictures weren’t reflective of her true size. Even when he’d followed her around Top Shop, Zara and H&M one afternoon in a pre-strike reconnaissance mission, he assumed she had bulked up on clothing because of the unusually cold snap. But in the comfort of her own home, it turned out that she was a girl with an ample amount of flesh.

The layout of her two-storey flat meant the kitchen was located on a different floor to the bedrooms, so Christopher adapted and changed his kill pattern. Once he’d let the billiard ball drop onto the vinyl flooring outside her bedroom and she’d come out to investigate, he enveloped the wire around her neck. But when it became lost in her excess skin, he yanked at it hard, knocking her off balance. Her weight thrust him into the wall, causing two framed paintings to fall. There he remained pinned behind her, using every ounce of strength to keep them both upright or risk ending up on the floor like he had with the thumb-biting Number Nine.

Fortunately, Number Twenty lost consciousness within a minute as he compressed both carotid arteries that carried blood from her heart to her brain. But it still took a further three minutes before she completely ceased breathing.

She drained Christopher of all his energy, leaving his biceps and forearms sapped and strained. After giving himself time to rest and regain his strength, he secured a generic plastic bag around her head and neck with rubber bands, took her wrists with his gloved hands and began to drag her along the corridor, past the lounge and up the stairs towards the kitchen. He paused a third of the way up to catch his breath before he finally laid her body out symmetrically in the kitchen.

Christopher’s need for order dictated that each woman must be left in exactly the same position in exactly the same room. It hadn’t commenced like that, it just so happened that the first three girls’ homes all had kitchens with alcoves that provided the perfect place for him to lie in the shadows and wait. Number Four was a dining room murder and he considered leaving her there, right up until the moment he was about to exit. But he knew that for the rest of the night, then the following day and right through the rest of the killings, it’d irritate him that her alternative positioning might make her an exception. She wasn’t - he treated each of them with the same lack of regard.

Once he removed the plastic bag from her head that captured any stray drops of blood from her neck wound, he straightened her clothing so there were no rolls or bunches to indicate she’d been dragged into position. He took his lint roller and applied it to her clothes to pick up any stray hairs that may have fallen from under his balaclava or from his eyebrows or eyelashes.

Then, armed with his plastic spray bottle of luminol, he retraced his steps. When in contact with the iron in blood, the chemical emitted a blue glow allowing Christopher to locate trace elements of blood she might have shed. Finally, with his antiseptic wipes, he cleaned the whole area and replaced her paintings before going through his mental checklist one last time. 

With two Polaroids taken and carefully pocketed in an envelope, Christopher was ready to leave when he suddenly stopped in his tracks. He realised he hadn’t smelled Number Twenty’s hair. The extra effort and kill position meant that holding her head close to his nose and inhaling the product she’d used had come second to murdering her. He’d inhaled Amy’s hair that morning when she surprised him by appearing in the bathroom as he showered. He made his way behind her, massaging the shampoo into her scalp and watching as the suds poured between her shoulder blades and oozed down to the arch of her back. Then he crouched down and ran his tongue from her buttocks up to her neck. Nothing and nobody in the world smelled or tasted as satisfying as Amy. Was that why he hadn’t smelled Number Twenty?

No, it wasn’t the only reason, thought Christopher. He knew there was something else about Number Twenty’s death that wasn’t sitting well with him. It was more than just the kill location or being unaware of her true size, it was that for the first time he hadn’t enjoyed any part of this murder. He used to savour the anticipation of returning a few days later to place photographs of his next killings on their chests and view their decomposition rates, but even that didn’t hold the same appeal as it once had.

His heart wasn’t in it any more, it was somewhere else and with someone else instead. Amy was changing him. But into what, he didn’t know.

CHAPTER 63

BETHANY

Bethany was beginning to feel overwhelmed by the number of people gathered in the garden for her wedding day and by the exhausted look on Kevin’s face, he was feeling the same.

‘Let’s get you back inside to chill out for a bit,’ she said to him, and the two made their way slowly back to his bedroom.

More than a hundred of Kevin’s friends, relatives and neighbours turned up for the hastily organised reception, carrying food on trays or in bowls and bottles of beer and lager which were stored in cooling barrels of ice. A barbecue roared to life near to the garages as her new father-in-law Dan flipped burgers and turned sausages.

Bethany could smell the meat cooking and listened to the chatter outside Kevin’s window while he closed his eyes.

‘Thank you,’ he muttered, his eyes closed and his breath shallow.

‘For what?’

‘For marrying me. I know how hard you found it - and I know why.’

Bethany’s eyes opened saucer-wide and she tried not to panic. The last thing she wanted was to hurt Kevin, but had he guessed she was in love with his brother and not him? ‘What do you mean?’ she asked tentatively.

‘Knowing I’m your Match and that I’m not going to be here for much longer … you could have just turned around and gone home when you saw me. But you didn’t, so thank you.’

Bethany bit her lip and squeezed Kevin’s cold hand. She knew she had done the right thing and she waited until Kevin fell asleep before going back outside to meet the guests and represent the happy couple.

It was clear that despite the remote location of the farm and the distance to the nearest town, Kevin and his family were well thought of by their neighbours. She was introduced to so many enthusiastic people who seemed to have heard all about her. They were either quick to shake her hand, to hug her or kiss her on the cheek and offer their congratulations.

But behind their smiles she knew there was an underlying feeling of pity for the young widow-to-be. They felt sorry for the girl who wasn’t destined to watch her husband grow old. She and Kevin would never start a family or watch their offspring mature; they would never have the gift of grandchildren they could spoil rotten and they would never go to their graves happy in the knowledge that they had led long, happy lives together. Bethany assumed that was what they were thinking because she was thinking the same thing too. However she wanted to be doing them with Mark, not Kevin.

Mark was the only person who’d failed to approach her for much of the day but he was also the person she had wanted to speak to the most. Yet they had given each other berths as wide as a ravine.

‘Kevin is so lucky to have you, love,’ began Dan, placing his arm around Bethany’s shoulder. ‘No, let me correct myself -
we
are lucky to have you. I’ve never seen him happier than he’s been in the last few weeks since you came to see him. And I know the next few aren’t going to be easy for any of us, but they are going to be easier for Kevin knowing that you are with him.’

Bethany offered a mandatory smile and thanked Dan for his kind words, but inside she began to feel the immense weight of the starry sky pressing down on her shoulders and crushing her under its might. So she made her excuses and worked her way through the marquee, past the house and towards the patio, away from everybody where she could be alone.

She reminded herself of how only a month ago, meeting her Match in the flesh had seemed like a pipe dream. Then she made it a reality but somewhere along the line, it had gone awry. She’d discovered the man she was supposed to love had a terminal illness, then she transferred her love for him to his brother, yet she’d agreed to marry the first out of pity. Now she desperately wanted to gain control of the runaway train she’d found herself on but she had no idea how. Instead, she was clinging on for dear life.

As she approached the patio, she turned a corner and before she could see him in the dusk, she felt Mark’s presence. Immediately her pulse quickened and the goosebumps on her arms rose.

‘Hello,’ Bethany began shyly.

‘Hi,’ Mark replied, equally ill at ease.

‘What are you doing out here?’

‘I needed time out.’

‘Same here.’

‘Do you want me to go?’

‘No, no,’ she replied, a little too ardently.

Bethany sat in the furthest position away from Mark on the patio, and looked out into the dusky distance. Each of them was unsure of what to say next or how to break the tension.

‘It was a nice ceremony,’ Mark began. ‘I forgot what it was like to see Kevin smile that much.’

‘Yes, it was beautiful,’ she lied, and held the hand with her wedding ring finger out of view behind her back.

‘I know none of this is what you expected when you came over here, but Kevin and Mum and Dad are all glad you came.’

‘What about you?’ Bethany asked, and held his gaze. ‘Are you glad I came?’

‘I’d better get back,’ Mark replied, and got up from his seat and began to walk away.

‘Mark,’ Bethany began, her voice now quaking. ‘What are we going to do?’

Mark turned his head and stared at her with such longing and poignancy in his eyes that she felt like weeping for both of them.

‘We’re not going to do anything,’ he said softly, before slowly turning his back on her and walking away.