Bubblegum Smoothie (4 page)

He hopes this man doesn’t find his treat. Not yet. The treat is there to be found, but it isn’t there to be found right now.

Even though it will be terribly exciting when it is found.

He knows the risk he is putting himself into. He knows that there will be CCTV, and DNA, and whatever other forensic evidence the filth use these days.

But that doesn’t matter. None of those things matter. Because all he needs is his seven. Or his five remaining. As long as they don’t catch him before then, his work will be done.

He gets excited at the thought of the final act. Stares across at the bus station looming over the city like a tumour, and he gets excited.

He looks back at the crime scene. Watches as the handcuffed checkered-shirt man is freed from his cuffs, as he walks away smiling.

He doesn’t know who he is, but it doesn’t matter who anyone is.

He steps away from the window ledge and walks into the darkness of the abandoned building. He slips his earphones in as he approaches the front door, steps outside into the light rain.

He presses play.

The recorded screams and shouts of his first two victims fill his ears like a beautiful, skin-tingling symphony.

He feels a tear drip down his cheek. How beautiful the music is. How beautiful the sounds are, as he snips away at their fingers, as he gouges out their eyes.

He turns up the volume, walks down the street, and he hums along.

The most beautiful part is that he’s only just getting started.

SIX

It might’ve been four years since Martha Goddard’s sex change but I could still see the man behind her makeup.

“Blake! Oh darling, how lovely to see you.”

She wrapped her arms around me as we stood there in her porchway. It was strange, really. For the average person to look at her, they’d think she was a full-on woman and had been all her life. The short, stylish dark hair, the red lips, the smell of perfume.

But it was the mole underneath her left eye that reminded me that underneath all that style, Mart was still there.

I followed her into her home. She lived in a little bungalow just outside of town. Sort of place rough kids usually hung around outside, but the house itself was nice enough.

“Would you like a beer or something? Still a Budweiser man?”

I raised my hand. Smiled, as I stood in her kitchen. “No thanks. I’ll be fine.”

Martha slammed her fridge shut. Strutted over to me.

“Now just because I don’t have a cock anymore doesn’t mean you can go all bashful on me. How’s business?”

I looked around the kitchen. Nice conservatory attached to it. Weird smell of overcooked beans coming from the microwave, though. Couldn’t eat beans, not anymore. Went far too many days in a row eating them once upon a time, so many days that just the smell of them made me heave.

“Business is good,” I said. “Running a smoothie stall these days.”

Martha finished pouring herself a glass of white wine. She was wearing a figure-hugging black cardigan over a white top, which showed off her plump breasts. “A… a smoothie stall? Not Groovy Smoothie, surely?”

I nodded, like a celebrity that’d just been recognised. “That’s the one.”

Martha let out the girliest laugh, but there was still a hint of Mart beneath it. She walked past her kitchen work surfaces and led me through into the conservatory, strutting all the way. “You know, of all the people I had down as running a smoothie stall when they hit their thirties, Blake Dent was just about bottom of my list.”

“Funny how a person can change.”

Martha winked. “Touché.”

We sat down in Martha’s conservatory and watched the birds fly around the tiny square of a garden. We chatted about life—about what we were up to, who we were up to. Martha asked me about family, and I told her that family held me back. That I still wanted to have fun in life before burdening myself with other worries like kids, serious relationships, things like that.

“Sounds like some things never change,” she said, sipping on her wine.

“How about you?”

“What, family? I might’ve had a sex change, Blake, but I’m hardly popping out kids.”

“Well you’re…” My cheeks blushed as I tried to work out the right thing to say to my former male colleague. “You’re a very handsome woman.”

Martha raised an eyebrow. “Wow. Handsome. And there I was wondering why you weren’t settling down with someone.”

We chatted some more, but I couldn’t rid my mind of that girl splayed out on top of the squad car. Lenny had called first thing this morning. He confirmed the knife as “suspicious,” whatever the hell “suspicious” meant. He’d be in touch, anyway. Of course, it was all over the papers today.

Serial Killer STRIKES!

Lock Your Doors!

Immigrants On ANOTHER Sick Spree!

The usual sensationalist shite.

“What brings you here, anyway?” Martha asked, as she finished her white wine.

I thought about the best way to tell Martha, and then I figured the best way to tell her was everything, from the start.

She narrowed her eyes. Narrowed them in a way Mart used to always do.

“And you figured
I’d
be able to help?”

“You owe me a favour,” I said.

“And
you
owe me money.”

I liked it when she said that. It gave me a good opportunity to tell her how much was on the table for this particular bounty.

“One
million
?” she gasped. She reached for her wine glass, but it was already empty. “I don’t think anyone’s worth one million.”

“I do. Especially if I’m being paid it. But look, Martha. Two bounty hunters are better than one, especially if we can pool our resources.”

“Pool our resources?” She raised an eyebrow again. “Tell me, what resources do you have other than me?”

Shit. She’d got me there. For now, anyway.

“I just thought you’d be interested. I’ve seen this girl—the second girl. I’ve seen the stab wounds in her side, and I figured that might be something one of your men might be able to help me with.”

She twirled a pink painted fingernail around the edge of her glass. “I don’t know, Blake. I’ve been out of the business for a long time.”

I laughed. Couldn’t help myself.

“What?”

“Nothing, it’s… You’re out of the business? So what’s paying your bills?”

“The same thing that’s paying your bills,” she said, voice raised. “You pay the bills with crushed fruit and ice, I pay the bills with a portable nail salon.”

We didn’t speak for another few minutes. It was still weird adjusting to Mart as a woman. We’d worked together in the past. Two of Preston’s finest bounty hunters, if I can say so myself. But after
that
case. After that case, we’d gone our separate ways.

“I know what happened in… in ‘07 was bad—”

“Bad?” Martha said. “Blake, have you forgotten what happened back then?”

“No. I can’t. There’s no way I could forget it if I wanted to.”

“It nearly ruined us both. Almost did much worse. No. I can’t take this job. You… you’re a good hunter. And I can give you a couple of contacts but—”

“I need the name of your weapons guy, Mart… tha. I need to know who he is.”

Martha bit at her nails. A habit her former male self had always been guilty of, too. Used to flick her/his nails in my coffee cups and leave me choking, the dirty bugger.

“It’ll cost.”

I totted up in my head how much of the million I could afford to lose.

“I’ll give you a hundred thousand just for the name.”

She laughed. “A hundred thousand out of a million? A tenth of a million when your success depends on what I tell you?”

“It might not,” I said. My cheeks were warming up. I used to be able to haggle eBay auctions that’d already been
won
, let alone win an argument with a man-woman hybrid. “I’m giving you a tenth to just give me the bloke’s name and—”

“Five hundred thousand,” she said.

It was my turn to laugh.

“Half of the kitty? Half of the bounty just to give me a name? Get screwed.”

“I’d love to, but despite being a woman now, I still prefer pussy. Half of it. Half, and I’ll set up a meeting with my guy for you. Might even come along to hold your hand.”

“I thought you were only in the nail business now?”

She smiled. “And I thought you were only in the smoothie business? So what’ll it be?”

Over and over I imagined handing £500,000 over to Martha, but the thought just made me feel ill. It made me want to crunch through a packet of Halls throat sweets. Or maybe I’d wanted to do that anyway.

“Martha, I’m sorry,” I said, standing up. “I appreciate what you’re offering me. Really, I do, but I can’t hand over half.”

She shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

I wanted to tell her what would happen to me if I didn’t catch this criminal. I wanted to tell her how the past was on the verge of catching up with me, nipping like mad at my heels. And how, if she didn’t agree, somehow she’d be implicated too. But blackmail wasn’t my game. Blackmail was a coward’s game. Lenny’s game.

“I’ll let myself out…”

My iPhone vibrated against my thigh. I slowed down as I walked back through Martha’s bean-smelling kitchen and answered the call. Unknown Number. Which didn’t mean a whole lot since nobody ever wanted to give me their number.

“Yeah?”

“Blake!” The distinguishably irritating voice of Lenny. “How you doing, pal? Good, good, not so bad myself. Anyway, news for you. And it’s juicy news. News you’re gonna love. News you’re gonna want to marry and have kids with and—”

“Is it the knife?”

“Yes. The knife. Confirmed by the coroner as a… Have you got a pen for this? I can barely pronounce it.”

I squeezed the bridge of my nose. “What is it?”

“A… Marifone Killswitch, or something like that. Quite a distinctive ridge on the edge, which is a giveaway. Illegal, as with all automatics. Completely illegal, but selling for £1,500 on the black market. Or the white market. I know a lot of this crap comes in from Africa but I wouldn’t want you pinning me down as a racist.”

A pause on the line. I slowed down as I reached Martha’s front door.

“So?” Lenny said.

“So what?”

“Well, er… Your friends. Your contacts. Your people in the know. Can you help us? Or is it gonna be a nice rosy time in the prison showers? Believe it or not, you don’t have to worry about dropping soap anymore. We have automatic handwash booths in there. Saves a lot of—”

My stomach sank as I cancelled the call. I pictured handing over five hundred thousand quid to Martha all for a little meeting with her knife expert.

I heard her high heels clicking on the kitchen floor, getting closer to me.

“Find your way out okay, hon?”

I looked at her. Looked at her with her womanly face, Mart still hiding underneath.

“Five hundred thousand,” I said, holding out my hand.

She slipped her hand inside it. Her skin was impossibly smooth. “Got yourself a deal. I’ll get right on to my man.”

I hoped to shit her man was worth it.

SEVEN

He watches the third piece of the puzzle sitting in her living room drinking a cup of tea and he imagines how her breasts will taste when he’s sliced them from her body.

His stomach tingles as he waits outside the house in his Land Rover. The sun blares down on his windscreen. He has the air con whacked up to full, and he wears his bulky coat and his clear plastic gloves. This one, she excites him. This one, he’s catching in broad daylight. Maybe he’s getting complacent. Maybe he’s getting too confident.

But shit. A man without confidence couldn’t do the things he’s done.

He leans across the seats so he can get another good look at her through the window. It’s definitely her. She’s changed her hair a bit, cut it shorter, made herself look more like a bloke, but he recognises those lips, and those breasts. He can’t wait to lose himself in those breasts, listening to her beautiful screams.

His arms tingle as he checks his watch. 12.57. He’ll act on the hour. The thought of it forces a smile. He’s always enjoyed the chase, all his life. Even when he was a kid, he’d found the act of killing fun. Pet mice, pet hamsters, they were easy targets because they were so easy to get hold of.

But he enjoyed the kills he caught from the wild more. The kills he had to work for. The rabbits that he caught in traps, took back to his cellar while his mum moaned in the company of man after man. The cats… oh the cats were always fun. The way they squealed, the way they struggled as he closed in on them with his knife…

He felt a dampness spread across his jeans. Shit. Better not get too excited, not at a special moment.

Luckily for the animals, he wasn’t interested in them anymore.

His hunger had grown to new heights. More meaningful targets. More human levels.

A kill was good, yes. But a chase followed by a kill… that was utopia.

He takes a quick look up and down the shithole of a street. Nobody in sight. He can’t believe his luck—the second day and already he is on his third kill. The third of the seven. And nobody is even coming close to sniffing around yet. He wonders if they’ve found their present yet. He wonders if the police are ahead of his personal predictions.

He laughs. No way. The police are never ahead of anything. And that was another added bonus in this whole crusade.

Plus, he’ll know about it when they find their present. Everyone will.

He turns off his radio, opens his Land Rover door and he hops onto the pavement. Takes another look up and down the street, but it is empty. Boiling day, too. Boiling days always give him the itch. Bring back the memories of the boiling days where Dad would drink too much beer…

No. Don’t think of those boiling days. He can’t hurt you anymore.

He steps across the pavement and pushes open her gate. As he walks down her path, he can’t control the tingling in his arms, the swelling in his throat.

Three in two days.

He’s going to be satisfied again.

It keeps on getting better and better and better.