Nine Lives (7 page)

Thus we ping-ponged with as yet no point scored.

‘Sport?' he tried again.

‘Skipping.'

Then he served an ace that I couldn't return.

‘Rope,' he yelled.

I felt assaulted, invaded, and I was certainly not going to play any more. How dare he throw me a word that not even
I
could pronounce, one that I could barely imagine. He had sailed too close to the wind. He had chanced his arm and although he was not aware of it, he was nudging my crusade off course. He had to be shoved out of the way.

I got up quickly.

‘I'm going to kill you,' I said. ‘I have to. I'm on a mission.'

And it was that word, that mention of my inflexible crusade, it was that word that spelt out my cause as just. I moved towards the desk. I took out my string and dangled it in front of him. Then he realised what I was about and he rose, trembling with fear and rage. He threw himself on me and tried to pin me to the ground. But I was stronger and I threw him off. His resistance excited me, and knowing my superior strength I was content to spar a little. Then he kicked me in the groin and took the wind out of me. My anger was greater than my pain, and I shoved him back into his seat, laced his scraggy neck, and did the business. I avoided the blood as I tested his pulse. I was wearing one of Verry's favourite suits and I didn't want it stained.

I left the house quickly. There were some people about, but by now it was very dark and I doubt if any of them saw me leaving. However, to be on the safe side, I did not return
to my car. I decided I would walk towards the Underground station, and then lose myself in its passages. In any case, I needed to walk. I needed to clear my head. Usually after a killing, I felt elated and I would sing on my way home. But this time there was no feeling of triumph. On the contrary, I felt deeply depressed. It was Mr Morris's resistance that had unnerved me. He had no right to put up a struggle. He had met his just end. To date, I had killed four people. In the terms of my mission, they were guilty, each one of them, and each one of them deserved to die. I must not question that assumption. Never. Else my crusade would be denied its purpose. Yet, after Morris, for the first time since I had set out on my mission, I itched with scruple.

I could not afford misgivings. I could not suffer qualms. I walked slowly back to my car. I went over in my mind all the reasons why my mission was imperative, and why I had started on it in the first place. The whole ‘why' of it. So I analysed it, imaged it, picture after compelling picture, and by the time I reached my car I felt appeased and I hummed my way home.

FOUR DOWN. FIVE TO GO.

When Wilkins was informed …

When Wilkins was informed of the Morris murder, he was delighted. This time, he was positive the killer had slipped up. He must have. He was optimistic, even though the odds were stacked against him. For it was a good three weeks before Mr Morris's body was discovered. Information from a neighbour revealed that Mr Morris had booked a three-week holiday in Ibiza and the local newsagent confirmed that his paper delivery had been stopped. Other neighbours, when questioned, agreed that Mr Morris was a ‘queer bloke', a phrase used by many of them, some with a curled lip and others with a sly smile. Such information did not hearten Wilkins, for it pointed to a very specific motive for the killing. A rejected lover, perhaps. He had known of similar cases. The killer could well have been some other than the man he was after. Nevertheless, he lived in hope of a clue.

It was a suspicious postman who had alerted the police. He had noticed that much post had accumulated and the box was full. He had opened the flap to push the letters through, and had reeled from the abominable smell. He'd invited a neighbour to share the aroma, and both suspected its source.

‘It was bound to happen one day,' the neighbour said, and the postman didn't know what she was talking about.

Wilkins almost sprinted to the north London suburb, photographer and police pathologist panting at his heels. By the time they arrived, the neighbours had gathered outside on Mr Morris's neat front lawn. Wilkins ordered
them back to their houses and saw to it as his aide gently prised open the front door and staggered backwards, choked by the smell. The investigators muffled their mouths with scarves or handkerchiefs and entered.

They did not have to look for the body. The smell led them to the spot. Enough was left of poor Mr Morris to reveal the method of his murder – a neat guitar string around the neck; and, after meticulous examination, not a single print of any kind in sight, nor any sign of a break-in. It could have been a copy-cat killing, Wilkins thought. It could well have been a rejected lover, one who had been invited inside, or perhaps even used his own key, who had wreaked his vengeance. The pathologist knelt over the body. He could not be precise as to the day and time of the killing. The rate of decomposition indicated that Morris had been dead for at least three to four weeks. At that stage he could not be more specific. The muffled photographer went about his business, and to an audience of muttering net curtains what was left of poor Mr Morris's body was parcelled away in an unmarked van. Wilkins returned to his desk and, although he knew it was wicked, prayed for another killing.

No address book had been found at Mr Morris's house. And no diary. Just a filing cabinet containing details of his patients. Wilkins underwent the dreary task of interviewing them all. Except one, a Mr Johnson, who was never at home. But Wilkins attached little importance to his absence. Throughout his long investigations he had found that patients in general had little to offer by way of clues and their attitude to each killing varied between delight and sorrow. Mr Johnson might well be on holiday, and perhaps unaware of his counsellor's demise. As he sat at his desk,
mulling over the evidence, or sheer lack of it, that he had collected during the course of his therapist inquiries, he was called by the front office. A Mr Jeremy Johnson wanted to see him on a matter of urgency. The name rang like wedding bells in Wilkins' ear.

‘Has he stated his business?' Wilkins asked, though he knew the answer.

‘The shrinks,' the messenger said.

Wilkins composed himself. He envisioned a confession. He felt it in his bones. But he must beware of a hoax. There were enough nutters around who, for reasons unknown, confessed to murder. But he did not think Johnson was one of them. He would be gentle with him. Very gentle. Until he was convinced by his confession. Then he would spit on him.

He told the messenger to bring the man to his office. He arranged a chair in front of his desk so that he could look him squarely in the face. Gentle, gentle, until he was taken to the interrogation room. Then perhaps he would be offered a cup of tea.

He stood up as his door opened. ‘Come in, Mr Johnson,' he said. ‘Sit down.'

He settled himself behind the desk and looked directly at his visitor. And what he saw did not please him. The man was wearing make-up, unashamed mascara on his eyes and rouge on his cheeks. He might well have been a rejected lover, who had killed for that reason, but no way could he be a serial killer. The man was perfumed too, and the smell wafted teasingly across the desk.

‘What can I do for you?' Wilkins asked.

Mr Johnson came straight to the point. ‘I've come to confess,' he said. He put his hands together in a cathedral
shape, his long fingers trembling, and Wilkins noticed that his lacquered nails were slightly chipped.

‘Confess to what?' he asked.

‘I murdered Mr Morris,' he said.

‘Would you say that again?' Wilkins asked, playing for time. He could not yet make up his mind whether the man was a hoaxer.

‘Like I said,' Mr Johnson insisted, ‘I murdered Mr Morris.'

‘How did you murder him?' asked Wilkins. The ‘whys' could come later.

‘I garrotted him. With a guitar string.'

‘Did you wear gloves?' Wilkins asked.

‘Of course. I didn't want to leave fingerprints.'

‘Did you get blood on your clothes?'

‘No. I took care of that. I stood well away.'

‘And how did you get into the house?'

‘Mr Morris let me in. As he did, every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at six o'clock. I was always his last patient of the day.'

‘Patient?' Wilkins was slightly thrown.

‘Of course. Why else do you think I went there?'

So he was not necessarily a rejected lover, at least not by Mr Morris, Wilkins thought. He had saved the crucial question till last. The ‘how' of the murder, the guitar string and the garrotte, the unforced entry, the lack of clues, all these facts could have been garnered from newspaper reports. And they didn't prove Johnson as the killer. The reason for the murders had never been reported because it was not known by anybody. Not even himself. So he paused before asking the vital question.

‘Tell me, Mr Johnson,' he said. ‘Why did you kill him?
What terrible reason did you have for taking a good man's life?'

‘He wasn't a good man,' Mr Johnson said. ‘He let me down.'

‘In which way?' Wilkins held on to his gentle tone, although it called for effort.

‘He was going on holiday. Three whole weeks.' His voice trembled. ‘What right did he have to leave me? What was I to do for three weeks without his help?'

‘What have you done before when he went away?' Wilkins asked.

‘But he never did, you see. He wasn't a man for holidays. The odd weekend, here and there. But never a weekday. Never. He knew I couldn't manage without him.'

‘How long have you been his patient?' Wilkins asked.

‘Nine years, come August,' Mr Johnson said with a certain pride.

Three times a week? For nine years? Time enough to be cured of whatever condition Mr Johnson suffered from, Wilkins thought, and it was not difficult to guess what that condition was. The rouge, mascara and nail varnish proclaimed it. ‘That's a long time,' Wilkins said for lack of anything else to say. ‘May I ask how much you paid for this treatment?'

‘Thirty pounds,' Mr Johnson said.

‘A week?'

‘No. A session.'

‘Ninety pounds a week then,' Wilkins said. He tried to tot it all up in his head but it was too complicated and unashamedly he wrote down the sum on a piece of paper, and like an old-fashioned schoolboy he did his multiplication. Five down, carry four, until he reached the
obscene sum of four thousand six hundred and eighty pounds a year. And he continued on his paper to multiply it by nine.

‘Forty-two thousand, one hundred and twenty pounds,' he said aloud and he wondered how, for all that money, Mr Morris had bettered his patient's condition. Perhaps the chipped nail varnish was a sign that Mr Johnson was losing interest in his little hobby but it still seemed an awful lot of money to pay out for a bottle of nail-varnish remover. Slowly Wilkins began to lose sympathy for the killer's victim. Even with one patient, he reckoned that lot earned twice as much as he did, and probably twenty times that much, according to their patient lists. He decided that the killer might well be motivated by envy and he would put this theory to Dr Arbuthnot, whose job it was to take it into account. Although he knew that poor Mr Johnson – he had transferred his sympathies from the victim to the man sitting in front of him – was a hoaxer, he nevertheless decided to keep him in custody for a while. He hoped that he would learn from him something about the therapist's profession, some facts that would enlighten him and perhaps give him clues to the killer proper.

As he ordered his detention, he told his officers not to get too excited. Johnson would probably turn out to be a false trail, he told them, but one who might uncover some useful clues. ‘Treat him gently,' he told them. ‘I'm pretty sure he's innocent.'

Wilkins was not too disappointed. Although his hopes had been shattered, he had found the interview useful. It had cast a new light on the case in hand. It had caused his own prejudices to shift, and he began to question his
previous assumptions. He felt positive and confident. ‘It may take time,' he said to himself, ‘but I shall run this fox to earth.'

It's my birthday today …

It's my birthday today. I'm forty-seven. My first birthday without Donald. He always arranged a birthday treat for me. We'd go out to dinner. Or the theatre. And he'd take great care to choose presents he knew I would like. I'm sad today. I'm sad because Donald's not here. But sad too about my boys. They haven't been in touch with me since Donald was taken. They don't want me to know where they are living though I'm sure they're together, and in London somewhere. They both work in the City. Insurance. And in the same company. When they left, they told me they were going to change their surname. Dorricks is not like Jones or Smith. It's a singular name, and they didn't want to be associated with it. So I don't even know what my boys are called. I wish they would get in touch. I want to persuade them to go and see their father. If only I could remember the name of their firm. Perhaps Donald knows. I'll ask him next time I visit.

I don't feel like getting up this morning. I want to sleep my birthday away. Birthdays are times when you think about your future. You daydream and you plan. But the future I have to look forward to is bleak and lonely, and when I'm in a low mood I find it easy to fall asleep. God is good sometimes.

I was tempted to go and see if there was any post before I went back to bed. I had no reason to expect birthday cards, but I couldn't help myself going to the letter box. And indeed, there was one letter, and in a pink envelope, so I knew that someone had remembered. I looked at the
stamp and saw the franking of H. M. Prison, and I knew who it was from. I had half hoped that my boys would have remembered, but I had to make do with Donald. Which upset me a bit, for it was all because of him that the boys had not written. I get these moments of not liking Donald very much, yet sometimes I love him as deeply as I did in the very beginning. Between the loving and the hating, and the not knowing and not wanting to know, between my total belief in his innocence and my disturbing doubts, between all these things, I was mightily confused. I couldn't face the reality, because I was not quite sure what the reality was.