The Ladykiller (50 page)

Once more everyone laughed.

‘Now then, are there any questions?’

Spencer’s hand shot up before anyone’s. Caitlin nodded at him.

‘What I want to know is, are we getting more help? I mean, it’s going to take ages to reinterview the new suspects . . .’

Caitlin held up a hand to silence him. ‘We have more than enough man power - everyone is giving up free time from all over South East Essex. That could be social conscience but I think the double time from the Major Incident Fund is probably helping. Also the Specials come in handy at times like this for interviewing. There’ll be more than enough men, don’t worry about that.’ He turned away from Spencer and looked at the faces before him. ‘Now, any other questions?’

Before anyone could answer he turned away, saying, ‘Good. Pick up your information sheets and let’s get this show on the road.’

Kate smiled to herself. She had to hand it to him. He certainly knew how to run an incident room. He had answered straight off the most important question and now he wanted it all finished so the real work could begin. As much as he got on her nerves at times, Kate had to admire him. At least he got things moving.

Everyone was looking at their information sheets. It seemed that now they had a goal they were straining to get to work. It was always the same on these cases. Once a new line of inquiry opened up it renewed everyone’s interest and enthusiasm.

Kate stared once more at the pictures of the dead women and girls. Her eyes lingered on Mandy Kelly and she thought of Patrick. Then she got on with the work in hand.

George came home from a particularly trying day at work. His leaving party was the talk of the office and he had felt like screaming at them all to go away and leave him alone. Somehow even some of the men from the warehouse had been roped in and George was annoyed. He had never spoken to one of them, even in passing. The last thing he wanted was to make conversation with a crowd of working-class bullies. All they were interested in was the stripper. Oh, he knew what they were after. Pity they didn’t know about him, that would shut them all up. He didn’t need sluts parading around semi-naked, he could have anyone he wanted. Whenever he wanted.

He closed his eyes tightly. Elaine as usual was chattering. Sometimes he wished he had the guts to slap her silly face, slap it till it stung and her big fat ears rang.

‘George, are you listening to me?’ Her strident voice bored through his skull like a newly sharpened axe.

‘Of course I am, dear. I always listen to you.’

‘Well, what do you think about what I said then?’

‘I . . . I don’t really know.’ George was racking his brains to try and remember one item of gossip that might have entered his consciousness since Elaine started talking at him the moment he’d entered the house.

She sighed heavily and began to baste the roast potatoes. ‘You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you? I tell you my manager says they’re thinking of cutting down on staff.’

George interrupted her.

‘But they’d never get rid of you, Elaine.’

‘Who said they were getting rid of me? Do you ever listen to me, George? My manager said that I stood a good chance of being put in as supervisor on the tills. Not before time, I might add. So even though they’re cutting back on staff,’ she poked herself in the chest, ‘
I
will still be employed. And at a better wage as well. And let’s face it, George, now you’ve got the bum’s rush from your job, a regular wage isn’t to be sneezed at, is it?’

The last malicious twist of the knife made his breath come in shallow little gasps. So that was how she was going to play it, was it? Now the sympathy had worn off and the euphoria over the money, Elaine was going to become the one thing she’d always tried to be. The real head of the household. The major breadwinner.

George had visions of himself getting out of his chair and taking the large breadknife from the worktop and slitting Elaine’s throat with it, cleanly and neatly, and laughing. Laughing his head off while he did it.

He stood up unsteadily.

‘Where are you going?’

He ignored her and walked from the room, every nerve in his body taut. To George’s mind this was the final insult. He walked up the stairs and went into the bedroom he shared with Elaine. There he lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. He half expected her to come barrelling into the room demanding to know why he’d walked out on her, but she left him alone.

Down in the kitchen, it occurred to Elaine that she just might have gone too far.

George lay still until his breathing returned to normal and he watched as his whole life with Elaine floated in front of him. He saw her on their wedding day - he had been quite proud of her then. Proud that he actually had a wife. It was like a declaration to the world, as if he was shouting: ‘See, someone wants me.’ It had galled his mother that he had married. She wanted to keep him at home with her. Wanted to carry on ‘looking after him’, as she called it. She had called Elaine a red-headed whore. Well, his mother knew all about them, she had been one herself for most of her life. And in spite of everything their marriage had not been bad at first. Elaine had come to him a virgin and he had appreciated that fact. He had never tried it on with her because she was what George termed a ‘good girl’. He knew that she would balk at anything other than a chaste kiss on the lips after an evening out.

Once married, though, Elaine had turned out to be quite a handful. She’d wanted sex much more often than he had. He had wanted to experiment, but Elaine wanted straight sex and no kissing. George could not keep up such a boring way of spending evenings and when she had become pregnant he had been secretly relieved.

It had been then that he had rediscovered his pornographic pastime. Before his marriage George had relied heavily on girlie magazines - or wank mags as he would call them to himself. He had built up a fantasy world of women who did whatever he bid them. He had thought that with the advent of marriage he would not need the fantasy world any more, but instead had found that he needed it more than ever.

At first, the fact that the magazines were in the house would excite him. The element of risking being caught out had always attracted George. He knew that if Elaine had found the magazines she would have blown her top and he relished that feeling. He had begun to frequent the porno movie theatres in Soho, and the bookshops that abounded there. This was in the days when the naked women had their photographs outside with strategically placed stars to just hide nipples and pubic hair. He had learned a lot from those French films, and from the blue films. That was when he had been introduced to the world of sadism and bondage.

The first time he had purchased a bondage magazine George had felt as if he had finally been let free. The pictures of the women, exquisite smiles on their faces as they were chained up and degraded, had struck a chord deep inside him. And that’s when he made the terrible mistake.

He had been to an Electric Blue cinema and was travelling home on the train. They had been living in Chatham in Kent at the time. They had bought an old house and gradually decorated it and made it into a home. George saw a girl on the train. She had long red-gold hair and it had attracted his attention because it had reminded him of his mother’s when she was young. The girl had noticed him looking at her and had smiled at him. A carefree smile as if she was used to being admired.

As they had neared Chatham the train had begun to empty of people until there were only the two of them. George had been thinking about the film and the girl, and when he had touched her he had only wanted to feel her hair, just the soft springiness of it, that was all. But she had screamed, a loud piercing scream, and he had instinctively pushed his hand over her mouth. She had fallen sideways on the carriage seat and her jumper had risen up, showing an expanse of milky white skin. Then his other hand was pushing inside the jumper and he had felt the jutting breasts. He had experienced ecstasy then, wiping his mind clear of everything but the moment and the sensation. He had no recollection of ripping away her tights and panties, he had no recollection of beating her about the face and head, it had all been too nice. Too warm to be bad.

He had been caught as the train pulled into Chatham station. In his excitement he had not even realised what was happening.

And then there had been the police.

And the questioning.

And the arrest.

And Elaine. A heavily pregnant Elaine, who had been taken to hospital in shock when the police had knocked on the door and told her everything.

Elaine who had given birth to a stillborn son.

Elaine who had for some reason stood by him throughout the trial and had sold up and moved to Essex, so he would have a home to come home to. Elaine who had visited him in prison and written to him once a week.

Elaine who had never let him put it in the past because she hated him for it. Hated him for what he had done and for killing their child.

Elaine who had never referred to it again, except that one day a few weeks previously when the police had knocked on the door. Elaine whom he hated and loved. Oh, he loved her because she had been the mother of his child. The only thing he had ever really wanted in his life.

His son was dead. His marriage was dead.

Elaine was having an affair, he knew she was. He was so certain he could taste it. He could actually see her sometimes with a faceless man, in the back of a car. See her enormous breasts heaving with excitement. See her big fat behind being lowered on to some man’s member. And it excited him. It made him want to watch them. It made him want to hide and see them doing it. It made him want to come inside his pants just thinking about it. His breathing was laboured now.

She wasn’t so fussy now, was she? No more missionary position for Elaine nowadays. Not judging by the marks on her neck. He would like to put his hands around her neck and squeeze gently, till she expired.

Four women were dead. But it wasn’t his fault. They had asked for it the same way that Elaine was asking for it and the girl on the train had asked for it. He had told the police that she had smiled at him, had led him on. But they didn’t believe him.

They had believed her, and she was a whore. They were all whores.

And he had been locked up like a criminal! A common criminal. When all he had done was given her what she wanted. What they all wanted.

Then in the prison he had been beaten up by men who were no better than animals, and yet they put themselves above him!

But he had sat it out. He had won in the end because he had come out and had gone to Elaine and had got himself a job and had provided. He had been a good provider, until the redundancy.

What was it Peter Renshaw had said? Spend some time with the grandchildren . . .

The only time he spent time with grandchildren was when they were someone else’s. George grinned to himself, thinking of Mandy Kelly, and knew that grandparents wouldn’t approve of his games.

He lay on the bed and let the feelings of warmth Mandy Kelly had created wash over him. He was a bit sorry she was dead, because he had quite liked her. After all, Mandy was his favourite name.

Feeling better now, he gradually relaxed.

Downstairs Elaine was sitting at the kitchen table eating her dinner. She was seeing Hector later in the evening and she thanked God for that. Since he had come into her life she had felt as if a great weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

The great weight was George and all he entailed.

Kate was draining spaghetti while her mother put the finishing touches to the bolognaise sauce.

‘Are you sure you don’t mind him coming for dinner, Mum?’

Evelyn looked at her daughter. ‘Now why should I mind that?’ She turned off the gas under the pan and went to the breakfast bar to begin laying it. Kate put the spaghetti into a buttered Pyrex dish and went to give her a hand.

‘Why is the table only set for two?’

‘Because, Katie, I’m going to bingo with Doris tonight. I’ll grab a bite to eat there.’

‘Oh no you’re not! He’s making you leave your own home . . .’

Evelyn interrupted her. ‘Did it ever occur to you that I might have wanted to go out more over the years, and didn’t because I always had Lizzy to look after or had to wait for you coming home? No, I didn’t think it had!’

Seeing the hurt look on Kate’s face, Evelyn grinned at her. ‘I didn’t mean that really, Kate. I want you and this man to have a bit of time together, that’s all. He’s buried his only child today and I think he’ll want you near him tonight. But for all that, if I wanted to stay in, I would. I’m going out with Doris because I want to go to bingo. I happen to like bingo so all in all this has worked out fine. Now, will you put the Parmesan on the table, please? I grated it earlier.’

Kate gave her a hug and Evelyn pulled her close. ‘Don’t you be hard on him now, you hear? He needs a bit of coddling tonight. Forget all the eejity talk about the blood testing and everything, he did you a favour you know.’

Kate nodded. She heard a knock at the door and went to answer it. Evelyn took off her apron and surveyed the little breakfast bar. It looked nice. She understood that Patrick’s house was a huge posh affair with expensive carpets and a housekeeper and all manner of frippery! Well, as far as she was concerned her Katie’s house was as good, if not better, because it had the added bonus of having herself, Katie and Lizzy living in it!

Thinking of Lizzy made her smile. She was looking forward to seeing Peter in Australia. She had been banjaxed with excitement over it, as her mother used to say.

Patrick walked into Katie’s hall carrying a bottle of red wine. Kate took it from him and he slipped off his overcoat, placing it over the worn banister rail. He followed her through to the kitchen and Evelyn favoured him with one of her wide smiles.

‘Come away in and sit yourself down. It’s enough to cut the lugs from you out there tonight!’

Patrick grinned. He loved listening to Evelyn’s voice, it was like listening to his own mother again. He missed the Southern Irish accent. It had a musical quality about it, even when spoken raucously.