Beyond Evidence (13 page)

Twenty Three

Satisfaction

Satisfaction can come in many different forms, like success, achievement and happiness. In Ross' case, satisfaction had replaced happiness. In fact it hadn't replaced it as Ross had never been truly happy. Nothing in the world could make him happy, only short spells of satisfaction could get him through his life day by day, thought after thought and nightmare after nightmare.

Seeing Billy fall to his death down a flight of stairs had given Ross a short spell of satisfaction.

Murdering Angela, Rebecca and Michelle had given him three short spells of satisfaction, not one spell longer than the other. Seeing other people hurting for their loved ones because of someone else's filthy and disgraceful antics, that gave him a short spell of satisfaction. Reading of his own ‘work' in the newspaper, that did it for Ross. Seeing what he had done created as a real story in a tabloid gave him that feeling too. You might also say that he
relived
his crime.

Satisfaction was becoming like a drug to Ross and unlike most of the drugs out on the Glasgow streets, not an easily accessible one!

The minute Ross did what had to be done (in his eyes) he felt the satisfaction flow slowly through his body. It warmed his skin, his blood and bones. It reached in to his heart as though his heart required it to be able to fulfil its purpose. He felt like the satisfaction was slowly building him back in to a state that could cope with all the bad luck that life had thrown at him.

He thought about Jeffery, what kind of life was he living? Did he know that he had been adopted? Did he even care? Ross did. He cared that this Jeffery fellow had been given a lucky escape. He had been given the chance of a normal life, a normal childhood without blackened memories.

Ross thought about his own life, thought about his trail of bad luck and how he seemed to be the debris from the abusive life his father had forced him to live in.

Some people live to work, some people work to live, some people live for the thrill. Then there are those who live for the simple things like marriage, children and mortgages. Some people live to travel the world and explore different cultures and ways of life.

For Ross there was now the slow and painful realisation that the satisfaction was keeping him from killing himself, that it was keeping him alive and at the moment it was barely doing that.

A fix, that's what I need, to keep going, to get justice
and stay sane and to feel alive,
Ross thought to himself.

Short spells of satisfaction...

Ross made his plan. A plan that was going to destroy lives, cause destruction and chaos for the people involved but mostly, give him the satisfaction that he needed to stay sane.

Twenty Four

Someone in the shadows

Patrick watched Mark as he worked behind the
bar of, The Blue Bar, the evening after Jodie's night terror. As he watched he saw an endless flow of women flirting with Mark, some discreetly and some not so discreetly!

Mark didn't even have to do much to get the attention he wanted, by the looks of things all he had to do was say, "What would you like?" or, "What can I get you?"

Patrick laughed when one woman actually told him what
she
could do for
him
. As they served together Patrick began to feel the pressure lift from the past few days, Jodie becoming ill, in a sense and the appearance of Angela. The thought of planning experiments to carry out to try and come up with some solutions that may take the case forward was resting quietly at the back of his mind as he served cocktails and chatted to Mark about general things.

"How do you do that?" Patrick asked Mark after yet another woman passed her number over with her money.

"What?" Mark asked sheepishly.

"That! Women are literally throwing themselves at you."

Mark laughed as he unloaded the clean glasses from the compact industrial dishwasher beneath the till, "Literally? Now that would be something I'd like to watch!"

"You know what I mean. Are you actually going to call any of them?" Patrick asked.

Mark took the bundle of phone numbers from his back pocket and smiled, "Probably not mate, not really that interested to be honest."

He put the little pieces of paper back in his pocket and continued unloading the dishwasher. "What about you?" Mark asked.

"What about me?"

"You don't fancy any of those women? Some of them are alright!" he winked.

"You know I don't, I mean yeah some of them are quite nice, but I am engaged."

"Just testing you Patrick, from what I've seen of you two it seems you are pretty set on each other!" Mark kept his head in his task as he spoke.

What Mark said made Patrick doubt that for just a moment.
What if this case is pushing Jodie away? What if she is not ok with all of this? But she said so!
he questioned himself.

Mark looked on, wondering why he se
emed so distant all of a sudden. "You alright?"

Patrick snapped back f
rom his thoughts at Mark’s voice. "Yes, sorry I was miles away. Are those glasses ready then?"

Patrick took the glasses and began placing them back on the shelf behind him. Jodie was in his mind once more. He had to admit the knot in his stomach was becoming tighter the more he recalled the terrors and he couldn't imagine how she was feeling about it all. As he stacked the glasses and became entangled in his thoughts, he went over the experiments that he would be carrying out the next day with D.S Preston and D.C Lang. He would be conducting these in the homes of the victims and any other related places that were necessary to the murder cases. He was feeling strangely nervous about it.

The nervousness must have presented itself in his expression because Mark asked him again, "Patrick, are you sure you're alright? You seem really down about something?"

Patrick regarded this and took the opportunity to get things off his chest. "Not really actually, can I trust that you'll keep this to yourself if I tell you?" Patrick sincerely hoped that he could.

"Of course you can trust me, who am I going to tell?" Mark's smile was genuine, understanding that Patrick felt relief for seeing it.

"Well, you know Jodie? We're going through a bit of a tough time just now..."

"Relationship stuff?" Mark jumped in.

Patrick shook his head.
"No, nothing like that, but I'm scared that it might come between us."

Mark looked on at Patrick and he could see that the poor guy was genuinely struggling to keep his stress under control as he spoke.

"What is it Patrick, honestly you can trust me?" he placed a friendly hand on Patrick's shoulder.

Patrick knew that Preston and Lang would be livid with him for breaking their discretion, especially if the media were to get wind of their arrangement, but for some reason he really felt like he could trust Mark.

"Have you seen the news and the papers over the last few months?"

"Here and there, I don't really pay much attention to the news to be honest. I know that makes me sound a bit ignorant!" Mark replied.

"So you haven't heard about the girls that were killed in the city centre?"

"No. What has that got to do with you and Jodie? Don't tell me you're the killer?" Mark laughed as he spoke.

"Very funny, if only it was as simple as that!"

"Ok now I'm lost."

"I'm a psychic medium Mark. I run the West End Spiritualist Church with Jodie."

Mark seemed a little shocked, not to Patrick
’s surprise since he had grown up with people looking at him like he was crazy.

"You're a psychic?" Mark
’s face had changed expression from concern to shock.

"Yes. Do you believe in it?"

Mark shook his head. “It has never been proven to me. I’ve wanted to believe in it for a long time but never have I been shown that I should.”

"Well what I am about to tell you may or may not make you change your mind."

"Ok, I am listening."

As Patrick told Mark everything that was going on, Mark listened intently. He couldn't quite believe what he was hearing but he knew that Patrick spoke words of truth, truth that was chilling to him.

"So you're telling me that you are working with the police to try to find the person who killed these girls?"

"Yep and it seems to be affecting Jodie a hell of a lot more than it is me and I don't know why."

"Do you think that maybe it is because she is worried about it affecting you and the stress of it all is just getting to her?"

"Yeah, but it all came on so suddenly. She seems really ill because of it. I'm really worried about her." Patrick suddenly felt himself begin to well up. He tried to compose himself and took a deep breath. "I suppose I'm just going to have to work really hard to solve this case so we can go back to our normal lives."

Mark looked at Patrick and saw the worry in his eyes.
He must really love her
, he thought to himself as he patted him on the back. "Couldn't you just tell the police that you can't do it anymore as it's affecting your personal life?" he asked.

"No way, I can't let these girls down now. I've not even really started yet."

"What do you mean?" Mark wondered.

"Well, I still need to carry out some experiments and séances to see if I can get some vital information that will lead the police to the ar
rest of the person who did this."

Mark was silent for a while. He ran over the large amount of information he had just received in his head and tried to piece it together.

"What's wrong? You think I am mad don't you?" Patrick spoke the words he had so many times before.

"Not at all, I believe you."

"Really?"

"Why would you lie? It's a lot to deal with Patrick. I'm sorry for your troubles. If you need any help with anything, even just someone to talk to, I can be that person." Mark sounded sincere.

"Thanks Mark. Thanks for listening and not judging."

Unbeknown to Patrick, Mark was not the onl
y person who had been listening.

Twenty Five

A grave message

The flat was in complete darkness on his arrival home from his shift. Not only was there darkness, but silence too, an eerily chilling silence. Something was wrong, but what? He switched on the hall light and it shone into the living room. For some reason he felt frozen to the spot. Where was Jodie? What was this feeling of ice, deep within him?

"Jodie, are you there?"

Nothing...

A shadow crossed the doorway of the living room. If it hadn't been for the light from the hall then he may not have seen it.

"Jodie..."

Then came the feeling of goose bumps, not from the cold, but from the chill deep within
himself
. There was a feeling of uncertainty around him, he felt like he should know even though he
didn't
know what was about to happen, but he knew for sure that something was building. He took a step forward, to be met with a flicker of the light bulb above him.

A warning?

He inhaled deeply, almost silently so he could listen for something, anything.

Patrick couldn't decide why he felt so
scared, he had dealt with this since he was a young child. It wasn't like he was watching a horror movie, but he did have the feeling of terror that a horror movie would give you if you were secretly watching as a child. You knew you weren't allowed to watch it but you were so curious as to why not, the fear of the movie itself and the fear that your parents would catch you watching it was enough to lure you in.

Patrick knew he should walk straight into his living room and confront the situation but he was scared as he didn't know what
he was confronting. Was it human or spirit? Was that why he was scared, because he wasn't sure?

He decided to bite the bullet and confront whatever was in his home. He walked straight into the living room and to his relief, he saw Jodie standing by the sliding glass doors with one hand pressed against the glass. They were partially open and the night breeze swirled around the room.

"Why didn't you answer me when I called out?" he asked, feeling slightly annoyed and a little relieved.

"Why haven't
you
?"

"What?" he replied feeling puzzled. Then something inside him clicked. That was it, that horrible chilling feeling was back and it was colder than before.

Jodie was stood there but it was not Jodie who spoke. The figure turned and the blue lips almost glowed in the light from the hallway. The eyes were dark and lifeless and the voice was haunting, definitely not Jodie's. He looked passed the woman and saw a cool mist lingering where her hand had been just a moment before.

Patrick drew back in fear.
"What do you mean?" He managed to gather himself and took a stance that showed bravery.

"It's
there
," the voice muffled now.

"What is? Tell me!" Patrick almost shouted now.

"You can't see. You've been blinded but you must see," the voice was distressed.

"Must see
what? I can't do this by myself."

It was Rebecca's voice which came from Jodie, but almost as soon as she spoke she was gone. Jodie's body collapsed to the floor and Patrick ran to her.

"Jodie, wake up!"

Jodie opened her eyes and she looked at Patrick who now had tears in his own eyes. She took his face in her hands and he helped her up.

"What the hell is going on?" he said.

"You tell me. I wake up on the floor and you've got tears in your eyes hovering over me," her voice shook.

Jodie's worry became more intense. Patrick helped her over to the couch and they sat down. Jodie steadied herself.

"Right, that's it. I think we need to get away for a while."

"What good will that do?" She asked as he held her close to his chest.

Another episode, what is happening to me?

Patrick knew what good it would do for them, for Jodie, to get away from the stress and uncertainty of the case. He also considered what bad would come of him abandoning it for a few days. Would Preston and Lang even allow it?

Surely a few days won't change much?
He thought.

"Give me a few days to get it sorted. We need to get away from all of this. I'm sick of seeing you so messed up. You're definitely picking up the spirits and I don't like it. It's not good for you."

"
You
don't like it? I can't stand it, Patrick I can barely remember afterwards, all I know is that I feel like I'm going mad."

"I know. I'll speak to Preston and Lang and I'll try to get them a few things to work with and then we can leave for a few days. I'm putting you first Jodie, I'm going to take care of you."

Jodie shivered in his arms as he held her, comforted her. Patrick had to try and help lead the police to solving this case sooner than he had thought.

You can't see. You've been blinded but you must see
, he repeated it in his head.
What the hell does that mean?

***

Ross sat in his kitchen staring at the newspaper cuttings and pictures that he had of Rebecca, Angela and Michelle. He thought about their deaths and how much they were deserving of it. He remembered about the conversation he had heard earlier that evening. Psychic medium was he?

Seems I have something of a challenge on my hands, we'll see about that Mr Psychic won't we?

He held a picture of Patrick and Jodie he had found in a local newspaper advertising the spiritualist church and its services.

Jodie,
was the last name in his mind before he fell asleep.