Double Mortice (22 page)

‘Mum didn’t want to resort to killing him unless it was absolutely necessary. She just wanted to drive him mad. But me,’ he whispered hoarsely, ‘I wanted to use the bat on him.’ His eyes hardened as he spoke. ‘It would’ve been the ultimate poetic justice – using that particular bat to smash his skull to smithereens.

‘All my life I’ve had to suffer his patronising crap; how grateful I should be that he gave me a job in the firm; how I was wasting my time on a brain-dead rock group. My God, you don’t know how much I hate the smug bastard. But tonight,’ he whispered. ‘Tonight
– I am going to use the bat on him. I’ll show him who’s brain-dead.’ Paul suddenly fell silent and stared at the wall. Taking another pill from his pocket, he slipped it between his teeth.

Don’t let him stop talking! You must keep him talking! ‘What happened after that?’

Paul switched his gaze back to her, studying her face. ‘When Dad arrived at the flat, Mum was lying on the bed doing her suicide act. She almost blew it when he held a mirror to her lips – we hadn’t reckoned on that. But she managed to hold her breath just long enough. Nice going, that. Then she disappeared off to Aberdeen. She told her parents that Dad had beaten her up and that she was terrified of what he might do to her next. She even gave herself a few fake bruises with theatrical make-up; a special skill of hers – very handy. She was establishing her rationale for going into hiding. After she’d got Dad committed, she planned to reappear as the terrified, battered wife who’d run away to escape from the violent, sadistic monster.

‘Clever, eh? After the suicide scenario, we decided to wait until Dad went back to work before enacting the murder. I went past his office every morning to check if his car was there. The following Tuesday, I saw it, and I phoned Aberdeen straight away. Grandad answered the phone so I used a high-pitched voice to ask for Mum.
Double Mortice – Phase II – We have lift-off
’. That was all I had to say; the pre-arranged signal for Mum to come back to Glasgow. I’m not boring you, am I?’

‘No, Paul. Go on. Tell me what happened next.’

Paul furrowed his brow. ‘Mum was in a foul mood when I picked her up at Queen Street station. Apparently Gordon Parker had written to her while she was in Aberdeen. The idiot had told her he was worried about me because I was messing about with hard drugs and he thought she should know. The stupid pillock. As if I couldn’t handle it. As soon as she got off the train, she started giving me a hard time. She said she wasn’t going to give me any more money unless I promised to give up drugs. She went on and
on about it all the way back to the flat. Eventually I had to promise – just to shut her up.

‘When I finally got her off that subject we set up the ‘murder’. I’d got hold of a container of sheep’s blood from an abattoir outside Edinburgh – I told them it was for the final scene in Hamlet in a school play. We switched the lift so it would stop at the fourteenth floor and we jammed the mobile phone signal. I nicked Dad’s razor from his bathroom and brought Brutus down to flat 14, leaving the apartment door wide open. Mum applied theatrical make-up to her throat to give it the appearance of having been slit – black lines and jagged red weals. She even managed a sort of 3-D effect – it was amazingly realistic. It almost convinced me. Then I tied her to the bed. She was stretched out, just like you are.’ Paul closed his eyes. ‘Just like Carole,’ he added in a hoarse whisper.

Paul’s eyes flicked open and his gaze travelled the length of Philippa’s body, coming to rest on the shallow rise and fall of her breasts. He was breathing heavily.

‘The plan was that I would watch at the window for Dad’s car and when I saw it coming I was to pour the sheep’s blood over Mum’s throat. I went to the en suite bathroom – that’s where you get the best view of the road. It was really exciting. I knew we could pull it off – and I might even get the opportunity to smash the bastard’s head in with my bat.’ Philippa saw his eyes dance at the prospect. ‘Suddenly I had a craving for a hit. I had a needle and a speedball in my jacket. I’d been planning to save it for the evening but I felt an overwhelming need for a fix right there and then. Although Mum was only a few yards away, she couldn’t see into the bathroom. It was magic. What a rush. The best high I’ve ever experienced. The adrenaline and the speedball mixed beautifully. I was ecstatic.

‘Then, even lying tied to the bed, Mum started nagging me again, droning on and on about how worried she was that I was messing about with hard drugs, especially heroin. How it must be very serious if nosy-bloody-Parker felt he had to write to tell her
about it. How she’d never give me another penny if I ever touched hard drugs again.

‘She was ruining everything. I was freaking out – and she was spoiling it. I shouted to her to shut up. She told me to stop shouting. I went into the bedroom and screamed at her. She looked at me – she knew I’d had a hit – I could tell by her eyes – she could tell by mine – we knew each other’s eyes, Mum and me. She ordered me to untie her immediately. She said the game was over; that we weren’t going to go through with it.

‘But I couldn’t allow that, could I? I desperately needed my share of the money. Speedballs are expensive. I already owed my dealer a fortune. He was leaning on me to pay up. You only get one warning, and I’d had that. He was threatening to cut off more than my supply. ‘I can’t untie you, mother’, I explained. ‘If I untie you, you won’t give me any money’. Then I suddenly thought of a way to get all the money for myself. I picked up Dad’s razor. ‘But you are right, Mum – the game is over. We’re playing for real now.’

‘Paul, you’re not making any sense!’ she shouted. I slashed at her throat and she went berserk, twisting and struggling like a maniac. I cut strips of tape and fastened them across her mouth to shut her up. Still, she twisted and struggled. I slashed again and again.

‘Eventually she stopped moving – just an occasional reflex jerk. Jesus, I felt great. I went back to the bathroom window to watch for Dad’s car. It wasn’t long before I saw him arrive. There was already blood everywhere but I poured the sheep’s blood over her for good measure – a high budget production. The effect was brilliant. Then I hid in the kitchen.

‘When Dad found her body he was sick as a dog, then he ran off. I took Brutus back upstairs, re-set the lift and unblocked the mobile phone signal. All going according to plan. I was well on top of it. I went back down to flat 14 and watched from the window. I saw the cops arrive and I heard them go upstairs. I waited until I saw them leave with my Dad in a squad car, then I wrapped Mum’s corpse in a sheet and took it down to my van. I drove to a quiet spot in the hills
and I tied her body to four trees to make it look as if the murder had taken place there. The following day I waited till the caretaker had gone to the pub at lunchtime, then I went back to flat 14 to clean up the floor, dismantle the furniture and load it into my van. I even went to the trouble of smashing it to smithereens and dropping bits off at several different rubbish tips around the city. That’s the way to do it.’ He nodded, relishing his ingenuity.

‘Of course, that left me with the problem of what to do about Parker,’ he continued. ‘I hadn’t told him that we’d triggered Phase II but I knew that as soon as the news broke about Mum’s murder, he’d realise I’d killed her and he’d run whimpering to the police.

‘I went through to Edinburgh for a rehearsal last Thursday and I came back to Glasgow on an early train on Friday morning. I’d given Parker a key to my flat so he could shack up with Maureen. I knew she was on the early shift, so I waited outside the apartment until I saw her leave, then I went upstairs and let myself in quietly. Gordon was fast asleep. I had his hands tied behind his back before he’d properly wakened up. I grabbed his feet and tied them too. I told him I’d had to kill my mother and it was all his fault because of that stupid fucking letter. The wimp had never done heroin in his life – he’d never got beyond smoking pot and dropping a few tabs – and he was trying to lecture me on what I should and shouldn’t use? For Christ’s sake!

‘I decided to let him experience a
real
high. I gave myself a hit and then I pumped a speedball into his arm. He went berserk. Totally lost his cool. Can you believe it? I gave him few more jabs. He was screaming like a stuck pig, just like my mother, so I had to gag him. But you don’t scream, Philippa, do you?’ He smiled at her coldly.

‘I don’t scream.’ Her voice was trembling.

‘Then I slit his throat. He’d left me no option. He knew too much. It’s not so difficult when you have the knack – and I’ve certainly got the knack,’ he giggled. ‘I got a screwdriver and burst the lock on the front door of the flat to make it look as if it had been forced
from the outside. You’re a lawyer, Philippa. You can see how it all fits together.’

Her mouth was dry. She was struggling to swallow. She could barely speak. ‘I … I suppose so.’

Almost absent-mindedly, his hand moved down her neck and slipped inside her jacket, coming to rest on her breast. She wasn’t wearing a bra. She didn’t flinch as he fondled her through her blouse. ‘You’re very like Carole, you know. I must say, I have to give my old man credit for his taste in women, if for precious little else.’

‘Who’s Carole?’

He didn’t reply, but continued to massage her breast.

‘Would you like to make love to me, Paul?’

He eyed her up and down. ‘You are a sexy little minx.’ His breathing was becoming laboured.

‘Untie me – and let me show you just how sexy I can be,’ she whispered.

He looked at her in mock amazement. ‘You don’t realise, do you? I can’t untie you. I have to screw you tied to the bed. It’s all part of the plan.’

Philippa’s heart skipped a beat. ‘What plan?’ Again he ignored her question as he teased her nipple through the thin material. ‘Don’t you like doing it this way? Tied to the bed? Carole did. Isn’t this the way you used to do it with my old man?’

He picked up the razor and flicked his thumb across the edge of the blade, testing the sharpness. Philippa’s whole body tensed as he tugged her blouse from the waistband of her skirt and started slicing it up towards her neck, the blade coming to rest just below her chin. Folding her jacket and her tattered blouse away from her breasts, he leaned across her body and took her nipple in his mouth.

Philippa felt something brush against the inside of her thigh. She flinched when she realised it was the razor. Her skirt was already riding up around her waist and she could feel the cold steel as the blade travelled slowly up her leg, grazing her bare flesh, then she
gasped involuntarily when she felt it slide inside her pants. She heard a rending sound as the blade sliced through the flimsy material. Paul’s mouth was still clamped firmly to her breast, his tongue pressing down hard on her nipple.

‘Paul,’ she pleaded desperately. ‘Why don’t you untie me so we can do this properly?’

He lifted his mouth from her breast and sat up straight. ‘How many times do I have to tell you?’ He spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘I have to screw you tied to the bed. It’s all part of the plan.’

‘What plan?’

‘You really want to know? Then listen carefully. This is good.’ He sprang to his feet. ‘The only way I can be sure of getting my hands on my father’s money is if he’s dead. But if he’s murdered, that will cause all kinds of complications – it might take years to get things straightened out through the courts. Everything would be so much simpler if he committed suicide. But for that to happen, he would need a reason. And what better reason than remorse after he’s raped you and killed you? So, I’m going to screw you, Philippa, then I’m going to slit your throat,’ he stated casually. Philippa let out an involuntary squeal. ‘After I’ve done that, I’m going to call lover boy and tell him you’re here and that you’re in danger. He’ll come galloping across like a knight in shining armour – nothing in this world is more certain – and when he gets here I’m going to smash his head in with the baseball bat. Then I’m going to daub his clothes with your blood and tip his body over the balcony. Beautiful, isn’t it?

‘The police will find the evidence. The message he left on your windscreen enticing you here – painstaking work, that was, forging his handwriting. I don’t think you’ll have destroyed the note. The police will probably find it in your handbag or in your car. Even if they don’t, what does it matter? They’ll deduce that he lured you here, overpowered you, tied you to the bed, raped you and slashed your throat. Then, in a fit of remorse, he leaped from the balcony.’

Philippa’s pulse was racing out of control – the nightmare overwhelming her. It was all she could do to hold back the scream that threatened to burst forth.

‘I’ve thought of everything. The autopsy will conclude that the blow from the baseball bat was sustained during the fall. And look at this.’ He produced a packet of condoms from his trouser pocket and held it triumphantly in front of her eyes. ‘I’m going to wear one of these when I screw you so there’ll be no DNA evidence available from my sperm. And there’s an upside too – no risk of AIDS – and no risk of you getting pregnant.’ He spluttered with laughter.

‘And there’s something else,’ he continued eagerly. ‘You’re really going to enjoy this.’ He ran to his jacket, which was hanging on the back of the bedroom door. He pulled a slim packet from the inside pocket and unfolded it carefully on the mattress, taking out two syringes. ‘Look what I’ve got. One for each of us.’

‘No Paul! No! I don’t use that stuff. I don’t need it.’

‘Now, now, Pippa. Don’t fib. I bet you’ve snorted a few lines of coke in your time. Probably tried a bit of smack as well, eh? But this is the combo to beat them all,’ he said, lovingly caressing one of the syringes.

He rolled up his shirt sleeve and slipped the belt from the waistband of his trousers, looping it round his left arm, just below the elbow. He pulled it tight, gripping the loose end of the belt with his teeth and tugging on it until the veins on his forearm stood proud. He selected a bulging vein and lanced it with the needle, then closed his eyes as he pumped the plunger. His head arched back and he gave a long, low moan. He slackened his jaw and the belt fell loose. ‘You fucking beauty! There’s nothing to touch it, I promise you. Your turn now.’