Gut Instinct (9 page)

This was when I
first began
to hate my
penis
, began
to think that it
wasn’t
normal, that there
was
something wrong w
ith it, something wrong with me
.

I
ha
d known I
was different,
known I
wasn’t
happy with my
self,
known
that the dangly bit between my
legs shouldn’t be there
.  I’d known that
for the last few years,
I wasn’t a stupid child,
but this was the begi
nning of
my
compulsive urge to cut
it off.

This was also when my mother started to lock
m
e
in the ‘bobby hole’, the cupboard under the stairs
,
on a Friday night, sometimes for nineteen hours at a time, depending how long her visitors stayed.

I 
hated that bobby hole, it was dark, damp and full of spiders
, huge spiders that might eat
m
e
alive, there were
monsters in there too, I felt them brush against my
legs in the dark,
had
see
n
the shadows on the wall.  I
had to keep still, quiet
, so
the monsters wouldn’t
know I
was there. 

I
heard a man
once
ask my
mother where her child
was as
they were going up the
stairs;
she’d said that I was staying at my
dad’s for the weekend.  This
had confused
m
e, she’d always told
m
e that I
had never had a Dad, t
hat I
was born without a Dad.
That God had said I
wasn’t good enough to have a Dad.
Because of my deformity she’d said.  That must have been that thing between my legs.
 

I
was glad
anyway
that he
hadn’t
sent
m
e
a Dad
if they were anything like
that man that had laughed at
m
e
, b
ut who was having the
last laugh n
ow eh.

My
mother used to say

“
He,
who laughs last, laughs longest”

I’m
having the longest laugh now.
 

That was
it that
would
be what
I could put on one of her
cards, but not the next one, I have
got just the card
that I  want
to leave next time, the card that would let him know that it was ‘me!’.

Chapter
Thirteen

Saturday
2
2
nd
3.15
p.m
.

Stephen
was dozing on the settee, an old movie still blaring away on the T.V. when he awoke to a shrill sound.  It took him awhile to come too and to register the noise, just when he came to the realisation of what it was, the phone stopped. 

He plodded in
to
the kitchen and put the coffee machine on, his mouth as dry as a camels arse
when
the phone rang again.

“Ho” he grunted annoyed at having been woken up from quite an erotic dream.

“It’s me
se
rg
” a voice he vaguely recognised “you’d better get down here straight away.

“Why?” he asked still not quite adjusted to being awake. 

“There’s been another one.”

It was Derek he suddenly realised
he sounded out of breath.
 

“
Another
What
Derek
?
” he asked “since when have I
chrysalis
ed
into mystic meg?”

“Another girl sir, another murder”

Stephen
tried to stay calm, two murders in the space of two weeks that can’t be right,
it
must be
a
co-incidence.
They hadn’t ev
en solved the last one yet, the
y had come to a dead end.

“Tell me the details Derek” he asked putting o
n
his shoes and trying to remember where he’d left his car keys.

“
She was s
uffocated again sir with a pillow
. This one has
a bite mark on her neck though boss, so
we may
well
have
some DNA to go on.

“Oh well that’s something” he sighed with relief, he couldn’t go to his boss with a ‘no result’ on this one too.

“There’s something else boss” Dere
k said, alerting Stephen
away from
his liberating
thoughts.

“What
?!
” he asked.
He was g
etting a little pissed of
f
with having to pull teeth out of Derek for information.

“He’s left another card”

*************

Stephen
put the phone down after getting the crime scene details
and telling
Derek that he was on his way.
He was in shock.

That nonce had been
right all along, it was a serial killer
. 

Could there really be a serial killer in a mediocre city like Leicester.  This was beginning to feel a little out of his depth.

This was the stuff you read about in books or saw on television, it didn’t happen in real life surely.

He’d have to ring Tanya cancel tonight, this was going to be a long night he could sense it,
and he’d
ring and order her some flowers,

It was essential that he
get the
pathologist to rush this autopsy through they needed to catch this man before he killed again,
and then there was the card
, his thoughts were soar
ing
from one thing to another.  What was that supposed to
mean?

“Another one bites the dust”

That was no clue, just some psycho gloating that he’d done it again.
 

“Stop panicking!” he said out loud to himself, as he reve
rsed his car out of his driveway
, it is pro
bably just a copycat.  There had been
enough information in the Mercury for someone to imitate the other murder.

He whizzed through the traffic, as irritable drivers honked their horn at him, unaware of his haste or that he was a police officer.

He was heading for
the Hepburn estate
, a relatively new council estate, built around a small shopping precinct and leisure centre that prided itself on a pool with a wave machine and twenty five foot enclosed water slide.

The estate had its own police station and undoubtedly some of the staff from there would be on the scene, in all probability were the first response, but t
his was too big for them, it would be
left to his department to pick up this one.

‘The card’ he recalled
, sitting upright in his seat,
‘the calling card’ as Paul had called it.  That was not in the Mercury, no-one but his team knew about the ‘calling card.’

It incensed him that Paul could be right and he continued to try and find evidence in his mind that this was a copycat.

He pulled up as close as he could to the familiar black and yellow tape and walked to the relatively modest council house, not so many onlookers this time, he thought.

He f
lashed his warrant card to th
e officer standing
outside;
just as an overwhelming feeling of
déjà
vu hit his stomach
.

The usual buzz was going on as was expected at a murder scene, however this time he could hear kids voices, coming from the kitchen.

He walked in and sitting at th
e well used
looking pine breakfast table were a middle aged woman, a female police officer that he didn’t know, a woman in her mid thirties still in her pyjamas, and much to his disgust running around the kitchen, making as much noise as they possibly could were four young and very boisterous children.

“Whose are these children” he asked compellingly.

“One’s mine” said the thirty something woman

“The ot
her three are the
erm
girls” the police officer
said nodding her head towards the living room, not wanting to say deceased.

“And you are?” he asked the middle aged wom
an, noticing the distress in her
face and wishing he’d been a little gentler.

“This is the mother sir” responded the police woman “She is the one that called us sir”

Stephen got the message, she must have found the body he liked this officer immediately, she was well trained, not like some of them didn’t know their arses from their heads.

“Okay” Stephen
said, hoping to get this place into some kind of order.

“Miss?” he asked looking at the younger girl.

“I’m Lucy, I live next door” she replied.

“Okay Lucy, could you do me a big, big favour, would you take your child and the
erm
.....
the
other three round to your home, whilst we talk to................” He looked at the other woman, her face distorted in grief.

“This is Mrs Wright” the officer offered pleasantly.

“Okay, while I t
alk
to Mrs Wright”

Lucy agreed
although Stephen could see it was reluctantly,
she’d
wanted to be part of the action naturally, this was normal human behaviour she didn’t want to miss anything.

“We’ll come round and have a chat with you in a while” he added, seeing her face cheer up immediately.

“Come on kids” she shouted as she scrambled them all together and left through the back door.

Peace at last he thought; now I know why I don’t want kids.

He went into the living room and for the second time in two weeks he saw a dead girl lying on her living room floor with Owen checking the body and men and women in white overalls checking the scene.

For Stephen it felt unreal.

Chapter Four
teen

Stephen was on his way back to the station, it would be another weekend that his officers had to give up their leave, that wouldn’t be very healthy for the perpetrator, when, and he knew it would be WHEN he was caught, his officers would not be gentle with him, that he also knew for certain.

What had they
got?

Lizzie had been to Jason’s, was that a coincidence or was there something to that.

Her mother had been babysitting Lizzie’s three children at her
home;
they had been dropped off the evening before. She had appeared happy and looking forward to her night out with her friend Brenda.

Lizzie’s mum had told Lizzie to be back to pick up the kids before midday.
It was not unusual for her to be late, but when it had gotten to two o’clock her mother had marched the children back home in a temper, expecting to find her still in bed with a hangover.

The back door had been closed but unlocked. There had been no forced entry. She had found Lizzie on the floor dead and had called the police and an ambulance.

She said that she had tried to give mouth to mouth but to no avail.  Not surprising as the coroner had said she had been dead for several hours.

Again it had been suffocation with
her own
pillow. There were no signs of a struggle.

Lizzie had a bite mark on her neck; he’d not been as careful this time, hopefully they would be able to get something from that, dried saliva and Bob’s your uncle DNA!  They would get the bastard!