Kennedy 01 - Into the Shadows (9 page)

he said.

Jill was sure it would be.

Could it be Valentine? Had he been lurking round her cottage? No, she was being paranoid.

God, she wished they could catch him, though.

Of course, if she were to help, they might catch him more quickly. But could she do it? Could she go through those files again, look at those grisly photographs again, and read Rodney Hill’s statement again?

She honestly wasn’t sure she could.

Anyway, today she wanted to check out Michael’s confession and read the reports. There wasn’t time for anything else. She could think about Valentine tomorrow …

A couple of hours later, Jill was reading the transcript of Michael’s confession. It was a cold, clinical account telling how he’d come home from school, with the knife he’d bought from a chap selling them outside a shop in Rochdale, at least he thought it was Rochdale but it might have been Burnley, lost his temper with his mother and killed her in a fit of anger.

He went into great detail about the new safety equipment at school, how the fire alarm had been going off at irregular intervals for days and how, on the day in question, the sprinklers had come on. Everyone able to go home had done so, and Michael had been lucky enough to get a lift with his friend’s mother. No, his friend’s mother didn’t drive a red vehicle, she drove a dark blue 4x4. No, he hadn’t seen any red vehicles near the vicarage.

Only when he reached the end of his story did he break down.

He insisted he walked through the front door and came face to face with his mother. Why was she naked? He couldn’t explain that. Why was she standing in the hall?

He couldn’t explain that, either. What was she doing in the hall? Nothing. Why had he bought the knife in the first place? No special reason.

When asked why he’d been angry with her, he’d said simply, ‘The usual stuff.’ When pressed, it seemed the usual stuff involved not studying and mixing with the wrong type of people.

That didn’t fit with the Alice that Jill had met, albeit briefly, or the Alice villagers spoke of so fondly. That woman had loved Michael, and would have welcomed his friends. As for not studying - no, it didn’t ring true. He was the model pupil. His headmaster had said so, as had his teachers, as had Tony Hutchinson, and his school reports proved it. Even if it were true, surely Michael would do what other teenagers did. He would throw a tantrum then sulk for half an hour. He wouldn’t kill.

Michael was protecting someone, Jill was sure of it.

But who?

Supposing he had a girlfriend and supposing Alice had disapproved. Mixing with the wrong type of people, Michael had said. It’s what his father had said, too. Does any mother like it when her only son finds some other woman to love? Supposing Michael had kept quiet about this girlfriend, guessing his mother’s reaction would be unfavourable, and had left Alice to suffer the embarrassment and indignity of finding out from someone else?

It was the sort of juicy titbit Olive Prendergast would delight in passing over the post office counter. Jill made a mental note to ask Olive a few questions.

Even if these suppositions were fact, Michael didn’t kill her. Could the fictitious girlfriend have done the deed?

To what sort of girl would Michael be attracted? Given the austere nature of his home life, someone different, someone older with more experience of life, someone wild and extrovert would appeal to him. Wild enough to kill his mother? It was possible, she supposed.

There was a pile of paperwork gathered from teachers, schoolfriends and villagers who had spoken about Michael. None of them, not even Olive Prendergast, had mentioned a girlfriend. All the same, Jill would still like a word with Olive. What she didn’t know about the residents of Kelton Bridge wasn’t worth knowing.

Michael was a member of the school’s debating society, along with a dozen more pupils, both male and female, but no one had mentioned any special friendships he might have. It seemed as if his social life was non-existent.

They all looked the same. With their coloured hair, short skirts, fake leather boots, heaving cleavage, heavy make-up and cigarettes in their hands as they stood on street corners trying not to shiver, they looked like his mother.

This one was younger than most, and her hair was red. It wasn’t a natural auburn, or even a chestnut, coppery sort of red.

No, this was more a plum sort of red, the kind that came straight from a bottle. She had one hand in the pocket of a short, white jacket, and the other held a cigarette on which she dragged as if she needed a hit. Most of them took drugs of some sort or another. Stupid bitches.

He slowed the car as he pulled alongside her and hit the button to wind down the window. There was no one around; it was unlikely anyone would see the car. Even if they did, it wouldn’t trace to him. The registration plates were covered in mud, making them illegible.

‘How much?’ he asked.

‘Depends on what you want,’ she told him, throwing her cigarette to the ground. She leaned on the roof of the car and looked at him through the open window. ‘If you want a blow job^ ‘

“I want more than that.’

On closer inspection, he saw she was a lot younger than he’d first thought. Her skin was fresh beneath the make-up and her teeth were strong and white. How old was she? Eighteen?

Nineteen? It didn’t matter.

‘Get in,’ he said, ‘and we’ll talk about it.’

Even before she got in he could smell her cheap perfume. It was almost overpowering and he kept the window open as he drove off.

‘It’s a nice evening,’ he said, ‘and it would be a shame to waste it. I know a deserted spot.’ It was a cold but clear night, and a full moon was playing hide and seek with the clouds. ‘I’ll pay you well for the extra time,’ he promised. He took his wallet from his shirt pocket and showed it to her so she could see the wad of notes inside. ‘Don’t worry about the money. You be good to me and I’ll be good to you.’

The sight of the cash loosened her tongue and she didn’t stop talking about how badly blokes treated her and how she was saving up to buy her own place. His fingers were white as he gripped the wheel. If she didn’t shut up in a minute, he’d kill her.

The thought tickled him. That’s exactly what he was going to do anyway.

‘What’s funny?’ she asked.

‘Nothing.’

‘How much further is it?’

‘Nearly there.’

They deserved all they got. For the promise of a few quid, they would happily climb in a car with a stranger and head off into the countryside. She’d been in his car for twenty minutes now, but all she was thinking about was the money.

‘I’m Annie, by the way.’

Yeah, yeah. And he was Michelangelo.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Micky,’ he muttered.

A few minutes later, he pulled the car off the Burnley road and on to a rutted track. It was doubtful if the police would get any decent tyre tracks but, even if they did, the tyres would be long gone by then. They bumped along for a couple of minutes. It wasn’t a comfortable ride but at least it kept her quiet.

He’d checked it out - no one ever used it. It led to an old farmhouse but that had been empty for years. Apart from stray sheep that took advantage of the shelter, it saw nothing.

‘It’s a bit creepy,’ she said as he shone his torch inside the empty building. ‘Cold an’ all’

‘I’ll soon warm you up,’ he promised distractedly, and she giggled.

He put his torch on the stone windowsill and leaned back to look at her. The torch was powerful, giving off more than enough light, yet he knew it couldn’t be seen from outside. He’d checked.

It was this attention to detail that made him so good. Would Hill have checked? No. Why not? Because Hill was a nobody. A simpleton.

The thought of Hill claiming his limelight filled him with rage.

It always did …

‘Let’s have a look at you then,’ he said.

She licked red lips and grinned at him, then took off her jacket and threw it to the dusty floor. Her top, a flimsy blue thing, was next, and then her skirt, short, denim and grubby.

When she was wearing only boots, stockings, briefs and bra, she stood before him, hands on hips, licking those red lips again.

‘Well? Like what you see?’

He loathed what he saw. Filthy, disgusting bitch.

She took a step forward, hands reaching out for the buckle of his jeans, but he stopped her, gripping her tiny wrists in his strong hands.

‘Turn round,’ he ordered her, and she did, spinning on her high-heeled boots.

She wouldn’t have seen the scarf; he was too quick for her. It was tight around her neck before she knew it. She didn’t even have time to scream and although her long fingernails were digging into him with a strength that surprised him, he doubted his skin was even marked.

The breath left her body and he felt her go limp.

When he was sure she was dead, he let her fall to the floor.

He pulled the scarf from her neck and was pleased to see that, apart from the marks there, and the way her tongue and her eyes protruded, she looked the same as she had half an hour ago. She looked startled - yes, startled. Not terrified of death, merely startled.

He began taking things from his pocket. First, he put on the disposable gloves and then, very carefully, wiped her wrists with a solution of alcohol. Fingerprints on skin didn’t last long, he knew that, and her body was unlikely to be found for days, but it was that attention to detail again. It was his professionalism that made him so good.

He took a cotton bud from his pocket and cleaned beneath her fingernails with the same solution. He had all the time in the world.

Using the small, sharp knife he cut away her remaining clothes, only struggling a little with her tight boots.

When they were off, he walked around, looking at her from all angles. Her clothes were folded neatly by her side, and his torch rested on the pile. Yes, she was ready.

He unsheathed his scalpel but, before starting work, he chopped off a lock of hair. It was the first time he’d done that, and for a moment, he was unsure. He didn’t want to spoil her, yet he needed the souvenir. Not for himself, oh no. That was for Jill Kennedy.

The missing hair wasn’t noticeable and, satisfied, he began work, cutting the small hearts neatly and carefully. It was slow work, but precision was everything.

Once again, he was in that dark, dusty cupboard listening to his mother making her biscuits. He could almost smell her, that heady mix of cheap perfume and sex. He could almost taste the tiny, heart-shaped biscuits, still warm from the oven …

This part, working carefully on her still, lifeless body, was what excited him most. He wished she could watch him and marvel at his skill and precision.

His erection was strong long before he’d finished, but he contained himself. Attention to detail.

Each of the twelve heart-shaped pieces of skin was wrapped carefully in tissue paper and put in a small plastic tub.

He returned the scalpel to his pocket and surveyed his work.

Perfect. So perfect it made him want to weep. He often thought Michelangelo must have felt like this when he’d finished painting his ceiling, as if, finally, perfection had been created in an imperfect world.

As he gazed at his work, tears welling in his eyes, he knelt to the side of her, unzipped his jeans and freed his throbbing erection.

He grabbed her skirt - attention to detail again - and wrapped it around his penis. When he came, with huge sobs wracking his body, not a drop of semen touched her body …

As soon as he’d caught his breath, he got to his feet, gathered up her clothes, including her soaked skirt, and put them in a bag that he took from his pocket. He double-checked everything, picked up his torch and walked out.

There was nothing to connect him to this.

Now, it was a simple waiting game. Waiting for them to find her.

It was 7 a.m. on Sunday morning, a time when all hardworking people should be sleeping soundly, happy in the knowledge that they could lie in bed undisturbed for at least five more hours. Max, however, had two young boys leaping all over him as they tried to coax him from the warm comfort of his bed.

He wished he had a tenth of their energy. ‘How about you make me a coffee?’ he suggested.

‘OK,’ Ben agreed, ‘and then can we talk about the dog?’

‘It’s a deal. You make me a coffee and then I’ll tell you again why we can’t have a dog.’

Whether the boys heard the last remark, he didn’t know.

They were already halfway down the stairs.

They were good kids, the best, and he’d love to let them have a dog. Ben, eleven years old and a more gentle soul than his older brother, could think of little else. With their lifestyle, though, it simply wasn’t practical. Lifestyle was describing it loosely, Max thought grimly.

He was lucky in that his house had a self-contained flat on the second floor, and even luckier that Linda’s mum had been willing to move into said flat to be both mother and father to her grandchildren. God knows what they would have done without Kate.

She’d been there for them all - the wise and caring mother-in-law to Max, loving grandmother to the boys, and friend to Jill.

Kate wasn’t a dog person, though, and it was unfair to 78

inflict one on her. With the kids at school and him at work, she’d be the one left to cope with it.

Life had been much simpler when Jill had lived with them. They’d managed to arrange their working lives around the kids most of the time. For a short time, life had been normal.

Still, it was no using dwelling on that.

The coffee was taking a suspiciously long time. Max was about to rouse himself to investigate when the boys returned. He hadn’t known they possessed a tray, but Harry was carrying one laden with toast, butter, marmalade - and coffee.

‘Blackmail is a very serious offence,’ he told them, and they spluttered with laughter.

Their capacity for fun never failed to amaze him. Their mother was dead, their father was hardly ever home, and yet they still managed to embrace life. He knew a sudden urge to hug them close and never let them go.