Bubblegum Smoothie (16 page)

His victim tries to break free again. The bemusement slips from his voice, and is replaced with begging. The stages of a victim trying to worm their way out of their inevitable death. Thrilling.

“Come on, man. If this is… if this is about what happened, then—then we can put that behind us. We can forget. No need to—”

“You were right to do what you did. Completely right.”

His victim stares at him in bewilderment. His face is flushed and his pupils are dilated. His shrivelled cock is seeping piss at the end, his muscles doing all they can not to release.

“I… I… Is—”

He walks behind his victim. Walks behind him so that he can’t see him, so that he is struggling against the chains to arch his neck.

That’s when he stops at the table full of tools. Knives. Scalpels. Hedge-cutters. Toys to play with.

“You said I was dangerous,” he says to his victim, as he hovers a hand over some standard kitchen scissors, imagines cutting away at his victim’s nipples, snipping away at his anus…

“I didn’t—I didn’t mean… Please, man. Get me the fuck out of here.”

Ah, anger setting in. Setting in like it always does.

“Get—me—the—FUCK!”

The victim shakes at his chains again. Shakes, goes wild like a feral animal.

He lets his victim shake. He allows him this moment of anger. Allows him to pass through the latest stage of grief.

And then his victim stops shaking and sobs.

“I—I can pay you. I have—I have lots of money.”

Nice. Back to begging again.

“Money?” he asks. He lifts up a carving knife. Walks back towards his victim. “You have money?”

“Ye—yes,” his victim says. He is shaking, he stinks of piss and sweat, and he whimpers every few seconds. “Lots… lots of… Please. I have a family. I—I have a—a little girl. Don’t do this. Please.”

He almost ejaculates when his victim tells him he has a family, and a little girl.

He pictures her cute little face covered in horror and tears when she sees her daddy all over the papers tomorrow.

Almost slips over the point of no return.

He crouches behind his victim. Leans close to his ear, rests his chin on his shoulder.

“See, I don’t care about money. Money doesn’t interest me. No, the one thing in my life that did interest me, and you took it—”

“Please! I’ll do anything! I’ll—you can have anything. You can—we can go back and—”

“When you’ve done the things I’ve done, there never is any going back, Pete. Never.”

He brings the carving knife in front of Pete and grabs his mouth, holding his neck back.

“Besides, why would I go back when I’m having so much fun?”

He presses the carving knife hard against Pete’s chubby belly.

He hears the muffled cries, feels Pete’s teeth sinking into his hand. The carving knife rests on his belly, the skin barely torn.

“Oh I wouldn’t lose your voice just yet, Pete,” he says, as the contents of Pete’s bowels dribble down from his ass onto the floor. “We’re only just getting started here.”

And then he carves.

TWENTY-SEVEN

“I mean, impersonating me? You think that’s clever? I don’t think it’s clever. Come on, Blake. You’re better than that.”

Lenny had been lambasting Martha and me for the best part of half an hour now. Mostly me, but Martha got the occasional narrow-eyed look, too. We sat in his car just down the street from Martha’s. I wanted to get out and walk there, but the crafty git had locked the back doors with child lock. Clearly he was serious.

And there was nothing more annoying than a serious Lenny.

“I just don’t think you are treating the case with urgent attention,” I said.

Lenny looked in his rear view mirror. Looked at me with intense eyes, his cheeks blushing. “You—you don’t think we’re treating the case with—”

“Have you seen that place?” I asked. “Have you seen what poor Christina Wilfrieds dropped off at her mummy’s place? Who, by the way, barely ever sees her daughter except for a weird visit a week or two ago. A visit to drop off some very interesting instruments.”

Lenny waved his hand at me, like I was an annoying fly. “Girls like dildos. It’s the twenty-first century woman. Feminism, masturbation, girl on girl—”

“Is this going anywhere or are we just going to list things you get off on?” Martha asked.

Martha’s intervention quietened Lenny. Although he was crap at dealing with comebacks, Martha’s comebacks he struggled with in particular.

“All I’m trying to say is that Christina Wilfrieds wasn’t necessarily an escort just because she had a thing for anal beads. I mean, shit, I like anal beads. They’re refreshing.”

“Anal beads that she carried around in an ‘instrument’ box. Anal beads that she went to ‘teach trombone’ with.”

“I know you’re desperate for your million. I know you want your money so bad that you’re willing to clutch at anything. But I’ve got news for you—news that I shouldn’t even be sharing with you right now. The third girl. The chick who was dangling outside the court. We’ve IDed her.”

Martha and I exchanged a puzzled glance. “You’ve
what
?”

“Mummy recognised her. Some YouTube footage of the girl before we cut her down. ‘Naked Chick Hangs From Preston Court,’ it’s called. I watched it myself. Really good footage. Gotta watch the 1080p version though or it’s all too grainy.”

I shook my head as if doing so would gather my thoughts. “Wait, so you know who this girl is?”

Lenny leaned against his steering wheel. Stared down the empty street.

“Hannah Jenkinson,” he said. “Thirty-six years of age.”

My mind raced with all sorts of theories. Another escort? Another woman who pissed the killer off at some point in his life? Shit. I needed some Lockets. I needed some Lockets to get away from the headache, so I could concentrate.

A brand new iPad Air wouldn’t go amiss, either.

“You need to get any known pimps and prostitutes in. Get—get them in and off the streets for questioning. We need to find this—”

“She’s not a prostitute, Blake. Or a pimp, for that matter.”

Martha looked on silently. Nice of her to always leave me to do the bloody talking.

“What do you mean she’s not a prostitute? Have you confirmed that, just like you’ve ‘confirmed’ Christina Wilfrieds isn’t one?”

“As good as,” Lenny said. “Hannah Jenkinson is a veterinary nurse. She’s been in that high-paid job for a long, long time.”

He turned around. Looked me right in the eyes.

“So tell me, genius. Why would a veterinary nurse of sixteen years—one of the highest-paid veterinary nurses in the city—run a sleazy escort service on the side?”

I sat in Martha’s living room and wished I had the money to upgrade her God-awful television.

“Do you want a raspberry or a peach yogurt?” Martha called.

I wanted to say, “Any, so long as they get rid of the God-awful taste of your homemade lasagne,” but I figured “Peach, please” was a more polite option.

Martha rummaged away in the fridge. I stared blankly at the grainy, non-HD Commonwealth Games footage on the black CRT television. Martha had a nice place—I didn’t understand why she couldn’t just upgrade a few things to make it an
ideal
place. But seeing as I was staying here until my flat was deemed safe to re-enter and my insurance company paid out, I’d just have to make do.

Hell. If my Fun Funds stayed as low as they were now, I might be grateful for a frigging grainy television in a few weeks.

“Here you go,” Martha said. She planted an Activia yogurt in my hands. “Went out of date a couple of weeks back, but out-of-date dairy is good for the immune system.”

I peeled back the lid. Cringed as I stared at the clumpy mess of the peach yogurt. “Good for the immune system. Where did you read that?
The Daily Mail
?”

Martha stuffed a spoonful of her raspberry yogurt into her mouth. “You know, I think it was the
Mail
.”

“I rest my case,” I muttered, and placed the yogurt onto the coffee table without eating a spoonful of it.

Martha sloshed her yogurt around her mouth. Stared just as blankly at her television as I was doing.

“You’re gonna have to stop thinking about it at some point,” she said.

“Thinking about what?”

She glared at me. “The murders. The killer. This little escort fantasy of yours.”

“Escort fantasy? Oh, so you’re with the police on this one now? With Genius Lenny?”

“I didn’t say I was with the police, honey. I’m with the facts. And I’m with the healthy mind thing, too. Like, leaving your work at work when you return home.”

“Might be easy when your home hasn’t been engulfed in flames,” I said. I knew it was a bit of a snotty thing to say, but hell—I hadn’t had any menthol all day. Some Strepsils wouldn’t go amiss right now.

“Oh, you know what I mean,” Martha said. “I mean… look at you. Imagine you’re at home right now. Imagine you’ve caught this murdering bastard and you’ve got your money. What would you be doing?”

I shrugged. Scratched at the back of my neck. “Probably… probably on my iPad.”

“On your iPad doing what?”

“Um… Looking for new stuff to buy.”

Martha shook her head. Smiled.

“What’s that look?”

“You’re obsessed,” Martha said. “Obsessed with buying new shit you don’t even use. I swear I noticed your hands shaking earlier when I turned the television on, like you’re getting HD withdrawals, or something.”

“Hey, once you’ve gone HD, it’s very hard to turn back.”

“I can imagine,” Martha said.

We were silent for a little longer. We used to always argue like this—not major conflicts, just a few words exchanged. But after 2007, we didn’t argue much. We didn’t even bicker.

2007 lingered.

“There’s more to life than new technology and
pissing
Halls Soothers. So you’d better start living it before it slips away.”

A twinge of annoyance ignited inside me. “What, like you? Sitting at home on your own and doing shit-all?”

Martha smiled. She licked up the last of the yogurt and shook her head. “I had a sex change, Blake. I’m
living
life for the first time ever. And sure, I might be on my own. But I’ve spent so long with someone else—so long pretending to
be
somebody else my entire life—that I think I’m allowed a little bit of me-time. Don’t you?”

I wanted to bite back at this, but I couldn’t. She truly, truly had a point.

I saw myself all of a sudden. Saw myself in twenty years, my hair even greyer—or completely bald. I saw myself tapping away on my iPhone 92, concocting a new smoothie to pay the bills for my shitty flat, my Fun Funds growing ever larger from crappy job after crappy job after crappy job.

I saw myself alone. And for the first time in my life, I wasn’t sure I liked it.

I didn’t get to dwell on these weird-as-shit thoughts for long, though, because my iPhone started vibrating.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket. Unknown number, of course.

“Looks like it might be the police,” I said to Martha.

She rolled her eyes. “Tell that Lenny to give you a break or I’ll be over there to break something of his.”

“I’m sure he’ll be terrified. Hello?”

“Mr Dent?”

A woman. Didn’t sound like Lenny one bit. “Speaking.”

“This is Jill Cassidy from Preston Crown Court. I’m calling about the letter we sent you about your hearing.”

I frowned. “Letter? Hearing?”

“Let’s see…” She tapped away on some keyboard in the background. “The hearing at… seven a.m tomorrow. Trading Standards’ ‘Groovy Smoothie’ hearing. Sound familiar?”

Fuck. I knew a hearing would be coming up eventually, but I definitely hadn’t heard a thing about it. And seven a.m. Did that time even exist? “I… Well it’s the first I’ve heard of it. This… this letter. Did you send it to my home address, by any chance?”

More tapping away at the keyboard. “Let’s have a look for you… Yes. Yes we did.”

I pictured my burned out flat. “That’s probably why I didn’t receive it.”

I got the details about Groovy Smoothie’s hearing then ended the call. I really didn’t need this, not now. What I needed was to catch a killer. To buy new tech shit. To neck packet after packet of menthol-filled delights.

“Trouble?” Martha asked.

I bit my lip. Pictured my one suit, pictured it all burned-out in my flat.

“I know this is an unbelievably awkward question, but you didn’t happen to keep hold of any of your suits from when you were a man, did you?”

TWENTY-EIGHT

Being self-employed, seven a.m was a myth I was never too keen on experiencing.

And experiencing it was even worse than I could possibly have imagined.

I sat in the court waiting room. It was jam-packed with scrotes, with skinheads in their trackie bottoms, mums who wouldn’t look out of place on the Jimmy Karl show. There was a weird medicinal smell in the air, like that in a dentist’s waiting room. I hadn’t visited the dentist’s in years—not that I was afraid of them, just a personal preference of not being charged ridiculous-pound-seventy for a little bit of a scrape-around.

I think I preferred the dentist’s to this place though. It was open for debate.

It was boiling outside, which made it even more boiling in here. I’d pinched one of “Mart’s” old black suits, which was at least two sizes too big for me, but quite frankly I didn’t give a shit. There were men wearing trackie bottoms in here—somehow, I wasn’t sure some judge with sticks up his ass was going to strip me of my retail licenses all because of a badly fitted suit.

I stuffed my finger in the collar. Did everything I could to avoid looking at the skinhead wearing a Lacoste cap opposite, who kept on giving me an annoying look like he wanted to speak to me. I looked at my phone, the cracked screen still making me die a little inside. Quarter past seven. Fuck. What was going on here? When was I going to be called in? I wanted to be out there solving a murder, earning me some sweet cash, not sat in here bargaining for Groovy Smoothie’s dear life.

No disrespect to Groovy Smoothie, which was currently clamped in a council impound, of course.