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‘But I bet I know what’s got into you two. Chocolate and popcorn and very little else. Am I right, pumpkin?’
The royal wedding coverage eventually gave way to the local news.
The naked body of a young woman has been found on a towpath by Regent’s Canal near Hampstead Road Lock. . .
‘Hampstead Road Lock?’ I whispered.
It was less than a mile from our front door. The three of us had taken an ice-cream stroll down there only the other day.
The body was found by a jogger at 6.30 this morning, partly concealed in undergrowth which may have been dislodged during the recent winds. The woman, aged between eighteen and twenty, appears to have been dead for at least three weeks and has not yet been formally identified.
A cordon has been set up at the scene and police have appealed for witnesses to come forward.
‘There’ll be more,’ Matty said. ‘You see.’
His tone sounded almost boastful, although that might just be my mind playing tricks. Knowledge of what was coming, colouring my recollection of what actually happened.
A false memory, Janice calls it. One that can’t be trusted.
My mother flashed him an odd look.
‘What makes you say that?’
There was a sharp note in her tone, disapproval.
Matty angled forward, looked from one to the other of us, his voice lowered even though it was only us there.
‘Don’t repeat it, but one of the victim support officers I work with says the woman had been strangled with her own underwear. A stocking tied in a big old bow around her neck like a Christmas present.’
My mother shot him a ‘not in front of the children’ look. Lips tight, dark scowl.
‘Why does that mean there’ll be more?’ I asked, never one to be left out of anything.
As a bereavement counsellor Matty knew all about human psychology. An expert in dark matter, he used to joke.
‘The fetishism and level of rage in the attack indicate a special sort of killer,’ he answered, addressing my mother rather than me. It was something adults did all the time, though I expected better from him.
I tried again.
‘Special how?’
‘Someone who’s killed before and who’ll likely kill again. A person who enjoys taking lives and thinks of very little else.’
He didn’t say ‘serial killer’. That term hadn’t been coined yet. But it wouldn’t be long before it was.
