AllFreeNovel
Share Us
TWENTY-SEVEN
Police investigating the murders of seven women in North London over the past fifteen months were confronted this morning with what they describe as ‘a new and morbid challenge’ by a person purporting to be the killer.
A cryptic note was sent to the Tribune newspaper marked ‘For the attention of Harry Connor’, taunting the Detective Inspector heading up the manhunt, and bragging about a possible eighth victim.
A blurred carbon copy of a document typed in block capitals, it is, police say, impossible to trace back to its source. However, the envelope it arrived in also contained a bloody swatch of cloth which the writer claimed was torn from the shirt of Sheryl North, an eighteen-year-old homeless woman whose naked body was discovered back in July last year on a canal towpath near Hampstead Road Lock, in Camden, North London.
Opening with the chilling line: ‘This is the one you fear. I am the killer of Sheryl North. To prove it, here is a bloodstained piece of her shirt. I am the same man who did the girls at the woods and the rubbish tip’– the writer goes on to reveal details about the murders that only the perpetrator would know and addresses DI Connor directly, before taunting him with the possibility of another, as yet undiscovered victim ‘from Holmes Road’.
We were all on the couch waiting for Dynasty to start, my mother’s feet in Matty’s lap while he painted her toenails. He was in a great mood, telling us some story about a guy at work, really hamming up his accent.
He broke off when the news about the killer’s note came on.
‘What do you think of that?’ he asked my mother, eyebrow tilted upwards.
‘Like the Zodiac,’ she replied.
Matty scoffed, shook his head.
‘The Zodiac was indiscriminate. Used a gun. This guy’s more. . . skilful.’
‘You mean evil,’ I said.
‘I guarantee your man doesn’t see himself that way.’
‘How can he not?’
‘Everyone’s the star of their own movie, pumpkin. He’ll have his reasons for doing what he does.’ He glanced at my mother, making sure he had an audience. ‘Those reasons will make sense to him even if no one else has the imagination to understand them.’
‘There’s no good reason for killing people.’
He shrugged.
‘Like I said, he has his reasons. What do you think, Ams?’
‘I think you probably know more about this sort of thing than us. And that I’d rather not talk about it so soon after supper.’
‘Matty’s a bereavement counsellor. What’s that have to do with murderers?’
He gave me an arch look.
‘You’d be surprised what you can learn about a person when they’re grieving. All the shutters open wide.’
‘People talk about killing when they’re grieving?’
‘Aye, sometimes. But not just then. You wouldn’t believe how commonplace violent fantasies are.’
My mother shook her head at him, gave him a, That’s enough look.
‘All I’m saying is things are really going to ramp up now.’
My eyes darted over to my mother, to her dark hair and curls.
‘What makes you say that?’
He leaned forward, articulated each word as if he were giving dictation.
‘Because he’s started playing to the crowd.’
