‘Wanted? They became pretty bloody insistent. It was the most awkward conversation I’ve ever had in my life.’
Mandy clenched her fists. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She tried to control her breathing so she didn’t break into a panic attack.
‘When I said no, they got a bit … I don’t know … pushy about it, and even offered me money to do it and cover the cost of everything,’ Michelle continued. ‘They’d really thought it through and said I could move in with them until I had it. It went on for weeks – calls, texts, emails … in the end I threatened to go to the police if they didn’t leave me alone and they finally stopped. It weirded me out though and that’s why I was reluctant to meet you at first.’
‘I guess that’s understandable,’ Mandy said, and desperately tried to justify the actions. ‘They probably weren’t thinking straight and were still grieving Richard’s death.’
‘Death?’ Michelle looked confused. ‘Who told you Rich was dead? He’s still very much alive.’
Chapter 62
CHRISTOPHER
‘Jesus Christ, how much do you weigh?’ Christopher panted as he dragged Number Twenty across the hallway floor and towards the kitchen.
He was a physically fit man, but he felt the sweat beading above his brow absorbing into his balaclava. Her profile pictures weren’t reflective of her true size. Even when he’d followed her around Top Shop, Zara and H&M one afternoon in a pre-strike reconnaissance mission, he assumed she had bulked up on clothing because of the unusually cold snap. But in the comfort of her own home, it turned out that she was a girl with an ample amount of flesh.
The unusual layout of her two-storey flat meant the kitchen was located on the floor above the bedrooms, so Christopher adapted and changed his kill pattern. Once he’d let the billiard ball drop onto the vinyl flooring outside her bedroom and she’d come out to investigate, he enveloped the wire around her neck as usual. But when it became lost in her excess skin, he yanked it harder, knocking her off balance. Her weight thrust him into the wall, causing two framed paintings to fall. There he remained pinned behind her, using every ounce of strength to keep them both upright or risk ending up on the floor like he had with the thumb-biting Number Nine.
Fortunately, Number Twenty lost consciousness within a minute, as he compressed both carotid arteries that carried blood from her heart to her brain. But it still took a further three minutes before she completely ceased to breathe.
She’d drained Christopher of all his energy, leaving his biceps and forearms sapped and strained. After giving himself time to rest and regain his strength, he secured a plastic bag around her head and neck with rubber bands, took her wrists with his gloved hands and began to drag her along the corridor, past the lounge and up the stairs towards the kitchen. He paused a third of the way up to catch his breath before he finally laid her body out symmetrically in the kitchen.
Christopher’s need for order dictated that each woman must be left in exactly the same position in exactly the same room. It hadn’t commenced like that, it just so happened that the first three girls’ homes all had kitchens with alcoves that provided the perfect place for him to lie in the shadows and wait. Number Four was a dining room murder and he considered leaving her there, right up until the moment he was about to exit. But he knew that for the rest of the night, then the following day and right through the rest of the killings, it’d irritate him that her alternative positioning might make her an exception. She wasn’t – he treated each of them with the same lack of regard.
Once he’d removed the plastic bag that captured any stray drops of blood from her neck wound, he straightened her clothing so there were no rolls or bunches to indicate that she’d been dragged into position. He took his lint roller and applied it to her clothes to pick up any stray hairs that may have fallen from under his balaclava or from his eyebrows or eyelashes.
Then, armed with his plastic spray bottle of luminol, he retraced his steps. When in contact with the iron inblood, the chemical emitted a blue glow allowing Christopher to locate trace elements of blood she might have shed. Finally, with his antiseptic wipes, he cleaned the whole area and replaced her paintings before going through his mental checklist one last time.
With two Polaroids taken and carefully pocketed in an envelope, Christopher was ready to leave when he suddenly stopped in his tracks. He realised he hadn’t smelled Number Twenty’s hair. It was another of his rituals regardless of who the girl was or what she looked like. He’d inhaled Amy’s hair that morning when she surprised him by joining him in the bathroom as he showered. He made his way behind her, massaging the shampoo into her scalp and watching as the suds poured between her shoulder blades and oozed down to the arch of her back. Then he crouched down and ran his tongue from her buttocks up to her neck. Nothing and nobody in the world smelled or tasted as satisfying as Amy. Was that why he hadn’t smelled Number Twenty?
No, it’s not the only reason, thought Christopher. He knew there was something else about Number Twenty’s death that wasn’t sitting well with him. It was more than just the kill location or being unaware of her true size, it was that for the first time he hadn’t enjoyed any part of this murder. He used to savour the anticipation of returning a few days later to place photographs of his next killings on their chests and view their decomposition rates, but even that wasn’t holding the same appeal as it once had.
His heart wasn’t in it any more; it was somewhere else and with someone else instead. Amy was changing him. But into what, he didn’t know.
Chapter 63
JADE
Jade was beginning to feel overwhelmed by the number of people gathered in the garden for her wedding day and, judging, by the exhausted look on Kevin’s face, he was feeling the same.
‘Let’s get you back inside to chill out for a bit,’ she said to him, and the two made their way slowly back to his bedroom.
More than a hundred of Kevin’s friends, relatives and neighbours turned up for the hastily organised reception, carrying food on trays and bottles of beer, which were stored in cooling barrels of ice. A barbecue roared to life near the garages where her new father-in-law Dan was flipping burgers and turning sausages.
Jade could smell the meat cooking and listened to the chatter outside Kevin’s window.
‘Thank you,’ he muttered, his eyes closed and his breath shallow.
‘For what?’
‘For marrying me. I know how hard you found it – and I know why.’
Jade’s eyes opened wide and she tried not to panic. The last thing she wanted was to hurt Kevin, but had heguessed she was in love with his brother and not him? ‘What do you mean?’ she asked tentatively.
‘Knowing I’m your Match and that I’m not going to be here for much longer … you could have just turned your back on me and gone home. But you didn’t, so thank you.’
Jade bit her lip and squeezed Kevin’s cold hand. She knew she had done the right thing and she waited until Kevin fell asleep before going back outside to meet the guests.
