Let him spend the night convinced I was going to have mercy. That would make Christmas Day all the sweeter.
I shut the cellar door behind me and went upstairs to bed, armed with my videos and the best part of a bottle of vintage champagne. I was having the best Christmas I'd ever had. I remembered all those years of desperate hope, praying that this would be the year my mother would buy me presents like other children got. But all she'd ever done was let me down. Now I'd worked out that the only person who could give me what I craved was myself; I knew that for the first time in my life, I could look forward to the kind of Christmas other people have, filled with surprises, satisfaction and sex.
I took a step closer. Tears welled up in his eyes and spilled over, trickling through the blood on his cheek. They must have stung, but he never flinched.
"Please," he whispered.
"It's not too late. Even if you killed those other men. Was it you who killed them?"
He was smart, I had to give him that. Too smart for his own good.
He'd just earned himself some more suffering. I turned away and dropped the chisel and club hammer on the workbench. Let him think I was having second thoughts. Let him spend the night convinced I was going to have mercy. That would make Christmas Day all the sweeter.
I shut the cellar door behind me and went upstairs to bed, armed with my videos and the best part of a bottle of vintage champagne. I was having the best Christmas I'd ever had. I remembered all those years of desperate hope, praying that this would be the year my mother would buy me presents like other children got. But all she'd ever done was let me down. Now I'd worked out that the only person who could give me what I craved was myself; I knew that for the first time in my life, I could look forward to the kind of Christmas other people have, filled with surprises, satisfaction and sex.
Reading his acts by the light of such mute traces as he left behind him, the police became aware that latterly he must have loitered. And the reason which governed him is striking; because at once it records that murder was not pursued by him simply as a means to an end, but also as an end for itself.
The Wunch of Bankers was one of the few city-centre watering holes where Kevin Matthews felt safe meeting Penny Burgess. A fun pub with blaring rap music and decor modelled on soap operas the Rover's Return Snug, the Woolpack Eaterie, the Queen Vie Lounge, and the Cheers Beer Bar was the last place he was likely to see another copper or Penny another journalist.
Kevin made a face as his taste buds clenched on the strong bitter coffee that lurked under a swirl of foam that looked more like industrial effluent than a cappuccino. Where the hell was she? He glanced at his watch for the twentieth time. She'd promised she'd be here by four at the latest, and now it was ten past. He pushed the half- empty cup away from him and grabbed his fashionable raincoat from the banquette beside him. He was about to stand up when the pub's revolving door hissed round and disgorged Penny. She waved and headed straight over to his table.
"You said four o'clock," Kevin greeted her. "God, Kevin, you're getting really anal in your old age," Penny complained, giving him a peck on the " I thought nobody knew too. Then Carol Jordan said ^tnething that made me think she does. "
"And you think Carol's going to shop you to Internal Affairs?" penny said, failing to hide the incredulity she felt. She hadn't had many dealings with the CID's most glamorous officer, but what she knew of the inspector didn't iodine her to cast her in the role of grass.
"You don't know her. She's totally bloody ruthless. She ^nts to go all the way, that one, and she'd drop me in it SOQn as look at me if she thought it would take her a rung " P the ladder. "
Penny shook her head in exasperation.
"You're over- bading. Even if Carol Jordan has mysteriously discovered " that we're seeing each other, I'm sure she's too busy covering herself with glory from her liaison with Dr Hill to be
"Othered with shopping you. Besides, if