suit tossed over the back of a chair in the kitchen diner. The bunch of keys was in the left-hand pocket. Back downstairs, I opened the garage door and unlocked the hatchback of his two-year- old Ford Escort. Then I went back for Adam. He had, of course, come round. His eyes were filled with panic, muffled grunts came from behind the gag. I smiled down at him as I pressed the chloroform pad over his nose again. This time, of course, he couldn't struggle effectively at all.
I pulled him into a sitting position, then brought a chair through from the study. I managed to get him on to the chair, and from there I was able to sling him over my shoulder and stagger through into the garage. I dumped him in the luggage space, and slammed the tailgate shut. Not a trace of his body was visible.
I checked my watch. Just after six. It would be another hour till it was dark enough to be certain none of the neighbours passing casually would notice a stranger driving out of Adam's garage. I filled the time by browsing through his life. Packets of photographs revealed friends, a family Christmas dinner. I would have fitted into this life perfectly. We could have had it all, if he hadn't been such a fool.
I was startled out of my reverie by the phone. I let it ring, and went through to the kitchen. I helped myself to a bottle of creme cleanser and a cloth and carefully washed down all the paintwork in the hall. I put the used cloth in my backpack, then fetched the vacuum cleaner. I went over the entire hall slowly and carefully, erasing all traces of the struggle from the hard-wearing Berber carpet. I trailed the vac behind me, right into the garage, where I left it in a corner, looking as if it had always lived there. Satisfied I'd removed all traces of me, I climbed into Adam's car, pressed the remote-control button on his key- ring and started the engine as the garage door rose smoothly before me.
I shut the door behind me, and drove off. I could hear muffled noises from the back of the car. I raked around in the glove box till I found a Wet, Wet, Wet cassette. I shoved it into the player and turned the volume up high. I sang along with the music as I drove out of the city and on to the moors.
I'd been worried that Adam's car might not make it all the way up the track, and I'd been right. About half a mile from home, the road became too overgrown and rutted. With a sigh, I got out and walked up to collect the wheelbarrow. When I opened the tailgate to tip him into the barrow, his eyes were wide and staring. His muffled calls were wasted on me, however. I dragged him unceremoniously out of the car and into the barrow. It was a hard half-mile up the track, since his constant struggling made steering more difficult. Luckily, Auntie Doris had had the foresight to buy a proper builder's barrow, one with two wheels in front.
When we reached the farmhouse, I opened the trapdoor. The cellar below looked dark and welcoming. Adam's eyes widened in terror. I stroked his soft hair and said,
"Welcome to the pleasure dome."
As to. the mob of newspaper readers, they are pleased with anything, provided it is bloody enough. But the mind of sensibility requires something more.
After he'd seen Carol to her car. Tony walked across the campus to the general stores and bought a copy of the evening paper. If publicity was what Handy Andy craved, he'd finally achieved it. Fear and loathing stalked the pages of the Bradfield Evening Sentinel Times. Five of them, to be precise. Pages i, z, 3, 24 and 25, plus an editorial, were devoted to the Queer Killer. If the nickname was anything to judge by, the police were already leaking like a Cabinet committee.
"You're not going to like being called the Queer Killer, are you, Andy?" Tony said softly to himself as he walked back to his office.
Back behind his desk, he studied the paper. Penny Burgess had had a field day. The front page screamed, queer killer strikes again! in banner headlines. In smaller headline type, readers were told, police admit serial killer stalks city. Beneath was a lurid account of the discovery of Damien Connolly's body, and a