The chloroform had a worse effect on him than it did on any of the others. As soon as he came round, he vomited violently, not an easy thing to achieve when you’re hanging upright four feet above the floor. It was just as well I’d removed his gag, or he’d have choked on his own vomit, which would have cheated me out of my satisfaction in his punishment.
He was completely bewildered. He had no idea why he was there. ‘Because I chose you,’ I told him. ‘You were just unlucky enough to choose the wrong job. Now I’m going to question you the way you question your suspects.’
While I’d been poking around in Auntie Doris’s kitchen, vaguely looking to see if she had anything I might find useful, I’d come across her icing set. I remembered that icing set. Every year, her Christmas cakes were a miracle of artistry that any of Bradfield’s bakers would have been hard pressed to equal. Once, she’d been called away by Uncle Henry while she was doing the big cake, and I’d picked up the icing bag, determined to help. I can’t have been more than six.
When she came back from whatever disgusting farmyard task she’d been helping with and saw my efforts, she went berserk. She grabbed the weighted leather strop that Uncle Henry used to keep his cut-throat razors sharp and beat me so hard she tore my shirt. Then she locked me in my room without any supper, leaving me there for the best part of twenty-four hours with nothing but a bucket to piss in. I knew I had to find an appropriate use for her treasured icing set.
There was a blowlamp in the cellar which I used to heat up the icing attachments so I could leave my mark on Damien, just as the executioner had on his namesake Damiens two hundred and forty years before. There was something quite beautiful about the way his skin blossomed into scarlet starbursts as the red-hot piping rosettes came into contact with his pale flesh. It was also astonishingly effective. He told me everything I wanted to know and lots of rubbish I didn’t give a damn about. I was just sorry he wasn’t directly involved in the investigation into my previous work. I could have confirmed at first hand how hopelessly at sea the police are.
I decided to deposit the remains in Temple Fields again. I’d used the time since Gareth to find additional safe sites for the disposition of my handiwork. The back yard of the Queen of Hearts was perfect for my purpose; secluded and isolated at night. But it would come alive the next day, ensuring Damien wouldn’t be left out in the cold for too long.
The time was ripe for a new game. In preparation for this, shortly after Adam, I went up into the loft and opened the trunk that contains those parts of my past I have retained. One of the things I’d kept as a souvenir was a leather jacket that was given to me by the engineer on a Soviet factory ship, in lieu of payment for a night he won’t forget in a hurry. It looks and feels different from anything I’ve ever seen in this country. I ripped strips of leather from the sleeve until I was satisfied that I’d got something that could have been snagged on a nail or the sharp corner of a lock. I tucked the scrap in a drawer, then I chopped the rest of the jacket into shreds, stuck it in a plastic bag with eggshells and vegetable peelings, and drove into town until I found a skip to dump it in. By the time I needed to use the red herring, the remains of the jacket would be long buried in some anonymous landfill.
I couldn’t help feeling a thrill at the thought of how many man-hours the police would waste trying to track down where this strange little piece of leather had come from, but they’d never tie it in to me. Apart from anything else, no one in Bradfield has ever seen me wear it.
This time, the publicity outshone everything I’d achieved so far. At last, the police admitted that one mind was behind all four killings. Finally, they had realized it was time to take me seriously.
With Damien off the planet and in my computer, I still had one more person to deal with before I could return to my original project. I couldn’t settle to the task of finding a man worthy of me, a man to share my life as an equal and respectful partner, not until I had punished the man who had publicly treated me with such contempt.
Dr Tony Hill, the fool who hadn’t even realized that Gareth Finnegan was one of my bodies, was the target. He had insulted me. He had poured scorn on me, refusing to acknowledge the extent of my achievements. He had no idea of the calibre of the mind he was up against. He was going to have to pay for his arrogance.
I couldn’t help but see his disposal as a challenge. Wouldn’t anyone?
Can they not keep to the old honest way of cutting throats, without introducing such abominable innovations …?
The sound of a roaring crowd greeted Carol as she closed the door of the flat behind her. Michael, sprawled on one of the sofas, didn’t even take his eyes off the rugby match on the television. ‘Hi, sis,’ he said. ‘Needle match. Ten minutes, and I’m all yours.’
Carol glanced at the screen where muddy giants in England and Scotland’s colours were sprawled across the turf in a collapsed scrum. ‘Very hi-tech,’ she muttered. ‘I need a shower.’
Fifteen minutes later, brother and sister were sharing a celebratory bottle of cava. ‘I have some print-out for you,’ Michael said.
Carol perked up. ‘Anything significant?’
Michael shrugged. ‘I don’t know what’s significant to you. Your killer used five different-shaped objects to make the marks. I separated them out into five separate patterns. You’ve got what looks like a heart and some rudimentary letters. A, D, G and P. Mean anything to you?’
Carol shivered involuntarily. ‘Oh, yes. Plenty. You got the print-out here?’
Michael nodded. ‘It’s in my briefcase.’
‘I’ll look at it in a bit. Meanwhile, can I pick your brains again?’
Michael drained his glass and refilled it. ‘I don’t know. Can you afford me?’
‘Dinner, bed and breakfast at the country-house hotel of your choice, first weekend I have off,’ Carol offered.
Michael pulled a face. ‘At this rate, I could be collecting my pension before I collect on that one. How about you do my ironing for a month?’
‘A fortnight.’
‘Three weeks.’
‘Consider it a done deal.’ She offered her hand and Michael shook it.
‘So, what do you want to know, sis?’
Carol outlined her theory about the computer manipulation of the killer’s videos. ‘What do you think?’ she asked anxiously.
‘It’s a can-do,’ he said. ‘No question about that. The technology’s available, and it’s not difficult software to use. I could do it standing on my head. But you’re talking serious money. Say three hundred for a video capture card, four hundred for a ReelMagic card, another three to five for a decent video digitizer, plus at least a grand for a state-of-the-art scanner. The real killer is the software, though. There’s only one package that will do what you’re talking about to any real quality. Vicom 3D Commander. We’ve got it, and it set us back nearly four grand, and that was six months ago. The last upgrade cost us another eight hundred. Manual thick as a house brick.’
‘So it’s not a piece of software that