Authors: Angela Marsons
Following her education, Alex had embarked on the second part of her master plan. She had spent two years building a history; writing papers and case studies within the stymied boundaries of the mental health profession that would earn respect. The opinion of her peers couldn’t have been less important to her – the only motivation had been to construct a reputation that would be unquestionable in later years. For when she was ready to begin her real work. For now.
During those years she’d been forced to whore out her expertise to the court system, providing psychological assessments on the great unwashed embroiled within the judicial process.
A distasteful necessity, but one that had brought her into contact with Tim; a teenage victim of a broken home. He’d been an angry, mean-spirited individual, but a skilful pyromaniac. Her assessment had held the power to commit him to a lengthy sentence in an adult prison or a short-term stay in a psychiatric unit.
Always resourceful in using the skills available to her, Alex had forged a partnership with Tim that had benefitted them both. He spent four months in Forrest Hills Psychiatric Unit, after which he started a fire that had produced two fatalities and an inheritance to set up the private practice she still enjoyed now. Where she could pick and choose the subjects she wished to see. Thanks, Mummy and Daddy.
Tim’s eventual suicide ensured that he had tied up his own loose ends quite fortuitously on her part.
Nothing in those years had been wasted. Every patient had served a purpose in building a better perspective of people driven by emotions; their strengths, their motivations and most importantly, their weaknesses.
At times she had been tormented by her desire to commence the research, but the timeliness had been governed by two crucial factors.
The first was the construction of safety nets. The impeccable reputation she’d built would throw doubt on any later accusation of misconduct levelled at her.
Additionally, she’d waited patiently for suitable candidates to present themselves. Her experiment required individuals easily guided and with a subconscious desire to commit unforgivable acts. The sanity of the subject needed to be intact but with the potential to be unhinged if she so chose that extra layer of insurance.
Alex had known that Ruth Willis would be perfect for the study from their very first meeting. Alex had felt the desperation within the woman to take back control of her life. Poor little Ruth wasn’t even aware herself just how much she needed that closure. But Alex knew – and that was all that mattered. Months of patience had led to this moment. The finale.
She had chosen a subject whose allegations would, should anything go wrong, be dismissed. She had taken the time to ensure that she would not fail. There had been other prospects along the way, individuals courted for the privilege of being chosen, but ultimately Ruth had been the one.
Her other patients were irrelevant, a means to an end. They had the pleasure of underwriting her enviable lifestyle whilst she conducted her real work.
Alex had spent many hours nodding, soothing and reassuring her patients whilst mentally preparing her shopping list or developing the next part of her plan; all at a cost of £300 per hour.
The payment for the BMW Z4 was funded by the wife of a Chief Constable suffering from stress-induced kleptomania. Alex enjoyed the car, therefore it was unlikely that that particular patient would be recovering any time soon.
The £2,000 per month rent for the three-storey Victorian property in Hagley was paid for by the owner of a chain of estate agents whose son was experiencing paranoid persecution complex and came to see her three times per week. A few well-chosen words, dropped casually into conversation and yet subconsciously reinforcing his beliefs, dictated that his recovery would also be slow.
She stood before the portrait that took pride of place above the fireplace. She liked to look into the depths of his cold, unfeeling eyes and wonder if he would have understood her.
It was a rich oil painting that she had commissioned from a grainy black and white photograph of the only ancestor Alex could trace in whom she had any pride.
Uncle Jack, as she liked to call him, had been a ‘Higgler’, better known as a hangman in the 1870s. Unlike the town of Bolton, which had the Billingtons, and Huddersfield, which had the Pierrepoints, the Black Country had no family dynasty that performed the gruesome task and Uncle Jack had stumbled upon the trade by accident.
Jailed for not supporting his family, Uncle Jack had been incarcerated in Stafford Prison during a visit from William Calcraft, the longest-serving executioner, with a record of around 450 hangings of men and women to his name.
On this particular day, Calcraft arrived to perform a double hanging and so needed a volunteer. Uncle Jack was the only inmate to offer. Calcraft favoured a short drop which produced a slow, agonising death, requiring the assistant to swing on the legs of the convicted to speed up death.
Uncle Jack had found his forte and thereafter travelled the country as an executioner.
Standing before his portrait always gave Alex a sense of belonging, an affinity with a member of her distant family.
She smiled up into his harsh, emotionless face. ‘Oh, if only things were as simple as in your day, Uncle Jack.’
Alex seated herself at the desk in the corner. Finally, her magnum opus was underway. Her journey to find the answers to questions that had puzzled her for years had begun.
She let out a long, satisfied breath and reached into the top drawer for the Clairefontaine paper and the Mont Blanc pen.
It was time for her own form of recreation.
Dearest Sarah
, she began.
SEVEN
Ruth Willis stood in the shadows of the shop doorway, her eyes trained on the park. The cold seeped from the ground up through her feet and into her legs like a metal stake. The odour of urine surrounded her. The plastic bin to her right overflowed with rubbish. Crisp packets and fag ends had spilled onto the tarmac.
The visualisation exercise was crystal clear in her mind. Alex was beside her.
‘You are not skulking in the shadows and you are not frightened.’
She had no fear; only nervous anticipation last experienced right before her A-level results. Back when she was a real person.
‘You are not dreading him leaving the pub, you are anticipating it.’
Had
he
felt this way on the night he’d taken her light? Had
he
shivered with excitement as he’d watched her walk out of the supermarket? Had
he
felt the sense of righteousness that coursed through her body right now?
A figure exited the lower park gate and stood at the crossing. The light from the street lamp illuminated a man and his dog. There was a lull in the passing traffic but the dog walker waited for the crossing to beep before traversing the dual carriageway. Following the rules.
‘You are not a victim. You feel strong, confident, righteous.’
As the figure levelled with her, he paused. Ruth stilled. Ten feet away he leaned down and placed the handle of the dog lead beneath his left foot as he retied the lace on his right shoe. So close. The dog glanced in her direction. Could he see her? She didn’t know.
‘You are confident and in control.’
For the briefest of seconds she was tempted to rush forward, to drive the kitchen knife into his arched back and watch him fall face first to the ground, but she resisted. The visualisation had climaxed in the alley. She must stick to her plan. Only then would she be free. Only then would she retrieve her light.
‘You are a lone female behind a grown man and you are not afraid.’
She exited the shadows and fell into step a few paces behind him. Her trainers made little sound against two cars racing along the stretch of road.
In the alleyway, the sound of her footsteps was exposed. His body tensed, sensing a presence behind him, but he didn’t turn. He slowed slightly, as though hoping the pedestrian would pass by. She would not.
‘Your hand is wrapped around a knife in your coat pocket.’
Halfway into the alley, at the exact spot she’d visualised, her heartbeat quickened with her step.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, surprised by the calmness of her tone as she repeated the words Alex had given her.
His body relaxed at the sound of a female voice and he turned with a smile on his face. Big mistake.
‘Do you have the right time?’ she asked.
Her expression remained open when confronted with his face. He had raped her from behind and his facial features meant nothing to her. It was the sound that transported her back. His breathing was laboured from walking the dog. It was a sound she remembered well in her ear as he had split her insides open.
He used his right hand to uncover the watch beneath the elasticated cuff of his jacket.
‘I make it half past …’
The knife plunged into his abdomen with ease, traversing its journey through flesh, muscle and throbbing organs. The blade turned north and met bone as she thrust upwards. She turned the knife slowly, mincing anything in its path, like a kitchen blender. Her hand rested briefly against his stomach and could travel no further.
‘Feel his flesh against yours but this time on your terms.’
A sense of achievement washed over her as she withdrew the blade from his stomach. The thrust and turn needed to overcome resistance had been satisfying.
‘You watch the blood puddle and you know that his control over you is gone.’
His legs wobbled as his right hand clutched the wound. Blood ran over his splayed fingers. He clutched harder. He looked down, bewildered, and then into her eyes and back down as though unable to comprehend the unrelated incidents: her presence and a knife wound.
‘You take back your own control, your destiny, your light.’
He blinked rapidly and for a second his vision cleared and he stilled.
Every sense she had charged into life; a truck thundered past at the end of the alley. The sound lit her ears on fire. Her stomach heaved as a thick metallic smell filled her nostrils. The dog whimpered but did not run.
‘You take back your own control, your destiny, your light.’
Ruth drew back the knife and plunged it in again. The second penetration was not as deep but the momentum forced him backwards. A sickening thud sounded as the back of his skull met the concrete.
‘You take back your own control, your destiny, your light.’
Something hadn’t gone quite right. She’d missed a crucial detail. In the visualisation her body was suffused with peace, calm.
She towered over his writhing body and thrust the knife into his flesh again. He groaned, so she stabbed him again.
She kicked at his left leg. ‘Get up, get up, get up,’ she screamed but the leg lay inert like the rest of him.
‘You take back your own control, your destiny, your light.’
‘Get the fuck up,’ she aimed a kick to his ribs. Blood spurted from his open mouth. His eyes rolled back in his head as he squirmed like a demented mammal. The dog ran around his head, seemingly unsure what to do.
The tears rolled over her cheeks and fell. ‘Give it to me, you fucker. Just give it back to me,’ she ordered.
The body went still and the alley silenced.
Ruth drew herself back to her full height.
As the blood pooled like a paint spill beneath the lifeless body, Ruth waited.
Where was her relief?
Where was her salvation?
Where the hell was her light?
The dog barked.
Ruth Willis turned and ran for her life.
EIGHT
It started with a body, Kim thought, getting out of the Golf GTI.
‘Nearly got him there, Guv,’ Bryant said of the uniformed officer who had jumped out of the way to avoid the bonnet of her car.
‘I was miles away from him.’
She ducked under the barrier tape and headed for the bunch of fluorescent jackets milling around the white tent. The Thorns Road, a dual carriageway, formed part of the main link from Lye to Dudley town.
One side of the road was primarily made up of a park and houses. The other side was dominated by a gym, a school, and The Thorns pub.
The mid-March day temperature had almost broken double figures but the darkness had sent the mercury plummeting all the way back to February.
While Bryant confirmed their credentials, Kim ignored everyone and headed for the body. A dark gulley ran along the side of an end terrace that stretched up towards Amblecote, one of the finer parts of Brierley Hill.
To the left of the pathway was a plot of land overgrown with weeds, grass and dog shit, currently being trampled by crime scene officers or car body shop workers.
She entered the white privacy tent and groaned.
Keats, her favourite pathologist, was bent over the body.
‘Aah, Detective Inspector Stone. It’s been too long,’ he said, without looking at her.
‘I saw you last week, Keats. Post mortem of a female suicide.’
He looked up and then shook his head. ‘No, I must have blocked it out. People do that with traumatic events, you see. It’s a self-preservation mechanism. In fact, what’s your name again?’
‘Bryant, please tell Keats he’s not funny.’
‘Can’t lie to the man’s face, Guv.’
Kim shook her head as a smirk passed between them.
Keats was a diminutive figure with a smooth head and a pointy beard. Some months earlier his wife of thirty years had died unexpectedly, leaving the man far more bereft than he would ever admit.
Occasionally she would allow him a little fun at her expense. Just now and again.
She turned to where a Border collie cross sat patiently beside its prostrate master.
‘Why’s the dog still here?’
‘Witness, Guv,’ Bryant said smartly.
‘Bryant, I’m not in the mood for …’