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  Ahhh, so that was it, the cause of the falling out between them, the Mother was uncomfortable with the daughter’s sexuality. He nodded at her.

  "I think I understand. I'll leave you in peace soon Mrs Randall. But before I go I'd like to show you a picture of something and I'd appreciate it if you'd rack your brains and try and remember if you had seen it anywhere for me?"

  She nodded curtly. "Go ahead. Show me your picture Inspector. I'll try and help if I can."

  Opening the leather bound zip folder he’d brought with him, he pulled out the colour print outs of the necklace found in Sally Brook's satchel, and, leaning forward held them out to her.

  "Here, please take a good look Mrs Randall and do let me know if anything, anything at all comes to mind." She plucked the printouts from him with elegant red painted fingernails, studying them, her almond shaped eyes narrowing as her eyes scanned the paper. Shaking her head slowly, she looked up at him.

  "No sorry Inspector, I really don't recognize anything. What does this have to do with Sally's murder?"

  "Sally's mother seems to think your daughter might have given Sally the necklace Mrs Randall, apparently they were quite close friends?"

  She took a final drag on the cigarette then extinguished it with a little flourish in the ashtray.

  "Inspector look, Louise had a lot of…silly crushes when she was younger. Personally I didn't know the Brook's girl very well but I always thought she was a bad influence on Louise," she said, shaking her head.

  “Why do you say that Mrs Brooks?” he said, sitting forward.

  "She would get into these extreme moods after seeing her, sometimes she’d be high, other times she’d be moody and snappy. And she started shutting herself away in her room more, slamming the door loudly and playing that bloody rock music." Well that sounded like fairly ordinary run of the mill teenage stuff, nothing untypical about that.

  "But you don't remember anything about the necklace?" he pressed again. She shook her head firmly.

  "No I’ve never seen it before. Though it wouldn't surprise me if my daughter had given it, she always did have a lot of stupid notions filling her head."

  Getting to his feet he closed the portfolio with a snap, picking up his discarded jacket from the arm of the chair.

  "Thank you Mrs Randall," he said, smiling politely as she stood up too, smoothing her clothes down.

  “If that’s all Inspector Gaine I have to be at the house of a pupil I’m tutoring in mathematics in half an hour?”

  He nodded politely.

  “Yes of course. It was nice to meet you Mrs Randall. I wish the circumstances had been pleasanter.” She looked at him then, her eyes seeming to burn directly into his as she spoke.

  “Yes, well we can’t always get what we want can we now Inspector? In my experience life never does work out that way.”

  CHAPTER TEN - BIRTHSTONE

  Standing in the shadows in the alleyway at the side of the Mayfair club, he waited for her to leave. Looking at his watch he saw it was 2:15 am, she’d told him she finished at 2 am tonight, so where was she? He tapped his foot impatiently, maybe she’d been lying, blowing him off, perhaps she hadn't been interested in him after all. Tightening his jaw he contemplated the prospect, biting the inside of his lip and clenching his hands into fists as he waited.

  Just then the door to the club swung open, and he turned as he heard the sound of high heels on pavement. She tottered out laughing, wrapped in a white faux fur coat, accompanied by a slight, dark haired girl, who seemed to be sharing the joke with her. Drawing back into the shadows, not wanting them to spot him, he watched as they walked past. They were a good 100 metres down the road before he finally slipped out of the alleyway and started behind them.

  He followed them as they made their way to a bus stop where they came to a halt, obviously waiting for the night bus that would take them back to their respective homes. Pulling the brim of his baseball cap down low over his face, he walked past the back of the bus stop, stopping in the shadows of a shop doorway as he pretended to be occupied fiddling with his mobile phone.

  Wary in case she looked over and recognized him, he was reassured somewhat by the dark coloured woollen scarf he had pulled around the lower half of his face. The scarf coupled with the hat meant she would have some difficulty in doing so, especially in this light.

  A bus pulled up at the stop, and he hung back, skulking in the shadows as they both hopped on, first the dark haired girl, then Marilyn. He watched them as they passed their Oyster cards over the yellow touch point and made their way up the stairs to the top of the bus.

  At the very last moment, just as the doors were closing and the bus was about to pull away, he started forward, motioning to the driver to open the doors again. The driver, a tired looking, rather overweight man, did so grudgingly as he paid his fare and took a lone empty seat at the back of the bus.

  Through Oxford Street the vehicle passed, then Sloane Square, then Kensington where the slight, dark haired girl who’d been Marilyn's companion alighted, her red soled black leather stilettos clicking off in to the night. He waited as the bus continued on its journey, through Kensington, onto Chelsea now, and still no sign of Marilyn. Perhaps she’d fallen asleep on the top deck of the bus? Just then the vehicle pulled into Hammersmith bus station and she emerged, her white coat all bundled up around her, her blonde hair piled on top of her head messily.

  Watching her he took in every detail, the silver slightly shimmering stilettos, the white sequinned dress she wore underneath her coat, that clung to her hourglass figure as she stepped off the bus. Aroused now, he followed her off, careful to keep back a little so she wouldn't realise she was being tailed. His eyes were fixed on the white and blonde figure in front of him, as she crossed the road and began walking along the Hammersmith Broadway.

  “You’re filthy. It’s disgusting, an abomination.” Shut up Mother.

  He followed her all the way down the Broadway, past drunks and vagrants asleep in doorways, past shut up shops, past the little shop still selling kebabs on the corner at this late hour. As she turned down the little side street he followed her still, keeping his distance, watching, waiting.

  Stopping outside a five storey townhouse, she pulled her key out of her handbag and put it in the lock, turning it, then slipping through the doorway in a flash of blonde, leaving him on the other side. His breath was in his throat, arousal making his body burn, his knuckles clenched white. It looked like the place had been converted into a block of flats and he eyed the different buzzers displayed on the intercom outside the front door.

  Walking into the small front garden, he stood there, well shadowed by the row of ferns that grew behind the low garden wall.

  “It’s unnatural. You’re unnatural. I should put you in a fucking dress you dirty little pervert.” His mother’s voice again.

  The rage he always felt when her voice wormed its way into his brain screamed in his ears and he hungered to quash it. Only when he made a new discovery like this, when found someone that could satiate the awful anger he had within him, could he expurgate the fury and yearning he had held all these years. He would have his revenge, he would have his revenge on all of them.

  He imagined Marilyn now, kicking off her high heels, perhaps making her way to the bedroom, where she would peel off her white dress, to reveal her underwear. Possibly she wasn't wearing anything beneath her dress at all. He felt a perverse impulse to masturbate, right there and then, in the bushes outside her house. How dare she entice him like this, make him obsess over her, make him desire her? She was the same as the others, all the rest of them, a whore, a tease.

  “Filthy, it’s filthy. Disgusting little pervert.”

  She did this all the time, was perhaps even laughing now, at the thought of the money she’d taken tonight from poor deluded fools like him, who’d meekly handed it over as he had done. His hands fumbled for his zipper. Looking furtively left then right, he checked to see if anyone else was aro
und. The street was clear. No one could see him anyway, not tucked away here, secluded like he was. Unzipping his fly he began to stroke himself angrily.

  The look in her eyes as she'd danced for him, that wasn't desire he'd seen. His hand moved back and forth, rhythmically. She’d looked at him with same mocking expression Sally had worn when she’d rejected him.

  “It’s a perversion. You’re disgusting, an embarrassment to me.”

  Mother’s voice in his ears, why did she sound louder now? Shut up mother, stop it, just shut up and leave me alone. He imagined holding Marilyn from behind, pressing himself against her as his right hand closed around her slim throat, his grip tightening as she struggled frantically. In his mind he heard her awful whoop, a frantic gasp for air, as his left hand brought the blade out, slicing it cleanly across her windpipe.

  Her blood, so much of it, would spurt out everywhere, the panicked, powerless expression in her eyes, would be desperate, as she bled out into his arms. His hand stopped its rhythmic stroking and he stood there panting, outside her house, his trousers halfway down his legs, one hand still clenched into a fist.

  This was all part of the ritual, his special ritual, and he’d enjoyed it over the years. At first it was a game, the hunting and selecting a suitable target, then initiating contact, finding out all about her, watching her from afar, allowing himself the tease. Watching until his mother’s voice boiled in his ears and unable to stand it any longer, he would have to act.

  The rage, and the excitement he would feel while hunting them were the only two emotions he ever felt. The closest thing to normal feeling he knew. He’d tried to stifle the urge for so long, too long, for years in fact, but it had always been there underneath the surface, simmering away. Building and building until eventually, one night he had given into it.

  The kill had been so good, that afterwards he’d almost felt like he had done when he was with Sally. So good in fact, he’d even thought he wouldn't need to do it again, so calm had he felt, so still. Then it had returned, the need to hunt again, to find her, someone who could be like her. And he had returned to his watching and stalking, his careful collecting and noting down of the most banal details of their lives, that to him were such a crucial part of the process of knowing them.

  He’d told himself he would simply remain in the shadows silently, watching, observing, that he wouldn’t actually do anything. But he had to shut the voice up the only way he knew how, the only way that could get rid of her, even temporarily. He needed the system, he couldn’t live without it, it was the only thing that ever drowned out his mother’s voice. The only thing that helped him to forget.

  Until he’d found them all he wouldn't stop, he couldn't stop, not until he had every last one. Only then his revenge would be complete. And then he would find Sally again.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN - DEACON

  The Randall girl was proving seriously elusive to track down. He let himself in with his key, shutting the door behind him with a click. The clock in the hallway told him it was 9pm. He and Doyle had been working hard all afternoon and well into the evening, trying, and failing, to locate her after Mrs Randall had informed him she hadn’t a clue where her daughter was.

  They’d both left several messages on the mobile number Helena Randall had supplied, but the girl wasn’t picking up. Undeterred and impatient, he’d contacted the mobile phone network in an effort to obtain the registration address, but he had been disappointed to learn the phone was a pay as you go model, and was unregistered.

  All they had managed to unearth so far was a caution for driving drunk at the age of 19. She’d been brought into custody and fingerprinted, but apart from that had seemed to live a rather uneventful existence. So uneventful in fact, that there was suspiciously little paper work to give any idea as to what she'd been doing with her life since then at all.

  He shook his head, he had to give it a rest, had to try and forget about work for a bit, for just one evening. Try and make things up with Maria somehow. Most of the lights were off, but the kitchen light was on. She must be in there. Crossing the hall to the kitchen door, he held the bunch of flowers he’d bought at the little florists on the way home behind his back, hoping to surprise her.

  He swung the door open smiling, expecting to see her, but instead his eyes took in an empty room. Strange, it wasn’t that late, surely she wasn't in bed already? Spying the piece of paper pinned to the fridge he walked closer.

  Gone to Salsa with a friend. Be home later, don't wait up. M.

  Salsa? When had she taken up that? Well making up would have to wait. Sighing, he stuck the flowers in the kitchen sink and bent down to open one of the cupboards.

  Taking out the bottle of scotch, he poured a good double measure, taking a large swallow and closing his eyes at the strong but pleasant taste, as the liquid burned his throat. Taking another large swig, he drained the glass, before pouring a larger measure, and, walking out of the room to head upstairs.

  He'd finish his nightcap in bed, get an early night. Perhaps the extra sleep would do him good, clear his head, and make him see things from a fresh perspective.

  It was 6:30 am the next morning when he was woken by the sound of his mobile ringing loudly. Looking around he realized with a start that Maria wasn't in the bed next to him. Groggily he took the call, his voice throaty from the scotch the night before, his head pounding. Doyle's voice pierced through his semi-consciousness.

  "Gaine, there's been a hit and run. Young woman. Killed instantly, vehicle drove off. We need you here to wrap things up, should be an open and shut case but can you get here asap?" Attempting to sit up on the edge of the bed, his stomach lurched as he tried to form a coherent reply.

  "Fuck, yeah alright, what's the location?”

  “Buck Street, near Camden Market.”

  “Alright I'll get dressed and get down there as soon as I can alright? Hold the fort for me til then." He hung up, his mind still trying to wake up as he looked for his clothes. Shit, this wasn’t going to be pretty. He hated hit and runs.

  And where was Maria? A horrible thought struck him then, an irrational panic. He reached for the phone again, he had to call her, he just had to make sure she was safe. What if? His hands shook slightly as he hit speed dial. He waited as it rang but she didn't answer, the phone going to her voicemail instead.

  "Maria, it's me,” he said, speaking urgently, “Maria if you get this please call me back as soon as you can, I'm worried about you sweetheart."

  Dressing quickly, he almost put his foot through one of his trouser legs as he pulled on his clothes.

  Where was she? She usually told him whenever she was going to stay overnight with one of her girlfriends, and it only ever happened rarely, when they went somewhere out of town. Trying to calm down he found his breathing was becoming more frantic, his heart racing as his panic climbed, if anything had happened to her, if? No, the thought was just too horrible.

  Just then he heard a key turn in the lock. Relief washed over him as he rushed to the stairs.

  "Maria!" he yelled over the bannister, as she looked up at him flatly, her face guarded, lips set in a determined expression. Disregarding her somewhat unwelcoming look, he rushed down to meet her, swooping her into his arms despite her protests. Holding her back slightly as if to examine her, he swooped in again, planting a kiss on her forehead , then hugging her close.

  "Glad you're home," he murmured into her hair, holding her to him, "I was worried, where were you?" She stiffened against him.

  "After Salsa we decided to stop off for drinks and then well, it was far too late and I was too drunk to drive home,” she said flatly, as he looked at her in surprise.

  “So I just decided to crash round Susie's, she just lives a short walk away so..." she shrugged, her voice tailing off as he released her, frowning at her in a slightly puzzled fashion.

  The reply sounded too rehearsed, something wasn't quite right. But he didn't have time to find out what was wrong with her now, he ha
d a crime scene to get to. He would talk to her later on, for the meantime he was just glad she was here and safe. Nodding he kissed the top of her head again.

  "Alright sweetheart. I really have to go now, there's been an incident but we'll talk later ok? I promise."

  Picking up his car keys from the chequered side table in the hallway, he left before she had time to reply. Conscious of her watching him, he turned back to the door to smile and wave at her, but she just stared at him blankly, before shutting the door and turning away.

  CHAPTER TWELVE -BIRTHSTONE

  They deserved to die. He hated them all. Hate was an emotion he was comfortable with. Hate gave him purpose, motivation. It drove him forwards.

  He had often wondered whether he would be this way if life had happened differently, if Sally hadn’t rejected him, if his mother had loved him, but he honestly didn’t know the answer. All he knew was one thing, killing was now his comprehensive response to life. Some people relied on prescription drugs, others smoked cigarettes or downed copious amounts of alcohol to get them through it, still others threw themselves into their work, but he, he had murder.

  He knew that technically murder was supposed to be wrong, but somehow it didn’t feel wrong. On the contrary everything about it felt entirely right. Finally after all the years of torment he felt like he was getting some sort of justice. Yes that was it, he was meting out a sort of bloody vengeance. They had tormented him, tempted him, and then rejected him and he had stood up and fought back. But it was more than that. It silenced his mother’s voice momentarily. It brought him release.