He banged hard on the flaking kitchen door, the wood rattling in its frame. Bob answered almost immediately, a look of curious confusion on his face. Roger assumed the guy probably didn’t get many visitors. Standing in the doorway, dressed in stained grey jogging trousers and a grubby, off-white vest, his belly protruded from the upper garment, hanging like a greasy, stretchmark-strewn apron over the waistband of his pants. In one hand he held a bacon sandwich, tomato ketchup dripping onto the filthy linoleum floor as he stared at his visitor, slack jaws still chewing. In his other hand, a thin roll-up dangled from fat, yellow fingers, a wispy plume of grey smoke curling up a bare arm.
Bob swallowed his masticated mouthful and prepared to speak. Barely a fragment of a syllable escaped his greasy lips before Roger smashed the piece of gate into his face, sending him crumpling to the floor, blood pouring from a gash at his temple where a rusty nail protruding from the wood had gouged his skin. Roger stared at the unconscious figure on the kitchen floor, he himself momentarily stunned at what he had just done. He hadn’t thrown so much as a punch in anger since his school days, and even those were half-hearted efforts, usually missing or at least having little impact on his target. He hefted the piece of wood in his hand with a degree of pride swelling warmly inside him – hitting Bob had felt good and Roger felt sure he would enjoy inflicting even more pain on the murdering bastard.
Stepping over Bob’s immobile form, Roger bolted the kitchen door behind him. The table where Laura had been attacked stood in front of the grimy hob, the lengths of rope used to secure the victims dangling at each corner. A groan from the floor startled him and Roger turned to see Bob beginning to stir. He swiftly hit him again, the piece of gate catching the fat man across the jaw, the blubbery body immediately going limp once more. Roger was suddenly worried that he may have inadvertently killed him – not that Bob’s death was a problem as such, despatching him was the ultimate goal after all – but the perverted creature didn’t deserve to die so quickly and painlessly. He crouched down and felt for a pulse, probing Bob’s flabby neck attempting to find the tell-tale throbbing of his carotid artery. Satisfied that he was still alive, Roger pondered how to get him onto the table. He had never been one for physical exertion or going to the gym and he doubted his ability to lift Bob’s dead-weight bulk. As he looked around for anything that might assist, his gut suddenly exploded with pain. He twisted back toward his prone victim, the agonising clawing in his bowels immediately subsiding a little. Roger understood enough by now to realise he was being told to get on with it. He crouched at Bob’s head and reached under his warm, sweaty armpits, recoiling a little at the touch of his flesh before he attempted to lift. He squatted on his haunches, biceps straining with the effort, but to no avail. Bob was just too damned heavy for him. He contemplated leaving him on the floor but almost immediately shook the thought from his mind – the plans he had for the fat bastard required him to be prone on the kitchen table, arms and legs secured against any movement or escape. He wanted him in the same position that Laura (and who knew how many possible others) had been in when they had suffered and lost their lives at Bob’s hands.
Roger suddenly sagged at the knees and clasped his palms tight to his ears as an ocean of chanting voices filled his head. The words were unfathomable, their intensity climbing then falling as if being drowned out by a raging storm, but their tone was clearly one of encouragement, cheerleading his efforts and, as he pulled once more at Bob’s flabby arms, he found that the multitude in his head was offering much more than mere support as their incantations bolstered his strength and he easily lifted the slumbering bulk off the floor and onto the wooden table.
The voices faded and, with Bob still unconscious, Roger took a closer inspection of the lengths of rope at each corner of the table, trying to figure out how to tie his victim down. Each length hung from holes drilled in the table legs. Two further holes were drilled into the table top at each corner – it seemed a simple matter of passing a length of rope up through one hole, over the victim’s arm or leg and down through the second hole. Roger guessed that in order to secure the bond tightly, it would need to be passed back through the hole in its respective table leg before being knotted.
He removed Bob’s clothes and got to work securing him to the table, before filling a pan with water and placing it on the hob.
He waited for Bob to wake.
16
“Good afternoon, Miss. Can I help you?”
The sergeant behind the desk looked to be counting down the months to his retirement: thinning grey hair combed back over his head and a paunch testing the seams of his uniform. Years of fresh air ‘on the beat’ had reddened his cheeks, giving him a jovial appearance.
Despite the officer’s friendly demeanour, Lisa couldn’t calm the nerves that trembled at her fingers. This was the first time she had ever set foot inside a police station and she couldn’t help but suddenly feel guilty of…something…
She took a deep breath and stepped up to the desk.
“I’d like –“ she had to pause for a second and force the words out as her nervousness constricted her throat, “to report
