She remembered the woman doctor, that Lake woman. She had told them to attach the electrodes to her scalp, and then told them to crank up the electricity. They had told her that it was good for her; something to do with dopamines and incorrect electrical paths in the brain. But she knew what it was; it was to punish her for being smarter than they were, for finding out how to beat the security and to climb over the fence. They had caught her once or twice, but she had done it many times.
She wanted to leave there at eighteen, but she had stayed a year longer. She had used their hospital because she had nowhere to go, but once she figured it out, she had left. They had tried to stop her, to reason with her, but she had a woman in London who was going to look after her. All she had to do was to offer her body to any man that was willing to pay, and where was the problem in that? Hadn’t she given herself enough times to the local men in Newcastle, and what did they give her? Nothing, apart from a nasty rash. At least the hospital’s medicine chest had dealt with that.
And then the men in that house in London with their breath smelling of beer, their bodies of sweat and lack of hygiene. They wanted to love her, to make love to her, but what did they really want? Just a quick screw, the opportunity to prod and poke her body, and once they were satisfied, they would leave her to clean up the mess. They were the same as all the other men. Gregory Chalmers had treated her well; she had loved him, but in the end he was only a bastard as well. And then there was Gloria’s boyfriend, tattooed and well-built. He thought he was something special until she had stuck the knife in him. The feel of his body beneath her as she rammed the knife in. The spurting blood covering her body. The look on his face as he realised that he was not there for love, only for death, his death. He had died for all men, although he was only one. Many men were deserving of death; she would ensure them that right.
The club had been fun, although the man had not been. He had told her his name was Liam, and he had been ugly and small and unable to satisfy her; not that it mattered, as she had been pleased with the knife in his heart. She had read in the newspaper afterwards that he could have lived if she had not happened to put her knife in the right place. One day she would thank whoever had advised her on that. Graham Dyer had been her first after three years, and his death had been assured as she knifed him repeatedly; no point in a shoddy job. He had tried to paw her in the pub, and back in his house he had tried to love her. She had no need for love; no need for a man, other than to be the receiver of a violent death.
She could see another murder, maybe the black police officer, but he would be smarter than her previous victims. And then there was that female detective inspector. She realised that women were not to blame for the troubles in the world, but for that woman, Sara Stanforth, she would make an exception. And what did a man have that a woman did not? She knew the answer to that question: the power to subjugate women, the power to put her into a lunatic asylum, the right to hit her, just because they had paid for her. And with Gregory Chalmers, the authority to profess love and then cast her off, no more than an old shoe, not even worthy of contempt.
She had not wanted to harm Stephanie Chalmers. She had been a good woman with a bad husband: a husband that cheated on her, who did not love her, only himself. Charlotte wished it could have been different, that he could have loved her and she could have been with his children, but he had been no different. She had enjoyed carving a number onto his chest, although she had not carved another since.
She knew that her mind played havoc with her thoughts, and that medication would make her see everything the same way as other people, but who was sane? Her or them?
They were the mad people, not her. She knew that given the right environment, she could act as they did. It had been easy outside that club to masquerade as an innocent bystander. The photo she had taken had been shown around the world; she was famous, and she enjoyed the feeling. She would take another to show that woman police officer and that black man that she, Charlotte Hamilton, moved the streets of London with impunity. They would never find her, and she would remove more men from society. She needed to pass the message on for other women to join her cause.
***
Isaac Cook’s parents maintained an album of their son. They had photos of him as a child, as a youth, his graduation from university,
