He’d considered sending one of the sketches he’d pinched from Robertson to McGuire at the police station but refrained. There is no need. It would only be him being showy and that is unnecessary. They’d get their new sketch soon enough. Oh, he was so pleased he’d done his research well – so very very pleased.
Of the five ritual targets he had planned; two were complete, number three was in hand and number five, the big denouement, was decided on. Which left one more target to choose. Number four. He had a few women in mind, but really, whichever he chose was immaterial. For she would be a mere prelude to the final act – inconsequential.
He isn’t worried about choosing just yet, for he has to select another one of McGuire’s acquaintances before he delivers the fourth verse of the rhyme. His research and hacking skills have delivered his next non-ritual target right to his laptop. It is doubly pleasing, because this target, although on the periphery of the investigations, has strong links with both DI McGuire and Corrine. It will deliver the message strong and hard and leave them winded. After this one is found, he wants to slap them hard with the next target he chooses for his second line of work – he giggles a little at that – he considers the home invasions of Erica Smedley and Jez Hopkins as diversifying the business. That thought amuses him – maybe he should design a website Murder for Hire or Killings R Us? Maybe he could come up with a snappy catchphrase like, You select the body, I’ll deliver the trophy, or something like that.
Alternating between the lists gives his art a pleasant symmetry keeps the boredom at bay, and serves the purpose of confusing McGuire and co. This next one has to be meaningful. He is determined to leave absolutely no doubt in anyone’s mind that the two series of killings are linked. He wants them despairing and out of control before he makes his final move. By then, he would have ripped any shred of hope, any glimmer of a chance of recovery, from them. He’d have got the revenge he needed. Got the revenge he deserved – of course it isn’t all for him – no, not for him alone. There have been many people touched over the years by Corrine McGuire’s toxic presence. He is their avenging angel – their protector, the custodian of their redemption. No one else has the guts to do it. Everyone else seems content to wallow in the hurt she leaves in her wake. She’s escaped to a fulfilled life, leaving behind broken people, with no hope. The truth is, he despises Corrine McGuire, but there had been others he despised even more – they’d fallen prey to romantic notions of protecting him and they’d paid the price in many different ways for that – some had died, some were in places they would never escape from and some were locked inside their own tormented minds. He didn’t care – it amused him to see them, to witness their servitude, the way they suckled at the tits of sewer rats.
He is the one in control. He isn’t stupid enough to pretend that his main motivator is enjoyment. Yes, he wants revenge, for the opportunities that had been denied him, but with every new death, his enjoyment grows – he won’t stop, not unless he’s caught. But he won’t be. He is confident of that. He’s never been caught – ever. Others have cleaned up after him, taking the blame. Other times he played it smart and, like with his parents, when he’d cut the brake line – ‘such an awful accident. Poor child, look how he grieves’ … and that’s why he’ll never be caught. His versatility will save him. His ability to reinvent himself time and time again, to cast confusion. How many different killings have they laid on the wrong guy, just to massage their clean-up figures? He loves the control he holds – it doesn’t matter that hardly anyone recognises his work – that doesn’t matter to him. His main aim is the enjoyment of causing as much suffering to as many people as remotely possible.
True, hurting Corrine McGuire is personal – the life she has mapped out for herself should have been his. She doesn’t deserve it – she escaped – well now she won’t, and he’ll enjoy seeing her flounder. Seeing her perfect world come tumbling down around her. Seeing her break under the burden of guilt that will weigh her down. Then, when the time is right, he’ll move on, secure that the lives he’s destroyed will be counted, not just in the body toll, but in the hundreds of people affected. He’ll move on and start a different pattern, initiate a different wave of destruction in a different part of the country or the world. He is like a Tsunami ready to wreak havoc wherever he goes, and this is his motivation. Sebastian Carlton, for all his psychology and all his experience, would fail to work it out – how could he? The Man in Black cannot be pigeonholed, like Sutcliffe, or Dahmer, or Bundy – no, he is truly unique – truly magnificently inventive.
So, with Karen Smith finally dead, dangling beneath him, her nails painted, the candle lit, her foetal scan, the sketch, the biscuit, and the sprig of lavender all in place, he settles down, enjoying the smooth darkness, the cool air that wafts his face
