James Carol: The Quiet Man

The table seated six but there were only five chairs. The one that Isabella had died on was missing. Four of the chairs lay scattered around the table. Two were lying on their sides and two had been spun away from the table, as though the occupants had got up and suddenly left. The fifth chair had been set up at the epicentre of the blast zone. Winter walked over and rested his hands on the back of it. For a moment he stood there gazing around the kitchen. He was aware of Sobek watching from the doorway. Anderton was watching as well. His eyes met hers.

‘What’s it going to feel like, being bound to this chair with a bomb taped to your chest?’

Anderton didn’t respond straight away. If she was half the investigator he thought she was then this wouldn’t be the first time she’d imagined herself in that chair. Working out what made the bad guys tick was only a part of the story. Understanding and empathising with the victim was the other part.

‘It’s going to be terrifying,’ she said eventually. ‘Totally and utterly terrifying.’

‘And then some,’ he agreed. ‘Isabella was the first victim. She was thirty years old, fit and healthy. Her whole life was stretched out in front of her. She wouldn’t have had a clue what was going on. Some guy had broken into her house, bound her to a chair, then just left.’

Anderton was still staring at the chair, imagining what it was like. ‘When she heard Sobek come home she would have tried to warn him,’ she said, ‘but she couldn’t do that because there was a strip of duct tape across her mouth. He opens the door, then boom.’

‘Fast forward a year. This time the victim is Alicia Kirchner. The big difference is that she knows exactly what’s happening. The story of Isabella Sobek’s murder was all over the news. There was no way she would have missed it. Knowing what’s going to happen cranks the fear level up another notch.’

Anderton was already ahead of him. ‘Fast forward another year and the victim is Lian Hammond. Lian was Asian, which ups the ante. Up until this point he’d just been targeting Caucasians. She’d have felt safe. This just adds to the fear.’

‘I’ve got to hand it to this guy, having the murders on the same day each year is a stroke of genius. The anticipation really helps to increase those fear levels. So who is he going to tape to the chair this year? Or to put it another way, what’s he going to do to take this to the next level?’

‘Maybe the next victim will be black,’ Anderton suggested.

Winter shook his head. ‘He’s already shown that race isn’t any sort of barrier.’

‘What about a male? That way he’d be showing that gender isn’t an issue. That would raise the stakes.’

‘It would, but I don’t think he’s going down that road. As well as raising the stakes, that would significantly increase the risk factor. Generally speaking, men are stronger than women.’

‘Careful with those generalisations. I reckon I could kick your ass.’

‘Probably, but my point still stands. The way these crimes are presenting, this killer isn’t physically imposing. He’s going to be small build. Height somewhere in the region of five and a half feet. Certainly not much taller. This is someone with Small Man Syndrome. He controls his victims through coercion rather than force. That’s why he’s going to avoid targeting a male.’

Anderton opened her mouth to say something, then shut it again. Her brow furrowed then relaxed. Winter could almost see the thoughts cascading through her head.

‘You think he’s going to go after a kid,’ she said.

‘The thought’s crossed my mind. Serial killers have their own hierarchy. Bombers are way down near the bottom. They’re cowards. Only child killers rank lower. A bomber who kills kids would be the lowest of the low.’

‘Lower than low,’ Anderton agreed. ‘Let’s hope he doesn’t go down that route.’

Winter moved around to the front of the chair and sat down. Sobek was still watching from the doorway. It was difficult to read his expression. If he was bothered, it didn’t show. Equally, if he was curious then that didn’t show either. There was a kind of blank indifference on his face, like he was cataloguing what was going on but didn’t have an opinion one way or the other.

Winter shut his eyes, and the clock spun back. It was no longer him on the chair, it was Isabella. She was living through her final moments, each breath taking her closer to death, and there was nothing she could do to change that. This was more than imagination, it was a becoming. This was his gift. His curse. He took a deep breath and stepped into the zone.

*

The kitchen door closes and I’m alone. I listen to the killer’s footsteps fading away into silence. The front door is too far away for me to hear it opening. The bomb is lighter than it looks, but it feels heavy. Some objects have extra mass because they’re weighed down by their significance. This bomb is one such object. It’s heavy enough to crush me. The weight of it pressing into my ribs suffocates me. I’m this killer’s first, so I don’t have a reference point to work from. Even so, I know exactly what this device is capable of, and the reason I know is because he told me. He would have laid everything out in a way that even my terrified brain would understand. All I can do now is wait for Nicholas to come home. I’m powerless to do anything else. This has all been explained to me as well.

When you’re trapped between a rock and a hard place you’re never stuck exactly in the middle. One side will always exert more pressure, and that’s the side you’ll feel compelled to move away from. Human beings are programmed to seek out the path of least resistance. This is true for death as it is for anything else. Nobody wants to die a slow, agonising death. And nobody wants to die a violent death, their bodies ripped to pieces by forces that have no respect for blood, bone, muscle and flesh. Why would anyone wish that upon themselves? No, what we’re all looking for is a peaceful slide into the long goodnight.

Remember those poor souls who jumped from the Twin Towers? They faced an impossible choice. Either stay where you were and burn to death, or jump. Rocks and hard places. So why did they jump? They jumped because at that moment the fire was exerting more pressure. They had to get away. That was the only thing that mattered. And then they were tumbling head over heels, falling, falling, falling, plunging toward certain death, the ground getting closer and closer, and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it.

And that’s exactly what’s happening here. Because I’m not quite as powerless as I think. The killer would have told me all about mercury tilt switches. He would have explained how one wrong move would result in certain death.

I’m going to die. Nothing can stop that. But Nicholas doesn’t have to. Even though the terror has forced my mind into meltdown, there’s a strong likelihood that I’d managed to reach this conclusion. All I’ve got to do is rock the chair until it topples over. Do that and I can save Nicholas.

But I don’t do that because I don’t want to die. As long as I’m alive, there’s a chance I’ll be rescued. I don’t know how that would work exactly, I just know that I can’t give up yet. So long as there’s a single breath left in my body I will fight. I’ve even set myself a deadline for that final breath. When I hear Nicholas, that’s when I’ll topple the chair. There’s no point us both dying.

Except it doesn’t work that way. I don’t hear the front door opening, but I do hear him calling out my name. I’d shout out to warn him, but can’t because my mouth is taped shut. This is the point where I should topple the chair. But I can’t do that either. I’m still breathing. I’m still alive. I hear him moving around the house, calling out my name. And then he’s in the corridor that leads to the kitchen, and I still haven’t toppled the chair. And then he’s standing outside the kitchen door, and I’m still sitting here. And then the handle starts to move and it’s too late. The door opens and the explosion rips my chest apart. I’m dead before my body hits the expensive marble tiles.