Chris Simms - Killing the Beasts

Ges let out a low whistle. 'What sort of files?'

'I don't know, to be honest,' Tom answered, making sure his glance missed Julie.

After they had all trooped out Tom waited for five minutes, then checked Sarah in reception had gone, too. Grabbing the keys to the works van from the cabinet behind her desk, he opened up the back door of the office and loaded the boxes of X-treme gum into the rear of the van. He had just opened the gates to the courtyard when he heard a footstep in the alleyway behind him. Turning round he saw George fixing him with a malevolent stare.

'You've got rid of Julie,' he announced flatly, all his plans ruined.

Needing time to think, Tom walked back to the storage room and wheeled a Cooper's Barrow into the back of the van. 'George, it doesn't concern you, but I haven't got rid of her. She's been called back down to London. They need her there.'

'Really?' he sneered. 'That's not just a ploy?'

A ploy. By using that word George was indicating he knew they were removing Julie from the equation before anything happened. Unable to believe the man's audacity, Tom said, 'I hate to think what you're getting at with that comment.' He shut the rear of the van and started walking round to the driver's door. 'Now, if you could step out of the way.'

'Why? Where are you taking that lot?'

'To the promotions company, 'Tom answered impatiently, hoping his tone would deter any further questions.

'At six forty in the evening?' George's eyes narrowed.

'Yes,' said Tom, unlocking the driver's door.

He had started the engine and put it into first gear when George knocked on the van's window. He wound it down halfway and George spoke quickly, barely audible over the chug of the diesel engine. 'Tell your wife she should draw the curtains when she's ironing at night. I can see straight in.'

Tom replayed the sinister implications of the comment in his head. By the time he'd got the van in neutral and jumped out, the man had vanished. 'You sick bastard,' he announced weakly to the empty alleyway.

By the time Tom had stacked all the boxes at the end of his garage and covered them with a large tarpaulin, it was after eight o'clock. Charlotte was out with some friends from her gym, not due back until late. He let himself into the house, opened a bottle of wine and went through to the living room.

Slumped on the sofa, he kicked off his shoes and put his feet up on the coffee table, a glass of wine resting on his stomach. He had gone beyond exhausted to a state where he just felt hollowed out and zombie-like. He so desperately wanted to sleep but there was too much going round his head, too much going round his bloodstream.

Draining the glass, he poured another and then remembered that the work van was parked on the driveway and his Porsche was outside the office. Bollocks to it, he thought, deciding that he would return it early the next morning and no one apart from that twisted bastard George would be any the wiser. Creepy George. What was going on in that man's head? He'd seemed genuinely devastated by the news that Julie was going, as if he'd developed a real crush on her. He snorted. A crush was something teenagers or giddy adults experienced. Men like George didn't have crushes: they had obsessions. Dark and frightening ones.

Gulping down the second glass of wine, his thoughts turned to George's last comment. The bastard had been outside his house at some stage. He must have got his address from a computer file at work. Tom climbed the stairs and slid the shoebox out from under the bed. The man who delivered the gun didn't say a lot, other than to ask for his four hundred quid then show him how the safety catch worked. It looked like a small air pistol, almost toy-like in size.

George lurked in the shadows of the car park at The Church. He couldn't stand pubs. The smoke, the music, and worst of all, the women. Obscene in their make-up and short skirts, laughing loudly as they got more drunk. More confident. Looking at men, chatting with them, playing their flirtatious games. But never with him. Never with him.

Hands thrust deep into his anorak pockets, he crossed the car park and peered in through the window, fingers turning the packet of pills round and round. Julie was there, at a table with the rest of them. Red lips smiling, she got to her feet, circled a finger above everyone's glass, then set off for the bar.

He willed himself to go inside, knowing that it was his last chance. Maybe the others would get too drunk and go home. He constructed the scenario in his head; him and Julie the last to leave. Slipping the pill into her final bottle of beer, then — because he didn't drink — offering to drive her to the Ibis hotel. Her speech getting awkward, clever comments no longer on the tip of her tongue. Her losing control as she got out of the car. His car, with the briefcase in the boot. Helping her into the lift and up to her room. Getting her on to the bed and then waiting for her to pass out completely. The hours of fun he'd have with her.

Mere photographic images were leaving him less and less satisfied. And now he had the pills that would allow his fantasies to take place. But he couldn't go inside. A pub wasn't the place to put his plans into action. He would have to find another situation.

He thought about the women who allowed him to photograph them in their houses. In their bedrooms. It would be easy to drug the ones who posed on their own.

But even as the thought occurred to him, the image of Tom's wife teased him. Curtains open as she did the ironing in those tight vest tops. Urgently now, his fingers probed at the pills. She was a far more attractive prospect than the little strumpets who posed for cash.

Shivering with outrage at the ordeal he'd suffered at the hands of her husband, he knew something in his mind had altered for ever.

July 2002

As soon as the alarm started beeping Tom hauled himself to a sitting position, legs over the side of the bed.

'Turn it off,' moaned Charlotte, pulling the duvet up around her head. He had no idea when she'd got in. Head all over the place, he blinked stupidly a few times before reaching over and pressing the off button.

Peeling his tongue from the roof of his mouth, he trudged like a sleepwalker through the archway and into their en-suite bathroom. He needed water. After gulping at the tap for a while, he filled the sink with cold water and plunged his head in, letting the iciness cut through the warm fog clogging his brain. Feeling slightly more awake, he rubbed a towel through his hair and went downstairs.

Two bottles of wine stood on the sideboard in the kitchen; one empty, one with a few inches left in the bottom. He stared at them, barely able to remember opening the second. Then he shuffled across the room and swigged the last of it down, to take the edge off his headache.

Forty minutes later he'd showered, scrubbed his teeth and forced a bowl of cornflakes down. At his front door he reached up to take his Porsche keys off the hook and saw an unfamiliar set hanging there. It took him a couple of seconds to remember that he'd driven home in the work van. With Charlotte still asleep, he let himself out of the front door without saying goodbye.

Immediately he noticed that his garage door was slightly open. 'I don't believe it,' he whispered, walking over and lifting it up.

'Thieving little bastards,' he cursed, staring at the tarpaulin. It had been half pulled off the stack of chewing gum boxes and he could see several were missing. After rearranging it, he went back into the house and called up the stairs. 'Charlotte! Those little shits have broken into the garage again. I'll phone the police from the office.'

There was no reply, so he said to himself, 'OK, well done Tom. See you later. I love you.'