Felicity Young: An Easeful Death

He grabbed her face in one hand and squeezed her cheeks. ‘C’mon baby, you love it rough, you know you do, tell me you love it, tell me!’

She resisted the urge to bite him on the hand. Now was not the time. She had to be patient, her life depended on it.

She pushed the words through his hands, ‘Okay, I fucking love it.’

‘Hmm...’ He rocked back on his heels. ‘You’ll be saying it for real soon. You’ll be begging for me.’ He appeared to be in deep thought. Humming softly to himself, he continued to stare unnervingly at her, his mouth curving with the play of a smile.

She took in her surroundings and tried to block out the sound of his humming, to think past her fear. She was in a cavernous, windowless room with heavy double doors in the centre of one wall. Another twisted hunk of metal, similar to the one she’d been stowed behind, grew from the floor nearby. Grainy shapes of other metal objects were lost in the shadows beyond. A theatrical spotlight, powered by a lurching generator and wired to one of the roof girders, bathed them in bright light as if they were the stars of the show. Near the generator stood a table laden with cardboard boxes and bits and pieces of hardware.

At last she managed to steady her gaze and focus on the tip of Tye’s nose. ‘Where am I?’

‘In one of the basement rooms of the old power station, one of the few that still lock—it’s virtually soundproof.’

She looked again at the hunks of machinery, realising they must be the heavy cradles on which the turbines had once rested. Two silhouettes of silver and bronze misted the floor nearby. Her throat clenched, her mouth went dry. It was a struggle to speak and when she found her voice, it was high and squeaky. ‘Is this where you killed them?’

‘Clever, eh?’

You can handle this, just keep him talking, don’t get him angry; just keep him talking.

‘Why? Why murder those women?’ she asked, unable to control the tremor in her voice.

He stretched his legs out on the floor, propped his back against the wall and spoke in a tone of restrained rationality. ‘I don’t like killing, but I don’t dislike it either. It was just something that had to be done, self-preservation if you like. You blowing the whistle on me started an investigation that would’ve unveiled a lot more than a few bribes. You got me sacked, but that was preferable to being an ex-cop spending years in the slammer.’ He continued on, matter-of-factly, ‘This is your fault, you know, all of it. If not for you, everyone would still be alive. If you hadn’t threatened me that night, none of this would have happened.’

‘You killed the prostitutes?’

‘With a little help from Keyes and Thrummel behind the scenes. They had as much to lose as me. We were in business together, setting up our own stable. Once you started things rolling it became obvious that the whores were going to grass us up, they had to be silenced.’

‘And you drew the short straw, you did the silencing?’

‘They’re more squeamish than me, it took me a while to persuade them that knocking the girls off was the only alternative.’

‘So you did the dirty work and carried the can, and they went on working.’

Tye laughed. ‘Not quite true, but I can see what you’re getting at. You want me to get all hot and bothered over them. You want me to smack myself on the head and say to myself, “Duh, Tye, she’s right, it’s the boys I should be blaming, not poor little innocent Stevie.” Good try.’ He leaned forward, chucked her under the chin and winked. ‘It was all worked out very amicably. I went from one business to another and in retrospect this one is working out a lot better than the first ever could. Keyes and Thrummel owe me big time, they’re only too happy to help me out.’

‘Some kind of gold scam, you’re into gold.’

‘You’d be amazed at how lax security is in the small mines. It doesn’t take long to remove a sizeable amount when you have an understanding supervisor.’ Tye rubbed his chin, musing. ‘Not sure how long he’ll last, but; the mine’s a dangerous place to work. He might find himself knocked on the head by a falling beam if he doesn’t pull himself together. Got in quite a panic after your lot questioned him.‘

‘He’s the one who gave you an alibi. Said you were working at the time of the Royce murder.’

‘Sure. He wouldn’t want the world to know I was in Perth fencing our mutual takings, would he?’ He paused and looked pensive. ‘Maybe I should be grateful to you for blowing the whistle on me after all. I always knew you’d make me my fortune one way or another.’

Stevie didn’t know what to say next and that proved to be a mistake. The short silence gave him time to brood.

He grabbed her face again and his voice rose. ‘But have you any idea what it’s been like for me over the past few years, being sacked, seeing the one who shafted me doing the job I loved, rising meteorically up through the ranks? Didn’t you learn your lesson the last time?’

The pressure on her face increased. Gripped with panic, she tugged and twisted at the duct tape bindings. He let go of her face and clamped his hands around her shoulders, pinned her arms and buried his face into her neck, alternately sucking and nipping at her skin. She froze when she realised the effect her exertions were having on him and shrank as far back as the wall would allow. The skin of her neck continued to burn, long after he pulled away.

‘You and I have lots of catching up to do,’ he said, breathing heavily.

She flopped back against the wall, relieved to see his anger tempered again. ‘Tell me more about the murdered prostitutes.’ She had to keep the conversation away from herself.

‘I made the slappers look like the work of a sexual pervert. I even took “trophies”, like the book says, though I chucked the hair and jewellery into the river. It was touch and go for a while, my hair on that first one could have been my downfall. Just goes to show it’s not what you know. Baggly cleared that little glitch up for me and after that I used the wetsuit. The paint’s an added security, the chemical properties in it destroy just about anything else I might’ve left behind, skin cells, etcetera. I thought the commissioner’s hair on Royce’s body was a good touch too, don’t you? Keyes stole his hairbrush for me—my old partnership comes in very handy when I need things done from the inside. I’d’ve liked to have seen Baggly’s reaction to that little trick, I never told him about that, wanted to keep him on the edge of his seat, the cowardly perverted creep. He knew we had to cover up the KP murders, but he had no idea what else I was up to.’

‘So you’ve not only got Keyes and Thrummel in your pocket, you’ve got Baggly too. Clever,’ Stevie said.

Tye smiled. ‘Yeah. Then after years of thinking about you and the mess you’d got me into, I decided it was time for the so-called serial killer to make a return. There’ll be no one else after you, Stevie. What’s really funny is how easily you were all fooled, even the great De Vakey, and it was his books that gave me the idea in the first place.’

‘But why kill Royce, why Birkby?’

Stevie wondered if what she saw was a genuine shadow of regret passing over his face or just pretence. He shrugged. ‘I didn’t want to kill Linda, she was just a kid. I made sure it was quick and she didn’t suffer. I borrowed Baggly’s car, put on one of my old uniforms. Said her dad had taken a turn for the worse; that I’d been asked to pick her up and take her to the hospital to see him. She was quite a talker when she wasn’t scared shitless, her uncle was a retired cop y’know, she was very proud of him. We’d got to know each other quite well. I visited her in the cafe whenever I could, always made sure she served me. She was flattered. I flirted with her, she was an easy target: flirtatious, naive and trusting. I needed to kill her you see, to disguise the identity of my true target.’ He paused and ran his tongue over his lips. ‘You.’