Jams Roses: Son of a Serial Killer

‘Shit,’ said David.

‘You’re still paying me, David,’ said Natalie, lying on the bed, wearing only a bra, ‘so get back here and finish what you started.’

‘You really are a heartless cow,’ said David, before climbing back on the bed and sucking gently on her clitoris.

Ben had run for more than a mile. Ran along the streets, ran blindly across roads, nearly ending his life just like his father not so long ago, ran towards the fields and finally stopped when he reached the canal.

He thought about jumping into the water. Could you force yourself to drown? Maybe he’d get lucky and get pulled down by the current, if they existed in canals, or get his legs tangled up in the reeds under the surface and couldn’t escape even if he lost his nerve.

He thought about jumping from one of the bridges along the canal, but none were very high, and with his luck recently, he would probably just end up disabled, with only his mother to look after him, who he was sure, was getting madder by the day.

He looked down at his shoes, now caked in mud, and sighed, then bent down and picked up a few pebbles that he caught his eye on the pathway. All three were smooth and flat with round edges, perfect for skimming, just like his father had taught him to do many years ago.

He threw the first stone and it sank without bouncing even once, the same with the second. He eyed the last pebble in his hand. The third throw was better, bouncing five times before disappearing below the surface, where it would rest until the end of days. He managed a brief smile before it turned into a frown.

‘I miss you, dad,’ he said.

He began a slow walk along the canal, towards the city centre. Recent events ran through his mind. He missed his father so much, and was so lost in his own depression that he hadn’t stopped to think about his mother and how she was coping.

She lived close, Mrs Green, but rarely left the house that Ben grew up in. Ben didn’t want to go there as seeing all his father’s possessions would sadden him further. But he knew, as an only child, he had a responsibility towards his mother, an only child herself.

He vowed to go and see her later that day, even though he dreaded seeing how senile she had become. She had always been strange, angry for no reason at one moment and then happy the next. Since becoming a widower, she was free-falling into that dark and lonely hole called madness.

Tears began falling again as his thoughts switched back to Natalie. He knew they didn’t have the perfect relationship, but her cheating had come as a shock. And with David as well! Why someone he knew? Why does that always hurt more?

Ben wasn’t surprised at David’s behaviour, they used to drink together after work and it was clear to everyone that he wasn’t the faithful type. This was made worse by the fact that his wife of seven years absolutely adored him. They were lovers at university and wed soon after graduating.

David was like Charlie, in that when Ben gave less of his spare time to the boy’s club, to getting drunk, to bragging about money, he’d lost all respect for him. That’s the thing with salesmen, always a shallow smile to your face, but the bottom line is the bottom line. You can never trust a salesman.

David had left CEM to start his own firm but stayed friends with Charlie thanks to their mutual love of boozy nights at strip clubs and casinos. Rumour had it that they’d even shared a prostitute once.

Ben wiped his eyes, red from crying, and blew his nose into a tissue as he entered under a bridge over the canal. He couldn’t believe how bad his day was getting when he noticed the teenage couple from earlier sat on a bench and smoking a joint. Ben kept his head down and walked past them.

Alexia noticed it was the man from earlier and nudged the stoned Ricky, who looked up and laughed.

‘Are you crying?’ he asked, shamelessly. Ignored, he tried again, ‘Oi, paedo, you been crying?

Ben was a few yards away as Ricky bent down and grabbed a stone from the ground.

‘I’m talking to you,’ he called out, and then threw the stone at Ben, which struck him hard on the back of the head.

Ben’s knees wobbled and he buckled over. He steadied himself with his hands at the side of the canal, just about preventing himself from falling in. On all fours, he gazed at his reflection in the water, and started mumbling to himself.

‘And now he’s talking to ‘imself,’ laughed Ricky. ‘You’re mad, mate. You fucking paedo.’

‘Ok,’ said Ben, to the man in the water. ‘Ok.’

Whilst lifting himself to his feet, Ben grabbed a half-brick that lay on the ground beside him, then turned and quickly marched in Ricky’s direction, determination and anger written all over his face.

‘Oh yeah, and what are you gonna do?’ said Ricky, sticking out his chest and dropping his shoulders as he stepped forward, looking brave in front of his girlfriend.

He should have run away.

Ben didn’t say a word. He just swung his straight arm around and crashed the corner of the brick into the side of Ricky’s skull.

Ricky’s eyes froze, then glazed, then rolled in their sockets. Two seconds later, blood was shooting out from the wound at the side of Ricky’s head as he fell, lifeless, into the canal. The air trapped in his puffer jacket, and the reeds at the edge of the water under his feet, kept him afloat.

Ben watched, emotionless, until the screams and cries for help from Alexia snapped him out of his trance. He tossed the brick into the canal.

Alexia was frozen to the spot where she stood, fear and panic rooting her feet to the ground. Urine began to drip from the bottom of her school skirt.

She fell silent as Ben covered her mouth with one hand and then grabbed the hair on the back of her head with the other. He yanked her head backwards and forced her to the ground.

Ben sat on her chest with his knees pinning down her shoulders and grabbed fistfuls of her hair, either side of her head. She managed to scream one more word, ‘Please,’ before Ben violently lifted her head then smashed it down onto the concrete floor, as hard as he possibly could.

She didn’t scream anymore, but Ben didn’t stop cracking her head until blood, hair and bits of skull formed a lumpy puddle beneath her.

Ben sat, looking down on his victim and laughed. He laughed at the blood on his hands and the stains on his jacket before snapping back to reality.

He was a killer, now suddenly in survival mode. He stood and looked both directions along the canal. Nobody was in sight.

Ben dragged Alexia’s corpse to the edge of the water and rolled her in. Again, the reeds played a big part in keeping the corpse from sinking, so he pushed down on her body with his foot until she was submerged, but as soon as he lifted it again, the reeds forced her back to the surface.

He stepped to the side and lowered himself back down on his knees and washed the blood from his hands and face in the filthy water then stood and again checked for witnesses. He took off his jacket and folded it over his arm, planning to ditch it in some random rubbish bin, far from here.

He took one more look at the bodies floating on the surface of the cold, canal water.

‘Shit,’ he said, ‘you fucking kids had to push me.’

He walked away from the ugly scene, guilt and joy wrestling for prominence in his mind.

Summers stood in front of a large whiteboard. The photos of her twelve selected victims along with their names and basic information and details of death were written up and taped to the board, in chronological order, earliest death on the left, numbered one.

Summers gently touched the photo of victim five, Dr Andrew Summers, then stood back and took her hip-flask from her desk drawer, gulped from it and put it back just as Kite walked back into the office with more coffee. Summers acknowledged him as he placed one coffee in front of her and took a sip of his own.