Alex Gray - Five ways to kill a man

Rhoda took another deep breath. It was becoming harder to find the same inner strength that had made her become a police officer in the first place. Okay, so that little voice kept telling her worse things happened to other people. And hadn’t she seen so many of them already in her young life? But she was ready to begin again. The memory of Serena disappearing down into the cells below the courtroom would fade in time. Like everything else. The transfer to Kilmarnock had been approved and next week a new chapter would begin for DI Martin. She could never pretend that these terrible things had not happened and she knew that police gossip would continue to follow her wherever she went. But she had to go on, as the psychologist had gently advised; there were people out there who needed her to be a good police officer.

Slipping her bag across her shoulder, Rhoda left the coolness of the ladies’ room and walked past the people milling about in the foyer of the High Court. Men and women in black robes, bewigged and talking closely together; neds dressed up in their best gear for the occasion; officers like herself, coming and going for reasons of their own.

Out in the warm summer air, Rhoda stood for a moment looking around her. Over there was the back door of the mortuary: there were other deaths and other trials still to come. And perhaps, one day soon, she would play her part in bringing a culprit to justice. Straightening her collar, Rhoda Martin lifted her head and walked smartly into the afternoon sunshine.

Doctor Solomon Brightman winced as the blinds were opened, letting in the glare of light. Harsh shadows sliced across the room, making dust motes whirl in lozenges of sunshine. The click of the door made him look up and he stood politely as the woman was ushered in. The duty nurse who had opened the blinds gave the patient a cursory glance.

‘I’ll leave you all to it, then, shall I?’ he said, nodding at the patient and her female companion. Serena Jackson sat down at the table, her head turning towards the window as if she wanted to bask in the warmth of the sunshine streaming in. It was a gesture guaranteed to remind Solly that she was a prisoner here. He leaned forwards and held out his hand. ‘Good to see you again, Jacqueline,’ he told the psychologist. They met from time to time for seminars and discussions but Jacqueline’s time was mostly spent here as a full-time employee of Carstairs Mental Hospital. The woman smiled and nodded, her eyes always on the slim blonde woman sitting at the table, even as she retreated to the back of the room where she could quietly hear and observe.

Solly stared at Serena Jackson, marvelling at her perfect profile and translucent skin. The blonde hair was like spun silk in the sunlight. Her hands, he noted, were on her lap beneath the table where he could not see them. Clasped loosely together? Or twisting and turning in nervous agitation like a swan who seemed serene yet whose feet paddled furiously below the surface of the water. It was not the first time that Solly had thought the woman’s name so appropriate; she did have a serenity about her but it was no more than a mask to hide that twisted personality.

That Serena Jackson had agreed to take part in Solly Brightman’s research did not surprise him. He didn’t flatter himself that she was greedy for the sort of fame that came with notoriety. No. Solly knew that the woman was only here to relieve the boredom of this place. It was a diversion for her, no more. He doubted if she would ever bother to read the book once it was published, even though an entire chapter would be devoted to her killing spree.

‘Why did she do it?’ Rosie had asked him. He had shrugged, only half-knowing. But their conversations had provided more of an answer to that question.

‘Good morning, Serena,’ he said at last. ‘How are you today?’ The woman turned to him, squinting her topaz eyes a little against the dazzling brightness. Then she gave him one of her rare smiles.

‘Daniel’s gone abroad,’ she told him. ‘The States.’ She gave an insouciant shrug. ‘Don’t think he’s going to come back.’

‘Won’t you miss him?’

She shrugged again in answer as if it was no big deal to her but Solly detected a small shift in her expression and knew that the loss of her brother was a real blow to the woman.

‘Don’t you miss your mother and father?’

Serena looked down at the table and traced a pattern on its plastic surface with her index finger. ‘Sometimes,’ she replied at last.

‘What sorts of things make you miss them?’

She heaved a sigh then her mouth twisted as if the exhalation had come unbidden. This was a person, Solly knew, who liked to be totally in control of her own emotions.

‘I never wanted to have my own place. I told you that already, didn’t I?’ she began. ‘They wanted me out, especially her.’ The pretty mouth made a moue of distaste. ‘Thought we didn’t know what was going on under our noses, filthy bitch!’ She shook her head as if to rid herself of the memory. ‘But I do miss Dad sometimes. He used to come and say goodnight. Nothing to titillate your nasty little mind,’ she added with a sneer. ‘He’d call out from the top of the stairs, that’s all,’ she said.

Solly nodded as though he believed what she told him. Perhaps it was true but it was more likely that she was feeling lonely and panicked at night times here in this place when she was so completely alone. The father figure that she had destroyed haunted her with good memories, even if they might be false ones.

Serena looked at Solly suddenly. ‘I suppose you want to find out why I killed them.’

There was a long moment between them when the psychologist was acutely aware of normal sounds like that of a plane overhead and the metallic growl of a mowing machine in the grounds. Of course he wanted to hear that. But, he wondered, noting a sly smile cutting the edges of that pretty mouth, would she ever tell him the whole truth?

‘They wouldn’t let me be what I wanted, would they?’ she told him, enjoying his discomfiture at her deliberately enigmatic remark.

‘When did you first enjoy making fires?’ Solly asked, changing the subject. He had asked this question in various ways before and was not really expecting an answer today, just the usual cold silence. So he was surprised when Serena leaned forwards and told him in a whisper, so that the other psychologist could not hear. He listened to the story of over-privileged teenagers bored with all the things that their parents’ wealth could buy, joy riding and wrecking a car. Her face became more animated as she described the fire and the tree.

‘I was alone with the sound of crackling wood and that moaning voice. It was easy to think of the tree as a living thing in its death throes,’ she told him.

Solly locked eyes with the woman, ‘And…?’ he prompted her. ‘And I liked what I saw,’ she said, a gleam of triumph shining from those tawny eyes.

‘You always wanted to find out what it would be like? To kill?’ he asked.

Serena nodded then turned away with a yawn. It was a signal Solly recognised as the end of this current session. Her boredom assuaged, she would return to the hospital’s routine until his next visit. Then perhaps he would ask her other questions. About the vulnerable old ladies who had died at her hand.

There was still a lot to learn about this woman whose strange beauty was so at odds with a nature that one journalist had described as pure evil.

It was quiet here and I liked it after that funny little man and his probing questions. He amused me and I enjoyed trying to fool him. Sometimes I think I did outwit him, though today I had let rather too much slip, hadn’t I? There were things that he would never hear from me, though. I hugged them to myself gleefully; that laughing child whirling through the air and the old vagrant, his face contorted with the poison choking him to death. These were my secrets and no clever bearded psychologist would ever find them out. And there were other secrets too, desires that might never be fulfilled — different ways to kill. I considered them in the long hours within this place, wondering if I would ever be given the chance to carry them out.