Gordon Ferris - Truth Dare kill

He straddled the fence and began walking towards me, a long stride, heels hitting hard on the path like he was pacing out a cricket square. And suddenly I knew that gait. I’d seen it loping away from me. Down a back alley in Avignon.

This time he was wearing a thick coat and hat against the clinging air. His hands were in his pockets. As he got closer I could see that whatever he’d done wasn’t getting to him. A bit red and strained round the eyes, but none of that bulging, berserker look the public expects in the insane. Take it from me, and I’ve seen plenty, some of the craziest guys in the world look perfectly normal until you engage them in conversation and find they can only talk about rats or the colour red.

Caldwell stopped ten feet from me. How was I going to knock that smile off? “Well, McRae. You’ve saved me a lot of trouble. I’ve been hunting high and low for you.”

“You have it wrong, Caldwell. I’ve been hunting you. Didn’t Kate tell you the cavalry won’t be coming to save your neck?”

“You mean Wilson? An oaf. He got what was coming to him.”

“I thought you were buddies?”

“A common cause.”

“When did you point him my way?”

He laughed. “Remember that first visit he made to your office? You don’t think that was an accident, do you?”

No, I didn’t. Too many coincidences. “Did you know him before?”

He shook his head. “He likes giving interviews. I saw his name.”

“After the first murder?”

He said nothing. I changed key. It was too soon to go down that road. “Your sister has been very helpful. I mean the Graveney one.”

He frowned. “You shouldn’t have told her that. She didn’t need to know.”

“Because it spoiled your games? What were these games, Caldwell? They sound fun.”

The frown vanished from his face. He grinned, like a dog grins just before it takes a piece out of your leg. He considered the question for a while.

“We had a dare. A double dare. Truth, dare, kiss or promise.”

“The kid’s game?” I asked with wonder. We used to play it in Hayward Park. A gang of us, girls and boys, average age ten, looking for excuses to cop a feel or allow a secret passion to be dragged from us in front of our object of desire. We’d spin a bottle and the loser had to call out his or her choice: tell the truth, take a dare, kiss a girl, or make a promise. The loser had the right to pronounce on the action.

I remember Lizzie Kirkland getting a double dare to put her hand up my short trousers. I think she was disappointed. It seemed a big deal at the time. But it wasn’t very brave or inventive alongside what Caldwell was telling me…

“Not kids!” he exploded. “At first, yes. But it was more important than that.

Kate liked it. It was our thing. The thing only we knew about. No one else would have understood. The game went on for a long time. Years. Higher risks, more excitement. Our game.” His face had changed. It was as though he was describing a religion. Perhaps he was.

“But you didn’t let Liza play?

He snorted. “She was never in our league. It was just Kate and me. Just the two of us. Since I first saw her.”

“So you went on playing the game, hoping it would lead to what? Fucking your sister Kate?”

His face twisted. “Shut your filthy mouth! You don’t understand. I didn’t know.

I didn’t know who I was until it was too late! I wanted her. Thought I could have her. Only Liza knew.” He fought for control. He wiped both sides of his moustache with his left hand. His right stayed in his pocket.

“And you bought Liza off with sex.”

“It wasn’t like that! It made her happy.”

I laughed. “Charitable of you. And it let you go on playing the game. Then you got to the big ones. Life and death. You started murdering people because she dared you?” I wanted to hear this story and I was gambling that he wanted to tell it. Murderers always want to justify themselves.

“She never thought I’d do it. It was the ultimate dare. The one she thought I’d stop at. I came back from France and told her. Told her what I’d done. She should have…”

“Should have let you fuck her, Tony? Liza wasn’t enough for you? Was that the deal?”

“Stop it, stop it, you bastard! Don’t talk of her like that! You don’t know what it was like! She was so lovely, so beautiful. I worshipped her. I almost had her.”

The control was slipping. His face was the face of a man whose dreams had been shot to pieces. All those years, keeping him dangling, teasing, leading him on.

Pretending he was married to her. What a bitch. Enough to drive anyone out of his mind. For a moment I almost felt sorry for him. Then I remembered how he’d used Liza, the surrogate. And how he’d slaughtered the others.

“And Kate became a whore in return?” That really got home. He blinked and his jaw hardened. I drove it home. “You dared her to become a prostitute?”

His face was twisting, shifting from distress to anger. He stepped closer. His eyes were bleak.

“It didn’t matter by then. She hated me. She hated herself. For making me kill the French girl. The game was all we had left.”

“What exactly was Kate’s dare? Twenty men? A hundred? Six months? A thousand pounds?” He flinched at every cut.

“I thought she wouldn’t do it. But she did. Like me. I thought it would teach her, but she said… she said…

The man was crying. The poor sod was crying. Tears dribbled down his red face.

He looked pathetic. But I was convinced he had a gun in his right pocket. Sad or mad, he could put a bullet in me. So why was I still needling him? Because I felt the disgust in my mouth, like vomit.

“She liked it? And you couldn’t stand that, could you. She did it for others, for strangers, for money. But she wouldn’t do it for you. So you wanted to hurt her.”

“I couldn’t hurt her, don’t you see?” Pain was wrenching his features out of shape. “Don’t you see?!” He pulled his hand out of his pocket. It held the gun I was expecting. It was almost a relief to see it. Almost. It looked like a cannon alongside what I was holding. He levelled it at me and for a second I thought he was going to pull the trigger. I shouted at him to keep up the flow.

“Is that why you killed all these poor creatures, Tony? Five of them, after the French girl.” I gentled my voice, coaxing, encouraging him to let it all come out. “If you couldn’t hurt Kate, you could hurt her kind?”

“It showed her.” His eyes were wide. He was twisting his moustache with his free hand as though he’d rip it off. I’d seen other faces like his, other eyes. Not in the mirror. At the hospital.

I was nearly whispering. “Showed her what, Tony? What did it show her?”

“That she could be next. She should have been afraid. She just laughed.”

“So you sent for Wilson?”

He nodded his head. He was snivelling like a child but the gun was still wavering at my chest. I carefully cocked my own wee pistol in my pocket. I wasn’t going to do anything heroic like try to outdraw him. I’d just shoot him through my coat. It could be mended. I couldn’t.

“It was to teach her. He wasn’t meant to hurt her. I loved her. I love her…”

I should have shut up there. I had to stop needling him before I took a.45. But I plunged on, reckless with revulsion at the pair of them.

“So you killed for love? Those poor lassies? I think you enjoyed it, Tony. I think you got a thrill out of it. You got the taste for it in France and began to kill for kicks.”

His eyes were agony. He was rolling his head from side to side. “She could have stopped it, you know. She should have loved me. That’s all. It’s her fault.” He stopped and drew himself up and took a deep breath. He wiped his face on his sleeve.