Luke Delaney - A Killing Mind

‘Pick the phone up, Emma,’ he demanded. ‘I know you’re there.’ He waited a few seconds; nothing. ‘I said, pick the phone up. I want to speak with my children.’ Still nothing. ‘Stop being a bitch, Emma and answer the damn phone. You can’t stop me speaking to my own children. I have a right to speak to them whenever I want.’ He was met with more silence. ‘Fine,’ he shouted into the phone. ‘Have it your own way. I’ll be speaking to my solicitor first thing in the morning. Who’s paying for that bloody house you live in anyway?’ He slammed the phone down. ‘Fucking bitch,’ he cursed to the empty flat.

Painful memories of the day she made him leave the family home swept back into his spinning mind – him blaming her for his infidelities while she screamed at him to get out, calling him a complete loser. ‘Loser,’ he repeated the insult she’d thrown at him. ‘I’ll show you who’s a fucking loser. I’ll show everyone.’ He breathed in deeply and felt himself begin to calm as images of his victims washed over him, leaving him feeling powerful and in control. He chastised himself for not having mastered his temper. Control was everything. If he was to achieve his ultimate goal, he needed to put aside everything from his past – including his children and lost wife. He needed to let them go.

Calm once more, he knew he needed to feel strong again. Needed to relive the moments when he was at his most powerful. He returned to the fridge, opened the freezer compartment and removed a plastic box containing all that was now precious to him.

The first thing he took from the box was a transparent freezer bag that contained what looked like oversized playing cards. Again he took a deep breath before removing the items and spreading them out before him. Photographs of his victims, taken while they were alive. Tanya Richards leaving her flat. Tanya Richards walking to the tube station. Tanya Richards sitting on a bus. Tanya Richards walking the streets close to Smithfield Market. William Dalton begging in the West End. William Dalton walking into Tottenham Court Road Underground station. William Dalton walking out of Borough Underground station. William Dalton entering the garage he called home.

He arranged the cards carefully and neatly before retrieving two more small freezer bags from inside the plastic box and placed them side by side on the table. Again he took a deep breath to steady himself before emptying the first bag, which was marked with a number 1 in permanent marker. The nails and teeth slid out in front of him – the teeth rattling on the table like dice, whereas the nails sounded like tinkling raindrops. He picked up a few of the nails and dropped them into the palm of his other hand. They were still coated with cheap red nail varnish that blended perfectly with the traces of her blood. He hoped they would never fade. It may be necessary to repaint them if it did.

As he held the nails he could picture them as they had been when they were attached to the young woman’s slim fingers. They’d possibly been her best feature. That and her crystal blue eyes that were yet to be destroyed by whatever drug she was addicted to. He remembered her eyes staring into his in disbelief as she realized he had come to end her existence. He sighed almost happily at the memory before delicately spilling the nails from his palm back on to the table.

Next he picked up the teeth one by one and dropped them into the palm of his hand. Molars with gold fillings and other lesser teeth that showed little decay or staining. As young teeth should, despite her lifestyle. He pinched one of the molars from his palm and held it up to the light as if he were examining a diamond – slightly twisting and rotating it as he took in every detail of the tooth – every curve and peak – every scratch on the enamel. Finally he held it under his nose, closing his eyes as he inhaled deeply – each trace of its dead owner bringing exquisite memories of pulling them from her jaw flooding back. How he wished she’d been fully alive and conscious when he’d gone to work on her, but it would have been all but impossible to perform the extractions on a struggling victim.

Satisfied with the relics of his first victim’s death, he ritually placed all the items on top of the clip-seal bag and put them to one side. His back straightened as he took hold of the other bag – glancing at the photographs of the living William Dalton before sliding the seal open and allowing the odour of its contents to rush at him. To the uninitiated, the scents were barely detectable, but to him they were as vivid and raw as the smell of a zoo – animalistic and pungent.

He carefully tipped the contents on to the table and shifted them about with the tips of his fingers – ensuring each item had its own space to shine before picking up one of the larger fingernails that he assumed must be a thumbnail. It, like all the others, was in poor condition. The dark dried blood, mixed with the dirt that had built up over months of not being able to clean himself properly, had left the nails looking much older than they were. They looked as if they’d been taken from a body that had been buried for years – brittle, broken and jagged at the tips. But they were no less precious to him. He’d enjoyed killing the prostitute more, but the homeless man was still an experience beyond most people’s stunted and dull imagination. In any case, it was important that his second victim was a man so the police and media would know he wasn’t some perverted sex offender. They needed to understand he was much, much more than that.

He swapped the nail for a clean-looking molar, although the root was stained with the victim’s blood – the sight of it ignited images of the nearly dead homeless man lying on his back and gurgling on his own blood as it slipped down his throat. The memory pleased him and made his muscles tense as he remembered the power he’d felt as he crouched over the dying man. It was as if he was absorbing the victim’s energy, becoming more powerful with each new kill.

Without knowing why, he was suddenly overcome with the urge to taste the tooth, to engulf it in his tongue and roll it around his mouth. Wary of sucking the blood and odour away, he made do instead with delicately placing the tip of the tooth against the point of his tongue and holding it there – his eyes closing with the pleasure of it as his entire body became aroused. Removing the tooth, he cursed his body’s physical reaction and knew that others would use it as evidence that his actions were driven by sexual needs. But he knew they were not. Yes, he’d ejaculated inside the dying prostitute and done things to the dying homeless man, but they were not sexual acts. His body had simply become so electrified by the power he felt that it was overwhelmed with every sensation – as if he was feeling every emotion and physical feeling a person could ever have, only he was feeling it all at the same time. It was too much for any person to control – even one as strong as he was. Ejaculating in and on his victims had merely been an emergency release – to allow him to regain control of his own growing power. Still, he knew he needed to do better in the future and suppress his body’s crude needs when in a heightened state of stimulation. It was either that or risk forever being branded as a sexually motivated killer, which would undermine everything he was trying to achieve.

Using a breathing exercise he’d picked up from a yoga video, he tried to calm his tense body and relax. The killings had left him feeling invincible, but it was gratifying to know he remained in complete control of his own body.

After a few minutes of sitting in silence, he picked up the photographs and mementoes, placing them neatly in their bags before packing them tenderly into the plastic box that he returned to the freezer compartment of his fridge. As he closed the door he was already debating what type of person he should choose next.