Rupert Thomson - The Five Gates of Hell

He only bought one newspaper that morning. As he left the store he tore the front page out of the paper and dropped the rest in a trash bin. He walked back to the house without lifting his eyes from the front page once. And by the time he did he was home again, sitting at the kitchen table, and he put the page down and moved his head slowly from side to side, all the blood drawn out of his face. Then he picked the page up again and read it through once more:

DEATH KING BRUTALLY MURDERED

Escaped mental patient found in victim’s apartment

Mr Neville Creed, chairman of the prestigious Paradise Corporation, was found dead in his apartment in the Palace Hotel last night.

In what is already being called the ‘John the Baptist’ murder, Mr Creed, 43, was stabbed fourteen times and then decapitated.

Police have arrested Mr Vasco Gorelli, who was found in Mr Creed’s apartment. Mr Gorelli escaped from the Westwood Hill Clinic last Friday where he was held in a ward for the dangerously insane. He was still unavailable for comment yesterday.

Mental

The ferocity and bizarre nature of the killing have drawn comment, even from police working on the case.

‘It’s a horrific crime,’ said Det. Sergeant John Lopez of Moon Beach Homicide. ‘I understand the suspect has a history of mental illness and maybe that explains it.’

The body was found by Mr Al Cone, a night porter at the Palace Hotel, when he received complaints of a disturbance on the fourteenth floor and went up to investigate.

A visibly shaken Mr Cone told reporters how he had found Mr Gorelli sitting in an armchair covered in blood while the headless body of Mr Creed lay beside him on the floor. Gorelli had smashed the television screen and put his victim’s head inside.

Mr Cone went on, ‘He was watching it, like it still worked. You know what he said to me when I came in? “Ssshh,” he said, “it’s the news.’”

Charmed

Neville Creed was one of the city’s most distinguished funeral directors, with a record few could match. Marble Grove, his uncle’s funeral business, was on the brink of receivership when Creed took it over, at the age of 22.

Seven years later he merged with the Paradise Corporation, who bought Creed’s company for an estimated $30m. Creed was made a member of the board.

‘It was a meteoric rise,’ said an old partner of Creed’s. ‘Some people truly seem to lead charmed lives.’

Private

Like many rich people, Creed was intensely private. He didn’t mix in Moon Beach society and he had few friends. He lived a life shrouded in mystery in his penthouse apartment on the top floor of the exclusive Palace Hotel.

The circumstances of his death are no less mysterious. Police are still trying to establish a motive for this seemingly senseless killing, but, so far, they have come up against nothing but dead ends.

Nathan folded up the front page and looked round for the waste bin. His eyes moved through the empty room, found nothing. They must’ve already thrown it away. He looked out of the window. A thin column of black smoke rose above the hedge. Georgia must have built another fire early that morning. One last fire. The neighbours would be complaining again.

He left the house and walked to the end of the garden. He stood looking down into the fire. He could identify various objects. An empty box of cheroots, the video of Harriet. Several dozen bottles of stale pills. Smiling, he dropped the newspaper article into the core of the blaze. He stood over it, watched it begin to turn yellow, then brown, watched it begin to burn. Then stepped back, startled, as it rose out of the flames, rose past his face, and flapped away through the clear blue air, its wings black at the edges, its body still on fire.

During the past three years several people provided me with places where I could live and work. I’d like to thank Jean Bedford and the girls, Prue Hawke, George Papaellinas and Cathy Murphy, Polly Whyte, and Martha Crewe. I’d also like to thank Rod Parker, and this book is, in some sense, dedicated to his memory.

Lastly I’d like to thank Imogen for all the support and encouragement she’s given me since the beginning, and for the use of her bath when mine was unexpectedly destroyed.

RUPERT THOMSONis the author of eight highly acclaimed novels, of which Air and Fire and The Insult were shortlisted for the Writer’s Guild Fiction Prize and the Guardian Fiction Prize respectively. His most recent novel, Death of a Murderer , was shortlisted for the 2008 Costa Novel Award. His memoir This Party's Got to Stop was published in 2010.