The Scribbler by Iain Maitland (a court of thorns and roses ebook free TXT) 📗

the skin with his arm, scratched the man’s likeness, all exaggerated nose and ears, into the fleshy part of his stomach.

Sat back, satisfied.

After a minute, perhaps two, he suddenly began scratching angrily at the caricature, over and over, until he fell back exhausted, now spent.

It was this time, after he had finished.

That the man with the gloves loathed so much.

A slowly growing, sickening fear of getting caught.

He knew, as the darkness fell, that he had to be business-like, professional – and keep busy. Not dwell on it. There were times in the past, early on, where he had meticulously gone through pockets, wallets, even bags, to find out more about the other man. His name. His age. Where he lived. What he did. To confirm he was like Father.

Leading a double life.

Public respectability.

Private horror.

But he had learned not to do it any more, just to imagine the man’s secret life in his mind. He had, as one man took his final breaths, once come across a tiny card, written in a small child’s hand, tucked inside his wallet. ‘I love you’ in a mix of large and little, skewed and straight, felt-tipped letters.

He knew he had to see these men for what they were.

Lying to their wives. Cheating. Shaming their children.

And maybe more, like Father, maybe much more. Monsters.

He started by picking up a button from the man’s shirt that was on the ground and a comb that had fallen from his pocket. He tucked these into the old man’s bloodied jacket and then struggled to put the jacket back on him, cursing quietly until he had managed it.

He then took folded-up, heavy-duty black bags from one trouser pocket and a small roll of black tape from the other. Pulled one bag over the torso of the body. The other bag, a harder struggle with bent and uncooperative legs, from the feet to the man’s waist.

Taped the bags together, then round and round and round with the black tape until it was all used up. An imperfect shroud, with the fingers from one hand stretching the plastic close to splitting, but sufficient for his needs.

He ignored his own dark fleece, spattered with the man’s blood, for the time being. He’d burn that, with everything else, later.

The blood on the grass seemed to have soaked through and into the dirt. Nothing else there on the ground around him.

In the failing light, he knew he just had to wait until darkness to go to the van. Check the path was clear. That there was nobody about. Then back to collect the body, up and over his shoulder, and return to the van.

And home. To the cesspit in the old outhouse building.

Tipped in with all of the others. Left to rot and decompose.

And then the burning of the clothes. And the endless washing.

* * *

The man with the latex gloves stood up on the blanket-sized piece of grass and listened long and hard. His ears strained for the sounds of people walking, talking, moving about.

He could hear the wind in the trees close by and the cars on the main road not so very far away.

But nothing closer. No old men and their dogs. Couples in the bushes. Hikers striding out along the path.

No, nothing. He pushed his way carefully out of the shrubbery and onto the path; no more than an overgrown dirt track, really. It seemed darker here, the pathway lined by tall trees seeming to reach up to the sky. Again he waited, listening, looking both ways, for any signs of life.

A rustle.

A clicking noise.

Slight movement in the undergrowth.

Nothing of note. A rabbit maybe, no more. He checked both ways, peering into the fading light. Stood for a moment and saw the dark shadow of a figure down to the left, standing there watching him. He swallowed. Raised his hand in greeting. But the shadow, the dark solid shape, did not respond in kind nor move. A moment longer. Spooked, and as his eyes adjusted to the light, he could see it for what it was. A bush, no more.

Moving now. Striding. As quickly as he could.

Halfway to the van.

But still looking. Listening.

This was the time he feared the most. He was, he knew, analytical before, able to suppress his urges as he assessed the park, the toilets, the possibilities. As he killed, in the midst of ecstasy and release, he had a fleeting sense of happiness. Afterwards, there was a feeling of sickness, the anticipation that, after everything, all that he had done, he might be seen and everything could unravel in seconds.

And then he was there.

At the van, tucked off the road and into the trees.

Close to safety again, just a few strides away.

He stood back, in the dark now, just watching the road, checking the passing traffic. A car going one way, too fast. Another, a minute, maybe two, later, going the other. Not so much, not at this time of the evening, on this back road to nowhere. He would be safe if he were quick.

He doubled back as fast as he could, walking not running, listening and watching.

Back through the shrubbery into the grassy place with the dead body wrapped in bags.

A fireman’s lift, dead weight across his shoulders, a struggle these days, but still just possible.

The man with the gloves walked steadily, step-by-step, along the path towards the van. This he thought, he knew, was his last kill. Too many close calls, more in recent times. The vicar at the home. So risky to go back. And now this weight on his back, his knees almost buckling, too heavy for him these days.

But he could see the van, not far in front of him, could make it there without having to stop, falling to his knees, the body lying beside him as he gathered his strength for one final lift and walk. Almost there, just a few more steps.

He stopped briefly, checking the road. All quiet. Could not wait longer, the body on his