Serial Killer Chapter 40
‘I’m now officially a serial killer. Kids are wreaking their revenge on adults, and it’s all down to me. I’m their secret leader, helping them to fight injustice.’
It was Dave’s second confirmed kill. Up in his turret, he rubbed his hands with glee. Or rather his paws, because he had changed into his inside-out gorilla suit to keep warm. In future, he’d have to handle all the readers’ letters. But Greg’s suspicions weren’t going to stop him. He had a taste for this now.
Dave enjoyed his sense of power. Or the demons who possessed him, who were responsible for his supernatural good luck, did. His intention had been to inflict his pain on other kids in a way he felt Cooper would have approved of, but instead, kids had turned the tables on adults.
Somehow that felt better, a more gratifying catharsis as he explained to his mother. ‘I’m now officially a serial killer. Kids are wreaking their revenge on adults, and it’s all down to me. I’m their secret leader, helping them to fight injustice.’
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‘And a short while ago you were trying to kill them,’ said Jean sarcastically.
‘It would seem the fates have something else in mind for me,’ agreed Dave. He reflected on recent events. ‘I suppose, in a way, this makes me a kind of super hero.’
‘You …?’ she scoffed.
‘Super villain?’
‘Villain, anyway,’ she jeered.
‘I’ve got the outfit for it.’
‘A pink gorilla suit and a liquorice pipe?’
‘It’s different.’
‘But, Dave,’ said his mother, ‘most heroes, or villains, change into their costumes and go into action. You change into your costume and do … nothing.’
‘Because I’m more of a cerebral hero, you see, mum?’ Dave explained.
‘Look,’ said his mother irritably, ‘Can we please get back to who murdered me? There’s so many files you need to look at.’
The knowledge that a chemistry teacher had met an untimely end reminded Dave of one file in particular that required attention. It concerned Mr Peat, his mother’s lover, who some years later became his chemistry teacher.
Mr Peat was in the church choir with his mum and Mrs Czar, who played the organ. He would come round for tea when Dave came home from school. Sometimes he was already there when Dave got home, as he had discovered when his mother’s bedroom door was locked.
Bill Peat had Stanley Baker cruel good looks and would smile piratically at Dave’s mum as they discussed the order of service over the rock buns and Battenberg cake. His mother would stand up, smooth down her dress, and sing the Irish hymn ‘Be Thou My Vision’, set to the folk tune ‘Slane’, specially for Mr Peat.
It was so haunting and beautiful when his mother sang, thought Dave. Without the rest of the choir and the awful flat-voiced congregation and the Brueghels drowning her out.
It brought a tear to Mr Peat’s eye. ‘You have the voice of an angel,’ he said. It was not particularly original, but he was a chemistry teacher, not an English teacher.
‘Thank you, Bill,’ she smiled.
‘Yes, mum, you have the voice of an arch-angel,’ said his rival Dave.
‘Thank you, Dave,’ she smiled.
The song sounded perfect to the eight-year-old, but apparently it wasn’t quite right, they still needed to practise.
There was another memory of a conversation between Mr Peat and his mother. Mr Peat had called round to see Jean the week she disappeared. They argued in the kitchen, thinking he was watching TV in the front room. But Dave was listening with his ear to the kitchen door. Mr Peat told his mother, ‘Jean, the good name of the Church is at stake. We must protect the Canon. This cannot get out. Be sensible, Jean.’
‘No. I won’t be sensible. A little boy has died. All I can think about is little Konrad. God. I need a drink!’
‘They told me to warn you. You must not go to the police, Jean. Or …’
‘Or what?’
‘There will be … consequences.’
‘Why should I listen to the Knights?’ she retorted defiantly. ‘After what they did?’
‘Oh, come on, Jean. That was years ago. Let it go.’
‘You were one of them. I recognised you, even with your mask and robes.’
‘Of course I was there. I’m proud to be a Knight. And it was an honour for you to be chosen.’
‘To be Mary Magdalene? To play the part of a prostitute?’
‘She’s also a saint.’
‘Oh, fuck off, Bill. You were gathered around in a circle while I danced, wearing your masks and leering and pointing at me like grubby little schoolboys.’
‘You can’t blame us for leering. You’re beautiful.’
‘Maybe they should have picked someone older? Is that what you normally do, choose some broken-down tart and offer her five quid to play Mary Magdalene so you can gather round and take the piss out of her?’
‘No. Our Mary Magdalene has to be beautiful,’ Mr Peat insisted. ‘You shouldn’t joke about this, Jean. It’s a serious ritual.’
‘Yes. About rejecting women, Bill.’
‘Not true. It was your way into the inner circle. You wanted to be one of us, Jean. You wanted to be a Virgin Soldier.’
‘You may not have seen me as a whore, but the others did. The Grand Master did. He still does.’
‘I thought you and the Grand Master were close?’
‘He chose me because he knew I’d been a hostess at The Eight Veils.’
‘I don’t have all the answers, Jean. Why don’t you take it up with him?’
That seemed to silence her and the conversation came to an end.
‘Wow!’ said Dave now looking across at his mother sitting opposite him. ‘I have absolute recall of those memories. That’s amazing.’
‘But you can see why you blocked them,’ she said.
‘Sure. A private dancer doesn’t fit the image of the perfect Ladybird-book mother.’
‘I did try, Dave,’ she winced. ‘At least I didn’t go out to work. I always had time for my children.’
‘Except you weren’t at home much either,’ he looked at her accusingly. ‘I was a latch-key kid, only you didn’t leave the key on the latch, so I had to wait in the coal shed for you.’
She put some face powder on and checked her perfect looks and locks. ‘Do you think we could get back to the Knights?’
‘Them? Oh, they’re just a bunch of weirdos,’ he said dismissively.
‘You think that’s all there is to it, son?’
‘Of course,’ he said knowledgeably. ‘They like to dress up, have some pervy ceremony, acting out their hang-ups about women, then go home to their wives and kids and lead normal “respectable” lives.’
‘Really?’ she said.
‘Oh, yes, it would be different today,’ he said. ‘They could come out of the closet, go to a gay club, and sing Shirley Bassey songs.’
‘Dave, they weren’t gay,’ she said.
‘Well, why else would they dress up in weird robes?’
She looked fearfully at him. ‘Power.’
Dave’s flippancy left him. He looked curiously at her. ‘What did you get involved in?’
She wouldn’t meet his eyes, picking instead at some invisible speck of lint on her skirt.
‘Come on, mum. Give. Who is their leader? Is it the Canon? Who is the Grand Master?’
‘Soon,’ she said.
Serial Killer by Pat Mills & Kevin O’Neill is the first book in the Read Em And Weep series and is on sale digitally or as paperback.