Rhyme for Reason

By Trevor Dalton

He was abused and alienated in his formative years falling into the despair of mental torture and self-doubt, almost comatose in this state until he found the strength to turn. His rebirth was through his poetry and soon his muse became his inspiration for revenge; a vengeance against the women who had molested him.
Armed with a simple cut-throat razor and his poems he launches into the most horrific killing spree his muse can muster and with each murder his blood lust grows ever stronger. The deeds validate the poems; the poems set the scenes for his horrific deeds.

South Wales Police have more detectives working on the case than at any time in their history but the killings continue unabated and as the newspapers belittle and ostracise ‘The Poet’ his anger grows and the murders escalate at an alarming rate. The whole of Wales and the United Kingdom are gripped in fear.
One detective on the case turns to a close friend, a gifted people reader, but keeps his enquiries to himself for fear of ridicule. He feels certain that the clue to catching the killer lies in his poetry and the people reader couldn’t agree more. Between them it looks like the only realistic possibility of stopping the man of verse.
We create our own monsters never realising that the little actions we take shape, steer and define. in 'Rhyme for Reason' these little actions create the monster.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AUK Authors
• Release date: May 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781783337514

Book preview

Title Page

Rhyme For Reason

Trevor Dalton

Publisher Information

Rhyme For Reason

Published in 2014 by Andrews UK Limited

www.andrewsuk.com

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Copyright © 2014 Trevor Dalton

The right of Trevor Dalton to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Introduction

We are the sum total of our formative years’ life experiences; they are the building bricks of our psyche. For some, the passage of early years is happy, fulfilling and meaningful, and any hardships dealt are overcome swiftly with never a deviation from their true course, their bricks becoming the building for their soul’s occupation.

For some, however, the building bricks of their life experiences are far different and any hardship is magnified again and again and again. Whether real or imagined, their bricks become the wall that separates, behind which is the place that they occupy, divorced from our reality, victims of their own reality.

So it is that abused becomes abuser and the cycle is complete.

Trevor Dalton

Thanks and Dedication

Thanks again to all the people that support me and buy my books. As ever, I hope my story entertains and you enjoy.

This book as always is dedicated to Brenda without whose help I would not have overcome cancer. She stood beside me and supported me through all my illness and my recovery. God knows at times it must have been hard.

Special thanks to Pat for a number of edits and to Carol Cole who rode in on a charger when needed and did the final edit. Always a true professional. If you need an editor, contact her on [e-mail].

Finally to Mike Amin and his team, the most excellent surgical team in Maximillio Facial Surgery. Never argue with the man with the knife; he always knows best.

Chapter One

The light was out, the sky now black with clouds closing the moonlight permanently like a pair of leaden curtains. Thankfully, the rain had stopped but the streets were slick with a coating of shiny moisture. Towards the end of the cul-de-sac, it was pitch-black. She could usually see the Jones’s television playing through the voile drapes, hung fashionably over white curtain rods that served no purpose other than to support the selfsame voile in its delicate tumble to the floor. Tonight, there was no television. There was nothing save the inky black pitch-darkness.

She had paused unwittingly beneath the dead street lamp; just sort of beached against the cold metal post, kicking it with her shoe in some vain hope of it relighting. She was being stupid. She was only a few minutes from her door. She knew the road well. She simply had to follow the path to the end of the cul-de-sac, cut between the hedges and, within fifty paces, she would emerge on to College Road. One left turn and her house would be another forty paces along the road on the right.

Come on, she chastised herself. Who’s afraid of the dark?

She heard him before she saw him. He was grumbling and cursing softly under his breath. She had no time to register fear as he burst from between the hedgerow and into the cul-de-sac.

He was tall, overweight - no, bulky, solid even. He had a mop of shaggy, curly hair and was wrapped in a grey plastic mac. A flashlight was clasped in his hand, and he cut a comical figure as he shone it down onto his shoes and cursed yet again. His feet were enormous.

The fear that had been real, tangible, moments before evaporated. She laughed out loud.

He stopped cursing and swung the torch in her direction. Sorry. Hope I didn’t startle you. Bloody stood in a puddle. Should have switched me torch on earlier.

He had a regional accent; Welsh, she guessed, but not broad valley: more towards Cardiff, not quite town but close, maybe the Vale of Glamorgan. She warmed to him instantly.

No, you didn’t startle me .... Well, she confessed, not much. She laughed. The sound tinkled in the air between them.

Bloody lights out the other side of the hedgerow but there are lights on either end of College Road. He stopped, slightly embarrassed. Sorry I keep saying bloody but my socks are wet.

She laughed again and then said, Did you say the lights out? Bloody hell.

Your turn now. He smiled. She knew he was smiling: she could see the faint glow of his teeth in the dark.

He stepped closer to her, held his hand out, and shone the torch first on his hand, then on his face, and then back to his hand. My name’s Jerry. To friends, Jez. Pleased to meet you.

Shaking his hand seemed normal. He had long fingers, not stubby and fat but artistic.

He took her hand and, lifting it to his mouth, brushed her knuckles with a dry, scratchy kiss. Can I help a fair damsel in distress?

Pardon? she asked.

I can lead you through the hedgerow and out onto College Road. Once we’re back into the light, I’ll leave you to your own devices and ride my white charger into ... He looked around hopefully and then added dramatically, ... the night!

She smiled and gave a small nod of her head.

Off we go then! He took her arm as he spoke. Squelch this way. And, so saying, he hurried her along the passageway between the hedgerows. At the end of the passageway, he turned right.

She didn’t notice that he hadn’t asked for directions to her house, nor did she notice that there were no puddles in the hedgerow between the cul-de-sac and College Road.

Here we are. He stopped outside her house. The street lamps were out. There was a short paved pathway to her door, hedged both sides by small rose bushes. She advanced towards her front door leaving the torchlight behind.

She was still in the inky pitch-darkness even when only yards from the torch’s small circle of light. She struggled with her key, fumbling at the lock in the darkness.

Stay there, I’ll bring the torch.

She stayed, and with the torch beam on the lock she soon undid the door.

The torch hit her on her head, across her right ear, like a rabbit punch. She tumbled through the door and into the hallway, her knees slamming into the hard, handmade earthenware tiles. Within seconds, he was on her: duct tape across her mouth; her arms tugged behind her back; her wrists taped together. He dragged her to her feet and threw her through the kitchen door. She fell, face down onto the kitchen floor, and her nose smashed, split and broke.

He turned a chair round to face him, dragged her upright and threw her onto it like a rag doll. He hooked her hands over the back of the chair and then ran more duct tape around her wrists and legs so that she couldn’t move.

He towered over her standing too close, much too close. He undid his mac and removed a used Durex from the pocket of the body warmer he was wearing. It was knotted and the teat end appeared to be over full. She tried to turn away but he just moved closer. He withdrew an old-fashioned cut-throat razor from his trouser pocket and opened it. He positioned himself so that she couldn’t see what he was doing. The fear intensified. Her ears magnified the slightest sound, and her imagination did the rest. She felt the semen as it fell into her hair, into her eyes, and down the duct tape covering her mouth to her chin. Her tears joined it.

He seemed to be grunting with pleasure. He stopped for a moment, getting his breath, and then, when he was breathing regularly, he began to rebutton his plastic mac up to his throat.

Her eyes were saucers of fear; her pupils pebbles in a sea of milk. She tried to shout, to scream, to cry, but the tape held, and all she could do was mew like a cat.

He held the razor in his right hand. He placed the now empty Durex in the pocket of the mac. It had side slits that allowed access to his trousers, and also cavernous pockets. It was designed so the wearer could roll the mac when not in use into its own pocket. He laid the torch on the kitchen table and aimed the beam at her coat at breast level.

She tried to scream again but, as before, the duct tape held her silent.

He pushed her coat roughly off her shoulders, revealing a white blouse that was already stained with blood from her nose. Carefully, he slid the blade beneath each button until her blouse hung open revealing the lace underwired cups of her white brassiere. He slashed between the cups, and her heavy breasts, now free, flopped down towards her navel. He grunted once and then carefully began to carve the words STRAY MAID into her chest.

She was screaming, raging loudly in her mind, but the sound that she made was only a mew, keening quietly. He stepped back to admire his work and then, apparently bored, slashed her throat from ear to ear, the cut-throat razor separating skin, gristle and sinew as easily as butter. Blood exploded from the wound covering his mac in scarlet gouts. He heard the echo of a sound in his head, loud and shocking, a loud expulsion of air from between ruby lips. "Ohhhh!" finishing in a wheeze. He was elated. He took the paper from his mac pocket and carefully opened it out on the kitchen table. He stepped back from the body and, standing the other side of the table, undid the mac and let it fall to the floor.

He walked from the kitchen with the torch and found the downstairs cloakroom where he washed the splashes of blood from his face, neck, arms and hands. When satisfied that he was clean, he washed the torch and then dried it and himself carefully on the towel. He walked to the front door and stood momentarily, listening. Then he quietly let himself out.

When he reached the car he had parked in the cul-de-sac earlier, he removed the rubber size 12 overshoes from his feet and placed them in a carrier bag. He removed the latex gloves and also dropped those into the bag.

When he was ten miles from the scene driving along the motorway, he came to the service area. He made a show of stopping before the rubbish bins and throwing two newspapers, a couple of coffee cups, a burger wrapper and numerous other pieces of litter into the carrier bag containing the gloves and overshoes. He dropped the bag into the rubbish bin knowing that later that night the bins would be emptied.

Smiling, he returned to his car. He felt complete. He felt in charge. He felt in control. He felt power. And it felt good.

On the table in the kitchen of the death scene lay a paper. The paper had a poem printed upon it. The hand seemed somehow childish. But the poem stood complete.

It said:

Bachelor Lament

For a virgin we would strive

To turn night into day,

To destroy all her demons

And chase her bad dreams away.

For a virgin we would kill,

For a virgin we would fight

To gain ownership,

To establish our right.

For a virgin we would do this

Until we are betrayed,

And our seed is wasted

On some stray maid.

He had chosen his first kill randomly. The victim was random, but the kill was planned to perfection.

You respect girls; you don’t hit girls.

Dirty boys don’t respect girls.

Dirty boy! (His mother’s voice echoing in his mind like a ghost.)

He had trembled as he contemplated the final act, but when it came it was delicious. The stored pain bursting through his pores drove his senses to a fever pitch of mental ejaculation.

He heard the "Ohhh!" of air through scarlet, pencil-thin lips again and again in his head. Oh, how sweet her infinite agony.

It was infinitely more satisfying than the sordid, awkward act of coupling. It was far more rewarding. It was so much more fulfilling than the blade on his own skin. So much cleaner. So much more precise. So much more exact. He was in total control. The act was retribution. And the silence afterwards immense.

The ride back to his home was uneventful. He was tired, but he knew he had made a start. Tonight, he would sleep well. Tonight, at last, the ghosts were again silent.

Chapter Two

The Poet’s journey begins

It was a lazy summer’s day. The boys played on the common. One boy was short and lean; more a beanpole than a boy. Later, he would grow to six foot six, but that was in the future. The other boy was tall for his age, distinguished by a mop of curly hair. He was leaning towards chubby. Puppy fat. Agewise, he was eight and a half, coming on nine.

They had built mokes: pram wheels attached to wooden planks, string steering, no brakes, and long sticks to push with. The drivers displaying trophy scabs from the many collisions. They had spent most of the day crashing into either one another or the team of pushers. Dried blood embellished their knees and elbows. They were heroes. The two teams of pushers had retired, all with scrapes on their calves or ankles. The two heroes lay on the grass looking at the sun as it spilt through the trees making shadow giants.

The man on the motorbike had stopped at a house across the road at the edge of the common. When he removed his crash helmet, he revealed that he was bald with hair swept across his head from the side in the most ridiculous-looking comb-over. He had bottle-bottomed spectacles and, despite the heat, still wore his waxed motorcycle jacket buttoned up. His corduroy trousers were shiny at the inner thigh from the petrol tank of the motorcycle. He eyed the two boys lying in the grass and, licking his lips, crossed the road to where they lay.

Wish I had your hair, he said to the boy with curly hair.

The shorter boy said, Let’s go home, sotto voce.

The motorbike man gave him an evil-eyed stare and then turned to the taller boy. Do you like motorbikes?

Yes.

Do you want to come and see mine?

The shorter boy stood clumsily and, taking the string of his moke in his hands, began to head off towards his house. The taller one sat up and looked across the road at the parked motorbike.

Listen, I’ve got some chocolate in my house. Why don’t you come and have some chocolate and you can see my bike at the same time.

The boy stood, and together they crossed the road.

He sat on the bike in the drive, and when the man said, Let’s go down to the shed, I’ve got some models in there you will like, he went. They both walked down the garden to the shed. In the shed there was a rough wooden workbench set beneath the window. There was a collection of toy motorbikes on the bench. The boy picked up one with a sidecar attached.

The man stood behind him facing the window. That way, he could see if anyone approached them down the garden path. He placed a bar of Cadbury chocolate by the side of one of the toy motorbikes. As the boy was peeling the paper from the chocolate bar, the man reached around his little waist, undid his trousers and dropped them and his underpants to the floor.

The boy froze. He heard a zip fastener as it was opened.

The man assaulted him. Afterwards, the man wiped his legs and his backside where his ejaculate had spat.

Whilst using the boy, he had fondled the boy’s penis. It had gone hard. That was all the boy would remember then and in the years that followed. Secretly, the memory would haunt him. It would fuel his midnight binge feasts. It would ride harder than any monkey. It would destroy. It would fester, and it would stagnate. It was his first taste of hate; his first moment of self-loathing.

The zip fastener sounded again, and the man left the boy to dress himself. When he was dressed, the boy stood by the bench, still facing the window, too astonished to move. The chocolate bar lay uneaten on the bench, and the man ushered the boy back into the garden and out onto the pathway alongside the main road.

He walked to his home in a blur.

He crept up to the bathroom. He felt unclean. His backside still seemed sticky. After filling the basin, he stood for twenty minutes with his father’s Gillette razor blade in one hand and his little penis stretched in his other. His body had betrayed him somehow. He tested the blade against the foreskin, not cutting but feeling the blade’s sting in his mind, watching the blood pool at his feet. Later, the blood would become real, not imagined, and the sting a joyful release.

His father was away. He always seemed to be away. Working here, working there.

He had been sitting under the table in the lounge. His mother and his grandmother were fussing over his sister. She had had a dress made for the carnival parade to be held in Cardiff, and all three females were busy cooing and oohing over the damned dress.

He was happily out of sight or so he thought until, when his grandmother dropped a pin and stooped to retrieve it, she spotted him beneath the lace tablecloth.

Dirty boy spying on us.

She leaned forward and, pinching his ear, dragged him from beneath the table.

Dirty little boy!

A knock on the door saved any further punishment and, seizing his chance, he span away and ran to the door, flinging it open.

The paedophile motorbike man stood at the door. Goggles and helmet in hand. I thought the lad may like a ride on the bike. Do you mind?

His grandmother answered for the collective females. Good riddance. Keep him as long as you like.

He looked back at his mother, lost for words, and then back at the motorbike man. He saw the man lick his lips with a fat, red tongue.

I’ve got spare goggles and a helmet for him so he’ll be safe. A string of spittle fell from his lips, and he caught it in a grey handkerchief. Come on then, young man, and we’ll be off.

His mother thrust a coat at the motorbike man. Keep him as long as you like; the longer the better.

He propelled the boy towards his motorbike which was parked at the gate. He clipped the helmet under the boy’s chin and put the goggles over his eyes.

Once the boy was seated on the pillion, the bike roared off down the main road in the direction of Warwick.

Put your hands around my waist and hold on tight, else you’ll fall off!

When he reached his hands forward, the rider grasped first one and then the other pulling him roughly into his back. When the boy tried to pull away, he shouted, Hold on tight if you know what’s good for you.

The boy held on tight.

Chapter Three

The police were called when the neighbours noticed the milk bottles on her step. Leastways, that was the story told via the ever-present neighbourhood grapevine. The truth was much simpler. The neighbour who called them was ‘having a thing’ with Miss Amanda Shore. That was the dead girl’s name: Amanda Shore. She was forty-three. Unmarried. Flirty and, some unkind people would say, desperate. Suffice to say, she was what used to be called ‘easy’.

Mandy lived alone. That had been the problem. She hadn’t wanted to live alone but that’s life, and that’s how it was.

Mandy had been dead for two days when the police were called. The body was starting to decay. The central heating had been on in the house and the blood had crusted across her chest.

Roy, the detective inspector, had been the first to see the dried semen in her hair. He leaned in closer. Then he made a sound with his tongue and teeth.

Roy Rogers walked out of the room. Yes, that was his real name - as in the famed cowboy of years gone by. His parents must have had a strange sense of humour calling their son Roy. It was not too difficult to guess his nickname at the station. His workmates had demonstrated a combined intelligence quota of zero when they selected it: Cowboy was what he was called, and Cowboy he remained.

Cowboy appeared at the front door. He dug into his jacket pocket beneath the white coverall suit and retrieved a small box of cheroots. The uniformed sergeant guarding the front door offered a light. He liked the detective. He felt that Roy was one of the few with brains. He served with diligence and with pride.

There was a silence as Roy smoked his cheroot. The sergeant stood quietly by the door.

Cowboy looked at the sergeant and sighed. This is bad, Billy.

Sergeant Billy Bass put his hand in his pocket and withdrew a small flask.

Roy looked quizzically.

I keep it for the lads on the beat. Some nights would freeze a witch’s tit.

Roy took a swallow and Billy joined him.

You get the same gut feeling as me, Roy?

It wasn’t a question. Both men were too old in the tooth to mess around with unnecessary comments.

This scares the shit out of me, Billy.

Me too, said Billy, but from him it didn’t sound quite so convincing.

Forensics can’t be rushed. Forensics won’t be rushed. Detectives want and need answers instantly, but science needs expertise, and that takes time.

Cowboy had the poem. The original paper was being checked for fingerprints, make and type, availability, etc., but he had the words written down in his notebook. He stood with Gill Bennett who had performed the autopsy. They were drinking coffee in the break room several days later.

Cause of death what it seems?

Yes, her throat was cut. The murder weapon was extremely sharp. It severed everything. If the ‘perp’ had used a little more force, he could have cut her head off.

What’s with the Americanisms, Gill?

What?

‘Perps’. In England, we call them murderers or just old-fashioned villains.

Sorry, Roy, shorthand speak. Anyway, my betting is a skinning knife or maybe a bloody sharp kitchen knife; even an old-fashioned cut-throat. Either way, it wasn’t a big blade. He did a very neat job of the carving on her breasts. And the wounds, though deep, were clean and tidy.

Gillian opened the file she had with her. She extracted a glossy photograph. The breasts had been cleaned up. The words were clear: STRAY MAID

Does that help any, Roy?

It works with the poem, but it doesn’t help much, and that’s what worries me. Any news on the DNA from the semen?

You won’t like this very much either, Roy.

Tell me anyway.

The semen was from more than one person.

What!

There were four different donors. At least, that’s what we’ve found so far. The boys in the lab were going frantic.

Four?

So far!

Cowboy took out his notebook. One line of the poem summed it up. Wasted seed, he read out loud.

Was there any semen in the victim’s vagina?

No, there was no other evidence of semen other than in her hair, and there was no evidence of penetration.

Cowboy held his hand up palm first. This is really scaring me now, and, so saying, he left the room.

The Poet was sitting in his study. He had tried to postpone the inevitable continuance of his retribution. He had channel surfed. He had searched for silence, but the ghosts jabbered over his shoulders. Laughing and whispering. Conjuring images from his past. Dancing across his eyes like a pornographic mosaic. Failures and mockery. Fingers pointing, canes slapping, broomstick switches, and, above all, the fucking derisive laughter. The scars on his arms itched, the red raised welts of his shame and his hatred disfiguring his arms. When he could take it no more, he had rushed to the study where he now sat, leaving the television to play to itself in the lounge.

The study had a large high-back, padded leather chair in front of a long walnut table. The desk filled the back wall of the office and was pushed up under the picture window. It was clear except for a few items arranged with military precision. There was a brass desk lamp, now lit and shining down on the pristine blotter. There was a pen holder in green onyx and an ashtray in the same material. There was a green phone. The phone made that ridiculous chirping sound but currently was silent. In the pen holder was a brass-coloured fountain pen and a brass-coloured propelling pencil.

The Poet pushed the chair back and then, reaching down, retrieved a notebook from the second drawer. The ghosts gave a collective "Ooohh." It felt immensely satisfying. The scars stopped itching.

He opened it carefully on the desk and then, unscrewing the cap of the fountain pen, began to write with his left hand:

Beware the barb

A rose when first in bloom

Is a breathless flower of beauty.

Her petals encompass her secrets,

The aroma defines their booty.

As she ripens, the petals open,

The perfume contained released,

The valentines crave this prize

The gift of one, at least.

For lovers, it’s the only present

To satisfy the need,

To quantify the feelings,

To help assuage the greed.

But the rose has thorns

Sharp and thoughtless in attack,

As the female ‘rose’ has a tongue

That sometimes feelings lack.

Its barbed and jagged edge

Can rip many a finger

Just as the harridan’s mouth

Palls the hornet’s stinger.

He leaned back in his chair and reread his work. He tapped his hand on the desk as he read. He liked the way it scanned but felt the rhythm was a little off in the first line of verse four.

He took his pen and added ‘aplenty’to the poem. He sat back and tapped his hand again on the desk. The line read now: ‘But the rose has thorns aplenty’

He smiled. It was time. The ghost voices were distant grumbles. His arms felt clean and clear. He recalled the exaltation of his first kill; the moment when the hate and anger boiled over, uncontrolled. At first, when the anger abated, he had felt sick to his stomach but then, then, he was safe in the certain knowledge that now they would listen. Now he would have their attention. Now he would matter.

Cowboy sat at his desk at the station. Most of the reports were back. The paper the poem had been written on was standard; the ink identified as Quink, a product readily available in WHSmith or any of a dozen high-street chain stores. The semen had been quantified now as coming from no less than six different males. None of the DNA samples cross-matched with central records. He had asked for initial feedback from the sex offenders’ database, but the tests proved negative against the listed DNAs. This was not a known offender, but then Cowboy feared that it wouldn’t be.

All he had from the crime scene was a great big zero. No one had seen anything, heard anything, or knew anything. There seemed to be no enemies. Indeed, the feeling from all of the people who knew Mandy Shore was that there was nothing she did that would warrant such a heinous crime. It would seem that she continued to share her affections with lovers new and old alike with equal enthusiasm.

All Cowboy had was the handwriting. He had sent the note for analysis. He was waiting for the report, and maybe, just maybe, he would seek the help of a criminal profiler, or maybe not. He lit a small cigar and, despite the no smoking signs in the office, inhaled deeply.

He guessed that the report when it came would provide nothing. He would have bet his pension on it. This bastard is too clever by half, he said out loud and then, dropping the cigar into the plastic coffee cup, stood and left the office. He needed a beer.

Miss Susan Morrison worked at the doctors’ surgery. Officially, she was the receptionist, but she saw the role as so much more. It represented power. And it was this power that Susan wielded with an absolute lack of compassion for the patients.

Oh, Susan looked wonderful. Her features were soft and gently defined. Her inner face had not redefined her outer face as yet. When she entered the office in the morning, many commented on her perfume. It was always ‘in fashion’ and, simply stated, she smelled edible. She dressed well. She always looked good. Her hair was always perfect. In fact, she was altogether a very attractive young lady. That is, until she was behind the reception desk. It was then that the trouble started.

She had been in the job for less than a year and, during that time, had established a reign of terror with both patients and doctors alike. It was rumoured that, if people rang for home visits, she would have the walking dead attend the surgery rather than bother a doctor. The sinister side to her character was that, in order to see a doctor, she would first interview the potential patient to vet whether she considered his or her illness of sufficient gravity to warrant an appointment. Something maybe all receptionists would do, her talent, if you could call it that, was that she believed all potential patients were malingerers who had no right to waste the doctors’ time.

She had a reputation. Her infamy had spread far and wide. And that was her undoing.

It was teatime, and Susan had drawn the last shift. Actually, she had chosen this option herself, saying she wanted the extra time. As usual, no one had argued with her.

The last patient had gone. Old Doctor Greystone was still in his office with a medical rep. The salesman had run the reception gauntlet and somehow managed to gain entrance to the inner sanctum and was now making the most of his time. Dr Greystone was an easy sale.

The intercom sounded on the reception desk. Go home, Susan. I shall be sometime yet.

It’s quite all right, Doctor, I’ll stay awhile. I have some files I want to clear.

Suit yourself, Susan.

‘Oh, don’t worry, I will,’ she thought. ‘There’s a certain rep I wish to talk to before he leaves. He won’t try to sneak in again whilst I’m on duty.’

She turned when the doctor broke the connection on the intercom and, taking a number of patient cards, walked back to the filing cabinets at the rear of the reception area.

She felt a draught on her neck and turned abruptly towards the door but no one was there. She shrugged her shoulders, and that was when he took her.

The smell of chloroform caused her to gag. She tried to bring her hands to her assailant’s face but he was behind her and was so much bigger than she that he could encircle her with one arm. By grasping her right wrist with his left arm, he was able to lock both arms making them immobile.

She held her breath, but finally had to inhale. The room span, and the last thing that Susan saw on this mortal coil was the sleeve of a grey plastic mac that covered her killer’s arm.

When the sales rep and Doctor Greystone finished their conversation some thirty minutes later, they came out into a darkened reception area.