Maniac

By Patrick Whittaker

There are some people you should never allow inside your head.

The seaside town of Chadham prides itself on being sleepy. Until Maniac turns it into the murder capital of Britain.

Detective Inspector Harry Nyman is the world's most reluctant policeman. He'd much rather be playing jazz than investigating crime.

Unfortunately, murder sets its own agenda.
As the body count rises, it becomes clear the murderer has an ultimate goal: to destroy Harry Nyman.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patrick Whittaker
• Release date: Nov 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310023491

Patrick Whittaker

Patrick Whittaker is winner of the British Fantasy Society's Short Story Competition 2009. He has directed a number of short films, several of which have garnered awards for him. He currently resides in Blackpool, England where he works as a government phone monkey.

Book preview

Maniac

by

Patrick Whittaker

Copyright © Patrick Whittaker, 2011

Smashwords edition

…

Published by Silent Thunder

Editor: Brianna Dalton

Cover Design: Patrick Whittaker

Interior Book Design: Coreen Montagna

Chapter One

The killer awoke. And it wasn’t pleasant.

Lie still, he reminded himself. Don’t open your eyes. Don’t draw attention. And don’t, for Pete’s sake, throw up again.

It was unsettling, going to sleep in one body and waking in another, with no memory of anything in between. The discontinuity made him dizzy; it unnerved him. And on top of that came revulsion.

Here he was, in an unfamiliar body, sensing things that belonged to another person and should never be shared. The scent of mucus. The taste of saliva. The movement of food through the alimentary canal.

Not his own.

His own he could ignore. But this was somebody else’s body. Somebody else’s processes. He felt like a passing tramp had grabbed him and kissed him on the lips.

The killer moderated his breathing to disguise the fact that he was awake. His right thigh itched; he resisted the impulse to scratch. Told himself it wasn’t his thigh, wasn’t his itch. He need not respond.

Mind over matter.

The thing he had to do now was find out where he was. And then who he was and who—if anyone—was with him.

He was in a bed. The sheets were cotton, the pillows plump. His hand rested on top of a duvet. He smelt a man’s musk—his own no doubt. A hint of stale sweat. Aftershave. There was another smell, one he found alluring. It was soap and perfume with a hint of salt. The scent of a woman.

The only body heat he could feel was his own. Whoever his bedmate was—presumably a wife or lover—they were up already. From downstairs came the enticing smell of bacon and the clattering and banging of a hurried breakfast. A boy asked if he might have a slice of toast. Politely. He said please and thank you and Mummy, too.

So today I’m a family man. How nice. Shall I make the mother watch while I kill her children? Or would it be more fun the other way round?

Satisfied he was alone, he opened his eyes and analyzed his surroundings. White walls, white furniture, and a fitted wardrobe that was almost featureless. A modern, medium-sized bedroom.

He was, he hypothesized, in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Aspirational English Middle Class. The sort who went to the gym together and took skiing holidays twice a year and busted a gut to get their kids into the right school.

Their CD collection consists mostly of Dire Straits, George Michael, and Simply Red. They have an unread copy of A Brief History of Time sitting in their IKEA bookcase, squeezed between cookbooks by Delia Smith and Jamie Oliver. She reads the Daily Express. He kids himself he’s a socialist and votes Conservative.

Two predictable people aspiring to mediocrity.

The killer had all the information he needed to unreservedly hate them.

Now that he knew he was alone in the room, he opened his eyes and sat up. A wave of giddiness hit him, but quickly passed.

Throwing aside the duvet and unbuttoning his pajama top, he looked down at his latest body. The hairs on the chest were downy and a dark shade of brown. The belly had a slight paunch, but felt tight. His legs ached a little.

Must have been to the gym, he concluded. Or maybe played squash.

His hands were the hands of a white collar worker. Apart from a callus on his right forefinger—possibly caused by gripping a squash racket—they were smooth. Nails tidily clipped. A gold wedding ring on his finger.

The killer parted the curtains of his pajama trousers and checked out his genitals.

An average sized penis nestled on its scrotum like a puppy in a basket.

Circumcised. My body is mutilated.

Only it wasn’t actually his body. He was merely borrowing it. Tomorrow he would have a different one. And another the day after.

Time to get up. Busy day ahead. Places to visit. People to murder.

A fresh white shirt, neatly ironed, was draped on the back of a chair beside the dresser. Also on the chair were briefs and a pair of socks.

He got out of bed and discarded the pajamas. Leaving them on the floor, he slipped into the briefs and opened the wardrobe. He had a choice of four suits, all of them off-the-peg.

A quick search of inside pockets garnered him a wallet. He took it out and examined its contents. Three bank cards told him his name was James Nestor while a small bundle of business cards identified him as an IT Manager at Ringwood Technology Solutions, 12 Peel Park, Chadham.

There was a small photograph of a woman and two children—a boy and a girl—standing in front of some swings.

Mrs. Nestor (assuming it was Mrs. Nestor in the photograph) was a good-looking woman. Bottle blonde. Tall. Confident-looking with a kind face and striking smile. The killer looked forward to meeting her. To getting to know her better. And to totally screwing up her life.

Before the day was done, he would show her exactly why he was called Maniac.

* * * *

Detective Inspector Harold Nyman—Harry to his friends—hated mornings. If ever he was left in charge of Creation, he would abolish those early hours when everything seemed unnecessarily complicated.

His best mornings were characterized by him not seeing his bed until the time most decent folk were rising from theirs. On such mornings, he would sleep an exhausted and happy sleep until mid-afternoon. Then he’d wake up in a world that was altogether more in tune with his sensibilities.

This morning wasn’t one of those mornings. It should have been among Harry’s better ones but had so far stunk. After three months of trying, he’d finally wangled a day off. His time was his own and he’d gone to bed late in the full and reasonable expectation of a long lie-in. But right on the dot of six, his phone had begun to ring, and it kept on ringing until he got out of bed, put on a dressing gown, and went downstairs to answer it.

At the top of the stairs, he bumped his head on a low beam. It was one of the hazards of living in a sixteenth century cottage when you’re five foot eleven.

It wasn’t a bad knock. Just enough to worsen his mood still further.

Muttering imprecations about Elizabethan midget architects, he stomped into his study, stepped over a pile of manuscript papers, and grabbed the phone from the writing bureau.

Nyman. This better be important.

Daddy. He’s left me! It was Lucy, his twenty-four-year-old daughter.

Sitting on the stool beside his upright piano, he took a deep breath. What happened this time? he asked.

What happened was what had happened a dozen times before. She’d convinced herself Craig, her long-suffering husband, was having an affair and had made his life hell. So once again Craig had stormed out with a promise never to return.

Lucy rolled off a veritable almanac of incidents that pointed to infidelity. There were the unanswered phone calls. The endless meetings he was in whenever she rang his office. His evasiveness when she asked him perfectly reasonable questions about his whereabouts and activities. All of it culminating in the night he went out with his mates and broke his solemn promise to call every few hours to let her know he was all right.

Men don’t like having to do that, Harry foolishly interposed. It makes them feel they’re not trusted.

I’m his wife, Daddy! I have a right to know where he is. And if he says he’s going to call, he should. Shouldn’t he?

I’m sure he meant to. It’s just that men have a knack of losing track of time when they’re out with their mates. The way women do when they’re shopping for shoes or getting ready to go out.

He knows I worry when he doesn’t call. How long does it take to press a few buttons on a phone?

You should take a leaf out of your mother’s book, Luce. She hardly ever knew where I was or when I was coming home. Didn’t bother her one bit.

That’s different. You weren’t married.

In all but name we were.

And besides, women never threw themselves at you like they do with Craig.

Ouch. Harry immediately set about patching his ego by reminding himself of some of the women who had thrown themselves at him. Admittedly they were few and far between. But they did exist. I’m sure Craig never even notices them.

For the next five minutes, Harry spouted a string of well-rehearsed platitudes designed to reassure Lucy that Craig had eyes for only one woman—Lucy.

It worked. Lucy finally conceded she was being as silly this time as she had been all the others. Which, as always, was prelude to a bout of self-loathing.

I’m such a cow, she wailed. I know there’s nobody else, but you’ve seen the way other women look at him. It’s not as if I’m getting any younger.

Harry had done his duty as a father. He’d listened to his daughter pouring her heart out and had managed to reassure her that Craig—poor chump that he was—would be back. And he’d also convinced her that driving up from London to spend a few days with him was not the solution to her problems.

He’d even remembered to ask after Charlotte, his six-year-old granddaughter.

But still he felt guilty and helpless. And he knew returning to bed to stew in his own thoughts was a bad proposition. A hearty breakfast was called for, but a raid on his fridge yielded a solitary rasher of bacon and there was no way he was going to resort to anything as healthy as cornflakes. Not on his day off.

He took a quick shower—quicker than he’d intended because the boiler decided to cut out after a few minutes—and dressed in his customary black. Black socks. Black jeans. Black top. And now here he was, at the piano in his study, ready to begin the task for which he’d taken the day off.

Only he couldn’t.

He was perched on his piano stool, hands hovering over the keyboard, ready to swoop like a musical predator. And—nothing!

Diddly squat.

Sweet Fanny Adams.

Nada.

His mind was a blank.

Come on, come on. Just one chord to get you going. That’s all you need.

But the chord he was searching for remained lost.

He stared at the virgin manuscript paper lying on top of the piano. Its neatly spaced lines awaited his input. They cried out for clefs, minims, crochets and the other squiggles and dots needed to justify their existence.

This is ridiculous. He was a trained musician. A professional. And a jazz artist to boot. Improvisation was second nature to him. He should be able to knock off a riff at will. And usually he could. But not now.

Now that he had taken time off to do so.

Harry’s old fountain pen—the one with which he’d penned dozens of scores over the years—sat beside the manuscript. He picked it up, unscrewed the top, and wrote across the top of the paper: Scott Joplin in Hell. A Jazz Opera by Harold Nyman.

There! He’d started. The manuscript paper was no longer virgin. Now all he needed was an opening phrase. Easy peasy. Just one phrase. A simple melody. A neat chord progression to lead the listener into what Harry believed would be his crowning musical achievement.

Again—diddly squat.

Harry closed his eyes. Imagined himself in some sweaty dive of a jazz club, the air thick with cigarette smoke. Audience waiting. An expectant hush as he brought his clarinet to his lips, took a breath and blew.

And there it was! The elusive melody. Rich with potential. His leitmotif which would pop up in many guises throughout the opera.

Harry opened his eyes and picked up his fountain pen. Behind him, the phone on the writing bureau rang. And the melody disappeared from his head.

Damn it! Harry slammed a fist on the piano keyboard, eliciting a jarring cacophony that sounded as angry as he felt. Spinning his stool around, he grabbed the phone. Nyman! This better be important!

Morning, sir, said a bright, melodious voice. Sergeant Colshaw here.

Get lost! Harry slammed the phone down. Bloody Colshaw. He might have known. What the hell did she want?

Harry took long, deep breaths. In his experience, anger and music made for uncomfortable bedfellows. If he was to reconnect with his muse, he needed to calm down. Chill out. Mellow. Think cool thoughts. Hep cat, Charlie Parker, Miles Davies, John Coltrane thoughts.

The phone rang again. More deep breaths.

Harry picked up the phone. Good morning. Detective Inspector Nyman. How may I help?

Good morning again, sir.

Sergeant Colshaw. How delightful to hear your dulcet tones. And to what do I owe this pleasure?

Murder.

Harry’s heart sank. If it was any other crime, he could tell Colshaw to investigate, take notes, and bring him up to date when he was back on duty. But murder—that was a different proposition. Murder, he knew from experience, had a way of setting its own agenda. Isn’t there a law against getting murdered in Chadham on my day off?

It happened last night. Superintendent Varney personally assigned you.

He loves me, doesn’t he?

Like a dog loves fleas.

Harry puffed out his cheeks and stared at the piano keyboard. Still it mocked him. He had a vision of sitting at home all day, torturing himself with silence while he waited for his muse to call. It was a vision of Hell. All right. Hit me with the gory details, he said.

Old lady. Identity unknown. Found half an hour ago at the end of Chadham Pier. Stabbed to death.

* * * *

Naked and freshly showered, Maniac examined his latest body in the bathroom mirror.

He was handsome in a non-showy kind of way. His hair was cut a little short for his tastes and touched with grey. The stubble on his face was pleasingly masculine and full.

He smiled, revealing a set of well-cared for teeth. You handsome devil, he told his reflection. Mrs. Nestor is one lucky woman.

For once, Alpha had chosen him a decent body. Must remember to say thank you when I ring him. If I show my gratitude, maybe he’ll stop transporting me into nasty, clapped-out old bodies like the one I had yesterday.

He opened the wall cabinet, hoping to find something to shave with. It contained a bottle of aspirin, a tube of antiseptic cream, and a packet of sanitary towels. Nothing of any use.

Maniac was about to try the tallboy in the corner when he heard footsteps hurrying up the stairs. And then the bathroom door opened and Mrs. Nestor burst in.

Sorry, she said, raising her skirt and pulling down her panties. Got to pee.

Right, said Maniac somewhat flummoxed. How would the real James Nestor be acting now? Would he turn away? Wrap a towel round his midriff? Make his excuses and exit?

Maniac followed his instincts. He watched as Mrs. Nestor positioned herself over the toilet bowl and urinated. The look of relief on her face was almost comical.

He considered finding an excuse to bend down to get a look at her privates, to see whether she was blonde all over. Would be a pity if she’s not, he thought. I hate it when the carpet doesn’t match the curtains.

Bladder emptied, Mrs. Nestor grabbed some toilet roll. She dabbed it on her labia, giving Maniac a full-on view of a neatly trimmed golden fleece.

Hallelujah! Thank you, God.

Toby’s playing football today, said Mrs. Nestor, and Jemma’s got a ballet class, so I’m going to need the Volvo. I know you don’t like the Mitsubishi, but it’s just for today.

Fine, said Maniac.

Mrs. Nestor threw the toilet paper in the toilet bowl and flushed it away. Then she pulled up her panties. You won’t forget to make that appointment for me, will you?

No. Of course not.

And see if you can pick up some wine on your way home tonight. We’re down to our last three bottles. Mrs. Nestor washed her hands and dried them. She checked herself in the mirror. Then she gave Maniac a peck on the cheek. Have a nice day at the office.

I will.

Mrs. Nestor hurried off downstairs.

Maniac lowered the lid on the toilet and sat down. He listened as the woman who thought she was his wife ushered her two children out the door. After the sound of car doors slamming, he heard a car start up and head off down the road.

Now he had the place to himself. The perfect opportunity to see what the lovely Mrs. Nestor kept in her underwear drawer.

* * * *

Charlie Turner felt like crap. He’d had a shower, drunk strong coffee, and done all the things that usually made his mornings bearable, and still he felt like crap.

It was the dream. He couldn’t shake it off. The images it had conjured refused to fade.

A nasty dream. Far nastier than he was used to. Even in his darkest days when life was one narcotic after another, he’d never had a dream so disturbing.

Sitting in the living room of his council flat, staring at the damp on the wall, he could think of nothing but the dream. Fleeting images from it paraded before his mind’s eye like a hastily edited trailer for the worst movie ever.

Some pub in town. That’s where it began. An old fashioned pub with a low ceiling and large mirrors. The sort of pub he associated with old men in cloth caps bragging about their whippets and racing pigeons. Not that there were any old men in tonight. A couple of elderly dears sat in the corner drinking stout and exchanging gossip. At the bar, a small coterie of what he took to be students drank cider and swapped near-the-knuckle jokes.

Two young sorts across the room kept giving him the eye. They were dressed in a way that signaled they were up for it, and though neither was especially good-looking, he’d normally have chanced his arm with them.

Never turn your back on a shag, he reminded himself as he sat in his flat, listening to the drip-drip of the kitchen tap and the faint thump-thump of his neighbor’s stereo. I’m an ugly bugger. Fifty years old and looking nearer sixty. Got to take what I can get.

But in his dream, he hadn’t. The tarty girls held only a passing interest for him.

He realized he hadn’t touched his beer. It seemed a shame to let it go to waste, but—try as he might—he could not summon the will to drink it.

I had no control of my body. It felt like my consciousness had been squeezed into one small part of my mind.

A man came out of the toilet. He was about Charlie’s age and his opposite in every way. Whereas Charlie had a full head of hair and a wiry frame, this bloke was as bald as a billiard ball and nearly as round. He had a soft, babyish face and the look of someone who cried easily.

Perfect, said a voice in Charlie’s head as Charlie found himself walking along Chadham High Street with no recollection of how he’d gotten there.

He was following the guy from the pub. And he felt afraid, because he knew he was about to do a terrible thing and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Chapter Two

Chadham Pier had the reputation of being Britain’s tattiest pier. And not without reason. It was also, in Harry Nyman’s view, Britain’s most pointless. Apart from a gift shop, a small penny arcade, and a café at the entrance, the pier was bare. It was devoid even of deck chairs.

Once upon a time, back in its Edwardian heyday, the five-hundred-foot iron and wood platform had been as grand as any pier in the realm. Many of the pubs in Chadham sported old photographs of the structure in its glory days. Even in black and white, you could see what a grand place it had been with its many booths and steam-driven fairground rides.

But successive fires and storms had stripped the pier of its finery. It would have been put out of its misery long ago, but for local heritage groups who regarded a run-down pier as better than no pier at all.

Harry arrived by bicycle. He chained his bike to the railings that separated the promenade from the beach, took off his bicycle clips, and removed his helmet.

At first glance, it didn’t look much like a murder scene. An empty squad car was parked outside the pier entrance. Two uniformed policemen stood by the turnstiles. One munched on a Cornish pasty.

The last ten yards of the pier was taped off. Hardly necessary with the pier closed, thought Harry. And a screaming advert for something best kept from public attention.

In the middle of the taped-off area lay a body. It was surrounded by what looked like the contents of a butcher’s shop. The figure squatting beside it, dressed in a white boiler suit, her face obscured by a plastic hood, was most likely Dr. Heather Miller, Harry’s favorite pathologist.

A photographer meticulously photographed the pier’s wooden flooring, taking a series of overlapping shots. To Harry it seemed like overkill.

Halfway along the pier, Sergeant Liz Colshaw leaned on the cast iron balustrade. To a casual observer, she would have passed for a holidaymaker taking the sea air and gazing down at something interesting on the beach. They would have been extraordinarily insightful to guess she was a plainclothes cop trying to keep her breakfast down.

Colshaw was dressed sensibly with neither her skirt nor her jacket doing her any favors in the glamour department. In her mid-thirties, she was just beginning a slow, comfortable transition into middle age. Her hair was short and a mousy shade of brown which—as far as Harry was concerned—did not suit her at all. The first time he’d seen her she’d been a bubbly blonde and rather fun to have around. Now, five years and a broken marriage later, she was altogether more serious about herself and life in general.

He joined her at the balustrade. So what’s the story?

Just what I told you on the phone. Anonymous old lady. Strangled and disemboweled. Most of her guts are strewn around the end of the pier. The missing bits we presume were eaten by gulls.

You didn’t tell me that last part.

Didn’t want to spoil your breakfast.

Very thoughtful, but I’ve not had any.

Lucky you. Mine wants to part company.

Was she murdered here or elsewhere?

According to our resident ghoul, the body was left where it fell.

By resident ghoul Colshaw meant Dr. Miller. For some reason that Harry’s detective skills had yet to divine, there was no love lost between the two women.

From the corner of his eye, Harry studied the doctor. Something about the hood and the way she squatted reminded him of a kid building a sand castle on a blustery day. Which, he felt, was quite a feat of imagination considering she was poking at someone’s entrails with a ballpoint pen.

Have you searched the beach? he asked Colshaw.

What there is of it.

And?

We found a jellyfish but his alibi checks out.

Wait till the tide goes out and search it again.

I’ve got that in hand.

Of course you have, thought Harry. Always one step ahead of everyone, aren’t you? Little Miss Robocop.

Right, he said. Time to talk to the doctor.

As he headed towards the murder scene, Colshaw called after him. Mind how you go. It’s slippery.

Harry ducked under the yellow Police Line Do Not Cross tape, careful not to step on what he momentarily took to be a dog turd. It was with a certain amount of revulsion that he realized it was part of the victim’s innards. Which part he neither knew nor cared to know.

The photographer had finished. He gave Harry a nod of acknowledgment as he headed towards the exit.

Dr. Miller looked up and treated Harry to a pleasant smile. Whether she was pleased to see him or just happy to be surrounded by gore, was a matter Harry thought best not to contemplate.

Probably the pills, thought Harry. It was commonly believed that Dr. Miller was on antidepressants and popped rather more than the prescribed dose. Not that anyone—least of all Harry—blamed her. Couldn’t have been easy for you—watching your husband die of brain cancer.

Wiping her blood-covered pen on her boiler suit, Dr. Miller stood up. She popped the pen in a pocket. So you drew the short straw, did you, Harry?

Don’t I always?

On your day off, too. They could have assigned someone else.

Varney’s got it in for me.

Hates your guts. Talking of which, do you notice anything odd?

Apart from a dead woman with her entrails where her entrails shouldn’t be? No.

They haven’t been strewn willy-nilly, Inspector. I think our killer’s left us a message.

Any idea what it says?

Dr. Miller shook her head. I’ll need to look at the photographs. But you see that next to the victim’s body? A five-pointed star—a pentagram.

Harry looked down at the wooden slats beside the corpse. Sure enough, there was a crude pentagram made from bits of intestine. The sight of it chilled him more than the corpse. You think our killer’s a Satanist?

Could be voodoo, I suppose.

"In Chadham? Should we be raiding the local