It had been a disastrous trip and Reginald King was spitting nails. Dundee had seemed the easy choice, close enough and he’d not visited before, so he couldn’t be recognised by some eagle-eyed pimp seeking new regulars for his girls.
He’d found the slut, lit by her own cigarette as she fouled up a pavement with her advertorial presence, wearing a fake fur jacket with its hood pulled over her face, stockings and no visible skirt. She’d been too far away to get a decent look at her face but he’d guessed from the bend in her back and the sag of her shoulders that she’d been around the proverbial block more than a few times. The height was right, at least.
He’d wound down the window and she’d shouted over to him.
‘What d’ya want?’
He hated that part of it: the filthy talk, the negotiating.
‘Straight sex,’ he’d said. ‘It’ll be quick.’
‘Fuckin’ right it will,’ she’d said. ‘Show me the cash.’
He’d waved the money out of the window. It would be the last she’d see of it, he’d thought. The girl had weaved a drunken line to his car, yanked open the door and all but fallen through.
‘Mind the seat,’ he’d hissed. ‘Don’t dirty it.’
He was peeved that he’d had to use his own vehicle. The girl had reeked of cheap liquor and urine. Her hands were scabbed. Cigarette burns, no doubt. Probably doing her a favour. At least whoever was abusing her would be deprived of their sport. She’d sent tiny hands skittering like sick spiders into his lap, fumbling for the zipper, as she’d swayed and mumbled.
‘Get off me,’ King had ordered, unable to maintain the charade when the stench of her was so overwhelming. That was when he’d seen her face.
The eyes were old, hollowed out, the life inside them extinguished as effectively as if he’d already completed his task. The rest belonged to a child. Painted like a sex-shop doll, crudely, grotesquely, with false eyelashes that were sliding down one cheek and stuck too high on the other side, the skin beneath was unlined. No more than fourteen, he’d thought. Then she’d vomited.
‘No!’ he’d screamed, shoving his fist out without thinking, pushing her head as far away from him as he could. When her face had smashed into the window, he’d known the chloroform wouldn’t be necessary. The passenger seat looked as if an animal had exploded on it, covered in the slick dripping contents of her stomach and laced with blood from her nose. It was gushing down her body and still she wasn’t regaining consciousness. Wrong age or not, there was no way he could let her go. She’d seen too much. And she needed to pay for the damage to his car.
King reprimanded himself. He didn’t kill for petty reasons, not in anger, not for vengeance. He killed only to free the women in his life, to give them the ultimate and final alibi. The girl had to die. He’d make it part of his plan, use it to further his work. Ava Turner still needed to witness his authority first hand.
First, he had to transport what was left of the girl whose life he was certain no one would miss. King pulled her more upright in the seat, lifted her hood as if she were sleeping, and did his best to wipe the mess off the window. If he could just make it home and into his garage, he could get properly cleaned up in private. For the first time, he was pleased that he’d been unable to hire a car. Whilst picking up the prostitutes or disposing of their bodies, he would usually have left his own vehicle at the Causewayside lockup and changed cars there, but with all the bodily fluids swimming around there was no way that would have been practical this time. It would take him two days to valet the car to acceptable standards. Two days he couldn’t spend with his women. At that moment, it seemed reason enough for the girl to die. An hour later he was home. It was eleven o’clock.