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Walter yawned and glanced at the clock. Twenty to six. He felt dreadfully tired. Someone else’s blood was gallivanting around his body, possibly donated by nine different people. Thank you, the nervous nine, I couldn’t live without you. At least it was human blood, hopefully. He set the diary down and ambled outside. Mrs West came out of her office wearing her going home face. ‘You still here? Thought I told you to go home early.’
‘Things to do.’
‘Well don’t stay too late.’
‘I won’t, ma’am.’
She nodded and headed for the door, just as Karen was coming back in. She ambled over and said, ‘How’s it going?’
Walter pulled a face and slowly nodded.
‘Chapters and chapters of his love for Desiree Holloway. He was smitten all right.’
‘Men get that way,’ she grinned.
‘Do they?’
‘Have you never felt that way?’
He thought for a single second, and said: ‘No.’
She pitied him, but didn’t say; then she wondered if he was being truthful. Men often aren’t when it comes to such matters, women too, though men were far worse, in her eyes they were. Much worse.
‘Do you mind if I shoot off? I’m going to have an early night.’
‘Nope, sure, fine, you get away, see you in the morning.’
He seemed oddly distant.
‘Are you all right?’
He focused his large dark eyes on her as if she’d just come in, and said, ‘Yeah, sure, I’m fine, see you tomorrow.’
Karen collected her bag and smiled and bobbed her head and turned about and left.
Walter went to the cloakroom and pondered on what she had said.
Have you never felt that way?
Yes, once, maybe, but that was long ago, and there was little point in dragging up old sores. He washed his hands, blew them under the drier, and returned to the private office, and the diaries.
––––––––
I have suffered many setbacks in my life, I am not alone in that, and I am not making excuses, and I don’t want pity, but nevertheless the knocks I took were bound to leave their mark.
My beloved mother died before I started school. My father took a mistress, the hateful and deceitful Donna Deary, who would slap me viciously when my father’s eyes were turned elsewhere. I suffered the loss of my beautiful house and garden where I played and learned of life. Then came the loss of my father in a violent and catastrophic accident, along with his new wife and my stepbrother, though I confess I did not shed a tear at their death. The loss of my inheritance, wasted in propping up a failing business that was being sucked dry by the scheming leech, Deary. The loss of my income and job at the flower shop I loved, the first true interest I ever developed, a love of flora that will remain with me always. Then Mrs Greenaway’s surprising rejection, and the trauma of being taken into care.
The cancellation of my scholarship to Kings, the loss of my dancing lessons that I adored so, the harassment and bullying at Saint Edmonds, the sickness to the pit of my stomach at being rejected by countless foster parents, who would stare down at me and force a closed mouthed smile, and shake their heads. He isn’t quite right, they’d often say, or, he’s definitely not the one for us, just look at him! As they made little attempt to conceal their opinions or their contempt or their distaste, as if I were stone deaf to their spitefulness.
The shame and worry of being harassed and pressurised and touched by the vicar Christian de Wyk, coming to terms with my slightly weird adolescent appearance during those crucial formative years, and almost worst of all, the breaking and loss of my wonderful voice on the eve of my big broadcast concert, a song festival that many forecast would change my life forever.
My silly falling in love and failed attempts at wooing Machara McGowan, and her trite and hurtful putdown – You’re no-ooo a Scot! And my unsuccessful dates with Jillian’s friends; and failed affairs with drunken women, old and young alike, some with teeth, some without.
Everyone suffers numerous setbacks in their life. It is only natural. That is what life is all about. Adversity, but few will have encountered as many as I.
And yet I would have traded all those losses in an instant to be rid of the one catastrophic blow that struck me down the day that Desiree was murdered. Something deep within me died that day. My love of life perhaps, my love of people, my sanity, they all came under ferocious attack.
One month before she died Desiree confessed her sins to me.
She had been keeping secrets from me, terrible things, appalling things, unbelievable things that at first I could not believe.
She was a killer.
I was living with a killer.
I was married to a killer.
She was killing innocent human beings.
The person I shared my life with, the person I shared my body with, the person I shared my mind and my destiny with, my soul with, was killing other people.
Can you imagine how you would deal with such a thing?
If the love of your life came home one day and spilled out such wickedness, what would you do? What would you say? Would you ever want them to touch you again? Would you move out? Would you divorce them? Would you call the police?
If you loved someone as I loved Desiree, you most certainly would not do those things because you could not live without them, yet you would never feel quite the same way again.
It placed terrible strains on our marriage, on our love.
Long after she was snatched from me I saw the black policeman on the television. He was threatening me. Saying things like we would be meeting soon, he would catch me, and I would have to look into his eyes and deal with him. While he was talking he’d look at the blonde sergeant, and she would glance affectionately back, and I knew there was a close bond between them, and I wanted to destroy that bond, I wanted to hurt them, I wanted to hurt them so bad. I wanted him and her to feel what it was like to lose someone that truly mattered, someone they desperately cared for, I wanted them to share my pain, I wanted to kill one of them, to see how they coped with that, and in time, I wanted to kill them both.
So, black policeman, if by some strange quirk of fate you should ever cast your bloated eyes over my diaries, as one day I know someone will, even if it is one of your successors, I want to recap the names of the dead to you, for they deserve to be remembered.
Pay close attention.
Roll-call begins.
Harold James Craddock.
Hilda Mary Anderton.
George Bellway Milkins.
Ena Frances Marlow.
William Richard Amos Clarke.
Michael Patrick O’Leary.
Thora Joyce Beckett.
Not the names you expected, eh?
Seven names. Seven human beings. Seven deaths. Seven murders.
Seven criminal killings committed by my darling wife Desiree Mitford Holloway during the course of her experimental work at Eden Leys. There were others too, but these were Desiree’s personal work. Seven deaths that affected her profoundly. Seven deaths that ultimately cost her her life, seven deaths that eventually provoked me to murder, seven times over.
Investigate that, why don’t you!
If you dare.
––––––––
Walter scribbled the names on his pad and set down his pen. Out of nowhere he suddenly felt quite ill. He glanced at the clock. Ten minutes to eight. Stood up. His legs shook, walking wasn’t easy. He was hungry and he wanted to go home. He eased the diaries into the metal cupboard, locked the door, attached the key to his key ring, went outside, slipped on his raincoat, bade the skeleton nightshift a curt goodnight, and limped away to find a cab.