7

River Acres was a peaceful and picturesque part of suburbia. Here there were no hooligans roaming the streets; no domestic violence waiting behind closed doors and occasionally spilling out of open windows; no children playing in the street, kicking balls against cars and windows and into gardens. There was no loud music either, but if you walked down the empty pathways, passing the rows of bungalows set back from small and flowery gardens, you would be greeted with the noise from dozens of television sets.

This was where the old and infirm came to die. The people who lived here weren’t capable of much activity and they certainly weren’t capable of causing a nuisance. Police cars did come here, but only because of burglars, door-to-door cons and, on one occasion two weeks ago, to arrest a ninety-year-old woman who decided that stripping naked and going for a powerwalk around the block would work better than her medication ever could.

Lester had been briefed on the area by a local cop, a man who laughed at the suggestion that a place as dull as River Acres could be holding something so vital to Lester’s case.

“You came all the way to our quiet little town to find the quietest little spot, what gives?”

Lester didn’t need to tell a local gossipy officer what his motives were, not when the people who needed to know already knew. He was a long way from home, but this wasn’t a fleeting visit.

Lester hated River Acres as soon as he drove down the empty road that cut a line through the middle of rows of identically drab houses. He hated it even more when he stepped out of the relative quiet of the car—with the engine roaring and the radio turned down—into the complete silence of the street. It was too quiet, too creepy. Death walked these streets, and in a single year you’d see more ambulances and hearses parked outside these doors than you would cars, indicating that the grim reaper was closer to the residents of River Acres than any of their family members.

He stopped outside one of the houses and listened. He could hear the television blaring through the front door and although the curtains were tightly shut—despite it being early afternoon—he could see the lights from the set flickering through a small gap. He checked a slip of paper in his hand, double checked the number by the door, and then buzzed the intercom.

When he didn’t receive an answer, he held his finger down on the buzzer until he did. An old voice trickled down the line, sounding half-asleep, half-dead, or both.

“Who is it?”

“Is that Mrs. Johnson?”

“It’s Ms.,” she said bitterly. “And I’m not buying anything.”

He heard her click off. She sounded old and frail, and although he had expected as much because of her age and the area in which she lived, a part of him, knowing who she was related to, had anticipated something a little more lively and a lot more feisty.

He sighed to himself and held the buzzer again until she answered.

“I told you,” she snapped. “I don’t want any of your shit. Now fuck off and piss on someone else’s doorstep.”

He grinned to himself. That was more like it.

“I promise, I’m not here to sell anything. I’m with the police.” He looked over his shoulder as he spoke, knowing that if they were capable of hearing him then several dozen old men and women would be turning off their TV sets and dragging their chairs in front of the window.

“Oh, well, why didn’t you say so?”

She clicked off and he waited. He heard her turn off the television. The noise of a daytime mystery was replaced by the grumblings of a woman who was talking to herself, but was probably too deaf to realize it.

He heard several bolts yank open, followed by at least two locks. It took her a good five minutes before she opened the door and when she did she was already on her way to the kitchen. “I’ll make you a cup of tea, sweetie,” she said with her back to him.

He had his badge ready to show her, but she didn’t ask. She didn’t even look at him.

“Thanks,” he said meekly, stepping inside the house. He closed the door behind him, seeing several curtains twitch in the houses across the street.

——

The elderly woman beamed at him as he sat sipping his cold cup of tea. There was a good chance that it had been hot when she poured it, but by the time she made it across to him, stuttering and struggling with every step, it was tepid and half empty. There was an equally good chance she was senile and had made it with water from the tap, or that she had simply given him a cup that had been left by a recent visitor, but he didn’t want to seem impolite so he drank it and pretended to like it.

“Do you want a biscuit?” she asked, holding out a biscuit tin with shaking hands. The tin looked at least fifty years old and was as dusty and frail as she was.

“Oh,” he said in feigned delight. “I don’t mind if I—” he recoiled when she opened the tin and exposed contents that looked as old as the tin. “I’ll pass, thank you.”

“There’s some chocolate ones in there,” she said.

“Oh God, I sincerely hope not,” he whispered under his breath. On closer inspection, he saw a thick brown, clay-like substance stuck to the bottom of the tin that had at one point probably been chocolate.

“I’m not much of a biscuit lover,” she said as she pulled the tin away. “I just keep these for the guests.”

“You don’t get many guests these days?” he asked.

“Sorry?” she said, turning to him and pointing her ear at him.

He sighed. “Nothing, it’s nothing important.”

She smiled and settled back in her chair before saying, “Although I don’t get very many guests these days.”

Lester rolled his eyes and took another sip of tepid tea before putting it to one side and vowing to leave it alone.

“I’ve come to talk to you about your grandson,” he explained.

“My son-in-law? Ah, I thought so, he’s a sly one. Good man, though.”

Lester paused, but decided against pursuing that. He knew nothing about Herman’s father. “No, your grandson,” he reiterated. “Herman.”

“Who?”

“Herman!”

“Ah, of course. Lovely kid. Are you a friend of his?”

“No. I’m a policeman.”

“So you said, dear, but are you a friend of his?”

“No. We’re not friends,” Lester told her, struggling to imagine a boy like Herman ever having friends. There were people who believed his lonely upbringing was what caused him to do what he did, that he had taken all he could take until he decided enough was enough, but Lester believed otherwise. Lonely children were not murderers. You needed to have something in you, something dark, sinister, and yet at the same time empty, to do what Herman had done.

“That’s a shame. That boy needs a good friend.”

Lester decided that she didn’t need to hear his theory. “Maybe.”

“He’s a mischievous little fucker, isn’t he?”

Lester raised his eyebrows. He didn’t know what was more surprising, that she had sworn out of the blue, or that she had just referred to one of the nation’s most notorious spree killers as mischievous.

“So,” she continued. “How can I help you?”

——

Lester got all that he needed from Mrs. Johnson. By the time he left her house, the skies were turning an eerie shade of gray. It was only afternoon but without the streetlights above him—pinning an orange halo around him as he stood, documents in hand—he wouldn’t have been able to see his own hand in front of his face. This was the sort of weather The Masquerade would thrive on. Lester felt a stab of regret at that thought. He had left his home, his territory, one that had been torn apart by this killer, to come to this piece of purgatory. The people he was paid to protect and serve were now in the hands of a sadistic killer, but Lester knew there was no risk of The Masquerade doing anything while he was away, because he knew that the masked killer would soon follow him.

Lester was now more convinced of his theory than he had ever been. He had little doubt that The Masquerade and Herman were the same, and the evidence that he now had would convince others, as well. This was a crucial time, a time when revealing such information could be very costly and could anger one very disturbed individual, but he had to tell several people, and eventually one of them would leak that information anyway.

Lester had been quick to dismiss false rumors that The Masquerade had targeted him in the past, but as he stood under the eerie glow of the streetlight, watched by countless senile eyes, and with his own eyes perusing the documents from the old lady, he had a feeling that the rumor would become much more widespread and much more real very soon.