STEFFI COLE WAS lighter than Jody Reeves, but not as light as Frannie Hatton.
For the hundredth time, John Trick was grateful that he hadn’t killed that first girl on the beach. He’d never been a big man, and the thought of picking his way across the precarious pebbles with Kelly Bradley’s fat arse slung over his shoulder was comical to him now.
A stone shifted under his left foot and he stopped and adjusted his balance. It was hard enough to walk across the beach in the daylight. At night and with a weight, it required great care and patience.
He’d learned patience. His lack of it had almost blown it for him right at the start…
He’d stopped the car beside Frannie Hatton on the road between Bideford and Westward Ho! At first she’d been grateful to him for the offer of a ride. And then, for some reason he couldn’t work out, she’d changed her mind. Just straightened up and backed away and said, ‘Actually, thanks, but I think I’ll walk.’
Cheeky little slut. With her stringy junkie arms and her nose ring and her tattoos. Saying no – like she was better than him.
Like she was calling the shots.
So he’d got out to show her who was really in charge. Right there under the streetlights that made everything orange and weird.
Frannie Hatton had just stood there, watching him come around the front of the car, with her mouth open like a fish. She couldn’t believe what was happening. He could hardly believe it himself.
Too late, she’d turned to run… And he’d grabbed her arm.
The moment his fingers had closed on her bicep, John Trick had known he was going to kill her. There was no going back, even if he’d wanted to go back. Which he didn’t.
So he’d gone on.
He’d gone too far and it had felt so good.
She had fought him, mind. She was only a skinny little thing, but Frannie had fought like two rats in a bag. She’d even bitten his hand as he’d bundled her into the car. If another car had passed it would all have been over. He’d just got lucky. He’d learn from that, too.
He’d driven erratically to the Burrows. He’d forced her out of the car at gunpoint. What choice did she have? And then he’d led her away from the car and over the golf course to a shallow bunker of mud.
It hadn’t stopped raining all summer and mud was easy to come by.
She’d had a phone, of course. Everybody had a phone nowadays, even if they didn’t have a job.
‘Call your mother.’
Her mother had hung up the phone before he’d got started, which was gutting, and then had ignored the second call – the uncaring whore. But when he’d finally got Frannie Hatton facedown, and his fingers had got a good grip on her hair, and he’d pressed down, down, down…
He’d felt all the control leave her body and pass up his arm to his own. Filling him with power, making him mighty.
Just thinking of it now made him feel like a man.
John Trick put Steffi down with a grunt, and looked at the naked bodies already laid out at his feet. A rat ran out of the stinking darkness and between Jody Reeves’ small, firm breasts.
Trick hadn’t felt this good about himself since he’d started work at the shipyard when he was sixteen years old. Something inside him swelled a little. If he remembered correctly, it felt a lot like pride. Pride in himself and pride in Ruby. He’d been wary about taking her with him, but it had paid off in spades. Killing was much easier when his daughter was with him.
It was his little cowboy who’d shown him how it should be done in the first place. Picking up her teacher at the bus stop was a stroke of genius. The way the woman’s suspicion had changed to grateful acceptance as soon as she saw a little girl out for a drive with her daddy.
Who wouldn’t get into the car?
It’d be rude not to.
The wind snatched the laugh from John Trick’s mouth.
Ruby was the key. Sometimes he wondered whether she knew all along what she was doing. How she was teaching him, just as he taught her.
Like tonight – he should have made sure Steffi was dead in the dunes – but the terror in Ruby’s voice had been like an alarm going off inside him. She was in danger. His own flesh and blood needed him. He didn’t want to make excuses, but it was biological.
As long as he learned from his mistakes – that was the important thing. It was like starting a new job. Nobody could be expected to know everything to begin with, but when you got it right – when it was textbook – the sense of achievement was overwhelming.
Addictive.
Murder was a learning curve. But he was getting better at it all the time.