The Finisher

1

The city of Bath isn’t all about Roman plumbing and Georgian architecture.

It offers unrivalled facilities for getting rid of unwanted corpses. Beneath the creamy, sun-kissed squares, crescents and terraces is a rat-infested underworld undreamed of by most visitors, a dark, dank warren of cellars, vaults, culverts, sewers and drains. And the surrounding hills are riddled with miles of mines, quarries and tunnels, all but a few disused and some no longer mapped or remembered.

The Finisher got his reputation by completing the job. He had no wish to be investigated, so he left no clues. He preyed on the losers. “Defy me and you’re finished,” he would say. “I’ll finish you myself and you won’t be the first.” He wasn’t bluffing. He’d killed at least once before. His victim simply vanished from the scene. It was a deliberate act of terror and it worked. The select group he informed about the murder said nothing for fear they would be next.

His method of killing was simple and left nothing to chance. After a short moment of violence, life ebbed away in a series of satisfying, calm exhalations, each softer than the last, until they stopped.

The easy part.

Murder is only the beginning.

Killers throughout history have faced the problem of how to dispose of the body. Landru tried with a large stove, Haigh an acid bath and Christie home decorating; all three were caught. It’s almost impossible to leave no trace. What is more, there isn’t much time for clever stuff. Burial is a favoured method but is hard work. Just to conceal the volume of a body requires shifting large amounts of earth, which is why so many murdered corpses are found in shallow graves. The other drawback is that the disturbance of the ground is obvious. Immersion in deep water involves transport and navigation and the use of weights to keep the body from rising to the surface. Dismemberment is messy and multiplies the task. Dropping the victim into unset concrete is said to have worked, but can be difficult to arrange unless you’re a construction worker. Even then, your mates may well ask questions. For the same reason, feeding body parts to pigs is risky because someone is sure to notice.

Through the blessing of geography, the Finisher didn’t need to use any of the flawed methods listed above. He’d given thought to the problem of disposal. He knew what to do.

He lived in Bath.