The Mermaids Singing

F ROM 3" DISK LABELLED: BACKUP. 007; FILE LOVE. 013

I hated to keep Gareth hanging on, but I had to leave him for one little errand. In his car, I’d found a few of the Christmas cards his company sent out to favoured clients, already signed by all the partners. Inside one, with a fountain pen, a stencil set and Gareth’s blood, I’d written in block capitals, ‘ A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL YOUR READERS; YOUR EXCLUSIVE CHRISTMAS GIFT IS WAITING IN THE SHRUBBERY OF CARLTON PARK BEHIND THE BANDSTAND. COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON FROM

SANTA CLAWS.’ It wasn’t easy to write with the blood; it kept congealing on the nib, which I had to clean every few letters. Luckily, there was no shortage of ink. I addressed a Jiffy bag to the editor of the Bradfield Evening Sentinel Times and put the card in it, along with a video I’d made a couple of weeks before, when I’d started to plan what to do with Gareth. I’d already decided to change my modus operandi slightly. Temple Fields was bound to be risky now; even if the queens were too drunk or stoned to be vigilant, the police would be keeping an eye open for more than the occasional cottaging poof. But the nature trail through the shrubbery of Carlton Park is almost as notorious a pick-up area.

Early on a rainy Sunday morning, when there was nobody about, I’d driven out to Carlton Park with my camcorder. I started off by the wrought-iron bandstand. I walked around it, filming it from every angle. It wouldn’t take long before somebody in the BEST office recognized the landmark. After all, Carlton Park is the biggest park within the city boundaries, and there’s a brass-band concert there every Sunday from April to September. I deliberately kept the camcorder at chest level rather than on my shoulder; I’ve read of instances where correct estimates of height have been made simply from the angle photographs have been taken from. If some forensic scientist was going to draw any conclusions from this video, I wanted to be sure they would be the wrong ones.

Leaving the bandstand behind, I walked down the nature trail towards the shrubbery. I panned across the general area where I thought I’d dump the body, then stopped filming. I passed nobody on my way back to the jeep. That was probably just as well, since I was grinning from ear to ear at the thought of the news editor puzzling over my Christmas message.

The message would also serve two other functions. It would minimize the time it took to identify Gareth’s body, which meant the publicity machine would have plenty of fodder to keep it going through what was always a slack news period. Secondly, it would send the police on a wild goose chase, working out who could have had access to the Christmas cards.

The police might even decide that someone connected with Gareth through work had decided to bump him off and make it look like a copycat killing by dumping the body in a gay cruising area. Just the sort of thing a deranged and disillusioned client would do. If I got really lucky, they might even give the bitch a hard time, too.

I drove into the city centre to post the packet at the main post office. There were enough last-minute panicking gift-givers for me to be unremarkable. I stopped at an off licence on the way back to buy a bottle of champagne. I don’t normally drink when I’m working, but this was a special occasion.

When I got back, Gareth was semi-conscious, mumbling incomprehensibly. ‘Santa’s here,’ I said cheerfully as I came down the stairs. I popped the cork on the champagne and poured two glasses. I took one over to Gareth and, standing on tiptoe, I gently lifted his lolling head. I held the glass to his lips and tilted it. ‘You’ll enjoy this,’ I said. ‘It’s vintage Dom Perignon.’

His eyes snapped wide open. For a moment, he looked bewildered, then he remembered and he fixed me with a look of pure hatred. But he was parched, and couldn’t resist the champagne. He swallowed it greedily, not savouring it at all. Then he belched in my face, a look of strange satisfaction in his eyes.

‘Wasted on you,’ I said angrily. ‘Like all the fine things in life.’ I stepped back and slashed the glass across his face. It shattered against his nose, cutting his cheek to ribbons. I was glad Auntie Doris wouldn’t be coming back. She’d had that set of six fragile crystal glasses as a silver-wedding present, and she’d never used them, terrified that someone would break one. She’d been right to be concerned.

Gareth shook his head. ‘You’re evil,’ he slurred. ‘Pure evil.’

‘No, I’m not,’ I said softly. ‘I’m justice. Remember justice? It’s what you’re supposed to stand for.’

‘Twisted, evil bastard,’ he replied.

I couldn’t believe he still had the stamina for bravado. It was time to show him who was boss. I’d already pinned his hands to the cross with a couple of cold chisels. The blood had congealed around them, black and hard. Now it was the turn of his feet.

When he saw me pick up my tools from the workbench, he finally cracked. ‘There’s no need for this,’ he said desperately. ‘Please. You could still let me go. They’d never find you. I’ve no idea where we are. I don’t know who you are, where you live, what you do for a living. You could move away from Bradfield and they’d never find you.’

I took a step closer. Tears welled up in his eyes and spilled over, trickling through the blood on his cheek. They must have stung, but he never flinched. ‘Please,’ he whispered. ‘It’s not too late. Even if you killed those other men. Was it you who killed them?’

He was smart, I had to give him that. Too smart for his own good. He’d just earned himself some more suffering. I turned away and dropped the chisel and club hammer on the workbench. Let him think I was having second thoughts. Let him spend the night convinced I was going to have mercy. That would make Christmas Day all the sweeter.

I shut the cellar door behind me and went upstairs to bed, armed with my videos and the best part of a bottle of vintage champagne. I was having the best Christmas I’d ever had. I remembered all those years of desperate hope, praying that this would be the year my mother would buy me presents like other children got. But all she’d ever done was let me down. Now I’d worked out that the only person who could give me what I craved was myself; I knew that for the first time in my life, I could look forward to the kind of Christmas other people have, filled with surprises, satisfaction and sex.