Reflections – Portrait of a Serial Killer (Part Three)

Part Three

For a while there I thought I was in love. Her name was Angelica and she was twenty-six years old, three years older than me at the time, and she was ebony-black with huge brown eyes, full pink lips and a body to die for. She taught me things about love-making and sex – principally that there is a difference between the two – that have lasted me to this day. Things just fizzled out between us after about two years and I still don’t know what or why. I wish her well, even though I’ve not seen or heard from her in an age.

Kills six, seven, eight, nine and ten occurred before Angelica and while I was with her. She was never in danger of becoming one of their number. As I said before I believe that I was in love with her. At the same time I was becoming successful in my chosen career. I was promoted twice and given a larger salary and a bigger office. I had a team to look after, too, which was a bit of a ball-ache, but I didn’t make a fuss about it. I was good at what I did and people not only trusted me, they liked me, especially my clients.

By that time I had got past the St Vitus Dance reaction to my kills. The shakes and tremors had reduced in intensity with each successive kill until I barely felt any physical reaction at all. I still suffered with the nausea, but I was able to prevent myself from throwing-up by breathing deeply after the kill. I was getting much better at my secret pastime.

My eleventh kill was one of them, a wealthy bitch who was about as greedy and penny-pinching as that old miser Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens’ classic story. She was also a widow who thought that her money and high-end lifestyle would tempt me into her good graces, into her lifestyle of corruption and greed and, most disgustingly of all, in to her bed. Killing her gave me the biggest thrill of all of them, if I’m being honest. She was a vile, revolting, disgusting creature who didn’t deserve all the money she had at her disposal.

Before I killed her I made her write a new Last Will and Testament in which she left large donations to various charities that helped the needy, the vulnerable and charities that helped children. I think that upset her more than the feeling of my blade slipping into her bloated flabby body and piercing her cold cruel heart.

I killed again two weeks later. I was still angry at my former – now ‘late’ – client and needed to take another life to erase the memories of her in my head. None of my other kills had got to me that way that bitch had and I had to do something otherwise I’m sure she would have driven me insane.

Mary-Jane was eighteen; a student at the local university. She was a Goth, I believe the style was called: all black clothing and pale face. I have no idea if she was pretty or not as the make-up effectively served as a mask.

I killed her at a bus shelter near to the uni when I was giving her a light for a cigarette. Although I never smoked in my life I’d learned it was a good idea to carry a lighter anyway. It’s a useful ice-breaker when you want to start-up a conversation with a stranger. As she leaned forward to draw in the flame from my lighter I slipped the blade of my trusty Sabatier between her ribs.

For the first time since I’d murdered my client I slept soundly that night. There was a furore in the ‘papers and in the local news about the ‘senseless killing of a young woman just starting out in life’. The clueless police made pointless and patronising promises to the bereaved family and the population in general that no effort would be spared in their efforts to apprehend the callous killer who stalked their streets.

I had to laugh: ‘stalked their streets’ indeed! If only they knew that the same night I killed Mary-Jane I sat at home with my folks and played gin-rummy and was drinking tea until it was time to go to bed! Besides, I was an opportunist killer; I had not stalked any of my kills. The only exception was my ex-client, but she didn’t count as that was a personal thing.

Bearing in mind, also, that there were over a dozen kills to investigate, the police had not exactly covered themselves in glory to that point. I had expected to be stopped – one way or another – after the first couple. When that heavy-handed knock never came I changed my mind and began to believe that not only would I not be caught, but that I couldn’t be caught. I had been so careful that I had left the forces of the law almost nothing to go on with their investigations.

For a while after Mary-Jane, I didn’t feel the need to kill again for quite some time. There was nothing much in it for me anymore, anyway. I’d killed twelve women and the buzz I had initially got from it wasn‘t there as much anymore. I figured that the old adage about having too much of a good thing was coming into play in a big way so I took the decision to take some time off. I had just turned twenty-four years of age.

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