The Swap Skills Killer Page 3

  “No Jake he grimaced, it’s not possible, it’s really important, get down here now, and you will see why when you get here or I will be doing some ass kicking,” he barked down the phone grumpily.

  Jake turned to Amelia, drawing his lower lip between his teeth, “Sorry Amelia, to spoil our crappy as it is lunch, but we’ve got to go. There has been a body found in a ditch off the Horncastle Road, and I have to get to the SOC to hold and question the witness. Oliver Blackwell has called me in and he says he needs me so it must be important, I don’t know why, he would normally have called one of the other uniforms in if I were busy and he knows we are out for lunch. It just seems a bit strange, and he isn’t his usual self.”

  Fortunately, Lawrence had missed this snippet of information as he had scurried to the bar to get himself a drink, when he got back they were gone, much to his disappointment.

  CHAPTER 4

  A few days earlier

  Penny was glad to get in the van and go with him to look at some of his swap jobs as he sounded an amazing man, very trustworthy and friendly. She was quite lonely when Jeremy was away from home and a bit of flirting does not hurt, just harmless fun for a bored housewife. He was not as distinguished as she imagined he was over the phone. Just the average looking bloke, dressed for work, not bad looking for an older man, mousey brown hair, grey blue eyes, but one hell of a nose, maybe done a few bouts of boxing in his younger years.

  She liked his stimulating conversation, and Jeremy would be delighted that she had the tiling job completed without him having to fork a penny out. He was a lovely man, a good husband, but one of his flaws was that he was as tight as a ducks arse. She had a struggle getting major repairs or small jobs done as he said they had to stick to their monthly budgets, and he would even give her grief about being frivolous.

  The man on the Swap Site was willing to undertake the tiling work in her kitchen in exchange for a bit of general cleaning around his house. This was to serve his wife as she was in her last weeks of pregnancy, lacking energy or the enthusiasm to get on with the cleaning. She was struggling to live with the fact that the house was a real mess, and it was getting her down. However, like he said, he doesn’t do cleaning, he can cook and organise the meals, and anyway, when he did do the household chores she complained that he didn’t put enough effort into the job.

  When somebody states that they can show you three separate tiling jobs that they have swapped with others, she was jubilant and jumped at the opportunity to meet up for a coffee and see his handy work.

  “OK, I’ve brought my camera to take some pictures, to show my husband when he comes back, but if I’m moved by your work I’ll hardly need to ask my husband you can go ahead with it. My husband’s away on a sales course in connection with his work for the next few days.” Penny exclaimed.

  “That’s very uplifting, that gives me a few days to play around with you, with my special mind game questions, before anyone realizes you are missing. What a shame you will not see my fictional pregnant wife or view my imaginary tiling work. Nevertheless, I can show you a very nice hidey hole, where I can demonstrate my torture tools. I don’t have to worry about you being too clever, because I am the presenter of the show and under my terms I always win.”

  “That’s OK love, whatever you want to do, is fine with me,” he said smiling.

  He hurriedly drove around the corner and turned again onto a country lane, which led off onto a little dirt track road. How wonderful it was to see the deep dark furrows of soil with the seed trays standing by waiting for planting when the farmers came back from lunch.

  The air smelled of manure, as if the local farmer’s had been muck spreading, and it made her nose twitch. He told her they had a five minute drive and this was his first appointment of the three, and this one was a delightful little farmhouse kitchen he had tiled. He rhapsodized that the woman of the house generously fed him with loads of goodies such as ploughman’s lunch and old-fashioned tea bread to follow. He let slip that his wife played merry hell with him when he took his lunch box home with his egg sandwiches in. He forgot, normally he would throw them away on the way home if he had eaten something different for lunch.

  Before long they pulled up outside the farmhouse with fenced off green pastures, a knocked together chicken pen with dry, dusty floor with a few chickens and a cockerel scratching at the earth. She saw that the door to the farmhouse, which looked a bit tumble-down, had chipped and flaking paintwork, showing a rusty red colour underneath. In fact, the whole building could have done with a spruce up or a bit of tender loving care, as her husband would say.

  She stepped out of the van letting the fresh country air envelope her as she strolled cautiously up to the door. At the back of her mind, she had warning signals, and a tingling up her spine, as if something was not quite right but she could not put her finger on it. Abruptly fear manifested itself; she was thinking ‘Danger’. Who would be silly enough to get in a van with a complete stranger and have them drive them to a farmhouse along a quiet country lane, only someone stupid! Nevertheless, before she had time to shift her mind and realize she was in peril and tailspin around, she heard a loud grunt. She half turned to the sound just as he picked up a crowbar, that had been strategically set along the garden wall, and came at her and whacked her on the head, and she fell to the earth unconscious.

  He then dragged her by her hair into the barn, opened a hatch in the floor, and threw her down there. He then decided to go indoors and make himself a cup of tea and a spot of lunch to give him some energy for the games and activities he envisaged them playing when she came around.

  His lunch consisted of a ploughman’s; slice of ham, chunk of cheese, a slice of pork pie, boiled egg and sweet pickle and usually any cold cuts he had left from Sunday lunch and he mashed himself a cup of strong tea to rinse it all down. He was feeling generous and plated his victim a Ploughman’s too. He reckoned that if those convicts on Death Row in America got a last meal, the least he could do was feed his victims a meal, besides it gave them a bit more energy to cope with the torture.

  Sometime later, and on a full belly, he decided to go see the woman. He lifted the hatch, clink, clunk, clang, and clambered down the wooden ladders, but she was nowhere around.

  “You had better come out now if you know what’s good for you. I have plated you up some Ploughman’s lunch and a nice refreshing cup of tea. I would come out if I was you, it may be your last meal, and you wouldn’t desire to lose that privilege would you.”

  “Fuck off you crazy bastard, you’re nuts, first you hit me on the head and then you make me something to eat, what are you a flipping psychopath. I’ve learned of your sort before, a right fruit loop you are, is your mother nuts too, they say madness runs in the family?”

  “Get out here now and eat this, I want to talk,” he bellowed aggressively.

  She recognized that she bore no other choice than to go out and face the maniac, as she didn’t want any backlash from him. She had to keep in with him, try to become his friend, as she had seen on some of these kidnapping films and when reading thriller books. They called it the Stockholm syndrome she thought, where they empathize with the killer, pretend to be friends to keep themselves alive and out of jeopardy.

  “OK as long as you leave me alone and let me have the food and drink, and clean myself up, then we can talk and get to know each other better. I would like that, wouldn’t you?”

  She furtively stepped out and stumbled up to him, sweat and blood running down her forehead into her eyes. He thrust her down onto the straw and shackled one wrist to a large steel ring on the floor. He gave her the cup of tea and a plate of ploughman’s. She gobbled it, as if it were her last meal; little did she know that it was.

  The room was dark, with no lighting but battery lights, obviously charged by a generator and it appeared dark and gloomy. It had signs of rodents with the rank smell, and you could hear the scurrying in the background. The pungent smell of stale paint, coming from half o
pened tins with thick skins on them, and containers with thinners and oily rags. There were buckets of stale water, which the rats were probably living on, and piles of blood stained clothes piled up in one corner, the smell so bad it was putting her off eating.

  Her eyes darted round the room whilst she was eating to see if there was any chance of escape, but she realised that she had to get past him to get to the ladders, and there was no other natural light, so obviously no other exits.

  The food tasted like dried oats going down, there was no saliva left in her mouth. She took a sip of her tea and considered throwing it at him but that would only make him more annoyed. He just appeared normal; Thank God, he was only a kidnapper. He could not be a killer; killers look weird and menacing surely. He just looked like the average fifty year old, that people would not give a second glance at in the street.

  “Now you’ve eaten your food it is time for us to talk, as its part of the game, and I like games, especially scary ones. My mother always played them sort of games with me, and I nearly always got the answers correct.”

  “What questions do you want to ask because I can tell you now; if you want money you have not done your homework very well because we have no money. We can hardly scrape enough money together to pay the mortgage and bills. Damn it, and there was I was thinking I would get my kitchen tiled before Jeremy got home!”

  “I think that is the least of your worries at the moment, you silly girl. I do not want money; I wish to know what your fears are. There is no greater feeling than having the power over another person to make them suffer pain and not being able to do anything about it. A man can have the ultimate power. Your suffering gives me the thrill of my life and sexual pleasure. Now what do you think?” he said with a depraved laugh.

  “Well, I can tell you now, I am not playing any of your sick games, and you must be mental to think I would, so you can damn well release me now, you sick fuck.”

  Her stroppiness infuriated him. He went over to a table and picked up a pair of pliers and some nippers, and squatted in front of her, with a demented laugh, continuously waving the pliers in front of her face.

  “Right you brazen hussy. What if I were to cut off your fingers, one by one, or perhaps your ears. I am going to torture you, then stab you twice in the heart, rape you repeatedly till I’ve had my fill, then I am going to slice you into nice steak size pieces and eat you over the week.”

  Ha, Ha, Ha, eating her was a bit of a lie but the look of terror on her face when I said I was going to chop her into steaks and eat her was awesome. I am not into cannibalism; I pass on that legacy for the real sickies. It’s the thrill of saying it aloud, threatening it, and the fear it sends out to break them down.

  She thought to herself, could he be a killer.

  He had to be kidding about eating her.

  Were they blood stains on the floor?

  Why were there bloodstained clothes in the corner?

  Had he killed someone here?

  Maybe he was just scaring her to make a ransom call.

  She was trembling with dread of what was about to happen.

  Her heart was beating so fast she thought she would die.

  He was feeding off her fear, and the pleasure of her terror he was getting off on big time, and he could feel his manhood hardening at the pleasure of what was forthcoming.

  “You dirty cow. You are all the same in your sleazy short skirts, you’re shameless, no self-respect. There will be nothing left for your family to bury. You will never see your family again. My eyes will be the last thing you see. I detest you, like all other women, they are filth and don’t deserve to be on this earth, those words you can ponder on and take to your grave.”

  He saw the look of terror in her eyes and he continued to taunt her by opening and closing the nippers making a gnashing sound. She placed her hand over the ears to shut out his voice as he sounded demented and he was making her feel sick. Penny would do this as a child and sing La, la, La, repeatedly to make the noise go away.

  He went across to the shelf and turned an old radio on loud, and dragged a plastic apron off a hook on the wall, and shimmied his way back and stood in front of her posing in his apron. Funnily enough, it had a man’s body in kinky leather gear on it, very appropriate for the job in hand.

  He sank down onto a stool opposite her, leaned over, and began to ask questions. Whatever question he asked her, the answer was wrong and he would say “nah, nah, nah, nah, nah – wrong answer”, then leaned over, and nipped at her. It was mental torture because she knew she had the correct answer, as they were easy general knowledge questions, such as ‘What is the currency of Spain? Obviously the Euro.’ He would ask another question, she would answer, and he would say wrong answer and snip at her again. She knew what was coming every time he asked her a question, and the terror in her eyes showed that she was teetering on the edge of madness.

  She let out bloodcurdling screams, but no one could hear her. She continually begged for mercy, and kept on asking him to let her go and she would not tell a soul.

  When he got bored of the pliers, he told her he was going to take the questions to a higher level, and the questions were too hard and were on specific topics like on ‘Mastermind’ and she could not answer correctly as she had not read that author’s books. He would ask the questions, say they were wrong, and start twisting her skin with the nippers, causing excruciating pain, bruising and deep welts with squishy blood and bits of skin seeping out of them. It was all mind games, getting to their minds, driving them crazy.

  She was terrified, screamed, and howled, but no one heard her; the blood running down her face mixed with the tears that poured down her neck made her look horrific. The more she screamed the more he became shaken up, and before long, he was in an absolute frenzy, but he did not want the fun to end too quickly. He was in charge and had the ultimate power to command, and he would cause the torture his way; he was the Master, she was the Slave.

  A short time afterwards, he believed it to be time to polish her off as she had lost the fight and it seemed she had accepted her fate. It wasn’t fun anymore so he decided to kill her so that he could have sex with her. He had experienced the joy of her mental torment and terror now it was time for the physical pleasure, but he preferred them dead as he could not be bothered with the fighting and struggling. He seized the knife and without hesitation or feeling, as if she has been merely an object in his path, he stabbed her twice through the heart. The worst part was yet to come, but at least she would not see it. Penny Hammond was dead.

  As he got out of the car and dragged her to the dump spot, he reflected that there was nothing better to get his juices flowing than the smell of a fresh kill. He could taste their fear when they peered into his dark, fathomless eyes and at that level, they knew deep inside that this would be the last sight they would ever see, and that made him feel important. He always put on his best sadistic smile for the young women. Oh, it was so good to be back on home soil.

  He sang as he waltzed off, and turned it over in his mind, that it was another task well performed.

  CHAPTER 5

  Jake saw the blue lights flashing ahead as they pulled up, got out of his car, went to the boot and got out their wellies. The sky was a blanket of dark clouds. It was raining heavy as they climbed over the barrier and scuffled down to the crime scene, wet grass and weeds slid up their legs as they clambered down the banking.

  When they got closer they saw the SOC tent was pitched and a WPC was struggling to hold a large twisted branch, shoving it up on the inside of the tent as the rain was gathering on top and forming a huge puddle, which threatening to engulf the crime scene at any time. A lorry pulled up in front of their car with generator and lighting, the man got out of the lorry cursing at the weather.

  Soon it would look like aliens had landed to the local households. They would be out like flies looking to rubberneck at what was going on, and the Press would follow. He could not wait to see Lawrence Evans from
the Lincolnshire Herald. What would his waterproof outerwear be like for this season? It was bad enough seeing him with his brightly coloured golfing umbrella using it as a walking stick when he went to Court the previous week. The judge could not keep his eyes off him, eyes drawn to him like a magnet with iron filings. If it were he who was on trial in Court, that particular judge would have sent him down for the crime of what he was wearing.

  The blue and white tape sealed the crime; the forensic team were in their white paper boiler suits and were on the job already. They were scurrying round like ants feeding on the evidence before the rain-washed it all away. The crime scene photographer packed away his kit, and gave Jake a polite nod as he climbed over the crash barrier.

  Jake went to collect sets of protective clothing, so as not to contaminate the scene, when Oliver bellowed to him to wait and pulled him to one side. Whilst Jake was getting into his giant baby-grow Oliver explained that he did not want him at the scene just yet and asked for a quiet word with him.

  “Wait there a second Amelia, here’s your bunny suit, throw it on whilst I go see DSupt. Blackwell. He wants a private word, be back in a minute, I hope. I don’t think I’ve done anything to aggravate him lately.”

  Oliver’s expression dulled, and at that point Jake knew that there was something amiss.

  “Jake, look mate I’m not sure about this because I have not seen her for a long time, but I think that it’s your brother’s wife. What’s her name Jenny or Penny? I hope for your brother’s sake, I’m wrong, and I’m sorry if I’ve made a mistake and it’s not her and got you worked up for nothing.”

  When he heard the news, he was stunned, turned a funny shade of green, and had a sudden urge to flee; he couldn’t cope with a crisis straight after lunch. This was a nightmare and he was scared and apprehensive of what he was about to discover.