Crime After Crime Read online

  Originally, my family weren’t church-going folks until after we moved to the new house.

  What! You think I’m making excuses for my behaviour. Let me tell you, lady you’ve got it so wrong!

  With pride, Mum told me, “We’re God-fearing people, Aaron. I want everyone to know we’re living the way the Good Lord expects us to live.”

  And Lord, didn’t I know it.

  Every day and night, she made me get down on my knees and pray. Just a quick prayer for world peace wasn’t good enough for my mum. No, she had a long list of things we had to pray for, and last on that list was my dear old dad. I did wonder whether she hoped he’d return, but I knew that was impossible. She was fond of telling me, “No matter what you do, my son, God will always forgive you and wash away your sins.” I felt she had some funny ideas about God and his infinite powers. Telling me ‘He’ worked in mysterious ways, as if I believed in all that shit. I suppose I was about twelve when I realised I wasn’t like other boys.

  God, I could do with a drink, right now. Do you want one?

  I can see you’re surprised that I’ve got a secret stash. You’d be amazed to know how we inmates manage to get things brought in here. This isn’t a prison, you know. Though, I prefer my whiskey in a glass to a plastic beaker.

  You say I shouldn’t drink as it brings out the worst in me. That’s something else my mother would’ve agreed with you on, “The devil’s brew that’s what drink is!” she would holler at my father. So I guess it’s lucky, she’s not here, with us then.

  Whiskey was my dear old dad’s favourite tipple, but Mum never let him enjoy it in peace. I raise my glass to him and hope he’s found the peace he craved for so much. He’d spend most of his time out in the woods rather than at home with us. We were lucky, I suppose, where we lived. Surrounded on three sides by trees, our house once belonged to Mum’s family. It stood at the end of an old farm track, overlooking a large lake. I remember, with perfect clarity, when we first drove up the winding drive the day after Mum received the keys to her inheritance. Dad was over the moon at the sight of the lake. He thought every day would be a fishing day for him now that they had a good bit of money tucked away for a rainy day. Dad hoped he could reduce his working hours and finally start to enjoy his life once more, but Mum had other plans. All too soon he realised he wasn’t going to live his dream, but pay for ours.

  He began to skulk out of the house, through the garden, and then out into the woods. Sometimes, unbeknown to him, I would follow him like a ghost. It soon became my favourite game. Laughing to myself, I would hide among the undergrowth unseen and unheard. From there, I could see the look of fear growing in his tired eyes as he stumbled and staggered through the wood, occasionally glancing back over his shoulder, trying to see who or what was following him.

  Deep within the woods, he had built himself a sanctuary in the shape of a log cabin. Here he had all he needed. In one corner of the hut, stood a small, old pot-belly stove in which Dad burnt the magazines and books Mum never allowed into the house. These weren’t even the sort of magazines other people would see as being unsuitable reading material.

  The change in my mother was staggering since we moved to the house; she discarded almost everything from our past life. The old armchair in Dad’s bolt-hole had always been his, but now it wasn’t good enough for our new house. Within his cabin, he read his forbidden books and magazines while slowly getting drunk, some nights he wouldn’t even bother coming home. Shutting the door, he would sleep it off there until the early morning when he took a swim in the lake before returning home to a hearty breakfast. On my father’s good days, he would get me to help him to cut logs for our fires and for selling as Dad had found the means of becoming his own boss, supporting us, and escaping the rat race. He would allow me to cut kindling for the kitchen stove. Watching me, with pride, he would smile and say what a good lad I was, which would make me smile back at him. The smell of the wood excited me almost as much as the weight of the axe in my hand and as for the sound of the axe slicing through the wood… thwack… made my mouth go dry, and as for what happened next… sweet, sweet… No, I must keep to my story. It’s important to me, that I tell you in sequence so you can understand it all.

  I always thought we were a close family. There was the three of us Dad, Mum, and me. Our perfect world, Mum called it as she took me up to my bed and tucked me in for the night. We never needed anyone else, but somehow moving to the new house changed everything. It saddens me to look back now, and remember all I’ve lost because of the move to that unforgiving house.

  Yes, unforgiving.

  Who said, a house couldn’t be called unforgiving. Look lady, I don’t have much time, so do you want to hear what I’ve got to say, or do you want to go now? It’s up to you.

  Right, back to the house, it is then. It was large and Gothic. The sort of house the writer, Stephen King adored, all dark and brooding. The sort of place that had a dark soul lurking within its eye-like windows, which had stood for centuries, watching and waiting as life’s imperfections unfolded within its rooms and grounds. If the outside looked unwelcoming, then the inside was even less so. My dearly departed great aunt Livinia seemed to have adored everything morbid and depressing. The rooms seemed to close in and gave off sombre feelings. Every room was full of stuffed animals and birds as well as dark, heavy furniture, which made you feel like you were walking into a mausoleum instead of a house. It sucked the very life out of your bones, even my dad commented on it at the time, “Good God, Mary, I feel like I’ve come here to die. Well, I suppose once we get rid of those heavy old velvet curtains and you’ve put your magic touch to the house. It will feel less like our final resting place, and more like heaven on earth.”

  Mum smiled her beautiful smile, rolled her sleeves up and started to clean the old kitchen. As the days passed, the house began to shine. The smell of fresh paint filled the place along with our happiness. I’m not sure, what brought about the change to my happy childhood. I was more than happy to be the centre of my parent’s world and remember so clearly the closeness I had with my father. How he used to ruffle my hair as he passed me by while I sat reading my comic or watching telly. That reminds me: Mum took exception to the television and suddenly didn’t like us having one in the house. “What the hell’s wrong with the telly, woman? A man’s got to have some way of relaxing when he comes home after a hard day grafting,” Dad shouted at her after finding her smashing up another set after he’d just replaced the last one.

  I blamed my parents for what has happened to me, or was it the rat?

  What do you think, Lady?

  Oh, haven’t I told you about the rat.

  Well, if you’re sitting comfortably then I shall begin. Once upon a time… that’s so funny… are you sitting comfortably?

  Anyway, about the rat. I was four at the time. Mum was busy painting, and dad, I think he may have been at work. I was happily wandering around when I heard a low pitiful, squeaking sound followed by a sort of clunk clunk noise in one of the outbuildings. So I went in to investigate. There in the centre of the floor was a big, brown rat, with horrid, yellow teeth, and a rattrap caught on its tail. It seemed so small and pathetic.

  It was so funny I nearly wet myself laughing. Trapped between two large petrol cans, it couldn’t go forward or backwards nor could it get to its tail to chew through it to release itself.

  Can you imagine chewing through your own leg or wrist to free yourself, lady?

  Hmm, I quite like the idea of watching someone so desperate to make such a choice.

  Ha, if you could see your face now, it’s a real picture.

  Anyway, back to the rat. I poked it with a stick and it squealed. The sound was amazing. It made me buzz with energy. For once I was in control. It twisted and turned, clanking the trap against the side of the cans, but it wasn’t going anywhere. It even tried going up the side of the cans, but the trap stopped and held it fast. Every time it stopped trying to escape and lay panti
ng, I poked it again, sending it into a frenzy. It snarled and squealed madly. I felt liberated and free as young as I was. I had a sense of overwhelming power. And the fun was unbelievable.

  After that, none of my other silly toys gave me as much pleasure as tormenting the rat did. I looked around for something else to poke it with as it kept gnawing at my stick. It bled from its mouth. The droplets of blood covered the cans and soaked its fur. In the end, I found my father’s screwdriver and poked it as hard as I could. The blade slipped into it as a jet of hot blood shot out and covered my hand. The rat lay on its side twitching until it moved no more. Picking it up by the trap, I carried it outside and tossed it and the screwdriver into the stream before washing my hands.

  Hmm, the rat, it’s funny how when I look back everything seems so normal to me, but you, you make it seem so different.

  Shall I go on?

  One day, my parents had a bright idea to get me a puppy. They had some silly dreams of seeing me playing with a dog, of us going off together to explore the woods, just that silly little dog and me. Me, I had some plans of my own to play with that large, floppy-eared, doe-eyed pup. Lying in my bed early one morning my first thoughts was how to make the pleasure last longer than it had with the rat. As I lay thinking about it, my mouth and nose filled with the sweet taste of blood. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t drink the blood, that’s too disgusting. It’s the smell of it, it gets into your nose, and throat until you can taste it in your mouth. It’s like the smell of fish and chips, it drives you crazy, and makes you want to go and buy some.

  It’s funny thinking about that stupid dog now. It was as if the mutt knew what I was going to do to it. It hid from me when I came down that morning. After breakfast, it took me an hour to find it. In the end, Dad brought it to me. He laughed at me and said, “I don’t know what’s wrong with the poor little thing, but it was pining for you.” He handed its lead to me, and then ruffled my hair before turning and heading back indoors. He called back over his shoulder as he went, “Have a great day, my son, but don’t be late home. You know, how your mother worries about you.”

  I could see fear in that mutt’s eyes as though it could read my mind. It twisted and turned on its lead as though it would rather strangle itself than to let me have my fun.

  Hey, lady I can see that same look in your eyes. Not to worry, I haven’t finished my story yet.

  What I can’t understand is why my parents couldn’t see that I was happy being on my own. Anyway, things came to a head when my baby brother, Pete, died. After that, Mum went to pieces.

  Why was she so upset? I mean – she still had me.

  I was six at the time. Mum was busy in the kitchen cooking our dinner and Dad lay stretched out in the parlour with the telly on loud, when Pete started to bawl. Mum had only just fed him, and it was time for his nap, so she shouted to Dad to look at him for her. I heard Dad shout something back, but Mum didn’t hear him. So I crept along the hallway to his nursery and pushed the door open.

  Mum regularly told me how lucky I was to have a baby brother. I couldn’t see it myself. But she insisted I would enjoy taking him fishing when he was old enough. She even said, I would never be lonely again. I never saw myself as being lonely with just the three of us. As though, I wanted to take him with me while I went out to play my games. I hated him. I liked being on my own, to be able to play my special games whenever I wanted to. What fun could I have with a shitty little baby? I had one game I wanted to play with him, but I knew I had to wait until the right time.

  And, this was that time. As I stepped into the room, he started to whimper like the puppy with its lead pulled too tight and then I saw that same puppy look in my baby brother’s eyes. It was as though all the wisdom in the world was born within him but he couldn’t use it until he grew up enough to understand the words to call out for help. His eyes seemed to follow me around the room as though he understood quite clearly what I was about to do to him. Was he able to read my mind, I wondered? Well, if he could make them understand just what he wanted by crying and stopping them from doing what they wanted to do, then to me, it seemed I should be the one to set them free from his control. After all four was too many.

  * * *

  There was no fun in it; it was far too easy, and far too clean. I held his stupid brown teddy bear; the one Mum said I had brought for him, when he first came into our house, to his wet, whimpering face. After a moment, he stopped moving. Using the stool, I placed it back on the shelf where Mother said he could see it. Of course, I always put things back as I find them, well, almost everything, apart from the crying baby.

  I closed the door behind me and went back to my room. Soon Mum called us to the dinner table. She had dished ours up while she went to see to Pete. Her scream sometimes haunts me during the night, especially when I don’t have a good kill. It’s the sort of scream which travels through your body and tears at your soul. It’s a scream which tells you someone or something was dying inside. There isn’t any escape from the hell they’ve found themselves in and everyone around must hear their pain and share in their suffering.

  Covering my ears, I tried to shut it out. I couldn’t understand why she was screaming, hadn’t I shut the bloody thing up. After all that’s what Dad had said when Mum had called to him. “Can’t you shut the kid up? I’m trying to watch the telly.”

  The police came, then the ambulance. The house seemed to suck everyone in, until it was full of people asking questions. I thought about the rat, when I saw Pete’s white coffin carried out. Everyone called me, the poor little mite, and was nice to me, trying to make me smile by ruffling my hair. A woman kindly asked me if I helped my mummy to look after the baby. I said, “Mummy did not like me touching the new baby. She said I played too rough, but I’m good at playing on my own.”

  A puzzled look crossed her face, and then she scribbled something in her notebook. I smiled at her and she hugged me, telling me not to worry, Pete had gone to a better place. I couldn’t see that myself, but I didn’t tell her that. Suddenly, I felt uneasy about everything. I decided I did not like this game anymore and I wasn’t going to play.

  Pete’s death unhinged my mother. She blamed herself for not going to check on him when he stopped crying, she’d already started to blame Dad for watching too much telly and not spending enough time with his children. The police hadn’t made it any easier for them as a child’s death always pointed the finger of suspicion at the parents first. Later there was talk about Mum not being fit enough to look after me either.

  Mum started to take me to church after Pete’s death. In the church was a statue of the suffering Christ. He stared down at me every Sunday, his arms outstretched and blood soaked hands. Mother told me it wasn’t blood, but the sins of the world. But I knew it was just red paint. I adored the statue’s face with its look of pure agony. It was the same look, I saw on my father’s face as I brought down the axe.… Thwack… and took off his hand. From his kneeling position, he crumpled and stared up at me with the same questioning look of why, as though he saw someone other than me standing over him. Oh, how richly the bright, red blood sparkled in the afternoon sun, and flowed like the stream after the heavy, summer rain.

  It’s funny, how the little things stick in your mind.

  My father’s hand lay where it fell and within its palm, a pool of blood gathered. His wedding ring glistened with a ring of blood as his life force ebbed away from him. I don’t know why, but I’d thought it would’ve lain there twitching like the rat and the puppy after I’d ripped its throat out. I even wondered if Pete would’ve done the same.

  Dad moaned softly and held on to his bleeding wrist as he begged for help. Taking the axe, I began to hack at his throat. At first, he raised his good hand in a feeble protest, but I ignored him, closing my eyes I continued to hack at him. When I stopped and stepped back to look at my handy work, I was pleased and excited. It was much better than the rat and even the dog. I remembered what the vicar had said in the Sunday
service about seeing the light. Well, I could honestly say at that point in my life. I had seen the light, I was ten and this was the best game ever.

  I had made a bit of a mess, but that didn’t bother me. Dad was fond of saying how good I was at tidying up after I had been playing. Even though we were deep within the woods, I didn’t think it was a good idea just to leave Dad lying about. Most of all, it looked untidy. I was, as Dad said, a bit on the scrawny side. He liked to tell Mum that I needed building up, which is why he brought me here to chop wood with him.

  Standing in the fading afternoon light, I looked about for a way to tidy up my mess. I wasn’t strong enough to dig a hole or to drag Dad to the lake. I began to laugh when the idea hit me. Mohammed may have gone to the mountain, but I wasn’t about to, I was far smarter than that, I brought it to me. After rolling Dad a couple of feet up against the log pile, I began to cover him in logs.

  There was only one time Mum had come to the woods to see what Dad was going on about when he told her about his plans to make and sell charcoal and other by products from the woods. She had commented about Dad’s log pile then, saying there was more than enough to last us a lifetime. In Dad’s case, she was right.

  All through the Church services, I would stare at the statue. My dear mum dreamt of me becoming a priest because she thought I understood Christ’s suffering. She liked to tell the congregation that it was a painting, which hung in my bedroom, set me on my road to Damascus. I laughed behind her back. Oh yes, I had found enlightenment from the painting especially when the moonlight shone through the gap in my curtains and highlighted the pained face of Christ. It aroused such excitement in me; at first, I was too young to understand the pleasure I found when I woke to see his suffering and pained expression. All I knew was I liked it a lot.