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  BEHIND THESE WALLS

  BOOK ONE OF THE

  DARK POET TRILOGY

  PAUL ANTHONY WILLIAMS

  Copyright © 2016 Paul Anthony Williams

  KINDLE Edition

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored, in any form or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

  PublishNation, London

  www.publishnation.co.uk

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  There is a place within me, a dark place filled with memories and nightmares...hidden beyond the shadows deep in my mind. These things drive my imagination and they help me devise the ideas for my books. I have come in contact with happy times and such bad times where it has driven me close to contemplating suicide and almost drowned in depression. Nobody can make you prepared for the jaws of depression to clamp down upon you, the only way is to take each moment and day as it comes…and fight to free yourself from its jaws...another way is to wear a mask that hides your true face from those that love you and care for you, though you bring entertainment and a laugh into their lives...they never know or will know the pain that you keep hidden inside of you....

  I began writing ‘Behind These Walls’ in March 2015, and I had just finished my third book in my Dark Clown fantasy series and was planning the fourth in the series, when I happen to find myself doodling in my scrapbook where I was drafting ideas for the projects after completing the fourth book in the fantasy series.

  Then deep in the recess of the darkness where I harbour my most devious thoughts and flashes of memories that I have locked away many years ago...came an idea, well I would say a seed which once I started to doodle and place it upon that scrap book it began to grow, changing and evolving over time until one idea for a book became two then three books. So even as I write this, I am looking towards book two of this trilogy of books.

  And what about the future after this trilogy? Well let’s just say that maybe just maybe a possible return to Neduin and quite possibly it’s other Continents that surround it, plus I have other projects upon that scrap book hidden away amongst the many doodles within it…

  Paul Anthony Williams

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Many thanks to the following:

  Stephen King....for without you I would not have had the passion to become the writer I wish and dream to be...

  Dave and Gwen Morrison...for bringing this special relationship of ours together and bringing my words to paper, I thank you for all your hard work and dedication.

  The Magical Elves of PublishNation.....for creating the magic that brings my books to the public. I am greatly appreciative of your hard work and thank you so much.

  For:

  My dearest friends, and my dear family...

  The ladies and members of the A.P.C.

  “Don’t let the bastards grind you down!!!” Brian Blessed

  “Every book you pick up has its own lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach than the good ones.” Stephen King

  PROLOGUE:

  TWO SIDES OF THE COIN

  Norwich, Norfolk UK 2005

  “Do you see the body?” my voice replied via the mobile phone that was against her ear.

  “Do you see my handiwork...like a painter creating magic with a brush, my brush is my knife.” I replied determined to show her my visions of revenge.

  The young woman stood a few yards away from a body of a middle aged man whose body didn’t touch the floor but was tied between two chairs and tied into position by two medium lengths of thick rope attached his hands and arms to one chair and his legs and feet to the other.

  The throat had been sliced but not too deeply, as the blood dripped aimlessly from the wound upon the body to the floor below, where a vast puddle of drying deep rich blood had rested.

  But the weirdest thing was the knife wound wasn’t the killing blow....that was left to the bullet wound or vast hole to the side of the head, where something was poking from within the hole. The young woman flashed her torch towards the body and saw that it was a bloody paintbrush...the stench of brain matter had entered her nostrils and the aroma of death had entered her system.

  Her torch briefly flickered across some blood splattered upon the wall near the victim. She flashed her torched back towards the bloodstained wall...there was words painted upon the wall with the victim’s own blood and no doubt done by the bloody paintbrush inserted into the victim.

  ‘This old man...he played one...shot him with his own gun....there be guts...there be blood...now this is fun...now my game has begun’. The words sent a shiver down the very soul of her body...what did he mean by this rhyme and was there to be more victims as he put it so smugly ‘now my game has begun’.

  She quickly came to her senses and made short work collecting photographs of the crime scene taking care not to get too close and avoiding stepping into the pool of blood upon the ground.

  When she was done she quickly made her way towards the exit knowing all too well that he would’ve contacted the police and they were no doubt on their way towards her at this very moment. She exited the building just in the nick of time as the echoes of police sirens filled the night air, as she silently and quickly disappeared down a nearby pathway just as a convoy of police vehicles arrived with great urgency.

  The young woman quietly slipped away towards her parked car, just as she got into the car, a vibration from her coat pocket happened....it was her mobile phone and a text message had just come through, she glanced down and saw she had a new message sent to her business email.

  “Don’t be him...please don’t be him.” she muttered to herself knowing all too well that it was him, and no doubt it would be another sarcastic message with hidden meanings.

  She tapped the buttons upon her phone to open the application that opened her email messages. There it was flashing like a constant annoyance on the screen...’you have a new message’. She cautiously opened the new message and began to read the message...

  ‘My dear, it seems you are indeed a resourceful woman...the police will no doubt be dumbstruck to find that they have been left the selective sloppy seconds of the crime scene, but no doubt you have taken all the photos you find fit to take of my handiwork.. But let me introduce myself I am the killer of that man and I plan to kill many others as well, but lets not get ahead of ourselves shall we...you and I share such a sweet bond and I know a secret that needs to be shared, but you will have to play my game...the rules are simple...I will give you the locations of my victims before the stupid police are even aware and within these crime scenes will be clues to my location...all you got to do is catch me. If you do succeed I will promise you three choices but only when I tell you my secret will you have the option to hand me over to the police, let me go, or kill me...the choice will be yours and yours alone. Let the game begin...

  Yours Faithfully

  HAL

  THE DARK POET

  The message chilled her bones as she turned the car on, and made her way towards her apartment to think things through about what had unfolded tonight. Meanwhile back at the crime scene a tired looking de
tective exited the building where the dead body had been found. “Sick fuck, why does this City breed such sick fuckers.” muttered the detective to himself, he began to light up a cigarette to try and clear his thoughts and the smell of death from his senses. “Hey boss! What’s the deal then.” replied a younger detective who had just arrived at the scene.

  “Hey Pat, some sick fucking freak sliced open the vic, but then as he was bleeding out he shot the vic in the head.” replied the older detective, “Body’s on way to the morgue, go find out what the Doc finds will ya!” asked the older detective towards the younger detective.

  “Sure no problem boss!” the younger detective replied as he got back into his car and began the journey towards the morgue.

  Sam Mallows had been a detective for the Norfolk Metropolitan Police for the last ten years, and had started as a normal beat copper and was now one of the most experienced homicide detectives in the force for the Norfolk area. He inhaled upon the cigarette letting the deep relaxing fumes trickle down his throat before exhaling the smoke into the night air, as a voice inside himself whispered that this was just the start of things to come....

  Misty Eyes Asylum Facility, Norfolk UK 2015

  It was a dark stormy night, as the car with it’s medium headlights glimmered into the car park outside the Facility. The driver gently parked as near to the entrance as possible, so they could reach the entrance without getting too soaked by the raging storm outside the car. The driver of the car was a woman, who was wearing a combined blouse and female suit and skirt.

  It was a dark blue in colour affair with the only thing that look distasteful was the laminated press badge attached to the pocket of the suit jacket. Her medium length brunette hair just about reached her shoulders as she cleaned her glasses, even though the falling raindrops would no doubt splatter upon them as soon as she left her car.

  The woman reached down underneath the passenger seat and pulled out her bag which contained everything that she required for her meeting. She left the car and locked it behind her as she quickly made her way towards the entrance of the Facility as the rain continued to bale down from the heaven’s above. She managed to reach the safety of the entrance with barely a touch of rain upon her suit jacket or skirt.

  She pressed the button upon the wall which was a kind of intercom device upon the wall. After a short few seconds a rough grumbling voice rasped onto the intercom, “Yes can I help you.” the grumbling voice spoke as it crackled through the intercom.

  “I’m a reporter from the Norfolk Herald, I am here to interview the killer known as The Dark Poet.” the young woman replied through the awkward placed intercom.

  “Oh yeah we been expecting you...wait a moment and I will buzz you in.” the grumbling voice replied as after a few seconds a metallic buzz entered the woman’s ears as a large clunk happened and the entrance to the Facility slowly opened before her.

  She entered the dull grey building as the hallowing features stared back out into the darkness of the night, the only lights were the strategically placed ones that were pointing back at the building that illuminated it from the darkness where it stood. In every direction from the Facility lay the vast Norfolk Broads, sweeping moorland and sea upon sea of lavender, that grew in abundance over the many passing years.

  The woman stepped into a long dark corridor and a light illuminated a door on the opposite side of the corridor, then a large clunk rippled through the air as one by one, the corridor’s lights started to come on, lighting up her path towards the far door.

  She began to walk down the corridor towards the very door that would lead her to one of the most notorious murderers of that age, she stopped just outside the door, her hands shaking with a mixture of excitement and fear as she took a deep breath in and grasped the door handle and with one final exhale of breath she entered the room beyond the door, closing it tightly behind her...

  Chapter One: The First Kill

  The room was a mixture of shadows and dim light...the shadows were fixed mainly to the four corners of the room and the dim light came from what the woman could tell was a 40 amp lightbulb glimmering upon a table with two chairs either side. The woman stared into the shadows where the opposite chair was placed...it was taken as a pair of black trousered legs poked from the shadows, where shackles were tightly chained to what looked like fixed hooks attached to the wall...a deep calming voice came from the shadows towards her direction..

  “Please my dear...take a seat and rest those pretty little legs of yours. And when you are ready...we can begin.” the voice chuckled that seemed to make the young woman feel a mixture of worry but also something felt warming within the voice as she slowly placed her bottom upon the vacant chair at the table. She hadn’t realised her skirt had risen up to reveal a rather large portion of leg to her opposite number.

  My eyes had noticed the fine looking pins that briefly flickered before me, something had intrigued me with this woman as she had walked through the door, and even as the clock upon the wall clicked over to 7:00pm which at this god forsaken time in the evening was hours later when visiting time finished at 3:00pm in the afternoon...no this smelt like the work of that devious bastard of a Warden. No doubt another quick easy cash making scheme from the Warden trying to use my celebrity status to fill the deep pockets of his trousers. This had been only the start of the sessions with various reporters, and hacks looking for juicy interview tit bits to put in their daily rags they call newspapers.

  But this woman...this young lady who had entered my domain intrigued me...sure she wasn’t the first female reporter to indulge me and my memories. But the last time a female reporter had played my game...it didn’t end well for her. Still this young lady has an opportunity to entertain me as I sit shackled for her protection. “Can I ask you some questions?” the woman asked towards me, a slight nervous streak flashed across her face. And then as I glanced across her soft tender neck I saw it...

  “Why of course...anything for you my dear, oh and no doubt our lovely spectators tonight.” I replied smugly glancing towards the large mirror on the wall, which was a one way mirror that no doubt the Warden was grimacing behind with that stupid face of his, and no doubt watching my every movement or gesture towards this young lady before me.

  “I think we need to get introductions over with so we are at a level playing field from the off.” the woman replied as my eyes returned to her soft tender eyes...so soft and tender I could rip them from the sockets and suck upon them taking in every sweet juicy flavour.

  “Yes..of course yes, forgive my abruptness my dear. Please ladies first.” I replied courteously towards her.

  “My name is Michelle Banks and I am a reporter for the Norfolk Herald and at the Warden’s request and invitation have come to interview you and talk about your crimes that have placed you in this Facility.” Michelle calmly spoke towards the figure sitting opposite her within the shadows shackled to the wall.

  “Well then Miss Banks....or my I call you Michelle?” I asked courteously towards her, “Michelle fine...”she replied warmly towards me, though with a slight nervous tone hidden within it...

  “Well then my name is the killer known simply as THE DARK POET, but you may call me Hal and I have taken so many lives that there are so many juicy memories that I simply cannot choose a favourite...I have murdered men, and women and there are so many yet to kill on my list....ain’t that right Warden!” I replied smugly once more looking straight through the one way mirror and no doubt straight into those beady eyes of the Warden.

  I could taste the hatred in his eyes, staring viscously back at mine...a smile formed in the corner of my mouth...just a little smirk....just enough to rile the Warden up that little bit more. “Shall we begin then?” Michelle spoke tenderly to bring my eyes to meet back with hers, “Yes let us begin...why not ask me a question my dear.”I replied back at her.

  “Why not tell me about the first murder from 2005...the killing of a High Court Judge.”Michelle spoke quiet
ly towards me.

  I chuckled with great jest as the memories began to flood back to me like a raging river, I leant forward so my face became uncovered from the safety of the shadows. My glasses glinting off the dim light above us, as I sat wearing the green hooded sweater and black jeans, but Michelle could see for the first time the light blue eyes behind the glasses upon my face and the smile that span from ear to ear.

  “The first murder?...oh my dear he was never the first death by my hands, though I would be lying if I said that it wasn’t personal to me...oh yes very personal indeed.”I replied correcting the young lady in her inquiries. “No the first was many years ago...and that was the woman if I may call her that of a Mrs. Hackett, who was by all means who saw her as a dear little old lady whose husband died in the war and now lived life with her litter of cats.