Page 102 of M for Murder

He had decided that he wouldn’t see his mother face to face until he had completed the killings. Then he would be able to tell her of his achievement and she would finally love him, absolved from his guilt, the way he had always wanted her to. Now, with news of her death, he didn’t feel love. Only anger. Anger at how she had denied him in life and anger that she had died before he had the chance to complete the alphabet. For a while he stopped killing the students, seeing no point in continuing. Eventually he realised that his pain was not going to go away and that he needed to kill, if not for his mother, for himself.

He suspected that Clifford knew what he was doing. Although the Alphabet Killings were headline news and the focal point of every conversation, his brother never said anything, and it was almost as though the subject was taboo. It didn’t matter if Clifford knew. Rodney was sure that his brother understood his reasons and would never go to the police. He even took to killing the occasional victim in his cellar workshop while his brother was upstairs in the house.

One such victim was Jennifer Isaac. An English student who, together with her best friend, flirted and joked her way through her classes, never paying attention and having the nerve to not take the killings seriously.

He went after her on a Saturday, knocking her unconscious in one of the shower rooms and carrying her limp body out of the dorm to his car. The risk he had taken that night was incalculable. Any one of the students could have stepped out of their room and seen him. With each killing he had become stronger, more invincible, and the risks he took each time were greater. In his mind he had convinced himself that he was infallible and that no matter what he did the police would never catch him.

That’s why he had been so surprised when Jennifer Isaac had attacked him. Back in the cellar of his house he had watched her suffocate under a plastic bag and left what he believed was her lifeless body lying on the work bench.

Usually he liked to cut his victims the instant they were dead, when the blood was still warm and running in their veins. This time was different, and he had foolishly decided to leave her body for a while, telling himself that there was no imminent hurry.

This one mistake was his downfall as, still alive, Jennifer had woken, attacked him and managed to escape. As he lay on the cellar floor, the blade of the butcher’s knife wedged deep into the bottom of his spine and flames rising around him, he had truly thought he was going to die.

He was a failure. The alphabet would never be completed, and he would never be free from the burden of guilt and responsibility.

As he flitted between life and death, his mind and body barely conscious, someone was there to help him. Someone who had heard the noise and come down into the cellar to pull him free from the flames. What seemed like hours later, but was probably only a matter of minutes, he found himself outside, lying on the back seat of Clifford’s silver Plymouth, the fusion of yellow and orange flames burning against the backdrop of the sky and his brother staring down at him with a look of concern on his face.

He realised then that he was not alone. He didn’t have to shoulder the responsibility all by himself.

There were two of them now, two of them to share the pain, two of them to deal with the rage and, like he had always been there for Clifford, Clifford was now going to be there for him.

41

SAN PALIMO, CALIFORNIA. THURSDAY 8TH MAY 1997

A s soon as Max got off the phone from Joel, he called the San Palimo Police Department. Ten minutes later, Captain Trent and two of his best officers arrived at the hospital.

An APB was immediately put out on Vic Boaz. Although Max didn’t know for certain that the officer was involved, they still had to try and find him. Then leaving Agnes Barnes and the still protesting nurse behind, the four of them went to make a house call on Doctor Clifford Turner, playing on a strong hunch that the man who’d knocked Max unconscious and set fire to the library was none other than Rodney Boone’s brother.

Rodney heard the sirens before he saw the cars.

Drawing his eyes away from the attic window he glanced at Clifford’s reflection in the dresser mirror. His brother looked scared and Rodney sympathised with him. Clifford had been harbouring him from the police for the past eight years, nursing him back to health and looking after his every need. It hadn’t been an easy job and he admired his brother for never complaining, even though at times he had been able to see the strain and frustration in his eyes.

At first neither of them had truly believed their plan would work. Rodney had been badly injured when Clifford pulled him from the fire and, had it not been for his skills as a doctor, there was no way he would have survived.

It had been difficult for both of them: Rodney had to learn to live with the fact that he couldn’t leave the attic and Clifford, in turn, had to deal with the few inquisitive townspeople who found it hard to believe he lived alone. Between them they created a fictitious elderly aunt and eventually the curiosity over the extra groceries and the face sometimes seen at the window had died.

They had worked hard to keep their secret and now it was almost over.

Rodney Boone, the infamous serial killer, could no longer run and it seemed he could no longer hide. He was going to jail, and it looked like Clifford would be going with him. He had known it was over from the moment Clifford had come running upstairs telling him about the cops in the diner, the ones who were in town trying to uncover details of his past.

In desperation, Clifford had gone to the library, planning to set it on fire and destroy all the town’s papers and records. What he hadn’t counted on was running into one of the cops. Panicking, he had hit him over the head and fled from the building hoping that before the cop gained consciousness he would be burnt in the flames.

The plan hadn’t worked. Seeing the flames engulf the building, people had called 911 and a fire crew had arrived on the scene and rescued the cop. The cop who had seen Clifford’s face and who had probably figured out why he had torched the library.

Hearing the sirens only went further to confirm his suspicions. Now it really was over.

Doctor Turner answered the door of his house protesting his innocence even before the police had the chance to charge him with anything.

Max watched two of the officers cuff Turner and escort him to one of the patrol cars, his mouth set in a grim line as he recalled how the man had left him for dead in the library. Hoping that his hunch was right, he unholstered his service revolver and followed Captain Trent inside the house.

Rodney heard the footsteps on the stairs, and he glanced at the wall at his chart of freedom. The seven years, ten months and twenty-seven days, all written in black and circled in red.

They were here, he knew it.

As the footsteps grew louder, he trained his eyes on the dresser mirror. The door opened and two men entered. One bulky and balding with close set eyes and three chins, wearing a uniform. The other a blond-haired man of about fifty, dressed in plain clothes.

Both had their weapons aimed in his direction.