This Is How You Die Read online

  To Lester, Irene was a vital piece of the puzzle. She was one of the few to have seen Herman’s darker side and survived, one of the few who had seen him at his worst and didn’t view him as some pathetic, weak loner. He had tried his best to find her in the police records, but there was no information about her whereabouts. There was, however, an intriguing mugshot, taken just a year before the murder. She had been arrested for being drunk and disorderly, stripping off in a public place. The report said she flirted with a female officer and then tried to hump a male officer’s leg. She spent the night in jail and was given a slap on the wrists and a mugshot that portrayed a happy, red-cheeked mother with a lifetime of regrets ahead of her.

  The next mentions of her were from the night she lost everything. She had given a number of statements to the police that Lester had already read, but she was grief-stricken and in a state of shock at the time. As far as the police were concerned, she had said enough. She had confirmed their suspicions that the murderer was Herman and that was all they had needed to know, but the information Lester sought went much deeper than that. He wanted to get into the killer’s psyche, and he also wanted Irene to confirm a suspicion that he had, a suspicion that linked the Herman to The Masquerade.

  After some online searches, and a check on her car and house records, he discovered Irene had stayed in that house for just three months before she sold it and disappeared. She hadn’t claimed benefits, and she hadn’t bought a new house or a new car. She just disappeared.

  He visited her old house but a new family had already moved in. He watched from a distance as two young children, probably brother and sister, played in the small front garden while an overprotective mother watched from the front window. The kids were barely older than ten or eleven and as Lester watched them, he forced himself to remember that despite their youth, despite their size, and despite the fact that they were still wrapped up in a world of make-believe, so far removed from reality and its horrors, these kids were probably older than the youngest child to have lost his life that night. The mother who was watching from the window was probably just as loving and protective as Irene had been, and yet Irene had been forced to watch as the one she tried to protect the most was murdered while she was incapable of helping.

  Lester dissociated from the most horrible crimes; it was the only way he could pull through. He saw the crime scene with a detective’s eye, looking at the details and the facts and not the emotion or the loss, but he had struggled with that of late. Seeing such a peaceful scene before him and realizing how this had played out years ago, and what it had led to, made him despise himself, the world, and the human race in one bitter moment.

  When the mother noticed Lester, she called out to her husband and they both watched. They probably knew what had happened in their house, and although that didn’t put them at any greater risk than their neighbors next door or their friends across town, it would have been enough to give them sleepless nights and to turn them into paranoid, neurotic parents. Lester moved on when he realized the mother was most likely a few minutes away from phoning the police and the father a few seconds away from confronting him. He caught a glance and a smile from the young boy in the garden as he walked by, and as Lester winked at him, the little boy waved, much to the annoyance of his parents.

  Lester walked to the town square, knowing the route he was taking had probably been the same one Darren Henderson took nearly fifteen years ago. He hadn’t been the innocent kid his little brother had been. Lester had met plenty of teenagers like him and he had despised nearly all of them, but that wasn’t to say he wasn’t going to better himself, that he wasn’t going to turn things around. After all, there wasn’t too much difference between Damian and Darren: both were mischievous, both were mixing with the wrong crowds—Damian had even been sent home from school before for bullying. The only thing that set the two apart was the fact that the kid Damian bullied might grow stronger because of what happened to him—his pain and his isolation might turn him into a successful and wealthy adult. Whereas the child Darren had bullied had gone down a different path. There were many bullied kids in the world and a lot of them had the resolve to put those experiences behind them; some fought back and ended it there and then, a select few ended their own lives, but then there were the Hermans of the world. Herman had taken a lot of grief from a lot of people, and he had given it back with interest. These kids deserved to be fed their own medicine, and Lester had always been a proponent of revenge, of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But Herman didn’t think that way. If you took Herman’s tooth, he took your head; if you took his eye, he took your life.

  Whitegate was one of the few small towns that had CCTV cameras, due to the increased levels of antisocial behavior and a government scheme to clamp down on it. After the murders, there had been a panic, as expected, and that resulted in more cameras being fitted. It was all pointless, but it was what the people wanted, and if it was what the people wanted, regardless of how pointless it was, then it was what the local government was willing to give them. It was amazing how much could get done when elections were just around the corner and the world’s media was watching. Whitegate was now one of the most well-guarded and heavily watched areas in the country, although as the paranoia faded and people realized how stupid they had been, those cameras fell into disrepair and the rest of the town soon followed.

  The killings had created a tourist boom at first and local businesses had thrived. Fast food restaurants opened and shops sold macabre mementoes. Lester remembered a story about a local shopkeeper-cum-conman who sold Herman’s school uniform to a rich businessman in France, with suspicions only being raised when he made the same sale to three dozen other customers around the world. Most of Herman’s actual belongings had been destroyed in the fire, but for a short time there was a black market trade in them as he achieved cult status. It wasn’t just because of what he had done, or because of his age—it was the fact that he hadn’t been found that piqued interests more than anything else. He was a modern Jack the Ripper, and just like Jack the Ripper, everyone had their own theories, each as insane as the last. Some said he had been abducted, some said he had never existed, that Herman’s uncle was the real killer and that the CCTV images were a disguise of some kind. And of course, there were those who were quick to point to a government conspiracy, with talk of mind control and assignation. As if Darren Henderson and his friends were Russian spies or powerful diplomats, and not delinquent losers.

  That sort of interest eventually faded, though, becoming nothing but a faint recollection for most and an obsession for few. Herman’s crimes made great material for the press and documentary makers, but the articles published about him and the films made about his life only proved that very little was actually known about him. He lost his mother when he was young, probably running away following a breakdown in her marriage; his father died not long before the murders, and his uncle then moved in with him. Between that, the bullying, and a fairly standard academic record, there was little else to learn. He had no friends and his neighbors and classmates knew little about him.

  Once the hype faded, the town returned to normal. People stopped caring, stopped showing up to take pictures and buy mass-produced crap; the businesses fell into disrepair, the gift shops that had opened in the hope that Whitegate was the next hot tourist destination closed down before fulfilling their first year’s rent. The world moved on to new stories, new psychopaths. The house prices dropped, the unemployment rate increased, and Whitegate found itself in a worse position than when Herman had called it home. He was still their claim to fame, though. Herman was still a legend. And the irony of this was that the school kids were the ones who adored him the most. The delinquent teens, the disillusioned youth—the very people who had bullied and tortured Herman and the very people who had kickstarted the massacre and sated his bloodlust.

  ——

  Lester went to Irene’s parents’ house, just out of town. He had
phoned in advance and, although they were very friendly and welcoming, he sensed something else as well. A wariness, a fatigue, a fear.

  “You must be Barbara.” Lester smiled a pleasant greeting when a well turned-out octogenarian answered the door. Her creased face broke as she returned the smile.

  She gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “Please, call me Barb. This is my husband, Reg.” She pointed to the living room where a less well turned-out and less smiley man sat slouched in an armchair. Lester waved and the man nodded in reply. “And you must be Detective Keats.”

  “You can call me Lester.”

  “Oh, thank you, Lester. Is that what you tell all the old ladies, or just the pretty ones?”

  “Actually, it’s just the ones I don’t arrest,” he said, sharing a smile. “You know what the older generation are like.”

  She laughed softly, but there was still a stiffness to her, hidden behind a friendly facade. It would have remained hidden if Lester hadn’t seen it before. This was what happened to families that had been through hell, families that had stared into the devil’s eyes. They say time heals all wounds, but it didn’t. Time just made it easier to get on with your life. The pain never goes away, the changes never revert. The fear, the tension, the depression, it all remained, as did the reluctance to think about the thing that caused that chaos in the first place.

  They made him a cup of tea and then sat in silence. There was a somber air in the house, and one that the arrival of a police officer did little to ease. He saw pictures of Irene on the fireplace and on the walls—she was pretty, bubbly—but Lester couldn’t fathom a reason why Herman hadn’t killed her. She wasn’t particularly stunning and he doubted she would be very friendly either, especially to a boy who had just butchered her family. Herman had seen something in her he had obviously not seen in the younger girls he had killed. And if he was The Masquerade, it was the same something he had not seen in the women he had murdered in their homes and on the streets.

  “She was a lively woman,” Barbara explained when she caught Lester looking at the pictures.

  Lester didn’t like that Barbara used past tense to talk about her daughter, but he had searched the obituaries. As far as he knew, Irene wasn’t dead.

  “She’s not lively anymore?”

  Barbara shook her head solemnly. “But she was a family woman.” She smiled meekly.

  The house was immaculate. The carpet, the sofas, and the television all looked new. Lester took their wealth as a sign that Irene hadn’t remarried and didn’t have any more kids, otherwise they would be more inclined to save their money and prepare a nest egg for their grandchildren. Parents and grandparents who had lost children were always more protective of any more that came their way, always willing to give up their own happiness and their own fortune to ensure a long and prosperous life for what they saw as a second chance legacy. Those who experienced loss suffered an increased paranoia, a worry that lightning would strike twice.

  “And you don’t know where she is?” Lester asked.

  Barbara shook her head. “As I told you on the phone, we haven’t heard from her in years.”

  She smiled softly and she looked genuine. She had sounded genuine on the phone, as well, and Lester almost hadn’t gone because of that, but when he caught a glimpse of the father, of the nervous twitch in his upper lip and the way he feigned a smile and then looked away when his wife spoke, he was glad he had made the trip. They were lying and he just needed to prove it.

  “I can understand how she must be scared,” Lester said. “Wherever she is. For all she knows, Herman is out there somewhere. He took a liking to her and she’s probably worried that he’ll find her again.” He looked into Barbara’s eyes. There was a flare of recognition there. She was listening more intently than before, the knuckles on her bony hand turning white as she tightened her grip on the cup.

  “But her silence could be costing lives. You see, I have a theory that your daughter is right to be scared, because I believe that Herman is still out there and he’s still killing.”

  Barbara gasped and nearly dropped her cup.

  “But he has no interest in Irene anymore,” Lester said quickly, keen for her not to have a heart attack. “Whatever that was about, it’s over now. She has hidden away from him for long enough and he’s no longer interested. But there are other women out there who can’t hide, women who can’t run away. They need your daughter’s help.”

  Barbara lowered her head and stared into her tea, as though the scalding liquid held the answer to all of her problems. Her husband watched on, and in his eyes Lester sensed desperation. Reg wanted to tell Lester where his daughter was. He was the voice of reason, but he had been forced into silence by his paranoid wife. Lester saw it all in the look they exchanged when Barbara finally raised her head.

  “I understand,” she said. Lester felt his hopes diminish when he saw she was smiling again, back to her world of fake-grins and denial. “But I can’t help you. We don’t know where she is. Isn’t that right, honey?”

  Both Lester and Barbara turned to Reg and he looked at them each in turn, spending a little longer on his wife, before confirming, “Yes, that’s right.”

  Lester stared at Barbara in disbelief. He had liked her at first, but now he despised her—that bright and toothy smile hid so many lies. She was putting lives in danger and she didn’t care. It was an attitude he had seen time and time again, one that penetrated deep into the fiber of his being. It was all about families and friends to these people; they didn’t care how many people died and in what ways they died, provided that their own were okay. They would happily sacrifice the lives of dozens to avoid their own child even getting the sniffles. And why would they care? It was number to them—they didn’t see the faces of the dead, they didn’t have to look into their eyes and wonder what those lifeless orbs had seen last. They didn’t have to ring their families and let them know his wife had been butchered or her daughter had been raped and murdered. Some would have allowed for ignorance with Barbara, considering the loss she had suffered, but as far as Lester was concerned, that should have given her more reason to help him. Yes she had lost, yes she had suffered, but that didn’t mean that other parents, grandparents, and siblings needed to suffer as well.

  He picked up a picture of Irene and smiled. “I see the resemblance in her,” he said.

  “I’m sorry?” Barbara asked pleasantly.

  He held up the picture to show her. “Darren,” he said.

  Barbara’s face changed in an instant, the smile fading.

  “Oh.”

  Lester nodded. “You know, I’ve seen the CCTV footage of that night so many times. I’ve seen the crime scene photos more times than I can count.” He shook his head. “What happened to him was horrible, and yet, in a way, he was lucky.”

  Barbara gave him exactly the reaction he was hoping for. She shot to her feet, her teeth bared and her hand thrusting outward. The smiling old woman had gone, replaced with the face of a vicious matriarch, and it was all Lester could do to keep from smiling. As much as he despised those who blinded themselves to the world, those who didn’t give a fuck what happened outside of their home or their family circle, they were easy to manipulate.

  “How dare you say that!” she blasted vehemently. “Darren was tortured, he was butchered out on the street, next to his friends, next—”

  Lester shrugged. “I’ve seen worse.”

  “My grandson was—”

  “That’s the problem,” Lester said, keeping his calm. “He was your grandson, and that’s something that’s going to haunt you for the rest of your life. I appreciate that and I truly apologize for it, but the girls I pick up off the street, the ones who are raped, tortured, and killed by this man, each one is also someone’s grandchild, someone’s daughter, someone’s fiancé, and someone’s wife.”

  Barbara seemed to calm down as Lester’s words drilled into her. The Masquerade had never raped anyone; sexual assault seemed to be ben
eath him. He didn’t spend a lot of time torturing them either, at least not physically, but a few embellishments wouldn’t hurt if they got his point across.

  “Darren suffered, but believe me when I tell you that they suffered more. The killer was young then, he was learning his craft; he’s experienced now. He’s much sicker, much stronger, and he has an appetite for murder that cannot be sated.”

  Barbara sat back down, flopping into her seat and immediately lowering her head to her chest.

  “I need your help,” Lester said. “I think that your daughter can help me, but I need you to tell me where she is.”

  Barbara was silent, but Reg finally decided that enough was enough. “She lives just a few miles from here,” he said. Barbara glared at him in protest, almost instinctively, but she immediately retracted that look. “I can tell you her address, but I would prefer it if you let me ring her first and explain who you are. She is very temperamental these days.”

  Lester nodded, doing his best to hide his smile. “Thank you.”

  6

  Lester had seen the beauty in the pictures, he had caught a glimpse of what Herman might have fallen for, but none of that was left. These days Irene Henderson looked haggard, and even though only fifteen years had passed, she looked a good three decades older. She was thinner, gaunter, and if she wasn’t hooked on drugs, she looked like she could use some.

  The short drive to her house was a trip into the bowels of hell. From the quiet and affluent cul-de-sac where her parents lived, into the desolate and empty town whose dreams had been realized and then destroyed thanks to Herman’s massacre, and then on further into the smaller, uglier stepsister of that small and ugly town. Irene lived in what could be best described as a village, but not the picturesque English village that graces so many magazines and stereotypical images. It was something much worse, something much less. It was served by a small shop sitting wearily in the middle of the village, surrounded by kids in hoodies and tracksuits. The rest of the village was an expanse of old houses, most of which were boarded-up and half destroyed, despite the fact that people still clearly lived in them. This was a rural version of an inner-city jungle; the same people, the same deprivation, the same absence of hope.