Scaredy cat by Mark Billingham Read Free Book Online Page B

when they found her, but I thought it would die down... I thought it would stop, after a day or two. There always seems to be people dying in one way or another, so I didn't think that it would be news for very long. They've got some sort of witness they said. Whoever it was must have seen me because they know how tall I am. I know I should be worried, Karen, but I'm not. Part of me wishes they'd seen me up close. Seen my face. A police officer on the television said it was brutal. 'This brutal killing: He said I was brutal and I really tried so hard not to be. You believe that don't you, Karen? I didn't hit her or anything. I tried to make it quick and painless. I don't really expect them to say anything else though. Why should they? They don't know me...
    The other one, the one in south London, I can barely bring myself to think about that. It was horrible. Yes, that was brutal. The scratches are fading, but a couple of people at work noticed and it gave them something else to use against me. Not as if they needed any more ammunition. It was all nudges and giggles and, 'I bet she was a right goer' or, 'did she make a lot of noise?' You know, variations on that theme. I just smiled and blushed, same as I always do.
    Oh my God, Karen, if they only knew.
    Sometimes I think that perhaps I should just tell them everything. That way it would all be over, because someone would go to the police and I could just sit and wait for them to come and get me. Plus, it might at least make some of them think about me a bit differently. Find someone else to belittle. It would wipe a few smiles off a few faces wouldn't it? It would make them stop. Yes, I'd like them to step back and start to sweat a little. I'd like them to be scared of me.
    But I'm the one that's scared, Karen, you know that. It's the way it's always been hasn't it? That's why I can't ever tell them. Why I can't ever share this with anyone except you.
    Why I'm praying, praying, praying that Ruth will be the last one.
    *************
    1984
    They caught Bardsley just outside the school gates. He had a few mates with him but they took one look at Nicklin, at his face, and melted away into the background. Some of them were fifth-formers at least a year older than he was, and it excited him to watch them scuttle away like the spineless wankers he knew they were. The two of them were on Bardsley in a second. Palmer stood in front of him, solid, red-faced and shaking. Nicklin grabbed the strap of his sports bag and together they dragged him towards the bushes. The park ran right alongside the main entrance to the school. A lot of the boys cut across it on the way to school and back, and the sixth formers would hang around with their opposite numbers from the neighbouring girls' school. It wasn't a nice park; a tatty bowling green, an attempt at an aviary and a floating population of surly kids - smoking, groping or eating chips.
    Palmer and Nicklin pushed Bardsley towards the bushes that bordered the bird cages. He grabbed on to the wire of the nearest cage. It housed a moulting mynah bird which, in spite of the best efforts of every kid in school, resolutely refused to swear, producing nothing but an ear-splitting wolf-whistle every few minutes. Bardsley began to kick out wildly. Palmer clung on to the collar of his blazer, which was already starting to tear, and shuffled his legs back, out of the range of the boy's flailing Doc Martens. Nicklin stepped in closer and, oblivious to the pain in his shin as he was repeatedly booted, punched Bardsley hard in the face. Bardsley's hands moved from the wire to his face as blood began to gush from his nose. Smiling, Nicklin pushed him on to his knees, rammed a knee into his neck and pressed him down into the dirt.
    After a nod from Nicklin, Palmer dropped on to Bardsley's chest and sat there for a few moments, breathing heavily, his face the colour of a Bramley apple.
    Bardsley took his hand away from his face and glared up at the younger