Chapter 43
It is time, the General thinks, to end this.
Standing in his office, wearing his uniform, he keeps his back to the dreaded thing in the corner and focuses on the computer screen in front of him.
He watches the videos, one by one, moving only to change CDs as each clip comes to an end.
One by one, he places the discs in a growing pile on the desk.
The murder of Vicki Gibson: haphazard and handheld, camera held so close that blood spatters the lens. He was still learning at that point.
Derek Evans. Murdered the same night, but far more carefully. The camera is balanced on a wall before the homeless man is approached and beaten.
Sandra Peacock, John Kramer and Marion Collins. All die in much the same way: the only thing that changes in the footage is the addition of one and then two bodies beside the dying victim.
Kate Barrett. This one is more hurried – a mistake. Her husband is audible in the background, shouting in distress, and the clip ends raggedly, the road juddering as he runs.
Paul Thatcher. The video begins with him already lying on the woodland floor, mouth gaping, one half of his head bright red. Even with the interruption halfway through, the torture shown is prolonged and Thatcher takes an age to die. Again, he is learning.
Marie Wilkinson. The clip begins with the pregnant woman already subdued, this time on her kitchen floor.
She is struck several times in the face.
There are inaudible words from outside of the frame.
The camera remains focused on the dying woman on the floor as the intruding old man is beaten to death out of shot.
Seven more victims killed in the same woodland location in similarly abhorrent ways. None of them have been identified in the media yet, so he has no way of knowing their names. Not that it matters to him.
Sixteen murders, including the old man, and the code is unbroken.
It is enough. So, yes. It is time to stop this.
The General walks into the bathroom and takes one last look at himself in the mirror, wearing his father’s army uniform.
He never earned one of his own, much as he tried, but he has done his best since to honour his father’s memory and make him proud.
To become the kind of man he would have wanted as a son.
He remembers the sequences he used to create as a child, all of which the old man broke.
And so yes, in some sense, there is also that.
As he looks at himself, the main memory of his father surfaces. Not telling stories at the dinner table, but at a later date: the man hopelessly drunk, lost, his wife – the General’s mother – long gone. In the memory, the old man is wearing this same uniform and he has a pistol in his hand.
I’m a soldier, his father says. Although the General is standing directly behind him, talking back to him, he knows the old man is speaking to himself.
His father looks down at the weapon in his hand with something close to bewilderment.
As though the weight is a surprise to him.
The gun weighs more than the buttons pressed and stories told; it has a tangible real-life heft. It demands to be held and carried.
I’m a soldier, his father repeats, slurring the words.
So I should be able to do this.
The General shakes his head, chasing the memory away – and the memory of what came later.
Dear sir.
We reject your application on the basis …
No, he won’t think about that.
Instead, he changes his clothes and gathers together the items he needs, trying to concentrate on the positives.
The code was not broken! The other things that have gone wrong are not his fault – just dumb luck and misfortune, which can happen to anyone.
Any soldier can stumble, especially in an operation as complex as this one.
But the police never came close to breaking his code and catching him.
And that is something. His father would surely be proud of that much.
The General shrugs on a coat, ignoring the horrific thing in the corner behind him, and tries to tell himself all of this.
When he is ready to leave, he slips a rubber band carefully around the pile of CDs and places the bundle in his jacket pocket. Outside the house, he steers his car into the morning traffic and joins the loop road, heading towards the town centre, trying to keep the anger he feels under control.
Time to end this.
He heads for the train station.