Chapter Two Baby, It’s Cold Outside #2
“Dr Lyons? Good afternoon. Sorry to bother you. This is DS Imogen Parry with Hampshire Police. Newport Station.”
Well. This was new.
For here.
“We got your name through a contact at the Met.”
Kenny straightened in his chair. “The Met?”
“Yes. Metropolitan Police, sir.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes, I know who they are. I was asking why they gave you my name.”
A pause. Flustered breath on the other end, as if Parry wasn’t used to these kinds of conversations. Or people like him.
“Right. Of course. We reached out to the Met over a case that’s recently come our way. During the discussion, your name came up and we were made aware you’re currently living on the island. Teaching locally?”
“I am,” Kenny said slowly. “Freelance contracts. College and sixth form.”
“I apologise for tracking you down through those channels, but we’re dealing with something that… might fall within your area of expertise.”
His pulse didn’t quicken, not yet, but he felt the stillness that came before it. That slow shift into old posture. The tilt of his mind reaching out, mapping possibilities.
“I’m guessing you don’t mean teaching?”
“Not exactly, no.” A pause. Then, “DI McKenzie said this was something you had particular knowledge of.”
Kenny closed his eyes. DI McKenzie. Metropolitan Police, with a flair for the dramatic. Always the odd cases. Not your standard stab, rape, and run. Something stranger. Something that required expertise. A long history of research. Of knowledge of what made someone kill. Then kill again. And again.
A serial killer.
Of course. One week before Yuletide, and the ghosts of Christmas past came knocking. He should end the call. He owed them nothing. No obligation. No reason to entertain this.
But the question left his lips before he could stop it, “What makes him think that?”
“We’ve had a murder on the island. Last night.
Discovered this morning. Youth. Boy. And there’s a chance he could be tied to other unexplained deaths in Hampshire.
The pattern’s still early. But there’s been three since early November.
All young. All from vulnerable backgrounds.
At first glance, they look unconnected. But the MO is… shifting.”
Which meant it was evolving. Learning. Testing boundaries.
He reached forward and closed the laptop. “Go on.”
“The first was initially ruled an accidental overdose. Twenty-year-old male, found in Portsmouth. Second, an eighteen-year-old female from Southampton. Looked like exposure. Came out of a care home, history of absconding. Third was last night. Newport, here on the island. Staged.”
Kenny frowned. “Staged?”
“He was dressed in a Santa suit,” Parry said quietly. “Red velvet, white trim. Stuffed with newspaper. Posed beneath a lit tree on the green in Ventnor.”
Kenny let out a slow breath. “Jesus.”
“Exactly.”
But Kenny wasn’t reacting to the horror of it, at least not in the way Parry probably expected.
His mind had already shifted gears. The visual arrangement.
The symbolism. The costuming. The ritual.
And as the rain battered the window with sudden force, and somewhere downstairs, the wind slammed the kitchen door, Kenny stared at the corner of his desk where a smear of ink had dried under his palm.
It looked black now. Almost blood-dark in the lamplight.
And he felt the deep and familiar click turning in his chest. His mind mapping before he gave it permission.
It was involuntary. A profiler’s reflex.
But he didn’t allow the pieces to tumble from his mouth, nor reach for pattern or motive. Not aloud. Not yet.
Instead, he kept his tone flat, a careful absence of colour. “And you think the other two are connected?”
“Possibly. There’s no clear forensic link yet. No shared DNA, no trace evidence across all three. But something feels off. The age and victim profile are too similar to dismiss.”
He agreed. Though that wasn’t enough. Similarities in age and vulnerability put them in the statistical bullseye for opportunists; troubled youth and fragile adults were always at highest risk.
That alone wouldn’t make seasoned detectives start joining dots.
There had to be another layer. Something that had slipped under the casual observer’s radar but was nagging at the investigative gut.
“What else links them?” he asked.
“The costumes.”
His attention sharpened. “Costumes?”
“This is the first full Santa suit, but the others had… elements. Fragments of festive clothing. We believe now those pieces were added post-mortem.”
There it was. The behavioural hook. Not a killer who stumbled upon opportunity, but one scripting his scenes.
A mind using costume as ritual, dressing the dead not for concealment, but for meaning.
He adjusted the angle of the phone, tracing his thumb along the edge of the desk as his gaze drifted to the window.
Outside, the garden was slick with sleet and shadow.
He watched the hedges bend under the wind, let the silence stretch long enough for his thoughts to form, but not take shape.
Finally, he asked, “Did the costume belong to the victim?”
“Unlikely. It’s oversized. A commercially available Santa suit.
Standard novelty grade. Men’s large. No signs of wear, damage, or personal modification.
Doesn’t match the victim’s size or build.
Clean and intact, suggesting it may have been placed on him post-mortem rather than worn.
We’re treating it as a potential staging element. ”
He nodded, letting that land. So…brought to the scene. Intentionally?
“Was there any note? Messaging? Card left behind?”
“There was a gift tag tied to his wrist.”
“A gift tag?”
“Like you’d tie on a present? Homemade by the looks of it.”
“What does it say?”
“Love, Santa.”
“Jesus.”
Santa. Youth victims. A staged tableau.
Kenny’s breath caught and he felt the profiler in him press the inside of his ribcage, eager to speak. To shape. To name.
But he said nothing.
“What are you thinking?”
Kenny glanced down at the closed laptop on his desk. At the life he’d built from the bones of another.
“I’m not,” he said. “Not yet.” At least he was trying not to.
“I understand. I know this is short notice. We’re not asking for a full profile or involvement if it’s not right. But… some insight would really help us.”
Kenny ran a hand down his face, the burn behind his eyes not from screen fatigue anymore. He’d promised not to get involved. Promised.
“I’d need to talk it over with my partner. This isn’t something I can take on without thinking carefully. I’m retired and…well, these things affect him too.”
“Of course. I’ll text through my contact details. But so you’re aware, the scene is time sensitive. If you wanted to view it personally, it should be sooner rather than later.”
“The body’s still at the scene?”
“For now. We’re transferring him shortly, but we’ve held off for the moment to preserve staging. You’d have to move quickly.”
He ended the call and let the phone rest in his palm.
The room felt colder than before, and he turned his chair, gazing out at the grey sea beyond the hedgerow, where the clouds dragged low across the sky.
He thought of Aaron. Somewhere out there.
Working through his own trauma day by day and how they’d fought like hell to be where they were now, doused in trust and love.
He wouldn’t risk that lightly.
But still, his brain kept circling back.
Why a Santa suit? Why a tree? Why now?
He shut his eyes.
And waited for the questions to quiet.
They didn’t.
His phone buzzed with a text, and he opened it thinking it would be the detective’s details. It wasn’t. It was Aaron. Sending through multiple messages one after the other.
How the duck am I meant to touch myself out in the ducking open? Wank off to the gulls is it?
Prick.
Which milk? Real milk or semi?
I’ve got a fucking semi.
Wanker.
Kenny snorted, the sound punching unexpectedly through the stillness. God, he loved him. And that was the problem. Because loving Aaron meant every choice had consequences now.
Even the ones he hadn’t made yet.