Chapter Four Come on, Santa
Chapter four
Come on, Santa
Kenny called DS Parry back once Aaron had finally unlocked himself from his arms. If he was going to step into this, time mattered. The scene wouldn’t stay intact forever. So he agreed to look. No promises, only presence. And he arranged to visit the site where the boy had been found.
Aaron, as Kenny knew he would, came with him.
It was part of the agreement. If Kenny was going to reopen the part of himself he’d carefully closed off, step back into the twisted wiring of someone else’s mind, then Aaron came too.
Not in any official capacity. But close enough to witness.
Close enough to keep Kenny tethered to something that didn’t bleed.
Something real.
Human.
Because when he stared too long into the why of a killer… he needed someone beside him to remind him what it meant to survive one.
They arrived before the sun dipped low, sea murmuring somewhere beyond the rooftops and where Ventnor Green had been taped off in neat blue-and-white lines, looped between lampposts and folding barriers.
The town’s attempt at Christmas cheer did little to help.
Twinkling lights sagged between buildings.
A plastic reindeer stood lopsided by the bench, its red nose cracked.
It only made the whole thing feel worse.
As if this was a murder in a snow globe shaken too hard.
The boy lay beneath the council’s Christmas tree.
A fake fir, pre-lit, powered by solar panels that barely functioned in winter.
The lights still blinked in their lazy loop—green, red, blue—oblivious to the body at its base.
The police had pitched a white tent over the scene, a fragile shield against the December wind, and maybe, in some na?ve way, against the reality of it.
Kenny cut the engine and turned to Aaron. “You know not to touch anything, right?”
Aaron rolled his eyes. “No promises. I’ve got a thing for fingering corpses.”
The look Kenny gave him could have frozen rain.
“What?” Aaron’s mouth curved obscenely. “I’m fucking horny.”
It wasn’t provocation. It never was. This was Aaron’s armour.
Outrageous words, tossed like a lit match, daring Kenny or the world to flinch.
Humour as misdirection. Crudeness as control.
And beneath it, the quiet tremor of someone who had seen too much death and needed to own the moment before it owned him.
Kenny slipped his hand on Aaron’s knee. Squeezed. “Then be good.”
The look Aaron gave him in return was devastating.
Heat and mischief tangled with a flicker of raw, unguarded hurt.
Wildly inappropriate given the setting. But that was Aaron: chaos wrapped in charm, defiance braided through every breath.
Especially here, where the crime scene might as well have been a trigger rigged under his feet.
Kenny loved him for it.
The bite.
The pushback.
The way surrender, when Aaron finally allowed it, became sacred.
Kenny blinked hard and pulled himself back into the moment.
He stepped out of the Discovery and buttoned his coat up to his throat.
Aaron followed from the passenger side, setting Chaos down from the boot and clipping on a short lead.
The dog sniffed the frost-crusted grass with focused intent, tail low, ears twitching.
Aaron met Kenny’s gaze, jamming his hands into his coat pockets, the dog’s lead stretching from his coat to his feet.
An officer approached from the cordon, brown hair pulled back into a bun beneath her wool cap. “Dr Lyons?”
“Detective Sergeant Parry?”
They shook hands. Her grip was firm. Practical. No-nonsense.
She glanced at Aaron walking a step behind Kenny with his hood up and Chaos trotting dutifully at his side.
“Oh… I didn’t realise you’d be bringing…” She darted her gaze to the dog, “…anyone. The scene’s quite delicate.”
“Don’t worry,” Kenny said dryly. “He’s trained.”
Aaron smiled sweetly.
Parry blinked. “I meant the dog.”
“So did I.” Kenny clapped his hands together for warmth. “Aaron’s the feral one.”
“Liar.” Aaron crouched to tie Chaos’s lead to a nearby post, gave the dog a scratch behind the ears, then dropped a treat into his mouth. “Good boy.”
Kenny turned back to Parry. “He comes, or I don’t. Non-negotiable.”
“Again,” Aaron called up without looking, “massive liar.” He then stood, locked his gaze on Kenny. “Cause you haven’t made me come for a while.”
Parry looked between them, clearly recalibrating.
Eventually, curiosity overruled protocol.
She took Aaron’s name, logged them both onto the scene register, and handed over two Tyvek suits.
Kenny, accustomed to this routine, slipped into his without hesitation.
Aaron, less practiced, fumbled with the unfamiliar folds until Kenny stepped in to help, guiding him through the process.
“Where exactly was he found?” he called to DS Parry.
“Under the tree.” Parry led them towards the forensic tent.
“Facing the high street. Early discovery. Dog walker. Scene’s been preserved but obviously compromised a bit.
Bodies don’t stay pristine in open spaces overnight, hence the tent.
Forensics have already taken samples, but we left staging intact for you. ”
Kenny nodded. “Who covered him?”
“A junior. He was already gone. No signs of struggle. Cause of death’s pending, but ligature marks at the neck.”
“Time of death?”
“Rough estimate puts it evening. Between eight and midnight. It’s quiet here then. People are home from work, dinner, school runs done.”
Aaron’s breath misted beside him, uneven in the cold.
Kenny had brought people to crime scenes before.
PhD students, sometimes visiting specialists.
But not often. And never anyone like him.
Back in Ryston, he’d preferred to work alone.
It helped him stay inside his own mind, or rather, step inside theirs.
The killer’s. The one who had been here. Moved here. Placed something here.
Victimology mattered, of course. Understanding the victim was how he built the map backwards. How he traced what need, obsession, or rage had led to this moment.
But having Aaron here altered the landscape entirely.
His presence heightened everything. As if some buried part of Kenny’s methodology, something instinctual and human, had been dormant until now.
Aaron wasn’t a disruption to the process, but a necessary axis.
A perspective that didn’t support his insight but amplified it.
The cold seemed sharper now. The scene more intimate.
As though bringing Aaron into it had transformed it from evidence into something personal.
They approached the tree. Parry stepped aside without being told, giving him space.
She’d worked with specialists before; she knew a forensic psychologist would want the first sweep in silence, before the volley of questions began and Kenny’s breath slowed, pupils narrowing as the scene began to take shape.
Not in the sterile terms of evidence collection, but in the darker architecture beneath.
The intention. The need. The psychology stitched through every choice the killer had made.
And without thinking, he slipped into the old rhythm: the professor guiding the seminar, the question posed, the test of comprehension.
He glanced sideways. “What do we always start with?”
Aaron didn’t have to look at him. Kenny could hear the eye roll in his tone. “Why here? Why now? Why him?”
Kenny let the quiet hang for a beat, then turned his head to catch Aaron’s profile. The faintest smile tugged at his mouth. “Good boy.”
Aaron’s eyes cut to him, sharp enough to slice the air. “You know exactly what that does to me. Don’t ever say it here.”
For a beat too long, Kenny held his gaze. Then he inclined his head, no argument, no pushback. Acceptance.
“Noted,” he said quietly, steady as a vow. Then, softer, with a warmth meant only for Aaron, “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
A flicker of fondness tugged at his mouth, enough to soften the edges of the moment. Because whatever rhythm he’d slipped into, whatever lines he’d blurred, Aaron wasn’t just his priority. He was the point. Always.
Parry cleared her throat, a pointed reminder of where they were, so Kenny turned back to the scene, pulling his focus back to the body beneath the blinking tree lights.
The boy appeared to be late teens, and he’d been posed, not dropped.
Legs straight. Arms folded like a doll. Hands placed together, a childlike mimicry of innocence.
Deliberate, almost mocking. The Santa suit was synthetic, cheap, and zipped up to his neck.
There was a stain on the white trim where his head lolled sideways, jaw slack and barely visible beneath the shadow of the hood.
The belly was stuffed with newspaper, distorting the frame into something cartoonish.
A parody of Santa. Of gentleness. Safety.
Kenny crouched.
Not too close. Never closer than necessary.
Aaron stood behind him, arms crossed.
“See the hands?” Kenny pointed at them for Aaron’s benefit. “No defensive wounds visible. That either means he trusted his killer… or he was unconscious before restraint.”
Aaron swallowed. “Or didn’t fight.”
Kenny glanced up at him. “Maybe. But even passive victims flinch. Defensive behaviour is a reflex unless chemically interrupted or deeply conditioned out.”
He turned his attention back to the body.
“The costume’s not dressing, either. It’s part of the presentation. Red, white. Iconography. Cultural shorthand. They didn’t dump him. They displayed him. The gift tag proves that.”
Aaron stepped closer. “So it’s for show?”
Kenny nodded. “But we don’t know the audience. Could be aimed at the public. Could be for themselves. Or—” he motioned at the tree—“could be for something symbolic. Christmas. Innocence. Judgment.” He rose, brushing frost off his knee.
“What do you feel?” Aaron asked suddenly.