Chapter Sixteen Winter Song #2
Because there she was. Laid out beside the manger, curled up like a child asleep beneath the stars.
Her head rested on folded arms, legs tucked loosely underneath her, knees pointed towards the holy family.
A red ribbon had been tied into her hair, and a crumpled school blazer, too small in the shoulders, buttoned tightly over her chest. No shoes. Toes blue with rigour.
It looked as if she’d simply fallen asleep and not woken up. It didn’t look like heinous murder. She wasn’t humiliated. Or brutalised. Aaron blinked back the tears as Kenny crouched beside her, not touching but assessing, gloved and composed.
“She’s not in costume,” he said, almost to himself. “No Santa suit. No seasonal kitsch. This isn’t the same message.” He scanned the blazer, eyes narrowing. “But that uniform’s decades out of date. It’s not a random choice, either. This belonged to someone.”
Parry crouched beside him. “So, is it the same killer?”
“Highly likely. There’s still personal resonance here. This isn’t dressing the victim. It’s restaging a memory.” He eased open the lapel with gloved hands, revealing the name. “‘Skye.’ Stitched by hand. New thread.”
Parry frowned. “Why would the killer stitch her name into an old school blazer?”
“They’re starting to fracture. This isn’t performance. It’s confession. Potentially remembering something.”
Parry blinked. “Confession? As in they want to be caught?”
“Perhaps.” Kenny stood. “Some killers reach a point where capture becomes relief. When the compulsion outweighs the control. This isn’t about pleasure. It’s about need.”
Parry stood. “Need?”
Aaron kept his eyes fixed on Skye as he answered for Kenny. “Some killers need to do it.”
Kenny looked at him. Quiet. Measured. “Some can’t fight the compulsion. No matter what moral compass they pretend to have. Or who they claim to love.”
Parry was quiet. Respectful of the moment. Then her professionalism had to push forward when she said, “Can you help form a profile? Who might have done this?”
“Yes. It’s getting clearer now.” Kenny removed his gloves. “I can have an initial profile by the end of today. People to start looking at. Who to question.”
“Great. Thank you.” Parry ushered Aaron and Kenny back towards the cordon.
They peeled off the suits in silence, handed them to SOCO, and climbed back into the car. The snow was thinning. No longer soft or poetic, but wet and grey, slushing into the roads. As if even the weather knew this wasn’t a day to be all beautiful.
Kenny didn’t start the engine.
Aaron watched him.
He stared out through the windscreen at the churchyard where Skye still lay beneath tarpaulin and floodlight. His gloved hands were still, holding the steering wheel.
Aaron knew that stare.
Maybe he was paying his respects. Maybe this was part of his process.
A silent debrief, a ritual he carried out after every body he’d stood over.
Like this one. The next one. Aaron respected it, even if he couldn’t explain why.
It was rare to see Kenny so still. Cracked open beneath all the clinical restraint.
Then Kenny spoke, low. “Where did you meet her?”
“At that PR stunt the charity arranged.”
“Did she say anything? Seem nervous? Like someone might’ve been following her?”
Aaron gave a dry snort. “She’s in care, Kenny. Ran from her halfway placement. She was nervous of everyone. Probably thought the staff were tracking her phone. Expected someone to show up and drag her back. That’s how it is. You grow up with your bag packed. Ready to run. Always.”
Kenny turned his head. “Did you tell her about you?”
Aaron shrugged, trailing his gaze to the slush-veined window. “The safe version. Enough to let her know she wasn’t alone. She was pulling the eighteen card. Trying to stay at the hostel. But she wasn’t eighteen. If they’d figured that out, she’d be bounced back to wherever she ran from.”
“Did she say why she left?”
“No. Didn’t have to. My guess? She’d had her fill of forced therapy and condescending social workers who spoke to her like she was broken. You hit a point where you’d rather sleep rough than answer another question about your ‘risk level.’”
Aaron leaned his head back, closing his eyes.
Kenny’s voice came quieter. “Risk level?”
Aaron cracked one eye open. “Queer teen, lover. It’s not as easy as throwing us the contraceptive pill and a pamphlet. Half the time, they assumed I was screwing strangers without protection. Never asked if it was true. Didn’t care. They needed to tick the box.”
Kenny nodded, eyes distant. Then turned the key in the ignition. “Why did you give her your number?”
“Don’t get jealous.” Aaron reached across the car to slide his hand beneath Kenny’s hair and tickled the back of his neck. “You know I’m only into brooding, emotionally repressed academics with control issues.”
Kenny glared at him.
Aaron removed his hand back to his lap. “Ironically, for her to call if she felt unsafe. Or alone.”
“Because you believed she might be?”
Aaron shrugged. Then watched Kenny’s eyes flicker. “What you thinking?”
“That her being trans… might not be an insignificant detail.”
“So the killer’s a transphobe? Hang on, the first vic, Luke, he was gay, right? Sleeping with older men? So what? The killer’s ticking boxes. Homophobe, too? A fucking bigot? Merry fucking Christmas to one and all.”
“Not necessarily.”
Aaron frowned. “Someone’s murdering queer teens and you’re telling me it’s not about hate?”
“No. Not all the victims are queer.”
“How do you know? Did they tell someone? Leave a note? We don’t always come with labels, you know.
Look at you.” Aaron waved a hand at him, dismissive and sharp.
“No one clocks you as bi off the bat. If you dropped dead without me, no phone, no context, they’d stick you under ‘confirmed bachelor.’ Unless someone went spelunking through your porn history or found those little naked-bedside photos you think I don’t know you take of me tangled in the sheets. ”
“You look…genuinely breathtaking like that.”
“I’m aware. Also don’t think I don’t pose that way on purpose. Consider it performance art for your eyes only. But the point is, if you died in a ditch somewhere far away from me, you’d be chalked up as a cis het on the database, right?”
“Is this you saying you’d like me to wear a pin badge to declare my sexuality if on the statistically unlikely event I die when I’m not with you, which is about ninety percent of the time?”
“No. I’d like you to not die. Or be permanently glued to me, bumping that ninety percent up to a full one hundred. But if you do, I’ll make sure your eulogy includes the fact that you enthusiastically suck cock. Frequently. Mine, in particular. And how you’re fucking irritatingly good at it.”
“Thank you. Although, that does skew a little gay.”
“I’ll clarify. Add a footnote about your regrettable experiences with women.”
“Charming. You mean my bisexuality.”
“I mean your blip.” Aaron tucked a lock of Kenny’s hair behind his ear, then gave his earlobe a gentle tug. “They were all blips before me, lover. Even the men.”
“So my sexuality is simply… Aaron?”
“Obviously.”
Kenny shook his head, the faintest smile tugging at his mouth before it dropped. “Regardless, I think this is rooted far deeper than hate. I think it’s about control. Who’s allowed to take up space, and who’s not.”
He reversed the car, one arm over the back of Aaron’s seat, and as he did, he stroked his fingers along Aaron’s neck.
Right over the tattoo of Mars. As if still trying to be his lover despite saying what was possibly the worst thing ever.
That there was something deeper than hate leading to all these murders.
And those fingers were letting Aaron know Kenny was right there with him.
With all of them. And he was going to figure this out. For him. For them.
Then he said, “Also, someone made sure that phone was left in her hand.”
Aaron’s head snapped towards him.
“With your contact open on it.” Kenny held his gaze. “Knowing what we know about this killer, that won’t be random.”
“Because I put ‘gay’ in my contact?”
“We’ve established the motive isn’t to do with sexuality.” Kenny shifted the gear into drive. “So it’s something else.”
“Like what?”
Kenny said nothing.
Aaron’s chest tightened. “We left all that behind, doc. You and me. All of it.”
Kenny didn’t reply. He drove.
Aaron chewed the side of his thumbnail, watching the greyscale of winter blur past. Skye’s face stayed with him. Her smallness, the ribbon, the name stitched in thread. All that effort to be remembered.
Then, after a beat: “Can we swing past the dog shelter?”
Kenny glanced over. “Now?”
“Yeah.” Aaron leaned his head back against the seat. “Lucky… she’s still not eating properly. Doesn’t trust anyone. She’s underweight. Nervous. Won’t let people near her. But yesterday… she took food from my hand. That has to mean something.”
Kenny glanced over, as much as the ice-slick road would allow.
He understood. Of course he did. This wasn’t about Lucky.
There were other handlers. Jonathon was probably in already.
The rota didn’t matter, Aaron was off it.
And the shelter didn’t shut down for weather or breakdowns the way the college did.
No. Aaron wasn’t going back because he had to.
He was going back because he’d left. Because he’d bolted yesterday when everything went to shit.
And he couldn’t leave Lucky feeling as if he’d abandoned her, too.
He needed to show up. Even if it was for a traumatised lurcher who flinched at kindness.
To prove, to himself more than anyone, that he did show up when he was needed.
So Kenny guided the car through the icy roads, tyres crunching through hard snow as they pulled into the dog shelter’s car park. A few faint lights glowed behind the frosted windows. Blackwell’s car was still there. Same space as yesterday. Snow untouched on the roof and windshield.
It hadn’t moved.