Chapter Eight
Rising Tensions
The rest of the year came and went. Several of the men who had been associates or lovers of Cameron Taylor were picked up by the cops for questioning. They were all later released without charge. The LGBTQ community accused Blyham Police of a witch hunt. Rather than make legitimate headway into the investigation, it was easier for them to round up other gay guys and haul them in. Tension with law enforcement officers was at an all-time high.
The only good Roman saw to come out of it was a reduction in general hate crimes across the village. A young gay guy had been killed in a hit and run on the waterfront, right in front of The Vermont Hotel, but as it had occurred outside of the LGBTQ sector, no one saw it as being related. The driver had not been found. Blyham Police had finally put more uniforms on patrol and employed a liaison officer to instil some faith. With the patrons of the village no longer such easy targets, the incidents of abuse fell considerably, not that he noticed any change in behaviour. People were scared and afraid to go out alone. Throughout the Christmas and New Year periods, he had never seen the venues so empty. It was safer to stay away or frequent the mainstream city centre bars and clubs.
Only The Viaduct seemed to thrive. With everyone cautious of going home with a potentially deadly strangler, the arches and corridors of The Viaduct were the safest place to get off.
Roman had moderated his own behaviour since that weekend in October and had only had a single hook-up in that whole time. He’d met a guy online, and after a few conversations, they’d got together for coffee before going back to Roman’s place for sex. It had been pretty good, and Benito, a local guy of Italian heritage in his early thirties, had been a hottie, but there was no magic. Benito had messaged him afterwards, interested in a second date, and he’d suggested going for a meal that time, but Roman couldn’t see the point in stringing him along when he had no intention of taking it further.
Benito had seemed like a nice guy, but Roman was not in the market for a boyfriend.
However, when he did go out, he still kept his eyes open, hoping to see Mallon again, but in two months, there had been no sign of the sexy Frenchman.
In early January, the Pride committee announced a joint meeting to be held at the town hall with representatives from the police.
“We should go,” Roman had said when Ashley informed him of the plan.
“What good will it do?”
“It lets them know we’re still here and that they need to do a lot more to catch the Blyham-fucking-Strangler.”
It had not escaped anyone’s attention that the killer had been working to a schedule for a year and half, with a new murder committed every two-to-four months. If he stuck to that timetable, he would claim his next victim sometime between January and March. With a growing sense of urgency, Roman and Ashley set out one Friday evening to attend the event at the town hall.
Roman had to leave work on the dot to get there in time. It wasn’t ideal. His employers had warned of a downturn in business and the need to make cuts in the first quarter of the year. Roman had done all he could to show willingness to his bosses—arriving early, staying late and taking short lunch breaks most days. He hadn’t left on time in weeks, but tonight was too important for him to miss.
It was a cold evening. In his winter jacket, leather gloves and the woollen scarf his mother had given him for Christmas, he still felt the chill as they walked through the streets. Breath swirled in vapours around his head, and his feet were numb. So far, snow had held off, though with cold this fierce, he felt it couldn’t be far away.
It was a relief to step into the warmth of the town hall foyer. A notice in the entrance said the LGBTQ Liaison meeting was being held in a function room on the first floor. It was an old building from the early 1900s. Despite a grand exterior, the inside had suffered from a low budget refit sometime in the last ten years and had the over-lit, plastic appearance of a motorway service station.
“I haven’t been here since my cousin got married,” Ashley admitted as they climbed the stairs.
“It’s an unusual venue for a wedding,” Roman said, taking in the characterless modern features.
“All she could afford…cheap and cheerful. They’ve got a good catering team, and the bar has dirt bargain-basement prices. And I remember sucking off one of the groom’s mates in the toilets.” He pointed along the corridor when they reached the first floor. “Down there.”
Roman laughed. “They should hire you as a tour guide. You could entertain the tourists with your colourful local tales. ‘Places I have shagged’.”
“Bitch,” Ashley tutted. “Anyone would think you weren’t the man who has a revolving door on his arse.”
“That was last year,” he corrected. “A lot has changed since then.”
“I’ll say it bloody has,” Ashley muttered.
The door to the function room was propped open. It was nearly full when they entered, ten minutes before the meeting was due to start.
“Whoa,” Roman said. “I didn’t expect such a big turn out.”
“Me neither. At least it will make the cops take notice.”
“The press, too.” He pointed out a reporter and two camera operators at the front.
“Good. And I hope this time they report something worthwhile instead of putting out another victim-shaming piece.”
They worked their way through the aisles, looking for two seats together, eventually finding them in the middle of the eighth row.
A handsome dark-haired guy in his early thirties waved at Roman from four rows back. He smiled and returned the wave, uncertain who the man was.
Ashley didn’t miss the gesture. “Who is that? He’s dishy.”
“Not sure yet,” Roman whispered back. “It will come to me.”
Ashley snorted. “Someone who went through the revolving door, I’m sure.”
“You could be right.” By the time Roman took his seat, his memory snapped into focus. “John,” he whispered excitedly. “Or Jack. Something with a J. I met him at The Viaduct last summer. I’ve seen him around a few times since, but we haven’t…you know.”
Ashley rolled his eyes. “You and that place. I wouldn’t set foot in there if you paid me…even now.” He turned his head, seeming to scan to room, but angling for a closer look at the hottie. “Actually, he’s quite nice. I wouldn’t have thought someone as wholesome-looking as him would go to that dump.”
“Looks are deceiving,” Roman said as his memory became more focused. “I thought I’d bagged a big hunky Daddy to…you know.”
“Smash your back doors in. And what? Don’t tell me. He was an even bigger bottom than you are.”
Roman nodded, suppressing a laugh. “Stop staring at him.”
“I bet that was something to behold. Two greedy bottoms arguing over who was gonna get it. What did you do? Just squash your buttholes together for a bit of friction?”
Roman flushed and gently elbowed him. “Shush. This is not the place.”
Ashley scoffed. “Thought so. Aren’t I always right about these things?”
“Don’t be so dismissive. Booty to booty…it’s a thing.”
“For desperate bottoms who make the mistake of hooking up together.”
They each put a fist in their mouths to contain their laughter. It was totally inappropriate, but after all the bad news and anxiety, it was a relief to make fun of something so daft.
Roman composed himself. This was serious business, and they should show respect. The meeting was called to order at exactly six o’clock. He recognised most of the members of the committee at the front of the room. Anjoa, the DJ from The New Inn took a seat on the stage next to Phil. Phil had been the most pro-active of all the bar managers in the village. He’d already held three charity events in memory of the victims. He’d arranged vigils and had set up a neighbourhood watch programme of volunteers to patrol the streets every weekend, looking for people who might be vulnerable from drug or alcohol use and helping them to get home safely. He also provided free personal alarms for anyone who came to the bar and asked for one. Phil had been a major driving force in the community over the dark, winter months…a true local hero.
A handful of others took to the stage. Police officers, Roman assumed, then he caught his breath as someone he did recognise sat down at the side.
“What’s the matter?” Ashley whispered.
“That guy in the blue jacket. I know him.” Benito…the handsome Italian who had wanted to take him out last autumn. He looked good, damned good, in a navy suit and open-necked shirt. The colours complemented his dark, Mediterranean skin tone.
“Is there anyone here you haven’t shagged?” Ashley muttered from the side of his mouth.
“I didn’t know he was a cop.” He struggled to recall what Benito had told him about himself, but Roman would definitely have remembered if he’d said he was a police officer. Like many people he knew, Roman had a distrust of the police. They had done little to support the community, and through most of their investigations, they had displayed a clear policy of victim blaming. Homophobia ran deep through the Blyham Police Force, and Roman doubted they would have much to say this evening that would change his mind.
* * * *
“Waste of fucking time,” Ashley said.
They were in a corner table at Julie’s following the meeting, two long and unproductive hours that had done more to rattle the attendees than reassure them.
“I think they listened to some of our concerns,” Anjoa said. The tone of her voice lacked the conviction of her words.
“I bet they were taking note of everyone who was there, wondering whether they could add us to their suspect list,” Ashley said. “It’s obvious that they’ve got fuck all else to go on.”
“I don’t think it was quite that bad,” Phil said, trying to placate him.
“It was,” Ashley said vehemently. “It was a box-ticking PR exercise so they can pretend they are listening.”
Roman didn’t share Ashley’s anger at the lack of progress made by Blyham Police, but he had come away from the meeting feeling dejected and in a low mood. Why had the discovery of Benito’s work bothered him so much? He knew what Ashley would say— because you’ve been sleeping with the enemy . He couldn’t deny he did feel that way. And why had Benito kept quiet about his career? Had he been snooping? Gong undercover and pretending to be one of them? Overstepping professional boundaries to shag the suspects?
Benito hadn’t spoken once during the whole meeting, which made Roman wonder what he’d been doing there at all. Unless it was what Ashley suspected and he was there to keep an eye on the crowd and look for suspects. But if that was the case, why would he take to the stage at all?
Why do you even care? He was an okay fuck you weren’t even interested in. What’s the big deal now?
Something about his presence had angered Roman but he didn’t know what for sure. He wouldn’t have felt anywhere near as strongly had Benito been sitting in the audience with the rest of them.
“So, what happens now?” he asked. “If this guy is still around, the timer is running down on when he’s going to strike again. What are we going to do?”
“Keep safe,” Phil said, fidgeting with his cigarette lighter. “Remain vigilant and look out for one another. We owe it to ourselves to make it as difficult as possible for this lunatic to claim another victim.”
Ashley nodded agreement.
“It’s going to take a lot more than that,” Anjoa said. “Those cops said they were going to put more officers on the beat. That’s fine for dealing with general hate crime, but this guy, this strangler, he’s not choosing his victims from the street. He’s killing them in their own homes. We need to educate people every single day about the risk they are in.”
“Agreed,” Phil said. “But it’s hard to see how we could be doing any more than we are.”
“We have to,” she insisted.
Roman supressed a sigh. This was getting frustrating. They were going around in circles and achieving nothing. He didn’t know what the answer was either but was sick of the endless debate. Seeing Bentio had put him a foul mood he found difficult to shake. “I’m going for a piss,” he said, sliding out from behind the table.
It was almost nine, and the front of the bar was at a third of capacity. The DJ was in her booth paying the usual mixed of chart and camp hits, but like all the bars in Blyham, Julie’s had taken a hit, Roman doubted there was much future for any of the bars if the strangler wasn’t caught soon.
The thought only depressed him further.
Julie’s was an old pub, and the bathrooms hadn’t had a refit since the 1980s. The place was bare and functional with no heating. Roman’s breath rose in vapours around his face as soon as he stepped inside. He shivered as he unfastened his fly and pissed into the urinal. More steam rose from the gutter.
He needed to shake himself out of this mood. He could barely afford to come out tonight. His earnings were stretched so thinly that disposable income was a thing of the past. If he was going to go broke over a few drinks, he’d make damn sure he enjoyed them.
He washed his hands under the freezing cold tap and tried to warm them beneath the drier.
Suddenly someone seized him from behind.
He gasped and panicked as strong arms closed around his trunk and squeezed him tight. He struggled to breathe.
Fuck. Not here. Not like this .
Roman was about to scream for help when he felt hot breath on the back of his ear and a heavily accented voice said, “I’ve missed that sexy ass.”
Now he gasped in pleasure.
Mallon loosened his grip and spun him around.
Before Roman could answer, Mallon forced his mouth on top of his. He thrust his tongue inside, and Roman did not resist.