Page 6 of Worse Than Murder
In 2017, I ran the Sheffield Half Marathon. It was… well, let’s just say it was an experience and one I have no intention of ever repeating. However, it’s strange how life events can force you to change your mind about things. I’ve never been one for exercise. I eat fairly healthily apart from the odd bag of Maltesers, maybe a Crunchie every now and then and a couple of Snickers, and I’ll not mention my alcohol intake. But apart from that, I’m pretty sure I’m in reasonably good health. Mentally though, I’m well and truly fucked and I’ve found the only things that stop me from overthinking and going completely insane are running and swimming. I even borrowed a bike yesterday and went for a cycle around the lake. I could enter the 2024 Olympics as a triathlete at this rate.
Shit. My eyes have blurred. Here come the tears.
Distraction. Distraction. I need a distraction.
I wonder what I’ll be having for tea tonight? I fancy a big juicy steak. I hope Philip has one going spare I can nab. Maybe with a crispy jacket potato and some salad. Lovely.
* * *
Two months ago, I received an anonymous email from someone claiming to have committed five perfect murders. I’ve been a police officer for more than twenty years, a detective for more than fifteen. I know there’s no such thing as the perfect murder. There was something about this that felt different, though. I don’t know if it was the wording or what, but I had to look further into the claims. It turns out, whoever was doing this was right. He’d defeated me.
The first victim, twenty-year-old university student Liam Walsh suffered with depression and anxiety. He wanted to kill himself but didn’t want to die alone. He accessed the dark web and posted a message on a suicide message board looking for someone to enter into a suicide pact with him. The killer was waiting online and groomed Liam. At the top of the Art’s Tower in Sheffield, one of the city’s tallest buildings, the killer revealed his true identity and pushed Liam to his death. Liam had left behind a suicide note for his mother and the coroner accepted this to be true. Liam’s death was registered as suicide.
Twenty-year-old Josie Pettifer was the second victim. The killer ingratiated himself into her life and they developed a relationship, which, unbeknown to Josie, was completely one-sided. Josie suffered with many allergies, one of which was a peanut allergy. While preparing a meal, Josie’s faux boyfriend laced her salmon with peanut oil. She had a massive anaphylactic shock, and the killer simply sat back and watched her die. Her death was recorded as a tragic accident.
Victim number three was eighty-six-year-old Audrey Wildgoose. She had recently been diagnosed with dementia and was being looked after by kindly neighbours until a place could be found for her at a nursing home. One morning, a neighbour visited to find the back door wide open. Audrey was later found in a nearby park. All signs pointed to her dying from exposure. If it wasn’t for me receiving these emails from the killer claiming his victims, the coroner would have stated that Audrey had simply left the house one night, and in her confusion, had been unable to remember the way back home.
There was a marked difference with the fourth victim. The previous three all had elements to their personalities a killer could take advantage of, and they’d all appeared, at one time or another, in the local newspaper, which is how we believed he was finding his victims. Natasha Klein was different.
Nineteen-year-old Natasha was a wannabe influencer– not a proper job, if you ask me. She lived her life by social media. How she appeared on the killer’s radar, I couldn’t work out. Maybe he’d been spying on her social media pages and become obsessed with her. Until I catch him, I won’t know the truth. Natasha was listed as a missing person and her disappearance made headlines around the country. The tabloids love a beautiful teenager. A candlelight vigil in Sheffield city centre went viral for all the wrong reasons. It wasn’t long after that I received another email telling me where he had left Natasha. I found her hidden in woodland. She had died from hypothermia and exposure. He’d simply left her there to die a slow and painful death.
Four victims down, one to go.
Why do I keep going over this in my head? I’m pushing myself. I’m literally killing myself every time I think about this. Why don’t I just put myself out of my own misery by walking into the lake with a couple of rocks in each pocket?
The killer called me. He phoned me and told me that he’d been watching me. He knew all about my mum’s recent money worries and the fact her gas fire wasn’t working properly. He told me my mum was his final victim.
I couldn’t get to her house fast enough. Looking back, I’ve no memory of the journey. I called my sister, Harriet. She told me she was just returning from a weekend away in Scotland with her new boyfriend. She had left her sons, beautiful Joseph and Nathan, with our mum. All three of them were in that house. We found them… dear God… we found them… they were dead. Joseph and Nathan, teenagers with their whole lives ahead of them. They were in bed and looked as if they were sleeping. Mum was clinging to life.
I shouldn’t be thinking about any of this. That’s why I go running. That’s why I pound the uneven ground of the Cumbrian countryside, to put my body through so much pain that I focus on my aching joints and muscles and not the torment going through my mind. If only I could flick a switch and turn my brain off.
Four days after Nathan and Joseph’s lifeless bodies were discovered, four days after Mum was rushed into hospital, four days since the last email from that bastard killer telling me his work was complete, and me and Harriet were sitting either side of our mum’s bed in a private room at the Northern General Hospital. We’d hardly spoken. Harriet blamed me. Every time we made eye contact, I could see the hatred there. I don’t blame her. I’d hate me, too. In fact, I do. I hate myself.
Dr Felicity Wilde walked into the room. Her face was ashen. I knew what she was going to say before she even opened her mouth. I remember the conversation word for word. It’s on permanent repeat.
‘I’ve had a meeting this morning with two consultants.’ She was using a low, sympathetic tone. I wanted to slap her. ‘We’ve looked at your mother’s charts and condition and I’m afraid it doesn’t look likely there will be any improvement. We’ve run all manner of tests, as you know, and there is no function in the brain whatsoever. It’s only the machines she is currently hooked up to that are keeping her alive. We all agree that it would be in all of your best interests if we switched them off.’
“We all agree…” We? Who is the we? I haven’t been asked. Harriet hasn’t been asked. We’re her daughters. Why not ask our opinions?
To say the relationship I had with my mother was fractious would be an understatement. She never liked my job. However, in recent years, especially since the death of my father, the ice had started to thaw. I genuinely did love my mum. I turned to look at her. She looked old. Her eyes were closed, her skin was dry and free of makeup, her hair was flecked with grey. She would have hated how she looked right then. If I was being honest, I’d known for days that Mum was gone, just by looking at her. There was no life emanating from her at all. I’d clung on to the merest hint of hope. Now, Dr Wilde was telling us that there was no hope.
I looked up and across the bed to Harriet. Tears were streaming down her face. I wanted to rush around and hold her tight and never let go, but I knew she wouldn’t allow it.
‘Is there nothing you can do?’ Harriet asked.
It was a pointless question. I knew the doctors had done everything possible for Mum. They’d really gone above and beyond.
Dr Wilde shook her head. ‘Your mum’s brain was starved of oxygen for too long, I’m afraid.’
Harried grabbed for a tissue on the bedside table and loudly blew her nose. ‘Mum wanted to be an organ donor…’ she said, leaving the sentence open.
I knew this wouldn’t be allowed to happen. Mum’s death would be investigated as part of an ongoing murder case. There would be no chance of her organs being donated while that was carried out.
‘Unfortunately,’ Dr Wilde began. ‘The amount of carbon monoxide your mum inhaled, added with the lack of oxygen, will have made the organs unusable for transplantation.’
Harriet cried more tears. Mum always wanted her death to have meaning, to have her organs live on in someone else. I thought that was very generous of her. Harriet always found it creepy but, faced with Mum’s death, she seemed to have come round and found it comforting that Mum’s heart could beat again in someone else’s body. Not now, though.
‘When?’ Harriet began. ‘When do we… you know?’
