The Scribbler by Iain Maitland (life changing books txt) 📕

“Okay, look, let me know … text me … I’ll make sure my mobile’s switched on. If there’s a possible anywhere in there, Carrie and I can go over and follow it up. Until then, Mr Thomas … Mr Cotton … have a good afternoon and evening …” 21. SATURDAY 17 NOVEMBER, MID-AFTERNOON

The man wearing the latex gloves drove Carrie’s car steadily along the road that cut through the forest.

He kept it at thirty miles per hour. A habit now. Always careful not to stand out. To be noticed.

He drove as if he knew where he was going. But wasn’t in a particular hurry. Just an ordinary man going about his humdrum business.

He was driving a dark and nondescript Smart car. A woman’s car, he thought. Not a man’s. A mother’s car. A booster cushion sitting there on the seat behind him. He knew he was safe from CCTV and speed cameras on this road. There was nothing like that out here. But it worried him that, as cars passed, the drivers and passengers might look across and see him and wonder why he was driving a car like this. That they might remember him later, if or when the car was found and it was shown on television.

“Doris, dear? Come here quickly,” an old man watching the television might call out to his wife preparing their tea in the kitchen.

“This young policewoman’s gone missing and they’ve found her car in Rendlesham Forest …” The old man would ponder for a minute as his wife stood behind him watching the news, too.

“Isn’t that the one we saw on the Rendlesham road with that man driving it? Doris, call the police … I remember what he looks like.”

The man with the gloves dipped his head down whenever a car passed. He did it three or four times. One or so a minute. All they would see, anyone who looked across, would be the top of his head. Balding now. Like so many men of his age. In his haste, he had forgotten to put on a cap and he regretted that.

He knew where he was going to take the car. He had thought of setting fire to it, but decided that was too risky. He would just hide it. Three or four miles from home. Deep in the forest. He’d been there once or twice before. A dark, almost impenetrable, place. Through trees, down a slope and into bushes. Not somewhere hikers or dog walkers would go, nor even stumble across. A mile down this road. Then left. And left again. Off the road, down a track and, finally, into the densest part of the forest.

Not far enough from home. Not really. But he knew he needed to walk back. Had to do that through the forest. So he would not be seen. He realised he should take the car farther away. Ten, twenty miles. But he did not know where he would hide it. And the longer he spent in the car, on main roads, the riskier it was. CCTV and speed cameras were everywhere closer to the towns of Woodbridge and Ipswich.

He had to get back as soon as he could. To sort everything out properly. He had not intended to kill the policewoman. Had panicked and lashed out. Acting on Mother’s instructions. Had managed to control himself quickly enough, though.

He did not think the policewoman was dead. He had not finished the job. Alive and conscious now, most likely. His brother would have put her somewhere, tied up, in one of his not-so-secret special places. He would have to deal with it, with her, when he arrived home. He did not want to, but what else could he do? What choice did he have?

Take her somewhere quiet.

Shoot her painlessly. Through the back of her head.

Bury the body deep.

But he did not kill women. Only bad men. Men like Father who pretended to be respectable. Family men who led double lives. In public toilets with other men while their wives and children waited patiently and unknowing at home.

He did not want to kill this woman.

But did not know what else to do.

They could not keep her locked up forever.

If the police came, it would be better if she were found alive than dead. He knew that well enough. But there were so many bodies at the farm that one more hardly mattered. They would go to prison forever either way and Mother would be left at home to die alone.

He knew in his heart that it was likely that the policewoman had told someone that she was going to the farm. Someone would come looking for her soon, he thought.

Today.

Tomorrow.

Monday at the latest.

He reached into his pocket, felt the gun there. One person, another policewoman or man, he could deal with. But then more would come. And dogs. And police with guns, and it would all be over. One way or the other.

He would go down fighting, he decided, rather than spending his remaining days in prison. There was a chance, he thought, if he wrote a confession when he got back, that his brother and mother would be spared. That everything that had been done had been done by him and him alone.

But he could not trust his brother to stand up to the police, knew he would say, in his slow and simple voice, that he had buried the bodies. As if that were right and decent and no more. And Mother knew, too. They would all be implicated to some degree or other. Perhaps it would be better if they all went together. There were plenty of bullets.

One for his brother while his head was bowed down as he smoked one of the cigarettes he loved so much.

And another for Mother while she slept, her mouth hanging open. When she was at peace. In sweet dreams.

And the last one for him, shutting his eyes and putting the gun into his