The Scribbler Iain Maitland (good books to read txt) 📖

to kill them both and bury the corpses. A terrible choice, but there was nothing else to be done. It was not what he wanted. But he could not risk exposure. It would be the end of everything. He had to do it.

He looked ahead, knowing that his turning was coming up, when he’d move off the main road and into a side lane.

By row upon row upon row of Christmas trees.

He checked his wing mirrors again. The car was still there. He kept watching even as the road twisted and turned. A glimpse of light from the moon, between the trees, and he suddenly saw that it was a police car.

* * *

The man with the gloves knew this moment had been coming for a long time now. Had known, one way or the other, for almost half his lifetime. He had thought, on and off, how it might all end. Being overpowered by someone stronger than him, most likely. Or spotted with somebody who was later reported missing. His van seen, the registration noted down carefully. Two and two put together. The knock on the front door late one night.

And he had thought about what he would do when it did. He’d rush out of the kitchen through the living room to the back door by the vegetable garden to get away. But he knew there would be other police out there, maybe armed, just waiting, in hiding for him.

There were other possible endings. He would fight back if he were overpowered and held down by his planned victim as they called the police on their mobile phone. He’d struggle endlessly for the chance to escape. He’d never give up.

But, of all the various permutations, he had never imagined it would end this way. A police patrol car on his tail, playing with him, toying, as they closed in on his van.

He looked again at the wing mirror, saw the police car was still there, so close to him now that if he braked, it would be sure to crash into his van.

Did not know what to do. A sense of helplessness.

He could accelerate away, racing for his life. But they would most likely keep pace, forcing him off the road. An unseemly scramble as he tried, unsuccessfully, to get out of the van and run. Even if he got away, where would he go? They had his registration number, knew who he was, where he lived.

Brake sharply then. The police driver and passenger, taken by surprise, shaken by the crash. Dazed and bewildered, he could take his chances with them, armed with his screwdriver and Stanley knife. Up and out of his van fast, to the police car, tugging open doors, slashing and stabbing them. It was quiet here, on this road. No one around. Nobody to see. No one to interrupt him. If he were quick, could brace himself for the crash, have the element of surprise on his side, he could just about manage it.

Then what? These days, they’d probably have some sort of recording device, a dash-cam they call it, that would film the van, the crash and his fast approach towards the police car armed with the screwdriver and the Stanley knife. He could take it out and smash it into a million pieces. But maybe the recordings were held somewhere else, perhaps they went straight back to the police’s main computer. He did not know. He did not really understand such things. He did not have a computer. Nor a mobile phone. Nothing like that.

His was an old-fashioned life of BBC TV and newspapers, cash and cheque books.

He knew it.

He liked it that way. He did not like the modern world.

The van approached the turning to the lane. A little way along now on the left. And then by the Christmas trees. Or straight on this road, through the forest towards the coast. The police car playing with him, cat and mouse, ready to pounce.

He did not know what to do. Felt paralysed. His mind and body failing him when he needed them most.

All he could think about at this moment was how dry his mouth was and that he did not seem to be able to swallow. And he realised how tight he was gripping the wheel. So inconsequential, such nonsense, when everything was about to end for him.

And then the police car pulled out from behind his van. He kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead, ignoring the sweat pouring down the side of his face, as the car pulled alongside him. A brief second, and he could sense the police car passenger’s eyes upon him. He held his breath, five ten, fifteen seconds and more. And then the police car accelerated and moved away, up to forty, fifty and sixty miles per hour, disappearing into the distance.

He turned the van left, on to the side lane, heading towards the Christmas trees.

Breathed out, long and endless, realising suddenly that he had not been breathing properly since he had first seen the police car in the moonlight.

Knew how close a call this had been, the police stopping the van, opening the back doors, seeing the old man’s body wrapped in bin blacks. “What’s this here then?” signalling the end.

He had not killed the boy or the dog. Was suddenly glad of it. Knew in his heart he could not have done it. He was neither proud nor ashamed of killing the old man, nor any of the other middle-aged men over the years. It was just what he did. He saw it as a culling. Of men who led respectable lives by day and sordid ones at night. And of monsters, like Father. They did not deserve to live. Such monsters. Their families were better off without them.

But he had never killed – culled – anyone else. He had never laid a finger on a woman, young or old. Had always respected them. He had learned much about women from