DEAD Heat: A killer's mind unravels Read online

  DEAD Heat

  A Killer’s Mind Unravels

  Colin Youngman

  An eve n ing Publication

  Copyright 2017 © Colin Youngman

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication, paperback or e-book, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or in any means – by written, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without prior written permission of the author

  ISBN: 9781521579688

  ISBN-13:

  DEDICATION

  For Jason and Simon

  Stepsons without the Step.

  Also by Colin Youngman:

  DEAD Lines

  Brittle Justice

  The Refugee

  A Fall Before Pride

  Vicious Circle

  All the above can be purchased separately or as part of the anthology:

  TWISTS (‘A corkscrew of a read’)

  Praise for DEAD Heat

  "Still dizzy from the plot twists”

  "If unputdownable is a word, this is its definition”

  "Complex, morally ambiguous characters”

  “Seriously, seriously, good”

  "An incredibly talented author"

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book would not be possible without the assistance of many others. Primarily, I’d like to thank Fiona Quinn for her invaluable handgun tutorial (not a subject I’m familiar with, I‘m pleased to say), John Gilstrap (ex-HazMat team member and NY Times Best Selling Author) for guidance on explosives and combustibles, and Davor Sevkusic MD for the gory bits.

  I must also mention Don Prout for background and additional information on locations featured in the book, Mike Smith for his knowledge of US railways and rolling stock, and John Matarese of WCPO Cincinnati for sharing information on, surprise, surprise, Cincinnati.

  I should also name and shame my good friends, Trevor Dixon and Michael Lisle, with whom I shared a road trip to several of the locations mentioned here. It was more years ago than any of us would care to remember, and it so very nearly included what I’m sure would have been a memorable night in El Rancho Rankin!

  Last and by no means least, thanks to Precious Seaward for spotting plot holes before it was too late to remedy them

  CHAPTER ONE

  THIRTEEN YEARS AGO, TO THE DAY

  “Hi. It’s Marge, isn’t it?” The mouth pressed up against her ear to make itself heard.

  Jennifer removed her lips from a pink straw. “I’m sorry?”, she shouted back.

  “I said: ‘It’s Marge’. I’m Stephen”. The young man extended his hand towards her.

  Jennifer glanced at her friend who widened her eyes and pursed her lips in encouragement. Jennifer took the hand. It was firm yet not overpowering. “Sorry but I think you’re mistaking me for someone else. My name’s Jennifer”.

  “Oh sorry”, he said. “You’re the double of her”.

  Some Giorgio Moroder mash-up belted out from the sound system of the Mirage Club. Jennifer struggled to hear. She leant in towards him, looked into a pair of emerald green eyes set in an angular face, and wished she had been Marge.

  “That’s no problem”. She tugged at a wisp of ruby red hair that had become disengaged from the mass atop her head. “So, were you expecting to meet this Marge, then?”, she shouted, embarrassed when the music stopped midway through her question.

  “Hardly”, Stephen replied. “She’s in America. And too famous to talk to the likes of me”.

  The overhead strobe light cast flickering ultra-violet shadows over her face. “Really? What does she do?”

  “She’s on TV. You might have heard of her. Marge Simpson”.

  Jennifer’s friend – blonde of hair yet coffee-skinned - laughed. A lurid-coloured cocktail spurted from her mouth, making her giggle even more.

  “Are you always so charming?”, Jennifer asked him.

  “No – I’m being serious”. He tilted his head towards the mirrored backdrop to the club’s bar.

  Jennifer followed the nod with her eyes. Through the mass of students jostling for service, she caught a glimpse of her reflection. Her tight red dress appeared purple in the ultra-violet light. More, her mountain of red hair had also turned purple. She could see his point.

  When she smiled, he knew he’d cracked it. “Here, let me get you and your friend a drink”.

  **

  They hadn’t made love that night – it was only the third day of Fresher’s week and Jennifer didn’t want to garner a reputation – but she knew they would. Soon. They’d exchanged numbers before going their separate ways and Jennifer looked forward to his call.

  Marsha had been almost as excited as Jennifer during the walk back to the shoddy Residential Hall. “God, Jennifer. How gorgeous was he? D’you know, he looked just like Dirk Pitt”. Marsha’s course of choice was Contemporary Literature purely on the grounds of the insatiable crush she had on Cussler’s NUMA hero.

  “Shut up, Marsh. You’ll have us married off soon. I don’t know anything about him”.

  “Err…hello? He’s tall. He’s handsome. He knows his Simpsons. What more do you need to know?” Marsha linked her arm with Jennifer’s as they strode across the university car park, giggling like the schoolgirl she’d been only a few weeks ago.

  The campus was strangely quiet. Darkened shadows illuminated by feeble pools of streetlight gave the cobbled courtyards a Dickensian feel. Marsha winced. “Hold on, Jen. My feet are killing me”.

  They paused for a moment beneath a dim streetlight, their modern dress silhouetted against austere and ancient stonemasonry as if they were time travellers. The blonde rested one arm on Jennifer’s shoulder as she unbuckled her shoes. “Okay”, she said, shoes hanging from one finger. “Wagon’s roll”.

  The girls had stopped just as a group of male freshers entered the campus courtyard. “Look at the ass on that red head. What wouldn’t I do with that?” dreamt one.

  “C’est magnifique”, agreed another, poking his tongue out and running it around his lips.

  The third said nothing. His green eyes simply admired the view; the view of them both.

  **

  Jennifer wasn’t surprised when she didn’t hear from him the next day. She knew what student hangovers were like. She thought nothing of it when he didn’t call the second day, either. Playing it cool. Didn’t want to seem too keen, she thought. ‘I like that’.

  By the third day, she wondered if he’d perhaps mislaid her number. Jennifer thought about calling him but courage failed her. On the fourth day, she was beside herself. She kept looking at her phone, daring it to ring.

  Marsha was with her. “Why don’t you just call him?”, she asked. “You know you want to”.

  “Don’t know what you mean. Who do you mean by ‘him’?”

  “Come on, Jen. It’s me you’re talking to here. Stephen. Who else would I mean? Craig David? You haven’t stopped looking at your phone since I got here”.

  Jennifer looked at the Nokia again. “I’m just admiring it. It’s new, you know. It’s even got a camera built in. Look.” She slid the casing down to reveal a lens inside. “Who’d have thought a phone could take pictures?” There was no animation in her voice.

  “It’ll never catch on”, Marsha said. “Can’t see the point in it. Jennifer. Listen to me. Call him. He might have lost your number. He might be shy. Anything.”

  “Shy? Did he seem shy to you, Marsha? No, he’s not shy. He’s just not interested”. Tears came. She sniffed them back but the dam was broken. “That’s what I get for flunking my exams first time around and waiting two years to come to uni. I’m too old for him. Th
at’s what it is. Too fucking old”.

  “Don’t be a moron, girl. You’re gorgeous. Look at the figure on you. I’d die for your curves. And I wouldn’t call twenty old. It’s only two years more than any of us, including Stephen”.

  Marsha took the phone from Jennifer’s hand and flipped to the Contacts. “Don’t you dare” said Jennifer, wrestling her friend for it. Just then, the phone rang.

  Marsha looked at the screen. “It’s him. It’s him!” she said, passing the phone to Jennifer. “Go on girl, I told you”.

  They laughed. Jennifer’s tears dried on her cheeks. “Hello? Who’s this? Who?” she repeated, feigning ignorance at the mention of his name. Marsha suppressed a giggle. “Oh hi”, Jennifer continued. “How you doing?

  Marsha watched her friends face. Surprised to see it change. Surprised to see Jennifer’s tears flow again. Shocked to hear her shout “Fuck right off” into the mouthpiece as she hurled the phone onto the sofa.

  “What’s up?” was all Marsha could ask Jennifer, who sat with her knees pulled up to her chin and her face buried in the arms that lay across them. “What’s the matter, babe?”

  It was several moments before Jennifer could speak. “I don’t believe it. I don’t fucking believe it. Do you know what he’s just said? He said he’d been plucking up courage to ring me. He said it had been his birthday the week before he came away to uni. He’d had a bash with his friends. And you know what he said? He said he’d got his credit card bill and couldn’t afford to pay it. The bastard was ringing to ask me for the money he spent on our drinks at the Mirage. Can you fucking believe that?”

  Marsha didn’t know what to say. She daren’t tell her that she thought it funny. Instead, she wrapped her arms around Jennifer. Eventually she found some words. “Well, you know what they say about relationships, don’t you, Jen? That relationships are the snowstorms of our life”.

  Jennifer broke away from Marsha’s arms and looked her in the eyes. “Marsha Drake-Wallace, that’s a beautiful description. It doesn’t help, but it’s lovely. And you’re right. They’re here one day, gone the next. Nice while they last but soon turn to muck and slush”.

  “No, that’s not what I meant at all”, said an earnest Marsha. “I meant you never know how many inches you’re going to get”.

  Through the tears, Jennifer shrieked with laughter.

  **

  Rain bleached across the open campus, stinging the face like needles. Jennifer increased the pace of her gait. She stuffed her portfolio case beneath her parka coat to keep it dry. Someone was calling her name. She raised her head. Marsha hurried across the campus in the opposite direction. They gave each other a cheery wave.

  “Hi Marsh. Catch up with you later?”

  “Yeah. Listen, you finished for the day?”

  “Sure. Don’t fancy going out again in this”. She wiped a river of raindrops from her brow.

  “Put the kettle on, then. I’ll be over in ten minutes”.

  “You don’t have to, you know. I’m okay, I really am. It’s taken me a few days but I’m over him now”.

  “Did I say you weren’t? Don’t be so self-centred, girl. Ever thought that I might just want to spend some time with my bestie?”

  “Okay, Marsha. That’ll be great. See you soon”. Then, as an afterthought, she added “Thanks, Marsh”.

  She struggled to extract the keys from her pocket with one hand, the other clenched the bottom of her coat to ensure her paperwork didn’t slip out from beneath it. Fellow students scurried past, splashing in the puddles like the juveniles they were. Jennifer had never understood such behaviour. She had always been above it. More mature. No, not mature. Just different, somehow. She’d always been different. That’s what had attracted her to Marsha. Jennifer could tell she was different, too.

  Once inside, Jennifer shut the door behind her. She shook out her sodden coat and pulled her text book from beneath the shelter of her cardigan. It emerged unscathed. Her lecture notes were less fortunate. The sheathes of paper curled at the edges, the ink smudged and mostly unreadable. Jennifer spread the pages across the top of the radiator, turned the heating up high, and tossed her shoulder bag on top of a heap of shoes scattered in the corner of the hallway.

  She reached into an overhead cupboard and managed to find a couple of mugs that weren’t amongst the mountain of dirty dishes cowering in the sink. Jennifer somehow manoeuvred the kettle around the sink clutter and filled it before preparing the cups with coffee ready for Marsha’s arrival.

  Jennifer and Marsha had known each other for less than six months but they’d hit it off instantly. They’d first met at the university open day in York. Jennifer had never made friends easily and to have an immediate rapport with anyone was unusual for her.

  They only spent a few hours in each other’s company that first day, touring the faculties, taking lunch together, having a drink afterwards but before returning home they’d made a joint decision there-and-then to accept any offer of a place from the University of York.

  Seldom a day had gone by since without them speaking. Jennifer visited Marsha’s home in Hastings on England’s south-east coast as often as possible. They booked a weekend in Florence together. They spent weekends in York, gaining familiarity with the city. Put simply, Jennifer and Marsha ‘got’ each other.

  For the first time in her life, the real Jennifer emerged. The one that had been hiding behind the mask of her good looks, stunning hair, and extraordinary figure. The stuff that had made her seem normal to everyone else. She felt good about herself. And all because, on that first day, Jennifer had noticed the latticework of scar tissue that criss-crossed Marsha’s left wrist. Yes, Marsha was different, too. Or had been once.

  Jennifer began humming a tune to herself. Joe Jackson’s ‘It’s Different for Girls’. She had discovered something on her course that had lightened her mood; something she couldn’t wait to tell Marsha. She grabbed a tea towel and began to dry her hair, then thought better of it after she’d sniffed its mildew.

  A knock on the door interrupted her. “Only me”, a voice cried. Marsha. Jennifer opened it and stood aside to let the drowned rat out of the storm. “Bloody hell”, Marsha said. “Have you seen it out there?” She breezed into the flat. “Where’s that coffee, girl?”

  “Coming right up. No. Listen, I’m still drenched myself. Can you sort it out for me while I dry off? You can follow me if you like”.

  “Go right ahead, honey”, Marsha faked an American accent.

  “Great. Won’t be a mo.”

  Jennifer disappeared into the bathroom and vigorously rubbed a towel over her head. As she did so, she wondered how Marsha would react when she told her she’d discovered Stephen’s name on the list of Drama and Media students; the same course as Jennifer’s.

  She ran a comb through her hair and stepped out of the bathroom. To find a total stranger helping herself to a cup of coffee.

  **

  Jennifer stared at the figure with her back to her. The stranger filled a second cup with boiling water. Jennifer was about to protest, to ask her what the heck she thought she was playing at, when realisation dawned.

  The figure was clad in ill-matched bra and panties and nothing else. She was about five feet three. Roughly Marsha’s height. Her skin was a mellow coffee colour. Marsha’s tone. But her hair was military-short. Black. Tightly curled. Not like Marsha’s. And the scalp showed through in three large patches; one roughly as big as a tennis ball, two golf-ball sized.

  The figure sensed movement behind her. “It’s nearly ready, Jen. Had trouble finding the sugar. Can’t drink it without sugar”.

  Jennifer let out the breath she’d been holding. It sounded like Marsha’s voice but it wasn’t until she spotted the wrist scars that she knew for certain.

  “Marsha?”

  Marsha turned to face her. “Sorry, Jen. Didn’t mean to startle you. I was soaking wet so I just stripped off. You don’t mind, do you? Nothing you ain’t seen before”. She
winked at the red-head.

  “No. Don’t mind at all”.

  Something in Jennifer’s voice alerted Marsha. “Oh, this”, she touched the crown of her head. She tried to lighten the mood by quoting the catchphrase from a TV talent competition. “Tonight Matthew, I’m going to be … “.

  Jennifer didn’t smile. “Marsha, love. What’s happened?”

  Marsha felt awkward, crossed her arms in front of her. When Jennifer saw her shiver, Jennifer stripped off her towel and threw it across the room to her friend. “Here, you have this. I’ll get a robe from the bathroom”.

  When she returned, the girls sat sipping their coffee in silence. Finally, Jennifer spoke. “Want to tell me about it?”

  Marsha nodded. “Suppose”. She set her mug down on a glass table and took Jennifer’s hand.

  “When I was about nine or ten, my parents moved to the south-west. They got a place for me at a local school. Seemed fine at first. They had more books than my previous school; the teachers were lovely, from what I can remember.”

  She looked down at her hands as she spoke. The words tumbled from her like an avalanche.

  “The school even had a small playing field. Much better than the crummy yard at my old place. At least, that’s what I thought. Near the bottom of the field there were a few bushes. The garden, the teachers called it. Well, it became a jungle for me, not a garden”. She lowered her head. Shuddered.

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, Marsh”.

  “No. I do. I need to talk about it”. She took a sip of coffee and, fortified, continued. “I know it seems strange ‘cos it’s not that long ago, but things were different even then. Especially where we lived. Out in the country, forty miles from the nearest city. I guess it was inevitable because I was the only one in the school”. She hesitated. Drank again.