Scent of a Killer
KEVIN LEWIS
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published 2009
Copyright © Kevin Lewis, 2009
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN: 978-0-141-91765-8
To Jackie, Charlotte and Nathan, AKA ‘The Groovy Gang’
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
Prologue
At first he thought he must be dreaming. Then, as the fog clouding his mind began to lift, he started to feel uneasy. Finally, with the full reality of his situation slowly becoming clear, Raymond Chadwick started to panic.
The brightly lit room he had woken up in was eerily quiet and smelled of antiseptic. He had no idea of where he was or how he had got there. The only thing he knew for sure was that something was terribly, terribly wrong.
The overhead lights were dazzling, like staring directly into the sun, but when Chadwick tried to shut his eyes and turn away nothing happened. He couldn’t move. For some reason his whole body seemed to have stopped working. His arms, legs, fingers, toes, lips, tongue – they were all useless. He couldn’t even blink.
What on earth was going on? The last thing he could remember was sitting in the passenger seat of a fast-moving car. After that, everything had suddenly gone blank. And now he had woken up in … a hospital? That was the only thing that made sense. There must have been a crash, some kind of accident. How badly hurt was he? Was he going to be paralysed for the rest of his life? Please God, no! Anything but that.
Chadwick forced himself to calm down, to concentrate, to slow down his racing heart and take in as much as possible about his situation. He knew he was lying on his back, naked from the waist upwards – he could feel the cold air against his skin – but nothing hurt, he wasn’t in any kind of pain at all.
His fuddled brain searched desperately for an explanation. He still felt as though he was waking up from a deep sleep so perhaps he had just undergone an operation and was coming out of the anaesthesia. That too seemed to fit the facts. But if that was the case, why was there no one here with him? Why had he been left all alone?
Then another thought came into his mind and terror started to rise within him. What if the operation had not yet started? What if he remained awake during the whole procedure? He had read about cases like that and they had become the stuff of his nightmares.
Then, from somewhere off to his right, came the sound of footsteps. Solid shoes against a tiled floor. A steady clip, clip, clip, coming closer and closer. The footsteps clipped their way around the room, moving to one side, pausing for a few seconds, then moving back. A few moments later came the sound of a voice, a gentle, slightly muffled voice repeating his name over and over, assuring him that everything was going to be all right, that there was nothing to worry about.
A sense of ease slowly washed over him. The physical presence of another human being in the room was all the proof Chadwick needed that he had not been forgotten, that he was being cared for.
And there was more. The fact that the doctor was talking to him meant they knew he was conscious. Also, the fact that he was being reassured meant he was surely over the worst and on the road to recovery.
As he began to calm down he focused on the voice. There was something familiar about it. Chadwick knew he had heard it before but struggled to place it. Just then something appeared at the bottom of his field of vision. A head, covered in a tight-fitting green cap, was leaning over his torso, examining him. As the head moved along his body he could see the edge of a surgical mask covering the lower part of the face, leaving only the eyes visible.
For a brief moment the eyes looked directly into his. They were cold, detached. He could sense no emotion in them as the head vanished out of view.
A clatter of metal against metal was followed by the return of the head and a warm sensation on Chadwick’s chest as a soft palm pressed down on to the space between his nipples.
The muffled voice spoke again. ‘Don’t worry, Raymond. It’s all going to be okay. I’m going to make it all okay.’
The fingers were spread wide and felt good against his cold skin. A thumb started to slide back and forth across his sternum, pushing his chest hair aside. Slowly the hand began to press more firmly until it was forcing his shoulder blades flat against the bed beneath him.
Then a new sound. A muffled giggle. A laugh. The tone of the voice changed, becoming harsher, rising with excitement. ‘You really thought you were going to get away with it didn’t you?’ the voice said. ‘You truly believed that no one was ever going to find out. But you were wrong, Raymond. So wrong. You can’t go around treating people like that. You just can’t. Now you’re going to have to pay. You know what I’m going to have to do to you, don’t you?’
Chadwick’s heart began to race. He tried to move but found himself still paralysed. He stared back at the eyes, which were now wide with excitement, and he could sense a smile beneath the mask.