Redemption of the Dead: A DI Sean Corrigan short story

So what do you do now, when raping without killing isn’t enough anymore? Will you follow someone to their home where the children sleep – where you can have all the time in the world to live out your dreams and then all the time in the world to get cleaned up – wash the blood off and change your clothes – no fears of having to run through the trees painted red? Yes, yes,’ he hissed. ‘That’s where you’re heading, isn’t it, you sick bastard? That’s exactly where you’re heading, even if you don’t know it yourself yet …’

* * *

Sean walked into the Parkside Rapist Enquiry Office with a lot more confidence than he’d had earlier the same day, now believing he had information everyone would want to know – information that could seriously move the stagnated case forward – if they’d just listen to him. He saw DS Ray Melody was busy on the phone, his thinned lips and red face warning Sean that the detective sergeant was already not a happy man. He waited for Melody to slam the phone down on whoever had angered him before jumping in, but Melody beat him to it. ‘You’re back early. You were supposed to stay in the park until it closed, which isn’t until it’s dark, and it doesn’t look dark to me – not yet.’

‘I found something,’ Sean told him eagerly. ‘When I was in the park I found something.’

‘A witness?’ Melody asked, allowing his mask of indifference to drop for a second.

‘No,’ Sean answered, ‘nothing like that. Something else.’

‘Go on then, Sherlock – amaze me with your powers of deduction,’ Melody ridiculed him, his mask firmly back in place.

Sean swallowed dryly before saying his piece. ‘I think he selects his victims because they’re with children, not in spite of it.’ He stood straight and waited for the congratulations and appreciation.

‘Is that fucking it?’ Melody asked, his mouth breaking into a huge grin. ‘That’s what you rushed back early to tell me – this … this quite brilliant theory of yours. Did you bang your head on a tree branch in that bloody park or something?’ Sean could feel other eyes falling on his embarrassment, but instead of playing it smart and keeping his mouth shut he blurted out more of his theory.

‘And I think he’s already killed, but not in the park or anywhere outside. He couldn’t because he’d be covered in blood. He’d never get away with it.’

‘If he’d killed before he’d have killed again by now, at least once or twice. Once these nutters kill they can’t go back,’ Melody told him, still grinning.

‘I understand that,’ Sean continued to argue, ‘and he wants to kill again, he just hasn’t had the chance yet. But he will.’ Everyone in the room was staring at him now, but he stood his ground.

‘Where are you getting all of this from, son?’ Melody asked. ‘Who’ve you been talking to?’

‘No one,’ he answered. ‘I just …’ Sean let his words trail away as he sensed a presence behind him – a presence that had brought everyone else in the room to a sudden stop. He looked over his shoulder in time to see a small, slim man with a bushy blond moustache taking a seat on the edge of a desk. He had no idea who he was, just that he must be someone important. ‘Shit,’ he whispered to himself and waited for the ridicule he felt was sure to come.

‘Don’t let me interrupt you, son,’ the man with the moustache told him. ‘Carry on with what you were saying, how you think our man has killed before.’

‘Like I was saying,’ Sean stuttered, ‘I think he’s killed before, but it had to be inside because …’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ the man hurried him, ‘because of the amount of blood he would have been covered in. But you said he wanted to kill again, yet we know he hasn’t.’

‘Because he hasn’t worked out how to yet,’ Sean told him. ‘He’s comfortable in wooded areas, but they can’t give him the privacy he needs – not in the daylight – which is when he likes to work.’