The Handshaker Read online

  The Handshaker

  David Robinson

  “This is one compelling roller-coaster of a read.”

  Laurie Clayton Kindle reader

  “...will leave you gasping for breath.”

  Paul Bell Kindle reader

  Copyright © 2012 by David Robinson

  Cover Artwork by David Robinson and Jason Stitt

  Design by Crooked Cat

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or Crooked Cat Publishing except for brief quotations used for promotion or in reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  First Black Line Edition, Crooked Cat Publishing Ltd. 2013

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  The Author

  A Yorkshireman by birth, David is a retired hypnotherapist and former adult education teacher, now living on the outskirts of Manchester with his wife and crazy Jack Russell called Joe (because he looks like a Joe).

  A devout follower of Manchester United, when he is not writing, he enjoys photography, cryptic crosswords, and putting together slideshow trailers and podcast readings from his works.

  The Handshaker

  November 14th

  1

  His breathing reached panic proportions; he twitched and shuddered and, with sweat forming on his brow, gave a final jerk before subsiding into stillness.

  A thick coat shrouded his shoulders but even through its fleecy lining, the bite of a stiff, northerly gale nipped at his bones and chilled the sweat under his hairline. He stood, zipped up his fly and looked down at her. He felt nothing for her now. He had allowed her to enjoy him, and by turn, he had taken his pleasure of her, satisfied his hunger, and he was done with her.

  When he checked the sky to the far north, a bank of heavy cloud was moving in and had already blotted out some of the stars. Orion had just risen on the south-eastern horizon, and the ruddy eye of Taurus, the celestial bull, burned overhead, with the wispy, almost invisible Pleiades close by.

  He brought his eyes down to earth and the breathtaking view from Scarbeck Point. To the west and south lay the whole of Greater Manchester, spread out like a man-made constellation of orange streetlights interspersed with the occasional bright white of car headlights moving here and there. To the north and east lay the dark, brooding Pennine moors while immediately below was the derelict, Cromford Mill, a Victorian leviathan now a blemish on the urban landscape.

  Then he gazed down at the damp grass where Susan Edwards lay naked and still. She was good. Not the best, but definitely high in the charts.

  “Stand up.”

  She did as she was told. It was impossible for her to do anything else.

  “Stay there.”

  He fished into the deep, poaching pockets of his anorak, came out with a rope and tossed it over the lower branch of a nearby oak. The branch looked stout and strong, she was slender. It would hold.

  The noose dangled a foot above his head. He let it down a little, then took the opposite end of the rope and wrapped it around the trunk, fastening it with a loose bow, so that it would be easy to slip. He came back to the noose, which now hung just below the level of his chest. Gripping it, he let his feet slip and swung on it. The branch swayed under his thirteen stones. He guessed her to be perhaps eight or nine stones. It was fine.

  He reached into his pocket again, and this time came out with a short length of twine. Moving behind her, he barked, “Hands behind your back.”

  She couldn’t help but obey.

  He bound her wrists securely, his fingers moving nimbly despite the icy cold. He was not worried about leaving forensic evidence like fingerprints. One sample from her snatch and they had all the DNA they could use, but it was useless to them. He had never been in trouble in his life, and he was not on any fingerprint or DNA database. Even if they tried running an ancestral line, they would draw a blank. He had no living relatives to give them any pointers.

  He stood back admiring her. The eyes were vacant, staring out at the night, seeing nothing. With her hands tied back like that, her breasts stood proud, but sagged as if the weight of her large nipples dragged them down. The tummy showed signs of stretch. She had a couple of brats. She was fine-boned, yet her hips were broad and strong, made for childbearing. He had enjoyed himself between those slim thighs many times over the last few days. Tight, sweet, succulent, almost as good as Sandra or Sinclair. Yes, that was it. Almost as good as Sinclair, maybe even better but for the fact that Sinclair was a special case.

  “When you wake up, you will realise instantly where you are and you will be aware of what is about to happen.” His tones were authoritarian, brooking no argument. “You will no longer be under my control.” He paused, a thrill of anticipatory excitement running through him. This was always his favourite bit. He snapped his fingers close to her ear. “Wake up.”

  ***

  Susan shivered, instantly aware of her nakedness.

  Confusion assailed her. What was she doing here, where was her clothing, who was this man holding her by the shoulders? Her last clear memory was coming out of Pearman’s Supermarket and putting two bags of groceries in the boot of her car.

  As her mind slowly cleared, other memories came to her: distant, dreamlike images of a darkened room, of fucking with someone, of a neatly folded heap of clothing, some of it hers, most of it not, stacked in one corner. What did it all mean?

  She looked into his cold eyes, took in the cruel smile, and as he rolled his eyes upwards, inviting her to follow their gaze, so she automatically stared up at the noose and she screamed.

  Now she knew, now she understood. She would be number eight. She recognised him, realised that his good work had been nothing more than an insidious campaign to get into her mind, prime her for this moment. Her heart beat wildly. She made to swing a fist at him, only to discover that her hands were tied firmly behind her back. She kicked at his shin, but her bare feet made no impact. Shrugging herself free of him, she turned and ran.

  Hours, days, perhaps, of lying on the bed had sapped her energy levels. She got barely five yards before he stretched out a leg and took her feet from under her. Crashing to the ground, the damp and decay of autumn grass, mixed with something else, assaulted her nostrils. The something else was the smell of fear. Not ordinary fear, but the absolute dread of imminent death.

  He fell on her and she could feel him getting hard. His breath was hot in her ear as he whispered, “It’s your time, Susan.”

  He stood and yanked her to her feet, standing behind her, forcing her to face the branch and its swinging noose. She felt his body pressed into her back. He pushed her forward; she fought back. She could not be taken to that rope. She wriggled, twisted and writhed. He propelled her forward. Susan dug her heels into the soft ground.

  He fumbled somewhere near the level of her buttocks, then slipped his hands under her armpits and cupped her breasts.

  “Go on baby,” he breathed in her ear, “fight it, fight it. I love it when you fight.”

  She felt his hard cock pressed into her back. The fumbling was explained and the full horror of his insanity struck home. The bastard was getting off on her panic. She wriggled all the more frantically seeking release. The noose, swinging in the strong winds came nearer and nearer. Terror overtook her completely. She trembled, she wriggled, fought, and wept, and between her cries, during brief moments of coherency, she pleaded. This could not b
e. Thirty-three was not an age to die. She could not die. She could not die. She could not die.

  ***

  He dragged the noose around her neck. Christ this was good. He could hardly contain himself; the throbbing in his loins demanded the attention of his right fist.

  It was interesting to him, this determination to cling onto life even in the face of inevitable death; the way she ran, the way she fought, as if by her efforts she could avoid it, when in reality, all it did was prolong the terror, and heighten his excitement. It gave him an incredible hard on, surged testosterone into his system, made him ache again for the sweet release.

  Spinning her round to face him, pressing himself close to her so that his ram nudged the dark triangle of pubic hair, he slipped the knot loosely behind her neck.

  All he could see in her eyes was terror. She was already gone from this world, halfway to the next.

  Tears streamed down her face. “Please,” she sobbed, “please don’t do this.”

  He said nothing. The ache was there again, begging him for release.

  “Please, I have a husband, children. Please let me live.”

  He backed off half a pace, moved to the tree, and loosened the bow. She was already struggling, wriggling, shaking her head from side to side, trying to shrug off the noose. He tugged on the rope. Just enough to let her know that it was time. She gave out a cry and as he slowly increased the tension, her cry turned to a scream of abject terror.

  He yanked hard on the rope. Her feet left the ground. Her scream was truncated, cut off to a gurgle, her airway closing. Her legs kicked wildly as if by kicking and jerking on the end of the rope she could save herself.

  He secured the rope, more firmly this time, with a double granny knot, and then came back to stand in front of her, watching as she danced in the air. While her efforts to stay alive subsided, he pulled and rubbed at his engorged rod, relishing the increasing tension until the shudders of delight ran through him once more, and he spent upon her legs.

  It was done. The moment was over. He had reached his own private heaven and now his interest waned rapidly. He stroked her one last time between the legs, and then zipped up his flies. With a final glance at her, still kicking feebly on the end of the rope, choking slowly to death, he turned and walked away, trudging up the hill towards the White Horse Inn.

  Forced to pause now and then as the biting winds and rising ground combined with his recent exertions to take away his breath, he would turn and look back at her, feeling a glow of satisfaction in his night’s work. He had done a good job, a safe job. Taken her from a supermarket car park in plain view of everyone, kept her for a couple of days, given her the time of her life on the mattress and had she lived her days would have been a frustrating, fruitless search for the sexual perfection she had enjoyed with him. Better to send her to eternity while the memory of his consummate skill was still at the forefront of her mind. Seen from that point of view, her death was an act of kindness.

  Long before he reached his car, her body and the tree from which it hung had been swallowed up by the darkness. It could stay there for days; it could be discovered in a matter of hours. It was no longer any concern to him. She was the past. It was time to move on to the future.

  The cold, which he had not noticed during his excitement, now caught up with him, its venom snapping at his fingers like a bad-tempered snake. He wanted nothing more than to get home, get himself in front of the fire with a warming cup of tea, and thaw out his bones before going to bed.

  Unlocking his car, settling into the driver’s seat, he felt a thrill of anticipation run through him. The next one was the big one. The one he had been looking forward to ever since he first moved to this shabby little town.

  He kicked the engine into life, ran the heater to thaw his cold bones, and drove off into the night, while half a mile away, only the occasional twitch of her feet or legs betrayed any sign of life in Susan Edwards. Soon the tiny, distant sparkle in her eyes died out and all movement ceased but for the swaying of her body in the wind.

  November 15th

  2

  “You’re sure?”

  Felix Croft did not answer immediately. Instead he took the note back from Trish Sinclair and read its brief message again.

  Heidelberg 1927-1934

  Scarbeck 2008-2010

  “Well?”

  He cleared his throat on Trish’s insistent tones. “The first set of dates definitely correspond to The Heidelberg Case, so it seems to me that the writer is saying there is a crime similar to Heidelberg taking place right here in Scarbeck, and it’s been going on for two years.” He looked up from the single A4 sheet, into Trish’s fiery green eyes. “So why write and tell me?”

  Across the table, Trish’s eyes flashed around the room as she engaged her legal brain. Just as quickly, they swung back and fastened his gaze. “You’re the only man in Scarbeck who would understand.”

  He gave her an indulgent smile. “When I asked, ‘why write and tell me’, it was a rhetorical question. I am the only man in this town who would understand, but what does this… this crank expect me to do about it? Take it to the law? Investigate myself? And if it’s true, there are fifty or so thousand women living in Scarbeck. How am I – or the police for that matter – supposed to find the one woman who has been subject to hypnotic abuse and may not even be aware of it?”

  Trish shrugged, floundering uncharacteristically, and poured herself fresh coffee. Croft lapsed into his thoughts.

  All around him was deceptively normal. At the rear of the kitchen, Mrs Hitchins, the daily, fussed with the radio, seeking her favourite local station, the table was littered with the detritus of breakfast; cups, saucers, Trish’s cereal bowl, his teapot and Trish’s coffee pot. The Independent lay folded at his elbow, crossword uppermost, and his blazer hung over the back of his chair. It was comfortably warm in the room, while beyond the patio doors, vicious November winds and rain battered the acre of land attached to the rear of the house.

  The morning had begun 90 minutes previously, as it always did, Croft rising before six, spending a half hour working out in his private gym, before soaking under a hot shower for a further ten minutes. While he shaved, Trish entered the bathroom and took her shower.

  She did so in total silence. Her father had died six months previously, and despite visiting a counsellor once a fortnight, she was still having difficulty dealing with her bereavement.

  She had finished showering before she finally spoke to him. “I have a chambers meeting this morning,” she had reminded him as she stepped out of the cubicle and reached for her towel. “You won’t be able to get in touch with me between, say, eleven and one.”

  The sight of her naked had refreshed his memory of last night’s passion, and before she could grab the towel, he had turned to fold his arms around her, locked his lips onto hers. Trish had responded eagerly, groping, fumbling, fondling, and before many minutes had passed, the towel was serving as a groundsheet while they enjoyed each other.

  “I hope you have some left for tonight,” Trish had whispered as she towelled off again.

  Infrequent early morning sex was one of the hallmarks of their years together. A tight time schedule and the inherent risk of Mrs Hitchins arriving early to catch them at it, combined to heighten the spontaneous exhilaration. It did not happen every day, but there was nothing unusual about it.

  Afterwards, he had dressed in a pair of casual trousers, white shirt and his old school tie, taken the navy blue blazer from the wardrobe, and come down the grand, curved staircase of their mansion house. He hardly noticed the treasures around him: fine china, original works of art, antique furnishings, littering the walls and floor, adding life to the majestic, palazzo styled hall. It was a part of the backdrop of his wealthy lifestyle, but occupied no particular part of his mind as he collected the newspapers from the doormat and retired to the kitchen to make tea and toast.

  While he waited for the kettle to boil, he studied the back pa
ge crossword of The Independent, and inked Barrow into 1 across, British weapon for a burial ground (6), as Trish joined him. Some mornings he would struggle with the early clues, but on just as many other occasions he would solve them as quickly as this. Nothing unusual, nothing out of place, nothing remarkable.

  Trish was dressed in her formal business wear: a black, knee-length skirt and matching jacket, with a white blouse beneath. Minshull Street Crown Court was more severe than the University of North West England. They sat at the table hardly a word passing between them, Croft concentrating on his crossword, Trish gleaning law reports in The Times, her lips occasionally pursing in approval, her eyes sometimes narrowing in displeasure as she took in this acceptable decision or that disagreeable adjudication.

  He had no particular plans for the day. Head of The Department of Parapsychology at the UNWE, he had an appointment with a hypnotherapy client scheduled for 10:30, a hypnosis demonstration at 2:30 and a compulsory evening shift on duty as a senior faculty member. Nothing different to a hundred other Tuesday mornings, and Croft was comfortable with that.

  After a meteoric rise to fame and fortune a decade previously, he practically craved normality and routine. He luxuriated unashamedly in the trappings of wealth, indulging himself and Trish in the fripperies that an excess of money permitted. A snap decision to jet off to New York for the weekend, a spur of the moment impulse to pass a few days of unadulterated fornication in the Elysees Regencia on Avenue Marceau, whipping the both of them off to Cheltenham for Gold Cup week and dropping the odd five thousand on a silly, outsider bet, then laughing it off over a bottle of Mouton Rothschild ’52. Croft had enjoyed these and many other ad hoc insanities, but he had never liked the spotlight which came as part of the fame and fortune package, the constant attention of the media, the exposure of every aspect of his life to public scrutiny.