Why would someone tamper with my work

  and make it dark and spooky? This does not

  make sense.

  Simon said that he liked the way I used the

  local deaths in my book, I would never use

  real life incidents like this; it shows a lack of

  respect on my part to the local society.

  I flick through the pages, searching for

  anything to do with the local blonde murders.

  The negativity, death, blood, gore none of

  this is me, it scares me, and someone must

  have come into this house. If they’ve done

  this what else could they do?

  I go back onto the computer and type in

  ‘Surrey News: Blonde murders in Surrey.’

  Many results come up with many names and

  deaths around this area. I click one that I

  recognise from seeing in the paper before.

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  I remember the article about Riley Clark, one

  of the many victims. She was killed in her own

  home after being ‘brutally raped and strangled

  to death.’ The online report also claims that

  she was supposedly tied to her own bed, arms

  and legs tied whilst she was raped and then

  strangled.

  I look down to my manuscript and read.

  Killing for your Love

  Chapter 12

  I stand in the room of a dead woman. Her body is

  sprawled out on the bed. She’s been beaten to

  death and most likely raped.

  I look at her rope-burnt wrists and ankles, her

  scratched thighs and arms and her swollen face.

  Her lips have split; the skin from her lips has

  lodged onto her bloody teeth that are attached to

  her bloody gums.

  It could be coincidence but this could easily

  be my character Daniel in the same room as

  Riley Clark’s body.

  I close the article and look at another story.

  All these murders are similar. The victims are

  raped and then murdered. But a couple of

  headlines and newspaper reports stand out to

  me that also seem to feature in Killing for Your

  Love by Liam Graynnil.

  Amanda Holmes’ death is one that really

  stands out. She was found dead in her home

  after ‘suspicious smells’ and ‘a large mass of

  flies at her window.’ She was found in her

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  living room where she was ‘cut to death’. I

  continue to read the report: ‘Her stomach was

  cut open and her veins were removed from

  her hands up to her elbows.’

  I look down and read a scene from the book.

  Chapter 14

  The smell is unbearable in the woman’s sitting

  room. She’s been here for some time. If this body

  was a fruit, she had gone past her sale date a

  couple of weeks ago.

  The insects madly fly at the windows, stuck

  between the curtain and the glass. From the

  outside it looks like black beads throbbing, but

  from the inside it looks like flies trying to escape

  the stench left by the corpse.

  The mass of blood and skin was once a human

  body. The blood looks like an infectious disease,

  spreading to all the furniture around it. Blood is

  spattered up the walls; it’s on the rug, the coffee

  table, the sofa, the arm chair, the cabinets and the

  body itself.

  I kneel down next to the organs and stare at the

  arms and legs of this body. I see a jagged line all

  the way up the arm. I turn the hand over to see

  the lines also on her hands. Her veins have been

  cut from her hands up to her elbows. I turn the

  body over to reveal a gaping hole for her

  stomach.

  In the fly infested window sill, there are

  ‘congratulations’ cards. I think nothing of it and

  walk upstairs to see if anybody else is in the

  house and could identify me at the scene of the

  crime. I leave the stench of the sitting room.

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  Shutting the sitting room door, the house looks

  completely normal. I look at photo frames of this

  woman and her boyfriend or husband. He’s

  punching above his weight.

  Upstairs, there are only a few doors but they are

  all shut. I go to the far end of the landing, to the

  far side of the doors.

  The revolting smell of the sitting room leaves

  my nose and is moved by the new paint smell for

  this room. As I walk in, I see things hanging

  from the ceiling, half the room is painted pink

  and half blue with a white cot in the middle…

  I finish reading chapter 14 and as I do, I get a

  lump in my throat. It is simply disturbing;

  there is nothing else to it, whoever wrote this

  must have been speaking about Amanda

  Holmes.

  To make sure, I read on in the article.

  ‘Amanda’s stomach was cut open, which also

  killed her unborn child.’ The lump in my

  throat expands, as if it has outgrown my neck.

  My eyes well-up, my hands sweat as I clench

  my fists.

  I close the Amanda Holmes article and move

  onto Mary Cole.

  She was found in the streets, tied to a lamp

  post. She was beaten to death and raped.

  Chapter 15

  Her bruised wrists are bound behind her around

  the lamppost. This is not Lizzie. Lizzie would not

  do this to me. I look at this woman’s right hand

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  and see the glistening ring on her finger. I kneel

  down to her ear and whisper.

  “You’re a married woman, correct?”

  “Yes.” The slut whimpers.

  “And you have children, correct?”

  “Yes.” She whines.

  “And you decided to intrude on my evening

  trying to seduce me. You’re obviously unhappy

  in your marriage. I suppose the children keep

  you and your husband together so you come out

  at night dressed like a slut to get other men. But

  tonight, you found the wrong man.”

  The blonde-haired middle-aged woman begins to

  howl. She shouts: “Help!”

  “No one will help you. Let me tell you

  something. My wife left me, she ran away with

  my children. I will find her, don’t worry about

  that, but people like you remind me of her. She

  angers me; I want her to pay for making me feel

  like this.”

  The woman begins squeal.

  “Shut up.” I shout as I swing my fist onto her

  nose the crack as it breaks is audible…

  I stop reading. Whoever wrote this could be

  the person responsible for all the blonde

  killings.

  I flick back through a few pages to see how

  this began but another chapter stands out to

  me.

  Chapter 13

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  This is a big house on a quiet road. The all-white

  painted house has an outline of bushes growing

  instead of a fence, surrounding the front garden,

  separating it from the pavement and the drive of

  the house…

  I look at the enormous white American style

  house from my car. I see her; I think it’s her, it’s

  Lizzie. She walks up to a house, but whose, I

  don’t know.

  She wears a long black coat and heels with her

  hair straightened.

  She saunters up to the door, I see her hand move

  against the door and then hear the one second

  delayed knock.

  I feel as if I remember this, I feel as if I have

  been to the house before. As I think of the

  house, I remember when and why I went

  there and with whom.

  I went with Sandra for the anniversary of her

  friend’s death. We stood across the street to

  the house, I swear this is the same house and

  is most likely how the two people Sandra

  knew were killed. I read on.

  I walk up to the dark house, looking around to

  see if there is anybody around, there isn’t.

  I walk right up to the door and try the handle.

  The door is locked; I’ll go around the back…

  I walk around the big white house, staring in

  through the windows. Lizzie is upstairs, why

  would she go up there with another man?

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  I walk into the back garden on the muddy grass

  and up the damp wooden steps to the back door. I

  hold the handle and turn it slowly. It’s unlocked.

  I walk into the dark house, I don’t have time to

  look around; I’m going straight upstairs.

  I go up the stairs. As I reach the top, I hear

  grunting and heavy breathing coming from the

  half-open door. The only light on in the house

  shines from that room. I look in to see Lizzie’s

  bare back as she sits on top of the man.

  I push the door open slowly and step into the

  room. They grunt and breathe heavily, they don’t

  see me. When I get to the edge of the bed, I push

  Lizzie off of the man; his eyes open wide.

  My knife is already in my hand and I stab it into

  his neck in a swift and vicious movement. He

  reaches for me and grabs hold of my jacket. I grab

  his arm and pull him out of his bed, tossing him

  onto the floor.

  Lizzie is screaming. I look over to her and to my

  relief and disappointment, it isn’t her.

  “Lizzie?”

  The woman continues to scream but she runs

  over to the man on the floor. “Nick!”

  I look down at my knife. I killed the man for no

  reason.

  “Nick!” She screams. Her voice pierces the

  silence, her shouts echo throughout the house. It

  is resilient; her voice gets louder with each shout.

  I’ve had enough; I walk up to the blonde woman,

  grab her by her soft hair and cut across her voice

  box…

  177

  Sandra said Ella and Nick. Whoever the

  author is, they are responsible for this, all of

  this.

  I flick through more page and read about a

  morgue.

  Chapter 20

  I walk into the morgue to see the tall ebony man.

  I found out his name is Don.

  Don is helping me out, every time a woman of

  Lizzie’s description comes in to his morgue, he

  tells me and I come along to see the whether it is

  Lizzie or not.

  What Don is doing is wrong, I shouldn’t be

  allowed to look at these bodies but he lets me and

  if he doesn’t then I will let the authorities know

  what he has been up to and by that I don’t just

  mean him letting me see the bodies in the

  morgue, I mean his activities out of work.

  Don is a dodgy man, he helps gangsters cover

  up the wrongs they commit. He’s the man to call

  if a body needs to be hidden, never to be found.

  He disposes of all evidence involved in a murder.

  I know this because he told me. I know this

  because I watched him do it once. He has saved

  many people by doing it, preventing them being

  from being found out…

  A morgue and someone called Don. I have

  no knowledge of either the man or the

  morgue.

  I open up my tossed-aside laptop and go onto

  the internet. I type in ‘Morgue Surrey’ and a

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  number of results come up. I go to ‘Google

  Maps’ and set a route starting from ‘2

  Mulberry Lane’ to ‘Morgue’.

  A few results come up on the map local to

  me. Only one stands out. It is located in

  woodland and fields up the road from here. I

  choose that destination and it is only a quick

  walk.

  I must go here, get some answers from this

  Don.

  I grab my jacket from the wardrobe. It’s one

  that I rarely wear; a heavy khaki jacket. It’s the

  type of jacket thugs wear. The type of people

  I could be dealing with would most likely

  wear this style of jacket.

  I pull it over my shoulders and pull the zip

  up. I need to be careful now; I cannot trust

  anyone at all. I’m in danger and this will most

  certainly get nasty now.

  179

  The Morgue

  I go out the back door and around the side of

  the house onto the front by the porch. At the

  bottom of the path, Sandra is staring up at

  me.

  As I walk down the slope, Sandra crosses the

  road towards me and waits on the pavement. I

  reach her and look into her eyes. The patterns

  surrounding her pupil look like sand with

  pools of water.

  “Ryan we need to talk,” she says.

  “We do but I’m busy right now it will have to

  wait.”

  “No Ryan we need to talk, right now.”

  I ignore her and walk away. She follows me.

  “Ryan, please,” she says as she grabs my arm.

  I pull away and it throws her off balance.

  “I told you I don’t have time for this.” I am

  so angry.

  Sandra’s eyes widen and she stares at me,

  taking a step back.

  “What is there to talk about? How you used

  me to for sex because your husband wouldn’t

  give it to you? Just leave me alone.” I shock

  myself with how nasty I am to Sandra but it

  does the job, she turns around and walks back

  to her house without a word.

  I leave Mulberry Lane and walk towards the

  woodlands where the local morgue is.

  I enter the woodland which reminds me of

  the woodland where Liam Graynnil wrote

  about Daniel being chased by the gang and

  Mr S.

  180

  I walk through the dim woodland. The sky

  has become darker as evening approaches.

  The clouds thicken in the sky, obscuring the

  sun and any light still generated is blocked by

  the trees and dying leaves. I walk through the

  squelching mud and the weakened branches.

  Bushes claw at my jacket; the holly bushes

  scratch the rough, heavy fabric. I dodge the

  overhanging vines and drooping branches that

  block my path, until I reach the dirt road

  which leads up to the morgue.

  I stand in the middle of the road and look all

  around me. The trees on either side curve

  over the top of the road acting as a shelter

  made from bark and leaves.

  I look down to the tyre tracks left by many

  different vehicles with different sized tyres.

  The vehicles have created craters and fallow

  water stands in them.

  I look up the road and stare into the

  darkness. On Google it said that the morgue

  was up the road so I may as well just follow it.

  I take long strides over the uneven tracks,

  stepping over the waterlogged craters. The

  road has been neglected for a long time.

  Normal cars certainly do not use this road,

  vans and trucks must be the only vehicles to

  drive up it, in the mud.

  Walking along, I can feel eyes watching my

  every move. I hear branches and twigs

  snapping within the woodland. The wind

  blows from behind me, pressing my jacket

  into my back. I look around, the gold beads

  181

  that are eyes glitter past the tree trunks and

  leaves as the animals hide from me.

  I decide to jog, the eyes continue to stare at

  me; the gold beads continue to glow in the

  dimness. I look ahead and see a small building

  with lights on. It must be the morgue,

  although it looks more like an abandoned

  building rather than a frequently used one.

  I jog up to it and stand outside a door which

  must surely be the entrance. The lights are on

  but there is no one inside in the shadowy

  foyer.

  I take a step back and look at the

  surroundings of the morgue. The plastering

  has cracks across it in random patterns,

  revealing darkness underneath the white

  plaster. The cracks interlink and stretch across

  the face of the building reminding me of

  veins. Any surviving plaster is the colour of

  rain clouds. The windows are smudged with

  yellow muck.

  I return to the door. Slowly, I reach forward

  and push it open trying to stop it creaking. I

  take a step onto the uneven plastic flooring.

  As I go further into the building, I feel colder

  than I did outside. I look around a waiting

  area. A desk and chair sit through a hole in

  the wall, there are seven chairs arranged

  across the partially torn plastic flooring.