A Need To Kill (DI Matt Barnes) by Michael Kerr

already missed the convenience of having a subject in the house with him.  But he would soon procure a fresh one.  He absolutely never kept anything that belonged to the tarts he killed.  He had no need of souvenirs.  He had forgotten about the pages he had ripped from the posh whore’s address book.  But as a rule he was ultra careful.
    The taking of the slut , who was now wrapped up like a fish supper in his van, had been the inspiration for all he had done since.  Before abducting her he had been consumed by a rage that threatened to consume him for almost two years.  He had needed to vent it, or knew that he might self-destruct.  His brain had felt like a tyre’s inner tube being pumped up to a pressure it could not sustain.
    Sandra had made him what he was.  She could have been his salvation, but had been no better than his fucking mother.  They were all the same; a wanton, filthy species that fed off and used men.  He had somehow survived his nightmarish childhood: found a deep well of strength that protected him from the ill-treatment meted out by his whore of a mother and her crackhead pimp boyfriend, Leroy Brown.  They had used him as a punch bag in an attempt to alleviate their own frustration and dissatisfaction with the lives that they felt trapped in and could not escape from, but had fashioned for themselves, and so deserved.  He had been blessed with an almost inhuman tolerance to pain, being able to close down the neural pathways that received messages of physical discomfort.  In the end, the lack of response to being held down and branded with cigarette ends, and punched, kicked and subjected to all manner of abuse, had made further violence against him a pointless and unrewarding undertaking. By the time he was thirteen, he was just tolerated, and in the main ignored by the wretched couple who he had the misfortune to have as his custodians.
    He still rated the day he had murdered his mother as his finest hour.  It had been late one evening shortly before Christmas in oh-four when the unpremeditated act took place.  The episode coalesced in his mind.  He was back in time, watching the television in the front room of a council semi on a slum estate in Catford.
    His mother was not the good-looker she had once been.  Cigarettes, too much crack, and an overall despair at her lot in life had hardened her features.  She had felt ill and not worked that evening, and Leroy was not amused.  He was hurting, needing a fix, and his main source of income was sitting on her arse instead of lying on her back and earning money
    The ensuing argument quickly turned into a shouting match, and Leroy stormed out of the house, threatening to permanently shut her the fuck up if she didn ’t get her shit together.
    It was like a light being switched on in his head to produce a sudden and illuminating flash of inspiration.  He could rid himself of them both at a stroke.
    He went into the kitchen and saw the knife and fork on the plate of congealing chicken curry that Leroy had picked at and then dumped on the drainer.  He employed a piece of paper towel to pick the knife up by its handle, and placed it in the cupboard under the sink, hidden behind a plastic bottle containing bleach and a box of soap powder.  He then waited, watching as his mother got loaded on cheap vodka and passed out on the settee.
    It was two a.m. when Leroy came back.  He was spaced-out and had to crawl up the stairs to bed.
    It was time.  He went for the knife.  Took up his position behind the settee.  This was his chance at a new life.  He could erase what was and start again.  His hand began to shake, and the kitchen towel rustled.  Christ, he’d nearly fucked-up.  Leroy was left-handed.  He transferred the knife to his left hand, and using his right to pull his mother’s head back by her thick, red hair, he drew the blade across her stretched throat, exerting as much pressure as he could.
    She was too drunk to properly