The front door of their new apartment creaked slightly as it opened, and Manny dragged his tired feet over the threshold into the dark space. Why was it dark? She was home, after all, wasn’t she? He closed the door behind him, hung his keys off the hook by the door and, calling through the apartment to Sarah, began unlacing his shoes. He fumbled in the low light from the windows across the living room area and stood up to turn the main light on.
Everything slowed down. As it always did. The bare bulb on the ceiling flickered once, casting a momentary brightness upon what lay on the floor. Then it came on strong and everything was clearly visible. He stared down at the body, the bloodied clothes and red marks on the delicate neck. He stared down at the familiar face, eyes open, unseeing. He stared down at Sarah, his Sarah, and screamed.
And he woke, as he had time and time again, tangled in a mess of sweaty sheets, the last sounds of his screaming bouncing back at him off the walls.
This was the first time he had had the nightmare in several days now. It seemed fitting it had resurfaced again at this time. He knew the nightmares would eventually die down, but he would never forget the moment he had seen his girlfriend lying there. It was an image etched into his memory as if with a laser.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and, noticing his quick heart-rate, took a few deep breaths and reached for the glass of water by his bed. He sniffed and rubbed his face with his hands, squinting down at his phone which sat charging, telling him it was 06:00. Today was the day of the trial.
He lay back down on his double bed, glancing across at the empty space beside him, before staring up at the ceiling.
It had been two years since he lost Sarah. And ever since then, he had been completely obsessed. He had not let anything distract him from his sole purpose: to find her killer. Using his position as an intern at the regional police offices, he had been able to gather information that linked this killing with others. It had not been easy, it had taken him until just a month ago before he could be absolutely certain of the killer’s identity. But he was motivated. Driven by a kind of rage which he had compressed deep down inside him, and now used it to fuel his work with no restraint. First had been the fact that the killings were all in Stackley. There had been four other murders in Stackley over the past decade, not including that of Steve Acram of course. One could be easily eliminated, as the perpetrator had been convicted without a doubt after having signed a letter of confession. Manny had spoken about it with his superior, D.I. Lawrence, as she had run the whole investigation. There was no doubt about that one. But the others had something in common with Sarah’s murder: they were unsolved.
As an upcoming police officer, Manny Wigginson could have pursued this investigation with the help of the force. He even suspected that Lawrence would have been happy to help him where she could. But he wanted to do it alone. Not only was it his own personal issue, but he wanted the satisfaction of revenge when it came to it. It was too late for that now.
Manny was broken out of a barely conscious state by his alarm. 06:30 flashed on his phone. He arose quietly, slid through into the kitchen and filled the kettle with water.
Being unsolved was not the only thing in common between the four murders. They had all been carried out in very similar ways. The killer appeared to have chosen four entirely unrelated people, the police force in Stackley seemed certain that as far as the victims themselves, there was nothing connecting the murders and therefore it was likely to be the work of someone with psychopathic tendencies. However, all four corpses that had been admitted to the police morgue over the past decade had all shown the same wounds. Firstly, knife wounds to the chest and torso. Not too deep. Indeed, barely fatal. But enough to incapacitate the victim. They were all incredibly calculated. And secondly, as the autopsies had confirmed, the cause of death in each case had finally been suffocation due to strangulation.
Not much to go on. But Manny was determined. And he was also lucky. Six months ago, he had been speaking to a coroner in Stackley a couple of days after a car crash had claimed two lives, a woman and a child. He had steered the conversation in the direction of the four unsolved murders, and this was when the coroner had made his mistake. Manny had asked what the cause of death of the first murder had been, and the man instantly replied strangulation, accompanied by stab wounds. At the time, Manny had not suspected much, but, after running background checks on the man, Anderson was his name, he found that he had only joined the coroner business six years ago. This was over two years after the second murder, and Manny knew for a fact that the coroner’s office was not allowed to keep any records of autopsies they performed for a police case.
This breakthrough had resulted in the start of six months of rigorous surveillance. Manny had watched Mr Anderson like a gambler watches the horses in the last lap. He has a shark who had picked up the scent of blood and was homing in on his suspect with increasing certainty.
Mr Anderson was indeed a curious character. No friends or family to speak of. No real hobbies. Indeed, he led quite a boring life, all things considered. Manny had been close to giving up, but a few days ago certainty had been served to him on a silver platter in the guise of the murder of Steve Acram.
Manny had seen Mr Anderson leave his house in the evening of the 20th of August. It was odd. Manny knew it was odd because he knew Mr Anderson’s routine was perfectly oiled and he never deviated from it. He left his house at the same time four days a week to drive to work, where he would spend nine hours before returning home. Nothing else happened on these four days of the week. The remaining three would contain a weekly grocery shop on Saturday afternoon and a solitary lunch at the nearby pub on Sundays around midday. Manny had even spoken to the pub’s owner who had confirmed that he never missed a Sunday. Manny knew that this trip was out of the ordinary.
He had witnessed the entire proceedings. Watched Mr Anderson enter the house by removing a windowpane, silently. The same way he had done it the four previous times. He had seen the Abells escorting Acram into the house, heard the scream that followed and waited until, an hour later, a dark figure in a grey trench coat had appeared at the side of Acram’s house and disappeared down the street.
As Manny pulled on his uniform, he grabbed his bag and snatched what he needed for work off his desk before returning to the kitchen. Here, he noticed the cup of tea he had made and left to brew on the counter. It was cold.
He had not been happy. It had been too long for that. He could barely describe what he had felt. But he had known he had to act. The time came when Mr Anderson left his house again at an unordinary time. Manny had been waiting patiently outside, waiting until the lights turned off. But they did not. Not until Mr Anderson appeared at the front door with his bag and headed out into town.
Manny had left his car in an instant and tailed the man silently, sticking to the shadows. He had caught up with Mr Anderson as he was passing through the graveyard.
As Manny bent to lace his shoes he thought with disbelief how anticlimactic the whole affair had been. It was a hollow victory. Manny had been eaten out by revenge, now that Mr Anderson was dead, he just felt empty. He could not have let the death just go down as a road incident. And so, he had slipped a note under the door of the Abells, knowing that this and their involvement with Acram would be enough to kickstart the police investigation.
Manny left the house and drove to work. It was the day of the boy’s trial. Alfie Henderson, the driver of the car that killed Mr Anderson. He had not been called on to make a statement. But D.I. Lawrence had, and Manny wanted to watch the trial go down. He sighed as he rounded the corner and the bright August sun burst into sight. After today it would all be over. Maybe he would even stop having nightmares.