Mother Be The Judge (12 page)

Jocasta considered Adrian for a short while and then smiled back. "No." She said. "I can't believe it. I told that officer you were here all night and all morning. You can't possibly have hurt that poor girl."

"Exactly," he said, "Thanks mum." He pecked her on the cheek and made towards his bedroom. "What's for tea?"

"Shepherd's pie," Jocasta smiled at him.

"Oh my favourite," Adrian said with glee.

Jocasta chided herself for ever thinking Adrian could be responsible for murder of all things. She pushed the images to the back of her mind and shut the door on any suspicion she may have had; the veil of denial coming back thick and fast. The police were just looking for a scape goat because they could not do their jobs properly and find the killer. Once again Jocasta felt she had done the right thing in protecting her son from bullies.

'The soul that has conceived one wickedness can nurse no good thereafter.'

Sophocles

March 2012

The media coverage on Savannah's death went from being daily to just a quick mention once a week until finally, four months later, no News coverage at all. Crimewatch played a reconstruction on the first anniversary asking for any witnesses to come forward, but to no avail. It seemed as if Savannah's assailant would never be brought to justice.

Jocasta continued to spend her days looking after Adrian and each day that passed made her more certain of his innocence. Soon the whole scenario was just a distant memory and no one but Savannah's parents gave that dead little girl another thought.

-x-

Adrian had been very careful to never mention Savannah either at work or at home. It seemed to him his genius at 'finding' Savannah had saved him from discovery. When the police inspector had come asking questions at his place of work, Adrian had almost lost his nerve; he had congratulated himself on his fine acting and was pleased to find his mother had provided him with a cast iron alibi. Either she had forgotten about his early morning return or was so blinded by her love for him that she had lied to protect him. Adrian hadn't cared which it was, although he suspected the latter was the most likely scenario.

Although Adrian had gotten away with his indiscretion with Savannah, he hadn't wanted to immediately repeat the event. He had taken Savannah's knickers as a token to remind him of the loss of his virginity to such an angel and had been content to replay their night together in his head whenever he felt any sexual urges. Adrian knew that to kill another girl again without careful planning would almost certainly get him caught and consign him to a long life behind bars; he intended to avoid that and believed he was clever enough to do so.

Lacey had never returned to the Fern Bridge. Adrian hadn't known the reasons behind it until his mother told him she had heard the local gossips discussing Lacey and her situation. Apparently Lacey's mother had drunk away the housing benefit each week rather than pay the rent and the whole family had been evicted. Lacey and Co were now living in a small town in Yorkshire. Adrian was saddened he had never got a chance to taste the delights Lacey may have had to offer; he wondered if she ever thought of him but supposed she was busy showing her fanny to some other boy by now.

Time had gone on and Adrian spent more and more time looking at the girls playing in the park outside his window. He had set up a cheap camera and would take a quick picture if ever a skirt blew up or a girl would pull a face he liked the look of. Adrian would also visit Riddles Park off Twockford Road, near to his estate. Elisworth Recreation Centre backed onto the park and had very large windows allowing natural light to get into the pool room. If Adrian stood in the right part of the bushes he could happily watch the young girls swimming in the pool in their skimpy costumes and even bikinis, if he was lucky. Adrian had contented himself like this for the last two years, opting for pornography, voyeurism and self-re-enactment rather than the actual physical act. He was getting frustrated, however; the memories of Savannah were dull in his mind. He couldn't quite remember the feel of her skin or the juiciness of her as he bit into her sweet flesh. Adrian believed he had waited long enough; it was time for him to make another angel.

-x-

Having a sexual touching allegation on his record made it very difficult for Adrian to find a situation where he could meet a girl. He wanted to have a relationship with his new angel. To have a connection with her like he had with Lacey. Adrian still believed that if he had had love for someone it would make the killing all the sweeter and would help him achieve the release he was yet to experience. He had tried Scouts, Sea Cadets, Football Coach, Youth Club Assistant, but had been blocked each time by a request for a police background check. After the first time he agreed to do this had resulted in the Charmaine incident being relayed to the interested party, he never bothered to agree again, but considered there may be an organisation trusting enough not to bother with the police check. Annoyingly he was yet to find any group willing to blindly accept him; he cursed the 'do gooders' who spent all their time sticking their noses into everyone's business. Adrian had to content himself with visiting the library. It was a place where parents sent their children regularly to read alone. As it was attached to the swimming pool, Adrian would often find himself surrounded by unattended children, left by their parents whilst they tended to brothers and sisters who were attending their relative lessons.

Also sent to the library were the 'Homework Club' as Adrian like to refer to them; young girls and boys who would visit the library after school to do their homework and wait for the time their parents would be home from work and the house would be available to them once again.

Most of these children were either too young or too old for Adrian's taste. He liked girls who were on the brink of womanhood, old enough to converse with but not so old they would have all the undesirable bumps and hair like his mother. The girls often went to the library in groups or in pairs so Adrian was unable to approach them. He waited patiently each time he visited, sitting in his regular chair which was near to the study tables. Adrian believed that if he was patient enough his angel would eventually come. He also enjoyed the solitude away from his pig of a mother who seemed ever more determined to treat him like a twelve year old, constantly asking him where he was going and checking he was at work when he said he would be. He had never bought a mobile phone, one, because he didn't actually have anyone other than work to speak to and two, so his mother couldn't keep up her constant surveillance of him. Adrian had excluded his mother from his bedroom, telling her he preferred to tidy it himself. He also banned her from the library with a threat of desertion should she ever step foot in his safe haven.

Adrian sat now in his chair in the library. He was holding a book he had found called American Psycho; it was a truly depraved book where a man took women back to his apartment, nailed them to the floor and dismembered them for pleasure. Adrian liked reading the book; it gave him a funny feeling in his stomach when he read it. He actually had his own copy at home which was dog eared where he had read it so much, but he wasn't reading it now; now it was just a prop in his library façade.

A young girl came and sat at the study tables in the library. She had long ginger hair in a very thick plait hanging down to her waist. The girl wore thick lensed glasses in pink Dolce and Gabbana frames, an attempt Adrian thought, at making the glasses cool. It wasn't possible to know how big her eyes were as the lenses had such a magnifying effect on her blue eyes, they appeared to bulge out of her head. To add to the poor girls unfortunate appearance, she had top and bottom railway track braces which caused her lips to hang open constantly. Adrian even saw dribble occasionally escape from the freckled face.

It was no surprise to Adrian that this girl came alone to the library; he remembered how he was outcast by his own classmates for not conforming to their idea of handsome. He knew it was very probable this girl was subjected to daily bullying which would not dissipate on returning home thanks to the internet being the perfect conduit for cyber bullies to continue their relentless campaign to mercilessly pester and persecute their victims.

Adrian felt fate had been good to him. His patience and persistence had rewarded him with the perfect candidate for the type of love he had to offer. He had seen her now on three other occasions, Wednesday afternoons seemed to be the time she would come and sit on the table, books in front of her, but eyes not seeing the text as she sat and pondered her miserable existence. On the last occasion her eyes had flickered briefly in Adrian's direction and he had given her a shy smile before returning his gaze to his book. This week Adrian watched as the girl took out her books and pencil case, carefully removing pens, pencils and ruler and lining them up on the table in front of her. Her chin crinkled and a fat tear escaped from under her glasses making its way slowly to her open mouth. Adrian took this as his queue to make first contact with his new angel.

He didn't need to get up from his chair or raise his voice as the girl sat at the nearest table to him, so he just said in his normal voice, "Are you alright?"

The girl nodded her head and gave a small smile then took off her glasses to wipe her now tiny eyes.

"Yes I'm ok." She said.

"You don't look ok." Adrian said, "What is it? Are you being bullied?"

The girl was shocked that Adrian had been spot on. Her parents were oblivious to the bullying, choosing instead to shrug it off as childhood antics, just telling her to, "Laugh with them," and suggesting the bullies would, "Soon get bored."

"How did you know?" she asked Adrian.

"I've been there." He gestured to the chair she sat on. "Used to come here all the time when I was being bullied." He gave a short laugh. "I still come here."

The girl smiled again and then put her glasses back on, restoring her eyes to their magnified size. She looked once again at the text book in front of her.

"What's your name?" Adrian asked her.

"Tiffany." She said.

"That's a lovely name."

"Not when people call you Tit Fanny it isn't." Tiffany smiled waiting for Adrian to smile with her. He smiled back and they continued to sit in companionable silence for the next few minutes.

"I'm Adrian." He said, "I'm always here."

"Yeah I know I've seen you here before."

"Yeah, part of the furniture I am." He grinned, "I don't even like reading. It's just a place to sit."

"Same here," said Tiffany. "I've already done my homework."

The two of them sat for another hour, exchanging pleasantries; Adrian responding to all Tiffany's little jokes and sympathising with her situation, giving her his own bullying analogies. Eventually Tiffany made her excuses and made to leave. Her parents would be home at 5:30 and she had to be in, in time for tea.

"When are you coming again?" asked Adrian.

"I might come tomorrow." Said Tiffany, she was pleased to have somebody who understood what she was going through. He wasn't very nice to look at but he was really nice to talk to and that's all she wanted.

"OK well see you tomorrow then?" asked Adrian.

"Yeah, see you tomorrow." Tiffany waved goodbye and left the library.

Adrian was thrilled with this meeting. Tiffany was perfect for him; she was old enough to not have that childish way of speaking that Adrian could not cope with but young enough to have not reached puberty. Adrian guessed she must be eleven or twelve years old. He left the library and went home to retrieve Savannah's knickers so he could spend some time reliving their special moment. He would have to leave Savannah behind now as another angel had entered his life.

-x-

The next day Adrian went to work at 6am and spent the morning cleaning shelves and restocking them. He was getting sick of his job, it had never served its purpose of getting him closer to girls but it did at least get him out of the house. Considering he had worked there now for three years, he thought there should have been a few opportunities at least, but he had never made it onto the tills and spent most of his time opening boxes in the refrigerated store room. He hadn't even made any friends and it wasn't because of his looks; half of Big Value was inhabited by people just as facially challenged as Adrian. The reason he could not get on with them was because they were so
different
to him. Adrian had no need to use his talent of manipulation on them because it would serve him no purpose. The manager who had originally employed him had moved on to a bigger store and Adrian had been left with a female manager in her fifties who seemed untouched by Adrian's greatness. He had tried several times to convince her he would be better off on the tills or customer service, only to be brushed off with, "But you do such a good job with the sausage display." Adrian often envisioned shoving those sausages in all of the woman's orifices until she was just one fat sausage herself. All the other staff had their own cliques and unless Adrian was going to become Mr Popular overnight, he was never going to be in any of them. All in all he continued his job at Big Value, pretty much ignored and left to get on with things. Adrian didn't mind, Big Value was just a few hours a day. His real life started when he returned home to his computer and went into chat rooms.

He would trawl the chat rooms for opportunities to talk to young girls, often pretending to be a girl himself. In this way he would learn about how girls thought, what their feelings were and what worried them. Online Adrian had hundreds of friends; he had a Facebook page in the name of Gracie Smith with a profile photo of a pretty thirteen year old he had found in a picture book printed in the 1970's. He had cropped the picture and pasted it in, then began to request friends. He would request anyone on there who had a young picture. It wasn't possible to know their ages as Facebook had a rule of over thirteen's only. Adrian was always surprised when someone accepted him; people were so trusting online and the youngsters just seemed to want to get as many friends as possible so they looked the most popular on there. The only downside to this activity was that he was pretending to be a girl so although he was able to view their pictures and comment or chat with the girls; this could never lead to a meeting or a relationship. Adrian just had to content himself with his imagination, but at least he had a different girl to imagine every night.