Page 16 of Antihero (Tregam’s Fractured Souls #3)

Chapter seven

Needler

T he minute I can move my shoulder without pain, I figure it’s time to pay my Cutthroat a visit. Of a kind.

I watch her from the other side of the street, by the newspaper stand where I pretend to be engrossed in the latest junior sports champs of White Rock. Through the mirrored backing of the café seating area, I can see her and the back of her companion’s head.

They’re in the back of the café, out of sight from most of the other customers who come and go at this time of morning.

She wouldn’t want to be spotted with too many people who then go missing or show up dead, I suppose.

How will she get this one alone? It doesn’t escape me that most of her targets so far have been old leches too blinded by their cocks to be at all suspicious of her motives.

Which also means they’re probably not the finest of humans in other areas of their lives, either.

So this one is likely to be more of the same.

These men might deserve a lot of things, but I’m yet to decide if it's straight-up death. Until I can be sure, I’m going to, at the very least, get in her way.

The old man from the club washed up near the marshes three days after Paige attacked him.

Half-eaten, they nonetheless identified the cause of death to be strangulation and the subsequent impact.

The Wraith is suspected. His name was Frank Elvin.

With very little digging, I found—without an ounce of surprise—a connection to the White Rock Home for Girls.

He’s noted, rather obscurely, as an investor.

But who the hell invests in an orphanage?

How is that ever going to earn returns? Despite that, about five years after that capital was given, according to public company reports I trawled on the library computer, he appears to have gotten very rich. The how of that, I’m yet to figure out.

Back at the café, I can spot what Paige is doing, even a street away and through a distorted reflection.

She’s there with her notepad and pen, acting interested, jotting down answers to whatever questions she’s asking.

It’s a tactic that works best on men, I’ve found, getting them to trust you by having them talk about themselves. Ideally, something they’re proud of.

It’s not even very difficult to do; just fake being a journalist, or a student, with a passion on a subject they’re experts in. It doesn’t matter what specifically, it just works.

I don't watch for long. He’s reaching across the small table more than he needs to—which isn’t at all—patting her hand, squeezing her arm, and Paige is nodding, smiling, giving him her full attention.

He’s next.

I should watch for longer, but when she laughs, I leave.

She's turning me into the jealous type.

But I’ll be seeing her again soon. After all, I owe her one.

***

Wraith

The wife is out, just as I knew she’d be. On a shopping trip to Tregam, Harry tells me. Sheer coincidence, I'm sure. But it works towards my goals.

If I had any doubt of his intentions, they’re whisked away when, within a minute of me arriving at his manor overlooking Feston, Harry directs me to a cosy room at the front of the huge old house.

We take a seat on the green felt couch to conduct the rest of the interview; me organising my notes while he pours two short glasses of whisky on the low oak coffee table.

An impressive library stretches along the back wall of the room, wasted on this cretin.

I'm wearing a skirt with full stockings, and a garter with my cord hidden on the inside of my thigh. Because he's going to die before he gets that far. I set the pad on my knees and smile demurely at him as he sits closer than needed beside me.

"So, Eternal Light,” I begin, reminding him of what he thinks I’m here for. “As you know, I'm doing a history for my uni project on the progression of treatments carried out in asylums over the last three decades."

"Mm," he sips his whisky and smiles, eyes drifting to my tight shirt.

My coat is hanging on a hook by the door.

I resist the urge to get this over with faster.

Frank had been fat, struggling to breathe, even without my assistance in stopping.

But this one is still spritely, so I need to be patient, to pick the moment and diminish the risks.

"You were the lead surgeon at Eternal Light up until around nine years ago, right?"

"Yes, for five years.”

“And you had a controversial favoured method of treatment, I heard?”

“Mm,” he hums, tilting his head from side to side as though the word ‘controversial’ is up for debate. It’s not. “Lobotomisation.”

I feel my shoulders draw together involuntarily and have to force myself to outwardly relax. He says the word so casually, like it's nothing more than a blood test.

“I performed the most in the country during that time period. I treated over three hundred patients.” He’s proud of it, the bastard.

He probably would’ve performed three hundred more if he hadn’t been stopped, forced into early retirement with a fat paycheck and his reputation intact.

Instead of being thrown into jail, as would’ve been right.

“But results varied, didn’t they?”

Again, that consideration. Like that’s not a fact. “Results could be… unexpected,” he says lightly. “Some took to the treatment better than others. Some went on to live very full and fruitful lives. Others… needed further care.”

“There were deaths?” my voice hitches on the word slightly. I clear my throat, and take a sip of whisky to cover it up. My hand shakes slightly.

“Oh, occasionally.” My grip tightens on the glass. I worry it might crack. “You must understand, dear, many who came to us were… not salvable. It’s my belief that deaths during lobotomy merely signified a mind that couldn’t be saved, no matter the treatment.”

I manage a smile, even though my stomach wants to turn at the look on his face.

He’s thin, not quite gaunt, his eyes active, cheekbones prominent and jaw strong.

An attractive man, even for his age. But all I can see is a man who’s always been sick.

“You have heard the criticisms, though? Many saw lobotomy as a method that should’ve been a last resort, after other options were exhausted.

Not, well, not quite so easily done as you subscribed them, especially to female patients. So the younger ones…”

“Of course, people always criticise what they don’t understand. Violent tendencies wracked many of the girls and women who came through the asylum, and they couldn’t control their emotions. Lobotomy cured their hysterics.”

"And you were good at it?" I ask lightly. “At identifying a hysterical woman, and… lobotomising her?”

He smiles, again. It’s an effort not to snarl back. "Oh, yes."

“Terrific,” I say. It is terrific to get it from the horse’s mouth. I’ll enjoy this.

I smile again, making it linger. He's looking hopeful, and he’s sitting closer now.

The knocking, more like thumping, is loud enough to make me jump. Harry looks surprised, then a brief flash of anger passes over his features as he looks towards the front door just outside this room.

“Ah, expecting someone?” I ask.

“No,” he mutters, standing.

I’m hoping it’s nothing more than a salesman who will soon be turned away. I follow, staying off to the side so that whoever’s there doesn’t see me, should they be questioned later.

Harry swings the door open with a sharp “What?”

“Hi, house five, Yung Close?”

“Yes!”

“I’m from Rock Plumbing, here to fix the pipe.”

"What?" Harry is spluttering. “There's no pipe? I didn't hire a plumber!”

But at the sound of the man’s voice, I’ve drifted into view to get a look at this ‘plumber’.

Tristan, a cap pulled over his hair, head tilted down as though reading from a ledger, is saying, “A Mrs Lester booked me…?" He leaves it open, as though Harry can deny knowing his own wife. “She says it’s urgent. In the…” He flips a page over, then back. "Upstairs guest bathroom."

"Fucking hell," Harry groans.

My smile is tight. I touch Harry's forearm, turning to him to prevent myself from staring daggers at Tristan. How in the hell did he know I’d be here? “Harry, perhaps he could come back later?"

“Afraid this was a last-minute booking, miss." Tristan smirks at me. “Soonest I could come back is next week.”

Harry groans. "Marion will want it fixed…" He steps back, waving the second serial killer today into his house. I’m fuming as I stand aside.

"Upstairs, left,” Harry tells him with a wave towards the teak staircase. “You'll find it."

"Yes sir."

I watch Tristan trot upstairs, with a toolbox that’s probably just full of rocks in one hand, and all my carefully laid plans falling apart in the other.

"Come, he won't bother us." Harry gestures back towards the couch.

Oh, I beg to differ.

Not ten minutes more and Tristan’s presence in the house weighs on me like a truck.

I can't do what I need to do with him here. He'll interrupt for sure. That’s his whole point. The asshole. "Sorry,” I say, interrupting something Harry was telling me that I wasn’t listening to.

“I’m feeling a little unwell. Might I use the little girl’s room?

" I cringe at the terminology, but Harry used it in the café. He looks put out by this, perhaps seeing his chance at some groping slip away. How surprising that he’s not interested in sickly women, or taking care of one.