Read Online Clean Cut by Lynda La Plante - Free Book Online Page B

the photographs of his victim.
    He leaned forwards and then rested back. ‘Yeah, that’s her.’
    It was chilling to hear him explain how he had seen Irene Phelps on a number of occasions walking back towards her flat. He said, without any emotion, how on that particular day he had followed her to her door and simply pushed her inside. At one point, when Brandon was discussing the DNA results from his attack, he had shrugged.
    ‘You know, you people think rape is about sex. Of course, sex comes into it, but you know what it’s really about? Power.’ Murphy’s thin clown mouth drew down in a sickening smirk. ‘I had power over her. Sex is just an extension of that power. Afterwards, I was real hungry, so I made up a sandwich: tomatoes, lettuce, and there was some ham. It tasted good.’
    Anna clenched her fists; it was so hard to believe what this man had done and, moreover, how he could sit there talking about making a ham sandwich with the blood of his victim still on his hideous hands.
    ‘I can’t help it.’ He gestured wide, then continued. ‘I got this determination, you see, deep down inside me, and it’s really deepset, you know what I mean? And my problem has always been that I have to satisfy that anger. What did you say her name was?’
    Brandon’s face was taut. ‘Irene Phelps.’
    ‘Right, Irene; well, she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I suppose it was lucky her daughter wasn’t home, because I’d thought about doing her.’
    Anna walked out of the room. She couldn’t stand to watch another second’s gloating from that sickening man, who’d murdered a decent young woman and probably traumatized her twelve-year-old daughter for therest of her life. Murphy’s psychiatric reports from the time he had been in prison evaluated him as being very dangerous; the fact that he was released made it chilling to even contemplate the total ineptness of the probation departments. It exposed the terrifying weaknesses at the heart of the criminal justice system.
    Anna returned to her desk as Harry Blunt passed with two mugs of coffee; he placed one down for her.
    ‘Thank you,’ she said, rather surprised.
    ‘Good work–that photograph was a piece of luck. That animal could have hung out for weeks, maybe months; the filth he was living with, they could have started to kill together.’
    Anna sipped her coffee. Harry seemed loath to move away. ‘I’ve got a daughter the same age as Irene Phelps’s little girl,’ he told her.
    ‘Did her father come and see her?’ she asked.
    ‘Yeah, she’s going to be living with him. Won’t be easy; he’s got two kids with another wife and, at her age, moving schools, new environment…Poor little soul.’ He slurped his coffee and then sighed. ‘You know, there are no excuses over this bastard. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and what makes me puke is that no one is going to take the blame, and they should. His effing so-called probation officers should be sacked. Whoever gave that son of a bitch a low-risk category should be fired; better still, be made to look at the dead woman’s corpse–ask them then if they still think he’s a low risk. Do you know how many murders last year were committed by low-risk bastards freed on parole?’
    ‘Not right off, no, I don’t.’
    Harry leaned forwards. ‘Nearly fifty. I dunno how they think we can do our job; we no sooner get them totrial and banged up than they let them loose again! Bloody frustrating. I tell you what, if that creature in there had killed my daughter, then I’d strangle him. Why not? Gimme twelve years–good behaviour, I’d be out in seven, probably less. I’m not kidding. The Home Secretary said there was a crisis–a fucking crisis ? I’d say it’s a lot more than that. My mate’s a prison officer, and he says his pals have been warning the Prison Officers Association: there’s overcrowded wings, riots and hostage taking–something he’s gotta face every week,