LITMIR.BIZ

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another street—to see if they were still there. To see if they were following.

      They weren’t. They’d given up on her and gone back to their steps, hardly paying her any attention now. She breathed a huge sigh of relief. Rachael walked on, away from the Crescent, and realised her hands were now balled into fists. She unclenched them, then read the list to herself again:

      1) Do shopping on way back from rounds (your bread is mouldy, Rachael!)

      2) Ring Steph about tonight (to cancel!!)

      3) Check out auditions in Stage for any possibles (yeah, right)

      4) Buy yourself a treat (something tasty and preferably fattening)

      She paused on the street as she came to the final number on her list. She’d added it as a black joke to herself that, after the conversation with Tilly this morning, was anything but funny.

      It simply said: 4) Mend broken heart?

      Rachael mentally screwed up the list, taking a certain amount of satisfaction in doing so. Then she ran for the bus which would take her into the heart of the city.

      CHAPTER TWO

      He was like a kid in a candy store.

      So many to choose from, so many different flavours and textures. All so sweet; he didn’t really know which way to turn. Walking through the streets of this city, he pondered how much like the last one it was, how much like the next one, too, he supposed. The variety of prey was never in doubt.

      In another sense, though, it was more like dining out than eating sweets. Skin colour mattered little to him, except when it came to the taste. It always amused him when he said to himself—as he did periodically—that he could ‘murder a Chinese’ (which would be both sweet and sour). The problem was he could only manage so much before becoming full, then he’d feel like another one a few hours later ...

      He chuckled again at his own sense of dark humour. Indian food—spicy, but very nice indeed. Caribbean? Tasty in the extreme. Italian ... His thoughts were drawn back to his last Italian meal. All right, so it wasn’t exactly an authentic dish—the woman had originated from somewhere south of this very city—but he could pretend, couldn’t he? Oh could he pretend.

      He’d pretended that night, that day—the hours leading up to the final kill were as exciting as the final stroke. If anything, that had become just as important to him over the years as gorging himself on their meat. It was true what they always said, the anticipation made the final reward that much more satisfying. He relished any opportunity to practise his skills; skills honed through decades of employment. And enjoyment. It was fun to deceive his prey, but it wasn’t simply imitation. Any good TV impersonator or make-up effects artist could pull off that stunt with practise. No, in order to lull those he wished to ensnare, he would have to become their friend, a family member, loved one or whoever—for a short time at least. That took study, that took research, legwork ... It took cunning. But it was all worthwhile, and one of the reasons he’d never been caught, because there was always someone around he could use, not only to gain the victim’s trust, but often to take the fall for him as well.

      Absently, he wondered what had gone through her husband’s mind when the police picked him up at home. It must have been a picture. “Dead? What do you mean, officer ... who...? Now hold on a minute, what are you doing with those handcuffs?”

      “What do you think, dickhead? What we do to all the nutjobs who tear out their wives’ throats!”

      He licked his lips again at the memory of that. The succulent, exquisite tang of her blood; the gristly goodness of her flesh ... It made him hungry just to think about it.

      Right. Enough. The time had come for him to decide on another, and quickly. A last hurrah in this place.

      Sitting on a bench, he surveyed the shoppers on this busy Friday afternoon. In the old country, he could have just picked one off as they walked by, but populations had dwindled where he used to operate so very long ago—mainly due to his antics, it had to be said. And trackers wishing to make a name for themselves had come looking for him back in those days. For their insolence (there was no greater hunter than him; he was the king), he’d sent them away with their tails between their legs—if indeed he’d left them with any tail at all. But all good things came to an end, and when he was forced to move on, he found it was actually a blessing in disguise. It was a big, wide world out there. Who was going to notice what he was up to when mankind took such great joy in doing the very same thing to itself, time and time again? The perfect playground.

      The perfect hunting ground.

      His eyes were drawn to a short-haired woman in a white mac, wearing sunglasses in spite of the dullness of the day. She was carrying two bags of shopping; light, so they had to be clothes. This was a woman who liked to look good, as indeed she did today. He imagined what it would be like to run his tongue up and down her back, slavering down it, panting as he grew more and more excited—until he could stand it no more and had to see the red. Always the red.

      A second woman now, dressed in a black and white cowl-neck stripy top, a black hat completing the ensemble, walked past and drew his attention from the first. She flicked her long auburn hair, then stopped to look at something in a shop window, bending. He gazed at the shape of her buttocks, aroused—but not in any sense a human might understand. When he looked at her, he saw rump steak, pure and simple. Though he wasn’t averse to playing with his food before consuming it; sating his other appetites when he felt the need.

      He got up, his aim to follow her wherever she went—to gain some insight into her life. But he was put off at the moment by the shop front. He daren’t risk her seeing him on approach—not because she might think she had a stalker, but because the windows might reveal what he truly was. The same image that woman back in the toilets must have seen when she stiffened in fear rather than sexual ecstasy. Few had seen it and lived, certainly not in such a public place as this.

      The longer she dithered, the more frustrated he grew and began to glance around. There was plenty more meat in the abattoir, as it were. Here, yes, a pale woman in a pink roll-neck sweater and jeans. She’d do. Pasty, but big—enough on there to last him a good day, if he played his cards right (he hadn’t expected to be discovered so soon during his last repast—all to the good of the subterfuge because the waitress had seen the husband’s face, but it left a gaping hole in his belly that demanded to be filled). She had the look of a mountain girl about her, and that appealed to him greatly.

      It was while he was girding himself to follow her that he chanced to look up. There, across the street with her own shopping, was a fleeting image of a face. It stopped him dead in his tracks. He pushed past the ‘mountain girl’, eager to cross over, to get nearer. That face was mesmerising. So hypnotic and tantalising, he set aside all other thoughts. He couldn’t believe it: the perfect ‘dish’.

      But by the time he’d crossed, waiting for a bus that went past, the crowds had folded themselves around her. Now she was nowhere to be seen.

      There she’d been, standing in full view—so close he could have bounded past these idiots and reached her in an instant if he hadn’t been so frightened of giving himself away (no, not frightened, never frightened; merely cautious). The perfect prey and she’d eluded him. The one woman who put all these others in the shade, who he had to have now that he’d seen a glimpse of her.

      But how to find her now?

      He sniffed the air, relying on the one sense that was not working against him. All others—sounds, sight, even touch—were useless here. There was simply too much bustle, too much hustle the closer he was getting to the middle of the city. At first his nose said: no, impossible. But he refused to believe that, it had never let him down.

      Walking over to where he figured she’d been standing, he closed his eyes and sniffed again. Could even his nose pick out one scent amongst all these others? And which would be the right one, even if he could?

      He cursed quietly under his breath. Then he smiled.

      This would be a true

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