Richard Butchins's Blog: Angels stand corrected... - Posts Tagged "murder"

Here's another short passage from my novel Pavement - currently there's a few copies available on a giveaway. In couple of days a bit more....stuff.


He doesn’t cry out, the impact of the cold water has taken his breath away.

He’s trying to swim and find the edge of the canal; he ends up over at the far side where there is just a sheer wall rising out of the water. He claws at the wall with both hands, trying, in vain, to get a grip on the wet slimy stone.

I watch.

He flails about, sinking under the water because of the weight of his waterlogged clothes and boots. He’s now in the middle of the canal, eyes wide with panic, cheeks puffing in and out, hair plastered across his face, which seems pale blue in the sickly neon glow from the strip in the roof of the tunnel. His hand outstretched, he sinks again and then emerges nearer to me on the concrete lip of the canal side. Still clawing, he manages to get one hand over the edge of the concrete. I grasp it and he grips my hand. Once I’ve lifted it free of the edge, I reverse my pull into a push and shove him back into the water. For good measure, I pick up length of wood, which is floating in the water, and push it into his back, thrusting him under the water. He kicks like a dying frog and I push harder. Some bubbles break the surface and one of his hands flaps as if beckoning me to join him. And then he’s still.

Pavement thoughts of serial killer

Here's an early festive treat from Pavement....enjoy

Christmas Day. I wish myself a very merry Christmas and smile – what a stupid fucking concept. I sit on my bed and stare at my twisted feet for an hour or two. Time hangs in the air of my room, each second is palpable – they don’t so much pass as expire –dying one after the other and falling to the floor, littering the threadbare carpet.Thousands upon thousands of these dead little husks of time lie shadowlike on the floor, the bed, everywhere. I amuse myself by imagining that I am killing each second in person, throttling this one and stabbing that one. Can I wait a minute and massacre 60 in one go? I’m bored of this game and wade through the corpses of dead seconds to open a tin of sardines. Christmas day, what a fucking waste of time, the day that the Son of God, who’s not the Son of God wasn’t born.

The only good thing about this day is that the streets are quiet and everything is closed, well, except the Asian shops and the Turkish restaurants and shops over in Stoke Newington. Good thing – because that’s where I am going to get my Christmas day kebab. I reach for my clothes, only to find that I have no clean underwear; I took all my killing garments to the Laundromat but forgot to take any of my daily dirty laundry.

“Shit.”

I pick up a pair that has been in the laundry bag for a week or so; they should have aired out by now. I pull on the rest of my clothes, shoes and coat, and grab another £50 note from the pile. I pick up my phone: there’s a text message from Martha wishing me a merry Christmas. It’s been there since last night, I just hadn’t noticed. I think I can deal with seeing Martha again. I don’t like her but she’s marginally better than nothing. I think this as I tramp along the hall. I open the door and stand stock still in shock.

Snow.

Another little slice of my novel Pavement for your delight...

I could grab someone off the street. How? I have no car and my disability would be a handicap in that scenario. Perhaps I should kill a child or several children, – it would be easy to entice the stupid little fuckers to my house and easier yet to butcher them and there would only be a small body to get rid of – but there are problems, children are not responsible and won’t understand what is happening to them and they certainly won’t understand why.

I need a cogent adult that understands the reality of what is happening to them. Perhaps a pregnant woman, however, the thought of ripping the dead woman’s body open to find the baby was still alive makes me feel nauseous. I would have to kill the baby or maybe I could dispose of the woman’s body and keep the baby and raise it as my own.

“What? Don’t be fucking stupid. No killing babies or raising them either.”

I say this out loud to enforce the thought, because sometimes thoughts seem quite reasonable until you voice them out loud, and that thought didn’t sound so great. I take a break, make a cup of tea and look for inspiration. As I place the spoon in the sink I spot the answer. It’s staring me in the face, a card lying on the side of the sink:

Yuko Japanese model
A&O, Lesbo Actions, VIP massage, Uniforms, Spanking, Watersports, Toys.
I’m local and can make hotel visits. Call 0773 788443.

I pick up the card and sit down with my tea. Of course, the serial killer’s old standby – the prostitute, a perfect victim – society hates them and no one cares about them if they disappear. The hooker, she’s expendable and dirty. Society secretly thinks they deserve to die because of the knowledge they carry about what so- called respectable men get up to. I feel ashamed that Yuko will have to be my victim, she feels like a kindred spirit, another invisible person despised by a hypocritical society. I am also upset that I will be pandering to a cliché in such a blatant way, but it really has to be said that nobody will give a fuck if a hooker vanishes.

A week or two back I was on a podcast for the UK online magazine Disability Now talking about my book. Here's a link (but I have not listened to it myself)

http://www.disabilitynow.org.uk/podca...

Enjoy (and let me know what I sound like)...

Here's the latest review of my book from Amazon - I like this one

'Pavement: Thoughts of a Serial Killer' is a compelling read. It tells the story of a man who, through his struggles with life due to his disability and a dysfunctional, unhappy childhood that we are allowed only tiny glimpses of, feels himself excluded from society. Unemployed, he escapes from his dingy bedsit existence by walking the streets of London, finding solace in his obsession with the order of the paving stones of the pavements he treads, and catching glimpses of other lives through windows as he searches for himself in the reflections. He feels invisible, and this feeling leads him to find a way in which he can take action.... take revenge on the 'normal' world which he does not feel a part of and yet covets.

This novel is extremely well researched. The details draw us in... we are there in the here and now, walking with 'Smith' and seeing everything as he sees it. A few small clues tell us that this present is in fact a not so distant future, where we are ever more under the control and surveillance of the System. Yet Smith finds a way to rebel and, ultimately, to escape.

The author's gift for words allows him to get away with very graphic and lurid descriptions that from the pen of a less talented writer could be felt to be gratuitous, but here are always beautiful even as they are shocking and disturbing. The boundaries between dream and reality become more and more blurred, reflecting the state of mind of the protagonist, as the aftermath of his cold, logical and well thought through actions pervade his subconsciousness when he sleeps.

Despite the horror of the story, I didn't want this book to end. I look forward to reading more from this author.