He sat in his large, leather reclining chair and gazed at the images on his huge corkboard. There were pictures of some of his favourite killers. Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgway and Dennis Rader stared back at him; their black, almost dead eyes filled his soul with pleasure. He was on intimate terms with every one of them. Next to each killer was a photograph of one of their victims; he’d fortuitously stumbled across an internet site a while ago displaying crime scene photos of notorious murderers’ victims. He’d studied them for years, obsessed, as a child, with people who liked to kill. He had been lucky enough to know the infamous killer John Carter, who had held a three-week reign of terror until he’d been caught.

He liked the aura of glamour that seemed to surround the murderers from across the pond, compared to the public’s horror and disgust at the English killers. He looked over at his bookshelves, with their tattered copies of some of his adoptive mother’s books. She’d written a popular book on the elusive Theodore Robert Bundy, a serial killer who enjoyed necrophilia as well as kidnapping, burgling and raping his many victims. That had been her biggest success; she’d joke to anyone who listened, ‘Who said crime doesn’t pay?’

She’d only started writing about killers after his real mum had been murdered. He’d consumed her books with both horror and fascination when he wasn’t old enough to be reading about such violent crimes. Of course, she’d be appalled if she knew this; that her books had corrupted her adoptive son, turning him into an even more twisted killer than the men she wrote about. Then had come the revelation that the man she’d dragged him to visit in prison when he was a kid, John Carter, had been the one and only Carnival Queen Killer.

He’d wondered for years what it would feel like to take another person’s life. His first kill had been something really rather special. Jenny Burns would stay etched in his mind forever. After all the fuss had died down he’d kept to himself and managed to suppress the urge to do it again, which he was glad about because if he’d got caught through his own naivety he wouldn’t be here now. He’d tried almost every extreme sport he could think of but none of them was as exhilarating as that first kill.

For him, the joy came from planning and choosing a victim – he didn’t like a quick kill for the sake of it. Every single one of his murders had been orchestrated down to the very last detail. He was good at choosing his victims and up to now there hadn’t been any mistakes. This was why he was still sitting in the comfort of his own home, not locked up, and would be for the foreseeable future.

On the other side of the board were photographs of his own victims, but he had a long way to go to reach the celebrity status of his favourite killers. Although he would like to be as infamous as them, he liked his freedom far more. It had occurred to him that he might fuck up at some point; that there was a very real possibility of a kill not going to plan. That he might be unfortunate and pick a victim who, unbeknown to him, was a black belt in karate, say, and who might just stop him in his tracks. This was a risk he had no choice but to take. That was why, if he could, he liked to watch his targets for a couple of days. The police would call it stalking. He hated that word – stalking was for animals. He was a professional killer, who liked to observe his victims intimately without their knowledge.

He looked at his watch, bored now. This was the worst part; he hated waiting around to see if the bodies had been discovered. He should really be making sure he had everything ready for his next one instead. It had been hard work getting hold of enough supplies to carry out the job perfectly. If police hadn’t realised what pattern his kills followed before he took his next victim, then surely this one would ring alarm bells.

He’d very much enjoyed emulating Peter Sutcliffe. Even the stupidest of coppers should have recognised the similarity, yet as far as he was aware none of them had made the connection. The Yorkshire Ripper had hit his first victim, Wilma McCann, over the head twice with a hammer. He’d then gone on to stab her fifteen times in the neck, chest and abdomen. Traces of semen had been found on the back of her underwear. Which had definitely been a turn-off for him; it was too messy. Although no doubt he would have been able to get his hands on someone else’s semen to throw them off his scent. You could buy anything on the internet. McCann had been found lying on her back, trousers down by her knees, her bra lifted to expose her breasts. It would have definitely been far too gory on all accounts, so he’d improvised a little – he didn’t mind blood, but he didn’t want to be covered in it when he left a crime scene. It was far too easy to trace and therefore dangerous; it clung to your clothes, fingers and shoes. Even the tiniest speck could be enough to link you to a crime scene and send you to prison for the rest of your life.

It was no wonder that Peter Sutcliffe and Ted Bundy were able to murder so many victims back in the seventies. His second killing had emulated Bible John, a serial killer from the sixties who had never been caught. The advancements in forensics were now enough to make even the simplest of killings a technical challenge. No doubt whoever Bible John was would have been caught if they’d had DNA testing back then.

The family had been his biggest challenge so far. The Beast of Birkenshaw had been a difficult one to pull off, but he’d done it with ease and was very proud of this. Until the time was right to make Lewis Waite his next victim, his photographs and memories would have to keep him satisfied.