The Grief Maker

Roger had just killed a man last month - not for the first time - and sitting opposite him now was the man’s sister. Again, not for the first time. Though it was true that it was uncommon for therapists to kill in the pursuit of clients, Roger liked to call this his unique selling point. Albeit, a USP that was never advertised to the general public. 

He was not exactly subtle but he had managed to avoid suspicion so far, a fact that sometimes even baffled his own mind. Roger was so confused and thrilled that he often tried becoming more and more outrageous just to see how innocent he could remain. I mean, for goodness sake, his entire client base was made of people whose loved ones had been murdered. Yes, he was a grief counsellor but every single client being tracked to murder was surely not normal. This last one - some out-of-work producer in his late twenties - had been so easy a kill that he had teased his luck by simply dropping his business card near to the scene of the crime. Lo and behold, the unemployed producer’s sister was here ready to receive therapy from, unbeknownst to her, her brother’s murderer. This will be fun, he thought.

“Morning. Hattie, is it?” Roger said.

“Yup” Hattie replied.

“Do you want to start by telling me why you’re here?”

“My brother died.”

“Could you - if you feel comfortable - expand on that a bit?”

“Murdered.”

“That must have been difficult.”

“Yes, funnily enough, my brother being murdered is not on a list of things that are easy.”

“No, of course not. Would you like to talk about the specifics at all?” He really did push his luck but Roger caught a sort of adrenaline-filled thrill from listening to someone dictate his work back to him. It gave him an objective view of his accomplishments, however brutal they might be. Tell me more, he would say. Constantly pushing further and further, veering close enough that he could feel the sadistic desires coming to fruition but staying safe enough to not completely give up the game. He wanted to taste the excitement without biting his tongue off in the process. 

“I mean, I wasn’t there but they told me he had been drugged. A forced overdose. At first they weren’t sure if it wasn’t just a suicide but where he was and the way in which it had happened was just a little too suspicious”

Admittedly, a drugging was a little boring for Roger. Usually, he went for the gruesome and the bloody. He went for crimes that meant the therapy sessions would stretch to at least 2 hours just in describing the details. Not only did it excite him but this was still his job and an extra hour meant extra cash in the bank. The thing was, Roger had drugged Hattie’s brother, as he did with almost all of them, in an attempt to make the rest of the murder that much simpler but he was such a lightweight that the drugs were enough to do the job. By which point, Roger was bored, tired and a little achey - he was an aging serial killer, after all.

“Goodness and are the police close to finding who did it?” Roger said, continuing to tread treacherous ground. 

“They have a lead but they’ve been quite useless so far.”

A lead. This was news for Roger. Of course, when you are as prolific as him, you have to keep an eye on all case developments and Roger had seen no news - throughout the grapevine - of a lead. Perhaps the police had told her that to make her feel better about their pitiful progress. Or perhaps Roger might finally get the car chase he had begun to wish for.

“Well, let’s hope that lead surfaces into something good. Does it worry you?”

“Does what worry me?”

“The idea that his killer might not be caught.”

“Not really.”

“And why is that?”

“Two reasons, to be honest.”

“Two?”

“Yes, 1. He’s already dead so catching his killer doesn’t bring him back, I suppose it will stop him killing anyone else but right now, I don’t care about that too much.”

“And 2?”

“You’re quite pushy aren’t you?”

“Sorry, in your own time.”

“2 is that karma always come to those who test it”

“That sounds like a wise quote. Where’s that from?”

“Me.”

“You?”

“Yes, I’m quite smart as it happens.”

“I can imagine you are. Do you think that intelligence has been a blocker for your healing process in this grieving journey?”

“In some respects.”

There was something fascinating about Hattie. She was different to the other victims so far. Most, understandably, were loud and tearful and couldn’t keep any composure for the sake of emotion. Hattie was almost stone-faced and without giving anything away. He liked it. Despite being the murderer himself, he was ever so slightly frightened and it gave him a kick.

“What respects are those?”

“Well, intelligence results in self awareness and self awareness means that I understand and can interpret my emotions almost as well as you can, so I therapise myself regularly. 

“Then why are you here?” Roger, genuinely intrigued this time, said as he sipped at his water. “Sorry. Did you want some water as well?”

“No, I’m fine. I had a coffee on the way here. Are you a tap man or a bottle man?”

“Bottle. I’m a little pretentious. Bad for the environment and bad for my bank but I do enjoy my filtered water.”

“It’s all the same really. The same water that is. Still dirty. Just as many toxins.”

“Yes…. well, like I said, why are you here?”

“My family wanted me to come. I told them I was perfectly fine but somehow being fine made them think I’d gone completely loopy.”

“Well you do seem quite contained. I don’t see that often.”

“Is that a problem?”

“Not necessarily, it could be a delayed reaction. Perhaps you’ll break down in a month or two.”

“I think the breakdown has already started.”

“Why is that?” Roger said, trying to hide his own smirk at this conversation getting to its juicy parts. 

“I’m being a little less rational than I might normally be.”

“Oh? Like how?”

“Just acting out. Exploring my grief.”

Her voice was slow and low, steady as it delivered each word as if each word was as important as the last. Even the ‘my’ held the same heft as ‘grief’. Fascinating, Roger thought. Almost forgetting he was anything other than a therapist.

“Alcohol?”

“No. No more than normal.”

“Sex?”

“Ditto.”

“Drugs?”

“Hmm. In a way.”

“What type?”

“I don’t how to describe it.”

“Is it not the normal kind?”

“It takes a little while to kick in, to be honest.”

“Does that annoy you?”

“Well, you are starting to grate on me so I guess it does.”

“What do you mean? Are you on it now?”

“No.” She smiled. Roger’s mouth now feeling extremely dry, chapped and smacking against his lips, cotton ball taste. Somehow, in the fascination of listening to this new client’s extraordinary way of reacting to grief, he had failed to notice the way his limbs had started to lose their sensation. Fantastic, he thought. 

“Ah. So it’s me.”

“So it is, doctor.” Hattie said, reveling in the sight of this slowly degrading man, losing all of his power in front of her. Gradually losing all feeling, eyes flitting from open to shut and open to shut again. His mouth slurring his words but still life in those eyes. It was time for one more thing, Hattie thought. 

She knocked on the coffee table twice and the counselor's door opened. Her brother - Tim - alive, well and smirking as widely as her, entered. The two siblings now stood over Roger’s body, not quite dead yet, and watched as his eyes lost all their excitement, all their thrill. They had taken his adrenaline. With a kill successful and a victim turned to a client, Roger didn’t mind being caught, he didn’t mind being arrested. But failure to kill at all made everything painful at once. Now he wasn’t a killer, he was just a sad man dying at the sight of his shortcomings.

“I must admit, there is something to it.” Tim said to Hattie, ignoring the choking noises coming from the therapist-cum-murderer.

“What?” Hattie asked.

“This” he pointed to the body “I dunno, it was all quite fun wasn’t it? Some vigilante thrill.”

A brief pause was felt, before a rattling laugh erupted.

“Looks like we might need to get you to a therapist. Just preferably not a murderous one.”

“Yes, I’d much rather the usual weirdos that are slightly more sane than I am.”

“Deal. What now?”

“Pub?”

“Pub.”

And away they went, off to the local for a pint. Drinking and laughing as if nothing had happened. As if those last comments from Tim were just a joke and not an honest reflection of what now hung in there, the question that could stop a bull from charging: what about the other victims? Roger was dead. Tim was not. But something in the bubbles of the beer they sipped left a lingering taste on their tongues. 

Tim and Hattie were perhaps not quite done with revenge, just yet.