Chapter One of The Subtle Psychopath.

THE SUBTLE PSYCOPATH

Prelude

9:25p.m.

The sky was low and grey. The wind blew itself out over the night.

A flurry of rain stung Jimmy Bett's face as he stormed into the living room. Emily, his wife, was sitting on the couch, using her laptop, covered in a pink woolen shawl with a mug of hot espresso coffee in her hand.

“Did you do as I said?” Jim asked, amid heavy breathing.

Emily, confused, placed the mug on the table, beside her laptop.

“The trip,” Jim answered her baffled look, “have you packed your bags together with Dorothy’s?”

“What about you?” Emily stood, leaving the shawl on the couch. She followed Jim to the room where he briskly left to confirm whether she had packed.

Heavy drops of downpour pattered on relentlessly, so loud that it was disturbingly deafening.

“This wasn’t part of our discussion,” Emily said incredulously as she held the closet’s handle.

Then Jim reassured her that it would be okay...

ONE

RAINFALL.

Heavy torrents of rain flashed through the bustling suburbs of Pioneer Estate. It was indeed a dark and stormy night. Janice Thuo, 32, had every reason to lack sleep. She turned in her bed due to the incessant dropping of water that leaked from her roof due to the rain. Then she sighed heavily. Deeply. Miserably. It was 3.42 am. Pioneer Estate was asleep. The storm raged outside and intermittent flashes of lightning flickered in her desolate room. She could not stop thinking about how the court proceedings would turn out to be. She hoped the verdict would be in her favor.

Janice bit her lips in resentment as she remembered what transpired three years back. Erick, her husband, was found dead in their four bedroom apartment. He allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself. Janice knew that it was all a set up. Erick was too happy to do such a horrific act. The never ending torment of the murderer walking away scot-free angered Janice terribly. She seethed with rage as she raced against time to prove that the death was staged. How could Erick kill himself? Even the thought of it sounded ridiculous. But how could she prove it?

Past…

Monday 9:23p.m.

Erick was ceaselessly fidgeting in his seat while doing his paperwork. He let out a long, forlorn sigh then stared placidly at his documents.

“Here’s some hot coco tea, hun.” Janice put the tea on Erick’s desk.

“Thanks.” Erick said as he reached out for her hand from the back of his office chair and squeezed it tightly.

“You seem to be so dead busy in this investigation that I was even scared that you could forget having something to eat.” Janice muttered and leaned on his shoulders to glance at what he was up to.

Erick stood up and hugged her for a good amount of time.

“No amount of work can make me too busy for belly time.”

Erick was in grey sweatpants and a black hoodie with the Japanese anime Sakura Kinomoto’s painting at the back. He turned to tidy up his table. He placed his documents in a NEMA bag, headed to the living room and reclined on the couch and turned on the TV and watched Nat Geo Wild. This was odd of him. Janice gave him haunted eyes as she stood where he left her.

Saturday, 10:47a.m.

James was found dead in his three bedroom apartment. He lay stiff on the cold floor with his brown, grave eyes wide open, questioning his brutal death. The room had a repulsive alcohol smell when his family members were called by the neighbours to witness the discovery of his body.

James’ mother let out a plaintive cry as she mourned for her youngest son. Jackson, the eldest son, hugged his mother in consolation. He could not hold back his tears. He cried in a low moan as he stared hard at the paramedics who were busy with the body. His eyes turned to Jimmy Bett, his other brother, who stood, tuckered out, at the corner of the room, aching with sympathy.

Jim had an expression of sad confusion on his face. His high cheekbones were sunken. His eyes were dark circles staring out with bewilderment and fear.

PRESENT

Friday.

JIMMY BETT.

It was a still birth. Jimmy Bett, the doctor in charge, let out a forlorn sigh, as huge as the ocean. He proceeded to inspect the perineum area for tears but delegated the task to the nurse soon afterwards. This was the third delivery Jimmy performed in the week and all of them had catastrophic revelations. The first baby was born underweight and literally looked blue. She was incubated for the night but later succumbed to her new era due to breathing complications as her lungs were underdeveloped. Simply put, she had birth asphyxia. Baby number two was a literal case of sudden infant death (SID) as he was lain face down and inhaled his breathed out carbon dioxide. The report came later on after the mother was discharged from hospital. Jimmy was now facing the third demise of a newborn and he was tired of it. He took a stroll down the hospital to the cafeteria and ordered some espresso coffee to make him feel alive again. He took a long seep from the coffee cup and swallowed the contents of the coffee thoughtfully. Why did such cases have to be tied to his job? He was already going through a rough patch in his life and circumstances did not do such a good job in making him feel better.

Jimmy Bett, 34, had a long chocolate face with short black trimmed hair and a stubble beard. He worked as a doctor for seven years at the referral hospital and believed that it was his calling to save lives. He graduated from Kenyatta University ten years back and was already on a six figure pay roll, and with a BMW X6 and a condo residence at Pioneer estate, he was living the ideal life of any thirty- four- year old Kenyan bachelor. As an intern at age twenty five, he worked for late hours, assisting physicians in diagnosis and prognosis among other tasks, apprenticing in surgeries and conducting biopsy and catheterization procedures. He was the ideal sidekick any senior resident dreamt of. All medical directors referred doctors to him. He worked to his level best as his vision was to not only meet the job description but to be the patients’ healer. He always believed that he was destined to something great and by sheer hard work and unflinching determination, he would eventually meet his nirvana.

“This seems like a rough day, huh,” Njeri, a nurse, who had just checked out, expressed to Jimmy as she joined him in the bench.

It was 7:08 in the evening. Jim was not looking like himself_ who also looked like a ghost lately at least. He even seemed to have lost a couple of kilos over the past week.

He was ashamed of the past events and felt like they were all his fault. What happened to his fire? His grit? His energy? He felt nothing but profound emptiness and even feared that he would soon not be feeling his job, and his patients that he loved interacting with as he impressed that it was all part of the healing process, and even joined them with their families for steak outs after they were discharged from hospital.

“Then I suggest,” Njeri said, then Jim sighed, “That you take a break from everything, and go for a road trip with friends, you know. Feel some of the outside air for once. It’s a Friday, Jimmy, let loose a little bit,” she shook him to bring some life into him.

Jimmy had never done none of that before. He was the kind that would even show up to work on Sundays (just in case the pastor got hit by a bus). His definition of fun dwelt somewhere close to having a rewarding session with the medical student that aces his speed tests_ and they were quite difficult_ and reading further on anatomy, and watching Grey’s Anatomy on ABC.

“I don’t know, I think I’m doing just fine_”

“Look at yourself, bro, you literally look like the Nogitsune from Teen Wolf,” she paused and chortled as she studied him, “well, minus the bandages, of course.”

Jimmy chuckled at the joke. He did not realize that. He gave her words a thought. Maybe he actually needed to let loose, didn’t he? He needed to have a drink or two and forget about everything; about his impending loss of touch with his job, his court case on land wrangles, his argument with his girlfriend, Jenna, which almost cost her her life…

Past.

Sunday, 11:38 pm

Jenna lay on the floor of Jimmy’s condo, unconscious. Blood oozed from her forehead and drained on the white carpeted floor. Jimmy was scared. He was terrified. What had he just done! Did he just kill someone?

Of course not; he checked her pulse because he’s a goddamned doctor.

He then carried her to the guest room where he would attend to her until she recovered. It would be a better idea to take her to the hospital as she would probably bleed to death but the consideration did not enter his now disoriented brain. He was a doctor, and that was all that mattered at the time.

What if someone inquires of her whereabouts?

He would cross that bridge later on.

TWO

Friday, 8:34p.m

JIMMY BETT.

“So should I pack beef or mutton?” Jim asked his last customer before he closed up.

People took him as a weird guy, since he owned a butcher’s shop yet he was a successful doctor. He insisted that it was the only way to connect to his past self, as he would run his father’s butchery as a kid whenever the former, Robert Bett, fell ill. He did not want to lose his identity amid all the fortune he had accumulated over the years. Despite the business not being very lucrative, as he only opened it after work, he enjoyed serving the few customers and cutting through animal meat with a cleaver. It was like surgery without precision.

“Let’s do beef today,” Janice Thuo, the customer, replied in a low tone. She seemed to be going through a rough patch too. Jim noticed it; the black under eyes, the emaciated cheeks, the veined hands. He opted not to show concern as it was not his problem.

He packed her the half kilo of beef in cling film, then wrapped it newspaper that featured a model showcasing a trendy outfit, and handed it to her. He looked at her, studying her eyes, which flickered from place to place uneasily ­_ clearly depressed_ and thanked her for buying. After Janice paid up, she left briskly while Jim closed up.

Friday, 8:39 p.m.

JENNA

She woke up and stared around dazedly. Her head was throbbing as hell. She felt like it could explode. She touched it and felt the bandage that was dressed on a wound on her forehead. She recalled the events that led to her dire situation.

Past

Sunday, 11:30 p.m.

It happened so fast.

Jim was infuriated when she broached the subject of his first wife, Emily, and daughter, Dorothy. He did not want to talk about his past. They were scars that had not healed and were better left as they were. He neither wanted to have another family, not with another woman_ not with Jenna.

She pulled out the ‘what are we’ card. That stirred the hornet’s nest really badly. Jim shot up from his seat, amid gritted teeth and clearly stipulated that they should go and sleep. It was late and he had a busy schedule the following day.

“Let’s go and rest, Jenna,” Jim never called her by her name. He muttered with a rigid look, reached over at her and kissed her on the forehead, where some of her kinky curly wig rested. But she did not badge. She wanted an explanation.

11:34 p.m.

“Jenna, get up. It’s not an important issue and we’ll leave it at that.” Jim was facing the window. He then turned and looked at her, his face as blank as a puzzle, and motioned for them to go, and rest.

Jenna saw him glancing at the cleaver he brought from the butchery. She could not help but think of the extremes he would go to. This happened in relationships that were reported in the news; a man kills his girlfriend and commits suicide afterwards. Was that what transpired between him and Emily? She tried throwing caution to the wind after finding out from his workmate that his family went missing three years back. But after retrieving a stained cloth in his room, locked up in a drawer, she wondered if they actually went missing. Jim had found her staring at the blood stained rug and got angry, just as he was now. He warned her to not look through his stuff ever again and explained that he had wiped it off from the butchery and forgot to clean it up immediately afterwards so the stain would not come out, thus he gave it all up, and locked it in a drawer.

11:36 p.m.

Her eyes were watered now. She just wanted him to be honest with her. Was that too much to ask? She was shivering, as she could not tell what he would do next. The grey couch she was rooted in blended well with her light grey LV hoodie and matching sweat pants. She took her phone from the coffee table in front of her and dialed her taxi guy’s number. She wanted to leave.

Jim furrowed his eyebrows. He let out a heavy, controlled sigh.

“Don’t, Jenna. We’ll talk tomorrow.” He said curtly with a voice packed with finality. But Jenna was still dialing.

You say that all the time!

11:37 p.m.

It took three strides to get to where she was. Jim snatched her phone from her hand and pushed her aside. She fell, stumbling on the table.

11:38 pm

Jimmy Bett.

Jenna lay on the floor of his condo, unconscious. Blood oozed from her forehead and drained on the white carpeted floor. Jimmy was scared. He was terrified. What had he just done! Did he just kill someone?

Of course not; he checked her pulse because he’s a goddamned doctor.

He then carried her to the guest room where he would attend to her until she recovered. It would be a better idea to take her to the hospital as she would probably bleed to death but the consideration did not enter his now disoriented brain. He was a doctor, and that was all that mattered at the time.

Present.

Friday, 8:45 p.m.

Jim entered his apartment and turned on the lights of the living room, revealing a dull, eerie room, with dark blue paint on one side of the wall, grey paint on the other and maroon brick wallpaper on the other side. There was a huge window that revealed a beautiful view of the evening, with all colours of light. He turned on Bob Acri’s Sleep Away music and rested on the couch.

After a moment of contemplation, he walked to the guest room.

Jenna sat up on the bed, her back to the headboard. Jim entered the room and closed the door gently behind him. She tensed a little but kept her cool. He sat on her bed.

“I was so broken when they left,” Jim started after a long moment of awkward silence.

Jenna fixed her gaze on him. He did not look at her, but stared at the lamp on the bedside table. He was dressed in a charcoal grey trench coat above his blue scrubs.

“I don’t think she was happy with me. She deserved a better life. I couldn’t offer her that, as I was so immersed in my job, leaving her waiting for me to return. Some days I would come back, pretty late in the night. Sometimes I would not, and I’d find her, in the morning, on the couch. Waiting.” he turned and looked at her. He opened his mouth to speak but paused first.

“I told them on that night to go and I would come to them, later. But I planned to send a lawyer to her to request for a divorce.”

He waited for her to respond. The slow music sounded faintly in the room.

“I don’t want to do that to you, Jen.” Jim held her cheeks, looking into her dull, brown eyes.

“As soon as the year is over, I will have less obligations at work and we’ll be together. Just trust me.”

Jenna’s eyes were holding back tears.

That was what he said last year.

She stared hard at him with questioning eyes and freed herself from his embrace.

Jim composed himself and stood. He looked around the room swiftly then said that he had hired a maid who would attend to her as from the following day. He noticed the food he had brought her in the morning. Untouched. He walked to the door, looked back at her, as if trying to apologize with his eyes, then left.

SATURDAY, 10: 36 A.M.

JENNA was woken up by the burst of brightness in her room. The maid had opened the windows and drew open the curtains to bring light to the rather dark and gloomy grey-painted room.

“I hope you had a pleasant night, ma’am,” Mary, the maid, inquired in a kind demeanor.

“I came to clean your room up and to change your bandages. Are you hungry? I can bring you breakfast so you don’t stress on going all the way to the dining room.”

“It’s okay, I’ll go get breakfast myself.” Jenna said and immediately got up from her bed.

She felt a pang of pain on her back and head and knees but ignored it. She headed for the dining room. She hadn’t eaten for a long while and one thing she was aware of was that she was starving.

At the dining table, Jenna served herself the pineapple juice and hard boiled eggs and oatmeal. She ate ravenously and only regained her composure when she noticed Mary heading toward her. Mary passed close to Jenna with a laundry basket that contained her clothes and bedding.

“You don’t have to wash my clothes, I’ll do it myself, uh…”

“Mary, I’m Mary. Plus, I can’t let you do work in your sorry state, ma’am. If Jimmy finds out, he’ll be terribly mad.”

She put down the laundry basket and inquired if the food would be enough, and whether Jenna needed anything else. After a moment of contemplation, Jenna said that she was okay.

“Where’s Jim, by the way?” Jenna asked nonchalantly.

“He left hurriedly this morning. See, he was informed that his mother was admitted in the hospital again. Her blood pressure was acting up. Poor guy, he’s been going through a lot for the past three years. First his father, Mr. Robert Bett, then his family, then his brother James, and now his mother is always in and out of hospital. I can only imagine what he’s feeling.”

Jenna felt a strange knot of pity for Jim. Maybe she was the bad person, not empathizing with him. Being selfish. Understanding that Mary had been Jim’s nanny since he was a child, she felt confident that she may know what happened to Emily and Dorothy.

“He must be very stressed, with all that on his plate,” she started, stalling her true intentions, then finally asked, “what happened to his wife though?”

Mary felt a bit apprehensive in answering, as she knew that if Jim found out she was discussing his past, it would have ghastly repercussions for her. Nonetheless, she decided to tell Jenna, as it was obvious that Jim cared for her, and she would hopefully be his second wife. She deserved knowing what transpired three years back.

SATURDAY, 12:24 P.M

JANICE THUO

She was waiting for homicide detective, Vincent. O. Bolo at Will’s Restaurant.

Vincent was four minutes late and Janice was growing impatient. She seeped her Coca Cola Zero and looked through the menu a third time to kill time. She noticed the intricate patterns of the periphery of the laminated menu and studied the different shades of brown used to design the patterns.

On Tuesday, Erick’s case would be thrown to the bin as it was unsubstantial. It occurred three years ago and there was still no concrete evidence to Janice’s claims. There were no leads to a murderer. Was it a perfect crime scene or was there no crime scene at all? She remembered the sleuth she hired, in clear irritation, saying that she was in denial. She would get over the death of her husband in a matter of time. He had started the case but on finding no leads, he gave the whole matter up. He even disregarded the call Erick had gotten in the middle of the night and texts of him begging to leave his wife out of the matter_ potential leads_ claiming that they were a coincidence. Killers don’t text their victims. It would be too obvious of a lead. And too careless of a murderer.

Janice went further to look into the cases Erick was working on. It was known that the leading cause of death of detectives and lawyers was finding dirt in their case. She recalled how disturbed Erick looked days before his death.

Erick was deep in thought. He was ceaselessly fidgeting in his seat as he was doing his paperwork. He let out a long, forlorn sigh then stared placidly at his documents.

“Here’s some hot coco tea, hun,” Janice put the tea in an enamel mug on Erick’s desk.

“Thanks,” Erick said as he reached out for her hand from the back of his office chair and squeezed it tightly.

“You seem to be so dead busy in your work that I was even scared that you could forget having something to eat,” Janice muttered as she leaned on his shoulders to glance at what he was up to.

Erick stood up and hugged her for a good amount of time.

“No amount of work can make me too busy for belly time.”

The case was titled, “THE DEATH OF ROBERT BETT.”