Revenge -
    is a dish best served cold
by Katherine Docherty

   "If anybody saw or heard anything unusual on Thursday night, no matter how insignificant it might seem, please come forward or call the incident room. You can do this anonymously if you wish. There is some forensic evidence so we will be able to eliminate anyone from the enquiry...."

   The words from the inspector washed over Stephen Slater without a lot of impact; he had already heard them several times that day and they had gradually stopped having any effect on him. Earlier his tears had flowed freely, awash
with grief for the brutal death of his little baby sister. Vivid images flooded his mind of what his sister must have endured at the hands of her brutal executioner. She was only fifteen for god's sake, what kind of monster is out there
lurking, stained with the blood of his only sibling! What she must have went through in her last tormented moments, the pain...

   And now, sitting here dealing with police and cameras and journalists, the grief stunted by the flashes and the questions and...

   "Stephen, you need to get some rest. Your mum's waiting in the police car outside. We're going to take you both home. There's not much left you can do here now."

   "But what if someone calls with information..."?

   "That's our job now, you and your mum have done your part. You need time now to grieve properly. If anything occurs tonight you will be the first people we will contact, obviously."

   And with that Stephen Slater and his mum were hurriedly ushered out of the police station past all the flash photographers, bundled into the back of the waiting police car and driven off into the warm dusk.

* * *

   Lucy Brown had been drying her long blonde hair in front of the mirror and was combing it through when she heard the radio news come on. She was only half listening, but her eyes widened when she heard the report about Melinda
Slater's murder on Thursday night.

   The fifteen year old had been walking home at around 11:30 pm on Thursday night and somewhere on the ten minute walk from the Wranglers Arms to her house she had been brutally raped and murdered. The police hadn't released any
details of what had actually occurred and weren't going to be doing so either. They were simply appealing for anyone who had been around the area that night and for them to come forward with any information.

   Lucy felt sick. Melinda Slater had gone to her school and had only been in the year below her. She remembered her as being a quiet, bookish girl and very pretty. In September she would have been in the sixth form with Lucy. This was
simply too close for comfort. Although Lucy and her friends hadn't been in the Wrangler's Arms on that particular Thursday, they often were in there on a Thursday night. It was the only place to go in the small village of Riverdale.
This week she and her friends had decided to save their money and go into Leeds on Saturday night instead. It was Anna's birthday on Sunday so tonight they were going to have a wild and raucous night out. Dancing, drinking and flirting with any man in sight. Now, Lucy wasn't so sure she wanted to go out at all, never mind for what they had planned for the evening. Just as the thought entered her head, Lucy's mobile phone beeped a new text message to her. It was Anna; did she still want to go tonight? Turn on TV if you don't already know why.

   Lucy thought about it for a while. Did she still want to go out? She did, but she certainly didn't want to risk her life over it. And she didn't think her parents would even consider allowing her out of her room whilst there was a psycho with a fetish for murdering young girls in the vicinity! Instead they allowed her to go to her friends house in a taxi to spend the night. Yet, being 17 years old, the girls decided instead to slip out to the local pub for a drink. A big mistake for Lucy. Passing the alley, near the Wrangler's Arms late at night alone was the biggest mistake of her life. A killer was waiting for her and they weren't going to spare her any pain.

   Unfortunately the Brown family would all live to regret the decision to trust Lucy to go to Anna's house for the evening in the taxi. Trusting a 17-year-old girl to do what she was told was a mistake that Lucy wouldn't survive to see the regret of her heartbroken parents.

* * *

   Over the next few weeks three more girls were murdered in the town the town of Riverdale. All the girls were aged between 15 and 24 and all were killed in exactly the same manner as Melinda Slater. All were brutally raped alive after
being skinned, then having their throats torn out by human hands. That's where the victim's similarities ended. All girls were very different in lifestyle and looks.

   The third girl to be murdered was Norah, aged 24 she was a backpacker from France with long, beautiful, red hair. She was killed on the following Saturday night after Lucy's unpleasant demise. She and her boyfriend had been camping in a farm nearby, on the outskirts of town. They had spent the evening in the Wrangler's Arms. After drinking copiously, the couple had drunkenly argued and the young man had left his girlfriend to make her own way back to the farm. In the same alleyway where Melinda's abused body had been found, and Lucy's only the previous weekend, between the pub and the farm, the girl had met her untimely death at the hands of the killer. And she was murdered in exactly the same way as the other two girls.

   The fourth victim was a 16-year old school girl named Abby. Her murder was slightly different to the other girls'. It occurred only three days after Norah's. The killer, now dubbed the Riverdale Ruiner by the press, was getting more
and more blood- thirsty. Most of the young girls in the surrounding areas had the good sense to stay at home after six in the evening now. Everybody knew that there was a serial killer on the loose and people were being extra careful. Rather than the middle of the night, Abby had been killed in broad daylight whilst she was returning from the local shop with some cigarettes. It was around three thirty in the afternoon, yet it occurred in the same alley near the Wrangler's Arms. Her parents were too distraught to comment or to talk to the press. It was because of this there was less fuss made of Abby's death than the other girlsā€˜. Therefore that opened the doors for the killer to find his next victim. This one was at night again, and the victim was a 21year old student home from University in Manchester visiting her parents for the weekend. Her name was Sarah and she had been a tough one. There was evidence that she had fought back, and suffered a lot more for her retaliation. It also appeared that because of this she had simply made things an awful lot worse for herself.

* * *

   When the killings had begun, it had been reported in the press the details of the victims profile. Melinda Slater had been said to be a gentle, quiet and intelligent girl. She got top grades at school, never drank and had only a few close friends. She had been predicted straight A's in her GCSE's and was tipped to have the ability to be heading off to Oxford or Cambridge in the next two years. The night of her death was a rare night out for Melinda as her parents rarely let her out alone. This particular night she and two of her friends had ventured to the local pub, she and her friends in high spirits. Particularly Melinda. She had had some good news. She had landed herself a summer job in Scotland. It was only as a chambermaid, yet it had made Melinda's day. On the surface of things Melinda had seemed a very happy girl, with an exceedingly bright future. In reality, her life was far from contented. Her home life was flooded with deep-rooted pain and extraordinary sufferings that not even her parents knew of. Melinda's demise held the key to all of the deaths that occurred in the sleepy village of Riverdale that summer, something the police would eventually mark as an unsolved serial murder case.

* * *

   There was one more death to come on this series of fierce and violent murders. This would be the final murder in the Riverdale Ruiner case. It occurred only five weeks after the initial murder, on the day of what would have been Melinda Slater's 16th birthday. The final death was very different to the others. The victim was murdered in exactly the same way as all the other girls had been. They had all been skinned alive, raped and had their throats being torn out, all in that order. Each death was as brutal as the next, and each one sickened every person involved with the ensuing investigations, not to mention the entire country. The final murder was the most perplexing and in some ways the most unsettling. The killer had gone all out on this one; it was one of the worst crimes the country had ever heard of and even then least harsh of details had been kept out of the papers.

   The final victim was a man. Not just any man but Melinda Slater's older brother Stephen.

   This initially baffled the police, the press and Stephen and Melinda's parents.

   Until five years later, a vital piece of evidence was uncovered from under the floorboards of Melinda Slater's bedroom. After Stephens's death, his parents moved from the area. Their house had stood empty for five years before a developer bought it and wanted to knock it down and rebuild. Buried deep under the floorboards was a notebook, written in the neat hand of Melinda Slater. This would unravel a mystery which would solve the case, yet couldn't possibly bring anyone to justice and would cause the Riverdale Ruiner case to be confined forever the depths of Cases Unsolved. This would be the one thing that would halt all investigations and stump everyone who came across the case.

Exerts from the Diary of Melinda Slater, Aged 15

Monday 3rd January 2003
Today was the worst yet. He came in after school and did it to me again. I cant take much more of this. I know its wrong but he keeps on doing it anyway, even when i tell him to stop. I hate him so much. If mum and dad find out it
will kill them...

Friday 7th January
I thought mum knew about it today, she asked me if I wanted to go on the pill! I was just so shocked! I just started crying. Mum started crying too 'cos she thought I was pregnant already. Later I told her I had only done it once
with a lad from school, and it wouldn't be happening again anyway. She calmed down and told me she was proud of me for having such a strong willed head on my shoulders. She said she had heard something the other day when she came home early from work.... How could I tell her the truth?

Saturday (no date)
I'm so ashamed, I can't believe what he's done to me. I'm crying in pain as I write this. He said he was sorry but I could tell he wasn't. Why does he keep doing it if he's sorry? He was crying and begging me not to tell anyone about it. How could I tell anyone? The shame and embarrassment would kill me. He's getting worse, I'm sure he's going to kill me one day soon, I'm certain. He had his hands round my throat before he did it and then he tied me to the bed. I swear I m going to kill him next time, I hate him so much. I'm going to torture him to death like he's tortured me all these years. I will go to jail for it, quite happily. This diary will probably be found and used in evidence. If it is I'm going to make sure they know everything about my darling brother. How can Mum and Dad not know? I'm their daughter and he gets away with doing this to me for my whole life and yet he is the apple of their eye. I HATE HIM.


Wednesday 24th June
I'm so happy! I've got a job up in Scotland as a Chambermaid for summer. It lasts from next week until the end of September and by the time I get back he'll be gone away. He hasn't done anything to me for a while now. Maybe it's
over and we can get back to normal! I can't wait to go and get away from him.

Thursday 25th June
Everything's gone wrong! Mum and Dad won't let me go. I've begged them but they say I'm too young to go away by myself. My life is over. I can't bear to stay here with him all day every day for the whole summer. The look in his eyes as they were telling me I couldn't go. I know I'm in for it now. I can't bear it, I really can't. I'm going out for a drink tonight with Donna and Lisa. Maybe I'll just end it all when I get home. They can't stop me from going. I'd rather die than stay here. I can't take it. I know he's my brother but he terrifies me so much. That was the last diary entry. That Thursday night was to be the final, torturous night of Melinda's life.

* * *

   That was the lead that the police would have used to arrest Stephen Slater if only they had found the diary before he died. From the entries in the diary it looked as though it was Melinda's brother who had killed her. But with Stephen Slater being dead, an arrest would be impossible. How could Stephen Slater have killed all those girls and then be killed in the same way himself? His killer was certainly the same person who had killed Melinda and all those other
girls. There was no doubt about that. But how could Stephens's killer have known the disturbing way in which all those girls had been killed? The answer was terrifying and baffling at the same time.

   But had Stephen really killed all of those girls, or had Stephen's only victim, his sister, as bait to lure her killer back to the scene of the crime, killed them? Only Melinda, the other victims and the police had known the horrific ordeal that she had endured that night. The power of the lust for revenge in her diary had been so strong, could it be possible that it continued after she had died? Could revenge be that powerful, that strong? That was something that Melinda would now take to the grave with her. But was it revenge? These questions would forever remain unanswered for the residents of Riverdale, and for the victim's families.

   The killings ended with Stephen Slater's death, as did any possibility of bringing a killer to justice.

©2003 Katherine Docherty