KILLER ADDICTION: When Murder Becomes A Habit

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

LEONARD’S THERAPY SESSION got him thinking about his past. When he had reached the age of twenty-one, he inherited the apartment from his mother’s estate, completely paid off in full, with no mortgage. After college, he had returned to live in the apartment where he had spent the first fifteen years of his life, after a break of seven years.

Leonard looked back through his letters from Ryan. He had them sorted neatly in chronological order, starting from when they had begun in his middle grades. Leonard recalled that his mother had encouraged him to write to Ryan; it worried her that Leonard had no friends and also that Ryan needed someone to look after him, because he wasn’t a smart boy and would get himself in trouble if Leonard, who was ‘so much more intelligent’, didn’t help him. And he remembered his mother saying they should never meet, because Leonard was so awkward in person and Ryan wouldn’t want to be his friend anymore, that Leonard should just let his true self shine through his writing on the page—she’d said it was better that way.

Leonard continued rifling through the letters, saw the long break when he had left the apartment and then when they had unexpectedly started up again just a few weeks after he returned from college. Leonard had received a letter that made it seem as if Ryan had been watching and waiting for Leonard to return to his old neighbourhood. It had unnerved him, like Ryan had been spying on him all that time, maybe punishing him by cutting off contact because he’d left the apartment.

Ryan’s letters of adulthood had seemed different, darker, moodier and more sinister than the childhood ones. But Leonard had just wanted a friend, so ignored any concerns over the letters. He’d had nobody since Ryan left him and he was achingly lonely, couldn’t explain to anyone how he felt. Desperate for contact, he had accepted the new Ryan and maintained their contact. He flicked through the letters in date sequence and recalled how they’d become progressively darker as time went by. Ryan had talked about his urges and how Leonard needed to help him, that if they could just fantasise in their letters about punishing people for their actions, then Ryan wouldn’t have to do anything for real.

As Leonard looked back through the letters, he saw how he had become entwined and absorbed in Ryan’s games, which had moved through random fantasies of hurting people to gradually becoming more and more focused on addicts, on people who couldn’t control their urges, who would wreck their lives for the sake of their ‘fix’, whatever that might be.

Ryan would ask for advice in his letters and appeal to Leonard’s superior intelligence and logical, analytical mind. He would ask Leonard for help on how to deal with a person he was having problems with, a barman who had pissed him off or a taxi driver who had ‘given him s**t’. Leonard smiled as he re-read some advice he had given to Ryan—conniving ways to get back at them, or masterful put-downs and insults he had come up with that Ryan could deliver the next time he saw them.

Leonard had long realised he enjoyed showing his superior intelligence by putting other people down, insulting the collective ‘they’ who lorded it over him but were so inferior to him intellectually. Ryan had become his weapon. It was his way of striking out against the world in a revenge delivered vicariously, in a way that Leonard would never have the courage to do openly. Leonard was hooked, realising he craved the attention and contact from Ryan, his only friend.

Leonard opened one of Ryan’s recent letters, the critical one where Ryan had asked for Leonard’s advice about the ‘f*****g junkie’ that had bumped into him in the park one night and then had ‘the nerve’ to insult him afterwards. Ryan had explained that sometimes he fantasised about killing people, but that he would never do it; he wouldn’t hurt anybody, but it would really help him if he could imagine doing it, if he could just play it out in his mind.

Ryan had asked Leonard the question, left it hanging on the page, dripping with potential, a delicate cry for help—a turning point where Leonard would either be in or out. Acceptance or rejection had been the fork in the road from that leading question; ‘Help me Leonard, you’re the only one who can. Use your brilliant mind to help me imagine how I could punish this d**g addict, how I could think about a way to hurt them severely. Please.’

Leonard recalled reading that letter for the first time and remembered the pause, his sharp intake of breath, the reflection, and the moment of decision. The Pivot, he called it. The single thing that had changed him. When he dared himself to imagine what it would be like to take a human life, how you would do it, the statement it would make and the repercussions it would have, the ripple effect of that ultimate act. It had taken some time for Leonard to decide, but he’d understood that if he refused, he might lose Ryan forever and had realised that he felt excited by this fresh game they might be playing. And so, he had written back to Ryan and said, ‘Yes, I will help you imagine what you could do, but only on the condition that nobody gets hurt. Tell me everything about what happened, who they are and where they are.’

And with that, their game had begun.