The Headsman Read Online Free PDF

than two hundred years old, the ax had been forged by a master craftsman in Hounslow, just west of London. No clumsy smithy that one, no heavy-handed forger of farm tools. On the contrary, its maker was an armorer who fashioned swords and daggers for noblemen, and pikes for the soldiers they led into battle.
    As did a fine sculpture, the ax pleased the eye no matter from what perspective you studied it. The edges of its twin blades each described a gentle parabola, like the curves of a woman’s breasts, or her buttocks. The mere sight of them never failed to produce a sexual response in the headsman, a stirring of desire.
    As his fingers moved over the steel the feeling intensified, recreating some of the pleasure he had felt when he carried out tonight’s execution. Once again he saw the terror in the girl’s eyes, saw her mouth agape as cries of fear issued from her throat.
    Ah, her throat. That slender column, white and delicate, with its arteries pulsing and its flesh heaving as it alternated between gasping for air and expelling screams. And the power he had felt when he looked down on it—as if he owned all the world and controlled every living creature in it. With his unerring eye perfectly coordinated with the massive muscles of his shoulders and his arms and his back, he had swung the ax with explosive force. And at the exact instant the blade struck, precisely when that exquisitely honed steel carried out the sentence, rending flesh and tissue and bone and tendons, spraying blood so that for a fleeting instant the air had been infused with a pink cloud, that was when his orgasm had burst.
    And then he had been physically drained, but left with the deep satisfaction of knowing justice had been done. He had lifted the severed head with a sense of joy that was no longer hot and savage, but as cold as death itself.
    He gazed at the ax fondly for a long time, losing himself in its beauty. Then through the window he saw that the night sky was turning gray; it would be dawn soon. With a feeling almost of regret that his work was done, he oiled down the steel with loving care and put the instrument away.

Two
    A STATE OF SHOCK
    1
    C HIEF OF P OLICE Jud MacElroy pulled the patrol car out of the Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot and turned into Water Street, driving slowly and carefully so as not to spill coffee from the Styrofoam cup in his right hand. He was a tall man, big-boned and rangy, and with his fleece-lined leather jacket he was a little cramped in the Plymouth. His cap was pushed back on his head, revealing closely trimmed black hair, and his ice-blue eyes swept the street as he drove.
    It was Saturday morning, and he was restless. The previous night had been relatively quiet: a fender bender at the intersection of Main and South streets; a fight in the Pine Tree Inn that had resulted in a drunk spending the night in Braddock’s jail; a domestic argument in a house on Belden Street. And that was it. Usually there was more action than that on Fridays.
    Not that he consciously hoped for trouble. On the contrary, Jud was easygoing and friendly by nature, and he sincerely believed a cop’s job was to keep the peace. Violence was to be avoided if possible, and mediation was better than hard-assed confrontation anytime. He knew his attitude didn’t square with that of some of the men under his command, who liked to see themselves as Rambos in a war on crime. But at far as he was concerned, there were enough problems in running the department and coping with whatever mischief came along without stirring up more.
    On the other hand, there was also a desire to prove himself. He’d been on the force eight years, having joined directly after a hitch in the army, where he’d risen to the rank of sergeant in the MPs. A year ago he’d become chief when his predecessor, Emmett Stark, had retired. That was just after Jud’s thirtieth birthday, and his elevation to the top job had caused envy and even outright jealousy among