Ryan Green - The Truro Murders: The Sex Killing Spree Through the Eyes of an Accomplice

James Miller would have considered himself to be an accomplished liar if he had known what the word accomplished meant. In the moment when he was telling a lie to someones face he could see in their eyes that they believed every word. If he got caught out after the fact by people going away and getting different answers, that was hardly his fault. His lying was top notch. It was just his planning ahead that caused him problems. He wasnt sure why people wanted to believe him so badly. Maybe it was because the thought of someone who looked and acted like him outsmarting them was too embarrassing. Maybe it was because, despite his failings, James was completely earnest in everything that he said to people, whether the things he was saying were true or not. Maybe people just couldnt believe that he was smart enough to remember a lie for as long as their conversation ran. Even tonight his lying had been going perfectly right up until the moment he got out of the car, but now that he was sitting here in the dark with his back resting against a tree and the yellow moon was scowling down at him like the eye of God, he found that the bottomless well of deception was running dry just when he needed it the most. When he needed to convince himself that everything was going to turn out all right.

He had lied to that girl in the car. There were no two ways about it. He had told her things that were not true because that is what Chris would have wanted. When he offered to give her a ride, she had trusted him. He hadn't even had to lie then. She thought that she was safe with him just because of who he was, because of what he was, and he had let her go on believing it. It wasn't even a lie. He was exactly what he looked like. He was as harmless as he seemed. Even now she probably thought that she would have a little bit of fun with the hottest guy she had ever seen and then his funny queer friend was going to drive her home safe and sound. It was unbelievable. Even as James was telling himself that soon he would go back to the car and find her and Chris cuddled up happily on the back seat, he found that he couldn't swallow the lie.

This time James had chosen not to learn her name. She probably introduced herself just like a normal person, but he had been careful not to listen too closely. Just like he was trying not to listen too closely to what was happening in the car right now. He knew that there were sounds coming out of the car but he was the only person around for miles who might hear them. He had told himself that it might be easier if he didn't know her name. As if a name was all that made a person into a person. Lying to himself had always come just as easily to James as lying to other people. Growing up in rural Australia with a taste for other men meant that you had to lie every moment of the day just to survive. Any little slip, any lisp or limp wrist might mean that the men you met in the alley outside a bar were there for a very different sort of entertainment than you might have hoped. It hurt a little to hide every part of himself from the world outside, but it made it all the more special to share himself with someone like Chris. He had been practising lying to himself for decades. From little lies like "not knowing her name will make it easier" up through "maybe everything will be all right tonight" and all the way up to the big crazy ones like "maybe Chris will realise that he loves me and stop all this."

Deep in his squirming gut, James knew that every one of those things was a lie. He squeezed his eyes shut against the moonlight and pressed his back into the tree, feeling the bark bite into him through his sweat-soaked shirt. He pretended that it was Chris. That the comforting steady weight on his back was the man he loved. That Chris was here with him. Not over there with her. He was able to convince himself for all of a second before reality intruded. The sound was muffled by the car, by the distance and by the thickness of the humid night air. It was a womans scream, cut off short. Straight-up denial wasnt going to work tonight, but there were a whole load of grey areas that James could still lurk in. Maybe tonight wasnt going to be a good night, where the girl went away with a smile on her face, but she might still walk away. Chris might have had to get a little rough with her to get what he wanted and that was okay. That was fine. James didnt like the long tense silence in the car as they drove a girl back after she had said no to Chris at the wrong time, but he could live with it. He could even convince himself that it was their fault sometimes. They might cry their crocodile tears but they knew why they were getting in the car. They knew how hot Chris was and what he wanted. Why did they have to play hard to get? These girls had no sense, coming out here to the middle of nowhere with two strange men. It didnt matter that Chris was gorgeous and charming or that James was funny and soothed all of their worries. They still made their own decisions, and they needed to live with the consequences.

That lie crumbled to ashes just the same as the rest of them. James knew what he was going to find when he walked back to the car. He knew it with dead certainty. There would have been rope no matter what happened in that car tonight. Chris wouldn't take a girl without a rope. That was his kink, tying people up. Nobody could complain about thatit didn't hurt anybody. Most of the girls liked it. It made them feel naughty or something. Sometimes James stayed in the car while Chris tied them up, as some extra reassurance for the girl, but it always felt a little too much like participating. You could feel the heat rolling off Chris, that electric energy that clung to him when he was excited. Sometimes Chris liked to practice his knots on James, and those were good nights and sweet memories that would keep him warm through the years to come, but they were just similar enough to what was happening in that car to raise bile up into James' mouth when he tried to call them up now.

He couldn't keep doing this. Chris might have had the stomach for it, but James couldn't do this anymore. It used to just be once in a while that they would go out cruising for a girl, but now it seemed to be every other night. Chris needed it again sooner and sooner each time and now it felt like he wasn't satisfied even when they did have a good night. On the nights when Chris found a girl and she went home happy, he was still angry and buzzing. Whatever he got out of his encounters with those girls was dwindling. He had to keep pushing further every time. To start with he just picked them up. Then he started to tie them up, too. Then he started to force them when they tried to say no, but now it was like even that was boring him. Like he needed to go one step further or the night hadn't been worthwhile. There were other sounds coming from the car, torturous sounds for James. The sound of Chris getting closer and closer and silence from the girl. He knew those sounds so intimately, better than he knew the sound of his own voice. They were seared into his memory. Every rumble from deep inside Chris' chest and every gasp that escaped his lips.