Free Killer Couples by Tammy Cohen

together. But then that was Karla Homolka for you: everything was about putting up a good façade, creating a golden impression other people would envy. It was almost as if she couldn’t enjoy her life and the things she had except by seeing the reflection of it in other people’s covetous eyes.
    Her young, bleached-blond husband was still making his lucrative cigarette smuggling trips across the border from the US. Clean-cut and well spoken, no one ever stopped him. And on the days when he wasn’t doing that, he was holed up in his ‘music room’ working on the rap songs he was convinced would one day make him famous. And in the evenings, when he prowled the streets in his gold-coloured Nissan, taking videos of women walking along, or sitting in restaurant windows, or when he followed them home and stood outside their windows masturbating as he watched them undress, still no one ever caught him.
    Over in Scarborough, where Bernardo had given his blood sample back in 1990 as part of the search for the Scarborough Rapist, the investigation was progressing with agonising slowness. The lab had finally managed to test all the samples and the list of suspects had been whittled down to just five. Now all that remained was to do a full DNA test on all five samples. However, this was time consuming, and already the specialist lab had a backlog of other cases waiting to be tested. There was no way the results would be available for another six months at least. Without knowing it, fate had just bought Paul Bernardo more time and he wasn’t about to waste it…
     
    Thursday, 16 April 1992 was the last school-day before the long Easter weekend. Like most of her classmates, 15-year-old Kristen French was in a buoyant mood as she set out on the short 15-minute walk home from school with three luxuriousdays ahead of her to spend relaxing around the house with her family and dog, or out somewhere with her boyfriend Elton. True, the weather could have been a little better, but when you’re young and bright and popular, with the whole of life stretching out tantalisingly in front of you, and a bright, sunny future ahead, one dull drizzly day really doesn’t make any odds.
    When a car pulled into the car park of a church along her route, Kristen really didn’t pay too much attention. The occupants, a young couple, both with blonde hair, seemed to be looking for something.
    ‘Excuse me,’ the woman called, winding down the passenger window. ‘We’re a bit lost. Could you help us?’
    Kristen didn’t think twice. From an early age, the tall slim girl with the long brown hair and ready smile had been taught to be polite and helpful. And even though everyone in the area had been watchful recently after what happened to Leslie Mahaffy, it was broad daylight on quite a busy road. Besides, everyone knew the guy who did it would turn out to be some sinister creep, nothing like this attractive, well-dressed couple, who just happened to be lost and needing some guidance.
    Kristin readily crossed over to where the young woman was already getting out of the car, smiling apologetically and clutching a map in her hand.
    ‘I’m so terrible with directions,’ she said, rolling her eyes in self-mockery . ‘If you could just point out the right way on the map…’
    Kristen wouldn’t have noticed the man get out of the driver’s seat until he was right behind her, the point of his knife pressinginto her side. Within seconds, she’d been bundled into the car. The only evidence she’d ever been there was a torn fragment of map and a shoe that had come loose in the brief tussle and was left behind on the car-park tarmac.
    Imagine the worst fear you have for your daughter, and now multiply that by a hundred, and you still won’t come near to the hell Kristen French went through over the next three days. While her distraught family made televised appeals for her safe return, just a few minutes’ drive away, Kristen was fighting for her life as