by Nicola Tee
“Spiky saved me so I need your word that his ashes are safe.”
“They will be looked after.” The detective shuffles forward in his chair and raises his posture.
“Also, one last favour. Please do not touch Kate’s room in my house. It is the second door on the left in the hallway as you walk in from the front. She will not be happy if her pillow and mattress are touched as she takes pride in them. Actually, while we are on the topic of Kate, do you know how long I will be here, sir, as Kate and I were playing a game of hide and seek this morning and I still need to find her. She will be feeling extremely smug right now, thinking she has won the game.”
“As I previously said, you are under arrest, so it takes as long as it takes,” Mr. Simmons states with this new-found authoritative tone.
“Okay. Okay. No need to be so abrupt,” Mr. Hump responds whilst looking at the floor like a naughty school boy who has just had a telling-off.
“Give me a few minutes,” the detective says as he pauses the tape and heads for the door.
“Winnie, can you order me a psych evaluation please,” he adds.
“Sure,” Constable Winnie responds.
“I am going to continue with the questioning till they arrive due to the urgency of the situation. God knows if he has other young girls held somewhere. Just knock on the door when they arrive. Cheers.”
Taking Charge
Mr. Simmons presses play and begins. “Let’s rewind a little. You mentioned ‘success stories’. What did you mean by that?”
“Oh, yeah. I used to run a camp for challenging teenagers. Parents would pay a fortune for me to correct their child. I took on cases from verbally abusive teenagers to those who had broken the law ten times over. My approach to fixing them was controversial, but the proof was in the pudding. I have fifty-three success stories to date, and it would have been fifty-four if Lizzie’s ending was different.”
“And how did you end up doing this for a living?”
“I will never forget how I fell into the field of mending broken souls. There was this seventeen-year-old girl called April, she was the daughter of a fellow sergeant of mine. She had the emptiest eyes I had ever seen, and I have stared into the eyes of many soldiers, but hers have always stuck with me, and have been the reason for some of my sleepless nights. Her face was full of little ginger freckles, she also had a perfect button nose and natural raven red bum-length hair. The first time I saw April I was shocked that someone could have that many stand-out features, she had the ability to light up a room and get all eyes on her. The problem was, April had no care for rules, and her father, Sergeant Keith Renalds, had become fed up of hearing the horror stories of what she had been up to whilst he was away with me, working.
“I overheard Keith’s wife crying down the phone one day, and I innocently said if he needed anything I was there for him, as that is what society tells you to say when someone is having a hard time, right? Not in a million years did I expect his reply to be what it was to my rhetorical question. I will never forget how he took a step closer to me: our noses inches away from one another and he said, ‘I have seen you handle the most difficult of situations with a cool head. Could you handle my daughter for me?’ He continued to tell me that she needed to be taught a lesson and how he thought I was the right man for that job. How could I say no? His eyes were full of desperation and if that didn’t sway me then the fact that the man taught me everything I knew did. I owed him my life, therefore helping his daughter was the least I could do.”
“What did you do?” Mr. Detective interrupts.
“Patience, please. Where was I? Oh yes, we finished our tour and returned home. The same day we got back he brought April to me, he kissed her on the forehead goodbye, and that was it. I was alone for the first time in my life with April and had no idea on how to make her see that the path she was on would only lead to death or prison. The first thing I did was make her toast with a scraping of jam, as I didn’t want to spoil her, and then I sat and watched her eat. What she did after she finished made me realise why her mother was at breaking point with her. She threw the plate on the floor! I couldn’t believe someone would even do that, let alone in someone else’s house, her disrespect amazed me. ‘It goes in the sink when you are done!’ I shouted, and she got up and trod on the plate, breaking it in two.
“That was the first plate I bought when I got my house, the first item the supermarket checker scanned, my first possession to make the house my home. And she stood on it, who did she think she was? I saw red! If I close my eyes now, I can picture myself leaping from my chair across the living room and grabbing her by her hair. If her head had swung back any quicker her neck would have probably snapped. I looked into her eyes as she shook, with tears rolling down her cheeks, and I said, ‘I told you, when you are finished it goes in the sink’. I let go of her hair and watched her pick up the two pieces and sprint with them to the kitchen. The broken plate represented what I was going to do to her, I was going to break her, and it made me feel powerful knowing I had the skills to do that.
“And I did. That’s what a week of no food will do to a person, I suppose. I checked in on her on a Sunday morning at 6:03 a.m. and her expression on her face was different. She looked like a broken little girl. I know that because I had the same look on my face when I arrived at the orphanage and stared at myself in the mirror for the first time. I know what a broken person’s facial expression looks like, and she had it. It all happened when she went to bed that Saturday night. My house is old, with thin walls which means I can hear everything going on in all the rooms, and the vent system only enhances my hearing. I used to hear April hum herself to sleep. She hummed the same song over and over until she dozed off. I eventually figured out what song it was, and I played it out loud that Saturday night. I sat up and listened to her hum along to it and then at 6:03 a.m. the following morning I had completed my challenge.
“‘Bye, bye, Miss American Pie,’. That was the song. You know the one about the chevy and the boys drinking whisky.”
“Yes. I know it.”
“It turns out April’s mum would drink herself to sleep once her father left for his next fighting tour, with that song playing on repeat. April thought that if she was really naughty her dad would stop leaving for work and stay at home, which meant her mum would stop hitting the vodka bottle. It is bizarre how a parent thinks that when their child is in bed they don’t see or hear what they get up to. Sadly, April saw her mum drink herself into a vodka-fuelled coma and heard her cry out for her husband every night. However, April was not my greatest success story; Leo was.”
“Leo? Who is he?”
“He was sixteen when his parents brought him to me because they had reached the end of their tether with him. He was stealing cars, setting sheds on fire and treating everyone in his family like dirt. At first, I was sceptical to take the case, but they offered a very lucrative amount that swung it for me. I mean, a man has to eat. The first thing I do with my new pupils is lock them in a room and leave them in their own thoughts for a while. We are weird creatures that seem to all be programmed to react the same to certain situations. For instance, when being locked up, first comes anger and screaming, then begging for your life and then silence. It is the silence part I wait for because it means they are finally lost in their own thoughts. At that point, most people cry, and I mean really cry, almost like wailing, but Leo didn’t, not one tear fell from his eyes, and that was why I was initially sceptical to take his case. You see, I can’t break someone who is already broken.”
“What did you do to him?”
“I can tell by your face you are assuming the worst, which I take umbrage to, especially as I treated him extremely well. I gave Leo three simple meals a day. I allowed him to take a five-minute shower every three days, and I even allowed him one biscuit before bed every other night. As you can tell, I was very soft on him, anyone would have thought he had checked into a hotel. When he wasn’t eating or showe
ring he would just lay on the mattress I provided, staring at the ceiling. He reminded me of a trained military soldier who wouldn’t break under interrogation. I use this comparison because when I was in the army we were trained to never crack. I was truly tested when I was kidnapped by the rebels; they tortured me for days for intel, but I never gave up any information. They broke nearly every rib in my body, but my training kept me quiet. I simply found a spot on the wall and stared at it, as Leo did with the ceiling.”
“So, you tortured Leo?”
“No, I did not need to physically torture Leo because he was already mentally torturing himself about something. A few weeks passed, and I could not get to the bottom of what was bothering him, so I used the last trick I had up my sleeve: I pimped my own childhood story out. As I began telling him about my parents, he started to tut and roll his eyes, but once I said the phrase, ‘My mum shot my dad’, his body language changed. He zoomed in on me, and I could tell he was desperate to know the full story. Once I finished sharing he began to start sharing, and that was the first time he had properly spoken to me. He said, ‘I think my mum will kill my dad too, one day if he keeps hitting her’, and then it all fell into place. He was naughty, so his father would hit him instead of his mother. I have seen a lot in my time but that really did pull on my heartstrings, as his heart was in the right place, but he was going about it in completely the wrong way.
“I took Leo home that afternoon because I had completed my job, and the satisfaction I got from punching his father in the face when he answered the door was equal to my first killing in the army. Leo, his siblings, and his mum packed their bags with me on guard and then I dropped them at some bed and breakfast place that was relatively off the grid. I don’t keep in touch with them, but I pray for their safety every night. I have faith that God and Leo will keep them safe. He is a remarkable young man, all he was doing was trying to protect the woman who brought him into this world. When I was held captive the lack of human contact got to me, as you need company as a way of staying sane, but Leo was so lost in his own thoughts that it didn’t bother him that he was all alone in a room in my house. It is worrying when someone can keep themselves company in their own head for weeks on end. I struggled with it, and I am military trained, so I reiterate my point by saying he is a remarkable young man, and hence my greatest success story.”
“Do you think that what you did to these young people was okay?”
“Well, in a nutshell, I served my country for a living and then I served a select few people in it. And those few people were grateful, therefore the answer to your question is yes, I think what I did to those young people was okay. I have answered all your questions honestly. Now, all I ask if you let me speak to Kate. She will want to know how I got hold of Dotty.”
“Dotty the doll? You can tell me, and I will pass it on to Kate,” Mr. Detective states.
“Ha. Clever. But nope. I will only tell Kate.”
Mr. Hump and Me
“Have you found Lizzie’s body yet?” I ask.
“No, we have dug up the whole area but there is nothing,” the female officer assigned to me replies.
“What do you mean, nothing? Of course, she is there, you are not looking hard enough.”
“I am sorry, your friend Lizzie is not buried by the house,” she repeats.
“Let me speak to him; I need to speak to him!” I scream.
“I am afraid that is not possible, Ms. Wright. Please try to have a rest and the detective will be along shortly to speak to you.”
I turn my back to her and yell out my frustration into my hands. Mr. Hump is still in control of my life even when he is in custody. He knows I will need answers to prevent myself from going insane. He is taunting me. I bet he moved Lizzie’s body to mess with me. One thing I hated since I was a little girl was not knowing the answers to my questions; it would drive me up the wall. How could Lizzie not be there? I buried her; I know I did! There is no way I can bribe the officers to let me speak to him, so I am going to have to do the unthinkable, I need to cause mass panic, so I can get in the same vicinity as him. I need to do it for Lizzie.
I know it is a crazy idea but what other option do I have? He won’t tell the detective the truth, and I need the truth. There are three problems with this plan. Firstly, I am being watched like a hawk by the female officer. Secondly, Mr. Hump is somewhere in the police station, but I have no idea where. And thirdly, the only idea I have is to go to the bathroom. It worked once today but will it work twice?
“Excuse me, I really need the toilet,” I plead without even taking the time to think through a proper plan.
“Follow me,” she kindly replies with a gentle smile.
My heart is pounding with every step I take, a mirror reaction to how I felt when Mr. Hump dragged me to the bathroom earlier today. I can’t believe I am trying to pull off my second great escape of the day. I can’t throw hot water in the officer’s face to get away as she doesn’t deserve that. We enter the bathroom and I dart for the cubicle closest to me. I sit on the toilet seat trying to gather my thoughts. I fall to the floor.
“Help! Help! Something feels weird in my tummy.” I manage to find tears to help make my pain seem more genuine. The female office comes sprinting towards me.
“Do not move, sweetie, I will go and get some help,” she says, all flustered. I instantly realise that all this drama is way above her pay grade.
She is gone. I jump to my feet and peep around the door, I need to make it to the cupboard that I had walked past on the way here. I decide it is better to walk to it than run as I must draw as little attention to myself as possible. “One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi and five Mississippi.” I count my steps under my breath to distract myself from the severity of what I am doing. “Six Mississippi,” and I make it.
I fall to the floor and sob into my jumper sleeve, so no one can hear me. I am crying because I am about to commit a crime. Within seconds I can hear alarms ringing, radios buzzing and the footsteps of people running up and down the corridor, my disappearing act is causing chaos. The cupboard is full of toilet rolls, paper towels and all the other bathroom essentials. I start unrolling all the toilet rolls into a pile in the middle of the floor. The tops of my arms feel dead. I will have to make use of what is already there. I can’t physically unroll any more paper. I am sure years of doing no exercise has caused my muscles to waste away. I feel deflated by how weak I am.
“All I need now is a lighter,” I whisper to myself.
Maybe if I find the staff locker room I can rummage through their jackets. I am pretty sure one of the officer’s smoke, so I just need to find a smoker’s locker. But since I have no idea where the locker room is, and most officers are looking for me, my plan is a lot easier said than done. First things first; I need a disguise. I take the apron hanging on the back of the door in an attempt to pass as a cleaner. I tie my hair up using an elastic band that was wrapped around the paper towels. I still look like me but the officers who haven’t seen me in the flesh might hopefully walk straight past me. I lift up the bottom of the apron to wipe the excess sweat from my hands when I feel something in the pocket.
“A lighter!” I quickly place my hand over my mouth. Why didn’t I think that maybe one of the cleaner’s smokes? I can’t believe my luck: I suppose I am well overdue some good luck, though. I flip the lighter open and place it on top of the mountain of unrolled toilet paper. I grab the penknife that is also in the pocket as my plan B.
I quickly open the door to save myself from going up in flames. Okay, massive exaggeration as the fire isn’t even a fire yet! More like a warning cloud of smoke. As I step into the hallway, the fire alarms start ringing, deafening me alongside everyone else in the station. I get tangled up in a stampede of impatient, panicking officers hurrying for the exit and just as I take my first step outside I see Mr. Hump standing in between two officers, in handcuffs, on the grass courtyard. His face looks fine consideri
ng I threw hot water over it earlier. I look down at the back of my left hand and see my scars and feel immense anger that he doesn’t look scarred. I didn’t manage to scar him like he has scarred me. Anyway, I wonder if he has realised that I caused the chaos, so I could see him, as he was always the smartest person in the room. Before I can even rationalise my thoughts, I'm holding the penknife to my neck. I have no idea what damage I could do with it, but I am sure if I lightly slice myself with the blade it would be enough blood to cause an even bigger scene than I have already caused.
“I will do it; do you hear me? I will cut myself if you do not let me speak to him!” I scream, getting everyone’s eyes off the police station and onto me.
The officers shuffle Gregory forward.
“Kate, put the knife down, Lizzie would not want this,” Mr. Hump shouts.
“Lizzie is buried in the garden; I buried her. What did you do with her?” I cry.
“I will tell you everything if you demand my release.” I had never seen such desperation in his eyes before.
“What!”
“Tell them to release me and I will tell you everything: Lizzie, Dotty and anything else you want to know. I promise,” he begs.
“Dotty, tell me now how you got hold of my Dotty?”
“Not until I am set free!”
“No, never! You deserve to be locked up. Now tell me.”
“Okay, I guess you will never know how I got Dotty.”
“Tell me!”
“Not until I am free,” he repeats, causing the conversation to go in circles.
“Please, just release him, I am too exhausted to argue,” I demand.
The detective interrupts, “we cannot do that. He admitted to murder.”
“At least you are finally taking responsibility for killing my Lizzie, you monster!”