by Emmy Ellis
Doreen got up and tugged her shirt and blouse off, handing them to Lou. A line of blood had splashed on the window and part of the sill from where she’d arced the knife after slicing his neck. She’d clean it but would always see it, even when it was gone. “I’ve got some savings. Mam gave me spare money. And as for the bags, say twenty? That haberdasher fella will drop it round, you know, the one who owns that shop in town. We can get him to carry it into the garden, and we’ll chat to him, tell him we’re making it nice, like.”
Lou prodded Doreen’s clothes beneath the water, which turned pink. Doreen’s face was tight from the dried blood on her skin, and she stood there in her bra and knickers, shivering despite it being summer.
“I need a bath,” she said, “but we should clean up even more first, use bleach, and that front door needs cardboard over it until we can get someone to fix it. Maybe the peat bloke will do it. We’ll say we had to break in because we forgot our keys.”
Lou nodded. “I’ll get in the bath after you, so don’t stay in for ages else the water will get cold.”
What a weird thing to think about at a time like this.
Lou gave a sad smile. “This is our secret forever?”
Doreen nodded. “Forever.”
Chapter Fifteen
The snow had stopped falling around ten this morning, and a thaw had steadily crept in over the course of the day, grass valiantly poking through on some of the verges, a gulley made on pavements, tarmac on show, although it appeared shiny, coated with sparkling ice—watch your step or you’d go arse over tit.
On the breakfast news, his hair gelled back and a veneer smile covering the fact he’d probably been up since three a.m. for work, the weatherman had said it’d most likely be gone soon, all that snow, which would make for a boggy Sculptor’s Field once everyone trampled over it at the weekend, unless a frost hardened it. Wellies, Lou would need those. She was doing the pie and jam stall. Thank goodness the jam was already made, but she’d still need to bake the pies.
The February Fayre was the last thing on her mind at the minute, though. She stood beside Francis in the darkness of the yard behind The Lion’s Head, Cassie on Francis’ left. It was weird being on the Moor estate, as if they weren’t as safe as they’d be on the Barrington. That made sense, as they knew every road and pathway on their patch, but the Moor, she’d only been there once or twice to visit an old school friend, and that had been a month or so after the Stalker business.
She hadn’t been tempted to tell Josephine about it, the promise she’d made to Doreen as strong as ever. The horror of it had taken two weeks to fade a little, Lou’s terrible dreams lessening, her fear of being caught diminishing somewhat, although it was all still there, lurking in the dark recesses inside her, ready to come out when she wasn’t expecting it. Sleep and a bad situation had an unspoken agreement: to torment you with whatever happened, chasing you in your nightmares, no matter how much time had passed.
Doreen hadn’t been able to handle staying at the house, saying the garden gave her the willies every time she glanced out there or pegged her washing on the line. She imagined Stalker moaning from the bottom of the well, or whispering to her at night, and had convinced herself Robby Denzil had watched them commit murder and would grass them up, even though his house had been in darkness and he hadn’t said owt or acted funny when they’d seen him two days later. She’d moved back home to her mam’s. Lou had stayed, getting herself accustomed to their final agreement on the day Doreen had walked out: they’d avoid each other as much as possible, so they weren’t tempted to discuss it and risk being overheard, but remain friends deep down. How could they not be friends when joined by the common thread of murder? Doreen had stabbed him in the stomach and sliced his throat to protect them, and Lou would never forget that.
To appear ‘normal’, she’d got herself caught up the flurry of a bubbly new housemate, Deborah, moving in. She’d hid a grimace when Deb—“I prefer being called that, Deborah is so formal…”—pushed open the kitchen window one night, her hand on where the blood had spattered. Janice hadn’t spotted owt amiss when she’d got back from her holiday, but Doreen was convinced she would. Janice was a strict cleaner and would spy even a tiny drop of blood. She’d queried the missing knife, though, and Lou had lied: “No idea where it’s gone, love, sorry.”
That added to the fear.
Lou blinked herself out of the past and focused on tonight. Cassie had brought a map of the Moor up on her laptop earlier, and they’d studied their entry and exit routes, any possible alternatives if things went wrong. Cassie had grumbled that she didn’t know where all the CCTV cameras were, and wasn’t that just a kick in the teeth, then said they’d have to pray they didn’t get clocked. She’d sounded arsey, like Lou’s quest was a pain in her rear end and she didn’t want owt to do with it.
Talk about rude.
I bet Jess wouldn’t treat me like that.
Lou didn’t see the problem, CCTV or not. They had another stolen car, false plates, and balaclavas, so what did it matter whether they were caught on camera? Once they got back onto the Barrington, Cassie could lose them in the maze of streets easily, then take the car to the scrappy bloke, switch into hers, and be done with it.
Cassie had provided black boilersuits to put on over their clothes, and along with leather gloves, plus the wool covering Lou’s face, she was sweating buckets. A thrill went through her at imagining Joe thinking she was curled up on Francis’ sofa, wine in hand, all of them chatting, then she bumped down to earth with guilt paying her a nasty unwanted visit. She shouldn’t delight in deceiving him tonight, but hadn’t she done that for the whole of their relationship, minus the revelling in it? If he knew she’d stabbed Stalker in the heart and pushed him down a bloody well, and nudged Superintendent Black into the canal when she’d followed him from The Donny that time, he’d be devastated, not only because of the deception but he’d ask himself who the chuff he’d married—and whether he should tell the police about her.
Don’t think about it. Get these coppers killed and that’s an end to it.
It had to be the end. She couldn’t continue in this way. Lying to Joe…should she confess her past and what she’d done recently? Would he leave her or understand why she’d done it? He was a kind man, the best, and didn’t deserve a liar for a wife.
Francis’ arm brushed Lou’s, reminding her she wasn’t alone. Lou often went inside her head, examining her memories, trying not to acknowledge how her warped brain strung together completely unconnected events. Like Janice going to Cornwall, so Lou had sent Jess there to keep her safe, the same as Janice had been safe from having owt to do with the murder of the creepy flower man. Doreen had confessed once, during a rare chat in the market, that Cassie’s eyes gave her the creeps because they were the same shade as his. Maybe Lou wasn’t so weird after all and everyone’s brain worked the same way, joining events by association.
“What’s taking them so long?” Cassie whispered.
Still grouchy then.
Upon arrival, headlights off, Cassie had reversed the car between the yard’s high brick wall and a stack of empty beer barrels, muttering that the car had better not be seen or there’d be trouble.
“Creep up the side of the pub and look through the window to see if Knight and Codderidge are inside yet—and stay back in the dark,” Cassie had said.
As if Lou wouldn’t know that. As if she’d let people see her in a fucking balaclava.
“I wasn’t born yesterday,” Lou had sniped back and sidled along the wall, making a show of doing it right.
They were sitting at a table, those pigs, plates of food piled high—carb overload, you greedy bastards—a pint of lager for Knight, something with Coke, ice, and a slice for Codderidge. The pair of them lived on the Barrington so must come to the Moor thinking they wouldn’t be spotted by their other halves and had done this for years. She didn’t know how someone hadn’t grassed them up yet, but then again, people around he
re would think it was two coppers chatting shit after work and take no notice, wouldn’t they.
Lou knew about the affair from an early evening one winter. She’d gone to The Lion’s Head to spy years ago, Joe busy at the farm fixing a broken fence at the edge of the property, and she’d gone out under the guise of having one of her ‘drives’. She’d spied on them through that very side window, then, once they’d got up to leave, she’d pressed herself into the darkness, expecting them to walk past the turning into the yard, but they’d come towards her instead, Knight shoving Codderidge against the wall and snogging her, then they’d gone into the yard proper, hand in hand, Lou swearing they’d spot her any second.
If they were good coppers, they would, but look how they didn’t even find my Jess.
Immobile, she’d watched them get up to certain things beside a large wheelie bin close to the back of the pub, the light from an upstairs window shining down enough that she got the gist—the same light that was on now—showcasing hands and fumbles and kisses and laughter. And grunts. She’d wanted to be sick but had to wait until they’d left. How could they do that when her child was dead? How could they giggle and create such appalling sounds? Didn’t they care?
She’d returned another night, same time, different week, and they’d been at it like rabbits again. A nudge in the right direction from her sent gossips nattering in The Donny, letting her know the affair had been going on for years, and nowt was done about it because: “It isn’t any of my business where he pokes his sausage stick, duck.”
Lou shivered. Hoped they’d come out soon so they could get on with it and kill the fuckers. Her nail weapon was in place, a new best friend on her steady hand, even snugger because of the glove.
Cassie and Francis had baseball bats.
Lou thought about any evidence left behind from them, but that should be minimal. They were covered up well, and the landlord must have cleared the snow out here for the deliveries, so no tyre tracks or footprints for other piggies to nose at once the bodies were discovered.
The back door opened, one used by smokers, and some round-as-a-ball fella emerged, laughter and music from the pub floating out behind him, telling of lives lived without unhappiness in them, or maybe they laughed because, well, if you didn’t, you’d go mad.
Like me.
He sparked up, took a drag, the end of his cigarette glowing orange. Lou swore the tension around her pressed close, a tangible thing. Cassie had sewn the mouth holes up in the balaclavas, but Lou was paranoid their clouds of breath would give her away. Her skin was wet around her lips, on her chin, and she had the urge to wipe it, but she couldn’t move else she risked them being spotted.
A few more drags, then his phone rang. Lou jumped at the loud tone, her chest seeming to hollow from her heart beating so wildly, and she reminded herself to keep calm. Her body trembled, and she couldn’t stop it. Was this a portent? Were they going to get caught? Was this a sign to tell them to abandon the job?
The fella dug his phone out of his jeans pocket and swiped the screen, the light bringing his face into sharp focus. Bushy beard. A squished nose. Thick lips. Ruddy skin. He scuffed the concrete with his boot, and a small stone skittered. “Yeah? At the pub… I’ve only had one pint… Tsk. I’ll come home now, all right?”
Someone wasn’t happy their bloke was in the boozer.
He stuffed his phone away. “Can’t bleedin’ go anywhere on my own these days.” He traipsed off down the side of the building, coughing.
That bloody door would pose a problem in other circumstances, but Cassie had a metre-long piece of wood to prop beneath the handle, preventing anyone coming out once their targets were in place.
She’d thought of everything.
It reminded her of when Doreen had put that chair beneath the handle in their kitchen. This time, though, the wood would actually do something worthwhile.
At her thought of killing, Lou’s heart sped up, and she blew out a breath.
“How long does it take to eat pie and fucking chips?” Cassie muttered.
“Quiet,” Francis warned.
Lou wanted to answer, griping at Cassie to follow her own bloody rules and shut her gob. Instead, she stared at the pub and went through their plan. They’d pull this off. They had to.
Time dragged. Cassie and Francis were true pros—they stood still, waiting, waiting, while Lou fidgeted. They even breathed quietly, while Lou panted. What must they look like, three figures in the dark against the wall, masks on, weapons in hand? Part of Lou couldn’t believe she was doing this, but the other…it couldn’t wait to get started.
More time passed. What if Knight and Codderidge had been called away on a case? Had they abandoned their dinner to run off and help someone else, giving them their full attention, the opposite of what they’d done for Jess?
Stop winding yourself up.
The door opened, and out they tumbled, the pervy pair, Amy Winehouse singing about a woman called Valerie in the background. Lou stiffened, so angry at the sight of them, and she had the stupid urge to rush them, stab the shit out of their faces, obliterating those looks of years ago, the pity, the ‘we’d love to keep looking for your daughter, but he won’t let us’.
Lies. All lies.
Knight led Codderidge to their usual tryst spot, and this was where Lou had winced when Cassie had laid out the plan. They had to stand there and let them get into it, trousers down at his ankles, then strike. It made sense, but having to hear them doing it again had Lou’s guts rolling. She glared over at the coppers who were partial shadows, the light from the window sending the blackness grey where they were, perhaps a dimmer bulb than before, but it was enough to differentiate the shapes and work out what they were.
“God, I can’t get enough of you,” Knight said.
God, I can’t wait to rip your fucking face off.
Lou gritted her teeth and flexed her fingers beneath the weapon across her knuckles. Francis’ breathing got faster, and Lou could only hope it wasn’t because of what those two were doing, but anger on Lou’s behalf that the pigs acted as if they didn’t have a care in the world when Jess was likely bones in that coffin by now—
no, she’s on the beach; she’s playing with her pink bucket.
—forgotten, her cute little face but a memory to them, one they couldn’t remember because they’d filed her away, case closed, now move on.
A strange growl echoed, and Lou’s disgust level went up a notch until Francis elbowed her and Lou realised it was coming out of her own mouth. Pain, that was what it sounded like, a terrible expression of the grief she still experienced.
Knight’s trousers dropped, his pasty skin two slim trunks in the gloom. Lou gagged, sweat breaking out beneath the mask, and while Knight did all the moves associated with that, Cassie crept away, a bat in one hand, the wood plank in the other.
Game on.
Chapter Sixteen
The coppers were so caught up in what they were doing, they didn’t stop to look over and spot Cassie wedging the length of wood beneath the door handle, nor did they perk up at the soft scrape of it on the ground.
Her nerves were serrated being so close to the light coming from a top window—and she hated doing business outside the Barrington—but if this stopped Lou from taking matters into her own hands again, murder had to be done. The woman was seriously doing her head in, butting in during the planning phase this afternoon and generally grumping about the decisions.
“Who knows how these things work?” Cassie had shouted. “Me and Mam, not you!”
Lou had narrowed her eyes at her and sulked.
With no snow in the yard, it made things easier, although Cassie had cringed in case the shagging pigs had copped on to her footsteps on the way over to the pub. She held her breath and sidled to the wheelie bin, gasps from Codderidge infecting the air. Cassie raised her bat, stepped out behind Knight, prayed Mam was already coming out of her hiding place, and brought the weapon down on the back of his hea
d. He fell to his knees, and there was a millisecond where Cassie stared at Codderidge’s shadowed face, then Mam’s bat connected with the copper’s forehead.
With both of them on the ground, Cassie managed to drag a moaning Knight and dropped him away from the bin. Lou swept in and went straight for Codderidge, who groaned and possibly held a hand up to her face, difficult to tell, the side of the extra-large bin blocking the light. The nail weapon launched, Lou grunted, then stepped back, only to swing her arm in a downwards arc and stab Codderidge in the top of the head. Knight shifted, so Mam walloped him again, probably on the leg, and he cried out.
It was frustrating doing this in the dark. Cassie couldn’t properly see what either of her partners in crime were doing, their figures murky, darting about around Knight. If they didn’t need to be careful about being spotted, she’d have put on her night-vision goggles with the head torch on the front.
“You fucking piece of pig-shit scum bastard,” Lou said quietly. “Let’s see how you like dying.”
A sickening thud followed by a wet squelch, and Cassie had an idea Lou had stabbed him in the throat. It had worked for Gorley, so why not? Movement to Cassie’s left had her spinning that way, adrenaline pumping. Codderidge was getting up, moaning and crying.
“Shut up,” Cassie warned her.
Lou barrelled into Cassie, sending her shifting to the side, and a blur of ghost-like shadows danced, the noises of boots scuffing the ground and strange growls creating a disturbance they didn’t need. Too disorientated to scream, Codderidge mumbled incoherently, and Lou lugged her out from beside the bin. She attacked her face, her arm lashing out violently, swipe after swipe. Cassie turned to look for Mam, who crouched beside Knight.
“This one’s gone,” Mam said and stood.
So Lou’s weapon had finished him off.
Animal sounds came out of Lou, who was going to town on her victim, possessed, seemingly unable to stop. Cassie gripped the back of Lou’s boilersuit and tried hauling her away, but the silly cow was too frenzied, too strong with anger. She’d fuck this right up if she wasn’t careful. There wasn’t enough time to have the luxury of wrecking Codderidge’s face.