Nasty Bitch

by K Leitch

  Carla felt shivers running down her spine as she ended her call with the doctor, and an even greater feeling of urgency that they find this madwoman…and quick!

  CHAPTER 41 – MAGGIE

  Maggie sat near the back of the coach, she had, as predicted had to sit next to Hillary Giblet who hadn’t stopped talking since they had set of an hour ago. Hillary had a huge bag of boiled sweets that she kept dipping into and so her talking was interrupted every now and again by loud sucking and slurping noises.

  Maggie had been listening to her with only half an ear, luckily Hillary liked to talk and so only very rarely required an answer. Maggie had been alternating with a shocked ‘no really’ and ‘yes of course’ intermingled with the occasional amused laugh, which seemed to be working so far. She was far too busy watching Duncan and Dulcie who were sitting near the front of the coach, not near enough for her to see them properly but close enough to hear Dulcie’s almost constant trills of laughter, really when had Duncan become so funny.

  Dulcie had arrived looking like she was going to a disco rather than racing at Goodwood, Maggie had thought bitchily. She was wearing a low cut, short floral dress pulled in tightly at the waist by a wide belt, so that once again her chest was out there for all the world to see, she had teamed that with white shoes a large straw sunhat and huge dark glasses.

  She had been laughing and prattling on ever since she had arrived, hanging on to Duncan’s arm as if she owned him, and whispering sweet nothing in his ear every chance she got. It was making Maggie feel quite sick…bloody hell had the woman no pride fawning all over a man like that…it was disgusting.

  Apart from Maggie, they were a merry bunch on the coach; all getting into the spirit of the thing and so when Duncan started a sing song in his deep baritone voice the rest of them happily joined in. Although what started out as a harmless rendition of ‘Ten green bottles’…two hours and several bottles of champagne later had regressed into a drunken rugby sing song, so that by the time the coach pulled into the coach park at the race course, they had moved onto a rousing chorus of ‘she married an Italian with balls like a fucking stallion and the hairs on her dickie dido hung down to her knees.’

  Needless to say most of the women on the coach were shaking their heads in disgust at their men who had gone from responsible adults to twelve year old boys in the space of two hours. Maggie did however overhear Hillary Giblet making a sneaky call on her mobile…to her beauty therapist arranging an emergency bikini wax.

  The day was sunny and warm and Goodwood looked spectacular, with its white tented buildings and the beautiful rolling green hills and meadows surrounding it, a perfect backdrop for the many brightly coloured dresses and hats on display. Maggie should have been in her element, she loved nothing more than dressing up and mingling with her friends, and despite her blue mood she couldn’t help but appreciate the theatrical beauty of her surroundings. She spotted Duncan coming over; Dulcie attached to his side, and pinned a smile on her face.

  ‘Oh how lovely is this?’ said Dulcie smiling brightly up at Duncan. ‘I’ve never been here before…I suppose you’ve been loads of times Maggie?’

  ‘Oh not that many,’ replied Maggie with a smile, ‘but I must admit it always takes me by surprise…how lovely it is I mean.’

  Duncan nodded. ‘We’ve been jolly lucky with the weather though, couldn’t have asked for a better day. Maggie do you think we should round everybody up and arrange a meeting point, I spotted a lovely field over there,’ he pointed to his left, ‘perfect for picnics I thought…unless of course…’

  ‘Darling,’ interrupted Dulcie looking at Maggie through narrowed eyes, ‘I’m sure Maggie wants to make her own arrangement for lunch, ha ha she doesn’t want to be playing gooseberry with us…do you Maggie?’

  ‘No of course not,’ Maggie assured them hastily. ‘Don’t worry Duncan, everybody knows to meet at the coach after the races…and as for me I plan on finding myself a good seat and ordering a long cool drink.’

  Duncan looked a bit doubtful but Dulcie was pulling at his arm…he said, ‘Ok if you’re sure, but we’ll walk through to the bar with you…I could use a drink myself and I think their showing the horses for the first race, can’t miss that.’

  So much to Dulcie’s disgust, the three of them walked towards the main bar and eating areas. Sure enough the first batch of magnificent horses were being led round in a small circle by their handlers, Duncan sat the girls down and went off to get them all a drink.

  Once alone with Maggie Dulcie’s smiley face disappeared, she seemed to have nothing to say and just sat and stared about her with pursed lips, once Duncan returned with the drinks though she became all animated and giggly again. Maggie shook her head in wonder, how could Duncan not see what a fake this woman was? She tried to leave them to it…a few of the other day trippers had found the bar and Maggie was soon laughing and joking with them, but Duncan seemed reluctant to leave the group despite Dulcie making several suggestions as to where they could go.

  The little group all piled over to the track side to watch the first race. Maggie had bet a tenner on a horse called ‘Wedding Bells’ thinking it appropriate and was brought to almost screaming point as she watched her horse almost do it…only to be pipped at the post by the horse that Duncan had backed, a beautiful chestnut mare called ‘Mad Hatter’. Such was the extent of her excitement that she had grabbed hold of Duncan’s arm a few times and when his horse won she had given him a friendly hug. ‘Fucking lucky bastard,’ she had joked.

  ‘No luck involved my darling,’ countered Duncan smugly, ‘it’s all skill.’

  Dulcie had cheered as loudly as everyone else, but the look she had given Maggie when she had hugged Duncan could have frozen water.

  Two more races were due before the break for lunch and Maggie had bets on in both races, she just had time to dash to the loo before the next one. So asking Duncan to look after her bag she made her way down to the queue that had formed outside the ladies and stood in line to wait her turn. The line moved pretty quickly and soon she was at the front of it, she was just about to go into a cubicle when she heard a savage whisper in her ear…‘Leave him alone you filthy old cunt.’ Maggie swung round, to find Dulcie standing right behind her with a bright smile on her face.

  ‘What did you say?’ asked Maggie a bit shaken up.

  ‘Me?’ said Dulcie eyes wide, ‘nothing…why?’

  Maggie stared at her a few moments, but Dulcie just stared back innocently. ‘Sorry,’ said Maggie at last, ‘I must be hearing things.’

  ‘Ooh you’d better watch that Maggie,’ teased Dulcie, ‘one of the first signs of madness they do say.’

  Maggie just smiled and went into the toilet cubicle…she couldn’t understand it, she was sure of what she had heard…but maybe not, there was so much noise and kerfuffle around, it was possible she had misheard. But then why didn’t Dulcie let her know she was behind her, silly cow…she really was a strange one.

  Dulcie was gone when Maggie came out of the toilet so she made her way back to where the rest of her group were sitting. Any little bit of enjoyment that Maggie had got from the day out had disappeared, she couldn’t get those spiteful words out of her head…whether she had imagined them or not. She decided to give Duncan and Dulcie a wide berth for the rest of the day, despite Duncan wanting her to help him choose his next horse.

  ‘Dulcie chose your last winner Dunc…she’s much better at it than I am,’ she said as she went off to sit with a very gratified Hillary. She spent the rest of the day keeping out of Duncan’s way, so much so that Duncan began to worry that he had upset her in some way…he said as much to Dulcie.

  ‘Oh you are such a sweet friend Duncan,’ she had said with a sickly sweet smile, ‘actually Maggie had a bit of a word with me when we went to the loos earlier…it turns out that she’s missing Thomas far more than she thought she would. I’m guessing that maybe it’s making her feel worse watching us love birds…makes sense doesn’t it?’


  Duncan wasn’t convinced but he said, ‘I suppose so…I hope that’s all it is.’

  ‘What else could it be silly, after all you’re not a couple are you? So it’s not likely that she’d be bothered by anything you’ve said,’ she cooed, stroking his arm. ‘Now stop worrying about Maggie so much…otherwise I’ll begin to think I’ve got competition…ha ha ha, now that would be funny, ha ha ha.’

  Duncan began to notice how irritating Dulcie’s laugh could be; he spent the rest of the day gritting his teeth.

  Dulcie laughter was hiding a cold fury. She hadn’t had a moment alone with Duncan all day. That old trollop, Maggie Wendover, had barely left his side despite several quite obvious hints. The woman obviously fancied Duncan and was making a pathetic play for him.

  ‘Calm down,’ she said to herself. ‘You don’t want Duncan to see you this angry, it might scare him off. He will pay for every slight he has given you…every time you’ve caught him looking at that cow out of the corner of his eye when he thought you weren’t looking, every time he’s allowed her to get her own way despite what you might have wanted…he will see his mistake soon enough, just be patient.’

  CHAPTER 42

  ‘Fucking ‘ell Danny ‘aven’t you got anyfing to drink in this place?’ shouted Larry Pincher as he searched through the kitchen cupboards at the Rushton house.

  ‘Na,’ said Danny, ‘my Mum doesn’t drink…says it’s the work of the devil…I’ve got some lemonade if ya want some though.’

  Larry looked at him in disbelief, ‘Fucking lemonade…who the fuck do you think I am?’ He finished looking through the cupboards… stuffing handfuls of the coco pops he had found into his mouth as he went from the kitchen into the living room. Daniel watched in dismay at the mess he was making…his mum would beat the crap out of him if she found it like this when she came home, but he didn’t want to mention it to Larry for fear of the teasing that he would get.

  ‘Ain’t you got no decent films neither Danny boy…what’s this crap…Star Wars, fucking ‘arry Potter, ‘ow old does your mum think you are…ten?’ mocked Larry as he rifled through Dulcie’s alphabetically arranged DVD cabinet. ‘Oh ‘ere we go, ‘Silence of the Lambs’ that’s more like it…fucking banging film that is.’

  Daniel watched in horror as Larry put the disc into his mum’s DVD player and sat back to watch the film…pouring coco pops into his hand and all over the sofa as he did so.

  ‘I don’t think we should be doing this mate…’ he began.

  ‘Oh yeah…why not…mate?’ Larry said sarcastically. ‘Frightened mummy might come ‘ome and catch us…what’s she going to do eh? I’ll tell ‘er to get stuffed if she ‘as a go at me…anyway I fought you said she was out all night…working you said.’ He let out a loud fart and laughed at Danny, ‘That’s what I fink of your mum Danny boy.’

  Danny tried again. ‘It’s just that sometimes she comes home a bit earlier that’s all…I don’t think we should watch a film…that’s all I’m saying.’

  Larry switched off the DVD. ‘Ok Danny what we going to do then?’ He got up and began pacing round the room again; Danny was wishing he’d never suggested that Larry come back to his this evening. But the older boy had been giving him so much stick just lately, calling him a pussy and stuff, so he’d thought it would be a good idea to get back into his good books…obviously not, this was going to cause him a lot of trouble…he could feel it.

  ‘What’s your mum got in that shed down there?’ said Larry suddenly from the French windows where he had been looking out at the garden.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Danny coming over, ‘she keeps it locked most of the time…gardening stuff I expect…she does a lot of gardening.’

  ‘I bet she keeps porn down there…that’s what my granddad did, ‘e ‘ad a shed in the back garden, neva let us go near it. Then one day my bruvva and me we waits till ‘es out and then we break in. Piles of porn mags ‘e ‘ad in there…’ard core stuff too, women wiv there legs wide showing their pussies, arses in the air. We ‘ad a right good wank…till my nan found us…she half killed us she did and then she started on granddad!’ Larry burst out laughing, ‘It was so funny…’e was so scared of ‘er.’

  Danny looked nervous. ‘I don’t think she would keep porn…she’s not like that my mum, very religious she is…I expect it’s just gardening stuff.’

  ‘Well I say we ‘ave a look,’ said Larry with a snide look at Danny, ‘I mean why is she keeping it locked if it’s just gardening stuff?’

  ‘No we mustn’t…she’ll kill me,’ stammered Danny. ‘Please Larry let’s do something else, you were right let’s watch ‘Silence of the Lambs’, I don’t want to go out to the shed…there’s no light in there…’

  ‘You are such a pussy Danny; I don’t know why I fucking bother with you…well you can do what the fuck you like…but I’m going in that shed.’

  ‘NO!’ shouted Daniel launching himself at Larry and catching him off guard, so that he fell over…Danny managed to get a couple of punches in while he was down; but soon Larry who was by far the stronger boy, managed to roll on top of him and pinned him down with his legs, whilst hitting him over and over in the face until Danny lay bloody and groaning on the floor. Then he kicked him between the legs for good measure, causing Danny to roll up in agony.

  Larry spat on him in disgust. ‘Fucking pussy,’ he said and left him where he lay, as he made his way out of the back door and down to the garden shed. It was locked, but that was no deterrent for Larry, a budding criminal if ever there was one. With the help of a handy bit of metal that he found near an old incinerator, he soon had the door open and went inside. It was pitch black inside, Danny hadn’t been lying about that… luckily his mobile phone had a torch function on it, he fumbled around with it until suddenly a beam of bright white light shone out from it, lighting the interior.

  Daniel lay on the floor clutching his stomach, Larry had kicked him really hard in the balls…he had never felt such pain…he thought he was going to be sick. He pulled himself up; puffing and panting with the effort of it and stumbled to the kitchen, dry heaving a couple of times over the sink. He noticed the back door was wide open…Larry had gone out to the shed.

  ‘Oh no,’ he cried to himself. ‘Oh no what do I do now…?’ he stood in the middle of the kitchen, trying to decide how to persuade his uncontrollable friend to come back inside.

  ‘The DVD,’ he thought to himself. ‘I’ll say let’s watch the DVD, he wanted to watch it after all.’

  Just then a sound from the hall had Daniel flattening himself to the wall in terror. The front door was opening…his mum had come home.

  Dulcie, who had had a pig of an evening at the care home she worked at, headed straight for the kitchen. Her eyes taking in the mess in the living room on the way, and the sight of her son trying to hide behind a cupboard only served to fuel her anger even more.

  She asked no questions just punched him round the head knocking him to the ground.

  ‘What the fuck has been going on in here?’ she hissed quietly at him, he had curled himself up into a fetal position in preparation for the blows that he knew would come, instead his mother noticed the open door.

  ‘Why is the door open Daniel?’ she asked with terrifying calmness. ‘Have you been in the garden? Who’s been here with you Daniel?’ she persisted.

  Daniel gulped hard, ‘I told him not to go out there,’ he whispered.

  ‘Who,’ his mother asked close to his face now, ‘WHO?’ she demanded squeezing his face painfully and forcing him to look at her.

  ‘Larry,’ sobbed Daniel. ‘Larry’s in the shed.’

  Larry had shone the torch round the shed, swallowing his disappointment it seemed there was nothing here but gardening equipment and an old chest freezer that was humming away along the back wall. Determined to find something, he had started working his way round the small space. Everything was as neat in here as it was in the house…Larry hated that…fuck it even this shed
was nicer than his house, how was that fair? After about ten minutes of looking for porn or at the very least a secret stash of booze, Larry had been about to give up, then his eyes had fallen upon the freezer…maybe she kept it in there. He opened the lid with one hand trying to balance his torch with the other…the light had started flickering, his batteries were running low…he peered into the freezer…there seemed to be something in there, at the bottom…something strange… underneath the carefully packaged and labelled packs of meat…he shone the flickering torch deep into the depths of the freezer trying to make it out…until at last the torch found its target…Larry’s blood froze in his veins…

  ‘WHAT THE FUCK…shit…shit…oh my god!’ In his shock and panic Larry had jumped backwards hitting his head on the lid of the freezer and dropping his mobile phone into it before the lid crashed down shutting off the light.

  The shed was plunged back into a thick blackness. ‘Oh no…Oh shit…’ mumbled Larry as he scrabbled around on the dusty floor desperately trying to find the way back over to the freezer so that he could find his phone…although the thought of looking back inside there…‘Oh god…Oh god!’ He felt the smooth sides of the freezer at last and ran his hands up to the top until he found the edge of the lid. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself before lifting it slowly…a white beam of light from his mobile shone out of the huge freezer as soon as he started lifting the lid…Larry braced himself for what he knew he was in there…‘Shit…oh god…shit.’ He tried to feel around inside for his mobile keeping his eyes tight shut , so he wouldn’t see it again…when he suddenly became aware of something else… something even more terrifying…he started shivering uncontrollably, someone was watching him from the door of the shed…Danny’s mum had come home early!