Deadly Thyme

by R. L. Nolen

  He cracked a window and closed the door.

  A full twenty-two hours had passed since he’d last slept. The best sleep-inducing aid would be to read what reports his ailing sergeant had left in his wake. He picked up the reports, lay on the sofa, and within an hour sat up again, not having closed his eyes. The most remarkable thing about all the information in the reports was that there was nothing remarkable. What had the man been doing? This lack of progress meant that he would have to go to the hospital and interview his sergeant. It was past visiting hours, so he couldn’t do that until the next day. His stay in Cornwall just grew one day longer. Ha!

  He fell asleep with an open book of Shakespeare on his chest. Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

  Ruth pressed the toothbrush harder against the tub grout. The toothbrush was a frazzled mess. She was told to stay put and wait for a call, but she couldn’t just sit. So she cleaned. She stared up at the mirror above the sink.

  The day before, Annie had called, “Mom! Come see!”

  Ruth had gone into the bathroom. Her funny, creative daughter was sitting on the sink, her feet in the bowl, drawing faces in a smear of shaving gel. “Annie! I said clean the mirror.”

  “But Mom, I drew you! This is you. Look,” she drew her finger through the gel, “a smile!”

  “Oh? And why am I smiling?”

  “Because I made two goals in the practice game today, and straight away Mr. Sawyer told me I was brilliant. Real praise—coming from him, that is.”

  “Great! I’m so proud of you.”

  “Yeah, and Caroline was furious about it, jealous prat.”

  “Annie!”

  “She was.”

  Annie had tackled her school papers the night before so she wouldn’t have them to do the last day of her weekend.

  The mirrors were fogged now with hot water steam. She felt inclined to clean the mirrors until she noticed the tiny smears left from the shaving cream. No. She wouldn’t touch them.

  Ruth got up from beside the tub and took her gloves off. She’d been at it since coming home from the police station that morning. She took up the bottle of cleaner and squirted it on the sink. The sink was already desperately clean.

  “Dear Lord Jesus.”

  It sounded odd. She hadn’t really prayed in such a long time.

  She wandered out to the living room. She couldn’t vacuum; the phone might ring and she wouldn’t hear it. The big window overlooking the front yard was dark. It was already night? When did that happen? The clock on the wall ticked. Was Annie hungry? Cold? What was he doing to her?

  Earlier that day, Sally had held Ruth’s hand, answered the phone, fixed meals Ruth couldn’t eat, then left to care for her own family, promising to come back and spend the night.

  Ruth sat at the edge of her couch. The flowers in the vase looked orderly, but they smelled. They reeked. She stood and yanked the flowers from the sour water, stumbled into the kitchen, rammed them into the trash bin, bent over, and retched.

  She stumbled back to the living room. He meant to kill us. No one would believe me. Now she had to tell. Everyone here would find out what a liar she was. But it didn’t matter. He still meant to hurt Annie.

  “Please Lord, not my Annie.” Staring blankly at the mug of tea that she hadn’t moved since this morning, she felt the room close in. She couldn’t breathe properly. She paced—back and forth, back and forth. She hit the wall with an open hand each time she came to it. Pace, slap. Pace, slap.

  She looked at the clock again. It was eleven forty-five. Why hadn’t she heard anything? With a cry she fell across the couch. No, no, no! Annie! She rubbed at her face until it hurt.

  She needed to wait. Something would happen. She reached for the box of tissues from a side table, turned off the lamp and sat in the dark. She picked at her nails as she stared out the window.

  Riverside was the name of her cottage. It lay nestled in a quiet neighborhood with the River Perrin, which was more like a stream, running along behind. She was four blocks from the sea with several rows of cottages or businesses between, but sometimes she could swear she heard the song of the waves, as she did now. She went to the window and cracked it. No. It was, of course, only the river she heard, and yet—the rhythm, the ghostly echo of drums—and she was back on the beach surrounded by people. They were calling for Annie.

  Across the village, in the harbor, searchers’ lights flashed like fallen stars, pieces of hope spreading farther and farther out of her reach.

  She paced some more, then sat on the couch. Mandy, the cat, jumped up and settled herself on the back of the couch behind Ruth’s head. Somewhere Ruth had a picture of baby Annie sleeping on Mandy. She remembered taking it—in the picture Annie’s baby drool dripped onto the ferocious-hater-of-water-turned-pillow. Despite being ten and too “cool” to be sentimental, Annie loved her Mandy-cat. Ruth leaned back against the cat and let her purr drown out the ticking of the clock.

  A melodic ring woke her. She sprang from her seat letting fly a billion pieces of shredded Kleenex. The pieces of white fluff clung where they had fallen, from her jeans to the rug. The tinny notes of “Annie Get Your Gun” grew louder. Her cell phone! They call them mobiles here, mum, remember? She snatched up her purse and began to dig into it.

  How hard could it be to find a phone? She flipped the purse upside down. Everything fell out. The cell phone clattered. She grabbed it up and unlocked the screen. The incoming number!

  She screamed, “Annie where are you?”

  “Hello, Mother.” It was not her child’s voice.

  Her legs gave out from under her. “Where’s Annie? Where’s Annie?”

  “Tell me you love me.”

  It didn’t sound like the voice that she remembered, but it had been years since they’d spoken. “What are you saying?”

  The connection was cut.

  5

  Annie Butler took a few deep breaths. Her head hurt. She tried to move. She choked back a sob. It hurt. Where was she? She couldn’t think. She lay very still, scared of the pain. But the darkness frightened her worse. It was a dark that she couldn’t understand. It took away her sense of sight and hearing and smell. She was cold, and yet, she was wet with sweat. She couldn’t stop shaking. Her breath came in gasps because everything hurt and she hated this horrible dark.

  She coughed. The noise was a foghorn to her ears. So, her ears did work. She whispered, “Hello?” Her voice trembled like the rest of her.

  Nothing.

  She listened. Water dripped. She was laying on something soft, like a mattress. She flexed her fingers. One hand wasn’t held down and she slid it to her chest. On top of her a huge, flat something pressed into her from head to toe. She took a chance of increasing the pain to strain against it and to try to shift it away. The thing was soft but unyielding and it smelled bad. She forced her breathing to slow and for the rest of her to remain calm. Think.

  Don’t panic.

  Don’t cry.

  It did no good, this pep talk. Heat flushed up to her face and tears burned her eyes. With her free hand, she rubbed her eyes to force the tears away. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t see, but she could breathe. Her stomach cramped. How long had she been here? Mom had breakfast waiting.

  Mom! A blubbering sob choked her and she coughed and coughed and couldn’t breathe. Pain shot across her skull and the dark inside her head took her away again.

  Monday, 3:03 a.m.

  Charles didn’t want to move until his eyes became used to the darkness. He stared around the murky garage, trying to discern familiar shapes, and wiped the cold sweat from his oily face. The choppy lass had it coming to her. He made his way past the old canvasses where turpentine permeated the dust and petrol smell.

  The wife had been fast asleep for a little while. He’d added that special something to her nightly glass of red wine.

  To see the time, he punched a fist into the moonlight streaming through the window. He must jud
ge the tide well. Can’t keep the girl’s body around here forever. The Wife might find her.

  He’d had no choice but to end her pitiful life. To clean up the filthy mess was the first order of business.

  Then to deal with the American woman. A travesty, letting foreigners into this country without making them pay dearly. If he were in charge, things would certainly be different. And this mess was all her fault. If she hadn’t resembled Mother so closely and flaunted about so he would notice—stupid get!

  His mother’s voice rasped inside his head, “If I could have undone you from my womb, I would have.”

  “Why have you always hated me? Cecil was your fault. Your fault. You. You!” Tears rolled down his face. Catching himself, he held his stomach and began to breathe slower.

  A gossamer thread caught the moonlight. He watched the spider, mesmerized, but he grew bored with the creature’s exacting ministrations. So, as each strand was cast he took control, and, line by meticulous line, he disassembled the web. With one finger he smashed the helpless creature. Using the spider’s remains, he drew the letter O on the windowpane. The moonlight broke through the clouds and silvered the opaque smear.

  He opened his cold storage box, took out a jar of her blood, dipped his fingers in, and smeared it across his face. He drank the remainder.

  From inside, he shoved the garage doors open. He started the car and reversed. He prayed silently to the only god he believed in, Lady Luck, you’ve been there for me, be with me now. He drove along B3263 south away from the village and, finding a certain private road, drove until he could park overlooking the sea. Colored a gray sepia wash, the entire world lay open around him, barren and desolate. The moon outlined each scuttling black cloud with white. He watched and waited. There was a storm coming. One huge cloud in particular moved closer and closer to the awful lunar spotlight. As he examined the landscape and waited, he began to hum.

  Demon arms of black stone jutted up from the sea, gnarled hands clutching the water’s surface. With the waves washing over them, he could almost imagine the desperate movement of the damned and drowning.

  “Hurry!”

  The voice. Always the voice. Always interrupting.

  He got out of the car and went around to the boot. He leveraged the girl’s body from the car, checking to make sure the cloth sack tied around her head would not slip off. He did not want to see that face again.

  He pulled her to the edge of the grass verge above the beach and propped the body up beside him, like a plastic mannequin. He slid with it down the side of the steep embankment. Her leg almost tripped him up at one point, but he caught himself. He let their weight work and they reached the beach somewhat together.

  Above the crashing of the waves he heard, “Evil will slay the wicked; the enemies of the righteous will be condemned.”

  He doubled over and curled up on the wet sand, covering his ears with his hands.

  He pushed against his ears, harder and harder, until a groan squeezed out of his throat. He whined, “I try to do good, Mummy. I try.”

  Nothing.

  He rolled onto his back, his face up and eyes wide open. Into the issuing silence, he gasped, “All I’ve ever wanted from you … Just tell me you love me.”

  Inside his head, the grating sound of labored breathing diminished. His racing heart quieted. Standing, he shoved the girl’s body with his foot. “I hate you.”

  Lifting the stiff, angular body roughly to his shoulder, he carried it to one of the dozens of outcrops of rock jutting into the sea. The tide would take care of everything. Chances were, only a few minutes remained in which he could do this without being seen. Damned early commuters. He wedged the body between two jagged rocks.

  In a hurried frenzy, he took a leafy sprig out of his pocket and tucked it into the string around the neck. In the old days there had been meaning in things.

  Charles stood as tall as he could. The wind buffeted his body. Normally wound around, plastered to his bald pate, his thin, gray hair flew in long, gray Medusa-like strands around his ears. He spoke out bitterly, fist to the sky, spitting his words into the sea, “The young live forever. Do you hear? Forever.”

  He glanced up toward the cliff’s top. His heart skipped a beat, sending a jolt through his body. Had something moved up there by his car? He sidled away from the body and quickly made his way crab-like across the rocks. He jumped down to the sand. The waves muffled any noise he might have made as he scrambled up the steep embankment. The grasses stretched without end like a large swath of deep-purple crushed velvet. In the distance, barely discernible, a black dog ran towards the village church whose square tower was visible above a line of rock and hedge. Charles let out a long hiss of breath, then got back in the car and drove back the way he’d come. His breath came in heavy gasps. His heart thundered in his ears, all the winding way. He secured the car in the shed. He had to keep it hidden, and surprisingly, his mum remained silent.

  Once inside the house, he cleaned his face and relaxed. Staring at his watch, he saw it had taken him forty minutes to rid himself of the body. After a little while, the tune “As Time Goes By” played in his head and he began to hum along.

  6

  Monday, before daybreak

  Boom! Boom! Boom! Somewhere in his dream, DI Jon Graham shot at ducks on a lake. The birds flew up, and millions of wings stirred the scorching breeze. Palm trees swayed.

  A loud thud, then a metallic, ringing explosion jolted him awake. Without reason, he found himself on the frigid floor of the caravan, one leg hung up in the blanket. Light flashed—on, off, on, off—from his alarm clock next to his face. The electric mini-heater whirred a blast of heat. The heater did little good. He had left a window open. It just made sense in the tightness of the place. He wrapped covers around his body and grabbed the clock to make out the time. Did the thing actually read 4:30? Already?

  Boom! Boom! Boom! The caravan’s fabricated walls shook. What stonyhearted villain could be banging on his door at this ungodly hour?

  “Coming! I’m coming!” he called out, and massaged his scalp to rub some awareness through to his brain. The cold sliced through him as he pushed the duvet aside. He stood, slipped, and jammed a toe into the wire grate of the heater. “Oww!”

  He yanked away. The grate popped off, and the heater fell forward. He flipped a light switch and saw that the old appliance was melting into the flooring. He jerked the plug from the socket.

  The caravan’s door handle began wiggling. Bloody-minded hell! “I said I’m coming!” he shouted, limping two hops across the narrow space to peer through the curtained window at a fellow he didn’t recognize. He popped the door open. “Hello?”

  The rotund chap on his doorstep smiled. He carried a lumpy dish-towel-draped tray. “Sorry, sar. Thought you said, ‘come in.’ Weather’s turned sketchy. Does sumin to my ears.”

  Jon gritted his teeth to keep them from chattering. “It’s half-bloody-four.”

  “Oh … er … Sorry. I’m oaf to work. Thought you’d wish to know what’s what.”

  Jon was awake now and realized this must be Perstow, sergeant of the local police and owner of the house occupying the other half of the garden. “Of course. Yes, come in. Sergeant Perstow, I take it.” Jon grabbed a dressing gown and threw it on.

  “Sure, sure,” Perstow groaned as he climbed the step. “Ow. Her Indoors is on me ’bout me weight. I tell her it’s her fine cookin’ and it calms her right down. She’ll fix you a meal once she settles to the new face.”

  Perstow was short, not much over five feet, and built like a brick. He set the tray on the table and managed to squeeze his backside into a swivel seat. He drew the towel away from his tray. “Somethin’ warm fer braxis.”

  “Thank you very much!” Jon rubbed his hands together and sat across the narrow table from Perstow. He cleared away the notes he’d taken the night before, and pushed a stack of his books aside, effectively hiding the mail package that contained the two VHS tapes.

/>   Perstow looked around the confined space and sniffed the air. “Somethin’ afire?”

  “The space heater melted into the floor a bit.”

  “Sorry to hear it, sar. Milk?”

  Jon nodded.

  Perstow poured. “In for a mort o’ weather.”

  His accent was thick but manageable; it held the sing-song quality of the local dialect. Jon briefly wondered what he’d meant, but he nodded in agreement, which was an acceptable answer to a weather statement this early in the morning.

  Jon rubbed away at his eyes and studied the sergeant. The gray-haired man had the kind of jolly face that meant unlikely advancement in the ranks. He didn’t have police eyes—the shrewd, cynical look of a person accustomed to being lied to. His round cheeks had a rosy blush, and his belly jiggled at every word. The tea was passed over. Perstow took a sip of his and an expression of pleasure swept over the man’s good face, smoothing the lines and taking age from his years.

  Jon eyeballed his tiny caravan. Not even here a day and the place looked like a clothes bomb had gone off in it. “Excuse the mess.”

  Glancing around, Perstow said, “Your note mentioned you hated closed spaces, but I’m afraid the missus ’ud get a bit teasy ’bout the loan of our settee.”

  “No worries. The window’s open. My therapist friend …” Jon looked at the open face of the other man and wondered if he was disclosing too much information about himself. Even in such cold weather, he always kept a window cracked. Perstow seemed a good listener so he’d have to watch himself. “Enclosed spaces don’t sit well, is all. My friend Steve suggested I take up spelunking.”

  “Sounds adventuresome, sar.” Perstow had a habit of tossing a crinkle-faced smile upon every other sentence.

  “But I said no way in bloody hell could anyone get me in a cave.”

  “You’ll have to watch it round here with the mines. Sometimes the rock falls through from up top, and if you happen to be on the spot, you’ll find yourself in a cave, right enough.” Perstow drew the corners of his mouth down. “The other thing I need to tell you—no doubt today you’ll observe the posters of the missing girl.”