Ragged Alice

by Gareth L. Powell

  Her leg hurt like hell. She dug a couple of ibuprofen from her pocket and swallowed them dry.

  That was the thing about death, though. It affected different people in different ways, and you could never really predict how anyone was going to react to a mangled corpse. In her time, she’d seen strapping six-foot coppers go weak at the knees while attending their first RTA. Others fell apart afterwards, when all the mess had been cleaned away and their minds started chewing over the horrors they’d seen. You’d have to be made of stone not to let that part of the job get to you. Sometimes flippancy and an obstinate lack of imagination formed a shield against such trauma. The less you allowed yourself to care, the fewer times you got hurt.

  Thinking about it in those terms, she could understand Potts’s boorish behaviour, but his apparent distain for her as a female officer didn’t make it any easier to deal with.

  The names of the dead at Hawk Road scrolled through her mind. She didn’t fight them. Instead, she lowered herself onto a sandy tuft and pulled out a cigarette.

  We’ve all been hurt, she thought. But there’s no need to be an arsehole about it.

  She savoured the heat of the smoke in her mouth.

  Steps led from the beach to the top of the headland, where the village primary school looked across the town to the chapel on the other promontory. It was a redbrick Victorian building with high, arched windows and a concrete yard enclosed by a tall wire fence. Holly remembered it well. She had attended the school from the age of four to the age of ten, at which point she’d transferred, along with the rest of her class, to secondary school in Aberystwyth.

  The lane from the town to the school was a single track with tall hedges. She recalled the exertion of walking up it on frost-rimed mornings, when the frigid air scoured her lungs and everybody had red cheeks and wore scarves and mittens knitted for them by their nans.

  What had happened to all those little girls and boys?

  As a ten-year-old, she’d loved her friends. As an only child, they were her brothers and sisters, and she’d thought they’d be together forever. They’d had so many plans and dreams. But now, like dreams, they had evaporated from her life, scattered to the winds by the passing years. Doubtless a few still lived in the town, but she wasn’t sure she’d even recognise them if she passed them in the street. And even if she did, it wouldn’t matter; the children they’d once been would be gone, leaving only grown-up strangers in their place.

  For a moment, all she could think about was the devastation at Hawk Road. The flashing lights. The TV cameras. The dead being stretchered out of the classrooms, one by one.

  Then something clicked in her head, and she recalled what Sylvia had said when asked if she was sure she recognised Neil Perkins.

  Of course. Mam was at school with his dad.

  Could it be that simple? Lisa Hughes, Daryl Allen, and the butcher’s boy had all been the same age as Perkins—and in a town like this, that could only mean they’d all been in the same year at school. For the first time, that gave her a definite connection between the first three victims and the missing constable.

  She called for Scott and, when he appeared from between the dunes, explained her reasoning to him. Scott looked out to sea and rubbed the back of his neck.

  “It might be a coincidence,” he said.

  Holly felt a flush of irritation. “It might,” she snapped, “but right now, it’s the only connection we have. So let’s go back to the hotel and try and work out what it means.”

  18.

  AFTER RETURNING FROM HER sojourn to the lighthouse with the nice young Chinese girl, Mrs. Phillips retired to her room in the Royal Hotel. The exertion had worn her ragged, and she needed forty winks in order to gird her loins for whatever the evening might bring.

  She’d been living in room number six for close to a decade now. Feather boas hung from the coat hook on the back of the door. Lipsticks and pots of powder covered the dresser, and glittering gowns packed the wardrobe. The air smelled of lavender and cheap perfume. She kicked off her shoes and sat on her unmade, squeaky bed. The view from the flaking sash window showed curtains of rain drawing in from the sea, just as Sylvia had predicted.

  A half-empty bottle of peppermint schnapps stood on the nightstand. Mrs. Phillips poured a generous measure into her ceramic tooth mug and gulped it down in a single swallow.

  She could see the ghosts in her peripheral vision. As usual, they lingered like afterimages in the corners of the room. Thin, translucent beings it was easier to ignore than acknowledge. Some would have messages they wanted her to pass on for them—usually heartbreakingly mundane reminders to cancel the milk or walk the dog—while others seemed unaware of anything around them, simply huddling close to their fellows as if trying to draw warmth from their companionship.

  Mrs. Phillips had been seeing them since she was a girl. They held no fear for her. If anything, she felt pity for them. Poor things. They didn’t know why they were still here or what they were supposed to do. So they occupied the spaces in the corners of her world, haunting run-down hotels, out-of-season penny arcades, and the broken stalls in public restrooms. They clustered behind bus stops and in the doorways of boarded-up shops, loitered in the pale glow of takeaways, wringing their hands and muttering to themselves.

  “And you lot can shut up,” she told them. She didn’t have a lot of time for complainers.

  That was one of the nice things about her brother: he never grumbled. He was quite content pottering around the lighthouse, champing on the end of his pipe and keeping a weather eye out for the first signs of fog rolling in off the Atlantic. He never seemed to listen to her, but occasionally he’d look up and give her a smile. In that respect, being in a room with him now was exactly the same as it had been when he was alive.

  “Silly old sod.”

  She replaced the mug on the nightstand and levered her stocking-clad feet up onto the bed.

  “Dew,” she said, “but that bloody hip hurts.”

  The ghosts took no notice. They were beyond such concerns, and in that small way, she envied them. In her youth, she’d been a podium dancer in a Cardiff nightclub. The money had been good and the lifestyle glamorous—there had been no shortage of handsome suitors willing to spend a bob or two to impress her—but now she bore the insistent aches and pains that came from a life spent mostly on her feet (and quite often on her back).

  With a chuckle, she remembered a week spent in a hotel with a couple of American seamen. She’d had eleven pounds in her purse and a Mexican stiletto concealed in the top of her nylon stocking. She’d also had a lump of hashish the size of a walnut pushed into her bra. She’d spent five days and four nights with the sailors and slept with both of them. They did her together, from opposite ends of the bed. They liked to watch each other having sex, but they needed a woman in the middle to keep things seemly. They wanted her straddled between them like a flesh condom so they could keep kidding themselves they weren’t gay. Not that she minded. She had kind of a thing for pretty queer boys in uniform. All they had to do was give her enough whiskey, and she was happy to let them skewer her all night long. . . .

  She sighed.

  Those had been the days. Much as she’d loved her brother and life at the old lighthouse cottage, she’d never really acclimatized to the slower pace of life in Pontyrhudd. Her blood ran too hot. It always had. Even now, at the ridiculous age of ninety-two, she could feel it glowing in her veins like rocket fuel.

  She settled her shoulders more comfortably against the pillow and thought of Alice.

  The kids nowadays called her “Ragged Alice.” She was the grey lady haunting their stories and inspiring them to dare one another to go up into the woods at night. But that hadn’t always been the case. When Mrs. Phillips had known her, she was quite different. A slip of a thing, really, with a waist so narrow and cheeks so hollow it made her look eaten out from the inside. Back then, she’d simply been Mrs. Craig—a shaggy-haired, poetic beauty unhappily married
to Bran Craig, a man with all the dynamism and romance of a fern.

  Of course, the marriage had been one of convenience. Alice had already been three months pregnant when she walked down the aisle. And although most people assumed Holly to be Bran’s daughter, Mrs. Phillips wasn’t so sure. The airbase had still been open back then, and she’d heard rumours of local girls fraternising with the base personnel. And once or twice, she’d espied Alice slinking out of an evening, hair pinned up and lips slashed with scarlet. Was it beyond the realms of possibility to image the mooncalf had gotten herself knocked up by one of the flyboys and then convinced Bran to make an honest woman of her? Stranger things had happened in Pontyrhudd. Ieuan Davies had been responsible for a fair few unwanted pregnancies in his time. And now it turned out he’d also had a bit of a thing for muscular young tradesmen, God rest his prurient soul.

  Mrs. Phillips chuckled to herself. Over the years, many so-called respectable people had looked down their nose at her. She’d been called a tart and worse. But towns like Pontyrhudd were like anthills. You never knew what secrets would be uncovered when you kicked them over.

  Rain rattled against the sash window. A thin draft insinuated its way through a gap in the frame and stirred the net curtain.

  Alice Craig had been killed shortly after the birth of her first daughter, and the killer had never been found. And now, thirty years later, people were being murdered again.

  The knowledge had cast a pall over the town. Kids weren’t allowed to play out on the streets. Curtains were drawn and doors locked. Even the ghosts seemed more subdued than normal.

  Mrs. Phillips yawned. She loved a good mystery as much as the next person. But the schnapps had made her sleepy.

  She yawned again and let her thoughts drift back through the decades to those long-gone Cardiff nights when she’d been a dancer surrounded by eager young men (and a lady or two).

  Slowly, the thoughts turned to dreams and her breaths to snores.

  When she awoke a few hours later, it was to find a black-clad figure standing at the end of her bed—a girl with chisel-sharp cheekbones and twigs in her eyes.

  19.

  THE SEARCH FOR CONSTABLE Perkins continued throughout the day. But by midafternoon, Holly’s knee hurt so much she retired to her hotel room and ordered a bag of ice from the reception desk. The ice took down some of the swelling, and the painkillers took the edge off the worst of the discomfort, but she’d been overdoing things and she knew it. The only course of action that made any sense was to stay on her bed with her leg propped up on pillows and make sure she got some rest. But she didn’t want to rest. Detective Superintendent Srivastava had made it pretty clear this case would determine the future trajectory of Holly’s career. She had to find the killer, or she’d find herself rotated back into uniform, where they wouldn’t tolerate her unconventional dress sense, burgeoning drink problem and generally insubordinate approach.

  Damn whoever it was who had run her off the road. Damn them to hell! If she got her hands on them, they’d be limping too by the time they saw the inside of a cell. And if it turned out to have been Perkins, the idiot wouldn’t know what had hit him. She smiled as she imagined smacking him in the head with her aluminium crutch. Wrapping it around his scrawny neck.

  God, she could do with a drink.

  She looked up at the nicotine-textured ceiling. She hadn’t wanted to go back to her grandfather’s house. She needed to be close to the incident room. If her team received news of Perkins, she’d rather be on site and able to hobble downstairs than reliant on Scott to come and collect her in his car. And besides, staying at the hotel had the added advantage of room service.

  Using the seventies-style rotary phone on the nightstand, she called down to order a bottle of whiskey. If she was going to be stuck here in pain, she’d rather be drunk than brooding. That way, she might actually get some sleep.

  When Sylvia arrived a few minutes later, the girl bore a tray carrying a half bottle of Penderyn single malt, a lone tumbler, and a small ceramic jug of water. She placed it beside the phone and straightened up.

  “Is it still raining?” Holly asked.

  “It is.” Sylvia pulled her cardigan about her and scowled at the closed curtains. “And mark my words, no good will come of it.”

  “Come of what, the rain?”

  “The weather’s as unsettled as everything else. The sooner this whole business gets sorted, the happier I’ll be.” She unscrewed the whiskey and poured a generous measure into the glass. Then a thought occurred to her. “Oh yes,” she said, and rummaged in her cardigan pocket. “Here, somebody left a note for you.”

  Holly took the folded square of paper and opened it. Inside, the message consisted of four words made up of letters cut from newspaper headlines.

  GET OUT OF PONTYRHUDD

  The words were stark and anonymous, and unmistakably threatening. Holly’s knee gave a twinge of pain. She fought down the memory of headlights advancing in her rearview mirror. “Do you know who left this?”

  “I don’t, I’m afraid.” Sylvia held the whiskey glass out to Holly. “It was on the doormat this morning. Noticed it when I went to get the milk in, I did. Why, what’s it say?”

  Holly scrunched the paper into a ball. “Nothing of any consequence.”

  Sylvia shrugged. “Oh, well, in that case I’ll be leaving you to your drink.”

  She turned to depart, but before she could, Mrs. Phillips shouldered into the room. The old woman looked distraught. Her hair was a mess and she’d obviously been sleeping in her clothes.

  “I know who’s doing it,” she cried. “I know the killer. And they’re not going to stop.”

  Sylvia stepped forward. “Come on, now, Mrs. Phillips. Don’t go bothering the inspector.” She tried to take her arm, but the old woman shook her off. Her rheumy eyes were wide and her makeup smudged.

  “Listen,” she said. “Just listen to me.”

  Holly elbowed herself into a sitting position. “What is it?”

  Mrs. Phillips swallowed. Her skin looked like wax. “Your mother. The people who killed her.” She staggered against the wardrobe. “They’re not going to stop . . .”

  The old woman’s eyes rolled up into their sockets and she slid down the polished wood, onto the floor.

  “Shit.” Holly tried to swing her legs off the bed. “Is she okay?”

  Sylvia knelt and cupped a hand over the old woman’s mouth and nose. “She’s still breathing.”

  “I’ll call an ambulance.”

  “No, she wouldn’t want that. She’s just had one of her turns. It’s happened before.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. A good night’s sleep and hearty breakfast, and the old battle-axe will be right as rain, you’ll see.”

  On the floor, Mrs. Phillips let out a slurred moan. “Hoy,” she quavered in a sleeper’s voice, with her eyes still shut and her cheek still resting on the bare wooden floorboards. “Mind who you’re calling an ‘old battle-axe.’”

  * * *

  Despite her reassurances, Sylvia called the local GP, who came to attend Mrs. Phillips the following morning. From her bed, Holly could hear them talking through the thin wall.

  “Now then.” The doctor had the kind of deep, comfortable voice Holly associated with bearded old men in black-and-white British movies—a voice that conjured up images of pipes and tweed and inspired instant trust. “What’s all this about, now, Ethel? Feeling a touch under the weather, are we?”

  “Fuck off.”

  The doctor chuckled. “Nothing wrong with that tongue of yours, I see.”

  “I’m perfectly fine, thank you.”

  “That’s not what I heard.”

  “And what is it you heard?”

  “That you took a bit of a tumble last night.”

  “I may have tripped.”

  “Sylvia says you fainted.”

  “Ah, bollocks. That’s just herself making a fuss. All that happened was
I ate a bad egg, that’s all.”

  “Do you remember any of it?”

  “Oh, get on with you. There’s nothing to remember. I woke up feeling a bit hungover, and tripped over a rug.”

  “You’d been drinking?”

  “Of course I’d been bloody drinking. I’m ninety-two years old! Why the fuck wouldn’t I?”

  Holly heard the doctor sigh.

  “Have it your way, Ethel. Just maybe try cutting down on the booze and cigars, all right?”

  “Get fucked.”

  “Fair play.” The floorboards creaked. “I’ll be off, then. Call me if you need anything.”

  “I won’t be needing anything from you.” Mrs. Phillips coughed. “I won’t be dying in bed, see. When I go, I’ll be somewhere they’re playing loud music, I’ll be surrounded by young men, and I’ll have a glass of champagne in my hand.”

  20.

  SCOTT CAME TO SEE Holly. He was carrying two paper cups with plastic lids. He perched on the side of the bed and wrinkled his nose. She was still wearing the same clothes she’d been wearing yesterday. Her mouth felt like a strip of old carpet, and she realised she probably stank of the previous evening’s whiskey.

  “All right, guv?” His gaze glanced off the empty bottle on the tray beside the bed.

  “Any news on Perkins?”

  “Not as yet. If he’s done a runner, he’s covered his tracks pretty well.” He glanced down at her knee resting on its pillow. “How about you? Feeling any better?”