Ashes From Ashes

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  “Oh very well,” Sylvia looked at the tiny thin woman with the bright red hair beside her. “You can protect us both when the monster attacks.”

  “Don’t tell Morrison, but I do have a Mace Spray or whatever it is,” Ruby said. “After all that murder, and poor little Pam, I wasn’t risking anything.”

  “I’ve thought of carrying a knife around,” Harry nodded. “But I’d probably get arrested. Share a cell with dear Lionel. No thanks.”

  Once again they sought permission at the smallholding. “Yes. But make sure you close the gates.”

  And the farm. “Yes, but the ground’s still wet. Watch your step and make sure you close all the gates.”

  A cluster of thick feathered hens gathered, hoping for a special delivery of food. Ruby cuddled one, but it pecked her fingers. Harry and Sylvia trudged through the mud and aimed for the winding country road on the other side of the fields. A long low shed was piled only with hay. “He could have wedged himself in there.”

  “No,” Harry said after poking the stores for some time. “There’s no sign of anything. He’s too big to leave no sign.”

  They moved on to the next shed.

  The Spalling Road wound and meandered, a flooded gutter on either side leading to hedges and then more fields. “He could be anywhere.”

  In the distance, they could see a long line of dark blue men with shovels, sticks and rakes. The police were clearly searching the same area. “They’ll do a better job than we can.”

  Ruby mumbled, “I need food. Coffee. And a loo. How about The White Boar?”

  “We should be looking for poor Eve, not Lionel.”

  „Besides, who says Lionel always has to have a shed. OK, last time he did. This time he might have chosen an abandoned attic. Or a tree house. Or a chimney.“

  “We should be eating cake.”

  “One beer, one coffee, one lemon, lime and bitters.”

  Busy but not bursting at the seams, The White Boar was a very old building and had been built early in the 16th century over the ruins of an even earlier tavern. The White Boar was not a diplomatic title at the time, but they had remained safely unnoticed, much as they did now. Much repaired over the years, it still sagged between its beams and every step creaked. Some of its more recent customers were gaining it a bad reputation, but this was lunchtime and was quiet enough.

  Ruby looked for a menu, Sylvia ordered the drinks, and Harry approached another barman, holding out the photo of Lionel Sullivan which he had collected from Morrison.

  “Seen him?”

  “Yes, of course I have,” said the barman, glancing only quickly. “Stayed here a week. Had the small room upstairs at the back. Left this morning.”

  “Effing shit,” groaned Harry.

  The barman looked back over his shoulder with a heavy frown of suspicion. “We don’t welcome trouble makers in here,” he said. “And language like that doesn’t help anyone. Besides, the police have always asked the same question three hours ago, and been all over the place with a magnifying glass.”

  “He was here a week. And you didn’t recognise him as the serial killer of two years ago?”

  The bartender shrugged, delivering Harry the drinks Sylvia had ordered, some slosh of beer over Harry’s fingers. Why would I? Never met the man before. Said his name was Harry Joyce. Signed in and paid in advance. No reason to ask for proof of identity. Obviously English. Polite. Didn’t swear.”

  “Harry Joyce?” roared Harry Joyce. “He damn well gave my name. What a shit.” He carried the drinks back to their table before the barman had time to complain again. He plonked himself down and related the story to Sylvia and Ruby. “My name, the bastard.”

  “Well, his wife’s name’s Joyce,” Sylvia nodded. “So I daresay that name came to mind. Actually it’s just as well you never married that poor silly woman. She’d have been Mrs Joyce Joyce.”

  “At least now he has the police after him,” said Ruby, looking up over the menu. “Are we going to eat?”

  “I’m not hungry,” said Harry, slurping his beer. “And I feel sick.”

  “Then I shall have cheese and biscuits. The cheese platter,” sighed Sylvia, having finished her coffee.

  “And I’ll have sticky date pudding with lots of custard,” said Ruby. “No, stay there. I’ll go up and put in the order and pay at the bar. Are you sure you don’t want anything, Harry?”

  “What I want, they don’t supply,” Harry said.

  “Let’s face it,” decided Sylvia, “we aren’t actually any good at police work. But at least we try. I just don’t know where we go from here. Find Eve? Goodness – where to start? Find Sullivan? We tried without any success until luck simply brought him into view. But then we failed again and he’s gone. And the new serial killer? We’ve really done quite a bit, but it hasn’t got us anywhere.”

  “Early days,” said Ruby.

  “Not for whatever victim he has lined up for the next slavery and slaughter.” Ruby took the menu and went up to the bar to order food. Meanwhile, Sylvia was wondering whether a G and T would wake her up or send her to sleep. “Morrison says no other remains have been found in that house. Nothing in the grounds so far. Nothing in the attic. Nothing more to investigate. They’re moving out tomorrow after they finish with the cellar and the strip of garden under the rhododendrons right in the back.”

  “Everything’s ordered,” Ruby returned and sat with a smile. “I ordered you a pie, Harry. Don’t eat it if you don’t want it. And I got you a double Scotch too. I’m sure you won’t waste it. For you and me, Sylvikins, I got a gin and tonic each.”

  “Wonderful.” After a moment, she added, “I think I want to concentrate on finding Eve. After all, three pathetic old pensioners looking for the most brutal maniac alive doesn’t make good sense. And I have another question for Mrs Daish.”

  “We’d outnumber him, but I daresay he’d still kill us just with a glance if we found him.” Harry was welcoming his double scotch from the delivering barman. “We’ll phone her when we get home, always hoping we’re sober enough. What’s the question?”

  “I doubt if she’ll be able to answer in full,” Sylvia said, “but we’ve got to start somewhere. I’ll ask Eve’s mother who owns a car and might be driving in the rain at night, who her daughter would trust enough to accept a lift. Presumably, she has friends who drive. Neighbours, perhaps. The local shopkeeper or the secretary at the doctor’s.”

  “A thousand names, I expect,” Harry said. “She can’t possibly recount every single local person known to the girl.”

  “No, she won’t,” said Sylvia. “But even just a few names would give us a lead. Like we said, we have to start somewhere.”

  “We haven’t spoken to the girl’s father yet,” Harry leaned back, thinking. “But he hasn’t got a car. He might have friends who do. The mother too. Someone in the knitting circle or the book club.”

  “Well,” Sylvia said, “it all sounds far-fetched, but it’s what the police do, isn’t it. What we need to ask is whether there’s someone Mrs Daish hasn’t already mentioned to the police. Someone they won’t have investigated yet.”

  “Facebook friends,” said Ruby, stirring her gin with a straw. “They all live on their mobile phones these days, don’t they. Or a school friend. She still goes to college?”

  “The police will have covered that.” Sylvia saw her cheese platter weaving its way through the growing crowd. “I wonder if the girl came to the pub every so often. So what about a barman?”

  “You phone,” Harry said, “and ask if we can come around this evening and meet the whole family. Ask them all to make a list.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “The Postman. Jim. He comes every day really early just as Eve used to leave for college.”

  Niles was pacing, arms crossed. “No. He’s a decent bloke. I’m not putting up any of me friends as likely murderers. Wouldn’t be right. ‘Sides, none of ‘em got cars.”

  Eve’s father was a short man
and hunched. He was home from work. “Misery,” he said. “Feels worse than any disease. I couldn’t face the job. And Belinda said you were coming over so I phoned in sick. I could give you a list of names, but I can’t imagine any of them doing something so terrible. They’re all good folk. Friends at work. A couple from the pub. Christophoro and Bella from next door. They’ve got a good car, an SUV, but they were in that night. When Evie was late, I went to ask them if they’d drive me to the club, and they did.” He was hunched forward in his chair, staring at his feet. “I’m a train driver. Evie doesn’t know my mates. Except for Toby and Imil. And they both have cars, but they’re good blokes.”

  “But you didn’t give their names to the police who came asking?”

  Mr Daish said no, that it didn’t occur to him. Belinda added a friend from the Greengrocer’s.

  It continued to rain but the Lexus was so deliciously comfortable, Sylvia threatened to go to sleep. “Bored stiff?” asked Harry, blinking sideways.

  “Perhaps I am.” Sylvia stared ahead through the windscreen. “We have good ideas and we do try, but we don’t achieve much, do we?”

  “So you want to take up knitting, and I should join in the cheese rolling competition?”

  She relented and smiled. “Well, it’s true, I’m feeling like an old fuddy-duddy again Just a useless old granny. Worse! I’m a granny without kids.”

  “Don’t be daft,” Harry told her. “The police haven’t found Sullivan either. They haven’t found the Chimney monster. And they haven’t found poor little Eve. Perhaps we are useless but no worse than the law of the land. And we haven’t given up yet. Anything can happen.”

  “Like getting arthritis.”

  “Don’t bother waiting. We both have it already.”

  It was the same day when two more bodies were found under the rhododendrons along the fence where the old mock-Tudor house stopped. Both were curled on their sides, head down into the earth. One was a young girl of roughly sixteen years, and the other was somewhat older. Morrison informed Harry and Sylvia but had no more to say. He was busy. “Up to my forehead wrinkles and frown lines.”

  “Two in the garden? So the chimney was full.”

  Sylvia looked up at him from the pillows. She was still in bed while he had searched out his phone as it rang. “Nine poor young girls. Pretty, I expect and waiting for the whole of the rest of their lives. Wanting to know what delicious romance awaited them.”

  “Hush, my love.” Harry marched back into the bathroom. “We all feel monstrous pity for everyone. I’m sorry for the young Sylvia. Your childhood and teens weren’t delightful either.”

  “I wasn’t tortured and murdered by a lunatic.”

  “We’ll find the bastard, my love. And the other bastard. And Eve.”

  Amy and her usually silent husband were sitting in front of the roaring fire, its spangles and sparkles reflected in Percival’s large framed glasses. Amy fluttered a hand at Sylvia. “Come and roast, my dear Sylvia. There’s more bodies discovered, I hear.”

  The luxury apartments upstairs within the Rochester Manor spread along four corridors, landings well carpeted, and reached by both front and back staircases. These eight living quarters were each roughly similar with a very large bedroom, a lounge incorporating a minute kitchenette, a large en-suite bathroom to the bedroom, and a smaller room serving either as a study, or a spare bedroom. Ruby occupied the rooms next to Sylvia and Harry. On the other side, the sunnier quarters of Percival and Amy Fryer. Percival, once a highly respected doctor and surgeon, saw no reason to speak unless someone asked him a direct question. Amy was contemplating the onset of dementia, but as yet enjoyed three days out of five.

  Amy said, “I hear you saw that funny old man who killed people?”

  “Lionel Sullivan,” said Harry.

  “Yes, I saw him too,” said Amy. “He was on a bicycle. His bottom sort of sagged over the edges of the seat. But he was heading towards The Cow’s Udders. You know, that funny old pub past the Torr.”

  Sylvia blinked. “Perhaps you mean The Torr’s Wonders?”

  “Is that what it’s called?” Amy pondered. “But the Torr isn’t a wondrous thing, you know. It’s just a muddy little creek full of moss and algae and tadpoles with a nasty smell like sour milk.”

  “And so you thought of a cow’s udders. We shall call it that in future.”

  Harry nodded. “Did you see that man go in?”

  Amy said yes, and elbowed Percival. “You remember dear,” she said loudly into his best ear. “we saw that nasty man with the acrimonia or whatever you said it was. Hands and feet. Anyway, we saw him, didn’t we.”

  Percival reluctantly looked over the top of his newspaper. “We did, Amy dear. He was cycling up the Old Torr Road. I was surprised to see him set free after what he’d done.”

  Harry sighed. “Not free, Percy. The wretch escaped. He was in prison with a life sentence for murder, but he had help, and got out.”

  “Tut, tut,” said Percival. “These people should be more careful.” He returned to his newspaper.

  Sheila O’Brien, a downstairs tenant, was sitting in the nearby window seat and looked over. “They should have executions for special cases. Like this chimney man.”

  Ruby squashed in beside Sylvia. “Amy, you’re looking well. Better than yesterday. How do you feel?”

  “Was I ill yesterday?” Amy wondered. “I can’t remember.”

  “You had a cough, and said your arthritis was playing up.”

  “Ah, yes. Cold days do that, you know,” Amy said. “I get the snivels, and that makes me cough. And my hip. The other one’s artificial, - the real one does horrible things.”

  “The cold makes me ache too,” admitted Sylvia, smiling towards the huge bustling flames across the fireplace.

  “Oh one thing always leads to another,” sighed Amy. “Cold chills – and along comes arthritis. A bad night’s sleep and I get a horrid headache. Even when I was younger, I had those same troubles.” She leaned towards Sylvia with a slightly conspiratorial frown. “When I was young, every time I masturbated, I ended up with a terrible backache and had to go to bed.”

  Percival looked once more over his newspaper, saying softly, “I doubt you mean that, Amy. I believe you meant menstruated, my dear.”

  “Of course,” said Amy. “What did I say?”

  Nobody told her.

  Harry already had his phone in his hand and was dialling Morrison at home. It was while he was on the phone, that someone called from the back of the room where the TV addicts relinquished the cosy heat of the fire in order to watch the News, gossip, and various programmes that others called rubbish.

  It was Stella who shouted, “It’s that woman friend of yours on the news, Harry. Come and see.”

  Harry was still talking to Morrison, and Sylvia relinquished the fire too and went back to the television area.

  It was Joyce Sullivan. “You think it’s easy being married to a mass murderer? Well, of course I didn’t know that was what he was up to, but I did know he was a beast. He abused me, ignored me, insulted me and hit me. But usually he was out. Well, he travelled all over England, and sometimes over the Channel too, so I didn’t see much of him. And that’s the way I liked it.”

  The interviewer was not the most charismatic nor the most experienced. “Mrs Sullivan? May I call you Joyce?”

  She nodded. “But remember, I know nothing about Lionel’s crimes. Besides, I divorced him as soon as I could after he was arrested.”

  “Well, now then, Joyce. Can you tell us what first attracted you about Lionel Sullivan when you first met him?”

  She was a small plain woman, plump without seeming obese, and the pleasant curves of her face spoke of her looks when she had been younger. Joyce patted her own cheek. “I let myself go, you know,” she said. “I became very lonely and dismally unhappy. I thought I could never be happy again. Lionel was such a bully. The only saving grace was that he was away most of the time, I dreaded the days he
came back. And when I first met him? Oh, gracious, we both thought we were happy for a year, perhaps even two. Crazy, but I thought he was shy at first. He told me stories about the places he’d driven to – you know – Scotland and France and all around the Lake District. I felt sorry for him when he told me all about his disability.”

  The interviewer was trying hard to encourage some gruesome secrets. “I understand from his trial, that your husband stopped killing for some years after your marriage. This was presumably because he was happy, and needed no other stimulus.”

  “He had enough stimulus just beating me, you mean?”

  “He was violent from the beginning?”

  Joyce backed down. “No, or I wouldn’t have married him. But it was less than two years later. He needed to be brutal to prove himself strong, or something. I knew he became a horrible person, so I guessed he had always been a pig, but naturally I never guessed how bad he really was. What motivates such crimes? I don’t know. Honestly I would never have guessed.”

  “He was a large man. Over six foot, I imagine.”

  “Six foot three. And the acromegaly of course. He was bullied about his hands and feet when he was young, and his parents really didn’t help. His mother were abusive too, and his father disappeared.”

  Sylvia wandered off from the television. “What’s she trying to achieve? She’s not doing herself any favours.”

  “Oh well.” Harry plodded after her, found the wine bottle with sufficient dregs, and filled her glass with a drop for himself. “A bit of appreciation after years of misery. Heaven knows what she really went through.”

  Ruby squeezed up, making a place for them both on the smaller sofa. “You have to feel sorry for her. “

  “She ought to stay quiet and stay in her safe-house.”

  “You think we have a right to be bored?” Harry objected. “What about going into a safe house after years of being beaten up, and just having to hide away in silence? “

  Suddenly waking up, Amy said, “Perhaps all old houses have bodies in them. The Tudors were shocking people. That eighth one, Henry, he could have stuffed other wives up the chimney that we don’t know about yet.”