Rosie

by Lesley Pearse

  He had resigned himself to being captured eventually. But he could go to the gallows a great deal happier knowing he’d pulled a fast one on Farley and the police, as well as getting the ultimate revenge on Rosie. It was going to be the most satisfying act of his whole life, and he wished his mind would dwell on it, but for some reason it kept slipping back to Heather.

  He’d had her for the first time when Alan was only eight weeks old. He’d arrived home on a forty-eight-hour pass from the army the night before, right in the middle of a vicious row between her and Cole.

  When he got up the next morning, Cole had already gone to work with Norman, Heather had a huge shiner and badly skinned knuckles, and the baby was screaming fit to bust. She was at her wits’ end because she had a mountain of washing to do. She looked exhausted and old. It was the first time Seth had ever felt sympathy for her. He had admired the way she tried to fight back the night before – he wouldn’t have dared take a saucepan to Cole’s head the way she had.

  It certainly wasn’t desire which motivated him to take her in his arms. She looked terrible, her clothes were stained and her hair hadn’t seen a brush for days. But once he was holding her, something overcame him.

  Heather was very sexy in her own way. He’d always thought so. Her big backside undulated as she walked, her tits quivered and her eyes sparkled when she laughed. Normally her long, fair hair was clean and shiny, and she had a way of talking to men that made them feel a bit special. That day she smelled all milky, her breasts against his chest were swollen and hot, and as she cried against his shoulder and thanked him for being kind he knew he had to have her.

  Seth couldn’t remember now how he managed to persuade her to come upstairs with him. Maybe he said he would help her make the beds. But he got her in his father’s bedroom, then pushed her down and fucked her.

  Funnily enough, he couldn’t remember now how it felt, not the way he did with Ruby. She struggled and screamed of course, she cursed him to hell and back, but he couldn’t recall the excitement really. The only vivid memory was looking down at her afterwards. Her dress was all rucked up and he’d torn the bodice, milk was trickling out of one of her big swollen breasts, and he remembered he’d pinched her nipple like he was milking a cow, and laughed as milk squirted across the bed.

  He knew somehow she wouldn’t tell Cole, though she was hysterical afterwards. She flew at him and tried to scratch his face, but she kept saying over and over again that she ought to have known better than to trust him. He guessed that meant she thought she’d led him on, and perhaps she was just too weak after the baby to stand any more rows with Cole.

  Seth went back to camp and Heather probably thought it would never happen again. But she was wrong of course. As soon as he was demobbed and back home, he soon found opportunities and, like he had with Ruby, he kept her silent by threatening to hurt her child.

  Seth took great pleasure in finding Cole still had no interest in the kid. It meant he could have got away with doing almost anything to him. He was always crying anyway, so a few minor injuries would have gone unnoticed.

  Seth couldn’t remember how many times he had Heather before he drew Norman into it – four, five times maybe. It was Norman’s first leave after his call-up, and the night before he’d admitted to his older brother that he hadn’t lost his cherry yet and all the other men kept teasing him about it. Seth promised to lay on a girl and said he’d show him how to do it.

  That day they’d been drinking cider down at the Crown from twelve until halfway through the afternoon. They staggered home to find Alan in his pram in the kitchen fast asleep and Heather upstairs having a nap. She was laying face down on the bed, Seth remembered, her dress caught up slightly so it showed her stocking tops and plump white thighs. He was instantly aroused, so he unzipped his trousers, leapt on the bed and, dragging her on to all fours, pumped it into her.

  The most thrilling thing about that time wasn’t just her screams or struggling, though that always turned him on still more: it was having a spectator. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Norman with his cock in his hand and that really made it magic. It was like when they were kids again, creeping in the back of the village shop to nick a packet of biscuits or a bar of chocolate from the store room. Mostly they didn’t even want what they nicked. It was the shared badness which made it a great adventure.

  Alan started screaming downstairs, but that made no difference. It was glorious, better than racing down the lanes on a motorbike together, or swimming naked in the river. After he’d come he made Norman take over, and the excitement on his brother’s face was better than watching him open a Christmas stocking.

  Norman chickened out after that one time. Once he was sober he would barely talk to Seth, and he didn’t come home on leave again for a long time. Heather kept warning Seth that she was going to tell Cole, but she never did.

  Seth had it made. He’d managed to create enough conflict between his father and his woman so that all trust was gone. Cole believed in his heart that she’d saddled him with a child who wasn’t his own. Heather, not knowing this, rejected all his advances because Cole didn’t care about her son. She had to give in to Seth for fear of him hurting her child, and slowly but surely the friction in May Cottage mounted.

  Almost every night they had a row. Mostly it was over something petty, Cole going to the pub or her forgetting to shut up the hens. But each row seemed to get more bitter. She would say Cole didn’t love her or Alan. He would ask how she could claim to love him when she didn’t want him near her. Often it was Heather who started the physical stuff; she would throw something at him, and he would retaliate by punching her.

  Seth sat back and gleefully watched it happening. Sometimes he returned from the pub just in time to see the fighting through the kitchen window. At other times it began after he’d gone to bed. It amused him that they thought neither he nor Rosie knew anything of these scenes. He’d finally got his revenge on his father for hurting his mother so much that she left. It absolved him of his guilt at killing Ruby, and it punished Rosie for being born. He believed that any day now Heather would take Alan and leave. He hoped she might take Rosie too.

  In the spring of 1949, Cole and Seth were working on a job in Bristol, clearing rubble from a bomb site. Seth was twenty-one, Rosie twelve and Alan just two. Norman was still away in the army but with only a few more weeks’ service to complete. They had been staying in Bristol for some time, going home only on Sundays, but one night Cole cleared off on his own, returning two days later with a wide grin on his face and refusing to say where he’d been. Seth assumed he’d found a new woman, and a little later that morning when he was packed off to dump a truck-load of rubble he decided to make a detour to see Heather. He was cautious enough to leave the truck half a mile away and get to the cottage across the moor. If Cole heard he’d been back during the day he’d want to know why.

  As soon as Seth saw Heather hanging up washing in the orchard, happily singing as she worked, as if she’d just had a good fucking, he suddenly realized where Cole had been the last two days. It hadn’t been another woman, but this one. Worse still, he sensed they’d made up their differences without him there to throw in a few spanners in the works. Heather’s smile vanished as she caught sight of him. But instead of running as she usually did, she just stood her ground, hands on hips, and glowered at him.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ she warned him. ‘If you want tea or a sandwich, that’s fine and dandy. But if you’ve got anything else on your mind, forget it.’

  Her confidence shook him. She looked just the way she had when she had first arrived, young, fresh and strong. Her brown eyes looked unwaveringly into his; that courage he’d once admired in her was back.

  ‘Aw, come on,’ he said, uncertain if he was trying to persuade her or pretending the thought of sex hadn’t crossed his mind. ‘Dad might have been good to you for the last couple of days, but that’s just because he’s been screwing every bit of skirt in Brist
ol.’

  She half smiled and shook her head despairingly. ‘Don’t give me that old toffee,’ she said. ‘You are a maggot, Seth, a lying, stinking, rotten maggot. If I hadn’t been so busy making yer dad happy for the last couple of days, I would have told him every last thing you’ve done, but I didn’t want to waste our precious time together talking about you. I’ll tell you now how it is. You are going to leave here for good, and if you don’t leave by Friday of your own accord, I’m going to tell Cole everything and get him to throw you out.’

  Just as he knew Ruby had meant it, so he knew Heather did too. There was absolute determination in her eyes.

  He had no intention of killing her, not then. He spoke to her nicely. He even apologized and agreed to find digs in Bristol. It was only as she turned away and flounced back towards the cottage in front of him with the laundry basket on her hip that he suddenly realized she intended to tell Cole anyway. He followed her. The same axe he’d killed Ruby with six years earlier was lying on top of the wood pile by the outhouse. He picked it up and concealed it behind his back.

  Heather stopped by the mangle. Beside it was the old tin bath full of rinsing sheets. She bent down to pick one up, folded it over a couple of times and began threading it into the mangle. ‘Go and put the kettle on’, she said dismissively. ‘I’ll make you a sandwich when I’ve finished this.’

  Seth lifted the axe and struck her hard on the neck from behind. She slumped forward on to the mangle and he hit her again.

  Just two strong blows and that was it. Easier than wringing a chicken’s neck.

  The whole thing was far easier than it had been with Ruby. He was a fully grown man now and much stronger. The earth was softer too, because in recent months he and Cole had dug up a patch of ground when they were trying out a mechanical digger. He had a hole dug within two hours, and the whole thing was over and done with, timber replaced and all, within three. It was only as he finished that he heard Alan crying.

  Sick was the only word he could use to describe how he felt. In the heat of the moment he just hadn’t thought of the kid. He was down the orchard in his pram, and if Seth hadn’t forgotten the little bleeder’s existence he would have killed him too and tossed him into the grave along with his mother.

  But it was too late to do anything now. Rosie would be back from school soon. If he didn’t get back to Bristol within an hour, Cole would be suspicious. Later as he drove away to dump a bag of Heather’s clothes, he told himself Cole would eventually hand Alan over to the welfare people.

  Leaving that kid alive was the only thing he regretted about that day. He didn’t mind Cole crying like a child, and he enjoyed seeing Rosie bewildered and exhausted as she tried to juggle going to school and looking after the brat. But for that scrawny, miserable kid, everyone would have believed Heather had run off because she couldn’t stand Cole any longer. Farley would never have started the investigation. Cole, Norman and him would still have been at May Cottage. Rosie would have been married off a year or so ago.

  Cole wouldn’t have been hanged.

  As the first spots of rain began to fall, Seth slung his shotgun over his shoulder, climbed up on to the garden wall and dropped down soundlessly beside the greenhouse.

  He felt absolutely no guilt at killing the women. They had got in his way. He hadn’t even felt bad about Cole being tried for something he hadn’t done. But what did still plague him was that look his father gave him in court as he was given the death sentence.

  All through the trial Seth had been convinced that Cole believed someone else had come to the cottage and murdered the women. He couldn’t have suspected Seth or he would have spoken out. But when he fixed Seth with those cold, penetrating black eyes, he realized Cole had known that it was him ever since the bodies were found. To this day Seth didn’t understand why his father kept quiet. It gnawed at him like a toothache.

  He crept stealthily across to the summerhouse and let himself in. The kitchen was in darkness, and he guessed the entire family were watching television at the front of the house. He made himself comfortable on a wicker garden chair and settled down to wait.

  The rain was still so light he could barely hear it, but there was a distant rumble of thunder. A little later a light came on in the room above the kitchen, shining a clear path across the terrace and on to the lawn. He sat up and almost cried out with glee when he saw Rosie come over to the window and look out, and he remembered as a kid how she had always spent a great deal of time looking out of her bedroom window. She didn’t draw the curtains, and only partially closed the windows. As he watched she began to undress.

  Seth could only see her from the waist up, but as she unbuttoned her blouse he had an immediate erection. She was wearing a white bra, and she turned away to remove her skirt or shorts. To his acute disappointment, she moved before taking off the bra, and when she came back into his line of vision she had on some sort of frilly top that looked like one of those cute baby-doll pyjama sets. She stayed for some time by the window brushing her hair, then a dimmer light came on, the overhead one went off, and he assumed she’d got into bed.

  Seth had had plenty of time that morning to study the back of the house. The room Rosie was in was directly over the kitchen. There was a plant climbing up a trellis which almost reached her window, and by coincidence it was the very route he’d planned to take into the house if he couldn’t grab her during the day. But he hadn’t expected to be lucky enough to find her in that very room. He just wished he knew where everyone else was sleeping. He guessed the parents would have a big room at the front, but where were Farley and Donald?

  One of them was accounted for a little later when a light came on two sets of windows away from Rosie. The curtains had been drawn, so he couldn’t tell which of the men it was, but a sixth sense told him it was Farley.

  At half past one Seth was ready. Several lengths of strong rope were strung around his chest; he had rags in his pocket and his knife in his belt; his jacket and shotgun were stashed by the garden wall.

  He’d crept round to the front of the house a little earlier. There was only one policeman on guard. Seth could see the red glow of his cigarette as he sheltered from the rain under a tree just outside the front gate. It took him only a moment to cut the telephone wire outside the house. The policeman never even moved.

  It was raining stair-rods now. The rattling sound on the greenhouse and the gravel drive was enough to mask any sound he might make. But best of all was the thunder, booming out like distant guns. Fear was replaced by intense excitement.

  Rosie awoke with a start to find something wet and cold pressing on her windpipe. But as she opened her mouth to scream, something was stuffed into it, making her choke. It was too dark for her to see her attacker, but she instantly knew who it was by the smell. Only one person’s sweat smelled like that – Seth’s. Bucking against his restraining arms she tried to free herself, but he had her pinned down tightly by her bedclothes.

  ‘Well, little sister, I bet you never thought you’d see me again,’ he whispered. ‘Now, be a good girl and keep very quiet and I won’t hurt you or anyone else in this house.’

  She tried to scream, but Seth pushed the cloth further into her mouth and she choked again and again.

  ‘Smell,’ he ordered in a menacing whisper, his face looming over her as he held her captive. Rosie tried to turn away from his breath. That smelled bad too, but as she did so another, stronger smell reached her.

  Paraffin.

  She jerked her head back in even greater alarm and she saw by the glint of his teeth that he was smiling.

  ‘Yes, it’s paraffin. You left it for me in the greenhouse and I’ve been pouring it all over the house. Keep your trap shut, don’t try to struggle, and I might not strike a match. You know what will happen if I do, don’t you?’

  Rosie froze. She had no doubt Seth was ruthless enough to torch the house. He had nothing more to lose. She had to do what he said.

  ‘I haven’t com
e to hurt you. But you got me into this mess and you’ve got to get me out of it,’ he said very softly into her ear. ‘So I’m going to tie you up, then lower you out the window. But just remember when you’re out there in the garden and I’m up here, one sound – just one squeak from you – and I’ll start the fire.’

  Rosie knew he meant to hurt her whatever he said, but there was no alternative but to obey him. She couldn’t risk him striking a match. Maybe once they were outside she’d be able to get away.

  He rolled her over face down, secured her hands behind her back with a piece of rope, tied her ankles with another, then a third thicker one went around her waist like a noose. For good measure he tied another rag round her mouth to make sure she couldn’t spit out the gag.

  As he lifted her up in his arms to bundle her head first out of the window, all Rosie could do was pray that Thomas would hear something and raise the alarm, but she knew that above the noise of the storm it was unlikely.

  Rosie only weighed about eight stone, but it was still a heavy load for Seth to hold on to. As he humped her body further and further over the window sill, she had visions of the rope slipping from his hands and her skull crashing on to the terrace below. She had been in this position with him before when she was four or five, dangled head first over the wall of a pig-sty. But then he hadn’t really dared to hurt her.

  She was wearing only the skimpiest of nylon pyjamas, and the rope around her middle was cutting painfully into her skin. Miraculously she landed quite gently, but even if she hadn’t been tied hand and foot there was no escape. Seth was still holding the other end of the rope, and as she looked up he was climbing out of her room to join her. She held her breath, afraid he would throw a match before leaving. But he didn’t. He just came silently down the trellis like a monkey.

  Thomas woke up suddenly from an unpleasant dream. It was an old one that hadn’t troubled him for some time: all the men were lined up in the boiling sun for ‘Tenko’, waiting for the Japanese guards to discover there was one man missing. The dream was always vivid, and he’d kind of learned to wake himself out of it. But it always left him with the same gut-wrenching terror and cold sweats, even without reaching the part where one of the guards made them kneel on the ground, heads bent, and then proceeded to walk along the line with his sword raised to select someone to behead.