Hell Hath No Fury

by Rosie Harris

  Mr Flynn shrugged his thin shoulders. ‘She’s not here. We’ve already told you that.’

  ‘She may be in danger.’

  Again there was an exchange of glances between Mr and Mr Flynn. Mrs Flynn relaxed slightly, but she didn’t speak.

  ‘We have heard about what happened on the day the six of them passed their A-levels,’ pursued Ruth.

  The tension was too much for Mrs Flynn. Sobbing, she buried her face in her hands. ‘I’m glad they’re dead,’ she exclaimed in a muffled voice. ‘It’s justice at last.’

  ‘They ruined Maureen’s life . . . and ours,’ Mr Flynn stated angrily. ‘It might be why she wants to go abroad, to get away from all the gossip. Now she’ll be an exile the same as us. We don’t belong up here. Ever since we’ve been in Llangollen we’ve longed to get back to Benbury . . . Now none of us will ever be able to go back there.’

  Ruth looked at him questioningly, waiting for him to say more, to tell them what he knew about his daughter’s involvement with the Benbury murders, but he remained silent.

  ‘We’ll let ourselves out,’ she said at last, breaking the interminable silence. ‘You will remember to let us know as soon as you hear from Maureen? It’s very important that you do.’

  Maureen Flynn, sitting in her car on the outskirts of Llangollen, felt an overwhelming sense of rejection as she switched off her mobile phone. Her parents had told her it wasn’t convenient for her to visit them at the moment because they were going away for a few days.

  Going away for a few days, were they? And they couldn’t even be bothered to ask why she wanted to see them. Not even when she had hinted that if she couldn’t visit them now she wouldn’t be coming to see them for quite some time because she was planning to go to the Far East on a working holiday.

  Their lifestyle and their plans always came first, she thought resentfully, and she was expected to fit her life in accordingly. It had been the same when she’d been raped – her parents had been more concerned about how it affected them, and what friends and neighbours would say if they ever found out what had happened, than they were about how she felt.

  As her feeling of resentment subsided, Maureen began to reason out what she must do next. Obviously, it was risky to stay in either England or Wales now that the police were looking for her, and although the picture they had flashed up on the telly looked nothing at all like her, someone might recognize her name and connect her with what had happened.

  There was no doubt about it, she told herself: the right thing to do was to return to Dutton, pack up her personal belongings and vacate her flat. Where she went after that was equally important. Would she be safe on the Continent, she wondered. Not France or Belgium, of course, since these days they were merely an extension of Britain; so, she would need to go further afield. She fancied Spain, or Portugal, with their warm sunshine and relaxed lifestyles, but again she wondered if that wasn’t far too risky because it was too much on the doorstep for safety.

  She didn’t want to go to Africa or India. Too hot for one thing, and then there was the language barrier. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself by having to seek out people who spoke English. And another thing! She’d need to earn a living, so she would have to go somewhere where English was the standard language. Which left Australia, New Zealand, America or Canada, and none of them appealed to her. South America was a possibility, of course, and would be an extremely safe haven, but would she be able to find work there?

  Her thoughts drifted. Why on earth had she phoned her parents? It wasn’t as though they were expecting her to visit them or that they would think it odd if they didn’t hear from her for a few months. And why tell them that she was off to the Far East on a working holiday with Professor Harmer?

  ‘Make sure you see something of the place while you are out there,’ her father advised.

  ‘And don’t work too hard. Remember it is supposed to be a holiday,’ her mother had added. ‘Don’t let that boss of yours take advantage of you.’

  There was little likelihood of that happening, Maureen thought cynically as she recalled her mother’s words.

  She hadn’t really intended going to the Far East, of course, but thinking about it, she quite liked the idea of trailing Phillip Harmer without his knowledge. There was plenty of time to finalize the details. All the time in the world, in fact, since the flight would be a long one. She could spend the travelling time fine-tuning her plans and deciding whether she’d contact him in advance to let him know that she was following him, or simply let it be the very last thing he would ever know.

  Excitedly, she slammed her foot hard down on the accelerator, and then had to brake suddenly as a sudden sharp bend took her by surprise. Her car skidded, and it left her frightened and shaking, her pulse racing. An accident was the last thing she wanted to be involved in, so speed was out of the question on these minor roads, she decided. She’d head for the motorway, then she could really put her foot down.

  It had been madness coming to Wales. Visiting her parents was the last thing she should do at the moment. If they knew the truth about what she had done they wouldn’t be prepared to help her sort things out, any more than they’d been all those years ago.

  Her father’s rancour had destroyed them as a family, she reflected, and even now, all these years later, his manner still managed to convey his distaste and disapproval, as if what had happened had been her fault. He’d never been prepared to acknowledge that she’d tried to stop them but had been powerless to do so, and that all her efforts had been completely ineffectual.

  The fact that she had gone into a pub with those boys had been her downfall, in every sense of the word. Her father’s upbringing had been so strict and puritanical that in his eyes, now as well as then, her action was quite unforgivable. That was what damned her in his eyes. Probably it had been the main reason why he had refused to inform the police about what had happened.

  Well, nothing could change him now. He was a bigoted old man, set in his ways. He was responsible for all the frustrations she’d felt ever since, but she also blamed her mother. If her mother had stood up to him, made it clear that what happened wasn’t her fault, comforted her, taken her side, and helped to present a united front against his bigotry, she might have been able to forget it ever happened, Maureen thought angrily.

  For almost fifteen years she had managed to shut away the memories and get on with her life. To outsiders, it might have appeared to be a narrow, self-contained, sterile existence, but it had been one which satisfied her. That was until she had met Phillip Harmer.

  Phillip Harmer had been the fuse that had ignited the trail of bitter revenge. A man who was as bigoted and critical as her father. He had picked at the scab and ripped open the deep-seated wound until it had haemorrhaged.

  Retaliation had been sweet, but now she would have to pay for that luxury. First, though, why not make him share the retribution?

  Once she’d punished him, in the same way as she had the others who’d been responsible for her misery, then she didn’t care what happened. She wasn’t even planning any further ahead than that. All she wanted to do was make sure she achieved this ultimate goal before she was intercepted by the police.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  As she headed towards the M4 Motorway at Chepstow, Maureen’s spirits lightened and she decided to take a quick break. Once she was on the motorway she could move into the fast lane, forget the speed limit, put her foot down and speed non-stop to Maidenhead.

  As she sat waiting for her coffee to cool, she took out a pad and pen and began writing a letter to Phillip Harmer. She wanted him to know every morbid detail of what had happened since he’d last seen her.

  She smiled to herself; she’d post it right away, then he would receive it before his body was found. They would think he had committed suicide because he felt such deep remorse for treating her in such a callous way.

  ‘Superintendent Wilson is going to crucify us when he hears what’s happen
ed,’ groaned Paddy as they got back into their car outside Fifteen Druid’s Rise.

  ‘Yes! We should have checked out the licence plate and confirmed with Swansea that it was her car before we presumed that it was,’ Ruth stated crisply.

  ‘OK. That was my fault,’ Paddy agreed contritely. ‘I admit I leaped to conclusions. I blame it on being so tired and so hungry that I wasn’t thinking straight.’

  ‘If you’re still hungry, then perhaps we’d better do something about it before we head south again. There should be a cafe of some sort open in the town by now.’

  ‘Or we could report to the local station, and make use of their canteen,’ he suggested.

  ‘No, I’ve a much better idea. We’ve earned a decent breakfast, and some real coffee, and the chance to sort out our story before we visit them, so why not find a hotel, and treat ourselves to a slap-up breakfast?’

  Paddy grinned. ‘And we can spend the entire drive back to Benbury deciding how we are going to explain to Superintendent Wilson that our suspect has gone off on a working holiday to Hong Kong, or Bangkok, or somewhere in the Far East.’

  ‘We certainly won’t get the chance to go out there after her,’ said Ruth with a sigh.

  ‘No, I’m afraid not,’ agreed Paddy. ‘We’ll be expected to hand over the case to Interpol, and let them take all the credit for our hard work. That’s if they finally manage to track her down.’

  ‘I rather think they will,’ mused Ruth.

  ‘Oh? Why do you say that?’

  ‘I don’t think she’s quite finished killing yet.’

  Paddy frowned. ‘Simon Gould said he wasn’t involved in any way with the rape . . .’

  ‘No, not Simon Gould. I don’t think she’s in the slightest bit interested in him. No, I was thinking of the person who must have triggered this off.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m following your line of reasoning?’

  ‘It’s sixteen years since she was raped. In all that time she has never made any kind of retaliation. Then, out of the blue, she suddenly hunts down, and kills, the four boys who had raped her . . .’

  ‘And ruined her life and her parents’ lives.’

  ‘Exactly! So why has she waited sixteen years?’

  Paddy shook his head. ‘I don’t know . . . but I bet you’re going to tell me.’

  ‘I think it was because the memory of what happened all those years ago was suddenly revived.’

  ‘You think she might have been raped again?’

  Ruth shook her head. ‘No, not exactly raped, but something equally traumatic, so that it has brought those hidden memories, which have been bottled up for so long, bubbling to the surface.’

  ‘You make it sound as though she’s mentally deranged. If that’s the case then why not simply kill the person who did that?’

  Ruth nodded in agreement. ‘That’s what I think she may be planning – hence her trip to the Far East.’

  ‘You mean her recent employer, Professor Harmer, may have something to do with this?’

  ‘That’s right. Let’s hope Interpol act fast. She’s already killed four times so, as far as she is concerned, what does once more matter?’

  Detective Inspector Ruth Morgan and Detective Sergeant Paddy Hardcastle were travelling westwards on the M4 when the message came through of a major crash only fifteen miles ahead of them.

  ‘A red Ford Escort, travelling at an excessively high speed, has crashed through the central barrier and ploughed into the path of an oncoming tanker. The driver of the Escort, a woman, died instantly. Ten other vehicles have been involved in the collision but there are no other serious injuries, apart from the driver of the tanker, who has been taken to Wexham Park Hospital suffering from shock and leg injuries.’

  Paddy and Ruth exchanged glances. ‘A red Ford Escort?’

  ‘Travelling at high speed towards London!’

  ‘I’ll check out if they have identified the driver yet,’ Ruth said. ‘I think we can safely bet, though, that it’s our suspect, Maureen Flynn.’

  ‘Tell them that we’re on our way and that we’ll be there in less than ten minutes,’ Paddy ordered as he reached out with one hand and fixed the blue warning light on the top of their car and switched on the siren.

  As they pulled up at the scene of the crash, Ruth leaped out of the car and hurried over to the wrecked Ford Escort. By the time Paddy joined her, she had confirmed that it was indeed Maureen Flynn.

  ‘May I?’ she asked, looking askance at the officer in charge as she reached out for Maureen’s handbag, which was lying in the wrecked car alongside her.

  She pulled out Maureen’s driver’s licence and passed it triumphantly to Paddy, then she took out the letter which was also in the handbag and frowned as she saw that it was addressed to Professor Harmer.

  ‘Go ahead and open it,’ Paddy ordered crisply when she looked at him hesitantly.

  As she read Maureen’s catalogue of admissions, Ruth let out a low whistle. ‘This amounts to a confession,’ she pronounced. ‘It most certainly winds up the case against her.’

  ‘Quite a satisfactory conclusion to your first investigation since your appointment to Benbury, but at least there’ll be no need for a referral to Interpol,’ Paddy said with a degree of smugness.

  ‘No, nor will there be any need to alert Professor Phillip Harmer that he was likely to be Maureen Flynn’s next target,’ added Ruth.