The Devil Came to Abbeville

by Marian Phair

  Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Copyright

  Oh! What a tangled web we weave. When first we practise to deceive!’

  Sir Walter Scott. (1771-1832)

  Dedicated

  To my dear mother, Betty Thomas.

  The church on the front cover is, St. Mary’s Church in Lutterworth, my home town. In the 14th century religious reformer, John Wycliffe, was rector of St. Mary’s, and it was here that he produced the first translation of the Bible from Latin into English. Many members of my family are buried in St. Mary’s graveyard.

  Acknowledgments

  MY THANKS GO TO

  My partner, Tom, for his help and understanding as I worked diligently on my book.

  My son, Robert, for his help and guidance on police procedures.

  My lovely daughter, Lauretta, for her help and unfailing belief in me.

  My dear friends, Denise Norman, and Sukhninder Kaur, for their help and support.

  My illustrators: Amie Carter, and Jade Oliverio. You are both stars.

  My publishers, and staff, for always being there for me when I need help and advise.

  My special thanks to Sara Lewis, a lovely lady, and a true friend. Who put in many long hours helping me throughout, as I struggled with the technical side of things. For raising my spirits, (at times, literally), and encouraging me to keep going when I wanted to quit.

  All of you made this possible.

  CHAPTER 1

  Along the deserted street the wet pavements glistened in the light from the street lamps. The high wind whipped the lower branches of the solitary tree against the iron railings that separated the road from the churchyard, then picking up the fallen leaves, sent them whirling and dancing down the road. The heavy rainfall was now reduced to a light drizzle as the storm abated. From a window in the Rectory, the dark figure of a man could be seen silhouetted against the dimly-lit room behind him.

  With a sigh, Father Patrick O’Connor moved away from the window where he had been watching the storm, and returned to his desk. Screwed up note paper littered the floor where he had missed the waste bin. Try as he might, he just couldn’t find the right words for poor Emily Anderson’s eulogy; the unfortunate seventeen year old, whose funeral mass he was to perform in the morning. Each time he went to write her name, the horror of that morning played out before him, like a video recording stuck on replay. Was it just three weeks ago when the terrible event happened? He could picture it now, so clearly, every detail etched in his mind.

  It had been a beautiful, sunny, May morning. He had arisen early, long before his housekeeper, Martha Higgins, had arrived to prepare his breakfast. Martha was retiring at the end of the month, he’d made a note of this on his calendar…

  In the kitchen, he put on a fresh pot of coffee, filling the room with its delicious aroma. Taking a large mug from the cupboard beside the sink, he poured coffee into it, adding two heaped teaspoons of brown sugar, and some cream; then went outdoors to the small patio, where he sat leisurely sipping at his coffee and listening to the birds as they greeted the dawn. Setting down his empty mug, he strolled through the churchyard taking the path down to the main gate.

  In the distance, he saw Molly Fleming heading for the nearby park with Pixie, her little poodle; yanking on the lead when the little dog stopped to sniff at some strange scent on a nearby gatepost.

  Spotting the priest she almost ran towards him, calling out his name as she approached.

  “Good morning, Father, it looks like its going to be another nice day.”

  “Morning, Molly. Are you taking Pixie for a morning run in the park?”

  “Yes, Father. Oh! I’m so excited, my cousin, Scott Holden, is coming for a holiday.

  I haven’t seen him in nearly twenty years, Father. His family moved to America when he was just a small boy.” Molly babbled on not giving him a chance to speak.

  “He has done so well for himself, Father. Before he retired he was a Criminal Profiler. He also studied Forensic Science, and was very much respected by his colleagues.”

  “Well, you will have to introduce me to this cousin of yours, Molly. I have always been fascinated by all aspects of forensics. Had I not had the calling to the Priesthood, I think I would have chosen a branch of forensics as a career.”

  Pixie, having got tired of waiting for her mistress to continue their journey, was relieving herself against the church gatepost. Molly was quick to apologise.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Father. I’d better get her to the park before she does anything else.”

  As they were saying their goodbyes, a young girl came staggering out of the park, heading in their direction. Molly watched her approach, a look of disgust on her face. “I’ll bet she’s drunk, Father, or more likely on drugs. It’s disgraceful what the youngsters get up to these days. Where are the parents, don’t they care where their children are, or what they get up to?”

  The young girl was close enough now for them both to see she was covered in blood. The crimson flow was seeping through her fingers as she staggered towards them, holding her bloody hands to her stomach. Father Patrick ran towards her and she collapsed in his arms. He could clearly see she had been stabbed. He shouted back to Molly Fleming, who was making her way towards them as fast as her vast bulk allowed. With her toy poodle, Pixie, being dragged along by her lead.

  “Molly, hurry, get to a telephone and call for an ambulance. Tell them it’s an emergency, a young girl has been stabbed!” He turned his attention back to the girl. There was fear in her dark brown eyes as she reached up with bloody hands and grasped his clothing. Her lips were moving, and he realised she was trying to say something, but he couldn’t make out her words. The young girl was slipping into unconsciousness. He bent his head towards hers in order to hear more clearly what she was trying to say to him. Still holding on to his clothing, the young girl whispered in his ear.

  “Please help me, Father; I was attacked in the park by…” Her voice faded away, as she slipped into unconsciousness.

  Molly hurried away to phone for help, while he did his best to stem the flow of blood coming from the gaping wound in the young girls stomach, and as she lay dying in his arms, he offered up a prayer for her salvation. By the time the ambulance arrived just a few minutes later, the girl was dead!

  Nobody, at that time, knew who the yo
ung girl was; she wasn’t local that was for sure. Abbeville, being a small rural community, with it’s nearest neighbour better than twenty miles away in any direction; everyone knew each other and any strange face, stuck out like a sore thumb. It was three days after her death when they found out who the young girl was, and even later, the reason why she came to Abbeville.

  Emily Anderson, it transpired, was a bastard child, and the result of a secret affair between Rita Anderson, and her Cousin Harriet’s husband, Ted Walker. Emily had come to stay with her widowed aunt Harriet, and her family, after her mother kicked her out of their home. It was Emily’s first visit to Abbeville, and she had gone off on her own to explore the small market town. When she failed to return, Harriet had reported her niece missing. Following procedure, the police did nothing for twenty four hours before making inquiries, and setting up a search for the missing girl. It was only when the fatal stabbing had been reported to them by the local hospital that they connected the two, and asked Harriet Walker if she could identify the body.

  The crime scene, by this time had been contaminated. The local police taped off the park, and did a systematic search of the entire area, but no evidence could be found leading to her attacker. All appeals to the public had failed to produce a lead.

  Apart from blood spatter on a bush just a few yards from the main gate and the blood trail leading out to where she had died, there were no other signs that anything untoward had occurred here.

  With a sigh, Father Patrick came out of his reverie, and returned to the task of preparing for the funeral mass. His bible lay open on his desk, picking it up, his eyes were drawn to a passage in Genesis. In verse 28:15 he read.

  ‘Behold I am with thee and will keep thee in all places wither thou goest.’

  Poor Emily Anderson wouldn’t be going anywhere, ever again, he thought. Only seventeen years of age, all her hopes and dreams for the future died with her on that beautiful, May morning, when her life was so brutally ended. He sat down at his desk again, and taking up his pen, began to write.

  Meanwhile, Emily Anderson’s killer was still out there somewhere! Free to walk the streets, free to strike again!

  CHAPTER 2

  Percy Grimes lived alone in a thatched cottage on the outskirts of Abbeville, earning just enough money to keep body and soul together by doing odd jobs about the farms. He was a loner, a man who ‘kept himself to himself.’ Considered a weirdo by the locals, they told their children ‘Stay away from Percy Grimes, he’s not right in the head.’

  Not fond of human companionship, Percy was at home in the countryside, alone with nature. When not doing odd jobs, he would spend hours sitting on an old bench, talking to the birds, encouraged into his small front garden by the large feeding table and bird bath. In his back garden he kept a couple of saddle-back pigs. He named them George and Gertrude, after his dead grandparents who had raised him, and whose bodies he would have dearly loved to have fed to his pigs, had they not both been burnt to a cinder in a house fire many years ago. Their remains were buried in Abbeville churchyard. He still delighted in peeing on their graves, when he knew he would not be seen. Payback for the hell of a life they had forced him to live.

  Percy never really had a chance in life. Born to a mother who sold her favours on the Liverpool dockside, and consequently, she had no idea who his father might be.

  His mother Irene died of Syphilis when she was thirty, and four year old Percy was taken in and raised by his grandparents. Most of Percy’s time growing up was spent helping his sickly grandmother with household chores. His days were filled with fetching and carrying buckets of water from the pump in the back yard, logs from the woodpile, and making her seemingly endless cups of tea. When that was done, he would help his grandfather with the digging, planting, and lifting of vegetables in their small allotment, and running errands. He would get clipped around the ear if he was too slow. This left little time for his education.

  Percy’s grandparents were poor country folk, brought up the hard way. They raised Percy the way they themselves had been raised. The old house they lived in had once belonged to George’s parents. It had none of the amenities that the rest of Abbeville enjoyed. The toilet facilities, such as they were, consisted of a small shed several yards from the house, where a wooden frame with a hole in its centre had been erected over a pit dug into the ground beneath it.

  George Grimes had hammered a nail into the wall, and on this, old newspapers were hung. This served as a toilet roll. One of Percy’s many tasks was to tear old newspapers into small squares and thread them onto a piece of string, to hang on the nail. When he complained that his hands were covered in ink from the news print, his grandfather replied, “Think yourself lucky my boy. You can have a read while you shit!”

  Percy hated using the toilet. In the warm weather the flies swarmed around him while he sat, with hands gripping the wooden edge of the frame, as he emptied his bowels into the stinking hole, afraid that he would fall into it. In the winter, when the ground was cold and hard, he would sit shivering in his shirt on the wooden frame, straining as hard as he could to get the job over with as quickly as possible. If he just wanted a pee, he would raise the sash on his bedroom window just high enough to pee out of it.

  Percy was allowed one candle a week to light the small room where he slept.

  What few clothes he processed were clean, but full of patches, hiding the holes.

  He had two pairs of boots, one for everyday wear, and one for Sundays. On a Sunday the whole family attended church. George Grimes would make sure his wife and grandchild attended both morning and evening services. No excuses were taken for ill health, or unfavourable weather conditions. George ruled his family with an iron rod, the main reason his only child, Irene, had left home at fifteen, preferring a life on the streets, to living under her tyrannical father’s roof.

  Eventually, Percy’s everyday boots got so worn down they had holes in the soles, and the cold winter snow was constantly leaving his feet in a wet and freezing state.

  He asked his grandfather if he could wear his Sunday boots, and get rid of the old worn out ones. This only served in getting him another beating. He shivered in fear as he watched his grandfather remove his thick leather belt with the huge brass buckle. As he wrapped the belt around his hand, his grandmother, Gertrude, turned her back on the two, and closed her ears to Percy’s pleading, as she poked at the logs in the fireplace. Percy could still hear his grandfather’s voice shouting in his ear, as he laid into him with the leather belt, leaving huge welts on his scrawny, malnourished, little body.

  “You’re an ungrateful little bastard! You should be thankful for the roof over your head and the food in your belly. You’re not even worth a pile of horse shit, you’re a lazy little devil, and do nothing to earn your keep. At least horse shit is useful on the allotment.”

  His grandfather had taken a packet of corn flakes from the cupboard and emptied them into a plastic container. Then drawing an outline of the boot with the stub of a pencil, he cut two cardboard insoles from the box they had been in. Shoving the cut-outs into the worn-out boots, he ordered Percy to put them on.

  “Now get the hell out of the house and fetch your gran some water, before I give you a tight kick up the arse,” he bellowed. Face streaming with tears Percy made haste to do his bidding. When finally, Percy’s feet had outgrown his own boots, he was given a pair of his grandfather’s old ones which were far too big and kept falling off his feet. Gertrude seeing this, stuffed the toes with old newspaper, and laced them up as tightly as possible. Percy clomped around as best he could in his oversized boots. By the end of the day, his legs and feet ached so much, and were so painful, he removed them, and went around bare-footed when ever he could get away with it, risking his grandfathers wrath.

  Percy had no playmates. No one wanted to mix with him on the rare occasions he was allowed to go to school. They preferred to keep away from the ragged-arsed boy who was described by the Head Master as being,
‘as odd as two left feet!’

  When enquiries were made by the truant officer as to why Percy was missing so much of his schooling, he was told by Gertrude that Percy was a very sickly child, prone to getting colds, and sick stomachs. Nothing was ever done to find out if there was any truth in what she was saying. No doctor’s note was ever forthcoming, nor requested by the school, and so the use and abuse went on day after day. Percy thought things couldn’t get any worse for him, but he was so wrong!

  One day, whilst playing with some snails he’d found on a pile of wet leaves, he stopped to have a pee. Holding his penis up as high as he could without wetting himself, he tried to send the urine in an arch, just to see how far he could make it go, when his grandfather came upon him. Fearing another clip around the head for wasting time outside, instead of helping his grandmother in the house, Percy covered his head with both arms, trying to protect himself from the impending blow, and peed down his leg. The expected blow never fell, instead, his grandfather said in his usual gruff voice.

  “Go and clean yourself up boy, before your trousers dry out and you start to stink of piss.” He gave Percy a shove towards the house.

  Percy went to the pump in the yard, and pulled off his trousers. Holding them in one hand, he pumped water on them with the other, washing out the pee.

  His grandfather had followed, and stood watching him as he did his best to clean himself, the ice-cold water making his balls shrivel up.

  “How old are you now boy? Ten, eleven?” he asked him. Before Percy could answer he said, “You’re growing into a big lad, that thing of yours will keep the ladies pleased when you get older.” He gave Percy a knowing wink. Percy’s face turned crimson, he shied away from all contact with girls. He was scared to death of the ones he had come across at school, even the ones who had taken pity on him and tried to speak to him.

  Percy had a crush on a blonde-haired boy by the name of Stanley Connelly. Percy admired Stanley from afar, having already been punched and kicked by him, when he tried to make Stanley his friend. Percy always dreamt of Stanley.