The Devil Came to Abbeville

by Marian Phair

  “Payment…payment for what?” he asked her

  “Payment for helping you out with your ‘little’ problem; this would be a ‘big’ problem if your wife found out. I’ll bet the girl’s parents wouldn’t be too happy either if they knew of the situation. I’m guessing they don’t, or you wouldn’t be here asking for my help.”

  Albert hadn’t thought about paying Lily for her services, after all, they were friends of long standing. He realised he would have to tread carefully here. If Lily knew he had no money, and no intention of paying her anything for her trouble, she might refuse to help, and he would be right in it.

  “How much were you thinking of charging an old friend for your help, Lily?”

  “I was thinking. It’s got to be worth at least one hundred and fifty quid to rid you of your problem, and for the risk I’m taking.” She cast a sly look in his direction.

  “I haven’t got that kind of money on me, Lily. I don’t carry loads of cash around with me, you know that.”

  “I’ll take a cheque, if that helps you any,” she told him.

  “Look, can’t we settle this afterwards. You know me. I’ll see you get paid.”

  “I don’t suppose I have much choice now, do I?” she stated.

  “Ok, lets get the girl upstairs and get it over with, but mark my words, Albert Brooks, if you renege on the deal, I shall make sure you live to regret it.”

  Lily took Rosemary upstairs to the bedroom she had prepared for the job in hand, leaving Albert to sit and sweat it out downstairs.

  “Did you bring a nightgown and sanitary pads with you?” she asked Rosemary.

  “Yes, they are in my bag.” Rosemary felt relaxed, and fuzzy-headed from the effects of the neat gin she had swallowed.

  “Ok, get undressed, and put your nightgown on. Then I want you to lay on your back on the bed with your knees apart and your heels together. Will you do that for me?”

  As she undressed, Rosemary watched Lily don a pair of surgical gloves. Then she unwrapped something metal from a towel, but Rosemary couldn’t quite see what it was. She lay down on the bed as instructed, and placed her heels together, letting her knees fall apart naturally. Lily approached the bed, a wire coat hanger in her gloved hands.

  “What are you going to do with that coat hanger?” she asked.

  “Just relax. This is what I’ll use to dilate the cervix. You have no need to worry, my dear; I’ve done this a dozen times. Close your eyes and think of something else.

  It will all be over soon.” Panic stricken, Rosemary passed out.

  Albert was pacing up and down in the kitchen, wondering what was going on upstairs that was taking so long. He was about to go and find out, when Lily burst into the kitchen.

  “Quick, Albert, I need your help. I can’t stop the bleeding.”

  “What do you mean you can’t stop the bleeding?”

  “What I said, you bloody idiot.” Lily was beside herself.

  “What the heck are you gabbling on about Lily?”

  “You’ll have to put the girl in your car and get her to the hospital. NOW! If you don’t she’ll bleed to death. God, forgive me, I wish I’d never agreed to help you. We’ll go to prison for this, both of us, if we’re found out.”

  Albert just stood looking at her in a daze. It finally dawned on him that something had gone seriously wrong with the abortion.

  “Well don’t just stand there with your mouth open. That girl is bleeding to death while you stand there gawking!” Lily was panicking now.

  “I didn’t bring the car,” he said, as he started to regain his senses.

  “Christine thinks I’m with my mate, Bob Hill. He only lives a couple of streets away from us, and she would have become suspicious if I took the car, We took a taxi to the top of the High Street, and then walked here.”

  “You have to do something! Get to a phone box and ask for an ambulance, but hurry before it’s too late.”

  “Don’t be bloody daft, I can’t go calling for an ambulance. You know they have to report this sort of thing to the police,” he reminded her.

  “How did you get here? Don’t you own a car?”

  “I can’t drive a car, at my age.” Lily gave a snort of derision. “I came on the train, you idiot.”

  “Call me an idiot one more time, Lily, and I’ll swing for you.” He snapped.

  “Then get a taxi, get anything, but hurry up about it. I’ll go back up to the girl.” Lily almost ran from the room.

  Albert dashed out of the house, and ran all the way to Buxton High Street.

  When he got there, the taxi rank was empty. He looked up and down the crowded street, unsure of what to do next. A few yards away, on the other side of the road, he saw a taxi pull up beside a woman with a child in a pushchair. The woman had several bags of shopping at her feet, and it was obvious she had hailed the taxi. Albert ran across the road, dodging the traffic, and ignoring the honking horns of irate drivers.

  Gasping for breath, he called out to the driver to hold on. Reaching them, he pushed past the woman, who by now had the child in her arms. Albert grabbed hold of the driver’s arm, before he could load the pushchair into the boot of the taxi.

  “Here, what’s your game?” the woman said angrily. “Get your own taxi. I waited twenty minutes for this one.” Resting the child on one hip, she stood glaring at him.

  Ignoring her, Albert stood fighting for breath as he tried to tell the driver, he needed his help. “It’s my wife,” he gasped. “She needs to get to hospital right away, it’s an emergency.”

  “Then call an ambulance mate. That’s what they are there for,” the driver told him.

  “You don’t understand. She’s pregnant, and I think she’s lost the baby. I have to get her to hospital right away, she’s haemorrhaging.”

  “Like I said, mate, call for an ambulance. They’ll get her to hospital quicker than I could. Anyway, if she bleeding like you say she is, I couldn’t take her in my taxi. I’d have to take it off the road afterwards to get it cleaned. I can’t afford to have my cab off the road. I’m struggling to keep my head above water as it is. Sorry mate, I can’t help you. There’s a phone box at the end of the street, next to the bank, you can call from there. I should hurry if I were you.” With that said, the cab driver proceeded to load the woman’s items into his cab. There was nothing Albert could do. He turned and walked away, and as he did, he heard the woman say to the driver.

  “There’s something not right here. If his wife’s had a miscarriage like he said, then why is he running up and down the street looking for a taxi, instead of dialling the emergency services for an ambulance?” Albert didn’t hear the drivers reply as he hurried away. Unsure of what to do next, he made his way back to Station Road and Lily.

  When he arrived, he found Lily sitting by the window, sobbing into a glass of gin.

  “I can’t get a taxi,” he told her, eyeing the half empty gin bottle.

  “Now how the hell can I get her to a hospital?”

  “There’s nothing you can do for Rosemary now,” she said. “The girl’s dead.”

  “What? What are you saying? She can’t be dead. I haven’t been gone five minutes.”

  “You’ve been gone over half an hour,” she told him, between sobs.

  “Rosemary died two minutes ago. I think shock had something to do with it, along with all the blood loss. I shall never get over this, Albert, as long as I live. I had to sit there and watch the light going out in that poor girl’s eyes, knowing I could do nothing to help her, and that I was the one who had caused her suffering.” Lily sat sobbing her heart out. Albert did nothing to comfort her; he just stood inside the doorway, in a state of shock.

  He didn’t know how long he had stood there before he finally made a move.

  On leaden feet he crossed the room and climbed the stairs. He stood for a few moments, with his hand on the doorknob of the bedroom, afraid to open it and go inside, dreading what he would find when he did. Finally, he pl
ucked up enough courage to open the door. Inside the room, the scene that greeted him would be forever etched in his mind.

  Rosemary lay on the bed, her dead face deathly pale. Her bloodstained nightgown was pulled up to her waist, and the sheets and towels between her thighs were red with her blood. He fell to his knees beside the bed, and took one of her small hands in his own, surprised to find it was still warm. For the first time in his selfish life, Albert felt sorrow. Not for him, but for this lovely young girl whose life had been so cruelly snatched from her, and he knew in his heart, that he was to blame. Two lives had been lost through his selfish actions, that of his young mistress, and their unborn child.

  With a heavy heart he went back down the stairs, and into the front room where Lily sat sniffing into a tear-soaked handkerchief. By now, an almost empty gin bottle in front of her. She looked up at him through eye’s that were red and swollen from crying.

  “We have to get rid of the evidence of what happened here today, Albert. I can’t do this alone. You’ll have to deal with the body, while I try to clean up the mess in the bedroom. We can put everything into black bin bags, and hide them among the rest of the rubbish outside that’s waiting for the skips. Unless you have a better idea? We’ll need to wait for it to get dark before we can do that, but we can make a start upstairs when ever you feel up to it.” She watched him as he paced up and down the room, trying to judge his mood. She could see he was badly shaken by what had happened, but then so was she, and she was far too old to serve time in prison for the crime of facilitating an abortion. She knew, if caught, she would only get out of prison in a wooden box.

  Albert stopped pacing, he knew that what Lily was saying was true. They had no choice, they were caught between a rock and a hard place. Hearing what needed to be done, didn’t make the doing of it any easier. He wouldn’t hear of dumping Rosemary’s body with the rubbish in Lily’s back garden. There had to be another way!

  “That’s far too risky,” he told her. “That would bring the law straight to this door.”

  Albert knew if the law came knocking on Lily’s door, she would sell him down the road. He wouldn’t blame her if that were to happen, he’d do the same if the shoe was on the other foot. He had to think of a way out of this mess that he’d got them into.

  He was beginning to think more clearly now the initial shock was wearing off, and was giving serious thought to saving his skin, and that of Lily’s, without leaving a trail to either of their doors.

  “I noticed a junkyard just down the road. Do you know if they lock it up at night?”

  “That’s old Bob Brice’s place, it’s been there for donkey’s years. Whenever I’ve passed his place, the gates have always been open. I think I remember him saying once that the gates had dropped off the hinges, and he wasn’t going to waste good money fixing them, with nothing worth stealing in the yard. Why do you ask?”

  “I think that would be a better place to hide her body. We couldn’t do things your way, apart from the risk of the bags splitting, they wouldn’t be big enough to hold her body unless it was cut up, and there’s no damn way I’m doing that.” He gave an involuntary shudder at the thought.

  “No, we have to wait for nightfall, and make sure no ones around, and hide her in the junkyard. Maybe you could have a bit of a bonfire and burn the sheets and things, while I hide her body.”

  “A bonfire would only attract attention; there are some really nosey devils around here!” she told him.

  “I guess you’re right about that. Well, you could bag up the sheets and things, and put some other rubbish on the top, and then hide them outside with the other bags.”

  Lily reached for the gin bottle, knowing she would need something to help her get through the job ahead. This was her way of coping with her problems.

  She always tried to ‘drown her sorrows’ with gin. Albert beat her to the bottle, snatching it up off the table.

  “Is this all you’ve got to drink around here?” he asked her.

  “It’s all I’ve got, period. There’s plenty of water in the tap in the kitchen. You’re welcome to help yourself to as much as you can drink of that, but you can leave my gin alone.”

  “I need a drink, and if this is all you’ve got, it’ll have to do. You’ve had enough to drink anyway by the looks of things. Maybe Rosemary would still be alive if you hadn’t been pissed up when you did the job.” He lifted the bottle to his lips, and tilting back his head, drained the contents down his throat.

  Lily flew at him in a rage. Her fingernails clawed at his face, drawing blood.

  “You rotten selfish bastard. How dare you say that to me! I did everything I could to help you and the girl.” She tried to wrench the bottle from his hands.

  Albert pushed her away from him with such force, that she was sent flying across the room. He heard a sickening thud as her head struck the mantelpiece, and she fell into a crumpled heap on the floor. Dropping the empty bottle, he ran over to where she laid still, on the old, faded carpet, blood pooling beneath her head. Dropping to his knees, he lifted her by her shoulders, and rested her frail body against his, cradling her.

  “Lily, hey, Lily, speak to me. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Oh God Lily, don’t do this to me!” He shook her, trying to rouse her. Her head fell to one side, and he saw the huge, bloody dent in her skull. It had cracked like an egg when she hit the mantelpiece, and he realised she was dead. He lay her down on the carpet as gently as he could, and stood trembling in fear, looking down at her body trying to will the life back into it. Then realising he was covered in her blood, he headed for the kitchen.

  His face was smarting where her nails had clawed his flesh. Gingerly he touched his cheeks with the pads of his fingers, and was surprised to find blood. On shaking legs he stood at the sink and washed the blood from his face and hands, wincing as the icy cold water stung his sore cheeks. Then peeling off his shirt, he washed her blood from his arms and chest, and used the back of his shirt to dry himself.

  Now he had two dead bodies to dispose of, and he knew he had to think of a way to conceal them without leading a trail to him. There was only one thing for it.

  He would have to torch the place, and hope the bodies would be consumed in the fire, but to do that, he would need something highly flammable. He considered his dilemma.

  If the junkyard down the road was open as Lily said, maybe he could find something there that he could use. Then there was the problem of covering himself, he couldn’t put his bloodstained shirt back on. Turning on the tap over the kitchen sink, he held the shirt under the running water, and tried to wash the blood out of it. When the water ran clear again, and his shirt was free of its sticky red mess, he wrung it out and hung it on the back of one of the chairs, and sat down on the other, mulling over his situation, while waiting for his shirt to dry and darkness to fall.

  Rising, he went in search of Lily’s handbag, and keeping his eye’s averted from the body on the floor, he searched the front room for it, and anything else that might be of use to him. He found her handbag on the floor beside the small table under the window. There was a little over ten pounds in her purse. Then removing the money, he stuffed it into his trouser pocket. Rummaging through her handbag, he found her chequebook, and an un-mailed letter addressed to Smith and Johnson’s Estate Agents. In a small, zipped compartment in the back, he found a set of house keys.

  Going to the front door he tried the keys, but none of them fit the lock, and he realised these most be the keys to her home in Lexington, and he pocketed them also. Then it occurred to him. The un-mailed letter would have Lily’s signature on it, and her chequebook was here. If he could find a way to forge her signature, he would be able to write himself a cheque. Retrieving the chequebook, he took it, and the letter over to the table. Opening it, he saw Lily’s signature at the bottom of the page. Now all he needed was something to write with, but there was no pen in the handbag.

  There was nothing in the cupboard drawers in th
e front room either, so he continued his search in the kitchen. Rummaging through the drawers he found a stub of a pencil, but he knew that would not be acceptable for the purpose in hand. With reluctant steps, he went upstairs to where Rosemary lay, and searched through her overnight bag. This time he was in luck, he found a pen and her cell phone. Pocketing both he went back downstairs.

  He took the letter and the chequebook into the kitchen, and tore off one of the cheques. Then placing the letter up against the window pane, so that the daylight came through the paper, he held the blank cheque over it, and keeping it tight to the glass, he carefully traced her signature. He made the cheque out to ‘pay the bearer,’ and added a modest sum of two hundred pounds, and the following day’s date.

  It was now late afternoon, and there was nothing he could do until nightfall. His stomach started rumbling, wanting food, but there was nothing he could do about that right now. He sat with his back resting against the wall his feet propped up on the other chair, ankles crossed, being careful not to disturb his drying shirt, and as the early evening shadows fell across the room, he dozed fitfully.

  CHAPTER 15

  In the rectory kitchen, Ruth had been busy baking Sally’s birthday cake. It was cooling on a wire rack on the countertop, waiting to be iced. Her long blonde hair was tied back into a ponytail out of the way. The sleeves of her sweater were rolled up to her elbows to keep them from getting soiled. She worked on the pastry for the steak and kidney pie she was preparing for their evening meal. The meat for the filling was in a pan on the cooker, simmering over a low heat, its juices mixed with the thick gravy, and seasoning filled the kitchen with a delicious aroma that made Scott Holden’s mouth water.

  He sat perched on one edge of the kitchen table, a mug of coffee in his strong capable hands, watching Ruth as she deftly rolled out the pastry. Taking the flour sifter she sprinkled more flour onto the board, and flipped the pastry over. The dust from the flour tickled her nose, and she knew she was going to sneeze. She quickly turned her head to one side to avoid sneezing over the food, and sneezed into her shoulder.