Cut To The Bone

by Sally Spedding

  *

  The five-minute deadline had expanded to an hour, then another. Finally, with the kids in bed, and nothing left of Kayleigh's carefully criss-crossed fruit tart, she and Frank sat opposite each other at the kitchen table, a can of beer each. Just like old times, except neither was drinking.

  His stubble was grey in parts, and his once-lively eyes which he'd passed on to his kids, had lost their colour, nestling in a bed of lines. Both hands were cross-hatched by cuts and not all had healed. Once, she'd have worked instant magic with Savlon and plasters, but when she visualised these same fingers on Denise Monk's body, any sympathy faded.

  "You've been dumped, haven't you?” She said first.

  He turned his can round on the table, avoiding her eyes. "Look, Reet, why I'm ‘ere. I got some news.”

  "Denise, Queen of Tarts? Do me a favour."

  "Ain't seen ‘er since Jez's funeral. I couldn't. And as for a decent night's kip, what's that, eh?"

  Rita sniffed. The one thing about Frank was he knew how to tap for sympathy.

  "You had some news," she reminded him.

  “Cops called round first thing. Said they'd found a knife by The Loop.”

  "So? There's enough stuff there to fill a hundred skips." Then Frau Zeller's Iess-than-neighbourly observations came to mind.

  “Why tell you, not me?"

  "Couldn't get through. Your landline was engaged, so they said."

  “They know my mobile number.”

  He shrugged. Inhaled sharply. "Wait for it, this knife still `ad Walton-on-Sea burnt into the handle. Even after all this time. No sheath, mind."

  Rita got up and went over to the window as if the darkness outside was preferable to the lit-up kitchen.

  "Where's it now," she asked quietly.

  "Bein’ kept for tests. I told the cops again `ow I’d bought Jez one for workin', one for spare. And a box…”

  She spun round. "D'you realise that could make us suspects?"

  “For Chrissake, woman. It was ‘is knife. Not yours or mine. ‘E used it, remember? Never went nowhere without it, despite what we said…”

  "Where's the other one, then? And the box?"

  Frank shrugged, looking miserable.

  Rita thought back again to that summer holiday in 2008 when Jez had hunted for driftwood with Jip. Made sand mountains for Freddie and Kayleigh…

  Tears clouded her eyes as she went into the lounge where his little clay swan still stood on the TV. The wall cupboard contained an Ark and its cargo of balsa wood animals untouched for so long. These she placed in front of her husband.

  "I'd not seen either of those knives, their sheaths or the box after we moved here," she said, but Frank was too busy lifting off the boat's roof and extracting a pair of tiny gazelles to reply.

  "Look at these, Reet," he scrutinised each in turn. "Our kid was so damn clever." His rough fingers felt each creature in turn. They’d taken hours to make, whenever the boy had a spare moment.

  His father replaced them in exactly the same spot and looked up at her with weary eyes. "Are you ready?”

  “For what?”

  “Cops reckon that the wounds in our Jez's chest weren't made by no bit o' glass or stuff like that, most likely a knife. But not accidental like…"

  Fear and cold hit her both at once.

  “It could’ve been that one,” she managed to say.

  He inched a hand forwards to touch hers, but she moved it away.

  "And ‘e never rode ‘is bike too near the edge neither..." Frank's voice almost disappeared. "‘E was fuckin' murdered and the bike chucked in after. It's possible that same knife did the Wheeler perv in an' all. Why they want to talk to you about..." his breath gave out.

  "Go on."

  "Digging ‘em both up for a new Inquest."

  *

  Half past ten, with a hard rain falling, Rita cut open the Monsoon bag and laid its contents on the table. Two well-thumbed teen porn magazines lay folded over a pair of Ancient & Modern hymn books.

  "Who’d want to look at this filth?" whispered Frank.

  "Dr. Perelman, obviously." She slid the magazines under the carrier bag then opened up the hymn books. From the carved-out oblongs among their pages, she plucked six small, foil packages. That sweet and sour smell she'd noticed earlier, intensified as the morsels of what she wasn't quite sure, rolled around the table.

  Frank bent over for a closer look.

  “They’re all animals' noses. Here’s two from rabbits, and this one's... I dunno. Ugh!" He turned away while she re-wrapped the gruesome souvenirs and returned them to their sanctuary, careful not to let any of them touch her skin.

  "Sicko. And who’d have thought o' doin' this?" He picked up each hymn book in turn, trying to read the inscriptions on their flyleaves. "‘Ere we go. David Claus Perelman. Music Department.

  Chertstone College, Swindon." He looked up, puzzled.

  "Swindon?" Rita echoed him.

  "Maybe where ‘e used to live.”

  Frank scraped back his chair and stood over her. He wanted to touch her hair - the same colour as his son's had been. To wrap his arms tight around her. But he couldn't. That wouldn't be fair. At least, not till he was sorted.

  “So he was mad after all." Her voice brittle. Thinking the worst.

  "Who?"

  “The Dad of course."

  "What do we do now?"

  "We? No, I don't think so. You had your chance, over and over."

  "Maybe this'll do you." He slipped a hand inside his filthy donkey jacket. "You’re owed it."

  The bulky envelope contained a wad of new twenty pound notes. At least three hundred pounds' worth. She pushed it back to him.

  "No. It's dirty money."

  "Come on, Reet. You three could do with a helping hand for Christmas. I can see that."

  "Not from you we don't. I’ve got a job. I passed my driving test and I'm getting a little car tomorrow. Also a laptop sometime. Then we'll go and live somewhere safe. So thanks, but no thanks."

  He left without another word, his beer still untouched, but when she went to lock up after him, found a used Ladbroke's betting slip partially stuffed under the door mat. An address scrawled on the reverse.

  82, Sheerwater Street,

  Fulham

  SW6 2DT

  A dog-eared A to Z of London showed that street didn't exist. So Frank must have been at the Old Soldier with Denise all along, Rita thought. Where else, the bloody liar?

  There was no victory in this whatsoever. She'd just sent the kids' Dad away, and Kayleigh especially still missed him. In fact, whenever they’d thought they'd seen him, they'd yell out his name, only for some stranger's puzzled face to turn round.

  Rita closed the curtains and made herself a strong, black coffee all the while dwelling on what Frank had said about Jez and that knife. If true, it was too terrible to imagine yet, as if Frank’s sorrow was suddenly hers, the pain which had begun in her chest spread to all her nerve endings.

  She pulled the Monsoon bag towards her and, without really knowing why, again emptied its contents to explore the re-enforced area at the very bottom. Sure enough, here lay something different. A slightly damp envelope almost moulded to the vinyl. With her heart drumming, she eased it towards her. The pencilled words coming into focus.

  To Kayleigh, with all my love, Dave xxx

  Rita tore it open and with a gasp of horror, saw three grainy, black and white photos. Her then six year-old daughter. In shocking, intimate close-up. So there had been a film in that Pete Brown’s camera after all…

  She rushed over to the sink, bent over the gaping plughole, the stray tea leaves and bits of sprouts in close-up before letting her body take over, purging and re-purging until there was nothing left to come up.

  *

  An hour later, she woke up at the kitchen table
, depleted. Her mug and its contents had tipped over, but nothing mattered except that she had to act immediately on what she'd just discovered. Even though it was two o’clock in the morning, she punched the Briar Bank police station’s number on the landline phone, and begged for anyone free to come over.

  *

  Within thirty minutes, a fresh-faced PC Truelove had arrived, but her healthy glow soon vanished once she’d seen the contents of that envelope and the Monsoon bag.

  “It’s incredible that these came from Meadow Hill,” she said. “But rest assured we’ll leave no stone unturned to investigate what’s happened. When I’ve taken your Statement, just make sure you get some proper rest, and try not to worry.”

  Before leaving, the Constable placed the bag and its foul contents into a white security folder and bore it away, leaving Rita angry that no mention had been made of Jez’s new Inquest and the discovery of what she knew was his knife.

  Two could play at that game, she told herself. She had plans of her own and, with the kids tucked up once more, believing their Dad's job was taking him away again until Christmas Eve, she cobbled together their packed lunches for the morning, and began writing to the Metropolitan Police in London.

  Directory Enquiries had given her New Scotland Yard’s number, and she’d phoned their switchboard for their address. With her letter to DI Tim Fraser finished, she sealed down the envelope and used her last Christmas card stamp to stick next to his name.

  34

  Mullion Road had been built in 1968 by Coventry City Council as part of the Downside overspill estate north west of the more salubrious Briar Bank. However, unlike its more eastern counterparts, Scrub End and Ditch Hollow, these council houses stood in semi-detached pairs along a grid system of rat-runs. Many had been bought by Asians during the Thatcher years, and were now reinforced by defensive trellising, vandal-proof wheelie bins and security lights glaring intermittently through the night.

  Since a Far-Right rally held in Briar Bank Park last St. George's Day, these precautions had become more extreme, and Jacquie Harper could afford none of them. Indeed, when her shifts at the Happy Chick processing plant were summarily reduced, she could barely find the rent, never mind the spiteful bedroom tax. Even bus fare for a less revolting job would prove a major obstacle.

  While Louis was busy on his new computer, she'd stand inside the front window with its cut-down curtains still hemmed by pins, staring out at the dingy garden she had no heart to improve. Number 14, Meadow Hill which had sold only a week after the For Sale sign had gone up, was no more than a mirage. Even the few objects she’d brought from its spacious rooms, looked dismal here. But this was nothing compared to the anonymous neighbours‘ din that had gradually driven her to the bottle.

  How she envied the Fletchers from London, who'd turned up with a new BMW and paid cash. How she’d never felt so undermined by their in-your-face prosperity and Dave's utter selfishness.

  Yet as her letter to Graham stated, she’d hang on for Louis to finish school, and then what? Back to Swindon, where it all began? To her mother’s untended grave? And what about her abandoned Open University research? The chatty lunches in the Brain and Behaviour unit where she’d discussed Nature versus Nurture with professionals, so theory could be put into practice with Louis. A haven from her daily, domestic traumas.

  Worse, the worry every time the phone or doorbell rang, as it did at half past ten on that dismal Friday morning shortly before Christmas.

  “I’ll go,” said Louis, leaping downstairs as if anticipating one of his secretive new friends. “It’ll be for me.”

  Not quite.

  “Is your mother in?” asked a voice she recognised as belonging to PC Jane Truelove. “We’d like a word.”

  “Yep. Feel free. She’s upstairs, making my bed.”

  Jacquie saw him hold the door wide open for them, and all too soon the newly-appointed Detective Constable Jarvis and trashy Truelove were in the narrow hall with raindrops glistening on their shoulders, looking her way. And there she was, torn between a public and private duty to speak the truth.

  “Mum?” Louis called upstairs. “It’s your favourite people.”

  *

  “Where’s your partner?” Constable Truelove asked, eyeing The Fawn’s now ringless wedding finger, as the threesome perched around the small kitchen table. “Surely you’ve some idea, and surely there’s been some contact during these past three years?”

  “You don’t give up, do you?” Louis smiled before switching on the dented tin kettle. He’d seen on TV how pigs always like a cuppa.

  "I'm afraid, Mrs Perelman… ”

  “It’s Ms. Harper now,” she snapped.

  “Well, Ms. Harper, we've come across certain disturbing items linked to your husband, Dr. Perelman…” said Jarvis.

  “Aka Dr. Jeckyll, you mean, and unmarried,” Louis reminded him. “By the way, he’s not my real Dad and her over there’s not my Mum.”

  The Fawn glared, while Truelove whose lipstick had smeared below her bottom lip, gave him an ever odder look. Louis could tell that news had unsettled her, just like his real Dad when he’d called him at work, aping a former colleague.

  “He may have led a dangerously secret life," Jarvis added, pointedly.

  “That’s ridiculous!” The Fawn protested, suddenly all pink.

  “Why stick up for him?” Louis scanned her stupid face. “Look at the shite he’s left us in.”

  Jarvis ignored them both. "So, we’re relying on you to help us."

  Louis, brought over three unmatching mugs, a jam jar of sugar and three battered teaspoons. “I actually know him better than anyone. I observed him non-stop.”

  The kettle began to whistle. He switched it off, aware his listeners were on high alert as he filled their mugs. “OK. He was pretty tetchy most of the time. Obsessed with classical music, but also a racist and a bigot. For a start, he loathed the Scrub End overspill and its threat to his home, which of course you, Detective Constable, witnessed at that Neighbourhood Watch meeting.”

  The pig took a sip of his drink. Too hot. Good, thought Louis.

  “He also supported the Death Penalty for paedos, yet hypocritically - and I hate saying this - he fancied little girls.”

  The Fawn gasped.

  “That’s some accusation,” said Truelove. “Can you qualify it?”

  “Well, for a start, before doing a bunk, he was knobbing a College student young enough to be his own daughter…”

  “Go to your room at once!” The Fawn shouted.

  “No. We’re listening,” said the female. “Someone needs to.” Her notepad in front of her. Her biro busy.

  “Thank you,” said Louis, sweetly. “Because there’s more.”

  “Go on.”

  He paused, for effect. It seemed to work. Both cops leant forwards. His chance had come.

  “Just after moving into number 14, he was never without his Canon EOS with its zoom lens and built-in flash.”

  “And what did he use this for?” Truelove quizzed.

  “I said, he fancied little girls.”

  Silence. She stopped writing.

  “Anything else you could add?”

  “Yes. At weekends he'd often chop up slugs and worms, even the odd dead mole and other small mammals. Disgusting, isn’t it? But how could I tell her?” He stared at his enemy whose floppy mouth remained open.

  “What implement did he use for this… this strange hobby?” Queried Jarvis. His coffee left to cool.

  “A small knife with Walton-on-Sea burnt into its handle. And he kept his sick trophies locked in a little metal box with a houndstooth pattern. But what really f
reaked me out was how he hummed his music while doing it, and turned nasty whenever I tried to stop him.” He looked at The Fawn. “Now do you understand why I don’t eat much meat. Would you?”

  No-one answered.

  “Oh, and he deliberately smashed up my mobile phone. I mean, how weird is that?”

  Jarvis pushed his chair back from the table, hitting the wall.

  "That was most useful, Louis," he said. "Hopefully, we can now move things forward. I should also thank Mrs Zeller, amongst others.”

  “It’s Frau,” Louis corrected him, feeling suddenly queasy. “Why her?”

  “Nosy bitch,” said The Fawn, showing herself up. “And her randy old husband.”

  "But what about that Pete Brown character?” Louis quizzed, getting back to basics. “Anything on him yet? I mean, it's been a long time."

  Jarvis paused, while Truelove closed her notepad and pocketed her biro.

  "Stones are continually being turned."

  "Well that's comforting to know."

  “By the way, Ms. Harper, we feel it’s only right to inform you that a knife matching the description just given by your son, has been found by The Loop in Black Dog Brook. There’s also a new Inquest on Jez Martin and Malcolm Wheeler planned for the New Year, following the discovery of suspicious knife wounds. We’ll keep you informed.”

  Louis shivered.

  Jarvis stood up and looked at him. His unexpected question like a rogue missile in the silence. "You still planning on being an officer of the law?"

  "Sure." Louis managed to grin, but no-one else did.

  *

  Once the pigs had gone, he watched The Fawn crawl upstairs towards the bathroom. Heard the slam of the medicine cabinet door and the rattle of pills. After that it went predictably quiet. She slept the rest of the day, missing her afternoon shift at Happy Chicks. Not that he was bothered. He'd enough to think about, especially the discovery of that knife and news of a second Inquest. More immediately, he had to lengthen the legs on his constable’s uniform without leaving tell-tale stitches around each hem.