The Face Stealer

by Robert Scott-Norton

  More voices behind him, getting louder. Thadeus glanced back and saw a figure on the line of sand dunes overlooking the boatyard. A torchlight found Thadeus, and then an excited shout. Time was running out.

  “Step away from her,” Thadeus said.

  “He wants to take me away. He’s hurt me before.”

  “You’re going to be safe,” the young man said softly. “The police are coming. No one’s going to hurt you.”

  Thadeus saw the change in Irulal’s posture a second too late to save the young man. Her expression dropped, a smile spread across her face and she lunged forwards, fingers extended, and grabbed onto the young man’s face. Too late, he tried to evade her reach but she was inhumanly fast and twisted his head with a flick of the wrist.

  He dropped.

  “Ben!”

  The teenage girl ran to her boyfriend and cradled his head. A strange wailing sound came from her throat.

  Irulal smiled and stared down at the dead boy and the wailing girl.

  Thadeus took a final look at the scene before him, then he thought of his friends and the ice water and the pleading cries from the other side of the bulkhead door that he’d locked to save the rest of them.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Thadeus felt the pressure of the trigger against his finger, took aim, and squeezed.

  1

  Max Harding saw the ‘For Sale’ sign in front of his house as soon as he turned into his road. With that now familiar burning sensation beginning in his stomach again, he pulled into his drive and killed the ignition. He glared at the wooden intruder.

  What has she done now?

  He fumbled for his phone in his trouser pocket, and checked for any messages. Nothing new. The last had been from Heather yesterday evening.

  Have you told her?

  He took a deep breath and sighed, before opening the door and hauling himself from his seat.

  Max found his wife, Cindy, on her knees in the kitchen, pink rubber gloves stretched up almost to her elbows, a bowl of steaming water beside her, as she wiped out the inside of a cupboard.

  Most of the cupboards were open with their contents piled onto whatever surfaces were free. The Royal Doulton plates, that she’d convinced him they needed, towered precariously on the edge of the wooden worktop. Kitchen chairs hid under cooking pans, baking trays, and other kitchen ephemera that Max didn’t think he’d ever seen.

  They could open a pretty decent shop with all this stuff.

  Max grabbed a beer from the fridge, gulping the first mouthful before resting it against his leg as he watched his wife.

  Finally satisfied, Cindy stood up and peeled off her gloves.

  “What happened to your finger?” he said. The middle finger of her left hand was wrapped in a cotton gauze with a bunch of plasters holding the dressing in place.

  “Nothing, I caught it on a knife.”

  “Looks like you should get it seen to.”

  “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

  Cindy took a cardboard box from a stack of them she’d piled by the door and placed it in front of the glasses cupboard. She worked quickly, grabbing each glass and wrapping it in newspaper before stuffing it into the box. These were the champagne flutes they’d used when Cindy announced her pregnancy. That had been the last time they’d been taken out. Max swigged from his bottle.

  “So what’s the story?” she said.

  “Story?”

  “We were meant to go to Trisha’s last night. She was doing Mexican. I’d been looking forward to it all week. It would have been fun.”

  “I couldn’t make it.”

  She wrapped another glass in the newspaper and shoved it in the box. Something crunched. “I know.”

  “I had a client in York. His server was knackered. Took me most of the night to get his backups working, and by then it seemed too late to travel home. I stayed over.”

  “OK.”

  “OK?”

  “OK,” she repeated, taking the last glass from the cupboard, she turned it round so it caught the light. “I don’t know why we ever bought such vulgar glasses.”

  Max placed his bottle down and went upstairs for a shower. He closed his eyes as the near scalding water blasted him. Why did she have to act up tonight? He stayed under the water far longer than he’d intended and his skin was tender from the pressure by the time he stepped out.

  He pulled on a new shirt, then checked his phone. No new messages. He made a call, but it went straight to voicemail.

  Clean and refreshed, although his mind whirling, Max went looking for his beer in the kitchen but found the bottle upended in the sink instead. Cindy had moved some more things into a box and was sitting on a chair, sipping a cup of tea.

  “I hadn’t finished my beer,” he said.

  “My mistake.”

  He sighed and took another from the fridge. “So what’s with the sign?”

  “We’re moving, just like you promised.”

  “That was November.”

  “We should go away somewhere. Start new. They’re always doing it on the television. New life in the country. We could go to Wales. I’ve always fancied the mountains.”

  Max shook his head slowly. “You said all of this six months ago.”

  “I mean it this time.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “I do.”

  The house phone rang. Max paused, his beer half-way to his mouth. “Aren’t you going to get that?”

  Cindy pressed her lips together. “She’ll ring back.”

  Max let it ring another few times before he snatched the handset from the stand. “Hello.” A click, then the dial tone. He hung up and dropped the handset on the worktop.

  “Wrong number?” Cindy asked.

  “No one there.”

  The phone rang again. The pair of them stared at it, then Max looked at Cindy; she couldn’t take her eyes from it. Max thought she was going to let it ring out, but before that happened, Cindy stood to answer it. “Hi Mum,” she said.

  Max took another swig from his bottle, spilling a little in his haste. He wiped his chin with the back of a hand, noticing that he probably should have had a shave when he’d been in the shower.

  Cindy wandered from the kitchen, phone in hand, and closed the door behind her. Max took his bottle and sat at the table. He strained to hear the conversation from the hallway but all he caught was Cindy’s muffled voice, at times rising high in pitch before settling again to a compliant drone.

  Cindy returned a few minutes later with a dour expression, saw Max sat on her chair then headed back to the glasses cupboard.

  “What did she want?” Max asked.

  “Usual. She’s lonely. Wants me to go round later, keep her company.”

  Always the same. Sylvia calls: Cindy goes running.

  “And are you going to?”

  “She’s my mother.”

  “I thought you were busy packing.”

  With a speed that surprised Max, Cindy spun and hurled a wine glass. It smashed against the wall behind Max and shattered, showering him and the floor in splinters. Max leapt to his feet, palm facing Cindy.

  “What the hell was that for?”

  “You promised Max. You promised you’d never—I can’t believe you did it again.” she shouted, tears welled in her eyes.

  “Do what?”

  “We were working things out weren’t we? All we needed was more time.”

  Max could sense his cheeks starting to flare.

  “You’re not talking any sense,” he urged. “What’s your mother said to you?”

  “I followed you. Last night.” She didn’t take her eyes from the floor as she spoke, her words heavy and slow.

  Max swigged the last of his beer then put the empty bottle on the worktop and leaned back against the wooden surface.

  “Last night, I waited for you outside work in a taxi. I got the driver to follow you.” She laughed at the memory. “I don’t think he’d ever had so much f
un. Refused to even take a tip. As soon as you headed towards Hesketh Bank, I knew you were going to meet her. I could just feel it in my blood, and you know, I wasn’t even angry last night, just pleased that my instincts were proved right.”

  Max tried to listen but his mind spun through his actions over the last few nights, and weeks. What had he done to give himself away?

  “You’ve made a mistake,” he said.

  “And still the lies. There’s no point Max. You’ve been found out. Just let it go. I’ve finally got one over on you and you’re hating it aren’t you?” And despite the tears, she was smiling. “I watched you for a while. Wanted to see what you saw in her. She was pretty.”

  Max remembered something from last night, and it made his flesh creep. “How long were you watching?”

  “I don’t know. A few hours.”

  “A few hours,” he said, replaying last night. “The back gate banged. Heather thought it was the neighbour’s cat in the bins. But it was you wasn’t it? You were in the back garden.”

  Cindy crossed her arms, and looked Max straight in the eye. “I’m not the guilty party here. You’re the one who’s been sleeping with that whore.”

  Max felt his face get hot with shame, remembering the way they’d been messing around in the kitchen whilst making dinner.

  “Look, I’m sorry. If you saw anything—”

  “Nothing I haven’t seen before.”

  “I was going to tell you. We’ve been wanting to tell you for days. There’s never been a good time.”

  Cindy sighed. “It’s not too late though. Other couples manage to put mistakes behind them. We can too.”

  “She’s not a mistake.”

  “If you say so.”

  Max laughed. He couldn’t help himself. “You still want us to move house? Go and live in the country. Start again.”

  Her lips trembled. She started to wring her hands.

  Max continued, “And that’s going to solve all our problems?”

  “Don’t laugh at me.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, turning away so she wouldn’t see the smirk breaking across his face.

  “I mean it, stop laughing,” she said.

  But all Max could think of was how impossible it would now be, to go and start somewhere new with this woman who’d watched him from the shadows. A woman whose mood flipped like a weather vane. “You don’t want me. You’d be better off alone.”

  Max spun as he heard her approach. The last thing he saw was the bottle of beer in her hand, swinging through the air before it smashed against the side of his head.

  2

  Clouds swam under the midnight blue sky like sharks circling the shallows.

  The silent spinning lights atop the police vehicles cast their blue auras far along the seafront and caught the shapes of uniformed figures standing in the road, unwinding police tape.

  Detective Inspector Payne drove slowly, following the directions of a uniform onto a paved area where he parked alongside an ambulance. Looking to his right, over the top of the sea wall, he saw the undulating waves of the Irish Sea catching silver strands from the moon. On his left, the narrow car park popular with courting couples was empty; uniform would have seen to that. Beyond the car park, through gaps in the sandy hills that bordered one side, he could see across the Marine Lake and to the promenade beyond. He imagined the people sleeping soundly in the dozens of hotels and guest houses, and wondered if many were watching.

  Getting out of the car, he retrieved some gloves from the side pocket of his door and slipped them on. The icy breeze bit into his skin and he turned his collar up. A couple of paramedics waited by the back of the open ambulance drinking coffee from a Thermos and he wondered why they were still here.

  He nodded his way past the uniformed policemen, trying to look collected and together, grunting “hello” to those he recognised and to those he didn't.

  He hurried along the seawall. Nixon, already kitted out in a white crime scene suit, was deep in conversation with a WPC Payne recognised from the station. Upon his approach, Nixon straightened; the chat with his latest potential catch cut short a little unceremoniously. Payne saw the disappointment in the WPCs face and wondered how she could never have heard of this man's reputation. She looked frozen and Payne suggested she head back to her car to stay warm.

  At thirty-five, Nixon had five years on Payne and lived his life like a student with money. Nixon thrust a cup of coffee into Payne's hand and despite the fast food logo on the cardboard cup, the liquid inside was gratefully received. Nixon took a sip from his own and grimaced.

  “Isn’t she a little young?” Payne said.

  “Who?”

  Payne nodded his head towards the retreating WPC.

  Nixon twisted his neck to see. “Oh, Clare? We were just talking.”

  Payne raised an eyebrow but let the subject drop. Nixon seemed to be working his way through the station, but Payne thought the man liked the reputation he was forming. A uniform at the top of the beach’s access ramp led Payne to a makeshift shelter where he hurried into a crime scene suit and pulled on a pair of plastic shoe protectors. When finished, the uniform held up a line of police tape and Payne and Nixon ducked under.

  Payne took his time down the slope taking in the shape of the pier reaching out from the promenade, across the funfair and out into the sea. The breeze felt more like a gale and swept over the surface of his suit like a thousand icy hands. Under the pier, an area had been marked out with poles and more police tape, forming a perimeter for the shape in the middle. Payne glanced at the body, trapped against one of the pier’s supporting legs.

  “You’ve been down there already?” Payne said.

  “Yes.”

  Payne gestured to the body beyond the police tape, a dark shape blotted against the shadows under the pier. “Have you spoken to the man who found her?”

  “A bouncer called Rees Lewis. Works at the Kings Bridge. He finished his shift at two AM, and was taking his dog out for a quick walk. He’s coming into the station first thing to make a formal statement but I don’t think we’re going to get much more from him.”

  The body lay curled up against one of the legs of the pier on the side away from the road. It would have been tricky to spot her in the dark. From twenty metres away, it would be impossible to say it was even a body, just one more shadow amongst many.

  “How did he find her?”

  “He had his dog off the lead. It ran off and Lewis thought it was chasing a rat but when he caught up with him—”

  That could explain it.

  As he walked towards the shadows, Payne felt the soft sand ooze around his feet, and then looking at the ground he saw patterns of footprints. The sand was too wet to get anything meaningful from the prints, and it would be impossible to guess how old the lines were, but there had been plenty of foot traffic.

  “Has the scene been preserved?”

  “The first officer on scene limited access as soon as he arrived, but he let the paramedics down. They left the body alone as soon as they confirmed she was dead.”

  Nixon was acting nervous. Now that they were heading towards the body, Payne noticed his colleague rubbing the back of his neck.

  “Is there something you’re not telling me Stuart?”

  Nixon nodded, and stopped on the sand. “You’re not going to believe it.”

  “Believe what?”

  “It’s probably simpler if you see for yourself.”

  Nixon turned back and started walking again. Payne followed closely, his intrigue piqued by his sergeant’s behaviour. Nixon wasn’t the sort to be so easily rattled. They ducked under the second line of police tape and then they were standing in front of the body, tucked right against one of the pier’s timber supports.

  The woman was dressed but her clothes were muddied by the sand and water. Payne noticed she still had her tights on. All he could smell was the salt water from the tide that had gone and left behind small puddles along the bea
ch. She can’t have been left in the open for long, or there would be more violent smells of decomposition. Alongside the body, a slight mound had been crudely shaped; the body lay in a saturated ditch formed by the excavated sand.

  “Did he try to bury her?” Payne thought out loud.

  Nixon shrugged. “I wondered about that too. He must have changed his mind, or it was too much hard work.”

  Payne dropped onto his knees and felt the wet sand shift under his weight. “Or he was disturbed. Was she on her side like this?”

  “Yes. The paramedics put her back how they found her.”

  The woman’s dark hair was shoulder length but exposure to the sea water and sand had left it tangled around her shoulders. Payne knew he was going to have to move the body to get a look at the woman properly.

  “Have forensics finished?”

  “Yes, about ten minutes ago.”

  “Any attempt to ID her yet?”

  “Forensics bagged her phone. Shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Our killer was careless.”

  “Bit of a break.” Nixon paused and whistled a slow breath.

  Payne got to his feet again and stared face to face with his colleague. “What is it? Spit it out.”

  “Take a look at her.”

  Payne tilted his head, curious as to Nixon’s attitude. The man was acting like he’d never seen a dead body before. “What do you mean? That’s what I am doing.”

  “Crouch down,” Nixon said and got onto his knees beside the woman. Payne complied and watched Nixon’s hands tremble as he took hold of the woman’s shoulder. “A few others have seen this, and I don’t understand what this means or how this is possible.”

  For a tiny fraction of a moment, Payne wanted to leave the scene and go back to his car. Nixon never spoke like this. In the years they’d known each other, Nixon was always the one who could brush aside his feelings when on a case. For him to be so anxious was enough to let Payne feel a tiny frisson of fear in his gut.

  In one swift movement, Nixon rolled the woman towards them, onto her back, then took a torch and shone it in her face.

  It took a moment to register.