by Helen Phifer
She walked around the trestle tables, nodding with pleasure at how good they looked. The tombola was set out beautifully; Natalia had done a splendid job. She reached the toy stall and sighed. It was a shame she couldn’t say the same for this hotchpotch mess. The books weren’t stacked in a very good order and the stuffed toys were all over the place – this would never do. Shaking her head she began to rearrange everything, not noticing how dark it was getting outside. Margaret didn’t go out at night on her own: she didn’t mind helping out with the Street Saviours because there was a large group of them and they weren’t truly alone at any one point.
A loud bang from inside the entrance to the hall startled her, and she looked up and saw the large hall, which was normally filled with light, was now filling with dark shadows. She shuddered and the skin on her arms broke out in goosebumps.
‘Hello, who’s there?’
There was no answer. Her first thought was those pesky kids off the council estate who loved to spend their spare time terrorising all the nice people who came to church. Straightening up she heard the bones in her back creak. She hadn’t realised she’d been stooped over for so long. Leaving her clipboard on the toy stall she walked towards the entrance, opening the heavy wooden vestibule door. Releasing the breath she’d been holding she smiled, shaking her head. You silly old fool.
Throwing open the front door she looked around the car park – it was deserted. She couldn’t even see any kids out on the street. It was time to call it a day. Her stomach let out a loud groan; she was going home for a nice pot of tea and a couple of crumpets. Going back inside the hall she grabbed her coat off the rack and the keys from the stage. Taking one last look around she nodded, it would have to do. After the crowds had been let in tomorrow it would look like a jumble sale in five minutes anyway.
Despite the fact that it was almost completely dark outside and there was a biting nip in the air she decided to walk the short distance home, as it was quicker than waiting for a bus. There was no way she was phoning a taxi, which was a frivolous waste of her pension when it was such a lovely evening. As she hurried along, the feeling of being watched settled over her and she turned to see if anyone was following her. There was no one, she was being silly. Who would want to follow her anyway? It’s not as if she had a purse full of money they could steal. She didn’t have a mobile phone or expensive jewellery – if anyone decided to mug her they’d be pretty disappointed. Having scared herself she turned the corner and came face-to-face with the now-abandoned care home that was her mother’s last address. The council had built a new, super home and closed all the ones in need of updating. Basterfield House loomed larger than life as she walked towards it, with its boarded-up windows and door. The front of the building had a wall of graffiti covering it; foul words and the crude outlines of a man’s private parts took pride of place across the double doors. She shook her head, it was disgusting – another of the town’s landmark buildings that had been left to go to rack and ruin. It was a sin the way the council had let the pier go the same way. When she’d been a girl Brooklyn Bay had been such a fun place to live. A bustling seaside town with a fairground, ice rink, theatre and the beautiful Victorian pier, which now looked as if it was about to collapse into the sea at any moment. She’d noticed it had been fenced off and no trespassing signs warning of its danger put up around it. Not that it stopped the teenagers and drug addicts from using it. That pier was a disaster waiting to happen; it could collapse into the sea and take the old bingo hall and amusement arcade with it, along with whoever happened to be dossing down in it. She’d met her husband on that pier: they’d both been sixteen and in the queue for the big wheel. It had been love at first sight. She let out a sigh; she missed him dearly even though he’d been dead for ten years.
A loud moan piercing the air stopped her in her tracks. Looking around she couldn’t see anyone, considering it was a cold but dry evening. People would be out walking their dogs, but it was typical there was never anyone around when you needed them. Just like the bloody police, she thought. Tom had been an officer, or whatever rank it was now, for eighteen years and he was never around when she needed him. She paused as she heard another groan, wondering where it could have come from. Then she heard a faint, ‘Help me.’ Wondering if she should knock on someone’s door and ask the occupiers to ring the police, she didn’t, worried in case it was her mind playing tricks on her and she would look like a silly old fool. Instead she followed in the direction from where she’d thought the sound had emanated. It was probably the wind whistling through the old, draughty building in front of her. Or it could be distant memories of that place and the pained voices of residents she used to hear calling out whenever she visited her mum. She’d spent her entire life trying to be a good person: she could no more ignore a plea for help than she could a kitten stuck up a tree.
As she walked around to the rear of the building she paused for a moment. It was cloaked in dark shadows, a single security bulb above a fire exit gave off a little light. Enough to see that the door was ajar. Another moan filtered through it, and she scurried towards it. She was stubborn enough to go inside and see who was in distress despite her reservations about her own safety. As she stepped into the building the memories came flooding back making her pause, remembering the number of times she’d sat holding her mum’s hand, desperate for those flickers of recognition which had been few and far between. Inhaling, her nostrils filled with the scent of damp and mildew. There was another groan. It was so dark inside it was difficult to see and she wished she had a torch or even a cigarette lighter to hold up.
‘Hello, is there anybody there? Are you hurt, do you need help?’
There was movement on the floor in the distance, and she felt her heart begin to thud against her ribcage as she realised it was a person huddled on the floor. Margaret hurried towards them.
‘Oh my goodness, are you hurt? What happened to you?’
There was an even louder groan. Whoever it was they had a dirty grey blanket covering them and the hood from their sweatshirt pulled tight over their face. Margaret’s first thought was that it was a homeless person. Stepping closer she leant down, reaching out a hand to shake them, but then she screeched as a thick, much stronger arm than hers shot out from underneath the cover. She pulled as hard as she could to get away, but the fingers dug deep into her wrist.
‘Let go of me, you’re hurting.’
She felt herself falling towards the ground as she was being dragged down. She kicked out at the hand as she fell, and it released its grip. She crawled on her hands and knees as fast as she could to put some space between her and whoever it was that had tried to hurt her. The cover was thrown off and terror filled her veins when a dark shadow loomed over her. Margaret pushed and pulled as hard as she could to get away, but she was no match for the stranger who was now standing over her brandishing the biggest knife she’d ever seen.
Opening her mouth to scream she felt the knife cut through the air in front of her, heard it as it whooshed towards her throat, silencing her for ever.
Chapter Ten
May 1989
He hated school: he didn’t like maths, he couldn’t do maths and the teachers always liked to pick on him because of this. The more he tried to hide at the back of the classroom and keep quiet, the more they would bombard him with questions. They seemed to take great enjoyment in making him look and feel stupid in front of the rest of the class, so his mother had let him stay off. As long as he didn’t let his father know he was home because then he would be furious with the both of them. He was old enough to understand the consequences of his father’s fury. He was to stay hidden in his bedroom and not make a sound – it was their secret. They had a few secrets that they didn’t share with his father; he wouldn’t approve of his love of comics and sherbet fountains.
His mum had left early to go to an appointment at the hospital. He’d asked her what was wrong. She’d smiled, held him close and told him nothing. It w
as just a check-up, all women had to have one when they reached a certain age. He didn’t know what she meant; ruffling his hair she’d bent down and kissed his forehead. This time he hadn’t wiped her kiss away. There was no mistaking the tears threatening to fall from her eyes. She blinked and they were gone; an expert at hiding her feelings, he wondered briefly if there was something wrong. Too afraid to ask her, he did what any other ten-year-old boy would do and built a makeshift tent to hide in. If his father came in he wouldn’t see him in there, he’d be safe.
Watching his mum from his bedroom window as she got into a taxi he felt his heart tug inside his chest. He was hungry; he’d eaten his sandwich ages ago. He wondered if he dared go down and get some biscuits, or was he too scared? He didn’t know where his father was: he should be at work, but he might be anywhere, although he didn’t usually stay quiet when he was home. If he wasn’t shouting or talking like Father Vincent, he was hitting them or crying. He wondered if this was what all families were like. Somehow, he didn’t think that it was. Why would anyone behave like that? He listened at the door, he couldn’t hear the television. That didn’t mean he wasn’t in. He might be asleep on the settee. He often fell asleep if he’d been drinking or after eating. Thinking about food, his stomach let out a loud groan. He couldn’t wait hours to get something to eat. He didn’t think there was anyone here – he should be safe.
Tugging his bedroom door open he put one bare foot onto the hall carpet and listened. Before he knew it he was in the hallway; his parents’ bedroom door was shut. Creeping down the stairs he made it to the kitchen before he heard the front door slam, and a woman’s voice he didn’t recognise began to chatter. He did recognise the loud grunt which came from his father. Panic making his heart race, he whipped his head from side to side, realising he couldn’t get back upstairs without being caught. He ran over to the back door and let himself outside into the garden – he could hide behind the huge bush in the corner where his den was. It wasn’t the warmest of days, there was a breeze in the air and the grass was damp from the rain shower earlier. His feet were cold without any shoes but he couldn’t go back inside. He ran across and dived inside his den, in case he came out and saw him. From there he could watch the house and see if he was coming. He was angry with himself now, wishing he’d done what his mum had said. Stayed in his room and kept out of sight like he was supposed to. The thin cotton pyjama top he was wearing was too short; it didn’t cover his bellybutton and the cuffs on the pants were halfway up his calves. A dark shadow appeared at the living room window, and he caught his breath, holding it in, wondering if all that praying to God had given his father X-ray vision so that he could see through leaves and branches. Then the curtains were pulled shut, and he frowned. Why had he done that, it was the middle of the day? He sat huddled on an overturned plant pot wondering what he was going to do about the mess he’d got himself into. If his dad was in the living room with the curtains closed, he wouldn’t see him sneaking across the garden. A huge drop of rain fell onto the bridge of his nose, and he looked up to the sky. It had gone that murky grey colour, signalling it was about to hammer it down. Another splash fell onto the back of his hand, and he made up his mind. He stood up and sprinted across the grass.
Curiosity getting the better of him, he made his way to the window and crouched down. Counting to three to build up the courage, he peered through the crack in the curtains to see if his father was in there. He was in there all right, so was a strange woman with white hair and huge red earrings that looked like the buttons on his mum’s best coat. She was standing behind him, running her hands up and down his father’s shirt, undoing the buttons. The boy stared wondering who she was and what she was doing in his house. Then she moved in front of his dad, and her fingers began to unzip his trousers. He didn’t want to look, but he couldn’t tear himself away. He watched as the woman pushed his dad onto the settee and buried her head in his lap. He knew this was wrong – they were doing something bad. Who was she? He wanted to run in there and pull her hair, rip those huge earrings out of her ears and scream at her to get out of their house. But he couldn’t because the beating would probably kill him and then he’d beat him some more. What about his mother? He’d probably beat her as well and none of it was any of her fault because she wasn’t even here. He took one last look at the scene in front of him – his father had his eyes shut and was groaning so loud he could hear him through the cracked pane of glass. Her head was bobbing up and down, and he felt his stomach lurch.
He ran to the back door and slipped inside, making his way back up to his bedroom, the hunger pains had been replaced with a spreading feeling of sickness. He went into his room and crawled inside his makeshift tent where he lay on a pillow, pulling a blanket over himself to try and stop the shivering. He didn’t know what to do, so he closed his eyes and waited for sleep to come. Maybe he was having a bad dream and when he woke up his mother would be home from the hospital and that strange woman wouldn’t be in his house doing dirty stuff with his dad.
Chapter Eleven
Lucy tried to ignore the annoying ringtone of her mobile phone. She was lying in a bath filled with Lush-scented bubbles, a hair mask on, trying to soak away the horrors of today along with the stench of the post-mortem, where the only trace evidence Catherine had found was a few stray hairs on the nightdress. She wasn’t on call, so whoever it was could bugger off and leave her alone. She was beyond tired, in fact she didn’t know if she’d ever felt so exhausted before. Not even the hours in labour with Ellie had seemed as long as the last twenty-four hours, and they’d been horrific. It stopped, and she punched the air, slipping under the water to rinse off the conditioner that her bleached-blonde hair had desperately needed. When she resurfaced the house phone was ringing. Now she was pissed off because that was just plain rude. Who the hell needed to speak to her so urgently? Ellie was at her dad’s, so it wouldn’t be her, and anyway she never rang the house phone. Getting out of the bath, she wrapped a bath sheet around herself and dripped her way into her bedroom, where both of the offending phones were. She looked at the display on her mobile: three missed calls from a private number. The groan she let out was loud, almost as loud as one of Ellie’s when she was asked to hoover or wash the pots. As she stared at the phone in her hand, the house phone began to ring, making her jump. Snatching it from its holder she snapped, ‘Hello.’
‘Ma’am, it’s the control room. We have a major incident that we need you to attend.’
‘I’m not on call, you should have a list. DS Browning is the duty sergeant tonight, and the duty inspector is out west.’
‘We know you aren’t and I’m sorry about this. DS Browning requested we phone you. A body has been found at the back of Basterfield House.’
Lucy felt her heart sink; it must be bad if Browning had asked for her to be called out instead of the on-call DI. ‘Right, okay. Tell him I’m on my way.’
She began frantically towel-drying her hair, her stomach churning. Whatever level of relaxation she’d achieved had been wiped out in a thirty-second phone call.
* * *
She parked her tiny Fiat behind a police van, its flashing blue and white lights blinding her. The first thing she was going to do was find the idiot who thought it was necessary to have a full-on eighties disco lightshow going in the middle of a quiet, residential street at midnight. There was no need for it, the police tape blocking the road was enough to let the few people who were still out and about at this time of night know the area was cordoned off. Before she could say anything to the two officers who were standing there, she heard Browning mutter: ‘Will one of you turn the bloody blues off, you’re blinding me.’ She smiled, he was a grumpy old bugger, but at least they were on the same wavelength. She glanced at the officers, neither of them looked that much older than Ellie. She supposed she would have been the same once upon a time. Having a teenage daughter and working on almost every grisly murder in Brooklyn Bay had given her more than a few wrinkles and a
ged her beyond her years.
Browning came striding towards her.
‘Boss, I’m really sorry to have called you out. I didn’t know what to do and kind of panicked.’
‘It’s okay, I realise this must be quite something for you to do that.’
He nodded, running his hand through what hair he had left. ‘It’s really bad – and what makes it even worse is I know who she is; I can identify her. I was only speaking with her yesterday about her dead cat.’
Alarm bells began ringing in Lucy’s mind and she looked at him, her eyes wide in horror as she put two and two together. ‘Please tell me it’s not?’
Browning shrugged. ‘I wish I could.’
Turning, Lucy ran to the back of her car where she tugged out the packets of protective clothing she was going to need. Deftly pulling on the white paper overalls, boot covers, and gloves she slammed the boot down. Ducking under the tape, one of the officers rushed over, and Browning glared at him.
‘Sign DI Harwin into the scene, there’s a good lad.’
‘Yes, sir. Sorry, ma’am, I didn’t realise.’
She couldn’t speak, her tongue felt as if it was three times its normal size as it stuck to the roof of her mouth. She needed to see for herself how bad this was before all hell broke loose. Browning led the way and she followed, the thudding of her heart filling her mind. She turned the corner, which was pitch-black, and lifted the Magnum torch that Browning passed to her. Unable to stop herself, the gasp which left her lips was loud.
‘Holy Mother of God.’
‘Something like that.’
Lucy stepped towards the frail woman who was hanging upside down from the rear fire escape of the abandoned care home. Lucy’s hands lifted to her mouth as she began to shake her head from side to side. The woman had been left there, on show for the world to see, like some gaudy scarecrow, her head almost hanging off because the cut severing her throat was so deep. Her arms were spread wide apart, tied to the railings.