Flowers for the Dead

by Barbara Copperthwaite

  Watching her play lady of the manor made Adam furious. He barely slept, and when he did the dreams were becoming more vivid, and the buzzing in his head getting stronger. He saw his mother’s pulverised body every night, in glorious Technicolor.

  He was mad, driven over the edge by his mother, by his delicate nature, by circumstance. But he was not stupid. He forced himself to stay in control with his exercises, with his hobbies, even with his matching clothes and neat and tidy bedroom. They helped him keep a lid on his anger so that he could think clearly. That meticulous mind, so good at seeing how to fix problems with clocks and computers, so patient at sowing seeds in his garden then waiting for them to grow, oh, so slowly, was working on the problem of his mother all the time now.

  It was obvious there could only be one solution. He was going to have to kill her. But not in an explosion of anger that would get him locked up. Thanks to his father, Adam knew a fair bit about committing the perfect crime, so when he was planning, he knew he had to be meticulous. Father would be so disappointed in him if he did not do a good job of murdering Mother – he could imagine him clapping him on the back, perhaps even hugging him, like he had done at Gran’s funeral.

  Time slipped by as Adam planned, but it was not wasted. For the previous two years Sara’s abuse of him had slowed, but since discovering Adam’s secret she sometimes liked to step things up again. Just to prove he was in her thrall; she got off on the power. Adam began to act differently though. She did not realise it, but he had learned so much from her, and now he was using it against her. Manipulating, seducing, keeping his enemy happy in order to keep her off guard. Part of her might have been proud had she seen what was coming. But she didn’t.

  ***

  PRESENT

  The jangle of keys in the lock then the door slamming shut makes Adam’s heart lurch painfully in his chest. Laura! But she is supposed to be at work for another couple of hours yet; it is only 1pm.

  For a second he thinks about not moving. Of staying right where he is and revealing himself to her at last. He knows from her encounter with the electrician that she is aware of him, in love with him even, given that she says she has a boyfriend.

  Nerves make the decision for him. He flings himself into her wardrobe before he has a chance to think properly, and as he catches his breath in the darkness he tells himself it is the right thing. After all, he is determined not to rush things this time, to get things right. Laura is the one he has been waiting for his whole life; all the other women were practise runs. They protest at the thought, squirming inside him uncomfortably, and he does his best to soothe them. But the fact is, he knows that Laura really is different. There is something more about her, and although he was in love before - the fact these women were willing to give him their souls so they could be together forever proves that love – Laura is first among equals.

  Through the thin wardrobe door, he can hear Laura walking into the living room and pausing. Ah, she has found his little surprise for her. He opens the door cautiously, just a crack, just enough to peer through. He wants to see her look of delight at his gift, depicting perfection.

  ***

  Laura stares at the bowl in the middle of her coffee table. She definitely, absolutely had not put it there. She isn’t hallucinating either, the sweet smell that fills the air confirms that.

  No, the strawberries are real. They are the scariest fruit she has ever seen because they mean that either she is losing her marbles, or someone has been in her home without her knowledge.

  Confused and scared, she goes into the kitchen. She does not know what to think, but she knows her legs have gone weak and wobbly. Then she sees the washing up.

  She is absolutely certain she did not do it before she went out. In fact, she knows she didn’t because she can remember thinking that she could not face it and would leave it until she cooked tonight before bothering to clear up last night’s debris. Which means someone really has been here.

  Maybe they are still here?

  She grabs the closest thing to hand, a heavy glass vase from the windowsill, and starts going from room to room. Throwing open cupboards, looking around curtains, any hiding place she can think of, even the tiny airing cupboard in the bathroom, which is stuffed to the gunnels with towels and linen.

  ***

  Adam listens keenly to Laura’s movements. Realises she is going through the flat, searching for an intruder. For the first time he feels out of control. He isn’t sure what to do. Should he saunter out and say “hi”? Pretend it was all a big planned surprise; take charge of the situation again? Or should he hope to goodness she doesn’t find him, and stay hidden?

  There is another option. His hand edges to his back pocket, and he feels the reassuring shape of the scalpel case. He doesn’t want to do this, but if things go wrong he is prepared. He may be a romantic at heart, but ultimately he is a realist, and sometimes bad things happen even when you have the best of intentions; he knows that better than anyone.

  ***

  Laura moves towards the only room left for her to search: the bedroom. Did…did she just hear a noise from inside the wardrobe…?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ~ Sweetbrier ~

  I Wound To Heal

  Adam crouches in Laura’s wardrobe, a cat ready to pounce. And like all hunters he is totally in control. All the nerves and romantic fears that made him plunge into his hiding place have now disappeared. His hands hold the scalpel lightly, confidently, because gripping it would slow its flow of movement; he is so well-practiced now at it slicing into flesh that he knows exactly how to get the best from it. His breathing is slow and regular, and he rolls his neck a little to loosen himself up further.

  He is ready. A floorboard creaks, and he knows his love is now inside the room. He can see her shadow through the crack of the slightly open wardrobe door.

  ***

  Laura sidles along nervously, heavy vase held aloft. Pauses. Did she hear a noise from the wardrobe, or was it her imagination in overdrive?

  “Hello!” comes a yell.

  The call makes her squeal and she lets go of the vase in her fright, just managing to juggle it back into her hands like a hot coal as it tumbles earthwards.

  “Laura? You all right?” Aunt Linda marches in, looking worried. Takes in her niece’s white face, the vase-come-weapon. “What’s happened? Is everything okay?”

  “How did you get in?” Laura demands.

  “Spare key. You gave me one when you first bought this place, remember? I did knock but you didn’t hear me so I let myself in. I was going to drop off this shopping for you.”

  Relief and anger mingle. Laura slumps forward, rubbing her forehead, then holds her hand out.

  “Can I have the key, please? You’ve been scaring the living daylights out of, coming in and doing stuff!”

  Aunt Linda frowns, confused. “I only used the key because I bought ice cream for you. A little treat – I know you love Ben and Jerry’s. Perfect to go with those strawberries on the table.”

  The strawberries, the ice cream, all the little things that have been happening lately, Laura links them all in her mind. Her aunt may protest because she has been caught out, but Laura decides she has clearly been in and out of the flat like it is a second home to her. Looking after her niece, mollycoddling her. It is very sweet, but it also is not on. Still, the young woman does not want a row when they have only recently cleared the air. Fact is, Laura owes her aunt a lot.

  She doesn’t say a word, simply continues to hold her hand out.

  “Oh, okay, if you insist,” Aunt Linda sighs.

  ***

  In the wardrobe, Adam sighs too, with relief, and slips his scalpel back into its case.

  That was close. But then, close is good when it comes to him and Laura. It keeps their relationship sparky.

  While she is busy talking with her aunt, he taps away on his smartphone, organising a locator app for Laura’s phone. It is a nice thing to do because it mean
s he can always keep tabs on her and make sure she is safe, and also means he will not ever be surprised by her again. He is amazed he had not thought of it sooner.

  He does not come out of the cupboard until the small hours, when he hears Laura’s gentle breathing telling him she is deep asleep.

  ***

  “Go, go, go!” orders Mike.

  Bang! The door explodes open with one swing of the Big Red Key, the affectionate nickname all coppers give the mini-battering ram used to smash down doors. An entire team of uniform and CID swarm through the gaping hole, mob-handed, bellowing out orders to the men inside, Mike leading the way.

  “Police! Stay where you are!” he shouts.

  Instead the three men who seconds before were playing a computer game jump up. And Mike finds himself staring at three machetes, light from the massive lamps above glinting off the blades. The ringleader waves his wildly with a yell.

  There is the swish and click of ASP batons being extended in unison, ready to smash down on the men’s hands to disarm them. Other officers on the edge of Mike’s vision have popped open their OC pepper spray aerosol canisters, and one or two have their Tasers out.

  “Put your weapons down. Now,” Mike orders calmly. Though he is talking to all of the gang, he is staring at the main man only. He gently raises an arm and makes a sweeping gesture to take in his team, his eyes not moving.

  “You’re surrounded, lads. A fight is just going to make things painful for everyone, but it’ll be the same result: you’ll be arrested. Only you’ll have a lot more charges against you.”

  The ringleader shifts his weight. Mike tenses. He forces himself to look the man in the eye when all he wants to do is stare at that bloody great blade wavering in front of him. The stifling heat from the lamps in the room is not the only thing making sweat run down his balding head.

  “Put your weapons down or we will use force to make you put them down,” growls Mike. He smiles menacingly, all hint of cuddly teddy bear gone, now he is one hundred per cent grizzly, brown eyes glinting.

  Everything happens at once. A snarl rips across the ringleader’s face, all three men raise their weapons, launch forward. Yells fill the heady air. A crackle and thud. The men stop dead, dropping to the floor as powerful muscle spasms make them curl in on themselves.

  “Told you,” says Mike conversationally, looming over them. Turns to his colleagues. “Nice shots with the Tasers, well done.”

  Once the men are cuffed the rest of the operation is simple enough. The whole thing had been meant to be simple though…

  A concerned landlord had contacted CID saying he had a horrible feeling his tenants were growing marijuana at his house. Apparently neighbours had been texting and calling him with concerns about a distinctive smell, and strange apparatus going in and out of the property. Thermal imaging of the property had confirmed that a lot more heat was being generated than there should be – a dead giveaway for a skunk-growing factory. Surveillance had shown no signs of weapons, just three middle class white men in their mid-twenties, whose plummy tones would sound more at home shouting what shares to buy on the stock exchange. Instead they had decided to become ‘entrepreneurs’ and set up a drugs business.

  Quite a big business too. There are around four hundred plants in the house, every room stuffed full of them, the place ablaze with special lamps to create enough heat to grow the crop. Each plant is worth up to £1000. Uniformed police chop them from their pots and carry them outside to waiting vans, where they will be taken away to be destroyed.

  Mike checks everything is going smoothly, then walks towards his car to go back to the station. A red-faced, chubby man with the features and build of a garden gnome hurries over, puffing and panting.

  “Oy! I hope you’re going to make good the mess you’ve made!” he shouts. Even his voice is slightly squeaky. It is the landlord, the owner of the property.

  “We will, of course, be fitting you with a new lock,” replies Mike politely. “I’m afraid we had to break the old one to gain entry.”

  “What about all that stuff? The fertiliser spilled all over the place, and you’ve only taken the plants not the pots – they’re everywhere! There are wires poking out… It was cleaner when it was a cannabis factory!”

  Mike sighs. He feels for the landlord, he really does. The place is a mess, with ducting, charcoal filters, fan units, and hydroponic systems littering rooms, as well as the fertilizer and hundreds of plastic pots. This fellow would need a builder to repair the holes cut through walls and floors for the ducting, and give the house a complete redecoration before he could rent it out again. But that was the growers’ fault.

  “Nothing to say? Pathetic,” the little man adds. “Is this what I pay my taxes for? I pay your wages, you know.”

  Mike scratches his beard thoughtfully. “You pay my wages so that I and people like me can put our lives on the line to ensure the law is upheld. That is what has happened today, sir,” he says. “Sadly, that keeps us so busy that we don’t have time to turn ourselves into a clean up service. I would strongly recommend you contact your insurance company, though; I’m sure they will be able to help you get this place cleaned up.”

  The landlord is getting redder, but seems incapable of speech. Mike knows he will probably lodge a complaint about him later, but right now he really does not care. He puts his hands in his pockets and shambles away, turning suddenly as another thought occurs.

  “If I might make another suggestion, sir. Perhaps next time, vet your potential tenants a little more carefully.”

  Mike clambers into his car, pausing only to move an empty crisp packet onto the passenger seat, and drives away before the landlord can think of a suitable reply.

  Back at the station, he stands outside for a moment to try to clear his head. The overpowering smell of weed in the house had almost been enough to get him high.

  “Thank you for risking your life to clear my property of bad guys, officers,” Mike mutters sarcastically, imitating the landlord. He pats himself down, locates his cigarettes and lights up, ignoring the guilt and Daisy’s latest heart-breaking note, which declares, ‘I don’t want to go to youre funral, daddy’.

  “Well, you’re back in one piece, so I’m assuming the raid went well?” calls a voice.

  Mike turns and nods at his boss, who is click clacking in her high heels across the car park. Inspector Jane Goddard is a tiny woman, just five foot one, but piles her pitch-black hair up artfully to add extra inches. It makes her look like a small poodle is sitting on top of her head. Standing beside her always makes Mike feel like a lumbering, awkward oaf; he towers over her by well over a foot despite the spikey black heels she lives in.

  She always wears black. Always. With the odd splash of colour to stop her looking funereal. Today she is wearing a bright pink silk shirt with a pussy bow collar.

  “Everything went well. The intel hadn’t quite been right about them being unarmed – they all had machetes, so things looked interesting for a couple of minutes. They’re being processed now, and I’ll be starting the interviews as soon as I’ve finished this.” Mike raises the glowing end of his cigarette.

  Jane nods. “I won’t disturb you then,” she says wryly. “Want you good and sharp during the interviews, not thinking about how much you want a smoke.”

  “Ma’am.”

  As she walks away Mike once again stares into space, re-living the raid with a shudder. Things could so easily have played out a different way. He could have lost his life to a bunch of machete-wielding chinless wonders who had watched one too many Guy Ritchie films.

  He takes another long drag on his cigarette, feeling the smoke fill his lungs and calm his fears.

  Mike had been smoking when Mags first met him but she had not approved, and something about being around her made him feel wrong to do it. So he had quit. Simple as that. When he was around her he had not got narky, had not suffered cravings; he had been in the first flush of love and replaced his nicotine addict
ion with a Mags addiction.

  It was only at her funeral that he had given into temptation. Seeing her coffin slide through curtains at the crematorium; looking at his little girl sitting on the lap of Mags’s sister, Yvette, everything had come crashing down on him and he had allowed himself a few moments of absolute panic.

  He was a single parent. He had lost the love of his life and his best friend. The very person he would normally turn to for advice when he was troubled was no longer there. There was no one to share the load with. No one to discuss things with.

  Mike had held it together long enough to walk outside without arousing concern, then heaved his stomach contents up. The second he had straightened up he had headed across the road to a massive, soulless chain pub, downed a whiskey and bummed a fag off some bloke who had recognised a desperate man when he saw one.

  Loneliness had consumed him, the weight of responsibility felt crushing. So he had lit up, promising himself that the fag would be a one time only hit. A moment of stupid, selfish abandonment before immersing himself completely in being a single parent and raising his daughter, who he hoped and prayed he would not mess up.

  As smoke filled his lungs and nicotine caused the feel-good hormone dopamine to enter his bloodstream, Mike had tried to keep the grief and terror at bay. At that moment he would have literally given the world to see Mags one last time. He would have gladly swapped places with her, giving his life in order to bring her back. But fairy tales do not come true, no matter how hard a person wishes.

  Mike had stood in the pub’s beer garden and forced himself to come to terms with some hard truths. He would never see Mags again. His daughter would not be comforted by her mum any more. They would not play…whatever it was that they used to play together, he was a bit vague on this, or do…whatever, it always looked like fun, but it was a bit of a mystery to him at that point. They would never sing along to the theme tunes of cheesy children’s programmes at the top of their voices, jiggling around to them and trying to get him to join in.