by W W Walker
She shook her head. “I won’t forget. I won’t.”
“Quavers and Mars Bars,” he reiterated.
“Yes, Quavers and Mars bars.”
He’d just lit another cigarette when he saw Kiki Cutter walk along the eight towards her house. She stopped suddenly and looked into the window where he sat on a lone chair in the centre of the empty room. He imagined her looking straight into his eyes and his heart soared. She was the one he wanted. And if he could have her, that prize alone would supersede all his other plans to terrorize the women of Seaview.
He held his breath as he willed her to knock on the door, to come and ask him why he was inside No.3. Honestly, he never thought she would, but knowing Kiki as well as he did, knowing she had guts and gumption, he couldn’t help wishing she’d come seek him out. She would be happy to see him. He was sure of it. They’d been close when they’d worked together at Phillips. She had never wanted him to leave. Her hand had been forced by that Roger Lang. He was the one at fault. Not Kiki. She just needed a lesson in humility. That was all.
He watched her go up the path to the front door, but she didn’t ring the bell. Instead, she went across the driveway to the gate at the side.
He’d felt such joy that she would want to be with him. He was flattered, beyond all conscience, as if his feelings were no longer his, and that putting up a front with people to avoid being hurt, was being stripped away, making him vulnerable in her hands. They would be so happy if they were left alone. They could live in that house, buy some furniture. He could actually move away from his mother’s house for good.
He stood up and stubbed his cigarette on the floor with the others. Time for smoking later, when he and Kiki were lying in each other’s arms.
He went swiftly to the door leading to the terrace and quietly let himself out into the garden. There were no shrubs to hide behind, no trees, and the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks in the bay deafened him so bad he had to slap his face three times on the left and twice on the right. And then, just as he pinned himself up against the wall, next to the kitchen window, she came around the side of the house.
She was so close he could practically smell her. Her body odour was distinct. A mix of musk and something else sweet. He’d smelled her many times when she’d walked past him at work, or they’d consulted each other about an issue of some kind. She had no idea he was interested in her…that he loved her. He thought he’d dropped some good hints when he’d protected her from that shithead Tyrone, but even then, she hardly noticed him. How many more hints did the woman need?
Now, she was close. She was cupping her hand over her eyes, standing on tiptoe to see inside the kitchen. He watched as realisation hit her like a thunderclap. She’d seen the shithead on the floor. What joy!
The evening couldn’t have worked out any better, but when he saw the girl with the ponytail snooping around the house next door, Drake thought his numbers had come up.
They were all so damn stupid. He’d bated the women with the Butler’s bodies, they had no lights and a storm was brewing, but still, they walked freely around Seaview as if they were going for a picnic in the park.
Earlier, when he saw that woman Marigold with the old lady, he felt sure that when they entered the Lang’s house, they would tell the rest of the women about the death of the old couple.
Why then weren’t they all scuttling around like rats? Instead, they were ambling about without a care in the world. Why weren’t they now fearful of their lives? Who made these women, Drake wondered, Punch the Puppet?
He’d laughed at his own joke when he slipped inside No.4 where the guy in the wheelchair lived. He already knew the layout of the place because he’d already been in there.
Chapter Thirty-six
Rhianna awoke with a blinding headache over her temples. She couldn’t focus and there was a smell she couldn’t distinguish. Her eyes remained blurred no matter how many times she blinked, and they burned like a million bee stings. What scared her most, was that outside her vision, beyond the darkness of her own head, she knew the man was there.
She first saw him behind the door after she found Tom unconscious and tied to his wheelchair. The man had stepped out of the shadows and came towards her, shining a torch in her eyes, which made her bring her arm up to protect herself from the torturous light. It only took him a couple of steps to reach her and just as she tried to look up, she saw the torch over her head before it came crashing down. She remembered little else except perhaps for her body being manoeuvred as she lost all control. What’s happening? she’d screamed…probably to herself in the dark corners of her mind.
Now as she struggled to regain her sight, she felt bile rising up from her throat as panic began to take over her body. “Tom?” she called. “Tom, I can’t see. Where are you?”
Silence.
And that was the scariest thing of all.
Kiki awoke to the darkness with just moonlight filtering through a window to her right. Her eyes moved upward to see the window above the kitchen sink. How odd, she thought. She was once on the other side before she felt something hit her and she’d passed out. She knew she was going. It was like falling into a black pit with flashes of white glistening along the way. After that…Nothing.
But now she was coming out of it. She had travelled up the black spiral of her unconscious mind to open her eyes. As she looked at the window up above, with the moonlight, she deduced she was lying on the kitchen floor on a lumpy cushion. It was soft and hard in different places, feeling like an old mattress that had seen better days with occasional springs poking up to snag her. She couldn’t move her hands, and her legs were immobile too, but she couldn’t fathom why. Below, her leg felt wet and she didn’t know why. And she was finding it difficult lifting her head and she didn’t know why. But most of all, she could hear someone’s breath in her ear, and she didn’t know why.
Then she remembered what she’d seen through the kitchen window…a crucifix…or a man…she couldn’t place it in her addled brain. Her mind felt like a puzzle, needing arranging so that the picture would become clear.
A least she was able to put strength in the muscles of her neck as she lifted her head. She would have recoiled if she could have moved, but she was stuck there, stuck to a man with a bloated face, with dark patches and swollen parts. One eye was closed, and his lips half open as the breath she’d heard in her ear, whistled out of his mouth like a high pitched rattle and then a croak. She forced her head back. She could only recognise the man if she was further away, but no, she couldn’t move any more.
How strange that her fear was held at bay. Like she was looking down at her own body, watching a film of sorts.
The fear never came until she recognised the face of the man. Her lips trembled and her whole body shook as her face almost touched his. He was dead, or unconscious, she couldn’t tell, but in any event, he was seriously hurt. “Ty,” she sobbed. “Tyrone, wake up, wake up.”
But he didn’t awaken, and all she knew, that whatever the cause, however she’d gotten there, her body was now mirroring his, lying atop him, shaped like a smaller version of a crucifix of the man beneath her.
“Where’s Kiki?” Marigold asked.
The women looked about the room. They hadn’t noticed that Kiki had gone. “Maybe she went home.”
“And not say goodbye?” Eva said indignantly. “Why would someone do that?”
“And where’s Rhianna?” Tammy asked.
Nobody knew. Some didn’t even care. “Maybe she went with Kiki.”
Marigold’s heart missed a beat. She looked at Gladys who seemed to be thinking the same thing as her, that there were three women outside: Kim, Rhianna and Constance. She prayed that the guy who had killed the old couple had long gone.
She couldn’t tell them about the Butlers yet. Not until Constance got back. That was the plan.
Marigold stood up. “Listen, everyone,” she called. Everyone turned to face her. I’m thinking som
eone should go and find them and bring them back.”
Eva pouted. “Why?” Her party was bombing, and she was clearly miffed.
“You know…with all this uncertainty…about Eddie, I mean. I just think it might be better if we all stick together until we know what’s happened to him.”
They all looked blankly at her as if she was crazy.
“Okay, look. There is another problem,” Marigold said.
“What are you talking about, Marigold?” said Eva, sharply. “What do you mean there’s been a murder?”
The group of women had gone silent. Their ears had heard it, but they didn’t trust it. One doesn’t often hear the M word in Seaview.
“It’s the Butler’s…they’re dead.”
Eva pushed her palms up against her mouth, the same way Marigold had done when she heard about the killing of Eddie. A natural reaction, she guessed, to muffle a reluctant scream or a reaction to someone saying something she didn’t want to hear.
“That’s not true,” Eva said.
Marigold looked at her and frowned at her ‘not true’ statement. She was one of those people who thought that if she couldn’t see it, it didn’t exist.
“I’m afraid it is true.”
Gladys entered the fray. “When Marigold went around checking on everyone after the power cut, she and Constance went next door to see if the Butlers were all right. They found them upstairs in their bed. They’d been strangled.”
“What?” Eva spat. “Both of them?” It was a strange question since they’d been referring to them as the Butlers for the past ten minutes. Marigold put Eva’s reaction down to shock. “Oh my god,” she yelled as realisation hit her. “We have to inform the police.”
“Good luck with that.” Jade said dryly.
It was all that was needed to make Eva stand up and confront her. “Is that all you’ve got to say? You’ve been a bloody weight around my neck all day and you come out with a statement like that.”
Jade stepped forward and faced Eva square on. “Like what?”
“Devil-may-care. As if this doesn’t affect you, and that all you’re good for is standing there observing…like a useless wet weekend.”
Tammy stepped into the fray. “Stop it,” she yelled. “This isn’t doing anyone any good. Marigold’s right. We need to go and bring Kiki and Rhianna back. Just until we know what the deal is.”
“What about your husband?” said Eva.
“He’s my brother.”
She looked aghast. “But…”
“You assumed he was my husband and we chose not to clarify the matter. We just thought it was no one’s business.”
“I see.” Eva said indignantly.
“Let’s find the girls and then I’ll go get my brother.”
Chapter Thirty-seven
A collective scream rang out when Constance bumped into two nervous women. “My God,” she shouted. “What are you doing?”
Constance had just changed. After she’d planted the wetsuit, she’d rushed from the Butler’s greenhouse into her own home next door, slamming shut the patio doors and quickly locking them. She wanted to lock out the world, every invasion and intrusion that threatened to engulf her and take away her soul. All wellbeing was lost at that hour. The day had been too long, and now the night was stretching out before her like a slick of black tar. She should run away. Flee. Get in Eddie’s car, crash through the gates until they were flat on the road, and then escape the confines of Seaview forever, never looking back.
If only!
She trod carefully on the kitchen floor. The blood and whatever other muck that she had stuck to her feet needed to be cleaned. She couldn’t drag it upstairs to the shower. What would Eddie say? She stopped as comprehension hit her. What would Eddie say? She repeated in her pensive, muddled mind. Where the hell had that come from?
Still, she couldn’t drag it through the house. She needed to clean it off first. She disregarded the idea of going back outside to use the same tap she’d used to clean off her feet after killing her husband. The only other solution was to do it there in the kitchen where she could clean up the remnants afterwards.
Even then…
Wait!
She stopped and looked down at the mess on her foot. Where had that blood come from? She surprised herself that she had only just pondered it, that she had accepted the blood as if it was all part of the plan. But it wasn’t. There shouldn’t be any blood.
The cat.
Marigold said she’d seen a slaughtered cat hanging inside the greenhouse. When they went back to investigate, they saw nothing and put it down to her troubled imagination. The Butlers had a cat. Maybe Marigold saw it after all. That posed two questions in Constance’s mind. Why would the person who killed the Butlers, kill the cat? And why, if Marigold did actually see it hanging there by a chain, slaughtered, then why wasn’t it still there when they went back?
Balancing and lifting her foot into the sink, she turned on the tap. She placed the torch on the side where cups and saucers were turned upside down on the draining board. Bits of congealed blood and entrails spilt into the sink as she washed between her toes. She forced the excess bits down the drain with the power of the tap, hoping they would go and never be seen again. She couldn’t ever see them again. Still balanced on one foot, she bent her body and reached down for a rag under the sink. There, she grabbed the bleach and poured it all over her skin. She washed it with fresh water once again as the smell wafted up her nostrils. She wondered if she would ever smell anything normal again. Would the bleach and the pungent odour of cat guts linger in her nose forever?
She wiped her foot on the rag and discarded it in the peddle bin. Then she grabbed her torch and ran out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
After her shower, she quickly dried her hair. She couldn’t afford the time to curl it, so it would have to do as it was. She pulled on a dress she’d had for over five years. It was her going away dress after she’d married Eddie. And it was the only decent garment she owned. How fitting, she thought, wearing her good going-away dress on the day Eddie went away for good.
When she was almost ready, she secured her watch around her wrist, quickly glancing at the time before she dashed down the stairs, grabbed her coat, and with her torch in hand, opened the front door.
That was when she bumped into the two women sneaking around with their arms linked together. They all screamed at once. If it wasn’t for the terror of the night, they may even have laughed at their silliness, but it wasn’t a time for laughter. It was a time of mourning.
“What are you doing?” Constance snapped.
Eva was the one holding the torch. Her hair was blowing about in the same way the wind was hammering the loose fittings around the estate, making everything rattle and shake.
“We came to find Kiki and Rhianna, but we couldn’t find them. We thought we’d check the Butler’s house,” Eva said.
Constance shook her head. “Why?” She was cautious about what to say. She had no way of knowing if Marigold had told them that part of the tale yet.
“To see if they’re in there.”
“Why would they be?” It came out of Constance’s mouth like a hiss.
“They may have come to check if the Butlers were okay.” Tammy paused. “They don’t know they’ve been killed.”
Constance pushed her arm to get the torchlight from her eyes. “Marigold told you.”
“Yes, but not right away, which was a bit lax of her if you ask me,” Eva said.
“I don’t think there’s anyone next door.”
“You can’t know that for sure.”
Tammy had already left to follow the garden around to the side of the Butler’s house. Eva followed her. The moon was up now, visibility was better, despite the speed of the wind whistling along the eight.
“Where are you going?” Constance paced after them. “You can’t go inside.” Frankly, Constance had had enough. This wasn’t part of the plan at all. What did these wom
en want? She had to wonder if it wasn’t some sense of morbid curiosity on their part. The dark side of human nature coming to the fore.
They went inside via the back door. The place was eerily quiet. A mortuary. A house of death.
“I told you there’s no one here.”
“Show us the bodies.”
Constance sighed. “They’re upstairs.”
She followed on behind as they climbed the stairs with the torch in hand. Inside the back bedroom, she saw the blanket was once again covering the bodies. She couldn’t remember covering them back up the first time when she and Marigold had seen them. All Constance could remember was them scarpering from the room in sheer terror.
Now Tammy was reaching down to pull back the cover. The corpses were revealed once more, still with ties wrapped around their necks; still with their mouths agape; still with their eyes staring nowhere.
In the dark, unable to help themselves, the women screamed. Constance glanced at the figures on the bed. She shone her torch and gasped as bile pumped up her gullet from her empty stomach. She was retching. She was about to throw up. “We need to get out of here?” she said as her voice went flat.
“Out of the house?” one of them whispered.
She shook her head. “Out of Seaview.”
Now there were three figures in the bed, where once there were two.
Between the two corpses, on bloodied sheets, was the laid-out, gutless carcass of the Butler’s cat, right smack in the middle between its two dead masters.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Everyone returned to Eva’s house, their faces ashen and their bodies trembling from the cold. Eva and Tammy went to the fire and huddled in front of it.
Marigold greeted Constance as she fell to her knees next to Gladys. Gladys stroked her hair as Constance sobbed from trauma and exhaustion. Marigold pretended to embrace her, as she whispered in her ear. “Did you get the wetsuit?” Their heads were together now. Gladys, Constance and Marigold, like the allies they had become in a matter of hours. Crucial hours.