The Dead Of Winter

by Billy McLaughlin

  For the next few minutes, Casey watched Dan wringing his head out in his hands. The minutes seemed to last forever. She had to stop him from leaving. She couldn’t give him the time to dispose of Shannon’s body because it would only be her word against his. Who would believe somebody who had aided the kidnapping of a child. She had to act quickly.

  Dan must have heard her boots crunching in the snow because she watched his head snap up until he was staring directly at her. When she was ten yards away she finally spoke. “Dan?”

  His eyes were blazing. “You were in on it as well, eh? What did you think you would do? Get me out here and what?”

  “I swear, I didn’t even know you were coming here.” She made sure not to step near the embankment because one wrong foot could be deadly.

  “I thought you were a nice kid, Casey. Not like your loopy pal here, but an actual decent girl. Why would you think it was okay to take somebody’s baby?” His anger seemed to subside as he realised the enormity of what he’d done. He’d smashed a teenage girl’s skull in with a rock. He wasn’t sure that anybody would equate this with Shannon’s stupid actions. This was murder!

  “I’m sorry,” was all she could muster.

  Dan walked towards her and shook his head. “You know. She was fixated with me. Convinced I wanted to sleep with her. You know that, don’t you?”

  Casey hadn’t believed it had really happened until now. She had witnessed their flirtation. She had sat in the middle of them as they bickered childishly about the best rugby player in the world. When Shannon spoke about their love, Casey thought it was the teenage crush of a sad unloved girl. Now, as her eyes slowly drifted from his face to the dead body at his feet, she knew that it hadn’t been a lie at all.

  “I know about you and Shannon,” she offered. Had he nothing better by way of defence, she wondered. Maybe he hoped that she didn’t know what had been going on. Maybe he wanted somebody to hear his truth. She imagined it sounded better in his head than it did in the vast wide open. She tilted her head back towards the trees and silently willed Samantha to hurry up. She wasn’t sure how long she could ward him off.

  Dan took one step forward. There was something threatening in the way he leered at her and she detected the threatening note in his voice. She took one step back.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, Casey. I’m sure you saw her come at me. If I hadn’t hit her, she would have probably killed me. I had to defend myself. I had to defend my family. Huh?” Another lie. They came so easily to him.

  Casey nodded. “Yeah, Dan. I know. She would have probably killed you,” she murmured unconvincingly.

  “Put it this way. Nobody needs to know that you knew about her taking Archie. This is something that can go away for all of us.”

  Casey wasn’t sure that it could be so easily buried. Paul Gilfeather was an angry, violent man. Casey had seen it once. She’d never want to get on the wrong side of him.

  “I didn’t know,” she protested angrily. She looked back at Shannon and saw that a patch of snow around her head was now laced in red blood.

  “Of course you didn’t. That’s what I’m saying.” Dan was speaking slowly now but the desperation pitched his voice a little higher. He was also starting to sweat profusely.

  Casey was about to turn and run when he lunged forward and grabbed her.

  “We can do it your way Casey. Or you can help me throw her body into the river.”

  Casey had been right. He wanted to cover his tracks. She balked at the mere suggestion that she would help him. She had come here to face her part in the crime she had aided, not find herself manipulated into another one. If only she could muster the courage to tell him that he’d shot himself in the foot because it could have been an accident and she wouldn’t have known. She hadn’t seen the attack. She reckoned he believed she’d been part of the whole plot and that she’d been waiting in the wings as a witness. She had only come out here because Samantha Bradley had called her asking for help.

  “I’m not going to lie for you Dan. I’ve lied enough for people.” Casey wasn’t going to be pushed around anymore, she decided. Although, as soon as she said it, she realised that it probably wasn’t the best moment to reveal her backbone.

  Dan lunged forward and wrapped his hands around her hair. “Really? You think I won’t get a pat on the back for this. You two kidnapped my baby, you pair of little psychos.”

  She let out a shallow yelp as he snapped her head back. Her neck began to ache almost instantly.

  “Why did the two of you really come out here tonight? Did you really expect that we were going to drop the whole thing? I thought you were a little brighter than that.” He pushed her towards the edge of the embankment. “You see that water down there? They say it’s full of dead bodies. People who are never found. People who don’t want to be found. That’s why they jump in. It’s so murky at the bottom that the body doesn’t get a chance to float back to the surface. The two of you would just disappear and everybody would assume you’ve run away to escape justice.” He pushed at her once more and tightened his grip on her. He was toying with her.

  Suddenly her temper snapped. She managed to free herself from his grip and pushed him away. “Go on, then, do it. You’re all so busy pushing people about that you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing to them. You want to snap my neck? You want to cave my skull in you spineless old bastard? Oh yeah, I’ll lie for you. I’ll tell them all that Shannon lied about the affair. Or that I didn’t see you behave the same way towards Samantha. You’ve brought all of this on yourself, but I’ll keep it to myself, shall I?” She moved towards him. “Only, I’ll still know you’re an old pervert.”

  He recoiled in shock because he hadn’t expected Casey to snap. In the years that they’d lived across the road he’d never seen her do anything but smile politely. He hadn’t seen her outburst coming. He didn’t even know she had it in her. She hadn’t been as quiet or as straight down the line as she first appeared. She had been standing in the background, quietly watching and listening, so that she could douse him in the ugly truth when this moment finally arrived. He looked back at Shannon. “It was still an accident,” he said, his voice cracking slightly.

  “I might have believed you if you hadn’t threatened to kill me as well,” she whispered, her voice returning to the meek quiet tone that he would recognise.

  Dan crunched his teeth and frowned. “Nobody will believe you.”

  He almost jumped when he heard a voice from behind. “I believe her.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Mary was still reeling from the exchange between herself and her ex-husband as she ploughed through Samantha’s belongings. Surely there was something in here that would give her an indication of where her daughter might have gone.

  She heard the doorbell ring and called out to her other daughter. “Lizzie, get the door.”

  The police had already confirmed that Samantha was no longer a suspect in the kidnapping of Archie Wilson. Which probably meant she was no longer a priority. Their real focus had been the six-month-old baby next door. A teenage runaway probably wouldn’t feature much in their concerns. Yet, every minute she was missing would be another minute that Mary would slowly go out of her mind.

  Samantha’s dad had reacted exactly how Mary would have expected him to. He forgot all reason and blew his fuse with her. He branded her unfit to look after his girls and chastised himself for allowing her to take them away from him. All this while he enjoyed his fifth holiday of the year at his villa in Alicante. It was easy to take the moral high ground when he only saw the girls half a dozen times throughout the year. Still, at least he was flying home when he was actually needed.

  Mary could still hear the echo of her words as she had lost her head and fired back at him. She generally showed composure and dignity, but she’d had enough. He’d needled her all through their divorce and two custody hearings, yet he hadn’t even managed to stick to the agreed access arrangements. So she delivered
a sermon of verbal bile down the phone at him. She’d told him that his rare visits and occasional pocket money wasn’t really cutting it and that they were still sore from him abandoning them for some tramp that he’d met in a bar. It was time he stepped up and made it up to the girls. She’d used a few choice words that she didn’t want to think about. In fact, she didn’t want to spend another minute thinking about him. He didn’t warrant that much attention.

  She was interrupted from her anger by the sound of Ida Webster. Dumping the magazines that she now sifted through, Mary ran towards the top of the stairs. It was a relief to hear a voice other than her own and she knew that Ida would have come offering support, not judgement. She was probably the only person who wouldn’t have had something vicious to say about Mary and her girl today. Samantha might no longer be a suspect but small minds were still small minds.

  “There you are Mary. Thank goodness. We need to go. They’ve found Samantha.”

  Mary looked confused. “Who’s found her? Where is she?” She darted down the stairs.

  “I just saw Carla. She’s headed to the cemetery. She said Samantha’s with Casey.” Ida had evidently dashed in to Mary’s as soon as she’d learned this because she leaned against the wall and tried to catch her breath.

  Mary’s jaw dropped as she replayed the words in her head. ‘She said Samantha’s with Casey.’ Ida’s tone suggested that Samantha was alive. Mary couldn’t remember the last time she felt such a bleed of joy. It tightened and wrapped itself around her until she almost combusted with happiness. Her daughter was found. She rushed down the stairs and threw her arms around Ida. “They’ve found her. Is she okay? Where has she been? Oh my god, I need to go. Ida, will you stay with Lizzie?”

  Lizzie stared up with disappointed eyes. “I want to come with you, mum.”

  “I won’t be long,” replied Mary as she stared down into the girl’s determined eyes. She paused for a second. “Oh, okay. Hurry up and put your coat on.”

  With that, all three of them raced out the door.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Dan’s head almost spun as he heard the voice from behind. He watched as Carla Miller stepped around him and threw her arms around Casey. He saw them embrace as Casey began to cry. Then he slanted his head again.

  “That’s right. I believe every word.” Joanne stepped out of the shadows so he could see every raging line on her face. There was no mistaking the fury as her facial features tightened. She looked happy to tear him apart.

  “Joanne, what are you doing here?” His eyes darted back and forth as he digested the awful truth that he had been caught. He followed her stare as she thumbed her nose at the dead body on the ground.

  “Catching you out. I met Carla on my way back from the hospital. Seemingly there’s a lot I don’t know about you. Paedophile! Killer! Arsehole.” Her voice rose as she rhymed off just a few of his new titles. She stepped forward until she was standing less than five inches from his face. Her heels left little dots in the snow. “If you were going to cheat on me, you could have at least made sure they were legal.”

  “It’s not what you think,” he muttered limply. He pointed to the dead girl on the ground. “She wouldn’t leave me alone. Every time she came around I had to fight her off.” He looked as if he were ready to drop to his knees and plead with her.

  She snickered loudly. “Please. Fight her off? You’re a regular Chippendale, aren’t you? How many other little slags have there been?” She circled him then, just like a preying vulture waiting for him to react, or run. When he didn’t, she simply continued. “Have you heard yourself? You’re pathetic. Claiming that a 15-year-old girl with a chip on her shoulder seduced you into bed.” She hissed through her teeth at him. “She’s not even a particularly attractive plaything. You, on the other hand, will make a very good plaything. Especially in jail. You’ve heard what they do to people like you. You’ll either be somebody’s bitch or they’ll cut off your dick. Maybe you can tell them your sad tale about her not leaving you alone. I’m sure they’ll be very sympathetic as they push your face down into the pillow.”

  Dan began to sniff back tears. He watched as Joanne pulled her phone from her pocket. “Please don’t do this, Jo. We can get through it. We’ll move away. Start somewhere else. Just you, me and Archie.”

  “You think I’m letting Archie come back to the house,” she screamed. “You’re a paedophile.” The emphasis on her last word hung heavy in the air.

  Dan’s eyes widened. He felt a surge of anger race through him. He clenched his fist.

  “What the hell are we going to do in a new area anyway? Solicit a new horde of teenage babysitters for you to work your way through?” She spat in disgust because it was all she could do not to vomit. “I’m not going anywhere, but you are.”

  He snatched the phone from her hand and hurled it into the river.

  “Really good move Dan. What are you going to do, throw all the mobile phones in the world into the river? We could be here a while. Carla, can I borrow your phone?” As she walked over to face Carla, Dan suddenly grabbed her arm.

  “I’ll give you one last chance to reconsider,” he mumbled angrily as he tightened his hand around her elbow.

  Joanne suddenly felt afraid. In the years she’d been with him, she’d never known him to be violent. She no longer knew what he was capable of, yet she suspected there were no limits to what he would do to save his own skin. “Take your dirty hands off me.”

  She could feel his hand shake as it tightened around her. He was wavering. He took his hand away and allowed her to walk towards Carla. She snatched the girl’s phone.

  As she dialled nine-nine-nine and turned back to look at him, he had moved to the edge of the bridge where Shannon’s body lay. Even now, as the girl lay dead at the hands of Joanne’s husband, she couldn’t find an iota of sympathy. They had both sewn their own fate. Shannon had been complicit in destroying her family. Dead was probably the best thing that could happen to her.

  Dan leaned over the body and climbed onto the frame of the bridge. The water rushed beneath which made him feel quite queasy. He climbed until he stood atop the railing and then looked down towards his wife. She was holding the phone to her ear.

  “Where’s Samantha?” Joanne spoke directly to Casey, who had been so caught up in what was unfolding that she almost forgot Samantha was hiding at the cemetery.

  “We’ll go find her.” Casey grabbed Carla and the two of them disappeared into the trees.

  Joanne turned back to Dan and saw he now teetered on the edge of the bridge. She walked towards him. “Police please.”

  Dan lifted his arms so that he was balanced on the fence. “I’ll jump.”

  If Joanne had heard him, she didn’t acknowledge his threat. She simply chewed on her nail and continued to hold the phone to her ear. “Yes. I want to report that my husband is a paedophile and a killer.”

  She could see the desperation muster in his expression. He looked a broken man. He deserved that and more. “His name is Daniel Wilson. We live at 87 Golf Road.”

  “I’m going to do it,” he screamed.

  “We’re at the Bluebell bridge at the back of the cemetery. You’ll see our cars parked in the pathway.” She pulled the phone from her ear and looked back up at him. He had the audacity to look betrayed.

  “Please give me one more chance to explain. It’s not what you think.” Dan reached down to touch her hand. He looked like he might be struggling to keep his balance as he became more desperate for her to engage with him.

  Joanne smiled. “I know all I need to know.” She reached up and allowed his fingers to touch hers. For a moment, it looked like she might cave in and give him the chance to explain. She had realised by now he had no intentions of jumping. He was too cowardly for that. She looked off to the left and realised she and Dan were completely alone. The girls had gone in search of Samantha. Joanne moved towards Dan and let out a heavy sigh. Her breath turned grey against the moonlit air. She smiled. “
I didn’t call the police.” She smiled mockingly and waited for him to react.

  “What?” He retracted his hand and grabbed onto the bridge to try and balance himself. He knew exactly what she meant before she even said it.

  “I lied. I pressed the numbers, but I didn’t make the call. You don’t think I’m letting you drag me and my baby into your seedy affair, do you? Airing your depravity to all the world and making a mug of me? I hoped you would have the decency to throw yourself off the bridge.” She lifted her eyelids higher and bared her teeth. Just for a second so he could see the intent in her eyes. Then she lurched forward and gave him a hard push. As he lost balance, he grabbed her arm and wrapped his right hand around it whilst grabbing onto the edge of the railing with his left.

  A moment later, he was pulling Joanne over the edge with him. She managed to grab onto the cold steel railing to prevent herself from begin pulled with him. He grabbed on to her coat so she would either fall with him or be forced to help him up. He was slipping slightly and his hand was whitening from the tight grip that he had on the edge of the bridge.

  Joanne searched desperately for someone to free her from his clutches. He was now dangling beneath her. She would not dare to look down because she knew if she did she would see what potentially lay in wait for her. She tried not to imagine the jaws of the river snapping up at her feet. She could feel Dan pulling hastily at her now. He would either use her to hang on or he would pull her to a watery grave. She tried to pull her coat out of his tight grip and turned to see the determination on his face. She was beginning to realise the only way she would save herself would be to save him.

  THIRTY-NINE

  When the police arrived, Casey had erupted into panic. Even Carla had struggled to make sense of what she was trying to say, and she already knew the bones of the story. As Detective Wallace and PC Irving went off to find Joanne and Dan Wilson, the girls continued their search for Samantha.