33 Chapter Thirty-three
The wind made Jennifer’s eyes stream as she strode from the car. The local park was her favourite place to be, a place where she was never alone. The large wooden playground attracted Haven’s network of young children, and the pathways and trails that wound through the woodlands were perfect for walkers and joggers alike. She often brought Josh there, and it held nothing but happy memories. She did not see the elderly priest as she bumped into him, sending his paperwork scattering in the breeze. Father Kelly was a short, portly man. Pink and fresh faced, he looked years younger than his age, yet he was the type of man who seemed to have been around forever.
‘Oh, sorry,’ she said, blinking back her streaming eyes to see the kindly face from the past.
‘Why, little Jenny Knight, is that you?’ he said, in his soft Irish lilt.
‘Father Kelly, I’m so sorry, do you want me to chase after them for you?’ She pointed to the sheets of paper taking flight in the wind.
‘Oh no, child, don’t worry about it. It was just a sermon. I can print off another one. The joys of modern technology, you know.’ He gave her a wink. ‘Perhaps some lost soul will find hope in it.’ He stood back and smiled. ‘Now, let me look at you.’ The priest stood back, playfully wagging his finger. ‘I haven’t seen your face at mass for a very long time.’
Jennifer shrugged uncomfortably. ‘Sorry Father, I’ve been busy with work and everything.’
Would you walk with me? You look like you could do with a friendly ear.’
‘That’s very perceptive of you, Father. Yes, I could do with some advice.’
She fell into the priest’s steady stride, and her shoulders dropped as she unburdened herself. ‘This is going to sound strange, Father, and I don’t know if you will be able to help,’ she said, digging her hands into her pockets.
The lines on Father Kelly’s face fell into a smile. It seemed to be his default setting. ‘We won’t know until we try. What seems to be the problem?’
‘Remember how you helped me deal with … uninvited visitors as a child? Well, it’s all started up again and I don’t know what to do.’
Father Kelly nodded and pointed to a bench. The silence was agonising as doubts crept in. Perhaps he had only been placating her as a child, and the stories of exorcisms and ghosts were invented to make a traumatised child feel better. It wasn’t as if they had ever told anyone else. Every second that passed affirmed her concerns that he believed she was either crazy or making it up.
They sat staring out at the green, watching children chase their football as the breeze took it. Finally, he spoke. ‘Why don’t you start from the beginning?’
She exhaled in relief and relayed her concerns of paranormal activity, the voices in her head, the feeling of being watched and the suspicious deaths in the area. The more she spoke, the crazier it sounded. Intertwining her fingers, she lowered her gaze to the ground. ‘I’m sorry Father, I realise how insane this all sounds.’
Father Kelly patted her fidgeting hands. ‘I believed you then and I believe you now. I’ve been a priest for several decades and seen things I’ll never be able to explain. It doesn’t mean I’ve gone mad, it just means I have encountered experiences beyond my understanding.’
Jennifer leaned in closer to hear as the wind took his voice away.
‘Perhaps there is a rational explanation, or perhaps it’s something trying to get your attention.’
Father Kelly looked to the sky, searching for answers. ‘The problem is, you can’t block it because you’re curious about what’s going on. That curiosity is opening a door that’s very hard to close. You need to come back to me when you’re ready to return to the church and leave behind what’s taunting you.’
Jennifer’s response was non-committal, and disguised her disappointment with his lackluster response. ‘Thanks, Father, for hearing me out. I feel better now.’
The priest gave a gentle chuckle. ‘I’m glad to hear it, although I think for now we should keep it between ourselves. Talk of contact with the dead tends to unsettle people. It doesn’t matter how well they know you, people still need to rationalise it, even if it means labelling a sane person as mad.’
The message was not lost on Jennifer, and she kept it in mind as she answered the door of her home to a sheepish looking Will that afternoon.
His hands were stuffed in his jacket pockets, and his chin tucked into the grey woollen scarf she had bought him for Christmas the year before. He shuffled on her doorstep. ‘Bloody freezing cats and dogs out here, are you going to let me in?’
Jennifer waved him inside as he wiped his boots on her doormat. ‘It’s raining cats and dogs, not freezing. Come into the living room, I’ve got the fire on.’
Will unwound his scarf, groaning at having to remove his shoes. His new clothes budget did not stretch very far and Jennifer laughed to see his right toe poking through a small hole in his black sock.
‘This Christmas I’m buying you new grey socks to match your scarf. How's your mum?’
Will followed, rubbing his hands as he took a seat in the black leather armchair beside the fire. ‘Mum? Oh yeah, she’s fine.’ He clasped his knees with his hands, and Jennifer frowned as she caught sight of the grazed knuckles of his left hand.
‘What happened to your hand?’
‘How about a coffee? One of your fancy ones, from the machine,’ Will asked, furtively.
Jennifer shook her head. ‘Not until you tell me what’s going on.’
‘You’re not going to like it.’ He picked up the poker and began digging at the flames. The Victorian cast iron fireplace added a certain charm to the otherwise sterile room. It made her uneasy when people prodded the messy coals, but she did not have the heart to tear the original piece out of her home. Instead she hoovered the dust particles away, each one a little speck of worry. But right now her obsessive cleaning did little to ease her anxiety when people were losing their lives around her.
‘Never mind the fire, just get to the point,’ Jennifer said, impatient for answers.
Returning the poker to the fireplace, he took a breath and met her gaze. ‘I punched Ethan.’
‘You what?’ Jennifer’s voice rose an octave. This was not what she had been expecting at all. Solid, reliable Will had hit someone? Not just anyone either, but their boss’s son!
Will rubbed his stubbled chin. ‘It’s OK, calm down, let me explain.’
Jennifer clamped a hand to her forehead as she stood. ‘Why the hell would you do that? You could lose your job.’
‘He was stalking you.’ The words hung in the air as Jennifer comprehended their meaning. ‘You mentioned being followed so I thought I’d keep an eye out for you. I wasn’t expecting to see anything, but when you left work, Ethan drove behind. I jumped in my car and followed him. He parked up the road from your house and sat there, watching your window.’
‘Right. And you just decided to punch him?’ Jennifer groaned. It sounded ludicrous when she said it out loud.
‘Well, that was kind of it. I walked up and tapped on his car window. He got out and I asked him what he was playing at. I was pretty pissed off by then because he had no reason to be there. He made up some cock and bull story about how you were seeing each other. We got into an argument and ... well, I punched him in the mouth. Don’t give me that look – he deserved it. I think he’s the one who’s been putting the frighteners on you. I just haven’t figured out why yet.’
Jennifer sat and rested her head in her hands. She didn’t have the energy to cope with this crap on top of everything else. ‘I take it you haven’t spoken to Susie since you got back.’
‘No, why?’
‘You owe Ethan an apology. He was kind of telling the truth.’
The colour drained from Will’s face. ‘What? You’re shagging Ethan?’
Jennifer cringed ‘No. We had a fumble at the party, nothing more. It could have gone further but I knocked him back.’ Silence passed between them as her words
sank in. ‘But that’s not all. Ethan is DI Allison’s son.’
Will turned a pasty shade of white. ‘You’re kidding me. Why didn’t you say so?’
‘I didn’t know you were going to smack him one, did I? I take it he hasn’t called it in.’
’I don’t think so. I would have been nicked by now.’
‘In that case I’ll call him, try to smooth things over.’
Will stared vacantly into the open fire, shaking his head. ‘I never would have guessed it, you and Ethan.’
‘There is no me and Ethan, it was a drunken snog, nothing more. I’ve enough going on in my life without a bloke complicating things.’
Will groaned. ‘What a mess. But if it was a one off why would he be following you home?’
‘I don’t know Will, but we can’t go around making accusations, we might have this all wrong. I need to speak to Ethan to find out what he has to say about it.’
‘You can't blame me for getting the wrong end of the stick. I mean, look at all that’s happened. As you said yourself, there are four dead bodies, and nobody’s doing anything about it.’
Will stayed and chatted over coffee, but a nagging feeling distracted Jennifer from his words. Like someone tapping through a fogged up pane of glass, she could not see what it was, but it would not go away until she figured it out. It was not until he left that the reason for her discomfort became apparent. Will’s words replayed as soon as she closed the door behind him. ‘There are four dead bodies, and nobody is doing anything about it.’ Four. Not three, like she had told him, but four. The death of Joan Connelly was not common knowledge and there was no way he could have known of the link. The admission fell like a stone in her mind, casting ripples of mistrust. How did he know about the fourth victim? Will was her rock, someone she could rely on. But punching Ethan was completely out of character and the smile on his face as he relayed the story had demonstrated that he did not regret it in the slightest.
She dialled Ethan’s number, praying for answers. ‘What the hell is going on?’
‘I take it you’ve heard about the assault.’ Ethan’s voice was cold as he spoke in clipped tones.
‘Will’s just called around. Have you reported it?’
‘Not yet. And I’m fine, thank you.’
Jennifer ignored his churlish behaviour. ‘Don’t start acting all peeved with me. There’re some rumours going around the nick about us, and from what I’ve heard, you’ve done nothing to set them right. And what were you doing outside my house?’
‘I was about to knock on your door to apologise. If Will had given me a chance I would have told him as much. It was a lucky punch you know, he caught me off guard.’
Men and their bruised egos, Jennifer thought, trying to placate him. ‘I’m sorry, it’s all my fault. I told Will I was being stalked and he got a bit carried away. You’re not going to make a complaint are you?’
‘I’m thinking about it.’
‘I see. What does your father, DI Allison, think about it?’ Jennifer said, unable to resist the dig.
‘Who told you?’
‘It doesn’t matter who, why are you keeping it a secret?’ Jennifer's opinion of Ethan was rapidly nose diving. She was getting answers, but not the ones she wanted.
‘We thought it best to keep it to ourselves. I wanted to be accepted by my colleagues on my own merit.’
‘What are you going to do now? Things will get real messy if you launch a complaint, you know that don’t you?’
‘Oh for God’s sake, I’m not going to report him, I was just making him stew.’ Ethan's voice softened. ‘I'm sorry things didn't work out between us. But if you have concerns for your personal safety, you need to ask him what he was doing there, not me.’
The conversation left a bitter taste in Jennifer's mouth and she drove to the park for the second time that day. She needed fresh air and sober thoughts to get her head around everything. She also needed to reevaluate her initial findings. She pulled her woollen hat over her ears, spiked red from the cold. The dark shadowed streets fell victim to the evening chill, and there were rumours of heavy snow ahead. She chose her footsteps carefully on the frost-glistened path as she walked from her car, her mind working hard to decipher everything that had occurred.
Why the hell had she messed things up by snogging Ethan? she thought, seeking out a bench. It grated on her that she had made herself a subject of gossip once more. How on earth would people ever take her seriously when she stumbled from one disaster to another? She sighed. She was no nearer to finding the murderer now than ever. The street-lit bench chilled her legs, but the isolation was welcome. She took a deep breath, exhaling a frosted fog as she profiled the killer in her mind.
Quite often murder victims knew their attacker. Intelligence suggested that somebody was hanging around with Johnny before he died, promising him alcohol. The ouija board muddied the waters, but whatever was going on wasn’t solely supernatural. A physical being had to be involved too, mimicking the deaths of Frank Foster. The person spending time with Johnny, the dark figure on CCTV with Shelly before she died – even Charlie had mentioned being taken in by someone. Then there was Josh. The thought of her nephew being involved made her shiver. It had to be someone Jennifer knew. But what could she do? Confronting people would label her as crazy, and everyone she had approached for help had shut down. It felt like she was missing a massive piece of the jigsaw.
Sam Beswick glanced around the prison visiting room for the final time, glad to see the last of the familiar faces. Couples sat head to head, their fingers tentatively touching across their tables. Inmates sat with clenched fists as their criminal counterparts kept them abreast of the dealers muscling in on their territory. And in the furthest corner, contraband was passing hands, the precious currency that was the lifeblood of the prison. Sam extended his hand as he greeted his visitor. ‘I was surprised to hear from you again so soon.’
The man shook his hand briskly before pulling up a chair and sitting across from him. ‘I decided to make a special visit. How’s it going? Not long left now.’
Roman letters spelt out a recent tattoo on Sam’s forearm as he stretched in his chair. ‘To thine own self be true.’ Life had dealt him a strange hand, but he was learning to live with himself, and make plans for the future. ‘I’ve been in and out of this place so often, every time I go I say it’s my last.’
The man leaned forward, clasping his hands together as he rested his elbows on the table. ‘And will it be? Your last, that is.’
Sam nodded thoughtfully, rubbing the back of his shaven head. ‘I think it’s different this time, now I’ve made my peace with the world.’
The man’s eyes narrowed as he cocked his head to one side. ‘Does that include old friends too?’
‘I’m sorry? I’m not with you.’
‘Have you made peace with old friends, Sammy boy?’ His lip curled in a sneer as his voice changed in tone.
The shock of recognition drew Sam’s words in a stutter. ‘I ... I don’t have any friends.’
The menace in the visitor’s voice demanded attention. ‘Oh, I think you have. In fact, I’m delighted to announce that one of your best friends has paid you a visit today. I told you I’d be back, didn’t I?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Sam said, his adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed.
‘I appear different, but you recognise me all right. I can see it in your eyes.’
Sam frowned. ‘What sort of sick joke is this?’
The man gave a fiendish grin as he spoke in a low whisper. ‘It must be dreadful to discover that you’re still in that nightmare you thought you had woken up from. Mr Double Standards, squealing to that little bitch in the station. Remember what you said the last time we were together, over twenty years ago? That you wouldn’t grass on me if it killed you. Remember? Right before you spilled your guts.’
Sam almost forgot to breathe as the nerves in his stomach found legs and tried to crawl up his throat
.
The man gave a kindly nod to the guard as he cast an eye in their direction. ‘Don't look so scared. I'm prepared to forgive your misdemeanors. You were young back then, and the time inside has given you an edge. I have plans for you, kid, and I’ve come such a long way. Now wouldn’t you like to live forever?’
Sam was lost for words. The thought of resuming contact with the killer struck him with terror.
‘Frank, is it really you? I’m not a kid anymore. I won’t go back to that life.’
The man tutted. ‘I’m not Frank, I’m the Grim Reaper. You’re either with me or against me, remember?’ he said, staring with dead eyes.
Sam shifted in his chair, disorientated as he tried to accept the situation that was nothing but surreal. Frank was dead. But something evil had detached and been left behind. Something had taken form, a living breathing person. How?
The man’s voice broke into his thoughts. ‘How is your poor mother these days? Still visiting?’
Sam grabbed the man’s wrist in a warning, then recoiled at the coldness. He hissed under his breath as he leaned forward, ‘You leave my mother out of this.’
‘Why? She’s having a wonderful time, telling all her prayer group friends how she’s reconciled with you after all these years.’ The man took on a woman’s tone as he rasped, ‘He’s turned to Jesus, praise the lord!’ He sniggered as he raised jazz hands to the air, an act utterly out of place with the persona he presented. ‘It’s a shame I’ve never been properly introduced. If you like, I could show her what she’s been missing. Remember my farewell to Tina?’
Don't Turn Around: A dark, thrilling, page-turner of a crime novel (Detective Jennifer Knight Crime Thriller Series Book 1) Page 25