by Ryan Casey
Brian’s jaw began to shake as he got closer to her. He scratched at his elbows. He could feel his tear ducts starting to tickle. He wanted to stay distant. He wanted to stay professional about this. He had to.
“Brian? You’re okay, thank God. Thank God.” She stopped in the middle of the road. Frowned some more at him. “But…that look. Brian. What…It’s not Marie, is it? Please. Just tell me. Please.”
Brian reached and squeezed the bridge of his nose as tears started to seep from his eyes. Seeing Hannah like this made him realise how hard this really was. It was her sister. Her fucking sister. He couldn’t make her suffer with worry any longer. He had to stay calm. He had to tell her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice shakier than he’d intended. He glanced at her face. Her jaw started to drop. She stumbled back, then shook her head, then staggered forward again and covered her mouth with her hands.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, staring her square in the eyes as tears poured down his face.
The rest of the world seemed to blur away as Hannah dropped to her knees in the middle of the country lane and let out a blood-curdling high-pitched whine.
Chapter Eighteen
The sun shone down on Brooklands Drive. Condensation ran down the window, pooling on the windowsill in a chilly little puddle. Outside, the street was quiet. Cars drove by without any real urgency. Mothers pushed prams down the street, chatting to their kids in juvenile tones. After the double assault of Halloween and Bonfire Night, the peace was perfectly welcome. It was like a comedown, or a return to reality, before the panic all started over again in the hectic build-up to Christmas.
Brian let go of the velvety cream curtain and eased it back in place. He turned around. Hannah was still in bed, completely rigid. It was 9 a.m. Usually, she’d be out of bed by now, getting a start on her day. But since Marie had died, she’d slipped into a state of misery. She’d lie in bed until 4 p.m, and even then she’d only get up to eat a few slices of toast, watch a bit of television, then slump off to bed again around 8 p.m. The freelance writing offers were passing by. The stacks of physical newspapers she’d had delivered were untouched. And nothing Brian could do or say seemed to be able to snap her out of this slump.
He sighed as he walked closer to her. He knew how she felt. Not the bereavement part—he’d never had somebody so close to him murdered. But he knew what it was like to be in a hole. He’d been to the very bottom. Noose around his neck, razor blades against his wrists. He hardly recognised that version of himself. It was like a miserable old past life where he was possessed with nothing but worthlessness. He couldn’t allow Hannah to sink like that. He couldn’t watch a bright spark disintegrate.
He lowered himself and kissed her on the cheek. Her eyelids twitched and her shoulders tensed. He knew she was awake. She always seemed to do this now. Rather than face the small talk, she’d just keep her eyes closed and pull the covers up to her neck. The room was stuffy. There was a sweaty tang in the air. A pit of filth. A pit of misery. Brian knew it all too well.
He stroked her arm then rose again, heading over to the bedroom door, which he gently pulled to as he walked out. She’d only been out of the house for any extended amount of time once, and that was for the funeral four days ago.
And even that, she went home before the after-party. Well, not after-party, but whatever they called that morose gathering at the pub afterwards.
Brian rolled up his sleeves and walked down the stairs. It was completely silent in the house but for the large rooster-faced clock on the wall by the entrance, ticking away, and the occasional car passing by. He glanced at the mail. More newspapers. More junk mail, by the looks of things. He scooped it up and headed towards the kitchen with it.
Twelve days had passed since Brian stepped inside that farmhouse and found Marie’s decapitated head sitting atop a pile of discarded torsos. DI Marlow had been in contact a couple of times with updates. Turns out forensics confirmed the bodies were those killed in the Pendle Hill and Longridge Fell massacres, which undeniably ended any speculation that the two events stood alone. But even so, nobody in the Lancashire police seemed to be able to find any sort of links to a killer. No fingerprints. No saliva or bodily fluids. No epithelial cells under any of the fingernails, which might have given away some kind of scrap with the assailant. No loose hairs. Basically, they had nothing at all. How could a man kill eleven people and leave absolutely no trace whatsoever?
Brian flicked the kettle on and sat back with a newspaper. The massacre coverage had been relegated to the sixth page, with the tabloids opting for coverage of some celebrity or another’s latest love scandal. The footprints in the mud had been a dead lead too. As Brian suspected when they were out on that muddy field that night, the killer must have been wearing shoes with no pattern on the bottom, which the mud just swallowed up.
And they’d cleaned up after themselves in the farmhouse. In a way, anyway.
It just pissed Brian off to the extreme that he’d been a matter of feet from this killer. He’d muttered the words, “History decides the innocent from the guilty” to him. Brian had Googled it a few times. Tried to make sense of it.
There was nothing. And yet he couldn’t help but feel the killer’s tone was personal. Like the question marks he’d found, it seemed directed at him.
After all, the Harold Harvey of the 17th Century murdered twelve suspected witches. If this person really was re-enacting Harold Harvey’s killings, then why didn’t he just kill Brian there and then and finish his twelve-part masterpiece?
The landline phone rang loudly from the kitchen windowsill. Brian jumped up as it took him by surprise, interrupting his trail of thoughts. He rushed over for it, almost knocking over a withering house plant in the process, and pulled it to his ear. He prayed it wasn’t somebody who’d force him to explain himself to Hannah. She was getting really paranoid about phone calls since all the contact with David Wallson, whom, incidentally, he hadn’t spoken to since that night almost two weeks ago.
“Hello?” he said.
“Brian. How are you? And how’s Hannah?”
He was both relieved and a tad wary when he heard the familiar voice of his ex-wife, Vanessa. His skin tingled somewhat, and he turned around to check Hannah wasn’t watching in the hallway. “Yeah. I’m…I’m good. How’s…How’s you and yours?”
“Oh, Davey’s good,” she said. Brian could hear the mumbling of children’s television in the background. “And Stu is just back to work right now. When is it you’re back again? Tomorrow?”
Brian grunted. He wasn’t looking forward to returning to duty on the streets. “Yeah. Listen, I’d love to see Davey before I go back, and…um…” He picked at the tip of his finger and bit his lip. “Hannah,” he said, lowering his voice, “she’s not good. Like…when I was bad. And I know you…you helped me through in the end. After the—the Watson case. You helped me. I need some advice, Ness. I really do.”
He heard footsteps thumping against the stairs. Fuck. Hannah would go crazy if she knew he was asking his ex-wife to help her out.
Vanessa was speechless for a few moments. “Well, erm…yeah. How about lunch? At the Station Café? Around twelve? I can—”
“That’d be great. Gotta rush. See you then.” He hit the cancel button and tossed the phone back on its cradle.
“Who was that?” Hannah asked. Her dark hair was fluffed up on top of her head. Her skin was pale, and her eyes were blotchy and red.
Brian tried to avoid eye contact with her as he reached for the kettle and poured steaming hot water over two cups of tea. “No one. Just…Just arranging to meet Davey later, that’s all.”
“Speaking with her, were you? Speaking about—about how pitiful I am. How pathetic I’m acting.”
Brian tutted and shook his head. His cheeks flared up. He wanted to support his girlfriend—that’s the whole point he was going to see his ex-wife, for fuck’s sake—�
��but sometimes she just flared up in the most unreasonable of ways. “No, honey. I was arranging to see my son. Okay if I use the car?”
Hannah shrugged and pushed past Brian. She smelt of body odour, and her usually pristine hair was shiny with grease. “Do what you want. I won’t be off anywhere today. Oh, Marie’s dog, Rocky, they found a new home for him already.”
“Well, that’s good news, isn’t it?” Brian said, forcing a smile. “That’s positive, right?”
Without even looking at Brian again, Hannah took her brew out of the kitchen and walked back up the stairs.
Brian shook his head. He reached for his phone and opened up his contacts, hovering over Vanessa’s name as he took a large gulp of hot tea. He pressed her name then lifted his phone to his ear.
After a few rings, she answered.
“Oh, hello again,” she said. “Calling to finish off saying goodbye?”
“Is there any chance we can meet earlier? Like, now? I think I need some advice sooner than I thought.”
The Station Café was an unremarkable little building just off the main road that ran through Longridge. It was whitewashed, and had an out-of-place modern conservatory growing out of the side of it like a tumour.
That said, they did serve bloody good sandwiches.
Brian could see Vanessa and Davey through the conservatory window as he approached. Vanessa was wearing her wooly grey coat, while Davey had a trendy new black hoodie zipped up to his neck. His hair was getting longer and curlier every time Brian saw him, too. Vanessa’s hair, on the other hand, which had always been white blonde when Brian was with her, was a dark brown shade now.
Clearly the blonde dye had stopped disguising the grey spots.
“Hello, you,” Brian said, grinning as he entered the Station Café. He approached the circular table in the corner, beside a stand of Longridge-themed postcards and calendars, and rustled Davey’s curly locks.
Vanessa smiled. She had her hands wrapped around a half-drank cup of coffee.
“Come on—too old to give your dad a hug?”
Davey frowned, then patted his dad on the back, blushing and looking over his shoulder to check nobody was watching.
“He’s just the same with me these days,” Vanessa said. “Won’t be seen holding hands with his mum now, ‘ey?” She prodded him in the back and he lurched himself forward to stop his mother making a fool of him, then sulked back into his chair.
“You okay?” Vanessa asked.
Brian smiled and nodded as he kissed Vanessa on each cheek. Now he was the one blushing and looking over his shoulder. “Yeah. I’m good. Well, as good as we can be, y’know?”
“Oh yeah,” Vanessa said. She pulled an envelope out of her bag and handed it to Brian. “Give this to Hannah, won’t you? Sympathy card. Could’ve sworn I’d given it to you but here it is, floating around my bag. Sorry it’s late.”
Brian took the card and slipped it in his pocket. “Thanks. She’ll appreciate that. How’s things with you, anyway?”
“Ah, the usual. Which is nice, I guess. Took this young man out to the fireworks the other night, didn’t we?”
Davey nodded.
“Were there any rockets?” Brian asked.
“Nah. They were boring.”
Brian raised his eyebrows and looked at Vanessa, who shrugged. “Bit tetchy when he’s out of bed early on a weekend,” she mouthed.
“Sounds like his dad.”
The three of them chatted for the best part of an hour, just catching up on life. Vanessa and Brian didn’t really see one another anymore. It was pretty inappropriate, after all—they both had new partners and new lives now. But it was still nice to catch up with her. He had been married to her for twenty years, after all. She was his first love, and the mother of his child. There was no attraction there anymore. Hannah was way more attractive than V anyway.
But he wouldn’t tell Vanessa that. He had no intentions of starting a war any time soon.
It was towards the end of the conversation that Vanessa finally brought up the topic Brian had come to talk about.
“You just make sure you treat her like she’s lost a leg,” she said, out of the blue. “But be tough with her. Push her outside and force her to hop down the street. Depression’s a bugger. It messes with the mind of the victim and the mind of those around the victim. I got some things wrong with you, Brian, and I hold my hands up and admit that now. You can’t mollycoddle her or she’ll just sink further and further into that isolated pit. But you can’t lock her out either. You have to strike a balance.”
“Balancing on one leg is a bitch, though.”
Vanessa frowned and nodded her head at Davey, who grinned at his dad.
“Sorry. A female dog, I meant to say. Anyway, I get what you’re saying. It’s just tough sometimes. Maybe it’ll be better when I’m back at work. Maybe me being stuck at home too is making her feel even more weird.”
“When are you back again?”
“Tomorrow,” Brian said, but his stomach churned up as he did. “Hardly want to go back after everything, but…er…”
“Are you going to be in the news again?” Davey asked.
Brian’s face went hot. The pictures of him being dragged away from the Pendle Hill crime scene had not escaped his son’s attention, after all. “Not if I can help it.”
“How is that case going, anyway?” Vanessa asked, as a waitress took away their plates and cups. “Seems to have gone a bit quiet on that front.”
Brian pulled himself into his leather coat. Two years ago, he’d never have been able to wear this. A victory against the chub. “I don’t know much more than you, to be honest. No DNA. No fingerprints. Not a trace.” He thought of the question mark, engraved onto Marie’s forehead. And the fact that “Harold Harvey II” still had one murder pending, if the history books were correct. “But anyway. It’s…it’s none of my business. My business is my family right now. My family and my job. That’s where my head is.”
“Good,” Vanessa said, a genuine warm smile crinkling her cheeks. “You’re learning.”
The three of them exchanged a hug and another awkward kiss on the cheek before leaving the Station Café.
Just before Davey had the chance to leave, however, Brian revealed he’d had a pair of football tickets for the Preston North End game hidden away in his pocket. Davey’s brown eyes lit up when they saw them.
“On one condition,” Brian said, waving them in his face. “You turn that frown upside down. Okay?”
Davey smiled and hugged his dad. “Okay. But do I have to keep smiling after the football match, too?”
Brian and Vanessa laughed. “You stubborn little so-and-so.”
“Definitely takes after his dad,” Vanessa added, before walking away towards her car with Davey.
Brian smiled as they got inside the green Honda and disappeared up the hilly high street. It was nice to be amicable with Vanessa again. She could turn out a good friend.
“Treat her like she’s broken a leg,” Brian muttered, as he walked towards the flower shop. “Weirdest bit of advice I’ve ever heard.”
Brian took in a deep breath as he unlocked the door of his house. The November wind was picking up out in the street, sending the fallen autumn leaves flying like a minor tornado. Next door’s plant pots had fallen over again. Silly buggers. They insisted on placing the paper-light pot right beside the front door, where even the smallest gust of wind was likely to knock it over, and acted surprised when bloody gale-force speeds knocked it down. Idiots.
Holding the flowers he’d picked up from the shop in Longridge, Brian opened the front door.
Hannah was already waiting for him in the hallway. Her eyes were still puffy and red. Her hair was still a mess. She was scratching at her arms, and biting her lip.
“Hello, honey,” Brian said. He waved the huge bundle of roses in her direction. “Surprise…I guess.”
A smile twitched across Hannah’s face as she sa
w the flowers, then dropped away. “How was Davey?”
Brian tilted his head from side to side. “Yeah. Good. We’d better put these in a vase beside the window. Got to give them a bit of light—”
“She was there, wasn’t she?”
Brian’s shoulders slumped. There was no point in lying, not now. It was getting ridiculous, anyhow. There was nothing between them. Why couldn’t Hannah just accept that?
“Yes,” Brian said. “She was. I met up with her and Davey and we had a coffee and a cookie together.”
Hannah’s fearful expression turned into a snarl. “Rubbing it in my face, that’s what you’re doing. You’ve no respect for me. No respect.”
“Actually,” Brian said, raising his voice, “I went to speak to my ex-wife about how I could help you. She looked after me when I was in a rut for the first few months. You can turn your nose up at that all you want, but I went to ask for help, because I just can’t seem to get anything right at the moment.”
Hannah shook her head. She grabbed her coat from the side of the staircase, and made for the door.
Brian stepped in her way.
“Let me leave,” Hannah said, squaring up to Brian. Tears built up in her eyes. “I want to leave. I want to get out of here.”
“No,” Brian said. It felt good saying it. He knew he had to put his foot down. He had to get his point across. It was the only way they were getting through this. “Now, we’re going to go into that kitchen, we’re going to sit down, and we’re going to talk. Hannah, I love you. Love you to fucking pieces. And you don’t think it hurts me, too? What happened to your sister. You don’t think that affects me? I want to be here for you. I want to be a good partner to you.”
Hannah lowered her head. She was still snarling, but with less ferocity.
“Hannah,” Brian said, resting his hand on her shoulder. “I’ve been at the lowest point. Yes—I wrapped a noose around my neck and jumped from a staircase. My son witnessed that, and judging by how cold he is with me these days, he’s just beginning to understand. I cut at my wrists for months. I shacked up in a pit of misery and I let the world turn me into a cynical fat bastard all because it felt like the easiest thing to do.