by Agatha Frost
“Who’s dead?” A woman asked quietly. “Who is it, Pete?”
“Cindy,” Julia mumbled under her breath.
“Cindy Gilbert,” Pete echoed Julia.
Tommy let go of Pete and hobbled into the building, followed by a dozen others. She pushed through the crowd to be by Tommy’s side as he lead on. Julia understood what she meant about the man being the leader. Tommy might feel uncomfortable with the title, but people looked to him to take charge.
As they walked towards a burnt out room, which looked as if it had once been an office, their footsteps echoing in the blackened corners, Julia gazed around the shell of the building. Huge chunks of the roof were missing, and it looked as though the rest could fall at any moment.
Tommy pulled back the door with his stick, instantly turning his head away and closing his eyes. Julia stepped around him and looked inside where Cindy was curled up like a baby on a bedding of dirty blankets. There was no way the woman was alive.
Leaving Tommy to shepherd the people out of the building, Julia stood by the door and called for the police, and then for Barker. Before they got there, she crept into the room, wary not to touch anything, but wanting to absorb as much as she could before the unfortunate woman was taken away.
Julia hadn’t been there when the other bodies had been found, but she already knew this was different. Cindy’s chin was glistening, as though she had been sick before dying. Her arms were littered with small puncture marks, some of them looking fresher than others. A syringe lay next to her body.
When the police arrived, Julia stepped to the side to let them do their job. She wasn’t so quick to jump in this time. She joined Jessie and Tommy, who had met up with Barker.
“Has it happened again?” Barker asked quietly, pulling Jessie into Tommy’s makeshift home.
“I don’t think so,” Julia said, careful that they weren’t overheard.
“She’s as dead as a door nail!” Tommy said.
“I know, but I don’t think she was murdered,” Julia said with a heavy sigh as she sat next to Jessie. “It’s not consistent with the others.”
“You’re starting to sound like them,” Tommy said bitterly, spitting on the ground as he watched the police officers come in and out of the building. “You saw the poor woman, Julia.”
“Exactly,” Julia said, leaning forward and looking Tommy in the eye. “I saw her in that building, not by the fence where the others were found. She was also a woman. If only three men had died, I might think it was more random, but four shows some kind of pattern. I think they were all killed by some kind of lethal injection, and I think Cindy was killed by injection as well, but by her own hand. I saw a needle next to her body, but no needles were found near any of the other bodies.”
“That could mean anything, Julia,” Jessie said, shrugging and looking to Tommy for answers.
“I saw something last night,” Julia said heavily, looking up to Barker who was still standing, his hands on his hips. “When we were getting into the taxi, I saw Pete and Cindy talking to a man. They handed over money – the money you gave him, Barker – and the man handed back a needle. I think that’s what killed her.”
“Accidental overdose?” Barker mumbled, almost to himself.
Julia nodded, looking back to Tommy. For a moment, Tommy appeared to not be thinking at all as he stared blankly at the ground. All of a sudden, something seemed to snap in Tommy’s brain and he jumped up. Leaving behind his stick, he hobbled across the car park with speed Julia had never seen in the man. He seemed to be searching for someone, and when he found that person, he sped up even more.
“You killed her!” Tommy cried, launching himself on Pete and knocking them both to the ground. “You pig! You did this!”
“I didn’t,” Pete yelled as he cowered under his hands. “I didn’t mean to. I just left her to sleep it off. I didn’t know this would happen.”
“This is my fault,” Barker whispered to Julia. “I gave him the money.”
“It’s as much my fault then,” Julia whispered back. “I saw it happening and I didn’t stop it.”
“It’s neither of your faults,” Jessie said, sandwiching herself between them. “I know these people. They would have found money somehow, Barker. Nothing you could have said would have stopped them getting a fix, Julia. I’ve seen this happen too many times. I think she had three kids.”
“Kids?” Julia asked, her stomach knotting.
“She told me they were taken from her and that’s how she ended up on the streets,” Jessie said darkly. “She always said she would get clean for them one day, but she wasn’t strong enough.”
Julia quickly wiped away the tear that escaped, not wanting Jessie to see it. She shook her hair out and ran across towards Tommy. With the help of Barker, they pulled him off Pete. He hadn’t actually hurt him; he didn’t seem to have it in him. The adrenaline seemed to wear off, and he would have stumbled to the ground without Julia and Barker’s support. With their help, he hobbled back to his seat and collapsed, his face dropping heavily into his hands. He started to sob the tears of an exhausted man.
Leaving Jessie to comfort him, Julia and Barker wandered towards the exit. They watched as the paramedics carried Cindy into the back of the ambulance covered by a red blanket. For the second time that week, Julia watched another soul drive away from the only home they knew.
“I’ve been researching,” Julia said, digging into her pocket to pull out the webpage she had printed out in the early hours of the morning. “This is a list of just some of the poisons that can be injected and leave little or no trace.”
Barker took the piece of paper from Julia and scanned the list. She could tell he wasn’t taking it as seriously as she had hoped.
“This is the stuff of fiction, Julia.”
“No it isn’t,” she said, snatching the paper back. “In fact, most of this can be made so easily with stuff we all have in our cupboards. Potassium chloride, for example. It’s one of the things they put in lethal injections for death sentences in America. You can make it by boiling bleach into crystals in your kitchen. It kills instantly and metabolises so quickly, it’s practically untraceable. I know they can only test for specific substances if they have a suspicion. If they went in thinking these things were just accidents, they weren’t going to look for any of these things. Tell me that wouldn’t have happened for any other person.”
Barker sighed and pinched between his brows. He didn’t disagree because it was obvious he knew he couldn’t; he knew she could very possibly be right.
“We still have no proof,” Barker said. “I checked. Bailey has been buried, Michael’s family claimed him and cremated him, and so did Robert’s. There’s no evidence.”
“And Mac?” Julia asked, pulling Barker out of the way as the police officer walked towards their cars carrying a plastic bag containing the needle. “Have they even started his autopsy yet?”
“I don’t have clearance,” Barker said firmly, obviously frustrated. “This isn’t my case.”
“You must know somebody who can help. Somebody you can tell this to.”
“They’ll think I’m crazy,” Barker cried, shaking his head heavily. “I have a reputation.”
“And what about these people?” Julia cried back, not realising she was even shouting until she heard her voice echo back to her. “You promised you’d help me.”
“I didn’t promise,” Barker said firmly, pointing his finger at Julia.
“I just assumed your word was as good as a promise,” Julia said, already turning away from Barker. “I’m sorry I called you.”
She walked back to Jessie and Tommy, her frustration and anger growing with each step. Barker didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of that, but she felt desperately useless. She had no idea who could be behind these deaths, and aside from her own theories and research, she didn’t have a scrap of evidence. Barker was right. If she took what she thought she knew to the police, she would be laughed out o
f the station quicker than she could unfold her piece of paper.
Before Julia reached Tommy and Jessie, Tommy jumped up and clutched his stick. He walked right past Julia and headed straight for the gate.
“What are you doing here?” Tommy cried, his booming voice silencing the scattered mumblings. “Have you no respect? A woman has just died!”
Julia turned to see Carl Black, the developer who had been sniffing around on her first visit to the industrial park. He was accompanied by two men wearing yellow hard hats, and heavy fluorescent jackets, and all three of them stood out in their well-pressed expensive suits.
“You do realise you’re trespassing, don’t you?” Carl snapped back smugly, pulling back his sleeve. “As of fifteen minutes ago.”
“I’ve already warned you,” Tommy cried, pointing his stick in Carl’s face and barely retaining his balance. “Get out of here and leave us alone!”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Carl said, pushing past Tommy with the two men right behind him. “I’m the new owner of your little hovel, and I’m coming to see what I’ve bought, and what damage you people have done to it.”
“Didn’t you hear the man?” somebody else cried. “A woman has just died.”
“One less of you to clear out,” he cried back.
Carl marched forward undeterred, the smug smirk on his face not wavering. The two men behind him looked less sure, half-running, half-walking to keep up with him. She was glad when the policeman standing guard outside of the building wouldn’t let Carl pass.
“That man has some cheek,” Tommy said as he joined Julia by her side. “Some people have no humanity left in them.”
“Our days here are numbered,” a woman said as she walked past. “Where will we go?”
Julia had known this day would come eventually. A piece of land this big in such a great location wasn’t going to stay vacant for much longer. She was surprised it had been up for sale for over six months. The fire had cleansed the area, giving it a purpose in housing the homeless, but the developers were about to wipe those people away in the name of progress. It didn’t feel very progressive to Julia.
“What now?” Julia asked. “Where will you go?”
“We’ll stay here as long as we can,” Tommy said. “We’re stronger together.”
Julia smiled and nodded, but her disagreement was written across her face, and she knew Tommy could see it.
“You don’t agree?” he asked, almost offended.
“Maybe it’s better to move on?” Julia suggested quietly, watching as Carl and his developer friends walk around the perimeter of the industrial park, pointing things out and scribbling down notes. “You’re being targeted here. If you left, the murders might stop.”
“And go where?” Tommy snapped, looking darkly down at Julia. “The world doesn’t want us. I wouldn’t be surprised if Carl had paid somebody to bump us off to scare us away. It won’t work! Do you hear that Carl? It hasn’t worked! We’re not going anywhere!”
Carl didn’t pay him any attention so Tommy cursed under his breath and hobbled back to his spot in the doorway. He collapsed into his blanket and rested his head against the metal door, his thick lids clamping shut. Jessie appeared to be talking to him, but if he was listening, he wasn’t responding.
“Are you pleased with yourself?” Julia demanded of Carl as she marched towards him. “Men like you make me sick.”
“Men like me, sweetheart?” Carl snickered as he flicked between two pages on a clipboard. “There’s nothing dirty about property.”
“But there’s something dirty about men like you not wanting to help people.”
“I donate to charity,” Carl said, laughing sourly. “These people don’t need my help. They need putting down.”
“They’re human beings, you horrid man!”
“They’re a drain on society!” Carl cried, pushing past Julia and continuing with his survey. One of the men smiled an awkward apology at Julia as he hurried past.
She wondered if Carl would think that way if he spent some time here and got to know the people he was judging. Julia had learned so much by being here, and she knew she would never look at the homeless the same again. They were all people with stories and pasts, just like any other person. Carl didn’t look at them as being on his level because it seemed easier to disregard their humanity to make it easier to sweep them under the rug.
After collecting Jessie and getting back into her car, they drove silently back to Peridale. She pondered on what Tommy had said about Carl wanting to scare the people away so he could get on with his development. Could money really drive a man to kill in order to get what he wanted? She didn’t want to think any person could resort to such drastic measures for something so trivial, but she remembered how he hadn’t cared at all that somebody had just died.
“’One less of you to clear out’” she whispered Carl’s words under her breath as they walked through the dark towards her cottage.
Julia woke bright and early on Sunday morning so she could volunteer at Stella and Max’s soup kitchen. She dressed in the dark, fed Mowgli, and left a note for Jessie under a London Eye magnet on the front of the fridge.
As the sun started to rise in the distance, she drove down the winding lane into the heart of Peridale, slowing as she passed Barker’s cottage. The lights were turned off and the curtains were closed. She almost pulled up and knocked on the door, despite the early morning, but she stopped herself. She didn't like how they had left things at the industrial park yesterday, and couldn’t help but feel like she would handle the situation better after having had a good night’s sleep.
When she was parked between her café and the post office, she let herself in via the backdoor and started to gather up the ingredients she would need to make a lot of chocolate chip cookies. She had decided on it last night after flicking through her mother’s old handwritten recipe books because they were easy to make, could be easily replicated, and they always went down a treat. She had yet to meet a person who hadn’t fallen in love with her rich, buttery chocolate chip cookies.
Julia poked her head through the beaded curtains and stared at her immaculate café. She loved working there, but she was glad of her one day off a week. If she was honest with herself, she would like another day off during the week so she could relax or go shopping. If she continued to train Jessie the way she was, she might be able to leave her on her own more often without the immense feeling of guilt.
She was about to leave the café when she saw a shadowy figure running across the village green through the early morning haze. Walking through her café and squinting through the glass, she saw her gran, clutching her skirt as she ran like an athlete. Pulling her keys from her pocket, she unlocked the door as her gran approached.
“Julia!” Dot cried as she breathlessly clutched her sides. “I thought you were a burglar!”
“In my own café?”
“You can never be too careful! Are you opening?”
“I’m just grabbing some things. I’m volunteering at a homeless soup kitchen and I thought I’d make some of my mum’s chocolate chip cookies.”
“The buttery ones?” Dot narrowed her eyes as she finally caught her breath. “Why do you want to go and do that for? Sounds like a waste of a Sunday if you ask me.”
“Because these people need our help and support,” Julia said firmly, expecting better of her gran. “What are you doing up so early anyway?”
“It’s my turn to stake out the village green,” Dot said, glancing over her shoulder at a fold-up chair in her garden. “Me and the girls take it in shifts.”
“You’re taking this neighbourhood watch very seriously,” Julia said through a smile. “You know you’re only supposed to keep an eye out, not spy.”
“We’re not spying, we’re staking out. Like in those American cop movies. It’s very popular over there, you know.”
Julia nodded, wondering where her gran was getting her information. She had expe
cted her neighbourhood watch obsession to have died off by now, but it was taking up most of her time, so much so that she hadn’t summoned Julia and Sue to her house for dinner for over a week.
“Found anything interesting yet?”
“Lots,” Dot said, barely containing her grin. “Did you know Mary from the hairdressers is cheating on her husband with the butcher?”
“I didn't,” Julia mumbled through half-closed lips. “But I do now. Be careful who you tell your information to. You’re supposed to be helping the village, not ripping it apart.”
“It’s all in the name of community spirit,” Dot said proudly, crossing her arms under her chest. “Amy Clark is going to take ‘round a fruit basket and break the news to Mary’s poor husband later today. I don’t doubt he’s going to be absolutely devastated, but he has a right to know.”
“I didn’t know you and Amy Clark were friends.”
“Well, we’re not really. She asked to join and I couldn't say no. What with her being an ex-bank robber and having served hard time – that’s what the Americans call prison – I thought she would be a fine addition to our group.”
Julia smiled, unsure of what to say. Her gran never failed to surprise her. She wondered if she had been the same way as a young woman, or if her brutal brand of honesty had come with age. If Julia had to guess, she would say her gran was born telling things like they were.
Knowing her gran was only interested in idle village gossip, Julia said her goodbyes and let her gran get back to her fold-up chair and binoculars so she could continue scribbling down the goings-on of the unsuspecting villagers.
After loading up her car, she drove to the soup kitchen, passing Fenton Industrial Park as she did, if only to make sure there wasn’t another ambulance taking away another body. She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, but there seemed to be fewer people milling around than yesterday. She remembered what Tommy had said about people coming and going, but she also wondered if the recent string of deaths had succeeded in scaring people away from the now-sold land. Julia knew her theory about Carl killing off the residents of Fenton Industrial Park was a stretch, but it was all she had to work with right now.