Memory Scents: A Psychological Thriller

by Gayle Eileen Curtis

  His mind drifted backwards and forwards like a swaying ship. Jonathan, Alice, Nadine….

  His thoughts flitted back to Chrissie, and he chuckled to himself as he remembered seeing her frightened face squashed up against the tiny window of her front door; full of panic and shock. If she’d had any common sense, she would have turned her indoor lights off and looked out of her window. He thought everyone knew that you could see into someone’s house when they had the lights on, and they couldn’t see out unless they turned them off. He’d almost fallen over with laughter when he’d seen her scream at her own reflection. Scraping a razor blade on her windows was working a treat, but he needed to be careful that he didn’t get seen there. Luckily, Grace had come home from Chrissie’s the other day, saying that she had her friend Sarah arriving for a few days, so he stayed well clear. It would also look like she’d lost the plot if she told her friend about the experiences and there didn’t appear to be any evidence of it.

  A few days break from Chrissie’s house would give him time to plan what he was going to do next.

  *

  NORFOLK 1987

  “I’ll meet you in the garden of that old derelict house, where we went the other day? I can’t talk to you at yours, I can’t risk anyone hearing.” Nadine pushed her mouth closer to the receiver as she said the last sentence. “Yes, I’m fine. Honestly. I’ll see you tomorrow. We can get in the house through the back door; some old tramp that was living there wrenched it open. Ok? I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Nadine hung up the phone in her parent’s bedroom and peered round the door to see if anyone was lurking before she ventured out.

  She crept across the hallway quietly so she could get to her room without anyone noticing. She checked again before closing her bedroom door behind her; the only person she hadn’t wanted to hear that conversation had been her father.

  Unfortunately for Nadine, that one and only person had been eavesdropping on her phone call, standing in the shadows of the study. He had crept outside the door and heard every word. He’d been watching her like a hawk since he’d caught her in his shed. He hadn’t been sure of what she’d seen at first, she wasn’t giving much away. But he’d felt a definite change in her attitude towards him. She’d sulked in her bedroom more than normal and had been distant and vague, distracted. Grace had put it down to hormones or that she was coming down with something.

  Nadine might have been hormonal on account of her age but she definitely wasn’t coming down with anything. She was so shell shocked by what she’d seen in her father’s shed. She’d looked in almost every box in there. At first she hadn’t realised what they were, but then she came across some items she recognised as belonging to one of her friends. That and the blood stains had given the game away.

  If she’d run into the house as she’d first intended after making the discovery, she’d probably have survived. But Tim had caught her on her way out of the shed door. Both startled at the sight of each other. The look on his face had made him appear unrecognisable to her and it had frightened her to the core. He didn’t have to say anything, that one look in the dusky light of the evening was enough to scare her into silence in case she had discovered his secret.

  Grace assumed Tim had scolded her badly for going in his shed and encroaching on his privacy.

  Nadine had kept it to herself for quite a few days. There had been a several occasions when she’d approached Grace to tell her but nothing would come out of her mouth and Tim was usually hovering nearby.

  She had to talk to someone about it, which was why she’d organised to meet up with her friend.

  It had been a race between good and evil. In those few days that she was trying to work things out in her head, Tim was plotting how he could get rid of her.

  Unfortunately, he won the race, Nadine had spent too long mulling it over. It was all too huge for her to cope with and she’d had no idea what to do with the information she’d discovered. Apart from knowing that she had to report him, her father.

  She’d arrived at the tumble down house early, mainly due to nerves. She wandered round the garden, scuffing up old bits of pottery while she waited for her friend. She didn’t see or hear Tim coming up behind her.

  She managed a few muffled screams through his large fingers that were clamped around her mouth, as he dragged her across the rough waste land. As he pushed her into the cess pit and took his hand off her mouth she screamed out ‘No!’

  Tim made himself scarce, as the dog walker who had passed her earlier heard her scream and ran to her aid. The cess pit was well camouflaged and it was a few hours before Nadine’s body was actually found.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Norfolk 1998

  Grace was becoming increasingly worried about the strange change in her husband’s behaviour. He’d always behaved oddly, but there had been something different about him for the last few weeks. He seemed to be distracted a lot more than normal, and he was frequently absent, not telling her where he was going. It was beginning to unnerve her because it hadn’t occurred to her before that he might start looking for more potential victims again. He’d stopped all that as soon as his mother had gone into a retirement home. It had triggered something in his twisted little brain. Grace didn’t understand what, but it was the only traumatic thing that had happened to him personally and she couldn’t think of another explanation. It had to be personal to affect Tim, because if it wasn’t, then he was his usual cold-hearted self. Not that he showed that side of himself to anyone except Grace and his victims.

  Grace thought back to the day she’d caught Tim out and the utter shock that still engulfed her as the reality had unfolded in her mind in slow motion.

  It had been over a year ago and Tim had been behaving particularly oddly. Grace knew things weren’t right between them and hadn’t been for many years. He hadn’t been near her for months, so she naturally assumed that he was having an affair. She’d searched around the house one day, but found no evidence of another woman. Then she thought about his shed; the precious place that no one was ever allowed to go. She remembered Nadine being really upset because Tim had scolded her badly for catching her in there. She sulked in her bedroom for days and Grace had wondered then why he was so touchy about it. The shed was kept under lock and key and Tim claimed after the incident with Nadine that it was his own private domain. The only place he said he had where he could get away from nagging women. After that he kept his keys on him at all times.

  Grace had forgotten about the shed for many years, understandably, because of Nadine’s accident overshadowing it all. But when Grace thought he was acting strangely, she remembered how sensitive he was about his shed.

  Tim probably hadn’t been acting any different to normal; it was just that his personality was more noticeable to Grace because she was looking for a way out. An excuse to leave him; but not the excuse she was going to be dealt.

  It had taken a long time to get the keys from him without him knowing. She’d had to wait for him to go on one of his fishing trips with his mates and come home fairly well oiled. She laid on a hearty meal and plenty more drink for him when he got home. The idea was that he’d fall asleep, drunk in front of the television. Giving her time to get the keys and nip down to the shed.

  At first when she looked around the cramped old shed, she was surprised at how tidy he kept everything. She’d imagined it to be like any other shed, full of useless old tools, gadgets and dirty magazines. But Tim’s shed was different, once you looked passed all the usual things like the lawn mower, garden shears, and cans of turpentine. There were boxes neatly stacked on all the shelves that surrounded the walls of his shed. They were all marked with coloured labels; so all the boxes with blue labels were stacked together, and all the ones with red labels were in their own place and so on and so on. She made a mental note to remember to put the boxes that she took down, back in their rightful place. She didn’t want to risk him finding out that she’d ever been in there just in cas
e she didn’t discover anything.

  Unfortunately, Grace decided to look in the boxes that were hidden under the wooden worktop that Tim had installed in there for what she assumed was potting. They were unmarked and easily accessible to her even though they were pushed out of the way. It took her a few seconds to realise what she was looking at in the boxes. At first she thought they were boxes full of old stained rags, which she thought might be covering up some love letters or photographs; but then she rifled through one of them and found a small soft toy bunny at the bottom. She took it out and stared at it. She remembered thinking how odd it was because she hadn’t recalled Nadine having one like it. Then, as she shone the torch on the items she had mistaken for rags she realised that they weren’t stained with varnish or wax but what looked like dried blood. Each item she pulled out was a piece of child’s clothing; some were inside polythene bags. Vests, school shirts, cardigans, knickers, even hair bands. Some were stained with blood and some weren’t. She had passed each item through her hands as if her arms didn’t belong to her anymore and it all began to slot into place.

  Grace’s immediate reaction had been to march straight inside the house and confront the bastard or call the police. She didn’t know which. The sad thing was that she wasn’t surprised that he could do such a thing, she was just totally devastated and shocked that he had. She had wondered, fleetingly when each child was found, if he had anything to do with it. But she’d quickly pushed it from her mind, scolding herself for having such an abhorrent thought. There had been no logical reason why she should think that about him. Tim was a complete arsehole at home but whatever he was, she always saw him as an excellent police officer. Never in her wildest dreams did she think he was capable of anything so evil. He’d even come home from work and ranted to her about what a sick and twisted bastard the murderer must be and how he and his colleagues didn’t know what they’d do to him if they caught him. Unfortunately, it had all been a very clever piece of acting.

  Looking back, she’d been glad of the fact she’d discovered his secret while he was pissed. It left her time to think because she was unable to talk to him while he was passed out on the settee.

  Grace had always felt prison was far too good for child killers and paedophiles. And as she had begun to think as rationally as she could that night in the shed, she realised that this was the perfect way to get rid of him for good. Tim had always told her the best way to get away with murder was to make it look like the victim had committed suicide. So, that’s exactly what she intended to do with him. She just wasn’t quite sure when and how. She’d had plenty of time to think about it because she hadn’t been worried about him hurting anyone else. The last tragic victim had been ten years ago. And that had been her sister’s daughter, Alice. That discovery had hurt her most of all and she wanted revenge so much that she thought it would consume her. The sand timer appeared to be running out though, and Grace didn’t want the risk of another victim because that would most definitely be something she couldn’t live with on her conscience. Living with the guilt that she’d let him walk free for a year, while she figured out what to do with him, was bad enough.

  *

  NORFOLK 1983

  Tim had placed himself strategically in his car on the sea front with a full view of the beach. He was right at the end of the harbour so he could see everyone on the beach and also had a clear view across the road and along the parade of shops. He’d been over to the newsagent’s to buy a newspaper and a pasty. Firstly, to make it look like he was just a normal man passing the time in his car having a lunch break. And secondly, so that on his way back from the shop he could check that the sun was shining in the right direction, shielding any view through the windows so that the car appeared to be empty. This was all for the purpose of having full view of all the families arriving for a day out with their children. It was the summer holidays and the coast was crawling with them; Tim’s favourite time of year.

  He sat in the hot car for hours watching over his paper. The heat and oily stench in the car, which now mixed with his sweat and bad breath didn’t seem to bother him like it would anyone else. He was used to being shut in stifling areas for great lengths of time, another skill he had his mother to thank for.

  The heat and his lunch laying heavy in his stomach were causing him to feel sleepy. Even though child watching was one of his favourite activities, he was growing bored.

  That was until he spotted his next victim, like a sparkling jewel amongst some faded beads. Tim sat up abruptly. He scrambled for the dial so that he could pull up his seat which he’d previously lowered to a reasonable nap level.

  Everything and everyone else turned a shade of grey, like a black and white television screen with one person standing out in vibrant colour. That one person flying towards Tim’s vision as if she’d been miraculously magnified was twelve year old Jacqueline. She lived further up the coast in the next village with her mother and father and her older brother, so Tim had never encountered her before.

  She was walking down the steps to the beach with her family, her gangly frame exposed to the sun, wearing only shorts and a vest top. Apart from being tall and slender for her age, which Tim found immensely attractive, it was her extremely long vibrant red hair that had caught his eye. It was down to her waist, making her appear even taller than she actually was. The tones of her hair sparkled in the afternoon sun, accentuating her deep cornflower blue eyes.

  To Tim, she was a stunning object of desire and he wanted her. To anyone else she was a pretty, kind hearted, innocent little girl.

  He had made up his mind the moment he set eyes on her that he would pursue her until he got his way.

  Jacqueline had gone from having her life spread out endlessly before her to a limit of a few days in a matter of seconds. A decision made by a stranger who was play acting god, with an ego the size of the universe.

  No- one told Jacqueline or her family that she had only a few days to live. Tim didn’t give her that privilege, or any of his victims for that matter. Her father had taken a week off work to spend with his children and wife. They spent the days, carefree in the coastal sunshine, oblivious to the sinister stranger lurking in the back ground like the grim reaper.

  Tim effortlessly snatched her as she was walking from the village where she lived to go and meet her brother, who got up before the light of day to go fishing in a nearby pond. Jacqueline had taken to joining him when she got up; leaving their parents to enjoy a lie in before they dragged them up for another day out.

  Jacqueline’s memory scents had been particularly special to Tim. He normally took one item of clothing and a toy if they had been carrying one. Getting a toy as well as a piece of clothing was a real treat to Tim. Toys carried stronger, different smells. Mainly because they’d come from the child’s bed.

  In this case though he’d taken Jacqueline’s vest top, and pulling her beautiful mane of red hair together, he cut it along the nape of her neck. He tied the pony tail in the middle with the hair bobble she’d been wearing.

  He sat on the soft ground next to Jacqueline’s twitching, cold body and buried his face in her hair and sniffed hard. He was so astounded by its beauty that it brought a tear to his eye. It glistened golden against the rays of light that were shining through the trees in the small wood where he had dragged its owner.

  A blackbird landed on one of the branches near Tim, startling him at first. The bird cocked its head at the sight laid in the clearing as if it had seen it all before. Life and death. A dead girl, lying awkwardly over some tree roots, half naked. With a man sat next to her holding a long piece of golden hair as if he’d discovered the most precious thing in the whole world. To Tim, the line between life and death was flimsy and fickle, all part of the game he was playing.

  *

  NORFOLK 1998

  For the first time since Chrissie had been in her new home, she’d had a completely incident free day. Sarah was arriving in the morning and she wanted to make sure it
was as homely as possible.

  She didn’t know what the cease in activity was about, but she wasn’t going to complain about it. For some reason the cottage had taken on an air of calm within its walls and the peace inside was tangible. Chrissie had spent the day soaking up the calm atmosphere, albeit slightly apprehensively. She had got used to it changing so dramatically, but today it all felt different somehow.

  She’d felt safe enough to have the doors open and allow some fresh sea air to weave its way around the stagnant old cottage. Perhaps that was what had made the difference, she’d thought to herself as she put flowers in vases, lit oil burners, and unpacked the rest of her books.

  She’d not seen a soul that day and had thoroughly enjoyed having some fairly nerve free time to herself.

  Opening a bottle of wine and sitting down at her kitchen table with a steaming plate of pasta and fresh shellfish from the local shop, Chrissie let her new home envelope her. She’d even felt comfortable enough to play some music on her stereo, something she hadn’t done since she’d arrived, having found comfort and company in the television. She had felt the noise from it had drowned out the spirits that haunted her.

  The only thing that made her jump out of her chair that evening was the sudden rush of cats through her open kitchen door, as they made chase with one another in the slightly breezy late summer evening.

  *

  After a shockingly peaceful night’s sleep, Chrissie, having finished making the cottage as homely as possible, sat outside with a cup of coffee and watched her garden.