Sorrow Bound

by David Mark

  “The lady who died,” says Roisin, shifting position so she can look up at her husband. “Why did they kill her?”

  McAvoy gazes down at her for a few seconds. Her eyes are innocent and guileless.

  “We’ve got a few ideas. It may just have been a random nutter, but it doesn’t feel that way.”

  “Had she been putting it about or anything? Any affairs?”

  McAvoy shakes his head. “We don’t think so. She was just a nice lady. Mattered to people. Did her bit. And somebody caved her chest in. Splintered her ribs like she was made of twigs.”

  “What with?”

  “We don’t know that, either.”

  Roisin makes a face, mildly disappointed in the detectives of Humberside Police. “They break easy, ribs. Even when you’re doing CPR, you can break ribs. I think I saw that in an episode of Holby City, actually . . .”

  McAvoy has gone still. He breathes out, slowly, through his nose, and without saying anything, sits up and rolls Roisin onto her back. He places one hand on her chest and the other on top of it. Roisin looks up at him, happy but confused.

  “We trying something new?”

  He gives the slightest push. She winces, but doesn’t stop smiling.

  McAvoy rocks himself back, onto his toes. He stares at her, eyes unfocused.

  He stands and pulls out his phone.

  “Guv? I’ve had a thought . . .”

  • • •

  11:58 p.m. Barton-upon-Humber.

  The last town before North Lincolnshire hits the water. A decent, likable place. Pleasant. Arty. A mingling of sturdy, centuries-old merchant homes and newly built estates. A place where cozy restaurants sit comfortably beside kebab shops; where slick Mercedeses park next to rusted hatchbacks while the owners of both drink happily in real-ale pubs.

  This wide road leading out of the town center, up toward the roundabout and the last stretch of motorway that leads across the bridge.

  A modern, detached house with a neat front lawn and a sensible car parked on a newly tarmacked drive . . .

  Yvonne Dale. Forty-six. Mother of two and gratefully divorced. She’s lounging at the apex of an L-shaped sofa in a long, white-painted living room. The walls serve as a timeline of her children’s lives. Above the flat-screen TV are baby pictures. Jacob, restless on the photographer’s cloud of tussled silk. Andrew, two years later, placid and uncrying as the same photographer manipulated his chunky limbs and soft curls into a more pleasing pose. Above the fireplace, their first vacations; all muddy wellies and rain-streaked cheeks. First days at school. Almond-colored skin between gray socks and shorts. Their trip to Kefalonia three years ago. Jacob then six, Andrew four. Yvonne in some of these pictures, lounging by the poolside in the rented villa, large floppy hat casting a shadow on rosy cheeks and ample skin spilling out of a black swimsuit. Behind her on the sofa, pixelated on a huge canvas, both boys laughing, Jacob’s arm thrown carelessly over his little brother’s shoulder as they sit cross-legged and side by side on Cleethorpes seafront, reading the same book; Jacob patient with his younger sibling when he struggled with longer words.

  Here, now, Yvonne is wearing a baggy American football jersey and pajama trousers. She is a large lady. Always was, even when she was slim. She stands nearly six feet tall and would be considered formidable by the primary-school children she teaches were it not for her big smile and silly sense of humor. She has been a teacher most of her life. Had been working with kids for thirteen years before she had one of her own. Had been content enough, too, before a supply teacher took a fancy to her. She was wooed, wed, knocked up twice, and then divorced before Andrew’s first birthday. Her ex is abroad now, teaching English as a foreign language to uncomprehending teens in Jakarta; the Child Support Agency proving bloody useless in making him cough up his maintenance payments with any kind of regularity. He phones the kids once in a while. Carries their pictures in his wallet. But they haven’t seen him in over a year, and the weekend he had visited had been awkward; full of stilted conversation and stored-up arguments.

  She pushes her scruffy blond hair back from her face and drinks the last of her hot chocolate. At her feet are the crusts from a meat-feast pizza. She has some garlic mayonnaise left in the fridge and half-heartedly thinks of going to get it. Then she imagines sitting up in bed, dipping cold pizza crusts in a pot of fattening gunk, and doesn’t like the image of herself, so decides against it.

  A sigh: “Bloody carbs.”

  She takes another look at her phone. Decides it’s time for bed. She’d put the kids down just after nine. They’d watched a few episodes of some lighthearted American drama, eating popcorn chicken and spicy fries, drinking pint glasses of orange squash, and wriggling in their matching cotton pajamas until the fleece blanket that covered their half of the sofa looked like a whirlpool. Yvonne hadn’t given the show her full attention. The story on the local news kept slipping into her thoughts. The picture they showed. Older, certainly. A few more wrinkles. Shading beneath her eyes. But unmistakably her. So sad. Such a shame.

  She looks again at her phone. At the address book on the arm of the sofa. It’s an old one, as full of crossings-out and amendments as useful information. She uses her phone for such things now, but the number she sought earlier this evening had not made the transition from paper to memory card, and she had been forced to dig through her old diaries and papers to find it. In all honesty, she had never expected to call it. She had only taken it for form’s sake and because she is a nice person who favors the old-fashioned way of doing things. She likes sending Christmas cards and birthday cards. Likes little note cards and writing with a fountain pen. Makes jam tarts and hangs proper paper chains each December. Says “fiddlesticks” when she is cross and “gee whiz” when the kids show her something impressive. Sometimes in the staff room they tease her about such things. Suggest that she would have felt more at home in the 1950s, teaching lacrosse or hockey in an all-girls boarding school.

  Yvonne reaches again for the address book. Stares at the old address, neatly scored out with a line of black ink. At the new number, scribbled in the margin. The Hull area code.

  “What a waste.”

  She chides herself for never thinking to pop over and say hello. To make the kids a flask and some sandwiches and plan a nice Sunday walk across the bridge. To arrange a playdate at the Country Park, perhaps. To sit on a bench while children played with grandchildren and she and her old comrade could let their conversation drift to the night they met, to that evening of blood and adrenaline, of crimson splashes on virgin snow, beneath colorful bulbs and against the whispered threats of the waves . . .

  Too late to try again, she decides, putting the phone back down on the arm of the sofa. She wasn’t even sure whether she should have rung. Poor lot will have been inundated with real friends, she thinks. Real family. What would I have said?

  Making the grunt of effort that the kids tease her over, Yvonne pulls herself from the sofa. Starts the little ritual she performs unthinkingly every night. Pulls the plug out of the back of the TV. Closes the living room door. Checks the front and back door, rattling the handles and moving the kids’ discarded shoes from the bottom of the stairs so they don’t trip during the rush to breakfast. She walks to the kitchen; bare feet on plum-colored carpet. Puts an aspirin in a shot glass and adds two inches of water. Stirs it and listens to the fizz. Drains the glass and pulls a face. Takes a gingerbread biscuit from the biscuit barrel beside the microwave and pulls the kitchen door closed. Puts her right hand on the banister and hauls herself up two stairs. Carries on up the steps, biscuit now just a crumb on her lower lip. She visits Jacob’s room first. Takes the book from his unresisting hands and smooths his hair down. Kisses him on the side of the head and wafts him a little with his summer quilt. Visits Andrew next. He’s the wrong way round in bed, his feet on the pillow, a wrestling figure clutched in one hand and another protru
ding from beneath his face. She leaves him as he is. Blows a kiss, knowing that he’d wake should she disturb him further. She switches his bedroom light off and pulls his door half closed.

  A whisper: “Sweet dreams.”

  Yvonne heads to her own bedroom. It’s untidy with half-unpacked luggage and unsorted laundry. The bottom of the bed is covered in loose socks, still waiting to be paired a week after being spat from the tumble dryer. Carrier bags from discount stores litter the dressing table, full of labels and receipts, discarded packaging from hastily bought tank tops and underwear. The half-dozen books she has on the go are scattered loose by the bed and behind the curtains, the windowsill is covered in empty pop bottles and dusty DVDs, as is the top of the TV that sits precariously on a wall bracket she put up herself and doesn’t fully trust. It’s the untidiest room in the house because nobody else ever comes in here, and Yvonne doesn’t mind.

  She pushes open the door to the en suite bathroom. Slides down her pajama trousers and sits on the pink plastic. Looks at her feet. Spots a place on her right knee that she missed while shaving. Reminds herself, again, to take the mound of toilet paper cardboard to the recycling bin from its place beneath the sink.

  She hears the familiar creak as the door swings closed behind her. Looks up.

  Had the situation been described to her, Yvonne Dale would have expected to scream. Perhaps to physically react. To leap up or shuffle back or reach for the glass she uses for rinsing her mouth after brushing her teeth and smash it into the intruder’s face . . .

  There is no time. Her heart does not find the opportunity to beat between her noticing the figure, two steps away, against the tiled wall, and its moving forward to where she sits, still pissing, face turning gray.

  The intruder grabs her by the hair. Pulls, hard, and instinctively she stands—one hand upon her scalp and the other trying to yank up her trousers. Something slams up beneath her jaw and her teeth mash together. Her eyes fill with tears from the pain and then she is being pushed back, onto the windowsill behind the toilet; bottles falling, glass smashing. A fist slams into her left eye and then her head is being smacked against the tiled wall. She sinks forward, falling against the intruder. Her vision swims. What she sees and what she feels merge before her. And she sees her boys. Feels them. Lashes out with a mother’s instinct, desperate to fight, to flee. To live.

  A weight drops on her back. The attacker pushes her down to the linoleum floor, her face scraping against the wooden door, the wall, into the dust and the cobwebs of the baseboard.

  And then she feels it. The sharp, cold, metallic pain at the back of her left thigh. She roars in agony; a masculine, guttural howl of pain, and then a hand is across her mouth. She bucks. Pushes back. Claws with her right hand at the figure that presses her down. Bites at the warm gloved hand inside her mouth. Tastes plastic. Chemical. Feels wetness at her thighs and shame at having pissed herself.

  Clarity suddenly. A moment of comprehension. Feels the stickiness. The warmth on her bare skin. Feels blood, not urine. Rolls, left and right, trying to dislodge the weight upon her, even as her strength begins to fade. Her hand slips in blood. Head hits the ground. And then the weight is rising. She is free to move. Free, yet unable. She has no strength. She feels empty. Hollow. Unchained and weightless.

  In her last moments, her eyes focus on the figure on the side of the bath. Through the tears, she sees colors. Shapes. Red mixed with black; blood and dirt. Sees the perfect exclamation mark of steel. Sees a face that she half knows; features blurred, as though a child has dipped their fingers in a still-wet portrait and swirled the eyes, nose, and mouth into insensibility.

  And now her mind is all children. Little palms in her big warm hand. She sees Jacob, looking down on her, eyes of concern, stroking her hair back from her face. Sees Andrew, holding out a picture he has drawn. She tries to say “Gee whiz” . . .

  Her lips flutter, but no words emerge.

  “Sshh,” says her killer, watching. Then: “Sweet dreams.”

  Silence, here, in this room.

  A dead woman on her bathroom floor. Her killer, head in palms, shoulders shaking and fists tugging hair.

  Blood seeping into every corner, intractable as night.

  SEVEN

  This is yours?”

  Helen Tremberg waves her hand. “Ssh. They’re all quite old. The neighbors, I mean.”

  He smiles, the streetlight adding shadow to his high, attractive cheekbones. “I’m not surprised.”

  Tremberg pretends to be offended and opens her mouth wide. “This is a very desirable neighborhood,” she whispers, a slur to her words. “Handy for shopping. Good parking. Easy access to the main road . . .”

  “Meals on wheels, ambulances available if you pull the orange cord in the bathroom . . .”

  She slaps him, playfully, across the arm. Feels the definition of his muscles. Starts to pull a sulky face but is too full of wine to do it properly.

  “I grew up here,” she says as she pushes open the gate and closes it again behind them. “I told you, didn’t I? When Granddad went into care it came up for sale and I got it for a steal.”

  Mark slips his arm back around her waist as they walk up a red-brick driveway to the back door. They have walked this way from the restaurant. She has rested her head on his shoulder and felt his breath behind her ear and on her neck. He kissed her on the crown of the head when she said something funny. She has yet to taste his mouth, but knows that she will do that and more when she gets them inside her bungalow home.

  It has been a tender, romantic evening. She had been unsure whether to agree when he suggested the restaurant only half a mile from her own front door, but she remembers them discussing it in a previous e-mail chat, so it made sense and hadn’t felt like he was trying to manipulate her into going somewhere within easy reach of her bedroom. He doesn’t strike her as that kind of man. He could be, if he wanted. He’s handsome, charming, and has spent all night making her laugh, but he seems too easygoing to be duplicitous. She can’t remember a time when she has felt so pretty. She hadn’t been sure whether or not to wear the tennis dress that shows off her legs, or whether to pair it with the high, wedge-heel sandals, but she has received nothing but compliments and admiring glances all night and Mark had said she looked “stunning.”

  Of course, it had taken a couple of brandies to get herself out of the house and to walk past her neighbors in the uncharacteristically revealing outfit. She had got through two more while waiting in the bar for him to show up. By the time he walked in, five minutes late and dauntingly handsome in a cream linen suit and black shirt, she was pink to her earlobes and flushed from both the walk and the booze. But he had put her at ease. He’d taken her hand as if to shake it, then turned it, delicately, palm-side down, so he could kiss her knuckles. He’d looked at her, over the top of her hand, and she saw it tremble. Then he gave a grin and made a joke of the action and himself, and they had giggled together, setting the tone for the next few hours.

  Tremberg fumbles in her little sequined handbag and pulls out her keys. At the second attempt, she gets them in the lock and pushes open the back door that opens straight into the kitchen, switching on the light as she goes. The sudden illumination hurts her eyes, and she raises a hand to shield her vision, stumbling back a little as she does so. Mark catches her, hands upon her waist, and helps her inside, laughing. He doesn’t seem drunk, though he matched her drink for drink. Ordered the best booze, but didn’t argue when she said she wanted to split the bill. He seems to know her. Seems to know how she likes to be treated. How she likes to think of herself. Didn’t ask her about the scar upon her arm. Waited for her to volunteer the information. Didn’t push or try too hard. Just spoke to her as if she were interesting, and stared into her eyes in a way that made her blush. Even when she’d invited him back, he’d been a gentleman about it. Insisted that she think about it. That she decide whether
she was sober enough to make that kind of decision.

  “Don’t be afraid to change your mind,” he’d said, stepping from the restaurant into the warmth and dark of the evening. “I don’t want to spoil things. It’s been perfect. You’ve been perfect.”

  As they walked, Helen had done most of the talking. She has done so for most of the date. She’d recognized almost every other diner in the restaurant, and they had all given her encouraging looks as she sat opposite her good-looking companion and devoured her blade of beef. It had been a nice feeling and helped her let go. She knows almost everybody in Caistor. She grew up here, twelve miles from Grimsby, on the road to Lincoln. She went to the local school. Used to walk her dogs in the vale. Got stranded, like everybody else, each winter. The town sits in one of the few valleys in the county, and whenever it snows, the roads become impassable. Her childhood memories seem to involve endless snowball fights and sledding down the sloped playing fields in the school grounds. She had her first kiss behind the Chinese takeaway. Once got knocked over in the Market Place as she crossed the wide road while engrossed in a bag of chips. Her dad had belted the driver. Given her a bloody good telling off, too, as he took her to the hospital to have her leg plastered. She stacked shelves for a while in the co-op, in her teens. Got drunk in the park on cans of Strongbow and let a county cricketer take her virginity on a friend’s sofa at sixteen. It’s home, and only half an hour from the city where she now tries to catch villains. She has no plans to move over the water to Hull. This is where she belongs. It’s a town that likes her, and she lost no friends when she decided to become a copper. It’s a town where the police are appreciated.