Daisy Chains

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  “I’ll do it,” she said, “on one condition. You don’t look at me too closely, and you don’t tell anyone else.”

  “And if I want to come and do it again and again and send you nice letters?”

  “Delusionary boy. Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

  Pointing up to their left, Brad said, “That’s a sort of B&B thing, isn’t it? Or a hostel?” He watched her face. “I said hostel, not brothel. I’ll book us a room. What do you say? Just this one night to start us off?” He started walking towards the old arched doorway, doors open, bustle noticeable inside. “And I won’t tell a soul, honest. Who could I tell anyway? And you mustn’t tell either. What about that couple of friends you mentioned? The ones who go killer-hunting?”

  “Sylvia and Harry.” Ruby smiled. “They’re actually a teeny bit older than me, and they only got married a couple of years back. So it seems we never get over that romance thing, even when we’re ancient.”

  He was halfway up the steps and paused only to reach out for her hand. “Well, they might understand. What did you say the name was?”

  “Sylvia and Harry Joyce. She’s my best friend. But I’m not going to be telling her about this.”

  She hid as he booked the room, then flitted behind him as he trotted into the lift. She wished she had a nightdress with her. She wished she had a brush and comb and spare knickers. And she wished she had enough sense to turn and run in the opposite direction.

  It was a small cheap room, but it had its own minute bathroom and loo, a wide bed, and a window with thick curtains. There was still a fading daylight outside, but they had not yet shared the promised evening dinner. Brad had nodded at the mention, saying, “When we’ve shared this special moment, then we can go over the road to Mackers and share another.”

  “I’m not very keen on MacDonald’s,” said Ruby as she pulled the curtains, “but I suppose that would be OK. Nice and cosy.”

  “Never mind about afterwards,” Brad said, pulling back the bedcovers and sitting to pull off his shoes. Ruby followed his example. She made just one silent but breathless prayer before she began to undo her shirt buttons.

  Chapter Sixteen

  She had to admit that the anticipation had been more exciting than the aftermath. An inexperienced boy, Ruby told herself, was not going to keep going nor prolong the foreplay. She remembered reading that youthful males had no delay capacity, and rushed head first, in a manner of speaking, into a quick and sudden climax.

  The kisses were what she would remember with delight, rather than the rushed entry, bang, crash, wallop, and out again. Flop back on the pillow, breathe deeply, sit up, and get immediately dressed.

  Ruby followed his example. Long disuse had now left her a little sore but she said nothing and scrambled back into her clothes.

  “MacDonald’s now?” she mumbled eventually.

  He had just reappeared from the bathroom. “I’m really not hungry,” he said in a rush. “You were all I needed. I don’t need to eat another crumb for a week. And my train’s leaving soon. But I have to keep in touch. I admire you – my lovely lady Ruby. Write your address on that envelope – look – here’s a pen, but I honestly have to rush to the station. Put down your phone number too. I promise I’m going to keep in touch.”

  She handed him the envelope with its scribble and watched him dash from the room. She heard the ding of the lift arriving, and the second ding as it left. Opening the curtains, Ruby let in the light and felt a little better. “I should be in love,” she said to herself. “I should be lying here dreaming and wallowing and going back over every detail. So why do I just want to get home to cuddle Brad the puppy instead? Oh well,. I shouldn’t have said yes in the first place, but who cares? No problem. I’m certainly not going to get pregnant. Hopefully I won’t get syphilis. I can just laugh over the whole thing and at least know that someone found me attractive, even though little more than a baby. And he didn’t take one look and lose his potency. That’s a good sign.”

  Back at the Rochester Manor, Sylvia said, “You’re late. Little Brad has been pining, Come and have some late dinner, I expect there’s plenty left, and I’ll tell you what Morrison told us today. Nothing secret. Maybe even a bit disappointing. What about you? Did you have a lovely day?”

  “Well – sort of,” Ruby muttered, bending down to sweep up her puppy. “Hello little gorgeous Brad. Just what I need, that’s a lick and a cuddle.” And now she was hungry.

  The next morning the local newspaper, the national newspaper and the daily television news were all blaring about the same thing.

  “Shit,” said Harry.

  Lionel Sullivan had been at it again. Somehow finding another young girl to abduct, he had tortured, killed, and flung out the pieces in a large rubbish bag, slung over the gate of a small park in outer Cheltenham on the road out to Battledown. Ruby had finished breakfast and was sitting out on a bench under the sunshine, feeling young, attractive and refreshed. It was Sylvia walking with Stella who saw her and passed on the news. Ruby felt sick.

  “That’s – so disgusting.” She felt like heaving and vomiting. “There was me having a lovely time, and just a few miles away some poor innocent little girl was getting murdered.”

  “Well, I’m glad someone was having a wonderful time,” Stella said, peering over the top of her glasses.

  Sylvia sat down beside Ruby as Benjamin hobbled up to drag his wife away. “At least no one’s using our chimneys anyway,” he told her.

  Her reply was inaudible. Ruby turned to Sylvia. “I think I want to go and have a very long and very hot bath. I’ll soak for an hour and then pour in more hot water.”

  “I’ll go and phone Morrison,” sighed Sylvia. “But he’s sure to be too busy to answer. Yesterday he was saying it was possible not everything was down to Sullivan. But we can be quite sure that this one is.”

  “Has anyone looked in Wales? That’s where he was last time.”

  “Yes, they’ve looked everywhere.” Sylvia stood again, gathering up her jacket. “I think we should burn down every shed and every forest until we know for sure that he’s gone up in flames.”

  Tracy was at home in the neat little flat supplied by the council and police to ensure her safe-keeping. She had cried most of the night after Sylvia and Harry had left her, and considered travelling back to Little-Woppington-on-the-Torr by herself, and making arrangements to live there for the rest of her life.

  Then she decided it would be a stupid mistake since even Sylvia would soon get sick of her and not want her around any more. No one could ever really want her. Even her own mother hated her.

  Then she heard the beep on her old phone, stuffed away in the top drawer of her little bedside table. She was already lying on her bed with three tissues clutched tight, so she simply rolled over and opened the drawer. The phone showed the obvious.

  Tracy muttered, “It’s you, Dad. You must be crazy phoning me. Actually, I know you’re crazy. And the telly says you’ve done another one last night. Honest, I reckon you must be really, really miserable.”

  “Yes, I’m fucking miserable,” Lionel told her, his voice shaking. “Fucking Olga sits on my head. She sucks my blood.”

  “You’ve got a girlfriend?”

  He grunted. “Never had one. You know that. Your mother was a joke. A bitch-joke. Then that filthy bitch Joyce was no better after the first year. Karyn was never mine. You know you’re the only one I ever cared for.”

  “So let’s meet up again,” said Tracy without expression. “So you can kill me like everyone else.”

  “I never did your mother. Though there was plenty of temptation.”

  “I’d answer you back and you’d say that was temptation. It’s safer being on the game.”

  “Tis me taking the risk,” Lionel objected. “Maybe I tell you where I am and you bring the law with you.”

  “Yer, I might do that.”

  “You’d lose as much as me.”

  Tracy thought hard for some moments. Th
en she spoke in a rush. “OK. I’m lonely and fed up. I miss having some fun, and I hate the miserable buggers who want weird stuff in back alleys. They’re really sick, some of them.”

  Her father chuckled with a faint splutter of irony. He said, “You already said you’d stop. So come over here.”

  “I bet you’ve got no food, no money, and no comfortable place.” She thought about it, then added, “I saw Mum the other day. If I was you, I’d have killed the old hag. She was really mean.”

  “Forget her. Come to me.”

  Having returned from a lunchtime beer down the pub, Arthur discovered Harry in the garage, busy cleaning out the crumbs on the floor, passenger side. “I could do that, y’know, Harry mate. Tis me job, near enough. David likes work like that too, for a small tip.”

  Sleeves rolled up and looking both sweaty and damp, Harry said, “I thought it would do me good. With the car, I don’t get much exercise. I’ve put on about five pounds since I came to live here.”

  “I put on twenty, and I work me legs off.”

  “We get huge meals. Sylvia likes puddings so I join in. And I haven’t walked further than upstairs to bed for a year.” Not quite true, but close.

  “Talking of beer,” Alfred told Harry, half back out of the open doors, “I met your mate Tony down the bar. Reckons he’s getting married too.”

  “Tony Allen? That’s mighty unexpected. Who is she?”

  “No idea,” Alfred said over his shoulder. “Someone called Doreen. Don’t know her. Never met her. Not interested. But I reckoned you would be.”

  “I am. Thanks.”

  “I don’t know her,” Harry told Sylvia later when he trundled back indoors. “But there’s a shy sort of bloke who’s a regular at the pub, name of Blair Dembar, who divorced his wife Doreen last year. I know Tony fancied her. In fact, I’m sort of guessing Blair got the divorce because Doreen had an affair with someone, and the someone may have been Tony. ”

  “How long since you’ve seen Tony?”

  “Ages. I stopped going to the pub for a bit. Too boring. Same people. No Sylvia.”

  “But she’s the same person all the time too.” It was Sylvia who said it.

  “Thank goodness,” smiled Harry. “A daily change would be a bit disconcerting.”

  “Well,” decided Sylvia, “You go down the pub this evening and try to talk to Tony and meet this bride-to-be if she’s there. And I’m going to visit Peggy Morrison. Darcey’s working late on this new case. She’ll be alone, and she’s worried about him. The kids keep her company of course, but they drive her mad as well.”

  Peggy offered red or white with no mention of tea or coffee. “I need a boost,” she said. “So I’ve pulled some of the expensive stuff from the back of the pantry. But they’ll be cold enough. English weather takes care of that, and the back of the pantry is in permanent winter.”

  “White then.”

  “If it didn’t make me sleepy, I’d have something stronger,” Peggy said, busily pouring two very large glasses of white wine. “I’m just so sick of this gruesome repetition. You see, I think this latest murder is someone I knew slightly. And liked. They haven’t finished identifying her officially, but Darcey gave me a hint because they’re fairly sure. It’s almost certainly Mary-Lynne Fleetwood. She’s a sweet young woman who works in the local library but never turned up to work two days ago. I took a book back to the library last week, and she was there and chatted a bit, and recommended a couple of books of the sort she knows I like – certainly not crime mysteries – and I took one of them and said I’d see her in a couple of weeks when I brought it back. And now I won’t. And I just wanted to cry all day, and I only stopped because of the kids. Now I’ve stopped crying anyway, so I just want to get pissed.”

  “Carry on. I wish I could help. I really don’t have any crime-solving skills after all. Perhaps it’s me who should be reading the whodunnits.”

  “But it’s the same man,” Peggy said, staring into her glass, already half empty. “You found the bastard last time.”

  “I’ve tramped every damned forest path around here for miles and miles. Even quite a few around Nottingham. Wiltshire. Wales” Sylvia gulped her wine, too quickly to appreciate the quality. “I’d go to bloody Cumberland to search if there was any hope of him being there.” She finished the wine, folded her arms, and frowned. “You know I’ve met his daughter, don’t you? Well, she said he had some special little cottage around here, so we’ve searched and searched and searched. She’s a nice kid. Maybe the Sullivan creep isn’t her real father. Evidently, he wasn’t to the elder sister. But she’s deceased. Anyway, Tracy heard from him and is sure he’s in a ruined cottage somewhere near. Hidden under trees, I presume, so no drone or helicopter would see it.”

  “And Darcey thinks there are two of them.”

  “I’m not sure why,’ Sylvia said. “But he knows a million times more about all this than we do.” She paused, then said, “We don’t really know a thing. It’s such a jumble – train crashes – murders up in Nottingham – murders down here too – Ruby being strange and me having nightmares. Honestly – it’s a joke.”

  Peggy poured out two more glasses of wine. They both drank slowly and were able to appreciate what they drank. “Do you fancy a walk in the right area sometime?” Peggy asked. “You know the parts you’ve looked already, so you’d guide me. You could take me wherever you hadn’t looked already. I’d follow without complaint.”

  Stretching out one plastered ankle from beneath her long navy silk skirt, Sylvia shook her head while saying, “Yes, certainly. But I can’t while I’m still on this damn crutch. I can hardly walk to the loo, and the one time I did make a more serious attempt, I fell down and nearly broke the other ankle. Stupid idiot, I know. But I’ll gladly search with you in a few weeks when I should be better.”

  “God. I hope he’s caught before that.” Peggy looked askance.

  “It’s been some months already. So who knows?”

  “Exactly. This last one was found just outside Cheltenham. The monster’s here somewhere. But he’s no magical wizard. Definitely no genius, I’m sure of that. So how does he hide?”

  “Because he lives on nothing, prefers to live in dust heaps, and has past experience of how the police work.” But Sylvia spread her hands, showing ignorance. “He’s so sick, goodness knows what he does all day. Maybe drives for miles and miles. Maybe just sleeps. I’ve met the beast, but that doesn’t mean I know him, thank goodness.”

  “Darcey would never let me go searching,” said Peggy, sinking back into the embrace of the armchair. “But if I go with you, well, it makes sense, doesn’t it? He can’t kill me for being sensible.”

  “You could go with Harry,” Sylvia said. “But Darcey would probably kill both of you.” She also leaned back, sighing, glass in hand. “But I shouldn’t joke about killing, not while this is going on. That monster killed someone I knew too, but of course it doesn’t actually matter whether you know the poor little girl or not. The misery this causes must be even greater for the family than it is for the one who died. She will have suffered horribly and then lost her life, but her family will weep for her deeply and horribly for the rest of their lives. You’d never get over it, would you? Could you?”

  “No. Never. Of course not.” Peggy clenched her fists in her lap. “But I’m so scared for Darcey. He’s in such danger all the time. He’s investigated a few singular murders before. There was a pig of a husband who killed his wife in a rage. It was obviously him though he denied it, but Darcey got him convicted. There was a rape and battery too just a few years ago. But then all the Lionel Sullivan killings, and then all those poor little things up the chimneys. I actually felt a bit sorry for the person who did it too, but those other two twins – triplets – they should have been carved into little pieces.”

  “One seems to be thriving in Dubai. Fancy becoming a millionaire after causing the deaths of so many, and the pain and horror of it all.”

  “Life is
n’t ever really fair,” Peggy muttered. “If Darcey ever gets shot, I’ll set fire to the police station.”

  The puppy sat on Ruby’s lap, licking its own paw first and then Ruby’s fingers. It had grown just a little and now overlapped the eager hands of Rochester Manor, nearly all eager to hold it.

  “Him,” said Ruby. “He’s a him. Brad. Not it.”

  “So he’s getting fat,” Harry said. “Every single person in this place smuggles him treats.”

  “Except for two people who shall remain nameless.”

  Harry grinned. He’d certainly passed the occasional bone from his dinner plate. “Is Sylvia back yet?” He looked around, but the living room was partially empty.

  “Yes,” Ruby told him. “Ages ago, and she went up to bed. Said she was tired and bloated with wine.” Ruby giggled and Brad flopped. “And she said you’d be twice as pissed after spending the evening with Tony. And,” she said with a sniff, “it smells like you are.”

  “Never,” Harry said. “I’ve been drinking water all night in celebration of Tony’s up and coming wedding.”

  “As if,” said Ruby. “The only one here who likes drinking water is Brad.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Two gurneys sat central in the forensic lab. Ostopolis was still present, though his principal assistant had gone home for the night. Bruce Newark, on the other hand, still in the supporting role while practising to one day fulfil his ambition of becoming boss of everything, continued taking notes.

  A ripped black plastic bag, commonly bought for disposing of rubbish, lay on the one flat surface, with twelve lengths of old rope, some of it bloodstained.

  The second gurney held the mutilated body of Mary-Lynne Fleetwood.

  The dissection was obscene but not complete. Some parts of the body had been removed by use of a hand saw, while others had been partially dismantled by use of a knife, one serrated and one flat blade. Yet the neck had not been entirely severed and the head was still attached to the body.