by Will Carver
Not with Rachel Hadley.
She was a well put-together woman. He guessed that she was in her late thirties but her body was firm where he expected some softness. Her breasts were small but pert – tiny nipples. Like a young girl. Charles liked that. But he also liked discus-sized areola and fake tits and black breasts. He’d tasted them all, but Rachel was something special. He wanted to drink down her soft, milky-white British skin. He’d kissed her tenderly all over and masqueraded as a very giving lover.
He was following a pattern. His pattern. The Charles Ablett pattern for fucking unobtainable women. He was being different without any intervention from me. He was being good. But, for Ablett, that was even more evil.
Rachel Hadley rolled off and lay next to Charles. He didn’t like to finish in that position, with the woman on top. He didn’t want them to see his oh face.
‘That was great.’ Rachel was smiling, still in that state where her mind was blank. The thought of her children or husband lying dormant as she allowed herself a moment to bask in afterglow. I allowed her that much.
‘It was.’ Charles had enjoyed it. Not the sex part of it, that was standard. But the conquest. Nathan Hadley had cut his hair a week before, and Charles found himself thinking of him rather than the gorgeous, naked, sweating, panting woman beside him.
‘It can never happen again.’ The mood turned.
I wasn’t there for Ablett. I had a tight hold over Rachel. Timidity had dissolved. She was brazen. She was confident. She was strong.
‘What?’ Charles continued to look at the ceiling, he didn’t want to show her that he was shocked. His dick was not fully flaccid yet and it flexed with his abdominal muscles as he spoke. He was angry. That was his go-to emotion. Hit first, ask questions later. He was already wishing he’d choked her.
‘Exactly what I said. Charles, this isn’t me. I don’t go around behind my husband’s back.’
‘Then what the hell were we just doing, Rach, because we sure as fuck weren’t studying the Bible, no matter how many times you called for God or Jesus.’
She turned an instant shade of scarlet but kept her cool.
‘Don’t dirty it. I don’t know what made me come here today. I don’t know what made me choose you—’
He blew air from his nostrils at this remark, as though it was impossible to fathom that he had not been the recruiter in this little dalliance.
‘I don’t know what made me choose you,’ she repeated, to make her position known, ‘but it happened. I’m not sorry that it happened but I’m not going to let it happen again.’
Charles had heard this speech or a variance of it, before. Several times, in fact. They always came back for more. But, this time, he knew it was different. She was different. Maybe that’s why he felt hurt.
‘Well, I’m glad I could be of use to get whatever it was out of your system.’ He made it sound lighthearted, he even looked at her while smiling a smile that could have been a wink. What he meant was you don’t get rid of me that easily.
Rachel said in her head, it got out of my system, all over your mouth and sheets. She never thought like that, she was pretty conservative when it came to sex. It was a strange day. She recalled her father saying not to pull stupid faces when she was a child because her face would stick in that expression if the wind changed. Well the wind was changing in Hinton Hollow and she worried that if she didn’t stop being a harlot right there and then, the wind would alter her forever.
‘You were very useful.’ She continued what she thought was some kind of afterplay, stroking his bare chest with her finger.
He wanted to snap it off.
PLASTIC STRAWS
To me, this is a small story. I have been active through wars, great battles, holocausts. I have seen genocide and terrorist acts that have killed over one hundred times the population of Hinton Hollow. I am everywhere, able to shift my focus hundreds of times as you blink. That week, I oversaw everybody in that quaint little nowhere on the map.
I am giving you a taste. An abridged version of everything I experienced. Because the human mind is smaller than ever before.
Where else could you find seven billion life forms, who are now so easily and borderlessly connected yet find very little time to focus on anything larger than their immediate self?
Your pictures are so small.
Millions preaching about saving the planet one plastic straw at a time then eating a burger made out of another species.
If you want to save more marine life, stop eating them.
If you want to be good, start with yourself. If you want to do good, you must go beyond.
And if you want to understand evil, look at this small story. Look at Hinton Hollow.
LOOK
May Tambor is on the floor.
A hole in her head.
Dorothy Reilly is on the floor.
A bone in her throat.
Oz is in the boot of a car.
Jacob Brady is in the morgue.
Faith Brady is in the morgue.
Darren cannot see a difference between a pig, a cat or a human.
I am nowhere near finished.
I want the Hadleys, the Abletts, the Beaufort hag and the window breaker. I want fear and terror and insecurity. I want to keep the Wallaces out of this. And I want the rest to learn from everything that happened.
When all that is done, I want to set a fire. Black flames as high as buildings.
I want Detective Sergeant Pace.
THE ABLETT WAY
You don’t just call it off with Charles Ablett.
My darkness was touching everyone in Hinton Hollow. For some it was a gentle ruffle of the hair that made them more playful, more susceptible to suggestion. For others it was a slap that triggered rebelliousness. For a few, it was drowning in blackness and snapping fingers and shooting young boys in the chest.
‘I guess I’ll see you about, then.’
She stopped stroking him, realising it was not part of the routine. He was dismissing her. He was making her feel how he wanted her to feel. Like a whore.
How dare she think that she chose me.
Charles Ablett had a habit of not letting things go, especially with women.
Rachel was starting to realise that she had made a mistake and that her choice had been the wrong one. She felt unsafe.
Without a word, she sat up in the bed, feeling the need to cover her breasts with the sheet though they had just been on full display as she bounced her way to bliss, her buttocks slapping against the top of his thighs as she thrust herself harder and faster downwards towards the end.
Her skirt was on the floor beside the bed, she leant over and picked it up with her left hand, her right still clasping the sheet to her chest. Ablett just lay there. Somehow threatening in his inaction. It was this apathy that scared Rachel the most.
It was taking too long to get dressed with one hand and she felt the increasing need to get the hell out of there. She let go of the sheet and stood up to pull her skirt up then walked to the foot of the bed where her blouse lay in a heap. She thought about how he had unbuttoned it and let it slip slowly down her back before firmly placing his hand there to pull her in closer to him.
What a thrill it was.
What an idiot she had been.
She buttoned herself up and looked around the floor to see if she had forgotten anything else. She didn’t want to leave any evidence there because Ablett would undoubtedly hold it against her in some way. He was lying in the same spot with both hands behind his head. He flexed his biceps alternately as though keeping time with a song he was singing in his head.
‘You’ve got everything you came with. You weren’t wearing any underwear, you dumb bitch.’ He smiled and shook his head as though she really was a dumb bitch.
‘Oh, fuck you.’ She didn’t want to antagonise him but she couldn’t stop herself from reacting.
‘You can’t go back on your word now, you’ve said that was the very last ti
me.’
He was still smiling. She stared at him, disgusted. With him, and herself.
Then he sat up in bed. His expression changed. He was no longer joking. Rachel Hadley flinched but he didn’t react.
‘Now get the fuck out of my house.’
She bit her tongue and backed out of the room. She was afraid to turn her back on him. But Charles Ablett was not that obvious. Sure, he could have grabbed her right there. He could have hit her a few times. He could have forced her into something she had already expressed she did not want to do. He could have thrown her down the stairs. He could have killed her and left her in the pantry while he decided what was the best thing to do with the body.
That wasn’t the Ablett way.
He’d wait until she had taken her mind off him before he struck. He’d hit her where it hurt her the most.
OTHER WOMEN TO HAVE FELT
‘THE ABLETT WAY’
Faith Brady.
Liv Dunham.
Mrs Wallace.
Four dancers from The Split Aces.
Rachel stamped down the stairs. She wanted to get out but she wanted Ablett to know that he had pissed her off, that she thought he was an animal. Part of her wanted to go back in there and rip him apart with her nails. Attack him before he could get to her.
I thought about turning her up a notch.
She found her shoes at the bottom of the stairs and her jacket still hung on a hook by the door. The wind blew the letterbox open and it clattered, startling her. She looked over her shoulder instinctively.
Her heart pounding, Rachel Hadley threw her arms into the jacket and opened the door to step out into the darkening air of Hinton Hollow, it no longer smelled fresh. She thought about slamming the door behind her to punctuate her estimation of Charles Ablett. But, instead, left it wide open. The wind would slam it shut for her at some point. Or it would let something into the house that Ablett would not want to see.
She pounded the pavement as she paced down to Stanhope Road.
As she hit the corner, everything caught up with her and she cried.
She felt like a Dumb Bitch.
ONLY THE REAL WORLD
The Cider Orchard Bed and Breakfast was on the left once you passed the main line of shops and businesses – the grocery on the corner, RD’s Diner beside that, a florist, post office, off-licence, and, bookending the strip, Hadley’s Hair.
But Pace did not stop at Cider Orchard.
He continued along Stanhope Road, past the primary school, eventually taking a left on the road before Dr Green’s surgery. The road snaked left then right. He came to a stop just after the miniature roundabout.
Across on the other side of the road was a grey door that used to be powder blue. It still had the number sixteen nailed to the front, of course. But she didn’t live there anymore.
She hasn’t lived there for a very long time.
Detective Sergeant Pace allowed himself to be lost in memory. He was tired and upset about the little boy who had been killed. He was more upset about the boy who had lived. But he allowed himself to forget the Hinton Hollow that was now and remember the Hinton Hollow as it was then.
Julee had been a darling of the town. A decent student. Helpful. Conscientious. She would stay behind after school to help teachers who ran learning clubs for the younger kids. She attended the church. She knew Dr Green, though she had never been ill in her life. She was a good kid. And she grew into a good teenager. Then a good young adult. That was the point where she finally became close with Pace. As close as he had always wanted.
They were both smart. They both studied hard. It seemed they were destined to tie the knot and become the natural successors to Mr and Mrs Beaufort as the unofficial town elders.
But Julee changed. Something inside her seemed to just flip. She wasn’t happy there any more. She wanted out and she wanted Pace to go with her. But he loved The Hollow. Life was great.
Julee got worse.
‘One day, you’ll come knocking on this door and you’ll find that I won’t be here.’ She was serious. Tears were clinging to her eyes to preserve her bravery.
‘Julee, that’s mad.’ The word itself seemed to dry her eyes instantly, but the tears fell back inside.
‘This place is toxic.’ She held his arms tightly and looked up into his eyes. It was intense. He had no idea what had turned her, why she had become so paranoid. She scared him. He didn’t know how to act around her. He wasn’t seeing her as often.
Eventually, he never saw her again.
That one day arrived. He knocked on the powder-blue door and nobody answered. Julee was gone. She didn’t leave a note. She hadn’t contacted her grandmother to say that she was leaving. The kids in the after-school clubs were left without a helper. She just vanished.
Like Oz Tambor.
She was there.
Then she wasn’t.
But she was old enough to make that decision.
There didn’t seem to be any forced entry into her home. It was tidy. Nothing had been stolen but innocence. The police had the testimony of the Pace kid to go on, too. She wanted to leave Hinton Hollow.
There was no case.
Nobody blamed him directly. They all seemed concerned for his welfare, sympathetic to his heartbreak – as you would expect in Hinton Hollow – but he felt the wave that swept through town and knocked him from his perch within the community. The mantle of golden couple reserved for a future date when Liv Dunham and Oscar Tambor would prove their worth.
Julee had been right. That perfect little idyll had turned toxic.
Pace was starting to wish he’d gone with her. Maybe if he left, he wouldn’t be that far behind. He could find her.
Of course, he didn’t find Julee and he never found out what had changed her mind so drastically about Hinton Hollow. What it did was open his eyes to the underbelly of the town. The things that locals look past. The lies that everyone knows but never mentions. The darkness and the cracks. He didn’t leave because of Julee but her disappearance changed Pace enough that he wasn’t afraid to get out.
His tired eyes hardly blinked from the daydream. He was half hoping that the door would open and she’d be there.
What an idiot.
It’s so much fun to play with somebody’s hope.
Pace eventually blinked and, for a moment, the close-up world flicked back to normality. Perhaps he hadn’t even been looking at the house, he’d been asleep and dreaming. Now, the door with the number sixteen nailed to it seemed far away. Too far to touch.
He waited a little longer.
Just in case Julee emerged.
The grey door shook and Pace’s eyes widened. Surely this was still the dream. The door opened and a woman in her late thirties or early forties stepped out, hefty green coat and scarf tied around her head to protect from the wind, and a leash in her left hand. The dog bounded down the step and into the front garden. The woman, who was not Julee, nowhere near Julee, not even an older withered version of the girl he had once loved, pressed the button on the leash and the little hound choked to a halt. She slammed the door shut and Pace knew he was awake. Because only the real world is that fucking cruel.
He turned back. Tired. Despondent. The wind was picking up still. The dark clouds overhead that threatened a downpour but hadn’t yet delivered were whizzing past like they were scared of The Hollow.
A woman was walking on the other side of the road, pressing herself into the wind. She looked a little underdressed. He couldn’t see her face because she looked to be rubbing her eyes with the back of her sleeve.
Pace glanced as he passed the solitary figure fighting the elements, he just wanted to see her face – he could already see her thighs. Strong but lean. She pulled her hand away and placed it back into her jacket pocket. He caught a glimpse and smiled to himself. Rachel Hadley had this effect on most men.
He needed to call Maeve. I was making him forget.
Pace hit the high street again. He was,
for want of a better word, home.
AFTERNOON DELIGHT
Rachel couldn’t go home. She couldn’t face the emptiness that would leave her alone with only the thought of what she had just done.
She’d managed to stop crying because she was so confused about whether they were tears of guilt or whether this was simply the release she had needed – a decent sob rather than an explosive orgasm. She reached the school and realised that she had no idea who she was or what she was doing there. This wasn’t her. This wasn’t her life. This wasn’t how Rachel Hadley acted.
Sure, she was attractive and she got a lot of attention because of that fact. Men liked being around her as much as women envied her. But she wasn’t a slut. That’s what everybody wanted her to be, but she wasn’t.
She stopped on the pavement and stared at the building, wondering how Jess was getting on with her maths, imagining Aaron kicking a football around the windy playground, scuffing another knee on his trousers.
No. She couldn’t go home. Not yet.
She kept walking. Past the turning where the unmarked police car had just pulled in and on to her husband’s place of work. She hoped the stiff breeze that had been punching her in the face all the way down Stanhope had blown off the stench of her adultery.
There were four men waiting and they all turned at the same time when Rachel entered the barbershop. They would have looked no matter who had walked through the door, but their gazes lingered a little longer because it was Rachel Hadley standing at the entrance.
Nate was trimming Old Mr Dale’s wonderfully white mane. It was another short back and sides he could do on autopilot with his mind numbed and his eyes closed. But he performed with a smile on his face, which grew when his wife unexpectedly entered the barbershop.
‘Hey, Honey.’ Two of the men waiting on the sofa not-so-subtly nudged one another with their elbows as though honey was something only gay men said. They were reaching. Nate saw what they were doing, he was used to it. He ignored that they were making fun of him and pitied their ignorance.