by Will Carver
One great perk to his job was that men rarely said that they didn’t like their haircut. He’d wave a mirror behind their crown to show them the part of their head they never saw and they always said it was fine. When these narrow-minded, homophobic, small-town dicks came in and perpetuated an in-joke that had lost its humour years ago, Nate would fuck with the back of their head. Nothing outrageous like shaving a shape into the hair – a pair of testicles, perhaps – but simply putting things a little off centre. They’d never really know but anyone walking behind them would think that they had cut their own hair.
Intolerable idiots.
I wondered what I could make him do.
‘Hey,’ she responded, coyly.
‘What are you doing here?’ He left Old Mr Dale for a second, leant into his wife and kissed her on the cheek. He thought about giving her an air kiss on each side of the face, really give the Neanderthals something to elbow about, but he resisted.
‘Does a wife need a reason to come and visit her man?’ This wasn’t a defensive response. Her shadow had turned it into something more playful.
‘Of course not. You want to wait out the back? I’m nearly done with Mr Dale here.’
Rachel looked over at the old man, who nodded a kind acknowledgement into the mirror.
‘Sure thing. Don’t be too long.’ She winked at the men sat on the sofas and the nudging stopped. Nate Hadley loved his wife for doing things like that – though that gesture seemed a little more brazen than usual.
The four men watched her walk to the door at the far end of the shop then disappear. Even Old Mr Dale caught a glimpse from the corner of his eye – he was old, not dead.
When Nate finally got back to his room at the back of the shop – a small room that housed a computer and a safe with the week’s takings – his wife was just about ready to fuck his brains out. She was kissing him on the lips and rubbing the crotch of his jeans. She whispered in his ear that she was missing him as she thrust herself into him.
‘What’s gotten into you?’ he asked, not quite pushing her away but not completely accepting her advances.
‘God, Nate. I thought it might be a fun surprise. When was the last time we had a little afternoon delight?’
Nate was shocked. On one hand he thought it might be a good way to really stick it to those imbeciles waiting for a trim but another part was wondering where this fire had come from. It never crossed his mind that his wife would cheat on him, in the same way that Owen Brady could not imagine such a thing of Faith. But this was Rachel’s way of dealing with her guilt. She was going to try to fuck it all away, get the poison out.
It just wasn’t her.
She grabbed his dick and held it. He was getting hard. He didn’t want to but he couldn’t help it.
‘I’ve got four customers out there.’ He didn’t push her hand away.
‘Let them wait.’ The corners of her mouth raised, her long eyelashes drawing him in. ‘We’ll be quick,’ she added and almost threw in a girly giggle, but it never materialised.
‘Rach, I don’t know about this.’ He looked over his shoulder at the door. It didn’t have a lock. He hated that it didn’t have a lock while he was counting the money or was inputting the combination to the safe, but the idea appealed to him at that moment.
‘Well, this isn’t going to go down by itself.’ She gripped him harder. Then she dropped to her knees and took him in her mouth.
THE WIND
American Summer. Cortland. Haas. Pinova. Jupiter. Shenandoah. Each of the six barn-converted rooms at the Cider Orchard Bed and Breakfast was named after an apple variety.
Pace was staying in Haas.
The room was very modern. A king-sized bed with more pillows than one man could ever need. The television was a flatscreen LCD – forty inches from corner to corner. There was even a Bluetooth speaker to play music from his phone. He’d rested it in its cradle and selected Warren Zevon’s ‘She’s Too Good for Me’, putting the song on repeat. It was mellow and sad enough to numb him to sleep, and he hoped it would force his brain to dream of Julee.
He just wanted to see her walk out of that number sixteen door one more time.
Julee may have fled from Hinton Hollow without Pace but that did not mean that she was first to leave.
He didn’t even get fully onto the bed. His feet were on the floor, he sat at the edge then let his back crash down on the springy mattress just as the sweet sound of Mr Zevon’s languid singing voice told Pace that he could hold his head up high.
He drifted off into a peaceful slumber, his mind fixed on the chrome one and six that graced that once blue door. In his sleep, the one turned to a four and the six turned into a two. And the door was black. And he wouldn’t wake up until he saw what was on the other side.
Then he was in Swinley Forest and he was walking. The man in front of him had his hands cuffed behind his back. He wouldn’t stop talking but Pace could not hear his words. Then Pace was taping his mouth shut. Then he was handcuffing the man’s wrists together around a tree trunk. Then the man was screaming beneath the gag. And kicking.
Then Pace was walking away and leaving the man to rot.
His eyes shot open. The wooden beam stretching across the Haas room ceiling high above him, Warren Zevon’s languorous tones unbefitting of the detective’s most recent thoughts. He jumped up and pulled his phone from the speaker to stop the music. He didn’t want to associate the song with the moment he had just relived.
Almost ninety minutes had passed since he had arrived at his temporary home. He turned the tap to ignite the shower. The children would be filing out of their classrooms shortly and he had to get over to Owen Brady’s house to check on Michael.
Pace perused his face in the bathroom mirror. He felt awkwardly refreshed but the reflection still suggested he was exhausted. He pulled the string above the mirror to kill the bulb and showered in the dark so that he couldn’t see his own shadow.
I had him.
SLOW AND EXPOSED
Things got worse. The wind was blowing the shadow all over town. The black flames licking at anything it passed.
Ben Raymond was nine years old. He had Jess Hadley pinned against the fence during the lunch break and was teasing her about her gay dad. He hadn’t been touched by the darkness – I stayed away from children, I liked them – he was just a piece-of-shit kid. It wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t born that way. But that’s exactly what he was.
Aaron Hadley was seven. Three school years younger than his sister, two and a half in real years. He often teased his sister. He was big for his age. Strong, too. Sometimes he even ribbed her about her gay dad even though he was his father too. But that didn’t mean anyone else could do it.
He saw that rotund meathead, Raymond, with his group of four followers, all laughing uncomfortably as their fearless leader pit his wits and his brawn against a girl. She was older than him, but she was a girl, and his four fake friends knew that this was wrong.
Aaron didn’t even hesitate. He ran straight for Ben (the Bully). Two of his lackeys even moved aside instead of trying to stop the kid. Aaron’s shoulder connected with Ben’s ribs. It was enough to make him let go of Jess, who straightened her school dress.
With Ben gripping his side, Aaron had enough time to jump on his chest and get a few hits in before the older, larger boy regained enough composure to haul the pest to the floor and administer a couple of punches of his own before a teacher broke it up.
‘You idiot,’ Jess said to her little brother. ‘You could have got yourself killed.’
Then she smiled at him.
‘Thanks.’ She winked.
He smiled back, his left eye turning black. He thought it looked cool.
Rachel was informed immediately.
Her son had booked her a meeting with the headmistress straight after school.
DEAD WHITE HAND
RD and his wife dropped Mrs Beaufort at the Brady’s house. What used to be The Brady Home.
‘Thank you both for visiting and for coming to collect me. And your offer to help in the store.’ Mrs Beaufort stepped out of the car. It was impossible to tell that she’d suffered any kind of medical mishap. She was a frail, thin old lady who was as strong as an ox. A stubborn, determined, ox.
‘You want us to come with you? We can wait here?’ RD spoke, of course. His wife nodded in the background.
‘You can stop worrying about me, Rick. There are others in this town more needing of your compassion.’ She was thinking about Owen and young Michael. And she was wondering how the mother was holding up. She had no idea that Faith was gone, too. That she had cut her wrists in a fit of guilt about choosing one of her children over the other. She’d find out eventually, everybody in town would. Some would even think she probably had it coming – Faith was the wrong name for a woman who never attended the Good Shepherd. But they’d never know why she ended it.
‘There’s enough compassion in this here wagon for everyone, Mrs B.’ RD gave his big bear grin and saluted with his left hand, avoiding that want for an American accent once more. Mrs Beaufort turned and walked up the Brady’s drive. RD and his wife headed straight back into town to relieve the part-timers from running the diner.
Mrs Beaufort gave it twelve steps before she allowed herself a short breath and a gentle rub of her chest. She told herself that the Bradys needed her, that Hinton Hollow needed her. And she took those final few paces to the door with the vertical letterbox and knocked with that dead white hand.
Nobody answered.
Why would they not be here? Where else could they go?
She looked down the drive at the empty space where RD’s car had been parked moments ago with the offer to wait for her.
She breathed again and hit the door once more with that almost transparent right hand.
A woman answered.
‘Hello,’ the strange woman, who was not Faith Brady, said.
Mrs Beaufort took a step backward and looked around, making sure she had the right house, hoping that her constricted arteries were not now restricting the flow of blood to her brain.
No. You’re in the right place.
‘I’m Mrs Beaufort,’ Mrs Beaufort exclaimed as though that was explanation enough for her arrival at the Brady house.
‘Good day, Mrs Beaufort. I’m afraid this is not the best time…’
‘I understand that Miss…’
‘Day. I’m the family liaison officer assigned to the Bradys.’
‘And I am a close family friend, Miss Day, fresh out of hospital, and I have not had the opportunity to offer my condolences or help to Mr and Mrs Brady since the accident.’
It was not an accident. Every movement in the park on day one was made with purpose. It was passionless and merciless.
‘Mrs Beaufort, if you are as fresh from the hospital as you say, and certainly seem, I would suggest that you take care of yourself.’ Andrea Day was an experienced FLO and she did not appreciate a busybody. She had a job to do and she only cared about the crime that had been committed and the family that had been torn apart and were being forced to deal with something unknown and unnatural. She did not give one fuck who that old lady thought she was or what she was doing there. Normally she would handle her emotions, suppress them. But not that week. Not in Hinton Hollow.
‘Thank you for your concern, Miss Day, but I have known this family since birth. Not just the children but Owen and Faith, too.’ Mrs Beaufort was not fazed by what she considered ignorance and insubordination. ‘I would appreciate it if I could have a word with one of them.’ She started to move towards the door but Andrea Day was not a woman to be messed with, either.
SOME THINGS ABOUT ANDREA DAY
I had not touched her at this point.
She was compassionate.
Male vulnerability turned her on.
‘Back up, Mrs Beaufort.’ She stood her ground, pulling the door almost closed behind her.
‘I beg your par—’
‘You can beg for whatever you want.’ She was stepping well over the line of etiquette here but, as she would explain, ‘This is a horrid situation to be involved in. It is a murder investigation. A heinous crime has been committed against a member of your community, I am aware of that and sensitive to the thoughts of the people in this town, but I do not need people in this house filling up a young boy’s mind with pictures and words that never happened. Michael is very closed right now, as can be expected, but he is open to suggestion and we are trying to catch a killer of children here. Mrs Beaufort.’
The old lady was agog. Andrea Day allowed her to stand this way for a few seconds.
‘So, if you’ll kindly fuck off and mind your own business, I’ll let Mr Brady know that you called by.’
The door closed and the old woman’s angina felt decidedly less stable.
LOST
Pace turned up to find a bewildered pensioner snailing her way to the bottom of the drive.
‘What the…?’ he muttered out loud to himself as he turned his car up the kerb.
‘Mrs Beaufort? Is everything okay? I thought you were…’ He fumbled for the right words. ‘Resting?’ It sounded as lame and patronising out loud as it had in his head.
She didn’t answer.
She looked lost and much littler than she had the day that Pace had arrived in town and visited her in Rock-a-Buy.
‘Mrs Beaufort?’ he tried again.
Nothing.
‘Mrs Beaufort.’ Now he was right next to her with his hands on her shoulders. ‘Is everything okay? What are you doing here?’
‘I came to speak with Faith and Owen. I wanted to offer my support. I … I just…’ She didn’t make eye contact with the detective, who was worried that the wind might pick the diminutive lady up and throw her down the street.
‘I think you should come and sit down for a moment, Mrs Beaufort. I can take you home.’
A WORD ON EVIL
It can hide and often be found in kindness.
Once the wheels are set in motion,
I can just watch. Or leave.
I wouldn’t leave without Detective Pace.
He was the reason I was in Hinton Hollow.
Pace had no idea whether the old lady had made it into the house to discover that Faith was no longer living there – no longer living anywhere – and perhaps she was in shock at her discovery, or simply that she was hopped up on some kind of medication administered to her in the hospital that was causing her disorientation.
‘I think I just…’ She stopped talking as though she had expelled a complete and coherent sentence. Pace led her back down, towards a low wall she could rest on. The Bradys’ curtain twitched as he helped her against it.
‘Mrs Beaufort, if you could just wait here for a moment, I need to have a quick word with Mr Brady.’
‘Good luck,’ she scoffed.
Pace turned his back on the old woman.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
‘Who was that? Is everything all right?’ Owen Brady asked the assigned officer as she shut the door and re-entered the house alone.
‘Everything is fine, Mr Brady.’
‘You can call me Owen.’
‘Everything is fine, Mr Brady,’ Andrea repeated. ‘It was a neighbour wishing to pass on their sympathies to yourself and your son. It will probably become more frequent once this weather dies down.’
‘Who was it?’
‘Mrs Beaufort.’
‘Hmmm. I’d expected her sooner, to be honest.’ He raised his eyebrows. Andrea took that to mean that she was right about the old busybody.
‘She’s been in hospital.’
‘What? Hospital? How do you know that?’ For that brief moment, Owen Brady stopped thinking about his own problems and his mind allowed him to think about Mrs Beaufort. He worried. ‘Did she say what was wrong? Why didn’t she come in?’
‘Please sit down, Mr Brady.’ Andrea saw Michael flinch at the recognition of his father’s p
anic. He was sitting on his own in the dining room, which was only separated from the lounge by a small arch of plaster at the top of the two opposing walls. He was perched at the table reading a book. Living a life that was not his own.
‘I thanked her for her concern and said that I would pass on the message, she should come back in a few days,’ she continued, slightly bending the truth but her job was to be there for the Bradys. She found herself caring for them, particularly the boy. Though the air in Hinton Hollow had clearly cursed her tongue with more spite than she was used to, her compassion for the families she worked with did not waver. ‘She’s fine, trust me. You have other concerns.’
Andrea Day scuttled over to the main window and moved the curtain aside slightly with two fingers in order to check that the old lady had got the message. She couldn’t see her out there. In her place was a man. He was tall, his coat was long, his face was dark with a stubble she found attractive. Through the netting, his eyes looked black. Though the wind seemed to be picking up with every passing hour, the trees shaking in the background, papers flying past the window, it did not seem to be touching the man that was walking towards the house. His hair did not ruffle. His coat did not flap. She felt like a target he was intent on striking.
She let go of the curtain, turned to Owen Brady with uncertainty in her eyes – a hesitation he read as fear – and the door was knocked on three times.
EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE
Rachel Hadley stood in front of the head mistress of Stanhope C of E School feeling like a naughty schoolgirl for the second time that day. Only, this time, she didn’t have two fingers of the local estate agent curling up inside her.
But she had been occupying her time in any way that she could. Shopping, browsing the florist’s window, flicking through travel brochures, walking against the wind to the river and back. Anything to not be at home alone. It meant that she was in her children’s school, discussing their apparently bad behaviour, and she was still wearing no underwear.