Hinton Hollow Death Trip

by Will Carver

  It wasn’t a thought he would usually have. But I wasn’t usually there, massaging his mind.

  Kill his brother to save himself.

  Kill his brother to save the town.

  Clean slate.

  CONCERNED CITIZEN

  The large, dark shape shuffling its way towards Inspector Anderson was unmistakeable.

  What the fuck does he want? Anderson thought, rolling his eyes. Where is that bloody photographer?

  Anderson stepped forwards to meet Roger Ablett. They stood in line with Mrs Beaufort.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s far enough, Roger. We’re closing the road down.’

  ‘What’s going on here, chief?’ He could see Mrs Beaufort from the corner of his eye but did not acknowledge the old bat.

  ‘An accident outside the school. We’re handling it. Should have the road open again in the next hour. Are you walking home this way?’ He asked this knowing damn well Roger was not going to plod on for another half-mile into Roylake.

  ‘No. No. Car’s around the back. Just wanted to see what was going on, offer my help. Concerned citizen, you know?’ His smile was misplaced and ill-judged.

  ‘We’ve got things covered. The weather looks like it’s about to get worse. You’d be better off getting back to your car.’ It wasn’t often that Anderson would control his mouth in this way but there was no sense in riling the monster who stood before him.

  ‘We? Looks like you’re out on your own.’

  ‘Detective Pace is talking to a witness.’ Roger Ablett balked slightly at the utterance of the word ‘witness’. This could work for or against him, depending on how he decided to handle his brother.

  ‘Ah, the prodigal son returns. I haven’t had the pleasure yet.’

  ‘I’m sure he’ll make himself known to you at some point, Roger,’ the chief grinned, knowingly. ‘Now, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘No. Not at all. I do hope this horrible business is cleared up soon.’ He turned away from Anderson and looked through the back window of Pace’s vehicle. ‘And a good day to you, Mrs Beaufort. I hope you haven’t been getting yourself into trouble.’ His teeth were yellow and crooked on the bottom. Mrs Beaufort could see them all, his grin was so wide. He found himself amusing.

  He’s not worth it, both Anderson and the old lady thought.

  They watched him saunter back from where he came.

  But he didn’t wander straight back to his car.

  First, he made an impromptu stop at Hadley’s Hair.

  A FLASH

  Mrs Blake sat at her desk, in the same chair she had only recently been lecturing to a dead woman about her dead children.

  Pace stood on the other side like one of her pupils. He looked at each wall then once in each corner. The soft lighting used in the school offices left no shadows. The windows were keeping most of the sound from the wind out.

  He pulled a notepad from his inside left jacket pocket and a pen from the other side. He started to chew at the end of the pen before he spoke. A terrible habit but he couldn’t shake it, like looking over his shoulder before crossing the road.

  ‘Mrs Blake. I’m sorry you had to witness that. I’ve seen the injuries and I know this is a terrible question, but are you able to identify the three people outside on Stanhope Road?’

  ‘Yes. Of course. It’s the Hadleys. They were in my office, what seems like forever ago. I guess it was probably only thirty minutes.’ She looked ahead as though they were still standing in front of her. She wondered whether she could have said anything different. Perhaps a quick wrist-slap and they’d have left too early for the killer.

  ‘Can you give me their individual names?’ Pace was treading carefully because he could see she was teetering on the edge of breakdown. But she was the best lead he had and he wasn’t going to let it go this time.

  Mrs Blake gave the details that Detective Pace required. Her voice was a little higher as she spoke young Aaron’s name and reined in emotion.

  ‘Why were they in your office, Mrs Blake?’

  ‘Is that relevant?’ She screwed her eyes into slits and her voice became a little more head teacher.

  ‘Everything is relevant. It’s not a case of passing blame or judgement, it’s about collecting the facts. What were the Hadley family doing in your office?’

  Every time he spoke or heard the word ‘Hadley’, his brain ticked over like there was something he was missing.

  A previous case. One of the victims. Hadley Serf. Maybe.

  The light flickered.

  She explained the situation with the Raymond boy and the events that had taken place during the lunch break.

  Professional. Precise. Stoic.

  ‘Do the Raymonds and the Hadleys have a history? Has this kind of thing happened before?’

  He needed more information. And quickly. I could help him by holding the headmistress’s hand.

  ‘Detective, if I can speak frankly…’

  ‘By all means.’

  ‘Ben Raymond is a little shit.’ Her cheeks rouged at the unusual display of candidness. ‘Every school has one and there’s often one in every year. He’s not actually a bad kid. His mother has recently given birth to a little surprise. There’s a big age gap and my guess is that he’s feeling a little left out. Not that I’m passing blame, you understand. Just trying to give you all the information.’ She didn’t wink but her eyes seemed brighter. Flirtatious, almost.

  ‘So, no history between the families?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have there been any incidents with Mrs Hadley,’ his mind jolted at that word again, ‘with any of the other mothers.’ He waited a beat. ‘Or fathers.’

  She knew what he was pushing for.

  ‘She was very well liked. She got involved with anything she could. The kids were well presented and punctual. Of course there was jealousy, she was an attractive young mother but nothing that would lead to this.’

  Pace raised an eyebrow.

  Never say never. The darkness affects people in different ways.

  ‘I’m not privy to everything that goes on, but the receptionists are less than discreet so most things do filter through. As far as I know, neither Rachel Hadley nor her husband had anyone I would class as an enemy.’

  Pace kept emotion from his face. He tapped the pen against his teeth then pretended to write something down. This woman was starting to like the sound of her own voice and that was fine by him, as long as she was telling him the truth.

  ‘Mr Hadley.’ That was all Pace said. He was thinking aloud. Despairing at the lack of manpower in Hinton Hollow for such a case. They were not set up for this. The height of action in that town was a broken shop window or that one time somebody from Roylake stole a forklift truck and tried to steal a hole-in-the-wall cash machine.

  If he’d had a team like he did in the city, that crime scene would be shut off from the public. The photos would be taken, the road would be closed, the bodies bagged. There’d be more than a giant moustache to stop people interfering with the area. The Brady kid would be out of the house where his mother had killed herself and in a safe place where a shrink could treat him and extract the pertinent information. Pace would be out looking for this man, this ordinary man with a gun he was not afraid to use on women and children.

  And the fucking schools would have been closed.

  He could feel his anger rising. A bulb flashed outside the window behind him and snapped him back into reality.

  ‘Yes. Nathan Hadley. You know of him?’

  ‘Nathan Hadley. I can’t say that I do.’

  ‘He owns the barbershop.’ She pointed to her right.

  Of course, that’s where he’d seen it. It was only briefly, in passing, on his way back from looking at Julee’s old house, but it had registered.

  Pace was considering his position as lead investigator, that he would have to inform Nathan – Nate – Hadley of his family’s fate. But he just couldn’t stop that old mistress from talking.

&
nbsp; ‘Well regarded, too,’ she continued. ‘He works close so picks the children up a lot. The mothers are quite doting on that kind of behaviour, as you can imagine.’ She almost laughed. Had she forgotten what she had seen? ‘The fathers, less so. Bit of a rumour going around about Mr Hadley’s sexuality, but it’s all bluster.’

  So the conflict may have arisen from the other side of the Hadley marital bed, Pace thought to himself. He dare not ask another question for fear of further anecdotes.

  The bulb flashed again. Twice.

  ‘You were here when the shots were fired?’

  ‘Yes. Sat exactly where I am right now.’

  ‘What did you do when you heard them?’

  Mrs Blake looked into her lap, the confidence and ease with which she had been speaking seemed to dissipate as she regressed into the old frightened teacher that Pace had first met out on Stanhope Road.

  Another flash behind Pace’s head as a picture of a spread-eagled Rachel Hadley was snapped for evidence.

  ‘I waited. I was scared.’

  ‘You didn’t see anything?’

  ‘No, Detective Pace.’ She seemed angry but it was simply to cover her shame. ‘I am a headmistress at a small-town primary school. I’m not in the SAS. I heard three shots fired very quickly.’

  Pace wrote that down. It said more about the situation than anything he heard so far.

  ‘I waited and I waited. I went to the window to see if it was all over.’

  ‘Did you see anything, Mrs Blake? A man. Running away perhaps. Getting in a car…’

  Another flash outside.

  I let her go. She dropped back into shock.

  Then there was the howl.

  BLURRED LINES

  Due to some boundary-line changes over the years, the shop actually sat on Hinton Hollow ground. But the sign still said Roylake Leather and Guns.

  And the only thing you could see in the store was leather. Boots. Jackets. Saddles. Hats. Belts. Darren would shoot a bolt into the forehead of a cow, exsanguinate it, cut out its guts and skin it. The meat gets sent elsewhere, the skin ends up in Roylake as one of the many garments on display in that quiet, overpriced establishment.

  The word ‘guns’ was faded. A nod to its long history and a time when the sale of firearms was a little more relaxed, particularly in rural areas.

  But that did not mean they were not still available.

  You hope that you live in a world where it is difficult for somebody underage to obtain alcohol. You hope that you live in a world where people have a roof over their head, where they don’t have easy access to drugs. You hope you live in a world where your children are safe and sex is a positive experience between two people who trust each other, it is not thrust upon somebody who does not want it, it is not used as a weapon.

  You h o p e.

  You hope that your politicians are working for you and the good of those around you. You hope that teachers are not neglecting the students who require the most help and you hope that they are not giving so much of their time to those people that the kids at the other end are missing out somehow. You hope that your parents will support you, no matter what you decide to do or who you decide to be or even who you decide to be with. You hope that they would give their life for yours.

  You h o p e.

  And you hope that there is more good in the world than evil. And you hope that there can be peace. And you hope that the ice caps won’t melt and a cure will be found and things will become more equal between the sexes.

  With all this, it is a small ask for you to hope that Roylake Leather and Guns is simply holding on to its history. You hope that people are going in there to pick up a leather bowl to keep their car keys in. You hope there are no guns under the counter or out the back or in the cellar.

  THE LAST WORD ON HOPE

  Hope is just a dream when it is not attached to action.

  That week, in Hinton Hollow, many people were travelling to the border of Roylake and arming themselves. They didn’t know why. They didn’t understand that I was there, pulling that need out of them. They could feel that sense of social malaise coating the tired village they believed they loved. Some kept the weapons for safety, just in case. Some shot at birds. Many did nothing worth putting into my small story.

  Guns were sold to lawyers and councillors, to cleaners and hairdressers. If you wanted one, you could have one. Nobody was interested in the leather.

  They lost their hope and bought some guns.

  Anybody could have one.

  The first anybody was not a fireman or librarian, they were not a traffic warden or substitute teacher, he was an ordinary man.

  BLACK FLAMES

  The sound was jarring. Guttural. High-pitched yet with an underlying gravel. Like two voices screaming at the same time. And not in harmony.

  There was no gunfire so nobody had been shot. But the noise coming from the pavement outside the school on Stanhope Road was worse than that.

  It was a rare chord to witness.

  The sound of a man’s heart breaking.

  Mrs Beaufort groped at her own breast in the back of Pace’s car. The same pain she had felt when the shock of Jacob Brady’s death reverberated across town to the Rock-a-Buy store. She had pills in her bag.

  Roger Ablett coughed and beat his chest free of what he thought was recurring heartburn. Perhaps it was guilt. He could hear Nathan Hadley from his car behind the shops.

  Fifteen minutes earlier, Ablett had stepped into Hadley’s Hair knowing damn well that the owner was now a childless widower. He also doubted very much that he was the only Ablett that day to see between the legs of the late Rachel Hadley.

  Maybe things would all work out for the best and he could get someone else to do his dirty work for him. Hadley could be the perfect patsy. He might even accept a punishment for a crime he did not commit as he had nothing else to live for. He could hang himself by that pretty neck in his cell, Ablett imagined, take our secret with him.

  Roger Ablett was licking his lips as he entered the barbershop. There were six men waiting, three crammed on each of the blue leather sofas, trying not to touch one another. The windows were sweating and so was he. All this walking was too much hassle. Too healthy. His body was rejecting it.

  ‘Afternoon, Roger.’ Nate greeted him with an inviting smile despite not liking him particularly. He hated his brother a little more. The way he looked at Rachel was nauseating. She hadn’t mentioned anything to him personally but word gets around, he knew what Charles Ablett was trying to do. ‘Bit of a wait if you need a trim. Couple of the boys on a quick break out the back but things will speed along soon enough.’

  Roger was pleased. He didn’t really want a haircut, anyway.

  ‘Oh, no. No problem. It was just a trim. I’ll come back tomorrow. It’ll wait.’ And he burped into a closed mouth, re-tasting the cheese and bacon that had lain together so perfectly across his mammoth burger.

  ‘Okay. Well, we’ll be here.’ He smiled again, the smile of a man who had no idea his family had been wiped out of existence.

  Ablett was stood in the doorway, his left foot holding the door open. He was neither inside nor out.

  ‘Bit of a commotion on Stanhope.’ He offered this information like he was conversing with a good friend over a pint of ale at The Arboreal. He had hoped to ease it into conversation but had to resort to use of the shoehorn.

  ‘Sorry? What’s going on?’

  The six men waiting on the sofas turned their heads to the left and watched the conversation move back and forth like a tennis rally.

  ‘I’m not sure but it looked pretty serious. Messy.’

  ‘In what way?’ Nate was biting, mainly out of common decency but intrigue was also an ingredient of the conversation. That and the niggling sensation that he was supposed to hear this information.

  ‘Inspector Anderson is there, as is that detective from the city.’

  ‘Pace,’ confirmed one of the waiting men.

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p; ‘That’s the fellow. Looks as though they are shutting down the entire street.’

  ‘What?’ Nate dropped his right hand to his side. He had been holding it up in front of his chest, the scissors resting limply and pointing towards the room where his wife had teased him to orgasm before lunch.

  ‘Not sure, to be honest,’ he lied. ‘There’s an ambulance there too.’

  ‘Where?’ Nate asked with urgency.

  ‘Stanhope.’ Ablett nodded his head over his shoulder to indicate the road he was talking about. He knew what Nate was asking, he was trying to rile him.

  ‘I know it’s on Stanhope, you said that already, but where on Stanhope?’

  ‘Outside the school.’

  But Nathan Hadley didn’t wait for an answer, he was almost out the door when he said to his employee, ‘Man the fort for a moment. I’ll be back in a second.’ He pushed past Ablett on his way out the door. ‘Tomorrow?’ he added before stepping into that wind.

  ‘It’s another day, Mr Hadley.’

  Nate ignored the serious lack of charm and walked towards Stanhope Road, thinking about his children and the Brady kid who had been killed a couple of days before.

  What are the chances?

  He turned left and saw the lights from the ambulance. A police car was parked almost in the middle of the road, a black car was stopped next to it on a double-yellow line.

  More than a parking ticket. He spoke with himself, trying not to enter into any more black thoughts.

  But the look on Anderson’s face was enough. He gave the game away.

  Nate was running. Attempting to see past the frame of the policeman ahead of him. He clocked Mrs Beaufort in the illegally parked vehicle then a camera flashed behind the inspector.