Hinton Hollow Death Trip

by Will Carver

  Roger Ablett’s ears pricked up.

  Pace said that he was close. He just needed a little more evidence.

  RD smiled at Pace.

  Ablett smiled to himself.

  TRAMP/COW

  Liv Dunham was the only other person in Hinton Hollow to witness the colder side of Mrs Beaufort. And all Liv did was offer to give her a lift back to Rock-a-Buy.

  She transformed from sweet old lady with captivating tales of yesteryear to caustic old hag with fangs for dentures.

  ‘I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself, Ms Dunham. You should only be worrying about your own problems,’ she bit. It was the shadow Beaufort speaking.

  The real Mrs Beaufort broke through at the sight of the innocent teacher’s expression and apologised immediately.

  ‘I’m sorry, Liv, dear. It’s just that everybody has been treating me like some kind of invalid since I left the hospital. They think I’ve one foot in the grave. Handling me with kid gloves. And with everything that’s happening in the town…’ She trailed off as though thinking of the horrors that threatened to smite the good Hollow name forever.

  ‘It’s okay. We’re all on edge. I don’t even know how you’ve managed to keep it together for so long,’ Liv backtracked, feigning a smile that was not reciprocated.

  ‘Be a dear and fetch me a glass of water before I go.’

  Liv stood up and went into the kitchen, feeling even more battered than she had when she awoke that morning. While she was out of the room, Mrs Beaufort popped another couple of the pills she already felt completely reliant on and waited for the liquid she intended to wash them down with.

  At the front door, Liv poked gently one more time.

  ‘It’s only spitting now but the sky looks as though it’s about to open up. It’s a long walk back to the crossroads.’

  ‘A little rain never hurt anyone. Now you get back inside and wait for Oz. He’s coming back, you know?’ Mrs Beaufort held Liv’s arm in her hand for what felt like a genuinely tender moment.

  ‘I know,’ Liv said to Mrs Beaufort. And then, ‘I know,’ again to herself.

  Naive little tramp, Mrs Beaufort’s mind ticked, as I stroked her back gently.

  Meddling old cow, thought Liv as she closed the door on the rain. They were words that never would have crossed her mind before that day, but she had allowed me to cross her threshold. I had sat on her couch and stood in her kitchen. It was early so the changes were subtle. But changes they indeed were. Nobody was escaping.

  She found her mind was racing. Not with thoughts of where Oz could be or whether it was his voice or not on the phone, but questions. So many questions.

  How does she know that he will come back?

  What was that story about the woods being the heart of the town?

  Should I cancel the band and the flowers?

  Should I call Father Salis?

  Why did the detective bring up Charles Ablett? How could he possibly know anything?

  Liv was in the hall, pondering, when her phone started to ring.

  Both Liv and her shadow ignored the call.

  The caller withheld their number.

  SO CLOSE

  ‘Do you have something that can charge this?’ Pace held his mobile phone aloft as he walked into Hinton Hollow Police Station. That was his greeting to Constable Lynch.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Lynch responded awkwardly, wondering whether to enter into conversation. Perhaps warn the detective that Anderson had been trying to contact him.

  Pace slid the phone across the front desk as though the gesture were enough of an explanation. Lynch caught it, opened a drawer, took out a tangled wire and plugged it into the bottom of the phone.

  ‘Anderson out back?’ Pace wasn’t really asking, he was simply keeping things flowing. He had momentum now.

  ‘As always,’ Lynch spoke under his breath. Pace took it as a remark against the inspector rather than himself.

  Pace didn’t even knock. He was hoping to catch Anderson in the middle of some lurid act with the local councillor. What an advantage it would be to walk in and find Anderson’s giant pubic mound tickling the nose of Ms Hayes as she gobbled down another length of his lawful package.

  Anderson was alone at his desk.

  As always.

  ‘Well look who finally decided to bloody show up at work.’ The chief did not stand.

  ‘I’ve been out gathering evidence.’ He had to hold his tongue, play the game a little.

  ‘Really? Word has it you’ve been down having coffee with Roger bloody Ablett.’

  Fuck. I left there about three minutes ago. How did word get up the hill so fast? It was a Hinton Hollow mystery he had no time for at that moment.

  ‘Find out anything more about May Tambor?’ Pace tried to change the subject.

  ‘A ton of messages on her answering machine from Liv Dunham. Nothing yet on possible time of death but the oldest message is from a few days ago and the rate of decomposition would back that up. It’s bloody horrible. Such a good woman. Left to rot.’ He shook his head in apparent disgust.

  ‘I know you’ve probably been trying to get hold of me but my shitty phone died. Lynch is out front giving it a nuke now.’

  ‘I don’t care about your fucking phone, I want to know what you know.’

  Pace explained everything he’d found that morning and how his prime suspect was Charles Ablett. He felt that Ablett was a trophy collector and that his trophies came in the form of unavailable women. He wanted Faith Brady and Rachel Hadley checked for any signs that Ablett had been with them or near them on the day that they died. He believed that it was Ablett’s way of either ending the relationship or it was his response to a woman ending it before he could get the move in himself.

  Anderson’s eyes said he didn’t quite buy it.

  Pace went on to talk about the disappearance of Oscar Tambor and, if the coroner’s guess was accurate, he probably went missing the same time that May Tambor was shot. Perhaps May witnessed her son being taken and was removed from the equation.

  So close, detective.

  Details are easier to come by than motive.

  ‘You think Oz has been kidnapped and that has something to do with these women and kids being shot?’

  ‘I think that Liv Dunham is the ultimate prize so the ante has been raised. These types of killers, their hunger becomes deeper and more insatiable, and the crime has to match that feeling. Things often escalate.’ He was explaining things that he expected an inspector to be fully aware of already.

  ‘All sounds a bit farfetched to me. Like some of the pieces of the puzzle have been forced into place.’ It was a rare sight to see Anderson so pensive and critical. And professional.

  ‘It’s all I’ve got to go on. This guy is leaving nothing behind. We’re being deliberately pointed towards the kids, and I think it’s all to do with the mothers.’

  Right again, Detective.

  Nothing was said while Anderson mulled the notion over.

  ‘Or we could go with Mrs Beaufort’s theory that the fucking trees are doing it.’ Pace ran a hand through his hair and bit back the want to call the old lady something derogatory and profane.

  ‘Oh, that old thing.’

  For a second, Pace thought his inspector was talking about Mrs Beaufort.

  ‘You know about that?’

  ‘It’s Hinton Hollow lore. Nobody really believes it. The woods are possessed with the spirits of those who have gone missing from the town. Blah, blah, blah.’ Pace pictured Julee Beaufort. ‘Supernatural bullshit. Great fodder for a cub-scout jamboree but no place in a police investigation, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’ They finally agreed on something.

  ‘So, as I see it, we have two theories. Either this guy is after the kids for some reason or he’s after the mothers for jilting or being jilted.’

  ‘I think that’s a pretty coarse summary but I guess it’s what we have.’

  ‘Then let’s plan for the
worst.’

  NOTHING LEFT

  The canopy was too dense for the rain to penetrate, so the car stayed relatively dry. But Oz could hear it pattering high above him. It was soothing. It sounded similar to the way raindrops hit the roof of his and Liv’s conservatory. They would often just sit out there reading, the weather fading into a hum of delicate white noise.

  It brought back childhood memories of caravan holidays to the south coast with his mother and father. He’d lie back on his bed – that had been converted so effortlessly from the dining room table – place his hands behind his head and look up into a sky he could not really see.

  He was curled into a ball underneath a long coat. There wasn’t much room in the boot but Oz managed to manoeuvre himself onto his back, the coat still draped across him, and look up into the blackness, imagining the sky beyond.

  For that moment, he felt like a child again. Free. Honest. He opened his mouth to catch the falling raindrops.

  He thought about Liv in their conservatory, reading one of her classics. And he wondered whether she was thinking of him at that very moment.

  She wasn’t. She was thinking of everything but him. Questions bouncing around her mind like a racquetball. She was thinking of Charles Ablett and Mrs Beaufort and Detective Sergeant Pace.

  Oz’s stomach rumbled. He pictured his father trying to light the barbecue outside their caravan and he wished he could speak with him at that moment. He’d know what to do to get out of this mess. But all he had left was the irritating answering machine message that his mother refused to let go of.

  He’d have given anything to hear that play one more time.

  Oz felt around the boot over his left shoulder until he located the rustling carrier bag. He reached inside and counted. Only three biscuits left. He’d been munching away at them without realising. But he was so hungry.

  NUTRITIONAL VALUE OF MAY TAMBOR’S BISCUITS

  Calories – 57

  Carbohydrates – 7.5g

  Fat – 2.6g

  Protein – 0.9g

  Fibre – 0g

  Soon, there would be nothing left.

  DAMAGED

  The atmosphere in the Brady home was delicate.

  Michael had gone to his room to lie down for a while. The things he had endured that week were taking their toll.

  But at least he had time. He’d heal enough that the emotional scar tissue would hold together sufficiently for him not to have to battle through each day. He’d be able to accept what had happened and live with the hurt.

  But Owen was damaged.

  And darkness finds the cracks easier than light.

  He descended the stairs languidly, hitting every possible creaking step, and was greeted in the downstairs hallway by Andrea Day, the family liaison officer assigned to the Bradys, whose professional conduct was waning with every minute that passed.

  I LOOKED INSIDE ANDREA DAY

  Sexual perversion.

  Depression.

  Separation anxiety.

  IT MADE ME WONDER

  What has become of people, of the human race?

  Was this always here or have you created it?

  She stopped him and asked how he was holding up. He shrugged and nodded his head as though he could handle things, he was getting there. But he wasn’t. He was bottling everything up because he thought that was the best thing to do. It wasn’t about him, it was about Michael.

  He tried to walk past her to the kitchen. She blocked him. He just wanted to make a cup of tea. Her left hand eased him towards the wall. She was stood uncomfortably close to Owen Brady.

  ‘You have to let some of it out, Owen. You have to allow yourself to feel.’ She spoke softly but assertively, her shoulder pushed into his chest to pin him to the wall, her voice grazing the side of his face as it made its way to tickling his ear.

  She reached into his trousers and gripped tightly.

  He didn’t try to stop her.

  At first she moved up and down until she sensed it growing in her hand. Then she moved forward and back. Forward and back. Her hand was beating against her own leg with each tug.

  Neither of them said a word as it happened. Andrea breathed at the side of Owen’s face, his head was tilted back and looking up the stairs towards his grieving son’s bedroom. Her hand was slapping alternately between their two bodies, keeping a rhythm with the falling rain.

  She moved her hand faster and faster, eventually twisting herself around so that her back was pushed firmly against Owen Brady’s chest. He felt weak but alive. There but somewhere else entirely.

  The broken man finally ejaculated with a restrained grunt. His depressed load hit the laminate floor, at first, with vigour, then less with each pulse, ending with a dribble that was more reflective of his demeanour.

  The family liaison officer left him there without a word and walked to the kitchen. She clicked the kettle on. Owen’s head dropped in shame and relief but she had been right. There was that moment, just before orgasm, where he thought of nothing. Everything was blank. A moment of purity. It wasn’t long but it was long enough.

  He looked at the stranger in his kitchen then up towards his boy’s room. He was no longer Owen Brady and she was not Andrea Day. It was spreading throughout the town. And it couldn’t go on like this much longer.

  Hinton Hollow was dying.

  CALLING THE SHOTS

  ‘I think we can rule out the secondary school,’ Anderson said with some degree of certainty in his voice.

  Pace tried again, in vain, to explain that two vaguely similar killings did not make a pattern. Just because the Brady kid and the Hadley children were not of that age, it did not mean the murderer was gunning only for mothers of infants or juniors. They had to protect all of the children in the area.

  ‘Well, with the May Tambor discovery, we are decidedly short on legs around here.’ Anderson’s tone seemed to suggest that this was an adequate reason for his proposal.

  ‘Councilwoman Hayes only stands to lose her political life if this goes wrong. She’ll get another shot. There’s always reality TV or a tell-all book deal or motivational speaking to fall back on. These kids, these mothers, they don’t get a second chance.’

  ‘Which school, Detective?’ Anderson was ignoring the jibe at his lady friend.

  It was postulation but Pace held a finger to the wind and opted for Hinton Hollow Primary School. He explained, sarcastically, that, if a pattern could be drawn up from the two shootings, it might be a fair guess that the killer was alternating between the schools. He envisaged Stanhope C of E as too hot after yesterday.

  Though the killer may want to return to the scene of that crime. It would also be a decent bluff, if he thought the authorities were following his pattern, to take a shot at the school they were not expecting him to go back to.

  Then there was the risk of the double bluff. With only two details, it was hard to draw anything more than a line, let alone a pattern.

  ‘But that is conjecture based on non-reality, sir. We can’t try to second-guess this guy. Not at this stage. We don’t have enough. And what about May Tambor? How does she fit into all of this? We can’t watch everybody’s house, too. We need to call on the sense of civic decency in this town to watch out for one another on that front.’

  A TRUTH ABOUT PACE

  He was right.

  He’d been right all along.

  But Anderson went on, saying that there weren’t enough of them to police everything, that this was unprecedented in Hinton Hollow. That they had to go with their strongest lead.

  ‘Pull some support from Reading or Oxford. They’ve got fuck all going on there. Six men. That’s all we need. Two at each school.’

  ‘I’ll try. Until then, you need to get to Hinton Hollow Primary and keep your eyes open.’

  Anderson thought that was the end of it.

  ‘No way. That’s not good enough. That is not, in any way, planning for the worst.’

  ‘I beg your…’r />
  ‘Listen.’ Pace stepped forward as he interrupted. ‘There are three of us here right now. We could pull Reynolds in, I’m sure. It isn’t going to matter if somebody’s cat is stuck up a fucking tree for an extra twenty minutes or a few milk bottles have gone missing from someone else’s doorstep.’

  The chief was completely attentive. He saw something in those grey, flickering embers that passed for Pace’s eyes.

  ‘If the secondary school is the least of our worries, we send Lynch to stand watch over there. Call Reynolds and get him to assist. I’m sure that they can handle zero action between them. If Hinton Hollow Primary is, indeed, our best shot, I will go there. That leaves you to keep vigil over on Stanhope Road. If we get the back-up, great. If we don’t, at least there is a presence. Take a car with you so that it can be seen. It might just be enough to ward this psycho off for one more day while we figure a few things out.’

  Inspector Anderson was not entirely pleased that Pace seemed to be calling all the shots and he was still annoyed at the swipe he’d taken at Councilwoman Hayes. But he couldn’t knock the city detective’s experience in matters far worse than his small town had ever seen.

  He nodded then twirled a pointed finger, instructing Pace to turn around and leave. It was a small way of exerting his authority.

  Pace did as he was required. He heard his chief on the phone to another station, calling for extra manpower.

  They’d need it.

  The schools were going to kick out in a couple of hours.

  PERSISTENTLY WAYWARD BEHAVIOUR

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi, Margot. It’s Catherine. Catherine Raymond.’

  Catherine did not like Margot. At all.

  ‘Oh, Catherine. Hi. How are you? Terrible story about the Hadleys, don’t you think?’