Copyright © 2021 Gavin Gardiner
Content compiled for publication by Richard Mayers of Burton Mayers Books.
Cover design by ebooklaunch.com
First published by Burton Mayers Books 2021.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
The right of Gavin Gardiner to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A print version is also available to buy:
ISBN: 1-8383459-0-7
ISBN-13: 978-1-8383459-0-7
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
www.BurtonMayersBooks.com
Dear reader, unto you I present the acknowledgements section, the part of the book every author expects to be immediately skipped. I’ll make you a deal: grant me this one, hasty indulgence, and I’ll tell you a killer joke afterwards.
I’d like to thank Richard Mayers, for believing in this nightmare; George, for your peat, flotsam, and Aga expertise; Barbara, for the tomato and rice soup; and Heather, for more than I could possibly say. Further: Dad, Jamie, Hannah, John, Rayner, Angus, Kyle, Derek, Mai, Michelle, Brandi, Casey, Han, Matt, and everyone in between – I thank you all.
Finally, Mum. For better or worse, this is as much yours as it is mine. For the endless phone calls debating everything from the placement of a comma to the volume of gore required, you have my undying gratitude.
And the joke, ladies and gentlemen, is that any undertaking such as this can possibly be conquered by just one person. Without those who inspire, guide, endure, and care for the writer, the pursuit is doomed.
To everyone who’s inspired, guided, endured, and cared for this writer: this one’s for you.
A brutal and distressing strain of horror has been poured into the pages of this novel. Anyone reading should take a moment to consider whether this is a depth into which they should dive.
I believe it is.
To my favourite.
Contents
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About the Author
Also from Gavin Gardiner…
1
Knives.
‘Madam?’
Everywhere, knives.
‘Are you all right?’
Knives in the eyes of every onlooker, each glance carving red-hot rivulets of pain through her flesh.
‘You’ll need your ticket.’
Everywhere, knives; everywhere, eyes.
She plunged trembling fingers into her worn leather satchel. Damned thing must be in here somewhere, she thought in the moment before her bag fell to the concrete flooring of Stonemount Central. The ticket collector’s eyes converged with her own upon the sacred square slip, tangled amongst the only other occupant of the fallen satchel: a coil of hemp rope.
They stared at the noose.
The moment lingered like an uninvited ghost. The woman fumbled the rope back into the bag and sprang to her feet, before shoving the ticket into his hand, grabbing her small suitcase, and lurching into the knives, into the eyes.
The crowd knocked past. A flickering departure board passed overhead as she wrestled through the profusion of faces, every eye a poised blade. The stare of a school uniformed boy trailing by his mother’s hand fell upon her, boiling water on skin. She jerked back, failing to contain a shriek of pain. Swarms of eyes turned to look. The boy
sniggered. She pulled her duffle coat tight and pushed onward.
The hordes obscured her line of sight; the exit had to be nearby, somewhere through these eyes of agony. She prayed the detective – no, no more praying – she hoped the detective would be waiting outside to drive her, as promised. One last leg of the journey, out of the city of Stonemount and back to her childhood home after nearly thirty years.
Back to Millbury Peak.
She stumbled into a standing suitcase. The eyes of its owner tore at her flesh as she knocked it over and scrambled to regain her footing. She dared not look back as she struggled away, silently cursing the letter to have dragged her back to this unfamiliar hell, to have ripped her from her haven hundreds of miles away, forcing her to trade her cottage on that bleak, storm-soaked island for a town she hadn’t called home for decades. Not since the accident. Not since the seventeen-year-old had found in white corridors and hospital beds a new home. But this wasn’t about her. No, this was about an elderly lady, butchered. She was returning to Millbury Peak for her mother, her sweet, slaughtered mother. She slipped a hand into the leather satchel—
It would have held.
—and felt the coarse hemp of the noose against her fingers. She shouldn’t be here. She would have been gone—
It was strong, solid.
—had it not been for the detective’s letter. Gone to nowhere, forever. No more knives, no more eyes. She’d planned to be gone. She should have been gone.
The beam would have held. It was strong, solid. It would have held.
With desperation she glanced around, the exit to this damned train station still hidden from view. She spotted a gap in the bodies. Through this gap she spied solitude: the open door of a bookshop, deserted. She went to it.
The woman lunged through the door, the teenage cashier behind the counter glancing up momentarily before returning to her magazine, uninterested. She shuffled between the rows of bookcases and backed into an obscured, shadowy corner to calm herself. She passed her hands over her bunned hair, quickly checking the headful of clips and clasps before once again reaching into the satchel. She closed her eyes as she ran her fingers over the coiled noose. The knives, the eyes, the faces. Soon, they’d all be gone.
Soon, she’d be gone.
She was turning to leave the bookshop when a thought came to her. A gift for her father, how nice.
just bruises
After all, they were separated by decades from their last meeting. Yes, she’d see if she could pick up one of her novels for him. How lovely, how nice.
My love, they’re just bruises. He would never hurt us, not really.
She was tiptoeing through the bookcases searching for the romance section when, upon turning a corner, she found herself in the midst of a towering dark figure. She reeled back, before realising the figure was a cardboard cut-out. The blood-red shelving of its book display fanned around the figure, macabre imagery making it obvious as to which genre it subscribed. The man depicted in the life-size cut-out wore a dark turtleneck and tweed blazer, an expression of calculated theatricality staring through thick horn-rimmed glasses. The sign above read:
Horror Has A Name:
Quentin C. Rye
Choose Your Nightmare – If You Dare
The display’s centrepiece
was a pseudo-altar upon which sat the author’s latest release, a hardback titled Midnight Oil. She was turning from the display when her eye caught a thin volume squeezed between spines of increasingly doom-laden type, many screaming the words NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE. The novel calling to her had only two words trailing its spine, two words that seemed to speak to a place buried deep within her. She reached for the book.
Its cover depicted a woman standing in the middle of a road, an emerald green dress flowing behind her in the fog. This road was empty but for one vehicle: a rust-coated pickup truck from which flames billowed, flying in its wake like tin cans from a wedding car. It tore towards the mysterious woman, who stood fearless in the face of the hurling metal. Horror Highway, the title read.
Suddenly, blinding pain.
The paperback dropped from her hands. Agony flashed through her head, tearing like a claw, then fell away as quickly as it had risen. She looked down to find her knuckles white around a wheel that was not there. Struggling for breath, she released her imaginary grip as a stray strand of hair floated into her vision. In a panic, she picked a fresh kirby grip from the handful in her duffle pocket and fastened it amongst the mass already intricately fixed. A loose strand meant something out of place. Something out of place meant disorder. Disorder meant disaster. She closed her eyes and thought of those long white corridors, sterile and simple, everything in its place. Her breathing settled. She’d never really left hospital, or maybe hospital had never left her. She slowly opened her eyes and turned from the Quentin C. Rye display. Find the book – it’ll be nice – then get out of here.
…he would never hurt us.
Romance read faded lettering above a shelving unit at the far end. She stepped towards the unassuming section and traced a finger along the alphabetised volumes towards W.
The cashier scanned the book’s barcode, offering the woman not a glimmer of recognition.
Just how she liked it.
‘From one writer to another, being spotted with your own book ain’t the most flattering of images.’
The voice materialised from many. She stood at the pick-up spot on the street outside the station, hesitating before looking around to the source of the voice. She glanced instead at the book in her hands as if to remind herself of whom the voice spoke:
A Love Encased
The latest in the Adelaide Addington series
Renata Wakefield
‘Miss Wakefield,’ the voice said with a New England twang, ‘it’s a pleasure. Big fan.’
She turned to find a pair of thick horn-rimmed glasses watching her, the same glasses from the Quentin C. Rye display. The same face from the Quentin C. Rye display.
Quentin C. Rye.
‘My wife is anyway – ex-wife, that is.’
Her mouth refused to open. The burning pickup truck and emerald green dress filled her head.
‘Didn’t mean to startle you, Renata,’ he said, slipping a fat leather notebook back into his blazer. He ran his fingers through slicked back hair shot with streaks of grey, then held out a hand. ‘Don’t mind if I call you Renata?’
So many years avoiding human interaction and it should be this American to greet her upon resurfacing? Of all people, of all eyes, why were his welcoming her back to the place she hadn’t called home for three decades? You couldn’t write it. She should know.
Renata stared at the outstretched hand.
‘Your work’s kinda outside my field of expertise,’ he continued, twirling a pen between the fingers of his other hand, ‘but I’ve been assured you’re quite the talent.’
‘I’m sorry, I—’
‘Name’s Quentin. The local cops asked me to help with the investigation after your Mom’s…uh…’ His brown frames glanced over her shoulder. ‘Detective! How’s it going? You guys know each other, right?’
The bulky detective stepped towards Renata, his wrinkles multiplying as he strained against the afternoon sun. ‘We did a long time ago.’ He smoothed his long navy raincoat, chewing on a toothpick straight from a forties noir. ‘Maybe long enough for you to have forgotten. It’s Hector, Detective Hector O’Connell.’ He held out a hand. This one she shook, noticing its slight tremble. She risked a glance at the man. He was right: she barely remembered this greying face in front of her, but she did recognise something pained in that deep-set gaze. Not the beginnings of jaundice-yellowing looking back at her, but something else, something that stared from every mirror she’d ever gazed into. Whatever it was, it didn’t stab with the same ferocity as those in the station.
She looked away.
‘Your parents have been friends of mine since you were a girl, Miss Wakefield,’ he rumbled, scratching his sweat-stricken bald head. ‘I’m the officer who contacted you following your mother’s death.’ Then, lowering his voice, ‘This must be a lot to take in. There’ll be time to talk in the car, but know that Sylvia Wakefield was loved by everyone in Millbury Peak. We’ll find her killer.’
Millbury Peak: a name both vague and clear as crystal.
‘I’ll follow,’ said Quentin. A cigarette had replaced the pen twirling between his fingers. ‘Listen, I’ve rented a little place on the same side of town as your dad’s house—’ Little place. The bestselling horror novelist of all-time had rented a little place. Renata glanced at the detective, sensing from him the same cynicism. ‘—so I’ll be nearby if you need anything. Besides, I’ll see you at the funeral tomorrow.’ He pulled a crumpled packet from his blazer pocket. ‘Kola Kube, Ren?’
Ren…?
‘Mr Rye,’ Hector began, ‘I’d ask we reconvene after the service. Sensitivity is paramount at this time, and your presence at Sylvia’s funeral may be unwise.’
Quentin nodded, stuffing the packet back into his pocket.
The detective took Renata’s meagre suitcase and led her to a battered Vauxhall estate, as tired and worn as its owner. A carpet of empty whisky bottles, no effort having been made to hide them, clinked by her feet on the floor of the passenger side. His sweat-laden brow, trembling hands, and yellowing jaundice eyes suddenly made sense. She looked warily out at Hector.
‘Small suitcase, Miss Wakefield. Travelling light?’
‘I won’t be around long.’
The detective smiled and gently closed the passenger door as she stuffed the book bearing her name into her satchel. Rope brushed her finger.
It would have held. The beam, it would have held.
The slam of the driver’s door made her jump, causing further clinking at her feet. Hector glanced at the glass carpet. ‘You should know, I just quit,’ he said. ‘Still to clear those out.’ He pulled an old pocket watch from his tatty waistcoat – navy, like the raincoat, shirt, trousers, and every other article of clothing besides his shoes – and popped the cover’s broken release switch with his toothpick. ‘It made me slow, sloppy. The drink, I mean.’ He gazed at the timepiece. ‘Going to have to sharpen up if we want justice for your mother.’ He stared at the pocket watch a moment longer, then closed the cover and slipped it back into his waistcoat. There was a roar from behind. ‘These Hollywood bigshots,’ he grunted, pulling himself back to reality as he wrestled the car into first gear, ‘need to be seen and heard wherever they go.’ Quentin’s motorbike revved again. ‘Never thought I’d have a Harley tailing this rust bucket.’ The estate coughed to life and dragged itself from the car park.
The main road to Millbury Peak passed through twelve miles of lush English countryside beyond the city of Stonemount. Their route ran alongside the ambling River Crove, its waters losing interest intermittently to swerve off course before re-emerging from behind the oaks and sycamores. Renata gazed at the rolling fields. The air, smell, and purity of the green expanses reached to the girl she once was. Her reverie was shaken by the bellowing of Quentin’s bike from behind, begging for tarmac.
Hector yanked the gearstick, a cough hacking from his throat. ‘It’s been decades, I understand that. If I had my way you wouldn’t have been called back
to Millbury Peak at all. Still, procedure’s procedure, as Mr Rye kept telling me.’
‘Why wouldn’t you want me called back?’ Renata tensed. Was she doing this right? She curled her fingers, pushing her long nails into the palms of her hands. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just…well, I’ve been away a long time, but she was still my mother.’ She hesitated. ‘And may I ask, Detective…why is a horror author assisting in a murder investigation?’
Hector jabbed his teeth with the toothpick. ‘I was thankful for us having this time together before the funeral tomorrow, Miss Wakefield. There’s things you need to hear.’ He wiped the pick on the torn polyester upholstery. ‘I’d like to be the one to explain the circumstances of your mother’s death. I’d rather you had a reliable account to weigh any rumours against. The manner in which your mother passed was somewhat…’
His bulk shifted.
‘…brutal.’
Now it was she who shifted. What ‘brutal’ end could Sylvia Wakefield possibly have met? Locking her eyes on the asphalt streaming beneath them, she cobbled together a mental image of her mother’s face. So many memories washed away piece by piece with every passing year, but Sylvia’s face remained, even after all these decades. Still, it had been so long. Why had she let the death of a virtual stranger postpone her suicide? How could her end to end all ends possibly get sidetracked by some woman she hadn’t even seen in—
Promise you’ll be there for him if anything happens to me.
She clenched her fists.
‘As for Mr Rye,’ Hector continued, ‘you have every right to ask why he’s here. The nature of the murder requires his presence, Miss Wakefield. You see, from the evidence available at this time, it seems the incident was…how can I put this?’ He paused. ‘Inspired by him.’
Renata looked up.
For Rye Page 1