The Murder Diaries - Seven Times Over

by David Carter

  Didn’t everyone hear voices?

  Didn’t everyone steel themselves whenever necessary and say: Come on you old fool, you have to deal with this!

  Didn’t everyone do that?

  Isn’t that the same?

  Voices in the head.

  Desiree explained away her troubles in that way.

  It wasn’t a problem for her.

  It wasn’t anything she couldn’t deal with.

  It wasn’t worth worrying about.

  Live human tissue experimentation was producing results.

  That was the only thing that mattered.

  She was closing in on the ultimate.

  Conquering one of the devils.

  A huge breakthrough was expected soon.

  One day Desiree Holloway would be feted.

  One day her second bedroom trophies might have to make way for a Nobel Prize.

  Chapter Forty

  Walter was denied access to his sergeant for the whole of the day after she had been attacked. He tried to bully his way in by saying she was a vital witness to an ongoing murder hunt. He was rebuffed with: She almost died, she’s very poorly; you can’t see her today, go away; try again tomorrow.

  Walter harrumphed and went home and sat up all night, thinking.

  He stirred himself at first light, ran the electric shaver over his deeply lined face, cleaned his aching teeth, applied deodorant, and left the house. The birds were singing as he ambled down the tree-lined road. Another fine day forecast. At the junction he jumped a bus the few stops into town. Went to the market, bought a large bunch of seedless grapes from the surprised to see him sellers, who were just setting up.

  Jumped a cab to the Countess Hospital.

  They were surprised to see him there too.

  He was asked to wait, perched on a padded bench at the end of the corridor. Breakfasts were being wheeled in. Sizzling bacon and eggs, porridge, orange juice, all came trundling by.

  No one offered him any. He wasn’t hungry.

  He’d try and catch a sister’s eye, a doctor’s. More often than not they would rush by without recognising his nod. When they did, he was told to wait. The patient was not ready to see visitors. He would have to continue waiting, or he could go home. It was his choice.

  He did wait, occasionally nibbling on the slightly sour grapes.

  At gone eleven a doctor came to see him, a young Indian man, greasy parted hair, the demeanour of one who had worked a twelve-hour shift.

  ‘You’re waiting to see Karen Greenwood?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Walter, getting to his feet.

  ‘She’s been very poorly, a very close call.’

  ‘I realise that.’

  ‘You can see her for five minutes, no more; then you must leave. Understand?’

  ‘Sure.’

  The doc bobbed his head and said, ‘Follow me.’

  She was in a room by herself. Sitting up, or propped up against a bank of pillows, hooked up to a drip.

  She looked appalling.

  The last time Walter saw her she was purple. Now she was as white as milk, her blue eyes sunken in her head, like circles of lapis lazuli tossed into deep snow. Her usual vibrant blonde hair was lank, parted in the middle, and tied back revealing extensive bandaging around her neck.

  Walter nodded down and pulled up a seat.

  ‘How are you?’

  A slight movement of the head, a forced smile, a croaked, ‘OK.’

  ‘I bought you these,’ he said, setting the grapes on the side table.

  She glanced at the heavily browsed fruit, and wondered how long he’d been waiting, nodded at the guy, her boss, he couldn’t have known she couldn’t eat a thing.

  Walter exhaled and checked out the room. There were so many things he wanted to ask but it didn’t seem the right moment.

  ‘I didn’t see him,’ she said, her voice coming out in a half whispered croak.

  ‘A him?’

  Karen nodded.

  ‘Strong.’

  Walter’s turn to nod.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, ‘this person has a big grudge against us, against me. He tried to hurt me by taking you, he must have seen us together on the TV, in the papers; it’s very personal for him. Who would have a beef like that?’

  Karen pulled a face and shook her head. Whispered, ‘Could be anyone, must be hundreds...’ as her voice tailed away.

  ‘Yeah, but this guy’s got a bigger grudge than the usual nutters.’

  She frowned and shook her head.

  ‘Beats me,’ he said, ‘there must be something.’

  He glanced into her face. Was there a hint of recognition there? She tried to speak. An otherworldly breath escaped her lips. She turned to the bedside table, pointed to a pad and a blue felt tip pen. There was ample writing on the pad: need loo, need water, terrible headache, another pillow, hungry. He placed the pad in front of her and the pen in her right hand. She was cack handed, he’d forgotten, took it from the right, slipped it into the left, she half smiled, began writing, slowly, shakily.

  H...

  Harris?’ he said.

  Shook her head. O...

  ‘Hooker?’

  Impatiently shook her head.

  He gave up trying to guess.

  L...I...D...A...Y.

  ‘Holiday, when I was on holiday?’

  Karen bobbed her head.

  Walter never took holidays. He hated going away. He hated leaving his station to come back to find other people sitting at his desk, other officers dealing with his cases, poking around, he hated missing the day to day things, tiny facts that could later build into a case, clues that once missed were gone forever, and you could miss so much in two long weeks. It took ages to get back up to speed afterwards. Holidays were for amateurs.

  The spring before last Mrs West had lost patience with him and ordered him away from the station for two whole weeks. She said he was tired, jaded, and not the Walter of old, all facts he hugely decried. Reluctantly he’d gone home where he’d sat alone in his house for forty-eight hours, before ringing her and pleading to be allowed back.

  She’d bluntly said: ‘You come back and you collect your cards.’

  Quite why he did what he did next he couldn’t explain, but he jumped a train to London, then the express commuter to Heathrow, and caught the first plane to Kingston. Had to pay through the nose for a stand by ticket and that annoyed him, he recalled that well enough. He hadn’t been back for twenty years and most of the people he knew were dead. His parents had been dead when he’d left the island as a nine-year-old, packed off all alone to go and see his aunt Mimosa in Brixton. He thought he was on a holiday treat back then, only to later discover he had a one-way ticket. He wouldn’t be going back. He’d never gone back, not permanently. His aunt Mimosa was his new mummy, the only thing he had in the whole world. She was dead now too.

  Throughout the ten-day stay he revisited all the haunts of his childhood. Reminiscing, seeing fleeting ghosts from his past, playing with his schoolboy pals in the fields and on the beach with Jackie Nurse. Jackie had later gone to the States and fallen in with the wrong crowd. Got busted for car theft, drug running, possessing an illegal weapon, he was now in the FSP, the Florida State Prison in Bradford County.

  And Wellworthy Griffiths, Welly, as everyone called him, Walter tried to find out what happened to Welly but no one knew. They just shrugged their shoulders and said ‘He’s gone away,’ as if he’d vanished. ‘He’s gone away,’ no one knew where, no one knew when, hadn’t been seen for years. No one seemed to care much either. Walter wondered what happened to his friend, the tall skinny happy kid who would bowl at him all day long, as Walter frantically tried to copy the main man, Everton Weekes, Sir Everton DeCourcy Weekes, to give him his full title, the greatest batsman ever to pick up a cricket bat, according to Walter Darriteau, even if he was a Barbadian.

  Maybe when Walter finally retired he could return to Jamaica and use his detection skills to
find out what really happened to Wellworthy Griffiths, though even as the thought occurred to him, he knew that he wouldn’t.

  The holiday had taken ages to run its course, and when thankfully it was through he was glad to be going home, for Britain was his home now, it had been for almost fifty years, for more than five sixth’s of his entire life. It was where he belonged, where his work was, where his friends were, where the he-she thing lived, where he wanted to be. Especially right now.

  He glanced back at Karen.

  ‘What happened when I was on holiday?’

  Karen gulped, tried to speak. Pointed at the glass of water. Walter handed it to her. She noticed his hand shook. Took a big pull on the glass, emptied it. Walter refilled it. Set it on the table. Karen nodded her thanks. Started writing again.

  D...E...A...

  ‘Death?’ he said, unable to stop himself.

  Karen half smiled and nodded.

  O...N

  ‘Death on the Nile?’

  Karen smirked and shook her head. Began again.

  R...A...

  ‘Radio? Range? Race? Rally?’

  Karen shook her head, carried on.

  I...L...

  ‘Rail? Death on the railway?’

  Karen stopped and nodded.

  ‘Like at Mostyn?’

  ‘Ya,’ she said, one short, sharp syllable.

  ‘Where?’

  Karen shook her head.

  ‘You can’t remember? You don’t know?’

  She nodded.

  ‘What about a death on the railway?’

  She looked spent, close to tears, looked in need of a week’s sleep.

  ‘I need a name, Karen, I need a name.’

  She closed her eyes, thinking, resting, sleeping, maybe.

  Her blue eyes popped open again. Recognition, memory, fighting through whatever drugs they’d pumped into her. Began writing again.

  H...O...L...L...O...

  It took an age to write.

  W...A...Y

  ‘Holloway,’ he said aloud. It meant nothing to him, and yet, there was something there, but what? He couldn’t remember. He wasn’t even sure he’d ever known.

  ‘What about Holloway?’

  She shook her head, closed her eyes.

  Walter became aware of the doc hovering in the doorway. Glanced over his shoulder. Whispered, ‘One more minute, it’s all I need.’

  The doc didn’t say a word, just looked angry.

  Walter glanced back at the girl.

  She was writing again.

  The doc came over to see.

  T...H...A...N...X

  ‘Thanks? Thank you?’

  Faintest of nods.

  ‘Thank you for what?’

  F...O...R

  ‘Yeah? What for?’

  X

  He glanced at the doc, then back at the girl. Her eyes were closed; the pen had fallen from her hand.

  ‘That is quite enough, you really must go now,’ said the doctor, and the hand on Walter’s shoulder, urging him to stand and turn and leave brooked no argument.

  ‘But what is the X?’

  ‘A kiss of course, it’s not an X, it’s a kiss.’

  ‘Ah, that,’ said Walter, ‘I see,’ he said, annoyed at his slowness, smiling to himself, as the doc waved him off down the corridor, as his medipager started beeping.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Three years before.

  ––––––––

  Desiree’s rapid progress was confirmed the day she received a letter from the Scientists’ Society, advising her that she was to be the year’s recipient of the Sir Fred Berrington Memorial Trophy, a huge silver cup that most young scientists coveted. Everyone knew the Memorial Trophy was presented to the best young scientist of the year, though the Society was far too conservative to repeat that.

  But, as with awards that came from the Palace, she was forbidden to tell anyone of her prize, not even her nearest and dearest. It had to remain a secret, a total surprise to everyone but the winner. Desi was desperate to broadcast her news, not least to Professor Mary Craigieson, who had in her day won the trophy twenty years before. Somehow Desi bit her tongue and kept the secret.

  The award would take place at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane, London, before a thousand of her contemporaries. The Chancellor of the Exchequer himself would present it, amidst a blaze of smiles and flashlights.

  Desi couldn’t wait.

  The clock seemed to slide backwards; days felt like years, as she counted them down toward her big day.

  Finally, it arrived, and Desi set off for London by train.

  Chester to Stafford, change there, jump on the Glasgow to London Euston service.

  It was a crushing bright morning as she stood on Stafford’s Platform One, close to the rails, waiting for the connection. There were plenty of people about and Desi knew the train would be fairly full when it pulled in. She didn’t want to be at the back, she didn’t want to miss out on a seat; she didn’t want to have to stand all the way to London.

  Later that evening, she’d have to make a big thank you speech, and though she had rehearsed and refined it time and again, standing before her long hall mirror, rehearsing her gestures as much as the words, she still felt the need to go over it all again, memorising things one last time, making slight alterations too, cutting out a phrase here, adding something there, trimming the silly jokes that had sounded fine and dandy when she was daydreaming in the Red Caves Social Club with Professor Jim McClaine. Some of his antipodean cracks were incredibly funny in the club, but probably not suitable for an occasion such as this. No, she would add something topical that was in the news, something in the papers that very day, and she couldn’t do all that standing up, she couldn’t concentrate when standing on a train.

  She wanted a seat.

  She needed a seat.

  She must have a seat.

  Please stand clear. The train now approaching Platform One will NOT be stopping at this station. Please stand clear.

  She heard the tinny announcement well enough, and was pleased to see everyone else taking a backward step. Desi did not. She stooped and grabbed her new maroon case and edged closer to the track.

  She could hear the train approaching. She couldn’t miss it. A Manchester London non stop express, hurtling past the signal box at the end of the platform, entering the station, closing on the main buildings, closing on Desi, no hint of slowing down, thundering through.

  The whole place shook.

  The voice in her head returned.

  Jump bitch! Jump!

  Go on!

  Jump bitch! Jump!

  From nowhere she felt dizzy, unsteady on her feet.

  Perhaps she had been working too hard.

  She lifted her right foot to take a step... and stepped backward.

  The train whistled through, less than two feet away, puzzled faces streaming by, as if Desi was flicking through a roll of film. Coloured, blurred faces, anxious faces, as if they weren’t real people at all, fleeting spirits, as if in a movie, or a dream.

  From behind, an elderly lady stepped forward and said, ‘Are you all right, dear? You look awfully pale.’

  Desi glanced down and focused on the lady’s grey haired face.

  ‘I’m fine thanks, must have been something I ate.’

  A mischievous glint formed on the lady’s phizog.

  ‘I’ve seen that body language before,’ she said. ‘In the way, are you?’

  ‘In the way?’ asked Desi.

  ‘Yes, you know, expecting good news to come?’ and she glanced at Desi’s trim tummy.

  ‘Oh God no!’ said Desi, her hand going to her mouth. ‘God, I hope not. Impossible.’

  The lady smiled and nodded at her knowingly and said, ‘You wouldn’t be the first girl to say that,’ still believing that she was right.

  The next train arriving at Platform One is the eleven sixteen to London Euston, stopping at Nuneaton, and London Euston.


  ‘That’s me,’ said the lady.

  ‘And me,’ said Desi, and five minutes later they were sitting happily together, chatting, as they watched the gentle, green Staffordshire countryside rolling by.

  ––––––––

  The award ceremony went perfectly. The Sir Fred Berrington Memorial Trophy glistened in her arms. She’d collected it to thunderous applause. She embraced it as a long lost lover; it was the second most prestigious prize of the night, only the all-embracing Golden Scientist of the Year Shield ranked above it in importance. Desi had already thought about that. She was determined to return next year and bag the Gold Shield. She possessed the ammunition to do it too, for she was on the verge of a mind-altering breakthrough. Literally.

  Her speech had gone well; the audience laughed where they were meant to laugh, and more importantly, in her mind, listened intently to the serious passages. Desi had a talent for it, for speaking in public, she’d always known that, but that night it was truly reinforced.

  Desi could hold an audience like an osprey gripping a slippery sea trout. She wasn’t about to drop them, not until she was good and ready.

  The next day she would return to her riverside maisonette where she would set the glittering silver trophy down among her other spoils of war, like a magpie, in the spare bedroom, now crammed with the weird and wonderful flotsam and jetsam of her experiments. She would polish the cup every month, and when the day came to return it, it would be in better shape than when she’d collected it.

  In the meantime, she would occasionally glance at the prestigious names engraved there; going back fifty years, fifty eminent people, the best young scientists Britain had to offer, and there at the bottom, the very last name, freshly engraved, was Desiree Mitford Holloway, only the second woman ever to bag the prize, following in the pioneering footsteps of her tutor and mentor, Professor Mary Craigieson. How neat was that?

  Desiree inwardly smiled. She was at peace with the world.