Dark Ritual

by Patricia Scott

  “He must have known that Sandra hated him. Sandra said he ruined her for anyone else. When I demanded to know the truth she told me it wasn’t Alan’s child. It was Rafe Conway’s. I woke up late that night. I heard a noise downstairs and thought it was burglars. And when Alan was away I always kept the wooden mallet on the table by our bed. We had a break-in two years ago.

  “I picked it up, crept downstairs and discovered Sandra in Alan’s studio. I was shocked. She was making so much noise. She didn’t care anymore. At first I thought she’d gone mad. She’d opened up Alan’s cupboard and was pulling out and ripping up portraits he’d done of her, as a child and a teenager. Some I’d never seen before.”

  An indrawn breath and a sob followed this. Rosemary dabbed her red eyes with a tissue. “She’d posed naked in them. They were clearly meant to be erotic, he’d painted her after they’d had sex, she said. She swore and shouted as she destroyed them one by one with a knife. Minutes before, she said she’d spoken to him on the phone, in London. Told him what she’d done. Then she taunted me about the woman he had with him in the hotel. And then she laughed, said I deserved everything that was coming to me.

  “Said that I should have protected her... Kept his fucking, filthy hands off of her, she said. She blamed me for everything he’d done to her because she said he’d ruined her for every man she ever wanted and loved.”

  Rosemary faltered then continued again with a shaky trembling voice. “I-I couldn’t take it any longer and as she turned away from me I swung the wooden mallet and hit her hard on her head. She fell, crumpled up on the floor at my feet.

  “I realized what I had done. I’d intended to kill her. I couldn’t make her better, but she wasn’t my little girl anymore. Sandra was a stranger to me and deserved to be punished for what she had done to Alan and myself. I took her to the crop circle, undressed her and used the knife to cut her throat, and shed her blood to cleanse and enrich the soil ready for the crops next year with the pagan harvest ceremony. I had decided that some good should follow from her death.

  “I must have been crazy but I believed that this was a fitting end to her and perhaps she might think so too.

  “The knife turned out to be Macey’s I discovered afterwards, which was all to the good. I believed that he was partly to blame for how she turned out. I found Martin’s letter and some bird feathers in Sandra’s purse, and put the feathers in her hair and the letter in the book I returned to the library to throw some blame on Martin. But Alan realized the truth in the end. I can’t let him take the blame, whatever he did to Sandra…”

  The tape stopped abruptly.

  “What did she do with the wooden mallet? Has Alan seen this tape?”

  “Yes. He’s free now. But I doubt he’ll stay on here for much longer.”

  Forty-four

  A week later, Bob drove up in his car to call on Viviane again.

  “I think I know, Bob, what Rosemary did with the wooden mallet.”

  Bob laughed. “So do I. But it’s much too late now.”

  Viviane giggled. “You won’t have the heart to ask Alan to destroy Sandra’s head before it’s completed in bronze?”

  “No. And by the way, I put in an offer yesterday to buy the old mill house. It’ll suit me just fine, Viv. So I hope you don’t mind having me as a neighbour?” He grinned at her and reached out for her hand, which felt warm and giving in his.

  She smiled as he came in closer to her. “So I can visit you for a change when I run out of sugar or I’m in need of some good company?”

  “Or fancy something much more perhaps? Some T.L.C. for instance?”

  “I’d like that very much,” she said as he took her into his arms and kissed her.

  If you enjoyed Dark Ritual you might be interested in Dying to Meet You by Patricia Scott, also published by Endeavour Press.

  Extract from Dying to Meet You by Patricia Scott

  One

  Bucket and spade dropped onto the sand. Lugworms forgotten, Victor Goring hitched up his pants and ran over to the crop of rocks where the tide lapped gently around his green wellies and played patter cake against the girl’s naked body lying on the sands in front of him.

  ‘Strewth!’

  Victor stared down at her face which was a bloody, battered mess; her tawny green eyes wide open in the rocky pool surrounded by sea anemones clinging to the submerged seaweed-covered rocks. A small pink crab rested on her swollen tongue and erratic shrimps darted around the long strands of dark blonde hair floating in the water.

  Victor pulled out a mobile and a large handkerchief from his jacket pocket, scattering small change out onto the sand. Mopping his bearded face with the handkerchief, he phoned the Harling police station.

  Two

  ‘A woman’s body has been found on the seashore near the Harling Pier, ma’am,’ DC Calder said, putting his head through his chief’s open office door. ‘SOCO’s there already.’

  ‘Right - call the Doc and the necessary team, please.’

  Detective Superintendent Viviane Peterson, the new broom in the Harling police station, finished up the remainder of her early morning canteen coffee, already cold in the mug, freshened up her lipstick in her hand mirror and zipped up her light blue jacket as Detective Sergeant Geoff Trask put his plump rosy face round the office door.

  ‘Ready, ma’am?’

  ‘Okay.’

  The police cars and ambulance arrived noisily on the sunny sea front near the Harling Pier entrance. Some early risers amongst the holidaymakers from the hotels opposite lined up against the green railings to watch the police team making its procession down the long pebbled beach and across the shingle to join the white uniformed Scene of Crime officers on the sands.

  The local man who’d found the body, Victor Goring, stood on one side watching the police proceedings with much interest, bucket and lugworms long forgotten.

  ‘Mr Goring? I’m Superintendent Peterson. You found the victim?’

  ‘Yes, miss, er - Superintendent.’

  ‘Thank you for calling us. You can go now, Mr Goring. Can you come into the station later? Say in an hour’s time to fill us in with the details? Good morning, Granger. Looks like the tide’s coming in fast. We’ll have to make it quick. First impressions anyone?’

  Doctor Anthony Granger, the police surgeon, a short, thin young man, with a cheerful freckled face, snub nose and pencil thin moustache, straightened up to greet her. ‘Good morning, Superintendent. Our victim’s a female. She was strangled and battered about the face and head extensively with a heavy weapon of some kind.’

  ‘Sexually assaulted?’

  ‘At a quick glance, I would say possibly - yes. Looks like extensive bruising between the thighs and in the groin area.’ He bent over again to study the face more closely and with a wry grimace said, ‘Young, a natural blonde - age about twenty-six/seven. Time of death, midnight or thereabouts, and the injuries, I would say, were committed shortly after death. The head placed as it is in the pool, its small inhabitants will doubtless have added to the damage done to it already.’ He shook his head and sighed. ‘Nasty.’

  ‘Could she have been moved and dumped here after she was killed?’

  Granger nodded. ‘There are signs of possible movement; those purple marks on the left side under the body can vouch for that. I would say more than likely she was brought here during the early hours before the tide was on the turn.’ He shifted his brown suede shoes with a smothered curse as the water splashed and lapped in closer around them.

  Peterson nodded and turned to the officers who’d joined her. ‘You agree with that lads?’

  DI Nick Farmer and DS Geoff Trask nodded as they stared silently down into the rocky pool at the terrible battered face lying under the water, and then at each other, shock registering plainly on their grim faces.

  DC Brian Calder joining them took a hesitant look down at the victim and gulped, then stammered out, ‘It’s - it’s, DS Handley, ma’am! Look! See there’s a ros
e tattoo on her left arm and that - that gold pendant she’s wearing. It’s Cancer the star sign. Linda was given it for her birthday last week.’

  The police officers grouped around her saw Peterson’s fine boned features flush with anger as she swore and slammed a fist into her open hand. It seemed that the seagulls echoed her explicative as they shrieked out and screamed overhead.

  ‘A police officer! Christ! The killer has a blighted sense of humour,’ Granger said straightening up again.

  Pushing back her thick honey blonde hair from her wide forehead, Peterson wondered how she was going to deal with the case efficiently and quickly. Of all the bad luck, it seemed that fate really had it in for her. Only three weeks in a new place and she was faced with this foul crime.

  Peterson addressed the forensic team briskly as they started to work on the beach around them, ‘Okay, everyone, let’s get on with it. See if you can find the weapon. We haven’t got long before the tide comes in. I’m depending on you all to make a good job of it, no mistakes - no bloody balls up!’

  *

  The yellow strips were put in place carefully across the beach, under the pier, fluttering in the brisk sea breeze frivolously like yellow ribbons. Photos were taken quickly as the invading tide encroached on the crime scene.

  Accompanied by Trask, DI Nick Farmer strode back up the beach, and attempted to sort out the maelstrom of thoughts that were catapulting around in his head. He had worked with Peterson some years ago as her sergeant in the Met. She had a reputation of the iron hand in a silk glove to keep up; it had followed her even here. He hoped it stood her in good stead. Linda Handley had been an efficient young officer. Well liked. Who could had have done this? Who’d wanted her out of the way? He cursed, brushing his eyes quickly with the back of his hand, and hoped Trask hadn’t noticed.

  ‘So what do you think, lads? Was it because of something she was working on?’ Peterson joined them half way up the beach. ‘Or was she a victim of a sexual assault out in the street? Are we looking for a rapist turned killer?’

  Farmer curled his generous mouth expressively, shook his dark head and shrugged. ‘No idea, ma’am. We have had a couple of reports of attempted rape locally but no leads so far.’

  ‘Do you think we’ve got to look for a rapist, Nick? It seems motiveless otherwise,’ Geoff Trask said. ‘God! What wouldn’t I do for a smoke right now.’ He fidgeted in his loose blazer jacket pocket for a peppermint sweet, popped it into his mouth and chewed on it.

  ‘We don’t know that, Geoff. We’ll have to take a look at her house. See if the bastard got at her there. It’s not far from here on the front.’

  ‘Come on lads, let’s get moving,’ Peterson said studying their grim faces.

  Farmer walked on up the beach quickly. Behind him, the forensic team in their white uniforms were zipping up the body in a black body bag. Farmer felt his mouth constrict and his palate grow dry, as he glanced back over his shoulder and saw the body bag lifted carefully onto the stretcher, passing him by as it was carried up the beach by the medics. He’d made a swift move from the Met to Harling two years previously, leaving the mess of his earlier life behind. He had settled down uneasily at first into this new lifestyle, a new team, new home and new working routine. He had found, surprisingly, that the south east coast was equally as busy as London. He hoped that Peterson would not wish to interfere and leave it to him and the others on the team to deal with everything.

  *

  Peterson forced herself to remember all she could about the young, bright eyed woman officer. She recalled Linda greeting with a wide welcoming smile, chocolate biscuits and a mug of decent hot coffee in her office on her arrival at Harling Police Station.

  Peterson’s contracting stomach muscles were betraying the acute uneasiness and nausea she was feeling. It wouldn’t have taken much for her to throw up in front of her officers. They were on the move again, ignoring the crowds of interested onlookers staring down at them from the wide promenade above.

  She swallowed hard before speaking again. ‘Linda was a local, wasn’t she, Trask? Do her parents live here?’

  ‘Both, ma’am. Her mother’s a nurse in the local hospital and her dad’s in insurance.’

  ‘Better get the father to identify her then.’

  They climbed up the metal staircase from the beach onto the seafront, to face the interested audience of holidaymakers and locals collecting quickly on the busy promenade. Adventurous children, like monkeys, clambered out from under the pier, and attempted to climb up over the stone groyne to invade the beach but were sent away quickly by the uniform on duty below.

  Laura Goring, Clairvoyant and Tarot reader, while out on her early morning stroll, dressed in a brilliant purple silk kaftan, long chains of amber beads swinging and clinking around her neck, a heliotrope silk bandanna swathing her frizzed hennaed hair, leant over the pier rails to watch the ongoing drama below with an uneasy look on her long, bony features.

  Close by on the pier, overlooking the rails, two worried town councillors called on by anxious hotelkeepers, conferred together and looked down at the police activity with growing anxiety. A brutal murder couldn’t be played down that easily in Harling. This could cause a crisis in the town’s publicity drive. They could do without it occurring at such a busy peak holiday period.

  The annual carnival week was due to commence the following Monday, with beauty and baby contests, dancing competitions and talent shows on the pier, the big fancy dress carnival parade and prize floats, culminating in a large firework display in the Victoria Park on the Saturday. It could all be so easily ruined by this…

  Three

  In the local newspaper office, Mel Goring answered her phone, ‘Uncle Vic! Hi. What can I do for you on this beautiful Thursday morning?’

  ‘It’s what I can do for you, Mel. There’s a young woman’s naked body lying on the beach here on the right side of the pier - or there was. They’re bringing her up now.’

  Mel Goring pushed aside her empty coffee mug, excitement filling her large brown eyes. ‘Hey there - you’re not kidding me, are you?’

  ‘Course not. I came across her first thing this morning while I was out digging up lugworms.’

  ‘You did!’

  ‘Yeah. And it was not a pretty sight, I can tell you. She was battered pretty nasty about the head and face.’ Mel listened and felt sick as he gave her his version of the news story in full. ‘And this should interest you - the boys in blue are in a hell of a two and eight over it. She’s one of them. A police officer, Mel.’

  ‘What!’ Mel pushed back the mass of springy burnished bronze curls away from her eyes, picked up her biro and opened up a spiral. ‘I’m ready - give me all the relevant details, please - if you can manage it!’

  ‘The victim is a detective by all accounts. I stayed around offside to listen till they made me get off the beach. They said they’ll question me later.’

  ‘Where are you now? Can you get the name of the police officer?’

  ‘Sorry. No can do. The tide’s coming in fast now covering up the tracks. The police are about finished combing the beach for evidence. You’d better try and get the rest from the police yourself.’

  ‘Thanks. Have a drink on me later.’

  He chuckled. ‘I’ll keep you to that, girlie.’

  She put down the phone, and tapped the biro on her teeth thoughtfully. Mel had already been at cross-purposes recently with one of the police officers in charge. DI Nick Farmer had been far from forthcoming with the details she’d needed to write up the suspicious death of the middle-aged woman, Geraldine Temple, in her apartment on the East Hill ten days ago. Found dead in a bath filled with water, with her wrists cut, she had not been a pleasant discovery for anyone to find.

  Mel had managed to get the details from her friend, Linda Handley, who had covered the case personally with DC Calder. No suicide note was found but the Coroner’s verdict said that Geraldine Temple, an alcoholic, had taken her own life while she
was in deep depression from a terminal illness.

  Mel frowned, rubbing her small chin with the back of her hand as she visualized again the sceptical, hardnosed Nick Farmer. He was a bloody awkward customer to deal with. She grinned. He hadn’t got the better of her yet. Just let him try to keep quiet about this. This case was different. It was a homicide. A police officer had been killed. And it would sell papers for all the wrong reasons. It was obvious that the body on the beach would bring the kind of publicity that would be awkward for everyone trying to promote and boost the holiday business during the peak of their summer season. She knew that she would have to be careful how she handled it or she would encounter some strong agro from her editor, who stood to lose some good customers amongst the hoteliers and restaurateurs.

  Holidaymakers wanted a good time at the seaside. Most came back like the swallows every year and expected to be welcomed with good lively entertainment, or else they didn’t make a return visit. And it was the Observer’s job as a local tabloid to give good news to its readers, not murder reports served up over breakfast.

  ‘You’ve got to give them happy, enjoyable things they can read when they stay here without getting worried about being mugged on the beach or murdered,’ Editor Bob Peale had told her when she joined the staff two years previously. He’d mellowed some since but she knew she had to be careful how she handled this story.

  Mel wanted much more than local weddings, christenings and garden shows to report. She wore several hats during her working week. When the person writing the daily Astrology column packed it in Mel had taken it over. It was something she was really interested in and was quite pleased with her endeavours on the daily star forecasts for the past six months. But she wanted to use her journalistic ability for much more than this. She was aiming for a career in investigative journalism in a big way. Fleet Street was her eventual goal.