The Rotting Spot (A Bruce and Bennett Mystery)

by Valerie Laws

  ‘I saw a dead puffin.’ Its head was perfectly intact. Good.

  ‘So?’

  ‘I collect skulls.’ Defiantly.

  His face changed. ‘Of course you do. Sure you’re ok? See you around!’ And he was away. The potential coffee date no longer on the agenda, she noticed. She watched him receding. Nice ass. A pleasure watching him go. She’d often seen him running on the beach. He looked like a typical Lycopodium, rather taciturn, driven, competitive, his constitutional remedy made from wolfsbane, poisonous aconite.

  ‘Well well, Wolfman! I’d be willing to bet you were on my heels, determined to overtake me. You macho men just can’t resist it.’

  He’d done a neat job though, rolling them over to absorb the shock so neither of them got hurt. A guy would have to be trained to do a thing like that, as a reflex. Oh well, he wasn’t her type anyway. Talk about up himself.

  She fished a half-buried plastic bag out of the tideline debris, and pushed the puffin into it with her foot. Passing dogwalkers glanced curiously at the short, thin Lycra-clad figure, her hair hanging over her intent face. What was she doing? They passed on quickly, swinging the plastic bags of dog shit which were this year’s must-have accessory for normal people. People who weren’t skull-hunters with the collector’s fierce desire. The skull-hunter’s blog, that had it right, how it felt.

  Extract from The Skull Hunter’s Blog

  ‘Yes, you’re a hunter, like our primitive ancestors. You want the rare, the hard-to-get. Not from a medical supplier, not a specimen with the cranium cut through and hinged like a calcified Fabergé Easter egg. No, the real thing. Even if it has to stay hidden, that’s the one you desire above all.’

  From http://www.theskullhunter.wordpress.com

  Erica no longer had a rotting spot of her own, but she knew someone who did. Mickey Spence, her old vacation employer at Stony Point, who had introduced her to skull- hunting. He probably read the skullhunter’s blog too. She’d stayed away from Stony Point for five years, despite living so near. Now the puffin was acting a bit like Proust’s madeleine, only she wouldn’t be dunking it in her tea.

  She should dump the head, leave it behind, but it seemed cruel somehow to leave it to the bluebottles, when at least the sparer beauty of its bones could be saved and admired. Maybe it was fate. Memories of Lucy had churned around in her mind since that night, just over a week ago, in the vomit- soaked alley by the nightclub. She’d wondered if Lucy would contact her. Liz Seaton wouldn’t like it one bit, the idea of her and Lucy getting together again. She smiled to herself.

  Sod it, she thought, straightening up and tossing back her hair. One way or another, Stony Point is part of my past. Maybe this puffin is more like that black slab thingy in 2001 A Space Odyssey, marking a turning point, than a bit of soggy French cake. A reason, or an excuse, to go back.

  She set off again to run her intended distance in spite of the carrion she was carrying. Lucy’s image came into her mind, the bronze sheen of her hair, the light tan of her skin, the distinctive hazel eyes; Lucy always looked sunlit, thought Erica. With a mental jolt, she realised she still thought of Lucy as a teenager, wearing her favourite short white Reebok dress. She was twenty-four now like Erica herself. The sinking sun left the beach dull, its colours muted. Erica ran faster, suddenly chilled. She would take the puffin to Mickey’s rotting spot. Maybe tomorrow.

  Blood. Liz lay next to Seymour between crisp Egyptian cotton sheets, her mind in turmoil. The police officer, at first reluctant to take seriously the disappearance of an adult, had found blood inside Lucy’s car. In the footwell of the driver’s seat, brownish spots where something had dripped.

  ‘Do either of you know anything about this?’ Sergeant Massum’s voice suddenly colder and more urgent.

  ‘No, we didn’t look right inside.’ Liz answered mechanically. Her fingers were white on Seymour’s arm.

  ‘This looks like blood to me.’ Massum looked at Liz; as a surgeon, she’d have expertise in that area.

  Seymour raised appalled eyes to hers. She had to concur. How could she not have seen it?

  ‘Yes, it does, but it may have been there a while, she may have cut herself, had a nosebleed, anything.’

  Massum was busy extracting the mat, and removing it for analysis. ‘Her blood group?’

  ‘A.’

  ‘It’ll take a while for full DNA analysis, we can get a blood group quicker. Oh, and here.’ A small smear on the front of the lower part of the seat. ‘We’ll take the car in for a proper look. And I’ll inform my superiors.’

  Liz listened to Seymour’s breathing. How had she missed the blood? And what did it mean? Could harm have come to Lucy, and how? It was too horrible to contemplate – but so was the alternative that she’d been trying to push to the back of her mind. What if – ? What if Lucy had found out the thing that above all she must never find out? The consequences were unthinkable. Peg would … no, that was impossible.

  Or was Erica Bruce behind Lucy’s disappearance? Rather a coincidence, when they’d just run into her again so recently. Fearing this, Liz had told Massum that Steve had mentioned Erica’s name, and that Lucy was carrying her poem. Let the police give her trouble as she deserved. In fact, with the right provocation Liz could manipulate Erica to find Lucy. Mates of Lucy’s would talk to her where they wouldn’t talk to the police. The sooner Liz could have some control over her daughter’s actions, the better for them all.

  A hundred yards away, Julie Reed lay in bed, her feet burning and swollen at the end of the day’s work, thinking about Lucy’s disappearance. Those stuck-up Seatons couldn’t expect to have everything their own way. Sweating, she tried not to touch Paul, who would complain about her clammy skin making him hot. Not in the way it used to, sadly. Paul had been out all afternoon, he hadn’t said where. He stirred uneasily beside her, muttering something.

  A small cry, desperate and urgent, stabbed the darkness of the house. Hiccuping wails worked up to a rhythmic crescendo. Was Stacey getting up, or would she, muggins, have to feed the baby? Again? When she had to get up for the early shift? Heavy feet plodded past her door. She could hear ‘Fer fk’s sake!’ Eventually, Stacey’s door banged, and a few moments later the crying ceased as suddenly as if it had been switched off. She thought back to the birth of the baby, even that had the Seatons involved, and the lass who’d been a friend of Lucy’s way back. As Molly’d been her friend. The village was remembering Molly anew. Funny, they were saying, two cousins going missing, quarter of a century apart. Oh yes, thought Julie, it was very funny.

  In the city, Steve gently stroked his son’s round cheek with his forefinger.

  ‘Just you and me, Tobes, eh? Just you and me.’ Toby sighed in his sleep.

  In the backyard of Erica’s flat in Wydsand Bay, the puffin’s small head with its massive freight of beak lay buried at the foot of a honeysuckle in a planter.

  On Stony Point, in the rotting spot, under the carefully flattened earth, the skull waited in the dark.

  8

  Early morning, Monday 16th June

  Point View Care Home, Stonehead

  ‘Where’s Frank?’ Lily asked Julie Reed, for the millionth time. Julie gestured to the wall where Liz had displayed the family tree in pictures, neatly labeled, to remind Lily of her history and identity. Liz, with what amounted to sadism in Julie’s case, insisted staff go over it often. She could lie of course, but you never knew with dementia patients like Lily. They could drop you in it.

  ‘Look Lily, there’s your Frank!’ Frank Travis, in 1941, in RAF uniform, his funny little hat barely clinging to a slick of Brylcreem, and Lily, in a suit with the spare elegance clothing coupons dictated, her hat like his but with a little spotted veil.

  Childhood sweethearts, Lily and Frank. Planning a long engagement, saving up; but the terrible casualties of ‘the few’ had made them fling caution and confetti to the winds on one of Frank’s leaves. Their smiles defied Hitler. Julie sighed again. She’d never get into her
wedding dress now.

  Next Peg and Liz, in gingham, with long plaits.

  ‘Your daughters, Lily.’ Julie’s heart laboured under its coat of flab, in the greenhouse atmosphere designed to cosset old bones.

  ‘And here’s your Peggy marrying George Westfield. Remember, he had the butcher’s shop in the village?’ There was no hint of Swinging Sixties in his suit and her satin dress and long lace gloves. She carried a white prayer book. Then 1966; Liz and Seymour Seaton. Liz was three years younger, but married at 22 instead of 20. The sisters could have been different generations. Liz, a dolly bird, her long blonde hair loose, parted in the middle. Seymour’s shoulder-length brown hair framed chiseled features, white teeth, and the distinctive dark brows and long-lashed eyes. Then Lucy as a teenager, in a very short Reebok tennis-style dress.

  ‘Look, Lily,’ Julie went on, ‘here’s Lucy, your granddaughter, and little Toby, your great-grandson!’ Julie remembered her own kids, when they had those plump, smooth cheeks, and would hold them against hers, needing her. ‘They came to see you yesterday, didn’t they?’ And then Lucy vanished, like your other granddaughter. Not that she was going to mention that to Lily of course. ‘And Toby brought you a painting!’ She waved a hand towards the bright green splodge on the opposite wall.

  ‘Tommy…’ Lily’s face worked to remember.

  ‘No, Lily, it’s Toby!’ Surely she could leave out the last photo … But a primitive dread made Julie point at the picture under Peggy and George. A sour taste of guilt.

  ‘And there’s Peggy’s girl Molly, your other granddaughter. Now how about a nice cuppa?’

  Lily gazed at the pictures as if they were an alien landscape. Molly, aged 15. Petite like her mother, rounded figure in a ripe way; her dad’s warm brown eyes, and long dark hair with a wave in it. Looked like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but she had a wild streak alright. Julie’s best friend and worst enemy all the way through school. Molly, who should be forty-one now like her. No wedding photo for Molly. Her children with Paul were unborn. Guilt mixed with triumph. You couldn’t have everything, Molly.

  Julie heard the approaching breakfast trolley. There was often a croissant or danish left. Saliva pooled in her mouth.

  ‘Yoo hoo!’ Peggy looked round the door. ‘Hello, Mam!’ She kissed her mother’s cheek. Lily didn’t respond. ‘I’m early today,’ she told Julie. ‘So I can help Mam with her breakfast.’

  Julie swallowed her saliva. ‘Just been doing the family tree,’ she said with forced cheerfulness.

  ‘Good. My sister is most particular about that.’ Peg fetched a breakfast tray. Knitting needles and magenta wool poked out of her bag.

  ‘Any news of Lucy?’ Julie had to ask.

  ‘God will look after Lucy.’ Then Peg counterattacked.

  ‘How’s your Stacey?’ Gently, as if Stacey was dying, as she spooned mush into her mother’s mouth. Milk ran down Lily’s chin.

  Julie couldn’t resist Peg’s interest. ‘Lying in bed, while Muggins here earns the daily bread. Babies come expensive, don’t they?’

  ‘Sins must be paid for,’ said Peggy, fixing her pale eyes on Julie’s.

  Julie felt a chill. But she managed to say, ‘It’s her dad and me that’ll be paying.’

  ‘God will watch over her, whatever she’s done.’ Peggy wiped Lily’s mouth. More like whoever, Julie thought grimly.

  ‘My daughter’s coming in today,’ Lily told Peg.

  ‘That’s me, Mam,’ Peggy said. ‘We’re mother and daughter, you and me.’ She shifted her gaze to Molly’s photo. ‘Mother and daughter,’ she repeated softly.

  ‘It’s good of you to come so often,’ Julie said, hating herself for truckling but feeling she had to placate Peggy.

  ‘It’s my duty. Sometimes we have to do things we’d rather not. I’m sure you know that, Julie.’

  Julie couldn’t read her expression. Sometimes it seemed Peggy Westfield was a bit dim; other times you weren’t so sure.

  9

  Extract from The Skull Hunter’s blog

  In the rotting spot, you can bury the head, or, better, sit it on the ground, so the rain and the sun and the frost can help the insects, worms and bacteria to break down the tissue. The brain, the flesh, the gums, go through many changes as they decay. They get slimy; they shrivel; they fall or are carried away. On top of an ant’s nest is a good place. The head becomes the ants’ own branch of Sainsbury’s. They carry away the soft tissue, struggling with parcels of shredded flesh, into the secret chambers of the nest. Bluebottles lay their eggs, and maggots turn flesh into transparent wings. The skull gradually reveals its secret chambers. The rain keeps on hissing down, the sun burns, as its delicate architecture, discoloured and stained by the processes to which it is immune, emerges. The rotting spot is a quiet place where the slow, private breaths of decay diffuse unnoticed. The dead heads rest, while beneath, the ants and the other scavengers make the earth boil with flesh-fuelled activity. The ants don’t know, and don’t care, whose head they labour in. Animal, or human. Man, or woman.

  From http://www.theskullhunter.wordpress.com

  Evening, Monday 16th June

  Erica’s flat, Wydsand Bay

  ‘Almost didn’t recognise you with all your clothes on!’ Erica blurted, finding Wolfman on her doorstep.

  The guy with him kept his face still, trying not to laugh. Wolfman’s mouth tightened. He waved his ID. ‘Ms Erica Bruce? I’m Detective Inspector Will Bennett. This is Detective Sergeant Hassan Massum. We’re making enquiries about Lucy Seaton.’

  ‘Lucy? I haven’t seen her for years! What’s happened?’ The sergeant said, ‘She’s gone missing.’

  A stab of shock. ‘Missing?’

  ‘May we come in please?’ Inspector Bennett stepped onto the threshold, looming over Erica. Her hackles rose, but she led them into her open-plan living room. She looked through their eyes at the skulls, the cream of her collection, displayed on shelves among her books. Specimens of austere beauty and architecture. To them, sinister and suspicious. Tough shit. Watching maliciously as Bennett and Massum tried to sit upright on her saggy old couch, their legs sprawling, Erica perched on a wooden chair, gaining the advantage of dignity. She waited.

  ‘Ms Seaton’s family are very concerned. We agreed to make some enquiries, though we’re normally reluctant to interfere with an adult’s right to go where they wish. They seemed to think you might know of her whereabouts.’

  Erica frowned. ‘Well I don’t.’

  Massum said reasonably, ‘Your friend could be in some kind of trouble, need help. If you have any information…’

  ‘All I know about Lucy is what her mother and aunt told me, must be a couple weeks ago.’

  ‘We found you through a list of ‘alternative’ practitioners.’ Bennett’s sneer was audible.

  ‘Oh, you Googled me, did you? Not a detective for nothing, then,’ Erica shot back.

  ‘Did you disapprove of Lucy’s choice of conventional medicine?’

  Massum glanced at Will, clearly surprised at his approach. This was a bit heavy for a polite enquiry. What was going on with the Guv?

  ‘I’ve not seen Lucy since we left school, so whether I approve or not makes little difference. I respect some of the medical profession.’

  ‘Including Liz Seaton?’ Will snapped.

  ‘As far as I know, she’s good at her job and compassionate.’ Erica thought of Stacey’s eulogy.

  ‘Didn’t she feel that you influenced her daughter towards an alternative lifestyle? Isn’t that why she discouraged your friendship?’ Massum’s tone was more neutral.

  ‘Alright, yes, but how can that matter now! Unless you’re suggesting my influence has suddenly had an effect on Lucy five years down the line.’

  ‘The Seatons felt perhaps you had re-established contact since meeting them, and that maybe you had persuaded Lucy to forsake her career at a crucial juncture.’

  Anger blossomed. ‘Liz can’t think much of her daughter, if s
he believes she’s that easily influenced. Why not ask her whether the pressure they’ve put on Lucy and the stress of her exams could have made her sick of the whole business.’ Erica slowed her breathing by an effort of will, calling upon her mantra and the TM techniques she and Lucy had learned together and which she still called upon in time of need. As she brought her anger under control, her mind cleared.

  ‘Just a minute! This isn’t logical!’

  ‘Not something I expect to hear from a homeopath,’ Will remarked snidely. But Erica wasn’t going to let him rile her, until she’d had her say. ‘Homeopath, and maths graduate,’ she told him. ‘If I had influenced Lucy to do a runner from Holby City or wherever, that would mean Lucy had gone of her own accord, which would mean it was none of your business. So why are you here? Unless the police, who in my experience refuse to help until someone’s dead…’ – it was Will and Hassan’s turn to be startled by the venom in her voice – ‘…jump when the stuck-up Seatons say jump.’

  Massum explained the circumstances. ‘So either Lucy went off with nothing…’

  ‘And she hasn’t taken any money from her account, we’ve checked,’ put in Will, trying to control the antipathy Erica brought out in him.

  ‘…or she’s come to some harm. Been abducted, even.’ They’d agreed not to mention the blood.

  ‘So Lucy could be chained in some psycho’s cellar right now, and Liz is bleating about my influence! How warped is she!’

  ‘Not really,’ Hassan said. ‘Apparently Lucy mentioned your name just before she went missing.’ He described Lucy’s movements on Father’s Day.

  ‘So she left her son behind?’