A Buried Past

by Alexandria Clarke

  I rested my forehead in my interlaced fingers, reminding myself to breathe. In and out. Inhale, exhale. There, on the table, was the answer to why the last decade of my life had been in such turmoil. A single man with a nasty misogynistic streak had happened upon my mother in a neighborhood park and decided to end her life because she hadn’t paid him the attention he wanted. The processing chip in my brain broke. I had no words.

  “I know this is shocking,” Dermot said, his voice lovely, smooth, and soothing. “But I wanted to meet you because it’s important you know the truth. This man”—he jabbed his finger against Moore’s photograph—“is dead. He was killed in prison, three years after I put him there. From what I heard, he suffered greatly before the end of his life. He never found a niche while incarcerated. He was beaten, humiliated, and manipulated by other inmates according to their personal needs.”

  “Enough,” I finally said, lifting a hand to stop him. “I don’t need to hear that.”

  “I thought you’d want to know he got what he deserved,” Dermot said. “That’s what you wanted, right?”

  “Yes. No. I suppose.” I flipped Moore’s picture over again so I wouldn’t have to look at his face anymore. “I guess it’s not as cathartic as I thought it would be. I don’t rejoice in other people’s suffering, even if they’re killers. Yes, he deserved it, but I don’t wish to know the details.”

  The left side of Dermot’s mouth turned up in not quite a smile but more a confused expression of approval. “Not many are like you.”

  “Why didn’t the press cover this?” I asked. “The Box Cutter Killer was a huge story, but I couldn’t find anything about Moore online or in the news.”

  “After murdering seven people in London, including your mother,” Dermot said, “the Box Cutter Killer disappeared. The police were stumped, as was I. Years passed, and no one reported additional deaths at his hand. We began to suspect that he killed himself. People forgot about him, purged the killer from their minds as we often do with unpleasant things. I, myself, thought he must be dead. For people like Moore, killing is an addiction. You don’t simply stop because you choose to.” Dermot shuffled aside his notes to extract an old newspaper clipping. “Then this turned up in a local newspaper, all the way out in Bristol.”

  He showed me the headline: 23-year-old woman killed with a box cutter. The article was short and didn’t give much information. Clearly, the police in Bristol had no leads on the culprit.

  “I couldn’t ignore it,” Dermot said. “Though I was already retired, I delved back into the case. My old police contacts were gone. The new boys regarded me as old and crazy, desperate to get back into the thick of things. They refused to help me until I came to them with proof. That’s when I found Moore’s knife. The news never covered it because the police asked them not to. They didn’t want to be embarrassed, so all the people who lost someone to Moore’s violence were never informed of his involvement. That included you, and I’m very sorry you had to go through that.”

  I didn’t realize I’d been crying until I noticed the napkin between my palms was dotted with tears. I crumpled it up and blotted my face. “What are these other photos?”

  “I brought them just in case, but I don’t recommend you look at them,” he answered. “They’re pictures from the crime scenes and autopsies. Some people find they need to see what happened to their loved one before they can move on. Personally, I think it only triggers more trauma, but it’s up to you.”

  A lump formed in my throat. Somewhere in that stack, my mother lay on the riverside, vacant-eyed and unmoving. “I’ll pass. My imagination manages well enough on its own.”

  Dermot nodded and put the pictures back in the document folder. “Good decision. Can I answer any more questions for you?”

  I swallowed the lump, but it returned at once. “Did she suffer?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” he said. “I examined the nature of that scene myself. It was a quick kill. Unplanned. Your mother was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. He attacked her swiftly and abandoned the scene just as fast. She most likely died in under a minute, and the shock of blood loss would have stopped her from feeling any pain.” He patted my hand briefly. “I have one more thing for you. You can keep it if you like.”

  From the inside pocket of his coat, he drew another photograph. This one was fuzzy at the edges and corners, worn from years of travel. “It must have fallen out of your mother’s things at the police station. I found it on the floor, and forgive me for keeping it, but it served as a reminder to keep trying. To do right by the people who suffered at the Box Cutter Killer’s hands.”

  He turned the picture for me to see, and what little composure I had left crumpled. The small photograph featured my mother on the steps of Oxford’s Radcliffe Camera. She was mid-laugh, as if the photographer—my father—had just said something hilarious. A six-year-old version of myself stood between her legs, beaming up at my mother. The focus was blurry, but it didn’t matter. It captured the sheer joy Mum and I shared in that moment.

  “You can see now why I agreed to meet you so quickly,” Dermot said, wiping a tear from his own eye. “I’ve known the little girl in that photo for ten years. I’m happy to finally meet the woman she became. I’m so sorry for your loss, and I’m sorry I didn’t identify Moore soon enough to save your mother. I do hope you’ll forgive me.”

  Over the top of his scattered notes, I reached for his hands. We clasped our fingers together and bowed our heads, unaware of anyone else around us. In the silence, I understood several things at once. My mother’s death was not Dermot’s fault. It was not my father’s fault. It was not my fault. The only person to blame had already faced his fate. There was nothing left to mourn or rage against. It was over.

  “How did it go?”

  Evelyn, both arms free, stood at the stove of our new flat. When I’d decided to stay in London indefinitely, Evelyn had asked the Wagner Company to upgrade her living conditions. We remained in the same building, but we were now on the top floor and had our own bedrooms, each with that stunning view of the city.

  “It was good. I got what I needed. Are you cooking?” I added, incredulous. I hung my coat in the closet and went to inspect the pot on the stove. “Is that curry? All right, who are you and what have you done with my best friend?”

  I narrowly dodged a wooden spoon smothered in bright-yellow korma as Evelyn attempted to swat me. The sauce splattered across the floor instead, and Evelyn plunked the spoon back in the pot to prevent further destruction.

  “I’ll have you know I’ve taken a leaf out of your book,” she said. She tossed a paper towel on the floor and used her foot to wipe up the spill. “I’m learning to cook. Do we have garam masala? I couldn’t find it.”

  “Of course we do.” I tugged the spice jar out of the cabinet and handed it to her. “You burned the rice.”

  “Oh, bollocks!” She yanked a second pot off the stove and threw it into the sink. “This is impossible. How do you keep watch over so many things at once?”

  I couldn’t help but laugh as I scraped the dried rice into the rubbish bin and filled the pot with new water. “It’s all about practice. How’s your shoulder? What did the doctor say?”

  She swung her arm in a wide circle without wincing or grimacing. “He said it looks good and moves well. The occasional stiffness is normal. If I keep up my exercises, I should be able to get back to work for real.”

  For the past few months, Evelyn had been working a desk job at Wagner, but she was eager to get back in the field.

  “Speaking of work,” I said, “I think I want to take the steps to become an actual P.I.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “You’re the one who gave me the idea.” I set the new rice on the stove and lowered the heat. “I can take courses online and get a certification. I think I have a knack for it. I finally figured out who Bertha was, didn’t I?”

  “You did. Though I’m still mad at you for drugging m
e that night and running off to confront a serial killer on your own.”

  “You showed up anyway,” I reminded her.

  Despite the dose of Benadryl I’d given Evelyn to go to sleep, she’d fought through her drowsiness and found her way to White’s Row. She was the one who had clocked Bertha so hard that the Ripper lost consciousness on contact. Two minutes later, the police showed up. Under Evelyn’s command, they arrested Bertha and drove me to the hospital. After a blood transfusion and a long row of stitches in my arm, I made my way back to the land of the living.

  If it weren’t for Evelyn, I would have been the Ripper’s final victim. Bertha herself had been sentenced to several lifetimes in prison. Ironically, she never confessed to the crimes as she’d told me she would, but Investigator Baker and his team—with the help of my notes—collected enough evidence to put Bertha away forever. William Lewis’s and Rosie Brigham’s families had been informed, and so had Eira Kent. London was safe until the next copycat came around.

  “I was almost too late.” Evelyn wagged her finger in my face. “Don’t you ever do that to me again.”

  “No promises.”

  She rolled her eyes and went back to cooking. I leaned against the counter and watched her from behind, as I had gotten into the habit of doing lately. She seemed different than before the night I’d almost died. Her posture was stiffer, and sometimes, I caught a strange lilt in her voice when she spoke to me. I couldn’t help remembering what Bertha had said that night in the alleyway.

  “Evelyn, you’d tell me if something was wrong, right?”

  She shook garam marsala into the pot. The lid of the jar popped off, and a load of spice fell out in a clump. She swore feverishly. “Yeah, of course. Why?”

  “Everything’s okay at your job?”

  “Everything’s great.”

  “You sure you want to go back to being a bodyguard?” I asked. “What if you injure your shoulder again?”

  She did not turn to face me, but her shoulders rose ever-so-slightly toward her ears. “Jack, I like my job. The reason we have such a great place to live is because of my job. If you’d rather live in a closet, I’ll quit.”

  “No, no. Forget I asked.”

  At last, she wiped her hands on a dish towel and pivoted to look at me. Nothing in her eyes suggested a lie. She was steady on her feet and relaxed in her stance. She simply looked like Evelyn, stalwart and strong, no matter the situation.

  “What’s this about?” she asked.

  I opened my mouth. I almost told her.

  “Nothing,” I replied. “Just worried about you. That’s all.”

  She playfully tugged on my hair. “Don’t you worry about a thing. You’re safe, Jack. That’s all that matters. Now, let’s order a pizza because I’ve completely ruined that dish. And Nadine called, by the way. We’re still on for lunch with her tomorrow, right?”

  “Sure.”

  Despite myself, unease grew in the pit of my stomach. As I reached for my phone to dial the pizza place, I watched Evelyn lift the heavy pot full of korma off the stove with her right hand.

  Almost as if her shoulder had never been injured to begin with.

  Thank you so much for taking the time to read my story!

  Writing has always been a passion of mine and it’s incredibly gratifying and rewarding whenever you give me an opportunity to let you escape from your everyday surroundings and entertain the world that is your imagination.

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