Shaping the Ripples

by Paul Wallington

  “No,” I answered. “It isn’t actually her house. She just lodges here with a teacher from the local school.”

  “Is there any chance that the two of them could have gone away together?” he enquired.

  “Only if they decided to do it late this evening. Linda’s message asked me to call her back here as soon as I got in. It didn’t sound as if she was planning on going anywhere.”

  There was a gate at the side of the bungalow which opened up to a path leading around to the back of the house. We tried to go through it but it was securely bolted on the other side.

  “I suppose I’d better try and climb over it,” Mark Rogers said slightly doubtfully. But he was saved from starting by a shout from behind us.

  “What the hell are you two up to?” the voice demanded.

  It took a moment to identify where it was coming from, but eventually we both spotted the source of the shout at the same time. It was a balding man wearing a dressing gown, leaning out of the window of the adjoining bungalow. PC Rogers moved towards him, taking his police badge out of his pocket.

  “PC Rogers, York Police,” he announced. “Sorry if we woke you up, sir. We’re trying to check on the safety of your next door neighbours. I wonder if you might have any idea where they are?”

  The man looked slightly mollified, but then frowned. “Emma and Linda?” he said in some bemusement. “Has something happened to them?”

  “We hope not,” said PC Rogers. “Do you have any idea where they might be?”

  “Emma mentioned that she was going away for the weekend,” he replied. “But as far as I know, Linda should be at home. I don’t see how she’d have slept through the racket you two were making. Why are you interested in her?”

  Mark Rogers indicated me with a wave of his hand. “Mr. Bailey here is a friend of Mrs. Clarke’s. He received a rather distressed call from her this evening and was concerned when he couldn’t get in touch with her. You haven’t heard or seen anything suspicious this evening, I suppose?”

  The man shook his head, “Not a thing, I’m afraid. What are you going to do now?”

  “It’s all locked up at the front,” PC Rogers told him. “I was just about to climb over the gate to have a look around the back when you called us. I want to just make sure that everything’s alright.”

  The man was quiet for a moment and then spoke again. “I look after the house for them when they’re both away,” he announced. “I have a spare front door key. I don’t suppose they’d mind me letting you use it in the circumstances.”

  “That would be a great help,” Mark Rogers beamed.

  We waited for a few minutes for the man to emerge from the house. When he finally appeared, he had pulled on some trousers and a jumper. We watched him walk up to the door and turn the key in the lock. Then he stepped back, and let PC Rogers lead the way into the house. I followed close behind.

  The house wasn’t completely in darkness, because there was light seeping from behind the closed door at the very back of the house. He headed there first, and opened the door. For a moment, his back blocked any view of the room itself. As he moved in, I saw with relief that there was no-one in the kitchen. The only sign of anything untoward was on the table. There was a barely touched plate of fish and rice, with the cutlery sitting on top of it. Next to it, a glass lay on its side. Most of whatever fluid it contained had run off the table to form a pool on the floor, but there were still some puddles of liquid on the table itself.

  “It looks like someone left in a hurry,” PC Rogers observed.

  “Or were disturbed by someone else,” I suggested.

  My stomach had already shot up into my mouth. I was certain that there was a grisly surprise waiting for us in one of the other rooms of the house. Mentally, I was kicking myself for having been out all evening. Perhaps if I’d been at home to take Linda’s call, there would have been enough time to protect her.

  We worked our way back through the house, going from room to room. The bathroom and both bedrooms were empty of people, although Linda’s room was a total mess, with clothes thrown on the bed and on the floor.

  Finally, we approached the living room. I felt almost sick with fearful anticipation. PC Rogers turned the handle and slowly pushed the door open. As my eyes began to take in the scene inside the room, I let out a gasp.

  It was empty. No hideously disfigured corpse, no hint of blood or carnage. Just the same room I had sat in a little over a month before with Linda as she had read Ryan’s note. My feelings were a mixture of relief and despair. Of course I was pleased that we hadn’t found Linda’s body, but I couldn’t shake the certainty that the killer had been here, and that Linda was now with him.

  PC Rogers looked at me. “I’m not sure that there’s much else we can do here tonight, Mr. Bailey,” he said.

  I nodded in agreement. “We just have to hope that she turns up safe tomorrow,” I said.

  “I’ll make a report on what we found here,” he continued. “Obviously if she gets in touch with you tomorrow, I’d appreciate you letting us know. If not, the next step will be for us to talk to her housemate when she returns to see if Mrs. Clarke has contacted her. Hopefully, by tonight we’ll know that she’s safe.”

  “And if we don’t?” I asked.

  “Then tonight we’ll officially declare her a missing person, and put her description out. It is possible that if she was as scared as you say, she has gone to stay somewhere that she feels safer.”

  “I hope that you’re right,” I answered. “But from the looks of the kitchen, something would have had to make her leave in an awful hurry.”

  “I agree,” said PC Rogers, “but there’s really nothing more we can do tonight.”

  We went out of the front door and watched Linda’s neighbour lock the house up again. PC Rogers and I both thanked him and I wrote out my telephone number for him to ring if he saw Linda return.

  Back at the flat, I went to bed, without any expectations of being able to sleep. Sure enough, I lay awake for hours thinking about Linda. In my heart, I knew I wasn’t going to see her alive again.

  EVIDENCE PRESENTED TO INTERNAL ENQUIRY WY05/32741:

  EXTRACT FROM RECOVERED FILES OF DR. JENNIFER CARTER

  6 month review - patient no 2306

  Although the patient attends sessions regularly, there has been very little change in the underlying condition.

  As previously recorded, progress has been made in identifying the previous traumatic events which have produced the patient’s repressed rage. However, the patient continues to be unwilling or unable to recognise this underlying rage.

  I continue to feel that unless therapy achieves some sort of breakthrough, there is an extreme risk that the emotions will at some point prove uncontrollable and result in either self-harm or extreme violence. Patient refuses to consider drug treatment

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Sure enough, my phone stayed silent all through Sunday. I tried ringing Linda’s number from time to time, but there was never anyone there to pick up. Katie had gone with Rebecca to visit another college friend of theirs, who lives in the Lake District. She’d invited me to go with them, but I’d not wanted to be a spare part. It was just as well, because I don’t think that I would have been able to prise myself away from the chair beside the phone.

  When the phone finally did ring at just after 9.30pm, I snatched it up. To my disappointment, it was a man’s voice.

  “Is that Mr. Bailey?” he enquired.

  “Yes,” I confirmed.

  “It’s PC Rogers. I’m just ringing to let you know where we’re up to in finding Mrs. Clarke.”

  “Have you heard from her?” I asked anxiously.

  “No, I’m afraid not,” he replied. “We’ve managed to speak to the other occupant of the house, a Miss Lowe. She hasn’t heard from Mrs. Clarke since she left the house on Friday evening. As far as she knows, Mrs. Clarke wasn’t planning to go anywhere over the weekend.”

  I let out
the breath I had been holding since the phone rang. “So what happens now?”

  “I’m officially recording Mrs. Clarke as missing under suspicious circumstances. Miss Lowe has provided us a couple of photographs of her, and I will be issuing copies of those to all officers. It is still possible the Mrs. Clarke has gone to somewhere she feels safe, and is planning to hide for a while.”

  I thanked him for keeping me informed and rang off. The one thing that I had to hang onto was the fact that the two previous victims had been killed at home and left there. Maybe Linda was somewhere, safe and hidden. If that was the case I just wished she’d ring to let me know.

  Monday at work was similarly unproductive. I told George and Katie about the weekend’s events, and about my fears for Linda. Both were very shocked and supportive, and George again offered to give me time off work if I needed it. I still preferred to keep busy, although my mind wasn’t completely on it.

  Monday evening I wasn’t much in the mood for conversation, so Katie decided to rent a film and come round to watch it with me. Before we started the film, I decided to ring Emma Lowe to see if she had heard anything. She was clearly very worried as well; she told me that Linda hadn’t turned up at work, and hadn’t been in touch with anyone to explain why.

  Over the next two hours I was grateful for Katie’s closeness but, although I stared fixedly at the television screen, I couldn’t tell you at all what the film was about.

  Tuesday at least I had something pleasant to do to distract me. It was the day after Sophie Sutton’s birthday, and my last visit of the day was to share some birthday cake with her and Jill. I went around the shops at lunchtime, trying to find a suitable present. I’d given her pens for Christmas so stationary was out. It took some time but eventually I found something that I thought would be perfect.

  It was in the window of a small antique shop, which I was just passing. An old fashioned music box, the outside was elaborately decorated in different colour woods. But it was the inside that made me sure it was right for Sophie. It was full of little drawers and compartments to hide any amount of treasures and jewellery. Best of all, when you opened the box, a tune began to play, and a ballerina popped up to dance in front of a small mirror. Somehow the maker had painted on her tiny face an expression of utter joy and freedom.

  I have a confession to make here. I don’t usually buy presents for people we’ve helped at the centre. But Jill and Sophie were special. I was so proud of the way they’d made new lives for themselves. Something in the ballerina’s expression seemed to sum up the wonder of what they had achieved. The box was a fair bit more than I’d planned to spend, but I couldn’t resist it. Back at the office, I showed it to Katie.

  “I wouldn’t object if you bought me something as nice,” she teased.

  “Do you think it’s too much?” I asked her.

  “I think she’ll love it,” she said. “It’s funny how every person we see has a terrible story, but some of them really get to you, don’t they? I could tell how much they meant to you when you talked about them at the Christmas dinner.”

  She helped me wrap it up. “I’ll come round to yours tonight at about seven, OK?” she asked as she left.

  A visit to Jill and Sophie, followed by an evening with Katie. If it wasn’t for the gnawing anxiety about Linda I would almost have felt happy on the walk through the city.

  When I got to their house, there was a piece of paper pinned to the front door. It read, “Jack, please come around to the back door”. So I walked around the house, to find the back door slightly open.

  I rapped on the door, but my call of “hello” died in my throat as the smell from inside reached me. They say that smell is the sense most closely linked to memories. There must be some truth in that because in an instant I was back to the days when I was training in counselling.

  A friend, and fellow student, of mine had previously worked in an abattoir, before deciding his real vocation lay elsewhere. I guess we were both horrified and fascinated about his previous job, and often asked him about it. One day, he announced that he had permission to take a group of us to see his former workplace. Quite a few pulled out but I, and a couple of others, went with him.

  It’s the closest I’ve ever come to becoming a vegetarian. It’s one thing to know in abstract that what you’re eating used to be a living animal, and quite another to be confronted with the reality of their slaughter. Worst of all was the overpowering smell, that seemed to linger on my skin for days afterwards. It was the smell of raw meat and freshly spilt blood – a smell I’d thought I’d blotted out of my memory until I encountered it again coming from Jill’s house.

  I suppose the sensible thing would have been to stay out of the house and telephone the police, but a compulsion drew me in. I found them in the living room.

  The music box tumbled out of my hand, and clattered on the floor, bursting free from its wrapping. My eyes were fixed on Sophie, who was never going to hear its music. She lay face down on the floor, completely naked. The whole of her back, from under her hair down to just above her knees, was criss-crossed with open, deep slash wounds. The blood from them had clearly run down onto the carpet, so that she was framed by a deep crimson stain. Somehow her killer had managed to turn her from a bubbly little girl, into an almost unrecognisable piece of meat. I just stared at her for some time in disbelief until eventually, I managed to tear my eyes from her.

  Then I looked at Jill. At least, I knew it was Jill from the hair but not from anything else. Her whole face seemed to have been battered to a pulp, and bore no resemblance to the person she had been. She was sitting upright in a high-backed chair, and she was naked from the waist up. Her upper body looked similarly marked, and the reason for her stiff posture was explained by the ropes which fastened her arms and neck to the chair. As a final indignity, her fingers were impossibly splayed.

  I slumped to the floor and began to weep. After some time, I regained enough composure to pick up a phone and telephone the police. After that, I just don’t remember anything. It was as if my mind found the horror and loss too much to cope with, and shut down. Later on, one of the policemen who arrived first told me that I was sitting on the floor, staring at the twirling ballerina and saying “I’ve brought you a present” over and over again.

  It was almost a relief to be bundled into a police car, and taken away from the scene to wait at the station. But whether my eyes were open or closed, the picture of them refused to clear from my mind.

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  An hour later, I was still sitting alone in the interview room which they had brought me to as soon as I arrived at the station. Finally, the door opened and Michael Palmer and Laura Smith walked in. Her face was pale, while his looked as grim as I’d seen it. It didn’t take a genius to work out that they’d just got back from Jill’s house.

  “Mr. Bailey,” Laura Smith began. “You are not currently under arrest, but I must advise you that you have the right to have a lawyer present before we interview you. If you waive that right, we may still use anything you say in the course of the interview as evidence against you.”

  “I don’t need a lawyer,” I answered. “I’m happy to answer any questions you have by myself.”

  Clearly Laura was going to handle most of the questioning. Michael Palmer sat impassively, staring at me.

  “Perhaps you could start by outlining how you came to be at Mrs. Sutton’s house,” she invited.

  I explained about it being Sophie’s birthday on Monday, and my promise to call in on the following day.

  “And exactly how long ago was it that you made this appointment?”

  “I’m not sure exactly,” I said. “Her file back at the office would have the exact date in. It was a week or so before Christmas I think.”

  “What was the exact nature of your relationship with Mrs. Sutton?”

  “She was a client at the Domestic Crisis Centre,” I answered. “She came to the Centre about two years ago with Soph
ie. Both of them had very severe injuries, which had been inflicted by her husband.”

  She looked down at the file in front of her. “That would be Adam Sutton, who you had told us about previously as a possible suspect?”

  “That’s right,” I confirmed. “Adam was subsequently prosecuted and jailed for what he had done to them. He got out a couple of months ago.”

  “We’re already checking on Mr. Sutton’s whereabouts,” she said. “Continue with your story about Mrs. Sutton.”

  “We helped her with medical treatment, finding a new home, job and so on. They were two of the bravest people I know – knew.” My voice caught slightly with these last words.

  “And after that, you kept in regular contact with them,”

  “Yes, it’s normal practice at the centre to keep in touch with our clients for as long as they want us to. It’s usually the best part of the job,” I explained.

  Michael Palmer spoke for the first time. “And is it also normal practice to arrange cosy private parties or to take presents for all your clients?”

  “No,” I admitted. “They invited me for the cake. As for the present, I just wanted to take something for Sophie.”

  “An expensive music box?” he said with one eyebrow raised. “A little over the top don’t you think? Judging by the photographs Jill Sutton was quite an attractive lady. Get in with the mother by being nice to the child, was that your plan?”

  “No,” I said furiously. “It wasn’t like that at all.”

  “Or maybe it was the daughter you were really interested in,” he continued. “Prefer little girls do you? Is that why she was naked before you killed her?”

  “NO!” I shouted. “I was very fond of both of them – very proud of what they’d achieved, but that’s all there was to it.”

  Laura Smith took over the questioning again. “You must try and see it from our point of view, Mr. Bailey. So far you’ve discovered three bodies, all people that you admit you were close to. On top of that, another friend of yours has been murdered and, as far as we know, you were the last person to see him alive. It does seem very suspicious.”