by Conrad Jones
“Oh, I see, well I’m very flattered,” he smiled. He seemed to be studying her as they spoke. That wasn’t odd for a doctor though was it, studying people? “Don’t keep me in suspense. What do you do?”
“JLS,” she said pointing to the dance floor. She was confused because she was sure Labyrinth had been booming out a second ago. She noticed that Jackie had gone. Was she lost in the fog of dry ice? Probably at the bar or in the toilet. She needed the toilet but her feet felt rooted to the sticky carpet. Sticky like congealing blood. Sticky like grey matter on glass.
“You like JLS?”
“What?”
“You were telling me what you do for a living, then you mentioned JLS,” he said confused. She listened to the music. The track was something completely different. Jackie still wasn’t dancing. If she had gone outside with that guy then she would never go out with her again. “Are you okay?” he added.
“I was gutted when they split up,” Jayne mumbled. She could hear her own voice but it sounded different. The revellers on the dance floor were thinning out. In fact, nearly everyone had gone. “They split up.”
“Really?” he nodded. He was still smiling but he looked concerned. At least she thought it was concern. “You were telling me what you do?”
“I’m a police officer too,” she mumbled. “Just like you are. Were, I mean.” She felt tired. “Well, I’m a Special Constable. At least for now anyway.” The smile disappeared from his face again. This time it had gone from his eyes too. She felt drunk which was impossible. She sniffed the empty coke glass but it had no odour. Could he have put vodka in her drink? He said he was a police officer for a while hadn’t he? Yes he had. Had he drugged her? Get a grip, Jayne, he was a police officer and now he’s a medical student.
“Which force were you with?” she asked. A lucid moment made her feel much better. She was just tired. Her voice seemed to echo around the club as she spoke. Echo around the club or your head? “Cheshire?”
“Merseyside,” he smiled.
“Oh wow,” she smiled. “Me too. What station where you at?” she asked in a whisper. At least she thought she’d asked him that. He didn’t seem to have heard her. She felt herself gliding across the dance floor. Her feet were moving without direction from her brain. She didn’t have any input into her movements. Rhythm is a dancer was playing again but no one was dancing anymore. The dance floor was empty and all the people were drifting towards the doors. Bouncers the size of grizzly bears stood around snarling at anyone who moved too slowly or still had a drink in their hand. Jayne was floating, being taken by an invisible current in a direction that she didn’t want to go. She had to get a grip. Something wasn’t right. She felt drunk. Chunks of time had simply disappeared. She felt that she was watching proceedings from behind glass. She wanted to bang on it and shout for help but she was mute. ‘Zombie, zombie, zombie nation’. The tune rattled in her ears.
Suddenly, she knew in her mind that she had been drugged. She turned to shout for help. Help. Help. Help. Her mind shouted but her voice didn’t work. She looked around and the world was dark. The club was gone. The people were gone. It was dark and she felt a sensation of motion. The vibration of an engine. There was a radio playing music. JLS? Or was that in the club? She couldn’t remember. Dull yellow light illuminated her mind at regular intervals. Darkness, yellow light, darkness, yellow light, darkness, yellow light. It reminded her of something from her childhood, red lorry, yellow lorry, red lorry, yellow lorry. She could never get the tongue twister right. What was she thinking before that? Where was she? Yellow light, darkness, yellow light, darkness, yellow light, darkness. Open your eyes Jayne or bad things are going to happen. She begged and pleaded with her brain. Work you bastard. Please work. Fight the drug, please fight it.
Jayne felt her eyelids twitch and then they opened to nothing more than slits. Streetlights raced by. Trees, houses, taxis, a big green bus. Yellow light, darkness, yellow light, darkness, yellow light, darkness. Her neck wouldn’t bear the weight of her head. She tried to look around and her head lolled uselessly as if she was a scarecrow with no sticks attached or a marionette with the head string cut. Cut. Cut. She didn’t want to be cut. She pushed the word from her mind but it kept coming back. The Barton kid sneered at her through the glass, wide eyed, tongue lolling from his black lips. Go away! She screamed in her head. She slammed a door closed in her mind and he was gone but she knew he was waiting on the other side eager to come back. Her eyes focused again. The stereo was like the one in her car. It was the same brand but in the wrong position. The steering wheel had a BMW logo on it just like hers. So did the gear stick. The driver had sunglasses on the dashboard. They were just like hers. They were next to some loose change and a packet of Polo mints. Jayne did that with her change too. And she kept Polo mints there but on the other side. Her car was the same. Same radio, same logo, same sunglasses, same Polo mints. The car smelled familiar. Except something was different. She looked again. It was her car but the perspective was from the passenger seat. She was sitting in the passenger seat of her car. How had she got there? Who was driving? Her chin was resting on her chest. She strained to see the driver’s face and as she focused, she felt a sob trapped in her chest. She felt hot stinging tears run from her eyes, tickling her skin as they rolled down her cheeks.
His head was bald. Huge tufts of white hair stuck out from above his ears. Like a mad professor. The nose was hooked and the eyes were sunken but unnaturally so. The mouth was fixed into an evil grin. She recognised the face from somewhere. Somewhere from her childhood and it frightened her. It wasn’t real. It was a rubber mask. It had frightened her as a little girl and it still frightened her.
“You’re awake?” he rasped but the mouth didn’t move. It was rubber. Just like the mask he was wearing. Why would you wear a mask? “That’s good. We’re nearly at your place.” Jayne wanted to scream until her lungs burst but nothing happened. A tiny sob escaped her lips. “Have you got the back door keys?” the voice asked. He seemed to be looking in the rear view mirror. She hoped that he was worried about being followed. Worried about the police. She sensed someone moving behind her but she couldn’t be sure. My house keys are on the car keys, she thought. She was frightened and confused. Darkness clawed at her, threatening to drag her down into unconsciousness. There would be no escaping danger there, no rest, no peace. She could sense evil nearby. It was an inky black pit. She didn’t want to go down there. Please, God help me, she thought but he didn’t.
CHAPTER 2
Detective Annie Jones shivered as she climbed out of her Audi. The wind was blowing through the trees, which bordered the garden of a three bedroom detached house. Oak, ash and elm stood strong against the gusts although their golden leaves were starting to fall forming piles of rotting foliage against the kerb stones and the walls of the house. The well manicured lawn was dotted with shifting spots of gold. Each time the wind blew, the patterns changed shape. Each gust made her good eye water blurring her vision. Her eye patch had been causing a skin irritation lately and she had reluctantly started using a prosthetic, which she hated. It left her feeling vulnerable and naked. Her patch gave her comfort somehow. A physical covering up of the terrible injury she had sustained at the hands of a murder suspect four years prior. A lapse of concentration, and a biro in the hands of the wrong person became a weapon. Her eye was destroyed and her face was changed in a moment. The memory was as sharp as if it had happened yesterday. She still couldn’t leave a pen on a desk.
The wind whistled through the branches once more chilling her exposed skin. It hinted at the cold winter months ahead. She had tied her dark bob into a ponytail to combat the wind and her decision to opt for faded jeans and Ugg boots was the right one. She pulled her quilted jacket tightly to her neck and wiped a tear from her good eye as she looked towards the house.
Detective Sergeant Jim Stirling loomed in the doorway of the house, his huge frame almost filling the double glazed porch. Annie could tell fr
om the colour and condition of the white window frames and the sheen on the new roof tiles that the house had been built in the last few years. Uniformed officers were making a cordon with yellow crime scene tape and a small gathering of neighbouring residents were comforting an elderly woman. She was well dressed and visibly distraught. A female Family Liaison Officer was questioning her and making notes. It was a far too familiar scene.
“Here we go again,” Annie said to herself as she locked the car and walked towards the path. Jim Stirling waved and walked to meet her.
“Bad one, Guv,” he growled and shook his head. He sounded like he had gravel in his throat. Annie had seen career criminals turn white at the sound of the big sergeant’s voice.
“They’re all bad aren’t they?” she smiled thinly. Another gust of wind whistled through the branches, rustling the dying leaves and whispering secrets that only the trees knew. Stirling handed her a small jar of eucalyptus gel in answer to her question. Obviously, the victim was already ripe. “I see,” Annie said applying a smear of the gel beneath her nostrils. “Do we know who the victim is?”
Stirling nodded and pointed towards the grieving woman. “The victim’s cleaner found her and called her mother. Luckily we got here before her mother did and stopped her going in,” he grimaced. “There’s no way a mother should see her daughter like that.” He sighed. “She’s one of ours, Guv. She’s a Special Constable from the Halewood station. Somebody went to town on her.” He shrugged and stood aside as they reached the porch. A CSI handed them forensic suits and plastic overshoes. Annie removed her jacket and climbed into the suit. Jim Stirling struggled into his and turned towards Annie. “There’s no sign of forced entry,” he said looking at the mortice locks on the door. He pointed to the wall, “the alarm was reset by whoever left her here. All the doors and windows are secure. The cleaner had to use her set of keys to get in and she had to turn the alarm off. She thought her employer had gone away without telling her at first but then the smell hit her.”
Annie looked around the hallway. She was pleased to see wood laminate covered the floor along the hallway and that it continued up the stairs; it was always a decent medium for recovering shoe prints and hair samples. “Let’s have a look at her first,” Annie said peering into the living room. It looked like a set from Ikea, bright and airy but unlived in. She headed for the stairs and climbed them slowly. The stench of decomposition grew stronger with each step. That was normal but there was something else in the air. Something that didn’t belong there. It was subtle but it was there. She paused to speak to her sergeant. “Can you smell petrol?”
“All I can smell is the victim,” Sterling stopped and sniffed the air. “My sense of smell isn’t great.” His crooked nose looked like he had been smacked in the face with a spade. Annie had asked him a dozen times how he had broken his nose but he always shrugged it off saying, ‘You should see the other guy.’ The thought of what the other guy would look like made her shudder. “Now you mention it, I can smell something. It’s definitely fuel of some type.”
The smell of petrol made Annie think. “Whose is the car on the driveway?”
“Her mother’s.” Stirling answered. “We know the victim had a vehicle, a BMW 3-series. It’s missing. Traffic have been informed.”
“Good.” The landing was L-shaped with three bedrooms and a bathroom off it. Pine framed photographs hung on the magnolia walls. Annie had the feeling that the victim had left the builders’ neutral décor untouched, adding only pictures and photographs as her own stamp on her new home. “This is a nice house,” Annie commented, “expensive too.” They reached the main bedroom and Annie instinctively took a deep breath before stepping through the door. The scene which faced her was in stark contrast to the rest of the house. It went from organised to carnage in one step. Kathy Brooks was engrossed with directing her camera man but she noticed Annie and held up her hand in greeting.
“Meet our victim.” She gestured to the bloody form on the bed. “The house belongs to Jayne Windsor, I think this is her,” she nodded towards the body. “Or what is left of her.” She sighed. “I need five minutes to tie up the initial scene photos. As you can see, there is plenty to photograph.” She smiled thinly and began walking the cameraman through an array of angles which she needed to be recorded. “There’s a strong smell of petrol coming from somewhere and it’s bothering me that’s why I haven’t got the full team in here.”
“Have you called the fire brigade?”
“They’re on the way,” she smiled nervously. “I thought it was better to be safe than sorry.”
“It’s faint downstairs but it’s definitely stronger here,” Annie said. She remained near the doorway, Stirling towered behind her. Both remained silent while they analysed their own first impressions of what might have happened.
The victim was face up on the bed. Annie could only tell that by the position of the feet, which were pointing at the ceiling. The face was gone, replaced by a bloody maw surrounded by blond hair, which made the police hat on her head look ridiculous. Her arms were positioned straight out on each side in the shape of a crucifix. There were no fingers or thumbs attached to the hands. None that she could see anyway. The position of the body was staged, that much was obvious. Oddly the police uniform, which she wore, seemed undamaged and unstained. It didn’t belong in the scene. Blood splatter arced up both sides of the wall above the headboard, reaching the ceiling. Between the arcs of blood, a pentagram had been daubed. Mirrored wardrobes, the glass smeared with bloody handprints, covered one wall; the gory reflection added to the horror of the vista.
“First impressions?” Annie said.
“My first impressions were the same as yours,” Kathy said inspecting something on the bedside table. It looked like a glass of some kind. “But my impressions are not the same now and they’re changing by the minute. Give me a few more minutes and I’ll be with you.” Annie turned to Stirling and he shrugged. There was little to no point in arguing. Kathy Brooks was the best CSI around and if she was still digesting the evidence then there was nothing to gain by crowding her.
“We’ll take a look around the other bedrooms, okay?” Annie gestured to Stirling that they should move along the hall.
“We haven’t been in them yet. Don’t touch anything!” Kathy called after them. Annie looked at her, eyebrows raised, annoyed by the comment. “Sorry,” Kathy shrugged and blushed. “All is not what it seems here. Trust me.”
Annie nodded and accepted the half baked apology although she was intrigued by Kathy’s concern. “I’ll see if I can find where that smell is coming from. We don’t want the firemen slowing us up if it’s nothing to worry about.”
“Thanks.” Kathy nodded.
Annie grimaced and walked out of the room. “She seems a little spooked,” she said quietly.
“She’s a scientist,” Stirling grumbled. “They’re always spooked about something. It’s part of their icy charm.” His black leather jacket creaked as he moved. The smell of leather reminded Annie of her teenage years riding horses. She had loved the smell of the tack-room and it evoked happy memories of a time when death was something that happened on TV.
Annie smiled and walked into the second bedroom. The curtains were closed and the quilt was ruffled. Someone had slept in the room recently but there was nothing obviously untoward. The third bedroom was a box-room with a single bed in it and little space for anything else. The mattress was covered with a quilted protector but unmade.
“The curtains are closed in here too,” Stirling pointed out. “Bit odd. Closed by the killer do you think?”
“I’ll forgo having any opinion for now,” Annie said walking into the bathroom. She looked around and the practiced senses she possessed began to prickle. “Look here,” she said. Stirling stood in the doorway and watched. “No toilet roll, no towels. No woman worth her salt leaves an empty toilet roll on the holder.”
“That’s definitely a man thing,” Stirling agreed. “I had
a bad experience once; I had to use my socks, now I keep my spare rolls within arm’s reach of the toilet.”
“Too much information.”
“Sorry, Guv.”
“There are some images I don’t need to imagine, thanks.”
“Only saying,” he said sulkily. “It is a bloke thing.”
Annie grinned sarcastically. “Do we know if she had a boyfriend?”
“Single, Guv. One of the sergeants from Halewood implied that she might be on the other bus.”
“Of course she was,” Annie frowned. “Female constable who doesn’t shag everything at her station?” she shook her head and tutted. “She must be ‘on the other bus’.”
“His words not mine.”
“I know that.” Annie said.
“He also said that she wasn’t very popular.” Annie looked at him waiting for him to expand. “Something to do with the Barton case. Remember that?”
“Of course I do,” Annie frowned. “What did he say?”
“Nothing detailed. He couldn’t get off the phone quick enough to be honest,” he shrugged. “I’ll look into it later. It might be worth a trip to Halewood.”
“Okay,” Annie said thoughtfully. “Ask one of the CSI to start in here and tell them to look for the dirty laundry.” She noticed a circle on the tiles next to the toilet. Something had been removed from there. Annie guessed it was a pedal bin. Whoever had killed the victim had been very precise in cleaning up. That much was obvious. They were organised and had spent a long time in the house. That displayed a cool confidence which only an intelligent killer could possess. “Have uniform do a sweep of the tree line and all the bins in the street before it starts raining again.”