by Thomas Brown
David’s stomach lurched and he groaned. ‘Please, I beg you, leave her be. Use me, cut me instead. I’m the one you hate. She hasn’t done you any harm. Please leave her alone.’
‘Oh, yes, you are the one I hate and indeed I will come to you in due course, Inspector. But here’s the beauty of all this. In cutting up your wife, I manage to hurt you twice. As she suffers, so will you. As she screams, so will you. A wonderful chorus of pain and despair, And I haven’t even started on you yet. There’s a beautiful symmetry about it all.’
David’s head slumped down in abject despair.
‘Come, come, Inspector. You have a ringside seat. I expect you to watch. You see I will begin slowly by taking a pleasing slice of flesh from the upper arm – not too deep, not as deep as the bone, but deep enough to provide a tasty piece of meat about the size of a rump steak. A little appetiser before the main feast. Internal organs are the best for that particular course.’
David swore loudly and with all his might he tried to move, to break free of his bonds, but it was to no avail. The more he tugged and wriggled, the tighter his bonds appeared to grow.
‘Once I have secured our lovely slice of arm, so welcome in these days of meat rationing, I do not intend to be selfish. I will devour half and allow you to snack on the rest. Oh, do not look so revolted. I shall insist that you share the tasty morsel. Refusal to do so will mean more pain for your wife. So you see in a way by tasting her flesh you will be doing her a favour.’
‘You bastard!’ David bellowed at the top of his voice, the words echoing dully around the kitchen.
Northcote just beamed. ‘Indubitably, I am a bastard. Oh, yes. But a clever one. You’ve got to give me that. A clever bastard who has the upper hand. Now, I think it is time I begin.’
He leaned over Sheila Llewellyn and with a steady motion brought the scalpel down towards her bare arm.
THIRTY-SEVEN
By the time I reached Larch Close, my lungs were on the verge of bursting. I imagined them, barrage balloon-like inflating beyond their accepted capacity inside my aching chest surging up towards my mouth. Surely they would burst at any time? But until they did, I kept on running. Two people’s lives could depend on me. I just hoped that fate would be kind and allow me to arrive in time to prevent the terrible scenario my mind had conjured up.
At last I reached David’s house. I skidded as I turned down past the gateway and moderated my speed. I spied the car that Northcote had been driving parked by the side of the neat villa at the end of the tree-lined drive. There were lights on in the downstairs rooms and I discovered that the front door was unlocked.
It had been two or three years since I had been in the house so that my memory of its geography was a little hazy. I stood in the hallway and listened. I was still breathing heavily from my exertions and my own breath, for a time, masked any other noises in the house. Desperately, I tried to control my breathing and as I succeeded, I heard voices or to be precise one voice. It was muffled and indistinct. There was no way that I could identify it or tell what it was saying. However I could deduce that it was male.
I opened the door of the sitting room. It was empty, but I could now detect that the noise I could hear was coming from the kitchen beyond, the door of which was closed. I crossed the room at speed. I knew that this wasn’t the time to eavesdrop. Seconds were precious, especially when there was a madman involved. I also thought that a surreptitious opening of the door would be more dangerous than slamming it open. This way, whatever was going on in that room would for a few moments stop, freeze, as it were, and all attention would be on me.
Clasping my gun in one hand, I placed my other on the door handle. As I did so, a high pitched scream rent the air. I slammed the door open and rushed into the room. As quickly as I could in that moment of startled silence I tried to take in the scene before me. To my right, I saw David, pale and drawn, bound to a heavy dining chair, his eyes wide with panic. In the centre of the room, on a kitchen table lay the body of a barely clad woman whom I dimly recognised as Sheila Llewellyn. Standing over her with what looked like a small vicious knife was Dr Ralph Northcote. He had just made a cut in Sheila’s arm, a thin trickle of blood ran down onto the table top.
On seeing me, the madman glared at me with wild animal ferocity and with a roar of rage took a step in my direction. I fired my gun. I did not have time to aim accurately and the bullet whizzed past the devil. He lunged at me. I fired again. This time my aim was surer. It caught him in his right arm. He gave a cry of pain but this did not stop him. Before I knew it, he was on me.
We crashed to the floor, the gun slipped from my grasp. The power and weight of my assailant pinned me down to the ground. He growled and slobbered like a giant bear over me. I couldn’t reach my gun so I punched him as hard as I could in the face but that did not deter the devil either. He seemed to be functioning on some kind of obsessive energy that ignored pain. He raised the knife high above his head ready to plunge it in me. I struggled to break free but failed to extricate myself completely. As I slithered sideways, he stabbed me in the shoulder. In an instant, despite the excruciating pain my hands sought out his throat and squeezed hard against the thick flesh. Still the monster was not deterred. He raised the knife again.
Then there was a shot. It sounded like a thunderclap in my ear.
Northcote grimaced and his body froze. The blade only inches away from my face – from my good eye!
As he faltered, I pulled myself from under him and rolled aside on the floor out of his range. Then I saw blood suddenly fountain from his throat. It frothed and bubbled around his Adam’s apple. He had been shot in the back of the neck. With an obscene gurgle, he fell face downwards on the floor where seconds earlier I had been lying.
I gazed up and saw Sheila Llewellyn. Her face was ashen and haunted, her eyes wide and blank as though she were in some kind of hypnotic trance. She was standing by the kitchen table, one arm resting on it for support. In the other hand she held my gun. Fine tendrils of smoke were still emerging from its muzzle.
THIRTY-EIGHT
‘Well, boyo, this is a turn up for the book,’ observed my friend David Llewellyn without a trace of irony. ‘I never expected to wind up in a hospital bed next to you. And we’re both suffering from the same complaint: a wound to the shoulder.’
‘Life is funny that way,’ I mused.
It was the morning following the night before. The horrendous night before when I had tackled Ralph Northcote and Sheila Llewellyn had shot the demon in the back of the neck, killing him. In the end, apart from being terribly shaken and no doubt the inheritor of ghastly nightmares for some months to come, Sheila was the least physically damaged of the three of us. Luckily, Northcote had only just begun his butchering work and the scalpel had only broken the skin. She had just a nasty little cut on her upper arm. However, David and I had both been badly wounded in the shoulder by Northcote’s scalpel: almost an identical twin branding, as though we were initiates into a very brutal and bloody secret society.
After the police had arrived and taken Northcote’s corpse off to the morgue at Scotland Yard, we had been scooped up by ambulance and taken to Charing Cross Hospital for treatment and an overnight stay. The injuries were not life threatening, just painful and inconvenient. At least we were alive, as David had reminded me on more that one occasion. He had revived both in energy and outlook with remarkable resilience and as the morning light streamed through the windows of the small ward in which we were incarcerated, he seemed to have metamorphosed back into his old cheerful self. I suppose the fact that Sheila was alive and no longer in danger and that Northcote was on a slab in the police morgue had a lot to do with his revived demeanour. His nightmare had evaporated. I was delighted for him.
The door opened and a pretty nurse entered carrying a tray with two mugs of tea and two plates of biscuits.’
‘Our elevenses, eh, nurse? I could get used to this pampering,’ said David brightly.
The gir
l smiled. ‘I don’t think you’re going to get a chance. Once the doctor’s has a look at you, I reckon he’ll be sending you home. You’ll just need to take it easy for a few weeks and you’ll both be as right as ninepence.’’
‘That’s a shame. I was counting on a long stay in here,’ grinned David.
After the nurse departed, we drank our tea in silence. I could not get the images of the events of the previous night from my mind: my race along the darkening streets; my dramatic entrance into the kitchen and the dreadful sight that greeted me; my desperate tussle with Northcote; the shot and the terrible frothing wound at his throat. I shuddered as these dramatic pictures flickered before me as though they were projected on a screen. I looked across at David and could see from his furrowed brow and staring eyes that he too was experiencing his own private horror show. At least his loved-one was safe and sound. If only I could have done the same for my sweet Max. If only I could have saved her. With a determined effort I shut down that avenue of thought. That way madness lies.
The door opened again and three individuals bustled in. We had visitors: Sheila, Benny and Peter.
‘We’ve come to see the heroes,’ chimed Benny.
‘Survivors more like,’ grinned David as Sheila embraced him and then planted a large kiss on his cheek.
‘I’d hug you, my darling, but I’m afraid my arm isn’t up to it yet,’ she said.
‘I can wait,’ said David, returning the kiss.
She stroked her husband’s face affectionately. Although her face was pale and she looked tired, Sheila seemed remarkably robust for a lady who had undergone such a terrible ordeal less than twenty-four hours earlier.
‘In the wars again, eh, Johnny,’ said Benny, pulling up a chair by my bed.
‘I’ll do anything for a cup of tea in bed and being fussed over by a pretty nurse.’
‘You know, one of these days, I’ll be coming to the morgue to identify your body, Johnny Hawke.’
‘More than likely.’
‘You need more protection,’ piped up Peter. ‘An assistant to help you. To watch your back.’
‘An assistant like you, you mean.’
Peter’s eyes brightened. ‘Exactly. I could leave school this summer and come and work for you.’
‘I don’t make enough money to keep myself from teetering towards the breadline, let alone support an assistant.’
‘But with the two of us, we could double the business.’
‘You wouldn’t let him, would you Johnny? He’s too young to be involved in your nasty line of work.’
‘I’m already involved,’ asserted Peter. ‘I helped Johnny catch Bruce Horsefield. He couldn’t have done it without me.’
‘It’s madness,’ moaned Benny.
I agreed with him, but I also knew of Peter’s one-track determination. I wasn’t sure whether it would be wise to take him in under my umbrella rather than risk him doing something foolish and trying out on his own. He was headstrong enough to do that. Whatever, now was not the time or place to consider such possibilities.
Thankfully, Benny read my mind and changed the subject. ‘When will you be going home?’
‘Today, I hope.’
‘Today! But you are seriously injured.’
I grinned. ‘I’ve got a very nasty cut, that’s all. It’s deep and painful but no damage has been done, although I’ll never play the violin again.’
‘Really… I never knew… Ah, a joke.’ He smiled with that strange disapproving grin that was peculiar to him.
* * *
Some hours later, I was standing in the room alone. We, the fellow members of the damaged shoulder club had both been discharged with appointments in the outpatients in seven days’ time. David had been whisked off by Sheila, who had given me a gentle hug, while whispering the words, ‘Thank you,’ in my ear.
My arm was in a neat sling and the nurse had very kindly draped my jacket and overcoat over my shoulders like a cloak before hurrying off for more important duties. Well, there was a war on.
I needed a smoke. Some stimulation before I faced the outside world once more. A smoke was such a normal comforting thing. But now it wasn’t going to be easy to organise. I sat on the bed and with great difficulty extracted a cigarette from my jacket pocket and slipped it in my mouth. Now, I thought, how on earth am I going to light the beggar, when a match flared near me and was held close to the end of my cigarette.
I looked up at my helpmate and gazed into the face of Ivana. She smiled.
‘Light it quickly, or I’ll get my fingers burned.’
I obeyed, inhaling the smoke with gusto.
‘Benny told me you were here. You have a habit of ending up on hospital beds.’
‘It’s my only opportunity to meet pretty women.’
Her eyes twinkled with amusement and then darkened suddenly. ‘You don’t mind me coming here, do you?’ she said hesitantly.
‘Mind! Of course not. You are a gorgeous sight for this sore eye.’ I leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek.
‘In that case, Mr Hawke, I suggest that I take you home and cook you a very nice meal to help build up your strength. What do you say?’
Ellipsis
Nikki Dudley
Acclaim for Ellipsis
From the opening sentence, Ellipsis is strangely engaging: what is it about a red scarf that could make someone choose someone else? And what if that choice turns out to have been thrust on the other as some premeditated plan?
Lyrical prose intertwines with an elegiac and introspective narrative. Rather than being pretentious, there is an earthy, inviting undertone to Dudley’s text, despite the curious storyline that plays with initial impressions and twists them around and around again.
This is a work of literacy rather than prosaic shelf fodder. Think artsy, melancholic and slightly bewildering and you’ll be near enough to understanding Ellipsis.
Excerpt from review by The Truth About Books.
*
Well, how could I resist a novel that shares its name with the punctuation mark I overuse the most?
Ellipsis is an interesting debut from Nikki Dudley that (happily) never quite settles into the shape you might expect.
What’s particularly striking about the central mystery is less the actual events of the plot than the way Dudley plays with the reader’s perception; one is led to conceptualise the story in a particular way, then finds that it’s not the right way – but it’s hard to shake off the original interpretation, so strongly has it been established. And the ending produces a further twist that leaves us on shifting sands once again.
As its title suggests, Ellipsis revolves around gaps in knowledge – in the reader’s knowledge of what happens, and in the characters’ knowledge of events, people, and even of themselves. And those gaps add up to an intriguing, satisfying read.
Excerpt from review by David Hebblethwaite.
Nikki Dudley
Ellipsis is Nikki’s first novel. Nikki also writes poetry which has been published in several magazines including streetcake, the online magazine, of which she is joint editor. Her interests are reading and travelling around the world.
Dedications
For my Mum and Dad. Thanks for being my best PR and for the inspiration.
And to Joe, for helping me believe in myself and for thinking up the most exciting plots for everyday life.
Acknowledgements
A big thanks to the following: my whole family, who have made me stronger and helped me to achieve; Pip and Martin, for their backing and for some amazing adventures; Sam and Megan for their friendship and critiques; my good friends for keeping me smiling; Parliament Hill School, for providing me with a good grounding as a reader and a writer; all the students and lecturers on the Creative Writing BA and MA courses at Roehampton University, who helped me develop as a writer (in particular Louise Tondeur and Leone Ross for ‘growing’ my fiction); the members of authonomy.com, who provided valuable feedback; Andy Sweetman (D
NA Graphic Design) for helping me realise my front cover; and lastly the team at Sparkling Books for supporting me and my novel.
“The boy stood on the burning deck...”
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
ellipsis (Gk ‘leaving out’)
Cuddon J. A., (1999), Dictionary of Literary Terms & Literary Theory, Penguin Books, London
1 Red Snake
I chose him because of the red scarf.
My palms sweat. Dirt from the walls is smudged across them and slithers in the folds. There is a faint smell of kebab in the air and an excited murmur moving down the platform like Chinese whispers. I wonder how distorted the message will be by the time it reaches my end.
Can you hear it too, Mum? Do you think they’re whispering about me?
There are other scarves too, red and white combined and I guess that a football game must have taken place. Yet, his scarf is different. It is pure red, the red people affix to the badge of fiery passion, the badge of cold-blooded murder, without the interludes of white to dull its beauty.
He is unique. I’ve watched him for weeks now and the time has finally arrived. The clock says 15:32 as casually as ever but it secretly signals to me: this is the correct time. It is not destiny; it is careful planning and the instinctual knowledge inside.
Mum, this is the moment.
Now, my breath barely disturbs the stillness of the cavern the swarm of strangers are gathered in, all awaiting the rush of wind that will open up the arteries, revive us. Everybody appears lost, shuffling on their feet, staring at the same grotesquely large posters until they become less overpowering, fiddling with buttons, holding their phones and longing for reception. Anything to avoid eye contact.