Waiting, and growing impatient, Sylvia insisted, “What word? Do tell.”
“The word ‘How’,” said Morrison finally. “But there were other faeces in a lump beside the word’s ending – as though kicked out of sequence.”
“How makes sense, I suppose,’ said Harry. “But I promise, we never saw that at all.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Darcey sighed. “I say how all the damn time. But why would a prisoner write such a pointless word?”
They talked about Morrison’s eccentric family before he left, but there was one more thing Sylvia needed to know. “What was so unusual about the white rug? And have you traced it at all?”
He set down his empty glass, stood, and smiled. “Ah, now, Mrs Joyce. That would be telling, wouldn’t it.”
36
Master stuck out both bare feet. He was otherwise well covered since the weather was freezing and there was no heating in the room. He was muffled in grey wool and thick trousers in unwieldy duffle. Eve doubted if Master would be able to buy ready-made trousers from any shop since his legs were badly deformed, yet his feet were normal enough although the toes resembled a bear’s claws. His arms, upper body and neck were entirely normal and his face almost so, although squashed badly on one side. Clearly he could only see well from one eye and needed to peer closely in order to make out pictures. He kept pornographic magazines and enjoyed them, repeating the examination over and over. But it seemed he could not read. Several times he ordered Eve to read the stories to him, but since they were wilfully sadistic, she had enormous trouble reading them aloud.
Now Eve was cutting Master’s toenails, which had become thick and hooked. She was naked and shivering violently but she had wrapped two blankets around herself and could speak without her teeth chattering.
The nail scissors were sharp, tucked between her fingers. Not large enough to kill Master perhaps, but certainly the points could do great damage and inflict pain, should she be able to press hard enough.
Yet nothing short of killing would be adequate. If she hurt him, he would probably kill her. The beatings were fairly regular. Master lost his temper very quickly, abruptly, and sometimes without any notable cause. Eve had once, in an attempt to create a trustful friendship, greeted him with a polite ‘Good morning” and a question about the weather outside. Master had answered her with a violent lashing from an elasticated Bungie tie, with its black plastic hook on the end.
Eve, her belly, breasts and groin ripped and bleeding, had crawled beneath the bed and Master had left her there for two days without food.
Finally, on the third day, he had sobbed onto her shoulder, patted her scars and crimson welts, and explained his anger. “I can’t go out on me own. Months tis when I doesn’t know wot outside be like. Sometimes, mind you. I bin out when I’s let. I seen that big wide world. But not much, not since I turned big and growed up. I ain’t let out cos I ain’t proper. So wot you don’t like, I got the same. It ain’t no better.”
She felt suddenly sorry for him, wiping his tears from her own body. “But no one whips you, Master. No one hurts you. Not like you hurt me.”
“Cos I’s the master. I gotta have somint. I’s a freak. You ain’t. You’s pretty. So I gotta have extra. Being Master. That’s extra.”
“But does it help you, by hurting me?”
Master sniggered through the tears. “Course it do. Silly.”
“I’m sorry. But I don’t even know your name.”
“Number Two calls me Hobbit. But you calls me Master.”
The mesmerising cold continued. So did the rapes, the beatings, and the abuse. Master enjoyed abuse of a sadistic type on occasion, but was often tired and longed for caresses. He brought Eve bread crusts and stale beer, then suddenly arrived with roast lamb and potatoes, or steaming beetroot soup and fresh buttered rolls. Usually, he shared the same food with her. Only when he was angry did he eat everything himself, forcing her to sit and watch him, and then leave her hungry. Eve knew she was losing weight. She had once wanted to diet. This was a hideous lesson in the real meaning of food, and she ate even the crumbs from the floor when Master left her alone, locking the door behind him.
She wondered how he obtained the food and was sure he must somehow leave their prison, whether he denied it or not. She could not imagine him cooking such dishes, and even in such a situation, he would have to shop for the ingredients. Shops delivered, but would he have an endless supply of cash? Or was everything now possible online? Yet if he never went out, who stopped him? His own embarrassment, perhaps. Or did he have a mother who was ashamed of her deformed son, and forbade him to enter the outside world?
“Who calls you a Hobbit?”
“Piss off. Open yer legs, quick, afore I loses me temper.”
She asked him once, “Master, you have another room outside. When you open the door, I see it. It looks a bit cosy. But I get terribly cold. Do you have any spare blankets?”
He brought her one. It was suede dyed deep red on the back and soft white wool or fur on top. Eve wasn’t sure if the fur was fake, since it was thick and deliciously warm, with soft browns and creams merging in. Master said, “Tis a bear from them icy places.”
“A polar bear?”
“Yep.” Giggles and snorts. “Be proper careful or one night t’will eat you all up. Crunch, crunch, crunch!”
“Thank you. I’m so much warmer now.” Her own clothes had been taken from her. She saw them once, in a heap on Master’s floor beneath his bed, but the chain around her ankle stopped her reaching out for them.
After a month, being naked had become a habit. She did not stop hating the icy draughts and now suffered from a permanent cough, but the polar bear helped enormously Eve called him Gandalf, and having no idea that the name came from a book introducing Hobbits, Master accepted this name and found no sarcasm nor humour in it.
“Wrap Gandalf,” he said often. “Cosy. Nice from me, eh?”
“Yes. Good Master.” She kept the fur side next to her skin, for even when she was whipped, bleeding and in pain, the soft fleece soothed her body.
Grinding hours of boredom paled into dizzy dreaming. Master slept in his own bed for many hours and left Eve alone without anything to do. She asked for books and magazines. He gave her three pornographic brochures of pictures which made her sick. She asked for a broom or cloths and offered to clean up. Master refused. “You want bonk Master on the head with brooms?” The sparkle of anger lit his eyes.
Immediately she soothed him, denying everything except a need to fill her time, and attempt a cleaner space for living. Master threw her dirty dinner plate at her and being plastic, it did not break. But the smears of gravy splattered her face, and the edge of the plate cut against her nose. She cried. Master stalked off. The plate now chipped, was the base for all her meals, and it was never washed. Eve constantly expected dysentery or some greater poisoning from this encrusted filth, but her immunity grew to protect her. She usually licked her plate, not to clean it but because of her own hunger. But licking her plate was not the worst.
Later when he returned, pointed to the bucket in the corner of the room, and ordered, “Tinkle.”
“I don’t need to,” she whispered back.”
“Piss, bitch,” Master shouted. “Now you go empty bucket.” The double crack in the floorboards was the only place where the bucket could be emptied but it was neither an easy nor a pleasant job. He kicked her from behind. “Splashes. Look. Now lick clean.”
“Lick? Oh no, I beg you. If you could give me a cloth?”
He spat full in her eyes. “Lick it, bitch. On them knees. Bend over and lick. I’s gonna take you in yer lickle pink arse whiles you licking.”
Harry stepped out of his navy checked underpants and walked into the large shower cubicle. He stretched out one arm, and Sylvia squeaked, surprised. She had been standing beneath the hoop of steaming water, facing the tiled wall. The waterfall obliterated other sounds and she had not heard Harry pull open the
shower door. Now he hugged her tightly from behind, the palms of his hands pushing up beneath her breasts. So she wriggled around and embraced him in return.
“I wake up knowing I’ll see you every morning.” Harry’s mouth was a tickle against her cheek. At about the same height, their mouths then met, half kissing, half swallowing steam and the boiling water. “There was never anything to look forward to. The pub. The television. Then bedtime. That’s why I pushed the idea of the murder investigation. Well, it was different. Thrust on us, really. Anyway, now I look forward to you. It’s changed my life.”
“Of course it has, dopey. We live together. We’re married.”
“And we still investigate murders.”
“Not much investigation is going on,” Sylvia said, reaching for the shampoo bottle. “We don’t know where to start, do we!”
She used the same white creamy handful to wash her own silver hair, and Harry’s darker grey. “We’ve found that cellar. That helped Darcey. It was a huge step. Well, it was Stella’s grandson that found it, but we went there and told the police. And wasn’t Dopey a donkey?”
“No. That was Eeyore.” Sylvia massaged Harry’s head, then rinsed off the shampoo and applied the conditioner. She enjoyed the feel of his scalp beneath her fingertips. It felt almost as though she touched his brain, moving it, smelling it. Her conditioner was perfumed. “You’ll smell sweet.”
“I’m sweet enough.”
“You are. I agree.” Her fingers explored lower and she kissed him again. Then, rinsing off the hair cream, she pointed the shower head at his nipples and navel. “Shall I go lower?”
Afterwards, he dried her, rubbing vigorously with the huge bath sheet, rough turquoise and thick enough to absorb all liquids. Then he threw the towel in the washing bin. “Come on, angel. Nearly dinner time. Or don’t you have the energy?”
“It always leaves me dreamy. Not tired as much as just relaxed. The last thing I want to do now is rush downstairs and face Ruby, Lavender, and food.”
He grinned. “I’m starving. It always leaves me hungry. But I can ask Lavender to send something up, and we can talk in private.” He phoned down, as Sylvia cuddled into bed. “So what’s the next move?” He grinned again. “No, I don’t mean that. I mean with the murders. Are we great investigators or not?”
“Not,” said Sylvia, muffled beneath the blankets. “But I do have a few ideas. Morrison has identified at least two of the girls. So when did they disappear, and where last seen? Were these street girls, or runaways, or respectable lost kids? And how old were they? Most importantly, can they tell how long apart were they murdered and then buried?”
“We’ll ask Morrison,” Harry nodded. “And if he won’t tell us, we’ll need to do our own undercover searches.”
There were, as usual, pieces of information Morrison was glad to pass on, and others he was not. “Marley Weaver was only sixteen when she disappeared from home in 2009. Her mother had gone on the streets, and she had no known father. She’d been looked after by her aunt. The aunt and mother have both been informed and have co-operated with the police, although have shown little interest.”
“So can we go and visit one or the other?”
“Certainly not. And if I discover that you have, then our friendship ends.” But Morrison was smiling. “However, if you just happen to bump into one of them outside their home in Clariton Street Cheltenham, an address I cannot possibly give you, then please feel free to offer a chat over a cup of coffee. They might, should you bump into them which of course you won’t, be more co-operative with an elderly couple doing their own investigation than they were with the police. Then you might consider coming to visit me with a fairly detailed description of what you spoke about.”
“I know you can’t tell us the address,” said Harry, “but what number Clariton Street?”
“There’s no conceivable way I can tell you it’s number 56,” Morrison sighed, shaking his head. “The aunt is the more coherent. Doris Weaver, married to the mother’s brother Hank Weaver. But don’t go there.”
“As if we would,” said Sylvia. “Your friendship’s far more important to us.” She put her notebook and pencil back in her handbag. “Besides, we’re far too busy looking at other things. The shops in Clariton Street, for instance.”
“There aren’t any.”
“Oh well, the paving stones,” decided Sylvia. “Unusually attractive paving stones, I understand.”
37
Having gladly accepted the offer of a safe house and police protection, Joyce Sullivan arranged the transport of some of her furniture but put a good deal of it on eBay. She thought she’d get a better price if she admitted that the Shed in the Forest Torturer had sat on that chair, slept in that bed, used those plates. But it was more important to remain silently hidden and sink into sluggish anonymity. Now having no rent to pay, and only one person to feed, Joyce settled back to enjoy utter peace, live on Social Security, and forget she had ever been married.
The two front rooms were permanently occupied by police, who kept working on their computers and said nothing to her except polite good mornings and information about locking up. They lived on takeaways and frequently asked her if she would like a soggy pizza or a plastic curry. She always said no. Men, especially men too close, bothered her. She did her duty, however, and in return made them tea or instant coffee.
At first she didn’t go out unless it was urgent. Groceries were delivered. Then, since nothing unpleasant happened, she started going out shopping. Billy Dempster accompanied her but was frequently distracted. She thought of telling him she was going to buy a new bra, and would he like her to ask his advice once she tried it on, but she decided that instead of laughing, he might run a mile. She bought milk and potatoes instead.
Now in a fully furnished SafeHouse, most of her furniture, which reminded her of her married life, had brought her a little money on eBay. But never having discovered the need for a computer or the meaning of the strange phrases such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest or even emails, Joyce owned no computer, but she liked television, and it was a programme on the Horrors of Lionel Sullivan and the shed in the forest, that woke her to certain possibilities. Someone called Paul Stoker was interviewed on this and began to talk about her husband as if he knew the man, which she knew to be untrue. Joyce phoned the BBC. Then she phoned Rochester Manor. Finally she spoke to Constable Dempster.
“What?” Horrified.
“I’ve been leading a miserable and closeted life, constable. It would be both interesting and helpful for me to tell people what I know.”
“Mrs Sullivan,” said the constable, standing and brushing off the crumbs of chocolate McVities which he had been eating, “this is a Safe-House. We are stuck here too, safeguarding your anonymity. We believe you could be in danger if discovered.”
“I didn’t try to poison him, you know.” She blushed very pink.
“You’re not on trial, Mrs Sullivan,” sighed the police constable. “But your husband threatened revenge, and now he’s escaped. If he finds you, anything could happen. Surely you don’t want to risk that?”
“But if I go on television and get famous,” Joyce decided, sitting down, hands clasped in her lap, “he wouldn’t dare touch me. I mean, he’d be under suspicion from the start.”
“Yes, most certainly. But you, Mrs Sullivan, might be dead. He’s got nothing to lose since we’re after him anyway.”
“Well, catch him quick,” Joyce smiled. “I‘m forty nine. I want to live a little before I drop dead.”
When Sylvia and Harry turned up on the doorstep, Billy Dempster made a considerable effort to send them away. “But she phoned us,” complained Sylvia. “She gave us this address. It’s not a prison, is it? And she’s officially free, isn’t she?”
Harry shook Joyce’s hand with emphasis. “Joyce,” he said, “if you don’t mind me using your first name. You see, I’m Joyce too. You could even call me that, though I’d sooner you didn’t. I’m Harry
Joyce. Sometimes people used to expect a woman when I had an appointment – often got quite complicated.”
“We’re just Harry and Sylvia,” said Sylvia sternly. “Don’t let’s confuse the situation. And I’m very pleased to meet you, Mrs Sullivan. I have huge sympathy for what you must have been living through.”
It was a characterless little terrace house with few furnishings, squatting on the edge of Oxford. It looked a little like a staged film set for the most boring house in Britain.
“You found the bastard,” Joyce said, putting on the kettle. “You were awfully clever doing that. I wondered if you had any ideas about where he is now?”
They both shook their heads, feeling slightly guilty. “I’m afraid we haven’t tried,’ Harry said. “We only found him the first time by luck, you know. And now we are getting interested in the more recent case. The chimney business.”
“People wanting to kill people,” Joyce screwed up her nose, “is a very odd affair. I mean, I wanted to kill bloody Lionel, but I didn’t want to chop him up. And killing him was a very good idea. Don’t tell those coppers out there.” She made the tea, “Only Tea bags, I’m afraid. I sold my teapot and all the good china,” and handed around steaming cups. Everyone trooped back into the minute living-room and sat, sipping tea.
“I’d like to help,” Sylvia said. “Finding Lionel, that is. Perhaps we might have some ideas but we have no investigative training, of course. We just think it’s interesting, and I’d sooner do something to catch a killer than just sit around and knit woolly hats.”
“Do you knit well?” asked Joyce, a little puzzled.
“No, I can’t knit a stitch,” Sylvia smiled. “I just mean, I find retirement somewhat dreary. I think you’re admitting to the same thing, though you’re a great deal younger.”
“He might go abroad. He liked driving his coach to France and those foreign places.”
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