If When

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  Since he had absolutely no idea where he was, it was now doubly annoying when he discovered no signal, sent a somewhat vague text, shoved his phone back into his pocket, and drove on. He drove on more slowly, looking for a patch of wider road where he could do a U-turn.

  Addressing the driving wheel and the satnav together, he informed them that since he was driving a Range Rover, he might just head straight through the forest, and follow the crows. Yet since it was now midday, he didn’t want to delay seeing Sylvia. The road became a lane and the lane became a path. He carried on slowly, looking for a place to turn again. Never having driven a four-wheel-drive before, he didn’t want to risk any blatant stupidity. “I have a vague suspicion,” he told the satnav., “that I’ve already accomplished the usual package of blatant stupidity. But no more, please.” He thought a moment, then continued. “Fred. That name suits you. So, dear Fred, bloody well take me home. I don’t want rivers, dead tree branches, ditches or the road to Brighton. Just Rochester Manor, and get a move on.”

  Then he saw the shed. It stood in heavy shade within a clump of thick evergreens, their greenery shrouding the old roof and the shuttered windows. He couldn’t see whether any light was on inside, but he could hear the steady noise of an engine where a rusty little generator stood by the door. At the side and deeper beneath the trees, an old black car was parked on dead grass. Harry stared. Nothing happened. He knew it was unlikely to be the hideaway he and Sylvia had been searching for, but it was certainly a possibility. Hidden. Dark. Secret.

  He stuck his head out of the car window and recoiled.

  Now he knew. The place stank like a blocked sewer, with something rotten that soured the air so that even the shadows stank. Suddenly in all its silence, it shouted. This was a place of utter evil and insane cruelty.

  For an absurd moment, Harry sat and watched, feeling his heart beat quicken and thump so loudly he could hear it. At first he had no idea what to do next. Then it became obvious and the two possible decisions rang in his head like church bells. He hadn’t meant to find it and if he drove off now, he might never find it again. Staring at both phone and GPS, he tried to fix a definite position, but both screens flickered and faded.

  He sent one more text but doubted if it would ever arrive. There was nothing on the hire-car to tell where he’d been, only to count the miles. But those miles could have taken him anywhere. This was the most important decision he would ever make since he could be about to lose his own life or catch the most vile killer he could ever imagine. He stayed in the car, waiting for inspiration. Then he abruptly opened the door and got out, hoping with all his pounding heart that the maniac was not present.

  The tops of the fir trees bent and furled their needles in the wind and a slight whine made Harry feel sick. There were no crows here, no birds he could see or hear, and no sound from the shed except for the rusty squeak and drone from the generator. The noises of the wind in the trees made the other sound seem deeper and more eerie, and the unpleasantness echoed. Keeping to the darkest tree shade, Harry moved towards the building. He could still hear nothing whatsoever so walked three steps closer. Three more. Then the last two.

  He stood in front of the old door. Two padlocks swung from the handle, but they hung open. The door, planked wood, rattled in the wind but it was closed. Harry reached one careful finger and pushed. It stayed shut.

  Fear was making him a fool, curiosity was turning him into an idiot, and as a foolish idiot does, he knew he was acting on instinct and not with any sense. But he had spent long week after week searching for this place. Now he was alone and would bring no danger to Sylvia, and with a shake of both head and shoulders, decided this was meant. The place would be empty and he could know, within seconds, whether it was the illusive and loathsome shed, or not. Then he could drive back and inform Morrison. Afterwards, not to Morrison, but later to Sylvia, he could confess his own ingenuity, pride, and luck. Everything solved in one quick glance.

  Very, very slowly he turned the handle. The door opened with a creak of the hinges.

  Having no desire to enter, he kept his feet on the worn and discoloured grass, but Harry poked his nose inside. It was hard to see, for the darkness was blacker inside than out, but gradually his eyes adjusted for a small gas heater blew out a flicker of low flame. The warmth was barely discernible, but the light outlined every object.

  One heartbeat. Two heartbeats.

  The stench was dramatic. It was impossible not to heave. Harry held his nose cupped within one hand, and moved one step back yet remained, looking. Inside the shed was more like a barn, with many implements, too dark to recognise, hanging from the walls. There was an old armchair, and a narrow bed, dishevelled blankets covering the mattress. There was a table and a cooking ring over an oven. On the table were three bowls and two chipped cups. The floor was wooden but a filthy rug lay before the fire. On the far side of the rug was a shape that Harry could not decipher but he was terrified by its similarity to a woman’s naked groin and legs. He instinctively moved further backwards then turned to run.

  Something hit him extremely hard over his head and with his knees turning to water beneath him, Harry was conscious for one second of cracking agony and then tumbled. Immediately two hefty arms lifted him, hands beneath his armpits, dragged him inside, and slammed the door behind him.

  Sylvia woke with a jolt. She sat up, her palm to her forehead. She felt suddenly as though she had been whacked over the head, and the bone felt splintered. But no one was there, and she knew she must have been dreaming. Looking around for Harry, she saw no one, and lay back again. Yet something troubled her, even though she could put no name to it, and finally she rolled from beneath the quilt, stamped the circulation back into her feet, and pulling on her dressing gown, went to look for him.

  Ruby was beside the fire, a cake on a small plate in her lap. “Harry? No. He went out ages ago in that posh hired car of his. Said he’d be back by midday.”

  “It’s two o’clock.”

  “Moan at him, not me,” and Ruby returned to her cake and fork.

  Sylvia marched back to her bedroom and tipped her handbag upside down on the quilt. Her telephone slipped out and she grabbed it. There were no missed calls, but a half readable message had been texted through more than two hours previously.

  ‘Road to Wilt. Uphill. Down valley. Lost. OMG, back soon or never.’

  Then another text sent a little later. ‘This is it. Has to be. Stinks. Fir trees. Horrible. Shed. Empty. Trying 999 but no signal. Urgent. Get M.’

  Without breathing, Sylvia telephoned Morrison. She read out both messages. “He would never do this unless he was sure. He’s never frightened me this way at all. There must be clear signs. Does the text give you enough to guess the road?”

  “Perhaps,” Morrison said quickly, tone urgent. “We’ll find him.” And hung up.

  Sylvia ran from the telephone in the hall and bumped into both Arthur and Lavender who were coming from Lavender’s office. Both apologised, and Sylvia almost burst into tears.

  She gasped, “I need a car.”

  Lavender stared at her in puzzled consternation, but Arthur said, “Emergency, right? Me car’s outside. Come on, lass. Lavender look after young David, will you. Come on Mrs. Joyce. Where’s we going?”

  “I’m still in my pyjamas.” She was half sobbing.

  “No matter.” Arthur shook his head. His son had taught him over the years exactly what emergency could mean. “Reckon theys smart enough fer p.js and you got a right nice snuggly dressing gown and slippers. If tis urgent, then we go’s as we is.”

  Lavender stood staring and Sylvia rushed after Arthur. She clambered into the old car, shouting, “The old road to Wiltshire, I think, which goes up a hill first and then down into a valley.” She thanked him over and over again as they drove. A terrible sense of guilt engulfed her. Harry wouldn’t have been driving out alone had she not insisted on sleeping. And here was Arthur, helping save a hundred lives, when she ha
d always mistrusted him in the past, and put him on her list of suspects. She thanked him again.

  “No matter none o’ that,” Arthur interrupted her thank yous. “’Tis urgent. Urgent means we gotta go. You tells me if we’s going the right way.”

  She thought so, though could not be sure.. “I’ve never been on this road. It’s winding and narrow and people say it takes three times longer to get anywhere. But I’m sure it’s right.” Having tried to phone Morrison again, Sylvia accepted that no satellite signal was able to reach here, and she bit her lip. Without thinking, she also scratched her earlobe.

  No police sirens followed. Arthur said, “Don’t worry lass, they knows all the roads around here, and they drives fast. Maybe they don’t want to warn the bugger, so’s no sirens.”

  Sylvia hoped, and was desperate with hoping. It was a long drive and didn’t pass quickly, but she recognised the turn off to the different road where the tree had fallen, and grimaced. She was sure they were now on the correct path. Yet time passed slowly and each minute seemed interminable, stretched out like over-used elastic.

  Neither she nor Arthur talked. He didn’t ask the details of what they were doing, but Sylvia supposed he had overheard enough and had guessed the rest. She could have answered with endless nonsense, telling the man he was wonderful, a hero, then speaking of her fears and her love for Harry. Instead, she dismissed all meandering thoughts and tried to concentrate on what she could do on arrival. Being clear headed was far more important.

  There was no weapon. That had been a mistake. She wore multi-striped pyjamas, fluffy slippers and her new thick dressing gown. And absurd way to chase down a murderer and save your husband’s life. Her thoughts, however, were firmly on Harry. She didn’t even care about the Ripper. Morrison could worry about that.

  Finally she said, “We must be in Wiltshire. This road has dragged on for miles.”

  “Not quite,” said Arthur. “Reckon I knows where we is. And there’s a turn-off around the corner. That’s what we wants.”

  The turn off was where Arthur had predicted, and they slowed again, driving into the forest. The trees thickened, the roadway narrowed, and the shadows crowded in upon them. The hush of the thickening trees swallowed other sounds. Only the wind whined high up amongst the branches. Then, pointing ahead, she saw the copse of firs, and held her breath.. “Slow down even more,” whispered Sylvia. “And be very, very quie.t It must be here.”

  The sharp outlines of the building seemed to slip out from between the trees, as though it had been waiting, and was now ready to pounce. Its walls were moss stained planks, shoddy and poorly made. Large, silent, ugly. Even with the car windows closed, they could smell it. It stank of a hundred deaths and a hundred suffocated screams. The wind shuffled in the grass, murmuring of horror, terror, and evil.

  “The door’s shut,” Sylvia said, pointing.

  “But it ain’t locked. Those padlocks is hanging open.”

  Behind the half-hidden building. there were two cars. One was the Range Rover Harry had hired. Arthur’s car now screeched to a halt as Sylvia got out and forgetting her need for silence, unaware of arthritis in both hips and knees and the pulsing weak ankles, so ignoring the raging pain down her back and legs, she ran faster than she had ever thought possible.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Opening his eyes to the sense of black dread, Harry instantly remembered everything. He knew his own danger at once. Before anything else, he was drenched in the filthiest stench he had ever known. It rushed into his nose and mouth and down his throat into his stomach and made him dizzy, sick and faint. He couldn’t move. Only his shoes had been removed, but his ankles were tied with thick rope, and his arms were wrenched behind him and roped together at both the elbows and the wrists.

  Sitting opposite him in a threadbare and filthy armchair was a large man, watching him with pale vacant eyes. Wearing only baggy old jeans and nothing else, the man was relaxed, legs stretched towards a small oil fire flickering with low flame. His head was bald except for wisps, knotted tufts over his ears, and a short greasy cascade down the back of his neck. His brow was low and hairless, creasing into deep-set eyes with a blank and empty glaze, crowned with neither eyebrows nor eyelashes. His nose was strong and bony, his neck short and heavily veined, and his chin was a jutting wedge of bone and calluses.

  Although he was thick and wide shouldered, he was not muscled. The belly fat and flabby chest sank pink into the loose waistband of his jeans. But what was more noticeable than anything else was the size of his hands and feet.

  Saying nothing, Harry waited. He couldn’t breathe, both from fear and from the stultifying smell. The man did not speak either. Harry, on the floor, stared up. The other man, on the chair, stared down.

  The walls were splattered with large black stains and Harry guessed blood. On the rug before the fire lay parts of a woman, sliced and broken, the head sat on a shelf over the empty hearth, and the hands and feet sat neatly, in a row, on the hearth itself amongst the cold ashes. Blood had wept in every corner, but was cold, dark and sticky now. Various tools hung on the walls, and each was coated in old blood. A saw, several knives, chisels, pliers, pincers, screw-drivers, hammers, gardening forks and scoops, spades, brushes, great loops of rope electrical tape and wire, rubbish bags folded, cork screws and many more. Other pieces of the body were piled between the legs of the woman, her groin still intact, but her body severed at the waist.

  The woman’s head, still wearing its long bright yellow curls, sat on its neck on the shelf, eyes open, mouth open but rigid, on a cushion of dried blood. The flesh had drooped, the forehead crease into shadowy folds. Harry did not look around and refused to see the reminders of torture and madness.

  Finally he looked at the man. “I think I know you,” he said softly.

  “I know you too,” said the man, his voice low and gruff. “But I don’t know your name. Nor don’t want to.”

  “I don’t know your name either,” Harry said. “And I should like to.”

  He was surprised when the man smiled, one front tooth missing, and answered, “Lionel. Lionel Sullivan. My friends call me the lion.”

  “You have friends?”

  Lionel Sullivan sneered. “You won’t live to find out, mate, no way. You won’t live to tell my name to anyone. There’s nobody can find you here. I reckon you‘ve twenty minutes before I piss in your face and then cram you down the sewer.”

  “As it happens,” said Harry, although unsure whether the statement was wise, “a number of people know where I am. They’re following me and should be here soon.”

  The man didn’t believe him. “I’d best do you quick then.” He pointed at Harry with one huge finger, the nail short and dirty, the knuckle as wide as a light bulb. “But you, you creeping fucking fool, poking your nose in where it doesn’t belong. I’ve never done a bloke before. Not sure I fancy it. I might make it short. I’ll cut off your prick and your balls, and that might be fun. Your nipples too. I have a bowl full of nipples and bits of tit. Teeth too maybe. Dunno. Maybe I’ll just cut your stupid head off your stupid neck after I poke your stupid eyes out.”

  Harry kept his face utterly expressionless, although it was one of the hardest things he’d ever done, and the effort of paralysing his facial muscles made him feel even sicker. “You enjoy some very unpleasant diversions. What makes a man happy doing exactly what seems disgusting to everyone else?”

  “They call me the Welsh Ripper, stupid sods. I ain’t Welsh, I come from Coventry. Moved into Leicester when I was little. But there’s been plenty of other rippers. It ain’t just me, you know. In America. In London. All over. But I suppose it’s a pleasure only a few understand. Or the rest of you are too scared to have a go.”

  “And how many times,” asked Harry now desperate to elongate the time, “have you known such a pleasure? How many – girls? Any not yet discovered? Any younger ones?”

  “Nah.” Lionel seemed content to talk, almost glad. “I don’t wan
t little girls. Ain’t never tried. It doesn’t appeal. I like lumps of fanny hair. I pick them around twenty when I can but it ain’t easy you know. And they’ve all been found cos I leave them out ready for finding.”

  “And your first?”

  Time was moving too slowly. Harry was unsure of everything. But strangely, the man looked familiar. Some shop keeper, perhaps. Seen in the pub, or a regular on the buses. And then suddenly he remembered.

  “My first was Jemima. Lovely lass, and pretty as a fairy, but she had a bad streak. I was lustful as a young lad. I wanted her. I would have married her. But she turned me down. Rude, she were, right rude to me face. So I had her. Enjoyed every bit of her.” He cackled, pinching at the end of his nose. “Well, reckon you can see how handsome I am?” Another cackle. “But she called me handsome when I held a fork to her cheek, and thrust it in. I said, “Call me Brad Pitt,” and she did, silly bitch. But I stuck the fork in anyway, then threaded the wire through the holes in the bitch’s face. Then she was ugly too.”

  “Revenge? I can understand that.” Harry was heaving, although kept a quiet voice. “But what about the others? They were strangers?”

  Lionel cackled again. “I like it. Like it a lot. Makes me feel alive.” He mentioned neither the impotence nor the sense of failure leading to possible suicide, but smiled instead. “Grows on me. I light up inside.”

  “I know that feeling,” said Harry, which was true, and he tried to smile as well. “But I light up inside when I see my wife. When I see beauty in the scenery. When I hear good news.”

  “My wife couldn’t light anything,” Lionel grinned. His strong jaw bone shifted, reaching further out as though disconnected from his upper lip. “Dull old cow. Looks like a suet pudding and can’t ever think of a thing to say.”