by M B Vincent
Sif. That’s who she reminded Jess of. Thor’s mythical wife. Goddess of the harvest.
‘The Ringroad is our northern compass point.’ Eden stuck a third red pin in the map. ‘The entrails will be found nearby. If we play our cards right, we can lock Norris up before he completes his fourth and last murder, the southern one, at the Molton Abbott Jolly Cook.’ Briefly he caught Jess’s eye.
That fourth and last murder could well be her father.
Without being told, everybody dispersed. Keen to get on. Keen to nail Norris. Somebody put a hand on Jess’s shoulder as they passed. Another said, ‘Don’t worry, we’ve got him this time’.
‘Jess,’ said Eden. ‘My office. Now.’
***
While she waited for him, putting paid to the Jammie Dodgers by his blotter that were practically begging to be had, Jess remembered the roll of paper in her bag and fished it out.
Like most men, Eden would be hard to buy for at Christmas. She imagined the orderly toiletries lined up in his bathroom. The Marks and Sparks dressing gown and slippers methodically replaced. He’ll love this, though.
Jess unrolled the map and flattened it with the palm of her hand. It was brittle, covered in fault lines. It had already been out of date back when she’d found it as a teenager.
‘This is for you,’ she said as Eden came in and shut the door firmly enough to almost qualify as slamming it. ‘It’s a hand-drawn map of all the prehistoric spots in the area. Circles, tombs, tors . . . they’re all here.’
Eden spoke as if she hadn’t said anything. ‘What did I tell you about visiting Abonda?’
‘Well, not to,’ said Jess, uncomfortable. Shouldn’t we be celebrating? ‘But I only—’
‘You only pop round there whenever you feel like it, according to the surveillance teams. What have you told her?’
‘Nothing!’ Jess’s nostrils flared. ‘I wouldn’t.’
They both knew she would.
‘If you want to continue to help out—’
‘Consult.’
‘Help out, then I have to trust you not to go off piste.’ Eden exhaled. Sat. ‘But, as it happens, I’m now reversing that order. I want you to befriend Abonda. See what you can get out of her while we hold her son. She won’t talk to us, but she might open up to you.’
‘Isn’t that a bit . . .’ It was two faced. Marime. ‘Abonda will guess.’ I’ve worked so hard to gain her trust.
The phone on the desk made a noise. Eden pressed a lit button. ‘Karen?’
Knott’s voice floated out of the speaker. ‘Is that you, sir?’
‘It’s always me, Karen.’
‘A member of the public found the entrails. He thought they were animal remains, so he—’
‘Where?’
‘So he didn’t bother ringing in, until, funnily enough, his daughter’s in the Richleigh force and he—’
‘Knott! Where?’
‘Richleigh Ice Arena, sir. Bang in the middle of the rink. Doesn’t fit the method, sir.’
‘No.’ Eden slumped in the chair. ‘It doesn’t.’
A rush of certainty coursed through Jess like a drug. She turned the map to face Eden, knocking over his pen holder. ‘Look.’ Jess trailed her finger along the parchment, along the old road that led to the hamlet of Richleigh, pre-expansion, pre-ring road. ‘See here, this is the old, old burial ground known as Rundle Vale.’ She pointed to the wobbling outline. ‘That’s where Barreau’s intestines were burned.’
‘No, Jess. They were burned in the middle of a bloody ice rink.’
‘The land surrounding Richleigh, including Rundle Vale, was acquired by the local authority in the 1960s to—’
‘Build the ring road,’ interrupted Eden. He sat forward.
‘Development continued right up until the late eighties, when they built—’
‘—the ice rink!’
If they’d been in a film, he would have kissed the top of her head and danced around the office. But they were not in a film, and all Eden said was, ‘Good job.’
Jess went a deep, happy red.
The phone lit up again. ‘Hello!’ sang Eden, pressing the button.
The voice wasn’t Knott’s. It was Phillips.
‘So you’ve let your prime suspect slip through your fingers, Eden.’
‘I don’t, um, what do you mean, sir?’
‘A little birdie tells me that Norris happened to be out when your lads got there.’
‘But . . .’ Eden seemed at a loss. ‘I don’t think so, sir. I haven’t heard that.’
‘I bloody well have!’ Phillips’ sneer ripened into scorn. ‘With Castle Kidbury officers sitting outside, Norris scarpered out the back way, through an empty house that backs onto his mother’s garden. He even had time to pack a few clothes. Possibly he packed sunscreen and his bloody snorkel!’
The first thing Eden did was call the Judge. Jess listened to her father being told that the man who had the blood of three others on his hands was on the loose and might well be heading for Harebell House.
‘Jess,’ said Eden, after resting his head in his hands for a second or two. ‘I promise you, I’ll protect your father.’
He meant it, she knew. She also knew that Norris had just effortlessly outwitted him.
A babel of shouts and a smattering of swear words alerted them to the return of Moretti and his empty-handed companions. Striding out to meet them, Eden said, ‘So, the little birdie’s come back!’
‘Eh?’ Moretti seemed baffled.
‘Enjoy your chat with your uncle the DI, did you?’ Eden whisked past, not waiting for an answer.
Moretti looked to Jess for enlightenment, but she was gone.
She was in hot pursuit of an individual that nobody else in the station seemed to notice. A small figure, gliding by on soft shoes, who pushed a mop around a corner and went through a door which banged heavily shut behind her.
Jess retreated to her car in a car park which now seemed full of shadows deep enough for a burly Thor to camouflage himself. Eyes darting, pulse never settling, she waited for the cop shop cleaner to emerge.
The collar of her puffa jacket up against the spitting rain, a woman raced to the bus stop.
When Jess pulled up to offer a lift, the woman was sceptical. She remained sceptical when Jess said, ‘It’s okay, I’m a friend of Abonda’s.’ They both knew Abonda didn’t cultivate friends.
Mother Nature was rooting for Jess. Hailstones battered the bus shelter. The rain redoubled.
The woman climbed into the Morris Minor.
‘Bamview Estate,’ she said.
From the Kidbury Echo, page 1:
SPECIAL EDITION
KIDBURY KANNIBAL
THE BLOODLUST CONTINUES!
French tourist is third victim Turn to page 3 for reconstruction of his last meal at the Spinning Jenny ‘He seemed to enjoy his pie,’ say owners
Turn to page 11 for Special Advertisement Feature ‘Fifty Years of Denture Frustration – Gone!’
CHAPTER 11
COPS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE GARDEN
Saturday 7 November
The hailstones didn’t last long.
By the time Jess left the estate an hour later and pulled out onto Kidbury Road, the rain had also thought better of it. The darkness held a dagger, however. It was freezing out there.
Which is why Jess pulled up for the lone pedestrian, thumb trustingly out.
‘Fancy meeting you here.’ Mary jumped in and whacked up the heating. ‘Home, James, and don’t spare the horses.’
‘You can’t bloody hitchhike with Norris on the loose.’
‘I’d love the chance to use me taekwondo on him.’ Mary fiddled with the radio. Found some hip-hop. Turned it up.
‘He has a gun. He has nothing to lose.’ When Jess thought of home now, it was the bullseye at the centre of a target.
‘I’m starving. Let’s see what Bogna’s got in the fridge, yeah? No work tonight, so we can have a telly’n’stuffing
-our-faces evening.’
‘Where have you just come from?’ The only speck of civilisation on Kidbury Road between Harebell House and the fleshpots of Richleigh was the Bamview Estate. Mary’s evasiveness was telling; she was generally happy to provide any and all information, including intimate details that Jess would quite like to un-hear. ‘You’ve been to see Abonda!’
‘I’m not a suspect,’ laughed Mary. ‘Or am I?’ The idea seemed to appeal. ‘Make sure Zoe Kravitz plays me in the movie.’
Handbrake on. Seatbelt off. Jess turned to face her friend. ‘You bought a spell from her. Don’t tell me you believe in her so-called powers?’
‘You said yourself she’s a canny woman.’
‘Abonda’s astute. Determined. What she’s not is a witch.’
‘She might be.’
‘Nobody’s a witch. There’s no such thing.’
‘Explain that curse, then. The woman who went blind.’
‘Barbara Singleton? Isn’t it obvious she was going blind anyway, and all Abonda did was say it out loud?’
‘Got ya!’ Mary loved to best her bestie. ‘Iris told me that this Barbara what’s-her-face had no idea she was going blind. None. Nada.’
‘Not like you,’ said Jess, ‘to know the word “no” in a foreign language.’
‘But I can say “my place or yours” in several dialects.’ Mary gave Jess a penetrating look. ‘Come on, Castle. You’re dying to say something. You always go all constipated-looking when you’re pleased with yourself. Out with it!’
‘I know how Abonda made it look as if she cursed Barbara Singleton.’
Jess’s theory had been confirmed by Maggie Riggs, who earned what Jess considered a shockingly low amount to clean the police station. In the spotless kitchen of her Bamview house, Maggie had told Jess what she wanted to know, once some tenners had been handed over.
Maggie was the same mousey woman Jess had seen letting herself into Doctor Rasmussen’s surgery on Wednesday evening. The same woman Jess had twice seen with Abonda: once among the fried onions and muzak of the Jolly Cook, and again on Abonda’s doorstep.
‘So?’ Mary didn’t see a connection. ‘What’s it got to do with a random cleaner? Barbara Singleton asked for a spell to bring her husband home after he ran off with their nanny, who apparently had boobs out to here and a bum you could balance your dinner on. The spell worked! He left the hot young piece and crawled home to his wife.’
‘Well, of course he did. It’s only the Daily Mail that thinks middle-aged men actually want sexpot girlfriends. Mr Singleton left a five-bedroom house with a pool for a studio flat over an off-licence. The golf club shunned him, and he had to pretend to enjoy Love Island so his new girlfriend wouldn’t laugh at him. That’s where my new chum comes in. Maggie cleans for anybody who’s anybody in Castle Kidbury.’
‘Jaysus,’ breathed Mary, getting it. ‘That means she knows everything about everyone.’
‘Exactly. There are no secrets from cleaners. Maggie feeds Abonda titbits here and there.’ When Jess saw Maggie in the Jolly Cook, she’d been keeping Abonda fully abreast of the police’s case against Norris. ‘When Barbara Singleton asked for a spell, Abonda pumped Maggie for information about the marriage. She told Abonda that the couple’s money was all Barbara’s. Her philandering husband signed a pre-nup. He was entitled to nothing if he cheated.’
‘Serves him right!’ Mary approved. ‘Hang on, though. This you can’t explain, Sherlock. How come Abonda knew the exact date he’d come back to Barbara? Eighteenth of June she said, and she was bang on.’
‘Abonda watched his girlfriend’s Facebook page, and read a post about her twenty-first birthday party on the seventeenth of June. She invited everybody who knew her to bring a bottle to her place.’
‘Her tiny place.’
‘Thirty pissed Generation Z’s in a studio flat, plus one middle-aged berk in an Argyll jumper . . . Well, you do the maths. The poor sod crawled home the next morning. The eighteenth of June.’
‘Abonda’s a feckin’ genius.’
‘It’s psychology, not witchcraft.’ It was sheer nerve, too; Jess admired the woman’s pluck. ‘Barbara paid up, but then Maggie reported what Barbara was saying behind Abonda’s back. To her book club. To the lady golfers. To Maggie. Jokes about the jailbird son, Abonda’s weight, the state of her kitchen.’ Jess knew how much that would hurt. ‘Abonda’s kitchen is pristine.’
‘She cursed Barbara! Abonda doesn’t mess about.’
‘She didn’t curse her, you fool. She simply knew about the blindness before Barbara did.’
‘Ah, come on.’ Mary was especially Dublin when she scoffed; Dubliners learn to scoff in the cradle. ‘How?’ She ransacked the glove compartment. A Bounty lounged among the tissues and hairclips.
‘Maggie again,’ said Jess. ‘She cleans the GPs’ surgery. Click. Click.’ Jess mimed a computer keyboard. ‘Turned out that Barbara’s diabetic. A note on her file said she should be called in to discuss the result of a recent test. Her diabetes had brought on something called Acute Angle Closure Glaucoma. Blindness would likely soon follow. There was a postscript to be gentle, as the patient had no idea.’
‘Then all Abonda had to do was turn up at the Singletons’ fancy anniversary dinner and do the whole gypsy curse thang.’
The car coughed and they were off again. But not before Jess saw a shape hover in the twilight. Winged, claws outstretched. The falcon swooped and some furry thing met a messy end.
***
The two women hobbled over the gravel of Homestead House. The porch light came on. In the sudden glare, Mary looked tired, and it occurred to Jess that her friend must age; slough off her youth like everybody else.
A glimpse of their position on the quietly turning wheel of the year. A glimpse of mortality. Not the first she’d had that day.
The unlikeable Maggie had been keen to gossip. ‘How’d you think Abonda looks?’ she’d said. Sly.
‘Fine, I suppose,’ Jess had answered, not sure what Maggie was getting at.
‘Fine for the walking dead.’ Maggie told Jess about the cancer. Pancreatic. Stage four by the time back pain brought Abonda to Dr Rasmussen. ‘She don’t like doctors. She’s treating herself with stupid teas and stuff.’
‘She can have chemo,’ was Jess’s first thought.
‘But she won’t.’ Maggie seemed oddly exultant. ‘Doesn’t trust it. Says when your time’s up, your time’s up.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Jess.
‘What for?’ Maggie didn’t understand. ‘It’s not like me and Abonda are mates.’
Jess had looked at Maggie for a long moment. Wondering what paths people take to make them so hard.
Now, with Mary, Jess turned her thoughts from death, and shook the Samhain fog off along with her jacket.
The hall was bright and smelled of biscuits and dog. ‘Keep what I told you to yourself, yeah?’ Jess needed to protect lying, vengeful Abonda.
‘I wish you hadn’t told me.’ Mary took off her boots; proof of Bogna’s ability to strike fear in the spunkiest of people. ‘I wanted to believe in Abonda.’
‘We all want to believe in something.’
‘She charged me twenty quid,’ said Mary. ‘Probably won’t work.’
‘What was the spell for?’
‘Nothing. It . . . nothing.’
‘Tell me, go on.’
‘It was a spell to bend someone to my will.’
‘You’ve never met a man who could withstand your will.’
Mary didn’t laugh.
‘Who is this guy?’ said Jess. ‘Tell me his name and I’ll sort him out for you!’
‘He’s you,’ said Mary.
Jess didn’t understand at first. Then she garbled. ‘Shit, yes, you’re right. I’m not helping enough with the barn.’
‘Damn right.’
‘I’ve been . . . you don’t want to hear I’ve been busy, do you?’
‘Right again.’
‘But I p
romise I’ll step up. I’ll pitch in.’
‘Deal,’ said Mary. ‘See? Abonda’s spells do work.’
Jess opened the door to the kitchen and took a step back. It was full of people. Full of uniforms.
Beyond the conservatory, the back garden was ablaze with light. Figures could be seen digging and conferring and pointing at the wooded distance. Radio static, snatches of conversation interrupted the chatter in the kitchen, and Bogna’s loud shouts of ‘Ham and cheese toastie! Who ordered the toastie, isn’t it?’
The Judge pushed past them. ‘It’s bedlam,’ he scowled. ‘I told Bogna not to turn this house into a police cafeteria. It’s bad enough having this.’ He patted the panic button clipped to his cardigan. ‘We live in a prison now, Jess, not a home.’ He took the gadget and threw it to the floor before striding up the stairs.
‘Hiya fellas!’ Mary waded into the boys in blue. Ever egalitarian, it was the female officer’s lap she chose to sit on first.
Later, Jess thought, I’ll tell you what happened to your Frenchman. For now, she let Mary live in blissful ignorance. The sobbing and the swearing off sex forever/until Monday could come later.
***
Jess lost count of the times the front door opened and closed that evening. A procession of experts came and tinkered and gave the Castles instructions on how to set off this alarm and how to monitor that one.
When the front door delivered Rupert, sleepy-eyed and straight off a plane, she ran down the stairs in dreadful pyjamas. She almost jumped on him, but the personal forcefield she carried everywhere stopped her.
‘I heard,’ said Rupert. ‘How are you?’
‘Well, we have cops instead of fairies at the bottom of our garden, but I’m fine.’ She led him into the drawing room; the kitchen was a production line of tea and toasties and Irish songs.
‘Jess,’ he said, disappointed. ‘I’m asking you a question.’ He repeated himself. ‘How are you?’
‘What do you want me to say?’
He collapsed onto a sofa. ‘Never mind,’ he said, and it sounded weary and dismissive and somehow final.
The Judge put his head round the door. ‘Thank God,’ he said. ‘A visitor who doesn’t want to wire me up or attach a camera to something.’