by M B Vincent
Louise crossed her legs and the plastic beneath her crackled.
From where she leaned against a teak-effect sideboard, Jess longed to put her arms around her. At one point during Louise’s detailed, steady account of her own assault, Jess had lost all confidence in the plan. It wasn’t fair to make Louise relive that night. She’d stopped her then, saying, ‘We can stop there. This isn’t—'
‘Believe me, I relive it all the time,’ Louise had whispered, and carried on.
The room thrummed with earthy female emotion. Their tableau of three harked back to when gods were routinely feminine.
In truth, Jess was superfluous. Abonda and Louise were locked into each other. One with a story she had to tell; the other hearing a story that undermined everything that mattered to her.
‘Steven Norris took a great deal from me that night, Abonda.’ Louise’s words were earnest but her manner was calm. ‘I won’t let him take the truth.’
Abonda made a noise in her throat. Unspellable. Difficult to translate.
‘Facts,’ said Louise, ‘don’t change. I live with them. The rape helped break up my marriage to Jean Paul. He simply couldn’t handle what had happened, his inability to protect me from it. From Steven Norris.’
She used his name liberally. Deliberately. She’s not frightened of his name, thought Jess. Louise owned her history.
Abonda, however, reacted viscerally whenever she heard her son’s name. She had said nothing for some time.
‘I don’t know whether your son murdered my children’s father,’ said Louise. Her composure faltered.
Jess started forward, but on a shake of the head from Louise, she stayed put.
‘I do know that Norris lied when he said I invited him into my home. I do know that I woke up to find him at the foot of my bed. I do know that he used my children’s presence in the next room to dominate me. I do know that he raped me.’
‘Kiddies,’ said Abonda. The first word she’d spoken in a while.
‘They were only two years old at the time.’ Louise remained dispassionate. She’d described all this before and clearly had no intention of playing to the gallery. ‘He said – I’ve never forgotten because it was so peculiar – he said that the babies were his, really, because I was his Sif. Whatever that meant.’
Abonda covered her face with one meaty hand.
‘He forced me to strip. Then he made me sit on the floor in front of him. He played with my hair. He was tender, which was worse.’ Louise put a hand to her head. ‘That’s why I wear it so short now. He was fascinated by it.’ She swallowed. ‘He put his face in it. He said I was his golden harvest goddess. He said I was a divinity. He said other mad stuff like that. Then he pulled back his hand and punched me.’ Louise tapped her nose. ‘Broke it,’ she said.
The rain outside stopped abruptly. Louise talked on, until eventually she said, ‘Thank you.’
Abonda looked wildly at her. As if searching for mockery.
She means it. Jess continued to be astonished by Louise’s grace. She’s thanking the mother of Jean Paul’s killer for listening to her.
Abonda rose. She lumbered towards the front door.
Jess and Louise realised they were being shown out. Hurried after her.
No goodbyes. Abonda’s eyes remained on the swirly hall carpet.
As Louise passed her, Abonda put her hand on the younger woman’s shoulder. Squeezed.
Louise let her do it.
It was cold out. The day was giving up.
***
‘Cuppa?’ said Knott. Jaunty.
‘Ooh yeah,’ said Jess. After the intensity of the past few hours, she had been drawn to the police station. To its brightly lit corridors and central heating hum. She had found Eden asking his team for something, anything, new.
‘Not you.’ Knott held out the mug to Eden. ‘It’s sarge’s special pick-me-up.’
Jess sniffed. Basil. Fennel. She wrinkled her nose. And somewhere in there a soupçon of lamb’s heart?
Jess watched Knott watch Eden sip the brew.
He said, ‘I just put Louise Mannix and her two boys in a taxi to the airport. Sweet kids, both of them sitting there, eating their little red lollipops.’
‘Sir.’ Moretti jumped up from his desk. Brandished his mobile. ‘You should see this website.’
‘I’ve no interest in a video of a cat playing the piano.’
Jess, who liked nothing better than a video of a cat playing the piano, looked over Moretti’s shoulder.
‘Trust me on this,’ said Moretti.
‘Why the Y,’ read Jess. ‘What’s it mean?’
‘It’s a movement,’ said Moretti. ‘Anti-patriarchy. Well, actually, anti-blokes.’ He scrolled down a forum. ‘See? Why the Y chromosome.’
‘Clever,’ said Jess, who had often wondered the same thing.
The chat on the forum was spirited.
‘Why don’t we just kill them all once we’ve harvested their sperm?’
‘My husband’s definitely dispensable. Any ideas how to do it, ladies?’
‘They only keep us down because they know they’re inferior!’
‘Why should I be interested in this?’ asked Eden.
‘I’m getting to that.’ Moretti jumped to a news site. ‘This forum’s been noticed. The Met are looking into it. They’ve linked it to a number of attacks on men, walking alone in the capital at night.’ He pointed at a photograph of a crowd, all in balaclavas, holding placards and raising fists. ‘That was taken at a rally in Shoreditch that got out of hand. Turned violent. The rally was organised on this forum.’
Moretti had highlighted one phrase which appeared, cut and pasted, over and over, in a devilish red font.
‘Men! All crap and no guts!’
Jess recoiled. She was a natural feminist, and the patriarchy really got on her wick, but this was ugly. And not, she intuited, about the subject at hand. It was bottled anger; it could be harnessed against anything. ‘Why the Y is the ASBO lovechild of #MeToo.’
‘That “no guts” caught my eye,’ said Moretti. ‘Given our killer’s love of extracting innards. Sir, take a look at the ID of the site’s moderator.’
Eden read it out. ‘835442AW3.’ He waited. ‘Somebody enlighten me.’
Jess recognised it. ‘Wow, you’re good,’ she said to Moretti.
‘That’s why they pay me the big bucks,’ said Moretti, holding up a cold case file.
Gillian Cope/Minor/File 835442AW3/AT RISK.
CHAPTER 18
DINNERTIME AT HUNGRY HILL
Thursday 12 November
Some days everything goes wrong.
The traffic back from Bristol was unprecedented. Jess’s students seemed to have forgotten everything they’d learned, including how to stay awake while she spoke about Viking funerals. A pimple appeared, like a bullseye, in the middle of her forehead.
Added to the threat of death hanging over her family home, all this conspired to make Jess hungry.
A crow heckled from a gatepost as she parked up outside the farm shop on the Richleigh Road. The last crow she’d seen was the one nailed to her porch, being photographed by scene-of-crime officers.
‘Caw to you too,’ she said.
Eschewing the organic kale, Jess made straight for the ice cream. At the till, she bumped baskets with Mitch.
He winked. He told her she looked great. He didn’t mention the pimple. He said, ‘Are you free tonight? Follow me back to Hungry Hill and I’ll feed you.’
She followed him down the dark track. She dialled down her imagination about what might be happening in the woods that trembled in the middle distance. She pulled her fringe over the pimple.
***
Dinner at Hungry Hill Farm was just as Jess had imagined. Cosy. Comfortable. Soft edges in peachy lamplight, and rain lashing at the windows. She finished off her plate of roast chicken while Luna and Saffron held Zinnia hostage under the table.
‘Magic password, Jess! Or you can’t come
in our cave,’ shouted Saffron.
Luna dangled a ragged toy. ‘You have to, or Mister Fluff will be hanged by his neck until he is dead.’
‘That’s too much, Luna,’ said Mitch as he scrubbed the roasting tray at the sink.
Luna corrected herself. ‘Or Mister Fluff will be sent to bed early.’
‘That’s more like it.’ Mitch collected Jess’s plate.
‘That was so good,’ said Jess.
‘Can’t get more organic than your own backyard.’
Jess remembered her first encounter with the Hungry Hill hens roosting in their rusty car. I’ve just eaten one of them. She hoped it wasn’t the pretty one who’d sat on the steering wheel.
‘Dad, can Jess play in the treehouse with us?’ pleaded Zinnia.
‘Pleeaase!’ said the other two.
Jess rather hoped Mitch would say yes.
‘It’s a tad late, girls. Run off and jump in your jimjams. Maybe Jess’ll tuck you in.’
The sisters thundered up the stairs.
‘What was on your mind at the farm shop?’ asked Mitch. ‘You were deep in thought.’
‘I was thinking about the seasons. And Thor. And sacrifice.’
‘As you do,’ smiled Mitch, taking up a tea towel.
‘I was mulling over the killings.’
‘Speaking of which, should you be driving home on your own? It’s dangerous out there.’
‘The murderer wouldn’t be interested in me,’ said Jess. ‘You’re more at risk. You’re a father, like all the other victims.’
‘Along with a massive percentage of the UK population, Miss Marple.’
‘Everyone calls me Miss Marple, and everyone scoffs at my theory.’
‘I shouldn’t take the mick.’ Mitch was contrite. ‘You go with your gut, Jess. Fancy reading the girls a bedtime story? I’ll finish up down here.’
***
Bedtime story done – complete with accents – Jess left Mitch overseeing the negotiation about which lights to leave on and the exact angle of how far to leave the bedroom doors open.
She drifted down to the kitchen. It was lit only by the moon. A creature, wings outspread, on the worktop forced a gasp from her.
It wasn’t a real falcon. It was a makeshift birdscarer, midway through repairs. Its talons were blunt, its wooden beak harmless. It made her think of Abonda, the shapeshifter.
Is Abonda a predator? Jess always stopped short of considering her a friend. Unlike the bird scarer, Abonda’s sharp beak could open, and bite down on Jess’s soft parts if she endangered Norris.
The fortune telling, the curses – depending on Jess’s mood, they were a link with a Roma past, a harmless money-making hustle, or a heartless scam on the needy.
Foolish to be frightened, though. Abonda was just a woman. Her supernatural skills were all guesswork; the lines on Jess’s palm had told of an accident that had never happened, and a long trip that would never come about.
‘It’s vinyl time!’ announced Mitch, jogging down the stairs. ‘Anything you fancy listening to?’
Jess thought hard. And asked for Elvis.
‘I’ve got some of the early 45s. None of the Hollywood junk, obviously.’
‘No, course not.’ Jess hoped Elvis would forgive her disloyalty.
‘Something a bit more laid-back?’ Mitch ran a finger along his record collection. ‘B.B. King.’ He placed the record, with due revereance, on the turntable. He lit a couple of candles. He magicked up a bottle of wine.
‘I don’t do alcohol,’ said Jess.
‘All the more for me.’ Mitch sat beside Jess. Not too near. But quite near. ‘I don’t have Casey’s knack for bedtime. They’d be asleep by now if she was here.’
‘You shouldn’t have instigated that tickle-wrestling contest.’ Jess tried to remember anything resembling a tickle-wrestling contest in her childhood. ‘They’re lucky to have you as a dad.’
‘They’re not lucky.’ Mitch poured himself a large glass of wine, cheers-ing Jess’s Coke can. ‘They lost their mum.’
‘Sorry, that was—’
‘I mean, look at you,’ said Mitch, looking at Jess. ‘You had your mum until, what, in your thirties? My own mum’s still alive. So why . . .’ He tailed off. Took a mighty mouthful of wine. ‘It’s so unfair.’ He put the glass down with a thud.
‘It is,’ said Jess, uncertain where this might lead. He was angry.
‘I was out today and I saw this couple and they were dragging – dragging – their little kid around. Faces on them like slapped arses. I wanted to grab them.’ For emphasis he grabbed Jess’s arm. ‘And shout, don’t you know how lucky you are?’ His face came closer to Jess’s. It had changed colour. It was the colour of his claret. ‘Don’t you know I’d kill to be in your position, bringing up kids together?’
He sat back. He looked horrified, as if she had shouted at him, rather than the other way around. ‘Jesus, listen to me. Sorry Jess. I shouldn’t let that particular genie out of the bottle.’
Jess rubbed her arm.
Mitch pushed his hand over his face. ‘I hurt you.’
‘No, not really.’
‘I did. You’re being nice. You are nice, Jess Castle. Even though I get the feeling sometimes that you’re not really there around people.’
She could have denied it. No point. ‘Can’t help it,’ she said. She added, to herself, that she took after David.
And look how that worked out for him.
‘It’s not a failing,’ said Mitch. ‘It’s just part of you. Are you really here right now? With me?’
‘Actually,’ said Jess, ‘I am.’
She really was there, with the log fire and the decrepit sofa and the Degas print.
Mitch must have followed her line of sight. ‘That was Casey’s favourite thing. The only treat she allowed herself when the money came rolling in.’
A penny dropped. ‘You mean it’s real?’
‘As real as you or me.’
Jess got to her feet. ‘Can I touch it?’
‘You can touch,’ said Mitch, ‘anything you want.’
Not knowing how to take that – or, perhaps, knowing exactly how to take that – Jess went to the painting. This close, she marvelled how she’d ever thought it to be a copy. The paint rose off the canvas like spread butter. It was beautiful.
‘So, Rupert,’ said Mitch.
Jess, nose an inch from the canvas, said, ‘That’s not a whole sentence, Mitch.’
‘So, you and Rupert.’
‘Also not a sentence.’ Jess stared at flesh-coloured paint.
‘But you know what I’m asking.’
Jess had texted Rupert that morning. She hadn’t mentioned the crucified crow. She hadn’t mentioned her uncomfortable chat with Stephen. She hadn’t mentioned the ache she felt when she imagined Castle Kidbury without him. She’d been chatty. Possibly borderline rude.
He hadn’t replied. He was with Jack.
‘There is no Rupert and me,’ she said.
‘Come here,’ said Mitch. Or rather, he said ‘C’mere’ in that time-honoured way of men and women.
She went there.
Mitch moved along the sofa. He put an exploratory finger to her lips. He drew round them.
They throbbed.
Mitch kissed her, and she closed her eyes, and a small voice with an Australian accent shouted, ‘Daaaaaaddy!’
‘One minute,’ he whispered into Jess’s ear. ‘One minute, sixty seconds, and I’ll be back. Do. Not. Move.’
Jess lay back amongst the cushions. They smelled of dog. She put her own finger on her lips. She thought about Rupert.
That didn’t seem fair, when Mitch had gone to all the trouble of kissing her. At least, thought Jess, Mitch puts his money where his mouth is.
Propelled by warring emotions, she disobeyed orders and moved. She went to the kitchen, aimlessly. A map she hadn’t noticed before was Sellotaped to fridge.
‘Adventures,’ proclaimed a homemade banner above i
t. The writing wasn’t childish; it was Mitch’s, she presumed.
The map was of the town and its surroundings. When Jess saw the first circled placename she didn’t want to look at the others. She was compelled to, however; she knew where they would take her.
Fairy Barrow. Kidbury Henge. Richleigh Ice Rink.
Jess backed away. Her elbow caught the falcon, which tumbled over, beak first, into an open drawer.
She righted the bird, shut the drawer, but not before she saw the stash of cellophane-wrapped, red lollipops.
Out into the Blotmonap night she ran. She shouted ‘Gotta go!’ Grappled with the ignition.
She sped past the woods.
***
She didn’t expect to sleep.
It soothed Jess to know that the officers out in the garden were also awake.
It might have soothed her to know that others were unable to sleep. Mitch was on the sofa, staring at the Degas. Iris was re-reading Trollope against a bank of pillows. Bogna was watching Nic Lasco Cooks His Heart Out on BBC iPlayer.
Eddie was wiping ashtrays into a bin in the garden of the Royal Seven Stars.
He heard a sudden noise from the town hall car park next door. Something like the lid of a wheelie bin slamming shut. He listened, then resumed his work.
He rounded up empties. Brought them inside.
Now a rustle. The clack of a fence. Closer this time.
Eddie stepped back outside, squaring up slightly against the darkness. ‘Hello?’ It might be stray late drinkers from the Druid’s Head; the clientele was noisier than the Seven Stars lot. And braver; Eddie’s takings were down since the Kidbury Kannibal blew into town, but nothing came between the Druid’s Head regulars and their beer.
Eddie bent to tug at the cellar doors set into the paving stones. Satisfied that they were locked, he straightened up and his foot caught against something that shouldn’t have been there. He tumbled, landing on his shoulder. As Eddie pushed himself up onto his knees, a blow landed on the back of his head. He struggled to stand again before the next strike caught him.
Eddie’s cheek hit the cold stone of the patio.
CHAPTER 19
A VISITOR
Friday 13 November