by N. C. Lewis
Fenella said, "If only I could turn back the clock."
Eduardo drew her close and kissed her gently.
"I've lost my sister," Fenella said. "I can take that, just. But what about Nan? She's lost her daughter. For a mother, to lose a child is…"
"Hush now, luv," he said. "We'll not let Eve or Grant out of our memories. We'll not let them go."
A knock thudded on the door.
"Sorry to disturb you, ma'am," said a female officer in a crisp tone. "I've a message for you."
Fenella knew the woman, PC Beth Finn. A good cop. They both worked in the Port St Giles police station.
"The medics about the young girl?" Fenella asked.
"No, ma'am. But I hear the child is doing just fine. The superintendent would like a word in her office."
"But it's Saturday," Eduardo said. "And my wife is drenched from the sea and still in her jogging clothes."
PC Finn said, "I'm to drive you to the station, ma'am. It is urgent."
Eduardo's mouth opened. Before any words came out, Fenella placed a hand on his arm. His mouth closed without a word. She turned and gave him a quick hug of thanks. He never made a fuss about her job. She loved that about him. She stood. Her weekend with the family was over.
Chapter five
Superintendent Veronica Jeffery didn't look happy.
She sat at her vast oak desk, her eyes narrowed. Folders were piled in an untidy stack. There was a faint trace of leather wax and polish in the still air. The winter sun glared through the tiny window of the oak-walled room but did little to lift the gloom.
"I'll not beat about the bush." Jeffery's voice buzzed like a wasp poised to sting. "This is one hot mess."
Fenella had no idea which mess Jeffery meant. Perhaps it was to do with the cottage fires? There'd been a string of blazes in the old stone cottages that dotted the villages and towns. They'd not found a link, and put it down to age. Now she half wondered if it might be arson. And there was the child-smuggling ring that snaked along the coast. The regional crime squad in Carlisle were rumoured to be close to nailing the kingpin, a big shot high up in officialdom. Did the boss have new information?
But it was Saturday and her boss was in full uniform. It had to be something else. Full uniform meant big trouble. She let Jeffery blow off some steam and waited. She was good at the wait.
Jeffery leaned back in her leather chair. It was edged with gold and looked like a throne, although the boss didn’t look very regal at the moment. "I've some sensitive information which requires our full attention. Facts from a reliable source about Hamilton Perkins."
Hamilton Perkins had a love of two things: sharp knives—that's why the newspapers called him Mr Shred—and schoolgirls in uniform. It had been almost two months since he escaped from Low Marsh Prison.
Fenella tilted her neck from side to side, a trick she'd learned in yoga to ease tension. "What about him, ma'am?"
Jeffery closed her eyes, as if in prayer, but did not speak. The media went wild when Mr Shred was first caught, the trial of the century, they said, as huge as Jack the Ripper. News of Mr Shred's murders spread like wildfire around the globe. His trial was the biggest news ever to hit Port St Giles. He was born and raised a few miles away in the village of St Bees. That he lived and moved amongst the locals added to the sensational aspect of the story. How could one of their own do such evil things? It lingered like a shadow over the faded Cumbria seaside town.
Days before the trial began, American reporters arrived in droves. They booked out the hotels and boarding houses. They even rented huts in the East Side Caravan Park. Their shiny white teeth and perfect hair gave razzle to the show. Judge Grey wore a black gown and an old, white wig, so he'd look regal in front of the foreign cameras.
It had been a circus.
On the day the jury came back with their verdict, it was a rugby scrum at the court. Judge Grey, in a white wig and black gown trimmed with gold, gave Perkins life with no chance of parole. He'd not see a sunrise other than through the bars of his prison cell for the rest of his days. And that was just fine with Fenella.
Jeffery opened her eyes and said, "He's been quiet since he broke free. We thought he'd gone to ground, left the country."
Fenella felt sick. Ever since he'd escaped from prison, she had worried there'd be new deaths. Two months had passed, and he hadn't been caught. That upped the chances he'd strike again. He was clever. Always a step ahead of the police. The thought of the victims' faces made her want to throw up. Mr Shred by name. Mr Shred by nature.
Jeffery was speaking. "There was talk he'd found a hidey-hole in France, Grenoble in the Alps. Our French friends were alerted but found nothing." She licked her lips. "There were two murders in Spain. Copycat killings. Not our man."
Again, Fenella tilted her neck from side to side and waited.
While in prison, Perkins had shown remorse, and with the help of prison psychologist Dr Joy Hall, agreed to show Jeffery where he'd buried his last victim. Her name was Colleen Rae, a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl with learning disabilities and the niece of Chief Constable Alfred Rae.
Superintendent Jeffery was ambitious. She'd kicked and clawed her way into the superintendent's chair, and her sights were set even higher. If she found the body of Colleen Rae, she'd glow like gold in the chief's eyes.
Fenella's patience snapped. If there was news about Perkins, she had to know. She had a personal interest too. After the trial she had visited the last place Colleen Rae was seen alive and promised to bring her home. Until her body showed up, she kept Colleen alive in her mind. Alive or dead, she'd keep her word. Never break a promise to a child. She'd bring Colleen Rae home. Not for the glory or for promotion. For peace of mind.
Fenella said, "Do you have news, ma'am?"
Jeffery looked at the tiny window and let out a morose sigh. "It's been a media circus; it won't be long before the big politicians fly in from London to pick over our bones. We have not come up smelling like roses. Rather the opposite I'm afraid." She reached for the stack of folders. Her hand hovered over a grey docket marked Private, then slid it across the desk.
Fenella didn't move. For an instant she thought of Nan and Eduardo. They'd be in the kitchen with logs on the fire, the room bathed in a warm glow. Her mind drifted to the child she'd saved on the beach. With the medics at her side, she'd pull through. She felt good about that. Now she looked at the folder and thought of Colleen Rae. She loved her family, and she loved her work. Yes, it was Saturday, and she was on the job. Deep down, she would have it no other way. If they had anything on Hamilton Perkins, she had to know. She wanted him back behind bars.
Jeffery said, "The file is from Dr Joy Hall. We went to college together. You have met her?"
Fenella liked Joy Hall. Competent. Professional. A role model for young women.
Jeffery said, "Dr Hall is a good friend, but I still had to pull a few strings to get this. Her psychological reports take time to write, have to be assessed and rubber stamped. But they are worth their weight in gold." Her taut cheeks raised into a wolfish grin. "This came to us in record time."
Fenella picked it up and read. When she finished, she dropped it onto the desk, and stared hard at her boss.
Jeffery leaned forward, fingers steepled. "That's right. Dr Hall's best guess is that Hamilton Perkins isn't in France or Spain. He didn't leave the country, hasn't even left the county. Mr Shred is right here on the Cumbria Coast. It seems he is lying low, waiting for a chance to kill."
Chapter six
PC Sid Hoon knew he deserved more.
He sat at the kitchen table in his two-bedroom stone cottage and thought about how much more. There was his job. Being a bobby in the village of St Bees wasn't a fast and furious life. He hankered after the big-city lights and had great ambitions of being a detective when he'd first joined the force. The exams were easy enough. Nowt but a piece of cake. Child's play. And he would study to take them, but there was so much to watch on the television. An e
ducation in life. That's what he saw every night on the flickering box. It helped him relax, as did his nightly four-pack of beer. Yes, he would be a detective one day, knew he was more than a uniform, although he had grown round and fat and comfortable in that skin.
"You still here, you lazy sod?"
And there was Maude. He watched as she marched into the kitchen, her hair in tight curlers. A cigarette dangled from the corner of her nicotine-stained lips.
He'd met Maude in a bar in Carlisle a dozen years back, on one of his fun nights out in that town. She had given him a cute smile. They'd talked. She'd found out he owned a cottage in the country and came back with him that night. He wasn't sure he'd asked her; it was all a drunken blur. She made herself at home and cooked and cleaned and slept with him. It wasn't long before the wedding bell tolled. He wasn't sure how that happened either.
They hadn't any children. "Bad seed," Maude had said as though she'd been to medical school. She smirked. "You're firing nowt but blanks."
But he knew in those early times she took the pill and these days growled if he got close. Now she just hung around stinking the place out with her tobacco smoke, dropping ashes on the floor, and spending his money. It had never occurred to him that married life would be like this. He hadn't seen it coming.
"How can you expect to be taken seriously as a village bobby if you're sitting around supping tea when it is nearly ten a.m. in the morning?" Maude sucked on her cigarette and snorted a twin spiral of smoke through her nose. "If you had a bit more bite, you'd be a detective by now, and we could live in a big house. Not this poky place."
PC Hoon said nothing.
"Are you listening to me, you lazy sod?"
Surely, he thought, with a morose sigh, life owed him more than this.
"And bring me back two packets of fags and a bottle of Diet Coke."
PC Hoon didn’t like to go to the village store, didn’t like the way the shopkeeper looked at him. His name was Chad Tate, and he watched PC Hoon with a distrustful eye as if he knew what he had done. But how could he know? Nobody knew. So PC Hoon shopped there most days to stop Maude from nagging him. It was the only store in the village.
"Did you hear me, you deaf bat?" Maude yelled. "Fags and Coke, and don't forget."
PC Hoon couldn’t stand to look at Maude. Her sly face filled him with anger. He felt his body tense, sinews pulled tight in his neck. He wanted his cottage back. He wanted Maude gone. Life owed him more than this. How come he'd married a viper when he was such a nice bloke? She wouldn't leave until she'd sucked him dry. He felt it deep in his bones.
"Right," he said and licked his lips. "I'll pop into the village store on the way back."
Maude snorted. "Why didn't you make me a cup of tea?" She didn't wait for an answer and shuffled to the kettle to turn it on. "Bleedin' lazy sod. Just as well you've got me to cook and clean for you, else this place would be a pigsty. I'll slap a joint of that fatty beef in the oven for your dinner. You like all that grease, don't you? Oh, and there are six cream doughnuts in the fridge. Eat them all, don't want them to go stale."
The clock on the kitchen counter chimed the top of the hour.
PC Hoon looked at his mug, and he looked at the clock, and he looked at his wife by the kettle. He rose to his feet, left her words in the kitchen and replaced them with the frigid air of his village beat.
Chapter seven
Chad Tate felt the rapid beat of his heart as he stared at the empty aisles.
He stood at the checkout in the village store, a middle-aged man with a growing gut, and a hairline receding at speed. In front of him an elderly woman in a long, brown coat and green headscarf, wheeled her cart, pausing here and there to take an item from the shelf, look at it with a scowl, and put it back. This was it. The Saturday morning rush.
He picked up his mug of coffee and gazed blankly out the shop window. St Bees Priory stood on the opposite side of the lane, its red-clay brick covered in moss and lichen. He'd only been inside once, for a funeral.
That was the day everything broke in his life.
He was in the hallowed halls of the church, thick with the sweet smell of incense, and in his black suit. The pews were crammed, jowl to jowl in a sea of sympathy, singing solemn hymns of forgivingness. All the officials were dressed in high uniform, PC Hoon one step behind the priest.
Chad's cheeks reddened at what he had done, at what happened next. He swallowed hard to forget, heard a click-click in his throat and refocused his eyes on the St Bees Priory. Yes, he loved the view through the shop window. It was different from New York City, where he grew up. The Big Apple was always in motion. Always changing. He preferred it here, where time stood still. He tried to enjoy the view as yellow sunlight filtered through the window.
Nothing's changed in twenty years.
Except this morning as his eyes scanned the lane, he couldn’t slow the rapid beat of his heart, and he didn’t want to remember the last time that had happened.
"Do you have any tins of beans?" The elderly woman leaned on her cart, sharp eyes alert. She asked the same question every Saturday. It was best to play along with her game.
"What type of beans, Mrs Lenz?"
"Oh, any type will do. I'm not fussed."
"How about black beans? They are popular in Mexico."
"My Alf don't like to eat foreign muck."
"Black-eyed peas, they are great in rice."
"Baked beans, that's what my Alf likes. Do you have any Heinz baked beans?"
Chad had taken over the St Bees village store with high hopes and big dreams. It would be a slice of New York City right in the heart of the English countryside. He'd sell matzo-ball soup, arepas, calzones, and celery soda. He brought a big freezer to store the Big Apple's delights. But the locals wanted white bread, bacon, milk, and baked beans.
"Let me get you a can," Chad said with a mix of frustration and kindness. He loved his store. Loved the village. Loved serving the needs of his community and never wanted to leave. He just wished their tastes were more exotic.
"That won't be necessary, young man," said Mrs Lenz. "I'm not past it yet. Ask my Alf."
Chad joined in her laughter. If he didn't, she wouldn't buy the beans, or the bread, or the milk. Then she would tell all her friends, and they would stay away from the store. It had happened before. Not long after what occurred at the funeral. So Chad stretched his lips into a clown's grin and laughed.
Mrs Lenz said, "I've not had anyone call about that card I placed in your window."
"It's next to the poster of the fundraising fête at St Bees Priory," Chad replied. "A prime spot for eyeballs."
Chad had read the card:
A cheap room with all the mod cons and a meal thrown in on Sunday. Gas on metre. Lights out at nine. No overnight guests. No eating in room. No loud music. Coin-operated hot shower. Must be in full-time employment. Call for rate.
He would not want to live with Mrs Lenz, could see the yellowed net curtains and stained bedspread as he read between the lines. No, thank you.
Chad said, "It's a mystery why they are not fighting over it."
"If this were New York City, I'd have a dozen folk on my doorstep," Mrs Lenz replied. "Fifty pence for nothing!"
"It has a good spot in the window."
"You ought to give me a refund." She stared at Chad. "Am I right? I am."
Chad rubbed his chin. The store opened from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. six days a week. It ran on a shoestring with only a handful of customers. He wished there were more. And so did his bank manager. "How about we give it another week, Mrs Lenz? No charge."
The doorbell tinkled. Chad turned in the hope that his smile would greet an eager customer.
It was the postman.
Each day this week he had walked into the store with his sackful of mail and a white envelope clutched in his hand. Each day Chad took the envelope as if he didn't have a care in the world. At first, the postman said, "Looks official, are you opening another store?" and t
hen, "I suppose it's about your loan?" And finally, "For a bank manager, Mr Clarke is not as bad as they say. A bit of a ladies' man, but where is the harm in that?" This morning, he didn't say anything at all. He simply shook his head, avoided Chad's eyes, placed the white envelope on the counter, and left.
Mrs Lenz was at the counter before the door squeaked shut. "Postman brought you something nice, am I right? I am." Her sharp eyes scanned the envelope. "From Mr Moneybags Clarke, eh?"
Chad forced a smile, picked it up, and weighed it as though it might tell him something about the contents. He'd wait until she left the store to open it. "Oh, it is nothing. Are you done with your shopping?"
Mrs Lenz said, "Mind if I settle up with you at the end of the month? Not that I'm asking for credit. No. Just my Alf gets his pension at the end of the month."
"That is fine," Chad said.
"You are such a good man," Mrs Lenz replied. "Kind and considerate and big hearted. Respectable. I like a respectable man with an American accent. Bet the ladies are always after you. Am I right? I am. Not found the right one yet, I suppose?"
Mrs Lenz said that every week too.
Chad stretched his lips into a clown's grin once more and waved as she left the store. That's when he saw the young girl with her mother. She couldn’t have been more than five years old and had a pink ribbon in her raven-black hair. He liked that. And the grey coat with white socks and the small black shoes, which shone in the bright January sunlight. His heart sped up.
The girl straggled two paces behind her mother, head down as though examining the cracks in the pavement. Chad couldn’t take his eyes off her. He liked little girls. So young, he thought. Innocent and sweet. But she didn’t have a teddy bear. They looked cuter with a stuffed animal.
When he was young, the kids ran about on their own. Even in New York City. These days they were always with their sharp-eyed parents. He let out a frustrated grunt and wished it was like the old days. It was easier then.
