Amy Cooper Forever

by Craig Mullins

  Her car stood out, it was the one extravagance in her life a bright orange Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2litre. She inserted the key in the lock and settled into the seat, she loved this car. She had bought it second hand five years ago with only nine thousand miles on the clock and had fallen in love with it the second she turned the key for the first time. As she started the car it still gave her the same thrill it did that first time.

  The engine roared as she pulled out of the car park, the drive home she could do in her sleep and took about fifteen minutes. She lived in a flat just behind Marine Parade in Great Yarmouth, it had originally been a terraced house which was converted years ago into two flats. Sian lived in the upper flat which had the benefit of the attic room as well as very spacious living accommodation. The parking was all resident permit so she had no trouble finding a spot to reverse her baby into; she retrieved a folder from her passenger seat and took it with her. The shared front door led to a hallway, two post boxes were mounted on the wall to the left, the lock broken years ago she pulled it open and retrieved her mail. She headed up the stairs to her front door.

  The flat was very modern–minimalist is probably the best description– the front door opened out into a large white spacious living area, to the right was the open plan kitchen with breakfast bar, she couldn’t help but be reminded of the crime scene from this morning. To the far end a corridor led to the two bedrooms and bathroom and in the far left hand corner a spiral staircase led to the attic room. This was where she went before doing anything, she took the steps two at a time and once in the attic room she placed the folder she still carried on the desk. Over three-quarters of the space was empty, most of what was here was crammed into the small area with the desk and evidence board she had set up.

  She went back down realising that she hadn’t eaten anything since that morning, on her way to the kitchen she put on her Philips Hi-Fi system, she thumbed through her modest vinyl collection and retrieved one of her favourites–Kind of Blue by Miles Davis, the cover featured the man himself blowing on his trumpet. As the music started she went to the kitchen and opened the fridge, apart from the half dozen bottles of Pinot Grigio there was very little else. She took two eggs, the last three slices from a packet of chorizo and she found a couple of mushrooms from the salad drawer at the bottom, these had certainly seen better days. In a glass jug she broke the eggs, added the sliced mushrooms, chorizo, a bit of salt and pepper and set it to one side. In the small frying pan she heated a knob of butter before adding the egg mixture. In less than five minutes she was sitting on the sofa with her hastily made omelette and the chilled Pinot in a large glass. The white sofa faced the open fireplace, the strange thing about her apartment was that there was no television, she had never had any interest in watching the shows her colleagues went on and on about like they were real. She had lost count of the endless conversations she had overheard concerning characters in Coronation Street and Eastenders. The reverence with which these actors were held baffled her.

  With her plate pushed to one side she went over the events of the day in her head, from her arrival at the scene and her interaction with PC Philip Thorne to her exploration of the horrific scene itself. There was one thing that she was missing and she didn’t know what it was, she felt sorry for the young PC, she knew he would not be getting any sleep tonight. She walked through the chalet in her mind, her eyes closed and Miles’ ‘Freddie Freeloader’ played in the background. The body had lain prone over the end of the breakfast bar, the legs splayed. Had he had sex with her? Was it consensual? Why did she check in alone, and did he meet her at the chalet? She flicked through her notebook and it hit her. She rushed up the stairs and grabbed the file off the desk, she opened it to her copy of the statement from Rebecca Scoles–the receptionist that had been on duty the night Mrs Heart had checked in. She read the statement half a dozen times and realised she would have to talk to the receptionist again tomorrow.

  Was it just an oversight? Was she mistaken? It could be any number of reasons but from her experience witnesses never usually offered information that they weren’t asked for. Sian recalled when she talked to Rebecca she made a comment about Mrs Heart’s striking blue eyes, yet the crime scene photo’s clearly showed coffee coloured eyes on the victim in the chalet. Whoever picked up the keys and signed in was not the victim, all along she had assumed the perpetrator was male but this shed new light on things, was it possible that a woman could have created the scene in the chalet? She found it hard to stomach if it was.

  She placed the folder back on the desk and went back down stairs to her wine, she took a swig from the glass and saw that the clock told her it was 12:05am. She went to the shower and switched it on, the room quickly filled with steam as she removed her clothes before stepping into the cubicle. The hot water hit her as she placed her face to the streaming jets; she had to talk to Rebecca and decided that she would swing by the holiday park before work on the off chance she was working. If the woman who checked in didn’t commit the crime, then she had no idea who had.

  She dried herself and wrapped a towel round her head, she walked to the bed naked with her glass still in her hand, she crawled beneath her white cotton sheets and placed the now finished glass on the bedside table. Her night was filled with broken sleep and nightmares, the worst was when she woke at 3am in a cold sweat, she had been awake as a table full of guests ate from her open naked body.

  THIRTEEN

  Chapter 5

  I think that it is time I took you back a bit further. I’ve told you the story of Yvette Cranston, well this story goes back about a year and a half further. It was the first week of a new school, the walk up to the front gates was daunting. All the big kids were stood around–some smoking openly–I kept my head down and walked past everybody, I noticed a couple of other kids that looked like they were new and I followed them. I knew we had to meet in the assembly hall but where that was I had no idea.

  In the hall there was a mass of bodies, all shapes and sizes and ethnic orientation, a large voice boomed from the stage at the far end. It came from a beast of a man, he must have been six feet four easily and he had a full face of hair. I had never seen such a sight, and he told us to check the charts on the wall and that there was one on each side and when you found your name you were to stay on that side. I was lucky and found my name on the second wall, there was one girl though who appeared to have checked all the charts and had not found her name, I thought she was going to burst into tears.

  Eventually a teacher went up to her and it turned out that she was a late admission and had not been assigned a class yet. My tutor was a man called Mr Pope, a young olive skinned man wearing jeans and a white t-shirt. He finished his look with tinted glasses and slicked back black hair. We also found out that our house name was Saxon; the others were Norman, Celts & Danes. Mr Pope led us down a narrow corridor, the first door was one of the boys changing rooms, the next was the girls and the third and final door was our form room.

  It was a long narrow room with just a single window high up at the far end, ten feet long by one foot high but the bank of overhead fluorescents gave ample light. The walls were adorned with artwork by previous students, also a board which had our names on and lots of stars ready to be placed next to our names should we merit them. We were asked to pick a seat and that it would be ours for the rest of the year, I picked a table midway down the room to the left and sat down, a short chubby boy sat next to me and introduced himself as Steven. The rest of the day was pretty normal and I remembered thinking that maybe secondary school wouldn’t be so bad.

  The incident I want to tell you about happened the following day; our last lesson of the day was football. I loved football and had looked forward to it all day; the changing room was the one near my form room. I got changed into my games kit and was really excited as I was quite a good footballer. I knew some of the boys were bigger and stronger but I was fast and nimble with the ball and being left footed put a lot of other players
off. Out on the field I proved that I was in the top six players, I scored one goal and helped with a second, a couple of the players weren’t very happy, they obviously hated any physical activity. One of them was called Justin Pilcher, luckily he wasn’t in my form and this was the first lesson I had come across him.

  In the changing rooms after a very good lesson we were all told to head to the showers, I went as white as a ghost, I hadn’t realised we would all have to shower together, one boy in the corner tried just putting his uniform back on and was told to strip and hit the showers – no exceptions. I stripped and grabbed my towel, many of the boys brazenly walked to the communal shower and I noticed that they were far more developed than I was. A couple even had a mass of pubic hair, I had none so far, and my penis was very immature compared to many. I rushed into the shower leaving my towel as close as I could without it getting wet. Thirty seconds and I was out with my towel wrapped around my waist. I thought I had made it, I could slip my pants on under my towel and the get dressed and go home but Justin had other ideas. He was one of the boys who had matured early, he stood there in front of me naked as the day he was born.

  I’ll never forget his words that day, ‘What’s that towel hiding, ’cos I didn’t see anything worth covering up when you were in the shower’. If these words were uttered by anyone other than Justin they would be called ‘Gay boy’ or ‘Homo’ but from Justin they elicited a mass of laughter and soon a small group had gathered round me. Justin then grabbed my towel and whipped it away, I used my hands to cover myself but two of the other boys yanked my arms leaving me exposed. Justin laughed and waved his little finger in the air shouting ‘My pinky finger is bigger than his dick – look’.

  From that day on I was never called by my given name, I would forever be known as ‘Pinky’. As the years went on I got used to it and it never really bothered me, until I look back and remember why I have the name. It is amazing how a small incident early in life can shape the rest of your journey. Even today when someone asks my name I’ll tell them ‘Pinky’ it’s as if these days I wear it as a badge of honour. People I meet now have no idea why I have the name and it has become part of who I am.

  Although many incidents happened to me at school, in some sick and twisted way I enjoyed the experience. It made me what I am today – good and bad. Now if you were to ask my parents how my school life was they would tell you that I was an average student. What they would actually mean is that they took little to no interest in my academic endeavours, parents evening would be attended by either my mum or my dad, never both. I would hear them fighting over who would go, one would say they went last year then the other would say that they had done the two before that.

  I remember the last one I attended. I was in the final year of school and getting ready to take my ‘O’ levels, yes I know they call them GCSE’s now, but back them if you were smart you took ‘O’ levels and if you were as thick as shit you took CSE’s and few ‘special’ students took something completely different almost like a certificate just to let people know they did actually attend school. This particular night my dad took me, he wore his best suit, his hair was slicked back with so much oil Greenpeace would have protested about the effects on the environment and the aftershave was so strong it was as much as I could do not to throw up on the drive to the school.

  We arrived at the school late as usual, and until we reached the last teacher-my form tutor Miss Nicholson - everything had been fairly smooth running. We had spent the obligatory three to four minutes with each of my teachers, my dad acted interested but his eyes kept wandering, a couple of times girls would catch my eye and mouth the words ‘is your dad a perv?’ after they had caught him eyeing them up and down. One particular girl Nikki Phelps had the unfortunate attribute of huge breasts, almost like Dolly Parton. Last year she had a boob reduction as it was beginning to affect her back. Well my dad couldn’t take her eyes off her, even when she blatantly stared back at him. All he did was lean over to me and whisper that I ‘should get myself a bit of that’ and nodded in her direction.

  That wasn’t even the most embarrassing part of the evening. No that was still to come. I should explain about my form tutor before I go on any further, Miss Nicholson. All of the boys in her class had had a wet dream over her at some point, and she would be a regular in most of our spank banks. She was about five feet six, slim with long blonde hair and the bluest of eyes. Most days in class she wore a short black skirt and tight red t-shirt. If this wasn’t enough to drive the boys wild she refused to wear a bra, although she didn’t have large breasts what she did have was perfectly formed and there was always that slight protuberance from her nipple. One extremely cold day the heating had broken, and we had barely sat down in the class when we were told that the school would be closing until the heating was fixed and that we should all go home, but before we went we were treated to every boys dream, her coat was open and there before us was what could only be described as a bullet poking out from her jumper.

  Back to the night in question and me and my dad started to make our way over to the table where Miss Nicholson was sitting. She was in her trademark red and black, and with the table the way it was arranged as we approached we could see her bare legs under the table. At just the right moment she decided to cross her legs and I had the briefest flash of red panties, I don’t know if my dad saw it too but it is something I can still remember to this day.

  We sat down across the table from Miss Nicholson and she briefly looked at her notes before starting to tell my dad what a good student I was. She mentioned to him that at times I could be a little distracted in class, and appeared to disappear into my own little word. Although I listened to every word she said my dad didn’t hear a thing. He had a puppy dog look on his face and appeared to nod at everything she said. If this had been a cartoon his tongue would be hanging from his mouth, his heart would be beating from his chest and there would be little cherubs firing arrows at him. I heard her ask my dad if he had any questions and he just carried on staring at her. I had never been so embarrassed in my life; I had to see her tomorrow in lessons. She repeated her question and it jolted my dad back to reality, without a word he stood up and grabbing me he said to her ‘I’m really sorry but we have to go’ and with that he dragged me out of the hall and to the car.

  He never said another word to me that night.

  FOURTEEN

  Another day and another chance to write a chapter of his book all being good in the block. After his confessional a couple of days ago the other inmates had appeared to warm to him especially Rowena Milton a.k.a. Nursey. They had never really seen eye to eye, one thing most criminals agree on is that crimes against children are just wrong, that there was never any justification for it. For this reason and this reason alone Pinky had taken an instant dislike to her the moment she walked into her cell. He’d seen the same television footage as everybody else, this rather meek, timid looking lady had killed babies, no one was sure how many and Rowena herself could only hazard a guess.

  In the eight years that she has been incarcerated Pinky had probably had a dozen or so meaningful conversations with her. Yet this morning he heard her say something, after asking her to repeat it she said the following, “Pinky, I got to say my admiration for you has gone up tenfold”. To say he was taken aback would be an understatement.

  “Why Nursey?”

  “To admit to something so degrading and shameful, not to mention humiliating to all of us shows us that you have a vulnerable side. Believe it or not we all do.” The last sentence was uttered more as an afterthought and at half volume.

  “You have a vulnerable side?” His tone was harsh, harsher than he had intended, but his biased vision of her was of her suffocating new born babies until all life had been extinguished. Many of the other’s jeered and told Pinky to give it to her. “Sorry Nursey I didn’t mean it to come out like that, but you understand why I find it hard to imagine you with a tender side, don’t you?”

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nbsp; “Pinky, and the rest of you sorry excuses for human beings, I believe we all have stories to tell, stories that we would rather keep well and truly hidden. But yesterday Pinky allowed us a glimpse of what made him act the way he did.”

  “So what’s your story Nursey?” Chef asked, Pinky heard a slight sense of empathy in his words.

  “You don’t wanna hear my story, it’s a cliché for one, and besides you’ve all made your mind up about me–‘I’m the baby killer who should be rotting in hell, not mixing with the likes of you lot, am I right?”

  “Too right Nursey.” Fiddler said.

  “You’re a fine one to talk Fiddler, let her have her say. Go on Nursey, so what is your story.” Pinky asked.

  “People have always been fixated with how many babies I killed, and why I killed them. No one ever saw it from the baby’s point of view. I wish someone had been around like me when I was born.” She started.

  “You mean you wish someone had killed you when you were born?” Chef interrupted.

  “That is exactly what I mean.”

  “Because it meant you wouldn’t have killed all those innocent young things?” Fiddler interrupts this time.

  “Not at all, the fact that I wasn’t killed at birth meant I was able to help all those babies and stop them going through what I went through. I was abused by my mother and father from as young as I can remember. My earliest memories are from about the age of five, the one I will tell you about is just one of many. What I am going to tell you happened about four or five times a week until I was fifteen.