by Emmy Ellis
It was bloody stifling with four bodies and a gas heater going full blast, and sweat sprang out in Lou’s armpits.
“Stick the lamp on.” She pointed at a swan-neck black one on the wooden bench going along the back of the shed, opposite the door.
Gorley frowned, blinking, not doing as she’d asked. “What?”
Lou ignored him. He was a frail bugger now, a withered version of his former upright self. She glanced to her left, startled by an image of Jess on a whiteboard above the bench. Or was that her mind playing tricks? What was this, his own little investigation room? Or did he have that picture for other, more sinister reasons?
Yes, he did.
She jerked a thumb in Jess’ direction. “What the hell is my child doing on there? What are you, some kind of paedo?” God, he ran a ring, didn’t he, had set up a website where freaks of nature logged on and stared at kiddies. She was sure of it. “Is that why you’re always in this shed? Do you come here to fiddle with your fucking filthy self, you bastard?”
Gorley spluttered, shaking his head.
He was rejecting her truth. No wonder he lived in a nice house on New Barrington. He got subscription money off pervs to pay the big mortgage. They handed over their money to him, and he sent them indecent images. That had to be it, didn’t it?
Another photograph of a child, a brown-haired boy, was pinned next to Jess with a small circular magnet—pink. The final insult, Gorley choosing her daughter’s favourite colour. She studied the image. Wasn’t that the lad who’d gone missing, Lee Scrubs, an almost-teenager who’d told his friends he was going to run away because his dad was a bully? Lee had turned up dead in a ditch on the land the New Barrington now stood on, years before Jess had died, and the whole town had been horrified.
She ignored the red arrows and writing.
“You dirty ponce.” She wanted to attack Gorley with her bare hands like she had with Vance Johnson but held back. “Francis, stand by that window so old nosy bollocks out there doesn’t see.”
“He won’t say owt even if does, he’s on the payroll as ears, but maybe we’ll save him the shock.” Francis blocked the view, and the shed darkened. “We don’t need another body on our hands, death by a sodding heart attack.”
Gorley whimpered and fumbled with the lamp, no denial about being a kiddie pervert coming out of him—he can’t even give me that—and the time he was taking to find the switch was doing Lou’s head in, stretching her nerves then shrinking them so the shrivel gave her goosebumps. She clenched her fists and her teeth, counting to three, telling herself if she got to five, Gorley would know about it.
At last, the shed lit up, Jess and Lee drowned in light, their innocent, stuck-in-time faces gazing on. Gorley stared at Lou as if about to shit himself. His silly grey fringe, usually held back with Brylcreem, flopped forward to cover one eye.
Good. She wanted him to experience fear like Jess had.
Like herself and Joe had.
He pushed his hair back. “Please, I don’t know what you think I’ve done…”
Was he the man in the back of the van? Is that why he was never found?
My God, he’s been walking amongst us all this time, the absolute wanker.
Her mind accepted that as a complete fact—it was the only reasonable explanation in her eyes, akin to her pretending Jess was in Cornwall—she’s still down there on the beach with her bucket and spade—a story she made up to cope.
It cemented itself in her mind. Yes, Robin had clutched Jess to him, his dirty pig hand over her mouth to stop her screaming. Robin was the one they were after. No matter that Jess had wandered from The Mechanic’s house to Sculptor’s Field, Vance intercepting, as Cassie had explained. Robin had let her out of that home office, he’d encouraged her to her death.
Yes, that was how it had happened.
“You let my daughter down.” She unzipped her bag and eased her hand inside, careful not to jab herself on the weapon—she didn’t need any of her blood left here. Forensics were so good these days, who knew if it’d still be found in the ashes? “Twenty-three years I’ve thought about this day, told myself I’d come and see you, get things off my chest, and here I am. I can’t hold it in any longer. I need justice.”
Gorley’s mouth flapped. Any more of that, and his creamy dentures would pop out. “I’m sorry, but there were circumstances—”
“Yes, we know about the bribe,” Cassie said on a sigh, reversing and planting her back to the door.
Cassie hadn’t gone to bed. Instead, she’d read the RESIDENTS ledger, then looked the coppers’ names up in the others to see what Lenny had written about them. This bastard here, he’d suppressed the case—on Lenny’s orders—so no wonder the person in the back of the van had never been found (but it’s Robin, that’s why). Lenny hadn’t found him either; maybe he’d known the DCI was the accomplice after all—and if he wasn’t, what the hell was he thinking, getting the case shut down? If Lenny were alive today, she’d use her weapon on him, no matter that they’d been good friends. He’d had no right to interfere, to cover for a bent copper, a paedo. When Cassie had told her about the information found in the ledgers, all Lou’s suspicions had been confirmed. How come Cassie and Francis hadn’t remembered this before now? They’d both read all the ledgers.
Maybe there was so much data it had slipped their minds.
Thinking of Gorley’s wicked part in this brought on a surge of anger, topping up the rage that was already present, boiling it so her face flushed with heat, prickled with sweat. “You told your superintendent the case was going nowhere. How the hell have you lived with yourself?”
Gorley rubbed his wrinkled forehead, his liver-spotted hand jolting from the shakes. “Sleepless nights, guilt, you name it, I’ve been through it. Lenny was a nasty piece of work. He threatened my wife, my kids. What would you do in that situation?”
“What was right.” Although she would have done everything to protect Jess and Joe, she wasn’t about to say so. In his position, yes, she’d have gone down the same path as him, but that wasn’t the issue here. “Someone’s still walking around out there, a man or woman who held my child in the back of a van, maybe too tightly because she wiggled, screamed for her mammy and daddy. It was you, wasn’t it.”
Gorley winced, leaning on the bench. “I can’t apologise enough for— Oh, my chest…”
So he was admitting it then. He hadn’t denied being in that van. “No, you can’t say sorry enough.”
She felt about in her bag, slipping her hand inside the brown leather loop she’d created on the back of a five-by-three-inch piece of wood—the brown to match the gloves of the accomplice—Robin’s gloves—a reminder to her of what this was all about. She’d cut one of her old belts down, attaching it to the back. The weapon sat across her knuckles now, nice and snug, no room for slippage.
“No amount of apologising will make this better,” she said. “I’ve had to live without my child instead of seeing her turn into a woman. Your treachery, your selfishness in ignoring what was right to save your own children meant you got to see them grow up.” Her heart hurt, but not from stress or the pressure of this situation. It was from missing Jess. “Enjoy their first day at school, did you? All those birthday parties? All those times they came to you for advice or needed a cuddle?”
“I’m sor—”
“Don’t.” She used her free hand to slice the air. “Don’t you dare say it again. If you were sorry, you’d have kept working on it behind the scenes, quietly, no matter what Lenny threatened.” That was a low blow, but she was past caring about how she manipulated things to suit her now. This was about her little girl, and she’d fight to avenge her murder until her dying day. “No matter that you were the one in that van.”
She pulled her hand out of the bag and held it up. Gorley’s eyes bugged, and Cassie whispered, “Fuck me…” Francis laughed, the sound creeping over Lou’s shoulder—yes, Francis would approve, Lou had known that when she’d fashioned the
bloody thing. At the thought of her friend’s response, she’d chuckled to herself with every whack of the hammer, the extra-hard smacks she’d had to give so the leather was secure.
Twenty-three long nails stuck out of the wood, one for each year of torment without Jess, all of them matte, the grey colour representing her soul, how it had dulled the moment she’d known her baby wasn’t coming home. The darkness of them reminded her of her thoughts, the ones where she’d planned for a day like this, the scheming keeping her from going even madder than she already was. And the brown leather loop, that was to show what goes around comes around, full circle.
No one else would understand. But it didn’t matter so long as she did.
“What…what are you going to…?” Gorley pressed himself in a corner created by the bench and the wall, trying to get away. A stack of black plastic plant pots fell off, hitting the floor, black peat spilling out of the top one.
Peat… Lou shuddered, a distant memory poking her.
Gorley panted. “Someone will know I’m dead eventually, if that’s what you plan on doing. Think about it. A policeman.”
“Ex-policeman. And no one will know,” Cassie said. “Don’t tell me you’re not aware of how we work, or is that something else you’ve conveniently tossed out of that sick mind of yours? Did Lenny ever tell you who Marlene is? Were you in with him that much that he let you know about her?”
Gorley shook his head, his cheeks a tad pasty. “All I did was steal the wellies and the coat, then get the case closed. I steered clear of Lenny unless he called on me to cover things up.”
“Or to scare kids.” Cassie stepped forward and stood shoulder to shoulder with Lou. “Like when they nicked drugs from Lenny’s runner that time, and you came to warn them off. Why did he do that? Why use you? I’ve always wondered, haven’t you, Mam?”
Francis nodded.
Cassie continued. “He usually sorted shit himself. What did he need you for?”
Gorley panted again and rested a hand over his heart. “Oh God. My chest hurts.”
“Not as much as I do,” Lou sniped. “Carry on.”
Gorley’s fingers turned onto bird’s feet, curved, all disjointed and branch-like. “Lenny…he did it to keep me in his pocket. To remind me he was always there, that I had to obey him like everyone else did. He fucked with minds—and enjoyed it, you lot should know that. Look, can we chat about this? Do I need to be hit with that…that thing to make you feel better, Lou? Really?”
She suspected he was using a copper tactic on her: keep the criminal talking while he thought of what to do next. Any minute, he’d try humanising himself, like she was a psychopath or something, one who needed to be drawn out of her crazy head, him calming her down, the hero. Honestly, like she was even a nutter.
She glared at him. “Yes, it’ll make me feel better.”
Lou raised her arm, drew it back, the nail tips pointing in his direction, and thought of all the years helping Joe to muck out the pigs, the constant shovelling up of mess, her biceps strong, her back muscles well able to handle what she was about to do. She might be older now, she might be as skinny as Barney Lipton’s rake, but she could hurt this man. She could kill him.
The adrenaline rush from another time, how she’d feared being caught, how Doreen had stared at her, blood dripping down her young face from the splashback, winged through Lou. The feeling of euphoria and power had thundered through her back then. It was doing it now, pushing her on, as was Jess’ little giggle inside her head.
Go on, Mammy, kill the naughty man. Be The Piggy Farmer.
Lou launched her fist at him, and he raised his arm to block the attack, something she hadn’t anticipated. It was too packed in the shed for him to get away, but he screamed and shoved her back regardless, using the arm she’d struck, driving the nails deeper. His dark shirtsleeve hid any blood and the sight of the gore she so longed to see, and she stumbled in reverse, Cassie steadying her with a fierce grip on her shoulders.
Lou wrenched the nails out, and with Gorley bent over, clutching the twenty-three wounds, scream-growling, lips tight together, she swung the weapon in a sideways arc, ramming it into his cheek, the momentum wrenching his head to the left. This time, his scream didn’t come from an open mouth but one clamped shut by nails in his gums. His eyes bulged, his skin going purple, the cords in his neck rising, straining. Blood poured, trailing over his jawline and onto the side of his throat in rivulets, his head back against the side of the shed beside a newspaper clipping with the headline: CHILD GOES MISSING. One elbow propped on the bench stopped him from falling onto his skinny arse, and she was surprised he hadn’t passed out.
He cried, tears mingling with the blood, and stared at her with true fear in his eyes, a cornered animal—and he was an animal. She smiled at another of Jess’ ghostly giggles and, hand on his forehead, bracing herself for what she was about to do, ripped the nails out then sliced down. His wail filled the space, his cheek tearing into macabre, claw-like downward slashes, and he choked, spat a tooth out along with a stream of saliva-laced blood. Francis laughed with Jess, and Lou stepped back, readying herself for another attack.
She walloped him again, the nails driving into his throat, slight resistance at the Adam’s apple, and she pushed with all her body weight, Cassie pressing in from behind, until the base of the nails hit skin. The breath from the gurgle spluttering out of him spattered Lou’s face with warm blood that gushed between his lips, and he brought a hand up to clasp her wrist.
Please… She thought he’d whispered that, asking her with his eyes to keep the nails where they were. Taking them out would create so much damage. And death.
Cassie karate-chopped his arm, and he let Lou go. Lou snatched the nails out, blood arcing, water through a colander, falling to his shirt, on her coat, one errant stream casting a few dotted lines on the wooden side of the shed. Cassie moved out of the way, and Lou took a step or two back, watching him slump to the floor—fascinating—his hands scrabbling to stop the blood, his scarlet-soaked, ruined face skewed in pain.
Cassie took Lou’s prime spot and loomed over him. “It’s been said you never cross a Grafton, but as you’ve gathered, you don’t cross a Wilson either.” She turned to Francis. “Go and speak to Barney, make sure he remembers the score. Tell him to fuck off until tomorrow. Give him that envelope I put in the car door cubby.”
Francis squeezed outside, closing the door, and Lou moved to the window, her back to it, and studied a steadily dying Gorley. Blood seeped between his fingers at his throat, and down from his wrecked cheek to drip onto the back of his wrist. He whimpered, groaned, air sawing out of him, painful rasps, ones Jess might have released while Vance had strangled her.
It was enough to urge Lou to kick out at Gorley, the thick sole of her sturdy farm boot connecting with his nose. The sickening—beautiful—crunch of bone and cartilage gave her immense satisfaction, a sound she’d play over and over in her head on the nights she became an insomniac. She kicked again and again, like those kids you saw on the telly, an episode of Crimewatch, caught on CCTV beating someone up. With each strike, the back of his head whacked the wall, his hand dropping from his neck to rest on his thigh. Blood still pulsed, faster now, from fear, she hoped, and her last assault saw her boot breaking through the threads of skin holding his cheek together, the toe tip lodged in his mouth between his molars.
She lowered her foot to the floor. Looked at Jess on the whiteboard.
I’m doing it all for you, my little darling. All for you.
Jess laughed.
Chapter Nine
The Barrington Life – Your Weekly
FOR PETE’S SAKE, STOP SENDING BLOODY FLOWERS!
Karen Scholes – All Things Crime in our Time
Sharon Barnett – Chief Editor
JULY 1997
Look, you know what was said in a previous version of The Life. Joe and Lou don’t want any flowers — stop getting them delivered to the farm. Spend the money on your ow
n kids, or grandchildren, like they wanted. How come you’re so intent on sending bouquets, paying out for them, when it took me getting seriously arsey to make you all donate towards the horse-and-carriage hearse? (Which, I might add, was a damn sight more important than a few roses and carnations.)
How do you think Lou feels, seeing reminders that her little girl has gone, all those bunches in vases? You mean well, I get that, but pack it in. Lenny will be having a word with everyone who sends any after this, so consider yourselves warned. Betty from Blooms will be keeping a record of all purchases.
Likewise, no visitors to the farm — you know who you are. Lou can’t handle it. Anyone who turns up will get their lights punched out.
Behave.
Two weeks after the funeral, Lou stared at a kitchen full of half-dying flowers, their smell cloying, the varying scents getting down her throat. People had sent them, maybe hoping they’d make her feel better. She couldn’t stand them, all those petals, the colours, the leaves. Joe had bought her a bunch a week right from the beginning of their relationship, but she’d have to tell him not to bother now. She hadn’t told him, back when he’d presented her with bouquets, why she didn’t want to receive them, why each one stirred unrest inside her. It was a part of her past she’d never reveal to him; flowers were something she’d prefer not to receive.
They were a painful reminder of what had happened, back then and now.
She’d compost them. Later.
Lou had remained in the house since the funeral, but a few people had dropped by. She hadn’t opened the door but stared out of the window at them clutching Pyrex dishes full of food. She’d been unable to summon the energy to listen to their condolences all over again and had phoned Lenny to ask him to put a stop to the visits and the flowers. It was all too much.
