Nasty Bitch

by K Leitch

  Carla was now certain that there was some connection between Kerry and Dulcie; however they had no real reason to be able to access her house. The fact that Larry Pincher might be hiding out there wasn’t enough and Carla had nothing else concrete with which to apply for a warrant.

  All of a sudden the memory that had been so elusive up till now, came as clear as a bell as they began to look round the outside of the house. An image of Dulcie the first time Carla had come to her house to speak to Daniel. She had been covered in scratches…she had blamed it on trying to tackle the brambles in her garden. Carla looked round the immaculate little plot which was mainly laid to lawn with a gravel path up one side leading to a shed at the end; there were a few neatly trimmed shrubs near the fence on the other side…but not a sign of brambles anywhere. She noticed a garden incinerator just outside the shed and remembered the smell of bonfire that she had detected on Dulcie that day. Carla went and shone her torch into it, it was empty now apart from a few ashes at the bottom and…just then something caught Carla’s eye…a glint of something shiny. She hunted round for a stick or something, finding nothing she pulled her pen out of her pocket and began to stir the ashes at the bottom with it until she saw what she had spotted and reached in to retrieve it. It was a brass button…the sort that would be found on a pair of jeans.

  She called Frank over. ‘What do you make of this?’ she asked holding out the button for him to see, ‘looks like she’s been burning some clothing in here as well as garden rubbish.’

  Carla went on to tell him about her suspicions and the coincidences that, when you put them all together, were beginning to make alarm bells ring in Carla’s head. Working for Duncan, moving to the US to get married, getting in touch with Duncan on Facebook, the scratches on her arms, the nonexistent brambles. ‘I don’t mind admitting Frank I am beginning to feel really jumpy about all the similarities here…and of course then there’s Daniel.’

  ‘Bloody hell Carla this is looking more and more like we need to get into that house,’ said Frank. ‘I’ve got a real bad feeling about this place.’

  Carla knew what he meant, the place had an eerie feel about it and Carla was now certain that something was not right here.

  She got on the phone to DCI Drew, who listened carefully to everything she said.

  ‘Are you sure Carla, I will have to stick my neck out for this you know?’ she said eventually.

  ‘Yes Ma’am…I think it has become necessary to our enquiry to enter the property…I will take full responsibility,’ said Carla.

  ‘Ok Carla…as luck would have it I am with Miranda Gloss who has just stepped in as magistrate…covering for Tim Haskins, if you will bear with me a minute, I’ll call you back.’

  Carla explained to Frank what DCI Drew had said, and then got on the radio to a couple of squad cars that were local to the house and arranged for them to join her there.

  Her phone rang, ‘Ok Carla I’ve got the warrant…so go for it…’

  ‘Thank you Ma’am,’ said Carla giving Frank the thumbs up. ‘I will keep you posted, I think I will need forensics as well…we’ve found evidence of some clothing being burnt in an incinerator, that I think they should look at.’

  ‘Right I’ll organise that…’ said DCI Drew. She paused before saying, ‘Carla be careful won’t you, if this Dulcie and Kerry Webb are one and the same you could be walking into a dangerous situation…she’s killed many times remember, she has nothing to lose now.’

  So it was a very cautious Carla and Frank that broke carefully into Dulcie’s house ten minutes later. The inside of the house was even darker than the garden and Carla and Frank were both feeling very jumpy as they used their torches to carefully search the rooms.

  Inside the house appeared much as it had from the outside…that it had been shut up tight, not a speck of light from outside could be seen through the heavy curtains, all the doors were closed and the windows locked. Carla and Frank searched each room carefully, so far nothing seemed out of place and Carla was beginning to worry that she had read too much into the similarities between the two women. They moved through the house silently following the thin beam of light from their torches, Carla could hear her heart beating and Frank’s nervous breathing as they slowly went upstairs.

  They both heard it at the same time…heavy ragged breathing. It was very faint and Carla indicated to Frank to stay absolutely still so that they could pinpoint where it was coming from. Carla and Frank both stood on the landing and listened…the noise was coming from behind one of the front bedroom doors. Carla put her ear to the first door, someone was in there…she heard it clearly…laboured, terrified, panting.

  She tried the handle, the door was locked…Frank didn’t wait another moment he put his shoulder to the door and it gave way quite easily.

  The smell in the room made their eyes water and Carla had to put her hand over her mouth to stop herself gagging. Daniel Rushton was tied to the single bed in the small box room, he had tape over his mouth and his eyes were wide with terror. He began screaming through the gag as soon as he saw Carla…screaming and trying to tell her something.

  ‘Ok ok Daniel try and stay calm and I will try and untie you,’ said Carla but he shrank away from Carla screaming even louder as she tried to untie his hands. She could see that he had sustained a horrific beating, his wrists looked dislocated, his hands were hanging at a weird angle.

  ‘Oh you poor boy…no don’t worry I won’t touch them again.’ Carla called for an ambulance and then began to very gently take off his gag. His face was wet and dirty and streaked with tears and his clothes were wet with urine and excrement…he must have been tied up for days.

  Once the gag was off, Daniel started shouting in panic and terror.

  ‘She’s coming back!’ he shouted struggling to move off the bed, ‘GET OUT…GET OUT…SHE’S COMING BACK!’ He was completely hysterical and fought Carla off, as she desperately tried to keep him still so that he wouldn’t injure himself further. Once he realised that he couldn’t move he subsided into hysterical sobbing…the poor boy seemed to be in complete shock. Frank went downstairs to get him some water.

  ‘Daniel,’ said Carla as gently as possible, ‘Where’s Larry? Is he here too Daniel…’

  Daniel eyes got wide with fear again, ‘NO NO NO…SHE’S COMING BACK…NOT ALLOWED IN THE SHED…I told him, I tried to stop him…he wouldn’t listen…’ he broke down sobbing again.

  Carla stared at Daniel, ‘You mean he was here?’ she asked, Daniel just nodded his little body shaking with sobs.

  ‘What happened to him Daniel…when he went to the shed?’

  Carla could feel Daniel’s body start to tremble, she carefully put an arm around him, he looked at her with enormous eyes. ‘He went out to the shed…no one’s allowed in the shed, I tried to tell him but he wouldn’t listen…he punched me and then he ran out there. You must find him…he’s not allowed in the shed!’

  ‘Why isn’t anyone allowed in the shed Daniel?’ asked Carla, ‘who says so…your mum?’ Daniel looked even more terrified at the mention of Dulcie if that was possible; his face lost all trace of colour.

  ‘Daniel, was it your mum that tied you up like this?’ Carla asked, Daniel started howling then, loud desperate animal sounds, that made Carla want to hunt Dulcie down and beat her to a pulp.

  She held his head to her chest, ‘Shh sweetheart …you’re safe now…shhh.’

  Daniel stayed like that until the paramedics arrived, and he seemed reluctant to let go of Carla when they tried to put him on a stretcher.

  ‘Please,’ he sobbed as they took him away, ‘please find Larry.’

  Frank looked at Carla with a raised eyebrow, ‘What does he mean about Larry?’

  ‘He seems to think that Larry is here somewhere…he kept on going on about the shed, how no one’s allowed in the shed.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Frank walking towards the back door, ‘I suppose we’ve got to go into that shed.’

  CHAPTER 5
3

  Duncan didn’t think he had drunk that much; there had been the wine on the table of course, but he had only had a couple of glasses of that then he had asked for a glass of water…he couldn’t understand why the room was spinning and he was having trouble focusing.

  Dulcie was laughing her head off of course, telling anyone who’d listen that he had obviously had far too much and that she would probably have to carry him to the car.

  The last half hour had seemed like a blur to Duncan, he could remember eating his main course and talking to Dulcie about Martha and how they had come over from Ireland…but after that everything had taken on a dreamlike quality, he only felt half conscious…something was definitely not right. He tried to tell Dulcie that he wasn’t feeling well and that he would call a cab to take him home, but she just smiled brightly and told him to drink some more water…but the water just seemed to make it worse not better, he was having trouble keeping his eyes open and he was seriously worried that he was going to fall flat on his face when he tried to walk out of the restaurant…everything was going dark…help… what was happening to him…help why wasn’t anybody helping....

  Dulcie sat down on an old upturned bucket and waited; she was panting and sweating…that had been a mammoth task of persuasion and brute force…the man was enormous…but she had done it and he was tied up tight and unconscious …all she had to do now was wait for the drug to start wearing off.

  This was her favourite bit…the anticipation, her father was right…damn his black soul to hell!

  The inside of the barn was pitch black now that she had switched off the lantern. It was so dark that it seemed to engulf her…and without her sense of sight her other senses became heightened. She could hear the blood pumping through her veins, smell the remnants of the many animals that had passed through this building…and hear Duncan’s steady breathing as he slept off the drug.

  She thought with suppressed excitement of the pain that she would inflict, the slicing of the knife, the crack of the strap as it gouged out his flesh…his terror when he realised what she was going to do…his pleas for mercy…oh yes they all begged in the end…she loved it when they begged.

  And the blood…there was always so much blood, on her face, in her hair…it thrilled her like nothing else…her breathing was becoming ragged with excitement. ‘Come on,’ she said impatiently, urging him awake…he had to be awake so that he could feel everything…it was no good if they didn’t scream and groan…

  A noise! Dulcie’s head swung round to where Duncan was hanging…he stirred again, mumbling to himself…the mumbling got louder and more urgent as he began to realise his predicament.

  ‘What the fuck… what? HELP…HELP, SOMEBODY…’ he yelled.

  Dulcie sat completely still, a smile on her face. ‘At last,’ she thought.

  ‘PLEASE…IS ANYONE THERE…HELP ME,’ shouted Duncan louder now. Dulcie stood, smoothed down her skirt, picked up her bag and walked over to him.

  CHAPTER 54 – CARLA

  Carla and Frank made their way back down the garden path to the little brick built shed at the end. Once again the door was locked and once again Frank put his shoulder to it, but this door was made of sterner stuff and it took a few good runs at it before the door crashed inwards.

  The inside of the shed was clean and dry, shelves were filled with plant foods and gardening tools. There was a lawn mower hanging on one wall, along with a few larger tools, a spade and fork and a broom. There were a couple of fuel cans on the floor both with small amounts of petrol inside, Carla remembering the petrol soaked body at the last crime scene carefully put the cans to one side to be collected for forensic checks. Other than that the shed seemed quite innocuous, there was an enormous freezer taking up the whole of the back wall which actually, now Carla came to think of it, seemed a bit excessive for a woman and one child…an awful thought began to take shape in Carla’s mind and she went over to the freezer…it was padlocked shut.

  ‘Who the hell padlocks their freezer?’ she asked Frank who was examining some bottles of white powder that he had found amongst the plant food.

  ‘A very determined anorexic,’ joked Frank, ‘what do you think this could be?’ he held up the bottle of powder, shining his torch on it so that Carla could see.

  ‘I haven’t got a clue,’ said Carla hunting round for a key to the padlock, ‘bag it up…let forensics have a look. Can you help me try and see if there’s a key for this in here?’ she added as she slowly began running her hands along the shelves.

  ‘What…like this key do you mean?’ Frank said smugly waggling his eyebrows and jangling a set of keys that had been hanging on a hook beneath the window.

  Carla gave him a look and snatched the keys from him…one of them fitted the padlock, and since both padlock and key seemed brand new, it turned easily. Carla pulled the padlock off and lifted the heavy lid of the freezer, while Frank shone his torch into it…

  ‘SHIT!’

  ‘WHAT THE FUCK!’ They both shouted at once, recoiling back away from the freezer, and, as had happened with Larry, in her shock Carla dropped the freezer lid down again.

  ‘My god Carla…what sort of sick maniac are we dealing with here?’ said Frank panting with shock.

  Carla took a deep breath and lifted the freezer lid once more…shining her torch into it.

  Larry Pincher’s frozen face looked up at her…staring at her with petrified eyes, his mouth open in a never ending scream. The dark mass of frozen blood around his neck indicating that his throat had been cut…he was still fully dressed in his school uniform.

  ‘Holy shit,’ Frank whispered behind her, ‘don’t go into the shed…too bloody right.’

  Forensics arrived and started going through the house with a fine toothcomb, in the master bedroom presumably where Dulcie slept, they found several different coloured wigs…one long red one was of particular interest.

  But the most gruesome discoveries weren’t made until Dorothy’s team had removed Larry’s body from the freezer.

  ‘Well well well…what have we got here?’ said Dorothy lifting out one of the carefully packed trays of meat, ‘quite an amusing euphemism,’ she chuckled, ‘although it seems actually to be meat and two veg.’ It was in fact a meticulously packaged set of male genitals…there were three more in the freezer and also the naked frozen body of an elderly man…there was no doubt anymore, Dulcie Rushton or Kerry Webb, which ever name she was using now, was their serial killer.

  But where was she now?

  Carla suddenly let out a wail and pulled out her mobile, frantically keying in numbers.

  ‘Shit…come on Duncan…shit,’ she got voicemail. ‘Duncan please phone me as soon as you get this message it’s urgent! Oh and if you are with Dulcie do not drink anything and do not leave the restaurant with her!’

  ‘Bugger…’ she punched in Maggie’s number. ‘Maggie,’ she almost shouted when she answered, ‘do you know where Duncan was taking Dulcie tonight…come on come on think, he must have said something…Epsom…where in Epsom…yes of course I’ve tried calling him… Maggie, Duncan is in grave danger, we must find him…ok good…I know, yes…ok thanks love… no don’t you try and find him…I MEAN IT MAGGIE NO!’ shouted Carla making Frank frown at her. ‘I’m sorry love, but this is one hell of a nasty bitch we are dealing with…promise me you will leave it to us…ok thanks.’

  She rang off and looked over to Frank, ‘Dulcie was having a date with Duncan tonight,’ Frank’s eyes widened, ‘as far as Maggie knows she had booked a table at some out of the way restaurant in Epsom somewhere…Maggie’s not sure but she thinks it was something like ‘Luigis’ or ‘Gino’s’ some sort of Italian name. Frank can you give Mandy a call, we need the names and addresses of all Italian restaurants in and around Epsom ASAP…I’m going to have another look round inside see if I can’t find a diary or something with anything about tonight’s date…do we have her laptop?’

  ‘No Ma’am,’ answered a young constable who
was standing nearby…it’s not in the house, can’t see any computers of any kind in there.’

  ‘Well keep searching…we need to know where she went tonight…Sam, can you head on up to the hospital…see if Daniel has any idea where she was going, you never know she may have told him.’

  ‘I’m on it,’ said Sam heading off down the path to his car.

  Carla went back into the pristine house, which wasn’t looking quite so pristine anymore… drawers had been opened and tipped out, cupboards emptied. All the sofas had been searched and cushions were all over the floor, Carla felt a small sense of satisfaction when she thought of how horrified Dulcie would feel if she could see it now. Her mobile rang…it was Maggie.

  ‘Honey I’ve just remembered…the name of the restaurant I mean it wasn’t fucking Luigis it was Fucking ‘Fredo’s’ I remember ‘cus we were laughing and calling it ‘Fucking Fredo’s’. I don’t know where it is though…I’ve got a feeling it’s nearer to Bushstead, somewhere out there…’

  ‘Thank you sweetheart you’re an angel,’ said Carla ringing off.

  ‘FRANK!’ she called as she ran to the car…it’s fucking Fredo’s…Fredo’s I mean, somewhere in Bushstead…try the sat nav…no f.r.e.d.o.s…yes! Right let’s go…can you radio it in, we might need some help when we get there.’

  With blue lights flashing and sirens wailing, they made it to the restaurant in record time; the staff there remembered the couple as soon as Carla began describing them.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said the manager laughing. ‘He was very drunk, ‘is wife…she carry ‘im…on ‘er shoulder…is very funny, I say I ‘elp ‘er…but she laughs and say she manage…and she did…is very funny.’