This close encounter of the unwanted kind probably turned Tucker into one of the most cautious perverts in the south of England. It also kept him flat-bound for a few nights, afraid to venture out just in case the police were looking for him. Not that they would have to scour the streets for him anyway…They knew his address.
Some nights, Tucker would go to the pub and try to chat up a girl, but he never managed to get past the first all-important glance.
‘One day,’ Tucker screamed to the mirror in his bedroom. ‘One day, they’ll all wish they’d known me…Fuckin’ bastards.’
When he was drunk, which was often, he would stagger around his room conversing with his reflection in the mirror. He considered the Steve Tucker in the mirror to be handsome and clever. But they never saw this one. They never came to his flat so how could they meet the handsome one? Mirror Steve was suave and sophisticated and, no matter what Tucker did or said in the real world, Mirror Steve was always smiling and approving.
Tucker’s decorating skills were in evidence here too. He’d covered the edge of the mirror with snippets of wallpaper and wrapping paper to make it special. This was, after all, the door to Mirror Steve’s world. It had to be special. When he was very drunk, out-of-his-skull drunk, he would creep up on the mirror and try to catch Mirror Steve unawares. Mirror Steve always caught him out though, and got there first. Tucker would tell him a joke. Which he always screwed up. But if Tucker laughed, which he always did, then Mirror Steve would laugh too. So never mind – it was the closest he would ever get to an audience.
Steve was not a well man.
Chapter 6
Tuesday, May 14, Sewel Mill, 2.30PM
Barbara Jenner parked her car in the public car park behind the main parade of shops in Sewel Mill. Babs made a beeline for the tack shop, which had been in the Tufnell family for at least three generations now. Babs was about as horsey as anyone can be without actually crossing the species barrier, so Tufnell’s was her second home.
She was tall and very confident. Although not a pretty woman, she had a mature elegance and, at forty-one years of age, she still had the kind of figure that occasionally made men head-butt lampposts. Babs was far from shy about her appearance and dressed to show what she had. She was used to turning heads.
As she entered Tufnell’s, her senses were immediately attacked by the glorious smell of fresh, unsoiled wax jackets. Babs wandered around for a while, content to browse. Looking to see what was new this week, if anything. Gloria, the owner, was serving another customer but it didn’t look to be a lengthy transaction. When it was her turn to be served, she greeted Gloria with an air kiss past the side of her head and, after the usual pleasantries, asked if she could try on a few pairs of chaps and some jodhpurs.
‘Of course you can, you just help yourself,’ Gloria answered cheerfully. ‘I’m sure you know where to look by now.’ Gloria disappeared past a curtain at the back of the shop.
‘Tea?’ she called out to the sound of cups rattling.
‘Oh, yes please, I’d love one, Gloria darling, but no sugar otherwise I’ll never find anything in here to fit me and you’ll go out of business! Couldn’t have that now, could we?’ Babs had a clear voice and it carried well.
Gloria came close to saying that today’s modern fabrics can take unbelievable stresses and that it shouldn’t be a problem. However, she thought better of it and remained silent. In common with many people who deal with the general public for a living, Gloria had developed very good self-control over the boundary between thoughts and tongue; it was well-guarded at all times. Besides, Gloria liked Babs and she was a good customer.
Babs knew the layout of the shop well; she only ever shopped there for this kind of thing. It would have been unthinkable to go anywhere else. It must have been at least thirty years since she first set foot in the place as a youngster, when Gloria’s parents were still running it. Occasionally she would buy from a farm wholesaler for feed and bits of ironmongery, but this was the shop for clothes, and she felt that people should support the local traders.
She found some chaps wide enough to fit around her generous thighs and two pairs of jodhpurs, paid for them, finished her tea, said her goodbyes and left the shop. Next stop, the butcher. As she walked down the High Street, she didn’t notice the man watching her. Nobody else noticed him either. He took care that they shouldn’t. He was too well-practised and too normal-looking. He was just an ordinary man in the High Street, going about his business. He attracted no attention.
Babs made her purchase at the butcher’s shop – two large pork chops and some mince – and then casually wandered up one side of the street and then down the other. Still she was being watched. The man shifted his shopping bag from one hand to the other as he crossed the road. He did so in order to by-pass the extremely small branch of a building society. There was a CCTV camera pointing out at the street and the watcher was aware of this. No point in slipping up over something so trivial.
Babs had finished everything on her mental list and headed back to the car park. She’d paid and displayed for two hours and there was still over thirty minutes left. She gave her ticket to the person waiting to pull into her space. The car loaded up with the morning’s shopping, Babs started the engine and pulled out of her space. At that moment, another car quite close by followed suit.
Like synchronised driving, the two cars travelled at a sensible speed out of the village, with an even more sensible gap between them.
Babs didn’t even notice the other car. It wasn’t a car to attract attention. The drive was not long, only about a mile, but Hazel Lane was narrow and it often took longer than you would expect. If you met another car coming in the opposite direction, one of you had to back up to a farm gate or a driveway to let the other person pass.
Babs was ruthless when it came to giving way in the lane. She had developed a very effective technique for use on those occasions when she met someone coming from the opposite direction. She would slow down and make a half-hearted attempt to pull over to one side, as if to let the other person attempt to pass. But she would in fact be stopped in the middle of the road, making it impossible for the other driver, who would then almost certainly give way and reverse back to the nearest passing place. Babs would smile in a helpless girlie way and drive on, feeling the slight thrill of triumph.
Even the vicar was subject to the same technique. Babs did attend the village church but only for hat comparisons and a bit of general socialising. Today there was no confrontation, clerical or otherwise.
Babs indicated that she was turning right about one hundred yards before her drive. The car behind her didn’t need to slow down or even glance at the house. All that was needed in the way of information on the house and surrounding area had been acquired weeks ago, when no one was home.
Tuesday, May 14, 29 St Nicholas Lane, Sewel Mill, 3.30PM
Clive Marks went straight round to the back of the house. Edie was out anyway, so he didn’t expect to run into her. No, it was Cecil Hayward he was looking for and Cecil was in his shed, as usual.
The envelope was ready for him, as usual, and Cecil smiled cheerfully as Marks handed over a small package in exchange. Marks nodded in return.
Few words were spoken but the two men had a regular meeting like this most weeks. The pleasantries had all been used up years ago. Now it was purely business. The arrangement worked beautifully.
Tuesday, May 14, Anvil Wood House, 3.45PM
Babs unloaded the car and walked to her front door. Anvil Wood House was a large rambling Victorian red brick building with hanging tiles from the first floor up, and moss-covered Kent peg tiles on the roof.
At the back of the property, there was a substantial yard with stabling for twenty horses and a ménage. She had inherited it from her mother, on her death almost twenty years ago. Two of the horses belonged to Babs and the others were paying guests, mostly owned by the daughters of local well-to-do folk.
She walked through the
hallway then down a small flight of steps to the kitchen, put the meat in the fridge and then went out to the stables to check the horses. The groom and the two local girls who helped muck out and generally run the stables had gone for the day. Everything was neat and tidy and life was good.
Tuesday, May 14, Sewel Mill Station, 5.30PM
Poppy had left work early that afternoon and the train pulled in to Sewel Mill station on time. In her line of work, she wasn’t tied to a desk from nine till five, and today wasn’t a press day, so there had been no reason to hang around.
Poppy was an equestrian journalist with a mainstream horse magazine. While she enjoyed her work and the contact it gave her with horses and horsey people, what she had really wanted to be was an investigative journalist. The problem was, she never seemed to be in the right place at the right time, and no one ever tipped her off about anything. She was addicted to crime programmes and investigative documentaries on the television. She saw herself as the trusted reporter who works hand in hand with the police to bring criminals to justice, or as the cunning investigator who brings the breaking news to CNN.
Babs and Poppy had been together for twelve years, and the official story for the village was that they were cousins who were widowed young, cohabiting for company and to share expenses. Truth was they were lovers. They met one night in a gay pub in Brighton. Babs was on the prowl and Poppy was waiting for true love to come and tap her on the shoulder. Their ships came in at the same time, to the same mooring. The fact that they both had an interest in horses came as an added bonus.
Poppy kept the relationship secret from her colleagues, as she would find it too embarrassing if they found out. When the subject of men would raise its throbbing head, as it frequently did in an office full of women and a few gay men, Poppy found it hard-going. It was painful and distasteful to even think of men. She loathed them, not because of some distant trauma from her childhood or bad treatment from a relationship. She quite simply hated men and had long since given up trying to work out how or why she felt that way. She just did.
Now she was headed home. She knew Babs was taking care of dinner, as she usually did during the week.
Tuesday, May 14, Anvil Wood House, 5.50PM
In the kitchen of Anvil Wood House, Babs was preparing the pork chops. She put a small knob of butter on each one, followed by a little sage. She would add a few onion rings later. The potatoes were nearly done and the French beans lay in wait for a swift steaming. The ladies ate well.
The kitchen was big and airy with all of the original Victorian features. They both loved it. Over one corner hung a cast-iron and wood-slat clothes dryer, raised and lowered by a rope. Underneath this was a shallow butler’s sink with a wooden plate rack next to it. The floor was small black and white tile, chessboard style, and in the middle was the main work surface, ten feet long by four feet wide. Halfway along one wall was the cooking range and the opposite facing wall supplied the meagre light with many quite small stone-edged gothic-style windows.
As the chops sizzled under the grill, Babs heard a sound outside the back door. It sounded like a dog, not that they owned one, but sometimes the local farm dogs went walkabout and came sniffing around, knocking the lids off the dustbins. She left her cooking to lean out of the top section of the stable-type back door so she could shoo them away. There were no dogs, it was Poppy, and she had a few harnesses and blanket samples from work to test out and write an appraisal for, and had gone straight to the stables to drop them off, rather than come in the front door.
She and Babs kissed on the lips, exchanged daily news while the food cooked and when it was time to eat, sat down to enjoy their meal. This was the best moment in their day, relaxing together and exchanging news and views. After dinner, they adjourned to the sitting room for some television and complained about the standard of the programmes. They shared a passion for Felicity Kendal and a disdain for blonde bimbo presenters, particularly the ones who made a media career out of stealing other people’s husbands.
They talked horses for a while and then retired to bed at about midnight.
Wednesday, May 15, Brentwood Mansions, 12.30AM
Kate leaned against the wall as Emma fumbled with the key. Emma had taken over the task of opening the front door once Kate had demonstrated beyond most reasonable doubt that her own efforts to make it somehow fit into the lock were not likely to be successful.
Fortunately, Emma had more luck and the two of them staggered into the flat, saved from the effort and expense of going down to Claridge’s for the night in the hope that the morning would see them able to operate the damn lock.
‘You weren’t serious about going to Claridge’s, were you?’ asked Emma. ‘You can’t have been.’
‘Of course I was. You wanted to spend the night on the stairs?’ answered Kate. ‘I’ve done it before, but only once, I have to admit.’
‘What, slept on the stairs?’
‘No, you idiot. Mislaid my keys and gone down to stay at Claridge’s. It was bloody expensive, I can tell you.’ She smiled at Emma, who put her arms around Kate, as much to stop her falling over as to show affection.
‘Thank goodness I was here tonight to save you from such a dreadful fate.’
‘Indeed. Don’t know what I’ll do without you when you go back home. Speaking of which, God, it’s so good to be home,’ Kate breathed. ‘My shoes really do need to come off right now this minute.’
‘You need at least a pint of water to help dilute all that wonderful wine.’ Emma headed off towards the kitchen.
‘I think I could probably give up caffeine for Chateau d’Yquem,’ Kate announced. She plonked herself down on her bed, kicking off her shoes.
They had been to a new restaurant that evening, one that Kate had been involved in through a lengthy renovation process. Sadly, the food hadn’t been quite as good as the décor, which had been brilliant, as the two of them had frequently remarked during the course of the evening.
Yes, it was a triumph for the interior design business but not so for the catering. However, that could improve, they allowed, trying to be generous.
‘So, will you call him?’ Kate asked. They had discussed Paul Saxon at length while getting ready to go out earlier in the evening. They had considered the possibility of calling him after dinner – or rather of Emma calling him, while Kate disappeared discreetly to her bedroom.
Emma was happy to be with Kate but she hadn’t altogether given up on her marriage. Hence, the discussions about ‘will I or won’t I phone him?’ The marriage was certainly under a lot of strain and she knew that drastic action was required if she and Paul were to continue their lives together.
Paul was an intelligent man and she still loved him. At least she thought she did. But he didn’t seem to grasp how much at risk they were. He seemed to just accept the difficulties they were facing as being normal, given his line of work. He wasn’t aware that not all marriages were like theirs.
Emma shook her head. ‘Too tired,’ she yawned.
Both were asleep as their heads hit their respective pillows. There would be no pacing around the flat tonight.
Wednesday, May 15, Anvil Wood House, 2.00AM
The bedroom that Poppy shared with Babs was on the second floor; it was one of many. Victorians did like big families and this house was a true reflection of the architectural splendour of that era. There were eight bedrooms in total and various day rooms along with a toilet on each of the three floors. Babs and Poppy had not altered the house, preferring to leave it in its original state. Some of the rooms were empty because they didn’t have enough furniture to fill them.
Heating was not a problem; they had not bothered to install central heating. Neither of them particularly felt the cold and, if the weather took a drastic turn for the worse, they would decamp to the kitchen and huddle near the cooking range.
Even if they had been awake in their king-size bed, they wouldn’t have heard the sound of feet running along the middle of the
lane, fifty yards from the house. The man stayed on the hard surface, through the front gate and following the path around the side of the house to the back. He paused for breath, not from exhaustion, but from anticipation. The night was inky black, with no moon, and no streetlights. It was still warm and humid.
The horses became restless; they sensed something moving behind the house. After five minutes of total silence, all had become calm again in the stable.
The window in the kitchen opened with little effort. The sound of something landing on the tiled floor was lost in the sheer size of the house.
But Babs woke anyway; she was thirsty. And as she put on her dressing gown in their bedroom, two floors below in the kitchen, a hand was reaching for the largest of their collection of carving knives. Take nothing with you and you’ll leave nothing behind. Poppy half woke up, disturbed by the sounds Babs was making. Babs told her to go back to sleep, and made her way downstairs, towards the kitchen. Years of living in the same house meant she had no use for a light. At the foot of the stairs, she stopped dead.
The noise she heard wasn’t the usual sort of sound she would expect to hear in a house in the dead of night. It was a sort of squeaking sound, rather like new rubber-soled shoes on a polished floor. Babs started to move, slowly looking around with squinting eyes. She could see nothing and was feeling around the corner for the light switch when a hand grabbed her wrist. Babs took a deep breath intending to scream but never got there.
The knife entered her neck an inch below her vocal cords and ripped violently to her left, severing her carotid artery. She had no time to scream; even if she had the time it would have been pointless, the air escaped from her lungs before getting to her vocal cords. The hissing gurgling sound that came out of the fast-expiring Babs would not have woken a mouse.
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