Deadly Thyme

by R. L. Nolen

  “… could not yet determine exact cause of death as loss of blood … exsanguinations such as this are rare … Exsanguination is the process of blood loss, to a degree sufficient to cause death. One does not have to lose all of one’s blood to cause death. Depending upon the age, health, and fitness level of the individual, one can die from losing half or two-thirds of their blood; a loss of roughly one-third of the blood volume is bad. The loss of quantities of blood over time can cause a degree of instability of the body’s normal antibodies and cause a reaction that looks very much like starvation, which can in turn cause the loss of hair and teeth that we found present.”

  He told himself to listen and discover exactly what matched this girl’s murder to the others. What was it? Time. That’s what it was. This girl had survived over time a difficult process of having her blood drained. That’s what they were saying.

  The sun shone through a tiny window behind and above the coroner, spotlighting an empty chair at the front of the room. He could dream it might be hot out. It wasn’t true. There was a stiff wind. Good weather for country walks. Would the weather hold? This time of year one could never tell. The sun might shine for a few hours, and then a tremendous storm might sweep out any remembrance of warmth, like the tale of Beira, queen of winter, who always tried to stave off spring with fiercer and fiercer storms. Greater and more potent each would be until the last, greatest storm of all when all her strength would be used up. Her power spent, she would go into hiding to let spring and summer have their seasons.

  The creak of wooden chairs under heavy bottoms, low mutterings, and shoes scuffing on the wooden floor ceased abruptly. The silence jolted him from his daydream state. He turned his head and watched Annie Butler’s mother, accompanied by another woman, walk down the aisle to a seat near him. He leaned forward to facilitate a better view. She brought her head up and her dark, shoulder-length hair parted. Jon’s heart did a flip-flop. God! Though her face was colorless and puffy from crying, she was even more striking than he imagined from his first glimpse of her the night before. Framed under glamorous brows, her eyes were a splendid dark brown. Her pale lips were full and expressive above a well-defined chin.

  The droop and visible shake in her shoulders spoke of sorrow. Tears ran unchecked. She covered her eyes with a hand as if shielding herself from everything.

  He’d always wanted to visit the states, the land of cowboys and Indians and craggy, cactus-covered mountains. He remembered watching the westerns as a child, wishing he could be a cowboy and setting up his room with his bed as a rock shelf to hide from the bad guys. They always wore black hats.

  He wished it were so simple. These days it was hooded windcheaters and balaclavas.

  So, after he’d heard that the victim’s mother had left the States, the first thing he wondered was why such a woman had come to hide away in Cornwall. Had her past life anything to do with the murder?

  Jon watched as one after another of the villagers gave testimony. Ruth Butler was not called immediately. Her friend Sally and other people who were near the scene gave details of what they may have noticed at the beach after Annie disappeared.

  Sam Ketterman, a more circumspect man after Trewe’s interview with him, described Annie as independent and bright, though headstrong. He was not being used as Ruth Butler’s solicitor and this made Jon wonder. Usually the relative of the victim has a solicitor present, but the coroner was conducting the entire proceeding.

  He noted the honorable Mr. Malone, esteemed magistrate, being called. He was a dapper man, handsome at one time perhaps, but he had run to middle age, if his large midsection was any testimony. Malone claimed Annie had been in his last history lecture. After he was sworn in, the poor fellow found a sidetrack where he expounded on the evils which can befall the innocent. Soon thereafter, he was interrupted and told to step down. He literally huffed on his way to his seat.

  It was Jon’s turn to testify as the person who found the body. He kept to the facts, glad he wasn’t asked about his presence in Cornwall. As he stepped down, duty done, he noticed Mrs. Butler’s seat was empty. She doesn’t like me. The painful thought cut to the quick. Wait. I am being a self-centered jerk. This isn’t about me.

  The sunlight streaming through the window disappeared. The room’s atmosphere changed into a gray gloominess under a rumble of thunder. He wondered if winter wasn’t through with them yet. Send your worst, Beira, Jon thought, you can’t make that woman’s pain any more devastating.

  Annie learned that the slithering sound she had thought was a snake was a doorway covering. It was made of leaves. When it rustled it meant the man had come back. She couldn’t count on regular times for his visits. He muttered about the heater and fire and his precious jars. She could count on food being fruit and raw vegetables, sometimes a sandwich. He brought it in plastic containers. She wouldn’t eat when she knew he was nearby. But as soon as he’d leave she would devour it. She didn’t want to be caught awake because he might touch her and she didn’t want him touching her. As she was usually laying on the mattress, it wasn’t hard to stop moving if she suspected he was coming. When she heard the door leaves rattle, she steadied her breaths to fake sleep.

  When he found her in what he thought was sleep, he would grumble incoherently, his voice whispering rasps. He would stumble around the cave moving things around. She couldn’t see because she was pretending to be asleep. Sometimes his weird words would turn into a conversation with different voices that really made the hair on her arms stand on end, and even after he left those voices would creep uninvited into her dreams.

  She didn’t know who he was or where he was from, but he was no doctor. Doctors didn’t act as he did, and the knowledge that he was a regular person who had stripped her of her clothes left her shaking with fury.

  22

  Saturday, 4:55 p.m.

  “Hallo, old friend.”

  “Charles.”

  “And see, there’s the problem. We need to talk.”

  “I’ve no call to hide from truth.”

  “I’ve suspected it. You’ve known me the longest of anyone. You know why I couldn’t let my past trip me up.”

  “You needed a chance to come into your own, though I’ve never understood how it happened that you are able to live as you do.”

  The dog growled deep in her throat.

  “Call yer dog back. I have money that you didn’t know about. I’ll share if you’d like. You could use a new roof.”

  “I don’t ask for what I can’t pay back. Tell me about yer mother.”

  “I never laid a hand on the old woman. You knew her—why would I? I was framed for it. You of all people have understood the way things work in this country. You believed me.”

  “I tried to help you.”

  “Are you going to let me in?”

  The clattering chains loosed, the heavy door creaked open.

  “Ye’ll be wantin’ tea?” Tavy asked.

  “Sure, sure.” Charles made his way to the kitchen table, alert to any possibility. “I’m wondering why it is you’ve never said anything about my name.”

  “Never have gone out o’ my way to stir up trouble, have I?” The older of the two men lifted the kettle off the Aga. “I saw you at the inquest. I suspect it is you on the cliffs at night. Charles, did ye murder this child?”

  “Of course not.”

  “An’ I’m to take yer word fer it?” The older gent set the kettle down and put the teapot on the table, already laid with a single table setting, the breakfast fry-up ready to eat.

  “All I can give,” Charles grumbled. “You’ve no choice.”

  “All of us have choices, Charles Darrin. Just as you had the choice when you moved here whether to use yer real name or not. If I hadn’t known you from Carmarthenshire …”

  “Only a temporary place until I moved here and decided to settle. I live free with the name I use and I intend to keep it. I’ve helped you out before. Do you need money now?”

&nb
sp; “Nae, I need nothing. I understood it then, I understands it now. But because I understands, does not mean I believe it is right for you to hide behind a different identity. Do you worry about your past—is that it?”

  Charles wondered what he was getting at. “I hate my past.”

  “Revenge only delays the pain.”

  “Fine talk.”

  “I’ve tried to reach through to that dark soul but you seem harder than the stone this house is made of.” The old man turned his back, reaching to the tea mugs. “I want you to know I’m not afraid of death. There’s forgiveness through prayer.”

  Charles lifted the heavy iron pan from the table. “Praying never helped me, old man.”

  Ruth knew where she was and what was happening. She was in a car—sounds of swishing tires, it was raining—on the way home from her daughter’s inquest, after identifying the black shoes she had bought for her daughter the week before. There were quiet sobs from the back seat where her mother sat. The proceedings in the coroner’s inquest were suspended until after the final outcome of any criminal case was known. She’d heard the words “open verdict” and couldn’t believe it. Dead is dead isn’t it? They couldn’t bury her daughter-who-wasn’t-her-daughter because of all the legalities that she couldn’t understand now. All she knew was that the body would not be released.

  Swish-rack was the sound the old wipers made scraping against the windshield. The noise she noticed, but not much else. There were times the numbness dulled even the noise. Days had passed and she hadn’t noticed them as days, only the passage of light to dark to light. Emotions were scattered, but horror or numbness prevailed, and there was not much else that she could recall with clarity. She floated, alive and not wanting to be.

  Waking up to that first shattering pain of awareness every day since, she choked down food that was as tasteless as cotton, washed up dishes and tried not to remember. But she couldn’t do anything else but remember. She showered in the hottest water possible, numbing her skin to match her heart.

  She had no desire to be around anyone who didn’t know. She didn’t want to see that look on any other face again, that look of pity and sadness from hearing for the first time that the poor lady’s only child was dead. They always tried to cover it up with words, with platitudes, but she knew—and she never wanted to experience that look again.

  Swish-rack. Six days. Seemed forever. Seemed yesterday. Where was the order of things? For a child to die before a parent—it wasn’t right.

  The sky rumbled and growled—so like that Detective Chief Inspector. His bushy gray hair stuck out in a fringe above his ears. He had a way of staring. Almost clear, his piercingly unemotional eyes frightened her.

  The inquest had adjourned so the police could “identify the killer and look for more evidence to secure the necessary conviction.”

  Swish-rack. The wipers barely cleared anything on her side. She looked through the windshield seeing only grayness and wondered how many other mothers had lost their children to blood-drained starvation. Drug dependent? Of course it wasn’t Annie. It was more than ludicrous.

  The rain fell with a steady roar on the car’s roof. Her mother moaned, then whispered, “I’m so sorry, Annie.”

  Swish-rack. Rivulets of silver whipped across the windscreen. The car insulated by rain smelled of wet dog hair and muddy shoes.

  Shoes.

  Was it just last week? She had told Annie she could take a day off from school just that one time, as a treat. What were they doing working so hard to exist if they couldn't take a moment to enjoy their lives? A special day, just the two of us, Mummy? Yes. That was Thursday and they had gone up to London by train from Exeter.

  The quiet train had moved steadily with smooth stops and starts. They’d seen short scrub trees and bare, green fields dotted with sheep and crisscrossed with trimmed hedgerows. They could take the countryside all in as it flashed past in that moment, in that twinkling of an eye, and they did. Look! Mum! A pheasant! There by the other track! Indeed there had been a pheasant just then, sneaking, neck extended, back into the undergrowth. They had passed the canals, the rear side of flats and their garden allotments, with views gradually changing from field to steep sides of earth. Then the steep sides of earth turned to brick walls splashed with bright graffiti, and they’d arrived in London. London! They got off the train at Paddington Station with its pigeons flying indoors, its noise of bustling crowds and loudspeaker announcements, its smell of trains, coffee and frying sausages, and its odd outdoor feel with the light from the glass ceiling. Then they’d gone to busy Oxford Street and stopped at Selfridges where they bought the shoes. The next stop was Marks and Spencers to buy a treat to take back for tea, just the two of them—all the luxurious day. They went back by train to Exeter. “Out of Devon and into heaven” was how she’d first heard it upon her arrival. Then they had driven on the A30 past Henry’s trees, a tall tight-knit group of them. You know that story, Mum. He said those were his trees. He told us at school. Next they were on the way home on the 3266 with glimpses of the sea. She had told Annie then to put away her shoes. She was not to wear them until school on Monday.

  The one shoe she identified at the inquest had been scuffed and torn and damp. The other had been pristine, as if Annie had not worn but one shoe that morning. Everyone said they were Annie’s; she’d even said they were Annie’s. But surely not. They couldn’t be. She’d seen the body. She would know if that was her child, and she knew—she knew without a doubt—the body was not Annie. It was not her daughter who had died. It was the horror of some other parent, someone she didn’t know. It was their daughter on that slab at the mortuary, not hers. Swish-rack.

  23

  Saturday evening

  The inquest over, Jon watched seagulls float between village and cloud as he stood on the beach below the village. Pastel cottages dotted the dark hills like Easter eggs hidden in folds of earth. The afternoon rain had passed on and left a sharply briny smell in its wake. The sun sank lower, the last of its rays tinting cottages and businesses orange. Windowpanes sparkled. The glint of muted gold played off wet slate roofs.

  He wondered if putting off confronting Trewe had been the best course of action. He sorted in his mind the details he’d learned about Annie’s death, adding things together. The girl hadn’t injected herself with drugs. She’d been injected. The killer took her blood. Why? The abuse must have lasted more than a week. There was no way a week of drug taking and bloodletting had produced the body he found in the surf. That body had been suffering for a lot longer than a week.

  He hung back to take in the huge sky and the salt air before going home. The piles of paperwork in his caravan were growing. He had the files Bakewell sent him about Trewe. He hadn’t learned much he didn’t already know. He had the computer print-outs of missing-persons reports—useless information if Trewe wouldn’t consider them.

  He took the road from the beach, past the Spider’s Web. He would stop in for a pint, then head for home.

  He hadn’t meant for the mother to be distraught because of the photo of her daughter that he’d left at her house, but what had he expected? It had been a stupid, impulsive thing to do. He wasn’t normally given over to stupid, impulsive things. So why had he done it?

  As astute as Trewe seemed to be about those around him, why would he not be forthcoming about his sudden wealth? With so much money in the bank, why did he work so hard? He worked as if his life depended upon it. Perstow let slip that Trewe had been on the beach that morning but had not seen the girls. How had he missed them? What was the real reason Trewe had been on the beach that morning? He said it was habit to stop briefly above the beach before work. Was it really? Or had he only told Perstow about this to cover himself in case someone else saw him?

  Ruth brushed her teeth. She would sleep on her couch, the farthest thing from Annie’s room. She didn’t feel like changing so she lay down fully clothed. Her mother was asleep in Ruth’s room, unwilling to spend this partic
ular night in Annie’s room. She had hit the brandy before the inquest and hadn’t stopped. Her drinking habits were worrisome, but she was a grown woman. She didn’t need her daughter to say anything.

  Detective Chief Inspector Scary Eyes had tried to assure her they were doing everything possible. But the problem was this: the body was not Annie’s. They thought she was in denial. Was she? No, she would never forget the foot. It was horrible. A foot—the only thing left whole and untouched. But she knew when she saw it. It wasn’t her child. A mother knows her own child. She’d seen her daughter’s feet for ten years, and that wasn’t Annie’s foot. For one thing, it was flat, and the toes long and narrow. Annie had perfectly shaped feet with short, fat toes. Annie had a high instep, not flat feet. She tried to tell them. They thought she was a crazy. She was the hysterical, grieving mother. She couldn’t know anything.

  Mandy, the cat, crept up and snuggled under the afghan, stretching along the length of Ruth’s legs.

  Ruth considered what she knew was the reason they were not taking her claims as fact. The problem was that she wasn’t hysterical. If anything she was angry they would not listen to her. She stretched her perma-clenched jaws. How could she get them to listen? Hot, Ruth turned, unsettling the cat.

  This wasn’t real. This couldn’t possibly be happening to her. These things happened to other people, people who could handle it. She wasn’t one of them.

  It wasn’t so long ago that she could see Annie here on the floor beside her, playing with the cat, giggling. Ruth’s arms ached with longing to hold her girl.

  Her life was two rooms. She stood in one and watched her daughter walk into the other. Annie turned and waved. French doors and billowing gauze curtains separated the two rooms. The doors closed, the curtain came across, and the other room went dark. Her daughter’s last wave faded away into memory. From the moment of her daughter’s birth all she had ever wanted was for her to be safe. But she hadn’t been—not in Texas, and not here.