Ashes From Ashes

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  “You don’t cross me,” Master said, spitting and clawing. “I says it. You does it.” Rolling her over onto her stomach, he began to slap her bare buttocks. Eve continued to cry. His slaps were hard, as though his hands were stone. His nails scratched. He didn’t stop.

  When he did stop, it was sudden. Then he scraped up the fallen clothes from the ground, pulled the bra still around her neck, unlooping the straps, and left the room with a slam of the door and the grating of the key from outside. Eve wrapped herself in sheets, closed her eyes and tried to ignore the pain. She hadn’t prayed to anyone about anything since her tenth birthday, but now she prayed over and over and over until she fell asleep. It was not a natural sleep and felt more like a death from exhaustion, but when Eve woke, although she had no idea of time, she had a better idea of what was going to happen to her. Kept on her side, this simpleton might treat her kindly. If she upset him, he would rave like the madman he surely was. But although how she might ever escape seemed at present impossible to imagine, she was sure her own intelligence was far superior, and eventually, she’d outwit him. Two days, maybe three. She could probably manage a week if she kept the creature sweet. She’d try not to think of it as rape as long as it didn’t hurt too much.

  Lying on his back on the lower bunk, the large man was snoring. On the high bunk, the older man wondered if he could get hold of some sort of voodoo doll. Direct violence would surely risk his own death rather than the other man’s.

  Fast asleep and comparatively comfortable, Lionel Sullivan dreamed of death and torture. He had been sentenced to eight consecutive life sentences without parole but having escaped his wife, his boring job as a coach driver, and his dismal searches for suitable females, he thought he could live on sweet memories for a year or so. Then he would escape.

  Gradually over the weeks, his patience waned. The dream of escape in two years crept into immediate contempt and instead he felt an instant determination. He wanted out. And the escape would not be at the end of two miserable and unacceptable years. He would wait no more than a month.

  Upstairs Ike on the top bunk was due to leave on parole in three weeks. So there was business to be arranged first.

  The cell was cramped, but Ike had photos of his son, daughter in law and their baby plastered across every wall, a rug that pretended to be Persian, and his own supply of extra soft loo paper, sent in regularly by his wife. But he had no photos of his wife since he didn’t want the creepy killer to see her. It was Lionel’s own wife that was more frequently discussed.

  “Don’t take your time. Don’t enjoy it. Just thump the woman. Split her head open. Use a hammer.”

  “I know. You dun told me so many bloody times I’m sick of it. And I’ve got your address. But wot if she dun moved?”

  Lionel closed his eyes. “Then find the old bitch. You’ve traced others. Now trace this one for me.”

  Ike sat cross-legged on his bunk. He was skinny and now in his sixties, the muscles of old had turned scrawny, even haggard. “Just because I was a bloody successful assassin, it don’t mean I traced people. I killed the ones living right next door. On the next corner. In me own basement. Part of the same gangs. They didn’t need no tracing. Your wife might have flown north. Abroad. Whatever.”

  “You’ll do it, arse-fucker, or you’ll be dead yourself before the month’s over.”

  Above, Ike leaned back against the pillows. “I told you I’ll do it. But don’t threaten wot you can’t do. Who’s gonna jump me if I don’t do your dirty work? You don’t have any bugger out there, or you’d be getting him to clobber your wife ‘stead o’ me.”

  Without bothering to look up, and without bothering to move anything except wave one hand, Lionel yawned and said, “You know the size of my hands, old fellow. Don’t think you can fuck with me. I’d find you. And within the next few weeks, I’ll be out of here. You know I’ll do it. I already got my plan and tis a bloody good plan.”

  “Then you can clobber your own wife when you get’s out. “ Ike had no great desire to do this sick brute a favour, and then land back in prison himself. He had once been an assassin of class, as he told others, only found guilty of one instead of all eight. Now that – he grinned frequently - is good stuff.

  The small high-security prison was overcrowded. The rural surroundings were pretty enough, but completely unseen from within the walls. Lionel was sure he’d be moved soon. His trial wasn’t long finished, and the verdict had never been in doubt, so this place was the obvious dump to chuck him into for the first dunking into the system. But he’d soon be moved. He knew that. He was a Lifer, and they’d want higher security, and they’d want him in solitary for intermittent periods. The first escape attempt needed to make use of these small and overcrowded limitations. If it didn’t work, well, what the hell. He’d try again once the actual move was taking place. He had hands readily designed for strangulation. Hands the size of gas ovens were his first source of confidence. But there was more. There was a guard who could fix up the driver when he was bussed out. And that guard was already his, lock, stock and bloody barrel.

  “I’ll do it. I told you.”

  “Just making sure,” said Lionel. “I got a plan for when they move me. There’s no space for solitary here, and they like to keep their Lifers in top nick. But I want that miserable cow gone before I get out. I tried to do it myself before now, and she’ll run like a bloody fox on heat if she sees me. So you do it.”

  Ike sighed. “Shut up, fer mercy’s sake,” he groaned. “You goes over and over and over. I ain’t gonna forget.” But he also knew he wasn’t going to do it.

  Laying in her husband’s arms brought a still deliciously unexpected thrill. Now in her late seventies, Sylvia had never hoped to love or be loved again, nor had she dreamed of it. It had seemed when she occasionally thought of such a situation, a rather silly idea. Having leapt on her at an unguarded moment, she had drowned in the thrill of it and the wildly absurd excitement had still not ebbed.

  “Perhaps,” she said to his shoulder, “I’m already senile. You know – bonkers. To be so gushy at my age.”

  “Must admit,” admitted Harry to the top of her silver hair, “I’ve never thought of you as gushy. My dear Sylvia, you’re outspoken, determined, sometimes even a little rude, and hardly ever asleep, even when you’re asleep.”

  Sylvia tried to work this out. “I don’t mean to be rude,” she muttered eventually. He stroked the long curve from the back of her neck down her spine, and into the deeper curve where her waist dipped and then rose again. “All that haggard old flesh,” she sighed, shivering with the tingle.

  “I’m not an artist. I don’t criticise. It’s the touch I love, and the warmth, and the silky parts.”

  “And the fuzzy parts.”

  He laughed. “Them too. I adore being so close to you, really knowing you. I know you’ll disappear beneath navy silk if I don’t hurry past and buy you plum silk or light blue linen first. I know you sometimes snore. I think that’s cosy.”

  Her head was snuggled into the space between his chin and his shoulder. “That’s sweet. You’re sweet, Harry. And you talk in your sleep and I like that too.”

  “And we’re going to stick our noses into this new crime thing, aren’t we?” he said slowly after a thoughtful pause. “Morrison didn’t seem keen, but he didn’t throw us out into the gutter either” He paused again, thoughtfully scratching one ear. “I even wondered if it was linked to the last one. There are similarities. Picking random girls to abduct. Years later they turn up dead.”

  “Sullivan mutilated his victims,” Sylvia murmured. “That was his fun. Torture and dismemberment. Power games. None of these girls were cut up.”

  “No. Just shoved up a chimney to scorch and burn.”

  “The autopsies aren’t finished yet. We don’t know the cause of death. But they were all naked. So that’s the same as the wretched Lionel Sullivan. Kidnapped for sex and then killed. It has to be the same impulse. Don’t murderers sha
re that same basic madness?”

  Harry wasn’t sure.

  The whole crowd had discussed the circumstances the evening before. Rochester Manor stood in its own rambling grounds and had once been owned by the old English aristocracy. Now it had been bought up by a gathering of the elderly, having wished to live in sociable comfort and enjoy the freedom of cleaners, cooks and nurses. The level of care available full time had decreased as folk died and others found their savings disappearing, but the old elements of luxury remained, there were two cleaners, an Italian cook with a young assistant, a caretaker and his autistic son, and a manager who was also a qualified nurse. The living room was decorated with an assortment of furniture supplied by the inhabitants and spread across the huge hall, taking up the majority of the ground floor. An assortment of squashy armchairs, squashy couches and squashy cushions were interrupted by odd tables of various sizes, small wooden chairs, lamp standards and bookcases holding everything from books of all kinds, a Ming jar worth a fortune, modern bling, and recent junk. A huge fireplace topped by a huge mirror and a huge clock stayed lit day and night throughout autumn, winter and the first half of spring. It spat ash and smoke gusts, but as yet no corpses.

  Faces around the fire, eyes reflecting the golden blaze, everyone had discussed the new scandal. “There’s no proof,” Harry said, “that this girl’s disappearance has any connection to the bodies in the chimney. They could have been there for years and years. Some new lunatic grabbing girls in roughly the same area – well, that’s sadly happening all over the world. She may reappear in a day or two.”

  “Escape from the chimney?”

  “Harry, you sound horribly matter o’ fact,” Sheila O’Brien complained. “I suppose you see so many dead bodies now, you take them for granted.”

  “Did it sound like that?” He had blushed.

  “It did a bit,” smiled Sylvia.

  But that had been a warm and wine blurred evening, whereas now, once they managed to roll out of bed, it would be breakfast in the smaller dining room, shouting across the tables and the sound of the toaster, the kettle and the yawns.

  “With you like a rather silky hot water bottle,” Harry said, “it’s tempting to stay in bed all day. But I want to walk past that house.”

  With exactly the same aim in mind, Sylvia reached up a little and kissed his cheek. “Have we any chance of getting in, do you think?

  Harry doubted it. “No, but we can try. We know some of Morrison’s team.”

  “But we don’t know any of the uniformed lot,” sighed Sylvia. “And it’ll be them guarding the outside.”

  It was breakfast and cutlery rattled. Steam filled one corner where an urn competed with three electric toasters, popping up their recent refills. Lavender Dawson, replete in tweed, called out, “Two dark rye and two white. The fruit toast is almost ready as well. Four slices. Who wanted fruit toast?”

  One thin wrinkled hand waved in the air, diamond ring flashing. “Me, Lavender dear,” called Stella, and turned back to Sylvia who was sitting next to her. “I’m happy to come with you dear,” she nodded, buttering her toast. “The house is partially in my name. Can they tell me to buzz off when it’s my own doorstep?”

  “They can do anything they want,” said Benjamin from her other side.

  “Qui c’e per le uova?” shouted the cook, stomping in through the kitchen door which swung backwards and forwards behind him. The tray he carried was enormous and held four plates of full fried breakfast, each with its own separate idiosyncrasies.

  More hands waved, including Harry’s, “Mine’s the scrambled eggs and smoked salmon.”

  “We can try,” Sylvia said. “I want to walk down there and if you can get us in, Stella, that would be fabulous.”

  “Not me.” Benjamin was drinking hot black coffee laced with malt Scotch. “I’m not spending my mornings staring at dead girls. Smelly ashes, no doubt.”

  “You read Mark Dawson,” objected Stella. “That’s full of dead bodies.”

  “I don’t have to look at them,” Benjamin pointed out. “Nor smell them either.”

  Between Sylvia and Benjamin sat Ruby, who was thoroughly enjoying her second chocolate and almond croissant. She tried not to spit crumbs. “I’ll come.”

  “No,” Harry shook his head. “Half of Rochester Manor turning up won’t tempt the law into letting us in for a grand tour. Three of us is already too many. Sorry. We’ll tell you all about it when we get back.”

  “And more than likely, there’ll be nothing to tell.” Sylvia smiled.

  The bell rang. “No more orders except tea or coffee. And I’m leaving.” Lavender brushed crumbs from her tweed. “You can help yourselves but don’t burn your fingers.”

  “I’ll go,” said Ruby. “Who wants another cup?”

  Sylvia held out her mug. “And do try to remember that I don’t take sugar.”

  “After eight years, you think I’d forget?”

  “There was sugar in my last cup,” said Sylvia.

  “Then you drank Harry’s by mistake.”

  The general gossip was loud throughout the dining room. Most were discussing the same thing. “After that Lionel fellow two years back, and Fred West before him, this seems to be a popular area for murder. We’ll have to start a club.”

  “Don’t be disgusting, Derek.”

  “Perhaps it’s Benjamin. Hey, Ben, it was your house, wasn’t it? What you been up to?”

  “My house, not his,” Stella called back. “And not mine either. I helped buy it for my son. It was empty for years.”

  “Not so empty after all.”

  Sylvia looked at Harry “We want an early start,” she finished her tea. “If we dress like forensic scientists, perhaps they’ll let us in. Do we walk or drive?“

  “You mean white trousers tucked into the top of his boots, like Ostopolis?” Harry grinned. “I’m all out of white trousers.”

  “I mean, look smart.”

  “Ostopolis is never smart.”

  Enjoying a brisk walk, and accepting the occasional need for exercise, Harry and Sylvia looked nothing like forensic scientists but did wear goloshes. It was a dark grey day and the low clouds promised rain. The roads through the village sparkled with puddles, but the blinks of desultory sunshine quickly faded. Few of the village shops bothered opening in winter since they only catered for tourists, but the baker’s was open and apart from selling fresh bread, cakes, pies and sausage rolls, they were passing on the latest news.

  The woman serving smiled at everyone and kept her mouth shut, but the customers wanted gossip. “Look, there’s Harry. He’s the one that found that big fellow up in the forest a year or more back. Harry, any more news?”

  “Seen the paper, Harry?”

  “Been talking to your detective friend, Harry?”

  Harry shook his head to everything.

  “Twelve more corpses in the chimney and a couple of hundred dug up in the garden.”

  “You mean the entire population of Cheltenham, then?”

  Avoiding the tiny stone bridge over to the Baker’s, Harry, Sylvia and Stella walked on. It started to rain.

  Chapter Three

  The book had sold well in England, although the American market had taken very little interest. They had their own serial killers. Paul Stoker had engaged a professional to help, and they had brought out the book within the year accompanied by a fanfare of marketing. It was the lucky television appearance that had helped it snuggle between the best sellers in Waterstones.

  Paul Stoker had been cradling a copy of his book while chatting happily to the interviewer and the cameras behind him. “I was the one accused. Handcuffed. Dragged into court. Then I was the one in prison for months awaiting trial and verdict. Not a lot of fun, I can promise you.”

  “But,” smiled the BBC late night boffin with the large round rimless glasses, “you were also the lucky man found not guilty.”

  “Hardly luck,” argued Paul. “Since I was innocent, I expect
ed to be found innocent. But I was still harried by the press.”

  “And now the book explains it all. And most interesting it is.”

  Paul hurriedly held up the copy of ‘Lionel Sullivan’s Twisted Torture.’ Its blazing orange cover, the row of fir trees in the background and the silhouette of the shed under the trees stood large. It was a far smaller shed, but that didn’t matter. “I went to the monster’s trial,” Paul added. “All the details are covered here.”

  The extraordinary sales success meant that Paul Stoker, once accused of the earlier crimes of Lionel Sullivan, now lived with his wife Felicity in Kent, in a home bought for cash, large enough for the six children they didn’t have. Yet the initial success waned when the murders became old news, and Paul wondered if they’d have to sell the house and move into something smaller. Felicity worked part-time in a book shop in Canterbury, and Paul was back stocking shelves in the supermarket. Enough for baked beans but not caviar. “I’m going to study this new case,” he told his wife. “It’ll be the new book. I’ll stay somewhere nearby, like Bourton-on-the-Water or something, and really get all the details. You know – unmask the culprit and write another best-seller.”

  “Really? That easy?” Felicity raised an eyebrow. “Give up your job again? So I’m left here trying to live on bread and jam? While you trot off and do nothing? Cos the cops won’t tell you a bloody thing, and you won’t be uncovering anything except your own damned ignorance.”