Hell Hath No Fury

by Rosie Harris

  When the client was impressed, Maureen found that her superior, Mark Carling, accepted the accolade; when there were brickbats, she was the one expected to field them.

  ‘I am quite prepared to accept responsibility when it’s the result of an error on my part, but I’m not going to be used as a scapegoat,’ she told him angrily.

  ‘We work as a team so—’

  Maureen had seen red. ‘Then as the team leader you should be the one to accept all responsibility; the criticism as well as the praise,’ she’d interrupted.

  It had been like declaring war. The other members of the staff sided with Mark. They were not directly involved. They simply keyed into a computer whatever information was handed to them. They didn’t have to meet any clients. In Maureen’s estimation they were human robots in every way.

  ‘I couldn’t believe my ears when you flared up at Mark like that,’ Cindy Little, Mark’s secretary, commented when they met in the Ladies cloakroom later that day. ‘You’re usually so quiet!’

  Maureen shrugged. ‘I don’t see why I should take the blame for his inefficiency,’ she said abruptly.

  As Cindy carefully renewed her lipstick their eyes met in the mirror. ‘You’re the one who does the research,’ she said pointedly.

  ‘I work from his brief! If Mark doesn’t understand what the client wants then he should let me talk to them.’

  Cindy shrugged her slim shoulders non-committally but her grey eyes narrowed, and Maureen knew she had said more than she should have done.

  Next day, Mark Carling had called her into his office. He didn’t ask her to sit down, but kept her standing in front of his desk like an errant junior. Tilting back in his black leather swing chair he stared at her insolently. His small mouth was pursed, as if he was savouring the words he was about to utter like some juicy morsel.

  Maureen guessed that Cindy had reported their conversation.

  ‘I understand you don’t approve of my methods. You seem to think you should be the one to meet clients, and be briefed by them direct?’

  She said nothing, refusing to be goaded into an argument. Confrontations weren’t her style. She watched his plump face darken, his foxy opaque eyes fill with hate.

  ‘I suppose you think you could do my job better than I can?’

  Again she refused to be drawn. There was no point in starting a battle she couldn’t win. She’d done her research and knew he was the company chairman’s brother-in-law.

  Six weeks later she’d left the marketing company where she’d worked for almost ten years, and then she’d set up on her own as a freelance researcher.

  She thought back over some of the more intricate research projects she handled since she’d been working solo, comparing her reaction when each of them had ended with her present mood.

  She’d always felt a tremendous sense of satisfaction whenever a client complimented her on her efficiency. This time she had the dual role of being both the client and the operator, and she felt more than mere satisfaction – she felt tremendous gratification.

  The days and nights of careful planning had paid off, as she had intended it should do. Meticulous attention to detail was the key to successful research. Now it was proving to be equally effective when applied to materialistic matters, she thought smugly.

  The moment she’d read Philip Harmer’s letter, and realized why he’d withdrawn his proposal of marriage, she’d resolved to be revenged. And not just against him, but also against those who had been initially responsible.

  She had used the same methods as if she had been working for a client. It was the only way to keep her emotions under control.

  Until she’d met Philip Harmer she had always kept her relationship with her clients on a strictly business basis. He had been the one exception. And look where that had landed her, she thought resentfully. By letting her emotions intrude she’d become vulnerable. By allowing herself to fall in love with him she’d suffered heartbreak and humiliation. And she’d also lost a valuable client.

  Even worse, by making a pilgrimage to Benbury she’d resurrected ghosts from her past!

  This time, though, she intended to lay every one of those ghosts. Permanently! They’d never trouble her again, she was determined to make quite sure of that.

  The tension she’d felt while driving eased once she was home. After garaging her Escort she carried the black leather grip, which held the equipment she’d taken with her to Benbury, indoors.

  That would be her first job, Maureen decided. Checking to make sure she hadn’t left anything behind, and then sorting and storing away anything she would need for future use and, of course, disposing of the rest.

  She’d always prided herself on her efficient filing methods. It was an essential part of her stock in trade to allocate a new file to each new undertaking and give it an identifying code name and number.

  Then she collated and subdivided the information she collected until she had built up a complete background picture. Only then did she enter all the details into her computer where she would sift and sort, check and double-check, set up comparison tables and pie-charts before printing out a comprehensive dossier.

  Each undertaking required different methods as well as patience, thoroughness, and painstaking attention to detail and logic. In some ways it was like puzzling out a complex jigsaw. Months of hard concentrated research could amount to nothing because of a single elusive piece.

  In the same way, of course, an obscure fact could be the key that spelled success. A seemingly fruitless task could suddenly gel; it could be the crowning touch and signal another satisfied client.

  Mostly, because she worked at home, her clients had no idea of the gruelling struggles needed to unravel the problem they set her. She preferred it that way. She had her own methods and disliked having to listen to other people’s opinions or concede to their methods.

  Philip Harmer had been the exception. His mind was as analytical as her own, and he was able to think laterally, the same as she often did. His responses had been like an extension of her own mind.

  It was too late now, of course, but she bitterly regretted not keeping her own counsel even with him. What on earth had induced her to let down her reserve after so many years of silence?

  If only she had stopped to think instead of letting her heart rule her head. How could she have forgotten her mother’s anguish about what people would think if they ever found out that she had been raped?

  Her mother had even refused to let her see a doctor because she had been afraid he might report what had happened to the police. She couldn’t face the public shame.

  Her father had been as adamant as her mother. ‘Think what it would mean if this got out!’ he railed. ‘Who would believe your story once people knew you’d gone to a public house drinking with a bunch of boys!’

  She tried to defend herself. ‘You don’t understand,’ she protested. ‘We were all so excited at passing. Only six of us out of a class of thirty!’

  ‘Six?’

  ‘That’s right. Me and five boys.’

  ‘You told us there were four . . . that four boys raped you.’

  ‘One of the boys was sick when we came out of the pub . . . The others left him behind.’

  ‘He shouldn’t have been in the pub drinking in the first place . . . none of you should.’

  ‘We wanted to do something crazy . . . to celebrate . . .’

  ‘You did that all right!’ her father interrupted bitterly.

  They’d talked and argued that night until her brain was in a spin, trying to decide the best way to hush matters up.

  Her feelings had been ignored completely, she thought resentfully. The important factor in her parent’s eyes was that the school year had ended. She wouldn’t be going back to school, so she need never see anything of the boys who had perpetrated this appalling crime, or any of her other classmates, ever again.

  Apart from the boys involved, and her father was quite sure they would say nothi
ng, no one else knew what had happened. If they were discreet the terrible incident need never become public knowledge, her parents insisted.

  ‘You won’t be staying in Benbury,’ her father had said firmly.

  ‘You mean I can go to university and study History!’

  ‘Oh, no! That’s out of the question after what has happened. You will have to settle for something more practical, like a business course.’

  ‘Why? I’ve always dreamed of going to university. You always said I could if I got the right grades.’

  ‘You could have done. But not now, not after what’s happened,’ her father intervened. He turned to his wife. ‘Tell her can’t you! Explain why it is pointless to make plans like that,’ he said irritably.

  Her mother looked uncomfortable. ‘It’s because of what happened, Maureen. You see, you might be pregnant.’

  The shock quelled her ready arguments. It was only much later that she realized how ridiculous it had been to let them take a decision of that kind in the heat of the moment. On the very night she had been raped!

  Three months later, when she should have been settling into university, she was both relieved and bitterly aware that they had all worried unnecessarily.

  Once they knew she wasn’t pregnant her parents’ relief was tempered by concern that people might find out what had happened. They made her promise never to talk about the rape ever again, not even to them, and certainly not to anyone outside the family.

  And she hadn’t. Not until Philip Harmer had been so insistent on knowing all about her past. Then it had come rushing out like wine from an uncorked bottle, gurgling, and spilling, and staining.

  By rejecting her because of what had happened all those years ago, Philip Harmer had aroused in her all the rage and resentment she had never expressed as a timid, frightened teenager.

  The result had been an intense determination to wreak revenge for the self-hate and sense of inferiority and guilt she’d carried with her all these years.

  He’d set in motion a maelstrom that on the one hand terrified her by its implications but on the other filled her with deep-seated satisfaction that the time had come for retribution.

  She was determined to exercise all the skills she possessed to create the ultimate in revenge. And then she would put Benbury, and everything pertaining to it, right out of her mind. She would never return. Her whole life would be changed.

  It would take time, and concentration, and attention to detail. But she could do it. Tonight had been the first phase, and everything had gone exactly to plan! It had been an unsurpassed success, she congratulated herself.

  She finished double-checking everything in the black grip, and then she bundled up the black cagoule, the ultra-sensitive rubber gloves, and the black woolly hat and dropped them into a black bin bag. She slipped off the black canvas trainers she was wearing, which she’d bought only a few days earlier, and dropped them in as well. They’d better go. Better to be safe than sorry.

  It was a pity that everything she’d worn wasn’t made of paper, then she could have put them through the shredder, she thought as she knotted the top of the black sack. As it was, she’d have to drive to the council tip and dispose of them first thing in the morning.

  And then shop for new ones!

  It seemed crazy, an unnecessary expense, but all the careful research she had done in advance had made her decide it was imperative. From the many cases she’d studied she was confident that if the people involved had taken this simple precaution of disposing of all the clothes they’d been wearing, right down to their shoes, they would never have been detected.

  And the timing, of course. Studying the victim’s movements and catching them off guard! That was another prime essential.

  It was heady stuff. Like toying with destiny. She had never expected to find it so exciting or so deeply satisfying.

  That was probably because everything had gone as smoothly as a well-choreographed dance routine, she told herself.

  She let out a deep sigh. She couldn’t wait to start working on the next event! Her head was already buzzing with ideas and plans. Common sense warned her that it could be dangerous to be too hasty. There was still a great deal of in-depth research to be done if the second was to be as successful as the first.

  She might make a start tonight, after she’d had her bath and cooked herself something special to eat.

  She’d been far too keyed up to eat any lunch so now she was ravenous. There was a steak in the fridge. She’d cook that. And since everything had worked out so fantastically successfully, and she felt supremely confident now that nothing could impede her progress, she’d open a bottle of wine as well and really make it a celebration evening.

  SIX

  Detective Inspector Ruth Morgan and Detective Sergeant Paddy Hardcastle were not the first on the scene.

  As soon as Marilyn Moorhouse’s 999 call had been put through to the Benbury police, two uniformed men had been sent along to Twenty-Seven Fieldway.

  The sight that met them on arrival had been sufficiently horrendous for Sergeant Miller to phone in and ask the duty officer to send the forensic medical officer as well as some additional backup.

  ‘Sounds serious! What are the circumstances?

  ‘John Moorhouse, who is in his mid-thirties, has been stabbed. His clothing is in a most unusual state of disarray. He was discovered by his wife when she brought their two small boys home from Cubs at around eight o’clock. The two boys are now in bed, unaware of what has happened. Mrs Moorhouse is in shock, but reasonably lucid and cooperative.’

  ‘Right. I’ll see who is available,’ the duty officer promised. ‘Hold on there and make a note of anything she may say which might prove useful.’

  Sergeant Miller had closed the door of the sitting room, where John Moorhouse’s body lay sprawled in an ungainly manner, and left the constable to stand guard just in case a relative or neighbour should turn up and want to go in there.

  He persuaded Marilyn Moorhouse, who was looking very white and shaken, to accompany him into the kitchen and suggested that she should make them all a cup of tea.

  She nodded, but made no attempt to do anything about it, so he filled the kettle himself, and then switched it on.

  ‘Perhaps you could tell me where you keep the sugar?’ he said, after he’d taken down three mugs from one of the shelves, and located a bottle of milk in the fridge.

  ‘I don’t take sugar, thank you.’

  ‘No, ma’am. Nor do I. But my constable does.’

  Silently, like an automaton, she stood up and crossed the room, opened a cupboard and reached out a container marked ‘Sugar’, and handed it to him.

  While he waited for the kettle to boil, Sergeant Miller tried to make conversation, hoping that she might say something that would indicate what had led to such a terrible tragedy, but although Marilyn Moorhouse appeared to listen to what he was saying she didn’t speak a word.

  She sat bolt upright on one of the kitchen chairs, staring straight ahead, her blue eyes glassy. She was casually dressed in blue jeans, white trainers and baggy white sweatshirt. It was the sort of outfit a mother of two small boys would be wearing if she’d been with them to Cubs. A small, slight figure with shoulder-length blonde hair, she looked as though the shock of her terrible discovery had left her numbed.

  Sergeant Miller felt deeply moved by her traumatized appearance. He, too, felt shocked. Not so much by the fact that John Moorhouse was dead, but by the state he was in. What the hell had been going on for him to be in that sort of predicament when he was stabbed, he wondered.

  Marilyn Moorhouse might be your average mum, but what kind of person was her husband? What sort of weird tricks did he get up to when he was on his own?

  Since she wasn’t saying a word, no matter how hard he tried to get her to open up, did it mean that she had no idea of what had been going on? Alternatively, it could be that she did know, and that she had no intention of discussing it.

&nb
sp; Sergeant Miller had just poured out the tea when the plain clothes team arrived. He gave a sigh of relief as he opened the front door to let them in and directed them towards the sitting room.

  Although it didn’t completely free him from all responsibility, since he had been the first officer on the scene, and therefore technically responsible for taking control, it did mean that he wouldn’t have to be the one to try and persuade Marilyn Moorhouse to talk.

  Detective Inspector Ruth Morgan, looking slim and efficient in a light-brown suit worn with a crisp white blouse, sheer tan tights, and tan and brown suede flatties, paused in the doorway of the room. Her dark eyes narrowed as she surveyed the body, and her mouth tightened into a thin line.

  This was only her second murder case. The first had been fairly straightforward: a shopkeeper who’d been shot when he’d disturbed a thief raiding the safe. The episode had been captured on the security camera, so it had been an open and shut case from the moment of arrest.

  This murder was obviously going to be more involved, and she was very conscious that Sergeant Paddy Hardcastle, who’d been assigned to accompany her, was not only ten years older than her, but a seasoned detective.

  It was the first time they had worked together, and she was determined to show him that she could handle herself, and the case, like a true professional.

  ‘Has anything in the room been touched?’

  ‘No! Of course not.’ Sergeant Miller bristled and shook his head emphatically. Such a question was an insult to his integrity, he thought angrily. DI Morgan surely didn’t think he would allow anyone to touch anything before the forensic medical examiner had pronounced John Moorhouse dead and certified the time of death!

  He didn’t envy Paddy Hardcastle having to work alongside DI Morgan if this was the way she treated subordinates.

  She only seemed to be in her late twenties, good-looking and stylish, but he wouldn’t mind betting she was a right smarty-pants. These university types were all the same he thought sourly. They might have a briefcase full of qualifications, but they had no hands-on experience whatsoever.