by Adele Abbott
Witch Is When
It All Began
Published by Implode Publishing Ltd
© Implode Publishing Ltd 2015
The right of Adele Abbott to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved, worldwide. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, dead or alive, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Chapter 1
“What's that thing?” The young man looked horrified.
“That’s Winky.”
How dare he call my darling cat a thing? Sure, Winky had only one eye, and looked as though he’d just walked off the set of a slasher movie, but deep down, underneath all that fur and latent aggression, he was sweet and adorable. At least, that’s what the woman at the cat re-homing centre had told me. Gullible? Who? Me?
Winky jumped onto my desk, and immediately the young man pushed his chair back. He probably thought he’d be safe at that distance, but he hadn’t seen how far Winky could jump.
“Get down!” I tried to push Winky off the desk, but he managed to avoid my arm. His meowing grew louder as he walked around in circles, directing his attention first at me and then at the young man. “Sorry about this.” I forced a smile, and pressed the intercom. “Mrs V?”
“Hello.” Mrs V’s voice crackled through.
“Mrs V, can you come—?”
“Hello?”
Mrs V was my PA/receptionist. At least, that was her official job title, but in reality she was more 'knitter-in-residence'. She spent most of her time churning out scarves. Lots of them. She was also a little deaf.
“Excuse me for a moment.” I got up and made my way to the outer office.
“Mrs V!”
“I thought I heard you on the intercom,” she said. Her finger was still pressed on the ‘talk’ button.
“Would you come and take Winky? I think he needs feeding.”
“You know I hate that cat.”
That was the understatement of the decade. Mrs V and Winky did not see eye-to-eye, and that had nothing to do with his deficiency in the ocular department. She wasn’t really a ‘cat person’.
“Please,” I pleaded. Got to let her know who’s the boss. “Just until I’ve finished with this client.”
“What about my yarn? You know what that cat’s like.”
The large mail sack, which was wedged between two filing cabinets, was full to bursting with balls of wool of every colour and type known to man. Some people collect stamps, some people collect coins, Mrs V collected yarn. It was a compulsion; she couldn’t help herself. Wherever she went, she had to buy more.
Winky would have had a field day in that sack. He’d ransacked it once before, and on that occasion, I'd only just managed to convince Mrs V not to toss him out of the window.
“I’ll move the sack into the corridor,” I offered.
“Someone might steal my yarn if you put it out there,” she protested. Her concern was no doubt fuelled by the high number of yarn thefts in the area.
“It’ll be safe. I promise.”
“Oh, all right then.” She didn't sound convinced. “But I don’t understand why you can’t take that stupid cat home with you. He makes the office smell.”
I’d no intention of taking Winky back to my flat. It was the one place I had any peace and quiet. And besides, I didn’t want a one-eyed cat wrecking my love life—not that I had one. But I lived in hope.
Mrs V walked over to my desk, smiled at the young man, and then grabbed Winky by the scruff of the neck, like a mother cat lifting its young. Except that Winky didn’t think of Mrs V as his mother. They were sworn enemies. Winky thrashed about, meowing and spitting at her.
“Sorry about that,” I said, once the room was clear of both cat and mad knitting lady.
“What happened to its eye?” the young man asked.
“I don’t know. It was already like that when I got him from the cat re-homing centre. I felt sorry for him because he looked so sad.” It turned out that psycho looked an awful lot like sad. “Anyway, how can I help you?”
“I was expecting—” The young man hesitated. “You’re not Ken Gooder.”
No flies on this guy.
“I’m Jill Gooder. Ken was my father. He died three years ago.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. The sign outside still has his name on it.”
“I haven’t got around to changing it yet.”
“Are you a private investigator?”
“P.I. born and bred, that’s me. How can I help?”
It was usually about now that the would-be client remembered an urgent appointment: dentist, doctor, optician—I’d heard them all. The best excuse I'd heard so far had been from the guy who’d remembered an urgent chiropodist appointment—some kind of ingrown toenail emergency. Even in the age of so-called equality, a lot of people—mainly men—refused to believe that a woman was capable of being a P.I. That was the reason I hadn’t changed the sign—it got the punters through the door. Once they were inside, I had to persuade them I was up to the job. I’d joined my father’s business straight from school, but I’d mostly worked in the background. I wasn’t much of a ‘people person’—at least not according to my sister, Kathy. Since my father’s death, I’d had no choice but to work on my ‘customer-facing’ skills. Customer-facing? Who comes up with this rubbish?
The young man hesitated. He was probably deciding which medical excuse to go with. My money was on the optician.
“What’s your name?” I asked. If I could keep him talking, there was still hope.
“Danny. Danny Peterson.”
He was the type of guy I found difficult to pin an age on. Twenty-three? Maybe. But he could just as easily have been thirty-three. Good looking, I guess, but not really my type. ‘My type’? Who was I kidding? If my track record was anything to go by, ‘my type’ was a lying, cheating, unreliable narcissist.
“So what can I do for you today, Danny?” I flashed him my best customer-facing smile.
“It’s my girlfriend. She—” Tears began to well in his eyes.
What was I supposed to do now? I wasn’t good around people when they cried—especially not men. Kathy was the empathetic one in our family.
“Are you okay? Would you like a tissue?” I hoped not because I’d run out the day before, and had been using toilet roll.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to—,” he whimpered.
“That’s okay. Did something happen to your girlfriend?”
“She was murdered.”
Oh bum. I hadn’t seen that one coming. I’d more or less assumed he suspected her of cheating on him. I got a lot of that type of work: unfaithful husbands, wives, boyfriends and girlfriends. It was enough to destroy your faith in human nature—assuming you had any in the first place. I took on a lot of missing-persons cases too. I preferred those, although most of the time the ‘missing’ person turned out not to be missing at all.
Murder cases? Not so many. In fact, since my father died, I’d had precisely—none.
“We were going to get engaged.” Danny had managed to stem the tears, which was just as well because the economy toilet roll was particularly rough. Times were hard in the P.I. business. “Look.” He took a small, red box out of his jacket pocket. “This is the ring.”
“Very nice.” I was no expert on j
ewellery, but I figured the solitaire had probably set him back a few hundred pounds. “I assume the police are already involved?”
“Yes, but they’re useless. They won’t listen to me.”
In my line of business, I frequently came into contact with the local Washbridge police. We had a kind of love/hate relationship. I hated them, and they loved to hate me. My dad had enjoyed a much better working relationship with them. I put it down to the fact that I’m a woman, and they were all chauvinist scum-bags. According to Kathy, it was more likely to be because I was opinionated and difficult to get along with. According to her, I didn’t have an ounce of tact. That simply wasn’t true. It wasn’t my fault that they were all incompetent asshats.
“Are the police treating you as a suspect?”
“No, of course not. They know I didn’t have anything to do with it. They just won’t accept that Caroline’s murder was the work of a serial killer.”
“And you think it was?” As far as I was aware, Washbridge had never had a serial killer.
“I’m sure of it. Hey, could you pull down the blinds?” The sun had broken through the clouds, and Danny had to shield his eyes in order to see me.
“They’re stuck I’m afraid. Try shuffling the chair a few inches that way.”
The large window behind me was divided into three panes. The central blind was stuck in the ‘down’ position. The two outer blinds were stuck half open, half closed. They’d been that way for years. Normally something like that would have driven me insane, but I didn’t like to make changes to the office, not even the faulty blinds, because it reminded me of Dad. I might not be most people’s idea of a P.I., but at least my office looked the part. Dad had styled it on those old detective movies of the fifties and sixties. It was the sort of office that Sam Spade would have been proud to own. Kathy was always telling me to get the office modernised, but I wouldn’t hear of it. I loved it the way it was—even the creaking floorboards.
“What makes you think that your girlfriend was murdered by a serial killer?”
“I don’t think she was; I know she was. Her name was Caroline Fox.”
I waited for more information, but he seemed to have rested his case. It was as if her name alone should have had some kind of significance. Was she famous? I didn’t really keep up-to-date with the culture of celebrity—that was more Kathy’s department. I rarely watched TV, and much preferred to read a good book. Maybe his girlfriend was someone I should have heard of?
“Caroline Fox?”
“Don’t you see? Her name was Fox.”
It was only nine-thirty, and I was never at my best in the morning, but it felt like I was missing something.
“Sorry. I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”
He looked at me as though I was thicker than the solid wooden desk that separated us.
“The Animal!” he said, with no attempt to hide his exasperation.
“Animal?” Why was he speaking in riddles?
“Don’t you read the news?”
“Not often.” I rarely bothered because it was always so depressing.
“It was all over the ‘Bugle’.”
The Bugle was the local rag, which wasn’t exactly renowned for its cutting-edge journalism. It was sensationalist by nature, and rarely bothered to fact check its stories. All in all, it was a bit of a joke.
“You’re going to have to give me more,” I said.
Danny sighed. What little faith he may have had in me was slowly ebbing away.
“There were two other murders. The first was just over two months ago. Her name was Lyon. Not long after that, another woman was murdered. Her name was Lamb. Now do you see?”
“You think they were murdered because they had an 'animal’ surname?”
“It isn’t just me who thinks so.”
“The Bugle?”
“Yes! They ran a story on ‘The Animal’ serial killer.”
“What do the police think about it?”
“They insist it’s just a coincidence. They won't take it seriously because, strictly speaking, the first victim’s name wasn’t an animal.”
“I thought you said her name was Lion.”
“It was, but it was spelled L Y O N.”
“Maybe they’re right. Maybe it is just a coincidence.”
“I don’t believe it. The victims' names were Lyon, Lamb and Fox. How can that be a coincidence?”
“Stranger things have happened.” Trust me on this one.
“Will you help me or not?” Danny said.
Business was slow—very slow. Like ‘where’s the rent coming from?’ slow. I was faced with a dilemma. Dad would never have taken on a case unless he genuinely thought he could help. He'd always insisted we had professional standards to maintain. Yeah well—sorry Dad—I needed the cash.
“Of course. I’ll be happy to help.”
After Danny had left, I checked the online archive of the Bugle. It didn’t take long to bring myself up to speed. Pauline Lyon’s murder had been front page news. The article had included a description of a man spotted near the murder scene, and an artist’s impression of a tattoo on the man’s left arm—two daggers through a heart. A few days later they had printed an appeal for more witnesses to come forward. Not long after that, another front page article had reported the murder of Trisha Lamb. The serial killer theory hadn’t occurred to the Bugle’s esteemed journalists until a week later when it ran the infamous ‘The Animal’ headline. This final article seemed half-baked and poorly researched. I could understand why the police had given it little weight.
Chapter 2
“How’s business?” Kathy asked when I called in at her place for our regular ‘catch-up’.
“Slow.” I sighed. “Like slower than a sloth on a slow day.”
Kathy was twenty nine; four years older than me. We were nothing like one another in terms of appearance or personality. That was hardly surprising because I was adopted when I was a baby. Mum and Dad had told me as soon as I was old enough to understand. They treated Kathy and me just the same, so I never gave the whole adoption thing much thought until I turned eighteen. I’d been worried how Mum and Dad might react when I told them that I wanted to trace my birth parents. Not only did they encourage me, they even helped with all the paperwork. It turned out to be a waste of time because my birth father was unknown, and my birth mother refused to see me. That had really hurt. I’d had this idea that my birth mother was waiting for me to get in touch, and that we’d have this fantastic reunion. When she rejected me for a second time, Mum and Dad were there for me again. They understood how much that second rejection had hurt. It still did.
“You need to change the sign, and invest in some marketing,” Kathy said.
“I will. I promise.”
Did I mention that my sister was the bossy one? Oh yeah! Miss Bossy Boots—that was Kathy. When we were kids, she’d always been the one who decided which game to play or which clothes to dress up in. Now, she spent endless hours trying to organise my business, and my love life. Good luck with that one. Still, I loved her to bits. We’d always been close, and especially so since we lost Mum and Dad. Even though she had her own family now, she still had time for me.
“When are you going to change it?”
See what I mean? Bossy.
“Soon. Anyway, I have a new case I’m working on.”
“Is it a juicy one?”
“You know I can’t tell you.” I take my professional standards very seriously.
“Go on. Tell me.”
“Oh, all right then.” Maybe not all that seriously. “It’s a murder. The victim’s boyfriend came to see me. He thinks it’s the work of a serial killer.”
“That does sound juicy. Makes a change from unfaithful husbands. Tell me more.”
“There isn’t much to tell. He only came to see me yesterday. Do I get a cup of tea?”
“Can’t you tell me about the case first?”
“Tea first.”
Kathy’s house was a disaster zone. She had two kids: Mikey was seven and Lizzie was almost five. Although they were out at school, you could see where they’d been. I loved my niece and nephew to bits, but if I wanted to have a grown-up conversation, I had to visit while the kids were out. Whenever I was at Kathy’s, I had to resist the compulsion to tidy up. I hated clutter or untidiness. According to her, I was a little OCD.
“How much sugar?” Kathy asked with a stupid grin on her face.
Why did we have to play this silly game every time?
“You know how much I take. One and two-third teaspoons.”
“One and two-thirds?” she mocked. “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer one and seven-eighths?”
I ignored her. Can I help it if one and a half isn’t enough, but two is too much?
“Biscuit?” Kathy held out the tin.
“No thanks.” Why did she insist on putting different kinds of biscuits in the same tin? I had separate Tupperware boxes for each type of biscuit. And no, I don’t think that’s at all weird.
I managed to negotiate my way back to my seat in the living room without treading on any of the million and one pieces of Lego that were scattered across the floor.
“How much Lego does Lizzie actually have?” I asked, as I sipped the tea. It was a little too sweet. I suspected she’d put two spoonfuls in just to wind me up.
“Too much. Every time we go into town, she pesters me to buy more.”
“You should put your foot down.”
“That’s rich coming from you. Don’t you remember what you were like when you were a kid?”
“I didn’t have Lego.”
“No, but you had enough Beanie Babies to sink a ship.”
“I didn’t have that many.” One hundred and thirty four, to be precise.
“You wouldn’t let me go into your bedroom in case I moved one of them.”
“That’s not true!” It was, but only because Kathy had no idea where each of the beanies was meant to be. She’d take two or three of them off the shelf, and then put them back in the wrong place. It used to drive me insane.
