Where The Bodies Rest: A Heart-Stopping Psychological Thriller

by Kate Sten

  The price tag had made that choice for her on this occasion. ‘Yep, that is what I am talking about. I have still got it. In your face Jennifer Lopez. You have got nothing on my backside.’ She nodded, regarding her behind with much adulation.

  She skidded along, dashing across the front of the tills until she got to an attendant who wasn’t engaged with customers.

  ‘Can you scan this please?’ She raised a knee above the till, leaving the poor man bespectacled by her brazenness.

  ‘Uh, sure. We don’t usually sell clothes with the customers still in it. Though it is not store policy not to do so.’ The attendant smirked, passing the scanner over the detective's thigh. ‘That will be twenty pounds please.’

  The detective pushed two ten pound notes into the attendant's hand and scurried quickly out of the automated sliding door ahead of her.

  She raised her head and read the signboard above the pub twice to make sure she was in the right meet-up spot. Reassured by what she had spied, DCI Abagnale entered the pub and made a beeline for the man in the blue suit. Her eyes had clocked the red rose which had been left to shrivel slightly on the table. The petals drooped and fell off as the guy she had come to meet tried to offer the wilting rose to her. His face was shaven and his hair looked slick, all combed back, sort of like those picture-perfect old movies in which men had the sideburns cropped and face immaculately shaven.

  ‘Laura I presume?’ His eyes sparkled with excitement and his lips bent low into a bow, as he smiled casually at his date.

  ‘Very perceptive.’

  ‘Yes! That's me! The full package!’ She flicked her hair to one side, gripping the rose, and pulling it up, closer to her face where she could capture its smell better. ‘You have fine taste in flowers. It is a shame you didn’t ask the waiter for water for this one. Roses need a lot more than a cold, hard table.’

  ‘I shall be sure to remember that one. Why don’t you sit down?’ Derrick sprang to his feet, and pulled a chair out for the detective.

  DCI Abagnale rolled a suspicious eye at him, finding his keen attitude a bit suspect, but opted to play along and sat her backside on the chair. His hair was slick, his moves were over-the-top and somewhat dated. The nails on his fingers seemed more groomed than hers and the whiff of the expensive cologne oozing from him almost smothered the breath in her lungs.

  ‘Thank you,’ She thanked him, leering at his rear end as he departed from her side to return to his seat.

  She was hit with a mixed emotion of admiration and heightening distrust of his intentions for her. Her shoulders were raised slightly and her back pushed forward even though she was sat on a perfectly comfortable chair. The leather on it was soft to the touch - not the stiff kinds that felt more like a butcher's slab.

  Elbow poking on the arm of the chair, DCI Abagnale wasted no time in flagging down a passing waiter, her lips pursed in a provocative shape, ‘Got anything strong? I could use something hard to take the edge off. I have totally had a rubbish day from hell and I don’t want all that stuff on my mind for the rest of the night.’

  ‘Well, we do have some martinis, if that is your sort of thing. Would that be to your tastes?’ The waiter raised his eyes above his notepad, holding his breath in anticipation of her response.

  ‘Sure! That will have to do!’

  ‘I will drink bath water at this point - Anything to give me the kick I so desperately need right now.’ DCI Abagnale laughed showing a bit of skin, her naked thighs pushing out of her dress and assuming a suggestive stance.

  ‘By the way. I like mine cold and stirred.’ She gripped the waiters arm as he turned to make a retreat from her table.

  DCI Abagnale’s date sat slouched with his knuckle under his chin, and his eyes looked straight through her as if she was a transparent shard of glass. He seemed to have felt out of his depth with her, not quite knowing the precise way to smash through the invisible wall of ice stacked thickly between them.

  ‘The Gym? You must go there a lot?’ He spat out some words, the desperation for warm conversation swelling withing his chest.

  ‘Excuse me?’ She seethed from her reclined position.

  ‘I mean you are really fit. The calves on you are just amazing. I would kill for legs as perfect as yours.’ Derrick rubbed his smooth chin, grinning with renewed confidence.

  She smiled back at him, batted her eyelids approvingly, as she lapped up the compliments that she was being showered with. He had looked at her like he wanted her, not like she was the one thing that made his universe not swivel off its axis and collapse into a black hole, not in the way that she craved to be seen by anyone.

  His tongue might have well been hanging out of his face, and slobber running down cheeks. Those eyes in his face just gawked endlessly at the cleft between her perked cleavage as though he had just escaped from monkhood, and hadn't seen a woman in eons, his mind formulating all sorts of filthy images of the licentious things that he wanted to experience with her.

  ‘Wow! Keep staring like that and your eyes might just pop out!’ DCI Abagnale pulled her clothing over her exposed cleavage.

  ‘Can you blame a guy? Those poppies are right in my face!’ His grin widened, an unapologetic brashness heavy in his countenance as he leaned forward to take her hand.

  ‘Slow down tiger. Small talk first. Besides, I am not the kind of girl to kiss on a first date.’ Her tone sharpened as she squinted and raised both brows, discontented at the presumptuousness of her date or more precisely, the callow man-child who was beginning to seriously irritate her.

  ‘Sorry Laura. I did not mean to take such liberties.’ A reticent apology dropped from his pursed lips.

  ‘No harm done. Just play nice and cut back on the full-on stuff. That sort of zealousness just peeves women off and can frankly seem a tad bit juvenile. Women expect a modicum of respect,’ DCI Abagnale said, crossing her legs, staring across the table at him.

  Her phone bleeped in the middle of the tense conversation between her and her date. She raised her phone to her face, and blinked twice when she recognized the who the caller was.

  ‘DCI Abagnale speaking! What is it?’ She reclined further into the chair, and shifted her gaze sideways, away from the guy in front of her. His eyes trailed her face and he glanced stupidly at her lip movement, straining to make out what she was saying.

  ‘Hey, it is Decker from earlier at the church!’ A chirpy voice boomed at the other end of the line.

  ‘Oh yes! The tall cocksure one! How could I ever forget you? Do you have anything you want to share with me, or are you just flush with credit to burn?’ DCI Abagnale teased, resting her elbow on the topside of her hand which had been spread out on the table.

  There was a pause, as if Decker was trying to compose himself or rather restrain himself from saying unprintable things to a senior officer in response to her unflattering description of his person. She had cut his ego ribbon-thin with just a few flippant words spoken without much thought about how her colleague might have taken it. DCI Abagnale did not do caring.

  She wasn’t the get-in-touch-with-your-emotions kind of girl. That stuff was way too complicated and time consuming for her. Time was not a thing to be squandered. She had so little of it to flush down the toilet. The banality of being courteous, maybe flashing a fake smile, or even masking your distaste behind the condescension of a false compliment just did not seem to be second nature to her, like it is to billions of other coffee guzzling, tobacco smoking, bacon crunching, pill popping people on this big blue planet of ours.

  ‘The dead woman, the one we found sprawled on the grass in front of St Johns…’ Decker rambled on after the brief spell of silence.

  ‘Go on! Spit it out! What about her?’ A sigh of frustration escaped from her.

  ‘Well, we pulled her prints and checked with the home office. They got a hold of her passport details. There was positive ID for her. She was identified as Simone Forester, wife of Andrew Forester - the blunt trauma vic we found with a hole
in his skull fifteen months ago. You don’t need to be a genius to connect this to the pile of unsolved missing bodies cases we've racked up since the start of last year,’ Decker croaked, his voice getting more frayed and slightly muddled.

  ‘Can you hold on? I need to take this outside where the signal isn't flickering!’ Detective Abagnale raised her voice, the fold of skin between her eyes tightening up into a tensed wrinkle as she reached for the drink that had just been dropped on her table by the passing waiter, knocking it back in one big gulp. ‘I wasn’t going to leave that behind. By the way, put that one on his tab. He is paying.’

  The guy she was on a date with gave her a death stare from behind the lonesome table where he was sat. He had been abandoned by her, and left to handle the bill for the expensive drink she had so happily thrown down her neck. He was tempted to reach for her hair or to shake her like a rattle until she coughed up some explanation for her impromptu exit.

  She had offered him none and barely acknowledged his presence. The date barely reached a crescendo before it sank to the bottom of the deep blue sea. He could do none of the things that entered his head to her. He didn’t hear much of what she said on the phone but he did hear hear her say DCI. That was a police rank. He knew that much.

  His life would be made hell if he even attempted to smack her on the cheek for being a complete bitch to him. So he did the next best thing. He ordered himself a stiff drink and lumped his disappointment like a man left with his bits in the breeze.

  Derrick bit his lip and sucked his teeth, uttering something under his breath, so that his words were only audible to an audience of one. ‘What a bitch! I suppose that is what I get for using cheap dating apps - a pig in a blanket!’

  DCI Abagnale did not hear his rude remarks. She had little interest in him anyway. She shot past the other row of tables, past the exit and leaned against a brick wall, beneath an overhanging canopy.

  ‘You think this could be tied to the Redford files? You think she was a Mister Redford abductee - an addition to the forty five?’ Her heart thumped in her chest, as she tried not to scream at the phone.

  ‘Bingo! Now you're catching on!’ Decker crowed proudly on his end of the line.

  ‘He has been careful so far. Careful enough not to leave any bodies of his actual targets behind. This one could be it. She could have the missing pieces we need to nail this reprobate. Did your people lift any foreign DNA from her body, any semen or loose skin from her fingernails? Anything we could use to put a face on Redford?’ She sucked in air, her speech hastened.

  ‘I am sorry. She was clean. There was nothing on her. If he assaulted her himself he was careful to keep himself completely covered.’ Decker spoke more slowly but with great degree of certainty.

  There was a brief pause and then a soft sigh from her, ‘So we have nothing?’

  ‘Nothing except for the boy! The one she gave birth to! I think the boy is his!”

  ‘And his DNA is inside that child. We should get unto social services to find out who has him,’ Decker chirped, sounding as if he had gotten an epiphany of sorts.

  ‘Yes. Make that call and see what you can dig up.’ DCI Abagnale gave the nod.

  The phone went dead and she chucked her handset into the handbag which dangled from her right shoulder. She thought of lighting up a cigarette stick. She had not had one in hours, her skin ached with unabated desire for something with nicotine in it. She wasn’t one for those weak patches. She liked things with tar and all the good stuff in it. The stuff that rots your lungs. She didn’t care. She just needed that calm to return to her so she lit a fag and indulged her chancy craving.

  Her hair tossed back, and the back of her head pressed against the wall, her eyes focused on the darkness above her. There were no bedazzling stars burning away in distant space, no regaling music warming the air with pleasant musings, nothing but the hard brick on which her bare skin was brushed against.

  The minutes soon turned to an hour. An hour which she stood under the envelope of loneliness and serene silence. Then her phone buzzed, and her bag dropped. She had nodded off and not realized it. The toll of all those sleepless nights working criminal cases had started to weigh on her. The wrinkles on her skin and the bags under her eyes were often papered over with a wall of foundation to hide the aftereffects of the stressful life she willfully chose to subject herself to.

  She could not give that up. What would she be without the odd flash light in her hand and her keen nose for what leads to chase? What would she have done with all the currently engaged nanoseconds of her life if she wasn’t kicking down doors and slapping cuffs on the bad guys - the cancers of society that needed lancing?

  ‘Do you have an address for the boy?’ She raised her voice, speaking firmly to hide the fact that she had fallen asleep.

  ‘Yes, I did. But he has been adopted. The adoptive parents have to volunteer whatever DNA we want from the boy. The odds are they will fight this once they know this is a criminal case. They would want to protect their boy from his ugly past. Who would want to tell a sweet innocent child that their dad was a deranged murdering psycho?’ Decker took a somber tone.

  ‘We will have to try regardless! We will have to try!’ DCI Abagnale had the last word, putting the phone down on Decker in a huff.

  THREE

  JOHN

  My story started when I was a four - the bits that I can remember, or sort of remember, I would like to think. The drab, not very stylish home we lived in burned down. My family had perished in the blaze, or so I was told. Nobody ever fed me the gruesome details and when I got older than four, I trolled the web but there was nothing, not even a vague mention of a Madison and Matthew Bishop. I hadn't even been taken to a marked grave for a final goodbye after they passed.

  They blamed me-the people in the streets; the other kids at school and even the teachers weren't above the occasional snicker whenever I passed them by. They thought I was some sort of weird possessed kid, others thought I was mad, and needed therapy - But they were wrong. They were so wrong. I never spoke about Alice. I never told anyone about her. It was forbidden. Hers was a name that never graced my lips.

  I tried very much not to listen to the poison-The whispers that seeped through the walls. They were terrible things that would chill your bones and make grown men weep. I wasn’t a grown man. I was a boy. I wasn’t a brave boy. I was petrified and remained so for as long as I could remember.

  ‘John, don’t hide from me. I know you can hear me,’ The faint whispers often said.

  I would curl up in a ball under my bed and slap my ears shut with my quaking hands. I did not want to be haunted by whatever she was. She sounded human. She sounded calming, but I knew otherwise. I knew when there was a voice, there was usually a person behind that voice. But this was different. I had never seen the source of this voice.

  All there was - was blackness and dark corners.

  I remember that dark Friday very well. My foster mom, Molly, rushed into the room. She had been awoken by my screams. She dug her hands under the bed and yanked me out by my feet.

  ‘Do not touch me! Leave me alone!’ I screamed loudly, as I kicked at the hands that were tangled round my ankle.

  ‘Ouch! What was that for?’ Molly screamed back at me, her eyes almost letting out a tear drop, as she shook me like a tree, and glared into my unsteady eyes. I looked around me. I looked everywhere else, but at her.

  ‘You are a sweaty mess again, John. I have told you a million times - There are no monsters in this house. I am here. Focus on me.’ Molly's voice boomed in my ears.

  ‘I am sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your hand. I thought you were someone else,’ I sobbed, sniffling inconsolably.

  Molly drew me closer into a warm embrace. Her hands patted my back in a reassuring way. Her emotional overture calmed my nerves. I wasn’t quivering anymore. I looked at the half-shut window behind Molly. I watched the curtains being sucked out of the window by the swaying winds. There was calm in the
room. I was almost certain that Alice had excused herself from the room. But then she could be lurking somewhere, close by, waiting in silence for me to be on my own again.

  ‘Bunny will keep you safe. He fights off the bad guys, remember.’ Molly smiled, squeezing a cuddly soft toy into my arms.

  Bunny was my favourite superhero character. I totally idolized that bad guy stumping rabbit. My stuffed bunny toy had a battery inside it. The toy bleeped the words - Bad guys get kicks - whenever it got a squeeze. Boy, did I squeeze the hell out of that Bunny when she handed it to me.

  Molly’s eyes fixated on the alarm clock on the side cabinet, next to my bed. Her eyes widened in amazement. It was 3 A.M. in the morning. The yawns soon came rippling through her parted lips. Then her hands were raised in the air. I knew she was about to leave the room.

  ‘Don’t go yet! Stay a while longer!’ I clutched unto Molly’s hand.

  ‘Okay John. Just this once.’ Molly poked me in the belly, playfully.

  She pulled herself away from the bed. The winds from the open window tossed her hair backwards, thrashing it about in her face. Her hands jostled over her face, pulling her ebony hair out of the way.

  ‘What is that doing open?’

  ‘I could have sworn I closed that before you went to bed,’ Molly murmured, as her hands fiddled with the latch on the window.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and pretended I could not hear her. I didn’t want to say anything about my imaginary friend to her anymore. I did not want to mention the words “Alice” to her. I liked Molly. She was kind to me. I didn’t want anything to happen to her.

  The lights went off and Molly squeezed into the narrow space at the base of my feet, on the bed. She laid at my feet and fell asleep there. I could hear the snores rushing through her gaping mouth. I pressed the pillows over my head and gradually managed to fall asleep.

  Clang! Clang! Clang! The alarm clock shrieked rather loudly.

  The vibrations from the adjacent bedside cabinet, beneath the dancing alarm clock rippled through me like it always did. I tossed about lazily underneath the sheets. I knew what time it was. I knew it was time to get ready for the bus. I didn’t like it at school. The kids there weren’t very nice.