Tim frowned, wondering what was going on. Perhaps one of the residents had had an accident, he thought. Tim could see Veronica coming down the corridor, an air of authority wafting around her. He found her a little bit intimidating, which was unusual for Tim. She was always dressed in a power suit, immaculate nails, makeup, and blonde hair tied up in a chignon. She looked totally out of place there. She would have looked more fitting in an expensive restaurant.
“Hello Tim. Step into the office, would you?” She was pleasant, but there was obviously something very wrong.
All sorts of things were moving through his mind, but he wasn’t panicking. He thought perhaps she’d died, and they’d been trying to get hold of him while he was on his way there.
Veronica proffered for him to take a seat, as she positioned herself in front of a large leather bound desk.
“Is there something wrong, Veronica?” Tim put on his best calm and concerned voice and linked his hands on his lap like a vicar might.
Calculated cash sums were already running through his head.
“I’m really sorry to have to tell you this, Tim…”
Tim didn’t hear anything else Veronica said. Elation was sweeping over him. The old witch had finally died of her own accord. That was until he caught the last words out of Veronica’s mouth.
“…she doesn’t want to see you at the moment.”
“Sorry, what did you say?”
“Unfortunately, your mother doesn’t want to see you at the moment. We have to respect her wishes, Tim. Did you have some sort of difficulty with her last time you were here?”
Tim snapped back to reality.
“No. Why? What did she say?” Tim’s face appeared to darken.
”She has just requested not to see you at the moment. She’s made an official request, which means I can’t let you in to see her. I’m really sorry.”
“Well, she’s obviously had another stroke or she’s going senile.”
“I’m afraid not. The doctor’s been in to see her and he says she’s doing quite well and appears to be of sound mind.”
“Appears to be? That’s not good enough. I want some more tests done. You can’t stop me seeing my own mother.” Tim was becoming irate. His brain was trying to grasp the concept that someone, a woman, was telling him what to do.
“It’s not us, Tim. Your mother has requested we don’t let you in and we have to respect that.”
“I don’t have to respect anything. She’s my mother, for fuck’s sake!” Tim banged his fist on the desk, causing Veronica to flinch slightly.
She looked at him properly for the first time since he’d arrived and noticed how rough he looked. Unclean, unshaven and there was a smell of stale alcohol wafting across the desk to her nostrils with each word he spat.
“I don’t know and I don’t want to know what problems you’ve had with each other, but I suggest you go home and call us in a week’s time. See what the situation is then.” She stood up, walked to the door and gestured for him to leave. She didn’t like his aggressive behaviour and wanted him off the premises as quickly as possible. She was starting to see what Daphne had been talking about.
“You can’t do this! She can’t do this!” Tim shouted.
It had no effect. Veronica continued to stand by the door, willing him to leave.Tim gave in, feeling like a scolded child under her glare.
“Bitch!” he spat at her as she saw him out of the main doors.
She alerted the other staff to his behaviour and made sure that under no circumstances was he to be let into the building. She had felt something really sinister from him, something she hadn’t noticed before.
Tim used the incident as another excuse to drink himself into oblivion. He’d taken his anger out on the house by throwing a few things around when he got home. Some of his anger and violence was aimed at Grace too.
The rum coursed through his veins, making everything feel better. It was the hangovers and tiredness that made him feel violent and vicious. The alcohol calmed him down, taking him by the hand and leading him to the drunken fuelled daze he liked to exist in.
He sat at the kitchen table trying to work out a way of getting to his mother. He wasn’t allowed to talk to her and he didn’t know what she’d said to the people in the care home, so breaking in to the place wasn’t an option. They’d know it was him and he didn’t want to draw attention to himself.
Verity’s face swam in front of his vision. Picture after picture of her smiling, her with his mother, her with his father, pictures of happier times when he wasn’t around, when Verity was still very much alive. It ran through his head that he’d have killed her had she still been around today.
“Verity, fucking Verity!” he shouted to the blank wall.
It was the losing that infuriated him more than anything, the fact that his mother had got there first. She was one step ahead of him and he hated that. He had never liked anyone getting one over him.
As the rum mellowed him, he realised he needed to appeal to her better nature. He was, after all, the apple of her eye, well, the only apple left. Once he got back in her good books, he’d be allowed to see her again. It wouldn’t take long for her to give in, he just needed to play his cards right.
The only way he could get through to her was to write her a letter. She liked letters; she’d be impressed by that. He was sure they’d pass a letter on to her in the retirement home, especially if he posted it. They wouldn’t know it was from him until she opened it.
That night, Tim sat at his kitchen table and wrote the most heartfelt letter he’d ever written in his life. Convincing himself as he did so, that it was all an act to reach his ultimate goal.
*
Grace had stayed at Chrissie’s for the weekend. They needed time in each other’s company for Grace to be able to relay everything she needed to Chrissie.
Grace had started with the beginning of her marriage and led right up to what she found out about Tim all those months ago. She felt it was important for Chrissie to know everything from the start to fully understand her future plans for Tim.
Chrissie had listened attentively as Grace had relayed every little detail. They spent most of the weekend going through every imaginable emotion together. Finding out Tim had tried to snatch Chrissie and that she had briefly known Nadine and Alice, had linked them together more so than they had been before.
Had someone else told Chrissie they knew their husband was a serial killer she’d have run from the house and straight down to the nearest police station. But this was different, as things always were when they affected you personally. Grace had shown her the bigger picture, and she now felt like she’d watched a horrible film. Only this was real. And Grace had convinced her that her way was the better way of dealing with it all.
Chrissie had never thought in her wildest dreams that she would ever plot to take another person’s life. But in her eyes, he wasn’t worthy of living.
Chrissie thought that going out of the house and away from their big secret, she’d wobble and reality would hit her. But it didn’t. She felt the same about it when she was around other people as she did when it had first been talked about.
She was still feeling a cocktail of emotions: anger, disgust, devastation and sadness, but also a strange feeling of relief. It was as if she’d always been aware of the whole situation, which she probably had in her subconscious. She was desperate to talk to Sarah about it and she hated keeping secrets from her but she knew she could never tell another soul. Grace had been very clear about that.
Her relationship with Grace had changed along with her relationship with the house. It was no longer a house to her, but a home as well. Both had grown much stronger in a matter of days, and the secret she now shared with Grace would bind them forever.
An atmosphere had descended on the house which Chrissie recognised from when she first viewed it. Whatever it was that had been haunting her had stopped, and there was a tranquillity that had landed like a sum
mer mist. Chrissie put this down to the fact that all the blanks had been filled in, as if it had pushed her onto the path she was about to take.
Chrissie and Grace had realised they were cut from the same mould. Their minds followed the same thought processes. When they discussed killing Tim, it appeared to be a fairly straight forward process. And as the days passed, the thought of it became less and less shocking. It was easier to digest because it involved him having an accident.
Unfortunately for Tim, his drinking habits hadn’t gone unnoticed by either of the women and this was what they had decided to use to make his death look like an unfortunate accident. They had agreed to go ahead with their plans once Tim came back from his fishing trip. He was going to have a drink fuelled tragic accident.
Grace didn’t really need Chrissie’s help doing it, she just wanted her support. Telling Chrissie everything had felt like the most natural thing in the world, and the relief had been immense. It hadn’t worried her that she might tell someone or report it to the police. Grace was past caring, she just wanted the whole sorry situation to be over. But it wasn’t the reason she’d told Chrissie. She’d told her because she trusted her. Something she’d not felt about anyone for a very long time. There was also a feeling of Chrissie being a stepping stone to her daughter; a link to the past, a much happier time.
Grace also felt that Chrissie needed to know, after she’d found out she was the little girl that Tim had tried to turn into one of his victims. She knew their support for each other would last a lifetime.
Even though they had spent most of the weekend talking about such a sinister subject, Grace had enjoyed the best few days she’d had in years. She felt free. Not as free as she’d feel once she got Tim out of her life, but even so, she felt better.
The weekend was coming to a close and Grace decided it was time to get back to Eve’s house; she’d be coming home soon. The police, having been there the last few days had assured her they had finished their investigations for the time being.
She needed to go back and start letting the neighbours know she’d left Tim. That living with an alcoholic had become so unbearable. It would give her a good alibi, when his twisted, broken body was found at the bottom of their stairs. A lonely alcoholic whose wife had left him, being unable to cope, he’d drunk himself into a stupor and lost his balance on the stairs.
Everyone would understand her leaving him as no one liked him much anyway; they were just too polite to say. His drinking hadn’t gone unnoticed in the village either. It was all a perfect build up for there to be no suspicion about his death.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Dear Mother,
I don’t understand your reasons for refusing to see me, but I must respect your decision. I am writing to you because I have no other way of communicating and I am desperate to reach you.
I want you to know how much I love you. Our relationship hasn’t always been easy, I know that. But you are the closest person to me. You know me better than anyone and you understand me more than anyone ever has.
I want you to remember, Mother, that we are one and the same. I am merely a male version of you. Please know that whatever I do, I do it because of my love for you.
I can’t live with the knowledge you hate me. Please, Mother.
Your ever loving son
Tim
Grace gripped the kitchen table, turning her fingers white she was so filled with rage at the news that had just been relayed to her. David Croxton, the family liaison officer, poured her a glass of water, reading her response as upset and shock.
The atmosphere in Eve’s kitchen was solemn. David Croxton and his colleague PC Ian Walsh stared at the floor. Here they were again, delivering this poor woman and her family yet more bad news, and they felt desperately sorry for her.
“Is there anyone we can call for you?” David said to Grace, as she loosened her grip on the table and fell rather than sat on one of the kitchen chairs.
“No. Yes, actually. Yes. But I’ll do it. I have a friend who will come over. Are you sure they searched the whole area?”
“They’ve been searching for more than two days, Grace. The weather is too bad to continue. It’s extremely unlikely…under the circumstances…”
Grace nodded and put her hand up to stop the policeman talking.
“I’d like to be left alone please.”
Grace needed to think, and sympathetic faces were of no help to her whatsoever.
“We’ll be in touch if there’s any further news. In the meantime you know the number to call if you need anything.” He hesitated. “We will have to come and ask you some questions, Grace, when you’re feeling up to it.”
David gently pushed the leaflets about bereavement counselling across the table towards Grace.
“Oh, piss off!” was what she wanted to say to the two officers, but she managed to keep it to herself.
After the door closed behind them, Grace took in the feeling which was always left by having uniformed people in the house. Even when they weren’t delivering bad news, a feeling of anticipation was always left behind. That was probably what made them good police officers.
Grace got up from the table and phoned Chrissie, asking her to come over. Chrissie had been waiting patiently since the weekend for any news. Grace hadn’t wanted her to come over until she knew anything. She’d wanted the time on her own to think about the fact that Tim might be dead.
It wasn’t the news he was dead that had upset her when the officers had arrived. It was the sickening letter to his mother they’d found left on Grace’s kitchen table at home. Coupled with the fact that it appeared to be a suicide note and the bastard had got there before Grace did.
She, like him, didn’t like people being one step ahead of her. She couldn’t think properly, she needed to air it.
Chrissie burst through the door within minutes of the phone call.
“Have they found him?”
“No, they’ve called off the search. They say the weather is too bad. They don’t think there’s any possibility of finding him alive now.”
“Are you ok?” Chrissie walked over to Grace and put her arms around her.
“Silly question. Of course you’re not ok. Can I do anything?”
Grace picked up the alleged suicide note and handed it to Chrissie. She waited while her friend read it silently behind her. Chrissie slumped into one of the kitchen chairs.
“Bloody hell,” was all Chrissie could manage.
“I know. What a bastard, hey? The police want to know if I knew of any reason why he might want to kill himself.”
“Did you have any idea he was building up to this?”
“No. I might have if I hadn’t had Eve to think about. But even then I’m not sure. This just isn’t Tim. He wouldn’t kill himself; he regarded himself too highly to do anything like that.”
Chrissie held Grace’s limp hand which was laid on the table. She stared at her as if seeing her for the first time since she’d walked in. Both arms were resting on the table with her palms supine. She looked like she was meditating.
A smile crept onto Grace’s mouth. Chrissie thought she was going to start crying and as she rushed to get a tissue out of her pocket, Grace began to laugh.
“Grace?!”
“Oh, come on, Chrissie! He saved us a job. The bastard’s dead!”
“Even so.” Chrissie looked around, at who she didn’t know, just in case someone heard their conversation.
“Just before I called you, I’d got myself all caught up in the fact I hadn’t been the one who’d killed him. That he’d got there first and taken that away from us all as well. I was so angry. But it just dawned on me that it doesn’t matter. The point is, we’re all free, and he can’t hurt anyone else. I’ve just been lowering myself to his standards, by plotting to kill him.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far.” Chrissie frowned, unable to think of Grace as being on the same level as Tim.
“The point is, Chrissi
e. He’s gone. Dead. It doesn’t matter if he killed himself or if it was an accident. The bastard’s dead!”
The word “dead” appeared to be highly amusing and Grace started laughing all over again, which infected Chrissie with the same fit of giggles. Their laughter filled the room, something the house hadn’t been used to for a very long time. It seeped into every room, including Alice’s, as if someone had spray painted it with light.
“I think I’m going to like it here!” Chrissie managed to say through the laughter. This caused a new fit of the giggles and they continued until they were both wiping their streaming eyes. But the laughter was soon followed by tears. It overwhelmed Grace and the enormity of it all hit her.
“I should have told the police when I first knew shouldn’t I?”
“Why do you think that?” Chrissie was shocked at the change of emotions.
“Because I’ve deprived those families of having a choice. They might have wanted him to go to prison. Now they might never know who killed their children.”
Chrissie banged her hand on the table, making Grace flinch in her seat.
“That’s enough! You are not responsible for this and what would it have achieved in the long run? We went over all this at the weekend and we agreed that a protected life in prison was not what he deserved. It was taken out of your hands, thankfully, and it’s over.”
“I know.”
“Look forward, Grace, not back. Concentrate on you for a change. Eve’s coming home soon and she needs you to help her get through all this.” Chrissie got up to give her a hug.
“I know you’re right. But what I don’t want to happen is for Tim to be made into a hero because he died at sea in a tragic accident.”
“How is that ever going to happen?” Chrissie asked bewilderment plastered all over her face.
Memory Scents: A Psychological Thriller Page 17
