It was not something she would do.
It was not something she could do.
Now that she was out of the offices of Raven and Skull she was determined never to return. She would walk home if that was what was needed. She would leave the car behind and walk the whole forty-five miles away from Raven and Skull back to her own apartment.
As she patted the pockets of her jacket she felt the familiar shape of her car keys. Cindy released a sigh of absolute, heartfelt gratitude.
The Focus started first time.
She paused for a moment, shivering in the car seat and savouring the relief of sitting in a comfortable and safe environment. Then, having to use extra effort to stop her arms from shaking, she guided the car out of the car park.
The satnav sprang to life. The electronic voice, antiseptic and vaguely feminine, said, ‘At the roundabout, in one hundred yards, take the third exit, killer.’
Cindy shrieked. She tore at the small unit and wrenched it from its dashboard housing. The coloured screen turned black.
Outside the windscreen she saw that her car had veered onto the other side of the road. The blare of an approaching horn forced her to steer hard to the left. There was a squeal of brakes, a momentary lurch and the sound of metal scraping rustily against metal.
‘You fuckin’ loony bitch!’
Cindy heard the cry come to her as she continued to drive onward. Ordinarily, she would have raised a finger and flipped the other driver off. With her hands gripping tight around the steering wheel, she didn’t have the energy to make the gesture. Instead she carried grimly on, following the route home that was as much a part of her daily routine as sitting behind a desk at Raven and Skull.
It took fifteen minutes to get to the motorway.
An overhead sign warned of impending delays. Cindy read the message from its electronic display and was not surprised to see the words change. At first it read: DELAYS AT JCT 6. After a slow blink, the message changed to: CINDY IS A KILLER.
She turned off the motorway immediately.
Daring to turn on the radio was a mistake. She recognised the soothing voice of the female DJ. It was a woman whose show preceded the drive-time slot that she normally listened to with Richard on their journey home. The show was made up of unusual news stories and phoned-in dedications.
‘This next song is being played for Cindy,’ the DJ announced.
Cindy glared at the radio. The LED display on the radio player usually said the name of the station she was listening to. This time it simply flashed the word KILLER.
‘This one comes to Cindy from Melissa,’ the DJ announced. ‘And she’s asked us to play Tragedy by Steps.’ The DJ laughed and added, ‘Melissa says the title and the group are really appropriate for Cindy because Melissa says she had a tragedy this weekend and it happened on some steps. I don’t know what that means but Cindy, if you’re listening, Melissa says that you really killed her this weekend and she’s looking forward to getting her own back on you.’
Cindy turned off the radio and drove on in silence.
She was away from her familiar route but she felt confident that she was headed in roughly the right direction. Even though every road sign was now useless, only displaying the word KILLER followed by a set of useless numbers, she felt sure she could remember her way back along the roads.
An articulated lorry drove past her. The side was a long advertising board. Its yellow colour made her think it should have been advertising Weetabix or Cornflakes. Instead of the familiar brand, Cindy saw that it announced to the world: CINDY IS A KILLER.
She pulled the Focus to the side of the road and turned off the engine.
Stepping out of the car, chilled by the day’s cool breeze against her sweat-lathered flesh, Cindy took a deep breath and stood helpless in the centre of the road. Every muscle in her body was fatigued from exertion. Her fingertip continued to bleed with sullen, determined ferocity. She was thirsty, tired and confused and wanted only to weep and collapse and remain motionless until all her problems had gone away.
She looked up to see a car bearing down on her.
The temptation to remain in its path and allow the inevitable impact to end her suffering was almost irresistible.
Instead, she fell against the side of her Focus.
‘You crazy cow!’ the driver called.
In her ear, a voice whispered, ‘Next time you won’t be so lucky.’
She sat down by the side of the road and tried to gather her thoughts. The grass was wet against the seat of her skirt but she figured, the way things had been going today, a damp arse was probably going to be the least of her worries. More important, for the sake of her own sanity, she needed to work out what was happening and how she could best deal with the situation.
Reminding herself that she worked in CNS, Cindy decided to tackle the problem as though it was something that had landed on her desk. She was renowned for getting things done in the office and she told herself it was time to stop panicking and rely on those skills that had earned her the nickname, FED-EX.
It was impossible to say whether or not all that had happened to her this morning was because she was being haunted by Melissa’s ghost, or because she was being haunted by her own guilt over Melissa’s murder. Regardless of which was causing her suffering, Cindy knew she only had to deal with the effects and find the answer to one question.
Will you get away with it?
The messages that had come in on her mobile, through the fax machine and on her PC might have been figments of her imagination, or they could have been real and from a supernatural source. She knew that there might be other explanations but, reflecting on all that had happened since she first reached the offices of Raven and Skull that morning, Cindy reasoned that those two options were the only ones that needed to be considered. More importantly, when she asked herself the important question (will you get away with it?) the problem did not seem so daunting.
Her email account was password protected so no one was going to read any of the thousands of accusations that would be now filling her inbox. Her mobile was out of commission and none of the lab rats in the IT Department would have any cause or reason to read her messages once the unit was repaired. Her fax machine was unplugged and there was no one at Raven and Skull who had any need to plug it in. Every message she had received was private and personal and, even those that had run the risk of being seen by others had mysteriously been overlooked.
Roger Black had clearly not seen any of the accusatory messages and he was a man who missed nothing. She didn’t think he’d even been aware of the ghostly-cafeteria-worker-Melissa who had been standing behind the canteen counter.
Shaun from Customer Services had seemed oblivious to the presence of the ghostly-maintenance-Melissa who had been in the lift with him whilst making her hateful accusations. Cindy thought this suggested that she was the only one who could see the woman. She mentally revisited all that had happened: the satnav, the DJ and the traffic signs. They had been messages that only she had seen or heard. No one else seemed to be responding adversely to the motorway’s warning messages or the unhelpful and repetitive road signs.
Will you get away with it?
Cindy could feel her confidence soaring. It didn’t matter whether the messages from Melissa were coming from her own subconscious or from some supernatural source. The important thing was that the messages were only being seen by her.
Will you get away with it?
She smiled when she realised she had an answer to her question. She was getting away with it. Her secret was safe and she was getting away with murder. The notion allowed her to take a deep sigh of relief.
‘You won’t get away with it,’ Melissa told her.
Cindy nodded.
She was not surprised to see Melissa sitting in the passenger seat of the Ford Focus and staring out at her. Cindy was no longer even scared by the woman’s grisly presence, or the finality of her depressing message.
‘I probably won’t get away with it,’ Cindy agreed.
‘You certainly won’t get away with it,’ Melissa corrected.
Cindy nodded again. ‘But that’s not going to bring you back to life, is it?’ She stood up, patted remnants of cut grass from her backside, and tried not to think that her buttocks were clammy from sitting by the roadside. After all she had endured since arriving at work that morning, Cindy figured the nuisance of a damp backside was a minor inconvenience. She climbed into the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition.
‘Do you know where you’re going?’ Melissa asked.
‘I’m going home.’
‘Do you know how to get there?’ She ran her broken fingers over the empty dashboard housing where the satnav had been. ‘This isn’t your usual route, is it?’
Cindy pointed at a sign by the side of an approaching junction. ‘I’m only thirty miles from KILLER,’ she observed, wryly. ‘I think, if I take a left at KILLER, then I’ll be just half an hour from going through KILLER and then I should be home.’
Melissa played with the radio’s buttons.
Cindy drove her fist into the front of the radio. Her hand was turned into a ball of agony from the action but it stopped the machine from playing anything further.
‘I’m not in the mood for listening to music,’ Cindy told Melissa.
‘What are you in the mood for?’
Cindy did not respond.
25
She drove her car onto the driveway of Melissa Mansion and parked outside the front door. Cindy remembered that the last time she had placed her vehicle in this particular position had been on that fateful Friday evening that had ended with Melissa’s death.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Melissa demanded. ‘I thought you said you were going home?’
Cindy considered telling the ghost that, very soon, Melissa Mansion would be her home. She decided that revelation was likely to cause some anger and stopped herself. In a quiet voice, Cindy said, ‘I want to see Richard.’
‘Dicky won’t be happy to see you,’ Melissa warned her.
‘I’m not here to make him happy.’ She climbed out of the car and walked towards the door.
‘I don’t think he’s in,’ Melissa said, following. There was a note of desperation in her voice as she added, ‘I’m sure he’s gone out somewhere.’
Cindy continued. She could see the door was ajar and, without worrying that it might be construed as trespassing, she pushed her way into the house.
‘Come on in,’ Melissa sneered, sarcastically.
Cindy didn’t bother glancing at her. She didn’t want to give Melissa the satisfaction of knowing she was unnerved. The last time she had visited this house was the night when she had become a murderer. Now she was returning to the scene of the crime. Shivering a little, Cindy glanced around the spacious hallway and tried to think if there were any changes she would make to the decor once it belonged to her and Richard.
‘Make yourself at home,’ Melissa sneered. ‘Oh! Wait. You’ve already done that by murdering me and claiming this place for yourself, haven’t you?’
‘RICHARD!’ Cindy called. ‘Where are you?’
‘He’s not in,’ Melissa snapped. ‘Perhaps you should just get back in your nasty little car and piss off home?’
‘RICHARD!’ Cindy tried again. ‘It’s Cindy! Whereabouts are you?’
‘He’s probably in the bedroom, violating my marital bed with another of the staff,’ Melissa suggested, airily. ‘Did he ever tell you that was his hobby?’
‘RICHARD!’
‘He gets a particular thrill from fucking commoners and the working-class,’ Melissa explained. ‘I expect he got a real kick out of riding your fat arse.’
Cindy started towards the kitchen. The room was eerily silent. She was reminded of the evening she had spent in the room with a living and less embittered Melissa. That evening seemed to have happened a long, long time ago.
‘He’s not here,’ Melissa exclaimed. ‘How many times do I need to tell you that?’
‘Would you like me to pour you a bourbon?’ Cindy asked. She was blackly amused to see Melissa scowl at the suggestion.
‘And why would I want you to do that?’
‘You’ve been talking to me for the last couple of hours or more,’ Cindy reminded her. ‘I figured this must be a new record for you. Is this the longest you’ve been without getting a drink inside you.’
‘You really are a nasty cow, aren’t you?’ Melissa marvelled.
‘I’m a nasty cow with a pulse,’ Cindy returned. ‘What have you got, Melissa? You can send me poisonous email messages. You can send accusatory faxes to my office and those horrid texts to my mobile. But now I’m standing in your kitchen, and we’re face to face with each other, you can’t even raise a hand to strike me.’
Melissa’s scowl was black with impotent fury.
Laughing bitterly Cindy said, ‘You’ve got no corporeal presence, Melissa. You can’t do anything to me, so stop pretending that you have any control over my destiny.’
Cindy didn’t bother waiting for Melissa’s response.
Instead she started out of the kitchen calling, ‘RICHARD!’
He wasn’t to be found in any of the downstairs rooms. Cindy went from one to another. She was still marvelling at the size and splendour of Melissa Mansions and repeatedly telling herself that all the ostentatious glamour she was walking through would soon be the property she shared with Richard. The idea was a balm to her thoughts after the panicked anxiety of the morning she had suffered.
Will you get away with it?
I have got away with it, she thought, triumphantly.
‘RICHARD!’
It was annoying that he wasn’t responding, but Cindy used the nuisance as an opportunity to properly explore her new property. The two reception rooms on the ground floor were large and luxurious. She ventured down a set of stairs and found the house’s basement was divided into two delightfully spacious rooms. One of them contained a large pool table. The other was a darker affair, housing a boiler and gardening equipment and dusty old packing cases.
‘RICHARD!’
She returned uneasily to the hall. Although she was struggling to remain defiant, Cindy couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable to be standing where she had been whilst watching Melissa take her first ungainly tumble down the stairs. Even though it was now daylight, and that dramatic fall had taken place in oily darkness, it was impossible not to remember how dreadful the moment had been. She was struck by the idea that if she listened to the silence for long enough she would be able to hear the wet slap of bruised flesh hitting the marble stairs and the crunch of snapping bones still echoing through the hallway.
‘RICHARD! ARE YOU UPSTAIRS?’
‘You’re going to have to go up there and see, aren’t you?’ Melissa whispered. Her voice was filled with hateful glee. ‘You’re going to have to climb those stairs and see if you can find him up there.’
Cindy didn’t bother turning to face the woman.
‘I think I can manage a flight of stairs.’
‘You didn’t seem so confident back at Raven and Skull.’
Cindy said nothing. The arduous descent of the emergency stairway was an episode she didn’t want to brood on. The blind terror and rising panic were now behind her but, she knew, if she tried to remember those emotions, it would be too easy to recall the dark and desperate fear that had come when she’d tried to manage those brutal, unforgiving stairs.
‘You don’t want to fall,’ Melissa chided. ‘It hurts like a bitch. It will look awfully suspicious for Richard if a second woman is found dead at the bottom of his staircase. It will almost look like he has a habit for making these things happen.’
‘I’m not going to fall,’ Cindy repeated.
‘You don’t want to,’ Melissa agreed. ‘When you die, you’re going to spend eternity in hell. That’s what happens to all those who’ve sinned as egregiously as you.’
‘Egregiously?’ Cindy repeated. ‘Is that one of the words they taught you at Cambridge?’ She flashed an insincere smile and said, ‘I wouldn’t know such complicated words. I’m just a working class girl with a fat arse.’
Melissa sniffed.
‘You’re going to hell when you die so you’ll want to delay that happening for as long as possible. I may not have a corporeal presence on this plane. But, when you’re in hell, I’m going to be one of those demonic bitches that makes your suffering legendary.’
Cindy mounted the first step on the staircase. It was secure beneath her foot and, even though her legs felt tired, she was sure she could manage the full flight without incident. ‘Is hell likely to be worse than having you talk to me all the time?’
Melissa did not respond.
Cindy half turned and was surprised to discover that the woman was no longer in the hallway. She took another step up the flight of stairs, still staring down into the hall, and wondering if Melissa had now decided to leave her alone. When she turned to face up the flight of stairs Melissa stood before her. The woman’s shattered face was so close that Cindy almost screamed from the fright. Her aching fingers instinctively gripped tighter onto the banister. The fact that her body tried to pull backwards was enough to make her realise she had come close to falling down the stairs.
‘Did I make you jump?’ Melissa asked, sweetly.
Cindy drew a ragged breath. She paused, gripping the stair rail tight, and waiting for her staccato heartbeat to finally slow.
‘Go on,’ Melissa encouraged. She stepped out of Cindy’s path and said, ‘Climb a little higher. Let’s see if you can make it all the way to the top.’
‘Are you jealous?’ Cindy asked. She tried not to let her breathlessness come through from her speech. ‘Are you jealous that I’ve got a fully functioning body? Even when you were alive the best your body could ever manage was to open the fridge and pour another Jack Daniel’s.’
‘You bitch,’ Melissa breathed.
Raven and Skull Page 11
