by Will Carver
Not at the slaughterhouse.
The perfume of death on that scale is difficult to mask. The scent of guts and entrails festers and the blood somehow lingers like a vapour you can taste.
Darren smells nothing.
Tastes nothing.
He walks past a giant skip that has been filled with the heads of cows. Their skin has been peeled away and their tender cheeks cut out, but the eyeballs remain intact.
They’re looking at him.
Darren sees nothing.
Feels nothing.
Nobody had arrived yet so Darren managed to bag himself the exact car parking space he wanted. He had emptied his boot into his garage earlier that morning in preparation. Darren looked simple. He was simple. And it was the simplest of plans.
Later that day, a new employee was being brought in for the obligatory tour of the facility. He’d seen these a million times before. People without the stomach for it once they realised what the job entails. It was not uncommon to see somebody faint.
The aroma. Lingering. Festering.
Desensitising.
While everybody was distracted by the new kid or were busy pushing livestock towards the end of their days, Darren was going to force one piece of stock into the back of his car and drive it straight home.
What could possibly go wrong?
WILTING EXTERIOR
Mrs Beaufort had taken her time. The sky was washed out but the news said the real rain wouldn’t arrive until the afternoon. By then she expected to be sat behind the till at Rock-a-Buy – probably sniffing another bag of donated goods.
It had actually taken her fifty-seven minutes to walk to May Tambor’s house. She could have made it in her forty-five-minute estimate but the part of Mrs Beaufort that was still Mrs Beaufort told her to take heed of the doctor’s advice.
I let her have that one.
She arrived at the top of May’s drive with shortness of breath but no pain in her arms or chest. The pills were like magic.
There were two cars in the drive just as there always were and the curtains were almost completely closed, a six-inch gap in the middle at least allowed some natural light to permeate the Tambor house’s wilting exterior. She could usually smell some of May’s famous baking halfway down the lengthy driveway but that day there was only cold and the promise of a damp weekend.
She shook her head at the thought of a Tambor/Dunham wet wedding.
She tapped delicately on the diamond-shaped window of May’s front door. Three times with the knuckle of her right forefinger.
There was no answer.
They’d made these plans over a week ago. May really didn’t like leaving the house that much since her husband passed, she had some idea in her head that there were places out there that were not safe, they did not provide an adequate path of escape. Mrs Beaufort was sensitive to this and was usually the one to traipse across town for tea and talks, she knew that May had a big day coming up and was trying to keep things as relaxed as possible for her because she would have to leave the house for her only son’s wedding.
It would be the first time in a long while she had set foot in the Church of the Good Shepherd. Most of the community were understanding of her condition but there was an undercurrent of dismay from members of the congregation who thought that church was the best place for a person in her situation.
The pattern of the killings was that there was no pattern, so the fact that each of the victims had neglected their faith and cut down on their Good Shepherd attendance was probably irrelevant, or at least as relevant as any other crumb of information the local police had picked up so far.
COMMUNITY CHURCH ATTENDANCE
The Brady family: Never
The Hadley family: Christian holidays
The Raymond family: Christmas only
RD: Most weeks (but somebody had to open the café)
Darren: Once for confession
Oz and Liv: Sundays
Detective Sergeant Pace: Once a decade (on average)
The Ablett Brothers: Charles, never. Roger, when he needed something.
Mrs Beaufort rapped the door three more times before trying the bell. Still nothing. With her left hand clasping the door knocker, she placed her right foot on the small sill below the door and pulled her fragile frame up to peek through the window.
The blood had dried on the walls and her friend was laying peacefully on the floor next to the hallway table.
‘Oh God,’ Mrs Beaufort exhaled, lowering herself away from the glass and resting her back against the dead woman’s door, trying desperately to keep her heart from racing.
How long has she been there like that? she wondered.
What have we done to deserve this?
God had nothing to do with the death of May Tambor, it was His worst creation that was at fault. The ordinary man.
I COULD GET USED TO THIS
Annie ‘window breaker’ Harding woke up on that fourth day with my whisper in her ear and a tingle between her thighs. I did not have to push as hard as the previous morning, her frustrations and mistrust were rising to the surface on their own and manifesting themselves into a sexual energy both Annie and her husband had long since forgotten.
This is how evil works.
I just have to get you started. What you do with that feeling is entirely down to you.
ONE MAJOR PROBLEM WITH EVIL
It can feel so good.
Annie had been on her knees and bent over when her husband finished inside her. He’d been staring at a different hole towards the end and imagining what it would be like to end things in there. That was the thought that got him over the line.
They collapsed on one another, breathing heavily, the occasional aftershock throb tickling a smile across their faces. He spoke softly, ‘I could get used to this.’ And they both laughed. A genuine moment of tenderness between the couple.
Neither of them would have to get used to it. Annie wouldn’t have to do this kind of thing any more. I’d let go of her soon. I’d let go of everyone.
But there was still time left on this trip to Hinton Hollow. I was nowhere near finished yet.
And Annie still had one more window to break.
GOOD BOY
When Ben was born, Catherine was considered a young mother. The nights had been a test, of course, but she had given herself to them with gusto. Those initial six weeks where it is all so strange and new were as difficult for her as anyone else, but she got through. Either as a result of her youth or simply because she wanted to.
SOMETHING I HAVE NOTICED ABOUT PEOPLE
They find a way to do the things they really want to do.
It all seemed so much more exhausting with the second one. It had only been eight years since she last went through all of this but she felt as though she wasn’t handling it. In the short period of time that had passed, she seemed to have forgotten everything she had learned from having Ben and had transformed – overnight, apparently – into an old mother.
Ben Raymond kept one hand on his little brother’s pushchair as his mother wheeled it along Stanhope Road. He was trying so hard to be good, he hated it when she was mad in the mornings, it always set him off in the wrong mood for school and he was already in trouble for picking on the Hadley kids the day before.
He had no idea what had happened to them.
It was too much for Catherine to think about with the way the baby had been that week. A restless, whining nuisance. She’d spent every night since Monday rocking the baby to sleep, singing, shh-ing, cooing, ah-ing. She felt drained, and a conversation about death with her already troubled eight-year-old son was not going to alleviate any of the tension she was experiencing. She just needed to get Ben to school and maybe the baby would sleep a little during the day and she could catch up on some much-needed rest.
The morning run was less crowded. A lighter smattering of people opting to take a stand against the unknown figure that was tormenting their community. Just under
half the kids were at home still, either in bed or transfixed by the television. Catherine Raymond was powering through, with her dark eyes and her tied-up hair and her sicked-on shoulder and her young child that could not be touched by the darkness and had no other way but crying to tell its mother that something was very wrong.
She shuddered as she walked past the area she’d seen on the evening news where the Hadleys were shot. She wanted to feel relief that she had sped off angrily and had avoided the gunman herself, she wanted to feel grateful that she still had her two kids when poor Nathan Hadley had been left with nothing, but all she felt was tired.
‘Please try to stay out of trouble today, Ben. Okay?’
Ben nodded.
‘Okay?’ She was using her authoritative mother voice because she was looking straight ahead and hadn’t realised that he had acknowledged her obvious request.
‘I will, Mum. I swear. I’ll try really, really hard.’
Catherine Raymond spotted her son’s hand holding on to the pushchair and her right cheek twitched into a half-smile. She could already see that he was trying.
She looked down at Ben’s face. He seemed to be on the edge of crying, a feeling she knew all too well, and it hurt her. He’s eight, he shouldn’t be feeling like that. She cursed herself. He hadn’t always been the bad kid in class. And, sure, he could be a handful, but she saw how loving and sweet he could be, too.
Stopping meant that the baby would resume the crying, unhappy at the lack of motion, but Catherine did not care. She halted before the school gates and crouched down to the same height as her eldest son.
‘Listen, I know I’ve been a bit rubbish recently.’ Ben said nothing. He just stared. ‘It’s very hard with a little baby at first because they don’t want to sleep as much as we do and that means that Mummy is too tired to do all the things she wants to do. Okay?’
He nodded and she saw it this time, but Ben didn’t fully understand where his mother was going with this story.
‘Let’s just get through the next few days without any scrapes or fights or name-calling and you and I will do something special on the weekend. Just us. Daddy can look after the baby. We can go to the cinema or something, how about that?’ She forced a smile but Ben didn’t have to. It was just what he needed. A little time. A little of his mother’s time.
He hugged her tightly without saying a word, but the strength of his squeeze said enough.
This is why I like the kids. I look into Ben and he is not evil. He can’t be, yet.
‘Now, just ignore anyone who tries to tease you. They want to make you mad because they know it gets you in trouble and not them. Tell a teacher and if they don’t do anything, keep quiet and tell me when I come to pick you up and I will sort it with Mrs Blake.’
‘Okay. I won’t get mad.’ He meant it – the intent, at least.
‘Good boy.’ Those were two words that Ben the Bully didn’t hear very often. ‘Now give your mum another hug, eh?’ It took all her strength to put on that brave face but for the first time in weeks she felt like a mother who knew what she was doing.
She waved him in and Ben ran over to two other boys he thought were his friends.
She watched him play for a few minutes before the bell rang and everybody lined up. He looked over at her and smiled. She hadn’t seen that light for some time.
Then Steph Allen ruined the moment.
‘Terrible, isn’t it?’ She was stood beside Catherine and spoke the words as if to nobody in particular, looking forward as her own child got into line.
‘Sorry?’
‘This whole situation. I mean, it’s just terrifying. Nothing like this has ever happened here before.’
It had. She was too young to know. Out of the loop.
The thing with Carson Chase was just a myth to her, an urban legend.
Another small story.
‘Oh, yeah. It’s horrid. But what can you do?’ Catherine was speaking rhetorically, hoping she could turn and head home to lie down.
‘Cath, you look tired.’ This was not what Catherine Raymond wanted to hear no matter how well meaning it was supposed to be. ‘It’s that difficult bit in the beginning. So nice when they turn that corner, isn’t it?’
Oh, fuck off, Steph, you condescending bitch. The words swirled in her mind but her eyes were too jaded to convey her thoughts. I didn’t want to intervene.
‘Sure. It’s getting there slowly.’ She took some of her own advice about ignoring the people that try to rile you.
‘A few of us are going to wait for one another after school. Walk together. Stick in a pack. Safety in numbers. That sort of thing. I know we live in opposite directions but it might be worth doing the same with some of the mums from Roylake. Maybe give Margot a call, or something.’ She was so proper all the time that it aggravated Catherine almost to the point of physical violence. She hated that fake sincerity. The Good Shepherd was full of Stephs, it was part of the reason she didn’t go any more.
‘Yeah. Maybe I will.’ She turned and powered back to her house without saying goodbye. She was weary and angry and feeling weak. And it was only nine o’clock in the goddamn morning.
SOMETHING ABOUT THE CHURCH
Pace had managed to charge his phone a little while drinking his extra-strength black coffee. The first name to light up the screen that morning was Inspector Anderson to inform him that there had been another one. Not a kid this time and nothing to do with the schools. An elderly woman shot, point-blank, in the face at her home. Seems she may have been there a few days.
Not so much of a pattern now.
A gaggle of mothers could be heard over the gate to the Cider Orchard Bed and Breakfast. Pace sighed at their ignorance. The free flow of information to the press meant that they were all adequately informed. They knew there was a man with a gun in their town. They could read that children and mothers had died. What was the point to this solidarity? He didn’t have children so he couldn’t say for sure how he would react but something felt wrong. Something was off.
Surely no parent in their right mind would let their child out of sight for a moment with everything that was going on. Not this soon. It was like something had taken over the town. Some kind of group mental incapacitation.
He flicked his cigarette out into the shingle and went back into the room to replace his coffee cup. Everybody was looking for a pattern – the kids, the schools – the families were not linked to one another in any relevantly malicious way, not that had been uncovered. Pace turned it over in his head. The link between the victims and their families had to be somebody else. So far, the only person he could think of was Mrs Beaufort. And that was clearly ridiculous.
Was there something about the church?
The gate swung open as Pace hit the exit button. He edged the front of the car out onto the pavement, aware of the pedestrians. The whole town seemed to be awake and starting their days.
Of course, that wasn’t entirely true. Oz Tambor was asleep in the boot of a car, wrapped in only a coat. Hungry. Thirsty. A slave to his nightmares. Charles Ablett was lying in his bed after a difficult night; he was not going to show up for work at all. And his brother, Roger, was still holding the pillow tight when Ellie Frith called him again, just as he had expected her to.
BROTHERLY LOVE
The roar of the environmentally unfriendly engine alerted Ellie that Roger had arrived. His business was opening twenty-five minutes late and she knew he would be pissed off about it. He always was. She’d pay the price because he rarely used a strong arm with his brother.
For such a terrifying man, he showed considerable restraint with Charles. It seemed he could get away with just about anything whereas any other person in the world – man, woman or child – would be trampled over if it meant Roger Ablett would get what he desired.
‘Pick up your fucking phone, brother. This has got to stop. Call me straight away when you get this message.’ Roger was shouting down the phone at a man who was not listeni
ng. He didn’t even look at Ellie, who was leaning against the window of Ablett and Ablett. He fished the keys from his trouser pocket and aggressively pushed through the entrance. Once inside he filled the room with his voice. ‘Ellie, put the kettle on. We’ve got work to do.’
Her eyes threw daggers into his obese back but she did as he ordered.
Roger sat down at his brother’s desk, pushed the circular button that whirred his computer to life and flicked through the diary that was sitting on his desk.
Charles Ablett’s diary should have been thick with ink but Roger could see that he had been slacking off even more over the last few weeks – the last week in particular. In fact, he only had one appointment booked in for that day. A rental enquiry just before lunch with a Detective Sergeant Pace.
Perfect.
OLD FRIENDS
On the doorstep sat an elderly lady, her right hand rubbing her left arm for warmth or comfort or something to do. It was clear that she lacked neither the strength nor the speed to have committed the atrocious murders in Hinton Hollow but Pace was not ruling out her involvement yet.
She had a cast-iron alibi for her whereabouts when Jacob Brady was killed. She was in the hospital recovering when Faith Brady decided to take her own life. She was in the back of the detective’s car when the Hadley family was systematically erased from existence. And she was the person who found May Tambor dead in her hallway.
Mrs Beaufort did not pull the trigger but she was hovering over every victim like a malevolent black cloud.
Pace thought he had worked her out. She was proud and old-fashioned in her thoughts and ethics. Old-fashioned in a good way. Not outdated. There was well-meaning in there. She was the matriarchal figure of the town and a devout attendee of the Church of the Good Shepherd. But he had seen a side to the old woman that was fearless and powerful particularly in the face of something that threatened her way of life and the way of Hinton Hollow.
