by Jennie Finch
Alex shuffled over to the counter, collected her key and began a long tramp up the grand (but fake) medieval staircase, around an impressive (but also fake) minstrels’ gallery, through a rather gloomy smoking room decorated with stuffed animal heads (unfortunately not fake) and finally to the end of a dim corridor where two rooms stood side by side. She wondered who was next door as she jiggled the antique-style brass key in the lock before finally flinging the door open to reveal a slightly disappointing interior decorated in a style best described as ‘hotel bland’. She unpacked her case and was peering out of the window at the parkland that stretched away into the misty distance when her door was flung open and Sue burst in and flopped on to the bed.
‘Well, it’s all right, I suppose, but I was rather hoping for roaring open fires and a four-poster bed after that trek through architectural history,’ she said.
Alex smiled at her friend. ‘I’m so glad you’re next door. I was dreading finding Alison – or even Garry.’
Sue shivered at the thought, ‘Don’t worry about him,’ she said. ‘I expect he’s got a nice perch, hanging upside down in the attic.’
Giggling like a couple of naughty children they made their way back towards the stairs, stopping in the smoking room to stare at the hunting trophies. ‘Just nasty,’ was Sue’s verdict.
As they emerged onto the balcony of the heavy-beamed entrance hall they heard the sound of voices coming from the training room.
‘Better hurry,’ said Sue. ‘We don’t want to be the last ones in. They always get picked on.’
‘One thing’s bothering me, you know,’ mused Alex. ‘He was doing quite well until the end of that little speech. We all know each other so why do we need to do ‘introductions’?’
After the debacle of the previous day, Derek knew it was only a matter of time before the inevitable man-hunt arrived at the cottage door and there was a lot of stuff to get rid of before that happened. He was tempted to just burn the place down immediately and make his escape, but he’d put a lot of thought into his plans and he wasn’t going to let a little run of bad luck destroy it all. Anyway he knew fire was extremely unreliable when it came to hiding evidence, especially where dead bodies were concerned. The police and fire brigade had all sorts of tricks – dental records, measuring skeletons and stuff like that – so even a badly burned corpse could still be identified. He couldn’t risk them finding out about Frank, not before he was finished.
There was definitely an odd smell in the kitchen even with the freezer locked tight, and when he lifted the lid the stench increased dramatically. Derek screwed his face up in disgust but he made himself lean over to examine the contents. There was still an awful lot to get rid of, he thought, and there was the problem of the bones, but he’d been thinking about that. More urgent was the need to make it hard to identify the remains. Head and hands, he thought, that’s the key to it. Head and hands – without those they had no chance. He dropped the lid and went into the kitchen to fetch his butcher’s saw and a block of wood to prop under the neck. The freezer was definitely not doing its job properly and Frank was looking very much the worse for wear. After a moment’s hesitation he fetched a plastic bag. Getting it over the lolling head was a difficult and messy task but finally he was ready to cut. The smell was just as bad, but at least he didn’t have to look into those watery grey eyes as he worked. Derek had hunted all his life, butchering his own catch without a second thought and laughing at those soft or squeamish folk who turned away from fur coats or stuffed animals, but that cold, empty gaze seemed to stare at him accusingly from the freezer. He shook his head as if to clear it and bent to his task.
‘Hello everyone, I’m Sally, Sally Forbes and I’m your facilitator for the next two days.’
‘What the bloody hell is a facilitator?’ whispered Sue.
‘Haven’t a clue but I have a ghastly feeling we’re about to find out,’ replied Alex. Garry turned his head, searching for the person responsible for this insubordination and they both slid a few inches further down in their hard plastic chairs.
‘Now,’ continued Sally brightly, ‘you know who I am so let’s all introduce ourselves shall we?’ There was a horrible silence as the whole group stared fixedly at the floor, willing themselves somewhere else.
‘Well, I’ll pick someone to start, shall I? Let me see, how about you?’ She pointed at Sue, who gave a tiny groan before shrugging and saying, ‘I’m Sue, I’m a probation officer.’ There was a pause before Sally trilled, ‘Tell us a bit about yourself and could you stand up please so we can all see you.’
‘Okay, my name is Sue …’
‘And I’m an alcoholic’ came a voice from the other side of the room.
‘Not yet but soon, probably,’ countered Sue as a ripple of laughter swept around the room. Garry scowled and looked as if he wanted to get to his feet but Sally stopped him with a gesture.
‘I understand you might all be feeling a bit nervous and humour is an excellent ice-breaker but let’s focus on the process shall we.’ She turned back to Sue with a patronizing smile. ‘Go on.’ Sue glanced sideways at Alex. It was going to be a very long day.
Derek waited until it was fully dark before slipping out of the back door, locking up carefully before making his way over the marshy land to the lay-by on the back road where he’d left his car. He dumped the two carrier bags in the back on a tarpaulin that lined the boot, sealing it against accidental spillage. One of the bags was leaking a bit and seeped out onto the tough fabric; Derek muttered a curse, making a mental note to clean it on his return. He drove through the darkening landscape using dipped headlights as he wove his way through a maze of narrow tracks and by-roads with the ease of one native-born. There was no-one else on the road at this hour between people going out for the evening and the pubs throwing them back into their cars at the end of the night. Most cars used full lights to navigate the tiny roads with their screens of earth banks and witheys and it was easy to spot another car from the splash of lights up to a mile away. He pulled over almost into the hedgerow a couple of times, turning off his engine and waiting as the occasional vehicle drove past in the opposite direction, the driver oblivious to his presence.
Finally he reached his destination, out past Edington where the Avalon marsh stretched away in bleak emptiness. Gathering his burden from the boot he tramped over the broken earth until he reached the leading edge of the peat cuttings. Here the rich land was sliced and removed in wedges to make compost for greenhouses and sometimes used to revive exhausted soil. It had been a local industry for centuries but now it was coming to an end as conservationists and wildlife experts raised concerns about the damage to the land, the loss of wildlife and the impact on the flocks of birds who lived there. Operations were being scaled back, planning permission for new digging was routinely denied and the existing cuts were abandoned to lie fallow and recover.
At the edge of one of these Derek stopped and looked around before stepping into the shallow pit left by the diggers. The bottom was already beginning to ooze as the water from the low-lying table began to reclaim the area. He pulled out a short handled spade, purchased from the Army and Navy surplus store in Bath, and began to dig. He dropped the hands in the smaller of the two holes and covered them with about nine inches of soil. Peat was notorious for preserving just about anything buried in it but it was very unlikely anyone would disturb this area for a number of years now it was set aside and he doubted the fingerprints would survive long in the moist conditions. Still, he pondered the problem of the head. There had been that body found somewhere, pulled out of a bog after thousands of years. It was all leathery and dried up but the people who found it had been able to tell how he died and even what sort of things he’d eaten by looking at the teeth … He really did not want to have to look at the head again but it was too risky just burying it. The world was full of nosy dog walkers – and unexpected birdwatchers, he remembered. He tipped the head out on to the bottom of the cutting and rolled it
over with the tip of his boot. The eyes stared at him as he picked up the shovel, set it against the mouth and smashed the teeth. As he felt the tip of the shovel bite into the mouth he was overcome with nausea and turned away, struggling to control himself. After a few moments he turned back to his task and pushed the mutilated head into a deeper hole a few feet away. ‘Bye Frank,’ he muttered, shovelling the dirt down on to it. It amused him briefly to think of Frank pickled in the bog long after everyone he’d know was gone. When he was finished and had done his best to remove all trace of his presence he made his way shakily back to the car that waited hidden under the trees lining the road. Somehow revenge didn’t make him feel better. It was hard work and at the end of it he’d still lost his son.
The Wednesday morning had been the stuff of nightmares for Alex. Naturally reserved and inherently awkward she also reacted to stress by becoming tactless and clumsy. On a day of ‘team-building’ this was a disastrous combination. Following the introductions they went on to an ice-breaker, ‘just to help get rid of some of those stuffy inhibitions,’ said Sally. After wringing the last drops of conviviality out of the group she then went on to ‘family trees’, an exercise where each person placed themselves in relation to everyone else.
‘Not so much “family tree” as power play,’ muttered Sue as she shuffled Alex into position.
‘More like the Circles of Hell, if you ask me,’ Alex replied.
She was not the only one suffering or the only rebel. When it came to Lauren she began by setting out the office staff on their knees in a loose semi-circle. Several of the probation officers were placed standing behind them and finally she suggested Garry stand on a chair with one arm forward and the other raised above his head. Garry took his place reluctantly as the puzzled staff looked around and tried to work out what was going on. Suddenly Sue and Alex began to laugh as they recognized the tableau. Garry promptly stepped down and announced it was time for lunch, stalking off as they congratulated Lauren on her ‘charioteer’.
‘Well, I do feel he’s up there cracking the whip and we just all got to keep pulling him along,’ she said as they crowded around the buffet tables. Oh! Is that chicken? Get me some of that will you?’
‘At least the food’s not bad,’ said Sue, as they sat on the terrace after lunch. ‘It’s quite nice getting away for a bit.’
‘If this is your idea of a good time you should get out more,’ said Alex.
‘That’s a bit rich, coming from you,’ Sue countered. ‘You’re the most anti-social person I know. When was the last time you went out, just for fun?’
Alex hesitated, searching her recent memory but all she encountered was work, more work and some solitary gardening.
‘See? You’re a hermit. You don’t go anywhere, you’ve not had a holiday since I’ve known you and you don’t have people round either.’
Not for the first time Alex wished she’d not given up smoking when she became a student. Financially it was a total waste of money and it was really bad for you, of course, but now she longed for the buzz of the nicotine. She took a deep breath, held it for a moment and released it slowly, willing her cravings away as she did so.
‘All right,’ she said, ‘It’s my birthday at the end of September. Let’s have a party or something.’
‘Really? You’re on. I’ll do the planning and you can cook – unless you’d rather do it the other way round.’
Alex laughed in spite of herself. ‘No, let’s try and make it a success shall we – no point in playing to our weaknesses.’
There was the sound of voices from the Seymour Room where the windows were open to let in the warm, fresh air of early summer and Alex gazed at the parkland longingly before reluctantly following Sue back inside.
‘So the new priority will necessitate an increase in the provision of practical and work-based activities. Planned and purposeful engagement of the client – that is the key.’ Garry waved his arms around enthusiastically as he turned back to the flow chart projected on to the back wall.
‘How long has he been going on now? Sue whispered.
‘Um, forty-seven minutes,’ said Alex, checking her watch.
‘And he’s said …?’
‘We need to get the day centre running as soon as possible.’
Garry stopped in mid-sentence and glared at the pair.
‘Is there something you would like to add?’ he demanded.
‘Oh shit,’ muttered Sue, but Alex rose to her feet and said, ‘I was wondering about the implementation of the new orders.’ There was silence in the room as she went on. ‘Will one person have to hold all the orders with mandatory attendance or will we need to negotiate and monitor this section of a mixed case-load?’ She sat down, aware of Sue’s admiring grin next to her. Garry blinked at her and turned back to his flow-chart for inspiration.
‘Well, I think these types of issues need to be negotiated on an individual basis, as and when they arise within a team framework.’
Eddie stuck up his hand and said, ‘Due respect Garry but it is one of the main changes to our work. I think it is a bit more important than whether we allow them a pool table’.
Gordon was next. ‘Perhaps it should be a consideration for the SLOP document.’
There was a general nodding of heads around the room. In the corner Sally frowned and beckoned Garry over as she mouthed, ‘Slop? What is Slop?’ As the murmuring in the room grew louder Garry tried to explain the new priorities to Sally in a few words before swinging round and raising his voice at the noise.
‘Team – please – quiet! These are all issues we will examine in due course.’
The hubbub subsided and he continued with his presentation, but it was obvious his enthusiasm had evaporated, and barely ten minutes later he dismissed them all, distributing a depressingly thick document for them to read before the next morning.
Unable to face another night of slicing and dicing, Derek Johns decided to scope out the next of his potential targets. Wednesday evening was always very quiet around town, with most of the pubs half empty as people stayed home and nursed a beer in front of the television. In these difficult times it was hard to stretch the weekly pay packet over a whole week, what with inflation running rampant and the spectre of unemployment looming over the town’s industries. Derek chose a remote garage to put petrol in his car, serving himself and muttering at the ridiculous cost of fuel. Paying in cash, he got back in his car and doubled back around past Glastonbury and Street before picking up the main road into town. Lot of shops with sales in Street he noticed, and some closed up in Glastonbury too. At this rate there’d be nothing worth stealing in the whole county.
The police station was sited along the road to Petherton, so he took a rat-run parallel to the river, weaving his way round the cars parked up outside their owners’ terraced houses. Just as he was approaching the roundabout he braked and pulled over, scarcely believing his luck. There was no mistaking Alex’s car – probably the only Citroën like it in the area with the distinctive curly wing where she always seemed to nudge the bins on her way out of the office. There was a parking ticket on her windscreen, he noted. Good. He looked up and down the road carefully but there was no-one in sight and on an impulse he turned off the engine and got out, retrieving the fishing knife from the glove compartment before making his way over to the vehicle. It was the work of a few seconds to slash the two front tyres and he was back in his own car and driving calmly down the road, a grin on his face, before anyone looked out of a window or spotted him.
He pulled in to the car park of the Iron Beehive, a pub along the river near where the main road bridge crossed on its way out of town. It was skittles night and so the bar was crowded despite the town’s economic malaise. The air was thick with smoke and all eyes were on the long wooden alley where men (and the occasional woman) slid and swung their bodies to hurl the heavy balls the length of the room. Amidst the shouting and heckling no-one noticed the big, dark man who sat quietly in the shad
ows watching the Combined Police and Ambulance team lose to the home squad. After half an hour, and several pints, Derek slipped out to wait in his car until the visitors left. He scribbled down a licence plate before turning and heading back towards the limited home comforts of his wife.
‘Come on, the men are buying drinks and you might as well enjoy the evening,’ urged Sue from the door. Alex put down the document with a sigh.
‘Have you read this?’ she asked.
Sue shook her head. ‘No and neither has anyone else I suspect … except possibly Gordon, hopefully Gordon – I’m going to get him to give me the condensed version. Are you coming or not?’
Alex looked at the papers in her hand, threw them on the bed and followed her down to the bar. ‘What about Garry?’ she said, hurrying along the corridor and down the stairs.
‘Look, if he’s there he’ll only stay for a while and he’ll have to buy a round. It’s the done thing, but he won’t want to spend the evening rubbing shoulders with the peasants. He’s too mean and too snobbish for that. On the other hand, if he’s there and you’re not he’s bound to notice and hold it against you.’
‘So you’re telling me I have no choice in the matter,’ muttered Alex, as they rounded the corner and reached the door to the bar.
‘Exactly,’ said Sue, flinging the door wide open.
There was a chorus of greetings as they entered.
‘Told you,’ came a voice from a far corner, as Gordon unfolded his length from a small faux-rustic chair and ambled over to meet them.
