Nevertheless, it was clear that Mrs Tindall felt no real sadness at the death of her husband. There had been no tears, no breakdown, and no emotional expressions of loss and despair. The previous day Snow had attended Sammy’s funeral, mainly in order to observe if there were any strangers present eager to gloat over their handiwork. But there had been no ghoulish spectres at the feast. It was a small affair with a few neighbours in support of Brenda, her sister, the secretary of the working men’s club and a representative from his works. A sad end to a sad life.
However, what had been most revealing to Snow was the dramatic change in Brenda Tindall herself. She had turned up in a smart black outfit, glamorous widow’s weeds, her face carefully made up and the hair that had been mousy and straggly now honey coloured and beautifully coiffured. It was a transformation worthy of one of those wretched TV make over shows. But it wasn’t only her appearance that was different. Her manner and bearing were assured and serene. She was a changed woman. She had escaped the shackles of her violent, loveless marriage and had become the person she had always wanted to be. It was a remarkable transformation and certainly revealed that she was in possession of more steel and guts than the sad stoical creature he had first interviewed. Could she have done it? Could she have really butchered her husband to escape from his abusive clutches? His instinct told him no, but he knew that he could not ignore the possibility altogether. He had to keep this notion on the back burner while investigations continued.
While investigations continued? Well, they had come to a full stop. There were no avenues left to travel down. Sammy’s workmates and employer had been questioned, as had the barman and some of the regulars at the working men’s club who had been in attendance on the night of the murder. They had all told the same story: he was a bit of a difficult devil at times but no real trouble. They knew of no one who bore any kind of serious grudge. He seemed content with his own company and that night at the club, he had sat alone reading the paper apparently lost in in his own thoughts while getting steadily drunk. Snow kept coming back to the inevitable conclusion that the only person he knew who had benefitted from Sammy Tindall’s death was Sammy Tindall’s wife. Fellows’ theory in a nutshell. Snow could not fully explain why he rejected this notion, but he knew that this was not the case. He felt it down to the roots of his policeman’s soul. It hung on that one point: ‘the only person he knew who had benefitted from Sammy Tindall’s death’. Snow was convinced that there was – somewhere out there – a person he didn’t know. The mystery man. The tall person with the serrated knife who had some sort of grudge against wife-beating Sammy. He had considered the possibility of Mrs T having a boyfriend in the shadows who had taken it upon himself to ease the situation, to cut her free; but there was no evidence whatsoever to support such a theory at the moment. There was no homicidal paramour lurking in the shadows. Of course it would be a situation that he would monitor but he reckoned if there had been another bloke they would have got a sniff of him by now.
Wouldn’t they?
Snow gazed down at his notepad. It was filled with geometric doodles. He sighed. Those were not going to help him solve the case.
CHAPTER
SIX
Mandy Sullivan was shaking as she entered the toilet cubicle. Her eyes pricked with tears and her mouth was dry, her tongue seeming an alien part of her. ‘Oh, God, Oh God,’ she thought in desperation. ‘Help me now. Please!’
She sat on the loo and with some difficulty she tore open the packet and extracted the contents. With her heart thumping wildly in her breast, she just stared down at the stick she was grasping in her hands. Frozen with fear and apprehension, for some moments she could not move while the stick wavered in an out of focus. She was shaken from this trance by shrieks and giggles as a couple of girls banged their way into the loo. She recognised their voices: they were classmates. Their natural uninhibited exuberance pierced her heart. Once she had been like them: carefree and happy. And normal. Before the nightmare had taken complete hold of her life. She bit her lip as copious tears spilled down her cheeks. The girls, oblivious of her presence, entered nearby cubicles and kept on chatting while they had a pee.
Mandy waited until they made their noisy exit. Quickly she reread the instructions on the back of the packet and then, still with trembling hands, carried out the procedure. She closed her eyes and prayed. In this instance the prayers were not answered – not in the way she desired.
The stick had turned blue. As she had feared it would.
She felt as though someone had kicked her hard in the midriff and she felt the bile in her stomach rise. Her head fell back against the tiled wall. ‘Oh, my God,’ she cried out loud. Her world had just crumbled into dust and she was alone. There was no one, no one she could confide in. No one.
The Asian shopkeeper looked at Mandy suspiciously as she placed the bottle of vodka on the counter. She had plastered herself with makeup, heavy eyeliner, bright red lipstick – the lot – in order to look older than her fifteen years. She could see that he was about to say something about an ID but she was determined to brazen things out. If he started to become awkward she’d just run out of the shop with the vodka, certain that this old bloke wouldn’t be able to catch up with her. Before the shopkeeper had a chance to say anything, she flashed him the twenty pound note before placing it on counter next to the bottle. He gave a little sigh. What did it matter if this young scrap of a girl wanted to ruin her life and her looks with booze? It was none of his business. His business was to sell the stuff. He placed the bottle in a flimsy plastic bag and scooped up the note. Moments later, with the change jingling in her pocket and a bottle of vodka clasped tightly in her hands, Mandy left the shop, wearing a sour grin on her heavily made up face.
An hour later, Mandy was huddled up in a corner of one of the shelters in Greenhead Park, about a mile from the town centre. She had consumed half the bottle of vodka, but instead of relieving the terrors of her situation, the alcohol had exacerbated them. It was not just the oncoming evening chill that made her body shudder and her lips chatter. It was fear. Fear that had clamped itself around her consciousness and would not let go. Every time she closed her eyes to blot out reality, she experienced the same sensations over again like the running of a film in her head. She remembered the casual touches, the stroking of her breasts, the hand in her knickers, the walking in on her in the bathroom. Those images flashed by, a speedy prologue, before…
She remembered lying in her bed, her body rigid with stomach-turning apprehension. Every noise terrified her. Those clicks and snaps were the normal sounds of a house settling for the night. Or were they? Was that gentle bumping noise the sound of the central heating radiators shutting down for the night of was it the stealthy tread of footsteps coming up the stairs, coming towards her room?
And then she heard the door handle turn and a thin shaft of pale light arrow its way into the room. It disappeared as quickly as it arrived, but it had announced the dreaded presence by her bed.
‘Hello, darling,’ he whispered. Two words, two words uttered with a drunken drawl that turned her blood to ice. She screwed her eyes shut, daring not look as she heard him move closer. Soon his boozy breath was on her face and he kissed her cheek.
‘No,’ she said softly, so softly it could have been a sigh.
He pulled back the covers of the bed and slipped in beside her. He was naked from the waist down and she felt his warm flesh press hard against her.
‘Come on, darling,’ he said, pulling her round towards him. ‘There’s a good girl.’
She tried to utter the word ‘No’ again but this time she could not speak. Her mouth moved mechanically but no sound was uttered. Fear had silenced her.
‘You’re a lovely girl, my darling,’ he said thickly, pulling her knickers down her legs, his fingers rough against her smooth skin, and then with a groan of satisfaction, he slipped his hand between her thighs. She moaned. It was a gentle bleat of disgust and horror but he interpre
ted it as one of pleasure. ‘That’s it,’ he gurgled.
And then before she knew it, he was on top of her and penetrating her. This is where the memory became very distorted. She remembered the ferocity, the harsh rhythm and the agonising pain as he pounded down on her, but even at the time it seemed to be happening to someone else. It couldn’t be happening to me, she thought, desperately trying to believe that this was some horrific nightmare. She did, however, remember his exclamation of pleasure and the final shudder, but then she had no recollection of him dragging himself off her or leaving the room. It was all darkness then. Pain, disbelief and darkness. Her fragile mind sought refuge in sleep.
The pain was still there in the morning as shards of bright sunlight pierced through the gaps of her curtains. A new day and a new cruel reality. It had happened. To her. She had been raped. She had been raped by her father. It had been coming for some time and now it had really happened. The drunken monster had taken her virginity. She could still feel him inside her. The thought of it made her vomit. Green bile spattered her bed clothes as her body shook with silent crying.
As it did now, in the park shelter. As it always did when she recollected that terrible night. Which was often. She could not shake it from her mind. That face. The pain. The invasion of her body.
And now the final agony: she was pregnant. With his child. With the monster’s child. Her own father’s offspring. She was a freak. It was unbearable.
She cried out loud. It was a feral cry, a mixture of despair and anger. Snatching up the vodka bottle she took another long hard gulp. The alcohol burned her throat. That was good. She wanted to feel physical pain to divert her from her mental anguish.
She slumped back on the wooden bench, woozy and distraught. What on earth was she to do? Who could she turn to? And then she had an idea.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Paul Snow pulled up outside a smart modern detached house in the Lindley area of Huddersfield. It was, he knew, what was commonly referred to as the Yuppie belt. The houses here were a cut above those on the new cheek-by-jowl estates which had postage stamp gardens, garages too narrow to use for cars and cheap utilitarian fittings. This particular house was but one of six, all slightly different on a ‘select development’ called Primrose Rise. It amused Snow that builders chose such airy-fairy names in order, no doubt, to suggest a pastoral haven, a rural backwater of delights, the haunt of deer, rabbit and rare butterflies. In this case the nearby sodium street light and the bus shelter at the end of the street banished any notion of Hardyesque tranquillity.
Three Primrose Rise was the home of Matilda Shawcross and Snow had been invited to dinner. He had been to her house before but only for the purpose of picking Matilda up to go on elsewhere. This was the first time he would sample her hospitality. Hospitality. He considered the word carefully. He was fully aware of the implications that it held on this occasion. A few weeks had elapsed since his failed attempt to make love to her and although the event had not been referred to specifically, by either of them, he knew that Matilda was – how was he to consider this? ‘encouraged’ was perhaps the best word - encouraged that things would develop very soon. And, he reckoned, that tonight, she was going to provide him with the opportunity for this to happen. He had been aware that this was a likely outcome right from the very beginning when he had first started seeing Matilda. He had tried to ignore the inevitability of such an event, despite him knowing that any relationship with an attractive woman was bound to lead to a physical relationship – unless there was something wrong with one or both of them.
Of course, in this instance, he thought sourly, there was something wrong with one of them. In a sense, at least. He gazed at himself in the driving mirror, his features illuminated by the soft green glow of the dashboard. He looked like some horror creature from a Hammer film. The thought amused him briefly and his mouth curled into a gentle smile. He was not unaware of the various ironies of his situation. For a start many a red-blooded man would relish with great enthusiasm romping amongst the bed clothes with Miss Matilda Shawcross. She was a very attractive woman. Also, it had been in his power to allow this relationship to falter and then end before it reached this crucial stage. He had, after all, made a point to the outside word that staid bachelor Snow had the ability and inclination to attract a beautiful woman. But what really bothered him and kept him awake at night was the gnawing belief that it was all a sham. He was not only pretending to the world but also to Matilda and worse, to himself. He had successfully repressed his homosexual feelings and activities for almost ten years now in order to pursue a successful career in the police force where puffs, shirt-lifters, bum boys and queers were seen as a sniggering joke, a threat, open to blackmail; and certainly did not rise in the ranks.
Now, here he was playing the straight man. He tried to convince himself that his feelings had changed, had mutated. He had matured and was now ready for a ‘normal’ relationship. One with a woman. He despised himself for thinking in terms of ‘a normal relationship’ but he was indoctrinated by the society he was part of to view the matter in this way. He had to try but he felt guilty that such a lovely and trusting creature as Matilda was his guinea pig. Maybe… maybe it would have a happy ending.
He had psyched himself up for this evening, tried to prepare both mentally and physically. There would be kissing and love making and he would prove himself a ‘normal man’.
There would be a happy ending.
He switched off the lights, grabbed the bottle of Chablis and the flowers from the back seat of the car and headed for the front door. He felt strangely calm and determined as he rang the doorbell. He heard the gentle chimes echo in the house. Moments later, Matilda opened the door, a broad smile on her face.
‘Hello, Paul,’ she said softly, leaning forward to kiss him.
Mandy Sullivan returned to the hiding place where she had stashed the bottle of vodka, or what was left of it. She held it up close to her face. Fuck, there was barely an inch left. She unscrewed the top and gulped it all down. God, it was good. She needed a drink after her recent experience. That had been a waste of time. No bloody help there then. She wandered down through the town centre towards Aspley and the canal.
She had a plan. Of sorts. A kind of solution. She giggled bleakly at this word. As the alcohol swirled around in her brain, she mouthed the word, ‘solution’, to her amusement, the breath escaping from her mouth in a fine grey cloud. The numbing effects of the vodka had protected her from the growing cold and despite the thin coat she was wearing, she was oblivious of the night chill. She turned off the road, staggered unsteadily down the steps and on to the tow path. She gazed at the canal for some moments as though mesmerised by it. The water, she thought, looked like black treacle, dark with an occasional bright spot created by the moonlight.
She drained the vodka bottle dry and then hurled it into the air. It arced over the water before dropping down, making a muted splash before sinking into the murky depths without trace. She thought of the phrase ‘without trace’ and as with the word ‘solution’, she mouthed it aloud to herself. That’s where she wanted to be: without trace. Lost to the world. Me and the monster’s baby inside of me. Then the bastard would be sorry. His daughter floating in the bloody canal. His impregnated daughter. Dead. And all his fault. Well, she reasoned, in her drunken stupor, it was for the best. There was no other alternative. She was ruined, scarred, blighted for life now. They would say that she had led him on – seduced the monster. She was a whore. There really was no future for her.
She made her way towards the edge of the path and stared down defiantly at the dark, reedy waters. Suddenly, she felt terrified at the thought of what she was about to do. The fear sobered her a little. She knew that she couldn’t do it. I am just not brave enough, she told herself, shaking her head wildly. Or am I being stupid? Oh, God I don’t know. She began to cry, loudly this time, great vociferous sobs. Her body was wracked with emotion, tears blinding her vision.
She jerked forward in her anguish and missed her footing. The ground slipped away from her and she found herself falling. For a moment the world seemed to spin round, darkness and moons flashing by and then the icy water engulfed her. She was plunged down deep into its thick blackness, the ferocious, unyielding cold paralysing her limbs. Her mouth and nostrils filled with the foetid water as she desperately tried to reach for the surface but some invisible force seemed to hold her down. Her leg scraped against some unseen sharp object, the pain shooting up her body. With one desperate effort she reached her arm upwards and for a split second her hand broke the surface of the waters but she was pulled down again by the undertow, deeper this time into the reedy maw of the canal. Her movements faltered and her brain began to shut down. She no longer struggled against her fate. She couldn’t and now, strangely, she didn’t want to. As her lungs filled with water and the life eased its way from her, the body of Mandy Sullivan rose slowly to the surface of the canal as though it was releasing her back to the world.
Paul Snow sat in bed, propped up by a pillow, while he drank a mug of strong hot coffee. There was a gentle smile playing about his lips but this reflected his sense of relief rather than humour. He had succeeded. He had been a man. Lying by his side, with sleepy, contented eyes, was Matilda. For her the evening had gone exactly as she had hoped, exactly as she had planned. Her silence exuded contentment. She was happy to be in a relationship with a decent man who was kind, considerate and intelligent. She knew that it was not a romance of cinematic proportions: there were no sweeping strings or tinkling bells. But what the hell, this was real life and one had to snatch what happiness one could get. After a moment she leaned over and kissed Paul on the cheek. He responded in kind.
Blood Rites: A Detective Inspector Paul Snow thriller Page 4
