The Nursery Rhyme Murders

by Anthony Litton

  Eventually, he calmed down, as ever, soothed by his lover’s presence. ‘I’d better get on with this lot,’ he said tiredly, gesturing at the screen where the garden images played unseen.

  ‘Can’t you leave them for now? Do something else? We could get outside, walk Huffny?’ Gwilym suggested, seeing that the worst had past for the moment.

  ‘No,’ replied the other man, regretfully. ‘ I must get it done. You’re right, though; I bloody well have had enough,’ he added. ‘I’m just watching the rough footage for, I sincerely hope, the last time, before I send it to be processed. The editing house have promised that if we get it to them in the next twenty four hours they’ll have a rough cut by the end of the week and we can do the final edit and lay down the soundtrack when I’m down in London next week.’

  ‘No need to watch it through first, though, surely? John and Anna usually do a top notch job for us?’

  ‘I know; habit I suppose, being sure something’s absolutely OK before “signing it off” as it were. No thanks,’ he added, gesturing to his own drink in response to Gwilym’s enquiring look as he poured himself a whisky. ‘Anyway, I can finish watching it tomorrow,’ he said moving to pick up the remote control.

  ‘No, that’s OK,’ Gwilym said. ‘I’ve not seen these, they’re the afternoon one’s aren’t they? Oh yes, I can see your foot!’ he added, smiling. It amused the whole of their massively successful company that Desmond, so on the ball in every other creative field, was crap at using a video camera. The difference was clear in the neat, effective shots achieved by himself during the morning visits and Desmond’s own considerably more erratic efforts later in the day. It was this realisation of his severe limitations which had made him both overshoot on the day itself and his now reviewing the raw footage before he sent it off. He wanted to ensure he had enough shots of the gardens he’d visited. If not, he was dismally aware, he’d need to revisit one or more of them to fill in any gaps.

  ‘It was a good idea of yours to do a proper DVD of all the gardens who’d entered and sell it at a grand coffee morning for funds for the Almshouses,’ he added, as Gwilym joined him on one of the room’s comfortable settees.

  ‘Seems a bit surreal, though, that we’re even thinking of carrying on with the idea, with everything that’s happened,’ the Welshman responded.

  ‘I thought that earlier,’ agreed Desmond, ‘but the money it’ll raise is badly needed. And, you know, doing it, sort of says ‘up yours’, to whoever’s doing these horrible things. Does that make sense?’

  ‘Very much, so,’ Gwilym assured him, squeezing his arm.

  The two men sat quietly and carried on watching the garden footage almost to the end. Partway through a gentle snoring, followed by Desmond’s blonde head resting against his shoulder, alerted Gwilym to the fact that the audience for the DVD had suddenly halved. He was relieved that his partner had finally relaxed enough to get some much needed sleep and he was content to sit quietly watching the remaining footage. When it had finished, Desmond showed no signs of waking and Gwilym was unwilling to risk disturbing him by moving, so for the lack of anything else to do, he reached out and grabbed the remote and rewound to the very beginning and settled back to watch it all again.

  You really are crap at this, Des, he thought, smiling, as he watched the jerky footage, with its random soundtrack, play out across the large screen of their new top of the range plasma home cinema system; their pride and joy until recent events clouded everything. Without realising it, at some point he, too, fell asleep.

  He jerked awake suddenly. Glancing anxiously down he was relieved to see Desmond still slept. He looked round, uncertain of his bearings for a moment or so, and then memory returned when he saw the now blank screen in front of him. He rubbed his eyes and then stopped as he realised what had woken him so suddenly. It was a feeling of unease, deep unease; but he was at a loss to explain what had caused it. His first instinct was to shrug it off, put the cold, sick feeling crawling up his spine as merely an entirely understandable reaction to the horrific murders of their friends. But he couldn’t. He knew from long experience that that particular feeling rarely arose without cause, without something triggering it. But what had caused it this time? He’d only been sitting watching the gardens footage, peaceful gardens in a tranquil rural setting, not the…

  The gardens footage!

  Something flickered in his mind, followed by a growing feeling of dread, faint at first, but increasingly persistent. After a few moments he slowly, very slowly, reached for the remote control and pressed “Play”.

  The disc had finished for a third time when he made one phone call. Afterwards, he continued sitting there, utterly stunned at what he’d seen and learnt. As though triggered by the visual cues on the DVD footage, his memory had started producing fragments of other things, some seen, some heard.

  He reached over and gently shook Desmond out of his heavy sleep. The two further replays and the phone call had settled any doubt in his mind; so any uncertainty, any hope that he may have had had gone and, sadly, he now knew there was neither hope nor doubt; none at all.

  Chapter 19

  Old Mother Hubbard

  Went to the cupboard

  To give the poor dog a bone

  When she came there

  The cupboard was bare

  And so the poor dog had none

  So what did she do?

  Got shoved in herself

  The bitch alone on the shelf!

  The elderly woman opened her door and looked curiously, but not yet with any fear, at her visitor, who was standing dreamily on the front step.

  ‘Hello, dear, are you coming in?’

  ‘Oh sorry, I was wool-gathering, silly me!

  ‘That’s alright. We all do – more often than we like to admit! Come on in,’ she said closing the door behind her visitor. ‘I’ll get us something to drink. What would you li…’ and it was then that the fear started, really started.

  *

  ‘Guv, look at this,’ said Bulmer, his round face creased in surprise.

  ‘What is it,’ asked Calderwood stepping over to where the printer was printing out a report which the DS was reading even as it came out of the machine.

  ‘It’s the report on that piece of material we found on that little path behind the Abbott’s house,’ he said. ‘It seems that it’s the sort used largely, in fact, almost entirely, according to this, for fancy dress costumes,’ he said quietly.

  Someone knocked on the door, causing them to break off their conversation.

  ‘Sorry to bother you,’ said Gwilym, sticking his head round the door, ‘but when you have a minute, can I have a quick word? It’s quite probably nothing, but it might be important,’ he added.

  ‘Of course; come in,’ said Calderwood, intrigued and knowing his man.

  ‘As I say,’ repeated Gwilym, hesitantly, ‘it may be something or nothing.’ Though he was entirely certain both of what he’d seen and what he recalled hearing, he was by no means as certain that his conjectures arising from it would hold any water by the time they’d been exposed to the rigorous analysis that he knew the two detectives would subject them to.

  ‘As I say,’ he repeated, ‘it may be nothing, but…’ And he went on to explain what his conclusion was and also played the short DVD clip he’d brought with him.

  ‘Dear God!’ murmured Bulmer as he and Calderwood finished watching the footage and listening to Gwilym’s theory.

  After he’d outlined his conclusions, Gwilym said nothing more. There was nothing more to say. He’d explained his theory, shown them the footage; now it was up to them.

  ‘It explains a lot, or appears to,’ said Calderwood after a moment or two.

  ‘Doesn’t explain why though does it, unfortunately,’ remarked Bulmer.

  ‘No, but we knew that whatever the explanation for the nursery rhymes was it would make more sense to the perpetrator than to anyone else. We certainly need to follow this up, though, and quick
ly,’ he said rising and moving to the door. ‘Thanks for bringing this to us, Gwilym; we’ll take it from here now,’ he said firmly, recalling the last time the Welshman had got involved in the finale of a case and not wishing a repeat.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ replied Gwilym blandly; too blandly for Calderwood’s peace of mind.

  ‘You off back to the pub now?’ he asked, and relaxed when Gwilym said yes.

  ‘After I’ve picked Desmond up,’ the Welshman added. ‘He’s out walking the puppy,’ he explained.

  Calderwood was not on the fast track promotion scheme without very good reason.

  ‘And Desmond is walking… Huffny, isn’t it… quite near where we ourselves are going, I assume?’

  ‘Why yes, by a strange coincidence he is,’ laughed Gwilym, heading for his car.

  As he was some way ahead of them he failed to hear the totally politically incorrect but very heartfelt ‘devious Welsh bastard,’ muttered at his retreating back by a reluctantly smiling Bulmer.

  Gwilym parked his car along the rutted cart track near the cottage the policemen were intent on visiting. Desmond was already in the adjacent field playing with a delighted Huffny. Both men knew they’d raise no suspicion even if they were seen from the house, as it was part of a favourite walk of theirs and the trio were seen frequently walking the nearby fields and woods.

  ‘They obviously think there’s something in your theory,’ Desmond observed, as Gwilym reached them.

  His partner nodded, ‘Yes. Certainly enough for a visit, anyway.’

  Desmond himself had no doubts that Gwilym was right in what he’d deduced. He himself had a remarkable skill of total recall when he revisited a scene he’d been involved with. What he didn’t have was his partner’s uncanny ability to read body language in general and facial expressions in particular. This skill extended not just to the larger, more obvious expressions, such as a scowl or a smile, but what Gwilym had told him were called micro-expressions; these are of incredibly short duration – anywhere between 1/25th to 1/15th of a second, and thus are virtually undetectable to the human eye; the untrained eye, at least. Gwilym, on the other hand, was not only highly – very highly – trained, but that training had built on an already unusually acute natural ability to read the almost non-existent micro signals always being sent out by the unwary. Everyone is able to see a smile of welcome or a friendly wave of a hand. What most can’t access are the hidden messages in the face, the near-invisible to the naked eye movement of some tiny facial muscles, indicating the person is less relaxed, less welcoming, less trusting or less honest than their smile or verbal responses are appearing to show. These micro-expressions and their hidden counterpart masked expressions, where there is a deliberate attempt to conceal even the tiny micro-expression, give away much that their bearer would wish remained hidden.

  When Gwilym had woken him and he’d viewed the footage with him, Desmond couldn’t see anything on the face of the person they were looking at, but, trusting Gwilym was right on that, the other key things he pointed out were, besides being clever, stunningly obvious once the footage was viewed from the right perspective.

  So, shocked as he’d been, Desmond had no doubt that they were now in the vicinity of appalling evil and needed to proceed with extreme care. Careful to seem intent on playing with the puppy, both men watched the police from the corners of their eyes, as the law officers walked up the path and knocked on the front door. After a short wait they knocked again. They then tried the back door with a similar result. It was quickly apparent that no one was in and, after a brief conversation, the two detectives started to move back to their car.

  Chapter 20

  ‘Bugger that! Come on!’ said Desmond, heading purposefully towards the field’s gate leading to the little lane, intent on heading the two officers off.

  ‘I’m sure I saw a movement a moment ago,’ he lied, reaching the police officers as they closed the garden gate behind them.

  ‘Did you really?’ asked a sceptical Calderwood, aware that his and Bulmer’s own careful scrutiny of each window as they passed within a foot or two of it, had shown nothing. He had, therefore, to put it no higher, little confidence that the duo, some thirty feet away had seen anything at all; in fact, he flatly disbelieved them.

  ‘Maybe you should try again?’ suggested Gwilym. ‘You never know, they may have been asleep,’ he added.

  ‘Or in difficulties and not able to reach the door,’ was Desmond’s contribution.

  ‘And how do you propose we get in? Breaking and entering is illegal you know!’ remarked Calderwood caustically.

  ‘I know where the spare key is kept,’ murmured Desmond.

  Calderwood knew then that he was in a dilemma. Regardless of what he and Bulmer did, he knew that Gwilym and Desmond would go into the cottage the instant he and his DS drove away. He was also aware that his own instincts were telling him that time could be vital. If Gwilym was right, and he had little doubt that he was, then the perpetrator was far from finished and, judging by the two murders so far committed, there was already an escalating pattern of violence before the actual murder itself.

  His mind made up, he nodded and they all followed Desmond round the back to where, as he’d said they would, they found the key.

  ‘I know you’re taking a risk, doing this,’ Gwilym said with some sympathy to the DI.

  ‘No risk at all, Gwilym, no risk at all,’ replied Calderwood genially. ‘Should our suspect return early, I’ll just say that we saw some activity as we passed and stopped to investigate, as good police officers should. We saw you two trespassing, probably with intent, and we were just in the process of arresting you both.’

  ‘You bugger!’ said Gwilym admiringly

  ‘So, shall we get this over with? asked the young DI, smiling.

  After knocking again and calling out, to make doubly certain that the house was indeed empty, and all having donned a pair of thin rubber gloves each, they opened the back door which led directly into the small kitchen and quietly entered the cottage.

  A quick look around told them that nothing in the small room was out of place; everything was neat and clean, almost unnaturally so. The few dishes by the sink had been washed and were stacked neatly in the drying rack. A small table, set to one side, was already set for a meal for two, everything neatly aligned on a red and white chequered plastic tablecloth. The work surfaces were obviously well-scrubbed and were devoid of any clutter.

  Looking round, all four men were struck by the same thing. ‘It’s a time capsule,’ said Desmond suddenly, looking down at the clean, but clearly old, linoleum covering the floor and articulating what each of the others was thinking.

  From the neat, but old-fashioned, curtains framing the small window, to the line of equally old-fashioned utensils, hanging from hooks over a work surface and the elderly, inexpensive patterned dinner service, displayed on an old Welsh dresser along the far wall, they saw that it all could have come straight from a magazine spread of thirty or more years previously. Often, such traditional décor has a soothing effect on those viewing it; not so on this occasion. The growing feeling of all four men was that the surface extreme, almost pathological, cleanliness was covering a deep, and an almost as pathological, inner stagnation.

  The same feeling of an almost clinical cleanliness being a thin covering for a bleak, inner desolation, permeated the whole house. Along with it was a feeling of time not just standing still, but having been stopped dead in its tracks – but, by what? Whatever it was, its effects were apparent in each of the other rooms they entered. The fridge and washing machine in the small utility room next to the kitchen were of a similar vintage to the kitchen furnishings. In the sitting room, entered through a low door from the kitchen, the atmosphere was equally cheerless. The three piece suite, almost too big for the little room, was again a throwback, as was the old fashioned cocktail cabinet which had somehow been squeezed into a corner. Bulmer recognised it as similar to the one much prized by h
is mother in the late 1970s when, even then, it had been regarded as old-fashioned.

  *

  The first slap hurt the most and the second wasn’t much better. After that, her body just started to shut down. Her mind too was shutting down, though from a different kind of shock. Right at the very beginning, when it still seemed to matter, indeed, when she could still speak, she’d asked her assailant ‘why?’, ‘why?’ The answer had come back, hissed in a hate-filled whisper. The hot breaths caressing her cheeks as they mouthed a long pent-up foulness, were only inches from her ear. What they said had shocked her mind almost as much as the blows were shocking her body.

  *

  Leaving Desmond and Bulmer carefully looking round the ground floor, Calderwood and Gwilym crept silently up the narrow, dimly lit and thinly carpeted stairs. They paused outside each of the three doors which opened off the short, dark landing to check for any sounds, before quietly entering each in turn. The first was a small bathroom, again clean and, again, with fittings more suited to a time now long gone. The neatly folded, threadbare towels draped neatly over the towel rail, the floor covered with linoleum of the same pattern as that down in the kitchen, all pointed to either frugality or disinterest. The second room they entered was clearly the main bedroom. A faded, pink candlewick bedspread covered the double-bed which was hard against the far wall, right under the angled ceiling; as if huddled there for protection, mused Calderwood in passing. Moving ahead of Gwilym, he entered the third room as quietly as they’d entered the first two.

  He quickly saw that there was no need for quietness – the figure on the bed couldn’t hear him. Even if he could, he’d have been unable to move.