Beyond Evidence

by Emma L. Clapperton

  "Wh, wh, where is she?" he stammered.

  "Who baby? Where is who?"

  "The woman," Patrick was now walking around the room putting on all of the small lamps.

  "Patrick it's just us here. Are you ok? You must have had a nightmare," Jodie spoke with calm a manner.

  Patrick thought to himself at that moment. He shouldn't be getting so jumpy at this sort of thing, he'd dealt with it since he was a child. But he had never in his life felt so on edge about spirits before. He couldn't get her face out of his mind. She was making him shiver at the thought of it. Those dead eyes looking up at him, her pale and beaten face made him feel nauseous again.

  Patrick realised he was walking around in circles in the sitting room and Jodie was looking at him with concern more than fear. He stopped his panicked walk and sat down on the edge of the couch where the women had stood before Jodie had disturbed her.

  "Can't you feel her? You have a spiritual sense too Jodie, can't you feel a presence? She...they have been here for weeks."

  Jodie sat down slowly on the cushion next to the arm of the couch and took his hand.

  "No babe, strange as it seems for me not to sense this sort of stuff, I really don't see or hear anything."

  Patrick stood up and walked back out to the balcony to catch his breath. It was now approaching five a.m and he was wide awake with the entire goings on in his head. Daylight was setting in and he looked out on to the expressway again. There were only a handful of cars and a few delivery trucks, quietly whizzing past the apartments where Patrick stood. The sun was rising slowly to the right as he looked out and there was a haze of cloud all around the buildings that stood beyond the road. The clouds seemed to burn out the higher up he looked and the sky was a whitish blue colour. He thought how peaceful it would be up there. If only he could get some peace for a few hours so he could sleep and get his head together.

  He turned so his back was to the road and called into Jodie who was still sitting on the cushion next to the arm of the couch, "I'm going to head out for a bit, just a walk to clear my head, I have something to post anyway and I'll pick up a newspaper and some rolls on the way in."

  Jodie looked up and just smiled. She wanted to take him in her arms and comfort him. She had never seen him react this way about his ability to see and hear things before. It scared her deeply.

  "Ok, I'm going back to bed for a bit. Take your keys in case I'm asleep when you get back." He walked past Jodie and stopped to kiss her on the forehead before leaving the sitting room. Patrick picked up his cigarettes from the table and went to the bedroom to change into jeans and a t-shirt. As he left the apartment he quietly closed the front door behind him.

  Four

  The Turner's

  The kettle began to whistle on the hob. It was an ear piercing sound that he was sure no one else enjoyed. It reminded him of the way his mother would make tea in the mornings before he had to leave to go to school. He knew most people had electrical kettles nowadays but he was happy enough to use the boil on the hob type. He poured the boiling water into his coffee mug and stirred. His mind went back about twelve hours and he was positive someone would have found her by now. He looked at the photograph of his mother in the frame on the small kitchen wall and said aloud, "See mum, I'm making it better."

  Ross Turner thought about the clothing he had gotten rid of in the last eight weeks. Three black shirts and three pairs of trouser which he had put into black bin liners and discarded at the local tip, where most people got rid of the rubbish they no longer needed in their lives. His bet was that the Police would never think to look there if they ever got a lead on their suspect.

  Hundreds of people probably dumped their rubbish in that tip every day. Even if they did get a lead, they would never find any traces of those dirty whores on him if he had discarded of the evidence. He picked up the newspaper he had bought earlier that morning and saw the headline, ‘Third female found dead in city.'

  He sipped at the coffee he had poured for himself.

  Well isn't that sad. What's the world coming to with one less whore? he thought with a sadistic smirk as he read the rest of the article.

  The girls face was on the front page, just a small one taken from her facebook profile. She was pretty, with brunette hair which curled around her face. She had hazel brown eyes, sun shimmered skin and a pretty smile stretched across her small face.

  "Hmm, no name yet I see. Well I'm sure we will have something for you soon mum!" Ross said aloud as he flicked the page and began reading something on the other side about house prices falling by a further 0.5% due to the economic climate.

  He flicked again, reading the rest of the newspaper, as if the news on the front page were just news. To everyone else in Scotland that morning it would be, but to Ross it was yesterday's news. Or last nights anyway! Ross Turner was a thirty year old single man who lived on his own in a flat in the Partick area of Glasgow. It was a sandstone building which had stood for years. It had two bedrooms however he only used one for himself, he wasn't one for flat sharing. He much preferred his own company. Life had dealt him a bad hand over the years and he had learned to be his own best friend and to trust no one. He was fast becoming a man who was hell bent on revenge for his mother, Maria Turner.

  Ross Turner had grown up in and around the North of Glasgow all his life. He lived with both his parents, until he was old enough to choose to get away from his abusive father.

  As a child Ross' father subjected him to the sight of young, undignified women rolling through the door with him at all hours of the morning. Ross knew exactly why they were there and so did his mother. These women disgusted Ross. They would come into his home with his drunken father stinking of booze and cigarettes and disappear upstairs for an hour or so. When they left his father would beat Maria black and blue until he got tired and went to bed. His name was Billy Turner. Ross absolutely despised his father in the end. He would never forget the screams and pleas from his mother as Billy Turner vented his drunken state on Maria.

  As a child, Ross would stick his fingers in his ears once those dirty women left his home because he knew what was coming next. The beatings became few and far between as Ross reached his middle teens. Ross threatened his father with the Police if he beat his mother and for the majority of the time it worked, but there would be the occasional night where Billy Turner had had one too many and Ross wasn't there to help Maria. Ross left school and went to university for a three year course to undertake a degree in photography and make up artistry and whilst he was away Billy Turner wreaked havoc on poor Maria Turner.

  This time he was in such a drunken rage that he raped her and broke her collar bone and as Maria tried to get away from Billy, she ran from the bedroom to the top of the stairs and as she descended Billy pushed her and she tumbled to the bottom causing her to break her ankle. He kept her cooped up in the bedroom like an animal for weeks on end, giving her paracetamol for the pain in her ankle and collar bone. He didn't dare call an ambulance. That would have gotten him into trouble and he wasn't prepared to go to jail. The women still came and went most days. Maria had no idea who they were. Not prostitutes surely, he didn't have that much money. But he did have a charm that only Maria could see through. Maybe these women just fell at his feet the minute he opened his mouth. In all fairness that's how she ended up marrying him.

  Maria didn't have anyway of contacting anyone, Billy had blacked out the windows and cut off the telephone in the bedroom. All she had was painkillers on a four hourly basis, water and food three times per day. Maria felt like she was in prison at that time. But she knew that Ross was due home within the following two weeks after his first year of university and once he saw what had been happening he would deal with it, he wasn't a little boy anymore.

  Those next two weeks were like hell. Her broken ankle was not healing and her neck was causing her unbelievable pain. Billy was drinking in the excess of one and a half bottles of vodka everyday and he tortured Maria, e
veryday until a few days before Ross returned.

  Maria was raped, sometimes twice per day and was force fed the food he was giving her to keep her alive. She felt like an injured animal that the vets were refusing to put out of its misery!

  On the evening of May 3rd 2007, Billy had fallen into a drunken state and had left a full packet of painkillers by the side of the bed. Maria stared at them for what seemed like an eternity. She thought about all of the wasted years she had spent with the monster who was Billy Turner. Supposed to be her loving husband, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse!

  Billy Turner was without doubt sick in the head and Maria was one hundred percent certain that things couldn't get any worse. Maria struggled to reach over and opened the drawer in her bedside table. She took out a small pad of paper and a pen and began to write;

  Ross, I am so sorry that it has come to this. I lie here and I think about everything I could have done in my life to make yours better as you were growing up. I should have left your father years ago, but it was easier to stay. I want you to get away from your father, as far away as you can before he hurts you the way he has hurt me for the past twenty odd years. I don't blame the alcohol, I blame the hidden personality that the alcohol brought out of him. I cannot go on Ross, if I did leave, I would always be looking over my shoulder and I do not want you living your life trying to protect me! I love you very much Ross and don't you ever ever forget that. I will always be with you. Mum x

  Maria folded up the short note and put it on the bedside table. She opened the pack of painkillers and with shaking hands she emptied them onto the bedding. She took the glass of water in her hand that Billy had "so kindly" left for her and she took as many pills as she could swallow in one go.

  Meanwhile, Billy Turner slept drunkenly in the room beneath her. Ross returned home the next day to find Billy sat on the single recliner chair in the living room of the house. He was sat forward with his elbows resting on his knees and his head hung down facing the floor.

  "Dad, it stinks in here," Ross said as he opened the curtains of the big bay windows. He turned to face Billy who was now standing. He was grey in colour and swayed from side to side.

  "Hung over are we?" Ross asked, knowing the answer already. Billy said nothing as Ross waited for a reply. His eyes were bloodshot due to consumption of alcohol and crying. Ross felt his stomach lurch, like a thousand butterflies were whizzing around his intestines.

  "What is it?" Ross didn't take his eyes off Billy.

  "I'm sorry son." Billy picked up a bottle of vodka from the nest of tables next to the single recliner but it was empty.

  He looked at the bottle then threw it down onto the carpet. Ross dropped his backpack, which made a loud thud and thundered upstairs to the bedroom. He threw Maria and Billy's bedroom door open to find Maria tucked up in bed as though she were sleeping which gave the butterflies in his stomach instant relief, but as he walked around to her side of the bed he felt utter devastation when he realised she was dead. She lay there completely lifeless and she had no colour in her face. Her eyes were closed.

  Ross sobbed as he lifted the duvet to cover her face when he saw severe bruising to her neck and shoulder. He immediately realised that she had a broken collar bone. His devastation turned to sheer rage and he raced downstairs taking two at a time and burst into the living room where Billy was sat back on the single recliner swigging at another bottle of vodka.

  "You evil, disgusting bastard!" Ross screamed and flew across the room. He began punching the living day lights out of Billy as he sat there like a lump of lard taking his beating. Ross stopped and pulled the vodka out of Billy's hands, "This make it acceptable does it?" He waved the bottle in Billy's face. "Does this precious bottle of vodka make the last twenty years ok to you?" Ross threw the bottle of vodka at the marble fire place and it shattered into a million pieces, spraying vodka everywhere.

  Billy could see the rage in Ross' eyes.

  "I didn't kill her Ross, she did that herself!" Billy slurred. He had tears rolling down his face. Not tears of a grieving husband but tears of a man who had worry tearing through him. He knew there was no way out of this.

  "Don't you dare cry! You didn't give two shits about her or me for that matter. Why did you marry her if you didn't love her? Why did you make her life so fucking miserable, bringing back all those dirty disgusting excuses for women for all those years? Why didn't you just love the family you had?" Ross took a breath in between the sobs of anger and frustration.

  "I wish it was you lying up there. I wish you were the one that had to go through that pain instead of my mum. You may not have killed her but you drove her to it!"

  As Ross spat out his anger Billy reluctantly handed him a piece of paper, "it's from your mother," he said.

  Ross read the suicide note from Maria and he felt guilt beginning to rush through his veins. "If I hadn't gone off to university none of this would have happened. You wouldn't have been able to hurt her the way you have!" He looked up from the note into his father's eyes and said in the calmest tone, "you're going to hell!"

  Ross pushed his father back on to his chair and took his mobile phone out of his pocked and dialled 999. Ross expected Billy to run but he didn't, he sat there on the seat and waited to be carried away by the Police. He listened as he heard his son speak about him as though he was some kind of stranger who had come in from the street and carried out a random attack on a woman. Ross waited at the front door for the Police to arrive, all the while holding down the vomit that swam around his stomach.

  My mum's dead, he thought as a single tear trickled down his cheek. What am I going to do now?

  His mind was back in the present day. It would always be painful for Ross to relive that day but he sure as hell was not going to suffer it alone. Casually flicking through the paper and sipping at his coffee once more Ross knew that his life would never be complete, for it never had been.

  He put his mug down and closed the newspaper. As he stood up, Rebecca's face looked up at him from the front page, as though she were looking deep into his eyes searching for an answer as to why he murdered her. He smiled at the picture, feeling no remorse for the young girl. He gave a sigh and walked over to the window which looked out onto the busy street, where to everyone else, life was normal. Don't fret mum, by the time I am finished, there won't be any of them left.

  Five

  One month after Maria's death

  Ross was alone in Maria and Billy's home and wishing his mother to be alive and his father to be dead Ross began to feel his grief turn into sheer anger. At first he only blamed Billy but when he ran over it in his head again and again he realised that there were many people who played their part in Maria's death. What about the women, if you can even call them that? The women who all knew there was a wife, yet they still lay on their backs with the most repulsive human on the planet.

  One month had passed since Maria had died, her funeral had come and gone, Billy had been arrested and put in prison, his plea of guilty to grievous bodily harm and rape prevented a trial and Ross from having to stand up in court and speak of his sordid childhood in front of a group of strangers.

  The whole thing had suddenly come to a close and justice had been served – but to Ross, only in the eyes of the law was justice served. Ross had to clear out the house where he suffered as a child, hearing awful things and seeing things that a child should never have to see.

  As he cleared out Maria's clothes and shoes, he raked through drawers and wardrobes, finding beautiful garments that smelled just like her. He smelled each item over and over, not wanting to forget his mothers scent. Each smell came with the memory of Maria's gentle face but immediately came the memory of torture. Ross came across a shoe box that was heavy and fit for bursting. He pulled it down from the top shelf of the wardrobe and carried it over to the bed. As he sat down he pulled the cardboard lid off and inside was numerous envelopes, all addressed to, "Son".

  Ross felt a ripple
of happiness pass through him as he saw the word on the envelopes. Had Maria left him something new to learn about her, something that only he and his mother would share without Billy having any control over it?

  He opened the first envelope which sat at the top of the box, almost tearing the letter inside as he fumbled with it feeling excitement, curiosity and fear of what was inside.

  Ross began to read, his heart pounding against the wall of his chest, his breathing short and fast. As he read, confusion began to set in;

  1st April 1979

  Son,

  You may not know about me. I am your biological mother. I named you Jeffery Turner on the day you were born, however your name is likely to have been changed after you were adopted into your new family. This is my first letter to you since you went to your new family. I want you to know that my decision to give you away was not easy, in fact it was the hardest thing that I have ever had to do. I do not know what age you will be if you ever get to read this, so I do not know really how to tell you things. But all that you should know is that I would have been the best mum I would have known how to be and if I had had the chance I would have loved to see you grow. You should know that giving you up was the best thing for you, for reasons that you do not need to know right now. But the family that have taken you into their home will be able to give you the best life, a life that I am sad to say you could not have had with me. I sincerely hope that your life has been well lived so far and will continue to be great. I think of you every day and love you as much now as the day I gave birth to you. Maybe one day I could tell you that in person.

  Love always

  Maria Turner x

  Ross stared down at the letter after he read it. He read it a few times, feeling the confusion turn to despair, "I have a brother?" he said aloud. He folded the letter and put it back into the envelope it was in, even though it was almost torn to shreds.