Tom pushed himself upright, staring as the man sat down with a thump, his face suddenly devoid of colour, his eyes screwed shut against the never-ending pulsating waves of agony.
Conway staggered forward and Williams cracked open his eyes, just as he felt the blade swipe across his throat.
He fell back, his head hitting the floor with a dull thud, his hands still clutching his torn guts. Conway had taken two steps towards the stair before the pain arrived again and drove him to his knees.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ he groaned as the agony took control.
100
Twisting the handle, Marnie pushed the door open, the smell hit her, a fetid stench of death and blood. She saw the eviscerated body, the face coated red, the wet, grey entrails spilling onto the blood-soaked floor. The sight made her sway with disgust, one hand clamped on the door frame she lifted her gaze to find Clarisse Wold, her eyes shining metallic like, standing with Rowan Hall clutched in front of her, the long cruel blade held to the girl’s throat.
‘I applaud your efforts, Sergeant Hammond,’ Wold said easily, though even from across the room Marnie could see the madness in her hateful gaze.
‘Are you OK?’ Marnie asked, locking eyes with Rowan.
‘I—’
‘How dare you!’ Wold spat. ‘How dare you ignore me and address this brat?’
‘Don’t worry, Rowan, I’ll get you out of here,’ Marnie carried on, ignoring the spat words.
‘Address me!’ Wold screamed.
Marnie looked up at her and then took a step into the room. ‘If you harm her then I’ll kill you,’ she whispered.
Wold smiled, as if recognising and absorbing the hatred that flowed from Marnie like dark plasma.
‘Oh, I’ll harm her all right; don’t you worry about that.’
Then Wold tilted her head and her face flickered with confusion. ‘Where’s the other one?’ she asked.
‘Taking care of your bastard friend,’ Marnie replied and took another step forwards.
For the first time she saw a look of uncertainty cross the woman’s narrow face. ‘Williams, get up here this instance, we have business to attend to,’ she bellowed, her lips flecked with white spittle.
Silence.
Marnie heard a thud on the stairs, the sound travelling along the landing and into the room, Clarisse Wold sighed again in satisfaction.
‘I bet you are wondering what all this is about?’ she asked, pulling Rowan close to her, her arm locked tight around her neck.
Marnie didn’t give her the satisfaction of a reply.
Wold raised a perfectly-plucked eyebrow. ‘Come now, surely you want to know why?’
‘I’ve just come from your other house, the one with the cellar,’ Marnie said and watched as Wold’s eyes widened in surprise and then slowly she started to smile.
‘If I’m right about you – and I always am – then it won’t make any difference. I had the note delivered to you and you would have kept your side of the bargain and not told any of your police friends.’
Three more thumps on the stairs and Marnie felt the fear try to take her, so she took another step forward and almost gagged at the stink coming from the body in the floor.
‘Though I am curious as to who you brought with you, who did you confide in, Miss Marnie Hammond?’ Wold’s face writhed for a moment and then she was smiling again.
‘A friend …’
‘A dead friend,’ Wold laughed lightly at the quip.
‘I found some pictures of you at the house,’ Marnie said, trying her best to ignore the madness in her eyes.
‘My, my, you have been a little snoop, haven’t you?’
‘There was a picture of you as a young girl …’
‘The one in the dress?’
Marnie merely nodded.
‘I hated that dress, I hated the fact that I had been born a girl, though I soon came to realise that being made this way did have certain advantages.’
Two more thumps came from behind and Marnie whispered a silent prayer for Tom Conway.
‘Though I bet the thing that really caught your attention was the face at the window?’
Marnie felt herself take a step back as the woman leered at her over Rowan Hall’s shoulder.
‘Look at you, all shocked and dismayed, wondering what I was doing in a picture with him.’ she spat out the last word in disgust.
The door in Marnie’s mind began to creak open, the squeal of rusted hinges along with the deep roll of approaching thunder.
‘Even as a child I hated everyone, but especially him, especially my brother!’
Clarisse Wold bellowed out the laughter, Marnie took another step back as the words stripped away any defences she had managed to erect.
‘Oh you should see your face, what a glorious picture!’ she laughed again and grinned, showing small white teeth in her leering mouth. ‘You recognised him didn’t you, even as a child you knew who he was.’
‘Boland,’ Marnie whispered.
Wold nodded, the glee still firing in her narrowed eyes.
‘But he didn’t have a sister, we checked, we …’
‘We were half-brother and sister and let’s just say that we have always been a secretive family. We grew up together in that house, there was no school for me and my brother, no birthday parties with friends coming bearing gifts. My father wouldn’t allow it, he much preferred to keep things ‘in house’ so to speak. Although I do recall one or two nannies, though they never lasted long, never stayed the distance.’
Marnie glanced at Rowan, she had her eyes screwed shut, the sweat standing out on her pale brow, her hands locked together in front of her.
Another thump on the stairs and Marnie resisted the temptation to look over her shoulder for fear of what she would find.
‘Are you listening to me?’ Wold demanded, her voice full of disapproval. ‘Because I want your full attention and if I don’t get it then this little bitch will start to bleed, and let’s face it, you have enough blood on your hands as it is.’
Marnie swallowed the lump of hatred as she glared at Wold.
‘That’s better. You see my brother was quite a card, oh he had his quirks and for the most part I despised him, though he did grow into quite a man didn’t he?’
Marnie tried to shake the disgust from her mind as she pictured Boland, his body in flames, yet his mouth still clacking open and shut, the fury evident as his face burst into a sheet of orange flame, the air tinged with the stink of burning flesh as he fell through the floor to the inferno below.
‘But you see, the truth is I was always the brains of the family.’
Marnie looked at her, hypnotised by her words and the cold, hard, look of delight in her eyes. She still couldn’t fathom how they had missed the fact that Boland had a sister, but the truth was that when Boland died, Marnie had backed away from the case, too terrified to dig too deep for fear of what she would find.
The house had been burned to the ground, destroying a lot of the evidence and Marnie had tried to bury her despair in the day-to-day routine of being a detective. And then they had found the remains of Tam Whitlow and for once her missing sister had faded into the background, yet here she was in this room full of blood and death and her worst nightmare was standing in front of her with her sensible hair and stark eyes, the red blade in her hand and Rowan Hall waiting to die.
‘Who are you!?’ Wold suddenly screeched, her words flying around the room and making Marnie wince at the sound.
‘Uncle Tom!’ Rowan screamed and tried to lunge forward but the grip around her throat held her close.
Marnie glanced over her shoulder to see Conway shuffling along the landing, his face cracked with pain and despair, his eyes glanced at Marnie before looking towards his goddaughter.
‘Where’s Williams?’ Wold demanded.
Tom reached the doorway and grabbed the frame to stop him crashing to the ground.
Rowan looked at the man she had known all her l
ife and yet hardly recognised, her heart quaking at the sight of him.
‘You OK, Ro?’ he asked, his legs started to buckle, but with a mammoth effort he snapped himself upright.
‘Where’s my dad?’ Rowan asked, the arm tightened around her throat, choking off her voice.
‘I can answer that question,’ Wold hissed into her ear. ‘Your daddy is dead!’
Marnie heard Conway gasp as Rowan’s face crumpled.
‘I had Mr Williams smash his brains in and then he took you and delivered you to Mr Phelps here for safekeeping.’
Marnie felt her heart break as she watched Rowan Hall’s world fall apart, tears rolled down her face, her eyes haunted with the truth of what she was being forced to endure.
‘You fucking, twisted bitch!’ Conway suddenly appeared by Marnie’s side and she grabbed his arm to halt his movement.
When he looked at her she could see the devastation in his eyes, the look of utter bewilderment; it was yet another look she recognised, one she had seen when she got up the nerve to look at her reflexion in the mirror.
‘Look at you two, a bitch who still mourns her little sister and a dead man walking.’
‘Look at me, Ro, listen, no matter what happens I promise you that she will never hurt you again,’ Conway said calmly.
Wold’s eyes glittered in amusement. ‘Don’t listen to him, he knows nothing,’ she said, the smile still etched onto her face. When she looked at Marnie, the smile grew wider until it split her narrow face. ‘She knows I’ll walk out of here, don’t you, Miss Hammond?’
Marnie couldn’t speak could hardly breathe under her icy gaze.
‘Do you want to know why I had your father killed?’ she whispered into Rowan’s ear though her eyes never left Marnie’s face.
The girl continued to shake, her mind unable to cope with the fact that her father was dead, she could see it in Uncle Tom’s eyes, the terrible truth written large on his pale face.
‘Your father started to ask questions, he poked his nose in where it wasn’t wanted. He dared to question me about certain things, things that were none of his concern. I have no time for people like that, for those that try to bite the hands that feed. But your father wouldn’t listen and he started to make enquiries about me. He confided in that worthless bitch Hardy and of course she unwittingly told her husband and he passed the news onto me.’
When Tom Conway slammed to his knees Rowan yelped, Marnie moved forward and placed a comforting hand on his shaking shoulder. Her mind trying desperately to focus on the moment but every time Wold spoke it was like another boulder being tossed into deep, dark water, causing filthy ripples to spiral out to a never-ending horizon.
‘What about your bastard brother?’ Marnie suddenly asked, pushing everything else from her mind.
The smile fell from Wold’s face as Marnie glared at her.
‘We were a team, Sergeant Hammond, I would have thought even someone of limited intelligence would have figured that out by now.’
Marnie felt the cold hand of dread close over her heart at the words.
‘There was a time when we shared everything, every single thing. You see, he had a talent that few have, he wasn’t interested in any sexual gratification,’ she paused and smiled again, ‘but I knew plenty of people who lived for that kind of thing.’
‘I know, I’ve seen your cellar,’ Marnie spat, the disgust inside slowly turning back into fury.
Wold pursed her lips before nodding in agreement. ‘Most men are weak, they think with their strutting cocks, my brother was different, his tastes were more cerebral. Like me, he knew where the real power lay, it wasn’t in abusing the young and the weak, it was about taking their fear and using it to grow.’
Marnie wanted to block out her voice, the evil drip of each word, she could feel Conway’s body shaking beneath her hand, see the horror on Rowan’s stark face, the knife held steady at her throat.
‘So, we worked together, my brother picked the girls and brought them to me. My clientele paid handsomely for their fun and games, though as soon as they were spent, the guilt would take over. They are all pathetic and weak, spineless men living out their trivial fantasies and not one ever saw where the true power lay. Eventually my brother would take the child and they would be added to his collection, just the skulls mind, he had no interest in the rest of the body.’
Marnie thought her mind would crack as the truth was laid bare before her, she looked at the abhorrent monster in the wax coat, sporting a smile that never came close to her insanity-filled eyes. A demon hiding behind a mask of charity, a woman who made small girls cry when they tried to hand her flowers, a woman who had spent decades preying on children, sending her brother out to do her bidding, simply to feed her own twisted desires and make money in the process.
‘You see now, don’t you?’ Wold asked. ‘I was there the day he took your sister, I was waiting in the car as he dumped her on the back seat. Oh, she cried, she wailed but my brother knew how to silence brats with just one look. And so do I,’ she leered.
Marnie’s hand slipped from Conway’s shoulder, her legs started to quiver with the immense strain that the words brought home.
All these years she had never considered the possibility that Boland could have had an accomplice and yet now she knew that if she survived this, her nightmares would double in intensity, shredding her mind and leaving her in an everlasting spiral of madness.
‘Alas, nothing good ever lasts and eventually my brother started to lose his mind. I watched him suffer, watched as his brilliant mind started to fragment, leaving a dead brain in a living body. Have you any idea what that was like, to watch him suffer?’ she asked.
‘Take a look in the mirror and you’ll soon find out what it means to be insane,’ Marnie said as Conway groaned in pain.
‘I suppose you think that’s witty?’ Wold’s eyes darkened as her lips were drawn into a thin, trembling line.
‘You’re sick, I know that much.’
‘I prefer the word unique rather than your alternative.’
Rowan Hall felt the arm around her neck loosen slightly and suddenly she was back with her smiling father, his grin obliterated all the heartache, she caught the overpowering scent of summer blossoms that wiped out the stink of the room and the swirling madness.
‘Ready, Ro?’ he whispered.
Rowan Hall took a deep breath and then she lunged forward from the waist, thrusting her bottom back, feeling it thump into Wold’s stomach, she heard the sudden gasp of breath and then she twisted down and right as she broke the grip around her throat.
‘No!’ Wold screamed and lashed out with the blade but the girl blasted away from her, the knife cutting through empty air as she screamed out her fury.
Rowan ran straight to Conway who was still swaying on his knees. ‘Get out of here!’ he managed to gasp as she fell to his side.
‘Little whore!’ Wold took a step forward and then suddenly her way was blocked.
Marnie stood her ground as the woman’s eyes bored into her.
‘I’m going to gut you all!’ Wold promised, slashing the knife back and forth.
Marnie felt every single thing she had been forced to endure over the years coalesce into a seething core of hatred. All the guilt of what had happened to Abby and the other girls, all the endless lives ruined, the fathers, mothers, and siblings that had suffered at the hands of Boland and his monstrous sister.
‘You see if I don’t, I’m going to …’
Marnie roared and lunged forwards, she saw the fleeting look of shocked surprise surface in Wold’s crazed eyes but before she had time to adjust to the attack Marnie was on her. Slamming her hand into the arm that held the knife, Marnie smashed through the woman’s defences. Wold gasped as she was driven back across the room and into the wall.
Clarisse Wold screeched as two of her ribs cracked then a fist slammed into her face, her jaw went with a loud crack, the skin burst open and the blood erupted in a shower of red
.
Marnie saw the knife rising to her left and grabbed the wrist, dragging it down as she drove her right knee upwards, the forearm shattered and Wold’s screams of pain reached new heights.
When the knife fell to the floor, Marnie dipped down and picked it up before grabbing the woman by the throat and forcing her head back against the pitted wall, the tip of the knife pressing against the underside of Wold’s chin.
Her mind was ablaze with an all-consuming flood of emotion that went way beyond hatred.
Wold squealed as she felt the blade slice into her skin.
‘I made your brother scream before he died,’ Marnie pushed her face up close. ‘I took his right eye, I watched as he burned and I enjoyed the sounds he made as the flames melted his face to nothing,’ she hissed.
Wold managed to look down into Marnie’s eyes then she bared her red-coated teeth in a snarl of hatred, her face twisted grotesquely, one side moving, the other side cut adrift.
‘That’s right,’ Marnie nodded. ‘He screamed for the pain to end, and if I had my way he would still be burning for the things he did.’
‘Whore!’ Wold managed to gasp through the froth of dark blood.
‘I’m going to reunite you with your sick, twisted brother,’ Marnie snarled, drawing her right arm back.
‘Kill me and you’ll never find your sister!’ Wold screamed.
Marnie heard the words yet still her arm continued its backwards trajectory, all that mattered was stopping this woman from breathing, stopping her evil sneer, her repellent nature.
Leaning back slightly, she gathered her strength and then without warning her right arm was gripped and she heard Tom Conway breathing heavily.
‘Believe me, Marnie, you don’t want to go down that route.’
She twisted her head and saw the compassion in his eyes, Rowan at his back, her eyes full of pain and heartbreak, a young kid whose life had been blown apart by Wold and her twisted sense of importance.
Marnie stepped back, the knife falling from her hand, her body shaking as it went into shock.
‘Kill you!’ Wold yelled and then Conway lunged forward and slammed his fist into the wreckage of her mouth. Wold’s head cracked back against the wall, a clump of plaster fell to the floor and Marnie watched as four small teeth dropped from her bloodied mouth. At last her eyes closed, taking the hatred with her, her legs folded and she fell to the floor in a heap.
Cut The Threads: A Serial Killer Thriller That Will Keep You Hooked (DS Marnie Hammond Book 2) Page 33
