by Diane Saxon
In panic and sheer desperation, she lashed out with her foot, only to have him snatch at it and drag her down another step, closer to him.
Fliss closed her fingers around the poker and spun onto her back, arm pulsing in agony, heart pounding so loud she could barely hear Domino’s savage growls as he snarled in her ear, trying to get past her.
As the man came up the stairs at her, she reared up to scream in his face. ‘Fuck you. Fuck you.’
She gripped the small poker in her hand and swiped at the man’s head. Blood exploded from his nose to splatter up the wall and his glasses flew from his head to clatter on the hallway floor below. With an ear-piercing yell, he reared back, covering his face with his hands and gave her the opportunity she needed to escape.
But the adrenaline that shot through her system was no longer fuelled by fear. Red-hot fury fired her blood.
She wasn’t going to escape. She didn’t need to. She needed to stand and fight.
Blind with rage, she lifted the poker again and while he staggered backwards down two steps, she launched herself at him, smashing the poker across the side of his face with another explosion of blood spraying Jenna’s magnolia walls. She clenched her jaw and followed him down the stairs. She lashed out a third time, catching him under the chin. His head snapped backwards, and he teetered on the third step from the bottom.
Oblivious of the pain that whipped through her arm and up into her shoulder, Fliss pushed him. As he flipped backwards onto hallway floor, she scrambled down until she towered over his inert body, poker gripped in her right hand, vengeance in her heart.
Apart from the sound of her own ragged breathing, silence reigned.
She angled her head as a bright flash of silver at his throat caught her eye. Without hesitation, she leaned in and snatched her angel from his neck, snapping the delicate chain she could always replace.
‘Thanks, but I’ll have this back.’
She brought her hand to her mouth, uncurled her fingers and placed a gentle kiss on the tiny angel.
She raised her head.
Domino stood beside her, lips drawn back in a silent growl, eyes flashing with fury.
With a suddenness that had her heart leaping into her throat, the front door exploded inwards, the sound of breaking wood like gunshot.
With a wild snarl, she let her knees go soft and crouched, the poker gripped in a fist of iron.
In a burst of dust and splinters, Mason staggered through the open doorway, almost toppling over her and Domino. Jenna shot in behind, slamming into him, unbalancing him so his right foot smacked onto the wooden floor, clipping the man’s head.
As Donna, Adrian and Ryan bowled through the doorway, the young PC’s eyes went wide.
‘Fucking hell!’
Heart pounding in her throat, Fliss glanced down at her pink slippers and the body of the man lying beside them.
She raised her head, her gaze trailing past the blood splattered walls to the four police officers in the front hallway.
‘I killed him.’
42
Thursday 1 November, 21:30 hrs
Head in hands, Jenna sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair outside the treatment room, waiting for her sister.
She wasn’t sure if the blood had returned to her brain yet after witnessing something she never wished to see again in her life.
The dead man, Frank Bartwell, stretched out on her hallway floor; eyes wide in a blank-eyed stare. Until the moment he blinked. His chest expanded outwards like a pair of bellows, he heaved a desperate cough and rolled onto his side to spew up on her wooden floorboards.
Jenna raised her head and rubbed her hands over her face, pushing back in her chair to straighten out her spine. The crackle and pop of her neck only served to remind her she’d been there for more than five hours.
This time she wasn’t even allowed in her sister’s room until Fliss had been interviewed. This time, though, Jenna put her worries to one side. DI Taylor was with Fliss. There was no doubt in Jenna’s mind that Fliss would be fine. It appeared she’d found herself. In those few moments they’d had together before the cavalry arrived, energy had pulsed from her little sister.
Empowerment.
She’d saved herself.
Pride surfaced over the worry and Jenna settled back to wait.
Mason slumped in the chair beside her, his face still chalky white. ‘I thought she’d killed him.’
She had no words. Several little bobs of her head was all she could manage. The weight of her limbs anchored her to the chair.
‘I thought he was fuckin’ dead, I did. Fuckin’ dead.’ Ryan bounced on his toes in front of them.
Mason’s lips kicked up at the edges at the enthusiasm of his young partner. ‘We all thought he was dead, Ryan. Jesus, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it in my life. The guy was dead. For thirty seconds, he was definitely not of this world.’
Jenna tilted her head back to rest it against the grubby wall behind her and closed her eyes.
Frank had been dead. The vision of his wide, staring eyes hit her again and she closed her eyes. Her little sister could have been arrested for murder. Salter and Wainwright were with DI Taylor questioning Fliss about the events leading up to Frank’s comatose body lying on Jenna’s floorboards at the bottom of the stairs.
The door clicked open to the private hospital room and Jenna shot to her feet.
Salter met her frantic gaze with a wry twist of his lips. ‘Your sister, she’s got some balls, I can tell you.’ He raised his notepad and waggled it at her. ‘Pure self-defence. Fucking Frank got everything he fucking deserved. I’ve got everything for now. You can go in. If she remembers anything further, let me know. I’ll be right here.’ He pointed his notebook at the short line of plastic chairs and grimaced.
Jenna rubbed damp palms down her black trousers, then pushed the door open. Heart fluttering in the base of her throat, she stared down at her younger sister. Eyelids purple and bruised, Fliss lay against the white pillows surrounded by a cloud of her blonde hair.
‘Hi.’
Jenna slipped into a seat beside the bed and took hold of Fliss’s pale, delicate hand. ‘Hi to you. How are you?’
Fliss bestowed Jenna with a weak smile. ‘Not bad for someone who battled a psycho murderer and came out on top.’ She gave a delicate snort. ‘Literally.’ She shot a glance towards the open door and lowered her voice to a whisper Jenna barely caught. ‘I thought I’d killed him.’ She rubbed her fingers across her dry lips, doubt swirling in her gaze. ‘At the time, I wished I had.’
Jenna squeezed her sister’s hand, understanding swarming through her chest. ‘He’ll still pay, Fliss. At least his death won’t be on your conscience.’
Fliss gave a low gurgle of amusement. ‘I don’t think I have a conscience. I really didn’t care if he was dead.’
‘You would have. Eventually.’
‘Maybe.’ With a sigh, she closed her eyes. ‘One thing I do know, I just wanted to beat the hell out of him.’ She winked open one eye. ‘And I did.’
Jenna flicked a worried glance at the open doorway and lowered her voice. ‘I hope you didn’t tell them that.’ She could lose her job for saying it, but Fliss had suffered enough without being prosecuted for attacking the man.
Fliss held her look for a long moment, a ghost of a smile played across her lips. ‘Of course not. He pulled me down the stairs by my ankle. I couldn’t get away. My broken hand…’ she raised it to face level. ‘I defended myself.’ Her mouth curved in a weak smile as her energy visibly drained from her.
Fliss rolled her head on the pillow, her eyes closing.
In the lengthening silence, Fliss’s fingers slipped from Jenna’s.
‘You’re tired. Would you like me to go?’
‘No, stay a while longer. They gave me drugs for the pain, but it’s nice having you here. I feel safe.’ Her voice trailed off.
‘You’ll always be safe, Fliss.’
Her mou
th twitched up in a smile. ‘And Domino defended me too.’
‘He did. Bless him.’
‘I bloody love that dog.’
‘Me, too.’
‘He’s going to be fine.’
‘Yeah, Mason and Ryan took him to the vets for a quick check-up. Sarah declared him fit. He’d done no further damage, but she gave him some painkillers which will make him sleep. We’re going to spoil him rotten from now on.’
A little hiccup caught in the base of her throat and she blinked away the quick rush of tears, grateful Fliss still had her eyes closed. Jenna’s voice was threaded with huskiness as she pushed out the next words, hoping Fliss wouldn’t call her on it. ‘They only just got back from delivering him to Mason’s place where we’re going to stay for a few days.’
Fliss’s eyes gave a drowsy blink open. ‘Why can’t we go back to our house?’
Jenna patted Fliss’s hand. ‘Because I have no front door, and it’s a crime scene. SOCO will be in there for a couple of days.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s not your fault.’
‘It’s not every day a psychopath comes after you.’
Jenna narrowed her eyes at Fliss. ‘Twice in one week is a little extreme.’
A small bubble of laughter burst from Fliss’s lips. ‘I’ll try not to let it happen again.’
‘I’d appreciate it.’
Fliss raised her plastered arm. ‘I was lucky. Apparently, nothing moved when I fell on the stairs.’ She gave her fingers a cautious wiggle. ‘They said to watch it in case it swells, but otherwise I’m good to go.’
Jenna pushed out of the chair and wandered over to the window overlooking the car park. She watched while visitors came and went, absorbed in the movements of people on a mission. She raised her hand and rested it on the chill of the windowpane. ‘Whoever would have believed Frank Bartwell capable of something so vile?’
Fliss’s voice when it came was heavy with fatigue. ‘How ironic. I never knew him. I didn’t recognise him at all and yet that was why he took me.’
At the quiet knock, Jenna turned to the door as Chief Superintendent Gregg stepped inside the room.
‘DS Morgan.’ He gave her a smile and then turned to her sister. ‘Felicity. I hear you’ve been through the mill for a second time.’
‘Fliss. Call me Fliss.’
Her sister struggled to sit up, but he waved her back with a casual flick of his fingers as he squeezed his large frame into a small bucket chair at the side of the bed. ‘Just relax, Fliss. I’m not here to question you, just to give you an update of the situation.’
Jenna perked up, curiosity shimmering below the surface. Chief Superintendent Gregg giving an update to a victim? How unusual.
She leaned against the windowsill and crossed her arms over her midriff to hug herself as Mason and Ryan edged into the room.
Mason raised an eyebrow as he propped himself on the edge of Fliss’s bed, his attention on Chief Superintendent Gregg. Ryan stood rigid, as though he was on parade.
Gregg quirked him an easy smile. ‘Easy, son.’ He turned to Fliss. ‘I hope you don’t mind, I’ve asked DC Ellis and DC Downey in as they’re also working on the case.’ He cast his gaze around the room to take in all of them. ‘When Wainwright and Salter questioned Frank Bartwell earlier this evening, he gave them information which led them to believe there was further reason to investigate Bartwell’s house, other than to look for Fliss’s DNA, fingerprints, clothes fibres et cetera in the cellar.’
Jenna’s heart skipped a beat and she pushed away from the windowsill to stand next to the bed and take hold of Fliss’s hand, the iciness of her own fingers tangling with her sister’s warmth.
Gregg rolled his lips inwards. ‘DI Taylor is on his way there now with a scenes of crime officer. Bartwell confessed to murdering his own mother somewhere in the region of eight years ago, which would coincide with the timing of when he claims to have come across his wife. A young runaway who he purports to have saved from a life of prostitution and drug abuse. He claims not to have killed the baby, but post-mortem shows the poor little soul had suffocated. It’s something we can address further down the line.’ His gaze touched on each one of them in turn and came to rest on Fliss again. ‘We’re working on identifying Mary from the information he gave us. He was a little vague. It appears he may have been knocked out in the fall he took down your stairs, Fliss.’
Fliss gripped Jenna’s hand as a bloom of colour stained her neck, creeping over her ears and cheeks.
‘The blow certainly seems to have loosened his tongue. It appears he’d like us to know everything. He’s made a full confession.’
Fliss’s grasp loosened but she never let go. ‘What happened to his mother?’
‘SOCO are working on locating the body he claims to have buried in the cellar. They’ve used imaging. It’ll take some time to exhume her as it looks as though he poured a new concrete floor over her body and, to further complicate matters, the cellar is currently flooded. Almost up to the two foot mark. We’ve had to get a team in to pump out the water before we can even begin to exhume the body.’
The rosy pink colour drained from Fliss’s face to leave her a deathly pale hue.
‘Oh God.’ Fliss’s voice thickened. ‘I was right there. Right where he buried the poor woman. His own mother.’ She raised her head, tortured gaze darting around the room to encompass them all. ‘She was there. Her body buried beneath where I lay.’
If she could have spared her sister the pain and shock, Jenna would have. A dead body in the cellar wasn’t exactly what Jenna came across every day, but her reaction wasn’t as visceral as Fliss’s. Perhaps it would have been had she slept in the dark, dank cellar with a body buried beneath.
Gregg gave her sister a moment longer to compose herself before he continued. ‘I’m sorry to distress you, Fliss. I needed to know if it jogged a memory from the time you were down there.’
Fliss shook her head and struggled upright. ‘He never spoke about his mother at all.’ She narrowed her gaze. ‘Apart from when he talked about the incontinence pads. I’m sure he told me they were his mother’s one time, and then said they belonged to Mary.’ She scrunched her face up. ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘No, I can’t remember any more. I was too hazy when I was there.’
Gregg nodded, a twitch of regret slanting across his lips. ‘Right. Thank you all the same.’ He glanced around at all of them. ‘Time to leave Fliss in peace now. She’s had enough excitement for tonight.’
‘To last a lifetime.’ Fliss’s eyelids drooped as the adrenaline rush left her body. Her hand sagged onto the covers.
Gregg came to his feet. The small bucket chair clung momentarily to his hips, then clattered to the floor and Fliss’s eyes popped open, fear racing through them.
Jenna laid her hand on Fliss’s arm as she took the seat next to her bed again. ‘It’s okay. Nothing to worry about.’ It had already been a long night and promised to be even longer.
Jenna’s head drooped as relief robbed her of her remaining energy.
As the others filed out, Gregg turned in the doorway. ‘I assume you’ll stay.’
Without hesitation, Jenna nodded. ‘Yes, sir. I’m not leaving her.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll arrange for a cot to be wheeled in. Can’t have one of my officers too exhausted to perform their duty.’
She threw him a grateful smile, the edges of her lips wobbling with the effort. ‘Thank you, sir.’
‘No. Thank you, DS Morgan. Good job.’ He paused for a moment longer, then glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll see you in the morning, sergeant. We have work to do.’
Acknowledgments
Thanks to my wonderful family for their unwavering support. My sister, Margaret, the first person to ever get to read my manuscripts. My most dedicated fan and toughest critic.
My daughters, Laura and Meghan, who are quite comfortable with me killing people off.
My husband, Andy, who I grill for his poli
cing knowledge. Despite listening, any errors in techniques and law are totally my own, because I don’t always take notice…
Although I have used real place names to give my story authenticity, all characters and their names are entirely fictitious.
Finally, to the Boldwood team for putting their trust in this series. They have inspired me and driven me to produce stronger and better storylines.
More from Diane Saxon
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About the Author
Diane Saxon previously wrote romantic fiction for the US market but has now turned to writing psychological crime. The Keeper is her first novel in this genre and introduces series character DS Jemma Morgan. She is married to a retired policeman and lives in Shropshire.
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