“Sadly yes.” Sylvia interrupted Harry’s immediate apology on behalf of his sex. “But luckily not so many like the idea of regular murder or rape. Prostitution ought to be better regulated. It’s the oldest profession and all that rubbish, but most of the girls seem to be wretchedly miserable.”
“Drug addicts.”
“You?” Harry sat forwards.
“Well, I never told the cop,” Tracy lowered her voice, “but I tried most things. Not heroine. Too expensive. I liked smoking a bit, but in the end it got boring. Ice was tempting, but another girl got hooked on it, and fuck me, she went crazy and jumped off a balcony. So I stopped. I stopped everything and I didn’t miss it either. Load of expensive tricks and fiddles. I’m not gorgeous, but those things make you bloody ugly.” She grinned suddenly, snatching up her glass. “How’s that for an honest answer?”
“And your sister?” asked Sylvia.
Harry waved his empty glass in the air, but no one seemed keen to refill it, so he scraped back his chair and leaned on the bar, ordering another round. Meanwhile, Tracy was staring at the sloppy beer stains Harry had left on the table.
“I don’t like thinking about it.”
Sylvia nodded. “Do you know where your mother lives now, by any chance?”
“Sort of.” She didn’t look up. “But I don’t want to go there, and I don’t want to see her.”
“Don’t blame you,” Harry said, plonking a gin and orange and a gin and tonic on the table. He then reached over, collected his beer tankard, and regarded Tracy again. “If you could just wait in the car outside while we go in, would you take us to your mother? “
He scratched his earlobe. “And then we’ll go off for a posh dinner afterwards.”
“Not with her?” Tracy jerked her head back up.
“No, no,” Harry reassured her. “And anyway, of course it can’t be tomorrow or anything since we’ve only just got back home, and I suppose your Mum’s in London?”
“And I’m crippled and not a very active traveller,” Sylvia added.
“One more thing,” Harry continued, “the idiot who keeps claiming to know everything about your Dad, except how to find him of course, how does he know these things? How does he know about your sister, for instance?”
“Paul bloody Stoker,” Tracy nodded. “Well, I’m no cop but I reckon he visited my dad in prison ages ago and got him chatting with promises of this and that.” She paused, drumming her fingers on the table, then swigged half her gin and orange with a delighted smile. “Wow, I wonder if he helped my dad escape? Then I suppose he went to see my mum. Got the address from my dad. Makes sense?”
“Actually,” sighed Sylvia, “it makes a great deal of sense. Most interesting. I think I need to talk to Morrison again.”
“I imagine he’ll be wanting to talk to Tracy again,” Harry added.
“No more trekking through forests?”
“They’ve covered so much more than we can with police helicopters,” Harry said. “If you remember something important – than yes. But Sylvia can’t at the moment anyway. Let’s just pretend to be civilised for a couple of weeks.”
“And nurse our injuries?” Tracy’s forehead was still striped with one long scar and the marks of plastic stitches, recently washed away. Harry had one bandaged hand. “But I suppose we’ll survive. Fancy the cinema?”
“It would make a change from the endless pub chats.”
“Nothing wrong with getting pissed after the film’s over.”
“I’ve sold it,” Benjamin told Harry. “Damned place. Cost a fortune just to clean up. It wasn’t the damned killers. It was the police that left all that mess. Especially the forensic staff. They ruined the immediate garden surrounding the house. Fingerprint powder everywhere. Floors ripped up. I wish I could charge that Howard person.”
“One’s dead,” said Harry, “one’s in a mental hospital for life, and the third is living it up in Dubai or somewhere.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, I do sympathise.” Harry didn’t really. The only sympathy he had was for Eve and her family who had suffered more than anyone should ever have to suffer.
Stella walked over to Benjamin’s side. “I thought of asking the cake shop girl. She was married to the surviving triplet, wasn’t she? And must be doing well from the coffee shop. She cooks well, I’ll give her that.”
“She put up with an abusive husband for years, has a little girl to bring up, and very generously gave a home to a friend of Mine, Iris, who was homeless.”
“The drug addict?”
“Gambling addict.”
“Well,” Stella conceded, “We got a good price for the house anyway. I made a point to the agent that this was the bodies in the chimney place, and that actually attracted people. They’re all idiots. Our profit was most acceptable.”
“It was a nice house,” said Benjamin. “Tudor stuff, you know, fancy fireplaces and wooden panelling. Modern bathrooms. Newly painted.”
“Mock-Tudor,” insisted Harry, wandering off. “Well done with the profit.”
Stella turned back to Sylvia. “Your friend Ruby seems dotty about that new dog of hers.”
“The whole manor seems to have fallen for the dog,” said Sylvia. “Everyone feeds it treats. He’ll be really fat soon. His personality is adorable, so I’m not surprised.”
“Humph,” said Stella. “Stray dogs carry diseases. If she wanted a pet, she should have bought a proper pedigree. She could certainly afford it.”
Sylvia was wobbling a little on the crutch, the broken ankle hovering in the air. “Rescuing stray animals seems like the ideal solution,” she said. “Brad is a very welcome addition to the manor. He arrived small enough to fit in a teacup. Already he’s somewhat larger. He’d need a beer tankard now.”
Stella, somewhat shocked, hurried after her disappearing husband. Sylvia went to find Harry. He was in the smaller living room that they had often called their own haven since it housed no television or radio, but cosy old couches, and two walls lined with bookshelves. Harry was sitting on the narrow window seat.
He said, “It’s started to rain.”
“How unusual,” Sylvia said, sinking onto the cushions of the smaller couch, William Morris and a tartan blanket throw for wrapping around arthritic knees.
“I used to love walking in the rain,” Harry told her. “Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but in a light rain I did. Even in a bit of a storm with lightning. I used to think forked lightning was God sending messages, especially at night with the stars in the background.”
“Angry messages?”
Harry shook his head. “No, just being luminous and straight from heaven. As a kid I used to take my shoes off.”
“Like the song, barefoot on the grass.”
“Well, not exactly dancing,” Harry grinned. “But perhaps we could do that one day. Take up the rumba barefoot on the grass in the rain.”
“How romantic of you, my love.” Sylvia sighed, blowing a kiss.
Harry pretended to catch it. “It’s a shame – such a shame I didn’t know you when I was much younger. Actually young, in fact. We could have had children. We could have sailed the Mediterranean.”
“We could adopt Tracy.”
“I shall be interested to meet this unpleasant mother,” nodded Harry, turning to sit, legs crossed, to face her. “But as for Tracy, she’s a nice kid. Perhaps not a kid so much, being thirty-one or something, but a kid in comparison to us.”
“I like her too,” Sylvia said, “but I have a feeling that our Miss Sullivan knows a good deal more than she’s admitted so far.”
72
“He’s in the loo,” said Sylvia. “That means he’ll be gone for hours.”
“I’ll come over later,” Morrison’s voice on the telephone became vague. “Not urgent. But important enough for a quick visit. And a decent cup of tea, naturally.”
When he turned up, Rita was with him. Lavender showed them both into the smaller saloo
n. Tea would be ready in five minutes, Lavender waved one hand and trotted off down the corridor.
Rita said, “The chapel and crematorium down past Pitville Park with the pretty graveyard, well, you went to Joyce Sullivan’s funeral if I remember rightly? I’m afraid it’s been disturbed. Not just vandalised but dug up. There’s no more nailed up coffin. I know there was no gravestone. Perhaps that seemed wise for this very reason, but somehow that man knew where to dig anyway..”
“The grave wasn’t marked with any name,” Harry frowned. “Just a tiny cross and some flowers, which would have been dead by now anyway.”
“Well, now there’s even less. Just a mess around a hole in the ground.”
“The coffin still there though?”
“Battered, forced open, and empty.” Rita stopped as Lavender brought in the tea tray, teapot, cups and biscuits, and then tiptoed out again.
As Harry poured the tea and handed round the sugar, Morrison sat forwards. “It is fairly obvious it’s the work of Lionel Sullivan,” he said, stirring his tea and helping himself to a couple of biscuits. “But there’s neither proof nor positive culpability. It could have been anyone sick enough. The idiot author of those books, for instance, who seems to know far too much. Stoker.”
“Not the daughter, I hope?” Rita asked.
“She’s here,” said Sylvia. “At the pub like before. But she’s not that demented, and Joyce was never her mother. Actually, I’ve been asking about the mother. I gather she’s not dead.”
“It’s as bad as those silly horror films,” Harry muttered.
“Vampires and zombies.”
“I sometimes feel that describes Sullivan perfectly,” Morrison grunted. “Damned monster of a man. Sadism is something I just don’t understand.”
“This isn’t something we expect you to dash off and solve,” Rita smiled through biscuit crumbs. “But we particularly wanted to tell you, first because you were friends with the poor woman and I’ve no idea if you ever visit her grave. Secondly, because you know the daughter. I don’t suspect her, but who knows! She knows her father and might have ideas.”
Sylvia pulled a face. “Sullivan has a love of dead bodies – female ones anyway.”
“Yes, we’re fairly sure it was him,” Morrison sat forwards, elbows on his knees. It became obvious that he was wearing odd socks. One seemed to be a fluffy woollen ankle in obscure grey. The other was thin grey and white stripes. Perhaps he thought they matched well enough. “But not only do we have no source of DNA and no fingerprints, there are no clear footprints and no tyre marks. Nothing to go on at all, I’m afraid. No messy trails to follow. It’s clear only that a heavy spade was used to dig down, and to batter the coffin open. There’s DNA left within the coffin, but this belongs exclusively to Joyce Sullivan.”
“What a disgusting thought,” decided Harry. “Bits of decay, I suppose. But she’s only been dead a few months.”
“Long enough.” Rita shook her head.
“There’s something else,” Morrison added after a thoughtful pause. “Better news, I hope. A small cottage has been discovered further south in the Forest of Wilton. Entirely hidden beneath the trees, so invisible to helicopters, and no road goes anywhere near. I’ve not seen the place, but others have. It fits.”
Intrigued, Sylvia brightened. “You’re going there? Well armed, I hope.”
“No, he can’t,” said Rita. “We have to go by the book with this sort of thing. But three investigative teams are already out in the supposed area, well armed as you say, and taking no risks. First we need to reconnoitre. A team of five, led by DC Tammy, has been searching for some hours now, step by step. Two other teams set off an hour ago. We expect to discover the spot, whether occupied or otherwise, to be pinpointed by later this afternoon. They’ll fire if necessary, otherwise, they’ll just phone in to report. Immediately another armed squad will follow, going straight to the target and surround the building. That’s the team Morrison will lead. Me? I’ll stay at home and bite my fingernails. Once I know the result myself, I’ll phone.” She sighed. “Wouldn’t it be a fantastic relief if they got him?’
“A miracle,” muttered Morrison, who seemed to doubt the whole idea.
It was sometime later that Sylvia told Tracy. She had evidently just arrived back at the pub and was not wearing the usual jeans and T-shirt. She wore a blue bra top with an astonishing amount of bling around the deep divide of the neckline, and a pair of pink shorts which revealed a good deal of rounded arse. Her sandals of white leather were the only items of clothing which Sylvia and Harry had seen on her before.
“I’ll buy you a drink,” Tracy told them. “It’ll be nice to relax.”
Sylvia smiled. “You have a little spending money then?”
“Oh well – you know.”
They declined the drink. “No, just a quick bit of news,” Harry said. “And a suggestion for a bit of forest exploration later on tomorrow if you like. But Sylvia will have to stay in the car with that broken ankle. It’s up to you if you can put up with just me. But I thought we could search further into Wiltshire. The police are searching today and think they have a clue. But tomorrow, if they still haven’t found a single thing, I feel it might be time to look further.”
They told her about the missing body from the unmarked grave, and Tracy immediately slumped into reflective disappointment. “Yes, I suppose that’s him. What a bloody sicko. I’m not sure I want to find him. OK, yes, for hauling into the clink. But I don’t want to admit he’s my Dad. I went years without anyone having to know. Sullivan’s a common enough name. I hate the thought of the papers wanting to ask me stuff.”
“You’d make money out of them,” Harry told her. “The telly pays huge amounts for interesting interviews.” He shook his head, scratched one ear lobe, and plodded over to the bar.
“Like Oh yes, my darling dad raped me two hundred times before I got away.”
“Wouldn’t that be better than slogging around wet streets for sweaty men who might beat you up?” Sylvia scribbled a phone number and passed over the corner of the napkin. “This is someone who does less sleazy interviews. I used to know him, though I’m not sure if he’s still around. Try it and see if you ever want to. He’d pay well.”
“Well, I could.” Tracy thought about it. “But I couldn’t tell him I’d been on the game ever since. I’d just say I was always broke. Poor little me.”
“Well it is poor little her,” Harry said after they’d left the pub with Tracy plodding upstairs to her room. “Being born to a family like that would be a curse. Indeed. What a vile childhood. And escape – only ending up on the streets. Not much choice, I imagine.”
“We’ve helped a little.” Sylvia frowned. ‘When it’s all you know – yes, I understand. Sort-of. But anybody can ask for a job in a pub, or cleaning, or learn to drive and join Uber. Even night classes. “
“I suppose we could just give her money,” Harry said. “But not for the rest of her life.”
“It’s funny having to think about making money after all this time,” Sylvia said later in the car, driving the five minutes back to the manor. What they had once always walked, was no longer comfortable on one leg and a crutch. “Life hasn’t been lovely, but at least money was never a trial. Buying a place here helped. But meeting you was the big thing that changed my life.” She blew him a kiss from the passenger seat. “Much more precious than money, my love.”
He grinned. “Nice to be a blown up life jacket.”
“That’s what Tracy needs,” sighed Sylvia. “A really loving husband. But it might be hard to find a saint after being a prostitute for years.”
Lionel washed the parts of Joyce’s body where the deterioration of decay had made vivisection somewhat messy. He carried in a bucket of water from the stream, so heavy it hurt his back, used the only large piece of cloth he had, which he also used on rare occasions to wash himself, and began to remove the reeking rot from the corpse. The smell didn’t bother him. Lionel fou
nd it quite sexily alluring. Yet the soft slush simply leaked into the floor and was less desirable for that. He finally took the bucket, now full of filth, back to the stream, emptied and washed it out, and took clean water from further upstream back to the cottage. He was naturally disinterested in what anyone else might now collect unknowingly downstream.
Not much remained of the body he had stolen. The skeleton was now distinct, but plenty of flesh remained and all the hair he had not already wrenched from her at the time of death. The internal organs were largely in place. He found her flat discoloured heart fascinating. Lionel had good dreams that night.
The skull, which still retained flesh in parts, he took to bed with him. He told Joyce she had now grown more ugly than ever, but was actually finding her gaping bones and rotting skin quite cuddly. “Stupid bitch,” he told her. “Shut your gaping mouth, shut your big yellow teeth, and be thankful for a warm blanket.”
Iris sat with her knees together on the end of the bench. In the middle sat Kate, legs stretched out, fingers twitching. Milton sat at the other end, leaning back against the wooden slats of the garden seating, the shade of the weeping willow fluttering over his face. Before them stretched the long flat lawn, sprigged white with daisies. In the distance, the huge hospital stood high beneath the sunshine.
“Operations,” Milton said, “ain’t pretty, is they? I knows I’s not pretty. I knows right well I’s a monster. But I’s a master monster. So if them doctors go cutting, is I gonna be pretty? Not bloody likely, is it? I done cut my ladies. They didn’t get no prettier.”
Kate gulped. “You were never a trained doctor, Milton. Cutting is only good when a very special doctor does it. These doctors are called surgeons. I’ve met the surgeon who is going to start making you pretty. His name is Geoffrey Swan, and he’s going to come and meet you in about half an hour. He’s going to explain the surgery. And I promise you’ll be asleep when he does the special cutting.”
The Games People Play Box Set Page 66
