Catching Up With Murder - Chapter 17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“You killed her? Well, I suppose you had no choice. Imagine how it would have been if she’d come here! Did she struggle? How did it feel when you held her down? Daz, you’re incredible! I love you so much.” Cotter fell into the big man’s arms and sensed there was a ‘treat’ in store for him later.

The next day, Cotter went shopping in Brighton with Mary Bishop. The Bishops were the nearest he and Daz dared have as friends. By comparison, the rest of Monk’s Tallow comprised neighbours and casual acquaintances. There were times when Cotter wanted to scream to the rooftops that he was Ralph Cotter and stuff Sarah Manners. He wanted to tell someone, anyone, how he and Horton had been taking the piss for years, no one suspecting a thing. He kept quiet of course, had no choice although it meant, for the most part, the two men having to keep their distance. Somehow, with the Bishops, it was different, easier. The four felt comfortable with each other. While Cotter always had to be on the alert, pre-empting Sarah Manners’ every reaction, he felt less on edge with Sam and Mary Bishop than anyone else.

In particular, Cotter loved being with Mary.

Mary Bishop was a lively, animated person and fun to be with without being either extrovert or crass. Cotter felt relaxed with her, so much so that he had been tempted on occasions to confide the truth. He resisted partly because he genuinely did not want to risk losing her friendship and partly out of fear of being hauled off to jail. His main concern, though, was Daz.  Horton, he knew full well, would do more than merely thrash him to within a centimetre of his life.

Sam’s wife always wore the same perfume, one that never failed to exhilarate Cotter.  Now, as they chatted across a window table in a promenade cafe she leaned across to take his hand, as she often did, and he caught a pungent whiff. It excited him. Lately, he had begun to wonder about this. For the excitement had long since overtaken any simple, uncomplicated pleasure. It gave him a sexual buzz. Her touch, too, gave him goose pimples and it was with some difficulty that he exercised supreme self-control over the telltale bulge in his trousers. Thank God they were sitting down, he reflected, albeit slightly breathless.

 “That’s what I love about being with you, Sarah, you listen, “Mary was saying, “Sam, bless his heart, hasn’t a clue. Oh, he’ll hear what you say and make some reply or other but he never really listens, whereas you...it means a lot to me. I love these little jaunts of ours, just the two of us,” she purred...in that silky voice that had sent shivers down his spine since their very first meeting.  He envied her. She was attractive, chic...and genuine.  He, on the other hand, was merely faking. Oh, Sarah Manners was as good as counterfeit gets and no mistake…but counterfeit all the same.

Cotter had tried hard to dismiss the feeling of inferiority Mary Bishop gave him. She could not be blamed for it, after all. And he did so enjoy her company. Yet, these feelings had worsened, grown more intense in recent times.  Did he fancy her? He certainly did not. So, what then?   There was something about her sheer femininity that began to possess him.  Jealousy played a part, no doubt, but only a part. The rest remained a mystery to him, troubling him almost as much as it thrilled him.

“Your friendship means a lot to me too, Mary.” Sarah Manners smiled and placed her other hand over the one with which Mary had grasped hers. 

Mary Bishop swallowed hard. It was the first time in her life that she had been attracted to another woman. Sarah was like no one she had met before.  Oh, she could be stiff and distant sometimes. But she could be kind and generous too. And she’d meant what she said. It was good to have someone to talk to. She’d never had a close woman friend before.  Other women always seemed to mistrust her. This was only to be expected, she supposed, since she was attractive enough to have looked stunning in sackcloth and ashes. Sarah was different.  Sarah accepted her as a person. This was a new experience for Mary and she liked it.  While she wasn’t exactly adverse to men undressing her with their eyes or women summing her up as a flighty bitch, it made a pleasant change to form a genuine bond with someone, especially another woman.

Is Mary Bishop a closet lesbian, Cotter wondered?  The prospect appalled him, not least because it meant he would have to back off. Imagine, if she knew the truth?  He could not suppress a grin. She responded with a dazzling smile of her own and he struggled to resist an irrational urge to slap her face. She was so sure of herself, completely secure in her damn femininity while he...but he took care not to let the grin slip.

“Why, Sarah, I do believe you’re blushing!” giggled Mary Bishop and felt a deep yearning within that she found at once disturbing and delicious.

“Excuse me.” Cotter rose and fled to the Ladies. She held on to his hand a fraction and he had to tug it free. Once in the loo, he attempted to martial his floundering senses. “Get a grip, Sarah my girl, get a grip,” he muttered. Only when he was with Horton did he revert to being Ralph Cotter in his mind’s eye. Mostly, to all intents and purposes he was Sarah Manners.  So, did Sarah fancy Mary Bishop?  Cotter laughed aloud, the idea was so absurd. So what was it, eating at every nuance of his being over Mary Bishop?  He had no desire to make love to the woman...so what then?   It suddenly came to him and he broke out in a cold sweat. He wanted to teach her a lesson. He wanted to smash the smug self-confidence and the consciousness of allure that shone through every provocative glance, each provocative swing of the hips as she walked. Oh, nothing outrageous but all the more sexy and desirable for that.

How could I have got it so wrong? Cotter wondered as he re-joined Mary Bishop and together they sat quietly admiring the sunlight dancing on gentle waves? He was more than happy to remain silent and digest the shocking revelation he had just made to himself.  He did not particularly like this woman. Rather, he almost hated her. That was the attraction. As for wanting to bed the flirty cow, he’d much rather...kill her? 

“Oh dear, you’re not catching a cold are you darling?”  Mary Bishop fussed with touching concern upon seeing that her companion had begun to shiver in spite of the afternoon’s unseasonable warmth.

“Maybe we should be getting back,” suggested Cotter getting to his feet even as he spoke.

“I suppose so. You’re looking very flushed. Are you alright?”

“Perfectly,” lied Cotter.

That night, he lay next to a loudly snoring Horton and could not, for the life of him, get Mary Bishop out of his head.  He could even smell her perfume. It made him want to...what? Why was he sweating like pig?  Why did he keep clenching and unclenching his fists as if his hands had minds of their own?  His mouth felt dry. In the end, he could bear it no longer and got up, went to the kitchen and made a cup of tea.  Heart pounding, adrenalin racing, he wrestled with feelings unknown and unbidden.  He stared into his mug, enjoying its warmth without even taking a sip of tea and only vaguely aware that it was getting cold which is how Horton found him soon afterwards, lying perfectly still and gazing into space like a zombie. 

What the devil’s up with you?”

Cotter started violently. Daz was glaring at him, puzzled and angry. There was concern in his manner but not of a sympathetic nature. It was as if Cotter’s behaving oddly was affront to Horton’s, authority. “I’m in for a thrashing,” thought Cotter. In the same instant, it struck him what it was, the feeling that had haunted him since being with Mary Bishop earlier. Before he let Horton lead him, forcefully, back into the bedroom, Cotter found the bottle to give it a name. “Power,” he told himself over and over. He wanted a taste of the same power Horton had over him. In his mind’s eye, he saw Mary Bishop’s wide-eyed expression as he gripped her pale throat in his bare hands and squeezed...

“You know the drill,” said Horton harshly. Cotter, trembling, lay face down on the bed, his hands still tightening around Mary Bishop’s pretty neck.

..................................

Liam Brady, alias Harry Smith, enjoyed helping out at The Green Man. He was delighted to discover that he had a natural talent for bar work and soon got to like everyone calling out, “Harry!” He began to like Harry and once, in conversation with Sadie, likened it to being an actor growing into a lead role. Only, he had no script to follow so changed similes and started to think of himself instead as a novelist creating a character. He gave himself a past of sorts, took the present as it came and preferred not to think about the future.  The latter, however, began to assume a wholly new dimension once the former had settled into a particular pattern of everyday life. He began to feel that he belonged at The Green Man, a feeling that intensified when he started sleeping with its landlady. He could not have said when it started although, later, both agreed each had been aware of feelings towards the other for some time. 

 Sadie and he had hit it off from the start but as mates that was all. Or so it appeared to both of them. One night, after a particularly busy time at the bar and his having to throw out some local yobs, the two of them were enjoying a drink and a chat together when they all but collapsed at one of the tables. The regular barmaid was on holiday in Tenerife and her replacement had not turned up. It had been bedlam at the bar. “The clearing up can wait. We deserve our beds,” Sadie declared, yawning.  He followed her upstairs and, for no reason, they paused at the top. “Thanks, Harry, you’re a diamond,” said Sadie and gave his arm a friendly punch. 

It seemed the most natural act in the world to kiss. “Hey, look at us!” Sadie joked, slightly breathless.  Her smooth, ivory skin, any younger woman would have died for, turned a deep pink. But she did not pull away when he kissed her again.

They were the butt of crude jokes from the pub regulars for weeks but, as with most things, people came round or simply got used to the idea. Most people accepted him as the gaffer now. At the same time, Sadie took care to see that no one forgot whose name was above the door. 

The age difference was irrelevant to both of them. Certainly, he did not think of her as a mother figure. Once when someone had been teasing him about that over the bar he’d retorted without thinking, “If sex with your mother is that good, I’m all for it!” There was a split second’s silence as Sadie appeared in the doorway leading to their private quarters. All at once, the bar erupted with good-humoured laughter. No one dared put Sadie Chapman forward as a mother figure for young Harry Smith again.

Sometimes Harry would have nightmares although these grew less frequent as the weeks and months passed. It was always the same nightmare. He would be trapped in a lift hurtling out of control, carrying him to certain death.  No one else was in the lift. He was alone, but for an enormous teddy bear. Seconds before the final impact, he would wake up, often screaming and sweating buckets.  Sadie would take him in her arms and rock him too and fro, making soothing noises of comfort and reassurance.  Sometimes he would snuggle against her and drift back to sleep. At other times, they would end up making love. “You are just fantastic,” he told her often enough.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” she’d respond with a cheeky grin. Sadie still could not believe her luck. Not only was she sleeping with a handsome hunk of a bloke fifteen years her junior but she was also in love with him and he with her. It worried her that, sooner or later, they would need to face facts. ‘Harry’ needed to know who he really was. Didn’t everyone? For now, though, she was content, the same as he, to push the inevitable to the back of her mind and make the best of things. Their relationship blossomed and people who had known Sadie for years remarked how well and happy she looked.

“I haven’t seen Sadie look so good since that rat she was living with before took off with Maggie from the fish and chip shop,” commented Kath Rowley to her daughter-in-law in the lounge bar on one occasion.

“Harry’s looking pretty good too,” commented the younger woman.

“That what comes of getting your leg across regular,” husband Brian snickered and earned a playful, albeit stinging cuff from his mother. “Here, we’ll have less of your cheek if you don’t mind. Get another round in.”

“It’s not my turn.” Brian Rowley protested.

“It is now.”

“Same again please Harry and one for yourself, whatever’s your poison.” Brian grinned at the other man who grinned back.

No one would have guessed that Harry was smarting inside. But this was a pub and Rowley was a regular. There was no point in telling him to wash his mouth out and find another local.  He had quickly learned that crass remarks went with the territory. In time, he’d also realised that most people meant no harm.  Brian Rowley’s remark had been made had tongue in cheek so, for now at least, his card may be well and truly marked but that was all.

One weekend, the pair left The Green Man in the capable hands of their part-time staff and visited Sadie’s sister in York.  In spite of Sadie’s constant fretting about the pub, they had a wonderful time.  Harry was convinced that a couple more laid back and easy to get along with than Holly Vickers and her husband, Joe, could not conceivably exist. Even the teenage children treated Harry like one of the family and showed him the same air of knowing distain they displayed towards their parents. He would be hard put, Harry suspected, to find a more close-knit family anywhere.

Another trip, this time to Canterbury to visit Sadie’s widowed mother, was a less happy occasion. The old witch had done nothing but find fault with him, to such an extent that Harry had frequently absented himself, gone for walks or a few beers at the local watering hole and left them to it. “I’d come with you,” said Sadie apologetically, “but she’ll only carry on all the more when we get back.”   So he had taken himself off for hours at a time and had not felt so miserable in ages.

It was at such times when, left to his own devices and crowded by unwelcome thoughts, Harry Smith would find himself beating off waves of panic and fear. Most of the time, he was happy to play Harry Smith to an appreciative audience. But he was not Harry Smith. Who the hell am I? He would struggle in vain to remember. Sometime he would have flashes of...memory, imagination, what?  More disturbing were the feelings that came with them...a fear tantamount to terror, a physical pain that caused him to become breathless with sheer panic. The only distinguishable images emerging from the muddle in his head comprised someone he took to be himself, but was not Harry Smith and could easily have been a complete stranger, running a gamut of exaggerated expressions. It was like walking through a Hall of Mirrors at a funfair. The teddy bear too, loomed as clear as day but always wore the same stoic, hard-done-by look. How he hated that huge, ugly bear.

Sadie got used to Harry’s taking himself off from time to time, invariably without a word. At first she’d worry herself sick but soon became resigned to it and fretted less, especially since he always returned within a few hours.  It was during one of these walkabouts that Fred Winter appeared at The Green Man and started asking questions. She told him to come back the next day and spent the next couple of hours till closing time wondering how Harry would take the news. But even if this bloke can identify him, what then?  The same question kept running through her head like an express train. She thought she knew the answer. It would spoil everything and, in the end, she would lose Harry. At the same time, he deserved to know the truth about himself, they both did. 

Only briefly did Sadie contemplate not telling Harry about Fred Winter and racked her brains for a suitable lie with which to fob off the Nosy Parker. By closing time, though, she was reconciled to the likelihood that her life with Harry was poised to change direction forever. She had a gut feeling about this. Somehow, she just knew Fred Winter was bad news.

Harry was restless and moody when he finally returned, a little after midnight. Later, in bed, he told her that he wasn’t sure he could live with Harry Smith much longer. They made love. It helped. Afterwards, they lay in each other’s arms and she gently broached the subject of Fred Winter. He sat bolt upright, nostrils flaring, like a scared animal. “What did he say? What does he know? Who does he think I might be?” the questions spewed out of a quivering, dribbling mouth.

“Relax,” Sadie begged, “Relax,” she kept repeating, “We can’t be sure he knows anything. He’s not sure himself, for heaven’s sake. He just wants to meet you and have a chat, that’s all. It might lead to something or it might not. Can’t do any harm to find out, though, eh? There’s nothing to be frightened of, Harry, my love.  Nothing can happen unless you want it to and, anyway, I won’t let it,” she murmured in his ear and let her tongue play, seductively, with the lobe. “It will be okay, you’ll see.  No one is going to hurt you or either of us. We’re bigger than that, you and me, right? You just have to be strong, my love, we both do. I can if you can.”  She kissed his pale cheek. “We can get through this, Harry, no matter what.”

“Can we?” He was not so sure.

“You bet,” she said with a confidence she was far from feeling.

“I suppose...”

He began to relax and snuggled against her again but continued to speculate well into the early hours. Eventually, both drifted into an uneasy sleep. Sadie slept the more soundly of the two, however, and did not hear him stir when the clock in the bar downstairs chimed a quarter past four o’clock.

Harry had neither a plan nor the faintest idea where he would go. All he knew for sure was that he had to get away, as far away as possible, from Herne Bay.  He threw a few clothes in a holdall, leaned over Sadie’s sleeping form and kissed her lightly on the cheek. He would miss her terribly. But I can't stay, I just can't.   He was not ready to hear whatever this Fred Winter had to say, not yet. Oh, he wanted to know, wanted desperately to know...but not now, not yet. It's too soon. I can't face it, not right now, not just yet, my love,” he murmured softly in Sadie’s ear. And he did love her. They were good together. He would miss her so much. Maybe he should wait, see Fred Winter after all?

He almost lost his nerve, would have undressed and got back into bed if the same image that had come to him a few hours earlier had not sprung, unbidden, to mind and scared him half to death all over again.  He saw himself, very clearly, plunging a knife into the same teddy bear that had haunted his worst nightmares for so long.

Blood gushed out of the bear’s brown belly, a fountain of it, spraying him with its sticky wetness until his whole body was dripping red. What did it mean?  Harry tried not to answer the question; it came to him anyway, as if the bear was determined he should be in no doubt. I’ve killed someone, his lips mouthed over and over. I’ve killed someone and that’s what I can’t remember because I don’t want to remember. I’m on the run, for fuck’s sake. Shit, I’m a murderer. I’m a bloody murderer. He opened his mouth to scream but no sound emerged, only a gurgle that reminded him of a death rattle...but whose?  “Dear God, help me,” he sobbed. 

All at once, his legs gave way.  He collapsed in a heap on the stairs.  I’ve got to go, Sadie. I’ve got to go. I can’t do this to you. It’s not fair, nothing’s bloody fair, he yelled soundlessly up the stairs and could easily predict her response. Sadie would say it didn't matter. But it did matter. I have to get out of here, and I have to do it now.  It’s now or never, now or never, he kept telling himself and struggled to his feet. He began to run, weak at the knees and increasingly scared while remaining perfectly focused on the bolts of the heavy oak front door.

To be continued 

Catching Up With Murder - Chapter 16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“You bitch!” Ruth Temple shouted at the computer after reading the latest e-mail from Sarah Manners expressing “deep regret” for her past actions, especially regarding poor James. How was I to know he’d still be carrying a torch for me after all these years? Ruth read with dismay.

So it was the same woman.

Never in her life had Ruth exhibited the slightest tendency to violence until now. I could kill her. I could kill her, she fumed. Uncharacteristically, she poured herself a generous gin and tonic. “Poor James,”.she murmured tearfully, “Poor, poor James. Who knows what his state of mind must have been as he drove along the cliff road that night? Yet, she doubted very much whether he’d have been suicidal. He would gave been distressed, yes. Enough even, perhaps, to get careless? But, no, she could not and would not believe it.

She had tried calling the number Daz Horton gave her at Liam Brady’s memorial service (how could you call it a funeral when there was no body?) but Sarah was never available. It had been she, Ruth, who suggested Sarah might e-mail her. Now they came regularly, a few lines taking up next to no space on the screen, that said little and gave away even less...until now. This was the first time Sarah had referred directly to James Morrissey in spite of Ruth’s raising the subject every time she replied. Even now, though, Sarah went into no detail and barely referred to the past. It was almost as if, Ruth increasingly had the feeling, Sarah had no past.  Certainly, she had no wish to be reminded of it. “Not that anyone could be surprised by that,” she told a disgruntled looking Pekinese that promptly jumped into her lap and nearly spilled the few drops left in her glass over the armchair. 

     Absently stroking the dog for a while, Ruth’s nerves became marginally less frayed and she decided to invite Carol Brady over for tea that very week. She had asked her several times already but the woman always declined with one unlikely excuse or another. It was infuriating. She was only trying to be friendly, after all, and make some amends for being responsible for Liam’s initial trip to Monk’s Tallow. Of course, the woman could be shy. But, no, that could not be it surely?  Brassy types like Carol Brady were anything but wallflowers if she, Ruth Temple, were any judge of character.

     She dismissed the Pekinese in no uncertain terms whereupon it jumped from her lap with a loud yelp, digging its claws into her knee to show its displeasure. Ruth went into the hallway and dialled Carol Brady’s number.

     “Hello,” said a sluggish voice at the other end of the line.

     “Carol? It’s Ruth, Ruth Temple. I was wondering if you would like to come over for a meal one evening or just a cup of tea and a chat if you’d rather. It’s up to you so just say when. I know how hard it is being on your own, especially after a sudden bereavement. I was like a lost soul after poor James died. We were very close, you see, even though he’d been in Canada all those years...”

     Carol sipped at a large whiskey and let the other woman rabbit on. She disliked Ruth Temple. It had nothing to do with Liam. She couldn’t stand the type and knew for a fact that different circumstances would not have changed a thing.

     “I’d also appreciate having your impression of Sarah Manners. You met her once, my niece tells me. Sarah and I knew each other many years ago...”

     Carol took another, longer sip. She knew the tale. Julie Simpson had filled her in more than once. Both had hoped Liam would fill in the gaps, and there were plenty. But he had always been tight-lipped, even surly, at the mere mention of Sarah’s name, an attitude that only served to reinforce his mother’s suspicions that he and the older woman were having an affair.

     It crossed Carol’s mind that perhaps it mightn’t be such a bad idea to go and see Ruth, after all.  Where was the harm? It might even get Julie’s Auntie off her back once and for all. Reluctantly, she found herself won over to the idea, especially if it meant getting more dirt on Sarah. She drained her glass, painfully aware that the Manners woman badly needed exorcising from her mind. “Tomorrow evening about seven but don’t go to any trouble. Will that suit you?”

     “That will suit me very well,” said Ruth and sounded genuinely pleased.

     “Sorry, must dash. See you at seven. Bye.” Carol replaced the receiver, had a change of heart and almost picked it up again. “No, damn it, I’ll go. Forewarned is forearmed,” she told the cat that had been brushing against her leg and now leapt on the directory next to the telephone. The cat looked as surprised as she did. Until that moment she hadn’t consciously thought about going down to Monk’s Tallow and having it out with Sarah Manners although quite what “it” might involve she hadn’t a clue.

     Ruth Temple, Carol had to say, laid on a good spread. It was all very simple, comprising salad, cold chicken and new boiled potatoes. But there was plenty of it and the table looked as cheerful as it did colourful. Ruth herself was on good form and Carol was so relieved that she talked like a normal person for once instead of constantly whining all the time, chiefly about “poor Liam” or “poor James.” They cropped up in conversation of course, all the time, but the heavy sense of self-blame and unimaginable loss was more subdued than usual, grating marginally less on Carol’s nerves than during their previous conversations.

    “Sarah can’t face me, and can you wonder why?  She won’t even come to the phone. Suddenly she’s sending me e-mails although heaven knows why she bothers.  Not once has she ever said sorry, not once. She always was a little madam, of course. I must say I’m surprised she settled in the country though.  Oh, I knew she was getting fed-up with London but doesn’t everyone?  It passes. Once London has its claws into you, you’re hooked whether you like it or not, don’t you find?”

     Carol nodded, slightly bored but enjoying the light, tasty meal. “I couldn’t wait to get out of London and couldn’t wait to get back,” she had to admit.

     “If I had a pound for every time I’ve heard that, I’d be a wealthy woman,” Ruth laughed. 

     “She must think she’s cracked a joke or something,” Carol mused and was slightly flummoxed but kept smiling politely while her hostess emitted a series of peculiar giggles for several minutes. “I bet she’s had a few drinks,” was her wry summing up of the woman across the table although her expression gave nothing away. Far from disapproving, Carol almost warmed to her companion. “Good for you, you daft cow!” was her final verdict.

     Later, disregarding Carol’s offer to help clear everything away and wash up, Ruth showed her guest into the lounge and revealed a predilection for gin and tonic.

     “A large scotch will do me nicely thanks,” said Carol and wished the woman would hurry up and get on with whatever it was she had been leading up to all evening. She did not have to wait long.

     “How did you find Sarah? I mean, how did she seem? Did she strike you as happy, sad, bitter...?”

     “Why bitter?” Carol was curious.

     “The picture I have of Monk’s Tallow is that it’s no place for a girl like Sarah. Oh, for a while, perhaps, but for twenty years?  I think not. She was never a country girl, even at heart. No, whatever - or whoever - has kept her there all these years must be quite something…or someone, as the case may be.”

     “I didn’t like her one bit.” Carol was frank.

     “Few women did,” said her companion, “Men though, well, she could have had any man she wanted. But, oh no, she had to have mine. Poor James never stood a chance. It should have been a blessed relief when she walked out of our lives the way she did. But James never got over her, ever. He adored her, you see. Men did. They adored her, worshipped her. As for love, well, it never got a look in.”

     “She certainly doesn’t sound like your average librarian,” commented Carol dryly.

     “She was a witch, I tell you, a witch.”

    “She certainly had my Liam under some kind of spell, damn it.” Carol reached for a bottle of whiskey on the table, remembered she wasn’t at home and glanced at Ruth.

     “By all means, help yourself…” Ruth assured her guest.

     Carol refilled her glass and pretended not to notice the empty bottle of tonic water as the other woman proceeded to add more gin to her own. She’s knocking it back as if it were lemonade. Observing her hostess with a mixture of concern and amusement, she continued to smile politely.

     It crossed Ruth Temple’s mind that she was making a fool of herself. So what if I am. she asked herself, Who cares, anyway? It hurt to think she might be emulating the likes of the Brady woman but at least she could be certain that her guest would not judge her harshly. Lately, she had come to realize what a comfort alcohol could be and it felt good to be drinking in company. There was, she had always thought, something very sad about a person drinking alone.

     “I’ve only met Sarah once,” Carol was saying, “I’d gone down to Monk’s Tallow for the day and she joined Liam and me for lunch. Well, not lunch exactly as it turned out. Something had gone wrong in the kitchen so we had to make do with crisps and peanuts.   I can’t say as I took to the woman at all. She practically ignored me the whole time. It was as if she wanted to show me that she had Liam eating out of her hand and I could take it or leave it. She could have choked on her bloody peanuts for all I cared.  And Liam didn’t even seem to notice. Or if he did, he didn’t care. I could have killed the woman, I really could.”

     “Sarah always did have that effect on people, especially women,” said Ruth but with a vague, distracted air as if her thoughts were elsewhere. Suddenly she shook her head, smiled and put Carol in mind of Alice waking up after her adventures in Wonderland. “Sorry, you were saying...oh, but...” becoming agitated. Before Carol could ask what was wrong, the telephone rang and Ruth went to answer it, shaking her head again and muttering crossly to herself. She was not gone long but by the time she returned, Carol was already on her feet. “You’re not going already?”

     “I'm afraid I must. It has been a very pleasant evening, thank you.”

     “We must do it again soon.”

     Carol shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound rude. But you never knew my Liam and, frankly, it pisses me off to hear you going on about him as if you did. So he and your niece were mates, so what? How would you like it if I went on about Julie as if she was my daughter?”

“I didn’t mean...”

“I know,” said Carol not unkindly, “But I can’t help the way I feel so let’s just leave it at that, shall we? I’ll see myself out,” gasping the last few words so breathlessly and in such a rush that she all but stumbled over them and practically ran out of the house.        

Carol knew that she being irrational and behaving badly. But she couldn’t help herself. Suddenly she just had to get away…from Ruth, Sarah, James, Julie...even Liam. It was as if Ruth Temple had summoned them and they were all there, in that awful, barely lived-in little room, crowding her.  She had some difficulty opening the gate at the end of the path and began to feel unreasonably angry.

“Mrs Brady, wait!” 

Carol swung round to see Ruth Temple running towards her. All she wanted to do was escape. But damn gate wouldn’t budge. “Shit!” she yelled and tried to break free when Ruth grabbed her arm. “What was that about peanuts? You said something about peanuts. Lunch, peanuts...you said something about Sarah eating peanuts. I didn’t quite catch it at the time but now I remember. Sarah doesn’t eat peanuts,” she jabbered on...

“Maybe she didn’t when you knew her but she certainly does now,” retorted Carol and finally succeeded in wrenching open the gate with one hand while tugging the other free of the other woman’s grip. “Now, LEAVE ME ALONE.” She ran towards the car but had to fumble with the keys for several minutes, hands shaking, before opening the door and tumbling, thankfully, inside. Panting, both hands gripping the wheel, she looked in the mirror and was relieved to see the Temple woman walk slowly back up the path and into the house. This is stupid, she told herself crossly. But it was some time before she felt confident enough to drive away.

Ruth Temple shut the door and rushed to pour herself another gin before her legs gave way completely. “It can’t be Sarah, it just can’t be,” she kept telling herself and the sound of her own voice, albeit agitated, had a calming effect.  The doorbell rang. At first she thought it might be Carol Brady and her heart leapt. The wretched woman must have been listening after all and had returned to discuss things.  But, no, that was unlikely. Carol couldn’t wait to get away. You must make allowances Ruth, she told herself, The poor woman has lost her son, for heaven’s sake. Hardly surprising then that she should get into such a state... She got up and hurried to the front door, drink in hand. 

Recognizing the outline behind the frosted glass panels, it came as no surprise to find her next-door neighbour on the doorstep wearing an anxiously inquisitive expression. “Audrey, do come in!”  She was feeling far too distressed to talk and would have liked to tell Audrey Ellis to come back later.  But an immediate need for company outweighed any reservations Ruth might have about trying to put her confused thoughts and fears into words. “Come in,” she repeated and showed her old friend into the lounge.  This act alone warned Audrey something was wrong since the pair always liked to chat in the kitchen over endless cups of tea. “Would you like a dirnk? I know you don’t drink, and nor do I usually, but....” she poured herself another gin.

“I’ll join you in a small one,” said her friend, “Only a very small one, mind, with a little tonic water. Whatever is the matter Ruth? Has that Brady woman upset you? You really mustn’t keep blaming yourself for young Liam’s death.  It could have happened anywhere at any time. It’s not even as if you asked him go down to Monk’s Tallow to fetch poor Mr Morrissey’s things. He offered. Of course she’s upset, she’s his mother, but it’s not fair to blame you. Accidents happen, for heaven’s sake...”

But Ruth was not listening. “She doesn’t eat nuts, Audrey. She doesn’t eat nuts. It doesn’t make any sense...” she broke in and tried to explain.

“I’m not surprised. It would drive anyone nuts to be blamed for someone’s death like that. It’s too bad of Carol Brady, it really is...”

Ruth heaved s sigh of impatience. She might as well talk to a brick wall as attempt any conversation with Audrey without her hearing aid switched on. Normally, she would gesture for her friend to do just that. But she couldn’t be bothered. Suddenly, she felt quite exhausted. She sat down on the edge of an armchair and burst into tears. Audrey got up and came to comfort her. It was a good feeling to have someone put both arms around her and talk sympathetically, even if she could not make out a word.

 Ruth began to relax. “I’m sorry,” she said at last, reaching for a tissue. “I’m being silly, I know I am. It’s just that...” she began, lost her thread and had to start again, “But I suppose they might have found a cure by now. It was over twenty years ago, after all…” she droned on.

Audrey strained to hear, suddenly realised she hadn’t turned her hearing aid on and reached for the little switch behind her right ear. Nothing happened, no burst of clarity.  It must need a new battery, “Oh dear!” But that did not matter now. She must do her best to comfort poor Ruth. It crossed her mind that she would give Carol Brady a piece of her mind and no mistake should the opportunity ever present itself.

“I’m all right now, Audrey, really I am. I think I’ll have an early night.”

Audrey took the hint and left, promising to drop by as soon as she returned from staying with her daughter for a few days. “I can always cancel if you like?” she offered, “I don’t like leaving you like this.”

I’ll be fine,” Ruth reassured her and even managed a smile. “Go and enjoy yourself and we’ll have a long chat about things when you get back.”

.................................

The next day, Ruth had an unexpected visitor.

“Hello again Miss Temple,” Daz Horton beamed as she opened the door to him with a look of frank mistrust. “May I have a word?” She hesitated then showed him in to a small lounge at the front of the house. “I would have telephoned but I forgot your number,” he said apologetically and sat down in one of the twin armchairs without being asked.

“I’m in the telephone directory.” Her response was cool.

“I was in the area so...” His smile had not let up a fraction and did nothing to put Ruth at her ease. “I couldn’t cadge a tipple, I suppose?” He glanced meaningfully at several bottles left on a coffee table.

“Help yourself.” He did not need to be told twice. “I think I’ll join you. Mine’s a gin and tonic.”  She watched as he poured, expertly, so completely at home in her house that she found herself fighting off waves of resentment. “And how is dear Sarah?” she asked.

Something in Ruth Temple’s tone warned Horton to proceed with caution. “She’s fine and sends her regards.”

“It’s high time we put aside our differences,” Ruth told him, “What happened between us for so long ago. I’m sure Sarah had good reason for her disappearing act. In fact, I thought it would be nice if I came down to Monk’s Tallow for the day soon. We’ve put things off far too long already. Sarah can meet me for lunch and we can chat about old times.”

     “She’d love that,” Horton agreed, his mind racing. Something had to be done...but what?

     “What’s wrong with right now? I have the car. Get yourself ready and I’ll gladly drive you. I’ll ring Sarah and she can get the spare room ready for you. I know she’ll be thrilled.” 

    “Oh, but I didn’t have in mind to come quite this very minute.” Ruth gave a nervous laugh and took several sips in quick succession from her glass.

     “Why put off until tomorrow what you can do today?” Horton put to her.

      Her mind in something of a gin induced fog (she really should not touch alcohol so why did she persist?) his words leapt out at her like a challenge. It became clear what she must do. “Alright, I will. But I was about to have bath. Do you mind waiting a short while?”

     “Take all the time you need. There’s no rush,” Horton assured her.

     It was while listening to the muffled sound of a bath running that the idea came to him. Hadn’t he said so himself? Why put off until tomorrow what could just as easily be done today?

     Ruth Temple lay in the bath facing the window nursing a splitting headache for which she admonished herself severely. She had only herself to blame, after all. At the same time, there could be no disputing that her over-indulgence of alcohol during the past twenty-four hours had achieved the desired effect. While she may be a bag of nerves, at least she felt up to facing Sarah Manners whatever the consequences.

     Ruth shook her head, trying to empty it of Sarah Manners but might as well have cut it off.  It has to be her, of course…Well, doesn't it?  But suppose...just suppose...it isn't?  Yet, that was absurd and did not bear thinking about. So why can I think of little else? All night, she had tossed and turned in her bed...thinking, remembering, wondering...dismissing everything and trying to sleep...only for it to start up all over again...an endless chain of macabre speculation that owed more to one of the crime novels of which Audrey Ellis was so fond than any basis in reality.

     She closed her eyes, let the warm water and lavender scented soap bubbles comfort and reassure. She did not hear the door open. No sixth sense came to her rescue. The first hint of something wrong came when something pressed down on her head and she sank into the water.  Two hands, she realised with only mild shock at first, were holding her down without even exerting much force. By the time she began to panic it was already too late. Her limbs adamantly refused to obey any of the frantic instructions issuing from her brain. Someone is drowning me. It was her last conscious thought.

Terror drained away. In it place, nothing...not even the peace of mind she had so desperately been seeking.

To be continued

Catching Up With Murder - Chapter 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Don’t you remember anything?”

“Not a thing!” Liam Brady told Sarah Manners, shaking his head in disbelief. “I know it was years ago but...how could I forget something like that? It’s just so …weird!”

It was not the word that sprung to Cotter’s mind as he continued to smile encouragingly and tried to look sympathetic.A bloody good job too, he was thinking and the phrase brought an involuntary chuckle to his throat. It was not one that Sarah Manners would use. It still amused him, even after all these years, how he could get inside two people at the same time. He was Ralph Cotter, and yet he was Sarah Manners. He even thought like her. That is, he thought like the woman he had created for himself and in whom, as such, he took considerable pride. There were times when the male part of him felt trapped by the female persona and he would break into a cold sweat. Daz, though, always seemed to recognize these moods and would immediately take him in hand. Cotter’s throaty chuckle became a giggle. Daz could always be relied upon for that.

“It’s not funny,” Liam Brady groaned and wished the woman would stop her silly cackling.

“I’m sorry, I was miles away. No it isn’t funny. On the contrary, it’s very sad.”

“Sad? It’s sick, that’s what it is, sick!” Liam reached for the brandy bottle and helped himself. “The whole business is sick. Does that make me sick too? It must do, I suppose, if I can’t remember seeing my own father shot down in front of me. Shit! What a mess! Shit!” he drained the glass and, not having let go of the bottle, poured another almost as a matter of course. “Sorry,” he mumbled and went into a fit of hiccups.

“You’ve nothing to be sorry about,” the woman assured him, “I only hope it helps to talk.”

“It does...hic...you’ve no idea...hic...it helps a lot...hic, hic...I’m so...hic...grateful.” He lay back in the chair, closed his eyes and drifted into an uneasy sleep. He did not feel either glass or bottle being removed from his grasp nor was he aware, later, of someone lifting his feet on to a padded stool and throwing a blanket over him. 

“You poor sod,” muttered Cotter at the sleeping form in the chair and was slightly surprised to realize that he meant it.  A coif of hair had fallen over the young man’s eyes and gave him a look of innocence in such a way that Cotter was reminded of the small boy of whom he had been so fond all those years ago.  But if he had been prone to sentimentality, the memory of that night killed any such emotional baggage stone dead.  He shook his head as if to clear it. Liam Brady was a liability. As such, he would have to be dealt with. He leaned to pull the blanket higher, to Brady’s chin. It would be a shame, he mused absently, if this handsome young man had to die.  Not that it would come to that, surely? All they had to do was allay any suspicions young Liam might, in time, come to have. And who was to say he’d ever have any at all? Besides, Daz would never buy the notion of another murder. He had only gone along with the others out of necessity whereas he, Ralph...

Cotter went and sat down again, poured the last of the brandy into his glass and studied the sleeping Brady without seeing him. The young man’s gentle breathing was easy on the ear and helped him relax while he pondered philosophically on his tally of deaths so far.  He should never have shot Sean of course. Even so, he would never forget the thrill of seeing the blood oozing on to the carpet and the impatient tugging of a small boy’s hand in his own. Nor would he ever forget the sight of Sarah Manners hurtling through the Ford’s windscreen.  (How he had loved that car!).  Or the thump of her body landing in the grave he had dug for her. Or the terrified expression on the tramp’s face that continued to visit him on bad nights. Then there was James Morrissey. A fine specimen of a man, Morrissey, he recalled with a stab of jealousy mingled with desire, although male or female he could not be sure. 

 He sighed, licked his lips and laughed aloud.  The joke was it has all been so easy. Certainly, there was no reason to suppose that, if needs must, disposing of Liam Brady should pose a problem. “That’s alright then,” he informed the bright-eyed gremlin that had perched on his right shoulder all evening and went to join Horton for a nightcap in the kitchen.

..............................

Monk’s Tallow was the last place on earth Carol Brady would have chosen to visit. But she was worried about Liam. Since he had got friendly with Sarah Manners and taken to visiting her most weekends he had changed.  It struck her as incredible that such a normal, lively, laid back young man could, almost overnight, become so moody, irritable and intense that she could scarcely believe it was the same person.  Moreover, it hurt to know that Liam felt he could discuss his father and the murder with Sarah bloody Manners but not with his own mother.  

While she felt much inclined to turn up unannounced, Carol had a change of heart at the last minute and called Liam to say she was on her way. He had spent the entire weekend with the Manners woman and her partner. Nor had he given any indication as to whether or not he intended returning to work on Monday. He had left his mobile turned off all day so, on Tuesday morning, Carol decided that enough was enough. A visit from Julie Simpson the previous evening had all but clinched her resolve. If she had disliked the very sound of Sarah Manners’ name by now, Julie’s revelations about the woman’s strange behaviour in the past unsettled her even more. If Liam was having an affair with the Manners woman, she wanted to know about it. If he wasn’t, she still wanted to know about it. Either way, the woman was plainly a bad influence. “A mother has to do what a mother has to do,” remained her battle cry throughout the tiresome drive to Monk’s Tallow.

She took a wrong turning and ended up approaching the village from a cliff road that involved having to negotiate a wicked bend.  Not until afterwards did she realize it must have been the infamous Devil’s Elbow.  “I really don’t see what all the fuss is about,” she remarked to Liam later. “I’ve met worse. You’d have to be driving like a maniac for it to be a problem. If you go mad, well, you deserve all you get of course.” They had met for lunch in The Fox and Hounds except that lunches were off because the microwave had exploded earlier. The menu, such as it was, now consisted of sandwiches, salted peanuts and crisps.

“Sarah is looking forward to meeting you,” Liam told her with the same sullen expression he invariably adopted these days.

“Likewise,” she lied, having promised herself that she would not pick a quarrel but remain calm and polite, whatever it might take to suss the woman out and get Liam to see some sense.  As if on cue, a smartly dressed woman with short black hair streaked with grey joined them. She wore designer sunglasses that, as far as Carol was concerned, gave her an affected air before she uttered a syllable.

“So pleased to meet you Carol,” oozed a deep but very feminine voice as Sarah Manners stretched out a hand. Carol rose slightly in her seat, shook the hand, glanced at the bitten down finger nails with frank disapproval and sat down again. Liam had leapt to his feet and was holding out a chair for the Manners woman whose slick smile reminded Carol of a dippy woman in a TV shampoo advert. She found herself wondering what shampoo the Manners woman used. Whatever, she was no advert for it. Her hair was a mess. Unless, of course, she supposed, it was meant to resemble a hedgehog. “I was so pleased when Liam called to say you were coming to see our little hamlet for yourself. It can’t have been easy for you, considering....”

“If you’re referring to Ralph Cotter, I really couldn’t give a damn. I put all that behind me years ago,” she lied convincingly, “Besides, I never liked the man. Quite apart from the fact that he killed my husband, I don’t give a toss that he came to a sticky end. Nor should you,” Carol added, glaring meaningfully at Liam.

Sarah Manners, too, turned her attention to Liam. “The most interesting man came into the library this morning...” and proceeded to rabbit on about some archaeological dig about to take place a few miles away in Monk’s Porter.

Carol quietly seethed. She might as well not have been there for all the notice they took of her.  It made want to puke to watch Liam lap up the woman’s every word. He even insisted on prising open her salted peanuts after the awful fingernails had failed at several attempts.  She had to be about her own age, Carol decided, and should know better than to get involved with someone as vulnerable as Liam, who could easily be her son.  “But he’s my son so...hands off!” she fumed inwardly but somehow managed to keep smiling.

“Did you have a pleasant journey down?” Sarah Manners turned to Carol as she rose to go. “You certainly chose a lovely day for it. But I’m afraid I must love and leave you both.  Sadly, some of us have to work even on a day like this,” uttering a titter that made Carol’s stomach heave, “So pleased to have met you at last Carol,” she gushed, seizing both Carol’s hands in her own and holding them for several seconds. Carol visibly cringed. But the woman neither let go nor dropped the shiny lipstick smile.

Although she could not see the eyes behind the sunglasses, Carol sensed they were sizing her up. She also sensed a feeling of malevolence on a par with her own. “This woman is an enemy,” she told herself and gave a start of surprise. In spite of her preconceived misgivings, she hadn’t thought of Sarah Manners in quite those terms.

The hands released their grip. “I hope we meet again soon murmured the librarian.”  Carol forced a smile. It even sounded like a lie. Was her son deaf as well as stupid, she wondered?  She nodded politely. The woman turned on her sensible flat heels and made her way to the pub entrance, accompanied by Liam.

By the time Liam returned, Carol had fetched them both another drink from the bar and had almost finished hers. “Well, that was cosy wasn’t it? I might as well have been one of the beer mats for all you two cared!”

“No one asked you to come down,” retorted Liam peevishly. “Anyway, Sarah thinks you’re very nice.”

“Huh!”  Carol drained her glass.

“What have you got against her? She’s okay, mum, honest. She’s good to be with. I can talk to her.”

“Why can’t you talk to me? I’m your mother for heaven’s sake, that’s what mothers are for...”

“We’ve never been able to talk, you know that.”

It was true. Carol had no riposte for that one. “I tried once, years ago, to talk to you about your dad but...well, you didn’t want to know. The doctors said I mustn’t pressure you. It had to come from you, they said. So I left the subject well alone.”

“How could you do that? How could you just leave it? I saw my dad murdered for crying out loud!”

“And how does knowing that help?” she demanded hotly. “Does it help you remember? Do you want to remember? What can Sarah bloody Manners do for you that I can’t?”

“She listens,” Liam muttered irritably. He could not deny that his mother had hit a nail on the head. He could not remember a thing and, no, he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Everything was such a muddle. Sarah understood that. She understood him so much better than anyone. They would talk for hours about everything and nothing. Yet whenever he wanted to focus on what he’d been reading over and over in the archives about the murder, Cotter meeting his end at the Devil’s Elbow, everything...she was there for him. She listened.  That was something his mother had never done or even Julie.  Not that he had much to say.  He could only speculate and try to remember. He would get into a state and she would let him snuggle against her and stroke his hair. There was nothing sexual about it. It was a comfort. “God knows, I need plenty of that right now,” he’d have liked to tell his mother but did not know how.

“Why do you keep coming here, that’s what I want to know? What on earth is there for a healthy young man in a dump like Monk’s Tallow?  Julie told me you took her to the Devil’s Elbow and got all spaced out. If you ask me, it’s just plain morbid.”

“It’s a link with Dad,” Liam tried to explain.

“And what am I, something the cat dragged in?”

“There’s no talking to you in this mood,” Liam complained and scrambled to his feet.

“No, you’d rather talk to that Manners woman!” Carol shouted.

“Too right, I would!” yelled Liam and ran out of the bar.

“It’s about time you grew up!” was Carol’s parting shot but, if he heard, Liam gave no sign and did not look back. Carol suppressed a scream of frustration and even resisted another drink. Resignedly, she made her way back to the car. A few days later, he would be all apologies and giving her a big hug. It had been the same pattern for months. He only had to be away from Monk’s Tallow for a few days to seem pretty much restored to his usual self.

What was it about the Manners woman, Carol wondered all the way home? She didn’t seem the seductive type. Moreover she believed Liam when he said his relationship with the librarian was not a sexual one. So, what then?  Not to mention, why?  

There was something else too, nagging away at the back of her mind. Carol could not place it but it troubled her all the same. She disliked the woman and had never met her before. Yet, she had experienced the oddest rapport when the librarian seized her hands before returning to work.  It had been a calculated ploy for Liam’s benefit of course. She was certain of it. There had been nothing impulsive about the gesture. It was a performance, no more or less. Even so, something about the woman’s body language had struck her as vaguely but disturbingly...familiar. 

She shrugged and concentrated wholly on getting home. Clearly, her dislike of the Manners woman was affecting her sensibilities as well as her temper.

........................

Liam’s mood swings grew worse as they became more frequent. He would find an excuse to row with everyone…his mother, work colleagues, even Julie. He and Julie had been best mates for years. He knew his mother hoped they would get together as an item but that was never on the cards. They were too much like brother and sister to ever become lovers. Besides, she was practically engaged to someone else. The truth was she had precious little time for him now.

It seemed to Liam that Sarah Manners was the only person who really cared that he was so unhappy. He only had to be around people for a short while and they got on his nerves, Sarah being the only exception.  Subsequently, he made a point of visiting Monk’s Tallow more and more often. She was always pleased to see him and her partner, Daz, appeared to have no problem with the close friendship that developed between them.  It was purely platonic. He would talk and she would listen, or vice versa. Alternatively, they would debate political and social affairs of the day with an intensity that always remained good-humoured.  Sometimes he could not face returning to London on the Monday and would stay over another day, even longer, to the extent that even Daz began to refer to the spare room at the cottage as “Liam’s room”.

His mother’s disapproval merely served to endorse Liam’s growing conviction that Sarah Manners was the best thing that had happened in his life since breaking up with ex-fiancée, Sylvia, two years previously.

One evening, after a bad day at the architect’s office where he worked, Liam drove down to Monk’s Tallow unannounced.  There was a tacit understanding that he would always call first. On this occasion, however, both Sarah and Daz appeared to have left their mobiles switched off and there was only a ringing tone to be heard.

Intending to try again later, Liam slammed his foot on the accelerator and enjoyed the spread of a warm glow in the nether regions, imagining the warmth of a greeting that never failed to lift his flagging spirits. Since learning about his father’s murder, he had felt disproportionately unsettled without understanding why. It had come as a shock, of course. But surely, as a grown man, he should be able to deal with it better than this?  Disregarding his mother’s pleas that he should see a doctor or Julie’s suggestion that he consult a counsellor, he had sought and found a curious solace in Monk’s Tallow. For hours, he would sit on the beach below the Devil’s Elbow and listen to the waves spinning tales of fathers and sons playing football in the park, going to the zoo, flying a kite...all the things he had missed out on.  Yet, his mother had done her best and he had never missed his dad so...why now?  But the waves had to answer for him, just more stories. Sometimes Sarah would sit with him and they would rarely speak but...listen...soak up the crying of seagulls...the yells of children...occasional barking of dogs...ice cream van chimes...a world away from London’s rush and grime.

Arriving at the cottage, it struck Liam as peculiar that all the lights were on. He tried telephoning again but still got no response so rang the doorbell then remembered it had been out of order for some time and went round the back. 

Finding the back door unlocked, he let himself in and called out. No one answered. He cocked an ear and thought he heard noises coming from the spare room, ‘his’ room.  Perhaps for that reason, it did not enter his head to knock.

On his opening the door, two figures on the bed gave a huge start. Two pairs of eyes stared at him with such outraged astonishment and frank hostility that Liam went weak at the knees. Daz might as well have lashed out at him with the riding crop he held, poised to strike Sarah’s naked body. She was lying on the bed, ‘his’ bed, on her belly, gagged, handcuffed to the bedpost, face turned towards him, eyes wide and shining. Daz stood over her, naked but for a leather hood whose eye slits glowed like neon balls in the dim lamplight, the mouth having just emitted a stream of perfect smoke rings.

Liam gave a gasp, swallowed bile, fled into the room opposite that happened to be the main bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed shaking like a leaf. 

It occurred to him that he’d never been in this room before. Beginning to feel like an intruder, he got shakily to his feet. Why should he mind what Sarah and Daz got up to in their private lives, he told himself angrily? It was their business, no one else’s, least of all his. Hadn’t they been kind to him and become good friends? Nothing else mattered.

His breathing became easier. A quickening heartbeat, triggering palpitations like a charge of electricity through his whole body, began to ease.

He would go to the sitting room, he decided, and wait. Nor would he mention what he had seen unless they did.  Already heading for the door, he stopped suddenly. Out of the corner of one eye, he had spotted something that should not be there, something that stunned him beyond belief.

In a daze, he returned to sit on the bed and stare in wide-eyed consternation at a huge, tatty teddy bear, its earless head resting against a pillow.  "Tweedledeaf," he gasped, unable to quite grasp the evidence of his own eyes. “But...how on earth...?  It isn’t possible...it isn’t possible,” he kept repeating, needing to hear the sound of a voice if only be be sure he was not dreaming, but scarcely recognizing .the childlike whimper as his own.

He leaned forward and gingerly touched the bear.  It was real enough. He picked it up, instinctively hugging it close to his chest. Instantly, images started to flash at him from all sides. He saw people, one of them a child, but they had no faces. He heard sounds but could not place them. The room turned red, like a pool of blood. An awful smell made him want to vomit. More blank faces, sounds and smells began attacking from all sides.

He did not hear padded footsteps approaching from behind.

The blow came as a blessed relief. It struck the back of his neck and sent him sprawling, senseless, across the bed.

“Oh dear,” wailed Cotter wringing his hands, “Oh dear, oh dear!”

To be continued 

Catching up With Murder - Chapter 10

CHAPTER TEN

“You have got to be out of your mind,” repeated Cotter for the umpteenth time, “It would be lunacy, sheer lunacy. We’d never get away with it, not in a million years.”

“Oh?  Why is that then? You look terrific in drag, you know you do. It’s only one step beyond.”

“Only one step beyond? Are you mad? You’re seriously suggesting I impersonate this woman and take on her identity? It’s absurd. Even if I did give it a go, and I’m not that stupid, she’ll have family and friends who’ll come looking for her. Besides, what about her car, we can’t just leave it there?  Plus there’s the small matter of a body.”

“No one is going to come looking for her, that’s the beauty of it. You heard what she said. Her flatmate’s on holiday and the boyfriend’s off on some contract in Bahrain or some such place. The job interview came completely out of the blue. We just bury the body somewhere. As for the car, there’s a garage in the village that can sort that one for us. I tell you what. I’ll come with you and if he doesn’t take you for Miss Sarah Manners, we’ll call the whole thing off.”

“You can’t call off what never got started!” yelled Cotter.

“So what’s the alternative, go on the run for the rest of your life? Or maybe you’d prefer a nice comfy jail?  This is manna from heaven, Ralph, we’d be mad not to give it our best shot.”

“We’ll get caught,” Cotter wailed.

“Maybe we will and maybe we won’t. But if you can’t come up with something better, you’re going to get caught anyway. This way, at least you have a fighting chance. And how about you give a thought to me for a change, eh? I don’t want to lose you, Ralph,” he added, and was relieved to see the other’s expression change from a look of frank disbelief to cautious consideration. “You can do it, you know you can. You’ll make a fantastic woman, you know you will. More to the point, we can stay together. Hell’s bells, we can get a place and live together as...man and wife.”  Horton was grinning from ear to ear.

“We’d never get away with it.”

“We’ll never know unless we try,” Horton persisted. “It will be an adventure. Hell’s bells, can you imagine? It will be incredible...just you and me and no one any the wiser. We’d be mad not to give it a go. Think of the buzz, Ralph. Can’t you feel the adrenalin working overtime already?”

“All I feel is shit scared.”

“Trust me, Ralph. Would I let you down? I tell you, we can do it. You can do it.  Don’t you see? It’s a chance to stick two fingers up at the world and have the time of our lives. We’d be mad to let it slip through our fingers. Besides...” He grimaced, “take it from me, flower, you might as well be banged up in jail as do a runner and be looking over your shoulder every five minutes. Either we go for broke or you’re looking at a life sentence. Maybe you’re ready for that but I’m damn sure I’m not.  Come on, Ralph, say yes,” adopting a look and tone Cotter always found impossible to resist.

“What if the people at the garage see through me?”

Horton shrugged. “We’ll say you’re a drag queen, I’m your manager and we have a gig later.”

“You’ve always got an answer for everything!” retorted Cotter, stomach churning but starting to feel a touch excited.

“I try,” said Horton and gave his friend a big hug. “It will be such an adventure,” he murmured in Cotter’s ear.

“I bet that’s what kamikaze pilots tell themselves,” responded Ralph with feeling.  But it was true. He was terrified and the whole idea was preposterous. Yet, the prospect was an exciting one. The thrill of it began to fill his bladder until he had to break free and make a dash for the loo.

Horton fetched Sarah Manners’ suitcase from the car and avoided looking at the boot. Later, in Aunt Phoebe’s bedroom, Cotter sat at her dressing table and applied some make-up he found in the top drawer. He would have chosen none of it for himself but it would have to do. The woman’s clothes, on the other hand, were a near perfect fit. An emerald green jacket and skirt worn with an attractive white blouse suited him to a tee. He put on the gold charm bracelet, admired it and replaced it on the polished cedar surface. Horton had not wanted him to have it. Indeed, he had warned against it. But Cotter could see no harm in it. Charm bracelets were common enough, for heaven’s sake.  He held it up to the light, decided that the little monkey charm was his favourite and slipped it back on his wrist.

“You look fantastic!” Horton was exultant. “You’ll be fighting the blokes off, just you wait and see.”

“Fat chance!” returned Cotter modestly but allowed a smile of quiet satisfaction to play on the lipstick mouth as he reviewed his efforts in the mirror. He had always loved dressing up in women’s clothes.  He looked good and knew it. The hair would need some more work although, being naturally wavy, would pass muster for now. But the falsies were convincing enough and so was the rest. Daz was right. He made a terrific woman. Horton came and stood behind him and laid a hand on each shoulder. The pair gazed at each other in the mirror.  What Cotter saw in his lover’s eyes determined his shaky resolve. He would do anything for Daz, anything.

Horton was beside himself with excitement. It was all he could do to suppress the sexual urge pummelling him like boxing gloves. He could almost hear the roar of a crowd. True, what he and Ralph were contemplating would be a strictly private performance. At the same time, there was no chance of its taking place behind closed doors.  Rather, they would be in full view of an unsuspecting public. He could not have imagined a greater thrill. “We’ll slay ’em flower, just you wait and see if we don’t.  Damn it, Ralph, we’ll slay ’em!”

True to form, Cotter passed his first test with flying colours. Horton refused to let him telephone but accompanied him to the garage at the other end of the village. No one paid them any attention although Cotter could scarcely control either panic feelings or hot flushes from the neck upwards. The garage manager, who introduced himself as Steve, agreed to fetch the car and see to any necessary repairs. “Sign this, will you? It gives me permission to pick up the vehicle and will save you having to tag along.”

Cotter almost fainted. His mind went blank. What was the woman’s name? Who the hell was he supposed to be?

“Come on Sarah,” Horton was saying then, turning to the manager, “Miss Manners is still very shaken-up from the accident.”

“Of course,” Steve sympathised. Cotter signed the name, Sarah Manners, in a wild indecipherable scrawl and hoped for the best. Steve barely glanced at it but nodded knowingly while Horton explained they were staying at his Aunt Phoebe’s cottage. “I know the old lady well,” the mechanic told them, “Just you leave it with me. I’ll call you as soon as everything’s sorted, okay?”  They were in a small office and the telephone rang. Steve picked up the receiver and began chatting amiably into it. Horton signalled they would leave him to it and ushered Cotter away.

Cotter’s hot flushes had intensified. “I thought I’d die when he asked for a signature,” he wailed.

“You did brilliant, my turtle dove, bloody brilliant. We’ll have to watch that one though and get practising.”

Back at the cottage, Horton raided the drinks cabinet, expressing a heartfelt wish that aunt Phoebe occasionally partook of something stronger than sherry. Even so, sherry was better than nothing and both men began to feel calmer.

“What now?” Cotter was almost afraid to ask. “What do we do with the body?”

“That will have to wait until dark. There’s no rush. I’ve put the car in the garage. First, you and I have to make a little trip.”

“A trip, where?”

“Well, to London, flower, of course. We need to get the rest of her things and make out she’s done a total bunk.”

“Go to her flat, do you mean?” Cotter was horrified. “But...where, how?” he stammered.

“I’ve had a good rummage in her bag,” Horton revealed, producing a beige shoulder bag from beside a chair. “Keys, cash, credit cards, they’re all here, plus a bank statement for an address in the East End. It will be a piece of cake, no sweat.”

“I can’t do it,” Cotter was adamant. “You’ll have to go on your own.” 

“You’ll do as you’re bloody well told,” fumed Horton, his expression no longer pleasantly benign but one of fierce intimidation.  Cotter went weak at the knees. “First things first though,” Horton leered, “Upstairs with you, my turtle dove, at the double!” He leapt to his feet, grabbed Cotter by the scruff of the neck and propelled him, whimpering excitedly, to the bedroom; it was the only upper room, boasting a delightful countryside view rolling like a breezy green sea towards the Downs.

They waited until the next day before driving back to London, found the flat easily enough and even managed to find a parking space without too much difficulty.

Cotter, already starting to revel in his new role, anticipated doing some shopping in Oxford Street later.

“I need to choose my own clothes,” he simpered in a feminine way that turned both men on.

“Let’s get this over first, right?”  Horton was less than enthusiastic as he tried several keys in the lock before the front door finally swung open. They had reached the fourth floor of a small apartment block and a door at the end of a long, dingy, graffiti decorated passage.

As they were about to enter, a voice called out, “Hey, you, what do you think you’re at?” a po-faced woman wearing an ill-fitting red wig shouted at them from a few doors along.

Giving Cotter such a push that he all but fell inside the door, Horton gave the woman his best smile. “We’re friends of Sarah’s. She said it would be okay to let ourselves in.”

“Well, I suppose it’s alright if you’ve got a key,” the woman conceded, “I don’t know, I’m sure. The world and his mother do as they damn well please around here these days,” she grumbled and disappeared, slamming the door as if to drive her grievance home. Horton uttered a low, relieved whistle and followed Cotter inside.

The flat was more spacious, better furnished and more tastefully decorated than either would have expected from such surroundings. It had a comfortable, lived-in feel to it and both bedrooms reflected lively, if not extrovert, personalities. Horton quickly identified which room Sarah Manners had occupied by a framed photograph, of herself and a young man, displayed on a small cupboard beside the bed.  The same glance took in a suitcase on top of a pine wardrobe and wasted no time emptying drawers and stuffing clothes into it.  Cotter, meanwhile, had no stomach for it but determinedly took some Dutch courage from a half bottle of vodka left on a table in the main living room. It was not long before Horton joined him.

“There’s a typewriter in the flatmate’s room,” he spluttered after taking a long swig from the bottle.

“So?”

“So, it’s perfect. We type out a note and everyone will think she’s just taken off on a whim like people do.”

“Do they?” Cotter was not convinced.

“Take it from me, flower, they do it all the time.”

“So what do we say?” After much debate, they settled on the one word, ‘Sorry’, and typed ‘Sarah’ underneath. “Not very original, is it?”

“It will do the trick,” Horton assured him. “The least said, the less likely it is anyone will get suspicious. They may not take it too well but, tough. There’s no reason to suppose anything different than she fancied getting away from it all so she’s gone and done just that.”

“But people don’t just take off without a word to anyone. What about the flatmate, the boyfriend, family? They’ll go to the police, whatever it takes to find her.”

“But they won’t find her, will they? Because that will be our secret, yours and mine. Take it for me, there’s only so much looking anyone can do. They can huff and puff and blow down the Houses of bloody Parliament for all the good it will do ’em. Trust me Ralph. Everything’s going to be just fine.  Better than that, it will be bloody brilliant.” He squeezed Cotter’s arm, and then checked himself. “Hell’s bells! I’ll have to get used to calling you Sarah, won’t I?”

Cotter made no reply. His head and body ached and everything was happening too fast for his liking. He could barely focus. Yet, he couldn’t deny that the feel of silk against his skin and a growing sense of femininity, despite all misgivings, provided a sensation and experience he relished.  He began to wonder if maybe, just maybe, Horton’s impossible scheme might work.  Could he carry it off?  A response to the second question came without thinking, Why not?

They buried Sarah Manners in the early hours of the next morning. While Horton shone a torch, Cotter dug the grave and sweated buckets. It was Horton, though, who dropped the body, wrapped in the same blanket, into the hole and filled it in. Both men wore bandanas around nose and mouth.

Nothing had prepared them for the stench of decaying flesh that hit them as soon as Horton flung open the boot. He had slammed it shut again and ran back to the house, Cotter already way ahead.  Now, both men stood awkwardly at the makeshift grave, struggling to digest what they were doing there. “Should we say a few words?” whimpered Cotter. Horton nodded without speaking. They stood, heads bowed, in a silence heavily pregnant with fear, punctuated by mixed feelings of regret and shame.

“We have no choice,” said Horton at last and began to recite a mumbled version of the Lord’s Prayer.  It occurred to Cotter that this would have to suffice all three of them. Panic lunged at him like an assassin from the darkness. Sensing as much, Horton put an arm around his friend’s shoulders and gave him a reassuring hug. “We’ll be fine, you’ll see. We’ll be bloody fine.”  They took their leave of Sarah Manners then and tried not to jump out of their skins whenever the torchlight played tricks on them, every other bush and tree revealing something or someone out to get them.

Next, they drove to the Village Green, turned all the lights off and made their way to a nearby bus shelter.  The word was a tramp had been sleeping there for weeks. “We can but hope,” Horton mutely offered up a second prayer and shone the torch. A young-old face, clean-shaven apart from some stubble, loomed into view accompanied by the rasping noises of an ungentle snoring. “You’ll do. You’ll do nicely,” Horton told the tramp in a soft, eerie voice that made Cotter’s flesh creep. “Come on feller, let’s get you home.” He helped the wheezy figure to his feet and beckoned Cotter to lend a hand.

“What the...?” a dazed voice broke from the dribbling mouth.

“Let’s get you home,” repeated Horton soothingly and the dead weight dangling between them like a sack of potatoes drifted off to sleep again. It did not make another sound, even as they heaved it into the space recently vacated by the late Sarah Manners.

Horton drove the Ford to the Devil’s Elbow. By the light of a watery moon, trying to force its way through a blanket of cloud, they littered the front seats with Cotter’s personal possessions, including his wedding ring, and dumped their anonymous passenger in the front seat. For a split second the bleary eyes opened, flung a drunk, questioning look at them and closed again.  Horton turned the key in the ignition and leapt clear as the car hurtled a few yards down the slope, veered erratically and went over the cliff. Heart in mouths, they waited for an explosion. It seemed an age before it came, followed by a blinding flash and tongues of fire leaping into the blackness, briefly turning the cliff face crimson.

“I loved that car,” Cotter murmured.

“Let’s go,” said Horton.It’s a long walk back to the cottage.”

“Then what…?”

Horton shrugged. “We get on with the rest of our lives.”

“Just like that…?” Cotter was sceptical.

“No, not just like that… We work at it. Talking of which, don’t forget you have a job interview tomorrow. Lucky for us, the Manners woman wanted to get the feel of the place first.”

“I can’t!” wailed Cotter.

“You can and you bloody will,” Horton snapped, never in the best of moods when having to walk any distance.

“What do I know about being a librarian? Besides, suppose they’ve seen a picture of her?”

“You don’t send bloody photos with a job application, you nerd. Who knows? You might even get the job. I bet you have impeccable references,” he sniggered, seemed to find this increasingly hilarious and chuckled softly to himself all the way home.

“In the unlikely event I get the job, what then?” Cotter wanted to know. “We can’t stay at the cottage forever. Your aunt will be back in about a week, right?”

“Let me worry about that. I always could get round aunt Phoebe. She has a spare room, don’t forget. We can always get a place of our own later. I can commute and you, you lucky bugger, will be practically living over the shop...or library, in this case,” he spluttered, remembering where they were just in time and all but choked on a would-be guffaw.

“I don’t know anything about libraries,” whinged Cotter in a harsh, despairing whisper.

“It can’t be difficult.” Horton had sized the prospect up at once. “And you’ve seen the local library. It’s the size of a pea. Trust me, flower, it will be a doddle. You enjoy reading, don’t you?”

“Well, yes, but...”

“No buts. You can’t duck out now. Go in there, guns blazing, and leave the rest to fate.”

“We seem to be leaving just about everything to fate,” observed Cotter dryly.

Horton shrugged. “What will be, will be, my turtle dove. What will be, will be.”

As fate or whatever would have it, Cotter got the job. The interview was a nightmare but he gained confidence as he went along, surpassing himself in the art of intelligent waffle.  Invited to take a seat at one end of a long, highly polished table, he found himself opposite a bespectacled, grey haired man who lived up to Cotter’s epitome of a librarian and was flanked on either side by two women, one about his own age and another considerably older.  They were friendliness itself and Cotter soon began to relax and almost enjoy himself.  The older woman voiced doubts concerning any young person’s motives for leaving London. “Why Monk’s Tallow, Miss Manners?” she asked, plainly intrigued, “What can our little hamlet possibly offer than London cannot?”

“Peace and quiet,” said Cotter without having to think about it and drew a chorus of polite laughter. Sensing that more was required of him, he pressed on. “I love the countryside and I love my job so what better than to combine the two?” Three heads nodded in unison and Cotter was reminded of three brass monkeys on the sideboard at home. Home. Jean, his wife, would be worried about him. She would know by now, of course, about Sean. It was a sobering thought. “I’m sorry,” dragging his mind back to the interview, “can you repeat that please? I didn’t quite catch what you said.” The younger woman stared reproachfully at him and asked the same question in a sterner, rebuking tone of voice. It struck Cotter that he had probably blown it, experienced a huge sense of relief and became more relaxed than ever. It came as something of a shock when, within an hour of arriving back at th cottage, the telephone rang and he was offered the post.

“Well done!” Horton was jubilant. “Believe me, flower, the Force is with us all the way on this little caper.  This calls for a celebration. What say we introduce ourselves at the local drinking hole?”  Not sure whether he was feeling euphoric or merely dazed, Cotter agreed. The evening was a resounding success with only one minor hiccup when Cotter walked into the Men’s toilet, to a chorus of wolf whistles from its occupants.

Both men were fast asleep when the shrill, persistent ring of a doorbell woke Horton a little after midnight.  He clambered out of bed, grabbed a dressing gown and was still slipping into it as he made his way downstairs. On the doorstep stood two, grim looking, uniformed policemen.

“Mr Horton?  Mr Darren Horton?” the taller one enquired politely. Horton’s heart sank. “Yes, I’m Darren Horton. What can I do for you? It’s past midnight, for heaven’s sake.”  Even as he spoke, his mind took off through a maze of awful possibilities. They couldn’t know about Ralph, surely?  It was too soon. Besides, there was nothing to link him to Ralph. We've been too careful, thought of everything...haven't we?

“May we come inside?” They did not wait for an answer. “Apologies for the lateness of the hour sir but we have received a call from the British Consulate in Vienna. We tried your London address earlier and a neighbour thought you might be here.”  That would be Mrs Catchpole at number ten, thought Horton irritably, waving the two officers to a seat.

“I’m afraid we have some bad news for you”, the shorter one began and looked acutely uncomfortable. “It’s about your aunt, Mrs Matthews...” he went on. But Horton only caught the gist. Nothing else mattered. He had heard enough already. Aunt Phoebe was dead.

Fond though he had been of the old girl, Horton’s first thought was for himself. The cottage would be his now.  Good old Auntie, she could not have timed her death more fortuitously if she had tried.

To be continued on Friday