Fairest Creatures

Fairest Creatures

Creature

July 27, 2019

The place reeked of chemicals. It was only now that she fully appreciated this. Before, she could just smell, taste even, the sharp, spicy odour of something he’d eaten at lunch, or dinner. He hadn’t been back for a while. She figured it must be getting late – there was a line of artificial light under the door. The rest of the room was in darkness. Not the pitch black that made her gasp in fear when she first opened her eyes. She’d become accustomed to that and could make out shapes. To her right she could see the heavy folds of a stage curtain, a sturdy tasselled cord at one end. The curtain skirted parquet flooring. She imagined the swish it would make as it was pulled across to reveal ... She didn’t want to know what it might reveal.

Her neck ached, the leather choker, which was fixed around it cut into her skin when she tried to move her head, forcing her to look forward at the door, with its thin line of light her only clue to the passage of time.

How long had she been clamped to the chair? A day? Two? Its cold steel enveloped her. Its high back chilled her scalp, her limbs numb against its flat, wide surfaces. If she’d been here less than a day, the chemical smell could be chloroform. Maybe that’s what he’d used to drug her. A tear fell from her eye and it felt like a release. She let another fall, secreting it slowly. She couldn’t sob – the gag in her mouth, the choker around her neck, the belt secured fast around her waist – put paid to that. But she still had this one liberty and she wondered why. What did he want her to see?

Two dark spots broke the line of light. She inhaled sharply, involuntarily jerking back her head, the choker pressing into her flesh. Letting her head tilt back forward, she watched the dark spots move. Could he see her? Her heart was hammering, causing darts of pain, as it beat against its incarcerated chest. Her breath quickened. The dark forms moved away, restoring light.

The scene was shifting behind the door. She could feel it. Her body and nerves were so taut they picked up every micro movement in the atmosphere.

A key struggled in what was probably an old lock. The door opened and he stooped to pick up a candelabra – seven of eight slim candles alight.

He nudged the door shut and walked towards her.

‘How are you settling in?’ he said, with a look of concern. ‘I know this can’t be easy for you.’

He pulled a phone from his pocket. ‘I have something for you.’

It was hers and he watched for her reaction.

‘I wouldn’t wish to raise your hopes. We’re on airplane mode here. It’s untraceable and will be disposed of. But, I thought, you might appreciate some messages from home.’

She closed her eyes and shook her head as if being forced poison.

He pressed her forefinger to the screen. Had she given him her password?

‘You were more forthcoming last night,’ he said, answering her thoughts. ‘Share the messages with me. Read them to me.’ Removing the gag from her mouth, he placed her finger on the messages icon.

‘Mum, where are you? I’ve been trying to get hold of you all evening.’ The words came out in a hoarse whisper. He reached for a bottle of water on a side table. She shook her head, although each word caught and burned in her throat. ‘Can you just text or call.’

She opened the next message: ‘Mum, please, just get in touch. I’m getting worried now.’

And the next: ‘Mum for chrissake, just call will you. I’m scared.’

She paused to look at him, but he just nodded encouragingly like a kindly doctor, or teacher.

‘I’ve called the police. Sorry if I’m over-reacting.’ She looked away and let her finger fall from the screen.

‘Love you,’ he said, picking up the phone and continuing for her. ‘I’m waiting up for your call. Love you. Stay safe. Love you.’

She closed her eyes and bit her lip hard, so hard that she broke skin. I’m dead, she thought. The forlorn hope and desperation in those messages filled her with untold grief.

‘Did you like your messages? I thought they’d make you feel more at home. Make you feel missed. Loved.’

He purred those last words and she had to force herself not to heave.

‘Loved,’ he repeated, walking over, bending his head and leaning in close, so close the soft flesh of his cheek brushed hers. She could smell his breath. Cold and fresh this time. He’d brushed his teeth. Somehow that made it worse.

‘Look at me.’ He tilted her chin upwards. ‘I don’t want to force you to see me. But you will. I know you will.’

She opened her eyes and he regarded her closely, as if she were a specimen.

‘Cobalt blue, near perfection. But your mascara has smudged. Have you been crying? Here, let me fix your face. He pulled a silk handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed the skin around her eyes.

‘That’s better,’ he said, standing back and frowning in concentration. ‘You have two fine lines between those beautiful eyes. I never noticed them before. We’ll get rid of those for you. Restore you to your former glory.’

‘What do you want from me?’ Her tone was neutral, mirroring his own. His demeanour was menacing, but non-violent. She felt she could be a match for him, given the chance.

‘A dining companion,’ he said, feeling in his pockets. She saw a glint of metal and flinched.

‘I’ll just lock up first,’ he said, jangling the keys as he moved to the door. ‘Make sure we’re not disturbed.’

She watched him flick through the keys before he found the right one for the lock. It was a long narrow one. Took him a while to work it. She’d remember that. Then he picked up the candelabra, walked over to the curtain rope and started to pull it. The curtains were heavy and slow-moving – they didn’t so much swish as lumber across the floor.

She was momentarily distracted by the stench of chemicals which the curtains had contained to a certain extent. Then her eyes rested on the scene before her. A long wooden table, laden with plates piled with opulent displays of food. Candlelight played on crystal glasses – full to the brim with dark red wine. Another candelabra was positioned mid table. He took a box of matches from a side drawer in the table and began to light the candles – one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, leaving the last one unlit.

Figures were seated around the table; candlelight flickered on their faces, creating an illusion of animation. But they were still. And she inhaled deeply as he turned, felt for his keys, and walked towards her.

‘Would you care to join us for dinner?’ he said, a polite smile on his face, before he knelt to unlock the manacle which fixed one of her feet to the chair.

‘I’d be delighted,’ she replied, smiling, as best she could.

Brandon

June 10, 2019

They’d found the hand in a glass box in woodland just outside of town. It was placed between the exposed roots of an ancient oak, a suitably fairy-tale setting for what looked pretty much like the work of the Sleeping Beauty Killer.

Detective Inspector Brandon Hammett studied the photo, taking in the details of the dried flowers in the skeletal hand. This could be a new crime, or an old one that the killer had decided to leave as a calling card. There hadn’t been any recent reports of missing persons in the Penzance area.

‘What do you make of it?’ Detective Sergeant Jo Menhenrick had come into the Station’s incidents room, and was leaning over his shoulder, a mug of coffee in one hand.

Brandon eyed the mug warily, but relaxed, reassured that in all the time he had known Jo Menhenrick she had never put a foot or, for that matter, a hand out of place. He watched her place her mug on a coaster on the table, well away from the object of his attention.

‘I don’t know. This crops up – in the style of the Sleeping Beauty serial killings in the mid-90s – with nothing to tie it to. No missing person reports, no domestics, no bodies. Although there were never any bodies.’

Menhenrick moved to the other side of the table and sat down.

‘Were you born in the ‘90s, Jo?’ he said smiling over at her.

‘I would have thought with all your old country Southern charm you’d know not to ask a woman her age, Boss.’ Jo narrowed her eyes over the rim of her mug.

‘In my business, you need to know the details.’ Slow, dark blue eyes returned her look.

‘I’m not your business, though.’ She stiffened a little and took a sip of coffee. ‘But, as you asked, I just missed the ‘90s – it’s my 30th this month. Hence the reason I am a little sensitive about my age.’

Brandon relaxed into his chair, cradling the back of his head in his hands. ‘We’ll have to go out and celebrate. It’s a good age to be – I seem to remember.’

‘You aren’t so old yourself, Boss,’ Jo said, smiling warmly.

No, he thought. But sometimes, a lot of the time, he felt it.

‘Okay, well, let’s say we were both babes in arms and way too young to recall these crimes when they occurred. But they’re folklore around here. When I pitched up at the station five years ago from Houston, the station chief at the time, talked me through what were to the day, and remain, the great unsolved murders of our times. In Cornwall and beyond.’

Jo edged forward to take a closer look at the photo. ‘I do remember Reg Maxwell talking about the cases … how the murders seemed related but were so erratic that it proved difficult to trace the killer or find a motive.’

‘Downright impossible, I believe. At least for the MCITs at Newquay. The dismembered body parts would turn up, in differing stages of decomposition, usually weeks or months after a missing person report. The consistent factors were there was always an object, displayed, with a single body part, in a glass case. Once, there was a death mask of a young woman called Naomi Foster, with a red rose. Hence the tag, The Sleeping Beauty Killings.’

‘Any other consistent factors, Boss?’

Brandon sucked in a breath. ‘His victims were all women, aged 30-35. And all extremely beautiful.’

Brandon picked up the photograph, walked to the incidents board and pinned it up. ‘The MCIT guys will be all over this. But, you know, there was never an incident in Newquay. We had four local women go missing in Penzance in 1996 within three months. Then it went quiet. One of the women was a lecturer at Penzance Art School, another was an artist’s model, the third a potter. All vanished without trace until –’ he paused to think. ‘Until bits of them turned up – a braid of red hair, a hand clasping a clay goblet, an ear – the most bizarre mutilation of all. An ear with an expensive earring. A very expensive earring, which no one had reported missing.’

Jo stood up abruptly and tucked a lock of her abundant red hair behind one ear. She kept it pinned up for work, but it had a habit of tumbling free. ‘This guy is sick. Seriously sick, Brandon. Leaving these tokens … like a cat leaving a bird’s claw by his mistress’s chair. He’s trying to impress.’

‘Yes. But who and why? And why has he reappeared now?’

Jo didn’t have an answer. Why would she when no one had been able to find one in twenty-three years.

‘You say Newquay will want to take this up? We won’t get a look in?’

Brandon tilted his head and looked at her. ‘I think you know me better than that, Jo. They’ve got their work cut out over there mopping up a whole region’s escalating crime rates. Would a historic murder case – one that has foxed the best – really appeal to them?’

Jo frowned. ‘Probably, Brandon. If it appeals to you and me, why not them?’

‘Because they’re under-staffed and have quotas to fulfil and, as I said, this has its origins in local Penzance crime. Also, I do have some experience in these types of murders.’

‘Go on.’

‘There were some pretty nasty ritual killings I was assigned to as a rookie detective in Alabama. I’m not taking any credit here. Far from it. But I was one of the team, and we nailed the evil bastard.’ He paused, ran a hand through his thick brown hair. ‘He wasn’t the first or last fucked up piece of work we had to deal with. But even the UT Police Academy, with its bulging shelves of textbook psychos, couldn’t prepare me for this son of a bitch –

‘You know, I made some mistakes back then. Underestimated the level of low cunning. Made lazy assumptions.’ Brandon paused and looked at his hands. ‘Maybe didn’t press hard enough, soon enough. If I had, well … perhaps we would have caught the bastard earlier.’

He turned back to the photograph. ‘I won’t fuck up again. These killers like to think they’re clever. Unique. And in some respects they are. They all have their tag. But what you learn is they’re all attention seekers. They can’t help themselves. Sure, they can put their urges on hold for a time – sometimes a very long time – particularly if they over-stretch the mark and get nervous. Perhaps just escape detection. But chances are they’ll return. Often to their original killing ground. That said, this could be a copycat killing. The guy – assuming it is a man – would be 23 years older.’

‘Older but not wiser?’ Jo joined him to look at the photograph.

‘I reckon that’s for us to find out.’

Julia

June 10, 2019

Julia Trenowden was in bed when the doorbell rang at 10.30am. She’d been awake since six, packed her son Nick off to school, made breakfast and then slipped back under the duvet for want of anything better to do. The doorbell rang again and she dragged herself up, wrapped herself in a silk kimono and headed bare foot to the door.

There were three people on her doorstep. All, evidently, strangers to one another.

She dealt with the courier first, scribbling a signature on his device in exchange for a shoe box-sized parcel. She reddened at the thought of its contents, before turning her attention to the others as the courier hurried away to his van and next delivery.

‘Something nice?’ said the second man on her doorstep, the dark-haired, handsome plumber that she’d invited to consider a caretaker position at Hartington Hall. There were many jobs needed doing and, with the cottage in the grounds part of the deal, they could come to a mutually beneficial arrangement. They just needed to ‘drill down to the specifics’ he had said. And here he was, tool kit at the ready.

Julia smiled at him. ‘If I’ve chosen wisely. Why don’t you both come in and I’ll join you in just a few ticks.’

‘Shall I make us all some coffee, Mrs Trenowden?’ said the third person – a woman in her mid to late forties. Sensible shoes, hair smoothed back in a tidy updo, no or discreet nude make-up. Everything about the woman screamed discretion. Julia hoped this wasn’t pure packaging. This was all new to her. Like so many things, since Sam had died.

‘That would be lovely. And please do call me Julia. Do you need any help finding anything?’

Diana gave a small smile. ‘I remember from our interview. Americano, no milk, no sugar, Julia?’

‘Perfect.’ Julia made as graceful an exit up the stairs as she could, in her unravelling kimono and bare feet. Maybe I need someone to organise my diary, she thought, as she checked her phone calendar and noted the double booking. And someone to deal with the staff. Life, she had come to realise, was a succession of tedious tasks, unless you mastered the art of delegation. Diana Chambers, if she proved herself competent and honest, could run the place, she’d already decided.

They were all back on the doorstep within twenty minutes. Julia had long mastered the art of brisk discourse, when it suited her. Both employees would start the following Monday – giving them all a weekend to … Julia reached for her cup and took it to the coffee machine … adjust.

It was just her and Nick now. And Nick was at school all day, doing homework into the evening and then on his Xbox or out with friends.

She had to make a go of things – use her gallery to attract the best local talent and, possibly, beyond.

Her phone buzzed and she clicked on the image of a new fan on Huddle. She recognised the ruddy complexion of the local butcher, swiped left and deleted the dating app. There had to be a better way to meet people. At thirty-four she was too young and – she glanced at her reflection in the gleaming stainless fridge door – attractive, to decay, Miss Havisham style, in a crumbling mansion.

She tapped in BetterThanAllTheRest, an upmarket dating agency. She’d throw some money at the project. And she’d throw a party at The Hall.

Time to exorcise some ghosts. Time to lift her own spirits.