PIGPEN

Hunting the harmless and unsuspecting is so much fun. If you are gullible and stupid enough to trust me, then you deserve to die. I will enjoy every second of watching you take your final breath.

Agatha Taylor

CHAPTER 1

Benjamin Stark had days left to live.

He was young, handsome and caring. His date, Agatha Taylor, planned to murder him for her gratification.

It was their third date and Benjamin was on his fourth pint. Agatha sipped her fruit juice, the downside of driving. She had no choice; you can’t drag a victim along the street and not expect anyone to notice. Even on rural Northumbrian roads.

At twenty-three, Benjamin was five years older than Agatha. He pushed his floppy blonde hair out of his blue eyes and nodded in response to her question.

‘I’m hungry,’ said Agatha, ‘so let’s order a pizza. What flavour do you like?’

Agatha handed Benjamin the menu while giving him her best smile. It had been easier than she thought to reel him in and get him to like her. While Ben, as he was known, thought the BBQ Chicken pizza sounded good, Agatha was wondering if she should kill him that night or find out more about him. Either way, he would die.

She didn’t want any parents or friends to come looking for him.

‘I think I’ll have the BBQ Chicken. What do you fancy?’

Apart from killing you, thought Agatha.

‘I’ll have the Chicken Kiev,’ she replied.

‘I’ll go to the bar and order. My treat,’ said Ben, as he rose from their table, kissing the top of her head as he walked past, making a mental note of their table number; thirteen.

Agatha watched his tall skinny frame as he headed towards the bar.

How much Rohypnol will I need to make you unconscious, Benjamin Stark?

It wasn’t the first time she had used the powerful sedative. Two years ago, she had drugged her father before her mother, or Maman as she calls her, killed him.

Twenty years ago, Agatha’s father, William Channing, had been nicknamed the Grey Trench Coat Man by the media. He had abducted and killed many victims with the help of his mother, Elizabeth Channing. The police only knew about three. Rebecca Bixby, Helen Boleyn and Albert Channing - his father. William had murdered Rebecca. Elizabeth had killed Helen and her husband, Albert.

William was charged with the murders of Rebecca Bixby and Helen Boleyn, and incarcerated for nearly seventeen years. He was also found guilty of false imprisonment of a 28-year-old female. He had stalked her and watched her for months before his mother had lured her to their home.

Unbeknown to the police, she was their eighteenth victim.

Continually drugged, starved and abused by William, the eighteenth victim woke from a drugged sleep and felt the chill of a lifeless body next to her. It was the naked corpse of her best friend, Rebecca Bixby. William had placed her there as an atonement after he had killed and abused her.

To escape William’s capture and torment, the victim had set fire to the bedroom she had been held in for nearly fourteen days, along with the body of her best friend.

Elizabeth Channing had survived the fire and, at the age of fifty-five, was sentenced to seven years in prison. The eighteenth victim, the last person to be abducted by William and Elizabeth Channing had been a big mistake. She was no victim. Her name was Faith Taylor, Agatha’s mother.

After her escape, and to avoid the media frenzy, Faith fled to France where she stayed with her parents’ friends, Helena and Philip Carman, who owned a small vineyard. Five months after her capture, she discovered that she was pregnant with the predator’s child.

Agatha Rebecca Taylor, named in honour of Faith’s friend, was delivered by a retired midwife in the bedroom she had barely left since arriving in France. After five years, Faith registered as a French citizen and Agatha had a French birth certificate and passport, as well as British citizenship.

Despite knowing who the father was, Faith grew to love the cold and aloof child who preferred picking grapes alone rather than being with people.

When her baby was only a few months old, Faith left her with the Carmans and returned to the North East of England to give evidence at the trial. Even her parents didn’t know she’d become a mother. As the years passed, Faith continued to live in France, visiting her parents once a year but always leaving her child behind.

At the trial, William had confessed to killing Rebecca, and Faith testified that, in her drugged state, she didn’t know her friend had been in the room. It was a blatant lie but she would have done anything to save her own life.

After the sentencing of William and Elizabeth Channing, Faith spent nearly two decades planning revenge and William’s death. She needed a location where there was no one to witness her sins or to discover the body.

A rural farm.

Faith bought the disused farm and land in Northumberland online and had the farmhouse restored. She said goodbye to the Carmens, and her life in France, to return permanently to England. It was the first time the 16-year-old Agatha had left France.

Then she waited.

That had been just over two years ago.

Agatha had played a key part in her premeditated plan.

The Butterdish Café was a traditional ‘fried breakfast, tea and scones’ place to eat. It was an hour’s drive from the farm and Faith persuaded Agatha to get a cash-in-hand job there. She happily drove her daughter there as she didn’t mind the long drive. It was the café nearest to William’s parole house.

She had been watching him.

Every Friday morning, William visited the Butterdish Café for a Full English breakfast and a mug of tea. It was one of those mornings when father and daughter had first met, though neither of them was aware of the connection.

Faith had confessed to Agatha who the strange man in the grey trilby hat and trench coat was and that he was a sexual predator. Agatha had been incensed that such a sinister man could be her father.

The abduction had been easy.

Drawn to the willowy Agatha he had started to fantasise about her, wanting the nineteenth victim to bear him a child.

A plan was hatched.

On his release, he had made a promise to himself that he would find Faith Taylor and kill her. All those years incarcerated. All those years separated from his mother. All because he hadn’t killed his eighteenth victim.

For now, William’s thoughts were consumed by Agatha. For days, he had been watching her from across the street. Stood in the shadows watching, wearing his grey trilby hat and coat. They had belonged to his father, Albert, who had been a good man and the only person ever to show him kindness. At three years old William, had watched his mother stab his father to death in their kitchen.

From the door, he was captivated as he watched Elizabeth repeatedly plunge the knife in again and again. He remembered the knife slipping in her hand because there was so much blood. She had then dragged her mutilated husband out into the garden and dumped him into the large hole she had previously dug.

William could remember watching her from his bedroom window as she went into the garden shed during the day, just to look into the hole. It had given her great pleasure to see her husband cold and lifeless. She was always happy when she visited the hole.

Growing up, a young William was terrified that his mother would put him in the hole. The result was that he had spent all his life keeping her happy and doing anything she asked him to. Including murder and rape.

On that fateful Thursday, William had asked Agatha if she would like a coffee. She had laughed at him. She could get coffee anytime in the café. Instead, she suggested they went for a walk on her break.

He had agreed without any hesitation.

Agatha had messaged her mother who was waiting nearby in her battered Land Rover Defender, reading the latest Bernard Cornwall novel about Uhtred of Bebbanburg.

Agatha’s first message simply read, ‘He’s here’ followed shortly by another, ‘It’s on’.

Faith knew what to do.

So did Agatha.

She had slipped Rohypnol into his tea and waited nearly twenty minutes for it to take effect. By then, they were walking away from the Butterdish Café. William had started to slur his words and Agatha watched coldly as he steadied himself against a garden wall. Watching her mother pull up behind them.

William had not seen the car or the driver but he immediately recognised the voice. Even as he fought against blacking out, he recalled her words.

‘Hello, William. I’ve been waiting for you for a very long time.’

He had felt her touch as she shoved him roughly into the back of the car, her words before he had passed into a drugged sleep. The words he remembered right up to the final seconds before his solitary death.

‘I see you’ve met your daughter,’ the voice said. ‘You’ve done well, Agatha.’

Faith had starved him to death. He had died slowly and painfully. In the end, he could no longer open his sunken eyes as they were too dry. His organs slowly shut down and fluid had seeped from him, even though liquid had barely touched his lips. His lungs slowly ceased to work, releasing a thick substance that formed in the back of his throat and gradually choked him. His final weak breath had been through cracked and painful lips. His gums had swollen and his chest barely raised.

Left to slowly perish alone in the darkness, all he had wanted was his mother.

Death had taken him days before Faith and Agatha dumped his body in the pigpen, where fifteen Large White pigs devoured his body in nine minutes. It was all done in the privacy of their farm.

Agatha was the daughter of killers.

She had enjoyed watching her father wither and die from starvation and thirst. He had deserved it.

She had missed that feeling.

‘All ordered. They said it would be about twenty minutes,’ said Ben, as he returned with another pint of ale and an orange juice for Agatha.

‘Thank you,’ Agatha smiled. ‘It was my round. Here take this.’

She handed Ben a ten-pound note. She always paid cash as she liked to be untraceable. A ghost.

Very few empty tables remained as the bar started to fill with drinkers and diners. She had noticed the CCTV spotted around the bar area. Not that she cared. If Ben did go missing that night and the police tracked her down as the last person he’d been seen with, so what? She considered herself too clever to be caught.

‘How’s the modelling job going?’ she asked.

When Ben wasn’t modelling he worked at the local bar.

‘It’s good, thanks. It’s for an online clothing store. I’ve been modelling jumpers and shirts this week. It will cover my share of this month’s rent.’

Originally from Ashford in Kent, Ben had moved to the North East, after meeting Emma Beale on a night out in London. She had been on a hen night, dressed in a pink T-shirt, tight jeans, and wearing a plastic tiara. The bride-to-be had worn a flashing veil and a short white dress. There had been an instant attraction.

Three months later, Ben relocated and moved into Emma’s flat. They had been so happy that first year, but then Emma had announced that it wasn’t working anymore, and he needed to find somewhere else to live.

He was distraught.

Ten months later, he shared a flat with two other male models. It was cost-effective and he had someone to go drinking with.

‘I have a thirty-minute drive home. Would you like a lift after we’ve had our pizzas?’

‘If you don’t mind. Thanks,’ Ben said, raising his pint as a thank-you.

Agatha smiled. She could easily go to the bar and buy him another pint before they left. Slip Rohypnol into it. That should give her about twenty minutes to get him into the car before he passed out, and then drive back to the farm. She wasn’t sure, or cared, what her maman would say.

Her dark thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of their pizzas.

‘Do you like going to open-air concerts?’ asked Ben, before taking a huge bite.

‘Who’s playing?’

‘It’s a rock and indie festival. My flatmate, Peter, was meant to be going with his girlfriend but he’s away on a modelling assignment. It’s this Saturday.’

It sounded exciting. Agatha didn’t get to experience concerts, having lived most of her life in a vineyard, and Saturday was only two days away.

‘Okay, sounds fun. Thanks.’

The concert had just saved Ben’s life, for now.

Agatha had made up her mind that he would die on Saturday after she’d experienced a few hours of rock and indie.

CHAPTER 2

I am in my pristine white kitchen. One of my favourite places. I feel relaxed and happy as I make my morning’s flat white coffee.

My four-year-old Golden Labrador, Guzzle, aptly named after William’s encounter with the fifteen pigs, sits at my feet waiting for his favourite doggie Gravy Bone biscuits. His patience is rewarded and he crunches two over the floor.

Yesterday, I spent the day making jam for my online business called ‘From My Kitchen’. Plum and vanilla is this month’s special. Fifty jars are lined up on the kitchen bench. My business has grown over the last three years and now gives me a steady income, along with the rent from my land. I still rent the pigpen to Farmer Childs for his sounder of Large White pigs, and the top field to a young farmer for his herd of Kentish sheep.

Farmer Childs is in his mid-seventies and retired from farming three years ago. Not long after his well-earned retirement, his wife died and left him feeling bereft. To fill the void, he asked to permanently rent my pigpen for his newly-acquired pigs. Over the last few months, I have taken on the role of caring for them as he suffered a mini-stroke. I don’t mind, as it makes me feel powerful to think it is where William’s decomposing corpse had been devoured.

Two years later, William’s last moments are still vivid in my mind. I remember his emaciated body covered in dust from the cold stone floor, his cracked lips and his sunken eyes. He was a pitiful sight. His wet underwear was the only clothing that hung from his body.

Retribution.

When he and his mother held me captive, he removed all my clothes except my underwear. That was all I was allowed to wear. William had liked to wear my dress, along with a long blonde wig which was similar to my hair. He wanted to know what it felt like to be me.

Seeing him dying from thirst and hunger on the unyielding floor of my stone outhouse, I felt remorseful and wanted to save his life.

But Agatha stopped me. She wanted her father to die.

I would have gone against my only child and saved his life, but then he goaded me. Only days from death and barely able to speak, he revealed that he had planned to trap his nineteenth victim. Agatha.

Those words cost him his life.

I left him to die alone with only the dark for company. By the state of his body, he must have been dead for many days before I finally unlocked the heavy door and removed his cold waxen corpse.

The smell had been repellent and lingered for months after Agatha and I dragged his body into the pigpen. It became a killing pen as the pigs devoured every last piece of him.

I’ve named my favourite pig Macy. She’s very affectionate and funny-looking with her moderately long head and broad snout. When they aren’t devouring corpses, I feed them two or three times a day and Macy loves a good head rub.

Max, the boar, is my least favourite. He rules the pigpen and is always there when squabbles occur between the pigs. There is a battle going on between us. He tries to nudge me out of the way, and I have to firmly stand my ground and scold the fifty-seven-stones, Max.

A dead body is easy to dispose of if you have privacy and a sounder of pigs. However, apart from the smell, decaying corpses do create one big problem: maggots. I’ve noticed that pigs do not eat maggots. But I have discovered that chickens do.

Searching the internet, I learned that since maggots are rich in protein and other nutrients, they are a valuable food source for chickens and a great supplement to their daily diet of grain and seeds. Such information was music to my ears. Problem solved.

I already own ten white Leghorn chickens. They are known for their egg-laying and are the source of my regular breakfast of poached egg and avocado on toast. With the help of Agatha, we moved the chicken run nearer the pigpen and watched in satisfaction as they ran back and forth eating the soft plump maggots.

My only concern is for my daughter.

Agatha is quick to learn yet can be manipulative. Quiet and always in deep thought, what she may be planning, or even just thinking, is concerning.

I can see it in her eyes. She had enjoyed watching her father wither and die a little too much. Is my pretty Agatha about to follow in her father’s footsteps?

The apple never falls far from the tree.