Exit Wounds, page 18
When the girls were out of sight, their laughter echoing in the corridors, Ruth walked into the staffroom. Put on a pot of coffee. Sank into the armchair. Her hands were still shaking. Sometimes she didn’t know why she still worked here.
The door opened. For one dust-moted moment, she thought that the girls had followed her, then Lyron, the museum curator, shuffled into the room.
“Good tour, Ruth?” he asked.
“Please don’t give me the GCSE students, Lyron,” she said. “I find it hard to hold back. Today, I’m ashamed to say, I didn’t.”
“They probably deserved it,” he said, coming over to sit next to her. He had fuzzy down on his otherwise bald head and blinked a lot, like an exhibit surprised to come to life.
“They definitely deserved it,” she replied.
“Michael would be proud of you, then,” Lyron said. “If he were here rather than …”
“Rather than swanning off on a research trip without telling me.” Ruth looked down at her lap, linking her fingers together. She tried to blink back her tears, but it just made them spill over the sides.
“Sorry,” Lyron said, softly. “I shouldn’t have mentioned him.”
“Glad you did,” Ruth told him. “I only volunteer here to feel close to him but no one else will mention him.”
“He was the best curator this museum ever had,” Lyron said, touching her shoulder.
“If not the best husband.”
“Have you heard from him?” he asked.
“Only a postcard.” Ruth fished the card out of her inside jacket pocket and handed it to him. “No phone calls, no letters.”
Lyron squeezed her shoulder. He knew Michael of old. He looked at the picture on the front: Angel Falls, captured mid fall. “Venezuela, now, eh? Very nice.” He turned the card over. “Michael at his usual verbose best.”
Ruth’s husband never wrote on postcards. Far too prosaic. He melted dried-blood-red sealing wax on the back, sprinkled on soil or sand from the country he was visiting and pressed his thumbprint on top. That way he owned the place. So many places. He went away every year for research, even after they got married. The staffroom notice board was filled with decades’ worth of these cards, now their home was as well. He’d stayed away for longer than expected before, but never for so many weeks.
Lyron handed the card back and Ruth placed it in her pocket. It was a tight fit. She liked the way the edge of the card dug into the skin above her heart.
“He’ll be home soon, bringing back something wonderful from his travels,” Lyron said.
“Hmm,” Ruth replied.
* * *
In York, at night, the streets take on the yellow of a little owl’s eyes. Ruth’s walk home passed the meat hooks of The Shambles then followed a series of snickelways that echoed with other people’s footsteps. Her house was at the end of an unfinished road, and if that wasn’t a metaphor for her marriage then she didn’t know what was.
She felt a rush of relief as she entered the house. The walls seemed to swell and exhale too, like wallpapered ribcages. She loved these walls. They contained so much that was important to her: furniture inherited from her grandparents, books on seventeenth-century history, photos and mementoes of Michael and, best of all, Rigby.
Rigby figure-eighted her ankles, rubbing his head against her boots. His purr was fur-soft. Ruth emptied a tin of cat food into Rigby’s bowl and watched as he lapped at the meat. Now nearly nineteen, Rigby didn’t like to go outside unless Ruth was with him, so she made herself a gin and tonic and opened the kitchen door.
Rigby trotted out, turning his head to make sure she was following.
“I’m right behind you, Rigby,” Ruth said, aware that she talked mainly for her own benefit.
Outside, in the courtyard, the sun was sitting on the fence, September strength, and about to go down fighting. She watered the flowerpots and sipped gin that tasted of rosemary, sage and redcurrants. There was not much to do, other than wait for Michael to come home.
* * *
At the far end of the unfinished road, Tara and Matilda leant against a wall. “What time do you think she goes to bed?” Matilda asked.
“Really early,” Tara replied. “Ten? Half ten? She’s got no one to shag – her husband is off on holiday for ages or something and I can’t see her having an affair. Not in those shoes. She doesn’t have any friends, either.”
“How do you know all that?”
“Looked at her Facebook page. Always do your research. No one comments on her stuff. Not even her husband.”
“Ouch, burned by your own bloke,” said Matilda.
“Yeah. Still, this’ll cheer her up,” Tara said, reaching into her bag and pulling out the Hand of Glory.
“Put it away,” Matilda said, giggling as Tara used the hand to tickle her under the armpit. “Someone’ll see.”
Tara placed the hand carefully back in her bag. “As long as she doesn’t see until we’ve finished. And if the Hand of Glory does what it’s supposed to do, she won’t.”
* * *
Hours later, the sun had died for the day and Ruth was in bed. It was cold enough for the autumn duvet now. It felt safer, somehow, underneath these covers. There were often times that she didn’t feel safe here. It was probably paranoia, but, since Michael went away, she felt watched. Vulnerable.
Ruth turned onto her side and Rigby snuggled into her – the little furry spoon. Her head swam with Bathtub Gin. Sometimes, drinking stopped the dreams from coming. Sometimes, it let them in.
* * *
“You sure this is going to work?” Matilda whispered as they climbed over the back fence. The conditions were perfect. Nobody was about. Even the moon was hiding its face in the clouds.
“I’ve broken into my own house loads of times and they’ve never caught me,” Tara said. “Out all hours and they think I’m fast asleep.”
“I suppose,” Matilda said.
“ And I climbed onto your garage when you were grounded to get you out,” Tara said, landing on the decking like a TK Maxx-clad cat. Avoiding pots, treading carefully on the gravel, she moved to the back door and took the Hand of Glory out of her shoulder bag.
“I still can’t believe we took it,” Matilda said as she brought out her lighter.
“She shouldn’t leave the keys to ‘valuable artefacts’ in her pocket, should she? Asking to be robbed, she was.”
“Yeah,” whispered Matilda. “We’re just teaching her not to be so rude. We’re the customers. Oh, and to look after her possessions.”
“’Xactly. Maybe next time her husband won’t fuck off for so long,” Tara replied. “Go on then, it’s time.”
Matilda flipped her lighter. Tara held out the Hand of Glory and dipped the little fingertip in the yellow of the flame until it caught light.
Matilda gasped as each of the fingers was lit. The flames spread no further than the smallest knuckle of each finger yet lit up the midnight courtyard. The Hand of Glory smelled of herbs and beeswax and pickled onions.
“Right, then,” Tara said. “Let’s break this door in.”
* * *
Neither Ruth nor Rigby stirred as glass hit the floor of the kitchen downstairs and the back door was forced open. Nor did they move when Matilda stood upon the creaky floorboard on the landing. They didn’t even twitch an eyelid when Ruth’s clothes were tipped out of the chest of drawers in the room next door, quietly to start with, and then, as it became clear that the Hand of Glory was in action, with no thought to noise at all.
The girls stood in Ruth’s bedroom doorway. Ruth was face down in the pillows, breathing deeply. Her cat was stretched out in black alongside her. An empty glass on her bedside table. “We could do anything, as long as the Hand is still burning,” Tara said, her head tilted on one side.
“We could shave her eyebrows,” Matilda said, giggling.
“We could do that. Or we could kill her,” Tara said. Her eyes showed the light of five fingertips blazing.
Matilda turned to Tara. “You’re joking, right?” Her voice trembled like a flame.
“We could, though.” Hand of Glory in one hand, Tara took a knife out of her shoulder bag with the other.
“I thought we were just going to scare her a bit, get her back for saying those things,” Matilda said. She looked very young by candlelight.
“We don’t need to use the knife,” Tara said.
“Good,” Matilda said. “Then let’s take stuff and—”
“You could just sit on her back, push her head into the pillows,” Tara said. “She’s got enough of them.”
“That thing’s infected you,” Matilda said, staring at the Hand of Glory. “You wouldn’t talk like that otherwise. It must be a murderer’s hand. It’s speaking through you.”
“Maybe it is,” Tara said. “And it feels amazing. You should try it.” She thrust the Hand of Glory at Matilda.
“I don’t want it,” Matilda said, backing out of the room. “I don’t like it.”
“What’s the problem?” Tara said. “I thought you’d want to feel powerful for once.” She followed Matilda down the corridor, the burning hand held out.
“Stop it, Tara,” Matilda said, turning her head away from the heat. “It’s not funny.” She reached behind her, found a door frame and fumbled for the handle. The door opened into another room, and Matilda stumbled inside. She tried to close the door, but Tara was too quick, darting through, candles flaring.
The Hand of Glory lit up that room, too. Matilda screamed. Tara turned. In the corner, hanging from the ceiling, was what once was a man. He was tea-coloured and withered. Smelled of rosemary and sage and pickled redcurrants. It only had one hand, and its thumb was covered in blood-coloured wax.
Tara dropped the Hand of Glory. The fingers flared against the carpet, then died.
Matilda ran for the door, rattled it. “It’s locked!” she said.
Tara tried. The door was firmly shut.
“Thanks for giving Michael back his hand,” Ruth called through the door.
“Let us out, you mad old bitch!” Tara screamed.
“I warned you about messing with me,” Ruth said. “And you didn’t listen. Just like I warned Michael when he was about to leave me. I said he’d made a vow and it’d be a crime to break it. I took his hand in marriage and, when he left, I took his hand in death. The museum wanted a Hand of Glory, now they have one.”
“What about us?” Matilda said. “What are you going to do with us?”
“That is an excellent question,” Ruth said.
* * *
A few months later, Dr Ruth Irving was giving her tour to a WI group. Practical women, good with their hands. They stood staring at the Hand of Glory.
“What’s the other way?” one of them asked.
“What do you mean?” asked Ruth.
“You said that there were two ways to use a Hand of Glory, but only mentioned one.” The WI woman looked pleased, as if she had caught Ruth out.
Ruth smiled. “The other way is to prevent burglary. A householder can burn a Hand of Glory, and they shall not be disturbed in their own home. No one will be able to enter without the owner’s knowledge.”
“We could all do with that,” another woman said.
They all laughed.
“Shall we continue with the tour?” Ruth said, locking Michael’s hand back in its cabinet.
* * *
At home, Ruth got into bed and pulled the winter duvet up to her neck. Snuggled up next to her, Rigby’s deaf ears twitched from things heard in dreams. Outside, the wind rushed and sirened like police cars, but it couldn’t get in. Nor could anything, or anyone, else.
Relaxing into her pillows, she stared at the flickering shapes on her ceiling. On either side of the bed, fingers curling, red-tipped and on fire, the severed hands kept her safe.
DRESSED TO KILL
JAMES OSWALD
“It’s absolutely perfect!”
She stands in the tiny changing room at the back of the shop, staring in the mirror as she twirls. The dress is old, older than her mum. Older even than her gran. Something she imagines a flapper girl in the 1920s might wear. And yet it feels like it was made for her. Nothing has ever flattered her figure so much, nothing has been quite so comfortable. She can hardly contain her joy.
“You sure, hen? Don’t you think it’s a bit cheap, you know? Second-hand dress and all that?”
She stares past her reflection at the figure standing behind her. Trust Susan to get the wrong end of the stick, best friend or no.
“It’s no’ second hand, it’s vintage. There’s a difference, see?”
“That mean it’s cheap, aye?”
“Cheaper than that outfit you’ve got your eye on, Suze.” She reluctantly shrugs herself out of the dress, pulls on her normal clothes. Somehow they don’t feel right any more. They’re too tight around the arms, chafe in uncomfortable places she hadn’t noticed before. It’s no matter. She can change when she gets home.
Carefully, she gathers up the dress, trying hard to ignore the dangling price tag. She lied. It’s more than Susan’s paying for her outfit, more than she can really afford. But hey, that’s what credit cards were invented for, right?
* * *
“What have we got here, Bob? Sounded pretty awful when Control called me.”
Detective Chief Inspector Tony McLean stood at the open doorway of an unassuming suburban terrace house, and watched as a small army of forensic technicians came and went.
“Looks like a murder-suicide, sir. Possibly a domestic gone wrong.” Detective Sergeant “Grumpy Bob” Laird had been waiting for him outside. “Mr and Mrs Johnson, at least we think it’s them. Neighbours called it in. Said there’d been a lot of shouting, things being thrown at the wall. We sent a squad car round to have a word, and they found the front door open. Inside, well …” He nodded his head once in the direction of the open door, said nothing else.
Usually the one to bring a little gallows humour to help everyone through the trauma of investigating deaths, Grumpy Bob’s unease suggested something terrible inside. It would have to be something utterly gruesome to be worse than the truck crash that had brought the city to a standstill earlier in the summer. McLean couldn’t suppress the involuntary shudder that ran through him at the memory. Twenty dead, and some had taken days to identify. He pushed aside the thought. That was done, now he had this to deal with.
“I guess I’d better have a look, then.”
* * *
The house had probably been built sometime in the 1960s, and was surprisingly spacious inside. Not like the modern apartments going up all over Edinburgh, scarcely large enough to stun a kitten. McLean followed the clear path set out by the forensic team, through a wide hall and into a kitchen at the back of the house. The main focus of attention was beyond that, in a much more modern conservatory. At first he thought the floor was made from dark-stained wood, but then he saw the chair, and the body sprawled in it, the details resolving themselves piece by horrifying piece.
She was young, that was the first thing he noticed. Her blonde hair splayed out from her head as if blown by an invisible fan. Sightless eyes stared up at the sky through the glass of the conservatory roof, but no amount of sun could tan the terrible paleness of her skin. It contrasted horribly with the ruddy-brown mess that spilled out over her once white blouse, slicked her frayed jeans and covered the cheap laminate flooring all around her. It never ceased to amaze him how much blood was in a person. How far it could go.
“Pathologist been?” McLean asked of a passing technician. She was holding a camera and treading very carefully in her attempts to record the scene.
“Upstairs, sir. With the husband.”
“Thanks.” He backtracked gratefully out, then followed the sound of voices up the stairs and into a large bedroom. It looked like a hurricane had swept through, turning furniture upside down, knocking pictures askew, breaking the mirrored doors on a built-in wardrobe and scattering clothes everywhere. It had also picked up a man and thrown him bodily at the wall, if the mess above him was anything to go by. He lay on the bed, broken and twisted, dark bloody holes where his eyes had been, a ragged gaping mess all that was left of his throat. Crimson stained the sheets and duvet, all but obscuring a yellow floral pattern that only made the scene worse.
“Thought you might appear soon, Tony.” Angus Cadwallader, city pathologist, stood up from beside the body, knees popping in protest.
“What’s the story? Looks like he was attacked by a wild animal.”
“Aye. He’s been beaten about a fair bit.” Cadwallader had always been the master of understatement.
McLean took a step closer even though his every instinct was to run. “I take it he bled out from that.” He pointed at the man’s ruined neck.
“Looks like it, given the amount of blood and where it’s gone. Reckon it’s the same knife as cut the wifey downstairs.” Cadwallader let out a long sigh quite at odds with his normally cheery demeanour. “We’ll confirm it at autopsy, but I’m fairly sure she killed him, then turned the knife on herself.”
McLean looked around the room again, trying to wind back time and see the events as they had unfolded. “She’s just a wee slip of a thing, Angus. How could she do all this?”
The pathologist shrugged. “That’s your job, Tony, not mine. And I can’t say I envy you.”
* * *
“They were such a lovely couple. Always a kind word when you saw them. Never any bother, really. Until last night.”
McLean glanced briefly past the two people sitting on the sofa, through the window to the street beyond. Thomas and Bethany Ackroyd held each other’s hands as if they were newly in love, although from what he had gathered so far the two of them had been married almost forty years and spent the best part of that living in this house, just a thin wall away from where Peter and Mary Johnson had met their grisly ends. Outside, a couple of TV news vans had arrived already, ghouls circling around the tragedy. He’d have to see about making sure they didn’t start harassing his key witnesses.
