Flowers for the Dead (30 page)

Alex was lost in thought, looking at the waves crashing onto the beach then dragging back, and the dunlins scurrying along the tideline back and forth with the waves, pecking away at the sand to find the worms beneath. Only when Adam was right beside her did she startle. Even then he did not slow and she did not react apart from to look a little surprised. Her mouth formed a small ‘o’ before he got his hands around her neck, choking off a scream as it formed.

He was quick, efficient, a soldier doing his job. She did not suffer at all. As he strangled her he kissed her, letting go with one hand so that he could wrap his arm around her to support her swooning body. He held it against him as his lips fastened on hers.

Anybody seeing them from a distance would have assumed they were lovers locked in a passionate embrace. Actually something far deeper and more meaningful was going on; Alex was giving herself to Adam.

At first she resisted, of course. Just like Irene and Lisa and Sandra. Within seconds she had joined them inside him, though, expressing her gratitude at Adam letting her join his happy family.

He lifted her physical body without any problems; she was light as a feather, and he was strong. Once again he checked left and right then strode back towards the dunes and the footpath, realising with a curse that the wind had blown the flowers away. The white carnations raced one another as they tumbled across the sand. He did not have time to chase after them; poor Alex would have no flowers. Still, the most important thing was that she was happy at last.

In the shelter of the sand dunes, beside a golf course, Adam lay her down on her back, eyes closed, arms crossed. Despite it being mid-morning, there was still no one to see him, thanks to the weather. He took his scalpel out and, with more confidence than last time, he cut around her mouth, creating a gaping hole in her face. Shook a freezer bag from his pocket and slide the chunk of flesh inside, took off the surgical gloves that he wore, wrapped them inside another bag. Cleaned off his scalpel quickly: a third bag for those tissues for safe disposal later. Fast, efficient, like clockwork he moved.

Within two minutes he was walking away. Along the footpath, through the car park then onto the North Parade. In the distance he heard screams from the funfair and saw the lights flashing cheerily from the arcades along the seafront. The light bulbs had almost the same glow as Alex’s aura and the thought put even more of a spring in his step.

As he walked along the snowflakes grew larger and softer. It looked liked it might settle. Thinking of Alex, he threw his head back, letting the flakes fall on his upturned face. It felt good, like gentle kisses.

A sign on the pavement caught his eye. Four cartoon penguins standing in a line, each one larger than the last, advertised Natureland Seaworld. He giggled, and made a decision on a whim: he and the ladies deserved a little treat to celebrate the new addition to the family, so he went inside.

By late afternoon the weather had improved dramatically. The wind had dropped and the sun was sitting on the low hummock of dunes, bathing the sand with a final burst of light, washing the watercolour sky with a blush glow at the horizon. The tide was out, and gentle waves were kissing the land with their peach tops. Even the seagulls had taken on a rose hue.

Dog walkers were emerging, their pets gambolling on sparkling sand, momentarily shattering the mirror-like surface of pools scattered here and there. Up on the high tide line, dogs sniffed at white carnations that lay amongst bladderwrack seaweed. Their owners, equally curious, went to investigate then looked out to the water, assuming the blooms must be the remains of some burial at sea. None of them looked behind them. Not until a scream rang out that had nothing to do with the resort’s fun fair.

***

PRESENT

Mike is staring at his boss incredulously, stunned at what is being asked of him. All right, he understands that his boss does not want to give him meaty crimes that he might have to leave halfway through when he goes to Reading. Okay, give him short-term, simple stuff to deal with. But this? This is ridiculous!

“Does it really warrant a CID investigation?” he checks.

Inspector Jane Goddard nods cheerily, clearly enjoying the joke. Her pitch-black hair, piled up to give the tiny woman extra height, wobbles precariously, a small black poodle trying to escape from the top of her head.

“The woman says she is being stalked and it’s our duty to investigate,” she tells him, almost laughing.

“Is this a wind up? Someone is breaking into a flat to arrange flowers, and clean up: it sounds more like a fairy godmother than a stalker.”

“Yes, well, the victim deserves to be taken seriously,” says the DI primly. She is perched on the edge of her desk, and Mike is sitting on a chair. It makes them virtually the same height. “Besides, she’s made a right pain in the arse of herself, complaining constantly at the front desk. We’ve got to be seen to look into it – then we can call the men in white coats, if needs be, because you can bet your bottom dollar it’s all in her head.”

Mike scratches at his beard, which is in danger of taking over his face if he doesn’t get round to trimming it soon.

“I’ve really got to do this?” he tries one more time. He resorts to doing a Daisy; attempting to look wide-eyed and innocent so his boss will pity him. Instead he looks like a slightly constipated teddy bear.

“Stop whining and get on with it,” his boss orders.

He stands, towering over her, then trudges away, resigned to his fate.

“Wish someone like that’d pop round mine,” he grumbles mutinously. “My bath could do with a good going over. And there’s hair needs winkling out of the drain in the shower.”

Before visiting Laura Weir, Mike does a background check. She is twenty-three, lives alone in a flat on Drury Road, Colchester, has no convictions, a clean driving licence, and is five feet five inches.

Her mum, Jackie, forty-eight, dad, Seamus, fifty, and younger brother Marcus, sixteen, were killed in a crash four years ago when she was just nineteen. He sucks in his breath, a backward whistle of shock. That must have been devastating. Bad enough what has happened to him, but to cope with your entire family being wiped out…it does not bear thinking about.

It explains why she probably has a bad case of the crazies. Poor girl must be cracking up under the strain of grief.

With nothing else to do with his day, Mike is on his way to her residence by ten o’clock.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

~ Moonflower ~

Instability

The detective standing in Laura’s flat makes her realise how small the place is. Instead of feeling intimidated by his massive frame, Laura likes this Detective Sergeant Michael Bishop. There is something about him she trusts – although that mackintosh is hilarious, really needs a decent wash and iron. Yet he emanates calm and inner strength, and even kindness, somehow.

He takes a place at one end of the sofa and turns towards her. She takes the other end, draws her coltish long legs up in front of her, and pulls her huge, baggy jumper over her knees to encase her limbs entirely. Here goes nothing.

“Someone is breaking into my flat,” she says.

“You’ve had things stolen?” asks ‘just-call-me-Mike’.

Laura hugs her knees for comfort but lifts her chin higher, stubborn.

“A surveillance camera. A photo from my birthday a couple of years ago. And I’m fairly certain my favourite t-shirt’s been nicked too: it’s just plain, dark green, long sleeves, nothing special.”

From the penetrating look he is giving her, Laura guesses he realises the t-shirt means more to her than she is willing to let on. But she does not want to explain that it is the last thing her brother bought her before his death, it will lead her down a road she does not wish to travel right now.

“But it’s not just that they’ve disappeared. Things keep happening. I’ll come home and the washing up has been done, or the place tidied up, or, or…or the ironing done, or something. Sometimes groceries have been put in my fridge. Do you have any idea how freaky that is?

“I’ve even come home to a hot meal waiting for me. A hot meal! Do you know what that means? It means whoever did it can only have left minutes before I got back here.

“I know this sounds crazy, okay? I know! But someone is coming into my home and doing weird stuff to scare me. Sometimes it even happens at night when I’m here, asleep!”

Finally she pauses for breath, leaping up suddenly to pace. Glares at Mike, challenging him to dare disbelieve her. Mike’s kind, deep brown eyes meet her blue ones.

“Have you seen any signs of forced entry?”

“This again! No – and believe me, I’ve looked.”

He does not look away. Neither does she. “Well, then, how do you think someone has managed to get inside? Unless it’s someone with a key; does anyone else have a key?” His voice is calm, quiet, but commanding.

“Look, these are all questions I answered at the station when I filed the report. No, no one else has a key. And no, I don’t know how someone is managing to get in – but they are.”

Silence. The only sound is the scritch-scratch of Mike’s fingers against his beard. Laura can see him weighing up her story, and is terrified he will write her off as a lunatic. Yet his mouth has not twitched once as if he is fighting laughter.

But now he is standing up and Laura is scared. And when she is scared she gets angry.

“You’re not going already, are you?” she demands

He gives a gentle smile. “Let’s have a look at your doors and windows, see if we can figure out what’s going on.”

Relief floods through her. Finally, someone is listening to her.

“Thank you,” she whispers. Then remembers: “Oh! I forgot the most important thing! The flowers!”

She hurries from the room, returning with a bedraggled bouquet, stems broken and bent at angles. Mike looks bemused.

“I’d shoved them in the bin,” she explains. “The flowers started arriving at about the same time as I noticed stuff happening around the flat. I didn’t even connect the two things at first. Thing is, I thought a lot of the stuff was in my head; that I’d done the washing up in a daydream and forgotten, you know? But it got more and more, until there was no way I could be doing all those things and not realise it. It felt like someone was trying to drive me mad.”

She gives an apologetic shrug for her lack of belief in herself. “The bouquets got weird too. They were pretty at first, but sometimes now they have the oddest things in them, like lumps of moss or something. There’s never any note, and I’ve no idea who is sending them. I’ve asked around, of course, but everyone’s clueless… Can you, I don’t know, dust them for fingerprints or something?”

Laura proffers them hopefully. Mike takes them from her but shakes his head as he gazes down at them.

“No, we can’t dust these, I’m afraid. You say they didn’t come with a note, or wrapped in cellophane?”

Laura says no.

“Then there’s nothing we can do with them, sorry,” says Mike, handing back the beaten up flowers.

The flare of disappointment sparks another idea. “Oh! There’s the dress!” Laura exclaims. She hurries from the room, returning with the dress, cover, and hanger. “Someone left this in my wardrobe over Christmas. Umm, sometimes they put money in my purse too.”

The detective slides on a single latex glove to handle the gown, and again Laura feels calmer, knowing that her fears are not being dismissed.

“I’ll take it back to the station and see if we can get some prints,” Mike says.

She watches him inspect doors and windows, then straighten and lean against the wall.

“Laura, no one could come and go without leaving some kind of trace; thieves aren’t that good – or that bothered about hiding their tracks,” he says. Somehow he manages to tread the fine line between kindness and patronising. “These aren’t great locks though; maybe you should invest in some really good ones, I can get a list for you. Maybe have an alarm fitted too. You can get ones that can be set while you’re inside, so that they go off if there is movement anywhere but your bedroom. That should stop anyone.”

She is grateful he has said “stop anyone” rather than “that should put your mind at ease”, as though this is all in her head. At least he is not dismissing her story out of hand completely. She is bitterly disappointed though. Never has she felt so alone and helpless.

The pair say polite goodbyes, and she watches him lumber away, scratching his beard again, as though at a bothersome itch that will not go away.

***

Adam sits in his car, parked metres away from Mike’s own vehicle, and trembles with rage and shock.

The bitch. The absolute bitch. She is a liar, like his mother.

Dirty boy. Disgusting child. Who could love a pathetic creature like you?

His mother’s voice sneers at Adam from nowhere. His trembles of anger are suddenly replaced with seismic tremors of fear. Is his mother inside him? When he killed Sara had her soul entered him without him knowing it? Had she spent all this time watching, waiting, sabotaging his chances with people?

A painful clench of his stomach. He throws open the door, leaning over just in time, vomit creating a Jackson Pollock on the pavement. He clings onto the car door for dear life, panting with panic as another wave of nausea takes him.

Ugly, useless child. Come here, let me punish you…
That familiar voice tugs at him, dragging him into the past.

Hearing from his mother, coupled with Laura’s betrayal, makes it hard to know which is hurting the most. Adam is stunned by what Laura has done; reporting him to the police and pretending that she is scared by everything he has done for her. Why would she do this to him? The way she spoke about him makes him shiver afresh with horror. He had thought she was as pure and honest as his grandmother, but perhaps she is really as duplicitous and manipulative as his mother.

Part of him is tempted to confront her, but he is no good at confrontations. He will stutter and stammer, unable to get his words out, and if she is like his mother she will tear him apart. He does not think he has the strength to survive that.

Come here, you know you like it. Don’t you want to make me happy? Spoiled, selfish brat…

Adam pulls himself back into the driving seat, breathing ragged, trying to make sense of what is happening. His mother is not with him; she cannot be with him. He had been nowhere near her when she died so there was no way her soul could have entered his body. The terror of his childhood is so strong though. Adam needs to get away from Colchester, away from the memories, away from Laura and her betrayal, and back to safety. There is only one place in the world where he has ever felt calm, sheltered and loved: his gran’s house in Moseley. He has never felt her presence with him – something he often laments – but the house is his touchstone and it is to there he must hurry.

With a violent twist of the ignition key, Adam starts up his car and tears away, still wiping his mouth clean of vomit. His confusion does not disappear with the miles. He is raging with emotion and inside him he can feel Julie, Lisa, Sharon, Sandra, Alex, and Irene rebelling at the thought of an interloper being with them. They soar through his blood on the hunt for his mother.

As soon as he arrives at his Moseley home at around 3.30pm, he strides into his greenhouses, searching for the right flowers to convey his emotions. Snatches up his secateurs but cannot marshal his thoughts enough to choose the right blooms.

Inside him, his harem shriek their frustration, their souls boiling and bubbling like his anger. They join together until Adam is consumed, the flames of his fury leap from his body, and he is transformed into a phoenix, feels himself lifting up, up, up into air that seethes with orange, yellow and white hot flames.

Yet he is not burned by the inferno, and that is how he knows he really is the phoenix, the stuff of fairy tales. He will get his happy ending one way or another.

With that thought the roar of the fire increases, the world becomes white, and Adam tumbles into nothingness.

Hours later he comes to himself. It is morning and he is lying prone on the floor of his lounge as if someone has put him in the recovery position. He can only assume it is one of his ladies, and he thanks them. Beside him is the bouquet, ready for delivery.

Yellow roses to symbolise Laura’s spiritual infidelity to him; purple belladonna for the silence she should have kept. Her heartlessness is illustrated with amaranthus, the tiny, deep burgundy flowers coming in gatherings of ponytails that seem to droop towards the floor in shame. “Beware of excess,” is the warning from the saffron, to show Laura is close to pushing him too far. Finally nettles weave through the whole display, making Adam think of his mother as they once more shout the cruelty he has suffered.

He will send Laura this bouquet as a warning. She has one chance to put things right. Just one. Or she will suffer his wrath.