Twisted Bones (A DI Fenella Sallow Crime Thriller Book 3), page 2
"He's a greedy sod," Nan said as she sat on Fenella's other side. "Don't know how he tricked you into walking down the aisle with him."
Eduardo jumped to his feet, staggered about, and in a sing-song voice said, "If it weren't for Mr Softie at the first church pew, I would never have made it to the altar."
Fenella laughed. She enjoyed the banter. Relished her weekends with Eduardo and Nan, knew there were only so many days before the axis of life rotated. She'd seen it time and again in her job in the Cumbria Police. Officers unable to flip the switch between work and family life. If the death and distress she faced at work had taught her one thing, it was to enjoy the moment while it lasted. She loved her family. Loved her job as a detective inspector. Mastering the switch between home and work allowed her to have both.
"All this fresh air has made me hungry," Eduardo said. "Do you think those very small sweet treats will damage my diet?"
Fenella glanced at the plate of pastries. There were homemade flapjacks, scones still warm, two custard slices, three iced fairy cakes, farmhouse butter, and a clay jar of plum jam.
"I'll have a custard slice to help you out," Fenella said, and made a promise to go for a jog on the beach later. She'd guilt Eduardo into going with her. He could do with losing a few pounds. "And a warm scone with a dollop of butter and jam."
They fell into silence while Eduardo poured the tea. A wood pigeon cooed from a tree. They continued their meal without a word. It was fresh baked and delicious. A middle-aged couple with a boy in a pea-green T-shirt sat at a nearby table. Fenella picked up on their American twang. Chicago, she thought as she sipped her tea, or Milwaukee.
Eduardo crammed half a scone into his mouth and munched. "Mmm, delicious."
"Take your time," Nan said. "The food's not got legs."
But Nan's plate was already empty. She'd made quick work of the fairy cakes. Her favourite.
Eduardo knew that, always bought her fairy cakes when they went out on their weekend treasure hunts. He knew how to keep Nan happy. He knew how to keep his wife happy too. They'd had five kids, all grown now. A smudge of plum jam clung to the side of his nose. Crumbs clustered in the corner of his mouth. Fenella liked that about him. The mess of a comic artist.
Eduardo said, "Are you going to tell us what is inside that box?"
"Don't be such a bleedin' nosy bugger," Nan replied. She looked at Fenella. "Is it for me?"
"It's a gift for Gail Stubbs," Fenella said.
The two friends had met when Fenella was a rookie police constable in Whitehaven. She was a bridesmaid at Gail's wedding. The marriage recently broke up, and Gail moved to Port St Giles to lick her wounds and work as a nurse in the cottage hospital. Difficult, when you have turned fifty, to start again in a new town.
"Gail has invited us for dinner on Monday evening," Fenella said. "Her flat on Clearview Row could do with a bit of cheering up. I saw this, and I think it will do the trick."
"Let's have a look," Nan said. "I've an eye for the finer things in life. That's why I tried to warn you about Eduardo."
"Hey!" It sounded like a protest, but Eduardo was grinning. "When I'm dead, my drawings will go for millions."
Nan rolled her eyes and turned to Fenella. "Come on, then, what is inside that box?"
Fenella did not answer but gazed at the hedgerow. The holly-blue butterflies vanished between a tangle of brambles and hawthorn. A warning cry from a wood pigeon carried on the slight wind, high pitched. Shrill. Doubt flitted in her gut. What would Nan make of it? What would Eduardo say?
She glanced again at the box and half wished she'd left it on the flea market stall, wished she could take it back. But she couldn’t roll back time. Anyway, the stallholder was pleased to get rid of it, had given it to her for a pittance, would have sold it for even less if she'd made out she would walk away. No. The stallholder wouldn't take it back. No way.
At last, Fenella said, "Are you sure you want to see it?"
Nan sat bolt upright. "What is it? What is inside that box?"
"Gail will love it," Fenella said, her voice hesitant. She wasn't so sure about Nan or Eduardo. She wasn't so sure herself. But once she saw it, got over the shock, she had to have it. It's just that it couldn't stay in their cottage on Cleaton Bluff. "Eduardo. You do the honours."
He stared at his wife for a long moment, rubbed his chin, cleared a space on the table and turned to Nan. She stood and walked with quick steps to his chair.
"Go on, open it," Nan said as she placed an arm around his shoulder.
Fenella picked up the box, placed it on the table, then nodded at Eduardo. The voices of the American couple drifted across the lawn. Their child gave a squeal of delight, picked up a stick, poked around and made his way to the water's edge. There were wildfowl on the water: mallard ducks, a pair of teals, and a mute swan.
The boy turned and waved. Eduardo and Nan were looking at the box, but Fenella saw him and waved back. She loved kids, made time for them, had five bairns of her own. They were like gifts. Each child held a secret. There was no knowing what they would grow up to become.
Eduardo tugged at the red twine until it came loose. He glanced up for a moment, then peeled back an edge of the brown butchers paper. Black-and-white swirls peeped out. Now he snatched at the brown paper, tearing it away with urgent hands.
The café seemed suddenly quiet. Water rushed over pebbles in the bed of the Derwent River. An earthy smell of rotted weeds drifted in from the bank. A crow watched from an ancient oak. It let out an ear-splitting caw.
As the last shreds of paper came away, Eduardo's eyes grew wide.
"I'm so sorry," he said. "So very sorry."
Nan began to cry.
Chapter four
It was 11:00 a.m. Saturday morning, and Detective Sergeant Rab Nash's day had turned sour.
He crouched behind a row of dustbins in a dank alley that ran along the back of the stores which fronted the quaint, cobbled town square of Port St Giles. A red brick wall, strewn with black bin bags blocked one end of the alley. At the other end, thirty feet away, shadows flickered by a locked gate, locals in town for their shop. But where Nash crouched, it was as dark as dusk, and the stink of rotted waste hung in the warm, still air: a cloak so dense, he tasted its curdled stench as though he'd knelt to sip sludge from a sewer grate. A place where rats made their home.
His eyes flitted from his mobile phone to the graffiti-stained back door of Quick Bet Bookie Store. He listened intently, but besides the hiss of a black cat as it clambered on the red brick wall, and the hum of overhead wires, everything was quiet and still.
At forty-eight, with a weak heart, and a touch of arthritis in his knees, he was too old for this lark. He had told the police doctor about his ailments. Not that it did any good. The medic had given him a clean bill of health and a prescription for a bottle of multivitamin pills.
Rab Nash swore.
When he climbed out of bed, he never thought he'd be crouched in trash and stench in an alley best left to rodents. He was a police officer, not a bloody sewer rat. How did it come to this?
Muffled voices came from behind Quick Bet's graffiti-covered door. The low gruff of a man and the high-pitched shrill of a woman. They didn’t sound happy. There would be a big fight, and Nash was trapped in the middle.
His heart thumped hard against his chest. He wondered if his ticker could take it. Widow Maker, that's what they called it when a middle-aged man's heart suddenly stopped. It had claimed his father and grandad. And he heard his great-grandad died at twenty-two. It would only take a shock for the Widow Maker to claim him, too, no matter what the doctor said.
The black cat hissed.
Nash jumped.
The feline scowled from the top of the red brick wall, all puffed fur and fangs. If he had a rock, he'd throw it at the bleedin' thing. He let out a slow breath, glanced at his phone, and then at the Quick Bet door. It could open at any moment.
And when it did, he had to be ready.
Again, came the voices. Louder. If there were any doubt in his mind they might be friendly, a volley of violent curses dispelled it. They were furious and coming his way.
Nash held his breath and willed his heart to slow down, but the tightness in his chest didn’t ease. His first wife taught yoga, showed him how to control his breaths, slow his mind down. But yoga didn’t work for him. Only one thing helped him relax. And that thing was the reason his first wife left him.
She'd relished it at first. Called it a caveman impulse. Mammoth. Exciting. Thought she could tame it. Change him. But night after night and days without cease, Rab Nash's fervour wore her down. Now he let the primitive urge seize him. Yes! A quickie, right here in the alley.
To relax.
The seventh since he'd woken up.
Had to be fast.
He crouched lower and adjusted his position so he could watch the door and his phone screen with less movement. With shallow breaths, he sipped the sour air. Best to take in the stench with quick breaths. Not so jarring on the lungs. After five short sips, he jabbed a finger at his phone, watched a roulette wheel spin, then let out a low groan.
Ten quid gone.
His seventh bet of the day.
He fought back the urge for another quickie, just to see if his luck had turned, dimmed his phone, and waited.
Detective Sergeant Rab Nash was not on duty.
Today was his day off.
And he was hiding.
A soft scurrying caused Nash to look towards the end of the alley. It was too dark to make out anything but the black bin bags. His gaze shifted to the top of the red brick wall. The cat was gone.
The noise continued, soft and low, like the rustle of wind through leaves. What the hell is that? An urge to stand up and take a quick look surged. A bet worth taking?
Nash gritted his teeth. He didn’t stand up. Not enough upside to that bet, so he remained crouched low in the filth and gloom, waiting.
His second wife thought she could help. But he couldn’t help himself, so after a handful of hellish months, they divorced and went their separate ways. Nash closed his eye so he could see her face. Nothing formed. Only her parting words.
"Rab, if you keep on like this, you'll end up in the gutter."
There it was again. A slight scratching sound from the shadows. His eyes snapped wide as he strained to stare. That's when he saw them.
Rats.
Two dozen at least. They clambered on the black bin bags, noses twitching. Ragged and feral. Sharp teeth and jagged claws. Fearless.
Nash stared, horrified. The vicious beasts were nothing like George. His third ex-wife had kept a rat named George as a pet—grey with silver streaks and fur as smooth as silk. George came for food when you called his name. Not like alley rats with their gnarled legs and matted fur. Alley rats went for your eyes.
Nash watched the rodents with a growing sense of dread. He'd read somewhere that they could smell fear, that human panic sent them into an attack frenzy. A spasm twisted through his chest. He felt like his heart was about to give out. Trapped in an alley with killer rats, and the bloody doctor had given him nowt but vitamin pills.
It couldn't get any worse.
That's when he heard a savage, high-pitched shrill.
"Bloody rats, stay back," Nash said nervously.
But it wasn't the rats.
Quick Bet Bookie Store’s door screeched open. A middle-aged woman in blue high heels, black miniskirt, and gold blouse, which clung too tight to her chest, tottered onto the sludge-stained cobblestones. She carried a plastic shopping bag in her left hand. Behind her marched a thick-necked man with a shaven head. He wore a pinstripe suit. Expensive. And his biceps were as large as cannonballs.
Suddenly everything became quiet so that the only sound was the distant mumble of shoppers in the cobbled courtyard and the steady beat of Rab Nash's heart. He didn't know what would happen next and crunched into a tight ball, cheeks pressed hard against the dustbin. A foul whiff shot up his nose. He gagged down the stink, couldn't risk a cough, didn’t want to be seen either.
"Rab," the woman said. "We know you're here."
Silence.
"Nash, come out now," the man with the thick neck and shaved head boomed. "Don't make us search through this muck to find you."
Nash became so small he was nowt but a pair of terrified eyes. If he didn't breathe, kept still, and waited, they wouldn't see him.
"Nash," the man boomed. "Out now!"
Nash didn’t move. There was no way they would search for him amongst this stink. His girlfriend of six months and her bodybuilder brother were not the type to get their hands dirty. He had only to wait them out. I can do this, he thought.
Nash had served as a police officer since leaving school, spent a stint in covert police operations. He could wait them out. Yes. His luck was about to turn. He sensed it deep in his bones. He felt something else too. It gnawed deep in his gut. A sort of sick exhilaration as he crouched low between the dustbins. The stink. The stench. It made him feel powerful.
He breathed.
In. Out.
Yoga breaths.
When they were gone, he'd place a bet on the horses or maybe a flutter on the dogs. Hell, why not both? Just a quickie. Life ain't nowt if you don't take a chance.
"Tell you what," the man's voice said, softening a little. "Why don't you come out and we can have a man-to-man chat."
Nash didn’t move and let his gaze drift to the end of the alley. It was cloaked in shadow. But he could still make them out. Rats. They tore at the black bin bags, sharp claws and teeth ripping at the plastic, squealing in delight at their rotted find.
"Look!" the woman screamed. "Giant bleedin' rats." She dropped the shopping bag, turned on her heels, and tottered with quick steps towards the graffiti-stained door. "Rab Nash, how could you? I never want to see you again. We are through."
The man with the thick neck and shaved head half turned, head tilted ostrich-like to stare at the rats. He took two steps back and hissed, "Rab you have got until Monday to return the cash you took from under my sister's bed. She put that money aside to pay for her daughter's operation."
Nash closed his eyes. It wasn’t his fault his girlfriend left cash lying about in a box under her bed. That was asking for trouble, wasn't it? How was he to know it was for medical bills? He didn’t have the money to pay it back. He'd lost it in Quick Bet, betting on the dogs.
The man said, "I don't need to tell you what will happen if the cash does not show up." Then he turned and hurried after his sister.
The graffiti-stained door squealed shut.
Nash waited sixty seconds, then lifted himself onto his feet and strolled to the shopping bag, picked it up, and peered inside.
His socks.
His shirts.
His toothbrush.
"Guess I'll need a new place to stay."
That's when he thought about Aunt Rose. She lived in a one-bedroom shack in the hamlet of Seatoller. He'd stay with her until he won back all the money he'd lost. Nash grinned, jabbed a finger at his mobile phone.
Just a quickie.
The roulette wheel spun. His phone vibrated and flashed.
He won.
One hundred quid.
Chapter five
"Sal."
She heard her name, but the fire glowed with a gold flame, and the room filled with warmth. Her favourite dream.
"Wake up, Sal. Get up."
She didn’t stir. Didn’t want to lose the warm glow. It could wait. But she knew from the tone of her dad's voice, it wouldn’t.
"They will be here any minute, get up."
Sal Marsh eased up from the couch and glanced at the clock on the living room wall. It was just after one in the afternoon. She never slept in the day but volunteered at the animal hospital or helped elderly neighbours with their shopping. Daytime sleep was not her thing. Nor afternoon television soaps with their endless love triangles and fake drama. But that's what played low on the flickering box.
At thirty-five and in a happy marriage, Sal liked to give back to those in more need. She lived in the quaint village of Grange and made her nest in a thatched-roof house with a chocolate-box garden called Red Thistle Cottage. A life of Women's Institute meetings, church, and village fêtes. A step up from where she’d started. The good life.
Still, she worried. She worried about her waistline, and she worried about the wrinkles in the corners of her eyes, and since her mum died, she worried about her dad. And today she broke the sleep rule. She'd been up all night. Her daughter, Jade, had gone missing along with the nanny, Liz Slough. Just been one night since they vanished. Might as well have been a year. And Sal couldn’t shake the feeling that things would not turn out right.
"Dad, don't you have work? Why are you still here?"
Jim Young glanced at the wall clock. There was a moment of absolute silence. Then came the tick-tock.
"Took the day off. Sick."
"Dad. Not again. You'll get fired."
"I'll not work for that scum while my grandbairn is—"
"You need the job."
Jim Young stared at Sal with a haunted look. His mop of white hair seemed whiter. He'd aged overnight and should have retired years ago, but his meagre pension was not enough. So he worked as a part-time cleaner. Lavatory attendant in the Freshco Superstore in Port St Giles, and lived in the box room at the back of the house. Only until he got back on his feet. It had been four years.
Jim said, "Did you take the doctor's pills, honey?"
Sal stood, felt unsteady on her feet. "Have they found Jade?"
"You need to take the pills."
"I don't want more pills." She touched an earring, a stud in the shape of a crow. Her lucky charm. It helped her stay in control. "Don't like how they make me feel."
"They'll find her, luv," Jim said. "Won't be long now until they bring our Jade back home."
Something leaped in Sal's gut. She tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry. Her throat clicked with the effort, but no words came out.
