A Journal of Sin

A Journal of Sin

Darryl Donaghue

Editor: Jane Adams

Copy-editor: Shannon Cook

Cover: Kit Foster

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental

Kindle Edition

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this publication may be reproduced, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher.

First edition published 2014

Copyright © 2014 Darryl Donaghue

PROLOGUE

The plunge was easier than the pull. The serrated edge caught the flaps of skin on the way out. It wasn’t the nature of the blade; he’d chosen specific tools for the torture and wasn’t about to skimp on the final cut. Most would have picked the sharpest. The sharpest would allow smooth entry both into and out of the body. He’d used the sharpest on the torso; four quick stabs just above the waist and one to pierce his side. No water; only blood. This final task required a specific tool and he’d chosen a bread knife. It’d been used for that too; winter soups with a rustic loaf, hearty bacon sandwiches in the family home. Use only a little pressure, move it back and forth, letting the edge do the work. That was the easy way to do it, but this wasn’t about the easy way.

The smell of burning paper rose from the corners of the room. Birdsong welcomed another morning; the last daybreak one of them would see. He lay there, still alive, hands clasped in the hope the birds would carry his prayer to the Lord. The birds were too busy singing. The squirrels? They carried nuts for their loved ones and had no space for the prayers of the dying. Weeks of rain had drowned the Earth so deep in water that it needed all the prayers for itself and had none to spare for the man of the cloth, bleeding on his back in a strange and unfamiliar room.

He mumbled in pain. He’d been writhing too, but the short, sharp stabs soon stopped that. The mumbles grew louder and louder as the pulls followed the plunges. His legs were warm with blood, his body cold, as his spirit left to go to rest wherever his life’s decisions had led. The mumbles stopped; blood formed on the stitches that held his mouth together.

The body had to be moved, the room cleaned and normality returned. He shook the blade in a cross shape over his victim’s body, flicking blood from his grey hair to his waist and from shoulder to shoulder. He tossed the knife on the pile with the other tools. He cuffed the dead body’s wrists and bound its ankles in tie wraps, before wrapping it in towels to soak up the blood. Letting it bleed out here would take too much time; time he didn’t have. The storm had lifted and within hours the town would be back to normal, a strong, close-knit community pulling together to help the flood victims. He changed his gloves and rolled the towelled body onto a tarpaulin sheet and tied it at both ends. All he needed to do now was get it to the car without being seen.

ONE

Eliza gave little thought to what had come before her. With the first suggestion of a breeze, she’d ploughed through the streets uprooting trees and scooping up road signs, only to drop them who knew where. After seven days she grew tired of the torment and sauntered away leaving Sunbury like a child’s scattered toy box. The rain followed. Not as fierce as her petulant sister, but indiscriminate all the same. The town flooded for weeks.

Sarah looked out of her mother’s window. The lamppost from the street corner was nowhere to be seen. The water had subsided and the roads – well, the roads as far as she could see, which wasn’t particularly far – were dry. No one had ventured out into the street. It was calm and peaceful. For two weeks, nothing else had mattered. The petty squabbles and minor stresses of everyday life were ignored as people clung to the fundamentals: survival, compassion and generosity.

Two weeks with her mother had been more than enough. Staying with her through the storm was the right thing to do, but there was only so much time they could spend together before things started to grate, and she was certain it worked both ways.

‘You have to put the rubbish in the right bags before taking it out. The plastics in the green one, food waste in the small bag inside the little brown bucket in the corner and papers in a pile in the purple box,’ Sally, her mother, called from the living room. ‘They won’t take them otherwise and they’ll fine you most probably. Fine me, of course. You’ll be long gone when that time comes.’

‘Mum. No one is coming to collect the rubbish for a while yet. I doubt it’s the council’s first priority,’ said Sarah, hoping the sentiment about turning into your mother wasn’t true and pitying Mark, her husband, if it was. Sally sat in her rocking chair in the living room. She’d been up and ready for the day for a few hours. No silly weather system was about to change her routine, even if it was the worst storm on record. In complete contrast, Sarah appreciated the time away from her daily routine and, although she was definitely ready to go home, had enjoyed her time off the clock.

‘I imagine it’ll take your lot a while to get here too.’

‘I’m pretty certain “my lot” are stretched across the county trying to help where they can.’ She was used to her mother’s vocal disapproval of her decision to leave her nice, safe office job and join the police just over two years ago. She’d worked at a bar, a bank, a restaurant and a few retail stores in her twenties and always felt something was missing. She’d thought about joining the police for a long time and only decided to do it once she’d turned thirty.

‘You had a nice job. Safe, stable, enough time to see the twins and be a wife to your husband. Working funny hours and frequenting with all sorts of strange characters isn’t for a married woman, you know.’ The cottage was full of furniture and antiques that could no longer be found in modern houses. Tiny porcelain tea sets and vintage teddies filled the display cabinets. Patchwork tablemats and knitted gloves lay on the armchair: a product of Sally’s efforts during the storm. The conversation always drifted the same way. Attitudes had changed so much and although Sarah loved her mother, she’d be grateful not to feel their relationship was an uphill struggle. A little support would be appreciated from time to time.

‘It’s not like that. I see plenty of Ellie and Soph. And I don’t frequent with strange characters. I may come across some odd sorts, frequent isn’t really the word.’ The job had put more constraints on her time. They’d incurred child care costs and had relied on friends and family to babysit on more than one occasion. If Sally had been referring to her work colleagues, then yes, strange characters walked the corridors of police stations up and down the country. The career was insidious. She’d handled dead bodies, experienced the raw effects of child abuse and uncovered a drugs culture she didn’t know her hometown even had. Her forensics training taught her every touch leaves a trace, and any long-term copper would tell you, that was not just true for the physical, but the emotional too. Years of exposure to that kind of evil showed on her colleagues’ faces and in some of their darker habits. She wasn’t sure whether the job attracted that kind of person, or created them.

Sarah stood on the stepladder’s bottom step and dusted the high shelves. A thick layer lined the LPs from Elvis Presley to Tammy Wynette. Her parents’ wedding photo sat on the shelf below. Cancer had taken her father when she was five. She’d inherited his height, soft features and good manners, along with his impatience and inability to step down from an argument: all qualities that had both prevented and led to a few scrapes over the years.

‘It’s time you got your roots done as well. I can see them from down here.’

‘Mum, I’ve hardly had the time.’

‘You were born with nice dark brown hair, quite why you’d want to turn it blonde of all colours, I don’t know.’ Sarah decided not to engage in yet another conversation that would lead nowhere.

Sally wound the radio. For all the advantages of modern technology, something simple like a power cut, or a raging storm, took everything instantly back to the dark ages. They hadn’t had electricity for days, but the gas still worked. The radio fizzed in between stations until she managed to fine tune the channel in, a delicate knack she’d developed over many years.

‘
Zzzzzip
- are continuing. We’re diverting funds to local councils to assist with the rescue efforts and advise everyone to be patient during this very difficult time. It’s the worst storm this country has ever seen and we’re doing everything we can to alleviate the suffering. It’s a large scale problem affecting many counties across the Midlands and I’ve scheduled a meeting this afternoon with the leaders of the emergency services, where we’ll decide how best to co-ordinate the rescue efforts,’ said the Prime Minister, before the presenter’s voice came on the radio.

‘The Prime Minister there, coming under fire in the House of Commons regarding what has been seen as a slow reaction in response to Hurricane Eliza. We have with us Dr Poole, Professor of Environmental Studies at Leeds University and a leading author on climate change and Mr Dainsworth of Action Against Austerity. Dr Poole, do you think the government has adequately prepared for this disaster or was it something they knew was on the cards, but simply wished would never happen?’

‘Well, Nigel, this government has been ignoring the advice from scientists for far too long,’ said a gruff voice. ‘The scientific community knew something like this would happen and we told the government, who did nothing to prepare and as usual, it’s the general population that suffer.’

‘Mr Dainsworth, you represent Action Against Austerity, a campaign group set up in the belief that the government have cut, as you put it, too much, too soon and that it is putting lives at risk. What do you have to say to the government with regards to their reaction to Hurricane Eliza?’

‘The cuts under this government have been so severe that we no longer have the resilience in place when things like this happen. And it’s not just big events, we’re feeling the effects in our everyday lives. Nurses are being cut, police numbers are down, paramedics have more calls than they can handle. Stress levels across the public sector are at an all-time high and when situations like this happen, we simply aren’t prepared and, as Dr Poole said, we’ve known about the possibility of freak weather incidents for years now, and it’s time we started holding the government accountable as their austerity policies will soon, and may already have, cost lives,’ responded Dainsworth.

‘Strong words there, thank you both.’ The Police’s ‘Every Breath You Take’ followed the news jingle. Sarah was surprised her mother listened to a station with such a modern playlist. Sally preferred swing and jazz, music from an era one before the one she was born into, which was a trend Sarah kept up with her love of sixties icons Janis Joplin, Joan Baez and Jimi Hendrix. Maybe her mother secretly liked the one-sided anti-establishment journalism that was evident from that broadcast; Sarah smiled to herself at the thought.

Sarah didn’t like the recent tendency for lobby groups and people who campaigned for this or that using natural disasters, serious crimes and all manner of nasty situations to push their own agendas. The environment was something she knew she should take more of an interest in, especially since the twins were born, but she recycled, showered instead of bathed and only filled the kettle up as much as needed, which she felt was more than doing her part. Dainsworth’s argument was entirely different. She was living through what Dainsworth was saying. The police service had been drastically cut. Retiring or resigning officers weren’t being replaced, the pension she’d signed up for was no longer the one she was going to get and morale was low across the force with staff working longer hours, covering larger areas with fewer resources, all the while being expected to meet stricter and stricter targets. The cracks were clear during disasters like this.

Knock knock.

‘Can you get that, dear?’ shouted Sally from the downstairs toilet. Sarah finished polishing the coffee table and peeked through the curtain in the front room. A greasy, bearded man stood on the doorstep. She didn’t recognise him, but there were only a handful of people she would recognise in Sunbury. He knocked again.

‘Sarah!’

‘Just getting it.’ She put the chain on before opening the door an inch or so. ‘Hello?’

‘Is this Sally’s house? Sarah is it?’

‘Yes.’ She was pretty sure he wasn’t a roaming psychopath sent crazy by two weeks of isolation, but wasn’t willing to unclasp the latch just yet.

‘I’m John. I was wondering if I could speak to you about something. Grace said you were a police officer?’

‘Grace? Oh, a friend of Grace, let him in, let him in.’ Sally turned the corner into the hallway, nudged Sarah out of the way and unclasped the lock. ‘You know Grace, dear.’ Sarah knew Grace. Everyone knew Grace. She was a gossip and a busybody, so if whoever this man was had spoken to Grace about something that required a police officer, it would be the talk of the town before long. Grace was one of Sally’s best friends. Sarah was grateful she checked in on her mother now and again, but that didn’t mean she had to like her.