Fairwood (a suspense mystery thriller) (5 page)

He bagged the items, left the bag on the counter and pushed it across to Dexter. “Perfect place for you,” he added strangely.

Dexter held his stare; the youngster's eyes suddenly appeared more intense, more alive than before. The corner of his mouth hooked into a creepy smile and then creased back into a straight line. It looked like he’d found something interesting in Dexter, in his own words. Then his eyes returned to a bland state and any sense of a smile disappeared from his face.

Dexter stared at his emotionless face, shrugged off any peculiarities. “They have a bed and breakfast there?” he asked for clarification.

The youngster gave him a long and tired stare, followed by a nod fuelled with all the exaggeration of youth.

Dexter took the bag and left a weak smile with the bored idiot.

4

Pandora used the overhead mirror to cram her lustrous locks into a tight wad before slipping one of the baseball caps over the top. It gave her a much more youthful, sporty appeal; an almost boyish attractiveness.

They saw the sign, blazoned onto a rusted slab of metal and held three feet off the ground on rusted poles:
Fairwood.
The road that led to the town itself was a narrow and twisted path, bordered by thick and overgrown hedgerows that stretched bare, ghoulish branches towards the chipped tarmac.

They didn’t expect much: a scattering of houses, a farm, a shop maybe, but they were pleasantly surprised when the road widened, the hedges vanished and a pleasant, almost picturesque, town exposed itself. A farm house on the left, advertising fresh produce via a wooden sign that rocked on free hinges; a stable and a field on the right with wary and inquisitive horses poking their heads through the fence to inspect the visitors.

Beyond the farm houses, further down the road, an unidentifiable sculpture sat on a roundabout island. The grass around it was well-manicured and a beautiful green, the border -- grey cobbles -- was built to a perfect sphere.

There were no other cars in sight so they took the mini-roundabout slowly, glancing around. To their left was a long lane -- flanked by cobblestone houses that led back into the countryside. To their right: a couple of shops, a large pub, a dead end. They went straight over at the roundabout, passed a couple of large detached houses. They saw parked cars, signs of life through flickering curtains. At the end of the roundabout, sitting on the curb-side and watching them intently, was an elderly man, squinting through the grey to see them as they approached and stopped the car.

He looked up, didn’t attempt to climb to his feet or acknowledge them. Dexter rolled down the window, stuck his head out and peered down at the man. He was skinny, roughened around the edges; his face heavily tanned, almost leathery; his hands worn to thick calluses.

“Hello there,” Dexter called merrily.

The old man looked up, acknowledged him with a gentle flick of his head and then turned away.

“We’re looking for a place to stay for the night,” Dexter continued. “Do you know if there are any--”

He didn’t finish. The elderly man thrust out his arm, pointing across the road. Dexter stopped, swallowed his words and ducked back in the car, looking across Pandora and out of the passenger-side window. One of the large detached houses -- a cobblestone exterior, Victorian windows, a garden brimming with beauty -- was marked with a hand-drawn sign declaring it to be a bed and breakfast. Dexter turned back to thank the man, then decided against it, not sure if he would hear or care.

He parked the car further up the road, next to a tall fern which drooped over the fence from a nearby garden, its green claws grasping at the roadside.

Pandora looked around as she climbed out of the car, her eyes on the immaculate gardens, the rows and rows of pristine flowers and lawns. She nodded approvingly. “This place is cute.”

Dexter mumbled unsurely, his eyes on the old man on the corner. He had twisted his wizened body to stare at them and was doing so without any shame, openly glaring as they climbed out of the car. Dexter tried a pleasant and uncomfortable smile; the old man didn’t flinch and continued to stare. Dexter turned away and raised his eyebrows at Pandora who hadn’t noticed it.

“I could live here,” she said, still glancing around.

“
You
.
Here
? You’re a city girl. Bright lights an’ all that. There’s none of that here.”

“I could manage. I could get quite comfortable here.”

Dexter wasn’t convinced but he didn’t push it. She had a way of falling in love with things as soon as she saw them. She’d been the same way with him. She usually quickly fell out of love again, just like she’d fallen out of love with their last car, their last flat, their last computer or even with the idea of buying a dog. She hadn’t fallen out of love with him yet.

A white wooden gate on smooth hinges opened onto a cobbled path that cut through the green surroundings and traced a path to the door of the bed and breakfast. They tried the door and were surprised to find it locked. They exchanged a look of bewilderment, double checked the sign and then rang the bell.

They could hear the tinny sounds of the tubular bells echoing beyond the door. On the fifth note the door was opened by a grinning old woman in a flour-stained apron.

“Hello!” she beamed with a joy that didn’t suit the dreary day. “What do we have here?” she looked them up and down, noted they weren’t carrying any luggage.

“I’m Andrew,” Dexter said. “This is my girlfriend Susan, we’re in the area seeing family, had a few problems back home,” he said with a sombre note that needed no further explanation. “I know it’s short notice and we didn’t phone in advance, but do you happen to have any rooms available?”

He didn’t think it was possible but the beaming smile on her face stretched even further, cutting a morbid slice through her ruby-wrinkled features. “Of course! Come in. Come in.”

They entered to the smells of baking: fresh warm bread, cinnamon and sugary delights. An instant warmth covered them and wrapped them in a narcotic blanket. The house was warm, bright and cosy, like walking into a favourite grandmother’s house.

“This is gorgeous,” Pandora said with glee. She would be happy in the darkest and dankest of places. She liked loud and dark clubs that played screaming heavy metal and were populated by pierced, sweaty men in leather; but her guilty pleasure was a taste of home, a reminder of her own grandmother, a woman who had doted on her more than her parents, a woman whose death during her adolescence had affected her more than the death of her parents. The butterfly brooch was the one thing she retained from her youth, the one thing she owned that reminded her of her former life. It had been her grandmother’s; left to her in a limited will. It was worth very little, but its sentimental value was priceless.

Dexter saw the delight on her face and smiled. She danced up to an antique table adorned with a crystal vase and freshly cut flowers. A heavy gilded frame, a portrait of an unknown ancestor, hung above the table.

“This is so lovely!”

“Thank you dear,” the old woman said proudly. “Now, you’ll be wanting twin beds, right?”

Pandora frowned, looked at Dexter before answering, “A double, please.”

“But you two aren’t married,” the woman said, looking a little appalled. “I can’t allow that.”

“Oh,” Pandora looked taken aback. The delight had been sucked out of her face, leaving the grim expression of a child who just realised that Santa doesn’t exist. “Okay then, I guess--”

The woman laughed, a joyful and cheery sound that seemed to emanate through every inch of her short and merry frame. “I’m just playing with you, love!” she announced, giving Pandora a playful shove on the arm. “A double bed is fine. They’re your bodies; you’re free to do as you want with them.” She hushed her voice, spread a cheeky grin, “Just try to keep the noise down, I don’t want my Eric getting jealous.” She winked.

“Is Eric your husband?” Pandora asked.

“Yep,” she put on a proud and determined stance, like the one adopted by veterans of life and love about to tell you how old they are, or how long they’ve been married. “We’ve been together forty-four years this August.”

She directed the announcement to both of them. Dexter never knew what to say in these situations. ‘
Well done
’ didn’t seem appropriate. Thankfully Pandora did the talking for him.

“He must be a lucky man.”

“Damn right,” she said with another wink. She spread on a look of exaggerated shock, opened her mouth into the shape of an
O. “
I never told you my name, did I?
I’m Dorothy
.” She shook both of their hands. “Can I show you around, get you settled in?”

The rest of the house was just as inviting: a large sitting room fitted with cosy leather furniture and an open fire; a kitchen complete with an Aga and stencilled designs of pottery and cutlery on its warmly decorated walls; a garden that caught the fall of the day. On the second floor there were five rooms in total. The largest was for Dorothy and her husband. Two of the others were small -- ‘boxy’ was how Dorothy had honestly described them -- perfect for a single occupant. The other two were expansive with four-poster beds.

“The lack of an en-suite is a pain,” Dorothy informed them with another dash of honesty. “But this is the sticks out here, the middle of nowhere, think yourself lucky you don’t have to potter outside to use an outhouse. You’ll have to use the guest bathroom, but as there are currently no other guests, you can consider it yours.”

“Are you usually busy out here?” Dexter asked when they’d been shown to their room and Dorothy was lingering near the door.

“Not really. Not much out here for the tourists. It’s pretty remote. The last couple that stayed over nearly went mad; they were near death when they finally left,” she declared with bubbly amusement. “I think it’s the lack of a mobile reception that does it,” she added.

“No reception at all?” Dexter wondered, making conversation.

“Afraid not.”

“Where’s the nearest supermarket?” Pandora asked, feeling less like she was running away from the police and more like she was on holiday.

“A good thirty or forty miles in either direction,” Dorothy informed her with an apologetic smile. “We have a local shop; you can get some essentials from there. There’s a pub as well.
Oh
!” she said, snapping her fingers in the air as if remembering something. “Tomorrow night is quiz night. You’d like that. They hold a quiz and a raffle,
everyone
gets involved.”

Pandora didn’t look too impressed but did her best to hide it. “Thanks,” she said with a distant nod. “We’ll check it out.”

5

Detective Superintendent Clarissa Morris was a bitch in woman’s clothing. A frail figure of a monster with imposing eyes, a slender, breakable frame and an uninteresting face. But as soon as she opened her mouth -- tested those vicious, sometimes callous and often insulting vocal cords of hers -- any suggestion of frailty vanished.

She was despised within the division, but she was also feared. She was as revered as any ball-crumbling god should be revered. She had the power to reduced butch, chauvinistic coppers to whimpering childish wrecks and she rarely broke from her toughened, iron-lady facade.

Max had seen a different side to her once. It was just after the office Christmas party, when the early-nighters and the weak-
stomachs had retired and left just a few of the experienced drinkers -- the borderline alcoholics -- to their vices in the early hours of the morning. Clarissa hadn’t started drinking until most of the others were already drunk, making sure she had the upper hand even during times of joviality.

She’d loosened up, become a different person. She was still a bitch, still a little loose with her insults and her uptight, headmistress attitude, but she geared it down a few notches. The others hadn’t noticed, by then the handful of drinkers were too drunk, tired or distracted with trying to get off with each other to notice that their typically satanic boss now resembled something half-human.