Fairwood (a suspense mystery thriller) (8 page)

***

“So, dears,” Dorothy exclaimed, pressing her hands together in front of her waist and beaming broadly at Dexter and Pandora. “What’ll you be doing today then, got anything planned?”

Dexter and Pandora exchanged a glance. They hadn’t planned to do anything but keep out of sight for as long as possible. Pandora scrunched up her face and reached for a slice of toast, keeping herself occupied and letting Dexter do the thinking and talking for both of them. She was perfectly happy to have a wander around town, see the area, have a drink or two at the local pub in the evening, but she doubted Dexter felt the same way. He would want to be secure, would probably want them to hole up in their room and avoid any contact with anyone but the smiling B&B owner, who clearly didn’t recognise them.

“What do you suggest?”

She was staring absently at the toast in her hand when she heard Dexter ask. She assumed he was talking to her, that he was offering her the question purely for Dorothy's benefit, expecting her to burden the responsibility of avoiding the town -- perhaps by blaming woman’s troubles, or a headache -- but when she looked up, deflated and ready to answer, she saw that Dexter was looking at Dorothy, returning her smile.

The bubbly woman shrugged, looked at each of them in turn. “You could go for a walk into town,” she ventured. “There’s not much to see, not many shops and not many people, but it’s…” she lingered in search of the right word. “Quaint, I guess.”

Dexter turned a quizzical eye to Pandora who was grinning back at him, happy to do whatever he wanted if it meant she didn’t have to spend the next few days locked up inside.

“Sounds good,” he said.

Dorothy reached for their plates, piled one of top of the other and slipped them onto her left hand before grasping cups and saucers with her right. “Oh--” she snapped, suddenly remembering something. “And don’t forget the quiz tonight,” she remarked. “We’ll all be there.”

Dexter nodded, implying they would be there as well, although he had no idea who ‘
we
’ were. The only other person he had seen in the town since they’d arrived was the belligerent old man who’d pointed them in the direction of the bed and breakfast.

“So...” He stared across the table at Pandora, delighting in the childish smile of glee plastered on her beautiful face. “Shall we go?”

8

The bandits were still on the news, they always were. It didn’t matter if it was the local news or the national news -- even the worldwide media were sticking their eager noses in -- everyone wanted a seat on the bandwagon. They had been reporting the news of the latest robbery for two days straight, through the day of the robbery they spoke to the family, ran interviews with everyone from the grieving widow and two kids, through to the old couple who lived across the street and occasionally waved hello to the recently deceased. The following day the new
s stations ran repeats of the previous day, alongside analyses from psychiatrists, psychologists, criminologists and anyone with a vaguely connected PhD who wanted to earn a few quid.

The morning after that particular bland and repetitive news day, the media had a break. Rodgers’s eldest son, a troubled teen with a reported heroin addiction and a knack for finding the wrong crowds and hanging around with the wrong people, was discovered dead in the local park. He was on his way out, a yo-yoing addict who was probably only a few months away from overdosing. His father’s death and the media circus that followed was too much for him, causing him to find solace in a haemorrhaging amount of heroin that his body couldn’t handle.

The inevitable reports began to claim that Bleak and Bright had claimed their second victim. It was media hype, bullshit as far as Cawley was concerned, they would play the solemn card of sympathy for a few more tear-jerking interviews and then they’d tire and return to bent politicians and promiscuous footballers before the bandits struck again. The good thing, as far as Cawley was concerned, was that it would give the public another reason to turn against the fugitives.

Cawley discovered the news on his way to the office. It had been playing on cycles all morning on one of the local radio stations. He hadn’t seen the kid after Rodgers’s death but he had a couple of runs-in with him in the past. He was distant, out of it most of the time. A lost cause. They say that no such thing exists, that there’s hope for everyone -- from the most brutal, most sadistic of murderers, to the addicted kids desperate for the kiss of death to end their misery -- but not in Cawley’s opinion: there is no hope for some, and young Andrew Rodgers was one of those.

Detective Superintendent Morris called him into the office when he arrived. She was annoyed, she always looked annoyed but now she had a reason.

“You didn’t report back to me yesterday,” she said, her nostrils flaring. “May I ask why?”

Cawley stood near the closed door. He had no intention of sitting opposite her, no intention of going anywhere near her. He gave her a simple shrug.

“Well?” she snapped. “Are you just going to stand there or do you want to do your fucking job and tell me what happened?”

He had to force himself not to smile. He loved to see her angry. She was sinfully ugly at the best of times but when she was angry -- which, although most of the time, came in several degrees -- she looked like a rabid Rottweiler. He took great pleasure in making her that way, felt something innately beautiful and pleasing inside of him whenever he knew he’d pissed her off.

“Nothing to it,” he said softly. There were easy ways to annoy her but he had to maintain a tone of professionalism, give her no reason to sack him. “The bartender is lying. He’s up to something.”

“What?”

Cawley shrugged. “God knows, but I don’t think it concerns us.”

She seemed to calm down a bit. Cawley sighed internally; he was looking forward to watching her pop her skull like a microwaved egg.

“Anything else?” she demanded.

“There’s a potential lead on the outskirts of town. A woman reckons her neighbour was harbouring the bandits until this morning.”

Clarissa looked alert again, her hairy nostrils beginning to flare. “And I’m only just finding out about this now?” she roared.

Cawley shrugged, briefly wondered just why he enjoyed rattling her so much. It hadn’t always been like that, nor had it been so with his wife. He used to give a shit; he was once desperate to please, desperate to be liked. He didn’t know what turned him into the cynical, bitter man he was now, but he figured it had something to do with his wife and a lot to do with his job. The evil, mean-spirited bitch in front of him probably didn’t help either. She’d been his boss for as long as he’d been bitter. Longer. Some of his colleagues had hated having a woman as a boss, he hadn’t minded but he did mind having a ruthless, evil bitch as a boss.

“I only just found out about it myself,” he said.

She nodded, seemed happy with that. “Look into it. Hurry up, we have no time to waste.”

Cawley nodded, left the room without saying anything further. He didn’t mention that the woman with the report was Mrs Barnes, a legend in the police station. A woman who had once claimed, rather vehemently, that she had seen Elvis stealing a loaf of bread from Tesco. A woman with a shit load of cats and very little grasp of reality. It wasn’t Cawley’s prerogative to see her; it didn’t matter if
anyone
went to see her. In a few days she would forget about her claim and move onto the next insane delusion, but Cawley felt like a change of pace. He needed some time away from the stress and the pressure, some time away from vindictive women and evasive fugitives. A mentally unstable woman with no grasp of reality wasn’t ideal, but it was certainly a break from the norm.

9

Dexter felt good. The sleep and the breakfast had done wonders for his plagued mind. He felt cleaner, better, more human. He felt like he was waking up to his first week of sobriety following a massive binge, and, in a way, that’s exactly what it had been. They’d both been caught up in the adrenaline and the excitement. They were junkies, craving more, doing riskier things. After the murder things had taken a different turn. That was their comedown, their crime spree was over. Now they were waiting for the hangover to dissipate so they could get back to normal, if normal could ever be attained after what they’d gone through.

They hadn’t discussed what they would do, but they both sensed that this was the end. They still loved each other, possibly more than ever, but they didn’t need that adrenaline to fuel it. Never had, it was just been a drug they couldn’t resist.

They stopped at a local shop, a quiet little hut of a building parked opposite a residential street. Pandora waited outside, bathing in the sunshine whilst Dexter ducked in to pick up a few supplies. She rested up against the exterior wall, one foot behind her, her arms crossed over her chest.

It was a beautiful day, a beautiful town. She really could get used to a place like this, everything shone with an idyllic glimmer. Everything seemed neat, tidy and clean. The sort of place that seemed devoid of criminals, of the lower side of the human psyche. Pandora knew that wasn’t true, even without the presence of her and Dexter. Society as a whole was rife with perversion, sickness and evil. Whether that spilled out onto poverty stricken streets -- where the youths were jobless, hopeless and desperate and life was extinguished with overdoses, malnutrition, foul play and stupidity -- or whether it was hidden behind closed doors; clandestine evil that polluted perfection with domestic violence and murder.  The perils of society were everywhere, but at least in Fairwood they were kept away from the streets.

The sun cast an illuminating beam on the houses over the street, on the emerald green lawns surrounded by a bounty of flowers and bordered by a picket fence that stretched across the terraced houses like pearly veneers.

It was quiet, still, peaceful. The only sound was that of a distant lawnmower chopping up the summer grass, spewing scents of freshly cut turf into the tepid air. There was no noise pollution, no roaring engines firing fumes or bouncing bass-laden tunes into the silence; no birds yapping to each other with high pitched, piercing shrieks; no shouting, talking, yelling or arguing.

A small squeaking noise entered the silence, broke through with a jolt. A rolling, turning sound of mechanical sufferance. Pandora turned to see a young girl approaching on a pushbike, her legs lazily working the pedals which turned a wheel fitted with frilly spokes and a bright pink light that failed to declare its presence in the sunshine.

She was no more than eight or nine, a pretty little thing with an indifferent and distant look on her face.  She wore a flowery dress -- hitched up to stop the skirt slipping into the spokes -- cream sandals and pristine white socks up to her knees.

The bike twitched along the road ahead of Pandora. The little girl had flowing red hair that lifted and splayed in the wind. She didn’t lift her head to acknowledge the blonde woman waiting outside the shop.

Pandora pushed herself off the wall. The sound of her shoes grazing against the brick broke the mechanical whirring of the bike and alerted the little girl. She slowed down but still didn’t move her head.

“Hello there,” Pandora said joyfully.

The little girl stopped the bike, the silence returning to the morning air. She rested her feet on the floor to save herself from toppling over, looked at Pandora with the same blank stare that she had previously been offering the empty street.

She didn’t say anything, didn’t smile or acknowledge her.

“What’s your name?”

The girl continued to stare for a moment, then she answered in a soft and ambiguous tone. “Susie.”

“Oh,” Pandora put on a bright smile, “that’s a nice name.” She never really knew how to act around kids, wasn’t sure if the childish tone was appropriate for an eight year old or if she would consider it condescending. The little girl didn’t flinch so she kept it up. “Do you live around here?”

She nodded slowly, maintaining eye contact. Pandora moved forward a couple of steps, saw the child’s blazing blue eyes watch her shuffling feet.

“Do you like it here?”