A Deadly Imperfection: Calladine & Bayliss 3 (13 page)

It was Zoe.

‘Dad, are you okay?  I’ve been worried sick.  It’s taken me till now to sort out Lydia but she’s gone now.’

‘Gone where?’

‘She didn’t tell me and to be honest, I really don’t want to know.  That woman is a nightmare at times.  She can be so …., well so needy.  She cried on Jo’s shoulder for most of the afternoon then got down and serious on her phone.  The upshot was she got a call about an hour ago, seemed happier then took her stuff and left.’

‘Did she leave any message for me – did she say anything?’

‘I think you were the last thing on her mind.  She strikes me as the kind of woman who once she’s dealt with the emotional stuff can wipe someone from her life with impunity.’

‘So you reckon I’ve been wiped, do you?’

‘Yes Dad, I do.  And if you ask me you’re lucky to be free of her.  I know she took care of you when you were injured, but she doesn’t half have some edge to her.’

‘Thanks for dealing with her, Zo, I’m grateful, really.’

‘Anyway – what you said about your mum – was that the truth or some ploy to spoil Lydia’s plans?’

‘No – it’s true, every last word.  I never knew, never even suspected, but Freda must have felt guilty or something because she’s left me a box of stuff to back everything up.’

‘Do you know what happened?’

‘In a nutshell my dad had an affair and produced me with another woman.  I’ve never even met her – I knew her name from the letter Freda left me but I only found out who she is today.’

‘So who is she then?’

‘Zo – for now, I’d rather not say.  I won’t keep things to myself for much longer but it’s complicated and loosely mixed up with a case we’re working on currently.’

‘But you will tell me, and can I see what’s in the tin sometime?’

‘If you want, Zo – in fact you can keep it for me, if you will.  Perhaps I’ll bring it round at weekend.  You can have a look, read the letters and make up your own mind about it all.’

Friday
 

Friday dawned bright and sunny.  It was cold, but with none of the bone numbing, damp winter gloom there’d been for the last day or so.  Harriet Finch was feeling slightly better too.  Her task was nearly over.  Once she’d dealt with Lessing that was it - all the names on her list were crossed off.  She’d have to try not to add any more but it would be hard.  Killing might be infectious but it was exhausting too.  The act itself was one thing, but with Lessing she had to face the tidying up too.  She’d go around to his place later – perhaps after dark and make sure he was suffering as she’d planned.  If not – then it was simple, she’d inflict further injuries. 

Given the weather she decided to tidy up her back garden and get some fresh air into the bargain.  The leaves of autumn had laid sodden on the garden path for long enough. 

She was humming to herself as the work engrossed her.   Uppermost on her mind was if the police had found the phone.  They must have, she reasoned, they weren’t stupid, and she’d told them exactly where it was.

She did the work a little at a time – brushing the leaves into piles to be shovelled up later if she felt up to it.  Harriet was concentrating, so lost in her own thoughts that she didn’t hear the back gate open, and she didn’t hear the footsteps either until it was too late.

‘Want some help,’ a masculine voice asked from behind her, sending a shiver up her spine. 

Harried spun round – he was young, tall and wiry looking.  He was wearing those jeans that bagged and hung loose around the rear end.  He looked shifty and she felt suddenly afraid – not like her at all.  As the alien feeling swamped her head Harriet had an almost uncontrollable urge to laugh out loud.  What was this - she was scared of nothing – not any more.  She was a cold hearted killer for Heaven’s sake!  So what was it about this lad that had her rattled?

‘I’ll finish up here for a tenner, what d’you say?  You could go and brew up, I fancy a cuppa,’ he grinned, rubbing his hands together.

‘Who are you,’ she challenged?  ‘You’ve no right to come in here unasked.’  Harriet stuck her nose in the air and waved him back the way he’d come.  ‘Go on, get out before I call the police and have you dragged off.’

He was tutting –
tutting
!  The cheek of him – what was going on inside that thick skull? 

‘I mean it,’ she assured him taking off her gardening gloves and throwing them to the ground.

‘It was an offer of help,’ he shrugged.  ‘But seeing that you don’t want to play games then I’ll have to do this the hard way.’

Harriet shot him a look – what did he mean, what games?

‘Remember the old man, the one sat on that bench on the common, the one called Albert North,’ he said moving a couple of steps closer to her.   ‘Helpless he was, helpless and ill.  He couldn’t fight back and wouldn’t harm a fly, remember him now,’ he menaced?

Harriet smiled at him.  ‘Of course I remember him, I’m not senile.  Friend of yours was he,’ she menaced back.

‘My uncle.’

His eyes were set too close together – he could well be one of the North clan, wicked lot the lot of them.  ‘Setting fire to that villain was one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever done,’ she told him with a trite little smile. 

She could see no sense in arguing the point, and anyway now he’d shown his hand.  He’d obviously come here to exact some sort of retribution – which was rich, given what North had done to her son.

‘What do you expect me to do, young man – the bastard’s dead?’

‘And you killed him.  You set him alight and left him to suffer.  You’re a cruel, vicious bitch, and now you’re going to get yours.’

He meant it – there was real hatred in his young eyes, a hatred that fascinated her because she understood it so well.  He stepped closer and he was clutching a baseball bat in his hand.  Why hadn’t she spotted that before?  How very remiss of her – she was slipping, must be the medication.

‘What do you imagine will happen if you strike me with that,’ she asked matter of factly with another smile?

She was not reacting like Jayden North had expected.

‘Whatever, it’ll be worth it to see you suffer like he did.  I’ll smack you across the legs first – break ‘em both and send you to the ground.  Then I’ll do your head.’

He had all the right words – sounded a lot like those she’d harboured in her own mind recently.  Harriet nodded, it was a good plan – in different circumstances she could warm to this young man.

‘My neighbour is watching us, right now, from his kitchen window,’ she looked towards it and waved a casual greeting.  ‘One shout, one scream and he’ll be on you in a flash.  Also there are probably another dozen or so pairs of eyes on you as we speak.  Have you not noticed the block of flats behind you?  All those windows overlooking my garden – still fancy your chances,’ she taunted.

‘Shut up, bitch,’ he shouted anxiously looking round.  He didn’t want to be seen – he was well known, easily recognised.  ‘Get in that shed – go on, get in now.’

Harriet sighed, turned and walked towards her large garden shed.  When he’d been alive her husband had used it as a workshop, so not only was it large but it was well equipped too.  She wasn’t worried now, the earlier panic had subsided.  She’d just have to deal with him - another name to add to the list.

‘Nice,’ Jayden North said scanning the workbench and neatly stashed tools.

‘My husband could turn his hand to anything,’ Harriet told him proudly.  ‘He did up the entire house once he retired.  He made all my kitchen units in here,’ she added, her nose in the air. 

‘Why – why did you do that to Uncle Albert?’  He menaced forward.

‘Because he killed my son – a simple explanation and one that should suffice even for a moron like you.’

‘I’m not a moron,’ he growled back.

‘Yes you are.  You’re an uneducated moron with a background completely lacking in any sort of adult guidance.  North was a brute, a drunken lout without any morals at all – you must know that.  He killed anyone that got in his way, and not just my son either.  Over the years he’s despatched any number of the rogues and villains who crossed him – innocent people too.  The world should be grateful to me.’

At that Jayden lost it and lunged forward with the bat held high.  She shouldn’t say things like that about Uncle Albert.  But before he could strike, Harriet dodged to the side, stuck out her foot to trip him and he tumbled headlong onto the bench.  He was bent at the waist, his hands sprawled forwards, red faced with anger, and winded by the force of his landing.  The bat had rolled away onto the floor out of his reach.

Perfect.  Harriet took the cordless drill from its holder on the wall and held it to Jayden North’s face rather like a revolver

‘Not so full of accusations now, are you lad?’

She revved the drill, making it buzz just centimetres from his left ear.

‘How much damage do you reckon this could do?’  She was smiling again, but by now Jayden had got his breath back.

‘I’ll bloody do for you, stupid, old bitch,’ he raged. 

He made to raise himself up but Harriet was too quick for him.  She lowered the drill bit from his ear to his neck then fixing the tip on his carotid artery she pressed the
on
switch with her forefinger.

The bit went in so smoothly it surprised her.  Jayden North had a split second to blink before he slithered to the floor in shock from the sudden catastrophic blood loss.  It spurted in a thick red torrent, covering everywhere, and making Harriet move away from him in disgust.  She didn’t like blood, weird as it was, she was squeamish.  She watched out of reach as his body twitched and shook.  She watched his eyes, full of bewilderment search her face for answers, as the blood pumped relentlessly from his neck.  One last jerk, his face contorted, then he moved no more.  It had taken only seconds – he wouldn’t have suffered much, she reasoned.  But now that it was over, she had another body on her hands.

He lay lifeless - Harriet stepped over his still frame and coolly replaced the drill on its hanger.  She took an old tarpaulin that had been stashed in the corner and pulled it over him.  It was large enough to cover both Jayden North and the blood which was now spread all around him.  Should anyone casually look in – they’d see nothing.  Job done.

Harriet locked the shed door behind her and dropped the key down the grid on the path.  Despatching the lad had given Harriet a buzz, and given her frail health, it wasn’t something to be squandered.  Now was the time to make that final check on Lessing before the exhaustion set in, as it inevitably would.

She got her coat, locked up her house, and drove the mile or so to Gordon Lessing’s house.  She parked on the road next to his and walked the last few yards.  She was still anxious not to be spotted.  Harriet used the back door, the high wall all around the garden meant that she couldn’t be seen. 

She let herself in with a key.  The house was cold and still.  As she stood in the hallway she couldn’t hear a sound, not even a whimper or a groan.  He was either dead or out of it.

She made her way carefully down the stone staircase to the cellar where she’d left him to rot.  The first thing to hit her was damp.  A sickly, cloying coldness mixed with mold had her wrinkling her nose and putting a hand over her mouth. 

‘Gordon,’ she called out.  ‘Can you hear me?’

He lay still and quiet for several seconds but then he twitched.  He must have the constitution of an ox!  But perhaps she’d imagined it, no – he did it again and now he was moving his tied hands feebly in the air above him.

This was Harriet’s opportunity to ask him about the children.  She strode towards the crumpled heap and yanked the scarf from his face.

‘Where have you taken them, Gordon, the two girls?’

His legs were bleeding and from the way they were lying, obviously broken.

‘Harriet,’ he all but whispered.  ‘Help…me, please, for pities sake….’

‘No – not until to tell me what you’ve done with them.’

He moaned shutting his eyes against her hate filled stare. ‘They’re gone,’ he replied in a whisper.  ‘You can’t help them but you can help me…’

Harriet delivered a sharp kick to his right calf and he shrieked in agony. ‘Bastard, cruel wicked bastard that you are, Gordon Lessing.  Did Yuri take them – is it him helping you with this evil trade?’

She kicked him again, this time he didn’t have the strength to scream.  She felt nothing - no remorse, no pity - why was that? 
Because you hate him, because where he’s concerned, you’re beyond feeling anything now.

‘Show me some mercy – please,’ he groaned.  ‘I was wed to your sister…,’ he bleated.  Then he surprised her by weeping, his face running with dirty streaks down his fat face.  ‘Loosen my hands …please, please ….help me.’

‘You killed her, you bastard.  You showed Sybil no mercy at all.  My poor sister died in agony because of what you did.  You left her, alone, injured to die of cold.  So tell me Gordon, why should I help you?’

‘If I die then so will those girls.  Without me, they'll never be found. Think of that, Harriet.  It's not just me you’re condemning to a long, painful death.’

Harriet was torn.  She wanted to help the children, of course she did – none of this had anything to do with them.  ‘I want you to die like she did.  I want you to suffer - there is no help, no one is coming, so you might as well give up and tell me what you know.’

‘Free me first – get me some help then I’ll tell you.’

‘I’ve already told the police, they have your phone,’ she spat at him.  ‘They’ll work it out - they’ll go after Yuri.’

Lessing groaned – she wasn’t going to help him.  He gave one gasp of pain then lost consciousness again.

Harriet looked around in the gloom of the cellar.  She needed something – she had to make this end.  She couldn’t come here again, she was too ill.  It was time for him to go for good.  There was another pitiful groan from the human flotsam on the stone floor.  Then she saw it, the tap on the wall.  Harriet walked across and picking up the metal bucket beside the tap she filled it with cold water.  The cellar was icy as it was and he was only in thin trousers and his shirt sleeves.  Dragging the bucket across the floor she let some slop out over his legs then when it was light enough for her to lift, she poured the rest of the icy water over his body.  It wouldn’t take long now for hypothermia to put an end to his shameful life.

There was just one job left to do.  Harriet took the card from her pocket and placed it on a dry patch of floor at the back of Lessing’s head.  The ten of swords – for anyone in the know, a card whose meaning could not be mistaken.  It depicted the multiple swords piercing the bleeding heart – overkill.

First Jayden North and now Lessing, it’d been a busy morning and Harriet felt exhausted, exhausted and peculiar.  The pain was getting worse - the one deep in the very centre of her body, the one that radiated out to every inch of her frail frame and crucified her was back with vengeance.  She knew that very soon it would suck the life from her and she’d be gone.  It was time to stop, reluctant as she was, she had to rest.

Harriet dragged her weary body back to the car.  Before she went home she’d stop off at Nesta’s house, give her the tickets.  The exhibition was today – Nesta’s birthday.