Flowers for the Dead Read online

  Mike shakes his head again, one hand finally appearing from his pockets to scratch his beard with a rasping sound, his wedding ring glinting in the spring sunshine. Anyone could have happened along and spotted the killer from miles away. He was either a complete fool or very, very confident and at ease – which increased the chances of him doing this again.

  Given that he had taken the time to slash off his victim’s lips and lay her out funereally, Mike has a horrible feeling that Reading CID are not looking for an idiot.

  After about ten minutes Simon is done. He wanders over and rests a hand on Mike’s shoulder. He would have put his arm round him in a fatherly fashion, as there is almost a twenty-year age difference between them, but Mike is too tall and it would be awkward for his pal, who is only five feet ten inches.

  “So…tempted to join us?” Simon asks.

  “Tempted. But not convinced,” Mike smiles. “Besides, you have a full complement of men, don’t you?”

  “I’ve jiggled enough budget to be able to afford one extra officer if I want. And I want you,” Simon shrugs. “You’d be worth it. Come on, we’re mates, we work well together, it’s a way to get away from all those memories…”

  Mike scratches his beard thoughtfully. “What if I don’t want to get away from those memories?” he says finally.

  “Yes, right, of course.” Simon looks down, embarrassed. He rallies in seconds though, seeming to re-inflate until he is on the balls of his feet momentarily, as is his habit. “The offer is always open though. I mean it. Come over to the dark side that is the south west.”

  With a chuckle, the pair shake hands and Mike starts to shamble off.

  “Hey, you!” calls Simon suddenly.

  Mike pauses, smiles in spite of himself, and turns. “Would you like to boogaloo?” they say in unison. It is utter nonsense, but one of Simon’s catchphrases.

  “See you soon, Simon,” chuckles Mike.

  Minutes later the detective gets into his car, pausing only to grab at the empty crisp packet that has made an escape bid from the foot well and is dancing in the air. After a long day of blood and being on his best behaviour, he swings himself into the driver’s seat with a sigh and pats himself absently, finally finding his cigarettes in his the pocket of his faithful old mac. With a relieved but guilty smile he tugs the slim packet out and promises himself it will just be the one before he starts the three-hour drive home. What harm will one do?

  Flipping the box open, his heart sinks…

  There is a tube of cheery lime green paper rolled up tight amongst the tubes of tobacco.

  “It can’t be,” he mutters. But it is: a note from his daughter.

  “Daddy, pleas do not smoke. If you do you will dye and not see me get marid to a hand some prinse one day,” Daisy has written carefully.

  Beneath is a Crayon picture of her in a big dress and tiara; she is facing front, her feet are facing sideways like a ballerina in plié. Mike can almost see Daisy, tongue poking out from one side of her mouth, legs swinging backwards and forwards as she sits writing at the kitchen table.

  Balls. He is tempted to screw the packet up and throw it away after that bit of emotional blackmail. He is tempted to screw the note up and throw that away after the day he’s had. Instead he carefully rolls the paper up again, nestles it back in its place, and pops the packet in his pocket, not prepared to make a decision either way yet.

  Not about cigarettes, killers, or moving house.

  Instead, he reaches into the glove compartment for a packet of crisps. The cheese and onion will help keep the nicotine cravings at bay…hopefully. He rips the packet open and savagely munches.

  But as he reaches for the ignition key he starts to chuckle, a low rumble that soon has his cushion belly shaking.

  “How the heck did she manage it?” he mutters to himself, amazed. “I thought I’d hidden those fags really well.”

  That girl will make a great detective when she grows up.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ~ Coltsfoot ~

  Justice Shall Be Done To You

  The thing twenty-three-year-old Laura Weir has been dreading is happening. When ‘That Night’ first happened she had cried all the time. All the time. Her swollen eyes had hurt, her cheeks chapped red, her entire body aching from the tension. She had clung to it, welcomed it.

  She had not wanted this stage to pass; she had wanted to keep everything raw and sharp. So she had welcomed the hurt, nestled up to the pain and suffering, caressed every shard-sharp memory of her family’s final cries of terror because it kept them alive somehow. Present.

  If the pain fades, it means Laura is accepting their passing, and she cannot do that. She does not want to stop grieving. She does not want to forget. She does not want to move on.

  Over time the hysterical grief has calmed though. The hurt of loss is hurting less – and that hurts more than anything.

  Sometimes she goes for entire days now where she doesn’t cry. She still does sometimes of course, but it is more like once a week now. She even finds whole days slip by where she doesn’t think of them. The guilt eats away at her then. How dare she forget? How dare she move on when they can’t?

  ***

  TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS AGO

  Adam snuggled onto his gran’s lap and her arms enfolded him, creating a cocoon in which he felt safe and protected. He lay his head against her shoulder happily, angling it slightly so that he could also see the book she was reading from.

  “Are your feet warm enough?” checked Ada Bourne.

  Adam wiggled his bare toes and nodded.

  “Well, if you’re sure,” she said doubtfully. Reached down the side of her chair and produced a pair of black socks. “Here, pop these on, or I’ll worry.”

  Adam stared at the socks and shook his head, sudden tears springing in his hazel eyes.

  “Oh, oh, don’t cry! What colour do you want to wear?” Ada checked.

  “Blue,” said the four-year-old, smiling once again. In a world where he felt out of control most of the time, the child clung to what little regulation he could enforce. His socks had to match his underwear, otherwise he felt stressed.

  He raced upstairs, pulled on socks – and slippers for good measure because he didn’t want Granny worrying – and ran back to the lounge, joyously snuggling into Gran’s lap once more.

  “Ready now?” she smiled, and when he nodded she opened the A3-size tome of fairy tales. Her grandson automatically held one side knowing, because this was a frequent ritual of theirs, that it was too heavy for his gran to hold alone for long.

  The Tales of Faerie and Myth was a magnificent book, the bright red cover, embossed with gold, only hinting at the magic inside. The flyleaf was marbled with flame-like colours, which Ada would gently smooth her fingers over before turning the page to reveal the real beauty. Each story began with a huge illuminated letter crowded with images, from birds, to woodland creatures, to ivy climbing up it, and the illustrations themselves were incredible: the bold, colourful style seemed to breathe life into every scene. One of Adam’s favourites was of a golden phoenix rising from the fire, each feather seeming to scintillate as it burst forth from the flames licking at it.

  Sometimes, when Adam had been very good, his gran allowed him to turn a page himself. He would hold his breath and move oh so carefully, feeling the pride in Ada’s eyes as she watched him. The paper felt thick and stiff between his fingers, but he had been warned how old it was and that he must not tear it. Only when the page was in place and he had let go would he breathe out.

  “My mother used to read this book to me when I was a child. Imagine that!” Granny would often tell him.

  But he couldn’t. Surely she had always been as she was now: gentle voice, kind eyes framed with a lick of mascara and a touch of blusher on her rosy cheeks. Her dove-grey hair cut so short that it would have looked severe were it not for the gentle wave in it. She moved with the grace of a dancer, but though her posture was still that of a much young
er woman, arthritis was making her hands thicken at the joints. It was impossible for Adam to see her as she had been when she was four.

  “Which story would you like today?” she asked now.

  Adam pondered for a moment. “Snow White,” he finally decided.

  That was one of his favourites. He loved the description of the poisoned apple being bitten into, and the pretty girl falling into a deep sleep that only her true love could bring her out of with a kiss on her red, red lips.

  ***

  PRESENT DAY

  It is the aftermath that normally catches people out, of course. They get too caught up in the moment, the build-up, and don’t bother giving a thought to what will happen after they have killed someone. But Adam is not like that. He always thinks. He is as precise as the clocks he likes to take apart and put back together; as logical as the computer systems he loves to lose himself in; but as passionate and complex as the classical music that so inspires him.

  He is aware that it is his loving side that always leads him into these situations. Why can’t people understand that he is just trying to help? Why do they have to be so ungrateful? They never deserve all the attention he lavishes on them. They always let him down. It isn’t fair.

  The anger courses through him again but it is controlled now, not the burning pure white rage that sometimes takes over and tries to turn him into an avenging angel. He knows that true love is not about your own happiness; it is about putting someone else’s needs before your own, and that is what always dampens down the fire of rage and disappointment that sometimes threatens to consume.

  All he wants is to be happy – and to make the person he loves happy too. But things have not worked out well yet. He knows better than anyone what a transitory emotion happiness is. How elusive it is, and how quickly it slips away even if a person is lucky enough to find it.

  The only time he seems to truly feel it is when he is staring into the eyes of the woman he loves.

  If you love someone set them free, the saying goes. That is exactly what he does. But he is tired of it. He longs to find someone he can really be with.

  With a melancholy sigh, Adam carefully pulls out the plastic freezer bag that contains a bloody chunk of Julie’s face, and pops it onto the little steel table he likes to work at in his office. There is no clutter in here, just a dozen or so photographs of happier times on one wall, the cheerily coloured frames brightening up what is otherwise a large, sterile-looking room with stark white walls.

  Across the other side of the room are a bank of chest-height filing cabinets and drawers. Beside that is a wooden desk with an angle-pose lamp, and a magnifying glass set up to an arm-like device to hold it in place so that his hands are free while he peers through it to repair clocks. Adam loves the precision of taking things apart, understanding how they work, then putting them back together again.

  But it is a low stainless steel cabinet on casters, to the left of the table, that busies Adam currently. He opens it up then reaches inside to pull out the equipment he needs for the task in hand: a scalpel-sharp X-Acto knife, thread, non-iodized salt, and special oil to tan the flesh. The cabinet’s door is so highly polished that it acts as a mirror, showing Adam’s legs as he wanders across the room and selects some music. Liebestraum No 3, by Franz Liszt, fills the air. The piano’s swings from complexity to simplicity always bring a lump to Adam’s throat.

  With everything in place, he finally gets to work. First carefully removing the excess flesh from Julie’s lips until only the delicate skin remains – he likes to think of this as taking her jacket off her, undressing her - then starting the process of tanning. Being close to her again and being able to do something nice for her brings a comfort blanket of calm into which he snuggles. It spurs him on to make sure he does a good job, something she would be proud of.

  Once the dermis has been treated to his satisfaction, he pulls out a clay model from a nearby drawer and compares it to the photographs on the walls.

  Julie smiling. Julie crying. Julie looking wistful. Julie glancing over her shoulder. Julie sleeping peacefully…

  But Adam is not looking at her expressions. He is staring intently only at her lips then back at the clay. He has lots of pictures of her, using them for the last fortnight to create the model of her mouth. Working ceaselessly since she decided to abandon him for some holiday without saying so much as a goodbye.

  No. He pauses for a moment, takes a deep breath, forcing the bad thoughts down. When his hands have stopped shaking with anger, he twirls the mould around to check it from every angle. When his eyes start to ache from studying so minutely, he knows he has done enough; it is an exact replica of Julie’s shy smile.

  The light pouring in from the large window on his right is starting to fade. As night falls mist rises up to meet it, giving a soft lens focus to his view of the large mature garden he so loves. The last of the snowdrops, which are starting to fade, are obscured from view, and only the yellow trumpets of the daffodils and narcissus can be seen floating seemingly stem-less.

  That reminds him: the police hadn’t mentioned the flowers he had left, but he had heard them spoken of as daffodils when he hovered near the crime scene, hidden amongst the other gawpers who had gathered. Stupid police didn’t even realise they were not simply daffodils they were narcissus. Their meaning was self-love. Julie had loved herself far more than she had ever loved him. She was selfish, had never appreciated him, never thanked him for everything he had done for her.

  Still, he had let go of the anger he held against her now and forgiven her. In the end she had given him the ultimate gifts: her soul, her essence, her love. As she had breathed her last with his mouth sealed over hers, he had felt her enter him. And he feels her inside him now, entwining her soul with his like ivy around a tree.

  Now that she is inside him, their love will last forever.

  Rubbing his eyes, he gives a tired sigh. There is still work to be done. Drawing the curtains, he turns on the main light then the angle-pose spotlight. To the strains of Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor Opus, he manipulates Julie’s tissue-thin flesh onto the hardened clay. The rapidly ascending violin matches his soaring heart. The change from frenetic to tranquil, then building once more to a crescendo, mirrors his own emotions as finally the pouting smile is perfected. The lips are as plump, luscious and full as they were on the woman.

  Carefully he nestles them, jewel-like, in a box with a mirrored interior. Stands back and admires his work, giving a little laugh of delight. He has created his very own Box of Smile.

  That night he sleeps with it on his pillow. Never one for much more than four hours of sleep anyway, this time he wakes constantly because he is so excited. Helpless to resist, he gazes into the box, seeing the lips reflected back at him myriad times, an eternal grin of delight that melts his heart.

  It is with great regret that Adam opens the mirrored box for the last time, after a fortnight of it sharing his bed. The time has come to say goodbye. Leaning forward slowly, he plants the gentlest of kisses on the cold flesh, chaste as a prince in a fairy tale, then closes the lid with a snap of finality.

  Now it is time to bury them with all the love and respect that Julie deserves. Yes, she had hurt him, but now they are together forever and she is finally happy; that is all that matters. Inside, she positively purrs in agreement.

  The sky is blue but full of clouds the colour of smoke and nicotine stains as he heads into his garden. Looks like it might rain. Adam hurries, burying his newest Box of Smile beneath a patch of narcissus and daffodils.

  There - now every time they bloom he will think of her, their flowers as brief and beautiful as the love he and Julie had shared in this world.

  ***

  It is change of shift time at the bakery on Colchester’s High Street, and the staff room is full of people shoving on or pulling off their tabards, while the air is thick with chatter.

  “Up to anything tonight, Amy?”

  “Maki
ng Dan take me to the cinema. He doesn’t want to go, but we had a row yesterday so this is his punishment.”

  “Oooh, nice one, what you going to see? I’m…”

  Laura drifts past the conversations to her own locker, where another knot of her colleagues are gassing. As usual, she doesn’t get involved; she isn’t interested in making friends, but can’t help overhearing.

  “I’m trying a new lipstick colour, what you think?”

  “Lovely, that. Suits you, Emily.”

  “Tastes horrible, though. It’s one of them long-lasting ones and tastes likes crayons.”

  “How do you know what crayons taste like?” laughs Charlotte. “Let me try it.”

  She slicks some over her whole mouth, just as Emily has done. “Eurgh!” she shrieks, pulling a face like she’s swallowed a wasp. “It’s gross!”

  “See? Crayons!”

  Head tilted to one side, she licks her lips contemplatively, then shudders as her tastebuds protest. She makes a loud noise, like she’s about to spit. “It tastes of…of…of…” Her eyes widen, eyebrows shooting up in surprise as inspiration strikes. “Marigolds!” she pronounces. “You know, washing up gloves.”

  Emily giggles, and Laura rolls her eyes, safely hidden behind her open locker door as she crams on the regulation hat she must wear over her long red hair. When she closes her locker, Emily proffers the lipstick to her. “Want a go?”

  “Oh, umm, how could I resist?” Laura says drily, but makes herself smile and reaches for it anyway. She might not go out of her way to start conversations, and will try to get out of them as quickly as possible, but she is not yet rude enough to ignore someone.