Authors: Gayle Eileen Curtis
She’d arrived at the tumble down house early, mainly due to nerves. She wandered round the garden, scuffing up old bits of pottery while she waited for her friend. She didn’t see or hear Tim coming up behind her.
She managed a few muffled screams through his large fingers that were clamped around her mouth, as he dragged her across the rough waste land. As he pushed her into the cess pit and took his hand off her mouth she screamed out ‘No!’
Tim made himself scarce, as the dog walker who had passed her earlier heard her scream and ran to her aid. The cess pit was well camouflaged and it was a few hours before Nadine’s body was actually found.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Norfolk 1998
Grace was becoming increasingly worried about the strange change in her husband’s behaviour. He’d always behaved oddly, but there had been something different about him for the last few weeks. He seemed to be distracted a lot more than normal, and he was frequently absent, not telling her where he was going. It was beginning to unnerve her because it hadn’t occurred to her before that he might start looking for more potential victims again. He’d stopped all that as soon as his mother had gone into a retirement home. It had triggered something in his twisted little brain. Grace didn’t understand what, but it was the only traumatic thing that had happened to him personally and she couldn’t think of another explanation. It had to be personal to affect Tim, because if it wasn’t, then he was his usual cold-hearted self. Not that he showed that side of himself to anyone except Grace and his victims.
Grace thought back to the day she’d caught Tim out and the utter shock that still engulfed her as the reality had unfolded in her mind in slow motion.
It had been over a year ago and Tim had been behaving particularly oddly. Grace knew things weren’t right between them and hadn’t been for many years. He hadn’t been near her for months, so she naturally assumed that he was having an affair. She’d searched around the house one day, but found no evidence of another woman. Then she thought about his shed; the precious place that no one was ever allowed to go. She remembered Nadine being really upset because Tim had scolded her badly for catching her in there. She sulked in her bedroom for days and Grace had wondered then why he was so touchy about it. The shed was kept under lock and key and Tim claimed after the incident with Nadine that it was his own private domain. The only place he said he had where he could get away from nagging women. After that he kept his keys on him at all times.
Grace had forgotten about the shed for many years, understandably, because of Nadine’s accident overshadowing it all. But when Grace thought he was acting strangely, she remembered how sensitive he was about his shed.
Tim probably hadn’t been acting any different to normal; it was just that his personality was more noticeable to Grace because she was looking for a way out. An excuse to leave him; but not the excuse she was going to be dealt.
It had taken a long time to get the keys from him without him knowing. She’d had to wait for him to go on one of his fishing trips with his mates and come home fairly well oiled. She laid on a hearty meal and plenty more drink for him when he got home. The idea was that he’d fall asleep, drunk in front of the television. Giving her time to get the keys and nip down to the shed.
At first when she looked around the cramped old shed, she was surprised at how tidy he kept everything. She’d imagined it to be like any other shed, full of useless old tools, gadgets and dirty magazines. But Tim’s shed was different, once you looked passed all the usual things like the lawn mower, garden shears, and cans of turpentine. There were boxes neatly stacked on all the shelves that surrounded the walls of his shed. They were all marked with coloured labels; so all the boxes with blue labels were stacked together, and all the ones with red labels were in their own place and so on and so on. She made a mental note to remember to put the boxes that she took down, back in their rightful place. She didn’t want to risk him finding out that she’d ever been in there just in case she didn’t discover anything.
Unfortunately, Grace decided to look in the boxes that were hidden under the wooden worktop that Tim had installed in there for what she assumed was potting. They were unmarked and easily accessible to her even though they were pushed out of the way. It took her a few seconds to realise what she was looking at in the boxes. At first she thought they were boxes full of old stained rags, which she thought might be covering up some love letters or photographs; but then she rifled through one of them and found a small soft toy bunny at the bottom. She took it out and stared at it. She remembered thinking how odd it was because she hadn’t recalled Nadine having one like it. Then, as she shone the torch on the items she had mistaken for rags she realised that they weren’t stained with varnish or wax but what looked like dried blood. Each item she pulled out was a piece of child’s clothing; some were inside polythene bags. Vests, school shirts, cardigans, knickers, even hair bands. Some were stained with blood and some weren’t. She had passed each item through her hands as if her arms didn’t belong to her anymore and it all began to slot into place.
Grace’s immediate reaction had been to march straight inside the house and confront the bastard or call the police. She didn’t know which. The sad thing was that she wasn’t surprised that he could do such a thing, she was just totally devastated and shocked that he had. She had wondered, fleetingly when each child was found, if he had anything to do with it. But she’d quickly pushed it from her mind, scolding herself for having such an abhorrent thought. There had been no logical reason why she should think that about him. Tim was a complete arsehole at home but whatever he was, she always saw him as an excellent police officer. Never in her wildest dreams did she think he was capable of anything so evil. He’d even come home from work and ranted to her about what a sick and twisted bastard the murderer must be and how he and his colleagues didn’t know what they’d do to him if they caught him. Unfortunately, it had all been a very clever piece of acting.
Looking back, she’d been glad of the fact she’d discovered his secret while he was pissed. It left her time to think because she was unable to talk to him while he was passed out on the settee.
Grace had always felt prison was far too good for child killers and paedophiles. And as she had begun to think as rationally as she could that night in the shed, she realised that this was the perfect way to get rid of him for good. Tim had always told her the best way to get away with murder was to make it look like the victim had committed suicide. So, that’s exactly what she intended to do with him. She just wasn’t quite sure when and how. She’d had plenty of time to think about it because she hadn’t been worried about him hurting anyone else. The last tragic victim had been ten years ago. And that had been her sister’s daughter, Alice. That discovery had hurt her most of all and she wanted revenge so much that she thought it would consume her. The sand timer appeared to be running out though, and Grace didn’t want the risk of another victim because that would most definitely be something she couldn’t live with on her conscience. Living with the guilt that she’d let him walk free for a year, while she figured out what to do with him, was bad enough.
*
NORFOLK 1983
Tim had placed himself strategically in his car on the sea front with a full view of the beach. He was right at the end of the harbour so he could see everyone on the beach and also had a clear view across the road and along the parade of shops. He’d been over to the newsagent’s to buy a newspaper and a pasty. Firstly, to make it look like he was just a normal man passing the time in his car having a lunch break. And secondly, so that on his way back from the shop he could check that the sun was shining in the right direction, shielding any view through the windows so that the car appeared to be empty. This was all for the purpose of having full view of all the families arriving for a day out with their children. It was the summer holidays and the coast was crawling with them; Tim’s favourite time of year.
He sat in the hot car for hours watching over his paper. The heat and oily stench in the car, which now mixed with his sweat and bad breath didn’t seem to bother him like it would anyone else. He was used to being shut in stifling areas for great lengths of time, another skill he had his mother to thank for.
The heat and his lunch laying heavy in his stomach were causing him to feel sleepy. Even though child watching was one of his favourite activities, he was growing bored.
That was until he spotted his next victim, like a sparkling jewel amongst some faded beads. Tim sat up abruptly. He scrambled for the dial so that he could pull up his seat which he’d previously lowered to a reasonable nap level.
Everything and everyone else turned a shade of grey, like a black and white television screen with one person standing out in vibrant colour. That one person flying towards Tim’s vision as if she’d been miraculously magnified was twelve year old Jacqueline. She lived further up the coast in the next village with her mother and father and her older brother, so Tim had never encountered her before.
She was walking down the steps to the beach with her family, her gangly frame exposed to the sun, wearing only shorts and a vest top. Apart from being tall and slender for her age, which Tim found immensely attractive, it was her extremely long vibrant red hair that had caught his eye. It was down to her waist, making her appear even taller than she actually was. The tones of her hair sparkled in the afternoon sun, accentuating her deep cornflower blue eyes.
To Tim, she was a stunning object of desire and he wanted her. To anyone else she was a pretty, kind hearted, innocent little girl.
He had made up his mind the moment he set eyes on her that he would pursue her until he got his way.
Jacqueline had gone from having her life spread out endlessly before her to a limit of a few days in a matter of seconds. A decision made by a stranger who was play acting god, with an ego the size of the universe.
No- one told Jacqueline or her family that she had only a few days to live. Tim didn’t give her that privilege, or any of his victims for that matter. Her father had taken a week off work to spend with his children and wife. They spent the days, carefree in the coastal sunshine, oblivious to the sinister stranger lurking in the back ground like the grim reaper.
Tim effortlessly snatched her as she was walking from the village where she lived to go and meet her brother, who got up before the light of day to go fishing in a nearby pond. Jacqueline had taken to joining him when she got up; leaving their parents to enjoy a lie in before they dragged them up for another day out.
Jacqueline’s memory scents had been particularly special to Tim. He normally took one item of clothing and a toy if they had been carrying one. Getting a toy as well as a piece of clothing was a real treat to Tim. Toys carried stronger, different smells. Mainly because they’d come from the child’s bed.
In this case though he’d taken Jacqueline’s vest top, and pulling her beautiful mane of red hair together, he cut it along the nape of her neck. He tied the pony tail in the middle with the hair bobble she’d been wearing.
He sat on the soft ground next to Jacqueline’s twitching, cold body and buried his face in her hair and sniffed hard. He was so astounded by its beauty that it brought a tear to his eye. It glistened golden against the rays of light that were shining through the trees in the small wood where he had dragged its owner.
A blackbird landed on one of the branches near Tim, startling him at first. The bird cocked its head at the sight laid in the clearing as if it had seen it all before. Life and death. A dead girl, lying awkwardly over some tree roots, half naked. With a man sat next to her holding a long piece of golden hair as if he’d discovered the most precious thing in the whole world. To Tim, the line between life and death was flimsy and fickle, all part of the game he was playing.
*
NORFOLK 1998
For the first time since Chrissie had been in her new home, she’d had a completely incident free day. Sarah was arriving in the morning and she wanted to make sure it was as homely as possible.
She didn’t know what the cease in activity was about, but she wasn’t going to complain about it. For some reason the cottage had taken on an air of calm within its walls and the peace inside was tangible. Chrissie had spent the day soaking up the calm atmosphere, albeit slightly apprehensively. She had got used to it changing so dramatically, but today it all felt different somehow.