Deadly Thyme (5 page)

How hard could it be to find a phone? She flipped the purse upside down. Everything fell out. The cell phone clattered. She grabbed it up and unlocked the screen. The incoming number!

She screamed, “Annie where are you?”

“Hello, Mother.” It was not her child
’s voice.

Her legs gave out from under her. “Where
’s Annie? Where’s Annie?”

“Tell me you love me.”

It didn’t sound like the voice that she remembered, but it had been years since they’d spoken. “What are you saying?”

The connection was cut.

5

Annie Butler took a few deep breaths. Her head hurt. She tried to move. She choked back a sob. It hurt. Where was she? She couldn’t think. She lay very still, scared of the pain. But the darkness frightened her worse. It was a dark that she couldn’t understand. It took away her sense of sight and hearing and smell. She was cold, and yet, she was wet with sweat. She couldn’t stop shaking. Her breath came in gasps because everything hurt and she hated this horrible dark.

She coughed. The noise was a foghorn to her ears. So
, her ears did work. She whispered, “Hello?” Her voice trembled like the rest of her.

Nothing.

She listened. Water dripped. She was laying on something soft, like a mattress. She flexed her fingers. One hand wasn’t held down and she slid it to her chest. On top of her a huge, flat something pressed into her from head to toe. She took a chance of increasing the pain to strain against it and to try to shift it away. The thing was soft but unyielding and it smelled bad. She forced her breathing to slow and for the rest of her to remain calm.
Think.

Don
’t panic.

Don
’t cry.

It did no good, this pep talk. Heat flushed up to her face and tears burned her eyes. With her free hand, she rubbed her eyes to force the
tears away. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t see, but she could breathe. Her stomach cramped. How long had she been here? Mom had breakfast waiting.

Mom!
A blubbering sob choked her and she coughed and coughed and couldn’t breathe. Pain shot across her skull and the dark inside her head took her away again.

Monday
, 3:03 a.m.

Charles didn’t want to move until his eyes became used to the darkness. He stared around the murky garage, trying to discern familiar shapes, and wiped the cold sweat from his oily face. The choppy lass had it coming to her. He made his way past the old canvasses where turpentine permeated the dust and petrol smell.

             
The wife had been fast asleep for a little while. He’d added that special something to her nightly glass of red wine.

             
To see the time, he punched a fist into the moonlight streaming through the window. He must judge the tide well. Can’t keep the girl’s body around here forever. The Wife might find her.

He
’d had no choice but to end her pitiful life. To clean up the filthy mess was the first order of business.

Then to deal with the American woman. A travesty, letting foreigners into this country without making them pay dearly. If he were in charge
, things would certainly be different. And this mess was all her fault. If she hadn’t resembled Mother so closely and flaunted about so he would notice—stupid get!

             
His mother’s voice rasped inside his head,
“If I could have undone you from my womb, I would have.”

“Why have you always hated me? Cecil was your fault. Your fault. You. You!” Tears rolled down his face. Catching himself, he held his stomach and began to breathe slower.

A gossamer thread caught the moonlight. He watched the spider, mesmerized, but he grew bored with the creature’s exacting ministrations. So, as each strand was cast he took control, and, line by meticulous line, he disassembled the web. With one finger he smashed the helpless creature. Using the spider’s remains, he drew the letter
O
on the windowpane. The moonlight broke through the clouds and silvered the opaque smear.

He opened his cold storage box
, took out a jar of her blood, dipped his fingers in, and smeared it across his face. He drank the remainder.

From inside, he shoved the garage doors open. He started the car
and reversed. He prayed silently to the only god he believed in,
Lady Luck, you’ve been there for me, be with me now.
He drove along B3263 south away from the village and, finding a certain private road, drove until he could park overlooking the sea. Colored a gray sepia wash, the entire world lay open around him, barren and desolate. The moon outlined each scuttling black cloud with white. He watched and waited. There was a storm coming. One huge cloud in particular moved closer and closer to the awful lunar spotlight. As he examined the landscape and waited, he began to hum.

Demon arms of black stone jutted up from the sea, gnarled hands clutching the water
’s surface. With the waves washing over them, he could almost imagine the desperate movement of the damned and drowning.

“
Hurry!”

The voice. Always the voice.
Always interrupting.

He got out of the car and went around to the boot.
He leveraged the girl’s body from the car, checking to make sure the cloth sack tied around her head would not slip off. He did not want to see that face again.

He pulled her to the edge of the grass verge above the beach and propped the body up beside him, like a plastic mannequin. He slid with it down the side of the steep embankment. Her leg almost tripped him up at one point
, but he caught himself. He let their weight work and they reached the beach somewhat together.

Above the crashing of the waves he heard,
“Evil will slay the wicked; the enemies of the righteous will be condemned.”

He doubled over and curled up on the wet sand, covering his ears with his hands.

He pushed against his ears, harder and harder, until a groan squeezed out of his throat. He whined, “I try to do good, Mummy. I try.”

Nothing.

He rolled onto his back, his face up and eyes wide open. Into the issuing silence, he gasped, “All I’ve ever wanted from you … Just tell me you love me.”

Inside his head, the grating sound of labored breathing diminished. His racing heart quieted. Standing, he shoved the girl
’s body with his foot. “I hate you.”

Lifting the stiff, angular body roughly to his shoulder, he carried it to one of the dozens of outcrops of rock jutting into the sea. The tide would take care of everything. Chances were, only a few minutes remained in which he could do this without being seen. Damned early commuters. He wedged the body between two jagged rocks.

In a hurried frenzy, he took a leafy sprig out of his pocket and tucked it into the string around the neck. In the old days there had been meaning in things.

Charles stood as tall as he could. The wind buffeted his body. Normally wound around, plastered to his bald
pate, his thin, gray hair flew in long, gray Medusa-like strands around his ears. He spoke out bitterly, fist to the sky, spitting his words into the sea, “The young live forever. Do you hear? Forever.”

He glanced up toward the cliff
’s top. His heart skipped a beat, sending a jolt through his body. Had something moved up there by his car? He sidled away from the body and quickly made his way crab-like across the rocks. He jumped down to the sand. The waves muffled any noise he might have made as he scrambled up the steep embankment. The grasses stretched without end like a large swath of deep-purple crushed velvet. In the distance, barely discernible, a black dog ran towards the village church whose square tower was visible above a line of rock and hedge. Charles let out a long hiss of breath, then got back in the car and drove back the way he’d come. His breath came in heavy gasps. His heart thundered in his ears, all the winding way. He secured the car in the shed. He had to keep it hidden, and surprisingly, his mum remained silent.

Once inside the house, he cleaned his face
and relaxed. Staring at his watch, he saw it had taken him forty minutes to rid himself of the body. After a little while, the tune “As Time Goes By” played in his head and he began to hum along.

6

Monday
, before daybreak

Boom! Boom! Boom! Somewhere in his dream, DI Jon Graham shot at ducks on a lake. The birds flew up, and millions of wings stirred the scorching breeze. Palm trees swayed.

A loud thud, then a metallic, ringing explosion jolted him awake. Without reason, he found himself on the frigid floor of the caravan, one leg hung up in the blanket. Light flashed
—on, off, on, off—from his alarm clock next to his face. The electric mini-heater whirred a blast of heat. The heater did little good. He had left a window open. It just made sense in the tightness of the place. He wrapped covers around his body and grabbed the clock to make out the time. Did the thing actually read 4:30? Already?

Boom! Boom! Boom! The caravan
’s fabricated walls shook. What stonyhearted villain could be banging on his door at this ungodly hour?

“Coming! I
’m coming!” he called out, and massaged his scalp to rub some awareness through to his brain. The cold sliced through him as he pushed the duvet aside. He stood, slipped, and jammed a toe into the wire grate of the heater. “Oww!”

He yanked away. The grate popped off, and the heater fell forward. He flipped a light switch and saw that the old appliance was melting into the flooring. He jerked the plug from the socket.

The caravan’s door handle began wiggling.
Bloody-minded hell!
“I said I’m coming!” he shouted, limping two hops across the narrow space to peer through the curtained window at a fellow he didn’t recognize. He popped the door open. “Hello?”

The rotund chap on his doorstep smiled. He carried a lumpy dish-towel-draped tray. “Sorry, sar. Thought you said,
‘come in.’ Weather’s turned sketchy. Does sumin to my ears.”

Jon gritted his teeth to keep them from chattering. “It
’s half-bloody-four.”

“Oh
… er … Sorry. I’m oaf to work. Thought you’d wish to know what’s what.”

Jon was awake now and realized this must be Perstow, sergeant of the local police and owner of the house occupying the other half of the garden. “Of course. Yes, come in. Sergeant Perstow, I take it.” Jon grabbed a dressing gown and threw it on.

“Sure, sure,” Perstow groaned as he climbed the step. “Ow. Her Indoors is on me ’bout me weight. I tell her it’s her fine cookin’ and it calms her right down. She’ll fix you a meal once she settles to the new face.”

Perstow was short, not much over five f
eet, and built like a brick. He set the tray on the table and managed to squeeze his backside into a swivel seat. He drew the towel away from his tray. “Somethin’ warm fer braxis.”

“Thank you very much!” Jon rubbed his hands together and sat across the narrow table from Perstow. He cleared away the notes he
’d taken the night before, and pushed a stack of his books aside, effectively hiding the mail package that contained the two VHS tapes.

Perstow looked around the confined space and sniffed the air. “Somethin
’ afire?”

“The space heater melted into the floor a bit.”

“Sorry to hear it, sar. Milk?”

Jon nodded.

Perstow poured. “In for a mort o’ weather.”

His accent was thick but manageable; it held the sing-song quality of the local dialect. Jon briefly wondered what he
’d meant, but he nodded in agreement, which was an acceptable answer to a weather statement this early in the morning.

Jon rubbed away at his eyes and studied the sergeant. The gray-haired man had the kind of jolly face that meant unlikely advancement in the ranks. He didn
’t have police eyes—the shrewd, cynical look of a person accustomed to being lied to. His round cheeks had a rosy blush, and his belly jiggled at every word. The tea was passed over. Perstow took a sip of his and an expression of pleasure swept over the man’s good face, smoothing the lines and taking age from his years.

Jon eyeballed his tiny caravan. Not even here a day and the place looked like a clothes bomb had gone off in it. “Excuse the mess.”

Glancing around, Perstow said, “Your note mentioned you hated closed spaces, but I’m afraid the missus ’ud get a bit teasy ’bout the loan of our settee.”

“No worries. The window
’s open. My therapist friend …” Jon looked at the open face of the other man and wondered if he was disclosing too much information about himself. Even in such cold weather, he always kept a window cracked. Perstow seemed a good listener so he’d have to watch himself. “Enclosed spaces don’t sit well, is all. My friend Steve suggested I take up spelunking.”

“Sounds adventuresome, s
ar.” Perstow had a habit of tossing a crinkle-faced smile upon every other sentence.

“But I said no way in bloody hell could anyone get me in a cave.”

“You’ll have to watch it round here with the mines. Sometimes the rock falls through from up top, and if you happen to be on the spot, you’ll find yourself in a cave, right enough.” Perstow drew the corners of his mouth down. “The other thing I need to tell you—no doubt today you’ll observe the posters of the missing girl.”

Jon adapted his well-used reserved look
, “Oh?”

“Went missing yesterday morning just before seven.” He glanced around at the monitors. “Did you happen to notice anything?”

“Sorry.” Jon studied the man’s face, then said, “No … No, I shouldn’t be so cagey, what with your taking me in, so to speak. I … I have footage of the girls on the beach. I’m sorry to say the cameras aren’t state of the art, so there isn’t much to see.”

“You saw
…” Perstow sat back as if he’d been slapped. “I’ll need to see it.” He added a “sar” as an afterthought.

“Here, I
’ve archived the footage to these drives. You can look through them. Believe me, if even the slightest hint was on them, you’d have seen them right away. There isn’t a thing. My super will get the experts on them. Trust me. The footage shows nothing, past the girls arriving on the beach, no one else, a lot of shadows. If I hadn’t arrived when I did, and with DS Browne here getting food poisoning—”

“How is he?”

“He’ll be fine, with a few days’ rest. But what I was going to say is I’m here to complete the assignment.”

“And the missing girl will not interfere?”

“She doesn’t have anything to do with my investigation. I’m only interested in Trewe. We must know the source of this money.”

“Oh! Aye. The money.”

“And—” A clap of thunder like a gunshot made Jon duck. He’d have to speak softly, as noises seemed to carry through the caravan’s walls. “And he’s never said anything to you about his new-found wealth?”

“Never.” The tragic look that overcame his face under other circumstances might look comical. “I
’d like to know, too. Our chief inspector seems to be a chap with worries.”

“Odd. Very odd.”

“DCI Trewe is certainly more on edge about the missing girl than anythin’, though.”

“How on edge?”

“He said, and I’ll quote, ‘the girl’s American. The implications! International scandal. The newspapers. Bad for business, worse than the foot and mouth ever was in ’01.’ At least, that’s what I remember he said. But … it was the way he went on.”

“A coldhearted beast.”

Perstow shook his head, “Oh no! I wouldn’t say it like that. But I’ve never heard him
quite
as bad, sar. He’s desperate, pulled in a profiler. The profiler said that there is a forty-four percent chance the child will be dead in the first hour, and the best chance of bringing her back alive is within the first three hours. The way our Chief Inspector went on … Where’s the mercy in him, I ask meself. It was as if there was something else botherin’ him.”

Like nine hundred thousand somethings,
Jon thought. “Keep me informed, as you are able. It is imperative you let no one know about me. I’m your cousin, on holiday, remember. And your wife must play along. She will, right?”

“Don
’t worry.”

“I must concentrate on DCI Trewe
, not a missing girl investigation. Hopefully, she’ll show up with a good story and nothing amiss.” Jon didn’t believe it for a moment. The man in the dark car would not have been barreling out of the village quite so fast if there had been nothing to hide. He set his cup down with a definitive thud. “In the event the girl’s body is found, the police will saturate this place. I’ll have to make my presence known. If it comes to that, it would be expeditious to drop my investigation momentarily. Meanwhile, I’ll send the footage in an anonymous package to DCI Trewe. I can’t help but think it is the proper thing that he get it.”

“I
’ll follow your lead, sar.” Perstow nodded, eyes averted, as if he was well aware of his standing and didn’t want to step beyond his bounds by getting chatty with a DI.

Jon had taken an immediate liking to the fellow but wondered about him a little. He seemed too nice to be true. The heaviness of an impending storm added to the burden he carried inside himself. He hoped against hope the girl would be found soon.

Outside, the storm pounced, but inside the caravan, Jon and Perstow sat hunched, intently viewing the archived footage from the beach. Blue-white light from the monitor flashed across their faces and danced shadows around the caravan. Outside, the wind moaned and shoved against the tiny abode.

From the upper corn
er of one of the live monitors—one automatically controlled by computer at the monitoring station so any motion had it zooming or panning and focusing on minute detail—a large black dog darted into view, stopped, stared toward the camera, turned and took off.

Monday, daybreak

Rain and hail bulleted across Ruth
’s front window and the glass was rattled by inconstant wind. In those first few seconds of awareness Ruth wondered why she wasn’t in her own bed, why she was sleeping in her big easy chair. Then came the heart-stopping memory of Dot’s voice asking, “Where’s Annie?”

Movement under a blanket on her couch
caused Ruth to sit straight up. “Annie!” she whispered, heart beating wildly. Sally’s curly red hair spilled from under the blanket. Ruth fell back, hope dashed.
Dear Lord Jesus, bring her back and I’ll be a better Christian. I promise.

She must have drifted into sleep again
, because when a knocking woke her, the window was a dull rectangle. Here it was, another day, and no Annie to get up for school. Getting her up was usually quite a chore, as she liked to stay up long hours reading by flashlight. Annie was unaware that her mother knew, and that her mother used to do the same thing.

In the corner of the dining room, the computer
’s new-mail icon flashed. Ruth sat up, smelling bacon. Another knock-knock, and she was at the front door.

Even in the drizzling rain, the local magistrate stood immaculate and stiffly upright.
His sloping nose hooked over smiling lips. A poised fedora held his gray hair firmly in place.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Butler. I heard at the post office your daughter has gotten herself lost. I hope I might have misunderstood. Perhaps I misunderstood.” Mr. Malone
’s umbrella dripped water in a neat circle all around him, turning the gray slate of the porch black. He stepped forward. Bushy gray eyebrows hung over his black-rimmed glasses, eyes hidden in shadow behind thick lenses. Mr. Malone gave talks on the local history to visiting groups of tourists. He volunteered at the library. He let it be known that he knew everybody.

“Thank you for coming,” Ruth murmured.

“Of course,” Mr. Malone said. “I’ve heard that your daughter is a polite young lady. Polite.”

Ruth reached out and touched his sleeve. “Come in.”

“Oh!” Mr. Malone stepped away from her. “Don’t mean to intrude. The wife instructed me to bring you this soup she made you. Good soup.” He held out a large canning jar. “I like it, anyway. She says it’s an old family recipe. Yes. Mustn’t stay. Mustn’t.”

“Thank you.”

“Your Annie will come back to you, I’m sure. Take heart.” Mr. Malone paused a moment, as if he was about to say something else. Then he touched his hand to his hat in a haphazard salute. “The wife and I will be thinking of you. Our prayers ’re with you. With you.” He made a stiff, miniscule bow, turned, and went gingerly down the two steps to his car.