Memory Scents (8 page)

              Chrissie looked like she was about to cry; a mixture of fatigue and fear almost visibly washed over her. Grace suddenly felt very protective of Chrissie; there was a strange responsibility for her. Grace felt almost like she was partly to blame for all the catastrophic nightmares that her husband had caused. There were still new consequences to his actions, like ripples in the water appearing endlessly. And Grace felt she needed to fix what little she could.

              “But don’t you think if I know all the details then I’ll be able to make some sense of what’s happening. Just because that little girl was found at the bottom of my garden doesn’t rule out the fact that she could be haunting my house. Maybe, if I trace it all back and find out who lived in the house before the previous owners, I might be able to find out what happened in the house during the time these murders took place. You did say there was more than one child, didn’t you?”

              “Yes, there was more than one child. I think there were eight or nine altogether,” said Grace, continuing to stroll again as they talked. It was going to be an uncomfortable conversation but Grace managed to detach what she knew about her husband from the whole story. That was her business, and something she didn’t want another living soul to know. Not if she was to successfully complete her plan.

              So Grace composed herself and relayed all the facts she knew about the children who had left this world in a way that no living creature should have to endure.

*

NORFOLK 1984

              Jennifer had been so excited about the birthday party she was having after school that she didn’t think twice when her friend’s father had stopped her on her way home from school. He told her that her mother had asked him to take her in his car to the local café for a birthday treat. Make sure she got there safely.

              She knew Tim quite well, having been to his house to play with his daughter, Nadine many times. Her mother had told her not to go off with strangers or even talk to them. But Tim wasn’t a stranger so that made it alright.

              When he locked the car door so she couldn’t get out and drove in the opposite direction which took them down some desolate Norfolk back roads, she started to worry.

              “Where are we going? That’s not the way into town.”

              “You didn’t seriously think I was going to actually take you to the café did you?” Tim glanced at her in the back of the car; his face having changed completely.

              “But where are we going?” Jennifer’s face was a mixture of surprise and confusion. Her first thought was that her mother had organised a bigger party for her at the village hall and kept it a secret. But fear was creeping through her stomach, telling her that all was not well.

              “And I wouldn’t waste your time trying to get out of the car, it’s got child locks.” He said, spotting her hand moving towards the handle.

              Jennifer, who had just turned eleven that day, stared back at the complete stranger who she had made the mistake of getting into the car with. The fear had reached her throat, twisting it and causing her mouth to sporadically open and close in an effort to make a noise. Her hand was white from the grip on the car door handle and she seemed incapable of movement, as the reality of who he was dawned on her. All she kept thinking was why it had to be her, and of all days her birthday.

              Jennifer’s downfall had been her beautiful green eyes and curly dark hair. Her skin was as white as a lily; making her red lips and emerald green eyes stand out. She was striking and that was what had attracted Tim to her. Every victim was picked carefully but usually because they had aesthetically struck a chord inside him. A bit like two people meeting each other for the first time and falling madly in love. But not the warped, twisted, sinister way that Tim loved his victims.

              Feeling warmly satisfied, Tim took some time to watch Jennifer laying in the little copse surrounded by trees, his choice of a bed for her. It was well hidden down a more or less unused back road and along a track that not many people knew about. He rolled a cigarette from his tobacco tin as he observed her like a work of art.

              She looked even more beautiful now than she had when she’d been alive. Her green eyes were still sparkling, but now glazed; they held a snap shot of the fear she had endured only moments previously.

              Death fascinated him. The way a person’s eyes altered, showing no emotion, becoming empty, coloured oval shaped glass. Tim loved that part, when he could reflect on the stillness of his victim like a photo in an album. All his snapshots were logged safely in the dark cellar of his mind. The added bonus was that he got to keep a memory scent as well as a picture.

              Jennifer lay in her cold, damp grave, her body mostly naked apart from her school cardigan that Tim had decided to put back on her after he’d taken her shirt. Mud caked her nails where she had grabbed at the ground in an attempt to get away from him. Those fingers that had been so frenetic moments earlier now lay motionless like  statue’s, as if they would crack and break under the slightest movement. Her distorted tiny body, paler than when she’d been alive, now lay broken like an old doll. A grey blue shade was beginning to colour her white skin. Her tiny neck was in an unnatural position where Tim had broken it from strangling her so hard.

*

              A few weeks later Tim knocked hard on Jennifer’s mother’s door, as he and his colleague removed their police hats as a mark of respect.

              “I hate doing this.” His workmate said, gripping his hat as if it might transport him to another time and place.

              “So do I, mate.” Tim could see Marion, Jennifer’s mother coming towards them through the frosted glass door. He discreetly glanced at his watch. All Tim could think about was getting this over and done with and going on his lunch break.

              A tearful Marion opened the door, a tissue already gripped to her mouth.

              “You’ve found her haven’t you…Oh god no…not my Jennifer!”

              Marion’s legs buckled from underneath her and she fell against the porch door frame, as she took in the two police officers faces, knowing it wasn’t good news. Tim grabbed her before she completely collapsed and managed to get her into her living room.

              His colleague, Paul busied himself in her kitchen, glad to have been allocated the job of making her a strong cup of tea.

              Tim made her comfortable on the sofa and explained how a gamekeeper had stumbled across a body on his estate. The police believed it to be that of Jennifer. Tim told her how she or another member of her family would have to formally identify Jennifer’s body and that it would probably be best if it was someone other than her because Jennifer had been put in a shallow grave but more or less left out in the extremities for several weeks.

              Tim then let Paul take over for a bit, while he busied himself calling members of her family and her local doctor so that he could prescribe her something to calm her down.

              Marion wept and wept like she’d never stop; her heart was slowly and painfully breaking. She’d become a widow two years previously and now she’d lost her only child. She’d known something had happened to Jennifer when she hadn’t come home from school that day. She knew she wouldn’t have missed her birthday party for the world.

              Marion had watched the clock in the kitchen as she’d flitted around the dining table laying out plates of homemade sausage rolls, pretty coloured biscuits, and cheese on sticks.

             
She’d wanted it to be so special for her. Jennifer’s last birthday had been filled with sadness because it was her first birthday after her father had died of cancer. His diagnosis had left him with a death sentence of six weeks, and he had deteriorated rapidly. Before Marion and Jennifer knew it they were standing by his grave saying their goodbyes to him.

              Jennifer had just begun to enjoy life again; accepting that her father wasn’t coming back, but that he would always be watching over her. So Marion had wanted her to have a birthday party that she would never forget. Not just marking her birthday but also a fresh start. But now it would be a birthday that Marion would never forget, for all the wrong reasons.

              While Marion had been busy preparing the table she had assumed that Jennifer was held up by excited friends and maybe stopped off at one of their houses on the way home. Something she forbade her to do without informing her where she would be and what time she would be home. But because Marion was distracted with the party and it being Jennifer’s birthday she’d let it pass, just this once, assuming she’d got caught up receiving more birthday gifts. She was such a popular girl.

              When the party guests arrived with no Jennifer in tow and no news of her since they’d all left school, she knew that something was wrong. She also knew after the first night that Jennifer was missing that she was never coming back. Jennifer would never leave her like that and not tell her where she was going. She wouldn’t leave her mother’s side since her father had died. She was such a caring and protective little girl, sometimes Marion had felt, in her deepest moments of grief that they had swapped roles and Jennifer had mothered her instead of the other way around.

              It still didn’t make the news relayed to her by the police officers any easier. Even though she knew Jennifer’s fate already, there was still that glimmer of hope she had clung onto every day. And now it was all over.

CHAPTER SIX                                                                 

Norfolk 1998

              Chrissie sat at her writing desk mulling over the information that Grace had told her about the murders of all the children. She needed to concentrate on her writing but it kept going round and round in her head. It wasn’t only the horror of the story that she couldn’t let go of but there was also something nagging her about it all. She was sure it was in some way connected to the strange episodes she was having in her house. Grace hadn’t offered much information about who had lived in the house over the years, just that she remembered it being a holiday home for a time. What Chrissie was really shocked at was that no one had been caught for the crimes. Apparently the police hadn’t even come close to it. Whoever it was had been extremely clever and left no evidence. The only consistent piece of information the police had was that the murderer took a souvenir from the body, usually an item of clothing, and that all the victims were children and they had all been sexually assaulted before being murdered. The police thought it was a local man because whoever it was knew the area very well, always choosing secluded places normally down the country roads that formed a bridge between villages. It made Chrissie shudder to think there was some creep on the loose who hadn’t been made to pay for his crimes. Not that Chrissie could think of any type of punishment that would make up for what had happened to those poor little souls and their families. Grace had told her how it had affected the area dreadfully and even though it had all happened a long time ago it was still a very sore subject. Especially in the villages that each child came from; it was still so fresh in their minds.

              What Chrissie couldn’t understand was why she wasn’t able to recall anything about the murders. Even though she was a child when they’d happened, and she’d only visited the area on holiday, she surely would have remembered them being talked about, or it being on the news? Another strange thing Grace had told her was that the murders suddenly just stopped. There was talk in some of the villages that whoever committed the crimes had either died or moved away. But then if they’d moved away, they surely would have continued murdering in another area. Maybe the murderer was dead. Not a bad thing, thought Chrissie to herself, although, if it had been a member of her family she would have wanted the bastard publicly tortured and hanged.

              The phone rang, startling her and interrupting her thoughts.

              “Hello, Mum. How are you?”

              ”I’m fine thank you, darling and how are you? I was just ringing to see how you were settling in to darkest Norfolk.”

              Chrissie took a deep breath and mentally counted to ten. She wasn’t going to tell her mother what had been going on in the house, which would only serve to give her the pleasure of saying “I told you so”.