Plot reminder: Once the police visit his house enquiring about the theft of the knife, Nathan feels he must act quickly if he is to save his brother. After having earlier followed the unpopular teacher Maureen Booth to her home and studying break-in possibilities, he is last seen heading out into the snow-filled evening...
~~~~~
Inspired by a recent Channel Four documentary on the tragedy-ridden life of Mary Shelley, Maureen had a couple of days earlier hunted down her old university copy of Frankenstein from one of her many groaning bookcases. She possessed over a thousand titles, she had once roughly estimated. Though not nearly scientific or meticulous enough to have ever got round to ordering them alphabetically, there was a vague sense of chronology to her arrangement at least. It hadn't taken her long to find it in the end: it had been there right after Defoe and Swift but before Austen and the Bronte sisters.
Stretching herself onto the settee, she draped her favourite blanket over herself, opened the seminal work of gothic horror.
...by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window shutters, I beheld the wretch -- the miserable monster whom I had created...
The bathroom window, she suddenly thought. She'd opened it a crack to let in some air. That chicken curry sandwich she'd had for lunch... But had she remembered to close it again?
Sighing, irritated by her own overblown anxiety, she shook the blanket back off, lifted herself onto her still aching feet. Though at 48 she had by now more or less resigned herself to a childless existence, the hope still very much remained that she might find some deserving companion with whom to share her free time, her thoughts, her bed... Someone her intellectual equal. Someone cultured and erudite, but at the same time introspective, on occasion even aloof. A mystery which only she would ever be able to resolve. In a place like Ravesby, Byronic heroes were a little thin on the ground however.
As she'd thought, the bathroom window was firmly latched. After double-checking all other windows and both back and front doors, she once more settled herself down with Shelley's masterpiece.
...Oh! no mortal could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy again embued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch...
There was a noise.
Not just some psychotic imaginary one, but an actual real life scratching at the door.
Her yet-to-be-found Byronic hero would in such a situation retain an admirable calm. Arm himself with a cricket bat or something equally lethal and swingable. Boldly head off to investigate.
Alone and unprotected, she had to settle for the Complete Works of Shakespeare - the weightiest tome she possessesed - and position herself behind the living room door in a kind of half-cower but at the same time with arms raised above her head ready to strike.
As she waited there for whatever it was that might pass, a once rote-learn quote thrust itself into her consciousness.
Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.
Wasn't that Mary Shelley too?
But then there it was again. A faint but definite scratching sound.
Someone was trying to jimmy open the door...
Hyperventilating now, she glanced desperately around, tried to remember where she'd left her phone. Maybe if she could get an emergency call out... Maybe, if they were quick... Maybe, just maybe...
There it was, on the TV stand.
It was as she was sidestepping over to grab it, the Complete Works of Shakespeare still raised above head, that she heard it.
Not a scratch this time, but a high-pitched yelp.
And there he was in the window. The neighbourhood cat, sitting expectantly on the sill. One of his occasional visits, all prickly licking tongue and big doleful eyes.
She gratefully thudded the Complete Works of Shakespeare down onto armchair, her arms like jelly from having held the blasted thing above her head so long. Opened up the window to let the cat in. Maybe he could stay a while, keep her company.
Frankenstein, meanwhile, was returned to the bookcase from where it had come.
Maybe some other time, she thought.
*
For Detective Inspector Kubič it was the end of another frustrating day. Investigations had focused principally on the kind of professional-level make up and prosthetics he imagined Catherine Butterfield's murderer had availed himself of. How else was it possible to explain, despite the widespread media coverage, the lack of potential leads thrown up at both local and national level by the artist's sketch of the large-nosed man?
Though only three specialist shops had been unearthed within an hour's radius of Ravensby, a simple Google search had thrown up literally dozens of online suppliers. Materials - if indeed this was what they were dealing with - might equally have been acquired abroad or a considerable length of time ago. Even if recently purchased from a UK supplier, it was highly doubtful the murderer had been careless enough to provide a Ravensby shipping address.
As for application, the nearest college or evening school offering theatrical make up courses was eighty miles away; Youtube was however awash with explanatory videos on the subject. Kubic had sat through several of them himself, enough to be firm in his belief that even someone of his own limited artistic abilities could, if armed with the correct materials and after numerous trial-and-error practice runs, disguise themselves convincingly enough.
Though the county artist had provided three deconstructed sketches in which some of the original delineations had been retained but others - particularly that bulbous, oversized nose - stripped down to more standard shapes and dimensions, and though these had been duly fed to the usual media outlets, they could only be considered vague approximations at best.
By eight o'clock it had seemed pointless to remain in the CID room any longer. The Gilchrist letter had been studied and analysed to death, its every devious clinical word committed to memory. The board annotations, autopsy report, every known minute detail of Catherine Butterfield's murder had sadly too been digested.
Just as it seemed unlikely that the second recipient would now present themselves, so it seemed improbable they would choose that particular evening to act. He or less probably she would need a little more time to wrestle with things, to formulate some kind of workable plan. They would be clinging on to the hope that before March 15th investigations might reach a successful conclusion without need for further bloodshed. A hope, Kubic could only admit to himself, which seemed distant.
No, he decided, it would be doing both himself and the people of Ravensby a favour if tried to get a good night's sleep, have something vaguely healthy to eat.
It was to this end that on his way home he made the brief and much-needed detour to the supermarket. A few basics, yes: bread, milk, eggs, liquorice laces. Some fishfingers too. A bag of frozen peas. Pasta and jar of tomato sauce. Oh, and how about a nice tin of chicken soup too? If only he could find the right bloody aisle.
He hated that, how supermarkets changed things around between every time you went. Like if you stumbled upon the biscuit aisle that two weeks ago had been the tinned food aisle you were going to buy a box of jaffa cakes as well as the tin of beans you'd come in for? Some people might fall for it, but not Joe Kubič. No siree. Not even if the idea of box of jaffa cakes was actually quite enticing. It was the principle of the thing.
But that evening as he stumbled into the wines and spirits aisle which two weeks earlier had been the household detergents aisle in search of some ajax, he found himself pausing for a moment before his favourite brand of vodka. Found it calling to him like it hadn't done for one thousand one hundred and forty-four consecutive days, and - that regrettable blur of a New Year's Eve aside - eight hundred and fifty-nine consecutive days before that.
He half reached out a hand to take a bottle.
Snapped it back again.
It was as he rushed to the safety of the next aisle along that his phone began to ring.
The station...
His heart was thudding as he answered, his mind already suspecting the worse.
"Sergeant Mullins, inspector."
"What's happened?"
"Reports coming through of a stabbing sir. Randall Avenue."
He was already on the move, shopping basket clattering to floor, its contents skidding out. The jar of pasta sauce cracked behind him, spilled out its scarlet interior like an open wound.
"Fatal?"
"Seems not sir, seems not. Plenty of blood though. Ambulance already on its way. Can hear the siren."
Kubič called out to the people queuing at the only open checkout to let him through. To just bloody well let him through.
"This it? The second letter?"
"PCs Yates and Borthwick are first at the scene. They report a playing card lying on the ground."
"Aggressor fled?"
"No inspector. Say they've got him cuffed in the back of the patrol car. Young lad. Name's Nathan Edwardson."
Edwardson? Hadn't that been one of the names on the list Wye had got from the comprehensive?
"Okay Mullins, listen carefully." His voice bounced as he dashed towards the exit, bemused shoppers stepping aside to let him by. "Priority is the lad's family. Immediate response. I want them out of this bloody town within five minutes."
"Got it inspector."
He was outside now, a blast of snow-filled air filling his lungs. Panting, fumbling for his car keys.
"And the victim?"
"Gary Edwardson, sir. The lad's father."
It would be great to get sone feedback on this. Did this twist work for you? What advice would you give me to help with my writing?
Next post Thurs Jan 2nd. Happy New Year to you all.