Stillness. Legs spread wide apart. Arms tucked neatly by her
side. Deathly pale fourteen year old girl. Marvin's cheeks ached,
admiring the victim. He griped a fist of brunette strands and
lifted her skull. Giving her hair an exaggerated sniff, her head hit the
floor like a dead weight. A low hanging echo bellowed across the room.
Marvin handed the knife to David.
The Pascoe girl was one of the easiest victims. Marvin heard about
her parents on holiday. Church goers love to gossip. She always
walked to her friend's house. Every day. Same direction. Usually same time.
Interception was simple. She liked to take the short-cut through a
darkened street opening. All houses around a corner; 3 street lamps
that had needed fixing. He waited against the wall.
Palpitations kicking in. Adrenaline heightening reactions for the
moment she entered his gaze. Less than a minute stopped her
struggling for breath.
* * *
“Good afternoon, madam. I’m DCI Manning of London Police
department. May I come in?”
“Of course, please, come this
way.” Mrs Hadley was a widowed old woman with an arched back and a
tea obsession. She led the detective into her front room, decorated
with china and floral patterned furniture. Manning somehow questioned
whether he’d walked into the 50s, judging by the lack of TV and a
well-used radio. He guessed she had been a house wife for quite
some time.
“So, madam. We are here to investigate the phone call coming
from your house, 4 days ago, on the afternoon of September 30th.
It concerned the first girl on our homicide case.”
“Yes, that was me. What do you mean first? Are there more?”
Mrs Hadley pried.
“That is confidential information, I’m
afraid, I am just interested to gather information from you
concerning a ‘Pascoe family’.” Manning flicked through a
scribbled notepad full of phone calls to investigate further. It had
been a long day already. The teenage girl from the Pascoe family had
been named 3 times, but they had not made themselves
known, yet.
“Yes. Well, as soon as I heard of the girl, I remembered the
Pascoe family with a daughter that age. I’ve always thought they
were a strange family. If you ask me, it was them who did it to their
own daughter. I know it sound strange, but I always see that girl go by
here and she’s never at home - surely signs of a terrible
domestic life.”
“This is all very well Mrs Hadley…” He was cut off.
“Oh, call me Mary, please” She winced at the term Mrs
Hadley, stung by the name of her deceased husband. Manning
guessed she was a different person since his death. It was a
common thing for women to outlive their husbands, and few of them
dealt with it very well. Though, he thought, at least it shows they
probably were not victims of domestic abuse.
“…Mary. What exactly is your reason for believing that Miss
Pascoe is the missing girl?” Manning pressed, he had at least
another 6 houses to visit before he could go on a break. Police in
important homicide cases never got much sleep and were constantly
over-worked. Something Manning could never get used to.
“Well, like I said, I always see that girl going by here. But
ever since I read about a girl of about 14 being found, I haven’t
seen her at all! I’m really worried. Quite a pretty girl she is, I
can’t imagine what would happen to her with the wrong person” Mrs
Hadley, paused. DCI Manning didn’t want to know what she meant
by that.
“Is there any more information you could give us on this
family? … Mary?” He prompted her out of her thought tracks.
“Well, I heard from one of the girls at the church that they
had gone on holiday recently. Perhaps to escape from whatever they
did.” At this point, he could tell the woman was mad. The family
being on holiday seemed a much more obvious explanation as to why the
girl hadn’t been seen. Sadly, he had to check out all calls, and
all leads. “I know that she lives down the road. Try asking at
number 92, there’s a man that lives next door to them who might
know more. He’s solitary by nature and lives alone. Erm… Marvin,
I think”
“I’ll send someone round this evening madam”
* * *
Vertical cuts were always the first. Never too deep. First
Marvin would write the name across her breasts, the one that he would
have given her. Then came the slow process of removing the womb. The
knife, gripped between whitened knuckles, raised high above the head.
Always a hesitation before the plummet.
* * *
London Police Department. Investigations Officer:
DCI Grover Date: 04 / 10 / 10 Offence: Murder and
Mutilation Time: Between 1900 and 2200 hours
After a phone call claiming to have seen a person carrying a
body into the warehouse, it was confirmed to be occupied. We sent a
team of 4 armed officers and myself. It took a two man battering ram
to break down the door in one hit and we rushed in.
I shouted “Stay where you are!” when we had established
the claim to be true. Inside the warehouse was a lone figure in the
middle of the floor next to a corpse.
“Put the knife on the floor and step away from the body”
the command followed. The subject didn't seem phased by the
commotion, instead, just did as told. The body on the floor
was a young teenage boy.
When we were close enough with no threat, the disturbed
subject seemed to be grinning at us. When we took her back the the
station and into the interview room, she refused to speak. The only
thing she would tell us was her name...
* * *
David
laughed: “What would she do now, if she could see you?”
“Who's that?” Marvin span quizzically toward David.
“Your ex-wife? What was her name again?”
“I carved it on my girl's face - here” Marvin grinned.
'Eva'
----------------------------------------
Part 1
Part 3 next week.
All My Work
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