‘Mary? Mary, you in? It’s PC Hamilton. It’s Mark…’
Nothing. He took a few steps inside and called out for her again. The place was deathly silent. He looked hopefully at the beaded curtain through which she always loved to make her dramatic entrances, but it just shifted with the breeze from the open door.
Wait. What was that?
He was sure he could hear movement in the back of the café and he went through to the kitchen. No sign of anyone. He knocked on the door between the private and business parts of the building – kept shut as always – then pressed his ear against it. There was definitely something in there… he could hear a faint scraping, scrabbling noise.
He pushed the door open and had barely taken a step forward when Mary’s yappy little dog – Horace, he thought its name was, or was it Milly? – came running at him. It swerved between his legs and pelted past, whimpering rather than barking. Hardly a guard dog, it was little more than a tiny, highly-strung ball of fluff which generated a lot of noise and shit and served no other purpose. His girlfriend Meryl called it Mary’s rat on a rope whenever they saw her out walking it in town.
The dog’s unusual behaviour heightened PC Hamilton’s concern. He noticed it had clawed deep grooves into the very bottom of the door in its desperation to get out.
‘Mary?’ he called out again. ‘Mary, are you here? Is everything okay?’
He went deeper into her living area – her small private kitchen space built on the other side of the café pantry – then stopped. The place smelled awful, truly rank. His pulse began to race. She was dead, he was sure of it now. He’d seen the bodies of a couple of the other victims and the memory of their brutal and senseless mutilation was seared onto his retinas, all he could see. He’d been one of the first on the scene when those kids had found what was left of Ken Potter on the tracks, and he’d been there when Angela Pietrszkiewicz had been found too. She’d been stripped to the waist… violated… He prepared himself to find another body here, then panicked. What if the killer’s still here? He leant against a wall and steadied himself. Wait, it’s okay… the guy from Redditch is in the cells…
PC Hamilton trod in something moist and he froze as it squelched beneath his boot, fearing the worst. The smell hit him before he was able to reach across to the curtains and let in some light. Dog shit. Gross. He gagged. Bodies he could just about cope with, but the smell of dog shit got him every time. And the floor was covered in it, scattershot diarrhoea courtesy of that vile little creature he’d just let out. He kicked off his boots rather than risk treading shit through the rest of the house, then picked his way through the canine minefield. Christ, why did people bother with dogs? Meryl had a cat, and as much as he despised the needy little fucker, at least it always took itself outside to crap then buried the evidence afterwards.
‘Mary?’ he shouted again. He edged down her short hallway then looked into the living room. The curtains were open. No Mary. More importantly, no body.
Upstairs.
He climbed the steps slowly, his sock-clad footsteps making little noise. He tried to think of as many possible explanations for the situation as he could: Mary’s just overslept, she’s ill, she’s had a heart attack, she’s fallen out of bed and broken something, she’s just not here… He focused on those slightly more palatable options and tried to block out the idea of finding her like Angela Pietrszkiewicz yesterday, covered in blood, with every last shred of dignity barbarically stripped away.
Onto the landing. Still nothing but silence. He worked his way along, room by room. The bathroom was empty, as was the back bedroom. The door to Mary’s room was ajar. He took a deep breath then knocked and pushed it open. ‘Mary?’
He didn’t look until he had to, not knowing what he was going to find.
The relief was immense.
Mary was sitting on the floor at the foot of her bed, wearing a loose, open dress and very little else. She looked up at him and smiled and he felt himself relax. ‘Thank Christ you’re okay,’ he said. ‘Did you not hear me shouting?’
‘No, sorry.’
He looked at her again, then looked away with embarrassment when he realised how much of her flabby body was on show. She’d been grossly overweight for as long as he’d known her, so large that she’d scared him when he was a kid; a grotesquely made-up, mountainous monster. He’d vivid memories of her catching him and his mates playing around by her bins one time. His mates had got away, but she’d managed to grab him. He could still remember the smell of used cooking fat and cigarettes and the feel of her pudgy hands on his shoulders, greasy from working with cooking oil all day, every day.
‘Is everything all right, Mary?’
He made himself look again. She was on the floor with her legs splayed, everything on show. No knickers, he thought, and he tried not to stare but he couldn’t help himself, his eyes drawn to the parts of her he wanted to see least.
‘Cold,’ she said. She lifted her head and looked at him. She’d got the most beautiful eyes. He’d never really noticed them before. They were deep brown. Warm. Welcoming. Irises almost as dark as her pupils. She had a kind, motherly face, but she’d always covered herself with too much makeup for his liking, tried too hard with her hair and clothes, like she was clinging onto long gone youth. For crying out loud, she’d gone to school with his mother. She was no spring chicken.
But today Mary looked… different. He felt the awkwardness melting away.
PC Hamilton remained in the bedroom doorway, watching her watching him. He couldn’t put his finger on what was different about her today. In fact, he decided, there wasn’t anything specific, she just looked… right. Motherly. But it was more than that. He took a few steps further into the room then stopped and knelt down next to her, wanting to help, wanting to be sure she was okay. ‘You sure you’re all right?’
Mary lifted a hand and touched the side of his face. ‘Fine,’ she said, her voice an alluring, airy whisper.
He tried to move, but he was rooted to the spot by her serene beauty. His mouth was dry, his pulse quickening. He’d never thought of Mary in this way before. It was hard to accept, but he realised he wanted her.
What the hell? Don’t be stupid, man. She’s old and greasy… this is Mary from the café for crying out loud…
But there was no denying the attraction. She still had her hand on his face and he leant against her touch, then he pushed himself even closer and kissed her cheek and revelled in the closeness. Her smell… oh, her smell… words couldn’t express how it made him feel inside. So natural, so right. He felt a burning in his gut now that he fought hard to ignore. He wanted her, but he knew that was ridiculous. I’m twenty-seven, she’s got to be almost seventy… It wasn’t going to happen. Not here. Not now. Not Mary. It was wrong on every conceivable level.
But that burning was getting stronger. He couldn’t understand it, but he couldn’t dismiss it either. He’d known her for more than twenty years, but had never appreciated her like this before. Why hadn’t he seen it until today? And she felt it too, he knew she did. The way she looked at him, the way she touched him… The way her breathing had changed: light with frequent fluttering gasps now, like the way Meryl’s breathing changed when they made love together. Not when they fucked while her dad was out and not how it was when she was on about having kids again and sex was contrived, but how they connected in those rare moments when circumstances and emotions combined and collided perfectly, when they had the kind of sex that made him feel alive, more than human.