Alex Barclay - Darkhouse

‘Why are you... what did I do?’ She reached a hand to his cheek. He stopped it halfway, squeezing her wrist too tight.

‘Oh, you did good work,’ he said. ‘You did. Think of your best burger order with fries on the side and a milkshake and a hold-the-mayo and a hold-the-pickle and an extra barbecue sauce, all written down in your little notebook, spelled right, times ten.’

She smiled nervously. Her pulse pumped under his grip. She tried to pull away. He moved closer.

‘Take that big ol’ sweater of yours off,’ he said.

‘Why?’ she said, her voice catching.

‘Because I have this.’ He let go of her wrist and pulled a curved blade from his back pocket and held it up to her face. She froze. Duke stared through her. She slowly pulled her arm from the right sleeve, keeping her elbow close to her body. She did the same with her left arm until the sweater hung around her neck. The sleeves fell loose, barely covering her faded grey cotton bra. Goosebumps rose on her pale skin. She started to shiver. Duke leaned over and untied the rope around Anna’s neck, lifting the hood free. Anna turned her head away. Duke grabbed her face, forcing her to look.

‘You don’t wanna miss this,’ he said. He raised the knife to his mouth, biting down on the handle to keep his hands free.

‘Now, let me see if I remember how to do this,’ he said, reaching around Siobhán’s back and unhooking her bra. Her broad, flat breasts fell to the rolls of flesh at her waist. A look of disgust flashed across Duke’s face. Suddenly, Siobhán thrust out her hand, grabbing the handle of the knife, pulling it towards her sharply so the blade sliced through the side of Duke’s mouth. She turned to run, but he was on her, quickly throwing her down, pinning her arms above her head.

‘Son of a bitch,’ he hissed, spitting onto the grass beside her. Then he held his face over hers, letting long, slow drops of blood fall onto her lips and run gently down her cheeks with her tears.

‘Stand up. Get up! And take off your jeans—’

‘Leave her alone,’ spat Anna. ‘Leave her.’ Duke grabbed her face and shook it with a force that silenced her.

He turned back to Siobhán. ‘Take them off, everything. You’ve seen what this knife can do,’ he smiled, raising a hand to the gash in his face.

She did as he asked, desperately trying to cover her body with her hands. Anna’s stomach was heaving. She hoped Siobhán would catch her eye and maybe she could let her know that everything would be OK, that she would never tell anyone what she had to go through. Then when she saw what Duke pulled out of his bag, she knew the girl was going to die. And nothing would matter.

‘Don’t look back, now.’

Siobhán got up, but she instinctively turned around. And screamed when she saw the bow.

‘Run, rabbit, run!’ he yelled, raising the bow to his shoulder. Siobhán ran from him, stumbling through the low gorse, her bare feet twisting over sharp rocks. She made it thirty metres when the first arrow hit.

Joe picked up the phone to Marcy Winbaum, the first person he had to tell the truth to since Anna had been taken. She spoke with the confidence of a woman who had worked hard to get where she was. Every word she said quickened his heart beat, weakened his body, but strengthened his resolve. He had never experienced this before — a raw panic that coursed through him, starting in his chest, moving downwards, throbbing simultaneously in his head. He tried hard to slow his breathing. Flashes of the fax came into his mind, the victims discarded like broken dolls. The images were replaced with the mug shot of Duke Rawlins, the dead body of Donald Riggs. And then Anna. Joe felt something rip inside. He had led his wife into the path of this maniac. His only hope was that now, he had a bargaining chip.

Victor Nicotero walked away from the phone booth, thinking about Dorothy Parnum, thinking about how people can be so strong, yet so weak at the same time. He liked that. He pulled out his phony FOP folder to write that down for his memoirs. He reached into his inside jacket pocket for his retirement pen. It wasn’t there. He checked his folder. He patted his other pockets.

‘Goddammit,’ he said and turned around.

Duke knelt by the body of Siobhán Fallon, working on it with the curved blade. Anna, free from the bindings on her ankles, but bound to a narrow tree trunk, jerked forward and vomited between her legs. With the force, she felt the slightest slip of the knot that tied her wrists.

‘Keep watchin’,’ Duke said to her, ‘or I’ll make you do something you might regret.’ Anna looked up at him through watery eyes.

‘Don’t blame yourself,’ said Duke. ‘This is on account of you and your husband. Blame the both of you while you’re at it.’ He smiled and completed each step of his ritual, all the while looking back over his shoulder to Anna whose beautiful horrified face sent pleasant shivers down his spine. When he turned away again, she ran.

Frank Deegan fanned out the pages of the fax on the passenger seat, thinking he could glance at them on the drive. By the second page, he had to pull over. He studied the photos and read the detached descriptions of young skin and bones and hair and limbs and the hideous wounds that defiled them all. He never understood how men would want to shatter these delicate creatures.

He looked again at the photos. He could connect the dots between the American victims’ injuries and those suffered by Mary Casey in Doon. But there was an extra dot, that bit further out that he couldn’t quite draw a line to — Joe Lucchesi. Then another dot right beside it — the small, delicate Anna.

Dorothy Parnum was dabbing the corner of her eyes with a balled-up handkerchief when she answered the door. Her mascara had run and her frosted lipstick had disappeared, leaving an ugly pink trail of lip liner around her mouth.

‘I forgot my pen,’ he said, but she was already holding it out to him.

‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I apologise for my behaviour earlier. I don’t know why I was telling you all that.’ Fresh tears welled in her eyes. ‘But you look like the kindest man a grieving widow could hope to meet.’ She squeezed his arm, but it only made her cry harder. Finally, she took in a deep breath and tried to smile.

‘No more boo-hoos,’ she said. ‘That’s what Ogden used to say to me. No more boo-hoos... but there were always more.’

Stinger’s Creek, North Central Texas, 1992

Ogden Parnum closed the plastic folder and watched a hand print of sweat shrink and dry on the surface. He stared at the space between two photos on the wall ahead of him, then hung his head until his neck strained and blood pulsed at his temples. He ran trembling fingers over and over through his thin hair. Then he hit the intercom.

‘Marcy, I think we need to call someone to the station. Come in to my office.’

‘Sure, Chief.’ Ogden Parnum had worked with five deputies over the years, but none was as bright and efficient as Marcy Winbaum. He knew now that she was the last person he needed on this case. And the suspect he was forced to call in was the last person he wanted to see.

‘Isn’t it exciting?’ she smiled, pointing at the lab report.

‘Take it easy there, Marcy. I think it’s all a bit premature and there could be a whole ’nother explanation.’

‘Well, I’ve got something else I’m excited about, if you’re willing to listen, boss. I’ve been going through the rest of the Crosscut Killer file. And uh, then I cross-referenced it with the Janet Bell file, the body found in ’88, the prostitute also went by the name of Alexis? I think she’s one of them, sir.’