Mark Pearson - The Killing Season

‘Mr Delaney,’ she said with a completely disarming smile. ‘I’m Helen Middleton. No relation. We spoke on the phone.’

I nodded. ‘Indeed we did. Call me Jack.’ I would have shaken her hand but both of hers were busy. She was holding a small dog who was watching me with alert, suspicious eyes. It looked like some kind of terrier crossed with something else. I’m not great on dog types.

‘I’d shake your hand, but I don’t want Bruno running out into the road,’ she said, as if reading my mind. ‘I hope you don’t mind dogs?’

‘Not at all,’ I replied. ‘I’m an Irishman.’ As if that explained everything. Maybe it did.

‘What brand is it?’

‘Brand?’

‘Sorry, breed.’

‘Border Terrier with a bit of Jack Russell in him. Anyway, come in, come in,’ she said. ‘We’re letting all the heat out.’

I did as I was told and followed her into a small hallway that had framed pictures on the wall and a small occasional table with a vase and flowers in it. I could feel the warmth immediately and unzipped my jacket. Helen Middleton opened a door and we turned left into the lounge of the bungalow.

There was a pleasant smell of wood polish in the air as we entered. It was quite a large room but in immaculate order with not a speck of dust anywhere. Which was remarkable considering the number of small tables and other surfaces in the room. All covered with objets d’art . Statuettes, toby jugs, miniature figures. Collectible bottles of brandy that were shaped like books. Boxes. An antique gaming table with some Royal Doulton china on it. A log-burner was blazing cheerily in the middle of the wall to my left. Close to it was a very comfortable-looking leather recliner facing a corner of the room where you might have expected to see a television. But instead of a TV there was a high-end audio set-up. Separates with a CD player, receiver and matching amplifier. To the right and left of them some tall expensive-looking speakers. I could just about make out the strains of some classical music playing — she had obviously turned the volume down on my arrival. On a small sherry table to the left of the armchair was a precariously balanced pile of books. A notepad and pen lay on top of them.

‘Mozart?’ I enquired.

‘Not close and no cigar, I am afraid.’ She smiled. ‘Mahler’s fourth. In G major.’

I nodded. Classical music wasn’t really my thing. Unless you counted Johnny Cash, which a lot of purists at the Royal Academy of Music didn’t.

‘Music is one of my passions, Detective Delaney,’ she continued. ‘You may note that I do not have a television.’

‘I did that, ma’am.’

‘Life is to short to waste on. . what is it they call it? “Moving wallpaper”?’

‘I’m not such a big fan myself, truth be told.’ I smiled at her. ‘And I don’t get a lot of time for it nowadays.’

‘The strictures of the job?’

‘That and a newborn baby, and an eight-year-old daughter and a wife who’s a doctor who is also called upon sometimes to work irregular hours.’

‘Ah. That would be Doctor Walker, then?’

I raised an eyebrow, always a winner with the ladies. ‘Sure now you’d make a pretty fine detective yourself, Mrs Middleton,’ I said, sticking in a large dollop of the Ballydehob for good measure.

She smiled tolerantly. ‘It’s Helen,’ she said and put down her dog who immediately started jumping up on my legs, his tail swishing back and forth like a windscreen wiper gone out of control.

I reached down and patted him on the head. ‘Hi, Bruno.’

The dog seemed satisfied with that and trotted off happily back to his mistress.

‘I certainly don’t feel like a “ma’am” and “Mrs Middleton” sounds far too formal.’ She held out her hand.

I shook it. It felt like a small, warm bird nestled in mine, but she had a surprisingly firm grip.

‘And please call me Jack. I’m not technically a police officer at the moment. I’m on sabbatical.’

‘So I understand.’

Helen Middleton leaned down and tickled behind the puppy’s ear. His tail became even more manic. Had he been a Great Dane that tail could have caused thousands of pounds of damage to her porcelain collection.

‘I have to keep an eye on him. Bruno’s always keen to meet people and only has to hear the doorbell chime to go charging across. He’s not even a year old yet and he doesn’t realise what kind of maniacs drive along the roads around here.’

I flashed her a smile again. ‘I’ve noticed that myself, too.’

‘You haven’t been here long, Jack?’

‘My fiancée was born around here. But no, we only recently moved up.’

‘Bit of a change from the big city?’

‘It is that, sure enough!’

‘Well, you may not have been here long, but Amy speaks very highly of you.’

‘That’s good to hear.’

‘Her people are old family friends.’ Helen looked at me appraisingly. ‘And I am guessing that Doctor Walker, your wife-to-be, is a very handsome woman.’

I smiled again. ‘Why would you think that?’

She winked at me. ‘Because you are a very handsome man. If I was fifty years younger I might have given her a run for her money.’

I laughed. ‘You’d have barely been at infant school fifty years ago, Helen.’

It was her turn to laugh. ‘I can see you’ve kissed the Blarney Stone, Jack.’

‘Kissed it? My family installed it.’

‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’

I had the impression that she was stalling. Avoiding the matter that had brought me to her house in the first place. Everything in this room seemed so ordered. It was as if she was reluctant to break the sense of security she felt in it.

‘The police have been of no use?’ I prompted her.

She snorted in response — in a ladylike manner, mind. ‘Don’t even get me started. No offence.’

‘None taken. So you want to show me how bad it is?’

Helen nodded, then led me to the left-hand side of the room and opened the door almost reluctantly. Her eyes glistened as she looked inside. But not with joy. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand as I looked in.

I could see why she had been reluctant to open the door.

William

He didn’t know how old he was.

Big for his age, but terrified by the small woman who stood in front of him. She had long, dark curly hair tied back, eyes as blue as eggs in a robin’s nest and a hardness in them that was no foil to their beauty. She had a heart-shaped face with high cheekbones, lips like a cut fig. Her skin was pale, almost alabaster, and she wore no make-up. When she smiled and laughed it lit up his world like a Christmas tree. But he couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed. Or smiled. She certainly wasn’t smiling now.

In her hand she held a long stick, and he already knew that he had done wrong. He looked across the kitchen at the broken fragments of the green-patterned plate he had dropped and he felt his knees tremble. The lady who owned the plate would be annoyed. It was part of a set, a valuable set. And the small woman who held the stick would bear the brunt of that anger. But not in the way that he would bear hers.

Soon after, with his back and buttocks bared, the stick cut fresh marks over old scars and he bit down hard, determined not to cry or yell.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had cried, either.

The door from Helen Middleton’s lounge opened into the bungalow’s kitchen.

Some plastic sheeting had been draped haphazardly, bisecting the kitchen, but the wind blew coldly through, creating a low hum as it set the sheet flapping. Beyond that there was a large hole that had been cut through the kitchen wall and beyond that lay her garden, which looked as well ordered as everything else concerning the bungalow. And past the garden lay the flat salt marshes that led to the coast. And then the North Sea itself, stretching all the way to the North Pole. And the wind, blowing straight from there, blew straight into her kitchen.