Heather didn’t go home that night. That was the day she disappeared.
Susan thought she couldn’t have been the only person in the village to know about Heather’s men friends and how Alec organised it all. They must have seen the strangers’ cars, realised there were nights when the gamekeeper had cash to spend in the pub. But nobody spoke. When the police asked questions the villagers talked about shy Eddie Black. Otherwise they kept their mouths firmly shut. Alec’s dog had a mad eye and Alec had a fierce temper, even when he was smiling. They didn’t want to know what had really happened to Heather.
Susan knew. When her father had driven off and Alec had sauntered back to the village, towards the house he shared with Heather’s mum, she’d scrambled down from the wall, pulling away the ivy in her haste. Despite the heat she’d gone to the hill, running all the way. She hadn’t opened the gate into the quarry field that day, she’d climbed it. Then, she’d been young and strong. From halfway up the hill, she’d seen Heather lying flat on her back at the edge of the old workings. At first she’d thought she was asleep, but as she approached, scattering the sheep in her path, she’d realised that the girl’s eyes were open and there were tears on her cheeks.
Heather heard her coming. She must have done. By then Susan was out of breath, panting, and there’d be the sound of her footsteps and the sheep loping off. But she didn’t sit up until the very last minute.
“Oh,” she said. “It’s you.”
“Who were you expecting?” Susan demanded. “Alec? My dad?”
“Your father? He’s pathetic.”
That was what they always called her. It was the jeer that followed her around the playground. You’re pathetic, you are. Shouted in turn by Marilyn, Diane, and Heather. It was the word that made her fight back.
“Not as pathetic as your dad. Moving out and letting Alec take up with your mam. Not as pathetic as you, going off with all those men, just because he tells you.”
She was shocked by her own courage. She’d never stood up to one of them before. Heather was stunned too. She got to her feet but didn’t say anything. Susan thought she might run down the hill and home. But she didn’t. She just stared.
At last Heather spoke. “If you say anything at school, I’ll tell them about your father. I’ll tell them he made me go off with him.”
“I wouldn’t tell them!” Susan moved forward. “I never would.” In her head she had a picture of the two of them, sitting on the pavement outside the council houses, friends brought together by the shared secret. Besides, who would she tell?
Heather must have seen the step towards her as a threat. She backed away, lost her footing, slipped. Susan might have been able to save her. She was strong. And there was a moment when she almost did it. When she almost reached out and grabbed the girl’s arm. If she saved Heather’s life, wouldn’t she have to be her friend? But she decided not to. She wanted to see what it would look like. What Heather would look like rolling down the steep bank until she reached the overhang and fell into nothing. What sound she would make when she hit the stones below. It was as if all the watching had been leading up to this moment. And it was all very satisfactory, very satisfying. There was the expression of panic when Heather scrabbled to save herself and realised it was useless, the moment of flight, the dull thud. And then her undignified resting place amongst the rubble of quarry waste, her skirt around her waist, her legs spread out. Susan would have liked to leave her there for everyone to see.
But that wouldn’t do. Someone might have seen Susan get over the gate into the field. Then there’d be questions she didn’t want to answer. And Susan wanted to get closer to the body. She was curious now to see what it looked like. She peered down over the lip of the cliff to the face of the quarry where the stone had been hacked away. It was a difficult climb, but not impossible for her, not so very different from scrambling down from the churchyard wall. Only in scale. At the bottom she took a minute to catch her breath. She stood over Heather, who didn’t really look like Heather at all now. Then she rolled her close into the cliff face and piled her body with the loose rocks which lined the quarry bottom. That was more exhausting than the climb back. When she reached the top the sun was very low. She took one last look down the cliff. Because of the angle it was hard to see where Heather was lying and even if you could see the place it would look as if there’d been a small rock fall.
When she got in her mother told her off for being so filthy. When are you going to start acting like a girl? Her father talked about the union meeting. They watched television. There was shepherd’s pie for tea.
The policeman came into school to ask his questions and later she wished she’d told him what had happened. She could have explained that it was an accident. She could have said she’d panicked. They’d have had to accept that. They’d have given her help. But perhaps by then it was already too late. The trouble was, she’d enjoyed it. The moment when Heather fell had been so exciting. It had the thrill and the power of running across the field on Sports Day, of crossing the line first. It had caused sparks in her brain. She’d wanted to recreate that buzzing sensation. She’d thought of nothing else. That was why she’d killed Eddie’s birds. But birds aren’t like people. It wasn’t the same.
Tom wasn’t much more fit than she was and it took them longer than she’d expected to walk up the hill to the disused quarry. Since her time they’d put up a fence and a couple of notices saying it was unsafe. It wasn’t as deep as she’d remembered.
“That’s where she is,” she said. “Under that pile of rubble at the bottom of the cliff. That’s where you’ll find Heather Mather.”
“So,” he said. “The scene of your first crime.”
“Oh no.” She was offended. “Heather was an accident. Not like the others.”
She liked Tom. He was her named officer at the prison. She’d refused to speak to the detectives and the psychiatrists who’d tried to persuade her to tell them where Heather Mather was. Her first victim, as they called her. The first of four before she was caught. All pretty girls who simpered and pouted and made up to older men.
Tom spoke into his radio and she could already see the police officers who’d been waiting in the van coming through the gate. She let him take her arm and steer her down the hill. He’d be ready for his dinner.
THE FIERY DEVIL by Peter Tremayne
A curse upon the fiery devil, thundering along so smoothly… He loitered about the station, waiting until one should stay to call there; and when one did, and was detached for water, he stood parallel with it, watching its huge wheels and brazen front and thinking what a cruel power and might it held. Ugh! To see the great wheels slowly turning and to think of being run down and crushed!
Chapter 55, Dombey and Son, Charles Dickens, 1848
“Captain Ryder?”
Mr Josiah Plankton peered myopically at the business card that the young man had offered and glanced up with a quick bird-like motion of his head. Then he adjusted his gold-rimmed pince-nez and turned his gaze back to the card.
“Captain Ryder of the Detective Department of the Metropolitan Police?” There was a slight inflection of incredulity in his tone.
“Exactly so, sir,” nodded the young man who stood before him with a pleasant smile on his tanned features.