This is the seventh part of a fiction serial, in 1510 words.

The Twins

Something needed to be done before disposing of the things she had brought back from Tanya’s church. She wanted to delete the mobile phone contact number she had provided, and was sure it would be on Tanny’s phone which was stashed in the car. Even though the phone Jenny was using was a cheap pay and go phone with no contract reference, it would be useful to be able to hang onto it, and not have to worry if it was traced later. As she went through the call list and contacts on the phone menu, something she saw made her stop scrolling.

Katie Bell.

Katie and her twin sister Karen had been the muscle, as far as the gang of bullies was concerned. Once they tired of the name-calling and general teasing on a daily basis, they decided to make Jenny’s life even more miserable by setting the twins on her. It started with pushes, made to look accidental. Tripping her up as she walked along the school corridors came next, usually with the addition of tipping out her school bag, and kicking the books around.

They were the two names that Jenny hadn’t been able to find any trace of.

Then one day, they pushed her hard from behind as she was walking down stairs, and she fell and broke two fingers on her left hand. As bad luck would have it, this was spotted by a classroom assistant, and she reported it. But the twins would only believe that Jenny had done it to get them in trouble, and set out to exact real revenge. They waited for her on the way home, and ambushed her close to a walk-through alley near the house. Karen held her tight, as Katie waved a disposable lighter around in her face. She singed off some hair, and chuckled as Jenny screamed for help.

Before letting her go, Karen pulled up the sleeve of her coat, and the sisters laughed as Katie used the lighter to burn Jenny’s arm. It was a large burn, and very painful, and she had to tell her Mum that it was done at school, in the science lab. Then she had to stop Mum rushing off down to the school to complain about negligence, swearing it was her own fault. Although they never waited for her again after that, Katie took every opportunity to wave the lighter at her, flicking on the flame when nobody was watching.

Under the name was a mobile phone number, and a postcode. No address, but that was good enough for now. Scrolling up and down the address book on a hunch, she found the name Karen Tobias. It was a good chance that might be the twin sister, with a married name. Under that name was the same postcode, pretty much confirming it was her. Jenny opened her laptop and entered the postcode. It came back to an industrial estate in a town over eighty miles north. Perhaps they worked there?

That would be her next destination.

Waking up the next morning, Jenny felt as if she had been hit by a car while she was asleep. Her shoulders ached terribly, and she could feel acute pain as she tried to lift her left arm. The pulling sensation had got so bad, she actually looked at the side of her breast to try to see if she could see something. As she started to brush her teeth, nausea overwhelmed her, and she vomited into the sink. There was no time to wonder though. Things to do, and a drive to make. She carried on getting ready, this time using the short black wig bought as a spare. When everything was done, she felt as if she was shivering, despite a pleasant temperature that day. Not that she was cold as such, but the trembling was visible.

After fifty miles, she stopped for a coffee, parking behind the service station. Unable to face eating anything at the time, she sat and finished the hot drink before continuing. The satnav in her car took her to the industrial estate about fifty minutes later, and she slowed down, wondering what to do next. Numerous companies had premises there, everything from a tyre fitting firm, to a plumbing supply warehouse. But now she was there, Jenny felt stupid. She couldn’t just park there all day, hoping to recognise one of the twins. They might not even be at work that day. Away from all the businesses, at the end of the street, she spotted a large mobile cafe, situated in what looked like a permanent spot. That made her feel hungry, so she left the car where it was, and walked down to buy something to eat.

There were some small metal tables and chairs dotted around outside, and one of them had a table umbrella open above it. Jenny stopped dead when she read the name on it, printed in pink letters. ‘Katie’s Kafe’. A few steps later, and she could see two women working in the large drop-down opening. One of them was unmistakably Karen, but the other one was a lot heavier than Katie had ever been. Huge in fact. Maybe Katie had been eating all the profits? So that was why Tanya had the postcode as a contact for the twins. They were running a tea and sandwich business.

Up close, it was definitely them. The dark hair and deep brown eyes, thin lips on small mouths. Jenny opened her handbag, and took our her purse. “Can I have a tea please, milk no sugar? And I will have a bacon sandwich too”. They hadn’t developed any better temperaments in their forties, that was obvious. Karen extended a hand. “That will be three-forty luv”. Katie had already turned to begin frying some bacon in an old blackened pan. Jenny sat at the table nearest the serving counter and smiled at Karen. She didn’t smile back, and started to rub down the counter with a grungy-looking cloth. Moments later, she slapped a plate holding the sandwich onto the counter, followed by a big white mug of tea. “Tea and bacon sandwich!” She bellowed as if trying to be heard over a crowd, though Jenny was the only other person there. Standing up to collect her order, she smiled at Karen again. Still no trace of recognition.

After eating most of the sandwich, and drinking all of the tea, Jenny went back to the hatch. “What time do you close please? I might come back for something else later”. This time it was Katie who turned and spoke, hesitating slightly as she looked at Jenny’s eyes. “Normally around four, luv. Depends how busy we are”. With a nod, Jenny walked away, hoping that she had jogged Katie’s memory. Even a little bit.

By six that night, the area was deserted. The businesses were closed up for the day, and so was the snack bar. It had been a very long and dull wait for Jenny, parked in a nearby playing fields car park, trying not to succumb to sleep. Luckily, hardly anyone had been around those playing fields during the afternoon, and she had even been able to crouch behind her car to have a pee.

She parked right behind the shuttered snack bar, the overhang covering up her car completely. Under the steps at the side that led the twins up to their place of work there was a large gas bottle. Rubber tubing ran from the valve at the top into a hole in the floor of the mobile building, then presumably into the cooking range at the back. Jenny pulled on it, delighted to find a lot of slack on the pipe. When she was sure she had pulled enough through, she cut a small hole in the tubing with some nail scissors she kept in her handbag, then fed it all back in carefully. With a quick glance to make sure it looked exactly the same as it had before, she turned the wheel around the valve, which had a small window indicating that the bottle was three-quarters full.

Now for a tiresome drive home, in rush-hour traffic. One stop required, to dump the stuff from Tanya’s place, then home for a rest.

Sleep was reluctant to come that night, and Jenny tossed and turned, despite the painkillers. So she woke late the next morning, and it was almost eleven before she checked the website of the local paper where the twins had their cafe. There was a photo of some firemen spraying water from their hoses over what was left of the burned-out mobile building. A small headline below said everything Jenny had been hoping to hear. ‘Tragic accident claims the lives of local sisters’. That was followed by ‘Gas leak believed to have caused fatal fire. Women died from burns’.

She closed the laptop without bothering to read any more.

This is the sixth part of a fiction serial, in 1040 words.

Police Involvement

DS Baker wasn’t having any of it. “I don’t get the boss with his racially motivated thing”. She stopped to bite into the bacon roll, and some sauce trickled down her chin. DC Willoughby smiled at her, pointing at his own chin to indicate what had happened. “Why not, sarge? Seems about right. Rich woman, Pakistani background. Bound to cause resentment, especially with her living in that beautiful house, and swanning around dressed like a fashion model”. Izzy Baker swallowed the lump of roll, and pointed across the desk. “That’s just it. She is one of them, married to a local rich guy, and living like a country lady. Racially motivated attacks are usually against obvious Muslims, you know, burkas and that. I have my own theory, and I will work on it in my own time if need be”.

Sammy wasn’t about to ask her what that theory was, knowing full well she was about to tell him. She put down what was left of the roll, and wiped her face with the back of her hand. She was a good copper, but she definitely had no class.

“It’s got to be another woman. Rich guy, probably got a few on the go. Made promises to leave the wife and kids, then didn’t follow through. Jealous woman decides to splash some acid over her rival to get things moving, then she takes it too far. Mark my words, it will be a woman. Any progress with that CCTV, Sammy?” He inclined his head back, indicating the corridor behind him. “Donna’s on it, she’s using room six”. The sergeant stood up, and pulled her skirt down and straight, adjusting where it had ridden up from too long in the chair. “I’ll go and see how she’s getting on”.

Over sixty miles away, in the incident room of a different police force, Inspector John Meacham was going through the interrogation tapes. Phillipa Watson had let in her attacker, he was certain of that. She had to have known who it was. Early investigations had revealed that she had been with a lot of men recently, most of them met at her local gym. She wasn’t shy about putting herself on offer, and younger fit men were her companions of choice. One of the personal trainers who worked there had come up as interesting. Mario Pelosi’s prints had been found in her house, and he had form. He had been acquitted of two sexual assaults when he lived in Nottingham, and a former girlfriend had accused him of hitting her with a bread board, breaking some bones in her face. She had dropped the charges before it got to court though.

Pelosi had moved south for a fresh start, and worked at the gym on a self-employed basis, being paid by members for one-to-one training. They had got him in for questioning, and he had declined a solicitor. Readily admitting he had numerous sexual encounters with female gym members, he was also happy to agree that he had been to Phillipa’s house on many occasions, at her invitation. He claimed to have nothing to hide, and denied any involvement with her murder. Yes, he had seen her at the gym that night, but he had been busy with a new customer and hadn’t spoken to her. Trouble was, his alibi was useless. He claimed to have left work just after nine, gone straight home, and hadn’t spoken to anyone.

Meacham shook his head. That would tie in with the time that Mrs Watson was killed, and CCTV had Pelosi’s car nearby at close to nine-fifteen. But he only lived a few minutes from her, so that was easily explained. The Inspector didn’t feel it. He relied a lot on instinct, and something was telling him that it wasn’t Mario.

Izzy walked back into the main office waving a printout from some CCTV footage. She beamed at Sammy, shouting loud enough for the whole room to hear. “I told you! A Woman! Look at this! Buying two bottles of drain cleaner in the same area that Mrs Holloway lived. Well, not that far, anyway. That blonde hair looks like a wig to me, and the black spectacles are probably fake too”. She plonked down into the swivel chair, holding the printout close to his face. “Look at her, Sammy. She’s the one. I’m certain”.

She made a phone call to the boss, sounding very confident. After explaining all the details of her theory, she took a deep breath, and made her play. “We should have the husband in, sir. He will know the woman, I’m sure of it. He might even be involved, you know, put her up to it”. She nodded a few times, and turned to Sammy giving him a thumbs-up. “Thank you sir, I will get a warrant and get straight on it”.

It was after ten when Jenny got home that night. The long drive had been very tiring, once the adrenaline wore off. She hadn’t bothered to stop to dump anything, that would have to be done tomorrow. Checking the news on her laptop, she saw that a man was ‘helping police with inquiries’ about Phil’s murder, but when she clicked on the latest report about Tabitha’s case, she slumped in her chair. They had a photo of her from the big warehouse shop, and were asking the public to come forward if they knew the woman in the photo. She thought hard about her arrival at The Blue Boar. She had tied the wig in a pony tail, and wasn’t wearing any glasses. The barmaid had hardly looked at her. That might be alright. As for Mrs Wilkinson, she wouldn’t be describing anyone, but the tape bought at the same time would be discovered wrapped around her head.

Jenny was angry at herself, but she could never have guessed that the police would be onto the blonde woman as a suspect so quickly.

But she should have, she knew that now. There was no doubt about it, she would have to work faster. Starting tomorrow.

Or they might just catch her before she could finish what she had started.

This is the fifth part of a fiction serial, in 1760 words.

Tanya Birch

It was the longest drive Jenny had taken in years. She stopped at a roadside restaurant halfway, and sat staring out of the window at the crowded car park.

Tanya liked to be called Tanny, for some reason. Though not conventionally attractive, there was something about her that oozed sexuality, even from the age of twelve. Other girls noticed her, and boys looked back at her as they walked past. By the time she was fifteen, rumours were going around that she had already done it, and from her supremely confident manner, Jenny suspected that they were correct.

There was every chance that she would never have been accepted into the group. For one thing, she wasn’t any good at netball, and she was also very clever. Always top in most subjects, academic prowess seemed to come easy for her. No fear of exams, and not much need to study either. ‘Naturally bright’ was what most teachers called her. For other girls, this would leave them isolated and alone, derided for being a swot. But Tanny was sought after, with that elusive appeal that nobody could quite put their finger on.

At the time, Jenny was also obsessed with her. More than a crush, an unspoken desire. Of course, she didn’t have a hope in Hell of even talking to her, let alone hanging out with her. Once she became part of the netball gang, Jenny was never going to feature on her radar.

But despite this, Tanny was responsible for an awful cruelty. One of the worst.

The rest of the drive was dull. Boring scenery sweeping past the window, and too many big trucks to have to keep overtaking. By the time she got to the pub called The Blue Boar where she had booked a room, it was dark and chilly. A room above a pub seemed like a good idea. The owners too busy to pay her much attention, and a crowded bar keeping them distracted. A false name, and the blonde wig. Good enough to go unnoticed for now. Cash paid over in advance, and just handed a key by the harassed barmaid. No breakfast included, so easy to slip out through a side entrance the next morning. And it was almost forty miles from her destination too, so nothing too close to where Tanny was to be found.

There was no bath in the room, so Jenny stood in the shower letting the hot water soothe her aches and pains. That pulling feeling under her left breast was getting worse. She rubbed at the spot, but that didn’t help. How she hated her boobs. They had blighted her life, and now it appeared they were going to end it too soon as well. Having a large chest at the age of thirteen might have been something some girls yearned for. But for her, the prominent bulges had only served to attract unwanted attention. When you had the biggest pair in the school by the age of fourteen, even bigger than any of the female teachers, they could make your life a waking nightmare.

First came the nicknames. ‘Headlamps’, ‘Boobylicious’, ‘Jenny Jugs’, and so many more. Then came the other jibes. “Are they real?” “Have you stuffed your bra?” “Are you pregnant?” “Don’t be late for milking time, the farmer’s calling”. Outside school she had to run the gauntlet of stares. Boys stared, old men stared, even old ladies stared. People serving in shops stared, bus drivers stared, and there was no chance she would ever go to a swimming pool, fearful of becoming the main attraction. It would have been nice to have been able to talk to mum about it, but as she also had huge boobs, Jenny was afraid to bring up the subject.

Then Tanya started to pay attention to her. Slinking away from the rest of the group, she found reasons to chat to her. Asking about a difficult Maths problem, or mentioning that there were some good school shoes on offer at the local shoe shop. Jenny instinctively knew it was all fake. Why would the girl suddenly appear to befriend her, after all this time? But her need for friendship and her attraction to Tanny overcame her inner worries. She took her eye off the ball, with terrible consequences.

One afternoon when school was turning out for the day, Tanny found her. Grabbing her hand she smiled, and whispered “Come on, I want to tell you something”. She led her behind some storage sheds away from the main building, and pushed her back against the wall. “Do you like me? I mean, really like me?” Jenny nodded enthusiastically. With that, Tanny started to kiss her, and began to unbutton her blouse at the same time. Overwhelmed, face flushed, Jenny returned the passion, throwing caution to the winds. Moments later, Tanny stepped back, a horrible grin across her face. Shrieks of laughter were suddenly heard all around, and the netball gang appeared, shouting and hooting, bent double with hilarity.

Tanny pointed at her, extending a long manicured finger. “Told you, girls. The Pug is a lezza, look at the state of her”. More raucous laughter as the group pointed at her unbuttoned blouse, and the heavy breasts straining the straps of the cheap bra. Jenny grabbed her school bag and started running. She ran across the playing fields to the back gate, pausing to catch her breath and do up some buttons. Then she started running again, and didn’t stop until she got home.

That night, she took her first overdose. But there was only aspirin in the house, and just seven tablets. All it did was to make her feel a bit sick.

And now Tanny was running a Spiritualist Church. Not a formal affair, just one of those places where people went to try to contact their long-lost loved ones, and no doubt pay for the privilege. Her sloppy website promised contact from beyond, and also offered personal one-to-one sittings. Perfect. Jenny had booked one online, using a mobile broadband dongle and a false name and email address. The so-called church was easy to find. Looking like a converted car repair garage, at the end of a lane in a remote country district. Jenny had rarely seen anything that looked less like a church, despite the badly-painted signs promising ‘Spiritual Help Ahead’.

There were no cars in the car park, and no sign of any CCTV cameras either. She parked away from the door, turning the car to face out of the entrance before getting out. Dark glasses with the blonde wig, and a cheap puffa jacket over some grey leggings. She looked like what she was pretending to be. She had something in her shoulder bag, all she would need.

Tanny was barely recognisable as she answered the door. Long grey hair extended almost to her elbows, and a heavily lined face made her look older than her years. She might have survived all that sex and addictions, but her body was advertising the effects of it. The voice was the same though. Slightly superior. No, condescending. That was better. She showed her through the small room with its rows of chairs in front of a small lectern. A tiny stuffy room at the back seemed to serve as both consulting room, and bedsit. It was tidy, but felt airless, and smelled musty.

There was not a hint of recognition in her tone, or on her face. “I think we agreed forty pounds?” Jenny handed over the two twenties, and Tanny slipped them inside a mystical-looking box on the table. Adopting a serene pose, she looked up from the box. “Now, how can I help you?” Jenny spoke with a slightly gruff voice, as if she had a sore throat. “I am trying to contact an old friend, someone I was at school with. I haven’t seen her for twenty-five years, and I was worried that she might have died. Can you tell me if she is in the spirit world?”

Tanny reached across, taking her left hand. She rolled her eyes upward before closing the lids over them. Jenny had to stifle a snort of laughter at the theatricals. “What is her name, my dear?” Wrapping her right hand around the handle of the kitchen knife in her bag, she replied. “Jenny Pettifer. A troubled girl, badly bullied. I fear that she may have taken her own life”. A definite flicker of the closed eyelids showed that Tanny had recognsised the name. That was something. With her eyes still closed, she spoke with great solemnity. “You can rest easy my dear. Your good friend is alive, and no longer troubled”. Jenny was impressed, maybe Tanny knew her stuff after all.

As the other woman’s eyes opened and she began to smile, Jenny brought her hand out of the bag and stabbed Tanny once in the neck. She jumped up, pushing the small table to one side, then walked back a few paces, clutching her neck with both hands. Using her left hand, Jenny removed the sunglasses, and pulled off the wig. “Hi Tanny. It’s been a long time”. With that, she rushed forward and plunged the six-inch blade between the clasped hands, straight into Tanny’s throat.

There was a lot of blood, more than she had expected.

It didn’t take long for Tanny to bleed out. Whether it was the wounds, the shock, or just the surprise, she had made no attempt to get around Jenny and make for the door, or to defend herself.

A quick rummage was all it took to find an ancient laptop. That and a mobile phone were placed in the shoulder bag, which would hopefully remove any record of the appointment. In the mystical box she found just the two twenties, but took the box anyway. Robbery. A decent enough motive.
The puffa jacket had taken most of the blood, but the wig had some splashes on it, and would need to be washed. Wrapping the knife in the jacket, she hefted the bag onto her shoulder, and walked out to her car.

Some baby wipes in the back cleaned the blood off of her hands, and they were placed in a rubbish bag with the jacket, knife, and box.

As she turned on the engine, Jenny was buzzing, hyped up. It was better when they knew, that was for sure. She decided to do the three hundred mile drive home in one hit.

It wouldn’t matter if she felt tired later.

This is the fourth part of a fiction serial, in 910 words.

Rest and Reflection

The traffic was bad on the way home, and Jenny was feeling overwhelmingly tired. But she had things to do first.

The stuff she had used and taken had to be dumped. All separated into unrelated piles, she had placed it into black rubbish bags, and tied them up securely. Various spots on the way back served as dumps for them. Council waste bins, the communal containers behind some flats at the edge of town, and even on top of some other rubbish dumped in a lay-by on the ring road. It would all be removed in dustcarts, and taken away for destinations in landfill or incinerators.

Jenny had reason to thank at least three local authorities for their lacklustre provision of recycling.

One last stop, at the corner shop near her flat. The strongest non-prescription painkillers she could buy over the counter, and a sad-looking Cornish pastie to heat up for dinner. The car was left in the space allocated to her flat in the underground car park, and she dragged herself into the lift feeling exhausted.

The pain under her left arm was more of a nagging ache. The tablets would sort that out after a bath and dinner, but it was the extreme tiredness that really worried her. She felt like someone in their seventies, and it was hard to still believe that she was only forty-three.

Feeling better after a bath, and having to admit that the pastie had been very tasty, she thought back on the events of the past few days. It hadn’t really dawned on her until that moment that she had killed three people. That was a big deal, even for someone who had spent a life obsessed with hatred and revenge.

The light was flashing on the house phone, indicating a message. Pressing ‘play’ she listened to the voice of the hospital consultant’s secretary. “We haven’t heard back from you about our letter, Miss Pettifer. Can you please call me back on the usual number? Mr Abdullah would like you to come in for a talk”.

Jenny deleted the message. It would be good to know how much time she had left, but she couldn’t spare the time to find out. Opening her laptop, she checked out the news.

Phil’s death wasn’t even reported nationally. Too many murders, so only the really interesting ones made the headlines. She checked the local paper’s website for where Phil lived. The police there had described it as an ‘Aggravated Burglary’. No forced entry, and a suspicion that the woman was only killed because she might have been able to identify her attacker. The murder was described as ‘frantic, and unusually brutal’ by the detective in charge. He concluded by saying that ‘investigations are ongoing’.

Tabs had made the national news though. The ‘horrific acid attack’ was described by the lead detective there as ‘racially motivated’. Jenny smiled at that. It hadn’t occurred to her that they might think that. That was an unexpected perk. She spoke out loud. “Thanks for that, Mr Detective”. There were the usual appeals for anyone who had seen anything to call a hotline number, and a sombre police chief stating that ‘suspects were being interviewed’.

Mrs Wilkinson didn’t feature anywhere, national or local. They probably hadn’t found her yet.

Jenny wasn’t stupid. She knew it wouldn’t be too long before they started to trawl CCTV. To find out who might have been in the area, what cars were seen more than once, and who had been buying drain cleaner in every shop that sold it. But so far, all they had was her unregistered car, and some footage of a blonde woman wearing heavy black-framed glasses. They might get to the seedy car salesman who had done her a deal for cash, but she had been wearing a disguise that day too, and hadn’t given him her real name.

With any luck, she could keep one step ahead of the investigation. After all, she had driven well over one hundred miles away to carry out all the killings, and there was no connection to her that was glaringly obvious.

She went to bed after closing the laptop.
Lying in the dark, she was hoping her body would last as long as her resolve.

The following morning, Jenny went through her notes. The victims were being chosen as much for the potential ease of getting to them, as well as their geographical locations. But this one was a very long way away, though suitably vulnerable. Nobody had expected her to turn out the way she had, that was for sure. She would have put money on her becoming the best of all of them, with a glowing academic career.

Instead, a bad choice of boyfriend had led her into a very sleazy lifestyle, and she was enjoying boasting about how she was ‘recovering’ from that on her social media profiles. Why anyone would list a catalogue of being a porn star, prostitute, and drug addict so that they could bore everyone by telling them that she had ‘turned her life around’, was beyond Jenny’s comprehension.
So now she was born again, and had found Jesus. So what?
Was he going to forgive her for making a schoolgirl’s life a misery twenty-five years ago?

Well he had better, because Jenny certainly wasn’t going to. She closed the notebook.

There was a long drive to make.