In the Flesh by Clive Barker Read Free Book Online Page A

There were photographs of the stricken mother being led from the house, and others, blurred but potent, taken over the back yard wall and through the open

     

    kitchen door. Was that blood on the floor, or shadow?

     

      Helen did not bother to read the articles - her aching head rebelled at the thought - but Trevor, who had brought the newspapers in, was eager to talk. She couldn't work out if this was further peacemaking on his part, or a genuine interest in the issue.

     

      'The woman's in custody,' he said, poring over the Daily Telegraph. It was a paper he was politically averse to, but its coverage of violent crime was notoriously detailed.

     

     

      The observation demanded Helen's attention, unwilling or not. 'Custody?' she said. 'Anne-Marie?'

     

     

      'Yes.'

     

     

      'Let me see.'

     

     

      He relinquished the paper, and she glanced over the page.

     

     

      'Third column,' Trevor prompted.

     

      She found the place, and there it was in black and white. Anne-Marie had been taken into custody for questioning to justify the time-lapse between the estimated hour of the child's death, and the time that it had been reported. Helen read the relevant sentences over again, to be certain that she'd understood properly. Yes, she had. The police pathologist estimated Kerry to have died between six and six-thirty that morning; the murder had not been reported until twelve.

     

      She read the report over a third and fourth time, but repetition did not change the horrid facts. The child had been murdered before dawn. When she had gone to the house that morning Kerry had already been dead four hours. The body had been in the kitchen, a few yards down the hallway from where she had stood, and Anne-Marie had said nothing. That air of expectancy she had had about her - what had it signified? That she awaited some cue to lift the receiver and call the police?

     

     

      'My Christ...' Helen said, and let the paper drop.

     

     

      'What?'

     

     

      'I have to go to the police.'

     

     

      'Why?'

     

      'To tell them I went to the house,' she replied. Trevor looked mystified. 'The baby was dead, Trevor. When I saw Anne-Marie yesterday morning, Kerry was already dead.'

     

     

     

     

      She rang the number given in the paper for any persons offering information, and half an hour later a police car came to pick her up. There was much that startled her in the two hours of interrogation that followed, not least the fact that nobody had reported her presence on the estate to the police, though she had surely been noticed.

     

      'They don't want to know - ' the detective told her, ' - you'd think a place like that would be swarming with witnesses. If it is, they're not coming forward. A crime like this...'

     

      'Is it the first?' she said.

     

     

      He looked at her across a chaotic desk. 'First?'

     

     

      'I was told some stories about the estate. Murders. This summer.'

     

      The detective shook his head. 'Not to my knowledge. There's been a spate of muggings; one woman was put in hospital for a week or so. But no; no murders.'

     

      She liked the detective. His eyes flattered her with their lingering, and his face with their frankness. Past caring whether she sounded foolish or not, she said: 'Why do they tell lies like that. About people having their eyes cut out. Terrible things.'

     

      The detective scratched his long nose. 'We get it too,' he said. 'People come in here, they confess to all kinds of crap. Talk all night, some of them, about things they've done, or think they've done. Give you it all in the minutest detail. And when you make a few calls, it's all invented. Out of their minds.'

     

     

      'Maybe if they didn't tell you the stories.., they'd actually go out and do it.'

     

     

      The detective nodded. 'Yes,' he said. 'God help us. You might be right at that.'

     

      And the stories she'd