Author: Guy N. Smith; J. R. Park
Date: 2021-11-06 00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fiction; Horror
Description: Two ages of horror collide and things are about to get nasty. Guy N. Smith & J. R. Park team up in an explosion of violence that leaves the pages soaked in blood. Angela, a gifted potter, wants to follow her dreams, but trapped in an abusive marriage her life is crumbling around her. Her hatred calls across time, awakening a murderous force that proves to be something far more terrifying than an old man's ghost story. The Sinister Horror Company are proud to present the last book worked on by pulp horror master, Guy N. Smith.
Publisher: Sinister Horror Company

The blade slammed into her eyeball, piercing the orb and sending waves of pain through her body. Karen felt the liquid from the inside of her eye drip down her cheek. Instinctively reaching to cover the wound, her hand hit the handle of the sculpting tool, still sticking out from her face. Accidentally knocking it with her panicked groping, she felt a wet popping sensation as the action pulled her eye from its socket. The slimy cord, still connected to the back of her eyeball, brushed against her face as the ruptured orb swung like some gory pendulum.

Beheaded

Guy N. Smith

&

J. R. Park

Also by Guy N. Smith:

WEREWOLF OMNIBUS

THE CHARNEL CAVES: A CRABS NOVEL

SABAT 6: THE RETURN

TALES FROM THE GRAVEYARD

THE CASEBOOK OF RAYMOND ODELL

SATANIC ARMAGEDDON

FROM THE DARK HOURS

Also by J. R. Park:

TERROR BYTE

PUNCH

UPON WAKING

THE EXCHANGE

MAD DOG

THE COMPANY OF WORDS

DEATH DREAMS IN A WHOREHOUSE

DEATH DREAMS AT CHRISTMAS

DEATH DREAMS IN THE DARK

POSTAL w/Matt Shaw

Further books by the Sinister Horror Company:

CORPSING – Kayleigh Marie Edwards

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU’VE ACCIDENTALLY SUMMONED A WORLD-ENDING MONSTER. WHAT NOW? – Duncan P. Bradshaw

I SPIT MYSELF OUT – Tracy Fahey

Visit SinisterHorrorCompany.com for further information on these and other titles.

Beheaded

Copyright © 2021 J. R. Park & Guy N. Smith

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

Cover design by J. R. Park

Cover art by Mike McGee

Published by The Sinister Horror Company

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Beheaded -- 1st ed.

THE SINISTER CHAMPIONS

Anthony Watson, Chris Hall,

David Lars Chamberlain, Emma Audsley,

Gary Harper, James Steel, Jason Kelly,

Jorge Wiles, Matt Shaw, Paul M. Feeney, Rebekah Mann, Steve Matthewman,

Thomas Joyce, Tracy Fahey

& Wayne Parkin

Thank you for your support.

To become a Sinister Champion, visit our Patreon page for details at:

www.patreon.com/SinisterHorrorCompany

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to Stuart Park for being an ever-trustworthy editor.

Thank you to Chris Hall, whose DLS Reviews have championed the writings of both authors. Chris was also instrumental in keeping the organisation together each year for the annual mass gatherings of the Guy N. Smith convention. An act that demonstrates his passion for horror and its community.

For Shane, who was instrumental in bringing the two authors together. Without his recommendation, the working relationship would not have materialised, and ultimately, this book would never have been written.

Slowly the dawn light began to filter through the barred window of the crumbling cottage. The age-battered building was being used as a temporary police cell because all the other gaols in the locality were full after the termination of the war. This one-room cell was a holding place for those awaiting execution.

A single guard dozed in the adjoining porch. His task was to guard whoever was in the cell until he was collected and taken to the nearest place of hanging. Boring for the officer, terror for the doomed man.

In the corner of the locked room, a squat figure stirred. He had not slept throughout the night, awaiting his capital punishment.

A ray of daylight revealed a bald head, sunken eyes beneath bushy brows, a protruding nose above a heavy moustache and a mouth seeming to be fixed in a permanent snarl, above a muscular body.

His crime? A beheading. The townsfolk were sympathetic, it was an act of revenge, they said, on a brute of a man so ugly, he seemed scarcely human.

But there was no reason for the prisoner’s grisly crimes, the judge had said, just inexplicable pleasure at the cutting through of an unprotected neck until the bloody head rolled free across the ground. Despite the victim’s appearance, ugliness, he said, was not proof of guilt.

Yes, there was no proof, but it was as clear as day who was behind the disappearance of his son. The law, however, had no sympathy for such murderous and barbaric revenge.

The prisoner gave a grisly smile at the memory. Had he not been apprehended then there would doubtless have been more victims of his newly found lust. The killing had stirred something inside of him. Something horrific and hungry. As it was, he would now hang. It was not a terrifying thought, rather a disappointment because the beheadings would no longer continue.

He sighed, a wheezing which seemed to echo in the makeshift cell. He grimaced; he had had his pleasure in the beheading, they would have theirs in his hanging. His sunken eyes flickered in their deep sockets as an idea entered his warped brain.

There was a way in which he could deprive them of their anticipated revenge upon him. He had already checked every aspect of this enclosed stinking, damp room. It was as secure as any official police cell with no chance of escape. Yet there was a way by which he could deprive them of their revenge upon him.

He fingered the length of worn rope which served as a belt for his trousers. Those orbs appeared to glow as they roved his cell: an iron light fitting screwed securely into the ceiling above, the wooden stool in the corner…

It was becoming lighter by the second as the dawn progressed. There was no time to waste. He pulled the stool beneath the light fitting, climbed unsteadily upon it. He almost toppled over, as with his free hand, he unfastened his belt, formed it into a loop. It fitted around his neck and with tottering difficulty, he looped the other end over the fitting in the ceiling, managing to secure it.

A gurgling laugh escaped his blistered lips. Now all he had to do was to kick away the stool upon which he balanced precariously…

It scraped away, overturned. One final gurgle of delight as he hung suspended, arms and legs flailing. Then silence as he swung from side to side before becoming still in death.

The warden stirred on his camp bed in the adjoining room. His first task of the day was to take a mug of tea and a piece of stale bread to the prisoner. What a bloody waste, they would be coming to take him away to hang later this morning!

Slopping the lukewarm tea, he unlocked the door with his free hand, kicked it open. That was when he stared in disbelief and horror at the body dangling from the ceiling.

‘Jesus Almighty!’ The tea splashed down his uniform. ‘The bugger's gone and beaten 'em to it!’

proudly presents

a novel written by

A century later…

…Sunday 21st July 2019

The cells were bursting, the corridors crowded, lined with those that were more co-operative. As realisation dawned on the faces of the people stood patiently in line, a flicker of understanding eroded their vacant, shocked stare. Their skin grew paler as the gravity of the situation hit home, and then the cursing started. The cries of innocence and coercion.

The trick was to get to them before they agitated the others, march them down the hall and into one of the cells. Sure, the cells weren’t designed to hold the swelling number of prisoners that were crammed into the usual single-occupancy spaces, but it was more dangerous to keep them out amongst the crowds as they queued for fingerprint cataloguing and DNA swabs.

The station had seen a recent refurbishment and extension, making it unrecognisable from the humble beginnings of a converted, crumbling cottage a century ago. Over the years it had been developed, enlarged. The completion of the latest development couldn’t have been more timely. Someone had remarked that half the village was here, a guess that seemed entirely reasonable even with the most fleeting of headcounts. And with those numbers, trouble had to be stamped out quickly. If they let the notion of injustice ruminate amongst the horde it could set about a wave of unrest. And if the crowd rioted, they’d lose control. The police station would be torn apart.

They’d seen enough trouble already.

PC Edwards felt the deep pits of weariness below his eyes. His chin irritated him with an itchy covering of stubble and the cold coffee he gulped back did nothing to perk him up. He glanced at the clock on the wall and sighed.

‘It’s three-fifteen am, Sunday the twenty-first of July two-thousand-and-nineteen,’ he said as he spoke into a microphone. ‘PC Edwards questioning a Mr. Oliver Coleborn on the incident at Bridge Street that occurred late yesterday.’ He rubbed his eyes again, but it just made him sleepier.

In the corridor he heard his colleagues barking orders at the crowd. Occasionally someone would begin to shout and scream, but they were quickly subdued. These outbursts had become less of a concern, almost routine. The sounds of backs being pushed up against the wall, punches to the stomach and bodies hitting the floor had lost their impact on his ears and morality. Edwards found it strangely pleasing to hear them being dragged past the interview room, their cries and pleas becoming fainter as they were taken away and thrown into the cells.

Order had to be kept.

Peace and stability would be returned to this once sleepy village.

If they had to crack a few skulls along the way, so be it. And if that’s how it had to be, well, one should look to find enjoyment in their job, right? The officer smiled to himself.

‘I’m not going to say anything, you don’t already know,’ the man sat on the other side of the table stated.

‘Mr. Coleborn–’

‘Ollie. Please, use my name,’ he cut in. ‘You know me, don’t pretend you don’t.’

It was true, Edwards knew him. He knew all of the faces that filled the station, waiting to be questioned.

‘Mr. Coleborn, for the purposes of this interview, we’ll keep things formal,’ Edwards advised.

‘Okay,’ Ollie replied, shifting in his seat and resting a protective hand over the bandage on his side as he winced.

A dark shade of red had seeped through the off-white of the covering suggesting further medical attention was required. Something the police officer ignored.

‘But you already know what happened,’ Ollie continued. ‘All the people you’ve interviewed before me, and all the people you’ll interview after me, are all going to tell you the same story. There’s little I can add. Look at me!’ Ollie lifted his hand to show the bandage on his body, then pointed to his bruised and bloodied face. The swelling had been calmed with an ice-pack, but it hadn’t completely prevented a bulge growing on his cheek that forced his eye half-closed. ‘I’m probably the last person to be able to say what went on.’

‘It must feel strange being on the pointy end of a police questioning,’ PC Edwards sniped. ‘Not very nice, is it?’ He picked up the empty coffee cup, hoping he’d been mistaken in his memory of draining it a moment ago.

‘It feels unnecessary,’ Ollie came back with a resentful tone. ‘It’s going to take another day, at least, for you to get through all these people.’

‘And if that’s what we have to do, then that’s what we have to do.’

‘Go ahead,’ Ollie scoffed, ‘ask the questions and I’ll tell you what little I know. But you know, as well as I do, that I spent the entire time lying in a pool of blood. My blood! Everything I have is gone. Ripped out of my life in one night.’ Tears began to collect in his eyes and a look of grief began to crumple his face. ‘You ask me, then you ask them out there. And you keep going until you’ve ticked every box on your little checklist, but they’ll tell you exactly what you already know. And why? Because you were there!’

Edwards glanced up at a calendar on the wall The day’s date was circled. It should have been the start of his holiday. Fat chance of that now! It didn’t make any sense. A week ago, the village was the quiet, sleepy place he knew so well; the picturesque place in which he’d grown up. How did this happen? An entire town, hanging their heads, heavy with the guilt of such unspeakable actions. How, in such a short space of time, did it get so messed up?

5 days before…

…Tuesday 16th July 2019

Ollie Coleborn had moved back from the city to live in the village with Gavin, his father. The move came as an immense relief, it was akin to returning to his younger days when he had roamed the surrounding countryside, hunting with both rifle and shotgun and appreciating an area which was, so far, unspoiled by the advance of civilization.

Now he was back and, once again, out hunting with his rifle, observing all around him, the natural countryside like it had always been. But for how much longer?

A movement, a crackling of the undergrowth up ahead had him stepping back beneath the cover of an overhanging tree, watching and waiting. Whatever it was, it was sizeable, it had to be larger than a badger or a fox.

Suddenly it emerged in to the open. A fallow deer and it was totally unaware of his presence, the soft warm breeze was blowing in the opposite direction.

Slowly he lifted the rifle to his shoulder, took a sighting on the neck through the powerful scope. Taking a deep breath, he held it and squeezed the trigger. A sharp report and the beast crumpled, stretched out on the grassy ride.

He approached it, noted its heavy breathing. It was not dead for the missile had not been a heavy slug, instead a tranquilizer. In due course it would revive, struggle back onto its feet and return somewhat dazed to its habitat to continue its life, which was what Ollie wanted.

It was the thrill of the chase which inspired him. He had achieved that, and it was all he asked. Now he would head homeward, already dusk was beginning to creep across this beautiful track of countryside.

Back in the village he paused outside his father's house. Doubtless the latter would have him gardening in the next few days. The flower beds were thick with weeds and the lawn needed mowing. It would be an enjoyable task after the city life which had caused him nothing but stress.

He glanced across the road towards a tumbledown cottage some distance up the hillside. A light was showing in an upstairs window. It had recently been purchased and clearly the new owner had already moved in. God, it’d had a frightening history over the last century, according to his father, and stood empty on the market for years. In all probability the terrible happenings there, the murders, had been mostly rumours circulated by scared villagers. And his own father, Gavin Coleborn, a man that liked to spin a yarn or two on a dark autumn evening.

Anyway, it was none of Ollie's business and he wasn't going to let it play on his imagination even if it did so on his father's and that of their neighbours.

Good luck to the couple who had finally bought it. Doubtless he would meet them in due course.

He went indoors to clean his rifle. His father had dozed off in a chair in the living room, and Ollie did his best not to wake him. This evening he wasn’t in the mood to listen to those horror stories from the past century about Ugly Edgar, the vile old man that had lived there, and his killer, a man imprisoned, awaiting execution, but had cheated them by committing suicide. It was probably all in his father's gruesome imagination.

Ollie thought he’d left the horror stories behind when he’d quit the city, but if he listened to his father, even a village as quaint as this one possessed dark secrets. He pushed them from his mind. From now on Ollie would be working from home, hunting and enjoying the beautiful countryside around him and its wealth of wildlife.

Opposite Ollie’s, the fifteenth century black and white timbered cottage was almost in complete darkness except for one solitary light at the top of the house. The lamp gave off a soothing glow, not too bright, but bright enough to cast a shadow out over the front lawn. The silhouette that spread out across the neatly cut grass was of a woman at work, her hair tied back into a ponytail, her back hunched in concentration, and her hands at angles as she carefully crafted an ever-evolving shape in front of her.

If one had been wandering by the house and caught sight of the shadow, a person might well have marveled in disbelief at the changing shape between the shadow’s hands, fluidly and elegantly reforming into a more decorative form right before their eyes. The confused bystander might think it was magic, and indeed to some extent they would be quite right.

It was during her school days that Angela had discovered her talent for pottery work. Her skills were natural and evoked praise from Miss Randolph the teacher. Floral displays were followed by figurines, a ballet dancer, which went on display at the open day.

Angela had never felt happier when moulding a lump of clay. Using her hands and a set of fettling knives, the young woman felt like a sorcerer taking a non-descript brown lump and turning it into a breath-taking work of wonder. She never thought, in her wildest dreams, that the passion for pottery she’d discovered in school would be something she could make a living from. Especially not after she finished her exams, left school and headed into the adult world; but in only a few years that dream was tantalisingly close to becoming a reality.

Angela's first job on leaving school was at a local supermarket. The pay was okay, and her colleagues were nice enough, some even becoming good friends. But the job? Dead boring! In her spare time she continued with her passion and before long she discovered a market for her pottery, a couple of local shops in town who were only too keen to buy her work. With her sculpting gaining a wider exposure and garnering praise, it gave her the confidence to set up a website. Sales were modest but they were consistent and growing steadily.

She was still getting used to the cottage and the village she had moved to with her husband. It had been just over a month since they’d moved in, but she was quick to set up her workshop in one of the spare bedrooms, having her potter’s wheel, her work bench and kiln oven all arranged and in working order within the first week. Of course, once that had all been ready to use, it became Angela’s focus, and although slowly their home was coming together, there were still a number of neglected boxes and bin liners waiting to be opened, emptied and their contents found homes for.

As she straightened her back and took a breather from her creation, Angela looked around the room. Her room. No longer did she have to spend her time in a creaky old shed, retiring when it got too dark or too cold for her to continue. For the very first time she had her own space, and the new environment seemed to be adding an additional sparkle to the magic of her natural talent. Today’s creation had felt effortless, and as she continued to cut and mould the intricate details with the aid of a small blade, the wider her smile grew.

The piece was something that had come to her in a dream. A curious vision that she blamed on the cheese she’d eaten before bed. But the vision had stayed with her, a thought that nagged and gnawed, demanding to be taken from her mind and made physical. The final piece was an elegant, tall vase, with a captivating sculpture of a phoenix rising from the flames; and in this case, literally rising from the vase. Sat on top of the mythical bird, was a female figure, her legs straddling the creature’s neck, and her arms held aloft, exhilarated by the flight of her fiery mount. It was an indulgence for sure, but an indulgence that was easily good enough to sell, a culmination of all the skills and lessons she’d learnt over the years since first picking up a piece of clay.

Maybe she’d get it displayed in an art gallery.

Angela sighed a contented sigh as she studied the lines of her creation.

Downstairs, the front door shook in its frame as it slammed shut. The abrupt noise made Angela jump, reminding her of a world beyond her workshop.

She checked the time. It was ten to midnight. The pub must have kicked out. Shit, she’d lost all track of the time!

Angela felt her heart quicken as her stomach tightened. She felt the contentment and happiness drain from her, slipping away amongst the anguish of her twisting insides. Fighting against the sudden dryness of her mouth, she forced a smile. Everything would be okay. Just keep things light. She was proud of her work. That was important. And if she shared that pride with her husband, perhaps he would join her in her cheer.

The thumping of drunken footsteps, clumsily stumbling up the stairs, shook the cottage. Her teeth clenched harder with each thud. She took a swig of coffee, awkwardly keeping the grin on her face, afraid that if she let it go it might never come back. A shiver ran through her as she heard him on the landing.

Angela took a long look at her latest creation, drawing all the joy and pleasure she could from it, before turning to face the door of her workshop as it slowly opened.

Mike stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame to support his unsteady legs. His eyes looked glazed, but a fire still burnt within them. The dark stubble of his chin rose and fell as he screwed his face up in contempt.

Angela held her grin, trying to ignore the stench of alcohol and tobacco that filled the room.

‘Still up here then?’ Mike slurred, his voice edged with anger.

‘Yes, honey,’ Angela replied. ‘I’ve been working up here all day. Didn’t know what the time was. I’ve been so lost in my work. Look, what do you think?’

She leant back, allowing her husband to get a full view of the sculpture. She’d forgot the time, and there was no way back from that mistake. She prayed her enthusiasm for her work would appease him.

‘Where’s my dinner?’ Mike scowled as he staggered into the room, uninterested.

‘Dinner? Mike, it’s midnight,’ she tried to reason. ‘Did you not get anything at the pub?’ Angela’s smile faded, the effort too great as fear took hold. She’d seen him like this before. Too many times.

‘What do you mean, did I get anything from the pub?’ he sneered. ‘Why the hell would I waste my money on getting anything there when I have a wife at home. A wife that goes food shopping every week, spending my money!’

His volume began to rise as his face reddened. Angela could see the veins running down his neck as he clenched his jaw, a symptom of his growing rage.

‘But when you messaged to say you wouldn’t be home, I–’

‘You what!?’ Mike was in no mood for listening. ‘I’m hard at work every day so we can have food on the table; so you can build up your business and don’t have to work in that god-damn supermarket; and where has it gotten us?’

‘Mike!’

Angela tried to stand and leave the room, but her husband caught her by the wrists, pulling her towards him. As he held her face close to his, the foul stench of the pub grew stronger. Angela didn’t dare react to the odour but she couldn’t stop the tears flow down her cheeks.

‘You spend all your time up here, and are you making any money? Any real money?’ The hot spittle of his hate flew from his mouth. ‘Of course not. It’s up to me to support you. Since you set up this bloody workshop, I hardly ever see you.’

You’re always in the pub, Angela wanted to say, but the crushing power of his hands on her wrists was enough to keep her silent. She didn’t dare provoke him any further.

‘Always up here on that bloody wheel! Always effing around with your clay.’ Mike’s eyes flashed with contempt.

Striking Angela on the cheek, she fell backwards, hitting her head on a shelf. A jam jar crashed to the floor, shattering on impact and spilling its contents of fettling knives across the room.

She instinctively put her hand to her face, but shock had taken the pain, leaving only a strange buzzing sensation that made her feel sick. Feeling where her head had caught the shelf, she discovered a lump already beginning to form. The wetness of her hair and the damp touch of her fingers against her scalp told her of the damage that had been done.

As her vision slowly stopped spinning, she looked back towards Mike and was shocked to see her husband laughing.

‘You idiot! You can’t even stand up,’ he jeered. ‘And I’m the one that’s been drinking.’

He took hold of her wrist again, and with his brute strength, pulled her to her feet.

‘Ever since we moved in here things have been going downhill.’  He pushed her backwards. This time she landed awkwardly in her chair, feeling her back spasm as it careered into the stiff backrest. ‘I give you everything your heart desires, and now you have it, what? You take me for granted. Is that it? I’m just a schmuck now, am I?’

Angela stared wide-eyed as he approached her with clenched fists.

‘You’d better start bucking up your ideas, or things are going to get ugly around here. Do you understand?’

Mike lurched forward and grabbed hold of the sculpture on the potter’s wheel. The clay was still wet and easily folded under the pressure of his grip. Lifting it from the wheel he held in it both hands and tore the piece in two.

‘This is not your life,’ he shouted as he smashed the two pieces together, squashed them into one and tore the lump in half again. ‘This is not your priority. I am your priority. Do you understand me?’

Angela was transfixed on the clay in Mike’s hands, watching the beauty of her art, the product of an entire day spent sculpting, crafting and tweaking, reduced to a non-descript lump of brown muck.

‘I said, do you understand me?’ Mike shouted as he threw the big lump of clay towards her, missing her head by mere inches and slamming against the wall.

‘Yes,’ she said meekly between her tears, unable to look directly into her husband’s eyes.

Behind her, she heard a thump as the weight of the clay eventually pulled itself from the wall and crashed onto the floor.

‘I’m going for a walk, and when I come back I want my dinner on the table. If it’s not there… I don’t even want to think about what’ll happen.’ The door slammed and Mike’s big footsteps thumped down the stairs.

Angela only dared look up when she heard the front door bang, and even then she waited a good few minutes listening to the ringing silence of the house. She felt blood trickle past her temple and as the adrenalin started to fade from her bloodstream, her head began to throb.

Slowly looking behind her, she saw the misshapen pile of clay on the floor. Her husband’s crude fingerprints covered the surface. His violence frozen in time; captured by the thoughtless form of the discarded lump. Its ugliness offended her eyes.

His ugliness broke her heart.

The lump of a man lay on his back, formless like a piece of clay, belly full of his midnight dinner and mouth wide open, snoring with a wild grunt of unconscious contentment. Angela sat up in bed beside him, studying the face of the wretched man she’d married.

Big mistake.

Mike had been right about one thing tonight. Things had gone downhill since they moved into the cottage. It was shortly after their arrival here that he changed, that his temper had flared, erupting into physical violence.

Angela kicked the covers off, trying to cool her anger. She studied the soft flesh of her husband’s neck and wondered what would happen if she took one of her fettling knives and ran it across his throat. She imagined the blade slicing through his skin, then pushing it through his flesh and dragging it across his windpipe. It would be a slow procedure, using her modelling tool. And excruciating for Mike.

Angela watched his belly rise and fall with the thunderous snarl of his snoring. His gut sat on top of him like a small hill, filled with the meal she’d been forced to prepare.

After the beatings had started, Angela was sure to prepare some food and leave it for him, regardless of what time he might appear back home. Today had been an error. A stupid error that she’d allowed herself to get so engrossed in her artistic endeavours. Her enthusiasm for the challenge had allowed herself to be consumed entirely with her work.

But it shouldn’t be like this.

Watching him now, lying prone next to her, she could do anything to him she wanted. Hit him with a hammer. Smother him with a pillow. She could tie him down and saw a knife through his neck, slowly and deliciously decapitating him. Cutting with the blade, tearing with her hands, blood pouring from the gash, soaking the bed sheets; the wet, gurgling gasp; the look of shock and surprise in the bastard’s expression as he stared, wide-eyed, at his murderer’s familiar face.

Oh it would be beautiful.

She shuddered at the thought that continued to persist, but more from a sense that she ought to than disgust. Her true feelings made the corners of her mouth rise.

Climbing out of bed, Angela stood over him for moment and wondered what had become of her husband. The brute that lay before her instilled nothing but fear and anger. Even now, at his most vulnerable, she felt powerless to act out her revenge. What if he woke suddenly and caught her in the act? The thought made her lightly touch the lump beneath her hair before rubbing her cheek. The bruise from last week may have faded and today’s attack not left a visible mark, but the memory of his ‘corrections’ still stung with a raging intensity. The memories of him holding her by the throat and screaming in her face; of him choking her until her vision filled with white dots.

Angela couldn’t risk waking him. She couldn’t risk having to face his fists again; hearing him laugh as he called her a ‘pathetic bitch’.

The thought of running away passed through her mind. Of packing a suitcase and heading out of the village, trekking the country lanes. But where would she go? Who would she turn to?

Mike had driven away her old friends months ago, and working from home meant she hadn’t made any new connections in the village.

Her eyes filled with tears as the frustration mounted, angry she couldn’t find the courage to finish their relationship. To finish him.

With light steps, and a head full of thunder, she crept out of the bedroom and headed to the only place she could think to go. A place to ease her worries and calm her mind.

Her sanctuary.

Stepping into the workshop, Angela instantly braced against the cold air. The room was much chillier than the rest of the house. She placed her hand on the radiator and felt the heat, but still she shivered. Her back stiffened, the air felt heavy and seemed to move around her in an unnatural way, as if a swarm of invisible insects had filled the empty space.

Angela’s skin prickled. Since they’d moved in, this room had been her place of comfort, her bolt hole. Whenever she’d left the workshop she’d find herself impatiently eager to return to its comforts; to the smell of wet clay and paints. But as she sat, bathed in the glow of the moon streaming through the curtainless window, Angela felt on edge.

She glanced around the room and bent to pick up the last of the knives that had been knocked onto the floor. Following Mike’s brutish altercation, she had done her best to tidy the place up, but with her priority on fixing him dinner before he came back home, her efforts at tidying were carried out in haste. The place still looked a mess.

It still looked like the scene of an argument.

Placing the knife on a nearby shelf, she turned to face her worktable. In the middle of it was a lump of clay, the remnants of her crushed masterpiece. She picked it up, squeezed it. Mike’s fingerprints lay all over the lump, just as his presence still lingered in the room. His threats, his violence, his anger. He’d crossed the threshold and brought his drunken, vile temper with him. That’s what was different about her workshop. Mike had tainted it.

The more she thought of her husband, the more she felt a swell of anger rise within her. Angela squeezed harder at the clay, desperate to remove any evidence of Mike’s loathsome presence. If she could rid the clay of him, perhaps she could cleanse the workshop. The more she pulled, kneaded and twisted, the more she felt her slender fingers begin to take on a life of their own. Destruction wasn’t her way. Creation was.

Watching herself mould the lump, she smiled with an almost detached amusement. Angela had no idea what she was going to create. It was as though her hands had taken over, they were going to decide what the finished object was going to be. Squeezing, smoothing, the shape was definitely that of a human head. Deep set eyes and a mouth which seemed to sneer at her, a drooping moustache, thinning hair. An old man that dated back to past years.

God, she hated it, but she was unable to stop. It was as though, she shuddered, that head was hypnotising her, those sunken eyes boring into her.

She found herself lifting it up, placing it on the raised shelf where she put all her finished work so she could study them prior to selling them.

Look at me!

It was as though that dreadful, scary piece of work spoke. She tried to turn away but its staring eyes held her. Its grin seemed to grow wider.

God, it was vile. Evil!

Then suddenly she was free to leave the room. Turning and fleeing, she dashed downstairs and almost fell.

Catching her breath in the lounge, Angela curled up on the sofa and gently rubbed her knees as she pressed them to her chest. She tried to blot out the image of the vile creation that sat, grinning on a shelf in her workshop.

Why had she done it?

Had Mike’s wicked ways managed to seep so deeply into her life that it corrupted her art, the one thing she thought would always remain pure?

She thought back to her fantasies of revenge, of slowly killing her husband. What had gotten into her? Was he pulling her down to down to his level?

The old cottage creaked, punctuating the stillness of the night, but behind the silence Angela could hear the echo of Mike’s angry words, and something else.

A laugh.

A vile, wicked, bloodcurdling laugh.

4 days before…

…Wednesday 17th July 2019

Hearing him ascending the stairs after breakfast and whistling a care-free melody as he took his morning journey to the bathroom, Angela sat in her workshop with a mug of tea in her hand. Her gaze was fixed on last night’s creation. The abominable bust was even uglier than she remembered. Had it grown even more vile overnight? No, that was impossible. She ran a finger over its twisted mouth, a mouth lined with broken teeth, and almost swore she saw the corners of its lips curl, the grin growing wider.

‘What the hell is that?’

Angela spun around to see Mike in the doorway, patting a towel across his broad chest as he smirked in amusement at the creation sat prominently, like an ink blot, amongst the vases and bowls.

‘That is ugly,’ he scoffed taking one step into the workshop. ‘It’s giving me the creeps.’ He visibly shuddered as he retreated backwards onto the landing. ‘I don’t like it.’

Angela watched his skin pale as he stared at the head, seemingly unable or unwilling to take his eyes from it.

‘I made it,’ she replied. ‘I don’t really know why.’

Mike shook his head gently, breaking the trance, and looked to his wife. ‘I don’t know what goes on inside of that brain of yours sometimes. Really, I don’t. Oh, we’re out of milk. I had to have my coffee black.’

Heading towards the bedroom, he recited a list of things Angela needed to pick up from the local shops, but she’d stopped listening the moment he walked out of view. He’d write a list of his daily commands and leave it on the fridge, he always did.

Her attention turned back to the monstrous lump, still perplexed by its creation. Fascinated, yet oddly fearful.

She had a busy day ahead of her and Angela quickly set to it. A sizeable order had come through her website, fifteen ornately intricate bowls. It gave her the perfect distraction, a zen moment. Time was meaningless, all thoughts consumed by the act of creation. She’d even forgotten about the webcam that was recording her work, creating a video she could upload to her website later.

Unused to the pressures of the webcam, as she began sculpting the first bowl, she felt eyes on her and kept looking up at the camera, nervous that she would not perform with her usual skill. But soon such worries melted away and she was lost in the nirvana of artistic expression, her surroundings, including the webcam, fading into an inconsequential blur.

A loud crash ripped her away from her contentment.

Turning to the source of the noise, Angela was surprised to see the fragments of an unsold vase scattered across the floor. She placed her hand against her chest and took a few deep breaths in a bid to slow her heart’s cantering pace.
Picking up the shards, she puzzled why the vase had fallen. Objects don’t just jump off the shelf, she thought. Did a lorry go by? She couldn’t recollect feeling vibrations.

Straightening up, Angela felt another fright as she gasped at the sight on the shelf.

It was nothing that should have shocked her, the clay head was exactly where she left it. But that hideous face, gruesome smile, and cold, piercing eyes seemed to have taken on a fresh air of menace. It was as if the monstrous creation had grown even uglier since this morning.

That was silly talk, it was probably the drying process. Having not fired the piece in her kiln, the wet clay must be sagging as it slowly, and naturally, dried.

But her reasoning did nothing to ease the knot in her stomach.

Angela studied the face for a while, attempting to stare down the fear, to try and break the automatic response of disgust she felt.

The disgust began to fade, but peace still eluded her, for what replaced her revulsion was rage. Anger. Revenge. All the feelings Angela had felt when she’d crafted this abomination, formed from the wreckage of her most prized piece. The wreckage made by Mike.

The wreckage of her sculpture.

Of her marriage.

Of her life.

They’d all been laid to waste by her husband and his uncaring, brutish ways.

She clenched her fists against the pieces of smashed vase in her hand. The sharp edges dug into her palms and her hands grew hot as the fragments cut into her skin. She didn’t wince or stop what she was doing; Angela only smiled at the pain.

As the rage inside of her grew, she squeezed even tighter.

Her vision narrowed, the peripheral became a swirling mass of blacks and purples. The only thing in clear focus was the set of beady eyes from the clay head. Still and cold, they radiated the same anger she felt.

An image flashed through her mind, something foul and reprehensible. A twitching body spread star-shaped. A corpse lying on the floor, so fresh the muscles continued to spasm. A neck with no head. A vile, bloody stump ending in a series of savage, ragged cuts. Bloody sinews trailing from the wounds. A puddle of red gore seeping across the floor, oozing from a barbaric attack.

The puddle of blood swelled around the body. A laugh of glee, out of sorts with the sight she saw. The body’s left hand. Its fingers opening up. Its arm lifting up. Reaching out.

Angela stepped back, and in doing so, broke the trance.

Dropping the shards of the vase, she looked down to see her hands covered in blood. For a moment she stood still and listened to the calls of jackdaws outside. The real world gave her grounding.

Looking back at the clay head, she pulled an unimpressed face.

‘You, Mister, are doing weird things to my imagination,’ she said as if telling off a young child. Grabbing the sculpture, she turned it to face the wall, leaving a bloody handprint across its features. ‘There. And you can stay like that,’ she scolded with a satisfied tone before walking off to the bathroom to tend to her wounds.

Using a pair of disposable, plastic gloves for the rest of the day, Angela found they kept her injuries clean without affecting her dexterity. It was only when she heard the sound of school children playing on their way home from a day in class, did she break from her beloved work. The cacophony of delighted whoops and cheers from the youngsters caused her to start with the sudden realisation of time.

Desperate to get to the shops before they shut, and concerned she’d face a wrathful Mike if she didn’t follow his instructions, she ran out of the workshop with such haste Angela forgot to switch the light off. Nor did she see the face of that ugly clay head, no longer facing the wall.

The weather was on the turn, the sky darkening overhead as Angela struggled through the streets laden with bags full of groceries. The plastic handles stretched against the strain of their load, digging into her hands and pushing on the cuts across her palm. She winced with pain but soldiered on.

Mentally, Angela went over the items in her bags as she struggled down the street, cross-referencing them with what was the on the list. It was all very well writing a list, but that didn’t help when she’d left it on the kitchen side. She’d been in such a hurry that Angela hadn’t even thought to check the weather and, trusting the warmth in the air when she’d left, the young woman didn’t take her coat. That trust in the temperature was rapidly fading as the wind picked up, bringing with it the smell of rain.

‘Stevie, you’re it,’ screamed one schoolchild to another as she lunged forward and tagged her friend with an outstretched hand.

‘Uh,’ another child screamed and pointed at him. ‘Rachel tagged you, Stevie. You’re it! You’re Ugly Edgar!’

‘No I’m not,’ Stevie protested.

‘Ugly Edgar! Ugly Edgar! No one’s gonna love ya!’ Rachel shouted back.

‘Someday I’m gonna get ya!’ Stevie roared in play and watched the others bolt down the street. As he gave chase, they shrieked and laughed in delight.

‘Ugly Edgar! Ugly Edgar! No one’s gonna love ya!’ Angela heard their name-calling slowly fade from earshot as they turned a corner.

She smiled as she remembered being their age with an edge of jealousy. Thoughts of nostalgia were abruptly halted, however, by the feeling of rain drops on her face. Trying to quicken her pace only caused her shopping bags to swing uncontrollably, making her journey all the more difficult as she fought to keep balance. The spots of rainfall began to increase, quickly growing heavier and heavier, and by the time she reached her front door, Angela could feel her wet clothes sticking to her.

As her fingers flicked through her handbag, she felt like screaming. Her house keys were not there. She must have left them on the side with the shopping list!

She pulled at the door handle and beat her fist against the frame.

‘Are you okay there?’

She turned, wiping her wet hair from her eyes, and saw a friendly face smile at her. The smile came from a handsome, young man, well-built but not overtly muscular, with a pair of startlingly blue eyes beneath his neatly cropped, silver hair. Angela had seen him before, in the front garden of the house across the road; cutting the hedge and tending to the flowerbeds. She’d watched him work whilst idly staring out the window between pottery projects, waiting for inspiration to hit her.

Never would she have had the nerve to make an introduction, especially not with Mike around.

Even as her neighbour held his umbrella above her head, Angela knew her husband would be furious to witness an act from such a dashing man.

‘Thank you,’ she replied bashfully. ‘I’m Angela.’

‘Hi Angela, I’m Ollie. I’ve seen you around.’ he said with warmth. ‘What’s up?’

‘I’ve locked myself out,’ she admitted. ‘I must have left my keys on the side.’

‘Not to worry,’ Ollie smiled again. ‘Let me have a go. Just don’t get me arrested,’ he joked and nodded to the CCTV camera that looked down on the cottage’s entrance.

Angela laughed and, stepping back, she watched Ollie crouch in front of the door.

‘Luckily, you haven’t deadbolted it,’ he said looking up at her. ‘So it’s just the old lock we need to worry about.’

Fishing his hand through the letterbox and pulling down on the door handle with his other hand, he leaned his shoulder into the door. She couldn’t make out exactly what he was doing, but a few moments later it swung open much to her relief.

‘Thank you!’ Angela beamed for a moment before she headed down the hall into the kitchen and placed her shopping on the floor

‘No problems at all. Glad I could help,’ Ollie replied, staying outside.

‘Please, come in. Can I make you a cup of tea?’ she offered, checking the time and noting that Mike shouldn’t be home for at least another hour.

‘That would be lovely,’ Ollie answered. ‘You’ve got a wonderful house. I’ve often admired it. That’s what nice about this street, all the houses are so unique.’

‘Thanks.’ She felt pride swell within her. ‘We’ve still got some work to do on it, a load of boxes that need sorting through, but you know how it is. It’s getting there. Shit!’ she suddenly exclaimed.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Milk. I forgot to get milk. I knew there was something.’ Angela bit her bottom lip, already fearful of Mike’s anger. ‘I need to go back to the shops.’

‘On a Wednesday?’ Ollie held back a laugh. ‘The shops all close up by four on a Wednesday. Why don’t you come over to mine? There’s plenty in the house. You can take a carton to tide you over. And if you’re still interested in that tea…?’

He smiled with such sincerity that Angela felt all her worries melt.

‘Thank you, Ollie,’ she replied with a beaming grin, ‘that would be lovely.’

The pair laughed looking at each other’s damp clothes and rain-soaked hair as they stood in Ollie’s kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil. The umbrella had done little to protect them from the storm. Ollie handed Angela a towel, took a pair of mugs from the cupboard, and began to make a warm beverage.

‘Sugar?’ he asked, pausing to let her finish toweling her hair.

‘Oh yes please,’ she eventually answered.

‘And, of course, milk I presume?’

Angela laughed and nodded in response, then found herself studying the outline of his physique through his drenched shirt, unable to divert her eyes from his chiseled form.

‘So what do you do?’ she asked, gently biting her lip as she took in the bulge of his bicep.

‘Boring job, really. I work for a legal firm. I used to be in London, in the heart of the action, but I had to move back home. It’s not quite the same. Although it does mean I get to pick up some useful tips from some of our more unsavory clients. Like, what to do if you lock yourself out of your house,’ he winked.

‘Ah, I see.’ Angela nodded as she made the connection.

‘I work from my home office a lot when I’m not out visiting clients,’ he continued. ‘Although occasionally I’m called into the office. Which, at the moment, is happening more and more.’

‘Really? You don’t look like you spend your days on paperwork. If you’re sat at a desk all day, how do you keep in such good shape? If you don’t you mind me asking.’ She took the mug that Ollie offered her and hoped the steam from the hot beverage might excuse the reddening of her cheeks.

‘I stick to a good routine and spend some quality time walking in the fields. The garden also keeps me active on the weekends, when I get round to it.’

‘I’ve seen.’

‘You’ve seen?’

‘Only be chance.’ Angela tried her hardest to make it sound casual. ‘Out the upstairs window. From my workshop.’

‘You have a workshop?’ Ollie asked. ‘What do you do with a workshop?’

‘I’m a potter. I sculpt and carve bowls, pots, vases, figurines – you name it – out of clay.’

‘So you’re good with your hands?’

She chuckled in response to his cheeky grin. ‘So they say.’

‘Ollie! Is that you?’ A voice called from elsewhere in the house.

‘Yes, Dad,’ Ollie called back. ‘Go through,’ he said to Angela ushering her towards a doorway.

As she opened the door, and stepped into the lounge, the smell of tobacco immediately hit her, although this odour wasn’t like the smell from pubs and clubs, this was a more organic smell. Comforting, almost.

An old man sat in a green, leather armchair. He remained motionless, except for his eyes that moved only to follow her as she walked towards the empty sofa and lowered herself onto it.

‘Dad, this is Angela. From over the road. Angela, this is Dad,’ Ollie said as he followed in behind her.

‘Pleased to meet you, Angela,’ Ollie’s father greeted her.

As friendly as his tone was, his face remained a patchwork of emotions that Angela found hard to read. His fixed stare seemed curious, but a sour expression remained amongst his expression, exaggerated by the manner in which he screwed up half his face as he puffed on a pipe.

‘Pleased to meet you, Mister Coleborn,’ Angela placed her mug on the coffee table, trying to hide the slight shake in her hand.

‘So, you live in the old cottage?’ he asked.

‘I do. Just moved in, a little over a month ago,’ she replied.

‘And how have you found it?’ he enquired, blowing a plume of smoke as he spoke. ‘That house has a history, you know.’

‘Oh Dad, please don’t start with this,’ Ollie cut in, his tone peppered with weary annoyance.

‘It’s very nice, thank you,’ Angela replied, politely.

‘Noticed anything strange about it?’ Mister Coleborn continued to press.

‘Dad!’ Ollie slammed his mug on the table, spilling its contents.

‘What?’ Angela asked, bemused by Ollie’s outburst.

‘According to legend,’ Mister Coleborn began.

‘Oh God, here we go,’ Ollie rolled his eyes. ‘According to legend, nothing. It’s all just rumours. Ghost stories.’

‘Please, carry on,’ Angela said politely, enthralled by the man’s words, Ollie’s look of disgust only inciting her intrigue.

‘According to legend,’ Mister Coleborn started again, pausing briefly to re-light his battered old pipe, ‘this old guy who lived there, in your cottage, over a century ago terrified the villagers. He was weird, a kind of squashed face with a huge black moustache. Monstrous looking fellow. Ugly Edgar, they called him. The kids used to flee when they saw him out in the street. Apparently he made an enemy, the father of one of the kids. Well, the kid went missing, and later Ugly Edgar disappeared too. When he hadn't been seen for a week or more the local bobby decided to check on him, forced entry into the house. Then upstairs, it beggars belief, the copper found,’ another pause, a grimace, ‘the beheaded corpse of Ugly Edgar!’

‘Ugh!’ Angela recoiled, wished she had not stopped to listen to the story. It was probably just the ramblings of an old man. All the same…

‘The cops arrested the father of that child, charged him with murder.’

Angela's fleshed tingled. Doubtless the murder room was the end bedroom which she had used as a workshop for her modelling.

‘The killer, a Mister Whitely, was sentenced to be hanged, and hang him they did,’ Mister Coleborn seemed to relish the grisly details, ‘The strangest thing of all, according to legend, is they never found Ugly Edgar’s head!’

It was probably all a rumour, anyway, she tried to convince herself.

‘I must be going,’ she turned to Ollie, ‘I've a lot of work waiting for me.’

Mister Coleborn continued to puff on his pipe but offered her a smile as she stood up to leave.

‘Don’t forget your milk,’ Ollie reminded her, heading to the fridge.

Following him back into the kitchen, Angela thought about the story she’d just been told and the strange images she’d seen in her mind earlier that day. It had to be a coincidence, but they were strikingly similar.

She thought about heading back home alone as Ollie handed her some milk, and the chill that suddenly crept over her body had nothing to do with the open refrigerator.

She was trembling as she let herself into the cottage.

‘Mike,’ she called out, thinking she heard a noise then instantly dismissing it as nothing but her spooked imagination.

It might have been gone six o’clock, but Mike had been to the pub every night this week, straight from work. The earliest she’d seen him back was half past eight, and the house was too still for him to be home. It was impossible to move about the old cottage without making the floorboards creak.

And yet, despite her own reassurances that her husband wasn’t in, as she closed the front door, Angela felt far from alone.

Carefully, she opened the refrigerator and placed the milk inside, trying her hardest to be as quiet as possible. Even day to day noises sounded amplified in her heightened state. The thud of the carton hitting a jar of relish was loud enough to make her jump. The hum of the fridge sounded like an echoing drone. It felt like every movement and every action was giving her position away. But giving it away to who? Or what?

Closing the fridge and wincing at the whump as it sealed shut, she sighed.

Now come on, she mouthed, but dared not speak. You’re better than this. It’s just a stupid story from an old man. A rumour from long ago.

Where was Mike? Usually she was relieved when he was not there and dreaded his return, worse for drink. For once, though, she would have welcomed his presence.

She switched the kettle on. A good strong coffee might help calm her nerves.

The latch clicked on the front door, it swung open. Mike had returned, belching loudly, his expression a scowl.

‘You’re home early,’ Angela pointed out. It may have been only just past six, but the familiar aroma of the pub emanated from his clothes and laced his breath. He must have finished work early and gone to the Two Headed Swan sooner than normal. ‘Would you like a coffee? I’m just making one.’

Keep it pleasant, she told herself. Don’t set him off.

‘What’s for dinner?’ he demanded, throwing his keys on to the kitchen counter and looking at the empty oven.

‘I haven’t had time to make anything,’ she confessed. ‘I’ll put some–’

‘Haven’t had time?’ Mike cut in, not prepared to listen. ‘What the hell have you been doing? I thought we had this out last night! I work all day and…’ He clenched his fist and stepped towards her, his face reddening.

Angela stepped back, cowering from the threat of his raised hand. Her back hit against a drawer handle, she’d been backed into a corner with nowhere to go. Her hand gripped the edge of the counter and felt down for the drawer. She knew it was the cutlery drawer. The drawer that held all the knives. Big, long, sharp knives…

With a strike, Mike forced the back of his hand across her cheek. His brutish power knocked her to the ground; her legs buckling underneath her, sending her into a crumpled heap on the floor.

‘I work all day!’ He shouted as he found his voice again. ‘I earn the money to buy the food for this house. Is it too much to ask that you cook it?’ He stepped forward, towering over her as she wept on the floor at his feet. ‘And what do I find recently? How are you spending your time whilst I’m working hard to support you? I find you’re wasting your time making monster birds and stupid, ugly faces. I suppose you've spent the day making more of that bloody rubbish upstairs!’

He hated her talent simply because it was beyond him. He couldn’t see the artistry past the pound signs. On one occasion he had thrown a display of her pottery flowers at the wall, smashed them to smithereens.

‘Well I'd better go up and have a look at what you've been doing,’ he lurched towards the stairs.

‘No, Mike, please.’

He ignored her, clumped his way up.

Angela nursed her throbbing cheek as she lay beside the refrigerator. I wish you were dead, she thought, hatefully, as her mind flashed back to those images she’d seen as he lay asleep next to her. Of a knife slicing through his neck. Of a twitching body, beheaded and spilling blood across the floor.

Anger burnt inside of her like a raging inferno, and she used its power, channeled it, to fight back the tears she refused to shed.

She heard the door of her workshop click open, then slam shut. An eerie silence followed.

A strangled cry came to her ears, then cut off, followed by a noise which she could only identify as a kind of sawing sound.

Then silence.

Jesus, what on earth was happening up there?

She did not want to know, yet some inexplicable force had her heading for the stairs. She tried to turn back but it was impossible.

You're going up there whether you like it or not, Angela!

Heading up the stairs and across the landing, she depressed the door handle to her workshop. It clicked. She eased it open an inch or two, scared to push it wide. Just silence from within. She shivered, it had gone icy cold. Her flesh goosepimpled.

‘Mike?’ Her voice trembled, it was scarcely louder than a whisper.

There was no answer. What on earth was he doing in there? Why didn't he reply?

Her finger stuck on the door handle, as violent fantasies flashed through her mind. It was one thing to think them, but for them to actually happen? She almost slammed it shut, fled back downstairs. No, this was ridiculous. Childish thinking. She had to go in there. One push and the door creaked open on its hinges, affording her a view of her workshop.

Oh God!

She recoiled in shocked terror at the scene which greeted her.

Her scream was little more than a strangulated gurgle in her throat. She almost fainted.

Shakily she backed out onto the landing, closed the door. What the hell had gone on in there? Clutching the banister, she backed downstairs, made it through to the hallway, but fell as she collapsed from the shock.

Slowly the lounge faded back into view as her consciousness returned. When she got back to her feet, Angela was groggy and the phone almost fell from her trembling fingers, but somehow she managed to dial 999.

The thought of her workshop kept flashing through her mind, the detail of the scene already faded from her panic-stricken thoughts, leaving nothing but an impression, an emotion. What had she really seen? Was it anything, or was it another morbid turn from her imagination?

As the emergency services operator answered the call, Angela found herself shakily climbing the stairs again and pushing open the front door to the workshop. She had to be sure it wasn’t all in her mind, that she wasn’t going crazy!

Blood covered the entire room. Red gore splattered her worktable, the kiln and her tools. Thick, crimson-coloured liquid ran down the walls and dripped from the light fitting. Her potter’s wheel was spinning, flicking blood around the room, spraying it over her as she stood motionless.

Leaning forward, Angela pressed the stop button, an automatic response from a woman catatonic with horror. As the wheel slowed, she could make out what was on it more clearly. In the centre of the slowing rotating surface sat the head of her husband. He had been beheaded! His skin was pale, drained of blood, and his face had sagged in death to create a vacant-eyed, ludicrous grin.

She recoiled, dropping the phone.

Her terrified gaze flickered on to the shelf where she kept her finished items prior to their sale. Something was missing. It was that gruesome head which she had made with its penetrating, staring eyes. Maybe it had been knocked off when Mike fell, smashed on the floor. Good riddance! But there was no sign of it, no scattered particles.

It had completely vanished!

Paramedics and police arrived simultaneously, ordering Angela to shut herself in the lounge whilst they began an investigation of the death room.

She’d have expected to cry, but no tears were forthcoming. Perhaps it was the shock.

Her mind swam. Nobody else had been up there except Mike. There had been no sounds of a scuffle, just a thud. Nothing untoward. Her thoughts returned to the missing clay head. Where had it gone? It could not possibly have had any bearing on recent events. Or could it?

She shuddered.

Mister Coleborn’s story flashed through her mind.

Footsteps down the stairs caught her attention, muttered voices, the front door opening and closing. Outside a vehicle started up, drove away. That would be the paramedics taking what was left of her husband to the morgue.

Then the lounge door opened to admit a couple of police officers, one uniformed, the latter in plain clothes who introduced himself as Detective Inspector Cartwright.

‘I'm afraid we have to ask you some questions,’ his tone was kindly, apologetic. ‘I think it's best here rather than down at the station.’

In faltering tones she responded to their interrogation. Unbelievably one of her work knives had been used to carry out the decapitation, an almost impossible feat of strength by somebody.

Who was the murderer? How was it that she had not seen him arrive and leave?

‘Inspector,’ a policewoman put her head round the door of the lounge, interrupting their conversation. ‘Can I have a word with you, sir?’

‘Of course, Hopkins,’ Cartwright replied before turning back to Angela. ‘Mrs. Cotton, please excuse me for a moment.’

With a curious eye, Angela watched the detective inspector head to the doorway, and half in, half out of the lounge, he began to talk in hushed tones with the constable. She strained to listen in, but could make nothing out, the only clues to their conversation were the shaking heads and solemn faces.

A creeping sense of paranoia came over her. Angela had the uneasy feeling that she was under suspicion, although surely they must understand it would have been impossible for her to have carried out that beheading, requiring unbelievable strength and with a slender modelling tool. A strength she didn’t possess.

Somebody must have entered and left the house without her knowledge. It was the only explanation. Unless, of course, they were still here. A cold chill crept through her flesh as the idea dawned on her. But that was impossible!

Her bemused and terrified thoughts, once again, returned to that earlier conversation with Mister Coleborn, the beheading in that same room a century or more ago. She couldn’t get it from her mind. The owner of the house had been killed, beheaded, and the culprit, hung himself.

It was like a rerun of an old movie. Like it was happening all over again. A murder. A beheading! There was no point in telling the police. Let them make the connection for themselves... if that was possible.

‘Angela,’ Detective Inspector Cartwright had returned from his conversation and stood in front of her, his voice bringing her back from her thoughts and speculation. ‘Angela, I'll have to ask you to come down to the station to make a statement.’ His tone was sombre, gravely serious.

Angela nodded.

‘We have to try to trace his murderer and right now we have next to nothing to go on. My men will have to make a thorough examination of that room in which he died.’ Cartwright continued. ‘The search will begin tonight.’

She refrained from informing them that they would not find anything. They would find that out for themselves. The killer had gone just as though he had disappeared off the face of the Earth. Either that or he was still lurking in the house. Somewhere.

She shrugged on her coat, picked up her handbag, nodded to the pair of police officers that she was ready, and with a uniformed escort either side of her, Angela Cotton looked back at her home, crawling with cops, and left the cottage.

Angela sat in the interview room, squinting at the harsh lights above her. The movies had always shown interrogations to be held in a dark room with a small lamp the only light source, its beam shining directly at the subject. The truth couldn’t be any farther from the scenes in those police procedurals she had watched on TV.

Compliant and patient, Angela had been sat, quiet and alone for the last twenty minutes. On entering the station they’d taken her fingerprints and conducted a DNA swab on the inside of her cheek. They asked her about her name, address, family background and medical history. All routine, they’d told her, but it couldn’t help but make her feel like a criminal, giving rise to an unwarranted sense of guilt.

With the details recorded, Angela had been shown into an interview room, and left to take a seat while an officer stood outside the door. She’d been told the detective inspector had gone to get a coffee and would bring her one too.

That was twenty minutes ago.

Twenty minutes that felt like an hour.

When Detective Inspector Cartwright finally returned, he wasn’t carrying a cup of coffee. His hands, instead, gripped a large brown envelope and some plastic ‘baggies’, the contents of which were hard to individually distinguish amongst the jumble of his collection.

‘I asked you before, but I want to double check,’ the detective inspector spoke solemnly as he placed the items on the table between them. ‘What happened tonight, between you and your husband?’

‘He came home from the pub and we had a conversation,’ Angela duly answered, aware she was repeating herself. ‘He then went upstairs and–’

‘What did you talk about?’ Cartwright cut in.

‘I hadn’t made dinner.’

‘So it was an argument?’

Angela shuffled uncomfortably in her seat. ‘Well, yes.’ There was no point in lying.

‘Was it a big argument?’ he asked, probing further.

‘We’ve had bigger.’

‘So you argue often?’ His questions came quickly, not giving the young woman much time to think.

‘Well… no relationship is a bed of roses, is it?’ she challenged, trying to slow the conversation a little.

‘Mrs. Cotton,’ Cartwright paused and looked her in the eyes. ‘Did your husband hit you?’

His question stole her breath. She hadn’t told anyone about the abuse, and she’d certainly never been asked about it in such a direct manner before.

‘Well… I mean…’ she struggled to form a sentence, not sure of what to say or how best to say it.

‘Yes?’ Cartwright offered.

‘Yes.’

The simple response had a cataclysmic effect, tearing a hole in the armour she’d built up to protect herself; to protect them both. A flood of emotions poured through that freshly ripped hole, and as tears began to gently track down her trembling cheeks it felt like her entire being was slowly draining out through the soles of her feet. She glanced at the floor, half expecting to see herself: a soggy mess of a human being, a pathetic puddle of raw nerves and vulnerability.

Of course, the floor was empty.

It was in the mirror, over the detective’s shoulder, where she actually caught sight of her own tragic figure staring back at her.

‘Mrs. Cotton, there's nothing on your CCTV except your husband's return home,’ Cartwright shook his head, ignoring her emotional response. ‘Nobody else coming or going, except for yourself, which certainly is a mystery. Another mystery is why the camera was broken before we arrived. We managed to obtain the footage, but the damage was done by someone out of sight, before you called us. And you’re telling me, you didn’t see or hear anything?’

‘It was broken?’ This information was news to Angela. ‘No, I didn’t. I fell. I think I passed out for a moment.’

‘Do you know how long you were unconscious?’ Cartwright asked.

She thought back, checking her movements, trying to remember the time when things happened, but it was all a blur. Everything was hazy and jumbled. She looked at the detective and silently shook her head.

‘Now, it's clear that your husband died from decapitation,’ Cartwright continued. ‘And this appears to have been the weapon.’

The detective lifted up one of the baggies and held it in Angela’s eyeline. The bag was awash with the claret-red stains of blood, but through the gory taint she could make out the object.

‘Does this look familiar?’ Cartwright asked.

‘It’s a fettling knife. I use them for sculpting.’

‘Is this your fettling knife?’ His emphasis was on the ownership.

‘I don’t know.’

‘It was found in your workshop, Mrs. Cotton, and it has your fingerprints on it. Reasonable to think it’s yours, don’t you?’

‘Well then, yes.’ She didn’t like where this line of questioning was leading, but she had to tell the truth. Lying would make everything ten times worse. The truth will out, she told herself, and so will my innocence. Though despite her mental pep talk, inside she felt her heart grow heavy.

‘It appears to have only your fingerprints on it. Can you explain that?’

‘Wait, are you saying that I…?’ She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.

‘You heard no one else enter or leave the property?’ Cartwright asked.

‘No, I told you that already.’ Angela was growing flustered. Her confusion sent a wave of anger through her. What was he insinuating?

‘Mrs. Cotton,’ Cartwright continued with the barrage of questions, ‘can you identify this?’

Studying the second bag the detective held up, it took Angela a moment to look past the blood splatters.

‘Yes, I can. It’s a webcam.’

‘Your webcam?’ The question was asked in such a way, it sounded like an accusation.

‘My webcam,’ Angela answered with a quiet voice. She had to get out of here. If she just answered the questions then they’d let her go. She was innocent, surely they could see that.

‘Mrs. Cotton, do you know if the webcam was running at the time of the murder?’

Of course! She had forgotten to turn it off when she’d gone to shops!

‘Yes!’ she cried, ecstatic that her innocence could be proven so easily. ‘Check the recording. You’ll see I’ve got nothing to do with it. You’ll see who killed Mike.’

‘That would be possible if we could locate the computer it was attached to. Would you know where that might be found?’

‘It should be there, in the workshop. On the table.’

‘Hmmmmm,’ the detective did not sound convinced. ‘Please, let me show you this for a moment. The images may be distressing, but it is necessary.’ Cartwright lifted the flap of the large, brown envelope and took out an A3 sized photograph, placing it on the table in front of her.

Angela was familiar with the scene. The shelves lined with tools, pots and vases. The kiln in the corner. The sofa on the back wall. The potter’s wheel and workspace. Her workspace. Blood splattered the walls, covering everything with a lattice of red, web-like patterns. And on that potter’s wheel was Mike’s sagging, drained, decapitated head.

‘Mrs. Cotton,’ Cartwright continued, ‘can you study the photograph and tell me what’s missing?’

‘My laptop.’

‘Other than the laptop?’

Angela looked around the horrific scene.

‘The head. I made a hideous clay head last night, and it’s gone. I left it on the shelf, and see, it’s not there.’

She looked up to see the cold eyes of the detective, emotionless and unimpressed.

He leant in, closer to her.

‘Mrs. Cotton,’ he began with an impatient and hostile tone, ‘where is your husband’s body?’

3 days before…

…Thursday 18th July 2019

It was somewhat disturbing and frightening for Angela being locked in a police cell overnight. It seemed they were attempting to prove she had murdered her husband.

She lay on the bed, her mind racing with thoughts as she attempted to doze, finally drifting off to sleep, a somewhat uneasy one.

Until the noises woke her.

Something was swinging, creaking, along with a rhythmic knocking noise like it was striking the wall. She thought she heard a strangled groan, but it died away. The knocking continued, growing fainter all the while until it finally ceased.

The silence was more scary than those rhythmic noises. It was much colder, too. She pulled up the blankets on the bed, shivered beneath them, knowing she was not alone in this sparse cell. All this was going too far, the police could have released her on bail. There was no way she could have returned to her own cottage; it was locked up, under police guard. Where would she go? She had no friends left. Mike had driven them away. And here she was, stuck in this village with no support, alone.

If only the police could find her laptop, it might reveal the truth and prove her innocence.

There was a police officer on guard in the office at the end of the corridor. She needed him to switch on the light so that she could see what was happening.

No, I don't want to see whatever it is, no way!

Yet she needed company, an officer to reveal what was going on.

She opened her mouth to shout for him but the most she could manage was a terrified whisper. A couple of bumps from within the darkened room came as if in answer to her groan for help. 'You're not going anywhere, Angela, and nobody's coming to your aid. You're imprisoned here with me.'

She closed her eyes tightly in an attempt to shut out whatever it was. Unbelievably the cell grew lighter, a strange creeping greyness which revealed her immediate surrounds, but it did not come through the un-curtained window. The ethereal light enabled her to see her surroundings.

A figure was suspended by his neck from that bar in the ceiling, squat and ugly, the shaven head bulging, the mouth snarling, the eyes glowing with pain and hatred fixed upon herself. A hanging, a suicide which embodied every vestige of fury, fixed upon herself. Dead but still living in an inexplicable manner.

Angela tried to scream, but fear took her voice. A suicide from the past, a ghost that had returned.

Angela fainted.

She was awakened by the sound of a key turning in the door. She scarcely dared to open her eyes.

It was fully light and the police officer stood before her, a mug of steaming tea in his hand.

‘I'm sorry you had to go through all this,’ he smiled as he set the mug down on the table beside the bed. ‘There's no sign of the missing laptop but hopefully we’ll find it. Thought you could do with a tea.’

Angela sighed her relief and thanked him, but as the officer left her alone again, in her mind she saw a series of horrific images, that body swinging from the rope, staring down at her, and that gruesome clay head…

Trying to distract herself, Angela scanned the crude messages scrawled on the walls of the cell. The smell of bleach stung her nostrils. Even though she’d spent eight uncomfortable hours here, curled up on a hard bench with a blanket over her head, she’d still not grown accustomed to the strong stench of cleaning products emanating from the toilet in the corner. It stung her nose and made her eyes water. The officer that checked on her must have thought she was crying. Angela didn’t care.

The whole situation was a complete mess.

How had she ended up here?

Despite her questioning going on late into the night, it had felt like an eternity for the sun’s rays to eventually shine through the frosted glass of the reinforced window. Now morning had finally come, any remorse for her husband had been replaced with a deep seething for the situation, and sorrow for her own predicament. The graffiti on the walls offered little distraction, but with nothing else to do, her eyes habitually scanned the scribbled messages of hate and proclamations of free sex. It was either that or try to sleep again. But those nightmares continued to echo round her head. Images and feelings that caused her skin to rise into gooseflesh.

When it finally arrived, breakfast was a welcome relief, but the toast they offered her somehow tasted of bleach. She knew it was just her mind playing tricks, but all Angela could think about as she forced herself to chew on the soggy, butter-drenched bread, was that god-awful toilet.

She’d not been officially charged and had been informed that until she had spoken with a legal representative, no formal charges could be made. Angela had never had the need for a lawyer before, so when she was asked and explained she didn’t know any, the station contacted a company for her. It was this ‘legal representation’ that she was waiting for.

Just before midday a police officer opened the cell door with a smiling face and explained, ‘Your lawyer has arrived.’ Angela was apprehensive, but thankful that, at last, she could get out of the cell.

The walk through the corridors of the station, back to the interview room, was all too familiar to Angela, but not as familiar as the face that greeted her when she got there.

‘Angela, please take a seat.’

Open-mouthed, the young woman didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

‘Ollie?’ She knew the answer. Of course it was Ollie. But she had to ask, to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.

The police constable looked up with a quizzical expression, glancing first at Angela, then at Ollie. But the curiosity was fleeting, and the thoughts of her own duties made the constable turn and leave the room with a, ‘Shout if you need anything, Mister Coleborn.’

‘Ollie!’ Angela felt fit to burst at the excitement of seeing him. ‘Thank God you are here, you’ve got to help me.’

‘How are you?’ Ollie asked. ‘Have they been treating you okay?’

She nodded in affirmation, unable to take the smile from her face.

‘Apologies for coming over so late. There was a mix up in the office and I only just got the message.’ His voice was calm and soothing. ‘I’ve spoken with the charging sergeant. Now, they were very naughty last night, and they shouldn’t have questioned you the way they did. Not without making you aware of your rights. So all you said to them is not admissible in court. They will, however, interview you officially after we’ve spoken, and when they do the charging sergeant will review the evidence to decide on a formal charge. Now, I’ve been told about the circumstances–’

‘I didn’t do it,’ she cut in.

‘Good, good. I didn’t think you were the type,’ he said smiling. ‘Currently the police have very little evidence to go on. Not enough to keep you incarcerated, despite their suspicions.’

‘You don’t think I did it, do you?’ she asked, eager for him not to think badly of her.

‘Normally it’s not my job to make that kind of assumption. But with you, if asked, I’d find it hard to believe.’

Angela smiled.

‘With the circumstantial evidence they have, the thing they need from you is a confession,’ he continued his explanation of the situation. ‘Now, they can be tricky in what they ask, so at this stage I would not admit to anything. Every question they ask, you reply with “no comment”. They ask: “did you kill your husband?” You answer: “no comment”. They ask: “did you hide your laptop?” You answer–’

‘No comment,’ Angela cut in, keenly.

‘Excellent. Once you’ve given your name and date of birth, keep answering that for the entire interview. We’ll worry about the details of the case once you’re out of here.’ His instructions were direct but delivered with a friendly tone of authority, a marked difference to the barking threats of Mike. ‘Now your house is currently sealed off, covered in crime scene tape and crawling with cops. Do you have anywhere to stay?’

‘No.’

‘You can stay at mine if you like,’ Ollie offered. ‘The police won’t want you to go too far, and my dad could use the company. It’s not an offer I make to my clients normally, but if I’m being honest, both me and him enjoyed having you over, yesterday.’

‘Thank you, that would be lovely,’ she beamed.

‘Excellent. Good luck on the interview, not that you’ll need it. When it’s over you’ll be put back in the cell. Don’t panic, it’s just whilst the charging sergeant reviews the evidence and the interview, then makes his decision. There’s no way he can keep you in with what they’ve got. When you’re out, give me a call and I’ll come and pick you up.’ Ollie handed her his business card.

Their fingers touched as she took it from him and they both smiled, meeting each other’s gaze.

Ollie was the first to break the trance as he stood and tucked his leather-bound folder under his arm.

Stopping as he reached the door, he turned back and asked, Angela, ‘What colour is the sky?’

Confused, she took a moment to consider the question, before slowly answering, ‘No comment?’

‘Excellent, you’ve got this.’

The official interview with the police was an awkward affair for Angela. She was used to complying with authority figures, so to answer each question with a flat and obstructive “no comment” felt uncomfortable and out of character. It also made her feel like she was hiding something. But Ollie was her lawyer now, and he knew the process better than her, so she put her faith in his advice and followed it to the letter.

The questioning officer did not bat an eyelid to her responses, and although she tried to probe and needle, asking similar questions in different ways, and challenging Angela’s thoughts and emotional responses, she did so in a very robotic manner. The officer was obviously very used to this kind of tactic from her interviewees.

It took another three hours for the charging sergeant to decide that they had nothing on her and let her go, but a young constable warned her that she should not leave the area, make herself available for questioning and not attempt to enter her house until given the go ahead. Any transgression against these rules would be evidence against her and she could very quickly end up back in a cell.

Angela thought over the warning as she waited outside the police station.

It was already getting dark. The day had disappeared inside that cell, and she was glad to be out.

The air was damp, and the darkening skies were cloudy with a threat of another storm, but the wind felt exhilarating, a taste of freedom that she’d never appreciated before.

The sounding of a car horn diverted Angela’s attention, and on seeing the driver of the car, a new, even wider smile spread across her face.

‘Hey Angela, they took their time letting you out!’ Ollie said as he pulled up beside her and wound down the electric window. ‘Hop in and we’ll head back to mine. I picked up a Chinese takeaway on the way over. You okay with Chinese food?’

‘Perfect,’ she said as she opened the passenger door and stepped into Ollie’s car, relishing the warmth and security.

The sight of yellow and black tape stretched around the perimeter of her cottage sent a chill through Angela. The images of her blood-splattered workshop flashed through her mind. Mike’s head with that strange expression, fixed and lifeless as it bled over her slowly spinning potter’s wheel.

Looking up into the window of the front bedroom, the room that had become her workshop, she could see a light was on. Shadows of unknown figures were cast onto the lawn as the police continued their work inside. A multitude of heads and hands created the silhouette of a many-limbed monster, one that was crawling over the artefacts of her life, pouring over her possessions; cataloguing, recording, judging. She grimaced at the thought of all those strangers rummaging through her personal effects and wondered what they might have found.

Pulling up outside, Angela stepped out of the car, her eyes on the guard that stood beside her front door.

‘Come on,’ said Ollie, ‘let’s get you inside, I know it’s awkward being so close, but we’ll close the curtains and try our best to forget the outside world for tonight. You need some food and rest.’

Angela nodded meekly, grateful for Ollie to take the lead. Her head was a mess. A swirling tornado of thoughts and emotions. She was grieving for Mike, but at the same time she was happy he was gone. Their relationship had soured, become dangerous even. They had once been in love, but her love for him had died a long time ago.

Did that make her mean and cold-hearted? Was she as callous and evil as the psychopath that killed him?

No, she was better than that. She still had compassion, and the tears that quietly collected in her eyes as she walked, head bowed, towards Ollie’s front door, gave her some comfort in her own humanity.

‘I’m sorry they kept you in for so long,’ Ollie sympathised as he opened the tinfoil containers of the Chinese takeaway, releasing plumes of steam from the hot food.

‘It’s okay, really. It wasn’t your fault,’ Angela replied, her eyes watching the wisps of vapour rise up and slowly fade into nothing.

Ollie caught the expression in her gaze.

‘Let’s change the subject,’ he said, opening a bottle of red wine and pouring the contents into two glasses. ‘Let’s not have any more talk about that tonight. Here.’ He handed her a glass of deep crimson rioja. ‘This might help.’

She took a sip then followed Ollie as he carried two plates full of rice, noodles and wonderful aromas into the living room and set them on a table.

‘Eat some food, drink some wine, and then get some rest.’ He smiled as he pulled a chair out from the table and offered her a seat. Angela was moved by his manners and smiled back.

The food smelt good, a world of difference from the soggy toast she’d had at the station. Taking the first mouthful, her tongue came alive with the tastes.

‘Have you had a chance to explore the village yet?’ Ollie asked, sticking to his promise of keeping the conversation light.

‘Not as much as I’d liked to,’ she replied between mouthfuls. ‘I’ve been to the Two Headed Swan.’

‘Ah yes, the classic local boozer!’ The pair laughed. ‘It’s friendly enough,’ he continued, ‘some nice ales two.’

‘Well, I’m more of a wine girl myself.’ She raised her glass and took a drink in appreciation of his choice.

‘There’s not a lot to the village really,’ Ollie explained, almost apologetically. ‘It’s fairly small, and pretty standard. A few shops, a church, a post office. Although the surrounding countryside is breathtaking. The woods and the walk along the river are of particular note.’

‘Oh, I know,’ Angela nodded in agreement. ‘I’ve discovered the path, beside the bridge, it’s so beautiful. And so close! I like to sit by the riverbank when I want to think. A place to find inspiration.’ She sounded dreamy as she recalled it.

‘Ah, yes, the artistic muse must be fed,’ he chuckled. ‘I’d really like to see your work someday.’

‘Maybe you shall, someday,’ she teased, quietly overjoyed at his interest in her craft.

After a moment eating in comfortable silence, Angela noticed Ollie’s expression suddenly change. His face grew pensive. Serious. Angela swallowed her food then looked back at him with searching eyes.

‘What?’ she asked, bemused.

‘You… uh… you’ve got something on your cheek.’ He lightly tapped two fingers against his own face indicating where he meant.

Holding her hand over the area, she felt a sting as her fingertips touched the skin. She thought she’d gotten away with it, but it seemed the last attack from Mike had finally emerged as a bruise.

Angela looked at Ollie like a deer in the headlights, unsure of what to say or how to react.

‘Was that Mike?’ he asked with a sympathetic softness.

Angela nodded, still uncomfortable about the subject, despite the confession in the police station last night.

Ollie read her reaction. ‘I won’t ask you about it, not if you don’t want to. I didn’t comment when I saw the plasters on your hands yesterday. Let me just say this,’ he put down his knife and fork, reached across the table and gently held her hand. ‘No one will hurt you anymore. You are safe here.’

‘Thank you,’ she mouthed before a flood of tears streamed from her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just been such a long time since anyone has been kind to me.’

Ollie stood up and walked around the table to Angela. She followed in kind and rose to her feet. Placing his arms around her, Ollie pulled her close to him. Out of shame for her grief, Angela pushed her face against his broad chest. His warmth was comforting, his shirt soaked up the tears.

‘I know it hurts, but time will heal. You’ve been through a lot,’ he cooed as he gently rocked her. ‘No one should have to suffer like you’ve suffered. Just believe it will get better.’

Angela sniffed back more tears as she pulled away from his comforting embrace for a moment and looked into his eyes. When their lips met, she was initially surprised, but the euphoric rush that accompanied the tender touch almost took her balance. She kissed him back, running her hands around his muscular frame.

‘What… about… your… dad?’ she asked.

‘He’s already asleep,’ Ollie replied. ‘He won’t disturb us.’

‘I can’t.’ Angela pulled away. ‘It’s too soon.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Ollie said. ‘Please forgive me.’

‘There’s nothing to apologise for,’ Angela reassured him. ‘You are such a wonderful person, so kind and handsome. It’s just…’

‘I understand.’ Ollie placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. ‘You need some rest. You can take my room. I’ll sleep on the sofa.’

He smiled with such tenderness that Angela felt her heart skip.

The room was dark, and although Angela couldn’t see anything in the gloom of the bedroom, she took comfort in the warmth of Ollie’s body, running her fingers through his chest hair. The shape of his muscular frame felt familiar, as if she’d known it for years. Her fingers anticipated every peak and trough in the terrain of his physique; a map somehow ingrained into her touch. Her body knew his body intimately, even after one night. It must have been destiny.

She felt him move, turn over and face her. She smiled as he rose up and straddled her. Her hands indulged in the sensation of his skin, her touch heightened by the darkness.

When he spoke, he sounded strange, ethereal.

His voice appeared to come, not from him, but somewhere internally, inside her own head.

‘We have found each other.’

She smiled at the declaration. Her hands found themselves on his nipples and began to massage them in circular motions. She felt his hands on her skin. Like a ghost in the darkness, Angela couldn’t tell where his fingers would appear next, softly caressing her, but each time they did she gave a low moan of appreciation, and couldn’t help but gyrate her hips beneath him.

‘It was destiny.’ His sensual whisper tickled more than her ears. ‘I have waited so long.’

She felt his erection between her thighs and opened them wider to allow him closer. Beneath her teasing fingertips, Angela began to feel the increasing firmness of his stimulated nipples, and with them something she didn’t expect.

‘It was the strength in our feelings that brought us together.’

His right nipple had a dip in it. A dent where a piercing would have been, once upon a time. Her fingers knew this feature. But not on Ollie. On someone else.

‘Your hatred matched mine. Our desire for bloody vengeance, brought us together.’

As her breathing quickened, she felt around his body. The dropped shoulders of bad posture. The patch of hair just below his shoulder blades. The scar tissue on his bicep. She knew them all. But she knew them on the body of her deceased husband. This was Mike’s body!

That was impossible.

Panic spun her thoughts.

Reaching up, she touched his face.

The cold covering of hardened clay made her gasp in shock.

She groped wildly, demanding her senses be a lie, but the further she explored, the more her touch confirmed it. Misshapen, bulbous and rough. It couldn’t be!

Angela tried to move, but the weight of the man on top of her, kept her pinned to the bed.

He leant forward and she felt his warmth breath on her cheek.

‘You gave me form,’ he whispered. ‘You brought me back.’

‘Nooooo,’ Angela screamed.

Reaching out for the bedside lamp, she turned it on, her heart thumping in her chest, her breath shallow and rapid. A grimy layer of cold sweat coated her skin and shone in the lamp’s glow. The light forced the darkness from the room, and with it, her nightmare. Ollie lay sleeping peacefully, undisturbed by her sudden fright. As her heart slowed, she smiled at his handsome face, his chiseled jaw and five o’clock shadow.

For a moment she gazed on his sleeping form, searching for comfort from the horrendous events of the last few days and the nightmares they’d produced. Was it guilt that incited the dream? Her husband not even in a grave and here she was in bed with another man.

She’d listened to her heart, gave in to her yearning, and in truth she was thankful to be here with him. Mike couldn’t hurt her now. Mike was a monster, he didn’t deserve her grief, despite the awful way in which he died.

But even as she snuggled up next to Ollie, she couldn’t get the feeling of that god-awful clay head from her mind. And that body. That all too familiar body! She shuddered as a silent echo of the nightmare’s words rung in her ears.

‘He’s still here, you know that, right?’

Danny turned to his girlfriend as he leaned on the handle of a claw hammer, placing his weight against it and pushing it into the door.

‘What do you mean?’ Karen nervously tried to laugh it away, but the trembling pitch of her question exposed her fear. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

‘Come on, Karen, don’t be such a wuss. The cops left hours ago. Let’s go see some messed up shit.’ He clenched his teeth as pushed again. The trick was to use enough force to pull the lock from the frame, without causing too much damage. The last thing he wanted was to make enough noise to alert the street.

Danny knew old cottages like this had terrible security, but he’d never attempted a break-in like this in his own village. Normally he’d drive elsewhere, keep his criminal activities out of his own backyard. But this was just too tempting to ignore. He’d never been in an actual murder scene before. And this one was fresh too!

The teenager heard the gentle crack of splintering wood.

‘Brilliant,’ he whispered, ‘we’re in.’

With a few controlled twists of his tool, Danny felt the lock finally breakaway, and turning on the torchlight on his phone, he glanced at his girlfriend and smiled a smug, self-satisfied grin.

‘Come on,’ he said.

‘But he’s still here. The killer.’ Karen tugged on his sleeve, pulling Danny back from the darkness of the house. ‘You said so.’

‘Don’t be stupid, I was just trying to scare you.’ Danny put his arm around Karen’s shoulder. ‘The cops have been here all day. You don’t think they would have caught him if he’d been hiding out in the house? I was just joking.’

Scanning the torch beam ahead of them, the pair of teenagers moved, hand in hand, through the house. Danny smiled when he saw dark stains at the foot of the stairs. It was hard to tell if it was just mud or something far more sinister, but it was enough to heighten his enthusiasm in his macabre search.

‘My dad said it had all happened in one of the upstairs rooms,’ Danny whispered as he gripped his girlfriend’s hand tightly and began the ascent.

‘And how does your dad know so much about it?’ Karen asked.

‘He gets to know about everything. Even the juicy stuff. He might not be a cop, but being their janitor, he overhears things at the station all the time. Might as well be part of the force.’ He sounded proud.

‘Best hope he doesn’t catch you with any weed, then?’ Karen mocked, trying to ignore the cold shivers that ran down her spine.

‘He’ll never know,’ Danny chuckled quietly, tapping the small stash tin in his back pocket.

Karen gave a faint laugh, feeling a little more relaxed as they talked about things aside from the murder. But as they reached the top of the stairs, a cry from Danny soon set her on edge once again.

‘This must be it!’ he exclaimed, opening the door to the workshop and shining his light onto the potter’s wheel. ‘That’s where my dad said they found the head. Can you imagine that?’

Karen felt herself tremble and moved closer to her boyfriend.

‘Why’s it so cold in here?’ she asked placing her arms around Danny to try and warm up.

‘The heating won’t be on. The cops won’t want any of the evidence spoiled.’

‘But this room is so much colder than the rest,’ she complained.

‘Weird, huh?’ Danny sounded genuinely excited. ‘Maybe it’s the dead. Maybe the poor bastard is still here, as a ghost!’

‘Jesus Christ, Danny, knock it off,’ she protested, then a change in tone as she slid Danny’s stash tin from his back pocket. ‘Can I?’

‘Sure, I pre-rolled a few,’ he replied, not looking back, engrossed in his surroundings.

Karen took a spliff from the case and placed it between her lips, hurriedly lighting the end from a flame that quivered in time with her unsteady hand. Inhaling deeply, the sweet taste of marijuana was the comfort she needed. As she exhaled, Karen watched the thick plume of smoke ascend. Her shoulders relaxed and almost immediately, her mind began to swim in a comforting haze. A grin grew on her face and she leaned against the doorframe, watching her boyfriend explore the workshop.

‘So, she makes pots and stuff?’ Karen asked before indulging in another long drag.

‘Looks like it,’ Danny said. ‘Here, give me some.’

He walked across the room towards her and took the joint. He inhaled, holding the smoke in his lungs for a few moments before slowly exhaling.

‘I’m thinking about getting a nose job. Do you think I should get a nose job?’ She turned to the side to show Danny her profile. The weed had taken her thoughts a million miles away from their troubling surroundings. ‘If you didn’t like the way I look, you’d say, right?’

‘Huh?’ Danny asked, not listening to her. ‘You know,’ he said handing the joint back to his girlfriend, ‘this is supposedly the very same room where Ugly Edgar was killed?’

‘What? As in, Ugly Edgar, Ugly Edgar, no one’s gonna love ya?’ Karen asked, a tone of mocking indifference as she repeated the rhyme they chanted as children.

‘The very same. Which is weird, right?’ Danny opened the kiln to find it empty. ‘Two beheadings in the same room. Over a hundred years between them.’

‘Give anything long enough and it comes back into fashion.’ The two looked at each other for a moment then burst into laughter.

‘Come here,’ Danny said as he placed his hands on Karen’s hips and gently motioned her towards him.

She happily followed his lead, pushing her hips against his and placing her hands on his rear.

‘You don’t need a nose job. I think you’re beautiful just the way you are,’ he said with a loving sincerity.

‘You too,’ she beamed as she took another puff and blew the smoke in his face.

‘Don’t burn me with that spliff,’ Danny half-joked.

‘Shhhh,’ came the reply as she leaned forward and placed her lips on his.

The dizzying combination of the marijuana and the kiss caused them both to slowly grind against each other.

‘How about I give you head,’ Karen broke off from the kiss to whisper in his ear. ‘Right here. Right now.’

Danny smiled at the perverse promise and immediately began tugging at his belt, his haste causing him to fumble awkwardly with the buckle. Karen dropped the joint on the floor and kicked it away as she helped him undo his trousers. She pulled them down to his ankles, bending her knees as she did so and lowering herself as she slid down his underwear.

The red cherry of the spliff rolled across the floor and stopped beside the doorway, smouldering on the exposed floorboards of the workshop. Danny watched it glow in the dark for a moment before the feeling of Karen’s tongue made him close his eyes and groan.

Distracted by the pleasure, he didn’t see a shoe tread on the joint and extinguish its glowing embers. He didn’t hear the quiet footsteps that walked towards the pair. And he didn’t see the fettling knife that was held above Karen.

Momentarily opening his eyes, Danny was shocked to see the figure as it thrust the sculpting tool into Karen’s neck, burying it deep into her. The pain was sudden, the shock causing her to tense and bite down hard as agony shot through her body. Her teeth sunk into the soft meat of her boyfriend’s penis, her pearly whites chomping into his member and separating the flesh. Danny’s blood filled her mouth, and as the attacker kicked her to the floor, she felt the mauled meat between her teeth tear free from her boyfriend’s body. Danny’s screams filled the room as Karen hit the floor. Sickened by the still-warm sensation of her lover’s chewed cock against her tongue, the teenager spat the slimy chunks onto the ground then wildly grabbed for the knife still protruding from her own body, desperately trying to pull the weapon from her neck.

Looking up, she saw Danny collapsed in a pile of broken bowls and vases. His screams silenced and his whole body shook. His skin was ghostly white as he stared at the meager remains of his manhood; gnawed, ragged strips of flesh that hung from a steadily growing circle of blood between his legs. A puddle formed beneath him looking black in the darkness, expanding around him like it was an ever-widening hole. He was oddly muted. The pain and shock so great that only feeble whines and whimpers managed to escape his trembling lips. All he could do was stare at the pathetic remains of his penis.

Karen turned towards her attacker, looking for a route past and to the doorway behind. The oddly shaped silhouette staggered towards her on ungainly legs. She tried to run past the ghastly shadow, but a hand caught her throat. A glint of something metal shone briefly in the moonlight. Another fettling knife.

The blade slammed into her eyeball, piercing the orb and sending waves of pain through her body. Karen felt the liquid from the inside of her eye drip down her cheek. Instinctively reaching to cover the wound, her hand hit the handle of the sculpting tool, still sticking out from her face. Accidentally knocking it with her panicked groping, she felt a wet popping sensation as the action pulled her eye from its socket. The slimy cord, still connected to the back of her eyeball, brushed against her face as the ruptured orb swung like some gory pendulum.

She didn’t have time to see the next knife, but Karen felt it as it was thrust into the front of her neck. For a moment the world seemed to stop as her broken mind tried to make sense of what was happening. But the respite was only fleeting, and as the attacker gripped her neck, they slowly dragged the small blade across her windpipe, awkwardly cutting and tearing as they opened a jagged hole in her throat.

Karen gasped for air, but her lungs failed to fill. She gargled in her own blood as the attacker let go of her neck, making the teenager drop to her knees. Reaching out in front of her, Karen scrambled across the floor, trying to get to the door, her instincts screaming at her to get away from here. But it was already too late.

Her last conscious thought was another burst of pain, and the reverberation of broken bones, as a shoe smashed into the back of her head, forcing her face into the ground and obliterating her nose.

The night felt like it stretched on forever.

Sipping on a glass of water, Angela looked out the window and hoped to see a lightening sky, but the pure black between the twinkling stars told her dawn was still some time off.

It was strange to think that only two days ago she was in her workshop, trapped in a loveless, abusive marriage with no means of escape. And now she was here. With Ollie. As for Mike…

Angela didn’t know what to think; what to do. Perhaps she should be crying about his murder. But she wasn’t. Perhaps she should be grieving about his death, but instead she felt the pull of a new future. A new path unfurling before her.

Her mind flashed with images of new possibilities. Of a new life without Mike. For a while her thoughts were uplifting, making her feel a warmth inside that caused her heart to flutter. But the circumstances of her husband’s departure soon re-emerged and polluted her new-found enthusiasm. Twisted images flooded her thoughts of scenes she’d had to bear witness to. The blood. The decapitated head. Those crazy dreams that followed.

She shuddered.

‘I was told we would be having a house guest.’

Angela turned to the doorway of the lounge and saw Mister Coleborn shuffling towards her wearing a checked dressing gown and slippers, a walking stick in one hand and his pipe in the other.

‘I’m sorry, I was lost in my own world. You startled me. Hi.’ Angela smiled at Ollie’s father. ‘I hope you don’t mind me staying.’

‘Not at all.’ He stopped and rested on his cane. ‘Nice to have someone else in the house, though I’m sorry about the circumstances. Ollie told me. What are you doing up at this time of night?’

‘A lot on my mind,’ she replied.

‘No doubt,’ came his response, somehow sounding both gruff and sympathetic. ‘You look like you’re ready to go out,’ he said nodding towards her attire.

Angela looked down at herself, as if her apparel had come as a surprise to her.

‘Mister Coleborn, I couldn’t be walking around in next to nothing,’ she laughed, ‘not with two young bucks in the house.’

‘Ha!’ the old man laughed. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘call me Gavin.’

‘Okay, Gavin. Thank you.’ Angela smiled again, this time at the friendly gesture, and for a moment the pair stood in silence. ‘How come you’re not in bed?’ she asked eventually, breaking the quiet that had grown awkward.

‘Something woke me up,’ he answered, turning his attention to the outside world as he peered out the window and down the street.

‘I’m sorry, that must have been me,’ Angela apologised.

‘No,’ he said sharply. ‘I think it’s from over the road. Your cottage. There’s something not right about that place. Never has been. I’ve lived in this village all my life and that house has been… off.’ Gavin eased himself into his armchair and turned on a lamp beside him.

The illumination was a little startling at first, but Angela’s eyes soon adjusted and quickly the low glow felt more like a comforting candle, casting long shadows across the room. She left her position, leaning against the kitchen sink, and sat opposite him on the sofa, cradling her glass of water. A match flared as Gavin struck it and placed it across his pipe, puffing on the mouthpiece and drawing the flame over the tobacco.

‘We’ll never know the truth about Ugly Edgar,’ he said once satisfied the pipe was lit. ‘His guilt, or innocence, has been lost to time. We know a child was killed, and we know that revenge was carried out by Mister Whitely, the murdered boy’s father, before a full investigation was fully made. No arrest. No trial. But the boy’s father was sure. So sure, he gave his own life. Willingly accepted the fate that would come to a murderer if he took his revenge. But take his revenge he did. A foul and bloody act.’

Angela took another sip of water, trying to subdue the tickle from her dry throat.

‘You don’t really believe all that legend stuff, do you?’ Angela challenged. ‘I mean it’s a good story to scare kids, but it didn’t really happen, did it?’

‘I’ll admit that some facts get twisted over time,’ Gavin confessed. ‘Just depends who’s telling them. The man that killed Ugly Edgar, they said he was hung for his crime, but another version tells a different story. That he took his own life. Hung himself in the very cell he was imprisoned in. A cell in the local police station!’

Angela gasped as she thought back to the nightmares she’d had whilst under arrest. The straining belt and the swinging body.

‘I dreamt about him. But it can’t be true. It’s my mind playing tricks on me,’ she protested, trying as much to convince herself as to sway the old man.

‘They say that Ugly Edgar will return one day to take his revenge.’ Gavin leant closer. ‘Perhaps that time has come.’

Angela felt a chill creep across her arms. ‘Now that’s too far. That has to be nothing more than legend.’

‘Legend, hey? The world is a strange place,’ Coleborn answered back gruffly. ‘Come with me.’

He carefully stood, and with the assistance of his cane, he walked across the room and opened another door that led to a study.

The room was lined with shelves filled with books, on the walls were old tin signs advertising tobacco and a beaten box of Subbuteo lay open on a desk near a window overlooking the back garden.

‘You think you know it all nowadays, with your computers and whatnot, but this earth still holds mystery. Take that for example.’ Gavin took his pipe from his mouth and pointed it towards the wall.

Above the leather-bound writing desk, and ornately hung, was something Angela could scarcely believe. A huge claw, like the ones on the crabs she used to find in rockpools as a little girl, holidaying in Stanswick Sands. Only this one was gigantic by comparison. At least a few feet across.

‘People are so easily fooled. So ready to ignore the fantastical and keep the world safely in the parameters of their own understanding,’ Coleborn explained. ‘Do you know, they called them a hoax, and everyone went along with it? The whole world! Happily, ready to forget. But you talk to the residents of Barmouth and they’ll tell you about legends. Legends of giant crabs. And when I took my gun and aimed it at the centre of one of those legend’s cold, evil eye; when I listened to the sound of those claws go click-clickety-click; I found it all too real. So you’ll forgive me, if I choose to believe in legends, including the legend of Ugly Edgar.’

Still taking in the wonder of the giant claw, Angela followed Gavin back into the lounge and took her seat again, speechless and ready to listen.

‘Can you imagine the anger the father of that child must have felt?’ Gavin spoke with his teeth clenched around his pipe as he returned to subject of the hundred-year-old murder. ‘Can you imagine the fury, the sheer brutality of that raw emotion as he stormed the cottage over there? Your cottage. And what of Ugly Edgar? Can you imagine the screaming? The agony he must have gone through. They say a decapitated head can still live for moments after it is severed. What a horrible way to go. The last thing you see is your own lifeless body laid out in front of you; being able to see in full detail the grisly, mortal wound that so savagely killed you.’

Angela raised a hand to her mouth to keep herself silent as a tear rolled down her cheek.

‘I’m sorry, my dear.’ Her reaction did not go unnoticed. ‘There’s me, going off on one, like a thoughtless old fool. I’m sorry, that was very tactless of me.’

‘It’s okay,’ she assured him as she took another sip of water and tried to steady her trembling hand.

‘The point I was trying to make,’ Gavin continued, ‘is that when places are witness to such raw and powerful emotions, it seems that they take on that emotion. That feeling. Have you ever walked into a wood and felt confused or disoriented, even though you’re following a path? Or have you ever entered a house and sensed something in the air? In the walls? A feeling of dread, like someone’s watching you. I’m not talking ghosts and ghouls. I’m talking about a residue of emotions; powerful human emotions that are so raw and so deep that they go on living even when the person has died. A feeling that can resonate for centuries afterwards. A feeling like that has power.’ Gavin studied her stunned reaction for a moment and puffed on his pipe. ‘I’ve lived on this street, in this very house, opposite to that cottage of yours for decades now, and when I heard of the terrible scenes that unfolded yesterday, well, my first reaction was not one of surprise or shock, but of a grave acceptance. Something’s been bubbling away under the floorboards, within the walls, in the very air of that house, for so long. It was only a matter of time.’

2 days before…

…Friday 19th July 2019

Elvin stared into the empty space between himself and Detective Inspector Cartwright, his eyes not focusing on his surroundings but resting their gaze on a patch of nothing. A nothing he wished he could crawl into.

Cartwright awkwardly placed a box of tissues on the table beside the other man. He’d had to deliver bad news on numerous occasions, it was part of the job, but to a man he knew so well, about an incident that was as senseless as it was tragic, was something he’d never experienced before.

The pair sat in silence for a moment. Cartwright’s office door was closed and a constable who walked past did so with a grave, respectful silence. They’d all heard the news, and they all knew Elvin. As their janitor, he was on the premises daily, cleaning rooms, bleaching the toilets and fixing one issue or another. He wasn’t a cop, but he was as much part of the team as any bobby in blue.

‘You’re going to get the bastard, right Eric?’ Elvin broke the silence with a question that sounded partly like a plea, and partly like a threat. ‘Have you got any leads?’

‘Well…’ Cartwright wasn’t the type of man to offer false hope, so he struggled as he searched for the right words of comfort and reassurance.

‘You haven’t, have you?’ Elvin read the detective’s expression as he rubbed his hands together in a constant action until the skin was raw. And even then, he didn’t stop.

He waited in silence for a moment, hoping Cartwright would tell him one way or another, but when the reply came it was non-committal, ‘Look Elvin, we’re doing the best we can.’

It wasn’t good enough.

It wasn’t good enough because what was left of his son’s body lay in the morgue whilst the killer roamed free without so much as a sniff of the police on his trail.

The cops had found his son at the crime scene early this morning. His body, and the body of his girlfriend, Karen. That’s what Cartwright had told him when he’d arrived for work. The news didn’t sink in at first; not until he had to confirm the body’s identity.

‘I didn’t know he was missing, the tyke is normally out late and in bed until the afternoon. You know how it is with teenagers,’ he sniffed. ‘But all night he was in that bloody house. Dead. And you’re sure you don’t know who did… who did…’ Elvin couldn’t bring himself to say it.

‘We’re working on it,’ Cartwright answered.

‘Well work harder!’ The grieving father’s temper was beginning to boil. ‘You want to know who did it? I can tell you who did it,’ Elvin piped up, sniffing back tears. ‘The number one suspect is that bint who lives there. The woman that makes those bowls. Mike’s wife.’ The detective didn’t react. ‘Well, she’s got to be the one. She lives in the house. She was the only one there when Mike was offed; it makes sense, right? God knows why she’s doing it, but it has to be her. It has to be.’

‘Come on, Elvin, I know this is hard,’ the detective inspector softly replied.

‘How can you possibly know!’ the grieving father screamed back.

‘We’ll be sweeping the scene again, following leads and making enquires. You know how we work. And rest assured that we will not leave a single stone unturned. The whole station is in shock about what happened. We’re taking it personally.’

‘So you’ll be bringing her in, asking her questions? Charging the bitch.’ Elvin spat his words between clenched teeth.

‘We have protocols to follow. Laws to uphold. We can’t go throwing around accusations without some kind of proof.’ Cartwright kept calm, hoping his tone and demeanour would help to de-escalate his friend’s rising temper. ‘Elvin, I think it’s best that you go home. The station is not the best place for you right now. Take some time off and rest. Leave it to us.’

He placed a hand on Elvin’s shoulder, and felt the man’s body shake as tears began to flood down his face. Pulling a tissue from the box, Elvin blew his nose and wiped his eyes.

‘Thanks, Eric,’ he said when he regained control. ‘You’re a good mate. I know you’re doing what you can. You and the team. I’m sorry.’

Standing up, Elvin picked up his waterproof jacket and slid his arms into it, getting ready to leave. Cartwright walked round his desk and reached out to his friend, giving him a firm hug and patting him on the back.

The pair broke from their embrace.

‘You go home, Elvin. Maria needs you now more than ever. Be the best husband you can be.’ Cartwright fought back tears as he felt his voice breaking.

Elvin nodded, placed the flat cap on his head, and walked towards the door.

Through frosted glass panels, Cartwright caught the sight of a uniformed officer walking down the corridor beside a familiar silhouette. The bowed head, the sullen frame. It was one he’d become all too familiar with of late. His heart sank, but there was nothing he could do to stop the inevitable. Elvin already had his grip on the handle and Cartwright was too far away to prevent him from meeting them head on.

As he opened the door, Elvin caught sight of Angela being led past them and into an interview room.

The moment he laid eyes on her, his face twisted into a mask of rage.

She turned and saw the burning red cheeks. Raising his hand, Elvin pointed a thick finger at Angela as he unleashed a barrage of insults and accusations. A pair of gnashing teeth that seemed to glow in the frame of his fiery flesh chomped as they spat out a stream of hatred.

‘You fucking bitch!’ he screamed. ‘You killed my boy, you slag. I hope you burn in hell for all eternity for what you’ve done.’

Hurried into the interview room by the escorting officer, Angela could still hear the man’s vitriolic rant continue to spew forth; the intensity of his rage not dampened even though it was muffled through the closed door.

Asked to take a seat in a sadly familiar chair, Angela complied and sat in silence, listening to the sobbing of a grown man slowly fade as he was escorted off the station’s premises.

After a long wait Detective Inspector Cartwright walked in. He looked like hell. He rubbed his unshaven chin as he sat down opposite her, looking Angela over with a pair of bloodshot eyes.

‘It’s been a long day,’ he said not taking his eyes off her. ‘Correction, it was a long night and it’s going to be a long day. I don’t know what the hell’s going on in this village of mine, but quite frankly I don’t like it. We rarely have any real trouble here. This is the kind of place where we get cats out of trees and herd escaped farm animals off the roads. Not a place for triple homicide.’

Angela didn’t say a word, and even if she’d wanted to, the detective inspector wasn’t ready to listen just yet, he was wrapped up in his own monologue.

‘Three murders. Three murders that all happened in your home.’ He continued to air his frustrations. ‘Now how do you think I’m supposed to feel about that? Today we should have been having a conversation where I tell you to go back to your house. But that’s not happening. Not for a while. I hear you’re shacked up with the Coleborn lad. You move on pretty quick, don’t you?’

Angela continued to stare at him with a blank face, held captive by his barrage and unable to react quick enough before his next diatribe was unleashed.

‘So, Mrs. Cotton, you won’t be moving back into the cottage just yet. Maybe never again. We’ve got a lovely hotel for you to live in, provided for us by Her Majesty and her Prison Wardens. The rent is reasonable, free in fact, but I wouldn’t say much for the neighbours. So I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to think about it for a moment before answering.’ He leaned closer but didn’t lower his voice. ‘Mrs. Cotton, where were you last night?’

Angela had an alibi. She had witnesses. The detective inspector was angry, but his misdirected aggression was nothing more than hot air. Ollie had briefed her with explicit instructions. To say anything without a lawyer present could put her in a worse position. The police, he’d told her, are experts at putting words in people’s mouths, leading them down wrong paths. And these coppers were angry. They wanted someone to hang these murders on, and they wanted it quickly. Despite being innocent, Angela knew she was being set up as the scapegoat.

Looking Cartwright directly into his tired eyes she refused to bite to his needling, to react to his jibes and personal attacks.

Despite screaming inside, wishing she could give as good as she got, Angela drew on Ollie’s advice. She spoke with a calm and measured tone as she replied, ‘No comment.’

The pub made for a far more welcoming atmosphere than the police station. But only just. She hadn’t set foot in the place since the first night they moved into the village and decided to head out for a celebratory drink. Even so, the barman clearly recognised Angela. His sadly sympathetic face, and reluctance to take her money for the glass of wine she ordered, was an indication that he knew of the young woman and her unfortunate circumstances.

Smiling politely at the barman, she turned and found a quiet, two-seater table against a wall and away from the other patrons. Sitting down, she opened her handbag and took out her phone. At first Angela began to spin it round, between her fingers, using its presence as a comfort whilst she took in the interior of the Two Headed Swan, now seeing it for the first time during the day.

It was a pub like many others she’d seen in the country, black beams ran across the ceiling, paintings of shire horses and country vistas adorned the walls. A fruit machine stood silently in the corner and flashed an ever-changing pattern of oranges and greens.

Mike had tried his hand on the gambling machine when they came down together on that first night. He hadn’t won anything but had been remarkably unfazed by his loss. Back then spirits were high, and with the optimism of a new future for them both, it felt like it had at the beginning, when they’d first started dating.

But the feeling soon faded.

It was funny to think this was the place Mike had spent all his time in as their marriage crumbled. He must have made friends with the locals but he never mentioned their names. Angela had offered to come with him a few times, but she always got the same response; an excuse about him needing a bit of alone time to decompress from the stresses of the office.

‘I’m sorry to hear about Mike,’ the barman said as he came over and placed a small bottle of Pinot Grigio on the table. ‘He was a good man. I know it’s not much, but please, take another, it’s on the house.’

His thin moustache curled up, as he smiled nervously. Angela studied his face for a moment, taken aback by the generosity. Struggling to form the words to thank him, she merely smiled in return. It was enough to acknowledge the good deed and the barman’s grin grew a little wider as he nodded then headed back to the bar.

Angela took a sip of her drink and followed the barman’s walk back with her gaze. Scanning along the bar, she noticed the fireplace at the other end. It was small, but ornate and made of marble. She admired the sculpting of the interlocking pattern, wondering how she would tackle such a project. Thoughts of the creative challenge made her momentarily miss her workshop. The fires of her passion had been extinguished by the events of the past few days, and even now she felt the initial rush of excitement quickly subside as recollections of all the horrors she’d witnessed filled her thoughts. Her enthusiasm for the arts was as cold and lifeless as the pile of ash that sat heaped in the fireplace. So much for the phoenix, she mocked, casting her mind back to the grand piece that Mike had so cruelly destroyed.

Angela had always found it curious, but not uncommon, to see people finding comfort in sitting next to a fireplace, even when the fire wasn’t lit. It was the same here as she noted the group of people sat, huddled around a table beside it. As if the feeling of warmth and comfort it provided in the winter made an impression lasting all year round. She thought back to Gavin’s talk on the influence of emotions on places. Maybe he had something there, after all. Her attention turned to the drinkers, she could see they were talking but their voices were subdued by unnaturally quiet tones, as if trying not to be overheard.

A feeling of paranoia came over Angela, studying the group did not quell her worries. A woman with long black hair and dark circles around her eyes looked over. Each time she did, and seeing Angela’s stare fixed back on her, the woman averted her gaze in an attempt to remain inconspicuous. But it was clear, for whatever reason, she couldn’t take her eyes off Angela for long.

After a few more occasions of the woman glancing across, she suddenly burst into tears and buried her face into the shoulder of the man sat next to her. Angela began to grow uneasy, as if she was spying on someone else’s personal moment, and changed her attention to the phone in her hand.

Selecting her address book, she scrolled through a list, stopping on the name Charlotte and hit dial. Listening to the sound of the ringtone, she grew excited to speak with her friend, to find out what had been going on since she’d left her job and hometown; to hear a voice of reason and listen to something normal. Stories of who was seeing who, and whether or not Charlotte had finally passed her driving test. And if she could, Angela also needed to offload her own worries, not to bring her friend down, but just to talk them over with a familiar and sympathetic ear.

After a few moments, the call rang through to the answerphone. Angela hung up before the beep.

She tried again, this time Harriet.

She got the same response.

The same with Martin.

And Erica.

And Tom.

Damn it, she huffed as she put the phone on the table and took a large gulp of wine. She tried to remember the last time she’d actually seen them. It had been months. She’d been so wrapped up in her relationship with Mike and their plans together that she hadn’t found time for her friends. Or, more likely, he hadn’t allowed it.

Sending a text message to Charlotte, she studied the phone and watched a notification pop up to say it had been read. But even after ten slow minutes willing a reply, her phone failed to vibrate with the promise of a response.

Frustrated and angry she scrolled through her phone again, resting the moving screen when it displayed Ollie’s name. It was an instinctive action. Strange to think she’d never spoken to him until a few days ago. The hunk from the garden across the road! And he’d been nothing but kind to her. If it hadn’t been for his expert advice she’d probably still be in that damn cell.

Thanks to him she’d evaded that fate during the police questioning.

Twice.

Angela went to select his name and call him, but something stopped her. A thought flashed through her mind. What was she doing? Jumping from man to man! Mike had promised her everything, but in the end it had been a pack of lies. He’d been controlling and abusive. His words had promised everything to her, but in reality it had all been about him. He had taken her away from everything she’d ever known, alienated her friends and refused to let her make any new ones. And now he was gone, where did that leave her?

What if Ollie was the same? He was attractive, worldly, gentle and kind. But wasn’t that how she saw Mike when they first got together? Perhaps it was the grief, a rebound reaction making her fall for him.

Come on girl, she thought to herself, snap out of the “Prince Charming will rescue you” bullshit. You’ve got to stand on your own two feet. Do things by yourself.

Uneasy with her decision, but convincing herself she had the courage to figure her life out on her own, Angela gulped the glass of wine and opened the bottle the barman had brought over. The warming sensations of the huge swig immediately worked its way through her, igniting a fire in her belly and a fight in her spirit. It also encouraged her to take another big mouthful once the new glass had been poured. Maybe there’s some fire in this phoenix yet, she thought to herself with a smile.

‘It’s always been a place of trouble.’

Looking up, she saw an old woman stood beside her. Her back hunched over, making her neck appear to jut out at a right angle to her body. Her face was weathered and cracked, and as she pursed her lips together, studying Angela, her face wrinkled even more, like the crinkles in an old plastic bag.

‘Excuse me?’ Angela asked, taken aback by the woman’s blunt tone.

‘That cottage. Always been trouble for as long as I can remember.’ She leant on her walking stick, a cigarette burning between her fingers. ‘Violence, murders, stories of cruelty and witchcraft.’

She paused to take a long drag on her cigarette.

Angela looked past the old hag, but the barman was nowhere to be seen, and the group by the fireplace merely watched the exchange with no intention of intervening.

‘I’ve watched them all come and go,’ the woman continued. ‘It stays empty long enough for the price to drop, and then it’s snapped up. But it never ends well.’

‘I’m thinking of moving,’ Angela dryly remarked as she swirled the wine in her glass and took another sip.

‘It’s too late for you,’ the old lady barked back. ‘You’re tainted. Cursed. You can run but you can’t hide. It got them all in the end. And it’ll get you too.’

‘Quite frankly,’ Angela raised her voice as her patience snapped, provoking a new-found aggression she didn’t know she possessed, ‘I don’t give a flying crap what you think about me or my house. I didn’t come here to get pestered by the local nut job. I came here for a quiet drink, so do us both a favour and piss off!’

‘Janice!’ The barman shouted, breaking the stunned shock of the old lady. ‘You know you can’t smoke in here. Get out with that thing!’

Turning to face the barman, Janice took an obvious and defiant drag on her cigarette before hobbling out of the pub, muttering inaudible ramblings, but not once looking back.

‘Sorry about that,’ the barman apologised, turning to Angela.

Still flush with anger, Angela waved it off, then poured herself another glass of wine. Looking at what was left of the bottle she opened her handbag and fished out her purse. Clearly this drink wasn’t going to last very long.

An eruption of cries and shouts took her attention back to the group by the fireplace. The black haired woman was on her feet, tears streaming down her face, leaving streaks of mascara marking their path. Two men were stood behind her, their arms locked around the woman and holding her back as she reached out towards Angela.

‘Come on, Suze, not here,’ one of them shouted over the top of her wailing. ‘You’ve got to let it go. Head home. Just head home.’

The pair turned her towards the door and, after a moment of resistance, she stopped pushing against them.

‘Okay,’ she slurred as she staggered towards the exit following the wake of the old woman.

‘Do you want me to call you a taxi?’ the barman shouted. ‘Rob, go with her, will you?’ he asked one of the men when she didn’t answer his question.

‘Leave me be,’ she scolded as Rob approached. ‘Just leave me be. I’ll be okay.’ Her volume dropped as did the emotional waver in her tone as she found some composure. ‘I just want some air.’

Rob stepped back and watched her leave before heading back to the table and his unfinished pint.

Angela eyed Suze staggering outside, across the beer garden, around the pub and past the window by her table, as she made her way back out on to the street. Suze was too far gone to even notice Angela on the other side of a pane of glass. Angela however still had all her faculties about her despite the wine she’d drunk, so when Suze placed her hand against the wall to steady herself, Angela caught sight of the gold bracelet she wore around her wrist.

The three charms attached to the gold links looked like a teddy bear, a house and heart.

Strange, thought Angela, I lost a bracelet just like that in the move.

Pouring the last of the small bottle’s contents into her glass, she smiled as the barman came over and took her order for a refill.

The ground slid beneath her feet, rocking back and forth, compelling Suze to fight against the force that caused her legs to wobble. As the kids ran past her, fresh out of school, she puzzled as to why they weren’t affected by the same shifting paving slabs.

Suze leant against a garden wall and took a firm grip of the gate post to keep herself upright. The ground and sky both spun together in confusing, circular motions making her feel green with nausea. She’d been wandering around the village for some time, ever since that bitch, Angela, turned up in the pub and forced her to leave. There was no way Suze could have kept quiet, she’d been struggling since she’d heard the news. But it wasn’t as if she was going to hit her; she hadn’t planned on doing anything. That old crone, Janice, caused more of a commotion than she was going to. Suze had just wanted to lay out a few home truths. Tell her how it really was.

It had been so tiresome keeping her secret, so frustrating, and she thought it might have helped her, might have helped them both, if she came clean. But her friends hadn’t seen it like that. They were the ones that caused the real commotion. It was Rob and Andy that had launched from their seats and held her back, strong-arming her and making everything much more dramatic than it needed to be.

Though none of it mattered, not really. Not anymore.

Not now Mike was dead.

Suze began to cry; she’d hardly stopped since the news of her lover’s death. They were set to have such a beautiful future together. He’d promised her so much. A world of happiness, contentment, and love.

Once that bitch was out of the way, obviously.

Suze fingered the bracelet around her wrist, finding comfort in the shapes of its hanging charms. A house, to symbolize the home they were going to build together. A teddy bear, to show the fun they would have and ultimately a child they would raise. Lastly a heart, for the love they felt. A passion so strong they had no choice but to yield to its power; to accept the attraction between them and allow it to possess them entirely.

Their first kiss was a memory she would never forget.

The tenderness. The lust. A spark so powerful it still reverberated within her.

For a moment, Suze felt the wind on her face, bringing her back to the present and the realisation of what she must look like. Wiping the tears from her cheek, she took a moment to adjust herself in the vain hope of aspiring to some decency, then stepped away from the support of the garden wall.

The ground still swayed this way then that, but in a much calmer manner than before; and so picking up the rhythm of her alcohol-impaired balance, she stumbled down the street, heading to the one place that she hoped might help ease the pain of her broken heart.

Perhaps she could find something of her lover’s; something physical that would act as an anchor for the memories she so desperately wanted to protect from the fading effects of time.

It was a rash idea, maybe, but it was better than wandering aimlessly around the village with a head full of thoughts that refused to resolve themselves, couldn’t resolve themselves. Mike was dead, nothing was going to change that, he was never coming back. So perhaps she could find a little piece of him: a comb, a shirt, a belt buckle. Relics of the man that had made her know what it was like to truly live.

To be truly loved.

At last her meandering had a purpose, and for once the sadness seemed to lift a little within her, fired up by the focus of a goal. Taking her bearings, she headed over the bridge across the river towards Mike’s cottage.

Her determination, however, was left somewhat shaken when she saw a policeman standing guard at the front door. So taking a packet of cigarettes out of her handbag, Suze placed one between her lips, flicked the wheel of a lighter and drew the flame over the tip of the Marlboro. She sat on the short wall that bordered the small but picturesque humpback bridge and studied the house with such intent that not even the noise of the children playing in the river below could distract her.

Besides the officer stood motionless at the front door, the house looked deserted. There were no lights on, no vehicles parked outside, no shadows moving behind the net curtains.

Was there a back way in? No, that would be stupid. Suze rationalised the idiocy of trying to sneak in whilst a policeman stood guard. Even in her drunken and grief-stricken state, that idea seemed too outlandish. Too risky.

But her mind was made up, she was getting in, somehow, even if it meant she had to wait here until nightfall. And so, armed with twelve cigarettes for company she adjusted her seating position and watched the river flow beneath her, its smooth undulations broken by the wake of the children playing a little further downstream.

Despite her determination, the hard and uneven stonework of the wall quickly became uncomfortable, although thankfully it turned out she didn’t have to wait for long.

The river might have been cold when they first climbed in, but the children soon grew accustomed to the temperature, and although it could never have been considered comfortable as it soaked through their clothes and lapped against their skin, the kids were used to playing outdoors and a little discomfort was a small price to pay for their fun.

It had been Darren’s idea, and as the leader of the group the others were easily swayed into joining him. He said he’d seen it on a film about a scary clown, and whilst Jessie, Mark and John wanted to hear all the gory details about the horror feature their friend had managed to view, Darren was more taken by the possibilities of building a dam and stopping the flow of the river.

They’d waited until Friday and immediately rushed home to change out of their school uniforms and into shorts and t-shirts. Rough clothes for playing outside. It had been imperative that they all remembered to bring their pen knives. The branches on the ground are fine, Darren had told them, but there won’t be enough. We’ll need to cut some off the trees.

‘It’s not holding,’ Jessie remarked as he stood back and watched the water rush between the lattice of birch and oak branches.

Darren stopped beside his friend and scratched his chin in thought as he pondered over the problem. The children had taken branches and laid them across the river, from one side of the bank to the other, with the larger, more sturdy pieces driven into the mud of the riverbank to keep the structure firmly in place. With the main frame of the dam completed, the boys had taken the thinner branches they’d been able to find, both on the floor and snapped or cut from trees, and bent them round, weaving them through the main supports and eventually each other. It had been hard work, but the boys had been pleased with how it was coming together, especially Darren who took so much joy seeing his idea turn from a crazy thought into something tangible and real.

Jessie, on the other hand, had not been so satisfied with the results. His doubts had been voiced early, beginning with speculation at how the strength of the river’s current would be enough to dislodge the supports from the riverbank. Darren had to think quickly, countering Jessie’s pessimism at every turn. Dig deeper into the bank. Lay heavy stones over the top. Instructions his friends duly followed. With every step, Jessie found some reason to raise a concern, and it had quickly become an irritant. However, watching the water continue on its path, completely unhindered by the mesh of branches, Darren had to admit, Jessie had a point.

He pondered the issue for moment, when a shriek behind them made Darren break from his problem solving and turn to see Mark stood in shock with his face plastered in mud. John stood beside him laughing hysterically, his hands still caked in the same gloopy brown substance, a clear indication of his mischievous misconduct.

Watching Mark try to wipe the mess from his face, Darren and Jessie joined in the laughter.

‘Look,’ John said, pointing at the ground beside him. ‘The mud’s different here. It’s softer and sticky.’

As Darren and Jessie stepped closer for a better look, John quickly took two more handfuls and threw them at his friends.

‘See it now?’ he laughed.

As the mushy missiles exploded on impact, covering their targets, his friends charged him. Darren dived at his legs and took him to the ground with the same skill that had seen him become part of the school’s rugby team. John fell to the floor and was quickly surrounded by the others. As Darren held him pinned, the other two dug their hands into the same squishy, brown spot that John had taken his ammunition from and smeared the handfuls over him.

All four squealed with laughter as John squirmed in their grip but was powerless to stop them enacting their revenge.

Eventually the energy waned from their burst of enthusiasm and the group stopped their playfighting, all sitting down together to catch their breath.

‘This stuff is gross,’ Jessie complained as he tried to wipe the clumps of muck from his clothes.

‘It’s weird isn’t it?’ said John. ‘It’s not like normal mud.’

‘It’s clay,’ Mark replied. ‘Like the stuff we made dinosaurs from at school.’

‘Well, we made dinosaurs, I’ve no idea what Jessie’s was supposed to be,’ John quipped.

‘Why you!’ Jessie screamed, picking up another fistful of clay and pushing it into John’s hair.

The pair rolled around in a grapple as the playfighting resumed.

Darren stood motionless for a moment, ignoring the other’s tomfoolery as inspiration struck.

‘Hey guys. Guys!’ he shouted, calling his friends to attention. ‘I’ve got it. We’ll use the clay. Let’s scoop it up and smear it between the branches of the dam. That’ll seal the holes and keep the river back.’

Jessie, Mark and John froze for a while as they processed their leader’s plan, then with a burst of rejuvenated excitement, all four rose to their feet and began clawing at the clay, scooping it up and carrying armfuls of it towards the dam.

Darren and Jessie climbed into the river and began filling the holes between the branches. At first the clay was easily washed away, but as they experimented with larger handfuls, the thicker seals began to prove resistant to the current. Mark and John continued to march back and forth between the riverside and the clay deposit, filling their arms and creating a pile beside the dam for Darren and Jessie to work from.

The plan was working, and even Jessie was smiling, enthused by the results, something Darren was more than happy to witness. Their jubilant moods encouraged each other, and the pair laughed and joked as they continued to plug the holes in the structure.

It was another cry from Mark that stopped them in their tracks.

This time when they turned, they did not witness Mark becoming the victim of a joke from his friend. In fact John was stood beside him and both were looking into the hole they’d created from their excavation.

Intrigued, Darren and Jessie climbed out of the water and ran towards them.

‘What is it?’ asked Jessie as he looked on at the silver object protruding from the ground.

Mark knelt down and tried to pull it free, but the suction of the clay was too great for him and the ground refused to give up its treasure.

‘Help me guys,’ he said.

On cue, the boys began digging beside the silver object. As they removed the muck around it, slowly it was revealed to be the shape of a rectangle.

With more edges uncovered, Mark gripped both sides and pulled. Darren reached down and helped him. The other two continued to dig, and eventually, with a huge effort, the object came free.

Falling onto their backs, Mark took a moment to sit up and look at the mysterious thing from the ground. It was dented and misshapen, and when he held it to one side dirty, brown water poured out from its insides. The picture of an apple on its surface, however, was a logo they all recognised.

It was busted and badly damaged, but there was no mistaking, it was a laptop!

Suze stubbed the cigarette out on the wall and flicked the extinguished butt into a litter bin. On any other day the fact that her aim had been exact and the discarded cigarette end had sailed cleanly through the air and into the side opening of the bin, squarely hitting its target without even grazing the sides, would have brought a smile to her face. But a mix of grief and concentration distracted her from any internal self-congratulations.

Sitting alone, quietly on the bridge, had given her time to reflect, to meditate over the loss of her lover. It had brought back many memories of the whirlwind romance her and Mike had been involved in over the last month, and whilst those recollections were of happy times, the grief of not being able to experience them again surged with a terrible sadness.

She’d been so lost in her own melancholy that she almost failed to notice the police officer leave his position from standing guard at the front door of her deceased lover’s cottage.

Watching him head towards the road, and thankfully away from Suze, it seemed his focus was on a group of boys, the same ones that had been playing in the river below her. The boys seemed reluctant to give up their prize, a dirty, damaged laptop, but the officer was insistent and after a few moments filled with shaking heads and an attempt to coyly shield the computer from view, they handed it over.

With glum faces the boys headed back down to the river, hoping to find interest in other games now their recently discovered treasure had been taken away from them. In contrast the policeman was beaming with delight and marched past Suze with a purposeful stride before reaching his car on the other side of the bridge, starting the engine and driving away.

For a moment Suze did nothing but stare at the unprotected door to the cottage.

Could it be that easy?

She scrutinised the house, its windows, the garden. There were no obvious signs of movement. With every minute she hesitated, she felt her opportunity slipping away. The longer she left it the more likely another officer would appear marching down the road, ready to take over guarding the premises. It was now or never.

Suze headed towards the cottage, trying to appear inconspicuous, but already feeling the effects of adrenalin in her body quicken her pace.

Approaching the house, she leant over the crime scene tape and was surprised to find the door opened easily. The splintered woodwork and cracked frame explained the fate of the damaged lock.

The house was still, peacefully quiet. Suze closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath; savouring the experience.

She already felt closer to Mike.

Walking through the kitchen and into the living room, she took in the décor, the shapes of the furniture and the ornaments on the bookcase. She imagined being sat on the sofa, watching a soap opera as Mike walked in through the front door then cheerfully told her about his day. She imagined the gentle kiss on the cheek he’d give her as he sat down, and how they’d order a pizza before spending the evening curled up in each other’s arms, watching a gentle comedy on the television. It was bliss. A picture of a future he’d whispered in her ear as the pair lay together in her tiny flat, flushed from endorphins in a post-coital glow.

It was a promise.

A promise she had been cruelly denied.

With a head full of fantasies, Suze floated through the house, drifting up the stairs, and found herself in the bedroom. She smiled and stretched out her arms, revelling in the mere act of being within these four walls.

She lowered herself on to the bed and buried her face into a pillow. The cotton of the pillowcase filled her nostrils with her lover’s unique smell, an odour she could never place, but something that was unmistakably him. Something she adored.

It was like Mike was here. As if she could sense him close by. Her skin tingled in the same way it would just before he’d place his strong, gentle hands on her naked, willing body.

Rolling over, she placed the pillow across her stomach and let its weight softly press against her. She closed her eyes and lowered the pillow to her crotch, squeezing her thighs against it.

She imagined him opening the door to the bedroom and lying on top of her, allowing himself to be entangled by her legs, as she slowly rocked her pelvis back and forth.

Suze felt his breath on her, the hot feeling of his hungry panting as his arousal grew. Her ears pricked up, anticipating the low baritone of his voice and ready to receive the romantic declarations that always preceded their love making. It was an incredibly powerful set of sensations; her emotions galvanizing her fantasies with such strength that her body almost took the thoughts as real. It was like he lived on, his feelings, his influence. She could still feel him inside the cottage, as if he was somehow absorbed into the fabric of the walls, just like how his scent had been absorbed into the fabric of the pillow.

‘What the hell is this?’ Detective Inspector Cartwright held up a clear plastic bag and, letting the illumination from the station’s overhead lights shine through it, inspected the grey, powdery contents.

‘That, sir, is the ashes taken from the Cotton’s kiln. The one that was in Mrs. Cotton’s workshop,’ PC Edwards enthused.

Cartwright squinted at the contents, his puzzled face remaining a mixture of confusion and annoyance.

‘Is that so,’ the detective muttered. ‘And?’

Turning to PC Edwards, the detective saw the constable’s big, beaming smile hadn’t faded. The man was keen that was for sure, and the force needed keen recruits. They needed people with his resolve, a spirit to galvanize themselves against the procession of human detritus they would come to witness over the course of their career.

They needed to start strong, as it wouldn’t last.

The pluck, the enthusiasm, the spirit. It goes over time. Beaten out of them all.

Every single one.

Eventually.

Suze was lost in the moment, a heady rush of pleasure as her fingers slipped beneath her underwear. Her touch replaced Mike’s, but as she gently bit her own lip, she swore she could feel his hands caressing her body. She kept her eyes closed, desperate not to break the spell of this feeling and allowed the sensation of his fingers to glide up her thigh, over her stomach and across the front of her neck, an area she submissively exposed to him as she titled her head back.

‘There’s more,’ the eager officer explained as he held out a piece of paper.

Taking the document from his colleague, Cartwright scanned the words and numbers. It was clear it was a readout from something, but from what and the nature of the results were unclear to him.

‘Come on, Edwards, this isn’t Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, spit it out. What am I looking at?’ barked the detective.

‘Well, sir, we had the ashes analysed and do you know what they found?’

Cartwright didn’t respond verbally, just widened his eyes in annoyance. His patience was straining.

Edwards smiled nervously, catching the sour mood of his superior.

‘Well… it’s that…’ he stammered and struggled, put off his stride by the detective inspector’s irritable reaction. ‘Amongst the ash, sir. They found human remains.’

The fingers stroked Suze’s body. Hands exploring her skin. It felt so real. Too real.

Suddenly a hand gripped Suze’s face, pushing her down in a forceful manner that was the antithesis of her waking dream. She tried to shout, to call for help, but the hand covered her mouth, and obscured her vision. She tried to shake it off and get a good look at her attacker, but found it impossible. So when she lashed out with raking nails, it was an uncontrolled and frenzied counterattack that missed her mark.

A punch to her stomach took the breath from Suze’s lungs and she momentarily froze, stunned by the strike. In that instance of paralysis her attacker took her by the hair and pulled her from the bed. Suze fell to her hands and knees, feeling the burn of the carpet fibres as she landed heavily. The assailant held her hair and used the grip to push Suze’s face, headfirst, into the wall.

The impact rattled her brain and turned her limbs to jelly. In that moment of helplessness, she was thrown onto her back, then with another handful of hair firmly held, Suze was dragged across the floor, out of the bedroom and into the hallway.

Trying to dig her heels into the ground proved ineffective, the attacker too strong to resist. The floor against her heels changed from carpet to wood as she was dragged into another room. Instantly she felt the heat soar and sweat immediately began to coat her skin.

‘Human DNA?’

Cartwright turned to the constable and furrowed his brow, checking he hadn’t misheard the PC’s revelation.

‘That’s right, sir,’ Edwards nodded, his chipper tone returning now that he saw he had the detective’s approval. ‘It’s a big kiln, sir. Really big.’

‘I remember.’ Cartwright thought back to Angela’s workshop. ‘I suppose it needs to be for those big pots and things she’s making.’

‘And it’s not out of the question that with a bit of butchery you could fit a human inside,’ Edwards went on.

‘Minus the head,’ Cartwright cut in.

‘Exactly, sir.’ Edwards saw the glint in his superior’s eyes as he made the connection the constable had led him to. ‘Minus the head.’

They both stood in a moment of silence, Cartwright processing the new information, giving it a moment to sink in and allowing all the dots to align, whilst Edwards took the time to bask in the appreciation of his policing skills.

‘Good work, Edwards,’ Cartwright praised. ‘At least now we know what happened to the body.’

Suze screamed and struggled against the attacker’s grip, as she turned to face a large metal box. A door on the front was open like an oven and a waft of intense heat prickled her skin. She tried to reach behind her and free herself from the assailant’s grip on her hair, but every time she swiped backwards she was thrown towards the floor and her head shaken from side to side, making her clumsy attacks only claw at the air.

As she was dragged closer to the kiln, Suze held out her hands, placing them against the sides of the door. The heat burned her skin, causing her to immediately pull her hands away. As she did, she was left defenceless and her head was thrust into the interior. Inside, she could hardly see. Her nostrils filled with scents that reminded her of brick and bacon.

Feeling two hands holding the clothes on her back, she tried to wriggle free of her denim shirt, but there was no give in the garment to slip through it and make her escape. The air she breathed scorched her lungs, silencing her pleas for mercy. Her hair began to sizzle, melting against her scalp and filling the confined interior of the kiln with a stomach-churning stench. She felt her flesh singe against her cheek bones and her skin blister as an inferno of pain raged across her face. Her tongue dried and burnt against the roof of her mouth. Her tonsils screamed with a silent agony as the air, now lethally hot, filled her throat, scalding her insides and causing her windpipe to swell and close.

Still she tried to fight off her attacker and free herself, but as her strength faded, so too did any hope of escape. With her eyeballs drying, they slowly began to shrivel in their sockets, reducing to a pair of blackened prunes. Suze’s sight faded as she struggled for air but, although blind, her suffering continued until her brain cooked from inside her own skull and her face was nothing more than a charred mess of smoking, blackened meat.

‘Was it disgusting? Did you see them die?’ John asked, waiting expectantly on Darren for an answer that would make his toes curl.

‘You bet it was!’ Darren exclaimed. ‘He opens his mouth, really wide, and it turns all like a monster’s. Then he sinks his teeth right into their faces.’

‘Cool!’ the boys all called in unison.

The dam was still only half finished, and although it had reduced the width and depth of the river on the other side, the water was still getting through. The project had been abandoned following the excitement of their discovery, and although it was disappointing to have the policeman take the laptop away, the brush with the law had just added another layer of interest to the experience.

Following the officer’s ticking off to the young lads about building the dam, they’d said they would take it down, and immediately went back to the wooden structure they’d been working on.

But Darren didn’t want to dismantle it. He was proud of them all, taking his idea and turning it into something real. They’d worked together and had a great laugh doing it. It would have been a shame to have worked so hard and have nothing to show for their efforts.

To distract his friends from the officer’s instructions he decided to appeal to their morbid curiosity over the horror film he’d been allowed to watch last weekend. Jessie, Mark and John lapped it up, intrigued by the details of this forbidden entertainment. They questioned him on everything: what the killer clown looked like, who died and how they met their terrible end. Darren was happy to oblige and although he exaggerated details from time to time, it was worth it to see his friends’ faces light up with their fascination for the macabre.

But their fascination in make-believe would only hold them for so long.

‘Do you know why the police were on this street?’ Darren changed the subject.

When the others all replied in the negative, Darren shook his head.

‘Don’t your parents tell you anything?’ He laughed. ‘Talk about cotton-wool kids!’

‘Well tell us, then,’ Mark demanded growing angry with the way Darren had mocked them.

‘Did you see the old cottage he was stood outside of before he spotted us? A guy was killed in there the other night. Had his head taken clean off!’ Darren relished the way his friends’ eyes widened.

‘You serious?’ Jessie asked.

‘Deadly.’ Darren smiled at his own pun, but the others didn’t register the joke, too enthralled by the real-life tale of death. ‘They say it was his wife that did it. Cut his head off with a knife no bigger than our penknives.’

His audience gasped at the revelation.

‘And that’s not all. Last night, two teenagers broke into the house, and they were both killed too. Stabbed and cut up!’

‘I call bull!’ Jessie protested in.

‘It’s true. My dad told me,’ Darren rebutted. ‘But you know what? I don’t think it was his wife that’s been doing these murders. My dad also told me that was the house where Ugly Edgar lived.’

‘He’s made it up,’ John snapped, more in a way to ease his fear than a real challenge.

‘No, he hasn’t.’ Darren took his time over the words. ‘And if that is the house that he lived in…’

‘Then that was the house he was killed in.’ Mark finished the statement with a resigned tone, wishing he hadn’t made the connection.

‘I’m still calling bull.’ Jessie’s disbelief held firm.

‘Me too,’ said John, thankful he had an ally. ‘Come on, let’s get this dam taken down.’

‘No,’ cried Darren, rising to his feet, desperate to distract them from dismantling his prized creation when it was so close to being finished. ‘If you don’t believe me, let’s go in the house.’

‘What?’ John was incredulous at the suggestion.

‘Yeah, let’s go,’ Darren started walking up the bank towards the road. ‘Come on. If the murders happened there’ll be tape marks on the ground where they found the heads, you know, like you see on TV. And maybe, just maybe… we might see Ugly Edgar.’

The group stood up and followed his lead, scared but curious. It had been an afternoon of adventure since school had finished and this, although scary, prolonged their exhilaration.

As they reached the road, Darren directed them away from the front door of the cottage, and down to the end of the street. At the bottom of the street they took the path along the hedgerows that bordered the wood and found themselves on a track at the back of the houses, beside the low fences that marked the end of their back gardens.

‘That’s the one,’ Darren said pointing towards the cottage, proud that he’d been able to direct them here. ‘We’ll sneak in through the back. Come on lads.’

Nervous, but egged on by the adrenaline in their bloodstreams, and not wanting to lose face in front of each other, the group of boys carefully climbed over the fence and stepped through the garden. The cottage looked perfectly normal from this side, with no police tape covering the door or windows. But as they got closer, the boys found their strides growing smaller, their courage faltering and their hearts beginning to hammer in their chests.

The late afternoon sun streamed in through the windows of the cottage. A stillness had settled within the property; a far cry from the brutal and torturous murder that had taken place only moments ago. A shape stood at the window, its silhouette obscured by the net curtains that hung across the glass pane. Its shoulders moved up and down in time with the laboured breathing that rhythmically accompanied the ticking of a clock.

A blood splattered hand made a fist as the figure watched the boys creep across the lawn.

‘Are you sure there’s no one in?’ Jessie asked as they got twenty feet from the house. There was still some distance between them and it, but the threat of what they might find reached even further than the long arms of their late-afternoon shadows.

The group stood still and studied the house, shielding their eyes from the daylight to get a better view.

‘Come on,’ Darren waved them forward but didn’t take another step as he waited for his friends to catch up.

They didn’t move.

‘No way,’ cried John. ‘There’s someone in there. I saw something.’

‘Where?’ This time it was Darren’s turn to try and laugh the fear away.

‘There, in that window,’ John said, pointing to the one closest to the backdoor.

The backdoor that stood slightly ajar.

In the other hand, the figure held a fettling knife. It was a crude and unlikely weapon, but the blood that coated its blade was evidence of its effectiveness. Its size made the task of killing someone slow and difficult, and even more prolonged when the method of murder was a beheading. But it had proven to do the job.

And made the agony last that much longer.

‘You go,’ Jessie called to Darren. ‘If you think it’s fine you go. We’ll wait here and see what happens.’

Darren looked back towards the house, and that open door, then swallowed. Slowly he shuffled his feet forward, keeping as quiet as he could. From the corner of his eye he could see the window that John had pointed out. Of course there was no one there, he told himself. But his own thoughts did nothing reassure to him.

If he didn’t look at it, it would be fine.

It’s just fear. Nothing else.

One step. And another.

Darren hunched over instinctively, to keep himself low, and reached his hands out. If he could touch the door, it would prove to the others it was alright and they would join him. If he could just reach the door.

The shape watched the boy edge himself closer, and regarded the trespasser with a twisted, static smile. It turned to the door. The open crack glowed with the light of the oncoming evening and, stepping closer, the shape couldn’t help but raise a throaty, hideous laugh.

What was that? Darren thought as he took another step. He knew exactly what it was but refused to believe it. It had been a movement in the window. Despite his best efforts to avoid its sight, his peripheral vision had caught a sudden change, like a dark shadow gliding past the net curtain.

It was ridiculous. The police had left. The murdered man’s wife was at the station, or in prison. No one was in the house. Ugly Edgar did not exist.

He was just a stupid nursery rhyme.

An idiot story to scare cry-babies.

Darren was not a cry-baby.

A sound tickled his ears. The softness of the muffled noise was faint, but the quiet, unnerving laugh stood out from the rustling trees and birdsong.

Not a cry-baby. Not a cry-baby, he told himself.

It was all in his head. He was making it up. There was no way that was a laugh. It didn’t make sense. It couldn’t be.

He thought back to the clown in the film.

Not a cry-baby. Not a cry-baby.

Reaching out with his hand, his fingertips were only inches away from touching the door when he saw something in the crack. A dark mass. A shape. A hand caught the sunlight. It was red. Dripping.

The door slowly began to open.

‘Run!’ Darren shouted as he turned and sprinted back towards the fence at the bottom of the garden.

Jessie, Mark and John followed suit; his friends catapulted into action by their leader’s outburst.

As they made it to the fence, all four scrabbled over the wooden barrier, clumsily climbing it with legs that threatened to buckle beneath them.  Following the same route they’d taken to get there, the boys stuck to the track beside the edge of the wood. Not talking, not once looking back, and not stopping until they hit the road and were safely over the bridge.

Away from the house of murders.

Away from the home of Ugly Edgar.

Ollie had spent the day going out of his mind. He looked at his phone, as he had done intermittently, ever since his father had rung him to say Angela had been taken to the police station. With an unsteady finger, he selected the name at the top of his “recent contacts” list. It went straight through to Angela’s voicemail again, just like every other time. No ringtone, just her recorded message.

Checking in with the station, they’d told him enough. The police had called Angela back to the station late that morning, but it wasn’t a formal interview and she didn’t request Ollie to attend. They’d told him his services weren’t required and Angela was not being held. She was a smart woman and capable of handling herself, but his own reassurances did nothing to stem his worries.

He could hardly think of anything else but the beautiful woman he’d so hopelessly fallen for. The circumstances were far from ideal, but there was no evidence directly linking Angela to the murder of her husband, and he knew she was innocent. It had only been a few days, but it felt like he’d known her all his life. It wasn’t in her soul to commit such a horrible act.

Am I really thinking like this? Ollie cursed himself for his unprofessionalism, and yet he couldn’t help but smile. Yes, yes I am thinking like this, and I know why. Because I love her.

With this train of thought firmly superseding his needless fretting, Ollie grinned to himself. Admitting this happiness enveloped him in a glow he could feel both inside and out, all emanating from an internal warmth of excitement and contentment. The simple act of thinking about Angela brought on such a positive feeling. He couldn’t wait to see her again.

It was a welcome surprise, that she was the first thing he saw when he arrived back at the house. The state of her, however, was a little unexpected.

‘Angela, are you okay?’ Ollie asked as he knelt down beside her. ‘I didn’t know you smoked.’

She looked up at him with glazed eyes but didn’t move from where she sat on his front doorstep.

She reeked of smoke and alcohol, and gently swayed even though she was sat down. Her hair was bedraggled, and her expression was loosened by the relaxant properties of the wine he could smell on her breath. After a moment to take in Ollie’s face, Angela smiled a crooked, slack smile.

‘I hope you don’t mind,’ she slurred before taking a long drag on a cigarette and flicking it out into the road, ‘but I came back.’

‘Of course that’s okay,’ Ollie answered softly. ‘We agreed you could stay as long as you needed. Why are you out here?’

He took her arm and carefully helped her to her feet. Putting his arm around her waist, he provided support as her legs wobbled beneath her own weight.

‘There were no lights on when I got back.’ Her words fell from her mouth as if they were slush, slurring and wavering in tone. ‘I didn’t want to disturb your… your dad.’

Ollie scanned the front of the house and grew concerned at the lifeless dark of his home. It wasn’t like his father to be out at this time of the evening. The old man had fallen into a very comfortable and regimented routine that involved dinner at six then an evening in front of television, re-watching classic comedies and modern quiz shows. The only time he deviated from his schedule was when the rugby was on. But either way, he should still be in the living room, lamp on beside him and the television at a volume that suggested, despite his insistence of perfect health, that his hearing was declining.

The windows were all dark. The house looked still.

Fishing his keys from his pocket, Ollie unlocked the door and tentatively stepped inside.

‘Dad?’ he called out, his mind racing with possibilities. Had his father fallen and hurt himself, unable to get back up? Had he become ill, a heart attack maybe? Or something even worse…?

He prayed he was overreacting, but they were all very real possibilities.

‘Dad?’ he called again, slowly guiding Angela in behind him.

‘Why’s it so dark?’ she asked unconcerned of the potential dangers that lay heavy in Ollie’s thoughts.

He hushed her and felt for the light switch. ‘Keep quiet for a moment,’ he pleaded.

There was a strange smell in the air, a fragrance he couldn’t identify. It was musty, but strong enough to overpower the stink of the pub that clung to Angela’s clothes.

Something caught his eye in the dark. Something glowing. Fire, but not burning with lapping flames, this was something smouldering. Like the dying remains of a blaze.

Eventually finding the switch, Ollie turned on the lights. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, and another moment for him to take in what he was seeing.

‘Dad!’ Ollie called out again.

His father ignored him and kept his concentration on the same task he’d been preforming in the dark. Gavin had a glass placed against the wall with his ear pressed against it. His other ear was covered by the palm of his hand.

‘Dad, what the hell are you doing?’ Ollie asked, confused but relieved his dad wasn’t hurt.

His question was met with a gesture; a flapping of the hand, indicating him to be quiet.

‘Dad?’ Ollie moved towards him, undeterred by his father’s brush off.

‘What?’ Gavin turned to him, annoyance in his face. ‘Can’t you see I’m busy.’

‘The lights were off.’ It was half a statement and half a question as Ollie struggled to piece together what his father was doing.

‘It’s better with the lights off,’ his dad explained. ‘Take away your sight and your hearing sharpens.’

He placed his ear back on the glass.

‘But what are you doing?’ Ollie sounded exasperated. ‘What are you listening to?’

‘The evil,’ Gavin stopped again and turned to his son. ‘The evil from over the road. It’s growing. For over a century it lived in that house. Contained. But somehow it’s escaping its prison. It’s moving. And it’s growing.’

‘Dad, what are you talking about?’

‘It’s here. It’s in this house. I don’t know how it got in, or why us, but it’s in the walls. I can hear it.’ He turned back and resumed his activity of listening through the glass to illustrate his point.

Angela collapsed onto the sofa with a load crash, making both men jump and turn. She looked up at them with a vague smile of embarrassment, but her consciousness was already succumbing to an alcohol-fuelled sleep, and it showed in her eyes.

‘I think you need a rest,’ Ollie suggested to his father, gently placing his hand on the other’s shoulder.

‘She needs a rest,’ Gavin mocked, nodding his head towards Angela. ‘Or maybe she’s got the right idea. Get blotto. Forget about it all. I’ve burnt white sage all through the house-’

‘Is that what that is?’ Ollie cut in. ‘It stinks.’

‘It’s necessary, is what it is. But it hasn’t done the trick. The evil’s still here. I can still hear it. Maybe it’s her,’ Gavin shouted, pointing at the woman who was struggling with the simple act of getting off the sofa. ‘It all started when she moved in. She must have awakened it. She brought it back, and it’s her that brought it here!’

‘Dad, don’t be ridiculous.’ Ollie protectively stood between the pair.

‘I’m not being ridiculous. She’s trouble. Tainted.’ Gavin spat. ‘She can’t stay here, Ollie. She’ll bring us both down with her. She’s got to go.’

Ollie squinted as he studied his father’s growing rage. In all his life, he’d never seen him like this, but the young man couldn’t stand to hear such words about the woman he loved. Father or not, no one was going to say such things about Angela.

He didn’t mean the threat to pass his lips, but somehow it escaped the confines of his thoughts and became real when, with a measured tone, he warned, ‘Over my dead body.’

1 day before…

…Saturday 20th July 2019

Blue flashing lights penetrated the curtain and filled the room, rousing Angela from her drunken slumber. Her head felt like it was being squeezed in a vice, her throat was red raw and she could smell the stench of stale smoke in her hair.

She was in Ollie’s bed, the scent of his pillows was unmistakable; perceptible to her nose even through the odours of yesterday’s debauchery. How did she get here?

Angela rolled over, trying to shield her eyes from the intruding, blue strobe, but the physical movement made her stomach turn, producing a wave of nausea. Swallowing back the saliva that collected in her mouth, she looked at the alarm clock. It was already afternoon. Angela tried to recount the events of yesterday, but even the questioning at the police station seemed like a blur. The day came back to her in fragmented flashes, images of people and snatches of emotion. She remembered the pub. The old lady and her warning. Then the dark haired woman; the one that wouldn’t stop crying. She remembered the free wine from the barman going down way too easily, then staggering to the shop to buy a pack of cigarettes. She remembered Ollie. Oh God! Her heart sunk and a wave of guilt washed through her. Ollie had met her on his doorstep. And what a state she’d been!

Picking up a piece of paper from the bedside cabinet, her blurry eyes recognised her name. Struggling with her focus, Angela slowly made out the note.

Angela, I’ve gone to work. I hope you feel okay. My Dad’s sleeping. I gave him a sedative last night. Let him rest. Call me if you need. Ollie. Xxx

The note brought back another memory. There was an argument. She remembered the sound of angry voices. But it wasn’t with her. It was Ollie and Gavin. Father and son.

Oh God, and it was about her!

Angela felt tears build in her eyes. It wasn’t fair on either of them. She’d become a burden, a problem. The last thing she wanted to do was drive a wedge between the pair. This wasn’t right.

Slowly sitting up in bed, she swung her feet round and placed them on the floor. Leaning towards the curtain she pulled it back, her curiosity greater than the discomfort of the sun on her eyes.

She saw a familiar sight. The street was lined with police cars and she watched with a growing sadness as police officers and scientific investigation teams milled about, travelling between their vehicles and the cottage.

Her cottage.

How long would it be before they came knocking on Ollie’s door asking to speak with her? She needed to get up and get out. Take the drama away from the Coleborn’s house.

Carefully standing, and after taking a moment to steady her balance, she made her way to the en suite and looked at her reflection with a heavy heart. Her worries and anguish were plain to see on her face.

‘What’s it going to take before you do something about her?’ Elvin slammed his fist down on Detective Inspector Cartwright’s desk. ‘That’s another death in the same house, and that woman is still walking free!’

Cartwright stood up and placed his hand on Elvin’s shoulder, attempting to calm him, but the grieving father immediately shrugged it off.

‘My son is dead.’ Elvin’s voice cracked as he began to cry, but he continued to talk through his tears. ‘My son, taken at the prime of his life. And today, another. Suze Wilson turns up dead. In that house! Something’s got to be done.’

‘Elvin, you have to trust me,’ the detective inspector tried to reassure him. ‘We are conducting investigations, and we are making progress, but we need time. We can’t charge someone until we have the evidence, and right now, we don’t have anything on the Cotton woman.’

‘But she was in the house!’ Elvin blurted out, his frustration seething through his words.

‘Only for the first murder, and even then, there’s nothing else to say she was the one that did it. We can’t go around making unfounded accusations.’

‘How can I trust you lot?’ Elvin sniped. ‘You’re supposed to be guarding that damn house, and yet somehow Suze winds up inside the cottage, a corpse!’

‘We have a guard there at all times. Regrettably, yesterday he was called away. Something very important came up.’ Cartwright explained, defending his colleague’s actions to Elvin, even though he’d given the officer a harsh dressing down.

‘More important than our lives?’ Elvin was aghast at the answer.

‘Now come on, you can’t go blaming the police for other people’s actions. There’s only so many of us. We, perhaps unreasonably, expect people to adopt a bit of common sense: to wait at the traffic lights until they go green, to not leave their cars unlocked and valuables on display, to not drink bleach, and to not go snooping around in unsafe crime scenes!’ The detective inspector’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment at the outburst. He was aware he might have crossed a line, challenging the delinquent behavior of Elvin’s deceased son, but it needed to be said.

Waiting for a moment in silence, he gauged Elvin’s reaction and was surprised to see his words had sunk in without an angry reaction.

Cartwright sat back down, a clear indication that the conversation was over.

‘I can’t imagine how hard this is for you,’ he sympathised, his tone calmer and much more friendly, ‘but you have to stop coming in here. Please, stay at home. If it helps, get out of town. Go visit some friends or relatives and just get away for a while.’

‘No,’ Elvin protested. ‘I’m not leaving until justice is served. No one should leave. You need to put a curfew in place. And roadblocks. Seal the place off. Stop anyone from entering or leaving the village.’

‘Tighten the net?’ Cartwright asked, intrigued by the idea.

‘Yeah.’ Elvin looked hopeful for the first time since the news of Danny’s death.

‘It’s an infringement of civil liberties, of course,’ Cartwright admitted, ‘But sometimes drastic action is required. Leave it with me, let me see what I can do.’

‘Thank you.’

Elvin turned to leave his friend’s office, when the detective inspector called him back.

‘Elvin, a piece of friendly advice.’ Cartwright paused for a moment and placed his hands together in front of him, steepling his fingers. ‘We don’t need any vigilantes around here. You’re on the right side of the law, and I need you to stay that way. Leave the Cotton woman alone. I shouldn’t tell you this, but the officer that left his post when guarding the cottage, he came back to the station as he had something important. He’d retrieved a laptop from the riverbank. Some kids dug it up. We believe it’s Cotton’s. And if it is, we think a video of Mike’s murder was accidentally captured on it. If it was, and our experts can recover the file, we’ll know who killed Mike, and by proxy who killed Danny.’

Despite fighting against a hangover, Angela had been able to quickly shower, get dressed and slip out before the police had even thought to knock on Ollie’s door. She was sure to get a phone call at some point, but better that than causing unnecessary trouble at the Coleborn’s place. She was fed up with causing problems for them, and the recollections of last night’s argument between the father and son still reverberated within her with unpleasant regularity.

She needed to make amends, find a way to thank them for their kindness. If circumstances had been different she would have created something, sculpted a personalised gift. But even if she could get access to her equipment, the thought of sitting beside her potter’s wheel with a lump of clay made her feel sick. It was a horrible realisation. Would it last? What if she’d been put off sculpting, if her passions had been extinguished forever?

Today wasn’t about her concerns, though. And it certainly wasn’t about negative thinking. Today, Angela was heading to the shops to look for presents for her accommodating hosts; to find something for each of them, unique and thoughtful, and then tonight she would prepare a feast. She never wanted to be a burden, and she certainly didn’t want to be the cause of any arguments. To beat the ill feeling that hung around the house, she would do something good, and hopefully in doing so lift the mood.

The village only had a small high street, so her choice would be limited, but as she stepped into Al Samuels, she was certain she’d find something of interest for them both. The shopkeeper, Al, smiled at her as she entered, and politely she smiled back. The place smelt like furniture polish, a pleasing scent to Angela’s nose.

The shop was stuffed floor to ceiling with rows and rows of strange objects taken from house clearances and auction rooms. It was Al’s business to look for the strange, elegant and unusual as he scoured the area buying up people’s overlooked secondhand treasures.

Ollie’s came easy. A beautiful quill, in excellent condition, and ornate inkwell caught her eye almost immediately. She took a moment to admire the craftsmanship and check its condition. As she did so, Angela imagined Ollie sat in the study besides that grand, leather-bound desk, signing legal paperwork with the exquisite piece of stationery. Gavin, however, was not so easy. She’d had limited conversations with him, and although they had been pleasant and warm, if not a little spooky, she had not been able to understand much about him and his life.

As two women walked in off the street continuing their conversation from outside, it did little to help Angela’s concentration, especially when she heard her name. Hidden behind a shelving unit filled with old ornaments of cats and rabbits, she couldn’t help but listen,

‘I can’t believe it,’ the first exclaimed in an overdramatic fashion, too shrill for the serenity of the shop.

‘And what are the police doing?’ the second lady asked, the sound of her voice more timid than the first. ‘With four murders this week you’d think they’d be bringing the army in.’

‘Problem is, Anne, they don’t have foggiest what they’re doing.’

‘Do they ever, Carol? Do they ever?’

‘Well,’ Carol lowered her volume, but Angela turned her ear towards them and kept track of what they were saying, ‘I’ve heard that a curfew is going to be announced tonight, and talk is they might even patrol the borders of the village. Stop people entering and leaving.’

‘Really?’ Anne was intrigued.

‘Oh yes. And according to my Jerry, they’re going to start searching the entire area, street by street. House by house.’

‘Is that legal?’ Anne asked.

‘Don’t know,’ Carol sounded unimpressed. ‘They’re clutching at straws. They don’t know what they’re doing. Quite literally in this case, they don’t have a clue.’

‘I thought it was quite obvious,’ Anne scoffed. ‘It has to be that Cotton woman.’

‘Have you seen her? She couldn’t fight herself out of a wet paper bag, let alone have overpowered her husband and cut his head off,’ Carol argued.

‘Say what you like, but she’s the one, mark my words. Look for the most obvious answer, I say.’

‘Hmmm, you could be right there. You’re not the only one that’s saying it. Half the village have her pegged as the killer. They say she’s only walking free because she shacked up with the lawyer.’

The pair of elderly ladies turned as they heard a noise. A smash as a china tabby fell to the floor and exploded into tiny fragments.

Al stood up from his chair behind the counter and leaned across to look down the aisle, fixing an accusatory stare at Angela as she stood surrounded by a pattern of white shards.

‘You’ll have to pay for that,’ he barked, forcing her out of hiding.

The old ladies watched as Angela nervously stepped into view, frantically apologising. She’d been so focused on eavesdropping that she hadn’t noticed the end of the quill catch a china paw of an ornament and nudge it from the shelf.

Walking towards the shopkeeper she felt the gaze of the two gossips scanning her up and down, casting unfavourable judgements with every passing moment. Angela turned to face them and caught their disgusted expressions. It was more than she could take. Digging into her handbag and pulling a twenty-pound note from her purse, she threw it with trembling hands at the counter and ran out the shop, burning with shame.

The streets of the village appeared more hostile than ever as she marched along the pavement trying to walk off the emotions that churned inside her. The houses bent in and the pathways narrowed. Every person she passed seemed to be leering with the same disgusted look as the two ladies in the shop.

Angela knew she was making a spectacle of herself, sobbing so openly in public, but she couldn’t stop crying. What had her life become?

The residents of the village thought she’d done it, that she was responsible for the murders of her husband and the others. Tried and found guilty. How long would it be before they decided she should hang?

Stopping at a bus shelter she checked the times. It was the only way, get on a bus and get the hell out of there. She’d contact Detective Inspector Cartwright as soon as she knew where she was staying, wherever that might be seemed of little importance, as long as it was out of this godforsaken village.

Pulling her phone out of her bag, Angela scrolled through the list of her friends. Cycling through the directory she remembered yesterday in the pub, how she’d tried to call and no one would answer. Recalling the text message she’d sent Charlotte, Angela clicked on the app only to find it still absent a reply.

What was the point?

‘Are you okay there, Miss?’ a friendly voice enquired.

She turned to see a uniformed policeman stood beside her.

‘I’m fine,’ she replied trying to sound as normal as she could despite the recent torrent of tears. ‘I’m just waiting for a bus.’

‘I’m sorry to inform you, but the bus has been cancelled. Can’t say when it’ll be back on. The village has been locked down, owing to the recent murders. No one’s allowed in, and no one’s allowed out.’

Without a word, she stood up and began to walk away, her head throbbing, her thoughts like a washing machine on high spin. Was there no escape from this damn place?

‘Miss, I should tell you there’s a curfew tonight,’ the policeman called after her. ‘No one’s to be out after dark, and searches of all properties will be taking place over the course of the week.’

Like a mouse on a wheel, Angela was going nowhere despite her best efforts. She was trapped, trapped in a village with a bloodthirsty killer and a local population that pointed the finger of blame squarely at her.

She walked the lanes and watched roadblocks being set up on every route leading in and out. She tried booking a taxi, but every number she called declined, explaining they were unable to take a fare from inside the village limits. There was no way out.

But where else could she go?

She’d already created discontent in Ollie’s house, and her idea to make peace had not gone as planned. There was no way she was going back in the shops, to be watched by judging eyes and whispered words. It was more that she could bear.

Her intention wasn’t to end up back over the bridge and at the cottage, but that’s where she found herself, as if her legs had a mind of their own, guiding her back to the closest thing to a home she had.

PC Jones smiled at her as he stood guard at the front door.

‘Evening Mrs. Cotton. You look tired,’ he said to her with a smile.

‘I’ve been out walking. The village borders are closed and I just want to go home.’ He was right, she was tired; weary and emotionally raw.

‘I can’t let you in here, I’m sorry Mrs. Cotton. Are you not staying with the lawyer?’ He nodded to Ollie’s house.

She didn’t answer, but continued to stare, wiping her windswept hair from her face.

‘Not working out?’ It was a rhetorical question from the policeman. ‘You can always stay at the station if you’ve got nowhere to go. The cells aren’t much, but they’re warm. I’ll radio it in if you’d like? Let them know that you’re coming.’

The memory of her time in the cell hit her. Those looming walls. That stench of bleach. That awful dream. She shuddered at the thought and stepped backwards.

‘No thanks,’ she said stifling the sound of her misery long enough to turn away and head towards the pathway besides the bridge.

PC Jones watched her leave, disappearing into the fading light and undergrowth of the surrounding wood. Pulling the radio he had clipped to his vest closer to his mouth, he pressed the talk button.

‘Control, this is PC Jones, just to let you know we had Mrs. Cotton pay us a little visit.’

The constable waited for a moment before a burst of static broke the silence, followed by a colleague’s voice.

‘Thanks, Jones, Edwards here. I’ll log that. Did you see where she went?’ His enthusiasm wasn’t just grating on Cartwright. Jones, as even-tempered as the next man, found it a little hard to take the exuberance and animation in the voice coming over the radio.

‘She headed into Newman Wood, a few minutes ago.’

‘Did you make any attempt to follow her?’ Edwards asked.

‘Are you kidding?’ Jones scoffed at the suggestion. ‘You know what happened when Davey abandoned his post here. Things got ugly pretty quickly. Not just for Suze Wilson, but for him too. I’m not spending a week on toilet duty. No thank you.’

‘Fair point,’ Edwards replied. ‘Keep an eye out in case she returns. There’s a lane behind the back gardens she could use, might be worth checking that out. We’re all tied up on border control and house searches at the moment. You’re our man on the ground.’

‘Jeez.’ Jones shook his head at the awful, action-movie dialogue that spewed from Edwards’ mouth. ‘I’ll report back if I see anything.’

With a final burst of static the conversation was over, leaving Jones to watch the sun slip behind the hills in the distance.

Like hell was he going to search round the house. His orders were to stay put and guard the front entrance. That was his orders and that was what he was going to do. No one was going to drag him over the coals like they did to Davey. Poor sod.

The fading sunset had a spectacular vibrancy of reds and purples that eventually gave way to the speckled black of a cloudless night sky and it didn’t take long for the temperature to drop. After half an hour Jones began to feel a chill. Pacing back and forth on the front lawn fought off the cold for a while, but it wasn’t long before he found himself stepping inside the cottage and rubbing his hands together to get some feeling back into them.

He hadn’t planned to be inside very long, just long enough to warm himself and then he’d head back out. It was a harmless transgression of his duties, one that perhaps would have gone unnoticed if he’d ignored the sound he heard somewhere in the house.

Jones held his breath and strained his ears, wondering if he’d imagined it, but when he heard it again, the sound proved all too real. A creak, like a floorboard groaning under the strain of someone’s weight. And it was coming from upstairs, directly above him.

That’s impossible, he thought. I’ve been outside all this time and no one got past me. Perhaps someone left a window open and a bird flew in.

Heading to the stairs, he stopped at the first step and paused. For a moment, Jones thought about radioing it in, but quickly dismissed the idea. He didn’t want to cause a panic over a trapped bird, he’d never live it down.

Now closer, he could make out a different sound. It was faint but constant. A rhythmic noise that he couldn’t place. It wasn’t a banging, and it definitely wasn’t a creaking floorboard.

As he slowly crept up the stairs, the sound became a little clearer but no less identifiable. Had to be a bird, a starling pressed up against a window, frantically flapping its wings as it tried to fly through the glass.

Reaching the landing, the policeman followed the sound. It was coming from the same place they’d found the bodies; the charred face of Suze Wilson; the mutilated bodies of those two teenagers; and the head of Mike Cotton. Mrs. Cotton’s workshop. His colleagues had started calling “the death room”.

Edging towards the workshop, he paused for a moment, checking the source of the sound. It was definitely coming from the other side of the door, but it was too steady to be the flapping wings of a frightened bird.

What the hell was it?

Sawing?

Jones thought back to the first murder. If there was a killer in there, were they repeating their vile act on another hapless victim? If they were, he had to do something. He had to act now!

Gently opening the door a crack, he peered into the room, but could see nothing. The noise grew louder, a repeated swoosh, steady and consistent. Pushing the door wider, he found the workshop was empty, but what he saw chilled his blood. Along the back wall, beside the window, stood the potter’s wheel. The power light glowed red and the wheel span, its revolutions making a faint swooshing sound, as steady as a metronome. On the spinning disc was a lump of wet clay, although the piece was far from finished, in its current state it could have been described as a condemned skyscraper at best, a deformed and crude phallus at worst. Its contours suggested the beginnings of a face. A nose, two eyes and a mouth, crudely carved into the soft substance.

The shape, though strange, was of minor concern to PC Jones. Who had been up here?

As he got closer to the piece of spinning clay, the more clearly he could make out fingerprints and digit-sized dents covering the surface.

His trembling hand reached for his radio, but his eyes remained firmly on the potter’s wheel. There was something in the sculpture. Something at the top that was different, not made of clay. It looked solid, metallic and sharp, ending in a fine point, like a surgeon’s scalpel. The object spun like an off-centre drill bit, making uneven circles in the air.

It was one of Mrs. Cotton’s fettling knives!

A noise behind him caused the officer to spin round quickly.

A shadowy shape emerged from behind the door and took hold of the policeman’s neck, catching him off guard and slamming his face into the wet clay. The tip of the sculpting knife cut into his face slicing through his skin and bouncing off his cheek bone. The deflection steered the point upwards and drove the craftsman’s tool directly under the eye, nicking the soft orb as it was forced through his face.

Jones tried to howl with pain as the knife continued to spin like a dentist’s drill, tearing through his flesh and digging the eye out of its socket. The orb was quickly turned to mush as the spinning blade cut through his eyelids and hollowed out a hole in his face. Lifting his head free from the point, the attacker laughed a throaty laugh before running the twirling point over Jones’ nose, slicing through the cartilage and carving off chunks. The tip was buried into his other eye before the policeman was thrown to the floor. Unable to see, he screamed, but was silenced as he felt clay being stuffed into his mouth. A kick to his stomach had the blinded man knocked on his back, winded and prone. A hand took the back of his head, whilst another forced clay into his mouth. He tried to fight it, but the clay kept his jaw from shuting. He tried to push the attacker away, but his arms had lost all their strength. Helpless, he felt more and more clay pushed down his gullet. Jones’ stomach convulsed, trying to expel the blockage that was restricting his airways and sent a stream of vomit surging up from his gut. Bile began to force its way past the clay, but the attacker pushed back, sealing the policeman’s airways and forcing the sick back down the victim’s throat and into his lungs. Drowning him in his own puke.

Standing over the body of the dead constable, the murderer gazed upon this fresh kill with a static grin that was as evil as it was wide. A large bulbous head with deep set eyes scanned the corpse with a vile satisfaction. It rubbed the back of its hand, drenched in the blood of its victim, over its big clay tongue and laughed, feeling a power surge through its body.

As the killer made their way through the house, they left a trail of bloody footprints in their wake, and standing in the doorway of the cottage, the monster surveyed the quiet streets of this once-sleepy village. It stepped out into the world hungry for revenge. This village’s slumber would soon become a nightmare, and the monster’s echoing roar, bellowing from the head of Ugly Edgar, was only the beginning of the terrors to come.

Angela had ventured out into the surrounding countryside. It was getting dark, but she didn’t know where else to go. Ollie was at work, called away to meet some clients, and the last thing she needed right now was his father's morbid company, he’d made his feelings quite clear last night.

There were police everywhere in the village, there had been another couple of inexplicable murders in her cottage, and that had prompted drastic action from the police. It was a lockdown, with roads closed, inhabitants being questioned. It was not a nice place to be. Except for Ollie's company when he returned.

She followed the river which ran alongside the woods adjoining the end of the scattered village. She sought a ramble in a place that was undisturbed, a haven for wildlife. All she wanted right now was to be away from everything.

The thick woodland grew on the sloping banks on either side of the wild ride, a mix of trees which had grown naturally from seed blown there by the wind; silver birch, conifers, beech, all with saplings sprouting in between. In a year or two it would become a virtual impenetrable small forest. There had been no attempt to maintain it by foresters. It was nature's own domain and would remain so in future years.

A flock of woodpigeons which had gone up to roost in a thick pine tree cooed out noisily at Angela's approach, wheeled in the sky above, searching and seeking an alternative resting place for the coming night. Somewhere a magpie shrieked its protest at the disturbance. A grey squirrel darted across the ride and vanished into the thick undergrowth.

Angela halted, made her way to a thick stump where a pine tree had been blown down by a series of gales in past years. She lowered herself onto it, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

Somewhere not too distant she could hear the river, a steady current that had been flowing for centuries.

She was somewhat shaken, she needed to relax, get it out of her system.

Something was moving in the bracken amidst the trees behind her. Something big which stopped every so often, as though listening to ensure that nothing threatened its progress. Angela tensed, her mouth was dry and her whole body trembled slightly.

Whatever it was, it was heading in her direction, halting, moving on, halting again. Now it was close, too close for her liking. She was on the point of fleeing back in the direction from which she had come when, with a crashing of dried bracken, it burst out onto the ride.

A fox! She let out a gasp of relief. The animal turned, saw her, and bounded away into the cover of the thick trees on the opposite side of the trail. She listened to its departure until all was silent again.

Another movement behind her. This time it was a rabbit, one which was being pursued by the fox. It bolted onto the trail, turned and fled in the opposite direction.

Angela let out a long sigh. Sheer relief. She reminded herself she could not be in more peaceful and natural surroundings. Truly, this was nature's domain, woodlands abounding with wildlife. The river trickling a short distance away, a whirring of wings overhead as a flight of mallard headed for their nocturnal roost, quacking noisily.

So different from the prison cell where she had passed a tense few hours plagued by nightmares. This was what she needed so badly right now.

If only they could find the missing laptop. It may well prove just who had beheaded her husband.

Angela’s trembling ceased.

She felt so much calmer.

It was too dark to see the river properly now. The water looked black in the night, but the rapid movement made the current’s surface rise and fall, its peaks shimmering in the moonlight. Angela sat against the trunk of an oak tree and watched the ephemeral patterns on the river come and go. Nature’s private show was hypnotic and took the young woman out of her own thoughts. It was a welcome relief, and she had been happy to lose both herself and time in the serenity of her surroundings.

A dam had been crudely constructed, and although not effective at stopping the water completely, it had enough strength and solidity to slow the release through its wall, causing the river to swell on one side and reduce on the other. It was the swollen side that had Angela so entranced. The current was much stronger there, the blackness of the water darker, making the subtle lightshow on its surface more spectacular, and equally more fascinating.

The expanse of blackness looked so big. So wide.

So comforting.

Angela had no more tears left to shed. The day had wrung her dry of emotion, and now she looked at everything with a distant vacancy and a weary clarity. Perhaps the villagers had a point, she was the number one suspect, there was no denying that. Her life had been slowly falling apart for quite some time. Was it enough to make her snap?

The stories from Ollie’s father had sent such fear through her that her reaction seemed disproportionate. Maybe it wasn’t the creepy legends, the tales of Ugly Edgar, maybe that had just given a label to something more monstrous and real: the abuse from her husband, Mike.

The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. She crafted that ugly head out of clay for what purpose? It was like she was in a trance, acting out the will of another, but couldn’t that will be her own subconscious? Her own internal fears, so great, so terrifying she didn’t dare face them? Hadn’t her subconscious quite literally done that? Given her fears a face. A physical form. Something tangible.

Turning an idea into something real.

Something she could tackle head on.

And if that was possible, then it wouldn’t be much of a leap to consider that her mind had snapped further, the will of her subconscious taking matters into its own hands once again and murdering Mike, egged on by the stories of Ugly Edgar and his cruel beheading.

And what if, deep down, she liked the control? The power over people. The mastery of life and death. What if part of her was killing these people and she didn’t even know about it!

Angela stood up, unsure what to think any more, unsure what was real and what was not.

Maybe she had gone crazy. Maybe it was all her fault.

If she was considering these possibilities, then no wonder the villagers were blaming her. And what jury wouldn’t agree?

The life she once dreamed of had crumbled and before her lay nothing but a series of cells, prisons and psychiatric wards. Even if she was found innocent, could she ever shake off the stigma of the accusations? With a small business like the one she was growing, reputation was everything, and all it took was one news report, one post on social media, and her reputation could go down in flames, taking her business with it. She would never recover from that.

As she placed her foot into the water, Angela barely noticed the cold. Biting though it should be, the sensation was numbing and strangely pleasant; a complete loss of feeling. It was liberating, like succumbing to the void and becoming part of it. A welcoming peace.

She placed her other foot in the river, allowing herself to revel in the sensation. Then, after a moment to adjust her balance against the river’s current, she began to wade toward the centre.

As she made her way across, the water rose up her calves, over her knees and past her thighs. By the time she reached the middle it was above her waist. Turning to the dam, she headed towards the deepest point, the point closet to the ramshackle barrier. Past her stomach and over her chest, the further she went the more the water level kept climbing. By the time she reached the dam, the river’s surface was around her neck, its current lapping at her ears and chin.

Angela looked up at the night sky and marvelled at the stars glimmering above her.

Nature’s work.

The beauty of oblivion.

Allowing herself a few minutes to absorb the surroundings of her last moments, she sighed before closing her eyes. Taking one last, deep breath, Angela felt the wonder of her own body, enthralled by the simple sensation of her lungs inflating. Then softly, she let herself fall forward, dropping her face into the river and relaxing; letting the cold water fill her lungs.

The blackness of the void felt warm and comforting, but it wasn’t empty. In the pitch-black of nothing she saw something move. Something that began to slowly take form.

At first it was little more than a silhouette, its edges fading in and out as it blurred against a background that seemed to be slowly turning; rotating in a clockwise fashion.

‘I’ve come for you,’ a soft, gentle voice spoke to her.

Angela was unable to move. Or if she could, she had no desire to. Either way, she remained in a strange state of motionlessness, staying static but also feeling free of her body, as if she’d cast off her physical form. There were no aches from her arms, no heaviness in her legs, no pull from her cheeks as she began to speak.

‘I don’t know what you are,’ she replied, her voice feeling as disconnected as her limbs. ‘Is this a dream?’

‘I am the man you brought back. The being you gave life to.’

As he spoke, his body, though still faint and ethereal, emerged from the void. His limbs were twisted, his body bent into a hunch, his arms configured in painful angles and his legs warped and bowed; his knees facing each other with feet almost crossed. He reached out to her with a large, gnarled hand, and as he did so she began to make out the bulbous, ugly, clay head on his shoulders.

‘I took the body of your lover,’ he said. He recoiled his hand. If he’d touched her, Angela had not felt it. ‘But the memory of my form has taken control, rage and fear has distorted and withered its limbs. My mind and bones twist within this frame. Hatred fills me, as it does you.’

‘You want revenge on your killer?’ Angela spoke in a daze, strangely unfazed by the grotesque abomination before her.

‘On this village. Just as badly as you wanted revenge on your husband. I tasted your seething rage and took his life.’

‘Is this a dream?’ she asked again. ‘Is it real or in my head?’

‘What’s the difference? Dreams. Reality. Thoughts and actions. The lines between them are blurred. You wanted Mike dead. You thought it, and it became a reality.’

‘But I didn’t do it.’

‘You are an artist. A soul who takes an idea, a thought inside your mind, and turns it into a reality.’

‘But I’m no murderer.’

‘We are kindred spirits, Angela. We have both been reborn, reshaped from anger and rage. You were freed from an abusive husband by yours, and mine brought me back; an emotion so powerful it never left the room in which I died, and stretched across time itself until it connected with yours. Our bond moved your hands, guided them into making this head. It was destiny. I was reborn of rage, and I must act upon it. I must satisfy my hunger for revenge on the folk of this village.’

‘They’re all long gone,’ she flatly explained.

‘Those that live within the boundaries of this village are marked by guilt. It hangs over the streets, undiminished. Time means nothing to the power of raw emotion.’

‘What do you want from me?’ she asked.

He didn’t answer. Instead, a hand reached out to touch her, this time she felt it. Soft and warm on her cheek. She relaxed into its strange tenderness, an uncomfortable mixture of pleasure from the touch and revulsion for his mangled frame.

He leant closer, the huge, clay head coming into focus. His uneven eyes, one much bigger than the other, scanned her face, and below his crooked nose, a squashed mouth, partially hidden by a straggly moustache, began to open. A slimy tongue licked a pair of cracked, dry lips.

At last she could feel the heaviness of her limbs, and as sluggish as they felt, she weakly lifted them from her sides and pushed back in a desperate attempt to fight off the monster’s advances.

Holding her wrists, to stop Angela from clawing his face, Ollie looked confused and shocked, but slightly relieved.

‘I’m so glad you’re awake,’ he said as he watched her eyes slowly focus on him with a hint of recognition. ‘I’ve been so worried.’

‘What?’ Angela looked around, taking in the soft glow of Ollie’s lamp-lit bedroom.

Behind Ollie, his father stood, coyly in the doorway. ‘Has she come round?’ he asked with genuine concern.

‘Just now, Dad, she looks to be okay. Could you give us a moment?’

‘Of course,’ Gavin answered his son and stepped out into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

‘Angela, I’m so sorry,’ Ollie said, his eyes glistening with tears. ‘The police didn’t know where you were, Dad didn’t have a clue, so I went out looking. Not knowing where to go I headed to the spot you talked about. The place by the river where you liked to think. I can’t believe I found you just in time. When I saw you floating in the water my heart stopped. I thought the worst.’

‘Oh Ollie,’ was all Angela had the strength to say before she too filled with tears.

She leant forward, taking the towel from her sodden hair and put her arms around him. She held him tight, the man she loved, the man who had been the last thought on her mind as she slipped into an unconsciousness intended for death.

The world could be a beautiful place. She had realised that as she’d stood up to her neck in water and took in the sight of the stars, the sound of the river and the calls of the owls from deep in the wood. Life could be wonderful, people cared for her, and in the embrace of her lover, she knew it was worth it; her life, her love, her innocence, all were worth fighting for.

No matter how dark things had seemed, Ollie had been there for her. He’d been her light. His love had given her hope, given her the chance of a new life; to become a new person.

And as she smiled, she felt happy, happy that she was safe and loved.

The neat vodka going down his throat had stopped stinging hours ago, the alcohol numbing his senses. Elvin took another swig then idly shook the bottle in gentle circles, watching the last remaining drops of alcohol swirl in a clockwise direction as it lapped up against the glass.

The police had just left. Their presence didn’t rouse Maria from her bed. Nothing had done for days. Not since Danny died.

Elvin had turned the lights off when the cops had finished their search and bid him a good evening. The light hurt his eyes and the darkness seemed more appropriate. Sitting alone in the gloom of the lounge gave him space to think; to stew in the wake of the indignity at having the police go through his belongings; rifling through drawers and checking in wardrobes. It was just routine, they’d said. A thorough search of the whole village had been ordered. To look for clues and tighten the net around the killer in their midst.

Their reassurances meant nothing to Elvin. He thought he had friends on the force, but he’d just been made to feel like a suspect. Treated like a goddamn criminal, when it was his son that been a victim of the brutal attacks. His wonderful boy, Danny.

How dare they make him feel that way when the killer was allowed to walk the streets in broad daylight, free and without a care in the world. Why weren’t they doing anything about it? About her.

Placing the bottle against his lips and tipping it up to capture every last drop of vodka, Elvin relished the pleasing warmth of the liquid that flowed down into his stomach. With the vodka finished, he dropped the bottle to the floor. He heard a chink as it bounced off a matching empty before landing on the carpet and rolling beside a pile of crushed lager cans, long since drained of their contents.

The house was empty of alcohol and even the garage was closed due to the curfew. He thought about calling out to his wife, but he knew it would do no good, and decided to let Maria sleep, or cry, or stare blankly at the wall as seemed to be her usual state whenever he checked in on her.

His son had been murdered and his marriage was in tatters. There was no recovery from this. Elvin leant forward and put his head in his hands, angry at himself for beginning to cry. His rage fought back the tears as he pulled at his own hair, the pain a strange and welcoming relief. He dug his fingernails into his scalp, clawing at his skin and feeling the warm, wet sensation of blood as he gouged out small chunks.

Suddenly standing and pacing the room, Elvin clenched his fists, trying his hardest not to contain the rage. Eventually his emotions became too great and he succumbed to his anger, his fist flying into the door of the lounge, splitting the wood and leaving three bloody dents from the impact of his knuckles.

He licked the blood from his fist. This was the wrong house to be breaking, the wrong person to be hurting. The focus of a forming plan brought him respite from the fragmented whirlpool of emotions he’d failed to drown with alcohol.

Picking up his phone beside the overflowing ashtray, Elvin called a friend. If the police weren’t going to do anything about it, then he would. The friendly warning from Eric Cartwright rattled around his head, but those words sounded pathetic now; ludicrous even.

The world was worthless to him, what did he care for laws? To avenge his son’s death would make whatever he had left of his time on Earth mean something. It was his duty as a father. Nothing else mattered, not even his own life.

As the ringtone stopped with a gruff but friendly greeting, Elvin began to speak.

Before the night was out, revenge would be his.

Roland Watson was not a popular man within the small village. Somewhat overweight, he rarely shaved nor bathed. A waft of body odour followed him wherever he went.

He lived in a small cottage paid for by the council and had an allowance. He had not worked since his youth and had no intention of doing so in the future. The only person who welcomed him at her house was Edith Roberts, a part-time shop assistant who supplemented her meagre earnings with prostitution. She, too, was a virtual outcast within this remote community.

Roland waited till darkness fell before emerging from his residence. The police had put the village under lockdown, the road was closed, and an officer was on duty in a parked patrol car. Nobody could enter or leave without being questioned. Somewhere in their midst lurked a crazed murderer, one who delighted in mutilation and beheading. But who and where?

The street was empty, just a couple of parked police cars. The officers were moving from house to house interviewing residents and searching their homes. Roland kept to the shadows using every vestige of cover until he arrived at his destination, a small cottage in poor repair similar to his own. He knocked on the door, waited.

Footsteps, a key turned and a scantily dressed woman was framed in the doorway. Attractive features, she was probably in her late fifties, her short cut hair greying. Her blouse was undone, she was not wearing a bra. Rowland's eyes fixed on her breasts, already he was aware of an erection starting.

‘Come in,’ she widened the door, ‘we have to be careful, there are cops all over the place. They were here earlier but there wasn't much I could tell them. God, it's scary having somebody around killing folks. I hear there's been another murder. I don't know who the victim was, but the paramedics came and collected the corpse from the same cottage as the others!’

Roland grunted, was aware of a shiver running up his spine. Maybe it wasn't a good idea coming out tonight. Yet he was desperate for a screw. A quickie and then back home and ensure that the doors were locked.

He followed her upstairs to the bedroom. The sheets were rolled back in readiness. Both of them began to undress, heaping their discarded garments on a couple of chairs in the corner.

Roland was not one for gentle foreplay. His fingers went straight to her spread thighs. Her clitoris was soft and moist. He guessed that she had been creaming it up in readiness.

His thick forefinger penetrated her, brought a squeal of delight from her. Her head was turned to one side to avoid a rush of bad breath from him. Go on, shag me and get it over with!

His slipping penis pushed at her, he had some difficulty finding her vagina, waiting for her to guide him. No, damn it, I'm not helping you, find your own penetration.

He found what he was seeking, pushed hard. She forced a groan, hoped it sounded like one of delight. Now he was thrusting, grunting.

His ejaculation was quick. She was glad to get it over, let's get dressed and you can go home. After you've paid me! It was messy and smelly, all for fifty quid. Still, any cash was welcome in these hard times.

She closed and locked the front door after him, then went upstairs to run the bath.

Roland stood in the shadows of the cottage, checking that there was nobody in the immediate vicinity. There wasn't a soul in sight. His pants were wet and sticky from sperm which still oozed from his limp penis. That was fine, he would go to bed in them, maybe manage another erection and wank over himself. Then drift off to sleep, dreaming of that screw.

Keeping to the shadows, he shuffled homeward. Suddenly he became aware that he was not alone. Somebody was standing in a group of laurels between two houses watching him.

‘Who's there?’ his voice trembled.

There was no answer, just a rustling of leaves as a squat figure moved out of his place of concealment, stood in a patch of light from a streetlamp opposite.

God Almighty, I don't believe it, it's a figment of my imagination! A walking nightmare!

The stranger was short and squat, but it was his head which terrified Roland. Bold with just a fringe of black hair which matched the eyebrows over the deep sunken glowing orbs. A heavy moustache twitched above an open cavernous, toothless mouth which snarled but no sound came from it.

Roland froze in sheer terror. His instinct was to flee but his muscles refused to move. He stared as the figure moved towards him, a hand outstretched. Clutched in the stumpy fist was a heavy bladed knife.

The stranger shuffled closer, his breath stank, an unbelievable foulness and icy coldness.

Rowland's knees buckled and he fell backwards, sprawled on the ground. The stranger knelt over him, the knife raised, plunged downward, the blade buried deep in his victim’s throat.

Blood spurted, the leering features now scarlet. Grunting a hideous mirth as he sawed through the neck with unbelievable strength. Bone cracked loudly and Roland's head parted from his bloody neck, came to rest on the ground, dead eyes reflecting his pain and terror.

His attacker laughed, a strange grunting sound as his bloody blade began tearing the corpse's clothing away, revealing soiled flesh which had not been washed recently.

On down, exposing matted pubic hair coated with sperm. A limp penis was shrivelled amidst it, still oozing from its recent ejaculation.

The bloody blade sliced through the soft flesh and stubby fingers closed over the limp organ, pulled it clear, held it aloft, squeezed it.

A laugh which resembled a growl, as it was transferred to the killer's open mouth. The lips closed with a squelching noise, chewing on the soft flesh, grunts of delight as the flesh was savoured, then swallowed.

Clumsily the ungainly figure staggered to his feet, looked around in all directions to ensure that it was not being observed.

There was nobody in sight, the only sound was the night breeze rustling the leaves on the laurels.

Shuffling ungainly it moved away, heading towards its hiding place where it would skulk until it emerged to claim its next victim.

As instructed, Angela had stayed in bed, listening to the rumble of the Coleborns’ muffled voices as they talked downstairs. The conversation had given way to the sound of canned laughter coming from the television, and aside from the gentle noises of sitcom, the house remained peaceful.

At long last Angela had stopped fighting and enjoyed the security Ollie’s bedroom provided. But try as she might, she couldn’t get that dream out of her mind. Her thoughts had been cruel to her of late, when it was given free rein in her sleep.

Ugly Edgar had felt very dream-like, there was no doubting that, but as she recalled the vision, it came back with the clarity of a recent memory. The sound of his voice, the feel of his touch.

She shuddered and found herself growing restless in the bed.

Distraction was what she needed. A conversation and good company would chase away these foolish thoughts. It was this idea that stirred her from the bedroom and found her heading down the stairs toward the lounge.

The kindly face of Gavin greeted her as she opened the door and stepped into the room.

‘Ah, Angela my dear,’ he said with a friendly tone, ‘I see you’re up. Is the TV on too loud? If you need something to help you sleep Ollie keeps tranquilizers. Did wonders for me last night.’

‘No, it’s fine, thank you,’ she replied, scanning the room for Ollie.

‘May I apologise for last night,’ he offered. ‘I didn’t mean to cause any offence. Ollie and I have talked it through, and I’ve seen the error of my ways. Being here alone, while Ollie has been out, with a headful of ghost stories and all that terrible business over the road… I must confess I got a little worked up. You’ve got nothing to fear under this roof. This house is a safe house.’

‘Where is Ollie?’ Angela asked, saddened to see the absence of her lover.

‘He’s gone to the police station,’ Gavin explained. ‘He thought it would be better if he went in person to tell them he’d found you. Said he wanted to talk to that Cartwright fellow directly. Please, sit down.’

Angela took him up on the offer and perched on the sofa beside Gavin’s armchair.

‘He’s a good person,’ she said, feeling her heart glow beneath her bosom.

‘That he is,’ Gavin agreed. ‘He’s a good lad. I couldn’t be prouder of him. He’s been through a lot. Obviously not the kind of thing you’ve been through, but he’s had some tough breaks and risen above them.’

‘Really? He never said.’ Angela was intrigued.

‘His mother died when he was so young. He wouldn’t have known the pain I went through, but it was tough on him growing up without a mother, always feeling different from the other kids. Anyway, he worked hard and did well in school. He told you about working in London when he first became a lawyer?’ Angela nodded in response to the question. ‘He got first degree honours at university and was quickly impressing his seniors at the law-firm he began working for. A “rising star” they called him. When the firm landed a big case, he was made part of the legal team. You might have heard of it. Made all the national papers. ‘Mad Dog’ the press called the defendant. Real nasty too.’

‘Oh yeah, I remember that,’ Angela answered as she recalled the headlines on the news.

‘So you’ll also remember the fiasco that happened afterwards. There was no way that monster should have been sent to a regular prison. Anyway, the press couldn’t get enough of it. Not a stone was left unturned, as they say. The tabloids went everywhere looking for more column inches on the story and begun dredging up the legal case. As the firm got more nervous about the scrutiny they were under, they realised they needed a face for the legal team, a sacrificial lamb. No senior partner in their right mind would willingly put themselves in the firing line.’

‘So they blamed it on Ollie,’ Angela remarked.

‘Exactly, my dear. The poor lad’s career was in ruins. He left London and came back here. Moved in and looked after me. I was pleased to have him back, but poor Ollie. It’s taken years for him to build his career back up.’ Gavin wiped a sorrowful tear from his eye. ‘His confidence was ruined. And then you came along, and it’s like he’s a different person. Perhaps I was jealous, or worried you might hurt him, but seeing the way you are when you speak about him, I see you feel the same way about him that he feels about you.’ He puffed on his pipe for a moment with a faraway look in his eye. ‘I know I often talk about the weird and mysterious, the horrors of the world, but when all said and done, none of that is a patch on the love in the world. Love. It’s the highest magic there is.’

Angela felt tears of happiness as Gavin’s words resonated deeply within her.

He was right. Everything suddenly made sense. And with that she knew exactly what to do.

Gavin had tried his best to reason with her. He begged her to stay inside; to stay in the house with him and watch the TV. To forget about the outside world for the evening, but Angela had proved too stubborn and determined. She wanted to get some fresh air and clear her head, the curfew be damned.

The old man stood in his study and looked at the giant crab claw that hung on the wall. Even now, after all these years, he swore he could taste the salty sea breeze as he could that fateful day. Hunting had been his life, his passion. It was not without danger, and that’s what had given him his biggest thrills in those early days, so to track and find a monster crab was exhilarating without comparison. His hip burned as it always did when he thought back to the fight. The gigantic crustacean, rising out of the water and moving at a speed Gavin haven’t bargained for. That claw was the very one that almost took his leg clean off, and if it hadn’t been for his quick-thinking, Ollie would have become an orphan.

Placing a key in a lock and opening a steel cabinet, Gavin pulled out his old hunting rifle, carefully rubbing the dust from the metal as he fingered the smooth contours. He hadn’t used it since. Hadn’t felt the need or desire. But if there was something Gavin was quickly learning, it was that times change.

Had it not been for the fact the cottage was unguarded, Angela would have cursed herself for not picking up her keys when she left the Coleborn’s to sneak in the back way. As it was, the distraction of reassuring Gavin she was just going for a walk, held little consequence. Unsure where the officer had got to and nervous that they might appear at any time, Angela made her way to the entrance of the cottage and pushed the door open; the broken lock having still not been replaced, the door swung on its hinges with the meekest of touches.

Angela took a long look back towards the Coleborn’s house. She could see the light of the television casting blue shadows across the curtains. It looked cozy and she longed to be back there. Soon, she told herself. Soon.

The cottage felt unfamiliar as she walked into the hallway. Everything largely looked the same as when she’d left, but it felt so very different. It was cold, dark and sterile. There was no homely glow, no welcoming feel.

Glancing into the lounge before she headed up the stairs, it was like she was moving through someone else’s house; the memories that drifted through her mind of her time spent within these walls felt like someone else’s life.

Whatever connection she had here was long gone.

Now all she felt was fear.

Reaching the landing at the top of the stairs, Angela stared at the dark stains on the carpet, blood that had spilled out from her workshop during the gruesome murder of Mike, and countless others. What she failed to notice was just how fresh the blood was, how it oozed from the carpet as she squashed it underfoot. Approaching the doorway of the workshop, her legs trembled as much as her hands.

With a heavy heart she took in the sad sight of her once beloved room. White tape covered the floor, marking out the positions where the bodies had been found. Beside her potting wheel, the floor was a mess. Muddy, brown water, pieces of clay and a dirty fettling knife lay strewn at the feet of her workstation.

Turning on a lamp, Angela noticed something else within the muddy, brown mess; a red liquid and some other kind of matter too gooey for clay. Too pink.

She didn’t dare inspect it further.

Cartwright cradled a cup of coffee in his hands and wearily watched his officers all return empty handed. The first day of the house searches had yielded nothing, and their tired, fed up expressions showed their disappointment.

The detective inspector was sat on his chair with his feet on his desk, studying his colleagues through the window of his office as they walked by, heading down the corridor to the locker-room and getting ready to call it a night. Their slumped shoulders and the dark circles beneath their eyes signalled their fatigue. Cartwright was all too familiar with the symptoms.

Christ, how did this place become such a goddamn hellhole?

‘Detective?’ the chirpy tone of the ever-optimistic Edwards called him from the doorway.

‘Edwards. Aren’t you supposed to be heading over to the cottage and relieving Jones of guard duty?’ Only Edwards would willingly agree to a double shift and an overnight watch of a crime scene.

‘Just on my way, sir,’ he said, unaffected by the detective inspector’s brush off. ‘I wanted to stop by and let you know the news.’

‘What is it?’ Cartwright asked, his weary tone betraying his disinterest; his question coming more out of duty than genuine intrigue.

‘Mr. Coleborn is here. He says he needs to speak with you. Personally,’ Edwards dutifully informed his superior.

‘Great. What a treat that will be, I’m sure.’ The detective inspector’s words dripped with sarcasm. ‘Leave him at reception. Coleborn can wait.’

‘And one more thing,’ Edwards continued.

‘Go on,’ Cartwright sighed, watching the steam rise from his coffee.

‘It’s the laptop they found at the river, sir.’

‘And?’ He turned to look at the constable, his attention finally caught.

‘The tech team say they’ve managed to recover files from the hard drive, including the last video file recorded from the webcam. It was the day of the murder, sir. They’re ready to show it.’

Sitting at her sculpting table, Angela cleared the workspace then took some clay from her supplies. There was a lot less than she remembered. Perhaps the police took it to analyse, she pondered for a moment.

Coming back to the task at hand, Angela placed the clay in the centre of her worktop and pushed her fingers into it, working it into a softer state, before pulling it apart and kneading it back together. It was her ritual before every piece. Not only was it a way to warm up both the clay and her fingers, but it was a way to read the clay, to understand the material and the way it reacted to her touch. Each lump might behave differently, and it was important she understood the nature of the clay before she used it to turn her thoughts into something physical. Something tangible.

To begin with her hands were unsure, her arms shook and her stomach clenched making her feel sick. To be back here, to be sculpting, it felt so wrong. Afterall, this was what started everything. But if her plan worked, it would also finish it too.

She took a deep breath and calmed herself, focusing on the clay as it folded to her whims.

And for a while it felt like old times, as if nothing had changed and the murders hadn’t taken place. Angela allowed herself to be guided by her creative spirit, to let her inspiration make the decisions, to reach that divine state where the chattering of thought was silenced and the world around her melted away, becoming an abstract notion; a forgotten memory.

Her muse was clear. It was the thing that filled her soul and made her heart sing, despite the trauma that surrounded her. The thing that brought her back to life from the brink of death. Just like Gavin Coleborn had said, the one thing that would defeat the horrors of the world.

Love.

Detective Cartwright headed down the corridor, towards a back office, with a renewed sense of purpose in his stride. As he opened the door harsh overhead lights caused him to squint, but when his eyes adjusted he saw a woman sat at a desk with a computer wired up to a battered hard drive; the one rescued from the remains of Angela Cotton’s laptop.

The woman looked at him over the top of her glasses and gave a welcome smile.

‘Detective, I’ve recovered the files and isolated the one you’ll be particularly interested in,’ she said, pulling a seat out from under the desk and offering him to sit.

‘Thank you, Melanie,’ he asked, still standing. ‘It shows the murder of Mike Cotton?’

‘The file is fairly lengthy, but we have a good time window of when the murder took place,’ Melanie explained. ‘So we can skip a load of the footage beforehand.’

‘Well, let’s have a look,’ he said, placing one foot on the empty chair and leaning forward, his elbow on his knee and his chin resting in his palm.

Cartwright turned to see PC Edwards loitering by the door.

‘Edwards, have you got somewhere to be?’ he barked at the constable.

‘Sir?’ came the reply.

‘The cottage, Edwards.’ Cartwright sighed. ‘Jones has been out there longer than he should have, already. Go and relieve him.’

‘Of course, sir,’ Edwards replied, his dejection at being sent away at the revealing of this crucial evidence impossible to hide from his face.

With the door closed, PC Edwards flicked the light switch and the IT technician pressed play.

Angela opened her eyes.

She’d chosen to let the final moments of her creation be guided completely by will and touch alone. Not even her vision would bias the creation. It had to be crafted from pure emotion and nothing else. To let the muse run unhindered by her conscious mind, putting trust in her dexterity and talent. When she finally saw the sculpture her heart sank.

It hadn’t worked.

She thought if she replicated the time she’d sculpted the head of Ugly Edgar, if she was able to put herself in that trance-like state, feeding off the intensity of an emotion, then she could recreate him and mend his ways, only this time not born from anger and hatred, but inspired by love.

She’d wanted to find the humanity in him, soften the anger, and show the compassion, the tenderness; the fear he must have felt when Mister Whitely had come storming into his house, accusing him of murder. But she’d been too wrapped up in her own feelings. Too self-absorbed with her own happiness. As she gazed upon what she hoped would be the inner beauty of the killer, sculpted from her unconscious mind, all she had done was replicate her own love. All she saw was an image of the man that filled her heart: Ollie Coleborn.

Late as it was, Detective Inspector Cartwright and Melanie, their computer technician, were still at the station. Now that they finally had found the missing computer, he needed an expert to unravel its contents, and Melanie had the skills to retrieve the data and replay it. Right now, the mystery of Mike's death should be revealed. At last they would know who had beheaded him.

Melanie sat by him at the desk. She was an attractive woman in her early forties with long dark hair and glasses. She was nervous, this was likely to be a gruesome viewing. She would have preferred its details to have been revealed by somebody else.

‘Right,’ she licked her dry lips, ‘let's see what's been caught on camera.’

She flicked a switch, the machine started up. Cartwright leaned forward, stared.

The camera had recorded every detail, Mike’s mutilation, his murder and his killer. The picture was as clear as day, leaving, momentarily, Cartwright lost for words.

Suddenly the light went out, plunged the room into darkness. Only the screen before them was lit up showing all that had happened on that dreadful night.

‘Oh, my god!’ The officer gave a gasp of sheer horror and disbelief at what he saw.

That was when Melanie gave a scream. A scream that was suddenly cut off.

She slumped forward in her chair, fell against the detective. Something warm and sticky was shooting all over him. Blood was jetting from her slashed throat. She was groaning. Cartwright fumbled a torch from his coat pocket, flashed it on with bloody fingers. He gave a cry of shocked horror and disbelief at what he saw. Blood jetted from Melanie; a cut so deep that her head hung to one side.

Standing over her was a grotesque figure wielding a bloody knife, then sawing at her unprotected neck. Any second now she would be beheaded.

Her attacker was instantly recognisable. The huge bulbous head with its ugly features, the open mouth beneath the black moustache muttering hate and obscenities.

Ugly Edgar, the monster of local legend, had returned as vile and terrible as ever. Melanie slumped forward on to the desk. The monster’s dark sunken eyes flickered from the partially beheaded woman to Cartwright. The heavy blade, dripping blood with her blood, was turned towards the terrified policeman.

Cartwright froze. If only he had a weapon of some sort with which to defend himself, strike the vile monster down. But there was nothing within reach and, even if there had been, his shaking hands would not have been capable of using it.

Then the aggressor was upon him, flinging him back in his chair, arms sprawled helplessly. Totally defenceless. A grunt came from the brute, those fearful features were close to Cartwright’s own, wafting foul stinking breath. The stench of death.

The struggle knocked Melanie to the floor, a heap at Cartwright's feet, already dead, her open neck spouting blood, awaiting the final chop that would sever her head.

First, though, Cartwright had to pay the ultimate penalty. His head was pushed back, his neck fully exposed. He was pleading but only gurgles came from his mouth.

A downward strike, blood jetted over the fearsome face of his attacker. A deep cut, bone cracked.

The monster sawed, the head bumped on the floor, rolled away. The killer straightened up, turned back to the female corpse. Within a matter of seconds, she, too, was fully beheaded.

The murderer stood back, admired his handiwork. It had been a satisfying and successful night. He left the corpses where they lay, turned to walk back towards the door. There will be more. Many more.

Angela looked at the sculpture before her, a bust of her new lover, Ollie Coleborn. The proportions were out, the symmetry slightly off, the likeness, however, was unmistakable. But regardless of its artistic merit, her efforts proved futile.

Hoping to draw the same intensity of emotion from love as she had done from hate, Angela had wanted to cut the bonds her anger had somehow created with Ugly Edgar. A mutual feeling of anger, so powerful that it had reached through time and pulled him from death. She’d given him form when she’d made the head, she given him a bridge to cross back into this world, and he’d taken her husband’s body as his own, feeding off her rage and enacting her vengeance.

The subject of her art should have been him. The monster. She thought, to quell his rage, she would show him love. The villagers of old mocked him, showed him nothing but hostility and revulsion, culminating in being blamed for a murder with no proof. In truth, his crime was nothing more than being different, and his punishment was death.

But she’d created a sculpture of Ollie, she’d produced an outlet of her own desires. A selfish love.

Angela sunk in the chair, resting her elbows on the table and placed her face into her hands. She cried, not for the dead of the last few days, not for herself, but for Ugly Edgar. She felt his fear of over a century ago when an intruder had stormed his house. She felt the confusion he must have felt as Mister Whitely, the father of the murdered boy, screamed angry insults at him before beating him to the floor and raising an axe to his neck. A lifetime of insults and mockery from the other villagers. The tears he must have shed. The horror and panic he must have felt every time he left the house. The shame he must have felt for his own body.

Was it any wonder Angela had found such safety and security in this room? He must have felt the very same when he sat here. A place where he could run too. A place where he could hide and be free from the cruel judgement of others. Death and hatred may well have left a mark on this room, but so had the warmth of sanctuary; a feeling that Angela had sensed when she first moved in and viewed it with such optimism. A feeling that only intensified when Mike turned abusive. This was her place, away from him.

It was the very same day he finally brought his violence into the workshop that Ugly Edgar took form, unknowingly willed into life by her hands.

She cried for him, her kindred spirit. A man who, even after death faced a hundred years of taunts and name calling through childish nursery rhymes and campfire ghost stories.

She cried for the victim, Ugly Edgar.

A sound from inside the house startled her, and instantly she silenced her sobs, listening to footsteps growing louder.

Suddenly Ugly Edgar appeared in the doorway of the workshop. The gruesome features were unchanged, but the body seemed different than in her dream; no longer squat but more like that of a normal human being, almost agile.

He stood there, regarded Angela with an expression of hatred. In his extended hand was a heavy butcher’s knife, probably stolen for the purpose of his maniacal mutilations. A hiss which was undoubtedly a threat as he moved into the small room.

As he closed in on her, Angela grabbed the wrist of the hand which held the threatening knife and was surprised how easily she could grip it, twist it away from her. Her assailant grunted, pushed her back onto the settee in the corner, the one on which she had often relaxed.

She forced the knife around, the sharp blade cut into his shoulder, bringing a cry of pain from him. But his strength was greater than hers and she found herself lying beneath him, the razor-sharp blade edging towards her neck.

Gavin had been watching the house opposite for some time. A light shone in an upstairs window. It could be the police carrying out the investigations. If not, then was it Angela? She’d left saying she had to go somewhere and ran out the house. His curiosity prompted him to go and investigate.

He had seen somebody enter, someone with a much bigger build than the young woman. It was all very odd. He took his hunting rifle from the steel cabinet in the rear room, just in case. It was the one with which he had shot that giant crab almost half a century ago when the huge crustaceans had invaded the Welsh shores. The crab had injured his leg, but he had managed to shoot it in the eyes at point-blank range. It had died instantly, thus saving his life. One of its mighty claws hung on his living room wall, truly a trophy.

Now he might have to use that rifle again. Holding it in readiness he pushed open the unlocked door of the cottage. He stood there listening, trembling slightly. The sound of movement upstairs came to his ears. A kind of struggle, grunting, then a scream which was stifled immediately. More grunting.

Angela? She had gone out earlier sometime before dusk. Surely she would not have returned to her former home where her husband had been brutally murdered…

There was no time to lose. He mounted the stairs, reached the landing. From within Angela's former studio came the sounds of a struggle; fearsome grunting, a female scream.

Gavin kicked open the door, stood aghast at the scene which greeted him. Angela was sprawled on the couch, the dreadful figure, which was doubtless Ugly Edgar, astride her, a huge knife in his hand. Angela had a grip on his wrist struggling to keep the blade away from her neck.

Gavin did not hesitate. The rifle came up to his shoulder spontaneously, a fleeting memory of his desperate encounter with that giant crab over half a century ago. A shot rang out, deafening in that enclosed space. Ugly Edgar straightened and rolled over onto the floor. His limbs spread-eagled, face staring up. Not a movement came from him.

He was dead, killed outright. Like that giant crab all those years ago. Angela reared up shaking uncontrollably.

‘Oh, thank God you came, Gavin,’ she stammered. ‘Another few seconds and I should have been beheaded like... like Mike and the others.’

Gavin moved forward, knelt down by the prone corpse. There was something odd about that gruesome face. Ugly Edgar, but somehow different.

‘What is it?’ Angela spoke in faltering tones. ‘He's dead, isn't he?’

‘Dead as a dodo.’ Gavin stretched out a hand, ran his fingers over the face. ‘There's something very odd here…’

Instead of soft flesh the surface was rigid, no flexibility.

‘Well, I'll be damned!’ he grunted in shocked surprise. ‘He's wearing a mask!’

Gavin's fingers probed, located the elastic which held the mask in place. He pulled, it snapped and the horrific covering fell away, revealing the fleshy features beneath.

‘Jesus Almighty!’ Shear shock, almost disbelief as recognition was instant. ‘I... I don't believe it!’

‘What is it?’ Angela scrambled up, peered over Gavin's shoulder.

‘It's... it's... Ollie, my own son, he has been Ugly Edgar all along. He carried out these terrible murders!’

A groan from the body and a shake of his shoulders made Gavin and Angela step back in fright. Slowly, Ollie’s eyes opened, rolling in their sockets as he struggled to focus.

Pushing himself up into a sitting position, Ollie stared up at his father and his lover, then wiped the blood from his face.

The mask had saved him! The clay had absorbed the impact of the gunshot. It had made a crack in the mask, jagged pieces of which had in turn cut into him, but the bullet had not penetrated!

‘Ollie! Ollie, I loved you!’ Angela cried in shock.

‘And I you!’ he said groggily, as he slowly rose on unsteady feet. ‘Don’t you see? It’s why all this began!’

Gavin looked at his son aghast, keeping the barrel aimed squarely on him.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ the old man shouted. ‘What have you done?’

‘It’s not my fault,’ Ollie implored. ‘For weeks I’d watched Angela come and go over the road, and when we finally spoke, I was shocked to see the cuts and bruises. Oh, you did well to hide them,’ he turned to Angela, ‘but I knew what was going on. After you left my house on that first meeting, I paced the floor, angry at myself for letting you go back to the cottage. Back to him! What kind of monster was I to knowingly let you walk back into an abusive relationship?’

Ollie’s face twisted with frustration as he remembered that evening.

‘And so, after much wasted time pondering what to do, I marched across the road to confront you. To find out the truth and, if needs be, protect you. But by the time I got there I could already see the pair of you arguing through the window. Keeping out of range of your CCTV I couldn’t make out what you were saying, but when I watched him take hold of you and hit you I felt an anger inside me like I’d never felt before. Heading round the back, I slipped the lock and waited to catch your husband alone. This was a conversation I needed to have man to man. I heard him in your workshop and quietly made my way up the stairs. We argued and fought. The anger boiled over; it possessed me. The next thing I knew I was stood over his dead body.’

Angela flinched as Ollie reached out a bloody hand to her.

‘Panic set in,’ he continued, ‘and hearing you come up the stairs I hid. I don’t why I’d brought it with me, protection I guess, a way to pose a threat, but I had my hunting rifle. I fired it. You didn’t feel the impact of the dart, I guess the sight of the corpse must have numbed you, but the tranquiliser soon took hold. And while you were unconscious, I began the grisly work of cutting up Mike’s body. At first, I tried to burn him in the kiln, but it wasn’t quick enough, so I took the pieces and buried them in the woods, using your clay to pack them in tightly, deep down into the earth. I made a mistake with that accursed laptop. The hole was too shallow. By the time I came back for the head, you’d revived and were on the phone to the cops. So I ran back home. But I did it for you. I wanted to protect you. You have to believe me!’

Tears collected in his eyes and began to gently trickle down his bloodied face.

‘Paranoid I’d left something in the house that the cops would eventually find, something they could trace back to me, I went back to the house the next night. When those kids broke in I should have just ran, but I couldn’t. The rage swelled inside of me. The bloodlust. Ashamed as I am to admit it, I had enjoyed killing Mike, and the feeling was just as pleasurable as I watched those teenagers squirm in their own blood.’ His face was filled with regret. ‘After that I couldn’t stay away. Something kept calling me.’

‘So it wasn’t a ghost?’ Angela tried to make sense of what he was saying. ‘It wasn’t Ugly Edgar? But my dreams. My visions…’

‘Why that damn mask?’ his father asked, gruff and uncaring of his son’s tears.

‘It was in the workshop when I fought with Mike. I took it. It was like it called to me. Spoke to me. Justified what I had done. And so I turned it into a mask. When I hear it, I’m something more. When I put it on, I’m powerful and fearless. With it, I can murder without guilt or shame.’ Again, he reached for his lover. ‘Angela, please you have to understand. It’s like a drug. A possession. It’s not my fault.’

‘There’s no ghosts here. No possessions. Just a murderous psychopath I once called my son! Get away from her!’ Gavin shouted as he took hold of Ollie’s hand and pulled it from Angela’s arm.

Ollie lashed out, snatching the gun from his father’s hands and throwing it to the floor.

Driven by a rage and disgust at what his son had become, Gavin threw himself at Ollie. The pair grappled, but it was the younger of the pair that gained the upper hand. With superior strength, Ollie wrestled his father’s fists away and threw him across the room. Landing against a corner of the kiln, Gavin groaned, the air forced from his lungs as he heard a rib crack.

He tried to catch his breath, tried to stand and defend himself, but the paralysis of shock was already beginning to take hold, his vision filling with black dots as unconsciousness started to claim him. Ollie picked up the bloodied knife and stood over his father. He looked down remorselessly at his prone opponent, his eyes burning with hatred and bloodlust.

He felt the mask, despite it lying cracked on the floor.

He no longer needed to wear it on him. It was in him.

Somewhere he heard the laugh of Ugly Edgar. He forced a smile on his lips as he drew the knife towards his father’s throat. The razor-sharp blade bit into the old man’s neck.

A loud report stopped Ollie in his tracks. The sound, so deafening it was as if he’d been submerged underwater. Stunned and with his ears ringing, he turned to see Angela stood across the room holding his father’s rifle, its smoking barrel aimed at the growing patch of red on his stomach.

Ollie stumbled, dropping the knife as he reached out to try and steady himself.

Crashing against a line of shelves he did his best to grip onto them, but his blood-covered fingers found no purchase. With his weakening legs unable to support him, Ollie fell backwards, landing on the clay mask, and smashing it to smithereens.

Angela approached Ollie, kicking the shards away from her path as she drew closer. Standing over him, she was heartbroken at Ollie’s confession; heartbroken that a man that had shown so much kindness, a man that she had fallen in love with turned out to be just as vile as Mike.

But she was also grateful; grateful he was out for the count, unconscious as blood pooled around his body. Grateful, and relieved, at last they’d found the killer.

At last, she would be free.

‘Angela Cotton!’ A voice echoed around the house, a voice she’d encountered before in the police station. ‘Angela Cotton, we know you’re in there. I’m giving you five minutes to come out and confess to the murder of my boy.’

Despite the volume of the bellowing demand, Angela barely registered the voice. Her ears still ringing from the gunshot, her mind absorbed on the horrors that had just taken place.

‘Angela Cotton!’ Elvin shouted again from outside the house. ‘We’ve got the place surrounded, so don’t even think about making a run for it.’

Jeers and calls came from outside as the crowd responded to their leader. Angry voices. So many angry voices.

As she slowly watched Ollie fade in front of her, Angela hardly noticed the thunderous sounds of the baying crowd rushing the house and climbing the stairs. For a moment she had no sense of the world outside of her and Ollie, lost in a similar state to when she was sculpting; only this time it was born from despair. The man she loved lay before her at death’s door; wounds inflicted by her own hands. Torn between grief at the sight of the bleeding body, and relief that she’d saved herself and Gavin.

Her focus remained fixed on him. She didn’t even look up to see the horrified face of Elvin as he found her stood over Ollie Coleborn, her clothes covered in his blood. Nor did she hear him screaming to his band of vigilantes that it was time for revenge.

The mob poured into the room and took Angela by the arms, pulling her away from the body of her unconscious lover. As she was passed between the jeering crowd, it was like riding on a rough sea. The room span around her and she was unable to break free, the strength of the many as fierce and mighty as a storm-driven tide.

At last, three men held her still, forcing her to kneel in front of Elvin, who looked at her with a boiling leer.

‘We told them all along it was you that killed my boy!’ he screamed into her face. ‘We all knew it was you. You that killed your husband, you that went on an insane spree and murdered the others. You disgust me.’ He spat at her, causing the gathered men and women to whoop and cheer. ‘As the law won’t do anything to stop you,’ he continued, ‘then it’s up to us. What shall we do with her?’ he shouted, addressing the crowd.

‘Hang her up from the rafters.’

‘Throw her out the window.’

‘Cut her throat.’

Each suggestion provoked a wild cheer, their volume and malice growing with each one.

‘Hanging is too good for her. Lads, tie her down,’ Elvin commanded.

And with that, a swarm of hands, too many to fight against, picked Angela off the ground and laid her on her front, on top of her own worktable. She tried to struggle, tried to wriggle free, but it proved futile to fight against the will of the mob. She felt the burn against her skin as ropes were laid across her back and pulled tight, binding her to the tabletop. More were wrapped around her wrists and ankles, and tied tightly against the table legs. The only thing she could move freely was her head as it hung off the end of the workbench.

Angela’s tear-laden eyes scanned the screaming faces looking for a sympathetic response. She tried to plead her innocence, to beg for her life, but the crowd were not interested in listening. They demanded blood. A death was required to satisfy their revenge, and the closer it drew, the more their excited cheers and degrading insults filled the room that had once been Angela’s sanctuary.

Elvin stood above her with an evil smile on his face and held up a large knife.

‘You’re lucky,’ he said as he let Angela take a good look at the sharp steel in his hand, ‘I brought my best knife. It’ll slice through your neck like you were a Christmas turkey.’

The threat hyped the crowd once more, enraptured by the promise of what they were about to witness.

Angela felt Elvin brush her hair away from the nape of her neck and hold it still with his sweaty hand. She tried to beg, but terror had stolen her voice.

Looking up through tear-filled eyes, she saw a figure in the corner of the workshop, unnoticed by the crowd. His twisted frame and hunched back were as familiar as his ugly head he once wore as a mask. Ollie had risen to his feet, bleeding and bruised. His body was broken and his limbs warped, but with the wall as his support he watched on with a fixed grin and deep sunken eyes; a face she’d seen before, in the police cell, a living corpse hanging from the rafters from a spectral rope. It was the man that had killed Ugly Edger a century ago; it was Mister Whitely!

She heard him speak but his lips didn’t move. Somehow his gentle, mellifluous tone managed to cut through the noise of the rabble around her, but only she seemed to hear it.

‘Do not cry, my darling.’ He spoke like the monster in her dreams.

‘But I didn’t do it!’ she screamed.

‘Didn’t you? They seem so sure of your guilt. Perhaps you did.’

‘You killed them!’

‘Come now, Angela. Think of the infamy. True or not, your story will live on longer than your body. Rumour will record the verdict regardless of the court’s official line. You will belong to the words of late-night ghost stories, and children’s rhymes of ridicule. And your legend will grow and distort and twist, becoming far uglier, far more reviled. They’ll turn you into a monster, and despite my crimes, I will be seen as the innocent victim in this. Again!’

Angela looked down on the floor and saw her sculpture looking up at her. A vile, grotesque mockery of Ollie’s face. The bust she’d made must have been knocked to the floor, damaging the sculpture and warping its features, as the wet clay was kicked under foot by the blood-thirsty villagers. It seemed fitting. A likeness of the real man underneath.

With no more tears left to shed, Angela closed her eyes.

She felt the bite of the blade as it sliced into the soft flesh of her neck.

PC Edwards climbed the stairs of the cottage. He’d been alarmed not to find Jones on guard when he’d come to start the overnight shift. Hearing the jubilant noises coming from somewhere upstairs, he was more curious than panicked.

It sounded like a party.

When he reached the doorway to the room that had once been Angela Cotton’s workshop, he was shocked to see the crowd; a crowd of good-natured folk that he recognised from the village. A crowd he’d shared a pint with. A crowd he’d gone to church with. A crowd he’d gone to school with.

He’d reached for his radio when he’d seen Angela Cotton tied down on a table with Elvin sawing a knife through her neck. But as he stepped into the room, he saw Ollie Coleborn barely standing and covered in wounds that drenched his clothes in crimson blood. Beside the door, Edwards found something else. Another body. The face was unrecognisable but the badge number was clear to read. It was Jones, slumped in the corner, with his jaw pulled open and stuffed with clay until the poor bastard suffocated.

It was then he understood. And then he felt the hate.

Someone had killed his colleague, his friend.

Someone had to pay.

His thoughts boiled with a rage he’d never felt before. Evidence or not, it was obvious what had happened here. It had been obvious all week. If they hadn’t followed the rule book, they could have stopped this mayhem days ago. Jones could have still been alive.

He squeezed his fists, feeling the bite of his fingernails as they dug into his palms. He knew what he had to do.

The village needed its revenge.

PC Edwards turned his back.

And a new legend was born.

Slowly the dawn light began to filter in through the barred window.

Elvin sat on the bench, slumped forward with his head in his hands. His life was over.

The village was in shock by the events that had unfolded, and the law had no favour for vigilantes. As much as the mob tried to deny their guilt in the killing, it was inescapable. But with one man clearly fingered as the ringleader, their collective conscience could find some comfort. Even though that night would replay in their minds every time they slept.

Elvin curled his hands into fists and pushed his fingernails deep into his palms. This time the rage was directed on himself. The same rage that had consumed him. Possessed him.

Destroyed him.

A noise caught his attention. A creaking. Something swinging, and a rhythmic knocking noise like something was striking the wall. He looked up, and for a moment he saw something in the dark. A flash of a grinning smile, a pair of beady eyes and a thin moustache. A belt pulled tight around the neck of a hanging corpse, blue with death.

Elvin started, pushing his back against the wall as he tried to escape the proximity of this nightmare. But the image vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving behind an impression in his mind’s eye, one that twisted in the emptiness, growing and distorting to become just as chilling as the ethereal apparition.

The darkness churned in the corners of his prison, writhing over itself as outlines of Angela’s screaming features washed through the tide of shadows. Elvin felt the blood on his hands, tasted it on his lips.

A silhouette loomed by the cell door. The figure did not move, did not speak, only watched impassively as Elvin slipped the belt from his own trousers.

Anger only breeds more anger, Elvin understood that now, the lesson becoming all too clear as it finally turned on him, pulling him with greedy intent towards death.

Stepping up on the toilet, he looped his belt around the overhead cistern and prayed it would hold.

He looked towards the figure, but its features were shrouded in darkness. It offered no sign, no encouragement or intervention, only a monolithic passivity.

Feeling the leather grip his neck as he leant into the loop, Elven wondered if there was an afterlife. He wondered what he might find there, and whether anything would be as monstrous as he’d become.

Ollie watched on through the window in the cell door. The police questioning had only been a formality, the charging officer had explained, it was clear he had nothing to do with the terrible events. His injuries alone proved his innocence. And despite his injuries, Ollie insisted on getting straight back to work and taking Elvin’s case.

It’s why he was here now, heading to the cell to speak with Elvin before the formal interview took place. The grieving father had been blamed by every one of the witnesses the police had spent the last twelve hours interviewing. Things did not look good for the man.

Ollie smiled as he silently watched Elvin step off the toilet, the belt taking his weight. The prisoner thrashed wildly in the air for the last moments of his life, his feet kicking against the wall. Thankfully the cells were solid, and the noise didn’t carry, giving Ollie time to enjoy the sight of this successful suicide.

The village’s spirit was broken, shame ran deep amongst the inhabitants, a new generation with blood on their hands, haunted by guilt.

Deep within Ollie something laughed. Something that had hold of him. Something that had been kept alive with stories; late night tales and outlandish nursey rhymes. Its fires had been rekindled, the ash heap reignited with the fuel of terror, and like a phoenix from the flames, it had risen, with new power and a feast of fear and destruction to engorge itself on.

Angela and Mike had been the spark to set the whole thing in motion. The rage, the fear, the hatred. Mister Whitely had been possessed by it a hundred years ago. Had killed his own boy, then turned his murderous bloodlust towards Ugly Edger. It had been a bounty then, and it would be again.

Ollie watched Elvin’s thrashing fade. He’d give it a few more minutes before he alerted the police. He wanted to make sure he was dead before running down the corridor shouting for help.

Ollie had a busy day, he needed to visit his father in hospital later. The old man had still not regained consciousness, but when he did, he’d have another tale to tell.

One last story…

Guy N. Smith has been a best-selling author for over 40 years. During his lifetime he wrote over 70 horror novels and numerous short stories in the genre, as well as working in various other genres including children’s books, westerns and erotica.

From the 1970s Guy released books every decade, all the way through to the 2020s, delighting audiences with such beloved titles as his Crabs and Sabat series.

J. R. Park lives in Bristol, UK. He is the author of Terror Byte, Punch, Upon Waking and The Exchange. He teamed up with extreme horror author Matt Shaw to co-write the satirical and brutal Postal in 2017, and released his fresh take on the werewolf sub-genre with Mad Dog. His mind has been described by Scream Magazine as ‘the darkest place in the universe’, whilst DLS Reviews has proclaimed him to be ‘a much-needed shot in the arm for gritty pulp horror.’

Horror lurked in the maze of cliff caves where a new generation of giant crabs were breeding.

In 1975 an army of gigantic crabs, the result of an underwater nuclear experiment, attacked the Welsh coastline.

The battle was bloody, many lives were lost until the crustacean invaders were defeated.

Over the ensuing years they turned up in the oceans of the world with further terrible slaughter of humans. Finally, though, it was believed that these monsters from the deep had been eradicated. Only memories of their invasions of land remained with the older inhabitants, tales of their depredations on mankind were whispered but often ridiculed by the modern generations.

Until a few of the survivors returned to the Welsh coast and began breeding secretly in a maze of caverns beneath the cliffs, preparing for a further attack on mankind.

Ten Tales of Terror

What lies in the dark? What stirs in the murk? What creeps and crawls in the blackness, fearful of the sun but thirsty for meat?

Lethal hauntings, murderous animals and uncanny curses rule the night, as Guy N Smith, master of pulp horror, unleashes a new set of nightmares to plague your dreams.

The tales within these pages tell of the evil in nature and the destructive psychosis of man; delusions and fever dreams from the dark hours.

Featuring the stories Beasts of the Dark Hours, Night of the Necrophile, The Lair of the Giant Squid, The Prison Cell Door, The Shrunken Head, The Clairvoyant, The Immortals, The Big One, The Last Crab and The Taxidermist.

Mad Dog Mooney was a ghost story. A legend that spooked even the most hardened of criminals. But when he came to Darkdale prison he proved all too real.

The inmates were shell shocked by his arrival and rumours persisted of his strange behaviour, whilst accusations from the media of cannibalism were not forgotten.

As tensions grew amongst the prison population, a jail break was planned to take place under the ethereal glow of a full moon…

“The final quarter is well worth the wait and is so filled with action, gore, twists and revelations that I’m almost tempted to challenge you to put the book down throughout the climax.”

– Jonathan Butcher, Ginger Nuts Of Horror

It’s carnival night in the seaside town of Stanswick Sands and tonight blood will stain the beach red.

Punch and Judy man, Martin Powell, returns after ten years with a dark secret. As his past is revealed Martin must face the anger of the hostile townsfolk, pushing him to the very edge of sanity.

Humiliated and stripped of everything he holds dear, Martin embarks on a campaign of murderous revenge, seeking to settle scores both old and new.

The police force of this once sleepy town can’t react quick enough as they watch the body count grow at the hands of a costumed killer.

Can they do enough to halt the malicious mayhem of the twisted Punch?

“Pulp horror is alive and well and once again causing all sorts of mayhem.”

– DLS Reviews

“The sheer effort and dedication that’s gone into creating this unbelievably comprehensive bibliography is breath-taking.” – DLS Reviews

The complete(ish) guide to collecting the works of Guy N. Smith.

A journey into collecting the works of prolific author Guy Newman Smith. The book covers all genres of the Great Scribbler's writing and contains over 950 pictures and useful details to assist any would-be collector.

The author has endeavoured to list and visually represent, through over 950 colour pictures, the vast catalogue of output from Guy N. Smith's 65+ years in print; from the early stories he had published in the Tettenhall Observer and Advertiser paper as a teenager through to the present day. A career that crosses fiction and non-fiction and has covered almost all possible genres along the way, from Self-Sufficiency to Westerns, via Countryside and Glamour magazines of the 70s, all in addition to the numerous horror and thriller titles he is better known for.

Content includes Fiction (all imprints/editions inc. non UK) and Non-Fiction Categories: Horror, Thriller, Countryside and Children's Novels, Omnibus Collections, Chapbooks, Graphic Novels, Anthologies, Fanzines, Booklets, Magazines (70s adult Glamour, Country Sport, Game-keeping, Horror etc.), Periodicals and Newspapers.

The book also contains an original Guy N. Smith short story ‘The Beast in the Cage’ along with humorous insight into the levels of collecting Guy N. Smith's works in ‘The Completist- A Cautionary Tale’ by author Shane P.D Agnew.

For further information on the Sinister Horror Company visit:

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Twitter @SinisterHC

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Table of Contents

- PROLOGUE
- CHAPTER ONE
- CHAPTER TWO
- CHAPTER THREE
- CHAPTER FOUR
- CHAPTER FIVE
- CHAPTER SIX
- CHAPTER SEVEN
- CHAPTER EIGHT
- CHAPTER NINE
- CHAPTER TEN
- CHAPTER ELEVEN
- CHAPTER TWELVE
- CHAPTER THIRTEEN
- CHAPTER FOURTEEN
- CHAPTER FIFTEEN
- CHAPTER SIXTEEN
- CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
- CHAPTER EiIGHTEEN
- CHAPTER NINETEEN
- CHAPTER TWENTY
- CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
- CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
- CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
- CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
- CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
- CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
- CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
- CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
- CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
- CHAPTER THIRTY
- CHAPTER THIRT ONE
- CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
- CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
- EPILOGUE