The Valley of Longing 20

The question was accompanied by a yank that sent her spinning and stumbling across the room. She hit the bed and fell over it, landing heavily on the floor on the other side. Unaware that her call to the police station had been answered, Amy lost her grip on the phone, which bounced out of her hand to disappear under the bed. MORE concerned with protecting herself from the maniac who was obviously intent on causing her serious harm, and most likely on killing her, Amy gave no thought to the phone she had just lost as she struggled to her feet. At least she tried to, before she could make it further than her knees, she was grabbed and thrown onto her back. ‘What the hell were you doing looking around in my car?’ he demanded, punching Amy in the face as she tried to sit up. ‘Why are you so fucking nosey? I said, why are you so fucking nosey?’ Grabbing Amy by the front of her T-shirt, he pulled her up so he could punch her again, as a punishment for not answering him, not that she could have done so for the first blow had rocked her head back so that it struck the bedside cabinet behind her. He repeated the question several times, in different ways, and each time Amy failed to answer him, he hit her. Finally, it sank in that he was not going to get an answer because Amy was incapable of providing one. Once he realised that, he let go of her T-shirt, leaving her to drop to the floor with a thud. While the thud echoed around the bedroom, the madness that had overcome him began to fade; sense, or some semblance of it, began to return to his mind, though not before he was struck by a last -for the time being -burst of open insanity. ‘Look what you’ve made me do. Look at the mess you’ve made me make.’ HE kicked her in the stomach; he was tempted to kick her again, but forced himself to hold back. He couldn’t afford the luxury of wasting any more time; now that the madness was gone, and he was thinking a little more clearly, he realised that he had to move quickly if he wanted to avoid getting caught. He had no idea how much time he had before Tara got home, and he had to get Amy’s body out of there before she did, before she could see what he had done. He Didn’t know where he could take her - he certainly couldn’t dump her body where he had dumped Lynne and Lily, that would be the first place the police looked, but having a destination wasn’t half as important as getting her out of the house. He looked out of the window quickly, to be sure the yard was clear, then he bent to grab Amy by the front of her T-shirt. With a heave, he lifted her up from the floor; he had a good set of muscles, but it took all his strength to get her dead weight to his shoulder, even though she was not all that heavy, and he staggered a little as he made his way out of the room. ‘Doring Draad Police Station, how can I help you?’ Melissa answered the phone. ‘HELLO, is anyone there? Hello, Hello.’ She pressed the phone to her ear as she strained to hear anything that would suggest there was someone on the other end of the call. She was about to hang up when she heard something. ‘Why are you so fucking nosey?’ Melissa flinched, and quickly pulled the phone away from her ear, though not before she heard the unmistakeable sound of a fist striking flesh. ‘Sergeant, I think you should hear this,’ she called down the passage after covering the mouthpiece of the phone. While she waited for Mitchell, she listened with growing horror to the sound of someone being violently assaulted. ‘What is it?’ Mitchell asked upon reaching the counter. Melissa answered the question by putting the call on speaker; at the same time, she silenced the microphone, so she and Mitchell could speak without being heard by whoever was on the other end of the call. ‘I want to be wrong,’ she said, ‘but that sounds a lot like someone getting beaten up.’ Mitchell nodded his agreement. ‘You’re right, the question is, who; who’s being attacked, and who’s doing the attacking, and where’s the attack happening?’ He looked at the screen on the phone system in the hope of seeing a number he recognised, but was out of luck. ‘Do you know the number?’ he asked. Melissa wracked her brain, but had no more luck recognising the number than Mitchell. ‘No idea,’ she said with an unhappy shake of her head. ‘If I’ve seen it before, I don’t remember it.’ That didn’t surprise her, she had a lousy memory for numbers, to be sure it wasn’t a number she should know, she took out her phone so she could check it against her phonebook. The number didn’t match any of those in her phonebook, nor those in Mitchell’s when he thought to take out his phone to copy her; despite that, both officers were sure that the call was coming from someone in the village. ‘What’re we going to do?’ Melissa asked, afraid that they were listening to the person who had killed Lynne and Lily as he attacked a third young girl. Mitchell was quick to answer that. ‘You’re going to stay here and call everybody. I want the inspector here to help you try to figure out who’s been attacked, and I want you to send Paul, Michael and Anthony to meet me at Wild’s place, and tell them to hurry, I want them there before he can do anything permanent to whoever he’s attacking.’ ‘But we don’t know that Mr Wild’s attacking anyone,’ Melissa said, not happy that Mitchell was leaping to the conclusion that the author was responsible for what they had heard on the phone. ‘We’ve got no reason for thinking that he’s attacking, or has attacked, anyone. That voice is familiar, but I’m not sure it’s Mr Wild.’ ‘We’re got plenty of reason,’ Mitchell told her, starting down the passage to his office; he returned almost immediately with a file, which he slapped down on the counter in front of Melissa. ‘Read that, But call everyone before you do.’ With that he strode around the counter and out of the station so he could get on his way. With the phone lines still open and on speaker, in case anything was said that could be used to identify either attacker or victim - it would have been good if they had been able to record the phone call for future use, but that was not something they had the technology to do - Melissa used her mobile to make the calls she had to, at the same time, she flipped open the file so she could see what it was Mitchell wanted her to read. She saw straight away that it was Jack Wild’s personnel file from Suid - Draai police, the full file, not the summary they had received before. It took only a short while for Melissa to see what had caused Mitchell to react the way he had; the file presented the image of a man who was prone to violence, including violence against women, but by the time she got to the end of it, she realised that Mitchell had only taken what he wanted to from the file. The confusion she had already been feeling with regard to Jack Wild and Sergeant Mitchell, and the latter’s certainty regarding the former’s guilt, was deepened by reading the file. She couldn’t deny that Jack had control issues when it came to violence, but the reports detailing each of the incidents in which he had been accused of violence, made it clear that the incidents were either self - defence, the results of provocation, or, in the case of the allegations made by two young women, which were most likely the incidents on which Mitchell was basing his presumption of guilt, false. She was relieved when Inspector Stevens agreed with her - it took her a short while to summon the courage to say what she was thinking, following her superior’s arrival - that Jack couldn’t be arrested on what they had, and that if he was arrested, it might jeopardise any case they tried to put together against him in the future. She doubted that Mitchell was going to be very happy with her when he realised what she had done, but she found that she didn’t care; the only thing that mattered to her just then was figuring out who they had heard being attacked, and who was doing the attacking, neither of which was easy since beyond the ‘nosey bitch’ phrase, which suggested the victim was female, and the number the call came from, they had no clues.

‘Hi, is Tara home?’ Hastily, He pulled the blanket he was arranging down so it covered Amy’s body and spun around. The panic that set in at the thought that Amy’s body had been seen subsided when he saw that it was only Daisy, and she showed no sign of being aware of what he had done, or of what he was doing. ‘Not yet,’ He said, pleased that he sounded completely normal, and his racing mind was not obvious. Daisy might not have seen anything suspicious, but when Amy was discovered missing, she was bound to mention that she had seen him at the house, and when; no matter how stupid Sergeant Mitchell was, he didn’t imagine he would have any difficulty connecting his presence at the house with Amy’s disappearance. He couldn’t allow Daisy to tell anyone he had been there, but he wasn’t sure what to do. After a moment, he was struck by what he could only think of as an inspiration. ‘Actually, I’m on my way to meet her, why don’t you come along.’ ‘Okay, yeah,’ Daisy said without hesitation, showing no sign of being afraid or concerned, rather she looked excited at being invited to go along with him. ‘Get in then,’ he told her. ‘I’ve just got to finish sorting something out back here, then we’ll be good to go.’ He waited until Daisy had climbed into the passenger seat of the Land Rover, and he was sure she couldn’t see what he was doing, then he adjusted the blanket to be sure it was covering Amy fully, and that she wouldn’t be revealed by accident. Only when he was satisfied did he close the boot and get behind the wheel. ‘Where are we going?’ Daisy asked as he turned off the road less than five kilometers from the farm. She had never been down the dirt path they were on now, but she knew it led to an old farm, and she couldn’t imagine why Tara would be there; despite that, she didn’t feel afraid, only surprised. Fear replaced her surprise, however, when she saw the way he was looking at her. He had seen Daisy a number of times, but never thought of her as anything but a young girl, when he thought of her at all. Now, though, he found himself looking at her as he would a girl he was interested in taking to bed, and he liked what he saw. She was young, but she was developing into an attractive girl, and he felt himself becoming aroused. ‘Where are we going?’ Daisy repeated her question. With an effort, she tore her gaze from his, the hint of lust in his eyes - she had never been looked at like that before, but some instinct told her what was behind the look - scared her, at the same time, it gave her a tingly feeling she didn’t understand, but which made her squirm in her seat. ‘Why would Tara be out here?’ ‘She isn’t,’ he told her. There was an edge to his voice that he quickly suppressed. ‘I’ve got to take care of something before we go and meet her. You don’t mind, do you?’ As he asked the question, he dropped a hand to her leg and began stroking it up and down, caressing her thigh through the denim of her jeans. The tingly feeling that had begun with the look increased at his touch, but so did her fear. Despite her excitement at his sudden interest in her, Daisy could not help feeling that there was something wrong. ‘What do you have to do?’ ‘D’you always ask so many questions?’ He wanted to know. ‘Hasn’t anyone ever told you that men prefer girls who know how to be quiet?’ ‘S - sorry,’ Daisy was glad when the hand was taken from her leg, but the sudden sharpness with which he spoke to her made her fear him more. His temper, which had seemed to be just below boiling point for the past week, since he killed Lynne, erupted at this minimal provocation, and he lashed out with the hand that had previously been caressing Daisy. He hit her in the face, knocking her sideways and sending her head into the window in the passenger seat. ‘I said shut up,’ He snapped as Daisy groaned and gasped in pain. It wasn’t what he had said, but was how his mind interpreted his own words. ‘Why Can’t you girls ever do what you’re told?’ He demanded, not at all interested in receiving an answer….