Dying in the Dark

Table of Contents

Cover

By Sally Spencer

Title Page

Copyright

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 Eighteen

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

Epilogue

The Charlie Woodend Mysteries

THE SALTON KILLINGS

MURDER AT SWANN'S LAKE

DEATH OF A CAVE DWELLER

THE DARK LADY

THE GOLDEN MILE TO MURDER

DEAD ON CUE

THE RED HERRING

DEATH OF AN INNOCENT

THE ENEMY WITHIN

A DEATH LEFT HANGING

THE WITCH MAKER

THE BUTCHER BEYOND

DYING IN THE DARK

STONE KILLER

A LONG TIME DEAD

SINS OF THE FATHERS

DANGEROUS GAMES

DEATH WATCH

A DYING FALL

FATAL QUEST

The Monika Paniatowski Mysteries

THE DEAD HAND OF HISTORY

THE RING OF DEATH

ECHOES OF THE DEAD

BACKLASH

LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER

A WALK WITH THE DEAD

 

 

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First published in Great Britain and the USA 2005 by

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

9-15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey SM1 1DF.

eBook edition first published in 2013 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

Copyright © 2005 by Sally Spencer.

The right of Sally Spencer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Spencer, Sally

Dying in the dark

1. Woodend, Charlie (Fictitious character) - Fiction

2. Police - England - Fiction

3. Detective and mystery stories

I. Title

823.9'14 [F]

ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-6186-3 (cased)

ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0110-2 (ePub)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

This ebook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

M
aria Rutter was sitting on a bench in Whitebridge Corporation Park, thinking about what she knew – and what she didn't!

She knew it was a
bench
she was sitting on, because she could feel the wooden slats pressing against her bottom. (‘Your perfect little bottom,' her husband had called it – but not recently.)

She knew it was a
park
because she could hear ducks calling to each other across the pond. (And where else would there be wildfowl so close to the hum of the passing traffic?)

She knew it was
autumn
. (She had only to move her feet a little to have them brush against the brown, brittle leaves; only to rotate the toe of her shoe to hear them crackle as they disintegrated.)

She knew it had been
raining
. (The earth, the grass and the flowers all had a distinctive smell which came only after rain.)

And she knew it was the
Corporation
Park, rather than any of the other parks in Whitebridge, partly because of the time it had taken to drive here, and partly because her husband had told her it was – and why should he lie? (Why
should
he lie? Why should he
lie
?)

She was sure he hadn't lied to her when they'd first started walking out together. Sure that he hadn't used their marriage certificate as licence to stop telling her the truth. But that had been then – and this was now.

She heard a clattering sound, coming from beside her.

Damn! she thought.

Her white stick, which she'd balanced against the edge of her seat, must have somehow managed to fall over. She groped around with her foot – rustle, rustle, rustle went the dried leaves – and managed to locate it.

She couldn't be bothered to pick it up if it was only going to fall down again. She'd retrieve it when it was time to leave.

Her keen ears – even keener since the accident – detected the sound of thrashing about in the bushes behind her, and she understood immediately what it was.

The lovers' passion must be burning strongly for them to chance making love in the middle of the park, she thought. And with a cold wind blowing in from the moors,
public
exposure was not the only kind they risked.

She smiled briefly at her own play on words, but the dark preoccupations of her mind soon melted the smile away.

She and Bob had once been like this couple, she thought. Not just in love, but in lust.
So much
in lust that they, too, would have risked almost anything to satisfy each other.

The rustling behind her stopped, to be followed by the sound of zips being zipped, studs being popped back into place, and other articles of clothing being adjusted.

‘That was lovely, wasn't it?' a man's voice said.

His partner made no reply.

‘Just like it used to be,' the man said, a hint of concern creeping into his voice.

‘You said I was the only one who mattered to you,' the woman said.

‘You
are
the only one who matters to me!'

‘You said we'd be together for ever.'

‘We will be.'

‘Then what about
her
?'

‘She's a complication. No more.'

‘She seems like more than that to me.'

Was she suddenly going mad? Maria asked herself.

Was this dialogue – which she'd
thought
was taking place in the bushes – actually only being played out in her own fevered mind?

Because while she had never actually
had
this same conversation with Bob, she had certainly
imagined
it often enough in the previous few days.

The lovers – whether behind her, or only in her brain – had fallen silent. Now she heard a new sound – the noise of rubber wheels bumping over the uneven flag-stoned path.

‘Are you all right?' Bob's voice asked, worriedly.

‘I'm fine,' Maria said.

‘Well, you don't look it. In fact, you've gone quite pale.'

‘Is the baby asleep?'

‘Yes, I thought we were going to have real trouble with her dropping off at first, but by the time we'd got past the duck pond—'

‘Sit down,' Maria commanded.

‘Don't you think we should be getting back home now? I know the baby's well wrapped up, but it's still turning quite chilly. And anyway, I'm worried about you.'

‘Sit!' Maria said, and felt the bench give slightly, as Bob lowered himself down beside her.

‘What's
really
the matter?' Bob asked, sounding like the concerned husband she'd thought he always would be.

‘Are you looking at me?'

Using your seeing eyes to look into my lifeless ones?

Bob laughed. ‘Of course I am. I thought you could always tell whether I was or not.'

‘I
used
to be able to tell.'

There was a pause, then Rutter said, ‘What have you heard?'

‘What
is there
to hear?'

Another pause. ‘I had an affair,' Rutter admitted. ‘But it's over. It's been over for nearly a year. If … if you can forgive me, I'll make it right again. Things can be just like they used to.'

Maria felt a shiver of horror run through her whole body, a horror which only deepened when she heard the words which came, without her willing them, from her own mouth – ‘You said I was the only one who mattered to you.'

‘You are!'

‘You said we'd be together for ever.'

‘We will be.'

Am I mad? Maria wondered. Did I only imagine I heard these same words earlier? Am I saying them now? Did I say them earlier and am
now
only imagining them? Or have the words
never
been spoken? Is all this just my thoughts? Do Bob – and the baby – only really exist inside my head?

Once – long ago – she would have focused her eyes on some solid object, in the hope that would bring her back to reality. But now she couldn't see – and any focusing she did would have to be accomplished in her
mind's
eye.

How could she make this seem real? she asked herself. How could she make it seem concrete?

‘Who did you have this affair with?' she demanded.

‘Does that really matter?'

‘Yes, it bloody well does! Was it with Monika Paniatowski?'

‘You seem to know already, so why ask?'

‘She came to my house!' Maria said outraged. ‘She sat down to dinner at our table! We laughed and joked together!'

‘She likes you. She really does.'

‘Is that why she stole my husband?'

‘She didn't steal me.'

‘What
did
she do then?
Borrow
you?'

‘I love you,' Rutter said helplessly. ‘I always have. I loved you even when I was betraying you.'

‘So why did you go with her? Because she's a
whole
woman? Because she can
see
?'

‘
You're
a whole woman. And it wasn't like that at all.'

‘So you loved
her
, did you?'

‘Yes, I suppose I did.'

‘And you
still
love her?'

‘I haven't so much as touched her on the arm since we broke up,' Rutter said. ‘We don't even go out drinking together, unless we know that someone else is going to be there.'

He knew the words were a mistake the moment they had spilled out of his mouth.

‘You
still
love her,' Maria repeated.

‘Not in the way I love you.'

‘Could you pick up my stick for me?'

‘Yes, of course. But—'

‘I want to go home now.'

‘I want to put it all behind me,' Rutter repeated desperately. ‘I want to make it up to you and the baby.'

‘It might be too late for that,' Maria said.

‘Might be?' Rutter asked, the anguish evident in his voice. ‘Do you mean you still haven't made up your mind?'

‘That's right,' Maria agreed. ‘I still haven't made up my mind.'

‘I
tell you, I wish I'd been lucky enough to work with Paco Ruiz when he was in his prime,' Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend said enthusiastically, as the barman placed another round of drinks on the table. ‘What a bobby that man must have been! An' as to the conditions he had to work under, well it makes you think twice before you complain yourself! The boss he had in Madrid, before the Civil War, makes our Chief Constable seem like gentle Jesus.'