PEEL-BEHIND THEIR EYES. Book 1 (Complete)

Chapter 27. Braid's

Constable Jameson sat at the back of the incident room studying the case details of Meredith 1.8.8.2. He wasn't sure what Grayson expected him to find that they hadn't already figured out ten times over already. He knew he had no real experience in this area he was just a beat cop who was used to dealing with drunks, family squabbles and shoplifters not tracking down murders.

Feeling out of place he allowed his eyes to wander around the room. He watched as uniformed officers busied themselves on phones whilst typing away on keyboards. Every now and then one would place a hand over the phone's mouthpiece and call over a detective. Pointing at the PC monitors they would wave their phone in the air and nod as they explained details to them, moments later the detectives would frown shake their head and move away.

A door to Jameson's left opened and a man, detective Havers he recognized, walked out with a mobile phone to his ear and without stopping rushed out of the incident room, to where he hadn't a clue but he looked worried.

Returning his attention to the case at hand he thought for a moment, one thing he wondered about was the repeated mention of an older case, the Barringer case. He had heard rumors floating around the station about the Grimsby Gouger, but that case was well before his time, he hadn't even been born yet. In the Meredith case, they called the abductor and murderer a copycat, but he found it strange that after such a long time somebody would attempt to copy the older crime unless maybe it was someone more personally involved. Turning to the computer Jameson began to search all references to the Barringer case and the Grimsby Gouger, he wanted to see just what had happened back then.

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The crumbling terraced house sat at the end of the derelict row of likewise buildings. Soon to be demolished the boarded up house had been devoid of life for over a decade as had the rest of the abandoned street. Its interior was hidden from view by metal corrugated panels covered in graffiti, little of which could be called street art.

The gardens straining fence held back the bramble thicket that terrorized all would be trespassers. The missing gate allowed the creeping bramble to crawl its way into the moss covered street. A freshly beaten trench tore its way down the gardens pathway disappearing out of view behind the building where it stopped in front of an open door, its metal shutting lay discarded among the jungle of weeds.

Inside, the kitchen which now sat in twilight its corners damp and dark waited. Above the draining board, the window had been shattered long ago but the weather had still worked its way in past the shuttering and had taken its toll on the frame and the surrounding walls. Rotten wood and wallpaper crumbled and peeled. Decay hung in the air like a thick blanket touching and covering everything.

A thick layer of dust and mold covered the worktop and units, their doors hung askew revealing their entombed contents.

At the center of the room, the table and chairs were no longer ignored, their surfaces now having been recently cleaned and occupied. The table had been set for three, three sets of cutlery, three cups and three plates graced with napkins. At the head, the table sat a small quiet figure, a girl. She sat still, her hands either side of her empty plate, waiting. The sound of footsteps echoed from the hallway and echoed around the kitchen like small yet loud explosions. Out of the dark framed doorway stepped the shadowed figure of Richard Barringer. Clad in a floor-length black coat its hood pushed back to reveal his short dark hair and grinning face. From the depths of the coats sack like pocket Richard pulled out a pink handle brush and standing behind Rebecca's still form, he began to brush her hair.

"Did I tell you about my mother hmm, did I tell you about all the cruel and evil shit she put me and my sister through as children, how sadistic she was because of her little accident hmm, no! Well let me tell you now"