Inside Evil

Chapter 3 - Part II

*Inside Evil and its sequels are available on Amazon, Kobo, B&N, Smashwords and iBooks*

Roberta stared across at the individual in front of her as she felt freezing rain finally make its way through her multiple layers to trickle down her neck.

“Sorry, who are you again?” she asked.

“Detective Constable Frans. May I come in?”

Roberta stood on her doorstep after returning from the funeral, drenched through, her pink and numb hands fumbling in her bag as she tried to find her keys.

“What’s this about?”

“Miss Arlington, I’d like to speak to you about Vanessa Lingly, it really is important.”

“You better come in then,” Roberta replied as she finally managed to open the door. “Listen, would you mind if I just quickly changed, the lounge is just through there.”

“Not a problem Miss Arlington, I’m happy to wait,” replied DC Frans as Roberta ran up the stairs.

Moments later, Roberta made her way back down to the living room, having thrown her sodden clothes into the bath and pulled on a tracksuit. DC Frans seemed to be running his eyes over the stack of books which Sam had steadily been trying to read through. ‘Myths and Legends, a beginners guide’, ‘How to tell fact from fiction’ and ‘The Taro Tellers Bible’ to name but a few were leant against the table in an entirely unstable way. On top of the heap slept a little white and ginger kitten, its head lolling over the side of the books in a position which couldn’t possibly be comfortable. Another cat was draped over the back of the sofa behind him, its black and white paws stretching tantalisingly close to start kneading the back of the officer’s suit.

 “I’m sorry about the mess, I haven’t had a chance to clean…if I’d known you were coming…,” Roberta said with great embarrassment as she noticed the uneaten pizza slices which had congealed over several days of being left on the table. She walked across the room and picked up a third black and cushion-like cat on the chair opposite DC Frans. It opened an eye, looked at her, looked at him, closed it again and started to purr blissfully away.

“Yes, well, I’ve only just got here, and wanted to get underway immediately. I came straight to see you as soon as we were told of the situation.” DC Frans said.

“What situation?” Roberta asked anxiously.

“The death of Vanessa Lingly of course,” Frans said, eying her suspiciously. “I know that this death is very out of the ordinary for this area, especially Ridgewood itself.”

Roberta stared at the man before her, a man who was looking a little uneasy. He went to place his arm on the edge of the sofa before quickly retracting it to his lap. Roberta was horrified to see a furball smeared into the fabric.

“Yes, well that’s the way we like it Detective,” she said, trying to cover her quite obvious embarrassment at letting the officer into her complete tip of a home. “Our little town is unknown, left on its own, its own little safe haven.”

“Well that’s just it though, isn’t it? It’s proving not to be safe after all.”

There was a pause in the air as Roberta detected that Frans was preparing to discuss the evening of Vanessa’s death.

“Miss Arlington, can you tell me about the evening that you found Miss Lingly?”

“Haven’t you read the police reports? I told them everything I know.” Roberta was keen to avoid having to go over the evening’s events again. They were already plaguing her sleepless nights, and she wanted to avoid having to discuss them during daylight hours if possible.

“I’m taking over the case Miss Arlington, I just wanted to gauge your opinion on the..,” he chose the word carefully, “death.”

“Am I missing something here?” Roberta asked feeling slightly uneasy. “Vanessa’s been buried, I’ve just come from the funeral. Haven’t her parents had enough? Why are you bringing it all back up now?

“Because, I would like to know, how a perfectly healthy girl ends up dead in her high school. How the autopsy cannot place a time of death because all scientific indications are at odds with the known chronological events of the evening.”

“What do you want to me say?” Roberta said angrily, losing her nerve a little. “I have no idea what happened that night. It’s all I can think about and it’s likely to be all I think about for the rest of my life. I wish I’d never set foot in that corridor.”

Frans sat quietly for a few moments, allowing Roberta to gather herself. Her mouth was dry, and she ran her tongue along her gum line as she looked away briefly and clenched her jaw.

“Was there anything odd about her Miss Arlington, about the girl?” Frans questioned in a softer tone than before. “Anything at all?”

“Yes, she was ice cold and, well, from what the police said, she shouldn’t have been as she’d been seen alive only minutes earlier.”

“Anything else?”

“No, I’m sorry, I passed out through the shock of it all.”

“Please Miss Arlington, you have to think hard, was there anything odd about her clothes, what she was wearing?”

“No there wasn’t, wait….it’s probably nothing, but her heel had snapped off of her left shoe. What’s even weirder is my heel snapped too, left shoe.”

“Her shoe snapped? And you passed out?” asked Frans, and Roberta was sure that she caught a momentary flick of concern. She looked across at the detective on the couch and tried to work out what he was thinking. The room temperature seemed to drop, and within seconds her arms had goose bumps running up them. There was a feeling in the pit of her stomach, not sickness, not nerves, just a bad feeling. The black cat that had sat quietly on her lap until this point, stopped purring and looked up, its ears flat against its head.

“What is it?” Roberta asked as she looked at the face opposite her trying to stay as composed as possible.

“It’s happening again,” DC Frans replied simply.

 *I will be posting one or two scenes a week as the story builds. However, if you can't wait that long, Inside Evil is available on Amazon, Kobo, B&N, Smashwords and iBooks. 

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