‘I don’t know …’
‘Come off it, Nipper. You truly want a baby hanging round your neck once you’re gallivanting round the world with your men friends?’
‘Suppose not. All right. But I’ll check up on her, see?’
‘Good girl. You’d be unnatural if you didn’t want to see her now and then. You just come and ask and I’ll show her to you. OK?’
‘Yeah, suppose so.’
‘And don’t forget. Be up the Ridge on the thirtieth. You won’t regret it.’
‘Might.’
It was hard waiting. Even though it was only a couple of weeks I was close to busting. Most nights I went down town trolling but it was stupid. After Foreman it didn’t seem as if any guy I could find to screw knew how to do it. I started to dream about bloody Littleman and woke up howling. Mum took no notice. Once I’d got rid of the brat she’d lost interest. She was on the Social now because the Co-op wouldn’t take her back. Hardly surprising, silly bitch! Fancy thinking she could get away with lifting money out the till! Still, she was quiet enough and give me no cheek when I got iffy which I do regular when I has to go without it.
Christ, them days went slow. Sometimes I’d plan out what I was going to do once I’d got this extra zip the old girl had said I’d get. I’d buy myself a Rolls or better still, a Chevvy, and I’d get a hunk to be my chauffeur and I’d go on the biggest spending spree anybody ever went on. Other times I’d think up faces for Littleman – Nick Nolte or Kevin Costner – and then I’d think about what the rest of him’d look like and groan. Yeah, it was a shitty time for me. Had to go round with crossed legs most days.
When the day come I was in the bath all afternoon. I shaved my pits, my legs, near on everywhere. I done myself up real careful and got my black dress out so’s to look dead seductive. Not what you might call suitable for messing around in the woods up on the Ridge but the weather was fine and I’d got a spare pair of stockings ready.
In the bus going up there I was so fidgety I had to keep on changing seats. The bus creep tells me to sit down but I don’t shiv him because we can do without a sodding crash. Jesus, I was impatient. I kept thinking when I was the boss round here I’d get the buses to stop only two or three times. This bloody bus stopped all over the shop. It even bloody stopped when there wasn’t anybody wanting to get on. So I started to think about how I’d zap creeps when I come into my power. How I could even zap the old girl. Teach her a few lessons. A little respect. And then I goes back to thinking about Littleman. My hands is sweating and that’s a sure sign I’m ready for it. Christ, was I ready!
It was near dark when I gets off but I knows my way up the Ridge backwards since last summer and I belted up and tore through the wood heading for Ringman’s stone. There weren’t no sign of Littleman so I sat down to catch my breath. After a while I hears the old girl singing bloody Top of the Pops. I can do without this, I thinks, but I knows better than to interrupt. Somewhere away in the woods she’s droning on as usual:
‘Dance, Littleman, dance,
Dance, my good men, every one,
For Littleman, he can’t dance alone,
Littleman, he can’t dance alone.’
Oh, so Littleman can’t dance alone, hey? He needs a girl to make him dance. I’m bloody trembling now at the thought.
It were getting real dark but I knew Ringman when he steps out from behind his stone and I knew Longman and Foreman who come with him. I know them by their smells, specially Foreman. They comes up and touches me sort of gentle and exciting and in a little I begins to pant. They carries me into the wood and we comes to a clearing place and they puts me down very careful, still stroking away. Then I sees the old girl sitting on a log, smiling at me like I was her true nipper and she lifts her hand and points over to a dark corner and crouching there is Littleman. I wants him straight away. He’s big and blond and he looks at me like he ain’t ate for a year. Well, he can eat me all right.
‘Gemma,’ says the Missis, ‘let me introduce you to your dad.’
I begins to laugh and then I sees she ain’t joking. For a minute I wonder whether I should run off but my legs is all weak. I licks my lips and goes hot.
I says, ‘What the hell? I’ll try anything once.’
I takes off my clothes and lays down inviting in the middle of the clearing.
Headline story, Langley Evening Argus, 15 May 1992:
MURDER VICTIM USED IN SATANIC RITES?
The body of a young girl, found yesterday in woodland below Yalderton Ridge, was today identified as that of fifteen-year-old Gemma Hearnesley of 14, Coebrook Grove, Grigbourne. Her badly mutilated and partially eaten remains were discovered by a farmer’s dog in a remote spot below the Ridge.
Chief Inspector David Marsh of the County Constabulary, who is in charge of the case, stated categorically today that the police are treating Gemma’s death as murder. Police from all over the county were out in force this afternoon combing the area for clues to Gemma’s assailant.
Chief Inspector Marsh went on to say that although the body was naked and had remained concealed for about a fortnight, forensic reports showed that there was no sign of a sexual assault made on the victim. However there were certain indications at the scene of the crime which suggested that she might have been subjected to some form of black magic ritual, though the evidence as yet is far from conclusive. Her other injuries have been ascribed to scavenging animals.
Two men, Neil Hogarth (31) and Dougal Smith (23) were arrested in the early hours of the morning after tip-offs from local people. Both men are members of a group of New Age Travellers encamped on common land near Yalderton Heath and have been described as Satanists. Later they were released after questioning.
Mrs Lynda Hearnesley, the mother of the victim, was unavailable for comment. However, all day, letters of support and comfort have been arriving at her Grigbourne home from relatives and friends. This afternoon some of Gemma’s classmates delivered flowers and messages of sympathy to her door, shocked and stunned by the news of her death. Mrs Hearnesley’s neighbour, Mrs Dixey Foster, said that Gemma’s mother was too distressed to comment. She added, ‘Gemma was a lovely girl, popular with us all. Nothing was ever too much for her. When her mother was ill earlier on this year Gemma nursed her devotedly through it. We are all horrified to hear of her death and the sooner the police catch the madman who did this the better.’
Another neighbour expressed his opinion that the reintroduction of capital punishment would act as a deterrent for this type of crime.
Cynthia Chapman
Since she gave up teaching, Cynthia Chapman’s occupations have included market stallholder, pub pianist and running a fancy-dress hire business from her home in Kent. She has been writing for about five years and has had over thirty stories published in magazines. At present she is trying to find a publisher for her first novel while working on her second.
At twelve-thirty Mrs Oliphant removed her gardening gloves and laid them in the trug with the secateurs and bass. She straightened up from her task of staking delphiniums, conscious of a familiar twinge in the small of her back. Naturally one ignored