The Scribbler by Iain Maitland (life changing books txt) 📕

to me … they aren’t scared of him.” He hesitated and then added in a quieter voice, “Not like we were of Father.”

“He told me … things … things that he did,” the slow brother answered in an angry, raised voice. He took his gun from his pocket. “I want to kill him … and save the children … they can come and live with us … and Mother.”

“Oh, listen to yourself. Don’t be so …”

They both stopped and turned as they heard a knocking at the kitchen door. Loud and assertive.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

The slow brother looked across. A savage lopsided smile of excitement on his face. He whispered, “It is Where’s Wally. He has come back.”

The smart brother moved by him, hushing him down. “I’ll get rid of him.” He could not risk the man coming in now. Alone. With his brother fired up and holding a gun.

He opened the door and smiled, the word, ‘Adam’ forming on his lips.

Stepped back, surprised.

“Hello, my name’s Georgia Carrie, from the police, may I come in and have a word?”

PART FOURANOTHER VICTIM

19. SATURDAY 17 NOVEMBER, LUNCHTIME

The three of them stood awkwardly in the kitchen.

Carrie, looking around, thinking this was the kitchen that time forgot.

The smart brother edgy. The slow brother uncomfortable, his hand on the gun tucked back into his pocket.

After a moment or two’s silence, Carrie turned and looked at the slow brother. He would not meet her eye, like a naughty child. There was something about him, his look, that bothered her, but she couldn’t quite think what it was. The burned face and the way he brought his hand up to it, as if brushing the hair away from his forehead. It reminded her of someone.

“Hello,” he muttered.

No more, no less.

Keeping his head down, waiting for his brother to speak, to lead the conversation, to get her out and away.

She turned towards the smart brother. It struck her that this could be The Scribbler standing before her. Lean. Whippet thin. Rangy. All the words used to describe The Scribbler were a perfect match for this man. And the lines drawn by Gayther on the Mr Potato Head picture, to the forehead, to the sides of the mouth, were all there, too. And the old-man hairs sprouting everywhere.

“What can we do for you?” he said briskly.

She smiled, hesitating suddenly.

Stumbling to say anything.

She had come here, for the second of the four vans she was checking, all alone. She had been quite breezy about it all. It was as if she were doing something of little consequence, neither here nor there. Something academic. A university project. Ignoring Gayther’s advice to simply sit nearby and look and listen. And then, if it seemed like a possible line of enquiry, they’d follow procedures, fill in forms and go back together later and do an interview. “Do it properly,” he’d stressed. But she’d ignored him.

Instead, she’d walked up to the first door, knocked on it, realised the man who answered it and owned the van looked nothing like The Scribbler and, to be sure, checked he had an alibi for the night in question. The man was chatty, friendly even. Trevor. A lonely widower. She had a cup of tea. Two, then three biscuits. Decided this was easy enough. And so she did the same here, arriving at this rundown farmhouse in the back of beyond, looking over the van, taking a couple of photos, and then rat-a-tat-tatting on the door.

But now, right now, as the smart brother asked her what she wanted, first once and then again, the tension clear in his strained voice, she realised why the slow brother, his head bowed and face covered, bothered her. It was his melted face. The talk from Thomas and Cotton of Quasimodo being seen with The Scribbler at one pub. The lurking presence of Frankenstein’s monster at another. The sense that maybe there were two people working together on the killings. Now here they both were in front of her.

The Scribbler to one side. Ready to act the moment she said the wrong thing.

The monster to the other. A lurking, threatening presence.

She felt as though she were going to be sick. From her foolishness and fear.

“What can we do for you?” the smart brother repeated a third time, glancing first at the struck-dumb woman and then at his slow brother. He shook his head slightly as if to say to him, ‘don’t say anything, don’t do anything, just wait’. He then looked again at the woman and added suddenly, “Do you feel all right?”

That Suffolk accent.

Gayther had drawn attention to The Scribbler’s voice. Sloightly on th’ huh, witnesses has said.

They were right. It was.

“Come, over here.” He really wanted her gone, but he gestured her towards a chair at the kitchen table instead. It would seem odd otherwise. Not to show sympathy. Cause unnecessary suspicion. “Sit yourself down, catch your breath.” He looked up at the slow brother and pointed him towards the sink, go on, get a glass of water.

The smart brother and Carrie both watched as the slow brother went to the sink and picked up an empty glass standing upside-down on the draining board. He hesitated, holding the glass to the light momentarily to see if it was clean. It was, or clean enough, anyway. He filled the glass half-full from the tap and walked slowly back towards Carrie. She smiled at him, teeth stuck to gums, as she took the glass and sipped at the water. She hoped they did not see her hand tremble. She then looked again at the smart brother.

He wondered what she wanted. Something and nothing most likely.

Perhaps he’d forgotten the tax on the van. MOT maybe. He wracked his brains, wondering if he’d insured the van again this year.

But still, that sudden stab of fear was there. Couldn’t help but think this was something more serious. About that boy and the dog. Maybe this was the beginning of the end.

“I’m ever so sorry,”