Lucilla

by David A. Riley

Table of Contents, parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

part 7

The door into the bedroom was pushed open, and policemen in protective jackets spilled into it. Someone took hold of Miranda’s arms. They prised her fingers from the bedroom door. She tried to resist, but three policemen were holding her now and there was nothing she could do to stop them from pulling her back across the room.

After that, she was surrounded by confusion. She saw a policewoman’s face, a mixture of horror and disgust on her thin features. Handcuffs were secured with what seemed unnecessary roughness about her wrists as someone started to read her rights, the man’s voice thick with revulsion.

It was all so unreal. All the wine she had drunk didn’t help, of course, especially when she threw up inside the patrol car as it took her away, a blanket draped about her head. She tried to tell the policemen in front what had happened, but they weren’t listening to what she said.

Nor did she get any more attention at the police station, where she was locked in a cell with a metal bed, a couple of blankets and a stainless-steel toilet, in which she again vomited, her body wracked by convulsions. Before they took her from her flat, Miranda had glimpsed what they found in the living room — and knew that they blamed it all on her. But she hadn’t — she couldn’t have done that to the girl.

She closed her eyes, her head still aching, shivering though the cell was warm. She huddled beneath the blankets as she remembered the blood and debris, the shadows that flitted about the walls and ceiling as if something deranged had been let loose inside the room while the curtains billowed inwards from the shattered window, the torches of the police, and the glimpsed horrors of what had been Lucilla.

Miranda was left till morning, probably, she supposed, to give their forensic experts time to study evidence at the flat. She was given breakfast, though all she could manage was the mug of coffee. Her head hurt even worse than before, and she felt sick, though most of the wine she’d drunk had been purged from her system, leaving its aftertaste — and that of the vomit — clinging to her mouth and down her throat.

Wretched, she sat on the edge of the bed till they came for her.

Did she want a solicitor?

“What for?” she asked.

She was told it was her right to have someone advise her, but she didn’t want anything, she told them, just the truth.

* * *

She was led to an interrogation room by a policewoman. Sergeant Harridan and a plainclothes detective entered seconds later. The other man was older than Harridan, with a careworn face too thin to be healthy. His eyes regarded Miranda with deep interest.

Harridan unfastened a brand-new cassette, placed it in a tape deck on the table and switched it on. He gave the time, his name and rank and that of his colleague, Detective Inspector Phillip Butler.

“Do you remember what happened?” he asked. There was a cautious hint of a smile on his lips as if he wanted to show he was still unsure of her guilt.

“I’d been drinking,” Miranda said. Her voice cracked. “I was asleep when it started.” She told them as much as she could recall, though time and shock had disjointed her memories, making them unreal, as if her nightmares had become mixed with reality, though she wondered what kind of reality. A reality in which a girl could erase the air from her lungs with a touch of her fingers? In which something or someone could burst into her flat and do what they’d done? In which someone could wreck a room and a human body within the space of a few seconds with the impact of a bomb? In which people could die of heart attacks because someone touched their chests?

When Miranda had finished, Harridan sent the policewoman to fetch a drink for her.

“Just water, please,” Miranda said. She felt as if she had drunk nothing for days.

While the woman was out of the room, the Inspector said, “We’ve had the autopsy results on the bodies found at the house yesterday.”

“The heart attacks?”

“Heart attacks with collapsed lungs,” he said. “Which intrigued me when you mentioned what happened to you when Lucilla touched your chest.”

Miranda felt her skin grow cold — and an urge to be sick.

“None of this is real, is it?” she said. “I’m hallucinating, aren’t I? This is some kind of asylum, not a police station at all?”

She felt a deep sense of dread seep through her, knowing that whatever had happened was real — all too real, she thought as she tried to blot the images of what she glimpsed inside the living room when the police took her away last night. The blood. The body parts. The dismembered head that had stared with sightless eyes from the blood-drenched floor at the end of the upended sofa.

Harridan stood up and walked to her side of the table; he placed a hand on her shoulder. “You know it’s true,” he told her. “So do I.”

“Why am I here?” Miranda asked.

DI Butler said, “We don’t intend to hold you. I had a word with Sergeant Harridan before the interview. Even though none of what happened makes sense, we don’t believe you had anything to do with what happened to the girl. Why uniformed even put you in a cell last night, I don’t know. I can only apologise. There wasn’t a speck of blood on you or your clothes. Anyone could have seen that. Or should have done. Forensics confirmed it. Whoever killed the girl would have been drenched with blood.”

Miranda looked away, unable to accept what had happened to Lucilla, even though her last feelings towards her had been fear.

“There’s no way you could have been involved in attacking her,” Harridan said. “You’re free to go.”

“Go where?” The thought of returning to her flat was too horrifying.

“Have you family or friends you could turn to?”

Miranda nodded. “I have my sister. She’s married with kids. She’ll put me up, even if it is the sofa.” Though she knew Victoria would probably get two of the girls to share bedrooms. “I can sort something out.”

“Ring from here. That’s the least I can do.” At that moment the policewoman arrived with a glass of water, which Miranda emptied in one gulp.

* * *

It was midday by the time her sister arrived to drive her to her house. Within seconds of getting there, Miranda was whisked indoors, where a meal and something hot to drink were waiting for her.

“The kids are at school,” Victoria said. “We have the house to ourselves till the brats come charging in just after three. Bill gets back at six,” Bill being her husband. Older and plumper than Miranda, Victoria seemed to have put aside her usual asperity and was full of concern for her sister’s welfare instead. “Is there anything you need?”

Miranda shook her head as she sat on one of the oversoft armchairs in the living room, one wall dominated by a plasma screen, computer games scattered about the deep pile carpet, sure signs of the girls’ domination of the room. “The police brought me my handbag. I thought I might go out later and buy some clothes.”

“How long before you can return to your flat?” Victoria asked.

“Heaven knows. That’s up to the police. Though I don’t know whether I could ever be able to live there again.”

“I wouldn’t blame you,” Victoria said. She had already heard the news reports on the local radio station. “Lucky for you one of your neighbours rang the police.”

“They must have thought there was a riot,” Miranda said, though she had no desire to elaborate. Victoria had already asked if she wanted to talk about it, but Miranda had politely said no. “It’s too horrible,” she told her. “You wouldn’t want to hear.”

“When the kids are back, we’ll go out together,” Victoria said. “I’ll drive us to the shops, and you can buy what you need. For goodness sake, Miranda, it’ll take more than one pair of hands just to carry the bags.”

Miranda smiled weakly. “Though I don’t expect to go mad. I’ve only so much on my credit cards, and I still have a wardrobe full of clothes at the flat.”

“Never mind all of that,” Victoria said. “You need something to take your mind off what’s happened.”

Miranda wondered how much she had guessed about Lucilla. Which made her want to cry, though she knew she shouldn’t. She had barely known the girl much more than a week. She had known her as someone close for just a few days. A few days of craziness that had become even crazier at the end. But why? And how? She wondered if even the police would find out.

With an effort, Miranda agreed to Victoria’s offer. Perhaps her presence and that of the girls would help to cheer her up, at least for the moment. Though she knew no matter what they did, she would need more than tiredness tonight to sleep. And something stronger, she knew, than a bottle of wine.

A trip to Threshers would have to be on their schedule sometime today, surreptitious or otherwise, though Victoria surprised her later by suggesting they buy a bottle of vodka. “I prefer Absolute, straight from the freezer.” She smiled with what Miranda could have sworn was such a look of empathy it made her wonder just how often her sister indulged herself.

* * *

By the time they returned to suburbia, Bill was home. An overweight man, nearly six feet tall, he invariably reminded Miranda of a world-weary, overstuffed, balding teddy bear in his creased work suit.

He gave her a brief, deep-felt hug. “How are you managing?” His voice a sympathetic murmur, he regarded her with critical eyes. “I read all about it in tonight’s paper. I could hardly believe it. You must be devastated.”

By common understanding, none of them talked about what had happened while the girls were about, especially the older, Daisy. At eight she had well-developed ears that her mother said missed next to nothing. Little Wendy, six years old and pudgy, with more energy than a hyperactive puppy, was in a world of her own, caring little about grown-up talk. Even so, what Miranda had gone through was so horrendous, none of them wanted to risk any of it leaking to the girls.

By nine o’clock, the sisters were tucked in bed, their light turned out, and Victoria returned downstairs, looking tired. Miranda, with what happened last night, felt even more like sleep, though whenever she tried to rest her eyes, the images that came to her drifting mind brought her back to consciousness with a sickening jolt, and she knew she would not find it easy tonight. When would she after what had happened?

She knew from her work at the Shelter, many of whose residents had gone through harrowing, violent experiences, it could sometimes take years for the mental damage inflicted on them to be healed. If ever, she thought, knowing some who had gone beyond what even the finest therapy or drugs could do to repair.

She hoped what she had seen and heard last night would one day fade but, for the moment, it was so raw she knew she wouldn’t sleep as she used to do for a long time to come. Not without something to dull her senses, at least.

“Be a dear, Bill, and fetch some glasses,” Victoria said when she returned to the living room. She made a token effort at picking up some of the girls’ toys, which she tossed onto an empty armchair, before slumping onto the sofa while Bill obediently wandered into the kitchen.

Victoria flung her head round to glance at Miranda. “Do you want to talk?” she asked, though her interest sounded forced to Miranda, who suspected she did not relish hearing what had happened.

“I’d rather drink first,” Miranda said, knowing Bill would return with the vodka as well as some glasses.

Eventually, two downed vodkas and Cokes inside her — heavy on the vodka and light on the Coke — Miranda told them a little of what happened but refused to go into details. She also avoided telling them what seemed to happen when Lucilla touched her chest. They would think she was delusional if she told them that. Even she found it hard to believe any more, as if she had imagined it.

By eleven, her story told, Miranda could feel herself starting to doze. Perhaps the alcohol was beginning to work at last, she thought, aware that the aching in her head had gone for the first time since what happened in her flat.

“I’ve made Daisy’s bed up for you,” Victoria said. “You look bushed.”

Miranda said that she was. “Hopefully, I’ll sleep through,” she said. And not disturb anyone, she added to herself, hoping against hope she would have no nightmares. She finished her vodka, said goodnight, then headed for the stairs.

* * *

After visiting the bathroom, where she had a drink of water, Miranda made her way into Daisy’s room. She curled up on the bed and hugged the thick duvet around her. The child’s bed was too short, and she had to bend her knees or leave her feet sticking out from under the covers, but that hardly mattered tonight. Lulled by the vodka, she quickly sank into an ever-deepening chasm of darkness. Images from last night still swam before her, but they seemed less focused now, as if viewed through a foggy lens. Besides, her body was so tired even her agitated mind could do little to stem off sleep for long.

“Miranda.”

For a moment she wasn’t sure if she heard her name being called out or not. Perhaps she had dreamed it.

She struggled to turn over in the cramped bed, with its thick, overly squashy child’s mattress, to peer at the Disney Princess alarm clock on the chest of drawers beside the bed. It was two o’clock in the morning. Two-fifteen, to be precise, Miranda corrected herself, wondering what had woken her. Other than her dreams, she thought, as she tasted the stickiness of too much Coke on her tongue and the acid burn of too much vodka in her liver.

“Miranda.” It was a soft voice. A girl’s. It sounded so much like... Miranda gritted her teeth, knowing that she was wrong. Not now. Not after what had happened to Lucilla. What had happened to her body.

Miranda looked across the room. The door onto the landing was ajar. The lights outside were on, showing the small figure in silhouette.

It was Daisy. Had the girl wandered here by mistake, on her way back from the bathroom?

“What’s the matter, Daisy?” Miranda asked, puzzled at the girl’s omitting “Auntie” from her name. In the Raywood household that was something neither of the girls would ever do. Not in Victoria’s hearing. Nor Bill’s either, Miranda thought, a stickler for family protocols.

“I need your help, Miranda.”

This time she felt a shiver run through her, chilling her skin, for she realised this wasn’t Daisy’s voice.

“Lucilla?”

The girl stepped nearer. Miranda recognised Daisy. She could see her face, even in the gloom. Besides, she was far too small for Lucilla, crazy though Miranda knew that was. Lucilla was dead. Dismembered. Her body ripped into a hundred pieces.

But the voice was hers. Miranda knew that with certainty. The fear that filled her as she stared at the girl made it impossible for her to move. Miranda’s will seemed paralysed, and all she could do was stare.

“Daisy!”

The door opened wider and Victoria stood behind the girl, a dressing gown hung around her pale pink nightie.

“What are you disturbing your auntie for, Daisy? Have you forgotten you’re sleeping with your sister, silly?” She bustled in, putting her hands on Daisy’s shoulders. “I’m sorry about this, Miranda. She must be confused.”

At which Miranda felt some of the fear seep from her body, restored by the normality of Victoria’s presence. “That’s all right,” Miranda said. “No harm done.”

Victoria smiled as she guided Daisy back to the door.

It was hours before Miranda could compose herself enough to sleep once more. That voice had been so much like Lucilla’s.

She felt a grinding ache in the pit of her stomach when she remembered it, ridiculous though she knew it was. She must have been mistaken. That was obvious. Logic, reason, common sense — call it what you will, Miranda told herself — made this the only explanation. I must have been mistaken.

* * *

To be continued...

Copyright © 2022 by David A. Riley

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