As the Flies Crow

By Martin Price

Sonia Rowntree's car becomes trapped in a snowstorm. In the vehicle behind is Helen Davenport, who believes that Sonia killed her husband and son eight years ago. During the chase that follows, Sonia fights to prove that this is a case of mistaken identity. But something else is waiting for Sonia. For Helen, too. Something that will bind them together. For always.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Martin Price
• Release date: Feb 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301305414

Martin Price

Price writes mystery and suspense. His latest novels are The Reason I'm Still Here, and Becoming Hugo Forst, which is Price's first literary / contemporary fiction release. His new novel, We all Kill in the End, is now available.

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As the Flies Crow

Martin Price

First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Martin Price

© Martin Price 2013

Smashwords Edition

The right of Martin Price to be identified as the author of the work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988

All rights reserved. Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, no part of this e-book publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the purchaser

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and events are all from the author’s mind. Any resemblance to persons either living or dead is purely coincidental

© Cover design by Carmine Trip

Also by this author:

Becoming Hugo Forst

The Reason I'm Still Here

Marsha's Bag

Luvya Getcha

Flowers from a Different Summer

Sad's Place

Steam

Short Stories:

Africar

Bad Return

For Katie

For summer has burned brightly, and for too long, and so winter puts a frosty claw and a cold, heartless maw, around the last of summer's flagging glow, to turn off the tap that has run with treasured gold aplenty. Alas, summer sinks and fades into glades of a memory in which children's cries doth go, and with it we watch...as the flies crow.

Excerpt from The Day The Wind Spoke by Moina Furneaux

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Mistaken Identity

Chapter 2: Mrs Twee

Chapter 3: Old Railway Line

Chapter 4: Just A Puppet

Chapter 5: Red Telephone-Box

Chapter 6: Alarm

Chapter 7: Minty-Green River

Chapter 8: Greg Halpern & The Hospital

Chapter 9: Guns & Lazarus

Chapter 10: Farmhouse

Chapter 11: A World Gone Grey

Chapter 12: As The Flies Crow

Chapter 13: Lifetime Debt

Epilogue # 1: Marsha Dunbar

Epilogue # 2: Man In The Woods

The End ~ Back To Top

Chapter 1: Mistaken Identity

The mad woman came out of the snow.

And my life changed forever.

I'd been a fool that morning to even think about driving, let alone do it. Yet I did, and five miles into the journey and there I was, stuck in snow so deep, I had to shoulder the driver's door open to get out.

Dressed in a heavy wool coat, warm boots, and with thick tights under my skirt, I had at least gotten something right. Even had mittens in my coat pocket. But those would have to wait; I had a phone-call to make.

I took out my i-phone and scrolled down to my mother's number. Pressed call, and waited. The wind picked up the snow and flung it in my eyes. I blinked away the flakes that were stuck to my lashes. Buttoned up my coat and knotted the belt around my middle. My hair whipped crazily across my face.

There was no horizon, not anymore. Just white above, white below, and in between, the vague, smudgy impression of trees in the distance. I was standing in snow that came up to my shins. Pretty soon it was going to be up to my knees, maybe even my thighs!

I glanced into the car, wanting to be back in there, but the snow was piling up so quick, that if I hadn't gotten out when I did, I'd probably have become trapped.

I could see my handbag on the passenger seat, and my work-files next to it. No work for me today. But of course the rest of Clifton & Sway's workforce would have understood that the moment they'd gotten out of bed and seen the snowstorm. Not me, though, good old reliable Sonia Rowntree, the backbone of the HR department. No, I had disobeyed my eyes and let the full, bad experience confirm what a mistake I'd made.

The mistake that almost cost me my life.

*****

My mother answered her phone. 'Hi, babe. Isn't the weather awful? Hope you're safe indoors.'

'I'm not!' I said, having to shout above the noise of the storm. 'I made one silly mistake and went into work today! Tried to, anyway! Now I'm trapped somewhere between Gartley and White Mist!'

'Oh, Sonia, no! What the hell's wrong with you? Sometimes you don't have the sense you were born with!'

'Let's leave the ticking-off for now, can we? How's Mitzi?'

'She's fine. In the warm, safe, where her mother should be. So what are you going to do?'

'Call the breakdown service! Not sure they'll get out here, though! Not right away! I'll just have to wait, and when they arrive, hope they can dig the car out!'

'This isn't going to change for a while, Sonia. The forecast is bleak. The breakdown service won't reach you for ages! Are you dressed appropriately, or are you standing there, buck-naked? God's sake, I just don't know with you!'

'Mother, please, I'll be fine! Stop flapping! I'm sure there'll be a house around here somewhere! Bound to be! This isn't the middle of nowhere! Before you know it, I'll be sitting in front of a crackling fire, sipping hot chocolate! But I've got to go, I can barely hear you!'

'Okay then. Make sure you call me, though, the moment you're out of this.'

'I will! And give my love to Mitzi! Tell her I'll see her - '

*****

That was when the mad woman came out of the storm, her arms held out like those of a zombie. She was wearing one of those knitted, gaily-patterned hats with a pom-pom on top, and there were thick string ties hanging down the sides of her face, undone. Her big orange coat floated around her. Her teeth were gritted. Her eyes looked like those of a hungry wolf.

I had just enough time to realise I had no time at all in which to tell my mother I was about to be attacked. I pressed the home button, ending the call, and slipped the phone in my pocket. Then the mad woman was on me.

'Gotcha, at last, you murdering bitch!'

'What?'

'You're going back to Pengarrett!'

'I don't know what you're talking about! My name's Sonia Rowntree! I'm a single-mother on my way to work!'

'Yeah, and my name's Lizzie McGee and I ride a horse named Dennis!'

'Please, I'm telling the truth! I don't know what you're talking about!'

But then suddenly she had a double handful of my coat in her gloved hands, and I was bent backwards over my car - my light-green 1970's Lancia I'd paid a small fortune for - with her snarling down into my face.

'The truth! You wouldn't know the truth if it took a shit in your handbag, lovey! Your name's Anna Turpin! Although sometimes you like to become your dead sister, Mary, especially when you're up for a little murder!'

'Anna, Mary! What the fu - '

She slapped me then, and so hard, that my head was flung to the side. I cried out. My cheek burned. The cold air tore in and out of my lungs, turning my teeth into frozen pegs. My legs jittered against hers, hers which were thick and domineeringly muscly, while mine were nothing but sticks. Just eight stone, I weighed back then, and these days, I weigh even less.

Her eyes, which were light blue, were set in pouches of pasty, slouching flesh. The whites were yellow in places. Her skin was cracked and patchy. Her lips were like chewed twine. Her left nostril dripped. Even in the wailing, madcap grip of the storm, she smelled of stale sweat and piss. She looked like someone on which death constantly tugged at her shirt-tail. She was big, bigger than me, anyhow. But I got the feeling that at one point she had been even bigger; her belly drooped with loose, clammy fat that spread across my hips like jelly.

Her big orange coat snapped and flapped. The string ties of her hat lashed against my face. Her hand was poised to slap again above me. 'Don't play games with me, Anna! I've waited a long time for this moment! This moment when I can take you into a police-station and show those smarmy coppers that I was right and they were wrong!'

'Wrong? Wrong about what?'

'That every time I saw you, I was making it up! I saw you six-months ago in this very car here, driving up Starcross Hill! The lights were red in my lane! By the time I got moving, and spun my car around, you were gone! Then, two months ago, I saw you driving towards Gartley! I found a place to turn around, I gave chase, although once again I lost you! But today, finally, I got lucky! I suddenly found myself behind you, heading towards White Mist! Now, here we are, trapped in the snow! You're trapped in the snow! And with nowhere to go this time! Nowhere to go but with me to a police-station!'

'How do you know I'm this woman Anna Turpin? How can you be sure?'

'The stringy body, the long red hair, the freckles, and the mean little pointy features! It's you, all right! God, I had to sit in the same courtroom as you, didn't I, with you grinning that evil little grin of yours, trying to deny that you ran down and killed my husband and son that day, eight years ago? But the judge didn't swallow any of your nonsense, did he? No, he put you away for life!'

'For life? So how come I'm here?'

'Because you escaped! But pretty soon you'll be back behind bars, where you belong!'

I might have been offended at this mad woman describing my features as mean and pointy, but then I suddenly felt the gun in her left pocket pressing against my hip, and I found I could live with mean and pointy. What I could not live with was the idea that she had a gun.

I turned my head to the side, and could just make out the shape of her vehicle someway behind mine. It was big, most likely a four-by-four, so almost certainly she'd be able to get out of the snow the way my little Lancia couldn't. My head spun and my brain had become a foggy thing that I couldn't make a good connection with. Nonetheless, I understood right then that she probably had no intention of taking me to the nearest police-station, that once we were off the main road, she'd likely pop a bullet in my head. Why not? After all, in her mind, I had killed her husband and son. And justice had failed her previously. Why trust it the second time around, when I had escaped once, and could do it again?

*****

I suddenly pulled out my phone, managed to do this, even though that belly of hers was a dead weight on me. 'Here, take this! You'll find photos, lots of photos, of me and my daughter, Mitzi! Photos of her father, too! His name's Greg Halpern! We're not together anymore, but for Mitzi's sake, we're still civil to each other!'

The mad woman took my phone, but kept me pressed down on the car with one hand placed agonisingly firm in the centre of my chest. She raised the phone to her eyes. 'You got a missed call from your mother! She must be worried about you! Why would anyone worry about you, Anna?'

'I'm not Anna! I'm Sonia Rowntree!'

'Anyone can make up a name!'

'Look at the photos! The passcode is eighty-two-oh-eight! A combination of my birthday and Mitzi's!'

'So your daughter's five, is she? Well, that makes sense! You escaped in the summer of oh-seven, and got yourself up the spout in no time at all, so it seems! Strange, but I thought you liked fanny, not cock!'

'Christ, what are you talking about?'

She slapped me again, only harder, given that my phone was in her hand. My jaw made a snapping sound that was cartilage popping, not bone, thank God. But for a moment, I thought the lower part of my face was going to find a new home just below my left ear. I cried out once more. What I believed was a situation that could be rectified with a little common-sense was fast-becoming a situation in which my life was at risk. My heart pounded. My mouth tasted salty. It seemed like a heavy stone had been placed in the pit of my stomach. All at once I felt like the loneliest person on the planet.

Using her teeth - her dingy, yellow teeth - the mad woman removed one of her gloves. She gained access to my phone with the passcode I'd given her. Then: 'Yeah, photos, I see them! Lots of photos, of your daughter, and of her father, too. God, but he's handsome! Why would a man like him fuck an ugly, cold-hearted bitch like you? Must be a madness in him, hiding in there, that I can't see!' She glared down at me. 'But all of this means nothing! Just photos, that's all!'

'Then check my handbag! You'll find my credit cards in there, and my driver's license with my photo and name on it! Sonia Rowntree, you'll see!'

'Never mind any of that! A stinking bitch of a killer like you could forge a whole different life and make it look like the real thing! I'm not interested in any handbag! Let's get going!'

'Wait! If I was Anna Turpin, wouldn't I wear a disguise?'

She laughed. 'What, like a wig, or maybe dye your hair? Most of the time wigs look like wigs, and pretty much all of the time dyed hair looks like dyed hair! No, disguises draw attention, they don't deflect it! Anyhow, no disguise could hide your ugly mug! A Turpin looks like a Turpin, no matter how you dress her up! Just like a turnip looks like a turnip!' She laughed again, but this time with her head thrown back, like she'd just cracked the funniest joke in the world. Then finally: 'Let's get moving, shall we?'

She re-gloved her bare hand. Dumped my phone in the pocket of that big, ludicrous orange coat of hers. Then she hauled me off my car, one handed, my knees gave way, and I went down in the snow. She began to pull me along by the front of my coat like a sledge, my legs and feet making two thin trails behind me. The wind screeched in my ears. Snow spat in my face like nails. I screamed up at her: 'Stop this, please! I don't even know your name!'

'It's Helen Davenport, just to jog your memory! The same Helen Davenport who became the Widow Davenport eight years ago, on a warm, summer's day when there was no snow on the ground to stop you from running down my husband, Paul, and my son, Elliot!'

'I've never heard of them! Wouldn't know them from Adam!'

'Don't bring Adam into this, or any other Biblical figure, for that matter! Any Bible would surely burst into flames in your wicked hands!'

'God's sake! I don't have a wicked bone in my body! Just give my mother a call! She's the sweetest thing in the world! You'd understand that before she barely got a word out of her mouth! You'd understand, too, that she could never be the mother of a daughter who could coldly run people down in the road!'

'Oh, don't fuck with me, Anna! I saw your mother in court! She was sweet, all right, but underneath, I saw the snakes slithering there! The snakes that slither inside all the Turpins!'

There I was, gazing up the length of Helen Davenport's meaty, unsparing arm, whose hand, in turn, had a clump of my coat in its grip. As we neared her vehicle - which indeed was a four-by-four - I knew I had to do something before she pulled out that gun of hers.

If that happened, I'd be done for.

At the moment there was nothing I could do, though. My arms dangled at my sides. I had deliberately kept my hands off her arm, even though that would have steadied me as she hauled me along. But I needed to keep my hands off her in order to remain submissive. Any physical contact would only make her wary, whereas, at the moment, she believed she had full control over me. She did, too, even in my mind.

But -

There was Mrs Twee, who lived at the back of my throat. The problem, however, was that Mrs Twee had a soft, well-spoken accent that would not be heard out here in the chaotic, relentless screech of the storm. So the way I saw it, I might have to let this go a lot further to have any chance of wriggling off the hook on which the deeply-confused - and deeply-violent - Helen Davenport had hung me.

'Still, fury knows no woman like hell, does it, Anna?' Helen Davenport shouted down at me, and then, once more she laughed. It was a short, contemptuous laugh. 'God, but you're such a fucking dimwit, aren't you? Couldn't even get a simple proverb correct when you were led out of the court that day, after being sentenced and put in the back of the cop van! The newspapers had a hay-day with that little corker, didn't they? The whole country soon discovered what a total thicky you were!'

'I know the proverb!' I yelled up at her. 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned! Anna Turpin may not have known how to correctly recite it, but Sonia Rowntree does!'

'No! Anna Turpin must have learned how to correctly recite it in prison, after being humiliated like that!'

'Christ, I can't win, can I?'

'You can...in God's eyes, at least, by admitting who you are instead of pretending you're this Sonia woman!'

'I am this Sonia woman! I've got nothing to admit to God or anyone else, not even to you!'

'We'll see about that, when you're looking down the...!' She stopped right there.

…barrel of a gun, I finished for her in my head, and then thought: Oh, Mitzi, I love you, I love you so very much. I'm sorry for getting in my car this morning, my darling. I'm just so, so sorry.

But Mitzi loved Mrs Twee.

And I hoped, I dearly hoped, that Helen Davenport would love her, too.

*****

She grabbed me up onto my feet, now that we were at the driver's door of her big, dark-blue four-by-four. She grabbed me up like I was nothing but a bag of groceries. I could have lashed out right then, by cuffing her around the face, hard as I could, but no, I resisted. She was too big for me to knock off-balance that way. One shot, that's all I'd get, and it would have to be one hell of a good shot. A lifesaving shot! I'd had no time to come up with a plan,