Memories Of A Monster

By S.D. Gripton and Sally Dillon-Snape

Thomas Ellis, under various names, has been murdering young girls for almost fifty years. He is proud of the fact that he has never been suspected, never been investigated and questioned only once following his very first killing. The victim was Mary and she disappeared from her village never to be seen again; she has remained a mystery for fifty-five years. Mary was an accident, she was not a planned murder, it just happened that way but Thomas enjoyed it so much he just kept on doing it, moving around, changing names, making friends with the victims' families so that he can stud at close quarters their suffering. Thomas Ellis is truly evil; he robs, he hurts people, he rapes and he places himself in the wills of the elderly though he is, himself, seventy-five years of age. Into this world steps a chaotic, and newly set-up, Cold Case Unit. It is headed by a disgraced Detective Sergeant, Rosie Butler, who was sent to the wilderness of North Wales following a head-butting incident against a senior officer. She is extremely unhappy at being moved from her friends and her apartment by the river in the capital, where theatres and sporting facilities are easily at hand, to North Wales which she has no idea how to find without a SatNav. Her two-man team is made up of Petra Lewis, a Detective Constable who is better known in the town in which the Unit is based as a drunkard and a fighter, she also inveigles herself into Rose Butler's life. The other member is Llewellyn Jones, a fifty-odd year Constable with a lifetime obsession into the death of Mary Flora Bell, the girl who disappeared from the village fifty-five years ago. She was followed by another two girls who also disappeared, Llew is obsessed with all of them. The Unit has no office in which to work, Rose Butler has no idea where she is in relation to the rest of the country, she is sad and is thinking of suicide. Can such an accomplished killer such Thomas Ellis ever be arrested and charged by such an incompetent, chaotic Unit? This is another exceptional novel from the twisted mind of S.D. Gripton

• Language: English
• Publisher: S.D. Gripton
• Release date: Aug 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463813133

S.D. Gripton

S.D. Gripton novels and real crime books are written by Dennis Snape, who is married to Sally who originate from North Wales and Manchester respectively and who met 18 years ago. I work very hard to make a reading experience a good one, with good plots and earthy language. I enjoy writing and hope readers enjoy what I have written. I thank everyone who has ever looked at at one of my books.

Book preview

Memories Of A Monster

A North Wales Crime Novel

By

Dennis Snape & Sally Dillon-Snape

Copyright © Sally Dillon-Snape & Dennis Snape (2023)

The moral right of the authors is hereby asserted in accordance with The Copyright Act 1988

All characters and events in this publication other than those of fact and historical significance available in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons living and dead is purely coincidental

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval systems, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher

Cover by Snape

***

Chapter 1

Him

It is a beautiful day; clear blue skies, cloudless, the kind of day that England is famous for; the green of the land being very green indeed; an absolutely gorgeous summer’s day. I am sitting in a window seat of a local cafeteria, one of three I visit in rotation over six days of the week; no Sundays unfortunately; I have been reduced to attending a chapel on that day; I didn’t want a church, too formal, too stuffy; and I drink white coffee and will eat either a muffin or a teacake. I love routine, the routine of a retired life; I am to be seventy-five-years-of-age tomorrow and I am now the proud owner of two metal knees, two hearing-aids and my eyes have both been operated on and refocussed. Carpel tunnel in my hands has been dealt with by another operation, but other than all those things I am in remarkably good health. I don’t drink alcohol and have never smoked, just as I have never taken drugs in my life, other than prescribed medicines; I still have all my own teeth and I carry very little extra weight; in fact I am the correct weight for my height of five-feet-six-inches and am often commended upon the fact by doctors. I don’t suffer from diabetes one or two, which is something that seems to affect almost every older person I know, and I get out and about every day no matter the weather, I walk the streets of the town in which I live, speaking to everyone I know and even to a few that I don’t. During winter months, I bind myself up in heavy coats and scarfs and hats and gloves and good solid footwear and carry a brolly, as I bravely face whatever weather is thrown at me. On a summer’s day, such as day like today, I am dressed in a short-sleeved blue cotton shirt with a yellow necktie which has a faint design of wings or feathers embossed on it, I have never been able to discern which, with pale blue trousers and pale red socks and blue shoes. Even if I say so myself, I do look fairly dapper. What grey hair I have remaining; sometimes I think my forehead is going to go all the way back to the nape of my neck; is cut short and well-trimmed. I visit my barber on the High Street once every five weeks; he rings me if I forget; though I find that as I age, I don’t forget much. I remember almost everything of my childhood, all my childhood friends, left far behind now of course, I remember my parents, long deceased; I remember all the highs and all the lows; the hours of work that seemed so long at the time, but which now provides me with moderate pensions that keep me fairly wealthy; I own my own ground-floor apartment in a block which has its own on-call staff in case of emergencies, the flats being full of old people, though I don’t think the building was originally constructed as a place for the ancient.

Good morning, Mr. Ellis, a sweet female voice says and I turn from gazing through the window, watching the high street outside, the people walking, many of them in shorts and T-shirts and vests, women as well as men; many women in very short skirts, old and young alike; there is no moral compass any longer, no sense of style, no self-respect; people just do as they like, dress as they like; and I look up at her.

She is the daughter of the owner of the establishment, sixteen-years of age and extremely pretty, the kind of sight to warm the heart of a man of almost seventy-five years.

It is the school holidays and she always works in the cafeteria during her school holidays; she earns her pocket money and gets to have conversations with old people like me.

Good morning, my dear, I say. And how are you today; you are looking very pretty.

When you are old you can say things like that if you smile, if you look pleasant, if the girl knows you and if you are not considered to be a pervert, or a sex pest, or anything.

Which is a wonderful thing.

Thank you, Mr Ellis, she says without blushing.

She knows she is very pretty; she probably stands nakedly in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom every night and sashays her bottom around and admires herself. I would, if I were that pretty, instead of being an old man.

Is it the school holidays already? I ask.

Yes, Mr Ellis; they do seem to come round at extraordinary speed these days, don’t they?

They do, I think. And even when they are at school, they finish for the day at three p.m.; it was four p.m. when I was a boy; all those years ago; back home in my village in Wales. I haven’t been back there for years and years; I wouldn’t know if the village has now disappeared, or become a town, and I would guess that most of those who remember me, believe me to be dead, and I am most happy if they think of me that way.

They do seem to come around quickly, I agree. But it gives you time to earn some money for your holidays and things, doesn’t it?

Oh yes, Mr. Ellis, it does. Mother is quite generous to me; I am a little bit spoiled.

She chuckles a most enchanting sound and wiggles her hips and momentarily I am regressed back to when I was a young boy; a young man really, the first time I saw a girl wiggle her hips. It is as delightful to see now as it was then.

You deserve to be spoiled, I say. If you were my granddaughter, I would spoil you to death.

She chuckles the enchanting sound again and my old bones ripple as I listen to it.

That is very kind of you to say so, Mr. Ellis; but you tip me very well every time you come into the café; mother tells me off, she says I shouldn’t take so much from you, but I tell her that I have tried refusing but that you insist.

She has and I do.

Had you better take my order? I ask because people at other tables are waiting.

Oh, yes, Mr. Ellis, I will. But I will be back to speak further; I love speaking to you.

Thank you, my dear, and please return. A white coffee with one sugar and a blueberry muffin, if you would be so kind, thank you.

Coming right up, Mr. Ellis, she says, as she twirls around and walks away towards the counter. She has written nothing down because my order is almost always the same; she’s been taking the order since she was about ten or eleven when her mother first allowed her serve in the cafeteria. She was a pretty little thing even then.

She is dressed in the uniform her mother sets for those who serve in the cafeteria; red T-shirt with the name of the café on the left breast; Parks; a red skirt, white socks and red trainers. Mother purchases the clothes for all the girls who work for her; a good expense because they all look splendid.

Especially Alannah, the daughter who has served me.

I notice as she walks away that she has long underdeveloped teenage legs descending from beneath her skirt, the same width all the way down, yet to develop into women’s legs, shapely with perfect ankles. I watch as she moves effortlessly around the café, taking orders from other customers, a good crowd in today, old and young and children, too, it being a school holiday, three girls almost all the same build and age serving; one a little older, she’s finished school and is awaiting a place at university; they are all on the pretty side but none are as pretty as Alannah.

I can’t help wondering if she is wearing yellow knickers or yellow panties beneath her red skirt; not a thong hopefully, I detest thongs; they always seem so unladylike to me. Pale-yellow panties; they are my favourite.

They always will be, of course.

I knew a girl once who was near to Alannah’s age when I was about twenty; her name was Mary and she wore pretty pale-yellow panties.

She was my very first victim.

After we finished playing, I stabbed her in the heart; the killing of her providing me with a tremendous thrill.

I am still not over it today.

Yes indeed; I have enormous affection for pale-yellow panties.

***

Parks, the cafeteria; I did once ask Alannah’s mother why she chose the name and she smiled and said she wanted a nice, comfortable place where people could park their arses; I wasn’t amused at her crudity, but smiled nevertheless, though I probably wouldn’t give the place the time of day if it were not for all the pretty young girls who worked there; is a very successful place on the High Street, regarded as something of chic palace amongst all the newly wealthy millennials who gather in some numbers during Saturdays, making the place noisy and full of laughter and movement. What is it about the young that they can’t stay still for more than a few moments in time, even as they stare with transfixed glazed eyes at their hypnotising phones?

It has a mixture of furniture, two-seater settees with low tables, mismatched chairs of all sizes and all the colours of the rainbow, deep lounge chairs, benches, round tables, square ones, low and high, all overseen by the stern, short-haired, long-legged mother of Alannah. Her husband was killed in an accident at work some years ago and the compensation she received is what helped her set up Parks, and the place has gone from strength to strength over the years. My preferred table, near to the right corner of the large window, is of normal table height; I cannot abide the low tables and low chairs and settees; with straight-backed chairs with cushions on either side of it. The other chair is rarely occupied while I am sitting at the table; I never invite anyone to accompany me; I never encourage visitors to my flat either; being alone is what has allowed me to survive; I am sure that if I had ever become close to anyone I would have confessed. As it is, I keep all my secrets to myself.

It is even regarded as my table, with its white tablecloth, mass produced white coffee mug and plate when I’m served and I like that, just as I like to sit up straight, something left over from my childhood. Whenever I was caught at home not sitting up straight, I would soon enough be flying across the small kitchen of my childhood home from a hard slap from either my mother or my father.

Neither of them were very nice people.

They deserved the death they got.

Burned in a house fire.

I was lucky to get out with my life; the dog and me; we both got out.

I remember the night so well; the noise of the fire-engines, the flashing blue lights, people in helmets, both fire and police, the shouts, water everywhere, my hated home going down in a blaze of flame, me forcing tears from my eyes when all I wanted to do was laugh. God speed, mummy; God speed, daddy; I remember thinking. Move on to Hell.

My dog, Jack; a black and white Springer-type cur, was truly lovely, my only friend through some years of the childhood I lived with my Aunt and Uncle; never call her Auntie or expect another slap; what a loyal animal he was, always by my side, always there to escort me to school, always there when school finished for the day. Always there. I cried for two days solid after he was run over by a motor car when I was only eleven-years-old; the man driving the car being the sneering, superior Headmaster of our local school; a man I had to see every day of my young life. Amazingly, his house burned down, too, and he was dispatched to Hell to join my parents. He was a horrible man, he never even said sorry to me for killing my dog, my beloved Jack.

As I mentioned earlier, I forget very little about my life and I particularly remember those who were horrid to me. I remember Mr. Jones, the Headmaster, he didn’t like me, and I was always sure that he ran over Jack on purpose.

Still, I foolishly reminisce, when I am simply thinking of how things are today.

Outside of the window is a wide footpath along which hundreds of people hurry, the two-way road running through town always busy during daylight hours, not so much in the middle of the night where I often walk when I can’t sleep. I do have trouble sleeping. If I made an appointment to see a shrink, he would probably tell me, after hearing my story, that I was suffering from a guilty conscience, but honestly, I am not; I feel no guilt at all for the things I have done; none at all. The only regret I have is that I am now old and cannot continue doing them any longer; I haven’t killed anyone in ten years; but once you’ve done it, once you’ve extinguished a life, the desire never leaves you; you always want to do another. I awake every day wanting to find some fine young filly to see into heaven; but energy and strength are missing now, and it is such a shame. I have to amuse myself during the quiet hours of the day or night reminiscing about the magical things I did when I was younger, when I was strong enough and confident enough to do them.

Like with Mary; I had everything when I killed her; courage, speed, strength and oodles of confidence; belief, too. I knew I would never be suspected, never be arrested, never be questioned, though I was initially wrong about that; I was questioned along with almost every other male in the village; fingerprints were taken; it was all they had in those days, no fancy scientific tests to catch a decent killer out; not like today. I suppose I’m lucky because just as all that was coming in, I was winding down, backing off, feeling my age. I do believe though, that Cold Cases Units never give up on unsolved killings and unexplained disappearances; the police never give up on them.

I wish them luck after all this time trying to solve any of mine.

If Mary had lived, she would have been about seventy by now; I often think of the life she could have had; I imagine whole families, Mary at the centre of them, husbands and children, relatives, but it always ends badly for her; she is always killed at sometime during her life. I think of her a lot.

People do say that you never forget your first; you never forget the first kiss, the first passion of your young life, the first killing.

I have never forgotten mine.

I have never forgotten her parents either; nice people; he was a milkman in our Welsh village; his wife served food at our school; I used to receive my school dinner from her and was often sent to the milkman for an extra pint. Nice people. They were most passionate about discovering the whereabouts of Mary, their daughter; they begged her to come home for months and months; she wasn’t coming home, I knew that; she was deep down in an abandoned coal mineshaft; Wales has lots of abandoned mineshafts; nobody was going down the one I pushed her into, it was almost collapsed, very dangerous for the living, not so dangerous for the dead. She had never been discovered so, presumably, she was still down there.

My first.

Pretty Alannah places another coffee on the table in front of me and slides onto the chair on the opposite side of the table without permission, but I silently forgive her and smile. I look around in surprise, the cafeteria is now relatively quiet, mothers and children slipping out to the shops, home to their husbands, whatever, wherever. She smells delicious, Alannah; she smells of youth and cleanliness and clean clothes. She smells of sweetness and shampoo.

God, I could have killed her wonderfully.

So, Mr. Ellis, she says with wide smile on her face, her mother looking over to us from behind the counter and also smiling; I am an old man; an innocent old man; a man who has almost lived his life, and Alannah is always keen to hear stories.

Tell me about the dolphins, she says, looking directly at me with her lovely green eyes which compliment her blonde hair perfectly.

I give her a little laugh; something I have practised for years; something that is perfected now.

But I have told you many times, I say.

Mr. Ellis, she says again, you are a tease. You know very well that I love you to tell me that story.

From the beginning? I ask.

Yes, please, and she turns her head to glance at her mother who laughs.

Mr. Ellis. Just an old man.

I lean forward conspiratorially and she leans forward, too.

Well, I begin, "I was in the Royal Navy for only three years before I had to leave because of ill-health (I read a book of symptoms and practised them until even I thought I was ill, the Navy had been a great mistake for me, moronic serving men depressed me terribly) and I was on this warship that had been hit by a submarine and it had done some damage; we were despatched to Karachi in Pakistan for repairs. They put us in a dry dock and discovered the damage was much worse than thought; we were only supposed to be there for four days but we ended up being there for six weeks. Invitations arrived at the ship from ex-patriots who lived in Karachi, and who were looking for some British company and conversation. Several of us accepted four days in a cabin on a beach; a great long beach it was; I have no idea what its name was, but it stretched out for miles and miles curving around a bay, clear blue water lapping at the sand. The cabin was owned by two ex-pat maidens and the only thing they asked of us was that on the Wednesday they entertained some children from a blind school in the city, and that they would be bringing them along. They asked if we would we mind, and of course we said it would be fine, and off we went to laugh in the sunlight and to swim in the sea and to lie on towel on the sand. We soon gathered four small dogs who we fed and they never left us; it was a wonder we never caught anything.

Anyway, on the first morning I am first up and out; all the others still fast asleep after drinking beer; I did not drink alcohol, so woke early and crept outside just as the sun was rising; it must have been very early, we had no clocks or watches, so did not know. And there, to my utter astonishment, swimming just off shore, were dolphins, wild, free dolphins, a whole pod of them, just swimming and rolling and leaping around. I had never been frightened of water, I had loved swimming pools and flooded quarries and oceans and seas; I had loved them all. I stood for just a moment gazing at them, my breath held in wonder, then I walked down the beach, into the water and out to where they were playing. I just joined in and they allowed me to. I swam with them and they rolled around me, rubbed up against me, they sang to me as we went into deeper water, where they leapt high for me. I had no fear, not of them, or the deeper water, and I must have swum with them for almost an hour, I shouted with joy of it, I sang songs of the day as loudly as I could, even under water, and they sang back at me. Then, after the hour, they slipped away, but not before rolling all around me; leaping off into the distance. It was one of the most wonderful things I had ever experienced.

Not the most wonderful thing, of course; not by a long shot; but quite joyous nevertheless.

Alannah chuckled her magical sound and clapped her teenage hands, her fingers long; she played the piano she told me once, and I believed her; those fingers could have done things for me, let me tell you.

And they were there every morning, Mr. Ellis, weren’t they?

I reached out my right hand and touched her left one; she didn’t flinch, she smiled.

Oh, to be so innocent in such a fashion.

"They were, dear girl; every morning we sailors were there in that cabin, no electricity, no running water, on that unnamed beach, they turned up and every morning I swam with them and sang with them and they rolled and rubbed and leapt and I stroked them and we went into deeper and deeper