Lure of the Praying Mantis

By David Gaston

The Praying Mantis is a woman who likes to dominate and control men. Most women would stop at that, but some want to see how far their domination could take them. Could that include murder perhaps? Certain cases that have appeared in the press would suggest that murder is definitely an option for the Praying Mantis.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press UK
• Release date: Oct 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9781982286514

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Copyright © 2022 David Gaston.

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ISBN: 978-1-9822-8650-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-8651-4 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 10/26/2022

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

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ONE

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She was born plain old Ann, without the ‘e’, Walker. But she wanted something classier, so she added the ‘e’, then a hyphen, and then her best friend’s name, ‘Marie’. And Walker had to go too, especially after her mother had told her the origins of the name. One of her ancestors had once ‘walked the wool’ in a fulling mill, spending hours treading raw wool into a smelly solution contained in a large vat. That ‘smelly solution’ had been raw urine. No, she had thought with contempt, that name has got to go. How about winter? she had thought. That sounds classy, especially if the ‘i’ is turned into a ‘y’, and how about putting ‘De’ before it? Yes, she had thought with deep satisfaction, I like that. So, when she moved into a house of her own in an area of Bellingham Borough where nobody knew her; the tall, curvaceous, self-confident, and manipulative woman changed her name from Ann Walker to Anne-Marie De Wynter.

Men were her target, and her sexuality was her weapon. Anne-Marie was attractive, although she could never be considered an entrant for a beauty contest. Her blond hair was shoulder length and curly, her face was round with blue eyes and an engaging smile. Anne-Marie ate frugally so that her ample charms remained deliciously ample rather than overpoweringly ample. She knew what men liked and so she dressed and behaved as though she would offer it all, but without giving anything. Life is all about give and take; well men would give, and Anne-Marie would take.

Men found her sexually attractive, and Anne-Marie knew it. This was the source of her power, and she used it mercilessly. She was in command, always in command. She would psychologically castrate them by degrading their names into an effeminate, almost childlike, form. So, Michael became Mickey, Timothy became Timmy, and William became Willy. She dominated them like a mother figure, making them do things that they otherwise would not want to do.

It was a game. She had learnt it in school, but not from her teachers. When she lifted her skirt behind the bike shed, she would study the excited looks on the boys’ faces as eagerly as they studied her exposed knickers.’ Knowledge is power’, a teacher had once told her. How right he was; knowing the boys’ interest in her sexuality was power, and it could be used to her advantage. But it was not just the financial gains that could be made, and she had made a few, it was the control that she enjoyed. Anne-Marie liked, even loved, the power of domination and control that she could exert over members of the other sex.

But as she stood in the modestly furnished lounge of Jack’s flat, her face was as white and cold as snow. Jack Manning was nearly fifty years of age, twice Anne-Marie’s age, a friend, a very good friend. He had helped her to get a personal assistant’s position with a local managing director of a small firm, even to the point of giving her a reference. And she had rewarded him by including him in one of her games, although he had participated unwittingly. And now he lay on the pale green carpet, blood oozing from a smashed skull. The weapon, a heavily blood-stained black handled hammer, lay by his side.

This was something new; something that she had never witnessed before. She was shocked, naturally, Anne-Marie had never seen a dead body before, and even though she had prepared herself mentally for this moment, the sight of Jack’s life blood forming a bright red halo around his head was still a jolt to her system. Fortunately, she had worn her brown gloves because of the cold autumn breeze that was blowing outside; they would prevent any of her fingerprints from being left in the flat.

Anne-Marie stood in a state of numbness at the sight of Jack’s body, but she did not cry. She never cried; unless it was in a worthy cause; her own.

She allowed her eyes to wander around the room. She saw how neat and tidy it was; A place for everything and everything in its place; that was one of Jack’s favourite sayings. His numerous chess books were filed alphabetically both in the bookcase and on the shelf under the glass-topped coffee table. A computer, its screen displaying a blue and white chequered chess board, was on a bridge table in the corner, with the attached printer sitting on the floor underneath. But her eyes settled on Jack’s pride and joy; the coin collection resting proudly in its blue velvet case lying within the pine wood display cabinet. The lid was up allowing the viewer to see the gold and silver coins reclining in their regimented rows as though on parade. Slowly, and without a second glance at Jack’s prostrate form, Anne-Marie crossed the room to the cabinet, withdrew the case, closed the lid, and hid it from sight beneath the brown calf length leather coat that she wore. She was about to turn to depart when the corners of her mouth creased up in a slight smile. Her gloved hand reached into the cabinet and withdrew a small, inscribed silver charm bracelet with several charms, including a rabbit’s foot and a gold heart, hanging from it. She pushed the bracelet into her coat pocket. Anne-Marie touched nothing else within the cabinet.

The sunlight was disappearing into the cold evening air as Anne-Marie emerged into the busy street below Jack’s flat. She glanced at the window of the hardware shop; the owner of which was Jack’s landlord who rented him the upstairs flat above his place of business. The shop was in darkness with the windows shuttered and padlocked. So were some of the other shops as well, except for the mini-market and the chemist.

Anne-Marie mixed with the people hurrying home; hoping no one would recognize her. But why should they? She very rarely came to this part of town, and when she did it was usually at night to visit Jack. And the throng of people that she was in would be more interested in getting home to their evening meals than in her.

Benny’s car, an old light blue Nissan with a dented passenger door, was in the library car park. Anne-Marie, without looking around her, as she did not want to attract attention to herself, unlocked the driver’s door and slid calmly behind the steering wheel. The car’s engine purred into life; hardly raising a decibel as she engaged first gear and drove calmly off the car park and into the bustling traffic moving towards the suburbs.

Jimmy was on holiday in Tunisia, but Anne-Marie knew where he hid the key to his allotment shed. She walked through the dark and deserted communal allotments towards Jimmy’s shed, a well maintained and pleasantly decorated blue and white wooden structure. Keeping her gloves on, she withdrew the key from its hiding place beneath the plant pot on the windowsill and opened the shed door. A comfortable armchair, heating stove, and a small wooden cabinet containing Jimmy’s tea making utensils where on one side of the one roomed building, whilst plant pots and gardening tools littered the other side both on the floor and on soil-stained wooden shelves. Anne-Marie placed the velvet case on the floor in the corner amongst some tools and covered it with a dirty mud splattered blanket. She then left via the same route that she had used to arrive.

As she sat once again in the light blue Nissan, she reached into her pocket and withdrew the charm bracelet. Anne-Marie smiled as she read the inscription; ‘To my beloved Cathy’. The smile soon disappeared along with the bracelet which Anne-Marie placed out of sight under the passenger seat.

It was a quarter to seven by her expensively styled watch, a Christmas present from Jimmy, as she turned slowly into the car park of Belvedere Gardens, an over-elaborate name for a collection of concrete maisonettes. The car park was no more than a courtyard surrounded by several towers, each of three stories. Ann-Marie pulled into a vacant parking space in front of the second tower.

Benny was waiting for her. She waved to him as she climbed demurely out of the car. He did not wave back. With an anxious look, and a nervous twitch of his shoulders, Benny hurriedly entered the second story maisonette, leaving the front door open for Anne-Marie. As she climbed the concrete steps leading to Benny’s front door a broad smile beamed from her face; it was a smile of success. Her thoughts were of ‘I’m going to get away with this.’

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TWO

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Detective Inspector James Buchan was a boring man; at least that was how his wife described him, even up to the point when she divorced him four years ago. But he did not regard himself as boring at all; single minded perhaps, but not boring. He did concede the point though that his life was his work; unfortunately, his wife did not share his enthusiasm for police work. Divorce was inevitable once his two daughters had left home for university.

He pulled up outside the hardware shop having just left one of his daughters, Becky, at home crying over a broken relationship. That was not an area of his that he could call a speciality; his ex-wife, Jacqueline, on the other hand, was an expert. It was a point that he had reminded her of frequently, especially during their divorce proceedings. Now he only saw his daughters as they moved from one parent to the other. His elder daughter, Helen, but maybe more so Becky, had tried and failed on several occasions to get them back together. James could only smile at the suggestion; Jacqueline was out of his life forever.

D.I. Buchan hurried up the stairs, leaping two steps at a time, and stopped, only slightly breathless, at the front door of Jack Manning’s flat. The young constable at the door opened it to allow him to enter.

Detective Sergeant Daisy Durham, ‘Daye’ to her friends because she hated the name Daisy, had her long, and curly, jet-black hair tied back in a ponytail to make her younger looking than her thirty years. But her delicate features, although black and beautiful which betrayed her West Indian origins, also betrayed a mature and knowledgeable look that showed that she was experienced in the world. She was stood in the hallway talking to a uniformed constable as D.I. Buchan entered. She dismissed him before turning to face her superior.

‘Morning, Sir.’ She greeted blandly, withdrawing her notebook from the breast pocket of her navy-blue trouser suit.

James looked at his sergeant; she was too much like Jacqueline. It was not so much the physical side of her that reminded him, although Daye Durham and Jacqueline are both of slim build, had attractive elf like faces with penetratingly chestnut brown eyes. They both even had black hair, but which Jacqueline preferred to be cut shorter than Daye’s. Their similarity of character also attracted James’ attention; Daye had a calm, thoughtful, almost analytical, brain with the ability to sift information and to even categorise such knowledge. Jacqueline could do the same, but only with knowledge that she could use in quiz shows. Police work, or indeed anything connected with crime or violence, held no interest for her whatsoever. But James had loved her in the beginning, and she had given him two beautiful daughters, but apart from that he believed that he should never have married her.

‘What have we got, sergeant?’ James demanded with authority; his voice gruff with a faint trace of a Scottish accent which betrayed his origins before he moved to a force in a Northern English town.

‘Jack Manning,’ Daye began, reading from her notebook, ‘Forty-eight, widower, lived alone. Someone caved his skull in with a hammer. That is being checked now by forensics.’

‘Was it one blow or repeated blows?’

‘It was definitely a frenzied attack, Sir.’ Daye continued. ‘Probably three days ago.’

James stroked his closely shaven chin as he listened.

‘Any sign of a forced entry?’

‘No, Sir. The victim must have let his killer in.’

‘Who found the body?’

‘Ms Pat Conway, the victim’s sister. Jack Manning was in the habit of going for a newspaper before breakfast every day. The last morning, he did that was last Tuesday. When Ms Conway saw the newsagent this morning and was told that Jack had not collected his paper for three days; she came round to see what was wrong with her brother. She’s in the kitchen.’

James looked towards the closed door and imagined the woman that was beyond it. He could only guess what must have passed through her mind having found her brother murdered. But first he would investigate the lounge.

Jack Manning’s covered body lay on a stretcher on the floor awaiting removal to the local mortuary where it could be examined more thoroughly. The bright red halo, stark against the pale green of the carpet, was the only sign that something was wrong, although the double door to the display cabinet was slightly ajar.

‘That’s the only item that appears to have been touched.’ Daye informed her boss, pointing a long index finger towards the pine wood piece of furniture.

James slowly approached it. Several silver, and expensive looking, plates and goblets lay untouched on their glass shelves. There they sat, highly polished and uniform; so much so that James could clearly see himself on their shiny surfaces. Did his face really look so ingrained and lived in as that? He thought to himself; and then smiled as he thought ‘yes’ to his own question. He was now mid-forties, nearly six feet in height, but without a ‘beer belly’ that some men of his age were apt to get as they approached middle age. James was broad but not fat. He liked to keep fit although he did not have the time to work out at a gymnasium.

‘They look valuable,’ Daye said quietly. ‘And yet they have been left.’

‘Something was taken.’ James said firmly, nodding his dark-haired head with the greying temples towards the large space on the middle shelf. ‘Maybe Ms Conway can tell us what should be there.’

Pat Conway, her tear-stained face buried in a handkerchief, was sat at the table as D.I. Buchan and D.S. Durham entered the kitchen. The young female officer with her stood to attention as her superior officers entered but retook her seat as James motioned with his hand for her to sit down again. James also sat down at the table, directly opposite Ms Conway, while Daye stood beside the door, pencil and notebook in hand, ready to make notes.

‘I’m so sorry, Ms Conway.’ James began sincerely, his voice deliberately soft and calming, ‘but I have to ask you certain questions but only if you feel up to it.’

Pat Conway withdrew the handkerchief from her face and held it tightly in a ball between her two clenched hands. Her eyes were red and yet