Page 64 of Razors & Ruin

“The flabby middle is not enough for me, my pet, and you know it,” he murmurs. “I want to get my teeth into the choice cuts. Thethoroughbred stock at the top of the food chain. I will cozy up to the flock to lead them to my abattoir, but don’t worry—you and I will get exactly what is coming to us in the end.”

33

Sweeney

At the shop, I dismiss Nellie to her day’s baking despite the obvious thrum of energy that has me wound up tight.

I dare not fuck away the tension; I might genuinely be at risk of killing her, all love and tangled devotion be damned.

But fuck me. Itworked.

The Beadle is coming, and he will bring his wretched brain, crammed with nasty knowledge and, perhaps, a nugget or two that will close the door behind the past.

I cannot allow something as mundane as a letter to end my hopes of…what? Salvation?

No, I can’t pretend that’s what it’s about anymore.

I need to lay my hands on someone who took Johanna, if only symbolically, and that person needs to be the bastard Beadle. If he’ll admit to being just as involved as Wetherby, I’ll take great pleasure and care over bleeding the filthy cunt.

If hedoesn’tadmit it? Maybe it doesn’t matter.

The lying fuck stood in court and said I was an apostate from Hell and had murdered both Gerald and Veronica Cope in hot blood.

I had no defense, and no one believed Gerald was a fuckawful person; he had friends to vouch for him, as the Beadle always had, and no smear ever stuck. My sentence wasdoubledbecause of him.

I try to summon Veronica’s loving gaze, but I can’t. The expression will not settle in my mind’s eye, and she won’t look at me. The baby, too, with her blonde hair. I only recall it now; flaxen curls behind her tiny pink ears. The little girl I never even held.

Hours pass, and another cold evening draws in. I’m wired, running hot and cold, but still I walk the floor, unable to rest for a second.

Shortly before the shop is due to open, Nellie brings us tea and rock cakes, her face etched with worry.

“Strike a light,” she says, looking me up and down. “You look like crap. Eat something, for crying out loud, or you’ll be flat out before the Beadle comes.”

I bid her to join me; I was hard on her this morning, yet she went to her work without complaint, her small hands diligently mincing and rolling as they do daily.

She puts up with a lot of my shit, but after today, maybe I’ll make it up to her. A trip to the seaside, even, for some fresh air.

Nellie sits and takes a bite of her cake. “Did he say when to expect him?”

I shake my head. “He was difficult, actually. Kept banging on about his ‘official duties’, which needed attending to first. Nothing like as ingratiating as when we last met, so I’ll have to step up my game.”

She laughs. “I thought you were going to kill him regardless. Can’t you decide?”

“Much will depend on him,” I reply, pouring the tea. “If he has anything interesting to say, I will have cause to hold back, but I may not have the will.”

She regards me with a sly smile. “So Jill Bellefonte’s place got shut down, did you hear? Someone grassed her up and the health people came by. Found a whole menagerie in her kitchen; cats, dogs, mangy sheep, even a badger, as well as fucking hundreds of rodents.”

I grimace. “Urgh. I don’t know why that’s so much worse than people, but it is.” A thought occurs, and I throw her a glance. “Nellie. I know you’re competitive, but?—”

“That fat bitch was no match for me.”

She falls silent, and I know. “Tell me you didn’t fucking report her. You idiot, Nellie. One pie shop gets inspected, and they might look at them all.”

Nellie hadn’t thought of this possibility before. As the cogs turn in her mind, her face falls.

“I didn’t—there’s no reason to check up on me!”

“You don’t know what the Bellefonte woman said.”

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