Chapter 13

The Retribution

chapter 13

Robert stood at the table in the interview room grinning cleverly and looking down at Marvin, lighting up a cigar, then sitting down facing him, before pulling the envelope from his coat and taking out the pictures.

Carl approached the desk at that moment and sat down next to Robert who placed a photograph onto it, facing in Marvin’s direction. It wasn’t a photograph from the murder scene, but simply of Mary from when she was alive. The colouring was in sepia and it looked to have been taken some years before, as her loosely clipped up hair was still it’s darkish brown shade with only a few grey hairs. She looked to be in her mid to late 30’s and was very attractive with big brown eyes, exotic features with high cheekbones, slightly olive skin and a perfect smile, and the scenery around her looked like a patch of wilderness during summer.

Marvin looked down at the photograph, then pushed it away demanding, "I don’t wanna look at her!"

"Why don’t ya wanna look at her, Marvin?" asked Robert.

"You know! I can’t bear it."

"Look at her, Marvin," replied Robert, pushing the photograph back across the desk.

Marvin studied it as he began saying, "Me and a few other men held her down while one of the men cut her tongue out. That’s how she got the finger marks, because we held her arms, but the other guy, who grabbed the right arm was rough, hence the finger marks. Then another guy grabbed the same arm while I kept hold of the left one. When she saw the razor, she fought. She was stronger than we’d hoped for, so another guy pounced on her from the front to restrain her. Did ya find a bruise around the ribs area?" he asked. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of the photograph for the entire time he had been talking. It was like they were glued to it.

"Yes, she had deep bruising to the abdomen," informed Robert. Of course he didn't believe hacking about the bruising being caused by simply restraining her. It was obviously bollocks.

"He was a strong guy. He hit her hard," he replied, before continuing. "So there were 3 of us holdin’ her. The other 2 got rough and she was screaming. Then our main guy got out his razor and he sliced her tongue out. We cut her throat last, though. The guys demanded that way would take longest."

Robert glared at him at that moment, knowing that whoever geared this murder must have had a particular hatred for the victim, plus a sadistic streak at that. "We need names."

"Please! No. I don’t know any of their names!" he begged.

"If you won’t help us, we can’t help you. If you don’t care about your life, then I want you to see these…" Robert replied, whilst taking the rest of the photographs out of the envelope.

Marvin caught a glimpse of some of the gore, so he buried his head downwards and shakily said, "There were lots more…about 10 more. I don’t know exactly. The bar tender, Mr Wilson was there."

Robert remembered how Carl claimed that same bar tender had been giving them suspicious looks on the first day of the investigation. James Wilson, he had said his name was.

The younger man continued, saying, "I don’t quite know who everyone was."

"Who was your main man? And was any of the Ashen family involved at some stage, perhaps antagonising you?"

"No!" he answered. "The main guy, I promised him. I crossed my heart that if I ever did have to say anything, I’d never drop him in it."

both Robert and Carl were bored of him constantly stringing them along, so Robert slammed the most gruesome photograph onto the desk for Marvin to see. It was the same one that Carl had been disturbed by.

Marvin just glanced at it and cried, "I can’t and I wont!"