Chapter 20 (Flash back)

The Retribution

Chapter 20

A short while later, locals were gathered all over Ravens Fair in the warm weather still waiting for news from the local police. They congregated outside shops and houses in groups. One particular group were standing near the Local Tavern when a tall, slender, elderly woman wearing a slim ankle length black dress passed them. They recognised the strange dark clothing and pinned up grey hair straight away. It was Mary Shaw, who had only just emerged after she had been nowhere in sight for all the time they had been searching for missing Michael Ashen.

"B***h!" a member of the crowd screeched.

Quickly, Mary turned around confrontationally, staring daggers at a young girl with dark sandy blonde hair who separated from the crowd to let her know that it had been her who had shouted the slur. The girl looked about 15, but seemed small for her age and wore a beige wrap around dress that came to the knees, with black heeled shoes. Her face was full of anger as she charged towards Mary - who although she knew the young girl had harmful intentions - she made no effort to run or jump out of the way even. Consequently, at the blink of an eye, she was knocked almost to the ground when the child pounded into her using her whole body.

"You little hood," Mary responded once she had regained her balance. On impulse, she wanted to batter the cocky, pint sized teen senseless, but then she realized that it was the least smart move she could possibly make at this point in time, so she just pathetically asked, "What was that for?"

"Like pickin' on kids, do ya? Well pick on me! I'll just kill ya, you stupid scrawny witch."

Mary masked all of her anger and made herself appear upset and confused. "What?...you think I had something to do with that poor boy?" she asked shakily, deliberately sounding distressed by the accusation. But inside, she was seething and wanted to give as good as she got.

"You did something to Michael. I ain't stupid," the girl hissed, standing close to Mary and looking upwards to meet her brown eyes.

"I would never hurt anyone. He's just a boy. He wouldn't have meant any harm in the theatre."

"So ya remember it? I'm amazed at your age."

"Why, aren't you a big mouthed little madam?"

The girl was astounded at the absolute front of the woman. She must have had quite a back bone, so the girl backed off realizing she had met her match and would rather go back another time to settle the score. She spat on the ground, only just missing Mary, as she walked back towards the crowd.

Mary then continued, but it wasn't long before another towns person, a man this time - pulled her up. "I heard rumours," he said.

"They're not true. I swear." She then began walking away.

The man grabbed her firmly by the top of her arm, pulling her back towards him until their bodies touched. He kept his grip and growled into her ear, "We're watching you. If you did hurt that kid, consider yourself on borrowed time." He then shoved her arm as he let go of it, as though to tell her to get out of his sight.

Mary was genuinely shaken that time - and as she hurried along the pavement, she could feel every pair of eyes around stabbing into her dangerously, but was even more unnerved as the hostility seemed to escalate when she heard individual calls: b***h, creeper, child killer - and other slurs. Child killer confused her, as why would anyone call her it when there's absolutely no leads or connections to her involvement in Michael Ashen's disappearance - let alone anything that says he's already dead - and that she killed him?

.

Back at the police station, Robert and Lorraine were both a bit worse for wear, as they continued flicking through the files - but hadn't got much done and had already forgotten some of the information they had been over.

Lorraine struggled up from her chair, scrambling to her feet.

"Where you going?" Robert asked.

"Going to find the ladies."

"There aren't any. Just the gents," Robert humoured.

"I'll have to cover my nose," Lorraine laughed as she made her way out of the room.

.

By 6 pm, both officials had over done it quite a bit. They had polished off the rest of the whisky, left with an empty bottle on the table.

Lorraine got up and ran out of the room towards the gents, where she threw up in one of the wooden stalls. She was kneeling in god knows what with her head over the filthy bowl. It was a small room with 2 sinks which weren't in bad condition, considering the rest of the wash room was squalid and stank to high heaven.

Just then, Robert walked in and shouted, "Are you OK in there?" He then heard her retching and saw her kneeling over one of the toilets. "Thank Christ. When you'd been a while, I had a horrible vision that you'd suffocated," he chuckled.

"Or disintegrated," she croaked.

Robert liked that, so he laughed and agreed, "Yeah, or disintegrated."

Lorraine got up and went over to the sink and started to wash her face and tidy her make-up, while Robert noticed her skirt as she turned around.

"Lorraine," he said, gesturing towards her bottom half with his eyes.

She looked down to see the bottom of her skirt was soaked from where she'd been kneeling. It was then that she looked slightly horrified.

"Ah, it's probably just water, I can bet," Robert assured her.

They both made their way back out onto the corridors and back to the office.

As they walked along the corridor, Robert sniffed up and said, "Er, I'm not being rude, but there's a peculiar smell."

Lorraine stopped and sniffed, looking at the mysterious liquid on the bottom of her skirt, realising just what she had been kneeling in when she was being sick. "Eww! It's..."

"Piss?" Robert provided.

"Yeah. Get it off me! I knelt in it!" She was flapping around squeamishly and kept shrieking and panicking, reacting like a teenage girl would have.

"Calm down, woman. You won't die."

Lorraine quickly ran outside, using a side door nearby and into the long grass, followed by Robert who looked around the open space and saw a small metal hose pipe attached to the wall. She saw it just after he did and said, "Give me a little spray."

"You sure?" Robert replied worriedly.

It was a warm evening and wouldn't have hurt to cool off a little, so Robert turned the tap on and water sprayed from the pipe with great force. He sprayed it all over the woman's bottom half and accidentally sprayed her blouse, soaking it through and then blasted her in the face. She screamed loudly, then saw the funny side. "Now that was on purpose! Get my skirt!" she ordered him, so he sprayed her skirt again and then turned off the tap.

"How can I go back inside?"

Robert looked over at her, noticing that she was drenched to the bone. "You're a drowned rat," he chuckled. Some of his clothes had some splashes from the hose.

Lorraine squeezed excess water from her hair and clothes, until she had gotten as much away as possible, but still looked drowned.

Robert then lead her back inside, but when they reached the office, Vernon Francis had arrived and was standing at the desk looking down at the empty whisky bottle. He looked shocked and astounded at Lorraine and asked, "What happened to you?"

"She tragically slipped on piss in the gents, so I took her to be hosed down, outside," Robert replied innocently.

Lorraine creased up with laughter, but quickly ceased when Vernon gave a loud coughing sound. He then said angrily and disapproving, "May I remind ya that this is the case of of missing child. Not a burglary. Not a missing diamond. But a missing child. Anything could have happened. He had no known reason to run away from home and had never gone further than his street - so I shouldn't expect any less than the best performance from everyone working on the case. Least of all, I shouldn't see any of them getting drunk and f****n' about on precious, precious time! The time you've spent slacking and screwing around, the clock could be ticking fast for the boy. He could even already be dead."

"Sorry. It won't happen again," Robert apologised feebly.

"We promise," Lorraine assured.

"I swear to god, if I wind up at the end of all this with a dead body..." Vernon hissed, before dismissing the pair.