Chapter 21

The Retribution

Chapter 21

Just as Robert and Carl were about to arrest Victor and take him into custody, his wife standing outside the door listening, before she stormed into the room. "What's this about?" she asked defensively with her hands on her hips, as though she was squaring up to the 2 officials.

"We have reason to believe that your husband was involved in the torture, mutilation and murder of Mary Shaw," Robert defended.

"Natalie!" Victor pleaded.

Though the woman just stood there, dumbstruck. She looked very unkempt; with her hair long and scraggly, as though it hadn't been brushed and she was wearing one of her husbands shirts which came just above the knees on her, displaying bare legs. She also showed signs of sleeplessness around the eye area, down to all of the stress she had suffered continuously for the past month since her son went missing.

"Mrs Ashen, would you like to say anything?" Carl asked politely.

She didn't answer, so he and Robert took it as a cue to arrest Victor, whilst putting some handcuffs on him and Wilson.

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Back at Robert and Carl's main department, they interviewed the Ashen man after putting Wilson in one of the cells.

"I don't know anything about this," Victor said calmly, as he sat in the interrogation room opposite both detectives, with a police officer sat in the background.

"Where were ya between the 12th of August somewhere between 10 pm and early hours of the 13th."

"I was at home with the wife and kids. I got a 15 year old girl and a 3 year old boy and another girl; 8 - and lets not forget Michael. He's 10," Victor informed, before adding, "Or was."

Robert leaned forward and said, "See, this is what strikes me: ya keep referring to your son using a very bitter tone, as though you have a grudge against someone like ya know what happened."

"I told ya. Just cause I thought Mary Shaw did something to him doesn't mean I went out of my way to kill her."

"We will be speaking with your wife," Carl informed.

"Go ahead," Victor said confidently.

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The next morning at around 9, the department received a phone call from Natalie. She said that Victor was with her on the evening of the 12th and that he hadn't slipped away at all. She can also vouch for the early hours, as he was in bed with her right through until half past 8 the next morning, so there was no choice but to let him go home.

It was 11 am and Robert was studying paperwork at his desk. A particular part stood out to him which read, No murder weapon. If they could find a murder weapon - something that the pathologist: Edward Allen would approve, something thin bladed and razor-like:- that would make the case go smoother. It was time to turn Ravens Fair upside down, and while they looked for a murder weapon, they could do some more searching for Michael Ashen.

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Later that day, Robert had taken Carl with him to Mary Shaw's living quarters to search for even more clues. They pulled up outside the main entrance of the theatre and headed towards the back, through the trees and shrubbery surrounding it and through the same door and up the same steps they had been to before to examine the body.

The home was the same way as it had been left: blood stains and smears were all over the sitting area. It was a horror picture all round.

The woman's bed looked like it had been slept in. Everything was preserved just the way it was that night; that exact night - moment - she was murdered: brutally butchered.

Robert had a peek through nosily at her belongings, yet was careful not to disrupt anything. He seemed to look through her things and around her home somewhat sympathetically. "Poor woman," he tutted, as he looked at the pictures on her dressing table taken of her shows from all different era's. "This is a sorry case. A butchered woman and a missing child; both linked." He studied for a moment and shook his head grievingly.

Carl saw his pal's sadness and walked over to him, resting his hand on his shoulder and soothingly saying, "I know, Rob. A little part of me hopes that it was her. I mean...I'd rather it be her that got him than some paedophile..."

"I wanna go through her things in case we find anything proving her involvement with the boy," Robert said to break up the conversation and the depressing atmosphere it was bringing to an already unpleasant scene.

They began to rummage through some of her books when Robert discovered a scrap book, so he flicked through the pages, finding designs and structured plans of building ventriloquist dummies and some pages filled with pictures of long dead relatives and relatives she mustn't have kept in touch with. He almost dropped the book on the floor, where he was knelt - when one of the pages revealed newspaper cuttings of articles of Michael Ashen, and a 'missing' poster of him she had pasted onto an entire page. "Christ," he gasped.

Carl peered over into the book and grabbed it from Robert and said, "Maybe she is guilty."

Robert took a deep breath and exclaimed, "We need to get to the bottom of this case, even if it kills us! Start searching the premises for evidence of Michael Ashen."

"I'm off to the outhouse," Carl said. He then headed off, leaving Robert to rummage through the area and think.

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Just as Carl was coming out of the tiny wooden stall, he noticed something sticking out of the ground next to it. He walked over to it and bent down to grab the instrument without moving it too much in case he disrupted the scene. The handle was quite large - like the type that you see on a dagger. It seemed like a hefty weapon, so he curiously and carefully pulled the blade from the ground. He was right. It was a dagger. A mighty one at that, and to the young man's horror yet satisfaction - it had blood on it. He quickly put it back just the way it was and ran inside to tell Robert.