The Girl Dreams

A frightened black girl dreams of murder in a Bristol mansion attic, a young white barrister dreams of the black girl the night before the bloody murder. Who is guilty?

The Girl Dreams

Prologue

 

Sleep is a corridor to death and death a doorway to waking.

 

 

 

The girl sits shivering in the cold mould invested corner, underneath the only window of her attic home. The sunken, spring-less mattress she sleeps on is just two arms span to her right. She tries not to look at it but the fatigue harassing her body screams at her to give up the fight, crawl to the damp mattress and sleep. Sleep, just close your eyes and sleep, she screams to herself. But sleep almost always means dreams, and her dreams come with death.

 

Death and the dying and the killers are always waiting for her in the dark. Waiting for her to witness the stalking; the chase; the capture; the murder; the fear; the torture; the pain�"death. The girl fights off the heavy lull of sleep for two more hours. The sun begins to rise in the east and her eye lids come together�"just for one moment, she thinks, but sleep comes and the girl dreams of the murder she will commit tomorrow.

 

Part One

The Itch on the back of the neck.

 

The lawyer, Harrow Bane, glanced over his shoulder for the fifth time since entering Stonehurst House. Like most well to do houses in Bristol, Stonehurst was immaculately adorned with the most expensive paintings, delicate ornaments, and exquisite furnishings. The floors were freshly polished, the air held the aroma of pressed lavender, and all the servants played their part seamlessly. Stonehurst house was by all means, perfect, and apart from the grief stricken mood about the place, Harrow could not comprehend why he felt as though something sinister was watching him ever so acutely from behind.

 

"That's the fifth time now that you've flinched like a scared school girl, Mr. Bane, don't tell me this is your first crime scene?" Teased Detective Fletcher, with three short chuckles, followed by a sharp snort.

 

His fire red hair, sky blue eyes and flamboyant yellow coat, gave Detective Fletcher the appearance of a robust gleeful tailor, rather than that of the pragmatic and analytical detective that he was.

 

"No, not exactly. I've been to crime scenes before, but not a murder scene,” Harrow admitted.

 

"But Mr. Soper of Soper and Collins assured me that I would be provided with the very best criminal Barrister to prosecute that she beast that killed my good good husband," asserted Mrs. Stonehurst, anxiously.

 

She had scarce said two words since their entering the house; Pritchard, the elderly Butler from Manchester had been their tour guide, and had since done all the talking.

 

"Oh to be sure, to be sure, Mrs .Stonehurst. Soper & Collins are the very best attorneys in these parts about, they won't let you down," assured Detective Fletcher, with no less certainty than Soper and Collins would have done for themselves.

 

“Soper and Collins will do their very best to defend your case, Mrs. Stonehurst. I will do my best to make sure the perpetrator of this heinous crime is prosecuted,” said Harrow, with as much conviction as he could muster.

 

The truth was, he had only passed the bar the last spring, and had since taken three cases all of which were theft cases. Granted, he won all three cases, but this was his first serious crime�"his first murder case. His uncle, Richard Collins of Soper and Collins, decided the truest way for him to prove his worth as a criminal barrister was to take the lead of the towns newest murder case. He had reached the practice that morning earlier than usual, and was immediately called into a meeting with his uncle; who proceeded to inform him of the Stonehurst murder and the role he would take as counsel.

 

“The crime was committed in the attic…I shall take you there now, if you may?” said the Pritchard, in his loud base voice.

 

“Pritchard, you take the detective constable and Mr. Bane up, I don’t think I can see that room again�"not just yet,” Mrs. Stonehurst said, stepping to the side to clear the way to the back staircase.

 

“Very well, ma’am, you take a rest in the tea room and I will lead the way, we must keep your spirits up” said Pritchard, kindly.

 

Mrs. Stonehurst smiled warmly at Pritchard and slowly made her way down the corridor a few paces, and into the sunlit tea room to the left. Pritchard started on the stairs followed by detective Fletcher, and Harrow Bane took the rear. The second flight of narrow winding stairs came to a sudden halt outside a chaffed pale blue door with a large bronze handle. Harrow counted seventeen stairs in total. Pritchard fumbled with his keys for a few seconds and finding the attic door key, he turned behind him and frowned deeply.

 

“It pains me to have to leave my master in such a gruesome state, but we were instructed by the police to leave the crime scene untouched until you arrived,” he said, with a shaky voice.

 

“Yes, you did right,” said detective Fletcher, patting Pritchard on the shoulder.

 

Pritchard straightened, breathed in, and opened the pale blue door that opened in wards with a well pronounced screech. The smell of rotting flesh and blood hit Harrow directly and he coughed, covering his mouth and nose with his left hand. Fletcher stepped in and made his way slowly to the center of the attic room where Mr. Stonehurst lay, sans life. Pritchard stood just inside the door looking at his feet unflinchingly--Harrow could tell just being in the room distressed the old butler greatly.

 

“Well, are you going to come and meet your plantiff?” Fletcher called out.

 

Harrow took a short breath and walked into the sparsely lit room. He was immediately taken over with a mood of encroaching dread and something else�"something familiar and yet foreign. The attic was large, almost the size of the first floor drawing room, but the majority of the space was taken up with unused furniture and incased paintings. Stonehurst lay on his back in a hardened puddle of blood. He was wearing a suit, which Harrow found peculiar, and his arms and legs were stretched out in a star formation.

 

Harrow looked around the room for a second time and noticed a bloody mattress up against the far eastern wall. Half a meter to the left of the mattress, along the back wall he looked out the small arched window with the drawn hessian curtains. He saw the roof tops of the neighboring houses and stared out at the blue gray sky above. It hadn’t rained yet, but like most days in Bristol, the rain would inevitably fall.

 

“The crime scene is here, lad, ignoring it won’t make it go away.”

 

Harrow snapped out of his momentary daze and completed the space between himself and Mr. Stonehurst’s body. The stench was far worse closer and no matter how tightly he covered his mouth and nose with his hand, it remained pungent.

 

“That’s a lot of blood,” Harrow said, crouching down for closer inspection.

 

“Not more than expected, he was stabbed to death and left here to bleed out. I would hazard there’s about a hundred ounces here.”

 

Fletcher spoke and moved about the body in a crouched position, touching and lifting with his gloved hand.

 

“This suit is barely creased,” he said, lifting Stonehurst’s left arm.

 

“I did think it strange that he was wearing a suit,” Harrow said, peering closer for any creases in the navy suit�"there were hardly any.

 

“His wearing a suit is not so strange--he was a working man. What is strange is that after a day’s work and a struggle with his murderer, his suit looks almost freshly pressed.”

 

“My master was not some ruddy school boy, though he was in trade, he was the finest gentleman and he took special care to avoid creasing his suits unnecessarily,” Pritchard spoke, defensively.

 

“Oh no doubt, Pritchard, take no personal offense by what I say, I am just making observations. Mr. Stonehurst was the best of gentleman,” Fletcher flattered.

 

“The mattress is bloody too,” Fletcher said, rising to his feet.

 

“Yes, I noticed that also.”

 

“The struggle must have begun near the mattress, he was most probably stabbed by the mattress--he stumbled backwards some paces and then fell. There’s too many stab marks to be sure which was the killing blow, we will have to wait for the coroners report to be sure.”

 

“It’s a terrible way to go,” Harrow remarked, rising to his feet.

 

“Seven stab wounds, all of them fairly deep�"she must be a strong, violent woman, this Heriam Lockes.”

 

“She was possessed by demons, she was, always knew there was something evil about her. From the day she started work here, I could see the murder in her dark brown eyes. I told the master not to let a black slave into the house, Stonehurst house had never seen the need to employ blacks before, but the master was good and kind and he gave her chance.”

 

Pritchard was looking up with wild angry eyes as he spoke. Harrow observed him closely and could feel his disdain pulsing�"he had hated Heriam Lockes even before she committed the crime. He’ll make the perfect witness, thought Harrow.

 

“Possessed�"had she shown violent tendencies before?” Fletcher asked, walking towards Pritchard.

 

“Violent, no, but wicked and strange. Every other night she would wake the house hollering and screaming; said it was nightmares about folks wanting to kill her, but now I know she was dreaming about killing people--about killing my good master,” said Pritchard, with a growl in the back of his throat.

 

Harrow pulled out his pad and scribbled down questions he would later ask Pritchard, Mrs. Stonehurst and the other servants who were in the house during the murder. If all the witnesses shared the same feeling as Pritchard, prosecuting Heriam Lockes would not be a difficult task. In most cases, black offenders would not have even seen a trial, but she was being defended pro bono, by barrister Kelvin Harding who was a very open supporter of the abolitionist movement. Apparently, he had been visiting one of his clients in prison when Heriam had been brought in. He demanded a private audience with her and had immerged moments later vowing to defend her in court. Kelvin Harding was good, but he was risking far too much defending a black woman who was most certainly guilty.

 

“Were you the only one who thought she was strange?”

 

“No, Detective Fletcher, some of the other servants thought it too, but Mr. Stonehurst would not send her away, he said we had to do our Christian duty.”

 

“Where were you when the crime was taking place?”

 

“I will never forgive myself for being away. Mrs. Stonehurst had asked me to go and collect a package from her uncle in New York that had arrived by ship for her. She didn’t trust the couriers and she wanted me to collect the item, so I left at five minutes past seven in the evening; the sun was just going down. By the time I came back, that black witch had killed my master and scarred my mistress.”

 

“She sounds like the devil himself,” said Harrow, walking back to the body.

 

“That she is, Mr. Bane, that she is. All her kind are the same; thieves, killers and w****s,” hissed Pritchard, vehemently.

 

“It would appear so. Now, Pritchard my good man, I will need some tea, some candles and some privacy to inspect the scene a little closer. The coroner will be here in an hour or so--send him up directly.”

 

“Yes, Detective Fletcher, I am at your service.”

 

            Pritchard bowed and then turned and headed down the stairs leaving Fletcher and Harrow alone.

 

            “I will leave you to it, Detective, I’ve seen what I needed to see,” Harrow said, approaching the door where Fletcher stood.

 

            “And what do you make of what you’ve seen, Mr. Bane?”

 

            “It’s pretty evident that Heriam Lockes killed Mr. Stonehurst. I don’t know any jury that will think otherwise once we present all the evidence and present the witnesses,” Harrow said, confidently.

 

            “She will hang for sure, that Kelvin Harding is wasting his time and risking his reputation. Londoners might take kindly to Englishman defending guilty slaves, but the folk in Bristol won’t like him for it.”

 

            “Well it’s his head on the chopping board not mine.”

 

            “That it is,” said Fletcher, moving back to the body.

 

            “Good day, detective.”

 

            “Good day, Mr. Bane.”

 

            Harrow smiled and turned. His right leg had crossed the threshold when the eery itch of a flinch rose up the back of his neck and across to his left ear. He stepped out of the room and ordered his mind to ignore the growing itch, but it burrowed deeper and hotter until he couldn’t resist any longer. Stopping just outside the door; he turned his neck around and his eyes stared right past Fletcher, past Stonehurst’s body and the hardened mat of blood, and they rested on the bloodied mattress in the back right corner. The light coming in from the arched window was dim at most but it was enough for him to make out the dark red smudges of blood along the edge of the beige mattress. The sense of nostalgia and the familiar that had first arrested him when he entered the room returned, and this time with ferocious intensity.

 

            “Is something the matter?” Fletcher asked, noticing him, but Harrow ignored him and stared hard at the mattress.

 

The mattress--at first it was just a damp, blood stained mattress on the attic floor, but the something familiar that he could not quite put his finger on was now becoming clear and his heart began to race. The reason he had looked over his shoulder repeatedly and the reason he had turned back that last time was right in front him. He closed his eyes for three seconds and there he remembered the dream of the black woman crying in the dark, too afraid to sleep.

 

His eyes shot open and he saw the black woman crouching by the mattress shivering in tears fighting the fatigue. His eyes fell shut again and he watched the trembling woman succumb to sleep. The moment she lay down on the floor, a maddening shrill ripped right through his memory and into his present. He opened his eyes and Fletcher was standing in front of him saying his name with a worried expression.

 

            His eyes scanned the room one last time and he shivered: the attic in front of him was the exact replica of the one in his dream. Why had he dreamt of Stonehurst House, why had he dreamt of a black woman in the attic, too afraid to sleep?

 

 

Author's Note

ignore grammar, what do you think of the pace and mood.