That evening Sand sat in his living room. The house still felt strange and empty. The lack of noise coming from the kitchen. The television hummed in the background, now uncommented on. The sense of something missing felt tangible. The silence drummed into his brain. There was a hole, a shape, a gap that had once been occupied. His mind had nothing to occupy it either. No case to worry about, no clues to ponder, no scenarios to contemplate or evaluate.
Something about the day was gnawing at the back of his mind though. Sand couldn’t place it. He had no open cases that needed resolved. Since Camilla’s death he had thrown himself into his work and cleared the backlog of paperwork, loose ends and cold cases. What had he seen today that bothered him. His only new case had been the mutilated cat. He had got a call earlier in the evening from Håkon to report no suspicious circumstances – other than the dismembered feline. No neighbourly feuds, no theft. Still, something about that cat was nagging at him.
He rose from the armchair and headed to his study. In there he kept the drum kit he had had since he was a teenager. They had soundproofed the study to let him play without annoying Camilla. She had grown tired of Sand’s continued reluctance to accept he would never be a drummer in a band again. Now he could leave the door open if he wanted. He sat down on the stool and began hitting the bass and snare. Slowly at first he beat out a steady rhythm. His mind relaxed and numbed as the silence was replaced by the constant beat. Gradually he picked up the pace until he was working at a frenzy. Then he started throwing in jazz breaks. He closed his eyes. He pictured the cat, sliced open, intestines spilled on the ground, blood and fur and bone curdled together.
Then it came to him. He had seen something like it before. Not with a cat though. With a human. The decapitated head, the intestines, the limbs arranged in a star shape. It had been twenty years ago. One of his first cases as a detective.
Jules Eckberg had been found guilty of murdering his boyfriend. He pleaded insanity, claiming he had been possessed by the devil or evil spirits, Sand couldn’t remember the full details. He had been sentenced to life. Twenty years ago, Sand thought. He battered the cymbals and laid down the drumsticks. The sweat dripped from his face, his t-shirt was soaked through. Twenty years. Available for parole in eleven. No, too much of a coincidence. Sand dismissed the thought from his mind as he walked through to the bathroom.
As he stood under the cool shower he remembered that he didn’t believe in coincidence.
This is part four of my A to Z Challenge 2017. More information on the challenge, and other stories and blogs taking part in it, can be found HERE.
Throughout April I hope to publish a section a day, relating to a letter of the alphabet, which in the end will make up a continuous story, all based round the objects found in this children’s jigsaw:
Other entries in the challenge, and a version of the final complete, joined up story can be found here: A TO Z CHALLENGE 2017.
They just keep getting better!
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Thank you!
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Oh boy! A serial killer on hand perhaps?
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Perhaps…Or that might be too simple 🙂
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And the suspense grows!!
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Thanks Joy, hope you are liking the story so far.
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*bites nails*
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Ha, love it 🙂
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Ok, Ok, you know you can’t leave us like that, right?
A case from the past. My favourite ones 😉
@JazzFeathers
The Old Shelter – 1940s Film Noir
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Not long to wait for the next installment 🙂
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Not too long until the next installment 🙂
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Loving it, great suspense builder!
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Thank you, glad it is building nicely for you!
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Jules, back for revenge? Or a copycat messing with Sand’s head? Questions, questions…
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Answers coming soon!
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OOH. Nail biting.
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Thanks Shehanne, hope your finding time to keep up – I am saving them all so you can catch up at any point 🙂
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I am Iain. It has just been a bit busy this last week BUT there’s certain blogs I do keep up with x
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Excellent description. I feel as if I am watching a crime series……The suspense is growing!
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Thank you, that’s what I was hoping to create.
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Oooooo the tension.
Bunny and the Bloke
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Thanks for reading
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Ooh, gripping! The thlot pickens! Great storytelling, Iain!
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Thanks Annie
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How gruesome! It makes me think of the cat that was used to hid stolen money, I think, from one of the Lord Peter short stories. Very nicely done!
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Thanks Andrea, hadn’t heard of that story, what an ingenious, and disturbing, idea!
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Your writing was really flowing here. And the drumming helping him to reach his subconscious worked. Very nicely done! 🙂
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Thanks Sascha – Drum was one of the easier ones to fit in to the story. Hope it keeps flowing like that until the end of the month!
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There’s clearly something cymbal-ic about the star shape. I’m really enjoying this Iain
Another day in Amble Bay!
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Very good 🙂 Thanks Keith, hope I can hold your interest for the full month.
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Aha! Either he’s out on parole … or, his son just turned 20 and is following in the footsteps of the father. Either way, I think Sand has something new to worry about.
Also, I was hoping he was going to pick up a drumstick, and then return to the doorway to close the door. In homage to Camilla. Because, in some ways, she’s still there isn’t she.
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You’ve read this sort of thing before, I can tell. Camilla definitely still there and affecting his thought process for sure.
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I’m going to have to guess the cases are related. 😉
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I think you might be on the right lines…
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I’m just waiting to see how the igloo fits into all this… It gets better each day!
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Thanks Maggie. I think I have igloo figured. Octopus and Whale I’m struggling with… 🙂
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I’ll stay tuned for the outcome!
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Drumming would be a good way to tune out everything else so you can think. Great character building!
My “theme” – A Thirty-Word Story, revealing one word of the story each day of the challenge.
#AtoZChallenge The Letter D
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Wow.. Now this is getting intriguing😍
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Thanks Megha 🙂
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You’ve set that up nicely… now where do you go?
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Thank you. Well, I have the next three or four in my head…
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The plot thickens… I really like the length of each new piece of the puzzle.
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Thank you, difficult trying to get a lot of plot into a readable chunk. Glad you are enjoying it 🙂
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Really good detective story!! Im looking forward to seeing how it turns out!
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Thank you 🙂
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Hey Iain, I think Sand is about to make a breakthrough. I wanted to tell you about a blogger I encountered at a blog named Sorchia’s Universe. She is collecting the blog names and bloggers that are writing fiction during the A to Z and making a linky list she includes with every post. Here is the link to her blog: https://www.sorchiadubois.com/a-cold-spring-episode-6-fashionably-late/
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Thanks for that Joe, I will look at her blog. Trying to read as many as possible but difficult to keep up!
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Yes, yes it is!
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Love it that when something is nagging at you and you can’t really place it, it comes to you like a flash when you are doing something unconnected. A blast from the past, eh? Intriguing!
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Doesn’t sound good. I think he’s right coincidences that relate so closely., bare looking in to.
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He’s going to give the job up, join a band, travel with them, then come across a zebra cut open and splayed in a star with the head separated. yuck. too gruesome. I know, I’ll stick to the day job. Well done on this one. I have no time to wait, off to read the next. Loving this.
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Excellent. Good theory, not quite where I was going! Zebra is going to be tricky though 🙂
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This is great. Can’t wait to read the next part!
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So glad you are enjoying it 🙂
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🙂
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I like this, the serial cat killer. I can’t help to think about Jo Nesbø’s Harry Hole series, maybe because of the Norwegian setting combined with serimonial murders. Great stuff.
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Thank you, definitely in that genre. Final week of the serial story this week, I hope you enjoy reading it.
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I do, slowly I’m going through it.
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