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    Bleak Winter's Heart
    Bleak Winter's Heart
    Bleak Winter's Heart
    Ebook316 pages4 hours

    Bleak Winter's Heart

    By S.D. Gripton and Sally Dillon-Snape

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    About this ebook

    Detective Sergeant Georgina 'George' Easton works for Norfolk, England, CID. She is investigating the disappearnce of an American Airman from an American Base. A bad winter is already settling on the County; the Easterlies are blowing all the way from Siberia, snow flutters and ice forms, but George drives the County with her partners in her search. Her personal life, already chaotic, begins to unravel as she finds she cannot refuse people she thought of as friends. Then more people begin to disappear, there are no clues, nothing seems to connect them except their old County surnames. She is put under pressure professionally and begins to bend; her personal life closes in on her, she doesn't know who to trust or who is telling her lies. She doesn't sleep, pressures pile upon her. Will she be able to discover the whereabouts of any of the missing people? Will her personal life bring her down.
    Another superb crime novel from the mind of S.D. Gripton, who is fast becoming a major force in crime writing.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherS.D. Gripton
    Release dateJul 16, 2012
    ISBN9781476350479
    Bleak Winter's Heart
    Author

    S.D. Gripton

    S.D. Gripton novels and real crime books are written by Dennis Snape, who is married to Sally who originate from North Wales and Manchester respectively and who met 18 years ago. I work very hard to make a reading experience a good one, with good plots and earthy language. I enjoy writing and hope readers enjoy what I have written. I thank everyone who has ever looked at at one of my books.

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      Book preview

      Bleak Winter's Heart - S.D. Gripton

      BLEAK WINTER’S HEART

      A Crime Novel

      By

      S.D Gripton & Sally Dillon-Snape

      © Dennis Snape & Sally Dillon-Snape (2022)

      The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with The Copyright Act 1988

      All characters and events in this publication other than those of fact and historical significance available in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons living and dead is purely coincidental

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval systems, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher

      Cover by Snape

      PROLOGUE

      Norfolk, England

      December 18th

      1820

      It was a cold, cold night. Mists were rolling in off the forest bringing with them the threat of a winter's death to the families of the village of Dowsing, if not from starvation, then from the cold. Sixteen families, that's all there were huddled around a small green, huddling close together for protection and warmth, tucked up beside Foxlane Forest. The villagers living off the trees. Hazel providing wood for coppicing, its branches used in the wattle and daub, other wood for fuel and estovers, the English Law that stated a tenant was allowed wood for the repair of his home. Even with the comfort of the wood from the forest, winter was still bleak in Dowsing.

      But it was more bleak this year for Harald Dowsing, an ancestor of the original settlers of the village named after them for Harald had been stuck down with the ague, fever was running high in him; sweat was pouring from his hair and body and soaking the bedclothes. In his moments of lucidity, he wondered if he would ever make it back to his shepherding, working for the estate, doing it since he was a boy, his father the estate shepherd before him. He wondered.

      He caught glimpses of his wife, Martha Jane, who had passed from consumption many years ago when his girl was just a little one. He tried to work out what glimpses of her meant. Was he joining her? Was his life over, too? He wondered.

      His daughter didn't wonder. She, it was, who tended him, who kept the home warm and the cold compresses to his forehead; she it was who wiped down his naked body, who kept him cool in the face of the vicious, life-threatening fever. She it was who spoke to him, reassured him, listened to his mumbling with tears in her eyes, looked around the room when he pointed and called out her mother's name. She was sixteen summers old.

      Eleanor Dowsing had lost her mother when she was but three, her father had cared for her ever since. He'd schooled her, taught her reading and writing; taught her how to cook and clean and how to be a good wife to a man when the time came. He was very proud of her and she, in turn, was proud of her father, the rock of her life, the one person she loved above all others. Even above the Lord. She knew he was very sickly, but he would pull through; he'd been sick before and had recovered, though maybe he had never been this sick. She wrung out the cloth, soaked it in cool water and applied it again to her father's forehead. He mumbled her name, touched her hand, called out for his wife.

      The door creaked open and she turned her head as the Clergyman entered.

      Eleanor hated the Clergyman.

      His name was James Richard Wears and he was an incomer Clergyman, not of the County, and he was the Clergyman for several villages, but he was creepy. There was something inherently evil about him. Eleanor saw it, though few others did. He approached the bed, stroked her fair hair.

      He's going, child, he said.

      He's all a-dudder, thart's true, Eleanor said. Bat he'll pull through.

      James Richard Wears stared down at the pretty sixteen-year-old and thought what a wonderful wife she would make him. He'd thought it for some years but had been put off approaching by the fierce protection of the shepherd, a Godless man who cared more about animals and trees than about the souls of his fellow man. But with him gone, he would have him a wife.

      The Shepherd would die in disgrace. James Wear had it all planned out.

      At 2:00 a.m. of that cold December morning, Harald Dowsing, only thirty-eight years of age and thin as a whisp with the illness, passed over. No one was with him but Eleanor. The whole village heard her wailing. Clergyman Wears led the villagers to the house, where the door was opened and they stared in.

      He killed himself, the Clergyman stated, in raised tones so that all those gathered could hear him clearly. He committed a crime against God by taking his own life.

      Eleanor rose from her kneeling position, whirled round, her eyes afire.

      You do lie, Clergyman. You saw him but hours ago, you saw how sickly he was.

      I say he took his own life; he could not bear to live with the pain. It is a sin; he must be punished.

      No! Eleanor shouted. No! He did not commit the suicide; he died peaceful in my arms from the fever.

      Wears turned to his congregation.

      A slip of a girl would not admit to such an ungodly act by her father. She would not!

      There rose a general murmuring among the gathered families.

      No! Eleanor shouted again, as she exited her home and confronted her neighbours. He did not commit the suicide.

      Coggins, the pig man, trundled up to the house with a hand-cart. Corpe, the milking man, took hold of her, pinning her arms to her sides, even though she struggled and kicked and wriggled. Other men of the village entered the house and brought out the naked dead body of Harald Dowsing. Eleanor screamed at the sight of him and struggled more. Corpe needed the help of Bunn to constrain her. Harald was dropped into the hand-cart with all the ceremony one would expect in the disposing of a dead animal. Eleanor screamed loudly.

      Coggins pushed the hand-cart away from the house, towards the forest; the rest of the villagers, men, women and children, all wrapped up against the mists and the cold, followed. Eleanor being dragged. Deeper into the forest they went, cold mists roiling at them from the front and all around them, curling around their clothes like phantoms. Deep they went, until they came to the hole. It was not a burial place, not a grave. It was simply a hole, four-feet by four-feet by four feet.

      Eleanor screamed and her voice echoed through the trees, a hear-rending sound that would live in the forest for many a long year, a sound the trees would remember. Willing hands lifted Harald from the hand-cart, he was dropped into the hole feet first, then pushed forward to fit, bent almost in half and pushed down until all of him was in.

      Clergyman Wears stepped forward and gazed down.

      This man was an abomination, he droned. He committed a grave sin against our Lord, our God, who can alone give life and take it. This man committed the suicide this night and his soul is unclean. His soul must not be allowed to roam the undead lands, nor enter Paradise nor enter Heaven.

      He stepped back and said no prayers.

      Corpe stepped forward, holding a wooden stake in his left hand, a mallet in his right.

      Eleanor put back her head and screamed her loudest. Birds that were sleeping awoke and flew up into a darkened sky. The villagers ignored her and the rousing birds. Corpe lifted the stake, placed the point of it on Harald's back and hammered it down, through the heart, down and down, until barely eight-inches remained above his body. Eleanor swooned into unconsciousness. Clergyman Wears caught her, lifted her and walked away. The villagers filled in the hole with the dirt removed to dig it, they patted it down hard, the cold would harden it further, but they left the eight-inches visible above ground, so that all may know that here, at this point in Foxlane Forest, an ungodly man was staked, his soul never to walk in heaven. The villagers returned to their homes.

      Eleanor awoke in Clergyman Wear's home, in his bed, naked, with him propped up on one elbow, also naked. As she tried to leap away from him, he grabbed her hair and dragged her back.

      You are ruined, girl, he said. Ruined. The only chance you have in life now is to be my wife or I will tell all that you seduced me, the Clergyman. You will be disgraced, exiled from those you know, from the places you know. You will starve, get the pox and die. You are to be my wife; you will be a Godly wife; you will bear my children; you will do what you are told.

      Eleanor rolled back to face him.

      I will hate you all my days, she said.

      Clergyman Wears laughed and slapped her face.

      Bear my children, do what you are told, use the skills taught to you by your father and I will find love elsewhere. Hate me all your wish, you shall be my wife.

      They would be married four weeks later.

      Eleanor would bear the Clergyman three children; John, Elizabeth and Martha.

      She would not die until 1864, outliving the Clergyman by four years.

      She would always hate everything about him.

      Always.

      ***

      CHAPTER 1

      Norfolk, England

      Modern Day

      So Much Love

      Winter had come early. Gale force winds were blowing straight across Europe from Siberia, whipping across the North Sea, driving up the waves, pushing the sea ahead of them, rattling the windows of the homes of the land, bringing down the cliffs and freezing the ground. It was only December 10th, far too early for such fierceness of weather but it was George Easton's thirty-third birthday all the same. It was also a weekend off from work, all day Saturday and Sunday to do whatever she wished. A couple of birthday cards had fallen through the letter-box, neither of which were signed; they just wished her a curt happy birthday. George stood them up on her dining table.

      The first thing she should have done was to run to the Gas Terminal and back, a regular route for her; she was dressed for it, in her blue shorts, her blue vest, her trainers with short socks and she was warmed up, she'd done her stretching and toning. She was ready to go, except the weather was too foul. She looked out of her kitchen window and watched the waves rise across the road, crashing into the concrete sea defences, rolling back on themselves to meet other, incoming waves, leaping high in the air, ten, twelve, fourteen feet, the wind whipping the top off them, driving it towards her 42ft Pemberton Knightsbridge Static Caravan home, water skittering down the windows, no tourists today, no cars parked on the opposite side of the street, no people around at all.

      She didn't mind running in rain, sometimes she even enjoyed it, but water off the sea was different. It was extremely cold for a start, salty, so that it chafed the skin, and with the waves as high as they were, the wind as strong as it was, she'd be soaked before she’d run fifty yards, soaked and frozen. She loved running but wanted to return from her runs feeling somewhat more than half-human. If she went out today, she wouldn't accomplish that feat.

      She sat at her dining table in an upright chair, one of two that stood on one side of the table, the other side being a straight-backed bench, both being quite comfortable for the purpose of eating but neither being something one wanted to lounge on for long. She'd had no coffee yet, just sips of water, still intent on her run but, if anything, the wind was stronger, the conditions worse. She had to admit that her run was off for today.

      She glanced at the clock. Ten a.m. It was time for breakfast. She pulled down a lined parka from where it hung on the back of her kitchen door, slipped into it, pulled up the hood, grabbed her keys, stepped out into the gale, locked the door, held her breath, waited her chance, then sprinted the length of her van, fencing around it to keep away sightseers and hoodlums, raced past the closed fish and chip restaurant and rushed into the adjoining café, pulling the door open quickly, letting it close behind her with a bang. There were already half-a-dozen people sitting at tables, all of them elderly.

      George pulled off the parka and shook it.

      Marnin mawther, Henry, the café owner, said in welcome.

      Henry passed her a birthday card.

      Morning, Henry, and thank you, George replied, carrying the card as she strolled away without ordering either food or drink as she took her place at a table amongst the oldies.

      Good morning, all.

      Marnin, George, came a welcome from six different voices.

      Bat rough, Helena, a seventy-two-year-old said.

      Very rough, George agreed.

      Nat running today?

      Not today, too much sea water around.

      Lat of it about, for sure.

      Helena passed over another birthday card, signed by them all. George said thank you again, took the card but didn't open it, she just lay it down on top of the other.

      They sat and chatted, George and the local old folk, until her cup of black coffee and two rounds of bread, toasted on one side and only and lightly buttered, arrived at her table, along with a copy of the Independent Newspaper. She flicked the newspaper open, sipped her coffee and nibbled on the toast. The old folk went back to talking amongst themselves. They gathered in the café every morning, George only when she wasn't working. They were a small community, overrun with tourists during the summer, but they were all close, they looked out for each other, cared for each other, regardless of age.

      When she'd read the newspaper, nothing happy in it at all, no happiness left in the world far as she could see, she folded it and returned it to the counter, along with her empty cup and small plate. She paid with change she kept in her parka pocket, pulled it on, picked up her cards, said thank you again, bade everyone farewell, pulled up the hood and raced back to her van. She banged her way in, shaking spray from her coat before entering, hanging up the coat, opening and standing up the cards without reading them, striding through to the master bedroom, sitting on the bed to pull off her trainers and shorts, her vest, replacing them with tracksuit bottoms and a heavy sweatshirt, pulling on another pair of trainers, not her running ones, another pair, worn and used. When she was dressed, she departed again, this time in her dark blue Volkswagen 1.2., a car that was perfect for the winding, narrow roads of the County, unlike the huge saloons and 4x4's driven by city-types during the summer that blocked roads; cars they drove too fast, killing themselves and others with regular monotony; the only thing worse than them were the American-style Tourers that couldn't manoeuvre the roads, the bends or be driven into the tiny coastal villages without causing utter traffic chaos. George didn't hate tourists, she knew she would be much worse off without them, as would every local, but she did hope that they would take more care this coming year, she hoped they would think a little before doing the stupid things they did, though she knew her hopes were futile.

      She drove the few miles to town and shopped at a Lidl store, she liked it, it was large enough, but not too large, it had integrated with the town, hadn't closed too many local shops, sold mostly food, some non-food items occasionally. Not like the huge supermarket that was about to open down the coast, something George had fought against for fourteen years, the company only winning planning permission by a single vote, the casting vote of the Chairman of the local council. She would never shop there, she hated the company, she felt it wanted to be all-conquering; it wanted to take over the world. Well, it could do it without her money.

      Before returning home, she drove out to 'The Lighthouse' public house and ate lunch, sitting at a table alone, speaking to a few customers, talking to the landlord and the girl who served her, reading another borrowed newspaper. Lunch was delicious. She was back in her van by 2:00 p.m. She drank one more cup of coffee, no milk, no sugar, put away her shopping while she was drinking it and when it was drunk, when she'd stowed away all her shopping, she lay down on her bed and slept. At 4:00 p.m., she rose, ate a light tea, showered, cleaned her teeth, dressed in jeans and sweatshirt, black boots and drove the several miles to the village of Lowsham, on the outskirts of which stood a fine bungalow with attached double-garage. Upon arrival, she drove her Volkswagen directly into the empty garage, raising the door automatically, closing it behind her in a similar way. She entered the house by the front door, using a key on her main bunch, caravan, car, house and locker all together on one keyring, something she’d won in a raffle at work years earlier.

      Inside, the house was clean and well decorated, with modern furniture, but with nothing electronic. There was no fridge, no washing machine, no television or video, no electric kettle or microwave, no bulbs hung in the light-fittings, the only illumination shining from a battery-operated torch which stood on a shelf just inside the door. There was nothing inside that would have indicated that this house a home; because it wasn't a home.

      It had been a bequest to George in the will of a prominent citizen of Cambridge who'd died a few years since. He'd been a man of over sixty-years when she'd been merely nineteen and recently installed as a student in the Faculty of Law at the university. This man had been a friend of one of her tutors, introduced to her during a welcome party. This man had changed George's life.

      Because George was ill.

      Like many other undiagnosed people who were ill; cancer sufferers, for example, who didn't know they had the disease until only weeks before their deaths, or the thousands of diabetics who didn't know they were ill, or the sufferers of other undiagnosed diseases, George had never been diagnosed. And because she had never been diagnosed, she had never been treated, though her disease was not of a physical nature, it was mental, it was psychological. If she'd been treated, she could possibly have been cured, could have become a normal member of society, but as she didn't know she was ill, she had never sought treatment. Her condition had never shown up in any of the numerous interviews she'd attended nor on any of the many courses during which she had done so well. Her behaviour had never been outrageous or selfish or truculent; she had no temper to speak of and, generally, her moods were constant. She didn't know she was different from normal people because she only knew what she was, she didn't realise that other people felt differently. It was similar to an abused child who grows up with the abuse and assumes that all children suffer the same thing.

      For Georgina Easton lacked the ability to love.

      She suffered from a complex narcissist personality disorder that excluded her from loving. She still believed she would, one day, stare across a crowded room and espy the love of her life; her heart would beat faster, her eyes would distend, her breathing would emit in gasps, no emotions of which she had ever experienced. But it was something she genuinely thought she would one day realise. She didn't know it would never happen to her. She thought she was normal.

      Until the age of nineteen, she'd never felt any kind of emotion. Her father; before he'd died in a boating accident with his wife, her mother, on their boat on their beloved Broads; often stated that she was a cool, detached child and if he'd survived maybe he would have found treatment for her. But as she was reared from the age of ten by her cold-hearted Grandmother, who was almost as detached from the human race as was George herself, no one cared enough to notice.

      The older man she met at her welcome night had some thoughts on the matter though, being a clever man and an intelligent man of the world. He was also suffered from a greatly immoral bent. Both a qualified psychiatrist and a psychologist, he spent his life searching for faults in pretty students. He filled the vacuum in George’s life when he introduced her to love of another kind.

      He introduced her to love as a physical activity, as a physical pursuit.

      He introduced her to sexual joy.

      At the age of nineteen, he'd taken her to a house that had been what it was for over one-hundred-and-fifty years; he'd introduced the wide-eyed law student to the Madam, taken her up to a richly decorated room, where another sixty-year-old man was to be found, sitting, drinking Napoleon brandy, in a high-backed chair. This man stripped her slowly and sensually, without any protest from George, and he made love to her while the man who'd brought her to the room watched. The men then changed over before they made love to her at the same time. They did whatever they wanted with, and to, the slim, attractive teenager.

      And the effect on George had been startling without measure.

      From never feeling any emotion, of never feeling any attachment to anything or anyone, from never feeling emotional love; physical love became her life. It brought her the utmost joy.

      When she gasped and moaned, they were real gasps and real moans, when she shuddered and had orgasms, they were real shudders and real orgasms, nothing was pretended. She clung on to the men as if she were afraid they’d abandon her mid-encounter and she begged for more. For the first time in her life, she was the centre of attention, the focus of someone else's emotions and during the physical acts her heart almost burst with the sense of love she was experiencing.

      The one-hour session she had with the two men left her utterly exhausted but excited without measure.

      She had discovered her own kind of love.

      Only a very few people knew of this predilection, though some would know it for years, they'd grow old in that knowledge. And this number included the sixty-three-year-old lesbian who cleaned and looked after the unlived-in bungalow, who occasionally called on George's favour.

      During her years at university, George visited the house in Cambridge many, many times with the older man, with the second man changing all the time. She loved the way they took their time with her, teaching her, driving her to ever more orgasms, building her up, making her gasp louder, giving her more and more of their love. Older people did it for her; she'd never slept with anyone under the age of fifty-six and couldn't imagine ever doing so. And this night, this Saturday night, the first night of her weekend off, was her day to

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