The Bad Business at Breakwater Bungalow

My name is Marlene Masefield. Marlene as in Marlene Dietrich, the actress, Masefield as in John Masefield, the poet. To the best of my knowledge I have no family links to either. I went through I a spell when I was quite partial to being called Marley, thinking of the first ghost to visit Scrooge, a much overlooked and maligned character. But then it became more famous as the name of a dog in a “heart-warming” book. Nothing whatsoever against dogs, even though I suppose I’m more of a cat person, but I got somewhat tired of people saying, “OH, like the dog.” So I’ve reverted to Marlene, at least for the time being.

     I flatter myself you may have heard of me. But I probably don’t flatter myself that much.

     All the same, it wasn’t quite what I had in mind when I set out to be a writer, one of the few things I had any talent for and any interest in. Oh, I had no illusions, or at least not any great ones. I knew I was never either going to win the Booker prize or top the bestseller lists. But it gives me a decidedly pleasant feeling that if folk look in the True Crime section of their bookstore or library, or online, then they might well find my name.

     I seem to have a knack for it. I can hunt out cases that aren’t the standard ones without being too obscure, that are bizarre and macabre without just being all blood and guts. 

     I knew at some point that I was going to have to write about the case of the Breakwater Bungalow slayer. I’d really like to carry with on the alliteration, but somehow the Breakwater Bungalow Bloodshed doesn’t really work. Belatedly, it’s occurred to me that The Bad Business at Breakwater Bungalow would work, but isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing?

     For those who are not familiar with it (I will try not to be huffy about this) Breakwater Bungalow is both an accurate and an inaccurate description of the relevant famous or infamous property. It is not exactly on a breakwater, but it is fairly near the sea in the kind of East Coast holiday resort that some people describe as shabby and old-fashioned, and others describe as tacky and flashy. And both are right. And it is, indeed, on one storey, but it still covers a considerable area. I suppose the best way to describe it is to say that inverts the old Estate Agents’ cliché of deceptively spacious. Breakwater Bungalow is deceptively unspacious. It seems to splay across the (now ) overgrown plot of land like an inconsiderate passenger on a bus, but inside it still feels cramped and vaguely claustrophobic. 

     And on an April morning five years ago; the kind of morning that still hadn’t made up its mind, and could presage a day looking forward to summer or backwards to winter, but having very little of the spring – a morning at once too misty and too bright – Janet and Clive Hollis were murdered. They were almost too tritely the personification of murder victims. A couple of that odd , lingering age between middle aged and old, both plump without being obese, neither well nor badly off, and depending on whom you talked to, or when you talked to them, described as keeping themselves to themselves or so friendly, always passed the time of day with you. Janet was very fond of counted cross-stitch, and Clive liked to tinker in his little shed that he never actually called a man cave, but probably would have quite liked to have done. The garden (then) was kept neat but in an unimaginative kind of way, as neither Janet nor Clive was an especially keen gardener. They kept talking about a fish pond, but never got round to it. 

     An odd thing about the killing of Janet and Clive; at least to those who consider themselves aficionados of True Crime, was that they were murdered separately and appropriately. Or at least, as near to appropriately as was practically possible. To stab someone with a blunt-ended needle, the kind that, as Janet liked to point out, is technically called a bodkin, is a well-nigh impossible thing. But she was also partial to knitting and a knitting needle, if applied with skill, can be a surprisingly efficient weapon. Clive was bashed over the head with a jack, the kind you use to elevate a car, though he had not done such a thing for decades. Still, there was one in his shed. But they were laid side by side, on their double bed with a padded headboard and a memory foam mattress topper, and a candlewick throw. 

     As I said in my book, it took no inconsiderable effort for the murderer to lug Janet and Clive back to the bedroom so they lay side by side. You can, and indeed should, condemn someone’s actions whilst still acknowledging their effort and eptidude. And what? Well, there is a logical need for an opposite of ineptitude and words like skill and technique don’t quite fit the bill. I like to find the right word. Even if it doesn’t exist. 

     They were found before they started to become – how shall I put this? – unpleasant. Not that it would have been exactly a pleasant sight for the police, who were alerted when Clive didn’t turn in for work at the insurance office without letting them know, which was unheard of, and when Janet didn’t turn up at her crafters’ group without letting them know, which was equally unheard of. If you don’t wish to lie mouldering not in your grave should you fall victim to a murderer it is as well to cultivate habits of reliability. 

     The other inhabitants of Belvoir (pronounced Beaver) Close were aghast, of course. There was quite genuine horror and sadness because Janet and Clive were well-liked, even by people who hadn’t known them. But there were also those who resented the fact that their quiet little road would now be one of those places where something like that happened, and those who reacted quite the opposite way and felt a certain guilty excitement at the realisation that the road would never be dull and boring again. 

     I have done the latter a considerable favour by putting the case in my book, and at some length, too. 

     But there are those who don’t like it and those who wish I hadn’t. And now I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t either. 

     I am not one to be overawed by size, as many (of course not all) very large people turn out to be very stupid. This is not, I’m convinced, because there is any correlation between body size and brain capacity, but because the oversized tend to be attracted to the kind of job that requires more brawn. 

     Given that I write about violent crime, you’d think I would be more careful, but they didn’t even have to knock. The door was open and they came in – the two grey-clad hulks, wielding their handcuffs. Absurdly, I thought for a minute of those old films where people are handcuffed to a policeman, instead of having their own hands cuffed together. I wonder if that ever happened. In a way it would make more sense. “Come with us,” the slightly younger one, with fair hair said. “You know what you’ve done,” the slightly older one with greying dark hair (decidedly in need of a wash) said. This would have been the point when, in the kind of script that ends up on the slush pile, I would have said “There must be some kind of a mistake.” I didn’t say it, which doesn’t mean I didn’t think it. 

     I suppose you could say I am now in a cell. It could be worse. There are no rats, no bars at the window, and the bed, though narrow and not what could be termed comfortable, is adequate, with the bedding clean. There is a little desk and I have the means to relieve myself – odd how I don’t hesitate to write about gory details but feel compelled to use a euphemism about bodily functions! I The water from the cold tap of the basin is drinkable, and I have a little plastic mug. I am fed intermittently, and it is edible, and I at least make the effort though I don’t have much of an appetite. 

     They asked me if there was anything I wanted, and of course I asked for paper and a pen. A laptop might have been preferable, but I knew that would be refused, and anyway, there is quite a nice feeling of being one of a long line of captive writers.

     Only a few weeks ago I watched one of those sanitised made for TV mystery movies they show in the afternoons (being freelance means I can indulge in such guilty pleasures if I please) where a writer of true crime finds herself in danger. I suppose it’s an occupational hazard.

     The trouble is, things are now starting to come back to me. 

     I never had a wicked stepmother. Come to that, I never had a wicked stepfather, either. Keith wasn’t a bad sort. At worst (though that’s not necessarily a minor matter) he was boring and occasionally prone, in his own quiet way, to being bombastic. He had an especial taste for the phrase needs must, though he never went on to finish it with when the devil drives. Whether he didn’t know the end of the saying, couldn’t be bothered, or thought mentioning the devil was a tad melodramatic, I don’t know.

     But since Dad died when I was in my early teens, Mum and I had been like that, as people say, crossing their fingers. I missed Dad for a while, but the fact is I’d always been more of a Mummy’s than a Daddy’s girl. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say she was my best friend, though I can’t think of anyone else who was, but we still went on holiday together when I was in my twenties, and I saw no reason why we shouldn’t when I was in my thirties. 

     And then Clive came along. Ruddy Clive, as I always thought of him.  He did have a slightly florid complexion, but that wasn’t my principle reason.  Ruddy Clive with that mixture of facile flattery and flaunting of common sense that Mum found so appealing for some unaccountable reason. I think I resented her even more than I resented him. Resented the assumptions she made when she said, “I know you’ll want us to be happy, Marlene!”

     As if to prove a point she said that of course I must have a key for Breakwater Bungalow, and was more than welcome to visit them any time.

     So I did. Yes, it’s all flooding back. I went to visit them at Breakwater Bungalow on Belvoir (pronounced Beaver) Close, and they probably decided, and congratulated themselves on the fact, that I did want them to be happy. I visited them several times before I finally got round to it.

     But I still wonder how I managed to drag their bodies to the bed. It must have taken a great deal of effort and eptitude.

     Needs must, I suppose.