Excerpt: Burning Point (Tentative Title)

Prologue

Cardiff, Wales 1958

It wasn’t a dark and stormy night; it was more like the thunderstorm from hell. The wind blew hard from the direction of the Quay, howling as it picked up speed and drove the rain nearly horizontal. Not quite a hurricane force gale, but pretty damn close.

It was night perfect for his plans. Only the hardiest, or most foolish, would be out in a storm like this. Most of Cardiff would be home, snug and warm, but there was always one of them out on the streets. Disgusting creatures, pushed out of doors by their vices.

He smiled, there was always one.

He would wait

****
Goldie Locksley was not a thief, did not break into people's houses, lived nowhere near a forest, and was deathly afraid of bears. She despised fairy tales and thought her parents must have been in a particularly sadistic mood when they named her. She also hated the skeevy tossers who thought it funny to ask her if she up for a sampling of their “porridge”.

“Really, who do I have to kill to meet a gentleman around here, instead of these foul mouthed greaser wannabes? Maybe I need a new class of pubs to visit?” She thought as she walked across the street with purposeful strides, trying to reach the shelter of the shops awning on the other side. She could hear the nearly muted clicks her new heels made on the wet pavement in the silence of the empty street and pulled the lapels of her raincoat tighter around her neck trying to keep the driving rain from running under her collar and wetting her wool suit.

Reaching the awning, she shook her umbrella, useless thing it was in this kind of rain, and huddled into the warmth of her coat. She fished around her purse to find her gold cigarette case and book of matches that she took from the pub. A sound stopped her, a whispering of voices, faint on the wind. Goldie strained to hear, then shook her head knowing it was nothing but the wind itself creating an auditory illusion.

Goldie struck a match and raised it to her cigarette, cursing when a gust a wind blew it out before she could get her hand around to shield the flame. She struck another match and sighed with pleasure as the first puff sent the much needed nicotine into her system.

Goldie leaned a shoulder against the wall, enjoying her fag, and pulled her compact out. She checked her reflection, and frowned at the destruction the rain had caused to her once perfectly made up face. She grabbed a tissue and began fixing the worst of the damage, mainly the mascara leaving black trails running down her cheeks like macabre tears. Applying a fresh coat of lipstick and setting everything with powder, Goldie figured that while she was at it she might as well fix everything, and looking around again making sure she was still alone, she lifted her pencil skirt to straighten the seam of her stocking and adjust her garter.

Bent over she never saw the shadowed figure that crept up behind her and wrapped his arm around her neck.

The moonlight glinted off the deadly blade of the knife and the wind and rain smothered the sounds of struggle. Goldie’s abbreviated cry of fear and pain was swept away.

****
“Another.”

“He’s got another.”

“Poor soul.”

“She’ll join us.”

“Stop him”

“Someone stop him.”

“Help us.”

“Save us.”

In the darkness, the murmur of voices remained unheard.