Free Fairwood (a suspense mystery thriller) by Eli Yance Page B

her arms, leant against the doorframe. She poked her head out, looked this way and that -- Cawley took another step back when he saw something move in her hair -- and then looked at Cawley with eyes that suggested she knew something that he didn’t: possibly the source of the rancid smell, but he doubted she even knew it existed.
     
    “I know where they are.” Her rotten breath hissed into the wind.
     
    “Really?” Cawley said, trying to feign enthusiasm but dealing exactly the amount of sarcasm that he felt.
     
    She nodded, oblivious to just how little he cared. “I saw them.”
     
    Cawley nodded and tried to look interested. He regretted paying a visit to the crazy woman. It was still better than sitting in his office, doors away from his bitchy boss and her bitchier orders, but only just. He needed a break; he needed to get away from things for a while; away from his wife, from his boss, from his job. He hoped that he could catch the bandits and feel alive again, feel like he wasn’t just a worthless piece of shit in a pointless machine, but there was no chance of that. They’d already gone, onto another district, another country maybe, everything he did from now on was just routine, until the bandits were caught and he went back to arresting delinquent kids and drunken idiots.
     
    “They were out at Rosie’s Point,” she told him, looking over his shoulder to make sure no one else had heard.
     
    He perked up a bit, furrowed his brow. Rosie’s Point was just around the corner from Stubbies. It was a barren stretch of land stuck between a rundown farm and a tiny village; a peak of muddied ground that overlooked a steep dip into a marshy moor. It used to be blocked off with a roadside barrier to keep the kids away, but the same kids ripped the barrier to pieces, made makeshift sleds out of the resulting debris and used them to slide down the bumpy, grassy terrain, all the way to the woodland at the bottom which was intersected by a quiet stream -- long ago filled with the modern refuse of shopping trolleys, bikes and other detritus -- before climbing up and starting again. A number of years ago a twelve year old girl named Rosie Fairbanks had been playing on the land when her makeshift sled hit a tuft at the bottom and propelled her into a tree trunk, breaking her neck. It didn’t really have a name before that, but everyone knew its name afterwards. The barriers were removed; the kids stopped playing.
     
    “You were at Rosie’s Point?”
     
    She nodded firmly, knowing she had his interest and that her value to him had just increased.  “I take my dogs out there.”
     
    He hadn’t seen a dog, hadn’t heard one bark when he knocked on the door. If she did have dogs then they were the quietest dogs he’d ever encountered.
     
    “That’s a long walk from here,” he said suspiciously.
     
    “They need the exercise. It does them good.”
     
    He wasn’t convinced. On foot, Rosie’s Point was at least a forty-five minute trek. She was crazy, but he doubted she would go that far out of her way. There were plenty of parks and fields nearby, she didn’t need to travel to Rosie’s Point to give the dogs some exercise. If she had any dogs.
     
    “Okay,” he nodded. It was a coincidence, nothing more. If he had another witness who had seen the bandits near Stubbies he would have had something to go off, but one anonymous tip, one dodgy bar owner and one crazy cat lady with some non-existent dogs, wasn’t enough, not when the whole country was claiming to know the fugitives. “Thanks for that. I’ll get in touch if I need anything else.”
     
    “That’s it?” she looked disappointed, she took a few steps out of her door as he made to move away. For a moment he worried that she was going to follow him and stink up his car.
     
    “Sure. Thanks for all your help.” He moved quickly, didn’t want to wait around for more questions. She had done what he needed her to do, she’d bought him some