The Equivoque Principle Read Free Page A

to that. In all that time, he thought he had witnessed the gamut of human criminality and depravity, but this was something different; he could feel it. One grisly murder was bad enough, two were a dreadful shame, but three? Three dead women in as many days meant that they were looking at something that would not easily dry up overnight. The paperwork alone could take a month. He stared down at the giant’s face, inches from it, as if he were trying to read the man’s thoughts as to what could possibly have occurred the previous night.
    Suddenly, a tiny spark of consciousness lit within Miller’s mind as he heard muffled voices around him. He tried to piece together his surroundings. His cheek was touching cold, damp, stone cobbles, and there was a weight upon his lower back. Miller cautiously flicked one eye open, then the next, and his bleary eyes came face to face with the eyes of a very shocked Sergeant Berry.
    ‘What—What’s all this?’ Berry stammered, as his legs gave way beneath him, and he fell to the ground unceremoniously onto his backside. He kicked away from Miller as fast as he could against the damp cobbles. ‘Hold it!’ he yelled, scrambling to his feet. ‘Don’t you bloody move!’
    Miller ignored Berry, desperately seeking sight of his beloved Twinkle. He half-turned his head, and noticed the shock of curly blonde hair, matted and caked in dark-red blood lying across hisshoulder blades. He knew it was her instantly. If he were not already a mute, the pain in his heart would surely have stolen his words. Miller closed his eyes, trying to exclude the awful truth.
    ‘Oi! I’m talkin’ to you!’ said Sergeant Berry, pacing up and down like a caged tiger. ‘I asked you a question, mate. What’s gone on here?’
    Miller was in no position to be questioned. The policeman’s words barely even penetrated his ears. He buried his head in his large hands and wept heavily and loudly, his gargantuan frame quivering as he sobbed uncontrollably. No matter how much strength his massive body was capable of, it failed him now. Every bone, every muscle, and every fibre of his being was mourning. The giant was broken.
    ‘What happened here, eh? Did you do this?’ Berry demanded with a fiery rage in his voice. He prodded Miller in the guts with his truncheon, and the giant twitched, whimpering like a cowering child. Twinkle’s lifeless corpse slipped from his body, and rolled onto its back, its arms flapping open. Sergeant Berry stared at it and gagged. ‘Of all the unholy…’
    Twinkle’s tiny, fragile body was horrifically disfigured, removing all semblance of the dwarf’s personality, leaving behind a mere husk. Her dress had been sliced open down the middle, tearing through the material and gouging deeply through her undergarments, and into her chest beneath them. A bizarre death-mask adorned her face, transfixed into a grimacing, frozen scream. Blood was dried everywhere about her body, filling every crease of her clothes like a roadmap.
    Sergeant Berry mopped at the corners of his mouth with a handkerchief. ‘Look, I don’t know who you are, or who
she
is…but you’re coming with me to the station to sort this out, mister.’ Berry turned as he heard a loud rattling noise coming closer to him, and was relieved to see three of his men approaching; pushingwhat looked like long wooden wheelbarrows. Each one stopped and gasped as they saw the scene before them.
    ‘Bloody hell!’ one of them said. ‘You weren’t joking, Jennings. What a mess.’
    ‘You, men, get over here! Apprehend this…
man
immediately. A few hours locked in the cells should loosen his tongue,’ Berry said, as he bravely squatted down next to Miller’s tear-stained face, catching a flicker of light in the giant’s eyes. ‘You’re going to pay for what you done, make no mistake about that! We don’t take kindly to folk who murder little children here in Crawditch. You’ll be hanging by your neck by suppertime!’
    As