Introduction

Moving to the country was our dream, a house overlooking the river and be surrounded with trees. Our closest Neighbors were five kilometers away, it was so quiet and peaceful you could scream and no one would hear you. It was perfect.

It was a beautiful sunny day, laying there on a sunbed, I could feel the warmth of the sun touching all parts of my naked skin. There were two magpies talking and singing in the cherry tree I was lying under. I was so relaxed and happy, I thought nothing could possibly change my mood until i heard noises coming from the woods.

Chapter 1

It was late afternoon, sun was still out but not for long, temperature was slowly cooling. The air smelt like flowers and cut grass, the perfect spring smell. I thought it would be a good idea to go lay outside with a glass of wine and read a book on the sunbed, just have some time to myself.

I opened the back door, with glass of wine in one had and book in the other, walked across the wooden porch down the steps and onto the lawn. The grass under my feet felt cool and soft as I walked to the sunbed. I propped myself up on one of the many soft cushions and put my glass of wine on the side table.

I opened my book and started reading, It was a beautiful sunny day, laying there on a sunbed, I could feel the warmth of the sun touching all parts of my naked skin. There were two magpies talking and singing in the cherry tree I was lying under. I was so relaxed and happy that I thought nothing could possibly change my mood until I heard sounds coming from the woods.

I closed my book and looked around to try and figure out where the sound was coming from. It’s coming from the woods, I thought, so I walked down to the edge of our property and tried to look through the trees. I couldn’t see anything, it was getting darker now and the trees were looking dark and very tall so I walked back to the house, put my boots and grabbed a torch. I called out to Charlie, my husband, told him I was going to investigate a noise coming from the woods. Charlie looked at me and said “Baby, I am coming with you and I am bringing Arthur” Arthur is our 4-year-old Doberman.

Charlie put on his boots, grabbed Arthur and a torch. We walked across the lawn to the edge of the woods. I flashed my torch into the trees and couldn’t really see much but Charlie looked at me and said “what is that sound?” The Woods, Norman woods it is called, were three hundred aches i believe if not more but the sound was getting closer. Arthur was a little restless next to us and all of a sudden, he lifted his head up at me and came to sit between my legs. Charlie and I looked at each other and understood that something or someone was coming, Arthur was ready to protect.

We heard footsteps, crunching of leaves, I pointed the torch to one side Charlie pointed to the other side and Arthur looked straight ahead and started growling. We both pointed our torches in the direction Arthur was looking and saw two figures walking towards us slowly. We heard talking but couldn’t make out what they are saying so Charlie yelled out “Who’s there?” silence…. No reply but the figures keep moving forward. Charlie yells out again “If you don’t tell me who you are, I will tell my dog to attack and believe me when I say he isn’t friendly”. We waited a few seconds and hear “Charlie, Isabella…. Is that you? It’s Inspector Blossom don’t let the dog go we need to talk to you both”.

I calmed Arthur down and held onto him tightly while the inspectors walked towards us. Now we could see Inspector Blossom and his colleagues walking straight for us and we could see their refiles around their shoulder, like they were out hunting. We all shook hands and Charlie asked “What are you boys doing out in the woods at this time of the day? What’s going on? Who’s in trouble?” Inspector Blossom laughed and said “No-one yet but we have had a report that they may be a couple missing around the woods, they parked their car at the entrance of Norway Woods and never came back. It’s now been 3 days. Have you heard or seen anyone walk around this way?”. I answered saying that we hadn’t seen anyone since the weekend, we really keep to ourselves unless we need something from the store then we go into town, and that was 4 days ago.

He looked at us and said “If you see this couple” as he handed us a picture of the couple “please call us immediately”. We said our goodbyes and they walked back threw the woods.

Charlie looked at me and said, “Now we know what the sound was, they really need to learn to identify themselves or someday it will cost them”.

Woke up the next morning Charlie was already in the kitchen making us coffee which we took and drunk on the back porch. Arthur was playing at our feet with his ball and his weird elephant looking plush toy, he loved that thing. I took a sip of my coffee looked up at Charlie and said “we should have breakfast and go for a walk in the woods this morning, it’s nice out today”. Charlie nodded as he was drinking his coffee put his cup down and laughed. Arthur was trying to grab his tail and was getting angry that he couldn’t, ah the simple life I thought, isn’t it amazing the things we laugh at.

After breakfast we had a shower and got dressed, jeans and t-shirt, boots and a hat. Arthur was getting excited he knew if we were putting our boots on it meant that we were going for a walk, he loved walks in the woods. Charlie grabbed the dog and we headed out the back door, across the lawn and started walking through the woods. A smell was there but it was very faint until we walked for about 10 mins down the hill and then it hit us like bus. A smell that you wouldn’t forget in a hurry, rotten flesh. We have found many animal carcasses in the woods before it was probably the wolves again killed a deer and left what they didn’t want for other animals but as we kept walking down the hill the smell got worse. I thought Charlie and I were going to be sick, Arthur was very quite next to us, all of a sudden, he lunges forward as we tried to keep up with him, all of a sudden, he stops. Arthur had found the source of the smell; it was a body. She looked like she had been beaten, limbs cut off and just pilled in a stack, just left there.

Charlie and I looked at each other and couldn’t say a word to each other, we couldn’t move. I sat on the floor and Arthur sat next to me, I grabbed my mobile phone and called Inspector Blossom and told him what we had found.

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The inspector arrived with a handful of deputies and couldn’t believe what they were seeing, it was like someone had been getting ready for a huge bonfire with body parts mixed in with the wood logs. It took the police a few couple of hours to gather all the body parts and sift through the area for evidence. They didn’t come up with anything when the Inspector recognized the girl and said “oh my god it’s the girl from the missing couple, where is her husband?”. He turns around to everyone and tells them “We need to find the husband”.

Charlie and I were no longer working as we had come to some good money through some investments and decided we wanted to move somewhere remote and live our lives away from people, we weren’t really people persons. We found this beautiful little house on a five-arch block, not to big but we had a creek running through our property and the woods all around us, it was so quiet. We didn’t really have any real hobbies apart from hunting and kayaking, I also enjoyed reading mostly true crime books. I thought I would be a good investigator, I loved finding missing people and looking for clues, Charlie used to laugh at me but now he gets more into it. The next day Charlie walks into the kitchen and says, “let’s go for a walk in the woods and see if we can find anything that could help the investigation”. Oh my god I thought yes! I jumped up and told him I need to go put my boots on and find some bags for evidence he had the biggest smile on his face as he didn’t think I would want to go back to the place we found the body but i was excited.

We grabbed Arthur and made our way back through the woods where the body was found, there was still police tape and markers around. We started looking around for anything we could find like clues or anything that could help find who may have done it.

About 20 feet away from where the body used to be Charlie found a single bloodied disposable glove under the bushes. He thought to himself…Oh my god I found a glove, I can’t believe the police didn’t find it. Charlie looked around to see where I was, noticed I wasn’t looking and put the glove in the side pocket of his pants saying without saying a word. We kept looking for footprints or clues that would help police with their investigation or any sign of the husband of the poor girl but there was really nothing else we could see or find.

Arthur was sniffing around as dogs do and got excited when he found a boot as we were walking back towards the house. The boot looked like a climbing boot; men size I thought as it looked big. Charlie grabbed a bag to put the boot in and noticed some blood on it. He shows it to me and we started looking round to see if we could find anything else. I thought how on earth did we miss that and turn to Charlie and said “how did we miss that, we walked through he before didn’t we?” He nodded. We kept looking around for a few hours and found nothing else of interest or anything we thought would help so happy with our findings we headed back home.

When we got home Charlie took the boot we found and put it in a box so we wouldn’t lose it and started cooking lunch. I loved when he cooked because it didn’t matter what he cooked, it always tasted so good, he was a genius around the kitchen. After lunch we had a cup of tea on the back porch and read the paper, there was nothing yet about a body found or of the missing husband. It was surprising as news travelled fast around this area, it was only a small community, and everyone knew everyone plus the detective was a bit of a gossip king.

The next morning, I thought I would go into town and get some supplies and restock our kitchen, make sure we had enough for the week, so I didn’t have to keep coming back. As I walked into the store, I heard someone say “hey Bella, I heard they found a body not far from your place”. I turned around and noticed it was the checkout chick and she continued “I heard it was the husband and that he cut her body up and tried to burn it so no one could find it”. I just looked at her smiling and said, “it looks like you know more than me, how do we know it’s the husband, did the police find him?”. She seemed annoyed and replied “well, no but that’s the thing no one knows where he is, he is probably in hiding or something”. I just nodded and said, “maybe you’re right if he is hiding he better make sure he is hiding well because the police are looking everywhere” and I walked off and continued on with my shopping. As I got back to the tailor and started putting my items on the checkout belt I got a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and saw detective Blossom he says “Hi Bella how are you? Have you guys heard or seen anything?” I just shook my head and said “no Jack nothing at all, have you found the husband yet?” He shook and head and said “nah, but we will find him, if he has done this he won't get far”. He laughed and walked off. The nosy taller said “so have you guys gone back to look for him, for the husband, have you seen him?” I thought oh my god did you just not hear our conversation, I smiled annoyed now and said, “no nothing, you heard the conversation if I had found something I would have told detective Blossom”. She just smiled back and continued putting through my items.

When I got home, I told Charlie about what was going around town and he laughed and said, “they really have nothing better to talk about here Bella, it’s exciting for them to have an actual crime in this town, let them gossip”. Well, it was true, I thought, nothing really happens around here except for a few missing people but they are usually found after a day or two, people always try to go off course in the woods and can never find their way back.

That afternoon we get a knock on the door, it was Detective Jack Blossom. Charlie opens the door and lets him in “Hi Charlie is Bella home too? We found the husband; he was killed too”. “Oh no” Charlie said and calls for me to come to the front door “Hey Bella, Jack is here, and he says they found the husband, he wants to talk to us”. I rushed over and Jack started explaining “we found the husband’s body about ten kilometers away from where the wife was found. His body was found near the creek by campers. It looks like he was shot in the back of the head with an arrow, his shoes were missing”. I said “oh my god that’s terrible, sounds like he was running away from someone. Where were his shoes?” Jack just shook his head and said, “we looked everywhere and found nothing, no footprints of any kind, nothing, not even the victim’s foot prints”. “Wow how is that even possible?” Charlie says, “and how can we help?”. “Well,” says Jack “I want to see if you had heard or seen anything at all before, we found the girl’s body, like heard screams or saw anyone that wasn’t from around here? We really don’t know where to start”. Charlie and I looked at each other and just said “no sorry, nothing. I mean we go in the woods with Arthur all the time sometimes we see campers and tell them they can’t camp here but we haven’t seen anyone in ages”. Jack rans his hand through his hair and said, “well if you remember anything please call us”. He turned on his heels and left.

Charlie turns to me and says, “let’s go check out the area where they found the second body, maybe we can find something”. I nodded, got my coat and boots on and Charlie called for Arthur who came running. We drove down to the area we thought the body was found and started looking around. The detective was right there is nothing no evidence and no footprints except for, what looked like, police boots. Arthur was running around, jumping in and out of the water, seriously we have a crazy dog I thought to myself it’s bloody cold. After a few hours not finding anything, we got Arthur and went home. We didn’t hear anymore from the detective for months after that.