Blood Harvest

84

TOM HAD FOUND HIS TRAINERS BY THE FRONT DOOR AND A yellow hooded sweatshirt behind one of the sofas in the living room. Even so, seconds after he climbed out of the window he was freezing. The stone of the window ledge felt like ice through his pyjamas. Snowflakes began to land on his head and face. He pulled the window almost closed again.
Ebba had taken hold of his hand and was hurrying him across the dark garden. They reached the gap in the wall and she went through first. He followed and they were in the churchyard.
Harry jumped into the truck, the climbing rope on his lap. Before the door was closed the truck was moving, its tyres making fresh tracks in the snow. Gareth swung out of the driveway and started to turn downhill towards Wite Lane.
‘Carry on up,’ said Harry. ‘Up the hill, out of town.’
Gareth was still looking down the lane. ‘Alice and the kids go along Wite Lane to get up the moor,’ he said.
‘Aye, but that way’s steep. I don’t know how far you’ll be able to take the truck.’
Gareth took a deep breath. ‘So what are you suggesting?’ he said.
‘Three-quarters of a mile outside town there’s a farm gate on your right,’ said Harry. ‘I think Mike Pickup uses it to get feedstuff to his animals. We can drive through and approach the cottage from above. The ground’s pretty solid, we should be able to get most of the way there.’
Gareth pressed his foot on the accelerator and the truck moved forwards up the hill. They picked up speed and the flakes whirling in front of them grew larger as they left the town behind.
‘Slow down,’ said Harry. ‘Slower. There it is.’
The truck stopped and Harry jumped down. He ran round the front of the vehicle as it went into reverse. A second later the truck’s headlights flooded the metal farm gate.
Harry pushed the gate open and Gareth drove through. The hut was less than a mile away.
A wave of pure weariness swept through Evi as the vehicle’s rear lights disappeared up the moor. She wanted nothing more than to lie down, close her eyes, let others handle it from here. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘I need the phone.’
‘It’s right behind you,’ said Alice. ‘I’m going to check on Tom and Millie.’ Alice ran up the stairs as Evi turned to the phone. It wasn’t there. As Evi headed into the hallway, Alice emerged from Millie’s room and crossed the landing. Evi lifted her hand for attention but Alice didn’t look down.
And then a strangled scream sounded from above. Evi stopped, her heart pounding but her brain refusing to take in the possibility that something else had happened. Something that really wasn’t good, judging by the face of the woman at the top of the stairs.
Tom and Ebba were making their way through the white graveyard. Tommy, please come. Tom knew he’d be hearing his brother’s voice in his head for the rest of his life if he ignored it now.
As they passed Lucy Pickup’s new grave, they seemed to be heading for the church, which was pointless, because the church had been thoroughly searched with dogs and everything, and even if it hadn’t been, they’d have no chance of getting in now. Tom had heard the grown-ups talking earlier. The front door and the door to the roof had been locked and bolted, and the three sets of keys to the vestry door were now with Harry and the police. Plus, a police constable was spending the night in the vestry – just in case.
Either the snow was deadening sound or it was later than Tom had thought because the night was almost completely silent. He thought he heard a car engine starting up, and then the same car speeding away up the moor, but then silence fell again. They’d reached the mausoleum where all the dead Renshaws were put except Lucy, because Jenny, Lucy’s mother, hated it. The police had searched it today, had opened up all the stone coffins to make sure Joe wasn’t tucked away in any of them. They’d searched it and locked it again and Sinclair Renshaw had put a massive great padlock on the door, so why did Ebba have a key to it? They weren’t going to go inside it, were they? He couldn’t go in a tomb at night, not even for …
Tommy, please come.
Ebba had unlocked first the padlock and then the iron gate. It swung open and she stepped inside, as though she wandered into old tombs all the time. Tom stood in the entrance and then took a tentative step forward. They were only in the small, railed courtyard, it wasn’t as though Ebba could get inside the building itse—
Ebba was opening the door that led inside the large stone box. She was beckoning to him, her face screwed up with impatience. She was serious, she really was taking him inside. But the church had been full of people all day. Joe could not be in the church. This was some sort of trap.
Tommy, please come.
Hold on, Joe, I’m coming.
The truck wasn’t moving. Gareth had been trying for five minutes to reverse it away from the small stream that had swallowed up its front wheel, and the two men couldn’t waste any more time. Harry had his climbing rope slung around his neck and a torch in his hand. Gareth had a box of tools in one hand and a sledgehammer in the other. The two men began striding over the snow.
Time to kill. Had Ebba known what Gillian was up to, about the murders of the three little girls, about Gillian’s interest in Millie? Had she been trying to warn them?
‘Sorry, mate,’ gasped Harry as they reached the edge of the ruined mill buildings. ‘We should have tried your way.’
Gareth didn’t turn his head. ‘Wouldn’t have made any difference,’ he said. ‘Driving across the moor’s close to impossible on a good day. The snow’s covering everything.’
The two men hurried on through the mill ruins.
If Ebba had been trying to warn them, had her torture of Gillian been a sort of punishment? Mummy, find me. Why would Ebba say that?
Gareth was pointing to his left, where they could just about make out a small building. ‘Is that it?’ he said.
‘That’s it,’ said Harry. ‘Take it easy. There are all sorts of loose stones round here.’
Gareth slowed his pace as they made their way across the remaining stretch of ground to the hut. Already, snow had settled on its roof, making it look even more like a cottage from a fairy tale.
Gillian had broken into the Fletchers’ house on the night of the bonfire? Had tried to abduct Millie? The intruder had worn wellington boots. Had he ever seen Gillian wearing such things?
They reached the door and Harry took a second to get his breath. They couldn’t just go charging in. If there were a bore hole in this hut it would be incredibly dangerous to be there at night. He wondered how long it would take the police to get here. They’d have to come on foot. He looked down hopefully. No lights could be seen making their way up towards them.
He put out his hand and tried the door. As expected, it was locked.
‘Stand back,’ ordered Gareth.
Harry did what he was told. Gareth raised the massive sledgehammer above his head and swung it forward.
Faster than she’d moved for years, Evi made it halfway up the stairs. She took hold of the banister and braced herself. If Alice fell now, she could easily knock them both to the bottom. She watched as the other woman swayed, then reached out to grab the wall.
‘Alice, take it easy,’ she called. ‘Deep breaths. Sit down. Put your head down.’
Alice sank to the floor, staring straight ahead as Evi struggled up the last steps. ‘What is it?’ she gasped, sinking down beside Alice. Christ, she hadn’t known such pain was possible. She was going to faint any minute now.
Alice was already trying to get up again. ‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘I have to get Gareth, go outside, I have to—’
‘Alice!’ Evi took hold of the other woman’s arm.
‘Tom’s gone,’ Alice went on. ‘Tom’s gone too now. I’m losing them all, one by one, she’s taking them all away from me.’
‘Alice, look at me.’
Alice tried to make eye contact with Evi and failed. She was struggling to stand up.
‘Tom can’t be gone,’ said Evi. ‘We’ve been here all this time, the doors were locked. Have you checked the bathroom?’
Alice looked as if she had no idea what a bathroom was. She was in shock. The stress of holding it together for the past twenty-four hours had proved too much and Tom’s unexpected trip to the loo had sent her over the edge.
‘Tom!’ Evi called out. ‘Tom!’ she called again, a little louder, when there was no response. Anxiety growing, Evi struggled to her feet. Her stick was at the bottom of the stairs and the pain in her leg was beyond anything she normally had to cope with.
Alice was moving again, running down the stairs. She pulled open the front door. ‘Phone Gareth, please,’ she begged, turning back to Evi. ‘Tell him to get back here. I’m going to look outside.’
The front door blew wide open as Alice disappeared, and flakes of snow flurried into the hall, melting instantly on the slate tiles. Phone Gareth? Evi hadn’t phoned the police yet. She hadn’t even found the phone. Holding on to the wall, she made for the nearest room. It was Millie’s. The toddler slept on, oblivious to the drama unfolding around her. Evi turned. Tom would be in the house, he had to be.
‘Tom!’ she called, then decided she wasn’t going to try that again. It was just too unnerving to call for a child and hear nothing in response.
‘Tom!’ That was Alice, yelling outside.
Tom could not have gone outside, the doors had been locked.
She turned and made her way to Joe’s room in case Tom was sleeping in his brother’s bed for comfort. She pushed open the door and stood, panting, in the doorway. The room was empty.
Shutting her mind to the pain, Evi walked to Tom’s room and flicked on the light switch. ‘Tom!’ she heard from outside. Alice was behind the house now, calling in the garden.
Evi crossed the room and then clung to the window ledge to get her breath back. She could just about make out Alice, tearing about the garden. Right, she had to look in the bathroom and in Gareth and Alice’s room. Damn Alice, if she hadn’t lost her head, she would have been able to search the upper floor in seconds. It would take Evi precious minutes, when she needed to be talking to the police.
‘Tom,’ she called out, realizing she was crying. ‘Tom, please. It really isn’t funny.’
Tom didn’t answer her, and she carried on along the landing.
Tom was running, terrified he’d lose sight of Ebba and be left alone in the clawing, creeping darkness. He had no idea how big an underground chamber he was racing through, he couldn’t see the walls – not that he was looking; his eyes were fixed on the girl ahead of him.
Every time Tom was tempted to turn back, he made himself think of his brother. Joe, who he sometimes thought had been sent to earth to make his life miserable, who had been a complete pain from the day he was born, who was always getting his own way and who he fantasized about killing at least once a week. Joe, who he really didn’t think he could live the rest of his life without.
A wall loomed in front of them and Ebba shot through an archway. Tom went too, before he had chance to ask himself whether this was a good idea or not. None of this was a good idea, it was probably the worst idea he’d ever had in his life, but the strange creature ahead of him had his brother’s shoe.
She was balancing on an upturned crate and reaching for something in the ceiling. Then Tom saw light shining through. A minute later he and Ebba were both in the church. There was no sign of the police constable, the door to the vestry was firmly closed. Then Ebba was on her feet again and running up the aisle towards the back of the church.
Tom wasn’t in the house. Alice had been right and Evi had wasted precious time. She hadn’t even seen a phone. Nor had she heard anything of Alice for several minutes now. She had to get back downstairs and call the police. They could be here in minutes. She would use her mobile – it was just outside, in her car.
As she approached the front door, it slammed shut, startling her. She took a second to catch her breath. There was still a cold wind blowing through the house. Then the door of the living room blew shut.
She crossed the hall and pushed it open again. The window at the far end of the room was wide open. As quickly as she could, Evi walked across the room and leaned out. There was no sign of Alice in the garden any more.
‘Tom!’ Evi called.
Tom didn’t reply, nor had Evi expected him to. Tom had gone. A clear set of footprints leading across the garden to the churchyard wall, far too small to have been made by an adult, was indisputable proof of that.
Evi leaned out further and looked at the ground more closely. A second pair of prints lay in the snow just to one side of the boy’s. Knowing how much it would hurt, Evi sat on the window ledge, swung her legs up and twisted round until she could lower herself into the garden.
Already the snow was beginning to cover the prints; in less than an hour they might hardly be visible at all. Now, though, they were clear enough. Not very long ago, someone had crossed the garden from the wall and had then turned and retraced their steps, taking Tom along too. Tom’s footsteps were clean and regular, with no indication that he’d been dragged or forced along. Evi peered at the second set of prints. They were adult sized, although not huge, and quite different to the swirled and ridged pattern made by the soles of Tom’s trainers. Evi could see the outline of a large big toe, the curve of an instep. These were the prints of someone who didn’t wear shoes.
Tom had gone with Ebba.
The door gave way on the fourth blow and Harry caught hold of Gareth by the shoulder to stop him racing in. ‘Bore hole,’ he reminded him.
Pushing himself in front, Harry shone his torch all around the small stone hut. It had just one room, about four metres long by three wide. Looking up, he could almost touch the beams of the roof. A large metal ring had been screwed into the central beam. Under their feet was pitch-pine flooring.
Gareth moved in, banging the floorboards with the heel of his boot.
‘Sounds pretty solid,’ said Harry.
Gareth shook his head. ‘This is different,’ he said.
Harry listened as Gareth moved from one spot to the other, banging his foot down hard on each. The difference was minimal.
Harry began moving slowly round the hut, shining his torch downwards, looking for any discrepancies in the boarding that might indicate that the floor could be raised. There was nothing that he could see. Except, eighteen inches in from the door, there was a small round hole in one of the boards. He bent down.
‘What is it?’ asked Gareth.
Harry’s little finger was circling round in the hole. ‘Screw hole,’ he said after a second. ‘I can feel the thread. Something is supposed to screw into here.’ He looked up, shining the torch around, as though whatever was supposed to be screwed into the hole might be lying conveniently by on a hook. ‘Something like that,’ he said, shining the torch directly at the ring in the roof beam.
Gareth glanced up and then moved to the back of the hut. ‘Like this,’ he said, pointing at a similar ring that had been fastened into the rear wall. Several feet below the wall ring was a twisted piece of metal. ‘This is a lifting mechanism. Give me that rope.’
Harry tossed the rope over and watched the other man thread the end through first the wall ring and then the roof-beam ring. Then he brought it over to where Harry was kneeling.
‘This ring’s missing,’ said Harry.
‘Of course it is,’ said Gareth. ‘With the ring here, it would be too easy to access the bore hole. It was probably removed for safety. Or Gillian could have it.’ He dropped flat on the boards. ‘Joe!’ he yelled. ‘Joe!’
Harry couldn’t stop himself shuddering. Gareth was pushing himself to his feet again, reaching out for his tool-box, taking out a sharp chisel and hammer. He pushed the sharp end into the gap between two boards and slammed the hammer down hard. The wood splintered. Gareth banged again and again. Then he stopped, found another chisel and hammer and threw them to Harry. ‘Other side,’ he ordered.
Harry found the tiny, narrow gap and started copying. The wood was old and crumbled easily enough. After hammering through just over an inch of wood, the chisel almost slipped from his hand.
‘I’m through,’ he said. ‘It’s hollow underneath.’ Gareth was already threading the end of the rope through the hole he’d made and aiming it towards Harry. Harry stuck his fingers into the gap, fumbling around until he felt the rope. He tugged and it came.
Taking it from him, Gareth tied the end together and then jumped up and strode to the other side of the hut. He looked at Harry. ‘Stand back,’ he said. ‘Next to the wall.’
Shuddering with every step, Evi was back in the house, intent on getting her mobile phone from her car. As she opened the front door, she had to clutch at the frame – she was going to fall any second now. A dark shape appeared from around the side of the house.
‘Alice?’ Evi called, uncertain. Too tall to be Alice.
‘It’s me.’ A woman’s voice. The figure stepped into the light. Jenny Pickup, Alice’s friend. She’d been here earlier, helping with the children. Thank God.
‘Jenny, Tom’s missing too.’ Evi found herself ridiculously short of breath, every word an effort. ‘We have to get help,’ she managed. ‘He’s gone with that girl he’s been talking about, the one with the hormone deficiency. The one who’s been hanging around the house.’
Jenny frowned for a split second and looked back over her shoulder. Then she stepped forward. ‘Evi, you look dreadful,’ she said. ‘Come back inside. Let me get you something.’
‘We have to call the police. Tom’s missing. I have no idea where Alice is.’
Jenny put a hand on the door, the other on Evi’s arm. ‘Take it easy,’ she said. ‘Get your breath back. The police are on their way.’
‘They are?’
‘Yes, absolutely,’ replied Jenny. ‘I called Brian myself. He said ten minutes. Now, Alice asked me to check on Millie. And you really need to sit down.’
‘You’ve seen Alice?’ said Evi, stepping back because the other woman was so close it seemed impossible not to. ‘Look, Tom is missing, we have to get people looking.’
‘Evi, calm down, they are. Listen to me.’
Evi made herself look at Jenny, at her calm hazel eyes. Something about the other woman’s composure seemed catching. Evi’s breathing began to feel more under control.
‘A group of us bumped into Alice in the lane just now,’ said Jenny, speaking slowly, as though she were the psychiatrist and Evi the hysterical patient. ‘Me, Dad, Mike, one of Mike’s men. They’ve all gone to help her look. Tom can’t have gone far.’ She stopped speaking and ran a hand through her long, blonde hair. It was loose, sprinkled with snowflakes, damp around the crown. ‘Especially if he’s gone with Heather,’ she went on. ‘She hasn’t the energy to go any distance. And the police will be here any second.’
Thank God. What did she have to do now? Check on Millie. Evi turned to the stairs, took two steps forwards and grasped hold of the banister. Behind her, Jenny pushed the front door shut.
‘Heather?’ repeated Evi, turning back as Jenny’s words finally sank in. Heather – pronounced by a two-year-old – Ebba. ‘The girl who took Tom,’ she went on. ‘Her name is Heather? You know who she is?’
Harry pressed himself against the door of the hut and watched as Gareth began pulling on the rope. At first nothing happened, then the length of board the two men had been hammering through started to judder. Another tug from Gareth and then the entire floor, apart from a twelve-inch strip around the edge, started to lift up. It was a huge square trapdoor, hinged near the far wall. Once it started moving it came up easily and within seconds Gareth had raised it until it fell with a dull thud against the rear wall.
Harry stepped forward on to the rough stone of the original hut floor. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Gareth tying the rope and then moving round to join him. Suddenly nervous of the chasm at his feet, Harry dropped to his knees and moved forward on all fours.
A smell that made him think of churches long since abandoned rose up from beneath the ground. He’d expected the bore hole – if indeed they found one – to be perfectly circular. This one had been crudely dug and looked unfinished, the stones around its edge roughly cut and angular. He could see two, maybe three feet down into the hole. After that lay a blackness so solid he could almost have stepped out on to it. By this time, Gareth was kneeling at his side.
‘Pass me the light,’ said Harry, still not taking his eyes off the well. Gareth didn’t move. ‘I need the light, mate,’ Harry tried again. ‘I can’t reach it.’ He prodded the other man on the arm and pointed to where the torch lay on the ground. Like a man moving in his sleep, Gareth turned, reached out and then handed the light to Harry.
Despite the cold, Harry’s hands were damp with sweat. He gripped the torch and moved forwards until he could lean over the edge. The beam seemed to fall like a rock, plummeting away from him into the depths of the earth. Harry saw stonework, roughly held together with crumbling mortar, and could just about make out the clinging slime of some form of vegetation that could exist without light. He thought he might even be able to see water, many feet below. But the only thing he could be sure about was the one thing he couldn’t take his eyes off: the rusting chain, hammered into the wall nearly two feet below the edge and disappearing further than the torch beam could reach.
He glanced round and knew that Gareth had seen it too. Speaking seemed like a ridiculous waste of time and energy. Harry made his way round the well until he could lie down flat and reach the chain.
Jenny was standing just inside the front door. The street lamp outside shone through the coloured hall window, turning her hair a strange shade of purple. Her face, though, was as white as the snow outside. ‘Of course I know who she is,’ she said sadly. ‘We lived in the same house for nearly ten years. She’s my niece.’
For a second Evi thought she might have misheard. ‘Your niece?’ she repeated.
Jenny nodded and seemed to pull herself together. ‘Christiana’s daughter,’ she said. ‘Shall we go up? Alice did make a point of saying we should check on Millie.’
Evi could only stare. She and Harry had talked about isolated farmhouses, cottages way up high on the moor, yet the girl had been living round the corner all this time, right in the heart of the town.
‘Her condition, it’s congenital hypothyroidism, isn’t it?’ she said.
Jenny took a step closer. ‘A direct result of the soil up here,’ she said. ‘It’s been the plague of our family for donkey’s years. If we’d just buy some of our food at Asda it wouldn’t happen.’ She’d reached Evi at the foot of the stairs.
‘But the condition can be treated now,’ said Evi, taking a small step to the side and planting herself firmly in the other woman’s path. ‘It’s picked up on antenatal scans and the baby can be given medication. It’s practically been eradicated.’
Jenny sighed. ‘And yet we have a fine specimen right on our doorstep. I really should check on Millie, you know. Can I get past?’
‘How did it happen?’ asked Evi, not sure why finding out as much as she could about the girl was important, only knowing that it was. ‘Did Christiana refuse treatment?’
‘Christiana was never offered treatment,’ said Jenny. ‘She spent her entire pregnancy shut up in the house and she gave birth with a local midwife who was paid a lot of money to keep her mouth shut. The birth was never registered.’ Her eyes moved upwards to a spot on the landing. Evi resisted the temptation to turn round.
‘How many people know about her?’ asked Evi, hardly able to believe that no one had mentioned the existence of Heather to the Fletchers, especially after Tom had started seeing his strange little girl.
‘Relatively few, I think,’ replied Jenny. ‘Even Mike has no idea she exists, not that he’s the sharpest knife in the box.’
Somehow, Evi had taken a step backwards. She was on the bottom step and was shaking her head. ‘How can that be possible?’ she said.
‘Oh, Evi, you’d be amazed what you can do if you own a town,’ said Jenny, her hand reaching out to the banister. She put it down, inches away from Evi’s. ‘She’s not allowed to leave the house, of course. Christiana spends most of the day with her, reading to her, playing simple games. Christy has endless patience, but if she needs a break, Heather watches CBeebies.’
‘She’s kept in the house all day?’
Jenny nodded. ‘None of the staff ever go upstairs,’ she said. ‘Christiana looks after the upper floors. When everyone has gone home, Heather gets to play in the garden,’ she went on. ‘To be honest, I think one or two people do know about her – as she got older, she got pretty good at sneaking out at night, even in the day sometimes. She’s clearly taken a fancy to Alice and Gareth’s children. But people keep quiet, they don’t want to get on the wrong side of Dad.’
Something was tightening inside Evi’s chest, something that went beyond concern for the Fletcher children. A young girl had been kept a prisoner her whole life – a prisoner inside an unnecessarily damaged body, as well as in her own home. ‘Why?’ she said. ‘Why on earth would your family break the law in that way?’
Jenny blinked her clear hazel eyes twice. ‘You’re the psychiatrist, Evi,’ she said. ‘Have a guess.’
Ebba unlocked the door at the back of the gallery and began to climb the short, spiral staircase. The wind caught at her hair, spinning it up and around her head like a flag. Tom stopped. It would be madness to go up.
Tommy, please come.
Before he had time to think what to do, Ebba had grasped hold of his hand and was pulling him on to the roof. She dropped to her hands and knees and he did the same. Snow squeaked beneath him as the wind rushed inside his sweatshirt. Ebba was crawling along the edge of the roof, in a sort of lead-lined guttering. To her left, the roof sloped gently upwards; to her right was a four-inch stone edging that wasn’t nearly high enough to offer any sort of barrier if she slipped. Was he expected to go too? He was, because she was looking back, waiting for him. Oh shit.
Tom set off, keeping his eyes firmly on the snow-covered trench he was crawling through. This was insane. There was nowhere on the roof Joe could be hiding. The other three bell towers were empty, you could see that from the ground. You could see the sky right through them. They were heading for the one on the northeastern corner, the one that always seemed to be in shadow because the sun couldn’t reach it. He could see it over Ebba’s shoulder, empty as a selection-box on Boxing Day. He could see stars shining through the gaps between the columns, he could see the movement of clouds, he could see the silver ball of the full moon.
But the moon was behind him.
*
Evi didn’t have to guess for long. ‘Who’s her father?’ she asked. ‘Is it your father? Is it Sinclair?’
Jenny’s face twisted. ‘Keep going,’ she said.
Evi thought quickly. She knew so little about the Renshaws, only what Harry and the Fletchers had told her. She wasn’t aware of any brothers, just the father: a tall, white-haired, very distinguished looking man, and the …
‘Not your grandfather?’ she said in a low voice, terrified she might have got it wrong, knowing, from the look on the other woman’s face, that she hadn’t. ‘But he’s …’ How old was Tobias Renshaw? He had to be in his eighties.
‘He was in his late sixties when Heather was born. Well into his stride by then.’
‘Your poor sister. What do you mean, well into his stride?’
Jenny’s eyes remained fixed on Evi’s. She said nothing.
‘He abused you too, didn’t he?’ said Evi.
Nothing, just a blank stare.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Evi.
Nothing.
‘How old were you? When it started?’
Jenny gave a deep sigh and then stepped backwards until she came up against the dining-room door. Evi felt as if she could breathe again. ‘Three. Maybe four. I can’t really remember,’ Jenny was saying. ‘There was no time in my childhood when I didn’t know what it was like to be poked and prodded and fiddled with by big, rough hands.’ She turned to look directly at Evi. ‘He used to stand in my bedroom doorway and watch me get dressed,’ she said. ‘He’d come in while I was having a bath and wash me. I’ve never been in charge of my own body, never. Can you imagine what that’s like?’
‘No,’ said Evi truthfully. ‘I’m so sorry. Did he rape you?’
‘At that age? No, he was too clever for that. You rape a four-year-old, someone will spot it. He used to masturbate over me, touching me with one hand, pulling on his, you know, with the other. When I got a bit bigger he made me suck him. I was ten when the rape started. In a way I was surprised it took him so long. I heard him, you see, with Christiana. I knew what was coming.’
Evi’s hands were at her mouth. She was going to fall. She reached out and grabbed hold of the banister again. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you tell someone? Your parents, your mother, surely she wouldn’t…’ She stopped. Jenny didn’t need to answer. Children didn’t tell. They were told not to and they didn’t. Children did what adults told them to do.
‘Did he threaten you?’ she asked.
Jenny was coming towards her again. She’d been drinking, Evi noticed now. ‘He did more than threaten us,’ she said. ‘He locked us in the mausoleum, with all the stone coffins. Even after my mother was laid to rest there, he’d lock us in. Or he’d carry us up to the top of the stairs, to the gallery in the church, even up to the Tor, and dangle us off the edge. By one ankle sometimes. We had to be good, he’d say, or he’d let go. I know he used to do it to Christiana too; she’s petrified of heights.’
Evi tried to blink away the picture in her head. ‘You must have been terrified,’ she said.
‘I never screamed, Evi, there was no point. I’d just close my eyes and wonder if this was the time, this was the day when he’d let go and I’d feel that rush of air and know it was over.’
She’d been wrong. Evi had accused Gillian and she’d been wrong. She’d sent Harry and Gareth off on a wild-goose chase and now Gillian could be dying, Joe and Tom were missing and Alice – where was Alice?
‘Jenny,’ said Evi, ‘has your grandfather been killing the children? Does he have Joe?’
Pull up the chain. No need to think about anything else. Pull up the chain and pray to the God who’d abandoned him that there was nothing on the other end of it. Don’t look at Gareth, who was close to losing it, could have lost it already. The only really sensible thing was to get the two of them out of there, before one of them got killed, except Harry knew he’d never do it. So pull up the chain, because they’d come this far and now they had to know.
The chain was moving, coming up with each heaving armful, but there was something heavy on the other end. Pull with his right arm, ease it over the edge with the left, don’t think, just keep going. Something was scraping against the side of the walls, something was catching, making it harder to pull up, something was getting closer.
The muscles in Harry’s arms were screaming at him and still he had no idea how much more of the chain there was to come up. Twenty more tugs and he’d have to rest. Wasn’t sure he’d make it to twenty. Ten more, seven more … no more needed. Clipped on to the end of the chain was a large canvas bag with a heavy, old-fashioned zip. Without stopping to think or rest, Harry pulled it up on to the stone floor of the hut, reached out and pulled open the zip.
Eye sockets – empty – were the first things he saw.
Tom blinked. Snow was blowing in his eyes and he really couldn’t see that well. He was definitely looking at the moon, shining through the stonework of the north-east bell tower. He risked turning his head around. The moon was over his shoulder. Two moons? Ebba was nearing the tower now. She scampered up to one side of it and looked back, waiting for him. What was she thinking of? The helicopter had passed overhead several times that day. The small roofs on the top of the bell towers would have stopped the helicopter crew seeing inside the towers themselves, but the choppers had heat-seeking equipment, they would have spotted a warm body. Ebba was beckoning him forward.
The church had been full of people. When the helicopter started its search, the police had brought everyone off the moors and they’d all gone into the church. Nearly two hundred people had been inside when the helicopter was searching. Two hundred warm bodies. Where do you hide a needle? In a haystack. Tom was close enough now to touch the bell tower, to put his hand through the stone pillars that sat at each corner. He reached out and saw the reflection of his hand coming towards him, saw his own face in the mirror-tiles that sat between the stone pillars of the tower, to create a small box on the roof of the church, just large enough to take …
‘Shall I tell you the worst thing, Evi? The worst thing he did to us?’
‘What?’ said Evi, thinking that she really, really didn’t want to know. When was the last time she’d heard Alice calling? Shouldn’t the police be here by now?
‘We have an old well up on the moor. There used to be a water mill there and some cottages for the workers. The buildings are all gone, but the well was never filled in for some reason. We built a stone hut around it to keep it safe. Safe from sheep and stray children. Not safe for us though, not Christiana and me, because he rigged up a harness and a rope, and if we were difficult, if we dared to say no or if we didn’t suck quite as hard as he wanted us to, he’d put us down the well. He’d fasten us in the harness and lower us down. Leave us there, in the dark, for hours. He did it to other children too. Until he left one down there too long and that little game had to come to an end.’
Jenny was too close, Evi had no choice but to step backwards, up the stairs. The minute she did so, Jenny followed her.
‘Jenny, you need help,’ she said. ‘You know that, don’t you? None of it was your fault, but you need help to come to terms with it. He’s damaged you. Christiana, too. I can find you someone who’ll work with you. It will take time, of course it will, but—’
Jenny leaned towards her. ‘Do you really think that sort of damage can be mended, Evi?’ she said. ‘By talking?’
She had a point. Evi just wished she wouldn’t insist on standing so close. ‘Not entirely, no,’ she answered. ‘Nothing can take away those memories. But the right therapist can help you come to terms with it. The important thing now, though, is that we find Joe. Harry and Gareth have gone up to that well. Is that where Joe is?’
Something shimmered across Jenny’s face. ‘They’ve gone to the cottage?’ she said. ‘Nobody’s been up there in fifteen years. We shut it up after …’
‘After what? What’s up there?’
‘Listen to me. Just listen to me.’
Gareth Fletcher wasn’t listening, he was screaming, banging his head against the stone wall of the hut, pounding it with both fists. Already, the skin on his forehead was scraped away, blood running down the side of his nose. Harry grabbed hold of one arm and tried to swing him round. Gareth’s loose fist came hurtling in Harry’s direction. Harry stepped back, dangerously close to the well.
‘It’s not Joe!’ he yelled at the top of his voice. ‘It’s not Joe!’
Was he getting through? Gareth had stopped howling, was leaning against the wall of the hut, his head hidden in his hands.
‘Gareth, you have to listen to me,’ said Harry. ‘This child has been dead for years. Look at it. No, you have to look at it. It can’t be Joe, I promise you, just look.’
Gareth raised his head. His eyes looked unnaturally bright as he took a step towards Harry. Harry braced himself. He was the taller of the two, but the other man was probably stronger. He really didn’t want to get into any sort of physical struggle this close to the edge of a well. He took hold of Gareth by his shoulders and forced him down until both of them were kneeling on cold stone once more.
‘Look,’ he said, opening the sides of the canvas bag. His hands were shaking as he picked up the torch and shone it inside. ‘This child has been dead for years,’ he repeated. ‘Look, you have to look. The flesh has nearly all gone. It can’t be Joe, it just isn’t possible.’
Gareth looked as though he were struggling to breathe. Each breath he took was a great, gasping sob, but he was looking at the bag, at the child inside the bag.
‘Not Joe,’ said Harry again, wondering how many times he’d have to say it before the other man believed him. Whether it really was Gareth he was trying to convince by this time.
Gareth ran a hand over his face. ‘Jesus, Harry,’ he said. ‘What are we dealing with?’
‘Joe!’
Tom blinked the snow from his eyes. He was looking at his brother, curled like a snail in the north-eastern bell tower, trussed like a Christmas turkey with ropes around his wrists and his ankles. Joe, pale as a mushroom, cold as an icicle, but still alive. Joe, shaking like a jelly and staring up at him with eyes that had lost all their colour but were still the eyes he remembered. Joe – here – less than a hundred yards from their house, after all.
Ebba was leaning into the bell tower, tucking a filthy patchwork quilt higher up around his brother’s shoulders, trying to keep him warm.
‘Joe, it’s OK,’ whispered Tom. ‘It’s all right now. I’ll get you down.’
Joe didn’t respond, just stared up at Tom with his translucent eyes. His head was juddering, his limbs twitching. He wasn’t well, Tom could see that. Somehow Joe had survived a night and a day on the church roof; he wouldn’t last much longer. They had to get him down. Tom leaned into the tower, trying to get his hands under his brother’s shoulders. He could reach him, touch skin that felt too cold to be covering living flesh, but when he pulled, Joe stayed where he was.
Tom turned to look at Ebba. She was still crouched on the other side of the box, her over-large hands gripping the edge of the mirror-tiles, staring at him.
‘How do we get him out?’ Tom asked.
‘A child died, Evi,’ Jenny was saying. ‘A little gypsy girl Tobias found wandering around on her own when he’d gone to look at a horse near Halifax. He just left her there, up on the moor, hanging in the well.’
Where the hell were the police?
‘You’re nice to talk to, Evi. You listen. You don’t judge. I’m going to get Millie now.’ Jenny was actually pushing her way past Evi, gently but firmly, manoeuvring herself on to a higher step. Evi turned, kept a tight hold on the banister to stop herself falling.
‘No one would judge you, Jenny,’ she said. ‘You were a child. Did you never think that perhaps you could tell your father what was going on?’
Something glinted in Jenny’s eyes. ‘You think he didn’t know?’ she said.
‘Surely not?’
‘Why do you think he was so opposed to the Fletchers buying this land? He knew they had a daughter. He knows this town isn’t safe for little girls.’
Evi was struggling to take it in. ‘But his own daughters?’
‘He sent me away to school when I was thirteen, just after Heather was born. He couldn’t turn a blind eye after that. It was too late for Christiana, of course, she was too old for school.’
Evi reached out her hand, touched the other woman on the arm. ‘Jenny, we need to tell the police all this,’ she said. ‘They have to stop him before another child gets killed. I should phone them again. Get them here sooner.’ She took a step down.
‘Wait, please.’ Now Evi’s arm was caught in a tight grip. ‘I haven’t told you everything.’
Christ, what more could there be? Evi glanced at the window that overlooked the street, hoping to see the flickering of police lights. ‘What do you need to tell me?’ she asked.
Jenny dropped her head. ‘It’s so difficult,’ she said. ‘I never thought I’d tell anyone this.’
‘How do we get him out?’ repeated Tom. Ebba’s expression didn’t change, or give any hint she’d understood him. Tom turned back to his brother and tried again to pull at least part of him up. Joe wasn’t moving and Tom realized why. The ropes that bound his brother were also securing him to the tower itself.
‘Joe, I have to go and get help,’ he said. ‘There’s a policeman downstairs. I’ll be five minutes, Joe, I promise.’
Joe’s eyes had closed. Leaving his brother in the tower was the hardest thing Tom had ever done, but somehow he made himself turn and crawl back along the roof guttering. He couldn’t hear Ebba behind him and hoped that perhaps she’d stayed to comfort Joe.
He was back at the real bell tower that led down into the church. His foot found the top step and a hand closed around his bare ankle.
The two women were sitting on the stairs. Jenny had sunk down, taking Evi with her. They were both shaking.
‘When did it all stop?’ asked Evi. ‘When you went to school?’
Jenny shook her head. ‘Things got a bit better before that. He’d found someone else to pique his interest, you see. Our housekeeper’s daughter. She was blonde and pretty and very young, just what he liked.’
‘Gillian?’ said Evi. ‘He abused Gillian too?’ Was there something at least she’d been right about?
Jenny shrugged, then nodded. ‘I think Gwen Bannister guessed what was going on,’ she said. ‘She’d never have challenged my grandfather, but she got her daughter out of harm’s reach. More than anyone did for me.’
‘Did he start on you again, after Gillian left?’
‘When I was home from school, yes. And then when I was nineteen, his luck ran out. I got pregnant too. By the time I plucked up the courage to tell Dad, it was too late to get rid of the baby so he talked Mike into taking me on. And he persuaded Tobias to sign over control of the estate to him.’
‘I can’t believe your father colluded with all this. You must have felt so betrayed.’
Jenny dropped Evi’s hands. ‘Evi, men have been selling their daughters for wealth and power for thousands of years,’ she said. ‘You think it all stopped when we got to the twentieth century? But it was good for me too. I got out. And I got Lucy.’
Tobias’s daughter. Lucy had been the incestuous child of her great-grandfather.
‘What happened to Lucy?’ asked Evi in a small voice. ‘How did she really die?’
‘I loved her so much, Evi.’
‘I’m sure you did. Did he do it? Did Tobias kill her?’
‘She was only two when he started to look at her, Evi. She was blonde and gorgeous, just like Christiana and me when we were tiny. I’d watch his eyes going over her body. He could still drive back then, he’d come up to the house all the time. I would never change her or bathe her anywhere near him, but he always seemed to be hanging around her. I knew I couldn’t let it happen again, not to Lucy.’
‘But Lucy was different. She had you to protect her. And Mike.’
‘But I knew how clever he was. I knew he’d get to her in the end. So I started planning ways to kill him. It seemed like the only way. Does that shock you?’
Evi thought she was way beyond being shocked. ‘I think it’s very understandable that you should be so angry,’ she said.
‘I thought about smothering him in his sleep, putting something in his food, pushing him down the stairs, tricking him to come up to the Tor with me and shoving him off. But then, one day, I realized. I didn’t have to kill him to stop him getting what he wanted.’
‘You didn’t?’
‘No. I could kill her instead.’
Tom was being tugged downwards, his back jarring painfully on the stone steps.
‘What the f*ck are you doin’?’ said a voice he knew. Two large hands grasped his waist and pulled him down more steps. ‘Back off, let us get down,’ the same voice instructed. Tom heard several pairs of footsteps retreating behind them and then he was in the church gallery once more.
‘Joe’s on the roof,’ he managed. ‘In the other bell tower, the one that everyone thinks is empty, but it’s not. He’s in there and he’s freezing and we have to get him down now.’
The four boys stared back at him, as if they’d captured an alien that had suddenly started giving them orders.
‘Your brother?’ Jake Knowles was the first to speak. ‘The one we’ve been looking for all day?’
‘On the roof?’ repeated Jake’s older brother, whose name Tom couldn’t remember.
Tom looked back at the four faces and felt like his heart had stopped beating. ‘You did it,’ he said. ‘You put him there.’
The older boy’s face twisted. ‘What the f*ck do you think we are?’ he said. ‘F*ckin’ psychos?’
‘He’s actually up there?’ said Billy Aspin. ‘Alive?’
Tom nodded. ‘He’s tied up,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t get him out. I need to get my dad. What are you doing here? If you didn’t put him there, why are you here?’
‘We followed you in,’ said Jake. ‘We saw you and that Renshaw cretin running through the graveyard and we followed. Got f*ckin’ lost in that cellar. Where’d she go?’
‘We have to get help. There’s a police …’ said Tom, realizing he had no idea what had happened to Ebba.
‘Come on,’ interrupted the eldest Knowles boy. ‘Let’s see what he’s on about.’
Evi felt like she was burning up. Funny, she’d heard patients talk about feeling terror many times. None of them had ever told her how hot it was. Or how it seemed to throw your brain into slow motion. Jenny? Jenny was the one who’d been after Millie the whole time. No, that couldn’t be right. She’d misunderstood something. She was overtired.
‘And the really ironic thing was, Tobias did love her.’ Jenny was clutching Evi again, making it impossible for her to move. Her face was flushed, her eyes unnaturally bright. Evi had to get up somehow. Then what? Upstairs, to Millie’s room, or outside to the phone?
‘He was absolutely devastated,’ Jenny went on. ‘I made him watch, you see. I knew he was going to the church – he was churchwarden for years – and I followed him there with Lucy in my arms. I climbed up to the gallery and then I shouted for him.’
Sweat was trickling down between Evi’s shoulder blades. The police weren’t coming. Jenny hadn’t called them. And why did she have to be so close?
‘I’ll never forget it,’ she was saying. ‘He came out of the vestry and I was dangling her from her ankles, the way he used to do to me, and she was screaming and screaming and I could see him shouting at me, yelling at me to stop. He started running forward and I let her go, just like that.’
The smell of the woman was almost worse than the heat: alcohol and perspiration and exotic flowers. Evi knew it was going to make her retch if she didn’t move. Hands down, push hard, ignore the pain; she had strong arms, it would work.
‘It took so long for her to fall,’ Jenny went on. ‘I had so much time to think, to realize it was always meant to be this way, that I would destroy him in the end, because of what he did to me.’
Do it now. Evi rose up, was caught and dragged back down.
‘He almost made it.’ Jenny was whispering into her face now. ‘Almost caught her. But she slammed down hard on those flagstones and the blood, the blood just went everywhere, it was like I’d dropped a bubble of it. I thought some of it was going to reach me up in the gallery.’
Evi swallowed hard and fought the temptation to hold her breath. She had to keep breathing. If she held her breath, she’d faint.
‘I’ve never had any pleasure from sex, Evi, not once – how could I?’ Jenny was saying. ‘This orgasm business people get so worked up about, I have no idea what they’re talking about. But that day, seeing all that blood and watching him start to scream, I can’t tell you the pleasure I felt. I almost fainted away, right there and then, it was so intense. And the sound of the thud when she hit the tiles, like a ripe fruit bursting open, I could hear that over and over again in my head, and all the time the blood was spreading out from around her. I could see it oozing out in waves, while her heart struggled to keep going.’
Evi knew she couldn’t scream. No one but Millie would hear her.
The two men were running down the moor, their torch beams aimed at the white ground below their feet. Through the beech wood, past the abandoned water mill, over the stream. Once Gareth had seemed himself again, a sense of panic had swept through Harry. They had to get back. It was all he could think of – getting back.
It had been forty minutes or more since they’d left the house. The police should have joined them by now. There were police cars on the roads into Heptonclough, they weren’t more than five minutes from the Fletchers’ house. If Evi had phoned them when he and Gareth had set out, they would have arrived by now. They hadn’t, which meant she hadn’t phoned. Something else had happened. It was worse now, worse than just Joe, the mayhem that Gillian had unleashed. They had to get back.
His mobile was in the pocket of his jeans. He could stop, call the police himself, phone the house. But to do that he’d have to stop running.
They’d reached a stile. Harry climbed up, jumped down and set off again, hearing Gareth doing the same thing behind him. They were in the harvest field, just above the town. Another hundred yards and they’d be passing the site of the All Souls’ Day bonfire. They reached the fence and Harry vaulted over. Past Gillian’s old cottage, the cobbles slippery with snow, buildings rising up on either side now. Gareth was breathing heavily by his side. They came to the end of the lane, had just turned into the main road when the church bell began to ring.
‘He dragged me away, of course,’ said Jenny. ‘Back to the house. We both changed our clothes and then we started the search for her. He wouldn’t go back to the church, though, he couldn’t face her again. I had to do that.’
Think now, stay calm. The police weren’t coming, but Harry and Gareth would be back. They’d have made it to the cottage by now, found whatever they had to find, they’d be making their way home. Evi just had to stay calm. Stop this woman from doing any more harm. She had to keep her away from Millie. If only it weren’t so hot.
‘And then,’ said Evi, forcing herself to relax back on the stair, to breathe deeply. ‘Was it over then? When you’d punished him? Did you find …’ Jesus, what the hell was she supposed to say? ‘Did you find peace?’ she tried.
Jenny nodded. ‘For a while, yes,’ she said. ‘It was as though I’d taken back control over my life, can you understand that?’
‘Of course,’ said Evi, telling herself to speak slowly, the way she always did with an overexcited patient. ‘Control is very important,’ she said. ‘We all need that.’
‘I missed her desperately, of course. I still do. I never really got over it.’
‘No,’ said Evi, fighting a temptation to look at her watch, and an even stronger one to throw back her head and howl. ‘I don’t think parents ever get over the loss of a child.’
‘But I felt as though a chapter was closed, that I could move on again.’ Jenny’s eyes narrowed. She looked down at her watch, but the gesture was too quick for Evi to see the time. ‘It’s getting on,’ she said. ‘Come on, I’ll help you up the stairs.’ She stood and bent down, taking hold of Evi under the arms. Evi braced herself, but the other woman was strong. She was hoisted up and then Jenny’s arm was around her waist.
‘Come on,’ said Jenny. ‘I’m sure I heard her crying just now.’
‘Millie’s fine,’ said Evi. ‘But Jenny, this is really important.’
Jenny paused but kept a tight hold around Evi’s waist. ‘What?’ she said, and her voice had hardened. She was losing patience.
‘It’s just … the other girls,’ said Evi. ‘Megan, Hayley. Why did they have to die?’
Jenny tilted her head to one side. ‘After Lucy died, I was the one in charge,’ she said, after a moment. ‘Whenever Tobias stepped out of line, if he started paying inappropriate attention to young girls, I could stop him. Come on now, one more step, and another.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Evi. ‘I find stairs so difficult. Can we rest for a second? So he started to abuse Megan? Even after what happened to Lucy?’
Jenny’s hold on Evi relaxed a fraction. ‘Oh, I’m not sure it ever got that far,’ she said. ‘I could just see him looking at her, going out of his way to be nice to her mother. I wasn’t having it, not after losing Lucy. I wasn’t having him forgetting her and just taking a fancy to another one.’
‘So you killed Megan?’ asked Evi. ‘And Hayley? You tried to kill Millie too?’
Jenny looked at Evi as though she were simple. ‘I’d already killed my own child,’ she said. ‘Do you think it’s difficult, after that, to kill someone else’s?’
‘Then why Joe?’ asked Evi, when Jenny seemed about to turn away and head back up the stairs again. ‘Your grandfather wouldn’t be interested in him. Why did you take him? You did take him, didn’t you?’
‘Evi, he was starting to taunt me.’
‘Joe?’
‘My grandfather. You have no idea what an evil old devil he is. He kept cracking jokes about how the Fletchers had more security than the crown jewels, that Millie was never out of her mother’s sight, and he was coming here just about every day, sitting for that stupid portrait, and I knew he’d be playing with Millie, getting her to sit on his lap, stroking her legs, his fingers getting higher and higher, and forgetting all about Lucy. I couldn’t let that happen.’
‘But Joe? What has—’
‘I knew the only way Alice would take her eye off the ball was if one of her other kids went missing.’
Evi felt like she’d been slapped. ‘Joe was a decoy?’
Jenny shrugged. ‘Sweet lad,’ she said. ‘He came with me without arguing. I told him his sister had had an accident and his mum wanted me to take him to visit her in hospital. Couldn’t half fight though, once the penny dropped. I had to knock him out to get him—’
‘Where? Where is he?’
‘Somewhere they’ll never find him. They didn’t find Megan, they won’t find Joe. Evi, can you manage another step?’
Jake Knowles’ oldest brother stepped past Tom and started to climb the staircase again. ‘He’s tied up,’ insisted Tom. ‘You can’t get him out.’
The boy reached his hand into his jeans pocket and brought out a thin strip of metal about five inches long. His thumb twitched and a long, silver blade shot out. ‘No sweat,’ he said, as he disappeared into the tower. One by one the other three followed. Jake was the last. His foot on the bottom step, he turned back to Tom. ‘Come on,’ he said, before disappearing.
Tom followed, not sure if this were better or worse. Joe needed a grown-up, not these four idiots. Even if they managed to get him out, they’d be as likely to fall off the roof with him as bring him down. Ahead, Jake was climbing out on to the roof. Tom scrambled up the last few steps and peered out.
‘Dan’s almost there,’ said Jake. Tom looked across the roof. Jake’s brother, Dan, was just a few paces away from the north-eastern tower. The middle brother was just behind him. There was no sign of Ebba.
‘He’s here!’ shouted Dan, who had reached the opposite tower and was bending inside it. ‘I’ve got him.’ The second brother had arrived at the tower too now. Tom could see two denim-clad bottoms sticking up towards the night sky as both boys leaned inside. Then first one and then the other began to straighten up.
‘Will’s got him,’ said Jake. ‘He’s pulling him out, look.’
Jake’s other brother had both arms around Joe’s middle and was tugging him out of the tower. The patchwork quilt got left behind and Joe’s pale naked body gleamed like a shell in the moonlight as he and Will Knowles tumbled on to the roof. Then Dan Knowles bent and lifted Joe. Carrying the small boy in his arms like a baby, he began to walk back along the guttering towards Tom, Jake and Billy. As he neared, they could hear him shouting something that sounded like, ‘Well, mell, ding-dong bell, ring the ruddy bell, you wazzocks.’ Jake understood a second before Tom did and then both boys were tumbling down the staircase, fighting each other in their effort to be the first to unleash the bell rope and give the first tug.
Clang. The old bell shuddered in protest at being roused from sleep so late at night. Clang. Louder now, getting its confidence back. Clang. Tom half wanted to let go of the rope and put his hands over his ears, but he didn’t because tugging on that rope and ringing that bell felt so good. Clang. Get out here, everyone, get out and see Joe being carried across the rooftop. Joe, OK after all, Joe, coming home. He couldn’t wait to see his mum’s face.
*
‘Jenny, you can’t go in that room.’
‘And I’m going to be stopped by a cripple? I don’t think so.’ Jenny stretched up on tiptoe, looking over Evi’s shoulder. ‘Stone floors in the hall,’ she said. ‘Do you know what it sounds like, when a child’s skull breaks on stone? A bit like an eggshell cracking, only amplified a thousand times. You’ll hear it – maybe.’
‘Where is Joe?’ demanded Evi.
Jenny was walking backwards along the landing, her hand reaching out for the handle on Millie’s door.
‘Does Heather know where he is?’ asked Evi.
For the first time, Jenny looked uncertain. ‘No,’ she said.
‘Are you sure?’ said Evi. ‘Because I think she knows all about you. I think she’s been trying to warn people, in her own way. She’s been trying to make friends with Joe, Tom and Millie, to talk to Harry. She’s even been trying to tell Gillian what happened to her daughter.’
‘She’s a brainless idiot.’ The handle was turned, the door pushed two inches open.
‘She came for Tom tonight,’ said Evi. ‘Why would she do that, so late in the evening, unless she knew where you’d put Joe?’
Jenny thought for a moment, then she shrugged. ‘It makes no difference,’ she said. ‘He’ll be dead by now.’
Evi took a step forward. ‘You know what really pisses me off, Jenny?’ she said. ‘You’re a complete fake. You’re pretending you’re doing all this because Millie is your grandfather’s next victim. Well, bullshit. He’s probably barely been near her. He almost certainly didn’t touch Hayley either, or Megan. You said yourself he was never allowed near Lucy. You’re killing these girls because you like it.’
‘Shut up.’
‘I saw the look on your face when you told me about Lucy’s death. You enjoyed it.’
‘I don’t have to listen to this.’ Jenny was turning away.
She had to stop her, had to give her something to focus on other than Millie. ‘Your grandfather, everything that happened to you in the past, it’s just the excuse now. You’re doing it for fun.’
‘You have no idea.’ Jenny was in the bedroom, making her way across the carpet.
‘I’m a psychiatrist,’ called Evi. ‘I’ve been dealing with twisted bitches like you for years. Now get away from that cot.’
Jenny was coming towards her. She was out of the room in moments; a second more and her hands were around Evi’s throat and the two were staggering backwards, past the stairs.
‘Ever wondered what it would be like to fly, Evi?’ Jenny hissed in her ear. ‘You’re about to find out. They’ll think you slipped with little Millie in your arms and fell down the stairs. Only old Tobias will know the truth.’
Evi’s windpipe was being crushed. The pathologist would know she’d been strangled. Small comfort. The banister was digging into her back, it hurt like hell but it was supporting her weight. She brought her good leg up and kneed the other woman hard in the crotch. Jenny grunted and her hold slackened, but she was a woman after all and it hadn’t done too much damage. Evi twisted round and tried to get a grip on the banister but found herself being lifted off her feet, forced over the top of it.
Before she could brace herself, her hips had gone over the edge and she was close to falling. She grabbed out, one hand caught hold of the banister but her legs were lifted high, she was being pushed and something was banging at her hand, stamping on it, and she had no choice but to let go.
It seemed to take a long time to reach the slate floor.
They’d stopped ringing the bell. The three boys climbed inside the tower. Did they still have Joe? Yes, there he was, wrapped up in the patchwork quilt again, his face pressed against Dan Knowles’s chest, still bound tight with thin, nylon rope, still shaking, still alive.
Dan Knowles, who seemed to have grown during his brief time on the roof, looking more like the young man he’d be in a year or so than a teenage bully, was at the bottom of the steps, climbing into the gallery. His brother Will followed, then Billy, just as the sound of a heavy door being opened echoed around the church.
‘Hello!’ shouted a loud Geordie voice.
‘He’s up here! We’ve got him!’ called back Dan Knowles.
‘Joe!’ yelled Tom’s dad.
‘Dad!’ screamed Tom.
‘Police! Everybody keep still!’
The two groups met on the balcony stairs, Gareth Fletcher and Dan Knowles almost colliding. The small, shivering parcel was passed from one to the other and Joe gave a quiet moan as his father’s arms closed around him. Higher on the steps, over his father’s head, Tom’s eyes met Harry’s. Then the vicar turned, pushed his way past the bewildered-looking police constable, and ran from the church.
Evi was barely conscious. She was very cold. An icy wind was blowing all around her. Snow was falling softly on her face and the world was growing dark. Was she back on the mountain? No, in the Fletchers’ house. That was Millie she could hear, howling like a banshee. The front door was open and a man was standing not three feet away from her. Brown leather shoes, damp patches around them on the stone. Something in his left hand, long and thin, fashioned from metal, something she thought she recognized, but it seemed so out of place that she really couldn’t be certain.
‘Put her down,’ said a voice. Too late, thought Evi, I already fell.
‘Oh, I will,’ replied a woman’s voice from high above them.
‘Don’t take another step,’ said the man. ‘And put that child down.’
‘You’re not serious,’ replied the woman.
The thing the man was carrying was lifted up until Evi could no longer see it.
‘It’s over,’ he said. ‘Put her down.’
A silence, when the world seemed to pause; then a footstep and an explosion of sound. Evi didn’t hear the second gunshot, but she felt its vibration flutter through her body and she saw the blinding flash of light. Then nothing more.
Harry heard the first shot as he jumped over the wall and dodged his way around Alice’s car. He caught a glimpse of Alice herself, racing towards the church, but there was no time to stop. He saw the open front door and the tall form of Tobias Renshaw standing in the doorway, pointing a rifle at himself. A second later the old man’s head exploded in a mass of bone and blood. Harry leaped over the corpse before it had completely settled on the ground.
A sharp cry caught his attention. Millie, awash with blood and tiny pieces of grey matter, was standing at the top of the stairs. The prone body of a woman lay across the upstairs landing. At the sight of someone she knew, the toddler stepped forward, dangerously close to the edge of the top stair. Harry ran up the stairs and picked her up. Then he turned. At the foot of the stairs, not three feet from the body of Tobias, lay a young woman in a violet sweater. As he watched, a snowflake settled on her black lashes. Her eyes were as blue as he remembered.