32
Caught in a Strong Beam
Martin Caldwell sat behind his desk, his head in his hand. The other hand held a glass, its sides smeared with the remains of the vodka he’d downed. But he couldn’t get drunk. There was a time it used to have an effect, not always good but necessary. It dulled things somewhat, took the edge off them. Tonight, though, that edge remained brutally sharp.
The hard bristle of his unshaven chin irritated his hand. He knew he looked a sorry sight; his hair lank and uncared for; dark shadows beneath red and bleary eyes; and he no longer wore a suit and tie. So much for starting afresh, he thought dismally. So much for being able to dump the past, wipe the slate clean, become someone else. Someone new and unsoiled.
God, he wished tonight was over and done with.
He would have poured out another shot but the bottle was empty.
He could call the entire thing off, of course, before it was too late.
But it was already too late and he knew that. Events were rolling on, seemingly uncontrollable and at speed, like a driverless truck hurtling down a steep hill with no brakes. All he could do was close his eyes and wait for the impact. Only then would it be truly over. Maybe, when it was, he could try wiping the slate clean again. Create a completely new life somewhere else.
How ironic, he thought, that in order for him to create his new life, someone else had to die tonight.
For Katherine, life had become painfully intolerable. Life without Felix wasn’t a life at all. She could never have foreseen how desperately she loved him. She’d known love before, or something she’d sorely mistaken for love, but all along these types of love had been lies. Only now did she fully understand what the word meant, its joy and its torture, brought into sharp focus only by his disappearance. Something inside her felt sorrow for all those people she’d duped, because now she felt what they must have felt, and it was excruciating. It was eating her up, gnawing at her insides like a ravenous beast and she thought she’d go mad with the agony.
Then there was the envelope, shoved through her letterbox without a stamp. A note from Laura. If she wanted to know where Felix was she had to meet her tonight, on the outskirts of Langbridge. In the car park by a small patch of woodland, a local beauty spot.
Hope rose in her breast. When she got Felix back it would mark the end of this kind of life, she vowed silently. They’d move abroad, settle down and have kids, grow old together.
But if she found out anything had happened to him then Laura f*cking Leach was going to pay for it. She was going to suffer anyway. Laura Leach was a dead woman whichever way things turned out, because Martin had arranged it so.
Katherine’s expression hardened. When she looked in the mirror she hardly recognised herself. She touched the spot on her cheek where the walking-stick had struck her. It was still sore and bruised. The bitch had almost broken her cheek bone. Felix would tell her she’d let herself go. She really ought to fix herself up when she got back, she thought. Get her hair done, buy some new clothes. Christ, it was as if this place and its people had a toxic effect on her. She could feel it attacking her, as if the very air was poisonous. She narrowed her eyes. Stop moping, you sullen old woman, she told herself; you’ve business to attend to.
She put on a raincoat – it was pissing it down outside. This place was always damp, she thought. She’d be glad to be shut of it. She went into the kitchen and picked up a small knife, which she placed in her coat pocket. She didn’t trust that f*cked-up bitch one inch.
The rain drenched the car’s windscreen and the wiper blades had difficulty in keeping it clear. She peered hard into the darkness ahead; Langbridge was now a mile or so behind her. Beyond the car’s headlights there was only the impenetrable blackness of open countryside, the road awash and looking like a turbulent stream. She almost missed the turning to the car park, had to stop, reverse back up the road a little and swing the car round hard. The uneven ground was strewn with deep puddles, the car’s wheels dropping into water-filled potholes. She brought it to a halt, turning off the engine but keeping the lights burning, listening to the heavy drumming of the rain on the thin metal roof of the car. The headlights lit up a line of trees, stark and bare and marking the edge of the wood.
She checked her watch but could hardly make out the time in the gloom. Katherine grabbed her umbrella, stepped outside. Cold rain prickled her face, drove into her thin coat. The wind caused the trees to moan in lament, and the sound of the rain pounding the sodden ground was like the hissing of steam from some great engine. The car park was empty. The land all around was empty. It was as if the world had ceased to exist.
‘Laura, are you there?’ she shouted above the sound of the rain. There was no sign of any car, and when she looked back at the road she saw it was empty. No car lights to indicate anything was coming. If this was some kind of perverse joke, she thought, getting heated up and grasping the knife in her coat pocket…
Then she heard the sound of something moving beyond the line of trees. Thought she saw some kind of movement in the dark undergrowth. She strained her eyes to try to see what it was but it was near impossible. The car’s headlights were still blazing, but outside their limited reach it was difficult to make anything out. The sketchy outline of trees against the fractionally lighter band of sky, and that was all.
She wished she’d brought a torch. She forgot how dark the countryside was when night fell. She was more suited to a better-lit urban life and would be glad as hell to get back to it. Katherine narrowed her eyes, her hand lifting the knife out into the open. The sounds stopped. She listened intently.
Nothing. Nothing except the sound of this blasted weather. She was letting her imagination run away with her. Katherine turned back to look at the road. Where the hell was that bitch?
The blow to the back of her head caused her to drop instantly to her hands and knees. The pain crashed into her, her body afire with it. She was vaguely aware of the sounds of splashing footsteps behind her, tried to scramble to her feet, her vision a firework display of sparks. Katherine opened her mouth to scream.
The second blow caved her skull in and she fell flat, dead before her face hit the mud and boiling rain. Her blood gushed in a torrent down the side of her face, into her open eye, washed into a puddle of water that ran into her mouth and filled it.
The third blow from the Fijian war club caused her head to dissolve into a bloody pulp. The end of the club rested there a second or two, in the bowl of her broken skull; and then it was twirled around the mush of bloodied brains and hair like a paintbrush being dipped into a pot of paint, till it was fully coated in a thick, gooey gloss.
Leonard Kimble was horrified. He stood on the bridge overlooking the river, on his way back from the retirement home and his fruitful interview with Ellen Bradshaw. He was initially buoyed up by his scoop. The elation fizzed out when he saw that the river had indeed broken its banks. Where once there had been the familiar silver thread of the Lang there was only a massive lake of water. It looked almost alive, he thought, malevolent nature in the raw.
When he stepped off the bridge he was concerned that the water was already a foot deep, the roads and pathways already submerged. The main street through Langbridge was like a river itself, cars ploughing through the water like tiny beetles. And the rain didn’t show any signs of stopping either. In fact it looked like it was getting worse.
Oh, Christ, he thought; I’m going to die! I’m too young to die!
In a blind panic he waded as fast as he could through the rising floodwater, the reflections of the streetlamps splintering and sparking on the water’s agitated surface, cursing that he’d never bothered to learn to swim.
Shopkeepers were doing their best to stop the water entering their premises, some of them having produced sandbags and building tiny walls with them, but it was too late – the rapidly rising water brought forth a rising flood of despair and distraught faces. Someone screamed and that made Leonard Kimble panic even more. Get to high ground, he thought. High ground? This f*cking place didn’t have any high ground. They were all going to die!
The woman from the Empire’s kiosk was hammering at Martin Caldwell’s office door but there was no answer. ‘Mr Caldwell!’ she called, ‘there’s water coming in through the front doors. There’s a flood, just like in 1947. Mr Caldwell!’ She opened his door and was shocked to see him slumped on the desk, an empty bottle of Vodka beside him. She went over to him, gave him a gentle shake. He stirred, but not by much. ‘Mr Caldwell, what are we to do?’ He snored loudly and she left him, calling for everyone to get out.
Vince Moody heard muffled screams from the auditorium. He peered through the viewing-pane and saw some kind of commotion going on in the dark. A flurry of activity down in the front rows. He checked his projectors were set OK before going down to see what all the fuss was about.
He was almost bowled over by people bursting through the swing-doors. He pushed his way through the stream of panicking cinemagoers into the auditorium, and met Edith.
‘Vince, there’s water coming in, down there.’ She pointed to the screen. ‘There’s tons of it; the building’s filling up fast.’
People were vacating their chairs in a hurry, crashing against each other in the mad rush to get upstairs to the exits. Vince could make out the swirling water below, already creeping up to the third row of seats.
‘Bugger!’ he said. ‘Make sure everyone gets out, Edith. Get them to stay calm. I’ll switch the lights on.’
He ran up to the projection booth, hit the light-switches and closed the projectors down. When he got back down to the auditorium someone was badgering Edith for a refund on his ticket and the popcorn he’d been made to leave behind; it was a king-size tub, he complained, hardly started at all. Vince persuaded him to leave and he’d make sure he got his refund.
‘So has anyone told Caldwell yet?’ he asked Edith as they descended the steps to survey the damage. He was surprised at how much water was getting in; the lower half of the auditorium now resembled the local swimming-baths.
‘He was asleep, apparently. Drunk.’
‘Never mind him,’ said Vince. ‘Is everyone out?’ He could see the place was empty except for the two of them.
‘I think so,’ said Edith. ‘Someone’s called for the fire brigade and police.’
‘We have to make sure all staff are accounted for and safe, too,’ he said. ‘Double-check for customers, check the toilets, things like that; I want to make sure everyone is out.’ Then his face paled in horror.
‘What’s wrong, Vince?’ Edith asked as he put a hand to his forehead.
‘My stash of old films, down in the basement!’ he cried. ‘They’ll be ruined! I’ve got to save them!’
‘Oh, Vince, don’t go down there, you’ll be drowned!’
‘Just do as I say, and I’ll make sure Caldwell is OK, too. I’ll be fine.’
‘I’d be devastated if anything happened to you, Vince!’ she said in alarm, her doe-eyes awash with worry.
Vince leant his head forward and gave her a peck on the lips, surprised at his sudden boldness, and basking in her concern for him. ‘I’ll be fine, I told you,’ he said. ‘Really, I will.’
He dashed at once up the stairs to Caldwell’s office, and barged in. Caldwell was still asleep at his desk, snoring loudly.
‘Mr Caldwell!’ he said. But the man was well-under. He grabbed the basement keys off the hook on the wall and hurried down the corridor.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ said a deep voice behind him.
He turned to see a fireman in his dark uniform and bright-yellow helmet striding purposefully towards him. ‘I’ve got to go to the basement,’ said Vince.
‘No you haven’t,’ said the officer. ‘That’s the one place you aren’t going. You know there’s a flood, don’t you?’
‘I’ve got to get something,’ he said, running to a door, swinging it open and bolting down steps. He heard the fireman chasing after him.
‘I can’t allow that!’ he called. ‘Get yourself back up here!’
Vince ignored him, something he’d never imagined himself being able to do, ignore authority. He reached the lower floor and plunged up to his ankles in water. It seemed to take an age to get the key into the lock and get the basement door open. Water was gushing down the stone steps like a mini-waterfall into the dark room. He could also see that the entire floor was flooded already and it seemed to be rising up the walls fast. The reason why was because water wasn’t only gushing down the steps, it was being pumped up in a torrent from the old well, the underground watercourse that obviously fed it also bloated beyond its capacity.
‘Get up here at once!’ said the fireman. ‘I’ll drag you out if you don’t!’ he warned.
‘I can’t leave these films,’ Vince said, distressed that whilst some film-cans appeared to be floating others had sunk.
‘Nothing is more valuable than your life!’ he said. ‘Now stop arguing with me, you little prick, and get your arse up here!’
Vince was grabbing an armful of film-cans. ‘Here, take a few,’ he insisted.
‘Bollocks!’ said the fireman, stomping down the steps towards Vince.
‘Don’t you care about Laurel and Hardy?’ Vince gasped.
‘Are you for real?’ he said, reaching out and grabbing Vince by the arm in a manacle-like grip that Vince couldn’t shake off.
Then, unexpectedly, his hold loosened, the fireman’s hand slowly falling away to find his torch. ‘Oh f*ck!’ he said quietly.
Vince followed the man’s dumbstruck gaze. Poking above the metal grating of the well, waving around in the bubbling and foaming water, was a human hand. Vince was so shocked he dropped the cans of film into the water, his mouth hanging open.
‘There’s someone in there!’ said the fireman, splashing through the water towards the well. He saw that the hand had been mauled by rats, a finger missing. ‘It’s a dead body,’ he said, shining the torch down into the water, through the metal grating and into the well. ‘It’s a woman, as far as I can tell,’ he said. ‘The body is all bloated, that’s why it’s floated to the surface.’
Vince went over to the fireman’s side. He looked tentatively into the churning water, the head of the corpse caught clearly in the torch’s strong beam. ‘That’s Monica,’ he said.
‘Jesus,’ mouthed the fireman. ‘Look – look underneath her!’ His face paled visibly. ‘There’s another one. There are two bodies in there!’
* * * *
33
When the Bough Breaks
The older the building the easier it was to get inside, generally, thought Ray Steele, forcing open one of the ground-floor windows. It was little wonder that Devereux Towers managed to escape the attentions of any opportunist thief who happened upon it. Perhaps it evaded attention because it was tucked so far out of the way and looked like it hadn’t been lived in for ages, hardly seemed worth the effort. He slid the window up, climbed through into the darkened room beyond. He carried with him a black plastic bag, something bulky and heavy inside, wrapped up to protect it from the rain.
He paused in the blackness, listening for any sounds. Satisfied all was clear he took off his muddy, slip-on shoes and placed them by the skirting-board; he didn’t want any footprints giving away the fact someone had broken in, wandered through the rooms. He wanted it to appear as if he’d never been here at all.
He tramped silently across the bare boards of the empty room, opened the door. The entrance hall was in complete darkness and deserted. It was late, it was to be expected. Laura Leach was upstairs in bed, unaware what was planned for her. He took out a tiny torch and lit his way to another door across the other side of the entrance hall. Still no sound of movement from upstairs.
He stopped by the door, listened. Clutched the black plastic bag tight and turned the door handle, went inside. This room gave him the creeps – the entire place did – but this room in particular. All these f*cking weird African masks and statues and things – who in their right minds would pay good money for that ugly shit and then put it on display? That’s the trouble with these people with money, all in-bred eccentrics with no f*cking taste.
He went over to the wall of tribal masks, to a chest that stood below them. He carefully opened the lid. It was empty. He slowly unwrapped the object he carried, slipping it from its black plastic cocoon.
The Fijian war club still glistened with Katherine’s blood, tiny lumps of something meaty and strands of hair sticking to it. He was glad he’d managed to get it here without the rain washing the blood from it. That had been tricky, given how heavy it had been coming down. He wore black leather gloves so as not to get his prints on the club, but noticed a little blood on them. He’d have to burn them, he thought as he put the club in the chest and closed the lid on it.
It had been all too easy, he thought, breaking in the first time and stealing one of the clubs. Even easier breaking-in the second time round, now he knew his way around the place. All he had to do now to complete his end of the bargain was to get behind the blue door in the tower and then get the hell out of there.
Ray Steele stole quietly out of the study, thinking how this was a piece of piss. He could do this with his eyes closed. It had been a while since he’d had to use his nocturnal skills, and in truth he was quite enjoying the experience. Just like being a kid all over again. It’s where he cut his teeth, breaking and entering.
He found the entrance to the tower easily and mounted the spiral staircase, his feet making hardly any sound at all on the old, wooden treads. Finding the so-called blue door was even easier, given that it was the only one that had been painted, with the remainder in the tower being in varnished wood. It was locked, as he’d been told, but he’d come prepared. This type of lock was no problem for Ray Steele. He’d made a career out of opening locked doors.
He took out a small cloth case and unrolled it. It was filled with the tools of his trade, from which he selected the most appropriate pick and set about testing the sturdy, Victorian lock. It gave after only thirty seconds. You’re getting rusty, he thought; used to be far faster than that.
A slight pause to listen for any activity and then Steele pushed open the blue door.
Laura’s hand was covered in blood. She stared at it as if the writhing fingers didn’t belong to her.
She was sitting on the bathroom floor, the tiles also spattered with blood. She was crying, and when she went to wipe away a tear she smeared blood onto her eyelid, like grotesque eye-shadow. In her right hand she brandished a knife, the blade also smeared with glistening blood. She lifted the knife, pressed it against the flesh of her left arm, denting the skin. With a slow, deliberate movement she drew the blade across her skin, and blood gushed freely from the deep cut, as it gushed from the other cuts on her arm that she’d made that night. The bright-red cut stood in stark contrast to the pale scars of past mutilations.
The pain was tremendous, she thought, biting her lower lip, but it didn’t dull the mental pain she endured, not like it used to; it would not go away, the torture continuing unabated. The cutting did not help tonight.
She tossed the knife away, as she’d thrown so many away. Each time the knife had to be fresh otherwise it wouldn’t work. It would not release her from her torment.
Oh, Casper! She wept again. Why did you do it? Why? I loved you, I really did!
She remembered the night he came; the night she confronted him with his deception, not wanting to believe he was capable of such a heinous act. She’d almost been willing to forgive him anything. Almost. But it was true – he had deceived her, and though she should have been furious with him she found she only wept for what might have been. She remembered how he cowered in fear before the knife, though she was hardly aware she still had it in her hand. All she wanted was to hear him tell her it he was a fraud. Hear it come from his sweet lips. Only then would she believe it.
When he confessed she calmly unlocked the door and let him out. He paused to turn and look back, angrily calling her a crazy bitch, before getting into his car and taking her new future with him. She never saw him again. Didn’t know where he went after leaving Devereux Towers, but guessed it was back to her, to Katherine, to lie in her arms and tell her all the beautiful things he’d whispered so fluently, so practiced, so meaningfully.
When the sound of his car faded into the night she turned the knife she had on herself, cutting and cutting and cutting; slashing her arm, sobbing and cutting some more. Please, she begged, take the pain away. She discovered that he’d left his jacket behind, slumped over the back of a chair and she lifted it up to her nose, smelling his warm presence there, the dashed hopes and her crushed dreams. Copious amounts of blood dripped off her damaged arm and smeared the jacket sleeve. She heard something tinkle and reached inside the pocket. It was a bunch of house keys.
Did she hate him for it? Strangely, no. Her venom was reserved for the woman who possessed him. Not for her callous plans to rob her of money – what was money, after all? No, she loathed her because she had what she believed would be hers. She had Casper.
And Casper – how he looked like the father of her child. So similar, in fact, that she almost wanted to believe he had been sent back from the dead to be her lover once again. Sent back so she could be forgiven his death. God had not abandoned her, the sins of the past forgiven. But He hadn’t forgiven her at all; all along God had been mocking her, dreaming up far greater punishments. It was just as her father had predicted; you’ll always be a bad person, Laura, he’d told her. You cannot wash away sin. His blood will always be on your hands.
She shook away the hurtful memories and looked at those same hands. Yes, the blood was still there. Blood was everywhere.
Laura heard a noise. The faintest of sounds. Her heart quickened. Someone was in the house. Not far away.
She bent and picked up the bloodied knife from the tiled floor and rose to her feet. The deep slashes on her arm dribbled blood down to soak her hand, down the long blade in thick rivulets; dripped steadily to the floor to splash in a trail of little scarlet rosettes as she padded barefoot to the door.
Ray Steele turned his torch on. He hadn’t known what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t this.
There was an empty wooden cot pushed against the wall; above it there hung a mobile of chunky, wooden ducks on strings; a tiny chest of drawers decorated with flowers was placed near the cot, sitting on top of this a pile of neatly-folded baby clothes; there was a teddy-bear on a stool, its coal-black button eyes watching him; a spinning-top lay beside a carefully arranged set of children’s building blocks on a rug; a small bookcase was filled with children’s story books; the wallpaper was printed with hot-air balloons and birds.
There was nothing odd or special about this room at all. No valuables, no safe. It was a nursery. A nursery without a baby.
He shook his head and smiled to himself, crept quietly over to the cot. It had a name painted on its wooden side: Alex. He squinted against the gloom, played the torch over the cot; there looked to be something inside beneath the soft, woollen blanket. He bent down, peeled the blanket back to reveal a tiny, pink head.
It was a doll. He was getting jumpy over a damned doll!
The scream, shrill and from the depths of the soul, caused him to start violently and he accidentally dropped the torch into the cot. It lit up the blue plastic eyes of the doll.
‘What are you doing? What are you doing?’ Laura exclaimed, bounding over to the man. ‘Get out, get out, get out!’ She lunged at him with the knife, narrowly missing his head and spattering his face with droplets of warm blood from her arm. She screamed loudly, yelling unintelligible words at him.
Ray Steel ran for the door, pushing against Laura, his hand catching the knife and he yelled out in pain as the blade scored deep into his fingers. Laura was at his back in an instant, the room filled with her strident yelling. In the dark, Ray reached out to steady himself on the banister. He felt the searing pain from his bloodied hand, which slid down the banister on the blood as easily as if the thing had been greased. It caused him to lose his footing on the stairs.
He tumbled momentarily into a black void, and then his head crashed against the hard, wooden treads, his body cart-wheeling uncontrollably down the stairs, his ears filled with the sound of a devilish, screaming banshee.
And then he came to rest and all was silent. He was on his back, his head facing down the stairs and he could just make out the strange, unnatural angle of his broken arm. But he could feel no pain. He should be feeling pain!
‘Help me,’ he said plaintively. ‘Help me.’
He was aware of a shadow looming over him. He couldn’t make out the features of her face, but her hair was like a ragged halo, her breathing deep and heavy. He saw the knife in her hand. ‘I can’t feel my legs,’ he said, sobbing. ‘And my arms – I can’t feel those either. I can’t feel anything!’ He could feel tears though, as they ran hot down his temples to his ears. ‘’I think I’ve broken my back… You’ve got to help me!’
‘Who are you?’ she said, her voice hoarse.
‘Please help me – I could die!’
She looked at the knife. ‘Yes, you could, if you didn’t get help soon. It was you who broke into my house before, wasn’t it?’ He was blubbering. ‘I knew someone had been in. Tell me it was you and I’ll call for help. You might have all manner of internal injuries. You might be bleeding to death.’
‘Don’t let me die,’ he pleaded. ‘I beg you – I don’t want to die!’
‘It was you, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ he panted, ‘it was me.’
‘So why did you do that? Nothing was stolen.’ She bent down, closer to his face. Her breath warm on his cheek. ‘I’m sticking the point of my knife deep into your arm. Can you feel it? I’ll bet you can’t.’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t! I can’t! Please…’
‘But something was stolen, wasn’t it?’
He nodded quickly. ‘Yes, I stole one of your old clubs from the study.’
Laura sat down on the step beside him. ‘One of my father’s war clubs? Whatever for?’
‘He paid me to do it.’
‘Who paid you to do what?’
Help me, please…’
‘Who paid you to do what?’
Martin Caldwell – he paid me.’
‘I don’t know anyone called Martin Caldwell,’ she said.
‘He’s the manager at the Empire cinema. He paid me to kill Katherine, the woman who tried to con you. He told me to make it look like you’d done it, because he said he knew you’d been harassing her.’
‘Go on,’ she said evenly.
‘Get me some help! I’m not saying anymore!’
‘Then you’ll die here on the stairs.’
He tried to make his arms and legs move, but failed, gasping. ‘He wanted people would blame you,’ he said. ‘So I stole one of your clubs…’
‘What of Katherine? Have you killed her?’ She said it matter-of-factly, which terrified him. ‘I’m not saying any more!’
She plunged the knife into his arm at a point where he could see it. ‘Look how deep it’s going in, and yet still you can’t feel any pain.’
‘OK, OK, I used the club to kill her tonight. She’s dead. The plan was to plant the club with her blood on it here then alert the police in some way. They’d find the club and put two and two together. It’s downstairs, in the study inside a chest. Martin wanted to get rid of Katherine once and for all – she was blackmailing him, and he wanted you to take the rap. Now please phone for an ambulance. You have to help me!’
‘You soiled my baby’s room,’ she said hollowly. ‘You defiled it. You might have woken the baby up.’
‘There is no f*cking baby!’ he said, coughing on blood. ‘It’s a doll!’
‘Keep your voice down. Little ones are such light sleepers.’ She began to sing a lullaby, rose to her feet and ascended the stairs, dropping the knife. It bounced down the stairs and landed near Ray Steele’s anguished face.
‘Where are you going?’ he said, his voice choked. ‘Don’t leave me here. I need an ambulance! I’ve told you everything – you’ve got to help me!’
‘When the bough breaks the cradle will fall…’ sang Laura, going to the blue-painted door. She went inside, slowly closing the door behind her. ‘…and down will come baby, cradle and all…’
* * * *