What We Saw

Chapter Thirty

We were reluctant as we followed Donald’s shadow. Or at least, it would have been a shadow if we had kept hold of the torch from earlier. In a way, it gave us an opportunity. A chance to run if something went wrong. But somehow, everything felt strange and a little bit dreamlike. The way that Donald had begged, on his knees, tears rolling down his cheeks. Totally torn from his usual sense of dignity. Something about that had unsettled me, but it also reassured me. Yes, Donald was a killer. He had admitted that. But he was also sorry. He was human, still.

Wasn’t he?

And now we were following him to the derelict house to see Emily. ‘Emily’s absolutely fine, boys.’



‘Absolutely fine.’ What did that mean? How could she be absolutely fine? It did not make sense. And the food in the bag. Not weapons, axes, or anything like that. Just food. Food, blue boxes that looked like toiletries, and blankets.

As we approached the house, still clutching at each other’s hands, a sudden fear swept over me as the distant glare of the torchlight vanished from view. Shit. He’d hidden. He’d turned the light off and he was waiting for us to approach, waiting to pounce. Adam pulled his hand from mine and shuffled round, like a fly in a glass.

We were enveloped in light just moments later.

‘Sorry, boys,’ Donald called, ‘Couldn’t startle her. You coming in?’

He stood to the right of the doorway, which crumbled away, succumbing to the onslaught of moss. The once–beautiful grey brick had fallen prey to disease now. I pictured all the insects and animals hiding behind its walls. Worms dominating the ground. Rats feasting on them, and spiders decorating the window ledges with thick cobwebs.

The two of us edged towards Donald, who remained at the door, watching us. Somewhere behind us, I heard a crack and a shuffling. I turned myself round, startled, and followed Donald’s torchlight as it scanned the darkness like a police helicopter.

‘There’s all sorts of noises out here,’ Donald said. ‘Mind carrying this, Liam?’

He flipped the flashlight over in his hand and reached it towards me, offering it as if it were candy and I was a gullible kid. I moved towards him, reluctant, and made sure I kept my left arm slightly behind in case Adam had to drag me away from whatever Donald was planning to do with me. As I reached my arm out, Donald placed the torch in my hand, and pulled his arm back quickly as if to exit the exchange as promptly as possible. I shone the torchlight on him again. The mud painted his corduroy trousers. His wellington boots were coated. There were speckles of mud on his face, too, streaking downwards like wet makeup. He looked like Mum did when she cried. He smiled and held his arm towards the door, gesturing for us to go inside. I looked back at Adam, who nodded and curled his bottom lip backwards, chewing at its surface.

I didn’t feel comfortable going in before Donald. I wanted to see him at all times and make sure he was in the view of the flashlight. I was about to say something forceful, something like the tough guys say on the movies. ‘Lead the way, motherf*cker,’ or something like that, but all that I could muster was a soft whimper. Donald must have caught on to my apprehension. He dropped his arm and led the way, entering the doorway. ‘I’ll stay in the torchlight, don’t you worry,’ he said.

I grabbed Adam’s lower arm with my free hand. He shook for a moment, then let it settle there. We were doing this together. And then, with Donald across the threshold, we took the first steps towards the cobweb-covered doorway, under the low arch that Donald had to crouch to get through, and into the dust-covered room inside.

Donald stepped aside, and I scanned the area. It was completely empty. A large rock sat towards the left of the room with a Union Jack flag perched on top. Broken sticks and pebbled stones carpeted the floor. In the corner of the room, there was an old staircase, wooden and covered with cobwebs. I heard it creak as I aimed the torch in its direction, and it saw light for the first time in years. No wonder nobody came up here except rough kids and, well, Donald.

There were beer cans on the floor, crinkled together and giving way to the brown, deathly onslaught of rust. Everywhere the torchlight aimed, speckles of dust parried in the glow. Everything seemed dead here. This had once been somebody’s home. It was probably a nice place to live once upon a time. But now, as moss wrapped its jaws round the outside and damp and decay tortured the interior, nature had won the battle. It always did. It would win the battle against us, against Donald. Against Donald’s daughter. Against Emily.

Emily.

Donald looked at me and pointed the light towards the far corner of the room. He tilted the head of the torch in the direction of the old flag-marked rock. ‘Hold that there a sec,’ he said, before tiptoeing in its path, light-footed but speedy.

Adam began to follow him, but I held my arm out and stopped him. Donald could be doing anything. If Emily was ‘absolutely fine’ then where was she? I turned behind me. The arched doorway was wide open. Our only escape route. I saw something glint outside like a watch reflecting against the moonlight, but when I blinked, it vanished. My stomach began to churn again, and my legs went rigid. Just a trick of the eyes. Just a trick of the eyes.

When I turned back round, I noticed Donald perched down at the end of the tunnel of light, next to the rock. He placed the bag down and started to take out some of its contents. One of the items looked like underwear. Clean, white underwear. The other was a blue box of things. I didn’t know what they were, but I had seen them in the bathroom and assumed they were mum’s things. I wasn’t sure.

After he had gotten the items out, Donald muttered a few words towards the rock. Why was he speaking to a rock? Had he gone completely insane? He stood up and looked back towards us, summoning us in with a wave of the hand. My legs felt rigid again, uncertain of what lay ahead. I couldn’t move. I turned towards Adam and back towards Donald. Adam looked back at me, wide-eyed, and waited for me to make a move.

‘Come on!’ Donald mimed. He seemed too eager. Too happy. He continued to wave.

Without explanation, my feet carried me forward. It was the only way now. We had discovered so much, travelled so far. We needed answers, one last answer, even if it killed us.

I stumbled over piles of sticks and the odd broken glass bottle crunched against my shoes as I headed towards the rock. The little Union Jack flag was plastic and static. It was like the flag the Americans had put on the moon, only this place was probably more alien and more mysterious. The staircase creaked again from above in the night-time breeze, as the sound of birds chirping hinted at morning’s imminence.

Another step.



Donald edged to the side and folded his arms together, the rucksack blocking our direct path to whatever was at the side of the rock. I curved my path round it in advance so that I wouldn’t have to make any last minute turns. I looked back towards the door again. The dim blue of the night was more distant than ever. Adam’s hands shook.

Another couple of steps.

Something started to become visible beyond the Union Jack flag, and just behind the rock—a mound of something wrapped in a swamp-green blanket. My neck elongated to get a better look before I jolted back to check that Donald was still in place. He stood, arms folded, nodding his head towards the thing behind the rock.

I saw an arm. My knees wobbled and my stomach felt like it was going to give way as I realised who it could be, static and cold in this house of death. But the arm raised gently. It was definitely moving. I stepped around the rock, arching my neck some more, and I saw her face. Her sweet, bony face, hiding beneath her hair.

Emily was tucked underneath the blanket, sucking her thumb, eyes closed.

Every single part of my body froze. For a moment, it did not matter that a killer was in the room with us. It did not matter that we were in a derelict old cobweb-infested house in the dead of the night, away from any sort of comfort. Nothing mattered. My eyes froze on her body. I looked at her face, her arms, saw her chest gently rise and recede underneath the green blanket. I saw the remnants of a purple bruise on the side of her neck. I could not speak. I could not think. It’s Emily.

Adam leaned forward, his legs rooted to the ground like a jack in a box. His jaw parted. He looked up at me and Donald and back at Emily. It was a dream. It could not be real. Any of it. Donald tried to smile at me. He blinked softly, like Gran did when there was something upsetting us.

After what seemed like a lifetime, Adam was the one to break the silence.

‘Is she…’ he said, stopping himself, looking at Donald for answers.

Donald’s smile widened. ‘She, is asleep.’

I looked at him watching over her. His eyes watered behind his glasses, which were slightly bent from the incident before.

‘But… I just… why is she—?’

Donald moved in towards us and leaned down towards my ear. ‘Because, Liam O’Donnell, it’s very late.’

My mind spun with theory after theory. I couldn’t understand any of them.

I looked back down at Emily, who looked so frail and beautiful. The pebbles and beer cans were nowhere to be seen around her. Donald was close to me now, but he stood still. I turned to face him and his big sad eyes met mine. It felt like I understood everything for a moment, everything that I had been trying to deny or cover up and not acknowledge, and yet I didn’t really know what it was I understood.

‘I just don’t… why?’ was all I could say.

Donald sighed. ‘I think you do know, Liam. You’ve just been confused. Any kid would be. It still confuses me. But you’ve seen the bruises. We’ve all seen the bruises.’ He paused, and looked away. ‘And I know you saw me burying the girl.’

My thoughts raced. The girl? ‘But I thought… we though—you, because of— the girl was your daughter.’

Donald shut his eyes and shook his head. ‘Boys, that girl I was burying was not my Patricia. Patricia passed away a while ago. No, I saw him doing it. I saw his hands wrapped around her neck.’ Donald looked up into the sky, visibly shaking. ‘I tried to get away, but he was on to me, and before I knew it he was forcing me to do things. Bury her. Whispering things in my ears. I had to get Emily away. I couldn’t leave her in danger.’

‘Then… who is the girl you buried?’ I asked.

Donald scratched at his chin. ‘The girl. The missing girl from the—from the TV. Beth Swanson.’

Everything clicked in my head and I stumbled backwards. Donald hadn’t been burying his daughter—he had been burying Beth Swanson. Her disappearance wasn’t a coincidence. I felt my head spin as the pieces of our mystery cracked into place.

‘Her dad killed Beth?’ I whispered, pointing to Emily.

Donald nodded. ‘I had to take her here. I had to get her away. We’re both going to escape, and we can start again. I can’t leave her with him, and I can’t stay here, boys. You were never supposed to get mixed up in any of this.’

My knees froze. Adam looked on, open-mouthed. He tried to say something, but no words came out.

‘But—why are you out here?’ I said.

Donald exhaled fast and surveyed the house. ‘He’s framing me, Liam. He’s going to get me sent down for her murder. He knows about my daughter and he made me bury the girl—Beth. That’s all he needs. Emily will be stuck with him forever, and I can’t allow that.’

I felt myself knocked back by a wall of realisation. ‘But we’ll say you didn’t do it. We’ll say you were with us. We’ll sort this, Donald.’

Donald shook his head. ‘It’s no good. He says he has pictures.’ He scratched his head and waved his arms around. ‘I panicked, Liam. I panicked, and I took Emily. I can’t go back on that now.’ He put his hand on my shoulder. ‘You have to understand… maybe Adam won’t understand yet, but you can explain in your own way. But I’m helping her, Liam. Helping her get away from it all. Get away from that man. You see that, I know you do, deep down. I think you’ve known it for a long time.’

I remembered the rage in Emily’s dad’s eyes as he pinned me against the wall, the venomous saliva coating my cheeks as he roared into my face at the side of the launderette. I remembered the way he stood at the top of our road after we’d received the note, after the window had been smashed.

I remembered the way he had clutched Emily’s arms. The bruises. I knew what was going on now, and I had suspected it for some time, but I still couldn’t work out why anyone would hurt someone like that.

I lowered my head as Donald looked into my eyes. He was trying to help Emily. He was just as manipulated as the rest of us by Emily’s dad, the true killer. Bringing her up here, bringing her food and blankets. I looked over at Adam. His frown lines were visible, trying to make sense of it all. I smiled at him, and he straightened his face and nodded back at me and Donald. He might not really understand the situation yet, not truly, but he was accepting it.

There were still things we didn’t know. Carla’s disappearance. Had Donald really had anything to do with it after all? I opened my mouth to ask him. He was looking at Emily, grinning. He nodded towards her, gesturing me to look.

I turned round and shined the flashlight on her as she began to wriggle from side to side. Her mouth opened, and a frown twitched across her forehead. She opened her big brown eyes. I stared into them and she stared back, unalarmed and in complete, perfect silence.

‘Thought I’d bring some friends along to see you,’ Donald said, before heading towards the opening of the house. ‘I’ll give you lot a few minutes to catch up.’