“Curious, aren’t they? The Lonely Steps, as they’re known. A clue to the illustrious past of this dingy dell.”
The Lonely Steps. Aloney steps. Heat zipped down my arms, and my fingertips tingled around the crowbar.
“They’re rather charming, don’t you think?” He waved his arms to take in the scene. “Very Narnia.”
Billy had been here. This was the man. Flapping birds wheeled through my mind, all the questions I wanted to ask cawing from their beaks. I could have swung my crowbar and smashed it down on his hammy face. I could already feel the shattering bones reverberate through the metal into my fingers. But I mustn’t. I mustn’t do that. It wouldn’t help find Lola. I hooked the clawed end of the crowbar around my boot laces and hauled them tighter, one by one. Billy’s okay, I told myself, he’s safe with Joni. Lola is the priority now. And I won’t find her by putting a crowbar through this fucker’s face. But I couldn’t look at him; I couldn’t listen to his pontificating voice and keep control. As the leather cut into my ankles, the black birds settled. Billy hadn’t seen Lola here. She could be nearby, though. At Moton Hall. While the man prattled on about The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I sized up his “dingy dell.”
“But much as I’d like to see myself as Mr. Tumnus in this delightful fantasy, I have to concede I’m a little old to be considered puckish.” He turned to smile at me, as though I might humor him. The man thought he was a fucking faun. My hand found my waistband and settled on the toy gun.
“What about that tea?” I asked.
“Yes! My apologies, I don’t get many visitors.” He moved toward the shed. I matched his stride, one pace behind. The toy gun was in my right hand, the crowbar hanging from the left. He stepped up onto the porch, into the doorway. When he made as if to turn back, I jammed the metal barrel into the muscle behind his ear.
“Get inside.”
“What?”
“Inside.” I shoved him hard, and he stumbled over the threshold into the shed, leaving me on the porch. The gun fell from my hand with a clatter as I slammed the door shut and closed the padlock. A metal hook released a shutter, which swung round to cover the only window, and I slotted the crowbar through the lock to hold it fast. He was trapped. I bent over double, hands on my knees, letting a rush of adrenaline claim me. When I stood upright, I was still shaking. Around the clearing, nothing stirred. Nothing cared.
“Are you still there?” His disembodied voice sounded older.
I balled my hands into fists, and the pain of my nails digging into my own flesh focused me.
“Why did you bring my son here?”
Nothing. I wondered if he had heard me through the shutter. But I waited. I had made the opening gambit. I had taken control.
“He darted out the back door of the supermarket and right into the road. Goodness knows where he might have ended up. So I rather think I rescued him, Marlene.”
He knew my name. How? All the implications—how long has he been watching us?—made a salvo into my mind. I mentally swiped them off the playing board. He wanted to rattle me. I had to focus.
“Billy didn’t need to be rescued. I was looking for him,” I said.
“You were trying to scare him.”
A flush betrayed me. I was glad he couldn’t see.
“I only drove a few feet across the car park, that’s all! It doesn’t give you the fucking right—”
“Gutter language!”
“It doesn’t give you the fucking right to kidnap him.”
“You frightened him. I looked after him,” the man said.
“You kidnapped him.”
I stopped myself. He was goading me, and I was making it easy for him. I had to keep the upper hand. Negotiate. I was a good negotiator. I knew what I wanted—Lola. So now I had to find his side of the bargain.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“What an excellent question. I’m making tea, by the way.” Teacups rattled. When he didn’t answer my excellent question, I walked round the shed. A tiny generator meant he had power—there was a canister of fuel—and a long wire of some kind was rigged up across several poles. The shed was entirely encircled by trees. The place was weird and forlorn and beautiful. I got down on my knees and inspected the base: concrete, not likely to be a cellar. The only place Lola could be—if she was here at all—was inside. But she would have heard me, surely. And even if she was bundled up, the shed was so small, I would have heard the slightest knock or scuffle or gagged shout. Unless she was drugged. I had to check inside. Under the bed.
I came full circle and stood on the porch by the door. I could hear him moving about on the other side. A scraping side step. Slop of tea bags into the sink—one of my husband’s habits, leaving the dank remnants behind like a dead mouse for me to scrape into the bin, bleach away the tannin stains. A creak, and the floorboard beneath my feet dipped. I jumped back, but of course he was locked inside.
“Do you want this tea?” he said. “I made one for you.”
“I’m not opening the door,” I said.
“But the milk—terrible waste,” he said, outraged. I pictured the room behind him. Sink. Camping stove. Bed. But no fridge.
“Where did you get the ice cream for Billy?”
He started talking about an icehouse at Moton Hall. Kept in working order for the tourists. He was awfully garrulous for a man who lived in isolation. And remarkably calm for someone who’d been locked inside a shed by a stranger. It was belittling somehow. Like he didn’t appreciate what I was capable of.
“Did you touch Billy?” I spoke over him. There was a pause. “Did you touch him?” I laid my hand on the door: rough, knotted wood under my fingernails.
“‘What but design of darkness to appall?’” There was another silence, and then he continued in a tone that suggested the conversation was tedious. “Our children’s lives are safer than they’ve ever been, and yet we find menace all around us. I do wonder sometimes if we want to see evil? The simple fact is, not every male is a pederast. Your son was quite safe with me.”
“If you’re not a pervert, why did you take him?”
He tutted. “Let’s go back to what do you want? Such a simple question, but could you answer it?”
“I don’t need to,” I said. “I’m out here. Free to go. But you are locked in, and I will cut off your water when I leave, and you will die. So you answer the questions, okay?”
“As you wish.”
“What’s your story?” I said.
“My story?”
“Yeah. Why do you live out here?”
“It’s my home.”
“It’s not normal, though, is it? Living like a hermit. In the forest. In a shed.”
“Is that all that you hold dear? Being normal?” he said.
Splinter in the pad of my hand. Stinging. Pain is just an alarm bell. You can switch it off. “I’m just looking for answers for why you took my son. If you’re not a pervert, what other reason could you possibly—”
“Maybe you should look closer to home, Marlene. Can you think of a reason why someone might take a child away from you when you use abandonment as a form of discipline?”