It was then that he took a scalpel and severed the artery in her leg. Watching the gouts of blood pour from her body gave him the biggest thrill, like an electric surge coursing through his veins. The light left her eyes and she was still.
He’d stumbled out of the Oast House into the darkness and the cold, his legs shaking uncontrollably, and he’d vomited into the snow by the frozen stream. When his stomach was empty he’d lain face down. The snow pressing against his hot face was delicious, and he lay there for a long time until his breathing slowed and he started to feel the cold seeping in through his clothes. The Oast House had a water supply, carried in a pipe under the soil, and it hadn’t frozen. After Darryl stashed Ella’s body in the car, he washed himself down in the furnace chamber, wincing at the snow-cold water from the hose. Then he drove across the field to the gate, and on to Beckenham to dump her body.
Darryl had returned to the farm just before five, cutting it fine with the early morning milking, but he hadn’t run into any of the farm workers. He had parked the car, taken a long hot shower, and fallen into bed.
* * *
He woke just before one in the afternoon, his bedroom bathed in dim blue light shining through the closed curtains. His body ached, and his throat burned. He reached out to the bedside table for a glass, and took a long drink of water. A shaft of sunlight appeared through the crack in the curtains, and he watched the dust particles twirl in the weak sunlight which played a strip of white on the threadbare blue carpet.
A metallic twanging noise broke the silence, and he stiffened. It came again, like the soft tinny chime of a clock, but it was coming from inside the wardrobe. Darryl kicked off the bedcovers and stepped barefoot onto the carpet, moving over to the wardrobe. The furniture had been in this room for as long as he could remember, going back to when his paternal great-grandfather had built the farmhouse. Like the bed and desk, the wardrobe was antique, with heavy dark wood. It had double doors and was huge, seven feet tall, and almost reached the ceiling. The left door had a smoked glass mirror spotted with black, and in the right door a tiny tarnished key poked out from the keyhole with a Celtic-style pattern.
Ting, ting, came the noise again, like a metal coat hanger striking the inside of the wardrobe. He stopped at the door, and looked at his reflection. His pasty bare legs in boxer shorts, his pot belly with a fuzz of dark hair. And then he heard it: the creaking sound of a taut rope.
‘No,’ he whispered, taking a step back.
The creaking came again, followed by a choking, gagging sound. ‘No. This isn’t real, it’s not real,’ he said.
The little Celtic-patterned key rattled in the door, and then spun. The gagging sound came again, and the mirrored door slowly swung open.
Inside, nestled between old winter coats and his work shirt, his brother Joe hung from a noose. He wore the same blue jeans, white T-shirt and Nike trainers. Joe had been a handsome young man, but in death his face was grey and swollen, his eyes stared, bloodshot and criss-crossed with broken veins, and his mouth was fixed with a wide grin. Darryl closed his eyes, but when he opened them, Joe was still hanging there, the rope creaking slightly. His trainers swinging gently a few feet off the bottom of the wardrobe. A horrible laugh escaped from Joe’s fixed grin, and Darryl felt something warm and wet splatter onto the front of his boxer shorts. He looked down. The flies on Joe’s jeans were open, and he was holding his penis and peeing all over him.
Joe’s face came alive, and he opened his mouth.
‘Bed wetter, filthy little bed wetter!’ he hissed, the grin widening.
* * *
Darryl woke with a jolt, and sat up. It was dark in his bedroom, and there was banging on his door. He stumbled up through the darkness and opened it.
His parents were out on the landing.
‘It’s half one in the fucking afternoon,’ said John. ‘What the hell are you doing in bed?’
‘I called in sick for work,’ said Darryl, rubbing his eyes.
‘You didn’t,’ said his mother. ‘I’ve just had some woman on the phone called Bryony, says she’s your boss and she wanted to know where you are…’
‘Work is what defines us,’ said John, jabbing his finger at Darryl for emphasis. ‘A job is a job, and there’s millions out there who can’t find work.’
‘I’ll sort it, Dad,’ said Darryl.
John looked down at Darryl’s crotch, and back up at his face. ‘You’ve pissed yourself,’ he said.
Darryl looked down and saw to his horror that the front of his boxer shorts were soaked.
‘Oh, oh, no…’
‘How old are you? Jesus Christ!’ said John, shaking his head, and he walked off to the stairs.
‘Mum… I didn’t… I…’ Darryl started blubbing, the nightmare still clinging to him.
Mary looked at him with concern, and then bent and pulled down his boxers.
‘No!’ cried Darryl, trying to step back, but she held on tight to the waistband.
‘Come on, I need to get these in the wash…’
‘Mum! Please!’
In the tussle, the wet boxer shorts tangled around his knees and he went crashing backwards into the bedroom.
Mary advanced on him. ‘It’s nothing I haven’t seen before. I’ll put them through the wash,’ she said, reaching down and pulling them off his thrashing legs.
Darryl writhed around and covered his nakedness with his hands. She moved past him into the bedroom, holding his dripping boxers, and opened the curtains.
‘Mum, leave me alone,’ said Darryl, mortified.
She surveyed the room: his two computers on the desk, the huge laminated map of Greater London on the wall, and then she looked at the large yellow wet patch covering the bedsheet. Her eyes came back to him lying on the floor, with his hands covering his privates. ‘Get yourself cleaned up. Looks like we’re back to the plastic sheet again,’ she said, walking out, swinging the wet boxers in her hand.
When she was gone, Darryl got up and grabbed for his towel on the back of the chair, feeling shame and embarrassment. He looked back at the wardrobe. He hadn’t wet the bed since he was sixteen, when Joe had hung himself.
Chapter Fifty-One
The door-to-door on Copers Cope Road in Beckenham had been extensive, but came up with nothing. No one, it seemed, had been taking in their surroundings or seen anything. The CCTV outside the gym and the train station further down the road didn’t have a direct view of the road. Again, he’d been and gone, managing to stay in the shadows and leaving without a trace.