THE LOST BOY an unputdownable psychological thriller full of breathtaking twists

by MARGARET MURPHY

  She started singing along with the band, rocking backwards and forwards, staring out at the rain and crying.

  Two figures ran across the road. Shona snapped to, instantly alert, and peered through the windscreen. She flicked the windscreen wiper lever, but nothing happened. Flustered, she turned the ignition on and tried again, but the two had already disappeared through a gap in the hedge. ‘No,’ she said, her voice inaudible over the throb of the music on the stereo. ‘It can’t have been.’

  A minute or two later she saw a man run out of Jenny’s driveway. Hadn’t he arrived just after Jenny? But he had gone to a house further down the road. She had watched him go into a driveway two doors down. What was he doing at Jenny’s house? He looked up and down the road and then ran across to the park. In a flash of lightning she saw that he was carrying something metallic, with an evil-looking hook at one end.

  ‘God help us,’ she muttered. ‘that was Jenny and Alain . . .’ She reached for the door handle, then, changing her mind, turned the ignition key the final quarter. The engine caught and she revved, accelerated towards the man, but he dodged through the hedge, apparently unaware of her.

  Shona swung the car round in a U-turn, throwing up a bow-wave through the floodwaters on the road. There was an entrance into the park a little further down the road, and she made for it.

  The tall pillars of the old gateposts were all that remained of the park gates, and she drove through, into the parking bay. Which way? To her left, two broad paths, high and low, leading to the park café, to her right, a narrower track. She eased the car right and turned on the headlamps, catching the man in her main beam. He put one hand up to shield his eyes. She didn’t stop to think but accelerated straight at him. He froze momentarily, then ran to his right, down the grassy slope. Shona slid to a halt, the wheels skidding. The man ran down the pathway, in the direction Jenny and Alain had taken, towards the boating lake.

  Shona turned the car and followed him. Lightning flashes froze the fleeing figures of Jenny and the boy and their pursuer in a grotesque tableau. With every dazzling flare, he seemed to be gaining on them.

  The car slewed and bumped over the uneven grass and Shona hit the horn in staccato bursts, driving relentlessly at the man. She was almost on him when he turned and hurled something. The windscreen shattered and Shona threw up one arm to shield her face. The car slithered into a turn, the rear end clipping the man and knocking him to the ground, the front sliding into an oak tree, crushing the side panel and driver’s door and trapping Shona against the steering column. The car horn blared.

  * * *

  ‘Down there,’ Jenny said. ‘Towards the stepping stones.’ The pond which fed into the boating lake had overflowed and they had to wade across the pathway before reaching the stepping stones. In the distance, a car horn suddenly gave a few short blasts, then sent up a continuous blare of noise.

  ‘Go left,’ Jenny said, raising her voice over the noise of the rain and the thunderstorm and the rushing water cascading over the flat rocks. ‘Hold on to the rail,’ she cautioned. ‘It’s uneven here.’ Alain reached for the rail, but the pull of the water made him lose his footing and he fell with a cry of pain. Jenny hauled him to his feet and they carried on. She shepherded Alain up the stone steps to the statue at the top of the hill, carrying him half the way. From the top they would be able to see where Ligat was.

  ‘Keep low,’ she warned. ‘Do you see anything?’

  Alain dropped to a crouch beside her. His teeth were chattering, and she put her arm around him. Behind them, the cast iron skeleton of the palm house gleamed white in the flashes of light, flecked with rust, open to the torrents of rain that fell unremittingly.

  ‘There!’ Alain said, pointing. ‘Over there!’

  Ligat was making his way towards them, limping, using the crowbar as a walking stick. Jenny debated what to do. If they stayed put, hiding themselves in the shrubs on the hillside, he might find them, but if they went on, he might catch them in the open.

  ‘He’s injured,’ she said, arguing against her own timidity. ‘Let’s go.’ She grabbed Alain’s hand. He stood, then crumpled with a shout.

  ‘My ankle!’

  Jenny sat beside him under the statue. His foot was swollen. ‘I’ll carry you,’ she said.

  ‘Jenny, he’ll catch us.’

  ‘No,’ Jenny said, taking his face in both her hands and looking into his eyes. ‘I won’t let him.’ She cast about in the undergrowth of the shrubbery on the slope of the hill and found a rock. ‘Hold that for me. And use it if you have to, okay?’

  Alain took the smooth, egg-shaped rock in his hand and nodded, dumbly.

  ‘Now jump up,’ Jenny said. ‘You’re going for a piggy-back ride.’

  She started at a run, but soon slowed to a trot, breathing raggedly. ‘Jenny, he’s coming,’ Alain said, his voice rising in panic.

  ‘Hear that?’ Jenny said. Sirens howled through the night. ‘Someone must have phoned the police. They’re looking for us! See the lights?’

  From where they stood, they could see blue flashing lights and crazily bouncing headlights as unseen vehicles, obscured by trees, bumped across the fields.

  ‘They’re down by the lake!’ Alain shouted. ‘But Jenny, he’s down there! How are we going to get past him?’

  Jenny ran one hand over her face to wipe off some of the rainwater. ‘All we have to do is hide until they find him,’ Jenny said. She darted for the cover of a planting of mahonia and birch and dog roses and gently eased Alain to the ground. For ten minutes they waited in the dark, waiting for someone to come up the hill to find them, focusing on the flashing lights of an ambulance and a fire engine, watching them cut away the driver’s door and unhurriedly carry a lifeless woman out of the car.

  ‘Jenny!’ Alain gripped her arm. ‘They’re going away!’ The lights seemed to be retreating. The fire engine and the ambulance were moving off, across the field. They drove slowly, their strobe lights had been switched off, and Jenny realized that they hadn’t come to find them at all. Nobody knew they were there, nobody was looking for them. Only Ligat.

  Jenny leapt to her feet and waved frantically. ‘No!’ she screamed. ‘Come back!’

  A sudden flurry of movement to her right warned her and she ducked just as Ligat burst into the shrubbery, flailing the crowbar. The chisel-sharp hook thudded into the trunk of a birch tree, just missing her neck. Jenny picked Alain up under one arm and made a run for it, down the hillock, slithering on her backside for most of the way, scratching her hands and face on the thorns of the dog roses and mahonias that snatched at her as she slid.

  Once on level ground, she ran for the stepping stones, desperately trying to attract the attention of the ambulance, which was making slow progress in the mud and standing water left by the storm, but Ligat was there ahead of her. He turned to face her, raising the crowbar, but as he did so, he lost his balance and stumbled backwards, trapping his foot between two of the stones. Jenny ran past him, feeling Alain’s arms slip from her neck, clearing the stream in two long strides and running up the hill, faltering when she recognized Shona’s car. It stood silent now, its roof peeled back and the passenger door thrown carelessly to one side on the grass.

  She switched Alain to her left hip and ran on, but Ligat was gaining on them. He made a sideways swipe with the crowbar and Jenny fell. Instinctively she rolled away from Alain and saw the vicious claw of the crowbar coming at her.

  Then something hit Ligat squarely between the eyes and he stood for a second or two, while his grip on the crowbar slackened, and then he dropped it and clutched his head in both hands.

  ‘You fucking little bastard!’ he screamed.

  Jenny lunged for the metal bar, but Ligat caught her by the hair and pulled her to him.

  ‘What do you want from us?’ she screamed. ‘Why can’t you leave him alone?’

  He took her by the throat and squeezed. ‘I want my son,’ he said. ‘My son!’

  Jenny tried
to break his hold, but he was too strong. She fished around in the mud, feeling her strength drain from her, seeing the sky, even the flashes of light, darken and fade. Then she found the smooth rock that Alain had thrown at his father and brought it in a short jab to the side of his temple. He grunted, but his grip did not slacken. The rock tumbled from her grasp and Jenny felt a terrible pressure in her head. Just before she blacked out, she thought she could hear the sound of a car horn.

  Chapter 36

  Jenny woke fighting.

  Something was covering her face and she struggled with it, slapping away the hands that held it in place.

  ‘Jenny! Jenny, it’s all right. You’re safe now. You have to keep still.’ The voice was authoritative, and it was a woman’s.

  Jenny made an effort to calm down and take stock of the situation. She was inside a vehicle. Ambulance? The thing covering her face was an oxygen mask. Her throat hurt dreadfully. Her eyes widened. ‘Alain?’ She could not make herself heard and so tried to sit up. Again, the restraining hands held her. She fought again, crying now. ‘Alain!’

  The name came out as a croak, and the paramedic spoke again, speaking loudly, trying to make her understand.

  ‘He’s here, Jenny. He’s all right.’

  Jenny sobbed, trying to push the paramedic out of her way.

  ‘Look.’ The woman beckoned to someone behind her and Jenny strained to see.

  Alain. She fell back on the stretcher, sobbing, trying not to because her throat hurt so badly. Alain stood by her, frowning, biting his lip. He was soaked through, and a blanket had been draped around his shoulders. He offered her his hand as if afraid she would reject it. Jenny took it, laughing and crying. The paramedic offered her a handkerchief and allowed her to remove the mask long enough to wipe her nose, and then Jenny subsided, her breathing becoming laboured.

  ‘I thought you were dead,’ Alain said.

  Jenny gave him a rueful look. ‘So did I.’

  ‘This young man saved your life,’ the paramedic said. ‘He sounded the car horn — we turned back to see what the trouble was.’ She paused to wipe Jenny’s forehead. ‘We got there just in time.’

  ‘Where is—?’ She could get no further.

  The paramedic shot a look at Alain, then, deciding it was safe to tell her, she said, ‘He’s under arrest. He’s been taken to hospital because of his injuries.’

  ‘He’ll be kept under police guard the whole time,’ a second voice chimed in.

  ‘Mike?’

  Mike leaned forward so that Jenny could see him. ‘And in a different hospital,’ he added. ‘You’ve nothing to worry about.’ He put one hand on Alain’s shoulder, meaning the reassurance for him as much as for Jenny.

  ‘How did you—?’

  ‘Get here?’ he said, finishing for her. ‘I was on my way to your house when I saw all the fireworks in the park.’ He exchanged a look with the paramedic. ‘When we arrived,’ Mike said, ‘young Alain was beating seven bells out of Ligat.’

  Alain quailed at the mention of his father, but then Jenny watched as he straightened himself up. He seemed to be steeling himself, and she squeezed his hand, gently in encouragement.

  ‘I let him in, Jenny. When Tante Lou was looking after me. Mummy was away and . . .’ He shrugged, disconsolate. ‘I thought he’d come on a visit. I had to open the door or he’d be angry with me . . .’ A look of pain crossed his face and he cupped his hands gently before him as if remembering the fearful injuries his father had inflicted on him before. ‘I shouldn’t have, but I was afraid to say no . . .’ He started to cry.

  Jenny placed her hand over his. ‘You aren’t to blame, Alain. Daddy did a terrible, terrible thing. You did what any little boy would have done. You did as your daddy told you.’

  For a moment, Alain simply looked at her with a harrowed, haunted expression that made him look much older that his eight years, then he threw himself on his knees beside her and sobbed.

  Epilogue

  Mike closed the interview room door. Angeline Fournier sat in the chair on the other side of the desk, perfectly still.

  ‘Madame Fournier.’

  ‘Before you say anything, I want to apologize,’ the woman said. ‘I thought I was protecting Alain. I didn’t know.’ Her forehead wrinkled in pain. ‘I thought I was keeping him safe from his father.’

  Mike nodded. ‘What about the assaults on your husband?’

  ‘Self-defence.’ She shrugged. ‘Why should you believe me? I lied before. But it is true. Every time—’ She frowned, then corrected herself. ‘Each time, I was protecting Alain, or myself.’

  ‘And the drunk-driving charge?’

  She stared at her hands. ‘It gets to the point when you would do anything to make it stop. Sometimes, if I drank enough, it would go away, for a while — the pain, the fear, the . . . awfulness of it. Everything would go away. Jeanne-Louise understood that. She never judged me for it. My parents . . .’ She shrugged again. ‘They don’t understand . . .’

  Mike waited, letting her take it at her own pace.

  ‘He was so unpredictable. He could be so charming to his clients, with his mother, even with the two of us — with me and Alain — that when it first started, I would almost convince myself that I had imagined it.’ She fell silent, and for some time, she sat, frowning at a cigarette burn on the tabletop.

  The WPC coughed and Mrs Fournier stirred and sighed. ‘Eventually, it was like Carl was two different people — the public person who was charming, witty, humorous, light-hearted. But behind closed doors he was a petulant, depressed, violent, paranoid tyrant.’

  She looked up at Mike for the first time. ‘He didn’t give us a moment’s peace. We never knew what was going to set him off. He would ask you a question and you knew it was a trick. No matter how you answered, it would be wrong. “How do I look tonight?” And if I said fine, he would scream: “You fucking little liar! I know how I look. If I can’t trust my wife, who can I trust?” If I said, “You look a little tired,” he would say I was constantly running him down, that I’d never loved him, and then he’d hit me and hit me, and hit me and—’ She balled her hand into a fist and struck the table, hard.

  Mike leaned forward and placed his hand over hers. ‘I was terrified that Carl would come looking for us if you got in touch with him.’

  ‘He was already on your trail,’ Mike told her. ‘He traced you via your business transactions.’ She nodded, resignedly, as if it was what she had come to expect from her husband.

  ‘We think he waited outside the children’s hospital every day for a week, until he saw Jenny take Alain home after one of his therapy sessions. He followed them home.’

  She retrieved her hand, placed it in her lap. ‘I was on holiday in France’ — she made a slight movement, an apologetic little shrug — ‘with a lover, when the final attack on Alain took place.’ She reddened a little and gave him a fleeting, embarrassed look. ‘Lou was mostly able to look after him when I went away — she was a freelance journalist — but that time . . . It was short notice. She couldn’t . . .’ She shook her head, staring intently, seeing something in the coffee-stained tabletop, reliving the event. ‘I should never have gone. But I wasn’t — I couldn’t think straight. I only knew that I had to get away from Carl. I took a chance. He — Carl . . .’ She fell silent, still finding it difficult to make sense of what had happened. ‘Carl got it into his head that the cherry trees in the garden were undermining the house. Alain watched him cut them down. All of them. Like a madman. Alain was so afraid. He stole a screwdriver . . . Carl had screwed all the windows shut. He tried to escape. Carl caught him. He—’ She closed her eyes for a moment. ‘Alain had managed to get a window open. Carl slammed it shut on his hands.’

  Mike expected her to cry, but she kept rigid control, although her skin was paper-white, and her hands, tightly clasped in her lap, trembled with emotion.

  ‘He kept Alain at home, delirious and in terrible pain, for three days until I returned. The
n he went off to work, as though nothing had happened. “Alain has a touch of flu,” he said. He left my little boy in his own filth, half dead with shock and fever — he didn’t even know me. Just kept repeating over and over. “I’m sorry. I’ll be good.” Begging, “Please, please, please.”’ This time she did break down. Mike slid a box of tissues over to her and waited. At length, she went on. ‘We ran from him, left home and just ran. I was certain then that he was capable of anything.’

  * * *

  Jenny sat in an armchair, next to Fraser’s bed. He had been moved from the intensive care unit to a high-dependency ward, and was no longer on the respirator, but he was still attached to a heart monitor, and although he had woken twice in the night, he had not yet spoken. She felt a movement behind her and turned.

  ‘How is he?’

  Jenny turned at the familiar voice.

  ‘Max!’ she winced and put a hand to her throat.

  The nurse who had wheeled him down parked Max’s wheelchair next to Jenny’s.

  ‘You shouldn’t be up,’ she whispered.

  ‘Just try telling him,’ the nurse grumbled. ‘Five minutes max. . . . Max.’

  Max narrowed his eyes at her, and she sauntered out, with a smile.

  Jenny touched his arm lightly. His left shoulder was bandaged, and his arm strapped up.

  ‘It isn’t as bad as they first thought,’ Max said. ‘The blade glanced off my collar bone. Proved my mother right, after all these years.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘She always said I was a little bleeder.’

  Jenny smiled, but it was a half-hearted attempt, and after a moment’s silence she said, ‘Shona . . .’

  ‘I know, they told me.’ He was silent for a few moments. ‘She called for an ambulance before she left me.’ He shook his head. ‘I should have acted faster. I should have seen—’

  ‘She saved our lives, Max. If it wasn’t for Shona . . .’ Her hand strayed protectively to her throat.

  ‘Where’s young Alain?’ Max asked.