‘What on earth?’ he said incredulously.
‘Thank God! We need to get out of here, before he gets back.’
‘Who?’
‘Joel. My brother.’
‘Why on earth would….’
‘We need to go. Now! He’s lost his mind. He’s dangerous.’
She ran up the stone steps and into a faint drizzle, Freman hard on her heels. Whatever it was that had spooked her, had spooked her badly enough to worry him. What the hell was her brother playing at? But his reporter mode clicked into overdrive. He snapped images of Sarah’s panicked body language, and more of the cells.
‘Come on,’ she yelled. ‘Where’s your car?’
‘By the entrance, but –’
She didn’t stop to listen, and although he tried to catch up, he was gasping by the time they arrived at the gate. She snatched his arm to pull him through the gates more quickly, and settled the chain back where it had been. Then she swivelled in a full circle, giving him the full benefit of her terror. ‘Which way?’
‘Here,’ he said, pulling her to the side. ‘It’s just around that corner.’
On the road into London, she began to settle. Freman glanced sideways. ‘Are you going to tell me what this is all about?’
‘I told him I was seeing Robin,’ she said, finally. ‘He freaked out. I knew he’d be jealous, but I had no idea…’
‘He locked you in there because you were seeing a guy?’
‘Pretty much. I have to warn Robin. Can you take me there?’
‘We should go straight to the police.’
‘No. They wouldn’t be able to help.’ She bit her lip. ‘They wouldn’t believe it, anyway.’
‘Wouldn’t believe what?’
She was silent for a moment, and he thought she wasn’t going to answer, then she said. ‘They wouldn’t believe what he is. What we are. They would underestimate him. Even I underestimated him.’
One brow rose. ‘So, what are you that the police wouldn’t believe?’
‘Different,’ she said.
Well, if she was a bit nutty, that would go down well in his article. He was already writing it in his mind. He’d get a massive spread for this one, the images of the house, the cells, Sarah’s beauty, her panicked expression, her fear of her brother. And not least, his role in helping her to escape. Oh, yes, he was on to a winner. He could envisage it now. But his further attempts to drag information out of her elicited silence. Maybe she realised she’d already said too much.
When they reached the outskirts of London, he asked, ‘Sure you don’t want to go to the police?’
‘No, take me to Robin’s. I need to warn him.’
Well, he’d go along with that. He was pleased Sarah was safe, of course, and sure, Robin should know, but he wanted to get his article into print before the police got wind of his discovery, and slapped a lid on it. One day wouldn’t hurt. He dropped her off at Robin’s, as she requested, and drove on home, his fingers itching to get at the keyboard.
Chapter 34
Robin was irritated by the crashing on his front door. The damned cops just didn’t have any manners. He swung the door open; his mouth half open to tear into them.
‘Sarah?’ he said, stunned. Then he saw her expression, and reached out to pull her in. ‘What happened. Where have you been? I’ve been frantic with worry. Redwall thinks I’ve murdered you, for God’s sake.’
As he shut the door, tears erupted from so deep inside her, it seemed they might tear her heart out by the roots. He just held on tightly, waiting while the gulping sobs eased, then pulled her next to him on the couch and held her hand. ‘Tell me,’ he said.
‘It’s Joel,’ she whispered hoarsely.’
‘Joel? Has something happened to him?’
‘I’ve looked after him for so long. How could he?’
His tone was exasperated. ‘What’s he done?’
‘He’s become like our father.’
‘Look, I know this all makes sense to you, but slow down, and tell me in words I’ll understand.’
‘You’re going to think I’m mad.’
He hugged her. ‘I already think that, but I love you all the same.’
She smiled wetly. ‘That’s the first time you’ve said that.’
‘Is it? I’m a slow learner. So, tell me everything, and this time don’t leave anything out.’
She took a deep breath. ‘OK. When I tell you, you might not love me so well. Our father was a control freak, and a sociopath. He didn’t die. We killed him, Joel and I.’
Robin blinked. That had come out of the blue. ‘OK. You killed your father.’
‘We had to. He would have killed us in the end. I knew our lives were a little strange. We had nannies when we were young, but I’m sure they’d been told what we were allowed to know of the outside world. What we learned mostly came from books. Joel was happy enough. He had me to look after him, but me, I was beginning to realise that things weren’t as they should be. When our latest nanny disappeared, father said she’d left, but I found some of her personal things. She wouldn’t have left them behind, so it all fell into place. The lab, his experiments – he couldn’t help boasting about what he was trying to discover. And I suddenly realised our respective mothers hadn’t upped and left when we were young – he’d murdered them. I was stupid enough to tell him I’d worked it out, and I was going to the police. That’s when he locked me in one of the cells. I hadn’t really twigged what they were for, up to that point.’ She shuddered. ‘Joel was crying outside the door, begging me to come out, as if I could. That was father’s mistake. Joel was slow, but I was all he had.’
She took a deep breath.
‘Joel managed to pull the bolt back. We crept to father’s lab. He was messing with something inside a cell. I simply shut the door. Father was shouting and screaming to be let out. It was horrible. It took him nearly two weeks to die. Then we just left the door closed.’
‘He’s still there?’ Robin said, incredulously.
She nodded. ‘Does that make us monsters?’
Robin pulled her close. ‘It’s done, and you can’t take it back. He deserved it, if he really murdered those women.’
‘I never found out, but he must have.’
‘You were children. Who would blame you?’
‘Everyone! We would have been institutionalised, treated as criminals. Even now, if they find his body, we’ll get done for murder. You know that. Back then, I didn’t know we were different. I didn’t know that we were the result of his experiments, that we meant no more to him than the women who bore us.’ She added viciously, ‘I’m glad he died without knowing he’d actually achieved what he’d been searching for.’
Robin was bemused, his tone slightly patronising as he said, ‘OK, that’s a lot to take in. But I think the authorities would be more lenient than you think. Especially as it was a long time ago.’
‘A long time? You have no idea.’
Robin had never seen her at a such a loss, picking at the threads on her jeans, her mind obviously back at Wood Hall.
‘I think –’
‘I haven’t finished.’ She waved her hand at herself. ‘I look about twenty-five, don’t I? Robin I’m over fifty. I’ve had two different jobs, and three names. People get nervous about an employee who doesn’t age.’ Her smile was almost a grimace. ‘I’m old enough to be your mother. Now do you still love me?’
‘Well,’ Robin said reasonably, after a pause, ‘The older we get, the less the age difference will matter. It might just take a little longer than I might have guessed.’
She almost giggled. ‘What is it about you? Why, in all those years, didn’t I feel this way about anyone else?’
‘I have no idea. But it’s lucky for me. Anyway, now I know all your dark secrets, we can simply move on, together.’
‘No, we can’t.’
‘What, there’s more?’
‘Joel.’
‘Oh, yes. So, what did he do?’<
br />
‘When you dropped me off, Joel was waiting for me. I took the plunge, and told him about you. He congratulated me. I should have twigged, but I was thrilled he was happy for me. Then he said, OK. I know you don’t want to go out to the old place – that’s what we call it – so how about I drive you out there now, we collect your things, then in the morning we can move your stuff to Robin’s place. Done and dusted. That’s what he said. It was all so reasonable. And as he was being so reasonable, I said OK. Let’s do it. I thought, at worst, I’d get it over with, then I’d never have to go there again.’
‘But?’
‘He’s stronger than me.’
‘He would be.’
‘He dragged me to a cell, and locked me in. He was never going to allow you to take me from him. He got me clothes, and stuff, and he went into work today to make it seem as if everything was OK. You see, no one knows he’s my brother. Only you.’
‘So, you were locked in one of your father’s cells? How did you get out? How did you get here?’
‘Freman. That reporter who was so horrible when Helen’s child died. I wanted to kill him then, but today I could have kissed him. He was nosing around – I don’t know how he got onto it.’
‘That was my fault. I asked him to find you.’
‘He’s quick, I’ll give him that. Anyway, we ran. He said did I want to go to the police, but I obviously don’t want the police involved. If they search the place, they’ll find father. They’ll find out that Joel and I are different. That can’t happen.’ She grabbed his arm. ‘You’d better call him, and tell him not to say anything to anyone, because if Joel knows it was him, I’m afraid of what he’ll do. He’s changed. That wasn’t just possessive; what he did to me was nasty. The sort of thing our father would have done. He took away my free will just because it suited him. How could he?’
‘You think Joel would harm Freman?’
‘I don’t know. But I don’t want to find out.’
Robin rang Freman’s mobile several times, but was redirected to the answerphone, so eventually left a message. ‘Freman, it’s Robin here. Don’t go back to Wood Hall. The guy there, Joel, is dangerous. Ring me back. I’ll try to explain.’
She got up and paced. ‘We have to leave.’
‘Leave? Go Where?’
‘I don’t know. But it has to be somewhere Joel won’t think of looking. He’ll go back to Wood Hall, find me gone, and the first place he’ll go to is my flat, then he’ll come here.’
‘Are you that scared of him?’
‘I don’t’ think he’d hurt me, but I don’t want to end up back there. I’m afraid of what he might do to you, though.’
Robin said, ‘I need to let Redwall know you’re safe. He thinks I had something to do with your disappearance.’
‘Well, the only one who could convince him that’s not true, is me. I’ll speak to him.’
‘We could tell him Joel kidnapped you out of jealousy, can’t we?’
‘Joel would be institutionalised.’
‘Maybe he should be.’
‘That can’t happen. People will see he’s not getting any older.’
‘Maybe Joel can be reasoned with?’
‘Eventually, maybe, but for now, we should simply leave, give ourselves the option to reason with him from a distance. Please?’
‘OK. We’ll disappear. You clean up while I nip out and get some cash. We can fall under the radar, at least for a couple of months, while we think of a plan.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Now say it properly.’
He held her close. It would all sort itself out. Things weren’t as black as she thought. Freman had been warned about Joel, and the police wouldn’t have to know about Wood Hall – for now, at least. In the end, Joel would have to calm down. Sarah would convince him why the police should not become involved, and that she needed her own life.
Chapter 35
Redwall’s bleeper went. Within minutes he and Jim were hammering through the mid-day traffic to the scene of another crime. He flashed his badge as they shoved through the knot of reporters, donned protective footwear, and made their way to the crime tent that had been erected over the dead girl. She’d been found by a child searching for a ball in the undergrowth.
‘Was she mauled by dogs?’ Redwall said, staring in dismay at the mutilated body.
‘Not animals,’ the forensic guy said. ‘Humans.’
‘What kind of human would do that?’
‘Several, or one who was incredibly strong,’ he said. ‘We’ll get more info when the coroner has taken a look. For now, forensics are trawling the area. But it does seem as if most of the damage was post mortem.’ He pointed at the bruising around her throat. ‘Her neck was broken, her head almost ripped off.’
‘Why?’ Jim said, equally horrified.
‘This kind of post-mortem damage is usually done through anger.’
‘Were any personal effects found?’
‘She had a bag. Forensics have it. There might be ID, you’ll have to ask Gillian.’
‘No need.’ The DCI knelt by the girl’s side, wishing he had the power to turn the clock back, give her a fighting chance in a world that didn’t care. ‘I know her. Lynda Barry.’ One of society’s abandoned children. She’d been in and out of institutions over the years. She’d been pretty, once, but that had faded into heavy lines of abuse and weariness, not that you could see them through the mess someone had made of her face. ‘Dammit’ he said inadequately. ‘I’d better tell her friends. And her pimp.’
Later, the contents of Lynda’s handbag had been analysed and tagged. Redwall glared at them ferociously, especially at one bank note, which apparently had Vanger’s unmistakable fingerprint on it.
‘So, it was him all along,’ Jim commented.
‘I don’t know. There are other notes there, and we don’t know whose prints are on them. Would Vanger have been so dumb as to pay her, then leave it behind? He might as well have left a confession.’
Jim’s brows rose. ‘You think it was planted?’
‘It’s a possibility. We have to treat him as a major suspect. But if it was planted, then it’s someone who has a grudge against him, and had access to his cash.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Do you really think he’s is strong enough to have done what was done to that girl?’
‘He’s healed well. He might be stronger than we think.’
‘But that strong? If it’s not him, and the banknote was a plant, it means our strangler knows him, and is setting him up for the fall while he drops out of sight. And unless we find him, we’ll never know. Vanger, sure as eggs is eggs, will go down for it.’
Chapter 36
Redwall was pulled out of bed in the early hours, and now stood staring in disbelief at what had once been Vanger’s house. It had separated into its various parts of brick, wood and mortar, as if the whole lot had gone up into the sky, then fallen in on itself. It was surprising how much of it there was.
Jac Jenusci, from number 25, had been walking his dog in the late evening when it happened. By the time they arrived, he was sitting in the ambulance being treated for shock and minor abrasions, the dog quivering at his feet. He described the brief whoof of an explosion, followed by an orange ball of flame. The shock-wave had propelled him and his dog over a wall, into someone’s garden where they lay stunned beneath a slow hail of dust and glass. The thundering silence in his ears had gradually faded into a discord of car alarms screaming into the darkness.
Almost everyone within a mile radius had called it in.
Above the house a cloud of dust still hovered, sulphurous above the street lights. Emergency lighting strobed the area as if searching for low flying planes. A fire officer was directing hoses into small pockets of flame. Redwall whistled, and turned to the fire officer. ‘What the hell happened?’
He shrugged. ‘Has the hallmarks of mains gas.’
‘Was anyone inside?’
‘We won’t know ’till we start
to sift the rubble. But if there was that much gas in the place, they would probably have been unconscious by then.’
‘Is there a car in the garage?’
The fire officer shouted to someone else, who checked the half-demolished building, coming back shaking his head.
‘Maybe he wasn’t here,’ Redwall said. He glanced behind him. ‘Oh, shit. Who called Freman?’
A cop was keeping the reporter back, but he waved to Redwall with a degree of urgency.
‘Let him through.’
Freman ducked under the fluttering tape that provided a hasty barrier. ‘What’s the story?’
‘You tell me.’
‘Were they inside?’
‘They? We don’t know if Vanger was inside when it blew. I was told it might be a gas leak.’
‘Sarah was with him,’ Freman said.
Sarah was with Robin and Freman knew? ‘Tell me,’ he said, grimly.
‘I went by the hospital to see if I could get something more on the angel story, and there she was. Her car’s off the road, and she asked to be dropped off here.’
‘And you didn’t think to tell me?’
‘I was going to tell you first thing in the morning.’
‘After the papers were already on the street? I assume you got some kind of story from her?’
Freman gave an unrepentant grin. ‘It’s my job.’
‘Same as it’s a dog’s job to shit on lawns.’
‘So, was this deliberate?’
‘Why would you think so?’
‘Sarah’s brother was mad at her for wanting to be with Robin instead of him. Sounds to me like she was scared of him. Probably Robin and herself took off to get away from him.’
‘She’s got a brother?’
‘’s what I said. He’s a nut job, apparently. IQ of a monkey.’
Redwall, while pleased to learn Sarah had been alive earlier, wondered if it was a short-lived reprieve, and whether they’d find her along with Vanger beneath the rubble. If her brother had done something this outrageously dangerous, he was unstable, to say the least. She’d be right to be scared of him.
Stations of the Soul Page 17