Hold My Hand

by M. J. Ford

  And Carrick was right. She was too close. Had been from the start. Stratton could be a prick, blowing hot and cold, but he’d seen it too. From the moment she’d arrived from Avon and Somerset, trouble had trailed in her wake like the scent of a rotten corpse, and all because of her past, right back to her first mistake – one she always told herself was innocent, but which she knew in her heart was a sort of cowardice – walking on by while a man in a clown outfit took Dylan Jones. It felt like she was at the centre of an infection, the carrier and the cause. Everyone else was just trying to keep away. And why not?

  Somehow even Sally Carruthers had been caught up in it, an old lady who’d deserved to see out the remains of her life without being dragged into a police station. Every missing child case within fifty miles from the last thirty years would be re-examined for potential links to Stephen Carruthers. The wheels would turn – every site Carruthers had worked on would be examined, perhaps excavated, whether there was a confessional note or not. And under those wheels, poor Sally Carruthers would be crushed. She’d have to hire a lawyer, probably sell what was left of the house at auction. At least people like Trent and Burgess and Matthews got sentences they could measure, parole. For Sally, there’d be no respite, not until the day she died, and her only crime had been to try to teach children to play the piano and fall for a bloke who’d probably seemed great at the time, but had a sick pathology.

  Stop, Jo. Just stop.

  Worrying about Sally Carruthers wasn’t going to help her find Will. Stephen Carruthers wasn’t preying on kids any more. Dylan Jones was the past, wherever his body was resting.

  She needed to be present. To focus her mind and think like a detective. What am I missing? She didn’t blame Carrick for coming to the conclusions he had. He wasn’t there when it happened. But she was. She’d seen the man, albeit briefly. But it was just a man. Not a ghoul, or a spectre, or a monster. Niall had seen the man too. And Will. She sat up sharply.

  He came from the garden.

  Will’s bedroom was beside the guest room in which she had stayed. The vantage point was almost identical. The pitch of the roof and the extended orangery precluded any line of sight to the side gate, so if Will saw someone, that person came up through the garden, from the rear of the house. He’d set off the security light. And there was nothing that way, apart from …

  The barn.

  Jo’s skin tingled. The officers would have gone to Sally’s house straight away – they’d have knocked on the doors of all the neighbouring houses. They’d got a dog squad, Heidi had said. But she wondered – if Carrick was working on the assumption of Ben’s car being used … any car …

  And Will’s scent would be all over the garden anyway.

  And Christ – the river, the fence – would they have gone further? It was a wilderness down there. They might not even have seen the barn.

  Jo took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. To analyse. Sally had been down at the barn, the night of Paul’s party. Feeding the cat, she said. But why at night? She was an old woman – why take the risk of a fall?

  Jo knew she wasn’t thinking straight, whether it was the drugs in her system or the swelling of her concussion, or simply the discordance that had seemed to accompany the last few days. She closed her eyes, struggling to process the niggling coincidences and the vying complexities of the investigations, of her and Ben, of the body that wasn’t Dylan, of Alan Trent and the pale fiendish creature that Niall’s father was only too happy to think of as a figment of his son’s imagination.

  The barn.

  In her mind’s eye, the confusion of signals phased quite suddenly into something different. She saw it, dimly, like a face through rain-streaked glass, or the eyes of a face hidden behind a mask. And though she didn’t understand completely, she knew where she would find her nephew.

  She walked to the door and opened it, then the officer turned to look at her. He was impossibly fresh-faced.

  ‘Sorry, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Detective Carrick said you’ve got to stay here.’

  ‘I need to speak to him,’ she said. ‘Can you call him for me?’

  ‘Sorry, ma’am – I don’t have his number.’

  ‘Anyone in CID then.’

  ‘I can ask my sergeant,’ said the officer. ‘He’ll be up in a few minutes.’

  Jo looked at his insignia. ‘Constable Owens,’ she said, addressing him by name. ‘Now, please.’

  He radioed through to someone called Sergeant Frankel.

  ‘Say it’s important,’ she said.

  ‘Sir, the detective in hospital … she wants to talk with someone in CID.’

  Jo heard the sergeant’s response. ‘Everyone’s up to their ears. Someone will speak with her later.’

  Owens looked apologetic.

  Jo felt like screaming, but instead she simply walked along the corridor.

  ‘Ma’am, you can’t,’ said the constable. ‘Please, stop. Stop there.’

  Jo reached the bank of elevators and pushed the button.

  ‘Ma’am, I need you to come with me.’

  He gave her arm a little tug, and she resisted.

  The elevator doors opened, and she climbed in, squeezing alongside an orderly with a stacked trolley of bedding and a young couple holding a child’s car seat. Owens didn’t look at all sure, and got in too. He got on his radio again, and told his sergeant, ‘The detective has got into a lift.’

  The sergeant’s voice, slightly bewildered, said he’d get in touch with CID and ask what to do. Jo could’ve laughed, but she was already wondering how she could get out of this.

  As the lift stopped on the first floor, the doors opened, and another doctor squeezed in. Everyone jostled. Jo waited until the doors were closing, then slipped out sideways, hearing a cry from the constable as he was caught inside. She rushed along the corridor, following the fire exit signs until she reached barred double doors. She pushed through, finding herself in a concrete-floored stairwell, then dropped a flight quickly. As she went, she flexed her neck, deemed it satisfactory, and unfastened the brace. Through another double door and she was out behind the hospital. She tossed the brace into a bin.

  With no obvious bearings, she crossed a staff car park, heading for traffic lights in the distance. She broke into a half-arsed run, but felt knackered at once. The occasional driver gave her an odd look, and she thought about flagging one down. And then she realised where she was. Back on the London Road. Plenty of other pedestrians looked like they were heading to work. Some were getting onto a bus, and Jo climbed on too. The bus driver looked at her with a hint of interest.

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘City centre.’

  ‘Two quid please.’

  Jo realised she didn’t have her purse. She fished for some cash in her pocket, but all that came out on her hand was her warrant card.

  ‘Shit … I’m sorry. I haven’t—’

  The driver clocked her badge and gave her a nod. ‘On you get,’ he said.

  She flagged a cab as soon as she reached St Giles, gave her destination, claiming a police emergency. She wondered briefly about asking to borrow a phone, but she wasn’t sure exactly what she would say to Carrick, or how the cabbie might react in the front. He’d barely batted an eyelid at her appearance, but if she started talking about kidnapping that might change.

  She just hoped that she wasn’t too late.

  * * *

  Sally opened the door wearing an apron, looking more alive than ever, and wiping her hands with a tea towel. Her eyes widened at the sight of the bruising around Jo’s jaw.

  ‘Josie! Oh, look at you! What happened? The police came round.’

  Jo’s certainty, the clarity of it all, threatened to waver. ‘Can I come in?’

  Sally looked past Jo, to the path. ‘Yes, yes. Of course.’

  Jo entered, and waited for Sally to close the door. ‘What did the police tell you?’ she asked.

  ‘They said a little boy was missing, from a house up the hi
ll.’ She blanched. ‘It’s not … It wasn’t William, was it?’

  Jo nodded, and she didn’t have to feign the tears that came to her eyes.

  ‘Oh, Josie. No. He’s probably just run off.’

  They didn’t tell her. No surprise. They’re controlling the flow of information.

  ‘Did they ask to search the house?’ asked Jo.

  Sally shook her head. ‘No. Why on earth would they?’

  No, why would they? Old woman living alone, widowed …

  ‘Y’know – the gardens. Will might have come this way.’

  ‘At night?’

  Did they tell her he went missing at night?

  Jo’s eyes travelled to the small desk beside the bookshelf. There was a black A4 diary on there.

  ‘You couldn’t put the kettle on, could you?’

  Sally smiled and headed through to the kitchen.

  ‘His poor parents must be beside themselves,’ she called back.

  Jo went quickly to the desk. The current day was marked. She looked back through the last few weeks, skimming. Sally had mentioned that she hadn’t had many clients, and there were only a couple each week, or fortnightly, inscribed in Sally’s neat writing. Names and times. Frieda Barnstaple, Aurelia Wager, Carl Lomax. She flicked the pages. Sally had a row of box files on the desk too. One labelled ‘Referrals’, another ‘Private clients’.

  She was about to pull out the latter when she realised a page had been torn out of the diary. June 16th. A Monday, six weeks ago. She skipped back further. A week before, June 9th, was gone as well. Jo rewound another seven days. Same. The day’s appointments excised from the records.

  Or a person … someone who, according to his boss, never worked Monday mornings at Gloucester College.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Sally. She was standing in the doorway to the kitchen. And in her hand was a tray, with a teapot and two cups and a milk jug. ‘I’d just put the kettle on before you arrived,’ she said, in way of explanation.

  Jo kept her hand on the page. ‘You’re missing some pages,’ she said.

  ‘You shouldn’t be looking through my private papers,’ she said. ‘There are client details in there.’

  ‘But nothing for Alan Trent,’ said Jo.

  ‘Alan who?’

  ‘I think you know who I mean.’

  ‘Josie, you’re frightening me a bit,’ said Sally. ‘Is this something to do with yesterday? About Stephen and Martin?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Jo. Sally didn’t say anything. The only sound in the room was the clock ticking. ‘Sally, do you know where Will is?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘I’m going to call the police,’ said Sally. ‘You can’t harass me like this.’

  She went towards the phone, but Jo intercepted her. She grabbed both Sally’s thin shoulders and held her firm.

  ‘He’s in the barn, isn’t he?’ she said.

  Sally started to cry. ‘Please leave me alone. Please go.’

  ‘Dear God, if you’ve done anything to him … Stop crying, and just tell me!’

  She let go, but must have pushed at the same time, because Sally stumbled back and hit the ground hard with a moan. Her lips parted with shock, then she buried her head in her hands and wept.

  ‘I know you blackmailed Alan,’ said Jo. ‘Who’s the other one? Is he down there now?’

  She went along the hallway towards the back door, but found it locked.

  ‘Where’s the key?’ She advanced again, meaning to lift Sally to her feet, but she heard a door somewhere else in the house and stopped.

  ‘Will?’ she shouted, spinning on the spot.

  ‘He can’t hear you,’ said Sally, sniffing.

  ‘Who’s in the house?’ she snapped.

  Sally was looking up from the floor. All kindness had gone from her eyes and been replaced with pity. That, and a look she knew from the interview room. Resignation. Acceptance. Jo grabbed her and hauled her to her feet. She weighed nothing.

  ‘Who’s in the fucking house?’

  ‘I didn’t want this,’ said Sally. ‘I always liked you.’ Her eyes shifted a fraction to look at something behind her.

  When she turned around, Jo saw there was a third person in the room. Right in the middle, as if he’d materialised there, manifested from a child’s nightmare. He stood a good six-foot-three, even with the hunch that made his head protrude forwards. The proportions of his body were wrong – almost ape-like, with long legs, knees slightly bowed inwards, and narrow hips. His chest was much broader, with fleshy pectorals, and well-muscled arms. A giant goblin, not a clown, and if a man, the sort of man who made no sense in the world Jo knew. He looked like two different bodies combined, then painted all over with the same pigment – a sickly grey, with the thread of blue veins beneath, a kind of living marble. His head was almost perfectly round, hairless, with swollen lips that were cracked and sore. The eyes were pale, set deep in bruising shadow, the irises misshapen, like two shucked oysters, and she knew instinctively that he was close to blind.

  But strange as he was, there were telltale signs – that unmistakeable cleft of the chin, the long eyelashes, a few bristles of red hair.

  Dylan Jones.

  ‘He won’t hurt you,’ said Sally, moving aside.

  Jo, isolated, took a step back, sensing with the instinct of a prey animal that the thing meant to do her harm, whatever Sally said. She couldn’t work out where he’d suddenly come from – but then saw the door to what looked like a downstairs bedroom was slightly ajar. It had been shut when she arrived. He must have been hiding in there.

  He moved towards her, wide nostrils twitching and ape arms jerking out. There was nowhere to go, and he pressed her into the corner. His mouth gaped, fishlike, but there was no sound other than the wet muted contractions of his neck muscles, his tongue a shocking red stump that pulsed in the back of his throat. His breath was rancid and pungent, his teeth just a mess of yellow-black shards. Jo gagged involuntarily.

  ‘Dylan, it’s all right,’ she said.

  His eyes changed, pupils sharpening, and her brain was just telling her to lift her hands in defence when he threw his weight into her, one hand on her chin. Her head hit the wall behind so hard that she feared her skull would crack. Her mind became unmoored, drifting.

  The second blow blackened everything.

  Chapter 25

  When Jo woke, lying on her side, it was to dim light, the smell of rust and the taste of blood. They’d moved her. The air was warm and choking, and she realised, as a groan escaped her lips, that she was gagged with a piece of material.

  She tried to move, and found her hands were fastened too, tied behind her back. Looking down, she had gaffer tape on her ankles, so it was likely the same on her wrists. Her whole body felt leaden. The roof was spanned by cross-beams of gnarled dark wood. I’m in the barn. Three quarters of the way along the ceiling was a shallow mezzanine level, maybe for storage. A rudimentary rope ladder hung down. There were workbenches along one wall, with shelves of paint and other containers. The carcass of an old motorbike rested against a drum of some sort, and the floor was covered in old pieces of cardboard, stained with engine oil. Thick metal hooks hung from the wall, from which held an assortment of tools. A mallet, a saw, a pair of tongs. There were a couple of tiny, shuttered windows, but the only light came from an old oil lamp beside Sally.

  A whimper made Jo twist her neck, and her eyes found William. Her nephew was sitting in a corner, gaffer tape across his lips. His eyes, saucer-like, were fixed on something in the distance. But he was alive, and the rush of love and terror exploded across Jo’s chest. She tried to call his name, and it came out as a strained mumble. She wondered why he didn’t come to her, then saw his ankles had cord tied around them. His arms were free.

  Jo heard a cough and jerked her head back the other way. Sally Carruthers was sitting down on a battered leather armchair. She had put on a coat.

  ‘I saw the look in the car,’ she said. ‘When I told you S
tephen didn’t kill Dylan. You thought I was a silly old woman. Deluded, no doubt.’

  Jo managed to manoeuvre herself into a sitting position. As she did, she saw the thing that Dylan Jones had become. He was sitting on his haunches, dipping a sponge in a bucket, then lifting it and slapping at something on the ground. What the fuck did they do to him? It looked like he’d never seen sunlight. Had he been here, in this barn, all that time?

  Jo tried to use her shoulder to roll the gag out of her mouth, flexing her neck. It hurt like fuck, sending crippling waves of pain across her jaw, but she just needed to speak, to get through to Sally. She managed to prise it partway out.

  But her former piano teacher was barely paying any attention.

  ‘I think Stephen thought we could just move here and everything would be fine. But it wasn’t like that. I missed Martin so very much. He was difficult, but he was still my boy. I wanted another child, but by then it was too late. I suppose I hated Stephen, for what he’d done. And he knew it too. So when we met Dylan, it seemed like fate. He was such a sweet thing, and so expressive! Martin never could be bothered with music. Dylan though, he was a dream.’ She turned back towards him. ‘Weren’t you, sweetheart? You always practised hard.’

  Dylan was still playing with the sponge, but nodded vigorously.

  Jo spat out the remains of the gag.

  ‘Don’t scream, please,’ said Sally. ‘Dylan hates loud noises. The other woman wouldn’t stop.’

  Jo had no idea what she was talking about.

  ‘It’s going to be all right, captain,’ said Jo, looking at Will.

  He didn’t move.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ asked Jo.

  ‘He’s not hurt,’ said Sally. ‘Dylan likes him.’

  ‘Will, talk to me,’ said Jo.

  ‘Where’s Mum?’ he said.

  ‘We’re going home soon,’ she said.

  ‘I’m scared.’

  ‘We had a difficulty,’ said Sally. ‘Poor little mite got a shock, didn’t you, sweetheart?’