Last of the Magpies

by Mark Edwards

  12

  Emma was sitting on a kitchen chair. She had expected Paul to tie her hands and probably her ankles together, but he seemed confident that he didn’t need to do so. He was right. He was much bigger than her, the door was locked and he was holding an iron bar, which he kept tapping against the kitchen cabinets as he paced back and forth. When he caught Emma glancing around, looking for a weapon or an exit, he slammed the iron bar down on the counter so hard it sent a ripple of pain through her head.

  ‘Keep your eyes on me!’ he yelled.

  The resigned weariness with which he’d greeted her had long gone. Now he just seemed angry. Pissed off that she was here and that he had a problem to deal with. He muttered to himself, words she couldn’t make out, and he kept pushing his overlong, sweaty hair out of his eyes. He grimaced when he did this, like it hurt. Finally, he pulled up a chair and sat opposite her, resting the iron bar across his lap.

  He had already forced her to unlock and give him her phone, and he had scrolled through her messages. His eyes had widened at one point, presumably when he saw the exchange of texts with Jamie. That was when she had told him she was making a podcast and that Jamie had been helping her. He hadn’t said much in response but she could see him thinking, trying to figure out what to do.

  ‘So you came here looking for Lucy?’ he asked now.

  She shook her head. She was so scared that talking was hard. Her mouth was dry and her tongue felt swollen. But she managed to force out a reply. ‘No. I was looking for you. I thought your parents lived here.’

  He grunted. Where exactly were his mum and dad? There was a single mug sitting on the draining board. No sign that more than one person lived here, except that the decor was far more suited to a retired couple than a young man. There was a framed photograph of a smiling schoolboy on the wall, presumably Paul. He looked cherubic.

  ‘Who knows you’re here?’ he asked.

  She weighed up her answer. If she told him no one knew, that would mean he could kill her without worrying someone would come looking. But if she lied, it might make him angrier. And he had her phone. He knew there were no messages about this trip.

  ‘No one,’ she said. ‘But if . . . I go missing, it won’t be hard for the police to trace me. I used my bank card to buy a ticket here. I talked to a man on the train who’ll remember me. I was one of the only black women in the carriage.’

  He narrowed his eyes.

  ‘And . . . And Kirsty knew I was planning to come looking for your parents.’

  ‘Did she indeed?’ He rubbed his forehead. ‘Jesus, I can’t think straight.’

  Emma gathered her courage. ‘What is it you’re afraid of, Paul? People finding out that you’re harbouring Lucy? I’m sure that’s hardly a major offence. You could tell them she threatened you.’

  ‘You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.’

  But again, she could see him thinking it through. And she saw an opportunity.

  ‘Let me guess. You were staying here with your parents and Lucy showed up. I’m figuring she killed them and has been keeping you prisoner here ever since. Is that right?’

  He grimaced but he didn’t protest.

  ‘We could call the police . . .’

  Where, Emma wondered, was Lucy right now? She assumed she was hiding upstairs, but why? And what exactly was the nature of her relationship with Paul?

  ‘You’ll be a hero, Paul. The man who found Lucy Newton and handed her in.’

  She waited, sick with dread. She had given him a way out, one that meant he wouldn’t have to kill her, appealing to his sense of self-preservation and hoping that was stronger than his loyalty to Lucy. She had to assume he had been letting Lucy hide out here. They had probably murdered his parents together. She expected the poor bastards were buried out there on that stretch of land that ran down to the beach.

  He stood up, suddenly, and held the iron bar above her head. His arm shook and sweat popped on his forehead, a droplet landing on her face. She flinched, closing her eyes, covering her head with her arms and waiting for the blow.

  It didn’t come.

  ‘You really think that bitch could keep me prisoner?’

  He grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet.

  ‘Come with me. I’m going to show you.’

  He pulled her roughly across the kitchen, out into the hallway and then up the stairs. She was too scared to resist. And, she had to admit it, curious too.

  It was dark upstairs. Paul held on to her with one hand, clasping her so hard that she knew she would have a bruise on her forearm, though she could cope if that was the worst thing that happened to her tonight. With his other hand he produced a bunch of keys, which she could hear jangling, and unlocked a door at the end of the landing. Emma had the terrible thought that he was going to throw her into this room and lock her in, and she struggled briefly until he tightened his grip and hissed, ‘Don’t.’

  He pushed the unlocked door open and pulled her into a room, kicking the door shut behind him. It was dark in here too. She could see a black shape against the far wall and could hear heavy breathing, though it might have been her own. Paul let go of her arm and switched on the light.

  Emma screwed up her eyes against the sudden brightness. When she opened them, she saw a bed where she’d previously made out a dark shape.

  On the bed lay a woman with mid-length blonde hair that was darker at the ends. Both her wrists were handcuffed to the bedposts above her head. She was wearing a blue dress that looked like it should belong to a much older woman. There was a gag in her mouth.

  It was Lucy.

  Paul must have come up here, cuffed her to the bed and gagged her after Emma shouted about seeing someone, but before he answered the door. Emma didn’t know what to do. Paul was standing beside her, presumably waiting for her to react. Lucy moved her eyes towards them. From everything she knew about Lucy Newton, Emma expected to see defiance in those eyes. Instead, she looked frightened. This woman was a serial killer. She was evil. But Emma found that she felt sorry for her.

  ‘What . . .?’ Emma began, struggling to formulate a question. ‘You’re holding Lucy prisoner?’

  He gave her a thin smile.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘I thought she was your friend.’

  ‘My friend?’ He spat the word. The room was bright and Emma could see how pale he was, a vein throbbing in his forehead, sweat pouring off him. He kept touching his head as if it was killing him. ‘She did this to me. Made me like this. Her and that arsehole husband of hers.’

  He stepped closer to the bed, looming over Lucy, who shrank back.

  ‘It was fine at first, when I came out of the coma,’ Paul said. ‘I felt stronger. Better. Free of all the things that usually constrain people. Things like fear and guilt and pity.’

  Emma had the feeling he’d been rehearsing this speech.

  ‘But then the headaches started. The pain in my body. And the nightmares. Jesus, the nightmares . . . When I was in the hospital, when I was coming out of the coma, I had the strangest dreams. Dreams about flying creatures, like bats but much worse.’ He shuddered. ‘But those were nothing compared to the dreams I have now. It’s like . . . every night, I have this nightmare where I’m in a maze, a labyrinth, and there’s something chasing me. I can feel it behind me. I can smell it. This fetid, rotting stench. And I’m running through the maze, desperately trying to find a way out, and then I find myself in the centre, and there’s this great hole, this black yawning chasm, and it has teeth, millions of razor-sharp teeth, and then I’m falling, down into hell, and that’s when I wake up.’

  Lucy didn’t react. She had closed her eyes. Emma had the feeling she’d heard about Paul’s nightmare many times before.

  ‘I dread going to sleep every night. I try to keep myself awake so I don’t have to face it. And it’s all this bitch’s fault.’ He was almost panting. ‘When I heard Lucy was out of prison, I came back to England. I made contact
, I found her. I made her believe I still liked her and wanted to help her.’ He sat on the bed beside Lucy and laid a hand on her thigh. ‘Big mistake.’

  ‘So this is about revenge?’ Emma said.

  Paul’s face was growing pink, and the vein in his forehead was pulsing so hard that Emma was beginning to see him as an unexploded bomb. He turned from the bed and stomped towards her, forcing her to back up against the wall.

  ‘It’s about justice!’ he shouted.

  Emma didn’t want to provoke him, but she couldn’t help herself. ‘You sound just like Jamie.’

  He unclenched his fists; let his arms drop by his sides. ‘Do I? Maybe you should call him, invite him here. The two of us could enact justice together.’

  Behind Paul, Lucy had opened her eyes and was watching them. The smell of fear wafted across the room. A woman handcuffed to a bed? If this was justice, it was as ugly as hell, regardless of what Lucy had done in the past. She hated to think what Paul had put her through since she’d been here, although she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him too, with the brain injury that had unhinged him.

  Although she would feel a lot sorrier for him if she weren’t trapped in a room with him, praying that he wasn’t going to kill her.

  Trying to sound as calm as she could, Emma said, ‘You need help, Paul. Medical help. I’m sure there are doctors out there who could ease your symptoms. Maybe even make you better.’

  ‘I don’t want a fucking doctor. I want . . .’ He doubled over, his face contorted with agony. Emma exchanged a look with Lucy. Was he going to keel over? Could she really be that lucky?

  He pulled himself upright, wiping a hand across his face.

  ‘I need to think.’

  He grabbed Emma’s arm again and yanked the door open. Without a word, he pulled her out of the room and began to drag her down the stairs. She resisted, holding on to the banister, and he pulled harder, yanking at her arm.

  She lost her balance and he let go.

  She fell.

  13

  Jamie tried to call Emma again, but it went straight to voicemail. He checked her social media, which she usually updated frequently, and saw that her last post was an Instagram photo from earlier that evening. It showed the view from a train window. A squat, round tower with the caption Martello tower, used to guard England against Napoleon. Surprised they haven’t started using them to keep an eye out for refugees! There was a location tag too: Normans Bay, East Sussex. Jamie typed out a text message and sent it to her, asking her to call him urgently.

  Kirsty leaned over to look at his screen. ‘I don’t like this at all.’

  ‘I know.’

  She had her hand on his knee, and all he really wanted to do was take her home, lock the door, lose himself in her and forget all this.

  But what if Lucy was with Paul? What would the two of them do if Emma turned up on their doorstep?

  ‘I think we should call the police,’ he said.

  Kirsty nodded but Edmund said, ‘And tell them what? Do you think they’ll bother going to check? Besides, we don’t even know where she is.’

  Jamie looked at the Instagram photo again. Normans Bay. Was that where Emma was?

  He quickly went on to Google and, after being prompted by Kirsty, typed in Paul’s parents’ names along with the name of the seaside village. The result took him to an address database site. All he had to do was pay a small registration fee and he had their address.

  ‘I didn’t know you could do that,’ said Edmund.

  Jamie shrugged. ‘It’s easy. As long as you have the town or street, you can find anybody. So, now shall we call the police?’

  Edmund pulled a face. ‘Normans Bay. I doubt if they even have a police presence there.’

  ‘I know, but—’

  ‘And if Lucy is there, don’t you want to be the one to confront her? To finally put an end to this?’

  Jamie began to say no but Kirsty spoke over him.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  She had taken her hand off his knee and her fists were clenched on the table in front of her.

  ‘I don’t trust the system anymore,’ she said. ‘Look what happened before. They let her go, then let her go again.’

  Jamie nodded slowly. She was right.

  Kirsty stood up. ‘Can you take us?’ she said to Edmund. She turned back to Jamie. ‘We’re going to end this. Once and for all.’

  The A23 was almost deserted. Jamie sat in the back seat, completely sober now and too agitated to sit still. When they reached the car, he had hoped Kirsty would get into the back with him but she had taken the front passenger seat. She sat in silence, her face turned to the window, lost in her thoughts.

  Edmund stuck to the outside lane, his foot on the accelerator. He seemed excited.

  ‘Imagine if Lucy is actually there,’ he said. ‘This will make a great scene for the end of your book. The final showdown. Resolution. Depending on what happens tonight I can start calling publishers tomorrow, whip up some early interest. I’m thinking this could be a movie too.’

  ‘There’s not going to be a book,’ Kirsty said, her voice icy.

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Edmund.

  They all sat in silence for a while. Edmund had put the address into his satnav, and shortly after they passed a town called Pevensey he said, ‘We’re only five minutes away now.’

  They turned off a roundabout on to Sluice Lane. In the distance, Jamie could see the tower Emma had photographed, a black shape in the darkness. He leaned between the front seats as the satnav instructed them to turn on to an unmarked road. There, directly in front of them, was a white house with two lights burning behind its windows. Behind the house, a stretch of land that gave way to a beach.

  Edmund stopped the car and Kirsty immediately opened her door and got out, hurrying down the narrow road towards the house, which glowed faintly in the moonlight. There was a caravan parked in the garden.

  Jamie hurried after her, with Edmund following behind. Jamie watched as Kirsty crouched down and picked something up, slipping it into her pocket. It looked like a large stone.

  ‘Wait,’ he said, but she ignored him, striding towards the gate. She slipped through and stood looking up at the house. Jamie and Edmund joined her.

  ‘She’s in there,’ Kirsty said. ‘I can feel it. I can feel her.’

  She was right. Jamie could feel it too, even though he didn’t usually believe in such things. There was a smell about this place, like the strange sulphurous smell that used to waft up from the Newtons’ flat. The stench of evil.

  Jamie pressed his ear against the door but couldn’t hear anything. He wasn’t sure what to do. Should he press the doorbell? Go and look round the back of the house? Maybe they should have called the police after all. He couldn’t help but think they were making a mistake coming here. They should retreat, call the police, wait . . .

  He turned to speak to Kirsty just as she pulled back her arm and threw the stone he had seen her pick up through the front window. The sound of breaking glass was like an explosion in the night.

  From within the house, a male voice shouted, ‘What the fuck?’

  Jamie and Kirsty exchanged a shocked look.

  Jamie hadn’t heard his former best friend’s voice for years, but he recognised it instantly. He braced himself, waiting for the front door to open.

  Nothing happened.

  Kirsty was searching the ground. She picked up another stone, this one even larger than the first. Before Jamie could do or say anything, she chucked it at the remaining glass in the front window. A flying fragment struck Jamie on the cheek, immediately drawing blood. He wiped at it with his hand, staring at the blood on his palm.

  Kirsty didn’t see this. She covered her hands with her coat sleeves and began tugging at the jagged shards that clung to the frame, letting them fall at her feet.

  ‘Aren’t you going to help me?’ she said.

  Edmund hurried forward and copied her, wearing a pair of le
ather gloves he had produced from his coat pockets. Soon the frame was clear enough for them to enter, and Kirsty put her hands on the sill and pushed herself up and into the house. Edmund followed.

  Kirsty leaned out. ‘Are you coming?’

  Jamie hesitated. He had a horrible feeling about this, like they were mice straying into a trap. But what choice did he have?

  It was darker inside the living room than it had been beneath the moonlight. When his eyes adjusted, Jamie could see that the room was decorated chintzily, with a floral sofa and ornaments on the mantelpiece. The room smelled of dust, like it hadn’t been cleaned for a long time. If this was Paul’s parents’ house, where the hell were they? There was a churning sensation in Jamie’s stomach and his mouth was so dry he wasn’t sure if he would be able to speak. A memory seized him, a memory of the time he had entered Lucy and Chris’s flat, searching for evidence. He remembered what he’d found there. The CCTV system. The spectacles from Lucy’s victims. That night had changed his life forever, and a wave of dread crashed over him as he realised this could be another night like that one. That, after tonight, things might never be the same.

  He needed to get a grip. Gathering his courage, he slowly pulled open the door and peered out into a dim hallway. There was a staircase directly ahead and a door to the right that stood ajar. He crept into the hallway and through that door, finding himself in a kitchen. A single chair stood in the centre of the room. Jamie became aware of something wet on his jawline and touched his face. He was still bleeding.

  Edmund, who had followed him into the room, opened a couple of drawers. ‘There are no knives,’ he said.

  Jamie blinked at him. What did that mean? Had Paul taken them, removing any weapons when Kirsty smashed the front window? Where was Paul?

  And where was Kirsty? Jamie went back into the hallway and saw her walking slowly up the stairs.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he whispered, but she ignored him.

  He went after her, convinced that at any moment Paul was going to leap out from the shadows. Paul or Lucy. Or both of them. Because if he had been sure while standing outside that Lucy was here, now he was absolutely certain. He knew that sulphurous smell had been a kind of olfactory hallucination, but he could feel her presence. It was the link between them, like a thread connecting them that would connect them forever. Or until one of them was dead.