Chapter Thirty-Two
Carly
Then
Carly wished they were invisible. Out in the open she felt horribly exposed. Driven by the wind, rain lashed into their faces. The sky a dark, angry grey. Night was drawing in quickly.
‘Where do we go?’ asked Leah. Underneath the desperation that dripped from her voice nestled a thin layer of hope that her big sister would know what to do.
Carly frantically looked around as though the way out would suddenly materialize, like the Tardis. She wished she’d paid more attention to Mr Webster’s class when he’d shared the photos of the base. She could vaguely remember him highlighting the main building on the aerial view but she couldn’t remember which direction the town was in. They walked – more slowly than Carly would like but they were all weak, Marie most of all. Carly kept her eyes trained on the ground, seeking out footprints, tyre tracks, anything that might lay a Hansel and Gretel trail and lead them back the way they had come in. But the earth was slippy with rain and anything that might have been visible once had been washed away. One leaden foot in front of the other, progress was painfully slow. Carly could hear the laboured breathing of Leah and Marie. Fleetingly she wondered whether they should have waited until morning. At least in the ballroom they’d been dry but they’d had nothing to eat or drink and Carly knew they’d have less energy than they did right now.
The weather was vile, fog swirling around them. Carly imagined they looked like three small ghosts wandering around the base, and again she thought of the tales of dead soldiers. She held the girls’ hands a little tighter.
‘Look, there’s a bigger building.’ Carly urged the girls forward. ‘Perhaps it’s…’ Her stomach plummeted to her feet as she took in the wonky NORCROFT ARMY CAMP sign. They’d walked around in a circle.
‘Girls!’ All three of them froze as Moustache’s voice sliced through the storm. ‘Come out, come out, wherever you are,’ he sang.
Lightning flashed. Leah screamed. She’d always been scared of storms. Carly clapped her hand over her sister’s mouth.
‘Over there!’ Doc shouted.
‘Run,’ Carly growled. She shoved Leah between her shoulder blades before grabbing Marie by the wrist, forcing her feet to move. ‘Run!’
They tore through the long grass that snatched at their socks and their skirts until the blades thinned and they were slip-sliding across mud. Thunder rumbled as mutinous black clouds sucked the light from the day. Mist swirled around their rain-soaked bodies. The smell of damp earth invaded Carly’s nostrils.
‘Oh, girls!’ Despite their sprint, the voice didn’t sound any further away. If anything it was nearer.
They ran again. The buildings were scarcer, looming out of the fog as though ready to snatch at the girls, but Carly led her sisters around them. They needed to find the fence. Climb it if they couldn’t locate the gate. Once they’d reached the road she would flag down a car. Someone would stop and help, ring their parents. Her longing for her mum and stepdad was painful.
She stole a glance over her shoulder. Two yellow lights trained on the ground bobbed behind them. Her spirits dampened as she realized Moustache and Doc were following the imprints of their shoes in the mud.
‘Faster,’ she urged Leah and Marie but they were tired, their short legs unable to put enough distance between them and their hunters.
Abandoning her search for the fence, she ushered her sisters over to the nearest building. They had to find somewhere to hide until the rain stopped and the ground dried.
‘Inside.’ She shoved them forwards. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
Ignoring Leah’s soft cries and Marie’s protest that they had to stay together, Carly dashed forward, all the while seeking out the torchlight, gauging how much time she had before they were found. When she couldn’t risk going any further she dropped to her knees and wrenched off her school shoes, stuffing her hands inside of them. She ran the flat soles over the squidgy mud, obliterating their earlier footprints. Inching backwards, the cold rain streaming into her eyes, blowing into her mouth, she pressed her shoes down as hard as she could, over and over as the torchlight grew nearer and nearer. They were dangerously close now. If it weren’t for the fog they’d be able to see her.
‘Come out, come out, wherever you are,’ came the cry again but this time the voice wasn’t travelling. Doc and Moustache had reached the end of the footprint trail and Carly could sense their confusion.
‘Split up.’ One light went in the wrong direction, the other headed straight towards her.
Carly’s chest tightened with fear. Frantically she swept her arm back and forth, all the while retreating. She couldn’t leave any footprints, she just couldn’t.
She could hear the sound of boots now, squelching through the mud. He was almost upon her. Certain she’d be seen she held her breath as she sidled backwards again.
Behind her, pressing against her socked feet, a wall. She’d reached the building. Keeping low, she scrambled inside.
Safe for now, but for how long?
Arms wrapped around her, her sisters’ small bodies trembling with fear, as Carly stood, her eyes straining to adjust to their surroundings. With the small amount of moonlight trickling through the patchy roof, she could just make out a rusting sign: DANGER. RISK OF CONTAMINATION.
Darkness loomed ahead but she couldn’t risk staying in the doorway. In the absence of footsteps she knew the men would soon turn their attention to the buildings and this was the closest one.
Suddenly lightning flashed again, briefly illuminating the twins. Before Leah could scream Carly dropped her shoes and pressed her hand over Leah’s mouth.
‘It’s okay. Count and see how far away the thunder is,’ she whispered. It’s what her mum would have said.
‘One. Two. Three.’
Thunder boomed and as it faded another noise took its place.
Whistling.
And the calmness, the ordinariness of that sound was the most frightening thing Carly had ever heard. Swiftly she located the twins’ hands and pulled them forward to the next room.
Hide.
They had to hide. In the eerie light she hurriedly took in their surroundings. On the wall were two metal doors. One said SHOES the other CLOTHES. Above them somebody had spray-painted, Abandon hope all ye who enter here. Carly shuddered as she realized they were in the Gas Decontamination Chamber she’d learned about. There was nothing else in the room. Nothing to take shelter behind.
‘Quick,’ Carly whispered, moving on.
The next room was full of showers. She remembered seeing this in Mr Webster’s photos but then they had curtains over the cubicles. Now they were empty, pipes ripped from walls. Mounds of debris clogging the drains. Carly backed up against a wall, felt slime coat the backs of her legs.
‘Here!’ came a shout. ‘I’ve found some shoes.’
Carly cursed herself as she ushered the girls through a doorway into another empty room. Where could they hide? Her panic rose as they crossed a corridor. Here the roof was whole. The blackness was absolute. Carly released the girls and fumbled against the walls until she found a doorway.
‘Quickly.’
They fell into the room, a slash of sky visible above their heads. On first glance in the dim moonlight this room appeared empty too but then Carly spotted a flat metal trolley on its side. She darted forward but as she crouched behind it she realized there wasn’t space for them all. Her eyes slid around the room, resting on rows of lockers on the walls – some were gaping black holes where their doors had been wrenched off, but some were intact.
‘In there.’ Carly shoved Leah inside.
‘Please don’t shut me in here, Carly. I’m so scared of the dark. Please…’
Carly ignored her sister’s whimpers and closed the door.
Footsteps grew closer.
‘Your turn.’ Carly lifted Marie to a locker with a door and when satisfied she was hidden she searched for another intact one she
could hide inside.
It was high.
Too high. Carly couldn’t reach.
The footsteps echoed in the corridor they had just crossed.
Carly’s hands stretched above her head as her socked feet scrambled for purchase. Her arms were on fire as she attempted to hoist herself up, before plummeting back to the ground.
‘Oh, girls.’
Almost whimpering, certain she’d be discovered, she tried again and this time she gained enough thrust to launch herself forward, until she was inside the locker. Carly was poised to curl herself into a ball but instead found there was a depth to the space that hadn’t been evident from the outside. She rolled onto her side and found she could stretch out her legs.
It dawned on her then that these weren’t lockers for possessions at all. They were built to house bodies.
They were in the morgue.
She could smell it then. Death. Despair. She thought of the things Nicola Morgan’s brother had boasted he had seen. The spirits of limbless soldiers. Bloodied officers. She imagined them laying where she now lay.
Abandon hope all ye who enter here.
The blackness settled over her, choking her. Carly’s heart beat loudly out of her chest. So loud she was sure it would draw the men to them like a beacon.
Footsteps.
Carly clamped her hand over her mouth to trap the whimper that threatened to escape.
‘Three blind mice, three blind mice,’ Moustache sang. ‘See how they run.’
The nursery rhyme turned her blood to ice.
But even more chilling was what came next.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Leah
Now
My bones are ice. Eyes frantically searching for the flicker of Archie’s red coat as I scream his name. My brain trying to make sense of what is going on.
But I know.
He has been taken.
Just as Marie, Carly and I were snatched all those years ago.
Just like Marie has been again. I knew he had got to her and now he’s got to Archie and… Oh God. I don’t know where to look first. There are too many bushes obscuring my view. Trees looming ominously. He must have been hiding. Watching Archie and me. Waiting for the opportunity to make his move.
I have to call the police. George. I unlock my mobile but it slips through my fumbling fingers and drops to the ground. Sobs escape me as I pick it up.
Hurry.
‘Are you okay, dear?’ the lady with the terrier asks, tentatively placing her hand on my arm.
‘My son. He’s gone. He’s…’
‘Isn’t that him just there?’ She nods her head to my left. I turn.
Archie!
My heart sings. I am giddy with relief.
‘It’s such a worry when they’re that age and they run off.’ The old lady’s voice fades to nothing as I see what Archie is carrying in his arms and I know he didn’t run off at all. He was lured.
‘Where did you get that?’ I snatch the bear from his arms. The teddy’s arms are outstretched. A red knitted jumper rides up over his rounded belly.
It’s the same.
The trees around me sway.
It’s exactly the same teddy.
‘I found it behind the bush over there. Can I keep him?’ Archie pleads.
‘I think another little boy or girl has dropped him and they’ll probably be missing him,’ the old lady says. Why can’t she just shut up? Go away. Give me space to think. I know another child hasn’t dropped this bear. I know that from the gold cross that is looped around his neck.
My bear.
My cross.
My nightmare all over again.
I throw the bear as hard as I can and we watch as it somersaults through the air before sprawling onto the soft earth.
‘Mummy?’ Archie is scared. Scared of me. I want to tell him that I’m not the one he should be afraid of but instead I scoop him onto my hip. Automatically he winds his arms around my neck.
I have to get him home. Just because he wasn’t taken this time, doesn’t mean he won’t be.
That I won’t be.
That Marie hasn’t been.
Run.
My feet crunch against leaves. I weave in and out of trees, seeing shadows everywhere. Sensing eyes on me. There are too many places to hide. Panic builds and builds, my heart bursting out of my rib cage, legs pumping of their own volition. If I stop I’ll fall. But I’m not stopping.
Run.
The playground is almost deserted now, the mums have taken hungry toddlers home for their lunch. In my peripheral vision I see something dart towards me. I spin around, pressing Archie’s face into my shoulder, shielding the back of his head with my palm but it’s only a Labrador bounding towards me, tail wagging, tongue lolling. In my mind he morphs into Bruno.
Run.
The gates loom. I sprint through them. I should feel safer on the pavement with the traffic and the pedestrians and the row of houses with their neat front gardens, bottle-green lawns and white picket fences, but I don’t.
A black car approaches. I try to shrink Archie and keep him hidden. It doesn’t slow as it reaches us, the driver doesn’t glance our way.
I’m tiring.
My arms burn in their sockets from the weight of Archie. My hip throbs where he balances on the bone. My legs are growing weaker.
Another black car.
Another.
Run.
Eventually my street. My house. I am thundering down my driveway, keys already in my hand.
Safe.
For now.
Archie is sleeping. His eyelids keep fluttering closed as I tucked him in bed for his afternoon nap, before snapping open.
‘Why couldn’t I keep the bear, Mummy?’
‘Because it belonged to someone else.’
Now I wish I’d brought it home. Examined it properly to see if it was mine.
I sit on the landing outside his bedroom – a lioness guarding her cub – and take deep breaths before I can start on the phone calls I need to make.
‘Mum?’ I say as soon as she answers. ‘What happened to our things from… you know. Our clothes. The jewellery we were wearing. Do you have them?’
‘No. They were taken for evidence and I didn’t want them back.’
I cut the call and ring Graham.
‘Leah.’ He sounds tired.
‘Is the evidence still being held?’ I blurt out before Graham starts with his small talk. ‘My cross that was found afterwards, the—’
‘Not after all this time. No. I think your personal effects went back to your mum.’
‘She says they didn’t.’ But then, even if she didn’t want anything to do with our book, she might have sold our possessions to the true-crime fans when she was short of money after the divorce.
‘What’s this about?’
‘He’s… he’s doing things.’
‘Like what?’
I hesitate.
‘Off the record, Leah.’
I recount everything that’s been happening. He won’t tell anyone, I know. He must have been approached a thousand times from journalists wanting an exclusive from the officer in charge of the case, and he’s never once talked. ‘I’m so scared, not just for me but… Marie.’ My voice cracks. ‘Just because she’s taken off before doesn’t mean she has again. Can you help me?’ I ask when I’ve finished.
‘I would if I could, but—’
‘No crime has been committed,’ I finish his sentence for him.
‘No.’
‘Can you at least tell me where he is living?’
‘You know I can’t tell you that, Leah. Look, last time you thought he was after you, he wasn’t. I know you’ll never forget what happened but he has no reason to come after you now, does he?’
‘Revenge?’
‘For what?’
‘For getting caught and spending years in prison.’
‘Possibly but it doesn’t feel right.’
&n
bsp; ‘There’s something else.’ Something I’ve never told anyone. ‘Off the record?’ I check.
I hear the flint of his lighter spark. ‘Okay.’
‘After he was released for what he did to us I… I was a mess. You remember? I thought I saw him everywhere.’
‘But it was your illness.’
‘Fregoli, yes, but after that had come to light and the police knew not to take any sightings that I reported seriously… he… he did approach me.’
‘You could have still—’
‘I couldn’t. I was so close to being sectioned, Graham. I knew that no one would believe me.’
‘I would have believed you, Leah.’ He sounds disappointed in me. ‘Did he threaten you?’
Briefly I think about lying, but Graham has shown faith in me, and I have to put the same trust in him. ‘He didn’t… he didn’t threaten me, or try and hurt me. He… he tried to apologize. I freaked out. I couldn’t cope with the thought that he might keep trying to contact me. No one would have taken me seriously if I had told them. I… I was desperate, Graham. Desperate and angry… and scared.’
‘What did you do, Leah?’ His voice has hardened. He already knows.
‘I don’t want to go into who or how – I won’t implicate anyone – but… I paid someone to frame him. I just wanted him back behind bars. I wanted to feel safe.’
‘Don’t. Don’t tell me things like that. I might be retired but morally—’
‘Morally? He doesn’t have any morals.’
‘Two wrongs don’t make a right. Did you think about the implications? Other people getting hurt?’
‘Yes. I was clear no one was to get hurt. I only had a few thousand pounds. It’s not like—’
‘Don’t try to justify this. What you’ve done is a serious crime. You could go to prison.’
‘I know that but I couldn’t bear the thought of him out there. Couldn’t just sit around, waiting for him to do… something.’
‘I can’t condone—’
‘I don’t expect you to. Are you going to report me?’
I wait. Listen to Graham drawing on his cigarette.
‘I don’t want us to speak of this again,’ he says eventually.
The Stolen Sisters: from the bestselling author of The Date and The Sister comes one of the most thrilling, terrifying and shocking psychological thrillers of 2020 Page 17