One For Sorrow

by Sarah A. Denzil

  “It’s okay,” I say. It’s hard to focus on anything, but now that I know it’s real, I feel more able to speak. “I don’t know what time it was. I woke up in the middle of the night and came straight downstairs. I would have checked the time, but I was frightened. I could tell something was wrong, but I wasn’t sure what it was. When I came downstairs, I realised that the door was open. Someone broke in. Then I saw James and… Well, I lost it. I’ve had a psychotic break recently and have suffered some hallucinations, as you know.”

  “Did you touch the remains?”

  “No.”

  “Okay,” he says. “And did you see anything else? Did you see a person outside the house? Or inside the house? Think carefully. It could be nothing more than a fleeting shadow.”

  PC Abbott presses a hot mug into my hands. “There was no one here. I went down the stairs slowly, so if it was Isabel, she had time to leave before I reached the kitchen.”

  “Can you explain why there’s a knife on the kitchen floor?”

  “I took it out of the knife block to defend myself when the light was off. When I turned the light on and saw… James… I dropped it.”

  “Thanks, Leah. We’ll let the paramedics see you now.”

  “Catch her,” I plead.

  “We’re searching the area. We’re bringing in dogs. If she’s here, we’ll find her.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I lean against the cold window of the car as rain splashes down on the windshield. It’s three days since James Gorden’s severed head was found on my doorstep, and I’m returning home for the first time. After the shock of finding him, I decided it was best to voluntarily check myself into Oakton Hospital, but they felt that I was fit to come home already. After two long sessions with Dr Ibbotson, he told me that my reaction had been normal, and I was doing well given the trauma I’d been through.

  Mary and Gavin offered me a spare bedroom after the event, but I can’t bring this to them, not when Tom is with them. If anything happened to him I could never forgive myself. Since I don’t know where Isabel is and what she might do next, I told Mary and Gavin to take Tom away for a few days. And rather than move into the Braithwaites’ farmhouse, Seb has agreed to stay in Tom’s room until they catch Isabel, whenever that might be. I’m beginning to think she’ll outwit us all.

  There have been no sightings of her in Hutton or any of the surrounding areas. The lack of CCTV cameras out in the middle of nowhere hasn’t helped much, but the police did find tyre tracks on the road before the turning to the farm. A car was parked there, and it’s believed that Isabel walked the head up to the cottage to place on my doorstep. She walked the ten minutes it takes to get here, carrying a human head. I can’t even begin to imagine the darkness it takes to do that.

  Why didn’t I see that darkness? I spent hours with her every working day, and I saw nothing but a remorseful young woman who was not capable of murder.

  Patients can’t hide their true selves for such a long period of time. It’s impossible. At least I thought it was until I met Isabel Fielding. She played me from the very beginning, using her talent as an artist to trick me into believing she possessed empathy. Then she studied me, got to know me, slimmed herself down to resemble me, all so she could walk out of Crowmont Hospital without a single person stopping her. She hurt herself on purpose so I would volunteer myself for suicide watch. She waited for the perfect moment to put her plan into motion. She knew Chi had been busy with new patients, and she knew the night security guards didn’t know me as well as the day security guards.

  If only I could remember what happened in that room. Did I help her voluntarily? Was I stupid enough to still believe that she was innocent?

  James Gorden is dead because of me. The lone question remains whether I was forced to let Isabel go, or whether I did it voluntarily. As far as I’m concerned, one of those options makes me a murderer, and I’m not sure I can live with myself if it turns out to be true.

  The rest of James’s body hasn’t been found, despite the police bringing in cadaver dogs to search the area. What if she sends me another part of his body next? A foot. A hand. Worse. There are times I’m so sure I can smell his decomposing flesh that I believe the head is with me again.

  Even Pye the cat seems somewhat subdued as Seb carries my bags up the garden path. He sticks to the bushes, growling softly, rather than running and pouncing on our feet as we make our way to the kitchen door. I could do with the distraction of a feral cat, because I don’t particularly want to look at the spot where I found James staring at me. Then again, the image is burned into my mind, so what does it matter? Every time I close my eyes I see the head, with every pore, every drop of blood, every magpie feather in perfect detail. I wish I could remember my mother’s face in such detail.

  “Are you okay?” Seb is standing on the spot where James’s head had been placed a few nights ago. He has one hand on the door handle and the other around the handle of my bag.

  “I’m okay,” I reply, hugging my body for warmth.

  “I’ll light a fire for you.”

  Following him into the kitchen is easier than I thought it would be. Placing my foot on that step was a moment I’d been dreading, but in reality it lasts a mere second and then it’s over.

  Seb turns on the central heating, lights the tiny log fire in the living room, and then sets to work changing the locks on the kitchen door. Meanwhile, I walk through the house touching nothing, simply observing. Home has never been a familiar concept to me. My childhood house never truly felt like home because it was the place where my abuser lived. The string of dingy bedsits I lived in after leaving my parents’ house never felt like home either. When you’re sharing a room with two drug addicts and an illegal immigrant, it’s hard to think of the place as a home. I felt more at home with the other nurses on my course, and then later in a shared house with friends. But they moved on, switched jobs, and left me stranded.

  Tom is home to me. This is our home, that we made, together. Our home has been violated by Isabel because I let her in. Not into the house, but into my life, into me. I’d wanted to help her, and she twisted that gesture into ugliness. The last few months have been confusing and disorientating, clouded by my grief and insecurity, but for the first time in a while I feel like I’m strong enough to get through this. Now that I understand where my home is, I’m prepared to fight to keep it.

  I take blankets and spare duvets out of an old wardrobe and strip Tom’s bed, preparing it for Seb. Then I go downstairs and prepare a chicken Seb brought up from the farm shop. The kitchen is filled with the sound of Seb’s drill. My father had always been handy with DIY work, which means the sounds of drills and hammers leave me feeling a strange sense of uneasy comfort, reminding me of the good and the downright awful memories of my father. But now isn’t the time to dwell on those. I flick on the radio and hum along to a song I like while the potatoes bubble away on the stove.

  Seb cleans up after he’s done. He’s silent most of the time, moving clumsily through the house, a little unsure of himself. His head is almost always looking at the floor, occasionally lifting to meet my eyes.

  “Dinner will be ready in fifteen,” I call through to the living room as he’s taking his tool box away.

  There’s a brief pause in his step before I hear him moving again. I’ve come to love his reticence because the silence soothes me.

  Exactly fifteen minutes later, Seb is back with clean hands and combed hair. He smiles when I place a plate of roast chicken down on the table, and then waits patiently as I finish sorting my own.

  “I would offer wine, but I don’t actually have any in the house,” I admit sheepishly.

  “Water’s fine.”

  “The bird you brought is tasty. Is it one from the shop?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” I’m hungry. The mashed potato is a bit lumpy but I hardly notice as I take large forkfuls at a time. Seb does the same, leaning over his food like a protective
puppy.

  “What does your family think of you staying here?” I ask. It’s a subject we haven’t dared to broach before. Though I see the others around the farm, I have no idea what they make of Seb giving me so much attention.

  “It’s none of their business,” he says.

  “They own a stake in the farm, though,” I point out. “And here I am riding on your hospitality. You practically let me live here for free. I wish there was more I could do but—”

  He calmly places his hand on top of mine. “That’s for me to worry about.”

  It’s been a long time since a man laid his hand on top of mine, and my face flushes with heat. Good heat. A good touch. I want more, but I know it’s too soon for that.

  “In case I haven’t said it before: Thank you. And I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve brought here with Isabel and the… James’s… Well, you know.” It feels absurd to think the words “severed head” but somehow that has become my reality now.

  “You’re welcome.” He stares back down at his food.

  “There’s… there’s something I want to tell you.” Somehow, the tasty roast chicken has lost its appeal, and instead of taking large forkfuls of food, I end up moving it gingerly around my plate.

  Seb, sensing a change in the atmosphere, lifts his gaze from his meal.

  “I feel like I need to tell someone, because I’ve never told anyone before,” I admit. Now I put the fork down because there’s no point in me eating anymore. “But I feel like if I say it, I’ll feel better.”

  “What is it?” There’s a note of urgency in Seb’s voice. He’s worried for me.

  “It’s not about Isabel or anything like that. I still can’t remember what happened the night she escaped, and you know everything else. You’ve been there for everything else, through it all with me. It’s about my past. When I had… my breakdown, I convinced myself that my father had died. As you know, he committed a terrible crime before we moved here. He killed my mum with a knife. Something snapped, and I couldn’t process it.” I take a sip of water. “He was arrested and convicted of murder with diminished responsibility because… well, because he’s crazy. He’s in Broadmoor now.”

  Seb places his fork down on the table. “I… I’m sorry.” For the first time he seems completely surprised. His usual plaintive expression is replaced by a furrowed brow.

  “The reason why I couldn’t cope with it all is because of my childhood. It wasn’t a happy one. It was violent and horrible.” I can’t look at him anymore. I can only grip the kitchen table instead. “What I’m trying to tell you is that Tom is my son.”

  “Okay.”

  I look up. Seb’s eyes are trained on me, a question across his face. Has he realised?

  “He’s my son and my brother. I was thirteen.”

  It’s miniscule, but it’s there—a ripple of anger spreads across his face, working its way from his clenched jaw to his throbbing temple. He takes a moment, a still, extended moment, and then he lets out a long sigh.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  “It’s okay. I just wanted to say it out loud.”

  “And now you have.”

  “Now I have.”

  This time, I reach across for his hand.

  Chapter Thirty

  It’s easy to fall into a routine when you have someone to fall into it with. We eat breakfast together before the sun rises. I fall into step with his early mornings and nights. I drink tea in the kitchen as the sun rises, and then go to the farm shop where I serve tourists and locals. At the end of the day, I call Tom to check he’s safe, watch logs burn in the fire, and discover more about Seb.

  He likes to read more than he likes to watch movies or TV. His favourites are pulpy science fiction novels from the sixties and seventies, because they’re short and he doesn’t like to sit still for long periods of time. He smells like cow dung at the end of the working day, but his shower gel has a pleasant earthy scent. He always dresses nicely for dinner, and he washes up the dirty plates at the end of the day. He likes his tea milky and his coffee strong. His favourite biscuits are stem ginger and lemon from the farm shop. He knows how to make chicken stock by boiling the bones.

  And he knows that I gave birth to my father’s child when I was thirteen.

  I dropped that bomb on him and nothing changed between us. It’s a small step, but it makes me begin to believe that one day I can tell Tom without breaking our relationship.

  I’m getting stronger every day, even though I know Isabel is out there waiting. It won’t be long until we meet again, I know that, but at least I’m becoming strong enough to face her.

  It’s six pm, and I’m warming soup on the stove for our dinner together. Seb is in the shower washing away the muck of the day. When the landline rings, I hurry into the living room to pick it up from the handset, my mind rushing through different possibilities. Tom would call my mobile phone; Mary or Gavin might call the landline, which would mean Tom is in danger; or it could be DCI Murphy.

  “Hello?”

  “Leah, this is DCI Rob Murphy. I’m calling to tell you that we’ve made an arrest in connection to James Gorden’s murder.”

  The relief is so quick and so sudden that I melt down onto the sofa, still clutching a wooden spoon. “You found her.”

  “No,” he says. “We didn’t. Leah, Isabel didn’t kill James Gorden. Owen Fielding did.”

  “What?”

  “We found his fingerprints all over the door handle on your kitchen door and three of his hairs on James Gorden’s head. We found his footprints in your garden.”

  “What?”

  The wooden spoon falls onto the carpet, splashing me with tiny droplets of vegetable soup.

  “That’s as much as I can tell you right now,” the detective says. “The media will be all over this.” He sounds tired. “Keep in touch, Leah, okay? If you hear anything else at night or see anything suspicious, contact me right away.”

  “Okay, I will.”

  Seb walks into the room as I’m placing the phone back onto the handset. He must see the pallor of my face and the spoon on the floor, because he hurries to my side and places a hand on my knee, crouching down so he’s at my level.

  “What’s happened?”

  “They’ve arrested Owen Fielding for the murder of James Gorden,” I say. “He’s the one who did it. His fingerprints were on the kitchen door. He walked here with the head, and he put it on the doorstep.” Numbness spreads through me. I disconnect from the words coming out of my mouth, still in a state of disbelief. “It’s so… strange. The way the head was arranged with the bird… I just assumed it was Isabel.”

  “Owen is Isabel’s brother?”

  I nod my head. “He visited her at the hospital quite frequently, and I think they used to speak on the phone. They always seemed quite close. He knows all about Isabel’s love of birds because she used to draw him pictures whenever he came. The first time I saw him visit, she drew him a magpie and he chastised her because magpies are manipulators. Maybe she was trying to tell me something.”

  “Or maybe she just liked the way magpies looked. It’ll do no good obsessing over this.”

  But I already am. I’m thinking back to that bizarre night at the Fieldings’ home, with Owen hungover around the house, talking to his housekeeper like she was a piece of dirt. He’d always seemed like an entitled shit, but was he also a murderer? Perhaps Owen was sick of being overshadowed by his sister. Maybe he wanted some of the spotlight.

  I turn on the television and flick across to the news channel.

  “They’re reporting on it already,” I say, turning up the volume.

  “…hearing reports that Owen Fielding has been arrested for the murder of James Gorden, a blogger known for writing opinion pieces on the Maisie Earnshaw murder. James’s severed head was placed on the doorstep of the nurse who freed Isabel Fielding three months ago. Unfortunately, the rest of his body has not been discovered. It’s thought that Owen Fielding has not only co
nfessed to killing James Gorden, but also to killing Maisie Earnshaw seven years ago, exonerating his older sister, Isabel Fielding. We will be hearing more about this case when the updates come in.”

  “What?” The enormity of the situation comes crashing down on me. “It wasn’t Isabel?”

  “It wasn’t Isabel,” Seb says softly.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” I whisper. This changes everything. I take a deep breath, trying to process what is happening. “I spent so long wondering how I could have got everything so wrong. If Isabel was guilty, why did I have such a connection with her? Why did I like her? How could I have come to care about a person who could murder another human being for fun? I know this doesn’t make everything right, but it means I wasn’t completely crazy. Doesn’t it?”

  “I don’t know what it means,” Seb replies. “But if you’re safer than you were yesterday, that’s a good result in my mind.” He pulls me into his arms, and we sit together watching the news reports come in. By the time either of us move, the soup is burned dry and the fire has died. Seb goes over to check his phone.

  “I’m sorry to do this to you, but I have to go to the farm.” He stares down at the phone with a frown on his face.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “It’s fine, but George found some injured cows out on the top field. Looks like they got tangled in wire. We were missing a few after milking today, and I left him as he was going to investigate. The emergency vet arrived a few minutes ago.” His head turns up to meet my gaze. “But I can stay here if you need me.”

  I can tell by the worried expression on his face that he’s torn between doing his job and being my knight in shining armour. But I feel stronger than I have in months. I don’t need the knight.

  “You go. Stay there tonight and keep things calm. Sounds like they need you there.”

  He nods. “Only if you’re sure.”