Swimming in the Shadows

by Diane Janes

  ‘I’ve got things to do,’ he said abruptly. ‘You’d better go into the fore cabin.’

  ‘Alan,’ I began. ‘Alan, I don’t understand why you won’t let me go. Even if you don’t want me to go to the police …’

  I stopped short as he took hold of my arm, ready to drag me to my feet and propel me into the fore cabin.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said quickly, in what I hoped was a voice of calm reassurance. ‘You don’t have to pull me about. I’ll go through into the other cabin.’

  He removed his hand and I stood up slowly, careful to avoid any sudden moves which might rattle him, wriggled out from beside the table, opened the door and stepped into the fore cabin. He immediately shut the door behind me and I heard a noise, suggestive of a heavy object being dumped at the door’s base. The door opened outwards into the main cabin and as there was no lock, I assumed that he must have put something there to obstruct my exit.

  I found myself standing in a triangle of space between two berths which curved inwards to meet each other, following the lines of the boat so that tall people sleeping in them would have had to share their foot space. Now I was alone, I tried to think more clearly. Yelling for help I dismissed immediately, on the basis that there was little prospect of anyone hearing me – besides which, a yell would bring Alan crashing through from the main cabin long before it had the desired effect on any potential rescuers. Signalling from the cabin window was similarly a non-starter as there was no one to signal to.

  Just then I heard the faint groan of the water pump. Damn, damn, damn! He had put me in the fore cabin while he used the loo. Why hadn’t I anticipated that? I might just have managed to push my way past whatever he had put on the other side of the door and got up on to the deck before he realized what was happening. He couldn’t have blocked the way with much more than a kitbag – none of the furniture was moveable. If I could only manage to make it off the boat, I could dash along the staithe and maybe get to the pub or the shop – some public place where help was on hand. Too late now, of course. I flopped down on the berth facing the bank, silently cursing myself for a slow-witted idiot.

  The cabin windows were all the kind which have sliding top sections, not opening far enough to admit a cat, never mind facilitate the escape of a grown woman – not even a fairly small version like me. Time passed as I sat wondering if another opportunity would come my way, all the time listening for any movements on the other side of the door, but whatever sounds Alan made, they were overlaid by the incessant chatter of the television. Then I spotted the skylight. Not a skylight, I thought, but a hatch – that’s what an opening in the deck of a boat was called. It was in the centre of the cabin roof, a small square aperture, covered by a wooden hatch secured with two small metal bolts. It was obviously there for ventilation rather than as a means of entry, because it was positioned above the point where the two bunks merged into one, and was clearly not big enough for a grown man to fit through. It would be big enough for a child, however, and just possibly for a small woman. It was surely worth a try.

  Stop. Wait. Think it through. Don’t rush at it. Don’t mess it up and waste the chance. The first thing was to move into position carefully, not making any sudden movements which might literally rock the boat and lead to Alan getting curious about what I was doing. I needed to position myself directly under the opening, keeping my weight as central as possible while I undid the bolts, lifted the hatch, then levered myself up and squeezed through the gap. Once out on the cabin roof, my best plan would be speed; a flying leap on to the bank and then run like hell along the staithe to summon help. Alan having my car keys didn’t matter. It was getting some back-up that counted.

  In slow motion I inched along the bunk until I ran out of floor space. Then I gradually turned, moving like a run-down clockwork toy as I swivelled myself into a kneeling position at the point where the two berths became one. Here I steadied myself before reaching up to pull very gently at the bolt on the left-hand side. Nothing happened. It probably wasn’t opened very often, maybe not since the previous summer. I tried wriggling the little knob on the end of the bolt, praying that it would not betray me with a sudden squeak, but it appeared to be stuck fast.

  It was surprisingly difficult to work with my arms above my head. I brought my arms back down to chest level and massaged them in turn until I had restored the circulation, then I tried the bolt on the right side of the hatch. After a brief initial display of reluctance it yielded quietly, sliding free with a minimum of fuss. I tried an exploratory upward push and the hatch moved a few millimetres skyward before its progress was arrested by the other bolt. The small movement sent a gratifying puff of fresh air down on to my face.

  Encouraged, I renewed my efforts on the other bolt.

  ‘Please,’ I said, silently. ‘Oh, come on. Please.’

  The boat lurched suddenly – not by much, but enough to throw me off balance for a second. Someone getting on board? Alan getting off? Whatever it was, it would provide a distraction from any noise the bolt might make. I took firm hold of the recalcitrant knob and hauled at it ferociously. It gave a jerk, leaving the bolt half in, half out.

  Simultaneously, I saw Alan’s feet passing the window and felt the boat dip towards the bank as he stepped back on deck. He said something, but I didn’t catch it, and then there was the sound of some unmistakeably heavy object being placed on top of the hatch and his knuckles rapping, tap, tap-tap – a sarcastic little victory sign.

  The bolt finally gave. I pushed again but it was useless. The hatch was rigidly held in place by some dead weight. I felt like bursting into tears, my frustration compounded by the realization that Alan had again left the way momentarily clear for me to try a dash through the cabin and I had again been too slow to realize and take my chance. I returned to my former position on the bunk, sunk in misery. Then I fell to reflecting on his timely interception of my escape. Had it been mere chance, or was he spying on me? I couldn’t see how else he could have known what I was up to and the thought of an eye pressed to some hole in the bulkhead made me cringe. I hugged my arms around myself as if the little fore cabin had turned into a deep freezer.

  With my watch still lying in the motel bathroom, I had no means of knowing what time it was. I wondered how long Alan proposed to keep me penned up in his boat and, more to the point, what his motive was for doing so. I tried to suppress a growing desire to use the toilet. It would be too humiliating to knock on the door and ask to use the lavatory, like a child seeking permission during class.

  After what seemed like an interminable length of time, the distinctive thrum of an engine put me on alert. I knelt up on the bunk and watched through the windows as a huge orange and white cruiser came into view. There were several people moving about on her and I waited hopefully while the steersman worked his craft into a better position from which to effect the tight turn in from the dyke. I used the time to think of something which would be recognizable as an obvious yet silent distress signal; something which the incoming party would not mistake for the friendly waving which tends to go on between boats on the Broads.

  It took them an age to manoeuvre the craft so that she was pointing up ready to enter the dyke. The steersman was standing in a sort of mini-greenhouse amidships, concentrating all his attention on not ramming the bank or the moored yachts. The rest of his crew were all looking ahead, working out which spot would be most favourable for mooring their huge charge. None of them ever looked directly at the small, shabby cruiser moored at the mouth of the dyke. The monster nosed slowly past, actually jostling one of our fenders, but no curious face looked out of their cabin windows and into mine. The orange stern slid out of sight and after a minute or two, the engine was silenced. I watched hopefully for some time after that, but there was no further sign of the newcomers.

  I fell to wondering again about Alan’s state of mind. Whatever happens, I told myself repeatedly, I must stay calm. Calm is infectious – I had heard that said once, at a t
raining session during a workshop about dealing with patients in stressful situations, but it seemed fair to assume that it held good for potential madmen as well.

  From beyond the cabin door I heard the distinctive theme tune of Neighbours. I wondered idly why Alan didn’t turn the television off. Perhaps it masked the sound of what he was doing – whatever that might be.

  Just as I heard the sound of another boat approaching, he finally opened the door. Perhaps the possibilities presented by these passing craft had occurred to him too. There is always an upsurge of activity at the staithes around teatime as people start looking for places to tie up for the night.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, holding the door open.

  I obediently moved forward into the main cabin.

  ‘There’s more tea,’ he said, ‘and I’ve cut some sandwiches.’

  Sure enough there was a little picnic laid out on the table. Sandwiches neatly cut into triangles, a small pork pie cut into quarters, and a plate on which half-a-dozen Jaffa Cakes had been arranged in a circle, each slightly overlapping its adjoining fellows.

  ‘I need to go to the toilet,’ I announced, not looking directly at him.

  He stepped back towards the rear of the cabin, making room for me to access the toilet while taking care to keep himself between me and the exit into the cockpit.

  Toilets on boats are always nasty in my opinion and this one smelt nastier than most. It was also horrible to think that Alan could hear me. If there was any contradiction in my embarrassment, bearing in mind that I had spent years of marital intimacy with Alan, it did not occur to me just then. I washed my hands, noticing how slowly the scummy water drained from the sink, so that it was only half gone when I emerged back into the main cabin, where Alan motioned me to sit down and we took up the positions we had occupied earlier.

  I sipped my tea and tried to eat a sandwich. It seemed dangerously churlish to reject these peculiar notions of hospitality. Given a choice I would have preferred a Jaffa Cake, but even in these curious circumstances, the bad-mannered rejection of my host’s sandwiches, the eating of cake before consumption of savouries was prohibited by the good manners drilled into me so long ago.

  ‘Yorkshire,’ said Alan, helping himself to a wedge of pork pie. ‘Whereabouts in Yorkshire?’

  ‘You don’t need to know,’ I said. ‘Better not to, really. Best to go our own separate ways.’

  He finished his mouthful of pork pie and took another bite.

  ‘Why don’t you give me my car keys and let me go?’ I asked, aiming to hit a note approximating calmly reasonable rather than panic-stricken pleading. ‘I won’t tell anyone you’re here. I won’t mention it to a soul. No one knows who I am up in Yorkshire. Why don’t you just let me go? We can pretend this never happened.’

  I fervently hoped that my voice did not sound as frantic as I actually felt. It increasingly seemed to me that the act of imprisoning me in the fore cabin while preparing dainty sandwiches for my afternoon tea bore all the hallmarks of a maniac. Alan looked normal and rational enough, but these were not the acts of a rational man.

  ‘Dear Jenny,’ he said, speaking patiently, as does someone who must habitually deal with a retarded child. ‘I am afraid there is not the slightest question of my letting you go anywhere.’

  The short silence which followed this statement was broken by the strident notes of the introductory music which prefaced the six o’clock news. ‘This is the six o’clock news from the BBC …’

  It was the lead story. I could feel his eyes on me, watching me, as I in turn focused on the shot of the house we had once shared, while both of us intently followed the voice of the announcer: ‘Earlier this afternoon, police confirmed that they have found a second body in the Nicholsfield house of horror …’

  ‘A second body?’ I repeated the words in a daze of disbelief.

  ‘They found the first one this morning,’ he said. ‘They announced it on the midday news.’

  The sensations of shock and fear hit me physically, like someone flinging a bucket of icy water over my head. I was past reasoning with him, no longer ashamed to plead.

  ‘I honestly came here to try and help you, Alan,’ I said. ‘Please let me go. I’ll agree to anything you want, but I beg of you to let me go.’

  He silenced me with an angry gesture. It was apparent to me now why he kept the TV switched on. He wanted to hear the news and because I must at all costs avoid antagonizing him, this dangerous, murderous stranger to whom I had once belonged, I must sit quietly and was thereby forced to listen too.

  It seemed that having finally exhausted their efforts in the garden, the police had turned their attention to the cellar, where they found the bodies buried under some concrete slabs. Together with the body in the ditch, which was believed to be Jennifer Reynolds, that made three known victims. Among these grisly remains the police had found similarities which linked them to several other murders. They were actively seeking Alan. They showed a picture of him and the announcer gravely cautioned viewers against approaching him, as he ‘might be dangerous’.

  In the midst of my horror, terror and blind fear, I noted in a strangely detached way how the British media manages to generate unintentional humour. Might be dangerous. How many women does someone have to murder before a general consensus is reached that he is dangerous? Oh yes, and don’t approach him – as though someone spotting him in the street might amble up and say: ‘Got the time, mate? Oh … and aren’t you the chap who’s wanted for all those murders?’

  Don’t approach him – well, I thought, I had done better than approach him. I had driven the length of the country to meet him. Alan had always believed me stupid and at that precise moment I would have been fully prepared to agree with him. For a second or two I was all but moved to hysterical laughter. This train of thought inspired one last bluff. If Alan thought I was stupid, he might just buy it.

  ‘I always knew there was something scary about the cellar,’ I faltered. ‘Just think, those bodies must have been buried all the time we lived there, probably since the house was first built. It’s an awful coincidence but it will sort itself out.’

  He looked at me in a speculative yet contemptuous way.

  ‘When did you cut your hair?’ he asked.

  It came to me then, in another of those cold waves of horror, that they had all had long hair – Marie Glover, Antonia Bridgeman, every mug shot of every victim showed long hair. Just like those sad-eyed Victorian girls who had watched from the walls of Alan’s house as we climbed the stairs.

  ‘As soon as I left,’ I said.

  ‘Pity,’ he said.

  ‘Alan,’ I tried again. ‘You used to love me … please let me go. I promise …’

  ‘Promises, Jenny? What are promises? Didn’t you promise to honour and obey me when we got married? Is this how you honour and obey me? By running off without a word? Even today, when all I asked you to do was sit in the other cabin for a while, what do I find? You try to undo the hatch and creep out while I wasn’t looking. It doesn’t sound to me as if your promises are worth very much.’

  ‘I honestly never meant to do you any harm,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry I hurt you by running off the way I did …’ But now I know why. Now I know why I was afraid to confront you – because somewhere, deep down in my subconscious, I must have known that you were very, very dangerous …

  ‘Hurt me,’ he interrupted with a cold laugh. ‘My dear girl, don’t flatter yourself. Oh, I don’t say I didn’t miss having you around. You were always an interesting pawn on the chessboard; a very enjoyable piece of the game …’

  I gave an involuntary shiver of revulsion. A vision of Alan having me sit before the dressing-table mirror while he brushed my hair in the candlelight was suddenly transposed from something romantic into something vile.

  ‘… but I think it’s going a bit far to say that I was actually hurt,’ he continued. ‘If you want the truth, I was bloody scared. I had to report you missing, obviously, which
drew a lot of attention I could have done without. Then of course, there was the worry that they might actually find you before I did. I thought I knew why you’d gone off, you see, and for a while I thought there was a chance you would spill the beans. But then, of course, you didn’t, and as time went on I decided you weren’t going to. I had to put up with the police sniffing around a few times, but nothing to really worry about, until they found Donna.’

  ‘Donna?’ The name escaped my dry lips as barely a whisper, but he heard it.

  ‘The one in the ditch. The one with your necklace on. I liked to make use of the trinkets you left behind – it would have been such a pity to waste them. She was the same build, everything – obvious mistake, but it set them on the right track. Luckily I’d made a few preparations in advance. Didn’t even have to go back to the house.’

  I felt sick. My necklace, same build, everything.

  ‘Then when you got in touch, I assumed that you had known all along and decided it was time to pop back into the picture, to see if you could turn things to your advantage.’

  ‘I used to think it was my dad.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I used to think it was my dad – the Nicholsfield …’ I trailed off, unable to say the words.

  ‘Your dad!’ He was incredulous. ‘Your dad wasn’t capable of anything like that. He might have got his shoes dirty.’

  ‘I never knew,’ I said quietly. ‘I never even considered …’

  ‘Have a Jaffa Cake,’ he said, pushing the plate towards me.

  I covered my eyes with my hands and shook my head.

  Please God, I thought, if there really is a God then please get me out of this nightmare.

  Through my fingers I saw that he had begun to eat a Jaffa Cake as impassively as if it were the tea interval at a village cricket match, or the office coffee break on a very mundane working day.

  We continued to sit on opposite sides of the cabin table, mostly in silence. The remaining sandwiches began to curl at the edges; the flesh of the pork pie lost its sheen and became a dull, dried-up pink. Alan watched the television in a desultory sort of way, occasionally making uncomplimentary comments.