by Roz Watkins
I turned and caught her eye. She looked as confused by my reaction as I was by hers. She pushed her phone at me. A screen showed a page from a website – The National Animal Disease Information Service. I scanned the words. Kirsty was right. The advice was to leave the pigs to burn. The fire brigade’s primary responsibilities in dealing with a fire are the preservation of human life and protection of property by limiting spread of the fire. Animals are not a priority in such situations.
‘Well, that’s pretty chilling,’ I said.
‘The fire brigade are on their way,’ Kirsty said. ‘You want to endanger their lives trying to save pigs which are only going to be slaughtered for food anyway?’
‘But they’re suffering,’ I said.
A look of concern formed on her face, almost as if she’d willed it there. ‘They’ll pass out because of the smoke,’ she said. ‘They won’t be in pain.’
I wanted to say, They’re screaming. But she had a point. Why save them? It would only prolong their miserable lives and do nothing about the inevitability of their deaths.
‘Honestly,’ Kirsty said. ‘If we could get them out, I would. But it will make it much worse if we open the barn doors. I’m not letting you do that.’
We stood staring at each other for a moment and I realised I wasn’t going to win this one. ‘Kirsty, do you know where Daniel is?’ I said.
‘No.’
‘What about Violet?’
‘Violet? She’s dead.’
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone running towards the barn. I spun round to look. Frankie, with Jai running after her.
‘No, Frankie!’ Kirsty was shouting but she didn’t sound panicked. She jogged towards the barn, but Jai was already there, stopping a sobbing Frankie from touching the hot doors.
Kirsty grabbed Frankie’s hand and dragged her towards the house. ‘I’m calling the fire brigade again. And getting Frankie inside.’ As she ran away, she shouted over her shoulder, ‘I’m not risking my property and firefighters’ lives having you open that door! Stay away!’
The pigs were squealing in the barn, a terrible noise that broke my heart in two. It was almost human.
Or was that human? I ran closer to the barn, moving to the end furthest away from the door, and the piles of straw and the worst of the fire. ‘Hello!’ I bashed on the barn wall with my palm. Listened for a moment.
‘Jai, I thought I heard a scream. A human scream.’ The words spilled out in a panic.
‘What the fuck—’ Jai said.
‘Hello!’ I shouted. ‘Is someone in there?’
The pigs squealed louder. ‘Is anyone in there?’ I shouted again.
The barn wall was slatted, with tiny air gaps between wooden boards. I thought I saw movement on the other side. A person?
The noise of the pigs died down and I heard it. A human scream.
I could see fingers now, between the slats, desperately tugging at them.
I put my face close to the barn wall. ‘Who is it? Who’s in there?’
‘It’s Bex! Help me!’
Bex? Was I imagining things? It couldn’t be Bex. She refused to come anywhere near Gritton. I put my head to the barn wall, trying to hear over the crackle and roar of the fire. ‘Is that you, Bex?’ I yelled.
‘Yes! Help me! I can’t get to the door. The fire’s taken hold at that end.’
‘Shit,’ Jai said. ‘I think Kirsty’s right. If we open the door at the end of the barn, it’ll make it worse.’
I pressed my face up to the slats and shouted, ‘Can you keep away from the fire? Are you okay?’
Kirsty came running up behind us.
‘Bex is in there!’ I screamed.
Kirsty shook her head. ‘No. Bex isn’t here. She doesn’t come to Gritton.’
Was I going mad? Had I been hearing things? But no, she was in there. ‘She’s in the barn! We have to get her out.’ I shouted through the slats again. ‘Bex! Are you okay?’
Bex’s voice was faint. ‘The fire’s coming closer.’
The fire was raging at the end of the barn, where the straw was stacked. There was no way we could get Bex through that and out of the doors. I remembered seeing pipes that ran around the top of the barn, supplying water feeders for the pigs. If we could break one of them, maybe it would put the fire out? But if the electricity was still on, it could make the whole building live.
I ran and grabbed Kirsty. ‘How can we switch the electricity off? Then if Bex can burst one of the automatic waterers, she can put the fire out. She’s definitely in there.’
For a moment, I thought Kirsty was going to argue. Tell me Bex couldn’t possibly be inside. But instead she dropped her shoulders and nodded towards the barn. ‘The fuse box is in there. We can’t risk water.’ How could she be so calm when her sister was about to be burnt to death?
‘But can we get Bex to turn the electricity off?’ I said.
‘No,’ Kirsty said. ‘The fuse box is at the end where the fire is.’
‘So how can we bash the barn wall down?’ I wasn’t giving up on Bex, like Kirsty appeared to have done. ‘At the end which isn’t burning too badly. Do you have a tractor?’
‘Look, the fire brigade are on the way,’ Kirsty said. ‘Bex will be fine.’
I’d never seen a relative react like this before. Okay, Bex and Kirsty hadn’t grown up in the same house, but they’d spent a summer together. They were sisters. In that moment I hated Kirsty. I’d give anything to have my sister back, and she was prepared to let hers burn.
I heard sirens. ‘Oh, thank God.’
Fire engines piled into the yard.
‘There’s a woman inside,’ I shouted.
We watched helplessly while the firefighters worked, one group cutting a hole in the thick barn wall at the far end to get Bex out, another group drawing water from Kirsty’s pond and dousing hundreds of gallons of it over the barn.
Kirsty stood recklessly close to the barn while the firefighters worked. But she didn’t appear to be concerned – more fascinated. One of the men told her to move away but she ignored him, and he was too busy to insist.
Finally the firefighters managed to remove a panel from the side of the barn. The roof lurched downwards, spitting sparks in our direction. I jumped back. The firefighters were in. The pigs were still squealing and there was so much smoke I couldn’t see inside.
Someone was coming back out, dragging a woman behind him. Bex.
The barn made a strange groaning noise. I took another step back.
The remaining firefighters ran from the barn, just before the side wall collapsed.
Bex, Jai and I sat on the dusty ground and watched the firefighters putting out the last of the blaze. Kirsty had been taken away in an ambulance, Frankie with her. Some of the pigs had survived, and Tony Nightingale had come over and was moving them into another barn. I’d offered to help but he said he’d prefer to do it alone, that he could cope better with his daughter being injured if he kept busy. He was setting up metal hurdles to define a path for the pigs to follow. Lots were dead. I didn’t want to see.
My phone rang. Fiona. ‘We’ve traced the approximate location of the phone Daniel called you from. Units are heading there now.’ I allowed myself to hope that we might find Daniel and that he’d have Violet. That Violet and Daniel would both be okay, even if Daniel wasn’t really okay at all.
Bex looked down at her hands. The ends of her fingers were red raw from scraping at the barn wall.
‘You need to get those seen to,’ I said. ‘And get yourself checked for smoke inhalation.’
Bex blinked as if confused. ‘Oh. Yes. I will. They said another ambulance is on the way. Dad’s going to come with me in that one, so he can see Kirsty too. Did you see what happened to her?’
‘A chunk of corrugated metal roof fell on her legs,’ Jai said, not very subtly.
I felt a spark of concern for Kirsty, but mainly because she might be the only person who could lead us to Daniel and Violet, and n
ow we couldn’t talk to her.
‘It’s Gritton,’ Bex said. ‘Bad things happen.’
I pictured her in her cluttered kitchen, surrounded by her saxophone-playing china dogs, saying she’d never come back to Gritton. ‘Why did you come back?’ I said.
‘I didn’t want to. But suddenly finding Violet felt like the most important thing in the world. If I could help with that … And I wanted to see my dad and my sister.’
‘Did Kirsty know you were coming?’
‘No. I phoned but she didn’t answer.’
‘Why did you go into the barn?’
‘I couldn’t find Kirsty, and I wanted to see the pigs. I left a message on her landline saying I’d be in the barn.’
‘Wasn’t the barn locked?’
Bex sighed. ‘I guessed the combination. Kirsty always used her own birthday for absolutely everything. But when I got inside, I just …’
‘Just what?’
‘I didn’t expect it to be so … awful. I loved Dad’s pigs when I came to Gritton that summer. They were the best thing about the place. They were in cages for a few weeks when they farrowed, and I didn’t like that, but Dad explained why it was necessary. For the rest of their lives they were outside. I never realised Kirsty kept them all their lives … like this. I just sat in the barn staring at them. I must have been in a kind of trance. I didn’t hear the fire on the moor coming closer. Not until the bales by the door caught fire.’
‘How long were you in there?’
‘I’m not sure. I sat and stared and stared and then suddenly the straw caught at the end and it went up in a crazy whoomph. I kept trying to get to the barn door but it was no good. The heat was too much.’
‘It must have been terrifying,’ I said.
She shrugged. ‘It was.’
‘Are you staying over with your dad?’ Jai asked.
‘Yes. I arrived this morning. It was good to see him, and he was delighted to see me. He even showed me his pigs playing fetch, just like the old days. But it was all a bit desperate – I think … well, he’s not okay about Violet. So I said I’d stay a while. Cancelled my training clients.’ She wiped a tear from her cheek. ‘It was nice to feel he wanted me around. It wasn’t always the case.’
I could see Tony across the yard, gently guiding a pig away from the smoking barn. One of the metal hurdles fell over, and Jai jumped up and went over to help.
‘Didn’t your dad want you around before?’ I said to Bex.
‘You know he sent me away to live with my aunt. I’m sure he blamed me for what happened with Tim.’
‘Sorry, Bex, you’ll have to explain.’
‘Tim was the reason our mum had a breakdown and left us. Dad said she never really settled here even before that. That he was a fool to think she’d be happy. He said we’re so arrogant in this country – we assume someone from the Ukraine should feel blessed to be here at all. But he was only trying to make me feel better. I know the real reason she left. She couldn’t bear to be near me after what happened to Tim.’
‘Who was Tim?’
‘Tim was my brother. My twin.’
Bex’s twin? ‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.’
‘I suppose you wouldn’t.’
‘Do you mind me asking what happened? How Tim died?’
She took a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose. ‘I was only three years old so I don’t remember. All I know is what Dad and Kirsty told me. Our mother was tired from looking after us and Tim had been screaming that he could see a white child but nobody else could see it. They thought it was just nightmares. Later, Dad said Kirsty used to tell us stories about the Pale Child and scare us – that’s why Tim was upset. Anyway, our mum fell asleep on the sofa. Tim got out of the front door and on to the lane outside …’
I pictured the overgrown front of Tony Nightingale’s house. The fence that blocked the route from the door to the lane. The peeling paint and neglect. I nodded at her to continue.
‘But it was my fault. Dad tried to say it was because Tim had seen the Pale Child, but I know everyone blamed me. That’s why I was sent away to Aunt Janet’s.’
So this was the three-year-old who’d fallen victim to the Pale Child: Bex’s twin.
‘How could it be your fault?’ I asked.
She looked at her red raw hands and grimaced. ‘I have no idea why I’m telling you all this.’
‘It’s okay, if you don’t want to talk.’
‘No, I do. It’s a relief. It’s been weighing me down forever. I … I liked to paint. I’d been messing about with hand-paint. Blue hand-paint. And later they found blue paint on the lock and the door handle.’
‘You opened the door?’
‘I only found out later. Kirsty told me. She said it wasn’t my fault. I was only three. But I know they blamed me. Everyone blamed me.’
‘That’s awful. Tim wandered into the road?’
‘Yes. He was wearing dark clothes. The driver didn’t stand a chance.’
I sensed a shadow over us and looked up. Tony, a smear of dirt on his cheek. He sank down beside Bex and folded her into a hug. ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ he said. ‘None of it was ever your fault.’
Bex accepted the hug but then pulled back. ‘It destroyed me, Dad. That you didn’t support me after the rape. I’d just about coped with you sending me away to live with Aunt Janet, but that …’
So Tony knew about the rape. He looked down and fiddled with a piece of grit on the floor. ‘I’m so sorry, Bex.’
‘First the rape,’ she said. ‘What message does that send? That I was a worthless piece of meat. And then to not be believed, to not be supported. Then you tried to force me to have an abortion even though you knew the baby was the only thing keeping me going, the only thing making me think there was a point to life.’
If Tony had known Bex was pregnant, I wondered why he denied that she’d had a baby when we first came asking about Violet.
Tony took a deep breath. ‘I never meant … I never meant for things to work out the way they did. Please let me make it up to you. Let me take care of you. I always loved you. Everything I did, I thought I was doing it for the best.’
Clearly Tony knew a lot more than he’d let on. And that made me wonder if he knew who Violet’s father was. Did he know the identity of the boy? The boy they called the Pale Child.
My phone rang in my pocket. I fished it out and answered. It was Fiona.
‘They found bones in the woods,’ she said. ‘Where the cross and the RIP were marked on that map. And Daniel Twigg has been found too.’
48
Bex – May 2000
Bex lay on the narrow bed in her cramped room, savouring the moment with her baby. But not holding her. That would make it too hard.
A shadow fell over her. Aunt Janet stood in the doorway, her expression sympathetic yet determined, her bulk blocking all exit-points. ‘It’s time,’ she said. ‘I need to take her now.’
The baby was in a crib by the bed. Bex had a crazy thought that she could grab her and together they could jump out of the window. She could make a run for it over her aunt’s lawn, trampling the borders and crashing through the privet hedge.
But that would be ridiculous.
‘Maybe I could manage,’ she said softly.
‘We’ve talked about this,’ Janet said, ‘and you decided to have her adopted.’
Bex said nothing. There was nothing to say. She looked at the crib. The baby’s eyes were closed and she seemed to give a little smile, even though Bex knew babies weren’t supposed to smile so soon. She reached across and touched the tiny fingers.
‘Come on,’ Aunt Janet said. ‘Don’t be silly.’
‘But maybe my sister could help?’
‘No, Bex.’ Janet was very still. ‘Not your sister. I’ll take her now. It’s for the best.’
Bex looked down at the baby one last time. ‘Wait a minute.’ She fished her brooch out of her pocket. The christening brooch of a
pelican digging her beak into her own chest, making herself bleed to feed her young. Bex was doing the same. By giving her baby up, she felt like she was gouging her heart out.
She pinned the brooch to the baby’s clothes, lifted her from the crib and gently passed her to her aunt.
49
Meg – Present day
Friday
Clouds gathered overhead as Jai and I drove away from Gritton. The village that had been the site of so much death and suffering. The air was thick with moisture but still it refused to rain. We passed a couple of signs saying, Protect our heritage! No to the developers! I thought about the boy buried in the woods.
‘Where are we heading?’ I said.
‘Woodland about ten miles north of here.’
We eventually pulled up in the lane at the location we’d been given, half in a ditch which had been dry for weeks. I found myself not wanting to leave the car, but Jai was already outside, bouncing around like a dog who wanted a walk. ‘Are you coming?’ he said.
I dragged myself out, clicked the lock, and followed Jai into the darkness of the trees. A path had been marked out with tape. ‘These are hideous woods, aren’t they?’ I said. ‘A mess of dark, stinging, spiking unpleasantness.’
‘They said you can get in from the other side,’ Jai said. ‘But this way’s easier to walk.’
‘Quicker to walk,’ I said, extracting my hair from a bramble. ‘Not necessarily easier.’
‘Are you okay?’ Jai said.
‘Sorry.’ I kicked at a nettle which was tangling its way across the path. I wasn’t okay. I pictured Daniel on that narrow ledge, lifting the lamb and passing it to me. Had I really been so wrong about him? ‘He phoned me,’ I said. ‘I should have helped him.’
‘You did,’ Jai said. ‘We found him as quickly as we could. I don’t see what more you could have done.’
A small clearing came into view. Daniel’s van was at the centre, with a paramedics’ van next to it. The force medical examiner met us at the edge of the clearing. I raised my eyebrows at her and she gave a quick shake of the head.
‘Overdose,’ she said. ‘Injected himself. We don’t know if it was deliberate or accidental.’