Left for Dead

by Paul J. Teague

  There were two of them, she saw that now. And Lucia was still in danger. Charlotte moved her knees up towards her belly and stretched her arms down to her feet. With her fingers, she began picking at the tape, searching for the end so that she could begin to make her escape.

  She heard the glass in the mirror over the sink shattering as somebody’s head crashed against it. She could still hear Will’s grunts and curses, unable to imagine what was going on. He knew nothing about fighting.

  Every so often she flinched, trying to avoid the footsteps and crashing bodies as they blundered through the darkness. At last, she managed to free her legs, tearing off the tape so she could move.

  Will and his adversary were in the far corner of the room now. She moved to where she knew the sink was, stepping gingerly in case of glass. It crunched under her shoes. Carefully, she reached down and found a piece large enough to saw at the tape around her wrists. Taking great care, she stood it up on the floor and pierced the tape with it, all by touch. Having made an incision in the tape, she flicked out the shard of glass and bit at the tape with her teeth. It followed the line of the cut and tore easily. She was free.

  She still had her phone in her pocket, so she activated it straight away, pushing herself into the far corner of the room to avoid the fight. She turned on its torch.

  Will and the man paused, just for a moment. It was almost comical. Both men noticed a broken chair leg on the floor and began to move towards the newly revealed weapon, but Charlotte shone her phone torch at the stranger’s eyes. It gave Will the advantage he needed; he grabbed the chair leg and struck the man over the head. His knees crumpled and he fell to the ground.

  ‘Please tell me I haven’t killed him!’ Will rushed over to the motionless body on the floor. Charlotte joined him, feeling his neck for a pulse.

  ‘He’s fine,’ she said. ‘Use this tape, get him secured. There are two of them!’

  Charlotte was ready to rush off, anxious to get to Lucia.

  ‘Wait!’ Will said. ‘Is this about Bruce Craven?’

  ‘Yes,’ Charlotte said, stopping dead.

  ‘Take off his mask,’ Will said. ‘I’ve got him covered, if he moves, I’ll hit him with this again.’

  Charlotte removed the mask that was covering the man’s face, cautiously, expecting his hand to reach out and grab hers.

  ‘There’s no way that’s Bruce Craven,’ Will said, as Charlotte pointed her beam at the man. Will had his own phone activated now. ‘Who the hell is he?’

  ‘He knows what we did to Bruce Craven that night,’ Charlotte said. ‘How can he? He knows every detail. He has my necklace - it’s here somewhere.’

  ‘He’s threatening us with the police, isn’t he?’

  Charlotte nodded.

  ‘He’s saying Bruce’s body is buried in the paddling pool. He says it’s been there for years. Nobody missed him; nobody was looking for him.’

  ‘So how come he’s supposed to have resigned? He walked out of here, I can’t have killed him.’

  The man was beginning to stir now. Charlotte grabbed the discarded roll of gaffer tape on the windowsill and taped his hands before he came around fully.

  ‘Sit on his feet. Secure him. Don’t let him get away. And don’t call the police yet. I’ve a feeling I know who’s with Lucia.’

  Charlotte left Bruce, turned off her torch, and ran out onto the concrete balcony. Half by memory, half by touch, she made her way down the concrete staircase and silently began to head towards the pool. She could hear Lucia, still sobbing.

  ‘It’s okay Lucia, I’m here. It’ll be over soon.’

  As soon as she’d spoken, she moved, taking cover in the doorway of an arcade.

  ‘Whatever you think you’re doing, we’ve got you!’ came a voice.

  Jenna?

  Charlotte followed the sound. She was over by the old gas cannister store.

  ‘Why would you do this Jenna? Were you even there that night?’

  As Jenna gave her answer, Charlotte began to move around the outskirts of the pool fence, towards the sound.

  ‘I saw it all,’ came the voice. She was nervous, unsure of what they were doing. ‘I saw you hitting Bruce with a rock. I saw Will strangling him with his own hands. You’re killers, Charlotte. And now it’s time to pay.’

  ‘We were friends, Jenna,’ Charlotte continued. ‘We are friends. We drank coffee together. Why would you do this? I don’t understand …’

  ‘You were never really my friend Charlotte. You were always better than me. You did better in college, you always had the attention of the boys. And now, you’re back to rub my nose in it. You and Will are still together after all these years. A lovely guest house, a lucrative business. And what do I get? More bad relationships with men like Bruce and living in a crappy bedsit at the age of fifty-four. We don’t all have charmed lives you know. Life is tough for some of us …’

  Charlotte thought of Abi and her daughter. She’d made the best of a bad lot and was grateful for her life, in spite of its challenges.

  She was making her way towards the gas canister store now, hoping that Jenna would carry on talking so that she could get in close without giving away her whereabouts. Suddenly, she became aware of a movement by her side and a fast panting.

  Una?

  She stroked the dog’s head but maintained her silence.

  ‘My life is changing Charlotte. I’ve kept your little secret for years, at a great cost to my own life. But now you’re back, I figure it’s time to start paying for all those years of freedom you had when you should have been in jail.’

  A man’s voice came out of the darkness. He was on the other side of the pool, also making his way slowly towards Jenna.

  ‘Only Will and Charlotte didn’t kill Bruce Craven, did they Jenna?’

  George? What did he know about that night?

  ‘I was on duty that night and saw most of it playing out. I saw Charlotte running back to her room and I went to find Will, who was looking for her. I watched as Bruce tried to strangle Will, and I was about to intervene when he overpowered him. I was watching it all, hidden in the gas cannister store. I saw Will return to his room and I saw what Will did. But there’s another part of the story that you’re not telling, isn’t there Jenna?’

  ‘Who are you?’ Jenna shouted, rattled. ‘Who the hell are you? I don’t even remember you.’

  ‘I watched you finish off Bruce Craven in that pool over there. I saw you squeeze his neck with your own hands. It was you who murdered Bruce Craven, Jenna, and it wasn’t even in self-defence as it would have been for Will and Charlotte. And do you know why I never said anything Jenna? Do you know why I stayed quiet all these years?’

  Charlotte was almost on Jenna now. George needed to keep talking.

  ‘You’re lying, that’s not what happened…’

  ‘We have three witnesses to what happened that night Jenna. I’d have kept quiet forever if you hadn’t brought it out into the open again. And shall I tell you why I kept it quiet, Jenna? Because Bruce Craven deserved it. He’s no innocent man. He was a nasty piece of work and we all know it. But you should have let it rest at that, Jenna. You shouldn’t have re-opened old wounds.’

  Charlotte was on her now, and George was close, approaching from the opposite direction.

  ‘Don’t come near me!’ Jenna said. ‘I’ve got a knife. He made me do it, Pat made me do it. The moment I told him what I’d seen when I read about you in the paper, he said we should do it. It wasn’t me. He approached your daughter outside her school, I begged him not to.’

  Charlotte was close enough now, moving fast to grasp at Jenna’s hand. Jenna lashed out, slicing the side of Charlotte’s arm. Una growled and leapt at her, throwing her to the ground, sending the knife hurtling across the floor to George’s feet.

  ‘It’s over, Jenna. It’s time we put this ghost to rest,’ Charlotte said.

  As George kicked away the knife, blue flashing lights could be seen at the far end
of the holiday camp, just outside the old porter’s lodge.

  ‘Does that thug of a man of yours know what George knows?’ Charlotte asked.

  ‘No, he only knows about you and Will.’

  ‘One moment,’ Charlotte said. ‘I need to speak to Will.’

  Epilogue

  Morecambe - Six Months After

  ‘Congratulations George - I’m so pleased for you,’ Charlotte said with a smile, giving him a hug and kissing him on the forehead. ‘I can’t think of a happier event to take place in the guest house. It’s made my year!’

  ‘It’s so good to be able to put the past behind us at last,’ Will said, shaking his hand. ‘I’m just relieved that Isla has recovered so well. It was such a close call that night.’

  Hearing her voice, Isla walked over to join them. It was hard to imagine her on that kitchen floor, out cold, surrounded by a pool of blood.

  ‘Did I hear my name?’ she asked.

  ‘Here’s the bride,’ Will smiled. He gave Isla a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Isla said, shrugging it off. ‘I complete my physio next week and then they’ll give me the all-clear. I won’t say it’s been a walk in the park, but George here has made it all easy for me, running me to the hospital and back. We’re lucky to have found each other.’

  She reached out to squeeze George’s hand.

  Olli walked by with a plate filled with full champagne glasses.

  ‘Anybody care for a top-up?’ he asked.

  ‘Here’s the hero of the night,’ George said. ‘Isla wouldn’t be here without you, young Olli, you did well that night, thank you.’

  Olli’s face reddened and a teenage girl, wearing the black skirt and white blouse of waiting staff, smiled at him.

  ‘My hero!’ she said, giving him a flirtatious grin.

  Olli and the girl moved off together, mingling with the guests and offering drinks and nibbles.

  ‘It was no thanks to me,’ Charlotte said. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself for leaving you like that.’

  ‘Enough!’ Isla said, holding Charlotte’s arm. ‘You did everything you could, Charlotte. I’m here, aren’t I? It was you who contacted Olli. I won’t listen to you blaming yourself.’

  ‘So, will you be retiring now you’re a married woman?’ Will asked, grinning cheekily at her. ‘You know you’re welcome here as long as you want a job. You choose the hours; we’ll work around you. You too George, you’ve proved a big hit behind the bar. We’d love you both to stay on.’

  ‘I think my security days are over now,’ George laughed. ‘But I thoroughly enjoy running the bar for you when you have the big parties in. How’s that going now? You seem so busy nowadays.’

  ‘It’s going great,’ Charlotte said. ‘It’s been the best thing that happened to us.’

  She nodded towards Lucia, who was giggling with a friend in the corner, in between serving the guests.

  ‘Since we’ve been employing serving staff for the big events, Lucia has found herself a friend now. She’s got herself settled into Morecambe life, and she even admitted to me the other day that she loves it here. She prefers being by the sea to the city life of Bristol. It’s worked well. And it’s paying me a decent salary now. Things are good.’

  ‘I’m just going out to check on Una,’ Isla said. ‘Poor thing is on her own out there.’

  ‘Bring her in, she’s fine!’ Will said. ‘So long as she’s out of the kitchen, there’s no problem with her being in the communal areas. You really don’t have to leave her tied up out there, George.’

  Isla left the group to attend to Una.

  ‘Any news of Jenna’s trial?’ George asked. ‘Silly girl, if she hadn’t got mixed up in that mess, nobody would have ever known.’

  ‘They took my offer and kept quiet about Bruce,’ Charlotte said. ‘As far as the police are concerned it’s grievous bodily harm, abduction and extortion. Jenna will get stung with a murder investigation if they start talking about Bruce. Pat Harris thinks she made it all up - that’s what I told him after we’d caught Jenna. A nasty piece of work he is, but he has previous form with the law, so he knows when to keep his mouth shut to reduce his prison sentence. And if they do talk, we stick to the story. As far as we were concerned, Bruce Craven walked away. It was Jenna who killed him, not Will or me. It’s three against one. And the body is still there to prove it - if we have to go that far and reveal it.’

  ‘Poor old Jenna,’ said Will, ‘She never managed to escape from men like Bruce Craven. They seem to have poisoned her life. Still, I guess we all make our choices. She didn’t need to extort money from us. You just wanted to be her friend again. Her secret would have stayed buried with Bruce if she’d left it alone.’

  George looked around, checking on where Isla was. Una had created a big distraction; a crowd had gathered to make a fuss of her.

  ‘There’s something I want to tell you both,’ George said, indicating that they should lean in. ‘I’m not a young man any more and I want you to know what really happened that night.’

  ‘You mean there’s more that we don’t know?’ Charlotte said.

  ‘A little,’ George replied. ‘It’s important to me that you know though, now it’s all out in the open.’

  ‘I still don’t really understand how Bruce’s body never got found,’ Will said.

  ‘That’s just it,’ George began to explain. ‘There’s one more part to the story that I need you to know. Jenna did kill Bruce Craven, but do you know what? I let her. I watched her squeezing his neck from the cover of the gas cannister area and I let her do it. I was going to stop her. But I’d seen what Bruce did to you two, how he tried to make your lives miserable. And I decided to let her get on with it.’

  ‘My God George… shouldn’t you have stopped her?’

  ‘Let him speak, Charlotte,’ Will urged.

  ‘I watched Jenna sobbing as she walked off into the night. Jenna is not a killer by nature, she finished Bruce as an act of self-preservation. You and Will are not killers. Bruce Craven would have raped you that night, Charlotte. And he would quite happily have strangled Will, even though Will was trying to help him. And as for Jenna, she had landed herself in the same pickle as you did, Charlotte. Bruce Craven chose to be that way. He has only himself to blame.’

  George watched their expressions before continuing.

  ‘After Jenna tried to cover up the body, I watched and waited a while. He was so heavy, she could barely move him. Once she’d left to return to her room, I went over to where the body was concealed. I made sure that Bruce was dead. And then I grabbed a builder’s shovel and I dug a hole beneath the foundations so that when they poured that concrete in the following day, Bruce would never be found. And he’s still there, nearly four decades on. Doesn’t it say something that nobody ever came looking? That nobody missed him?’

  ‘I still don’t understand though,’ said Will. ‘Bruce handed in his resignation the next day. As far as the camp was concerned, he’d left without working his notice. That meant nobody was looking for him. It let me and Charlotte off the hook. And as for Jenna, she must have been wondering what happened for the past thirty-five years!’

  ‘I wrote that note,’ George said. ‘You remember what that place was like: staff were arriving and going back home all the time. I wrote it out in the porter’s lodge. I disguised my handwriting as best I could. But things were simpler back then, in 1984. There was no CCTV on the site, except for the arcades. It was easy back then.’

  ‘So Bruce’s body is still buried in the old paddling pool?’ Charlotte said, watching as Lucia stroked Una. ‘And it’s about to get filled in with rubble and built over. Don’t you think we should tell the police?’

  ‘And screw up Jenna’s life even more?’ Will asked. ‘She’ll get her punishment. But it won’t be anywhere near as severe as if she was found guilty of murder. Bruce is gone - he was a nasty piece of work. You and I now know we
didn’t kill him. We’ve lived with our guilt for years. It’s time Bruce Craven stayed buried.’

  ‘I still can’t believe it. Bruce Craven was an evil man, but we’re not the same, are we? Does it make us evil for keeping quiet?’

  ‘You know, sometimes Charlotte, good people have to do bad things,’ George said. ‘I wish the world wasn’t that way, but from time to time it’s necessary. And truth be told, it makes the world a nicer place. Now let’s get back to the wedding celebrations. I for one refuse to think about Bruce Craven for one more minute.’

  Circle of Lies Preview

  Circle of Lies preview extracts - Circle of Lies is released on Monday 9th December, 2019

  1984 - Sandy Beaches Holiday Camp

  The knock at the door came just after midnight. It was too late for a social call, even at a holiday camp which barely slept at night.

  Jenna had been expecting it all day. She still couldn’t believe what she’d done. It was more than twenty-four hours ago already, yet the nervous exhaustion she felt was every bit as intense as when she’d watched the life slipping away from him.

  Had he really gone? It seemed unbelievable. One moment she was covering him in rubble, concealing the body, expecting him to leap up and grab her by her throat at any moment. If he did, he’d break it like a twig; his hands were so powerful. She’d felt those same hands caressing her body, touching her gently with affection and desire in the early stages of their relationship. But Bruce Craven was the kind of man a woman should avoid.

  Jenna had spent the day like a stunned bull, waiting for the final act of slaughter, knowing it would be coming soon, but not quite sure when. It was an adrenaline-fueled cocktail of fear, relief and exhilaration. She’d escaped him - at last - but at what cost to herself? Was the risk of being found out - of prison - any better than living with his dark, oppressive presence? She’d dug her own hole with Bruce and happily jumped into it. She’d even begun to pull the mud in on herself, right up to neck height. But when the opportunity presented itself, she decided to fight back and dig her way out; she believed she’d killed him. She’d tried to put an end to the violent bully who’d trapped her in an abusive relationship. And in doing so, the three of them had created a circle of lies and deceit - yet only she knew what had truly happened, only she had watched the entire tragedy playing out. Yet somehow – incredibly – Bruce had handed in his resignation and supposedly walked out of the holiday camp. How could that be?