Scream for Sarah

by Veronica Heley

  ‘The furniture dealer will come back sometime, but not until I contact him. I told my mother I’d ring her sometime yesterday or today, though.’

  ‘And this phone is out of order. So she’ll ring up to check, and maybe send an engineer along to put the fault right. Well, Rose and Sid had better stay indoors and keep the front door locked while we’re gone. That way, if anyone comes down the lane they’ll think you’re out shopping, and they’ll go away again. All right, Rose?’

  ‘I’ll pack and clean up here while you’re gone.’

  Sid pocketed his pile. ‘I could leave ahead of you. I’d like to take the quieter roads in Rose’s car, and not risk the main roads.’

  ‘We all leave together,’ said Toby. ‘And just to make sure that we do, I’ll take Rose’s keys with me.’

  I tried not to look upset when Rose went to her handbag, because I still had the newspaper cutting in my pocket. Luckily she didn’t check her powder compact. Come to think of it, she wouldn’t have risked his seeing she’d disobeyed him and kept a cutting from the newspaper. She handed him her keys in silence. Sid looked sullen, but resigned. I intended to put the cutting back into her handbag, but I didn’t have a chance before I left with Toby.

  We drove in my Mini. Toby wasn’t in the mood for conversation, and neither was I. The nearest phone booth was a good mile off; I dialled my flat-mate’s number at work, and spoke to her with Toby glued to my side. I had considered trying to hint to her that I was in trouble, but when I saw Toby’s hand hover over the receiver, ready to cut me off, I decided against it. I made the call brief. I was coming back to London that night—yes, it was early, but some friends of mine … no, no-one she knew … they wanted to come up with me, stay overnight, and take me out to a show and all that. Would the place be free so that they could stay the night? My flat-mate sounded amused, because she was aware how many times I’d been pressed to take a boyfriend in for the night, and had refused to do so. She thought I’d succumbed to Toby’s charm at last, and she couldn’t resist twitting me about him. I gritted my teeth, remembering how I’d bored her with talk of Toby before I’d left London. She said she’d be delighted to advance the cause of my romance with Toby, and that I wouldn’t see hide or hair of her that night. I said thanks, and rang off.

  ‘Good girl!’ applauded Toby. We eyed each other. I knew for certain at that moment that he still meant to kill me. His eyes were impersonal. I was no longer a living, breathing and desirable woman to him, but a lay figure whose presence he found inconvenient.

  ‘I’ll tell Rose!’ The phone booth was stuffy and smelt of dirt.

  ‘What will you tell her?’

  ‘About Hob—James Denison,’ I pulled the cutting from my pocket and showed it to him. ‘—You tried to kill him. Rose doesn’t know that, does she?’

  ‘Nonsense!’ But his eyes changed direction. He grabbed my wrist and wrenched the cutting out of my fingers. He tore it across, once, twice, and let the scraps flutter to the floor.

  ‘She doesn’t know you’re a murderer,’ I said, firing all my guns at once. ‘She doesn’t know what happened in the wood. I’ve heard her speak of Pete and his wife with affection. I don’t think she’d like to think of you as a murderer, or of herself as an accessory.’

  His eyes moved from me to consider his reflection in the mirror above the phone. It was cracked, but it assured him he still looked the same.

  ‘You’d better be careful,’ I warned him. ‘You’d better let Hob and me take a plane before you. We won’t talk I can promise you that. We’re accessories, just as much as Rose and Sid. But the moment you try to kill us, I’ll tell Rose, and you’ll lose her.’

  I pushed open the heavy door of the phone booth and swallowed fresh air. He followed me out and actually held open the door of the Mini for me to climb into the passenger seat.

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked, seeing a car radio on the back seat. ‘Is that yours?’

  ‘That’s right. I didn’t want Rose listening to News bulletins while we were away.’

  I admired his foresight. If only he could keep newspapers away from Rose until they were in the air, he might even get away with it. I began to relax, because it looked as if my plans were going to work.

  *

  I’d reckoned without Rose’s curiosity. In our absence, she must have fiddled with the ancient radio at Elm Tree House, anxious to hear what coverage the media were giving to the robbery at the Festival. We could hear the boom of the radio as Toby and I drove into the yard, and then the sound was turned down, adjusted to normal hearing. I glanced at Toby’s watch, as he was doing; it was just on half past eleven, and time for a news summary. Toby understood, and was out of the car with a gasp and a curse. I followed, because even in his haste he remembered to take the ignition key with him.

  ‘… the second victim is still in the Intensive Care Unit, but has been able to give the police the following description of one of the men who attacked her and murdered her husband. About five foot six in height, slender build, short dark hair, brown complexion, brown eyes. No noticeable scars. The other two men are tall and well-built. The police say that these men are dangerous and that members of the public should not approach them under any circumstances …’

  Toby pulled the cord out of the socket and sent the radio sprawling onto the floor in a crash of broken parts. Sid had been out in the garage, and was now standing in the doorway behind me, with a stupid, fearful look on his face. Although the radio usually refused to produce any sound for me, it had obeyed Rose’s fingers … and destroyed us.

  She stood at the end of the table with her hands over her mouth. Her eyes were on Toby, horrified, and yet knowing. I thought she might well be sick. She looked at Toby for a long time, as if trying to readjust her mental picture of him, and then she looked past him at me.

  I could see her going over my description to herself, ‘five foot six, slender build …’ Pete might be dead and unable to talk, but his wife was still alive and she had taken a good look at me when I had stripped off my helmet and scarf in the wood yesterday. She would know me again.

  ‘They don’t know she’s a girl,’ said Toby. ‘Not yet, anyway.’

  Rose made the shape of ‘no’ with her mouth, but no sounds came out. She transferred her hands to her neck, holding herself together.

  ‘Shock!’ I said. ‘Shall I get her a stiff drink?’ I didn’t wait for permission, but made straight for the kitchen. Hob and I hadn’t wasted our precious time together that morning, and while I had made sure that he received satisfaction the second time round, he had told me how I might cheat death, if I were allowed enough time to prepare …

  ‘Sarah!’ yelled Toby. I dropped everything and ran back with a glass of sloe gin. Toby took it off me and held it out to Rose. She woke out of her trance, screamed something unintelligible at him, and struck out at his arm. He caught her wrist and forced the glass to her teeth. She gagged, but drank.

  My share of the robbery was now sitting behind Granny’s souvenir mug from Eastbourne on the mantelpiece. Presumably it would be left there to tie me in with the robbery. Also the van. Sid was doing his bit in the yard by pouring paraffin onto my poor little Mini, and setting it alight.

  I tried to creep back into the kitchen, but Toby caught sight of me, and gestured that I should go upstairs. ‘Change back into your overalls, and don’t forget your boots.’

  I ran upstairs and into Hob’s arms. I hardly needed to tell him what had happened, because he had heard most of it through the floor. I begged him to fight for his life, and he promised he would, whispering between hurried kisses. At least he was wide awake now. He asked me to pray for him if I were to live and he to die. I stood there with my hands in his, and couldn’t think of anything appropriate to say in return.

  ‘Sarah!’ That was Toby, yelling from the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘I’m changing!’ I cried, and dived for my overalls and boots. My fingers were clumsy. ‘Sarah!’ Toby was coming up for m
e.

  I ran into Hob, and gave him one last kiss. ‘Here!’ he breathed, thrusting something at me. ‘Put it in one of your boots, rather than in a pocket in case he searches you.’

  It was a knife, a small sharp knife with an ivory handle whose edge had been whetted to a razor-sharp point. It was one of my grandfather’s fruit knives, and I remembered that there had been two such knives in the box of cutlery and silver I had given Hob to clean on the morning he arrived. He must have taken one and hidden it against an emergency—and now he was giving it to me. I hesitated. He thrust it down inside my boot and turned from me before he could regret his generosity.

  ‘Sarah!’ Toby was in the doorway.

  I choked on the word ‘goodbye’ and followed Toby downstairs. Rose was crying, but miserably rather than angrily. I knew Toby had persuaded her there was nothing for it but to cover their tracks with two more murders.

  ‘Wash up the glass Rose has used,’ Toby ordered. ‘And wipe over the table and all the chairs. Rose, get your suitcase and see you haven’t left any fingerprints upstairs. You’ve got our money safely packed?’

  She sniffed and nodded her head at two carrier bags standing beside the door. I picked up the glass and went out to the kitchen. I could hear Sid and Toby talking. They were discussing which route each should take to get to London. Toby was telling Sid how to get to my flat, and searching my handbag for my keys. They would meet there, sleep there, and set off from there tomorrow morning for the air terminal.

  Neat, but not gaudy, as my grandfather would have said.

  My hands trembled so much that I dropped and broke the glass I was wiping. Toby came to the door and yelled at me to be careful.

  ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ I said.

  He thought that was hilariously funny. I wiped down the table in the living-room, and went over all the chairs. The fire had gone out, leaving the charred remains of the overalls and boots Toby had worn the day before. He made me pick them out of the ashes, and take them outside to bury in the flowerbed under my bedroom window.

  I made one last bid for time.

  ‘Mr. Brent knows about you. If they find us dead, but they don’t find you, won’t they switch the search to look for you?’

  ‘Ah, but I won’t be around, will I? I was just a visitor, passing through. Why should they look for me? It was your description which was broadcast, my poppet, not mine.’

  That was unanswerable. Sid came out of the garage, holding up some tangles of rope and string.

  ‘This what you want?’ he asked.

  I dropped the shovel with which I had been burying the remains of Toby’s gear. Toby bade me replace it in the hearth and sweep it clean. I did so in a dream. The clock had stopped, and so had my watch. I hadn’t a clue what time it was.

  I wondered if the furniture dealer would give my family a better price for the stuff from the house after today. ‘Direct from Murder House, this fine oak sideboard …’ It was a hideous piece of furniture really. I wiped it clean.

  Rose came down the stairs, bleary-eyed, but otherwise her normal self. She avoided looking at me, which meant she’d written me off. She didn’t look at Toby, either, as she waited for him to step aside from the door so that she could get out.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Toby approvingly. ‘No need for you to know anything about it. You go and sit outside in the sun, in my car, and I’ll be with you in five minutes.’

  She said something in a stifled voice about the keys. He laughed. She changed colour, and went off without them. Toby wouldn’t risk letting her have the car keys until he was ready to drive off himself.

  ‘I want to go to the bathroom,’ I said.

  ‘Is she feeling afraid, then?’ he jeered.

  I stumped up the stairs, and he followed me. I closed the bathroom door in his face and locked it. He thought that was very funny, too, and indeed from his point of view it was, for that particular door was only made of ply, and he could have broken it down with one shove of his shoulder.

  I heard Sid follow us up the stairs. He spoke to Toby about the rope he’d brought with him. Would it be enough? Toby approved.

  When I had my breathing under control, I unlocked the door and went out. Hob was already standing in the big bedroom, waiting for me. I stood aside to let him go into the bathroom, too. Toby and Sid both thought that funny, but I didn’t. Hob had been secured to that bed for far too long. Hob didn’t take long; perhaps he thought it was better to get it over with.

  Toby ordered Hob to tie my wrists behind my back.

  ‘No handcuffs?’ asked Sid.

  ‘I’d rather keep them on me,’ said Toby. ‘You never know when they might come in handy, and it would be a waste to use them on these two.’

  Toby objected to the way Hob had tied my wrists at first, and made him do it again, more tightly.

  ‘On the bed, Sarah!’

  ‘Which bed?’

  ‘This one will do.’

  I climbed onto my grandparents’ bed and lay down, facing the window. Hob was instructed to tie my ankles, above the heavy boots, so that I could not slip my feet loose.

  ‘Not that it would matter, I suppose!’ said Toby. ‘Sid—you got the knife?’

  Sid produced my grandmother’s vegetable knife. My mother had given it to her for a Christmas present.

  ‘Pick your spot!’ said Toby, grinning. Sid wiped the handle and blade and handed it to Hob, hilt foremost. Hob hesitated. Toby put one big hand round Hob’s throat and squeezed. ‘Pick your spot, little man. Anywhere from throat to stomach. Make sure she dies of it, that’s all we ask.’

  Hob got on the bed behind me. I looked up at him for a moment, and then turned away to lie in a foetal position on my left side. He bent over me, and with his left hand sought for my heart. He took his time over it, and then drove the knife in up to the hilt with his right hand. I heard him grunt with effort.

  I coughed, twice. And jerked.

  Toby came round the bed and stood between me and the window, darkening the room.

  Not bad!’ I heard him murmur. ‘Now take the knife out, man, so that we can see the damage.’

  Hob’s hand withdrew the knife slowly. I watched red liquid follow the blade and spread on the coverlet. I choked and dribbled.

  ‘She’s coughing blood all right,’ said Sid. ‘Taking the knife out always hurries things up.’

  My eyes unfocused. They were dim against the light. I let my eyelids sink.

  I heard them turn to leave the room, taking Hob down the stairs to die.

  *

  I waited with my eyes closed until I heard them shut and lock the front door. Then I sat up and started fishing with bound hands into my boot for the knife. I spat out the rest of the sloe gin I had been holding in my mouth since my visit to the bathroom, and ignored the smart of scraped skin on my upper arm. Acting on Hob’s advice, I had used my minutes of freedom in the kitchen to raid my grandmother’s store of home-made wines. I had poured some sloe gin into an empty medicine bottle to be sipped at the last possible moment, and the rest I had emptied into a plastic bag, and sealed it with tape. I had put both the medicine bottle and the bag of liquid into the baggy legs of my overalls, and slid the roll of tape and a pair of scissors into my pockets. Luckily Toby had not thought of searching me, and anyway, he wouldn’t have thought the objects I was carrying in my pockets remarkable. Once in the bathroom, I had peeled off my overalls, and taped the sloshing, bulging bag of liquid to my skin over my heart. It was uncomfortable, but I couldn’t risk it shifting, so I used a lot of tape. I wondered how Hob had kept the knife concealed for so long; the only article of clothing he’d kept on throughout his captivity had been his pants. Had he hidden the knife in them? It was possible, but not probable. He’d probably hidden it by slipping it between the bandages I’d put on his feet.

  It was Hob who had thought of it; it was an actor’s trick, he’d said, to slide a fake dagger between arm and breast, piercing a bag of red liquid so as to simulate the
flow of blood. I had taken a swig of sloe gin before I’d left the bathroom, and emptied the rest of the bottle down the drain. Tape and scissors I’d dropped into the cistern, just in case.

  Unfortunately Hob hadn’t been able to use a fake dagger, and in spite of all his care, he’d driven the knife through the bag of liquid and into my skin. It was real blood that mingled with the sloe gin staining the coverlet as I struggled to reach his knife.

  ‘It’s up to you to fool them,’ he’d said. ‘Cough … jerk … go limp. Can you do it?’

  ‘I’m sure I can, with my life at stake. But what about you?’

  He didn’t answer. He had worked out how I might be saved, but he didn’t see how he could save himself, and I didn’t, either.

  I grasped the hilt of the knife and withdrew it from my boot. Turning it between my fingers, I started sawing on the rope round my wrists. Rose had opened the window sometime that morning, and Toby had forgotten to close it, so I could hear the preparations he and Sid were making in the yard.

  ‘Yes, the beam should be all right,’ yelled Sid. He must be in the garage, looking up at the heavy oak beam that supported the roof. His voice sounded muffled. ‘Should I move the van out?’

  ‘I don’t see why,’ replied Toby. His voice came from directly beneath, and gave me a start. It reminded me that I must not make any sound, in my nightmare of effort, or he would realise I was not dead, and come back into the house to finish me off.

  ‘It would give us more room,’ said Sid. His voice was louder now. He was probably coming out of the shed. ‘Shall I use some more of that rope to tie his wrists, before we string him up?’

  ‘In front of him, perhaps,’ said Toby. ‘Suicides often do that, I believe, so as to prevent themselves from changing their minds half way through.’ He laughed.

  There was a scuffling sound, followed by a slap. Hob?

  I sweated. I forced back a scream as the knife bit into my wrist. I wasn’t much good at this. The heavy overalls hampered me; they were sodden all down my left side now, and the smell of gin was beginning to attract flies … and yes, there was a wasp!