Last Rites

by Neil White

  I remembered the Facebook entry for 31st October. I die.

  ‘If we don't find her and stop her,’ I replied grimly, ‘then my guess is that she will.’

  Chapter Forty-one

  Sarah didn't move when the door opened. She was staring into space, ignoring the noise, the light.

  She could feel him on her still. It was the smell on her shirt, his staleness, sweat and old cigarettes, the scratches his rough hands had made between her thighs. And she could still feel his body, the way he felt between her legs, the sound of him in her ear. Invasive, abusive.

  He stepped into the room and stood there for a few moments, just watching.

  ‘You're just like me,’ he said quietly.

  Sarah turned to look at him, her eyes filled with contempt. ‘I'm nothing like you,’ she spat at him.

  ‘You tried to kill me,’ he said.

  ‘I had no choice,’ Sarah replied.

  He chuckled at that. ‘The door was open. I left it open, wanted to know what you would do. You could have raced through it and slid the bolt. I would have been locked in.’

  ‘There would have been someone waiting for me.’

  ‘Maybe, but would it have been any different if you had killed me?’ he replied. ‘You were consumed by hate. That was your weakness.’

  ‘No, you are motivated by hate, not me,’ she said. ‘You have kept me captive, you have hurt me. I am not like you.’

  He shook his head. ‘You're wrong. You are more like me than you think. We are all evil, all killers. You weren't scared of the consequences, and that's why you could kill me. And who would criticise you, killing a monster like me? Make a murder free of consequences, and you make a murderer. One like you, Sarah Goode.’

  ‘So was rape in your master plan?’ she asked, her voice getting angrier, tears flashing across her eyes. ‘Go on, tell me, you're the fucking genius here, the criminal mastermind. Did you always intend to rape me?’

  He flinched. It was barely visible, but Sarah spotted it, the first chink in his armour. Just a hunch of the shoulders, a shrug of uncertainty.

  ‘No, that was just weakness, wasn't it,’ she continued, her venom growing. ‘You claim some kind of special insight, but when it comes to it, you're just another man, someone who wants to fuck women because it makes you feel good. You just couldn't control yourself.’

  He didn't answer.

  ‘And look at you, behind that ridiculous mask,’ she continued, her voice getting more strident, snarling, angry. ‘You say you aren't scared of consequences, but you hide from me so I can't describe you. Or is it because if I saw how you looked, I wouldn't have any fear? Do you seem so ordinary on the outside?’ Sarah stood up, threw the blanket to the ground. ‘So go on then,’ she screeched at him. ‘Fuck me again, if that's all you want.’ She started to unbutton her shirt. ‘One more time. Now.’

  He turned away and went towards the door. Sarah went towards him, but before she could get to the door, he slammed it shut and locked it, the bolt slamming home loudly.

  Sarah banged on the door with her fists, screamed at him to come back, but when it stayed silent on the other side, she sank slowly to her knees and wrapped her arms tightly around her chest. She waited for the heartbeat sound to return, and she knew that he wasn't coming back for a while. He was going to leave her to rot.

  Sarah thought of her parents. Of her mother, proud of her teacher daughter; and her father, strong and protective. And then more tears came. Tears of despair, of knowing that this was the end.

  Chapter Forty-two

  I pulled up outside the home of Sarah's parents, a semidetached bungalow on one of the roads out of Blackley, with views towards the countryside and a neat front garden. The gate opened onto a small driveway with a carport at the side and a garage further along. Sarah's father was in there, and the clang of the gate must have alerted him because he looked up as I walked towards him.

  His garage looked like it hadn't housed a car in years, filled from front to back with tools and half-finished projects. Old bolts sat in jars of oil, and a gnarled wooden bench ran along its length, the line broken by a metal vice and a half-finished go-kart. I don't think he recognised me at first, but as I got closer he wiped his hands and came out to greet me.

  ‘Hello Mr Garrett,’ he said, surprised, recovering to hold out his hand to shake. Before I could take it, he noticed the oil on his palm and withdrew. He looked down, embarrassed. ‘I'm glad I've seen you. About the other morning. I hope you don't think we were using you or anything. It's just that, well…’

  ‘You're desperate,’ I said. ‘I understand. And it should be me who apologises. You are having a difficult time. I didn't mean to be rude.’

  Mr Goode nodded at me, accepting the apology.

  I pointed towards the garage. ‘What are you making?’

  He looked back. ‘A go-kart,’ and then he smiled, the first time I'd seen it. ‘It's for the little lad who visits next door. His grandma lives there.’ He sighed. ‘He'll have a much better one at home, with an electric motor so that he won't need a hill to make it go, but it keeps me busy.’

  I smiled with him, but I could tell that the project was just a distraction to keep his mind busy until Sarah came home.

  Then he looked at me. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Garrett?’

  ‘It's about Sarah,’ I replied. ‘I've got a confession to make.’ When he looked quizzically at me, I continued, ‘I've been looking into Sarah's case. I thought there might be something to write about.’

  ‘But you didn't seem interested,’ he said, taken aback.

  ‘I know, but that was to protect myself, just so that I could drop the story if it came to nothing. If I had promised to look into it, stopping would have been hard.’

  Mr Goode didn't respond straight away. He picked at some loose skin in the palm of his hand, and then said eventually, ‘So have you found something?’ He looked up, and I saw that his eyes had turned moist. ‘If you're telling me now, you must have found something.’

  I nodded. ‘I want to talk to you. There might be some things that you don't know about, but you might clear some things up for me.’

  He walked slowly past me and went to his back door. He turned to invite me inside. When I walked in, I saw Mrs Goode sitting in a chair, reading a newspaper. She looked up, surprised.

  ‘He's writing the story,’ blurted out Mr Goode.

  I held up my hands in protest. ‘I'm looking into it, that's all.’

  ‘So why are you here?’ she asked. When I didn't respond, she said, ‘Because you want to know more, so you're interested.’

  I smiled an apology. It didn't seem like a good time to start an argument.

  ‘I just want to find out more about Sarah,’ I said.

  Mrs Goode put down her newspaper. ‘Sit down, Mr Garrett,’ and as I settled into a high-backed chair by the fire, Mr Goode going back outside, she asked, ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Just about Sarah,’ I replied. ‘Her interests. Her likes and dislikes. Hobbies.’

  Mrs Goode looked out of the window as she spoke. I could tell it was hard for her, going back to a time when everything was normal. ‘She had a lot of interests,’ she said quietly. ‘Music, films, just the usual stuff. She was just an ordinary girl, our only child. She cannot have done what they say she has done.’

  ‘What sort of music?’

  ‘Oh, stuff I didn't understand,’ she replied. ‘She went through a phase when she was younger. It's always the bright girls who go through it, so they say. She dyed her hair black, eye-liner to match. Long black dresses. Even had a stud in her eyebrow.’

  ‘Goth?’

  ‘I think that's what they call it. I used to tell her not to hide herself, but she just wanted to shock. I tried to tell her that young people can't shock any more, and I could never understand why someone would hide away a lovely figure like hers, but she did. And some of the boys she brought home,’ she said, shaking her head, and then she laughed.
‘They frightened me at first. Long dark hair, like Sarah's, but big boots and long black coats. But you know what?’

  I raised my eyebrows.

  ‘They were the nicest boys,’ she continued. ‘They cared for Sarah, and were sensitive and polite. And then I thought that if I was still proud of Sarah, however she looked, then their parents must be proud of them.’

  ‘When did Sarah stop dressing like that?’

  Mrs Goode gave a small laugh. ‘I don't think she ever really stopped. She stopped dyeing her hair, and the black clothes went, but she still had the same interests.’

  ‘What kind of thing?’

  ‘Spooky stuff. She used to fill the house with candles when she lived here, and incense burners, crystals, symbols, things like that. I don't think she opened her curtains for a year. Her house was just the same.’ She sighed. ‘It was just the way she was. Innocent fun.’

  ‘Did she ever mention the Pendle witches?’ I asked.

  Mrs Goode looked surprised. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I heard someone say that Sarah had a connection with them.’

  Mrs Goode looked at me for a few seconds, and then stood up. ‘Follow me,’ she said, and shuffled towards the hallway. When I got there, she had stopped at a large picture frame.

  ‘Sarah bought me this a few years ago. She thought it was interesting.’

  I stepped forward and looked at the frame. There was a symbol at the top that looked familiar, a screaming face in outline. Underneath it, there was some kind of a family tree. I realised that I'd seen it before, on the wall in Sarah's house. I went to the bottom line, the words written small and difficult to see, but I saw Sarah's name there. Above it, I saw Mrs Goode's.

  ‘Your family tree,’ I said, stating the obvious. I guessed what it would reveal, but I knew that I had to let her tell the story.

  ‘It's not just that, though,’ she said, and pointed to the top of the frame. ‘Start with the beginning, not the end.’

  My gaze shifted, and I squinted as I read the name at the top.

  ‘Anne Whittle?’ I asked, feigning ignorance.

  ‘That's right,’ she said, nodding. ‘Don't you recognise the name?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Anne Whittle was one of the Pendle witches,’ she said dramatically, and I did my best to look surprised.

  ‘Tell me about Anne Whittle,’ I said, trying hard not to smile. The small-town murder stuff had been interesting before, but this was in a different league. Descendants of witches. Cryptic letters. Family trees. I relished the thought of pitching the story, knowing that one of the nationals would be interested.

  Mrs Goode looked at the framed family tree. ‘It's something Sarah is quite proud of.’

  ‘Proud?’

  ‘Why shouldn't she be? It's a part of history, and I'm connected to it, according to this. So is Sarah.’

  ‘Did Sarah talk much about the Pendle witch connection?’ I asked.

  ‘A lot of people around Pendle talk about the witches. Sarah said that we were just a bit more special because we were descendants, but there are a lot of people around Pendle who can claim that.’

  ‘So it didn't make her feel cursed in any way?’

  Mrs Goode looked at me, confused. ‘Why would it? It's just a piece of history from four hundred years ago.’

  I thought about telling her about the letters, but the police were trying to keep the letters secret, and I wasn't sure how they would view it if I told the Goodes all about them.

  ‘Have you got any photographs of Sarah that I could use in my story?’ I asked, trying to steer the conversation away from the witches, and hoping I would be left alone for a few minutes.

  Mrs Goode nodded and shuffled off towards the stairs. When she was gone, I pulled out my phone and took some shots of the family tree, hoping that the words would still be visible when I put it on my computer. I zoomed in and tried to get all of the branches.

  When Mrs Goode came back downstairs with some pictures, the phone was back in my pocket.

  She seemed proud as she leafed through the pictures, looking at them herself before passing them over. There were some of Sarah's school photographs, an awkward girl, lanky, ungainly, her face pale and freckled. In the later pictures she had blossomed, but she had gone darker. Her face was still pale, but her hair was long and dyed jet black, and I could make out the glint of metal around her eyebrow.

  Mrs Goode must have caught me glancing back towards the family tree, because she said, ‘It's funny that you should mention a curse.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I started to research some of the names. We would be related, and I thought it would be nice to meet them, these distant cousins, but it seemed like some were people who had died too young.’

  ‘People die all the time,’ I said. ‘In fact, most people on that tree are dead, if you think about it logically.’

  ‘There is no need to be facetious, Mr Garrett. I thought you seemed interested, that's all. And now, Sarah has gone missing.’

  And Luke is dead, I almost said, but instead I sighed and apologised. When Mrs Goode didn't respond, I asked, ‘Who are you talking about?’

  She walked back to the picture and pointed at a name close to the bottom. It was one level higher than Sarah.

  ‘April Mather?’ I said. ‘Would that be one of your cousins?’

  Mrs Goode nodded. ‘A distant one, I suppose. We never met, but I remember seeing it in the paper.’

  ‘Seeing what?’

  ‘About her suicide. She hanged herself. It was quite dramatic, so I recall, jumping from Blacko Tower. It must be, oh, around ten years ago now. And her,’ she said, pointing at another name.

  ‘Rebecca Nurse?’

  She pulled a face at that. ‘That was another tragedy, a couple of years after April,’ she said. ‘She was young and pretty, with her whole life ahead of her. She went to the pub one night, but she never made it home. She was found next to a stream just near to Pendle Hill. Her clothes had been torn off, and she had been strangled.’

  ‘Did they catch her killer?’

  Mrs Goode shook her head. ‘I don't think so. Or at least if they did, I didn't hear about it.’ Then I saw her brightness dim, the interest she had in the story spoiled by a realisation that people would talk about Sarah as the next in the curse, just a conversation piece.

  As I looked at her, I saw her retreat back into herself as she thought about her daughter. I sensed that I wouldn't get much more from her. I took her hand and thanked her for her time. She looked up at me and I saw tears in her eyes. She squeezed my hand and then nodded that she knew the meeting was over.

  As I headed for the door, I wondered how strange the story was going to get before I would get the chance to write it. But when I looked at my watch, I realised with a jolt that I had something more important to do first.

  I was late for the Court Welfare meeting.

  Chapter Forty-three

  Rod was unsure what reception he would get as he stood on Abigail's doorstep. He had her blanket over his arm, to give him the excuse that it was a courtesy call.

  As the door opened, Abigail looked at him, and then at the blanket.

  ‘You didn't have to bring it back, officer,’ she said.

  ‘It gets cold around here in winter, Miss Hobbs. It would stay on my conscience if anything happened to you.’

  Abigail smiled and then turned to walk into the house. As Rod followed her, he saw that she had touched up her hair, the grey roots disappeared now, her hair frizzy black right down to her scalp. She was wearing a long purple dress, loose and flowing over her large frame, but as Rod looked, he got the sense that she was naked underneath, everything in her dress moving around too freely.

  He looked away, uncomfortable, and then as he entered the living room, he saw a sprig of rosemary pinned to the doorframe. The living room itself was tidier than the first time he'd been there, with the rug back in its place and the intersecting lines of salt s
wept up. And there was some light coming in from one of the windows, catching the small trails of smoke coming from the incense sticks dotted around the room, making the air hazy. The back of his throat tickled and made him cough.

  ‘That's strong stuff,’ Rod said.

  Abigail turned around and wrinkled her nose. ‘It helps me think,’ she replied slowly, and then pointed to a chair. ‘Sit down.’

  Rod nodded and took his place in the chair while Abigail shuffled off to the kitchen. He waited, looking at his fingernails, no sound in the house except the tinkle of some wind chimes by the window and the regular clunk of an old clock on the mantelpiece.

  When Abigail returned, she was carrying a small tray with two cups. Rod got to his feet to help her, but she shook her head that she didn't need it. He noticed another sprig of rosemary over the door to the kitchen. As Abigail set the tray down, she offered Rod a cup and then asked, ‘How can I help you?’

  Rod took a sip of his tea. ‘I want you to tell me what is going on,’ he said, pausing to pick some tea leaves from his lips.

  ‘Why do you think anything is going on?’ she asked.

  ‘Miss Hobbs, I don't mean to upset you, but someone blew up your cat, there was an explosion in Isla Marsden's shed, and in someone else's before that. Isla pretends not to know you, but you both wear the same rings.’

  Abigail looked uncomfortable and shuffled in her seat. ‘I don't want to do anything that would cause harm to anyone,’ she said quietly, ‘but I cannot say anything.’

  ‘But if you don't say anything, someone else might get hurt.’

  Abigail shook her head slowly. ‘No, Inspector. I just can't.’

  ‘What about your craft group?’ he asked.

  Abigail looked surprised, and Rod saw the cup tremble in her hand.

  ‘I know that you are in a craft group with Isla,’ he pressed. Still Abigail wouldn't respond. ‘Would anyone have any reason to want to harm you?’

  Rod looked at her, waiting for her to continue, but she stayed silent.