by Mark Edwards
Chapter Fifty-Nine
The old man led them up the crooked path. First Laura, holding onto Oscar, her arms wrapped around the baby to guard against the bitter cold, then Alina, trailing behind, her chin dipped. Laura’s legs were stiff and she felt like there was a swarm of flies buzzing inside her gut.
‘Come on,’ the old man urged, unlocking the front door and grabbing Laura’s elbow, pulling her inside. He was strong, and Laura suppressed a shudder at the thought of his hands on her flesh. He grabbed Alina too and shoved her, sending her staggering ahead of them into an entrance hall. The air smelled of dust and it was even colder, if that was possible, inside the house than out among the trees. Laura tried to catch Alina’s eye but the Romanian woman had withdrawn again. Laura knew how terrifying this must be for her. Laura could only imagine what was going to happen, what it would feel like. Alina had been here before, in another house, another forest. And Laura wasn’t scared for herself. All she cared about was protecting Oscar.
The baby was quiet and motionless in her arms and she hugged him against her, worried that the cold was making him weak and listless. Cold and hunger. Could a baby his age go into shock? He needed his mum, he needed milk, warmth, familiar comforts. Her body pulsed with hatred for the man who had brought them here. Yes, just a man. And men could be hurt.
The old man made a sweeping motion towards the stairs and swore at them when they held back.
‘Do you want me to hurt the baby?’ he asked, reaching out, and Laura snatched Oscar away, which made the man laugh. Then his face grew stern and impatient. ‘Get up there.’
Laura went first, then Alina, the old man following. They went up one floor and he flapped his arms, telling them to climb to the next. Just as in the other house, there was a closed door at the top of the stairs. The old man reached past them and turned the handle. The door swung inwards and they stepped inside.
Alina stiffened. Laura reached out to touch her arm.
It was a replica of the room in Romania, but smaller with fewer beds and cots. No Polaroids on the wall. Yet. The two beds had white sheets and blankets, metal frames. Two sets of cuffs were attached to the frames at each end of both beds. Laura could hear Alina’s breathing grow heavier. She tried to stay calm, to take in the rest of the room. Next to the second bed was a white wooden cot. Piled up in the cot were several wool blankets, and Laura hurried over and snatched them up, wrapping them around Oscar. The old man watched her do this and blew on his hands.
‘Good girl,’ he said.
She turned to him. ‘You can’t believe you’ll get away with this, do you? The police will find us.’
He smiled. ‘You might want to feed him.’ He nodded towards the far wall, where a table contained numerous items, the kind of things you would find in the home of anyone with a small baby. Plastic bottles, tubs of formula milk, nappies and wipes, barrier cream and a packet of dummies.
The windows were boarded up, planks of wood nailed across the panes.
‘Can’t have a repeat of what happened to Dragoș, can we?’ the old man said to Alina. He nodded at Laura. ‘Why don’t you make the baby a drink?’
Laura hesitated, not sure what to do with Oscar.
‘I’ll take him,’ the man said.
Laura thrust Oscar at Alina. The Romanian woman blanched.
‘Take him,’ Laura urged, and Alina acquiesced, holding him as if he was made of crystal, like he might shatter in her arms.
There was cold water in a jug. Laura poured some into a bottle and added three flat scoops of formula powder.
He had never had formula milk before. Would he take it, especially cold like this? Would it make him sick? She took him back from Alina, sat down and gently pressed the teat against his lips. After a few moments, he took it and began to drink, obviously starving. She felt him relax, and he looked up at her with his big blue eyes.
The old man watched.
‘I knew you’d be a good mother,’ he said. ‘The first time I saw you. I have a sixth sense for it now, after all these years. When you went into that sleeper carriage without the correct tickets—’
Laura’s eyed widened with surprise.
He laughed. ‘Yes, I heard you all chatting about it. I was watching you, thinking how wonderful it would be to have you at my house. The beautiful, valuable babies you’d have. I watched this little bitch’s boyfriend sneak into your carriage and come back, the two of them whispering together.’
Laura glanced over at Alina, who hung her head.
‘And I was still watching as the train started to near my house and the border guards appeared. That’s when I realised: I could make this happen!’
Laura stared at the old man as Oscar continued to drink from the bottle.
‘I had a nice little chat with the border guards, told them about the arrogant English couple travelling in the sleeper without a ticket. That I’d heard you boasting about it, saying there was no way these Romanian morons would throw you off the train in the middle of nowhere.’ He was talking faster and faster now, his breathing growing heavier, excited by his own tale. He pointed at Alina. ‘It worked out even better than I hoped. I wasn’t expecting this one to get thrown off the train too.’
‘You’re going to die,’ Alina said.
He laughed. ‘I’m starting to think I should only have brought the English woman. I only need her.’ He reached inside his jacket and took out a knife.
‘Get on the bed,’ he said to Alina.
Laura watched as Alina obeyed, lying flat on her back upon the empty single bed, her arms crossed over her chest, no emotion on her face. The old man snapped a cuff over one ankle, then the other. He did the same to her wrists. He pressed the sharp edge of the blade against Alina’s throat and put his face close to hers.
‘You killed my son,’ he said.
‘It felt great.’
Alina continued speaking, switching to Romanian. Her voice was low, a sneer on her face as she spoke. The old man responded, also talking in his mother tongue. Although she couldn’t understand the words, it was clear to Laura that Alina was taunting him, and that it was making him angry. His face grew pink as Alina spat harsh words at him, then laughed. Then she said something that made him stand straight and look at Laura, surprise in his eyes.
He stared at her for a long moment, as Oscar finished his bottle, and then he laughed again. He was about to speak to her when Oscar opened his eyes and began to cry, a sudden wailing that made the old man clasp his hands over his ears. On the bed, Alina laughed, and the old man pointed the knife first at her and then at Oscar.
‘Shut him up,’ he said.
Laura tried to shush the baby, rocking him in her arms. ‘He’s still hungry,’ she said.
‘I don’t give a fuck. Shut him up now.’
He approached Alina again, the knife outstretched. The baby continued to scream, louder and louder, resistant to all attempts to quieten him. Alina’s laughter grew increasingly hysterical, tears rolling from the corners of her eyes.
‘Shut up!’ the old man yelled. ‘Shut the fuck up!’
Something banged far below them. For a moment, Laura didn’t think the old man had heard it above the infant wailing and the laughter. But then he stopped moving, cocked his head.
‘Do anything while I’m gone and I kill this bitch and the baby,’ he said. He left the room and Laura heard the click of a key turning and a lock snapping into place. And as soon as he’d gone, Oscar fell silent, as if it was the evil old man’s presence that had been making him scream.
Alina stopped laughing and rolled her head towards Laura.
‘Do exactly as I say,’ she said.
Chapter Sixty
We drove into the forest and stopped a hundred metres from the house we were looking for. As Edward killed the engine we were plunged into silence, as sudden as switching off a radio. I open
ed the door and got out, staggering like a newborn foal. The sight of the trees in the darkness made me cling to the car, my instincts screaming at me to get back in, get out of here, back to the city and lights and people.
Here we are again.
I felt like a man who is scared of heights standing on a cliff edge. I could hear the trees murmuring, stretching out their bare branches and whispering my name. Somewhere in the dense foliage, something shifted and darted away.
This time you won’t get away.
‘Are you all right?’ Edward asked, joining me.
I licked my dry lips. ‘I thought . . . I was going to be OK. But it’s just like . . .’ I swallowed, though there was no spit in my mouth. ‘It’s just like last time.’
‘You want me to go alone?’ he asked, placing a hand on my shoulder. ‘You can wait here.’
‘No. No! I have to do this. They’re just trees. It’s just a forest. And the place we’re going—it’s just a house.’
And the man we’re looking for—he’s just a monster.
‘We don’t know for certain this is the right place,’ Edward said.
‘It is. I can feel it.’
He didn’t respond to that. We had stopped briefly in the village on the edge of Hatfield Forest and gone into the pub, asked the barmaid if she knew of any houses in the forest that had been sold or rented recently. A large, secluded house, probably. I felt certain that Gabor would look for something familiar. And if he had been planning to take Laura and Oscar, he would need somewhere without close neighbours.
‘The old witch’s house,’ said a man at the bar with pockmarked skin.
I whirled to face him. ‘What?’ I was thrown back to the night in the forest, standing at the door, a little boy’s voice in my head telling me a witch lived here.
‘It’s not actually a witch’s house,’ laughed the barmaid, who was in her mid-forties, with twinkling eyes. ‘People just call it that because the local kids all said the woman who lived there ate children. She died, ooh, five years ago now.’
‘I heard someone had bought it,’ said the man with the acne scars.
They drew us a map showing us how to get there, not asking us why we were looking for it.
‘I still think we should have called the police,’ Edward said now, looking along the dark path that led in the direction shown on the map. ‘We should have left it to them. This fucker firebombed my office, almost killed Sophie—and me.’
We had figured out that Gabor must have seen me submitting the online contact form to Edward and felt compelled to act. I guessed that was his main reason for spying on me. To see if I had told anyone about what I’d seen in Romania. I tried to follow his reasoning. It would be much riskier for him if he killed me or Laura. There would be an investigation, a manhunt. It was much harder to get away with murdering a middle-class couple in the middle of London than in remote Romania. He must have been out of his criminal comfort zone, a spider straying from his web. So he’d decided to watch. To see if we did anything that necessitated the risk.
‘We’ve been over this,’ I said.
I knew if we went back to the police we would have to go through the whole story, the details of how we’d traced Gabor, in great detail. It would take time—time we didn’t have while Laura and Oscar were in danger. And there was another reason: I wanted to do this myself. I wanted this chance to make things right.
We had a single torch between us, just as Laura and I had had when we walked through the forest looking for Alina. This path was wider—was in fact an unmade road—but everything else felt the same. I had come full circle: back to the beginning of a journey I hadn’t wanted to go on. Tonight, one way or another, that journey would end.
The torchlight traced patterns in the trees. I saw faces there: not animals or monsters or witches, but people. Women and children, their mouths twisted into screams. Black eyes focused on me. I thought I could see dead babies hanging from the branches. Imagined children peering from between the trees, whispering.
Go back. Go home.
I stopped, paralysed by fear, my legs refusing to do what I told them. I heard another noise that sounded like a growl. It faded to a whisper, and that was worse.
Edward put his hand on my shoulder.
I cried out.
‘Daniel, calm down. It’s OK. We’re fine. You can do this.’
I nodded. I could. I could do this.
We continued along the path. It curved to the right and as we rounded the bend, Edward said, ‘There it is.’
The house loomed up out of the darkness, glowing faintly in the moonlight that bathed the clearing now we were free of the trees. Once again I was thrown back to the events of last year. The big difference was that this time I had come prepared. I had a kitchen knife in the inside pocket of my coat, which I hadn’t told Edward about, sure he would try to stop me. I had my phone too, fully charged, though when I looked at it I saw that the signal here was extremely weak, just one half-bar, and no 3G.
We walked between two crumbling brick walls into the courtyard of the house, where a black car was parked.
‘Can you hear that?’ I asked.
He nodded. From high above came the faint sound of a crying baby.
I peered through the car’s window and quickly called Edward over.
‘That’s Laura’s,’ I whispered. There was a hair scrunchie lying on the back seat. Laura’s poppy scrunchie.
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m certain. I was with her when she bought it. She wears it all the time.’
The baby stopped crying.
‘I think we should call the police.’
‘No. We don’t have time.’
He took a deep breath. ‘OK. Right. We can’t just go up and knock on the door. Let’s go round the side, see if we can find a way in.’
We crept along the edge of the house and found a pile of firewood logs stacked up on an apron of concrete along the wall. Above them was a small window with a rotten frame.
‘Let me take a look,’ Edward said. He climbed onto the woodpile and grabbed the windowsill, straining to peer through the window, to shine the torch into the dark interior. I put my hand on my chest. I couldn’t believe my heart could beat so hard or so fast.
‘I can’t see any—’
His words were cut off as the log on top of the pile wobbled and suddenly the whole stack toppled from beneath him. I jumped out of the way and Edward clung to the sill, his legs dangling two feet from the ground. The logs rolled to the concrete with a series of loud bangs. Edward held on for a few seconds, then dropped, falling onto his side before pushing himself up and inspecting his fingers. The torch rolled away towards the grass and blinked off, leaving us in the pale moonlight.
Edward shook his head. ‘I’m going to call the police. This is ridiculous.’
He took out his phone and began to dial.
Distracted by this, I didn’t see the man appear around the corner from the front of the house. By the time I noticed him, and realised it was Gabor, he was raising the shotgun he held and pointing it at us.
‘Edward!’ I shouted.
He looked up from his phone just as Gabor fired his weapon.
Edward twisted as he fell to the ground. He didn’t make a sound. I froze for a second, watched Gabor point the shotgun towards me, and somehow managed to make my legs work. I dived to the right, away from the house, the second blast of the shotgun reverberating in my ears. I lay in the mud, a few feet from where Edward lay. He wasn’t moving. I saw Gabor walk towards us, reloading the shotgun as he came, a grim expression on his face. I scrambled to my feet and ran towards the back of the house, certain that I would at any second hear another blast, feel the lead in my back.
I turned the corner of the house and saw a small coal shed on the edge of the lawn. I ran towards it and ducked
behind it, crouching in the overgrown grass, peeking out towards the house as Gabor came around the corner, looking left and right.
‘I can see you,’ he said. ‘Come out. I won’t kill you.’
How fucking gullible did he think I was? I scrabbled in my pocket for my phone and, using my body to conceal the light from the screen, checked if I had any signal. Still half a bar. My hands were shaking so much I could hardly hit the numbers on the screen. Nine. Nine.
‘Drop the phone.’
I looked up. Gabor stood over me, the shotgun barrel a few inches from my face. My thumb hovered over the final nine.
‘Drop the phone now,’ he barked, jabbing the gun at me. ‘Now!’
I did what he said. He stamped on it, cracking the screen.
‘Stand up. Hands in the air.’
Again, I did what he told me. The knife was in my inner pocket but even if I was fast enough to grab it without getting shot, what could I do with it? My kitchen knife against his shotgun. I might as well have been carrying a teaspoon.
He smiled now. ‘I’m actually glad you found me. You’re the final loose end. The last one who knows anything about my son and our business.’
I stared at him.
‘Except you don’t know all the details, do you?’ He shrugged. ‘Sorry. You’ll have to die without knowing the full story.’
He pointed the shotgun at my face.
I held up a hand, as if I could stop a shotgun blast.
‘Where’s Laura? What have you done with her? And baby Oscar?’
He grinned, if you could call it that. It was the grin of a crocodile looking at a wildebeest.
‘Don’t worry about them.’
He steadied the shotgun again. I cringed, waited for the blast. But he hesitated, as if he were savouring the moment. Could I extend that moment, keep him talking, get to the knife in my pocket and surprise him?
‘Please,’ I said. ‘Just answer one question.’
He nodded, the shotgun barrel still trained on my face.
I sucked in a breath. ‘The photos. Was that you? When did you take them?’ My hand crept towards my pocket.