Snoring. One of them was snoring and had their bedroom door open. Cal.
Bloody hell!
I started down the stairs, keeping to the edge to avoid creaks (thanks, Tom) and turned ninety degrees on to a small landing. At the bottom was a wide passage, running the length of the bungalow. At one end was the front door—past Cal’s room—at the other, a pool of darkness. Probably the kitchen. Which way should I go? Past Cal to the front door (known), or avoid Cal and go for the unknown?
The devil you know.
I crossed to the other side of the passage and a board let out a shriek. I forced myself to lift my foot very slowly and pressed myself against the wall. The snoring continued unchanged. I swallowed, closed my eyes and tried to calm my heart, then began stealing along the wall, a foot at a time. No noise, reached Cal’s room—stopped.
It was ridiculous, he was no more likely to hear me as I passed his door than at any other time, and yet crossing that blank space required every milligram of nerve I could summon.
There. I kept going to the door. A cinch. Slipped the yale catch and eased it—
There was a bloody chain, I hadn’t noticed it. I twisted the latch and shut the door again.
The snoring went on. I took the end of the chain, slid it along the groove and out. Slipped the latch again and opened the door.
Moonlight and air, lovely fresh air in my face. I was halfway out when I realised there was another problem. If I pulled the door to, the snap of the latch would probably wake him; if I left it unlatched, the door would swing open and the cold air would definitely wake him. I clenched my teeth and slid back inside. So near—oh, dear Lord, what am I going to do?
A wedge, you need a wedge.
Where the hell am I going to find a wedge?
In your pocket from the bathroom grill.
I found it, then turned the latch and brought the knob down to hold it. I slipped out again, held the wedge against the side of the door and pulled it to…and it held.
I heaved in a lungful of beautiful night air and looked round. The Range Rover stood to one side.
Don’t even think about it, Jo.
Along a concrete path leading to a gate, it swung open and I stepped on to a track. I looked either way—up or down? Lights twinkled in the distance, but near enough for me—down.
I walked quickly. The track was rough but such was the headiness of freedom that I didn’t care. Trees on a low bank rustled. A half moon rode high in the cloudless sky and stars twinkled in the horizon.
I stopped to rewind the wire round my wrist, there was a grunt from the other side of the bank and I jumped as a shape, a sheep, ambled away.
I glanced back, the bungalow was out of sight now, nothing but the sky and the inky black trees.
A tawny owl hooted, its long quavering call filling the night. My toe hit a stone and I doubled up in agony, clenching my teeth with the pain. After that, I walked more carefully in the middle where the weeds grew, their sharp, tangy scent reaching me as I crushed them. My slippers became wet with dew, which I didn’t mind because my arches had begun to ache. Then the cool night air found its way through my night clothes. I shivered, stopped and wrapped the dressing gown more tightly round me.
A wood loomed and dark conifers closed in—silent, spooky, hut no worse than what Dr Kent had in mind for me.
How far had I come? A mile? Shouldn’t I have found a road by now? I seemed to be going deeper into the hinterland. I hesitated, but the trees thinned ahead so I kept going. The gradient steepened, then the wood ended abruptly and I found myself staring down at the silvery surface of a lake. It was perhaps half a mile ahead, half a mile wide and at least two miles long I couldn’t see where it ended. There were no lights on this side and the scattering that twinkled on the other was no nearer than before.
All of which meant I had to turn back.
I wanted to sit down and cry, but homunculus, my mentor and tormentor had other ideas.
Just turn round, and go back. One foot in front of the other. You’ve been out less than an hour—you’ve got plenty of time. I hear and obey, all wise…
The gradient, which had seemed quite gentle on the way down now pulled at my calves and thighs and my feet began aching in earnest.
Just take it slowly, Jo.
Not through this bloody wood I’m not!
It seemed to go on for ever; the shapes more menacing, the silence more sinister and I remembered Mole going into the wild wood in The Wind in the Willows and tried to smile.
At last I emerged. My arches ached abominably and after a few paces I stopped to—
Something brushed my face and I let out a tiny shriek. It was a bat, I could see them flitting about like the insects they were hunting. I took several deep breaths, swallowed, and started walking again, more slowly.
Bats fluttered. The owl called again, quite near. The small of my back began to ache as well, but at least I wasn’t cold any more. I settled into a rhythm that the aches found bearable.
Left right, left right, past the rustling trees…The roof of the bungalow poked its way into the sky and I found myself slowing down. There were no lights, no noise.
Why should there be?
I glanced nervously at it and crouched as I passed the gate. My toe hit a stone that rattled away—I froze. Why did it have to happen now?
No sound from the bungalow…I stole away.
Telegraph poles.
They should have told you which way to go earlier.
Oh shut up! How much time had I wasted? An hour? More? Five minutes later, I found the road.
It was only a minor road but it was a road and where there’s a road, there’s houses, or so I told myself. Left or right? No lights. Try going up this time. Right.
One foot in front of the other, left right, left right.
The road levelled and banks rose on either side of me—bad news, in that I could neither see where I was going, nor hide if I heard a car coming.
Left right, left right…wonder what the time is? Wonder when they get up?
Now that I was walking on the level, my legs and back had stopped aching, but the arches of my feet were worse. I stopped, leant against the bank and massaged them, than went on. They still hurt.
The banks fell away and I could see across fields full of crops. I so wanted to rest my feet but my body had cooled and I knew I’d shiver and find it hard to get going again. A gateway—I had to sit down. I sat beneath it, leant against it, massaging my feet again. I rewound the wire on to my wrist where it had come away, and shivered. The owl called again, or was it a different owl? The shivering got worse—my bottom was wet where I was sitting. I forced myself up, climbed on to the gate and looked around.
Nothing. No lights, no buildings, just field after field and hills in the distance. I forced myself to start walking again.
Left right, left right…I lost all sense of time. I became oblivious to everything except the arches of my feet. Then the stars began to fade and I thought my senses were going until, with a shock, I realised it was dawn.
Dawn. Light rose quickly and with it the dawn chorus—birdsong so loud it was painful. My left slipper was coming apart. I stopped to look—the stitching had come away between sole and upper and my toes were sticking out. It had to happen, amazing they’d held out so long, really. Through the birdsong I became aware of another sound, a sort of rhythmic thumping…an engine?
I hobbled along, favouring the left foot as much as possible till I found another gate and clambered up it.
Just down there, a silo, an old barn, sheds—a farm! There had to be a road or track to it. I continued up the road as fast as I could—there—a signpost.
I forgot the slipper and broke into a run and the sole stripped away some more but it wasn’t too had on the tarmac.
The sign read Bryn Fferm and pointed down a tarmac drive. I could see the silo and the barn and started towards them, but there were stones and I couldn’t hurry. The thumping got louder—som
e sort of stationary engine. I reached a gate, also bearing the legend Bryn Fferm. Ahead was a yard, at the other end, the barn with the silo attached to it, to the right was a cottage and to the left, a long, low shed that ran up to the barn. An ammoniacal smell filled the air. Beside the shed door was a red pickup and a man unloading it. He wore overalls and was old and grizzled. He stopped working as I approached, as well he might—dawn apparitions in fleecy dressing gowns were probably outside his experience.
‘Bore da,’ he said, eyeing me warily, and my heart sank.
‘May I use your telephone, please?’ I said slowly, clearly and loudly, to make myself heard over the engine.
‘Pwy ydych chi? O ble ydych chi ‘n dod?’
‘Tele-phone.’ I took a pace towards him and made a dialling motion with my finger. He took a nervous pace back.
‘Teliffon?’ he said. ‘Paham? Mae ‘n ddrwg gen I. Mid wyf yn siarad Saesneg.’
‘Please,’ I begged, pointing at the cottage, ‘Telephone.’
He began speaking again, then his eyes flicked away over my shoulder. I spun round as the Range Rover sped through the gate and bore down on us.
27
One moment I was frozen to the ground, the next, I was running lead footed to the door of the long shed. I slammed it, heard a yale snapping shut and ran.
An overwhelming stench of ammonia; a partitioned pathway stretching ahead like a tunnel; chickens squawking wildly in their pens, feathers; the door smashing in behind me; a dead end. Another door on my right—I scuttled through, slammed it, found a bolt and rammed it across. It shuddered as Cal crashed into it. I looked round, frantically.
A tractor, a harvester, a loft directly above me and beyond it, a cathedral-like space—the old barn.
I ran between the harvester and the tractor. Cal smashed into the door again, but it held. I made for the huge double doors at the back and pulled at the wicket set into them. It was sealed up.
I stood there, paralysed.
The other wicket. See what they’re doing.
I ran over to the main doors, cracked open the wicket and peered through.
Dr Kent was trying to talk to the farmer. Cal appeared from the chicken shed and pointed up to the barn. The farmer stared at him, shook his head and started walking toward the cottage. Cal came up behind him, chopped at his neck and he fell to the ground. Dr Kent pointed over to the cottage and Cal ran over to it.
I shut the wicket, sprang the yale and turned to look for another way out. I couldn’t see anything and had to wait for my eyes to adjust. At the far end of the barn. I made out a ladder running up to a small platform with a door…the grain silo.
I ran over to it, up the iron ladder on to the platform. I’d lost a slipper and my foot hurt. I tried the door, but it was locked. What now?
Too exposed up here.
Down the ladder again—the dressing gown got tangled in my legs and I jumped the last bit, hurting my bare foot. I hobbled across the barn, wondered whether to try and double back through the chicken shed, but as I reached the main doors, the wicket rattled. I panicked completely. A wooden ladder led up to the loft and I shot up it without thinking. The wicket shuddered as Cat tried to break it down, but it held.
The loft was piled with junk, ancient farm equipment.
You should have gone through the chicken shed—too late now.
Pencil beams of sunlight from the roof lasered through the dusty air. There was silence from below.
What was he doing? Was it possible to see out?
I looked round, but there were no holes or cracks in the tightly fitting boards of the walls.
He’s gone to get the keys from the farmer.
And he could be back any second. There was no way out, nowhere left to go. One thing’s certain, I thought, I’m not going back there. I’m not…
I tried to find a weapon. There was a click from below and I heard the wicket open.
I shrank down. Cal closed it gently and moved to one side, toward me, as he waited for his eyes to adjust.
He’s almost directly below you—isn’t there something you could drop on him?
Even if I could find anything, he was bound to hear me moving it. Suddenly, I saw beside me a broad, rusty blade, about four feet long by nearly a foot wide, with a hilt and wooden handles at one end (I found out later it was an old hayknife). I touched the curved cutting edge. It was still sharp, the end pointed.
I raised my head. Cal was looking round now, concentrating on one area at a time. His eyes fastened on the wooden ladder beside him.
You realise the wire’s come undone again and it’s hanging down there?
I could see it going over the edge of the loft.
‘Well, well, well lookey here.’ Cal boomed. ‘Are you comin’ down, honey, or am I comin’ up?’
Don’t say anything, wait till he gets on to the ladder.
Cal chuckled. ‘Thinkin’ ‘bout it. I don’ need to come up.’ The wire jerked at my wrist.
‘All right, I’m coming.’ I said.
I pushed myself to my knees, gripped the handle of the hayknife and tried to ease it free from the other rusty metal. With a scraping noise, it moved.
‘Come on, come on.’ He tugged at the wire again.
‘I’m stuck.’
‘Guess I’ll have to come and get you after all.’ The wire slackened as he stepped on to the ladder…
I heaved at the hayknife again, another scrape, then it was free. It was heavy. I gripped it round the metal hilt and crawled on my knees to the ladder.
‘Calvin, are you all right?’ Dr Kent’s voice came from outside.
‘I’m fine, I’ve found her.’
I reached the ladder. He looked up at me and with both hands, I flung the hayknife at him like a spear. He twisted to one side, grunting as it flew past his head, the wooden handle struck his jaw, then hit the floor.
His hand flew up to his neck. I was sure I’d missed, that just the handle had caught him, then I saw the blood spurting between his fingers.
‘Calvin?’ Dr Kent’s voice came again. ‘Calvin…’
He looked up at me again, a puzzled frown on his face. With a bubbling cry, he fell, crashing on top of the hayknife, the gun flying from his hand.
I was on to the ladder in a flash, but before I could get to the bottom, there was a creaking groan as one of the main doors opened and I was blinded by the light streaming in.
With an anguished cry, Dr Kent knelt beside him. She touched the wound in his neck and felt feverishly for his pulse. She cradled his hand to her cheek, touching his face and I understood.
Go for the gun, urged homunculus, jump…
As though by telepathy, she snatched it up, pointing it at me. I remained on the ladder, still as death. As still as Cal…
She stood up and took a step towards me. The bones of her face stood out so that she became a facsimile of the Walking Madonna.
‘You have killed my son,’ she said slowly, intensely, her lips moving but not her teeth. ‘From now on, without question, you will do exactly as I tell you, or I will kill you. This pregnancy, and further pregnancies, will proceed until you bear me another child. Do you understand?’
Say yes.
‘Yes.’
The air round us suddenly filled with insects. There was a boom and, with an expression of astonishment on her face, she crumpled on to the floor beside Cal.
Something stung my face.
I looked round. The farmer walked slowly towards me, holding a shotgun.
‘Ydych chi’n fawn?’ His expression showed he was asking if I was all right. I nodded. ‘Doctor,’ he said, ‘Polis.’ Then, pointing at himself, ‘Cymreig. Welsh.’
As we walked slowly over to the cottage, I felt my insides knotting, as though I was starting a period.
28
We were on the Isle of Anglesey. The farmer released his wife, whom Cal had tied to a chair (and who could speak English), then phoned the emergency services and found me som
e clothes. I was shaking over a cup of hot, sweet tea when the sirens arrived. The police were first by a whisker; one of them had just time to say, ‘Ah yes, I think we’ve heard about you,’ before I was whisked away by the ambulance.
‘I don’t want a bloody sedative,’ I snarled at the paramedic. ‘OK?’
I got one just the same and didn’t really come to my senses again until they’d extracted the lead shot from my face.
*
‘Marcus…Tom!’ I spoke with some difficulty through the dressings on my face. ‘How did you get here so quickly?’
I was in a room at the hospital, being kept in for observation.
‘We flew,’ said Tom. ‘How are you, Jo?’
‘The better for seeing you.’ I couldn’t remember when I was last so pleased to see anyone. ‘How about you?’
‘Fine, thanks. Mind if we sit down?’
‘Please.’
‘What a mess,’ Marcus said. ‘I’m so sorry, Jo, I never imagined it could end like this.’ He studied my face. ‘Are you in much pain?’
‘A sort of generalised face-ache. Nothing I’m not used to.’ They smiled and Tom said. ‘That’s not true and you know it.’
Marcus’s expression became businesslike. ‘Can you tell us briefly what happened? Don’t, if it hurts you to speak.’
‘It’s all right.’ They listened carefully while I explained. Marcus shook his head and said again how sorry he was, then told me what they knew themselves so far.
‘Carla, Chrystal and Nurse Lavington are in America, although we’ve no idea where. After you two were caught at Imber, they drove to the Channel Tunnel, where they left Tom unconscious in their van, then they caught a train to Gatwick…’
‘Wait a minute,’ I protested, ‘you’re going too fast.’ I turned to Tom. ‘How did they catch you?’
He smiled without humour. ‘They’d seen the car and guessed we’d try for the phone. They were waiting for me. They bopped me on the head, then doped me. The next thing I remember is waking up in the van in the station car park.’
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