by Penny Grubb
She’d forgive Aunt Marian because what would she know about school timetables? She’d forgive her aunt anything now. Not that there was anything to forgive. Tears fell from her eyes and dripped down her cheeks.
‘Don’t be scared, Annie. Nearly time.’
Jak glanced at his watch, then up at the sky. The wind redoubled its efforts If she summoned the energy to scream, the sound would be whipped away and swallowed.
‘Are you worried your dad’ll find you? He won’t. It’ll be Cain. He’ll trot along tomorrow to see who’s lit his bonfire.’
She stared through the fog of the tears that wouldn’t stop. He thought that was some sort of consolation. It would kill her father whoever found her; Aunt Marian too.
She sat in the dolls’ graveyard knowing that if her body worked, she could get up and run through the trees. She’d be at her father’s door in minutes.
Jak got to his feet. He pulled a knife from his pocket and twisted the blade so it glinted in the fading light.
So it was to be the knife. She tried to cry out and he gave her a look of surprise. The storm ripped through the trees like a well-intentioned friend coming to the rescue with all the wrong weapons. If it would only be still, she might shout and be heard.
He advanced across the clearing. His footsteps must have crunched in the burnt straw, but all she could hear was the building storm. In a few seconds she would die.
Time slowed to a crawl as an image of her aunt appeared as a ghost somewhere behind Jak. Annie smiled. And there was Mike, a long way behind, searching but looking the wrong way. That was OK. Aunt Marian came first in her thoughts. She wondered if Mike had bled to death on a street hundreds of miles away. How much better to die here within reach of home. Maybe her aunt had died too, and had come as a ghost to witness Annie’s death. That was good. Far better Aunt Marian was dead than had to bear the news that her niece had died like this.
There was a third person. Annie almost took her gaze from the glinting blade to try to focus. The small figure didn’t come her way, but went off at a tangent. It must be her mother. Jak was very near now with his knife. She sensed his need for her to meet his eye.
The distant figure trailed a cloud of purple. No image of her mother matched that shade. It belonged to a more recent memory. A long purple scarf. Beth.
Her eyes were forced to meet Jak’s, uncomfortably close now. He needed the point of her death to be an intimate moment between them.
She didn’t want to look at him, but couldn’t look away. She wanted the last thing she saw to be her aunt. The ghost came closer. Annie smiled. Jak smiled back, not knowing she was smiling at her aunt. Even in death, Aunt Marian did what she could for her niece, no thought for her own safety.
The ghost of Aunt Marian took a swing at Jak. It was a good sight to die to. Maybe it would dull the pain of the knife.
Jak staggered.
‘Oh my God!’ The exclamation was torn from her as everything rushed up at once. Jak had felt the blow. It was no ghost. It really was her aunt. She’d seen the knife and hit him without further thought. It hadn’t even knocked him off his feet. He’d kill her with one twist of his wrist. But Mike … Beth …
Thoughts spun as Jak, only slightly off balance, stumbled towards her. She had to stop him. She had to do something … anything … to give Aunt Marian the glimmer of a chance to run. But she was in a straitjacket. Mental and physical.
Jak’s leg thudded down in front of her, foot planted into the soft ground, already turning …
Her feet were numb, her hands held in a vice she couldn’t break. But his leg brushed her face, and even cramped limbs could propel her far enough. She launched herself with every ounce of strength she could muster. She heard his ‘Uh!’ of surprise as her face pressed into his leg. She bit hard, feeling substance beneath the mouthful of cloth, and she clung on, not knowing if the pain came from the effort of movement or the volley of slaps to her head. She heard an animal shriek of pain, felt her mouth fill with blood.
The flesh between her teeth writhed as a dart of movement showed a dark object – fist or boot – flying towards her. It closed with tremendous speed and at the point of impact, memory stopped.
Chapter 29
This light was different. Waking up was a concept Annie strived for and thought she’d never understand. Then it happened, and was ordinary. She lay on her back in a bed with shallow bars at either side and watched a face come into focus.
‘Hello, Aunt Marian.’
‘Hello, dear,’ the placid voice replied, as Annie closed her eyes and went to sleep.
The next time she woke, the room was crowded. Aunt Marian, her father and … she stared at the figure standing at the foot of the bed. ‘Mike …?’
‘Hi, Annie.’ He smiled the smile she remembered so well. A real smile, just for her, that melted her inside. Tears streamed.
‘But … Mike …? You’re OK?’
‘Never mind me.’ His voice wasn’t quite steady. ‘It’s you we need to worry about now.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘No you’re not, dear.’ Aunt Marian’s tone was stern. ‘That’s a serious head wound and you’ve fractured your skull. So just lie quietly and rest.’
‘But Mike …?’
He flicked open his jacket, showing a shoulder encased in white bandages and arm in a sling. ‘I’ll be fine. Should get this lot off next week.’
It was later, as the pieces slotted back into sequence that she was able to ask, ‘What happened to Lorraine?’
‘I’m afraid Lorraine’s gone, Annie,’ her father told her. ‘No trace.’
Under her own steam, Annie wondered, or had someone spirited her away.
‘Aunt Marian, how did you find me?’
‘I knew at once where you’d be. Your friend here contacted your father and they found this message. Then they found your car.’
‘We had someone at the Western terminal most of the day,’ her father said. ‘We couldn’t find anyone who’d seen you, so we didn’t know where you were.’
‘I came across on a Cal-Mac.’
‘But why, dear? We always use the Western ferry on that crossing.’
‘I expect Annie had good reason.’
She looked up and met her father’s eye. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I was hiding from the wrong people.’
If she’d looked through Jak’s binoculars, she’d have seen her father’s colleagues down there. What would he have done when she tried to run down to them? Used force, made her go with him. It was too late by then, she was in the trap, but she wished she hadn’t made things so easy for him.
‘Where is he?’ It was the question she’d wanted to ask since awareness first crept back. She didn’t need a location, just to hear he was behind bars somewhere secure.
An awkward interchange of glances over the bed.
‘You didn’t get him! He’ll come back for me!’ For the first time she struggled to rise. Pains shot through her head, an alarm screeched from somewhere behind. It was Mike who was there to push her back to the bed.
She put her hand on Mike’s arm but her eyes sought her father.
‘He’s mad. He might do anything …’ She stopped. Did he know what Kovos had done? Yes, he knew. He’d known all along.
‘There’ll be someone with you night and day until he’s caught,’ her father said.
‘Stop worrying Annie with that sort of talk,’ Aunt Marian snapped.
Annie saw her aunt’s lips purse in disapproval. She must get her on her own and talk to her about Mike, explain that much as she liked him nothing could come of the relationship.
‘Please tell me what happened. I can’t remember. I saw you through the trees, Aunt Marian.’
‘We found the message on the answer-phone at the flat,’ Mike said.
‘I knew who it was at once.’ Her aunt’s voice held a terse I-told-you-so undercurrent, and Annie remembered it was her aunt who’d been right about Charlotte, right about the tapes. She’d
recognized Kovos’s voice too, but no one had believed her.
‘Someone reported smoke coming from an old shack at the edge of the forest. It led us back into that maze and we found a body,’ her father told her.
They didn’t know whose remains they’d found – well, she could help them there – but all that could come later. Annie remembered the way the smoke had curled upwards and away. How insane must Jak be to have played that stunt where he did? Smoke seeping out where there shouldn’t be smoke. After all they’d struggled through, he’d given away the secret of the labyrinth himself.
‘When I realized what we’d found,’ her father said, ‘a lot of things fell into place. Caine’s involvement for one.’ He told how they’d worked their way back to the building-with-eyes. ‘We’ve put a stop to this end of the operation at any rate. And with what we have, and the people we found, we might yet get a handle on a wider network.’ Forensics, he told her, were crawling over the post office, the building-with-eyes and the Doll-Makers’ house. Annie made a mental note to tell him about Margot’s company, the great value-for-money security firm that had inveigled itself to a position from where it had access to all manner of stuff, not least a perfect money-laundering set-up. The betrayal would be uncomfortable but she needn’t face it yet. There were more important issues.
‘Not Beth. She wasn’t part of it. I mean, she was forced. She tried her best to warn me. You mustn’t let them put her in care or anything. She’d hate it. It wouldn’t be fair.’
‘No, it won’t come to that. It seems the older ones made some of their contacts the time they were in care. The old man didn’t know how right he was when he said they’d come to more harm there than with him. But no one’s after Beth. That child’s not a danger to anyone.’
‘How did you know where to find me?’
It was Mike who’d remembered her tale of finding the dolls’ graveyard, but only Aunt Marian had known where it was, not that they’d taken any notice at first.
‘I doubled back,’ Mike said, ‘when I realized your aunt must be right.’ That explained Aunt Marian there on the spot and Mike far behind.
‘Was anyone else there?’
‘No,’ said Mike, ‘but I’d called your father so he was on his way.’
Her aunt’s gaze shifted from side to side, but she said nothing. ‘You were so brave, Aunt Marian, tackling him on your own like that.’
‘What else could I do? He had that knife.’
Annie knew she’d seen Beth in her flowing purple scarf. It must have been Beth who’d brought Aunt Marian to the spot. Her aunt hadn’t known the dolls’ graveyard, but she’d known who to ask. And once she’d led her there, Beth had made off in another direction. She wouldn’t want her mad uncle knowing what she’d done. Annie understood that, but was puzzled as her memory watched Beth make off through the trees. It wasn’t the direction she’d have expected her to go.
‘He saw me coming and he ran.’ Mike’s voice held some pride. He’d led an exciting life since living with her. ‘We didn’t try to follow. We stayed to help you.’
‘How did he get away?’
‘He must have doubled back before we got there,’ her father said. ‘He may have had a car down on the road, or hitched a lift or something. We haven’t found any trace, but we will.’
Annie wanted to believe Jak had run away, but he hadn’t. He was nearby. She could feel it in every nerve end.
After her father and aunt left, Annie didn’t try to catch the thoughts floating in her head until the sky darkened and the moon came into view, then she let them coalesce. Jak was a killer and mad. He would come back. He couldn’t let her win.
‘Five times he tried to kill me.’
‘Five!’ Mike stared at her, aghast.
She catalogued the incidents to herself. It was five, but Mike didn’t know about the night on the pass or the evening at Margot’s, and maybe it was best it stayed that way.
She thought about Jak running away. It had happened beyond the point of awareness for her. Why had he run? He’d only had her aunt and Mike to deal with.
‘Look, I’m sorry about Aunt Marian. This “your friend” stuff and the sharp looks. And after all you’ve done for me.’
‘Don’t worry about it, Annie. I’ve weathered worse.’
He certainly had while he’d been with her. She reached out to touch the sling on his arm. He must have been strapped up when he came through the forest. Jak, armed with a knife, ran away from Aunt Marian and Mike with his arm in a sling? A prickle ran across her skin that made every nerve end stand to attention. Jak must have assumed her father was close behind with reinforcements. Mad but not foolish, he’d kept one step ahead for years.
‘Mike, did they search the forest? Did they find any clue which way he went?’
‘It was difficult with the way the storm was blowing, but they assume he doubled back and–’
‘No, he didn’t. He thought he was trapped. He went straight down the hill towards the loch. You’ve got to tell my father. Now.’
‘Annie, he couldn’t have. There’s no way down there.’
‘He did. Ring my father right now. That’s where they’ll find any clues to where he went.’
He didn’t believe her, but that was fine, as long as he passed on the message. Because she knew exactly what he’d done when he thought he was trapped. He’d run the same way Elora had that day on the moor, the same way she’d outrun him herself on the high pass, and later at Margot’s; each time a suicidal sprint. And because he’d done what they’d done, he’d got away with a head start.
The next morning, Aunt Marian brought a photograph. ‘I knew I had one somewhere. That’s him, isn’t it?’
Annie looked at the couple at the periphery of the crowd. Jak was smartly dressed in a suit. She wouldn’t have looked twice without Aunt Marian’s words to guide her. ‘That’s my mother with him, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, dear. I’m afraid so.’
All these years, Aunt Marian had had a photograph of her mother. She’d never even thought to ask. It didn’t matter now; the veil in her head had lifted. She looked at the image of Jak over twenty years ago. He didn’t look so very different, hair a more even colour, and prosperous, but that was down to the clothes.
‘It’s no wonder I didn’t recognize him when I saw him with Charlotte,’ Aunt Marian said.
‘You did recognize him, you know. You told me you thought you knew him from years ago.’
A short time later, her father burst in, a grin across his face. ‘We’ve found him.’
‘Found? You mean arrested, don’t you? He’s locked up, isn’t he?’
‘He’s dead, Annie. We found him this morning at the bottom of a ravine. Don’t know if the fall killed him, or he died later. Blood loss or hypothermia. The post-mortem’ll tell us. I won’t pretend I’m bothered what caught up with him in the end. It wasn’t an easy route down, but you were right about which way he went.’
‘What a good job you thought of him going that way, dear. He could have lain there for years.’
‘No, he’d have been found. There was a length of scarf caught in the scrub. A flapping purple thing. I don’t know if he tripped on it, or if he was wearing it and it caught when he fell, but it marked out the place he went over.’
Annie said nothing. Beth knew her uncle well enough to know exactly which way he would run. What had happened up there? Maybe it was best that no one would ever know.
In the end, Kovos hadn’t managed it. Both she and Elora had outrun him. Annie wondered if he knew that in the second before he died.
Later, when the machines were disconnected and discharge dates were mooted, Annie sat in a chair by the bed and watched Mike fiddle with the TV controls. It occurred to her that he’d been with her every day.
‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’
‘Yeah, should have been, but I decided to stay here.’
‘And …?’
He shrugged. ‘They sacked me.’
‘Yup. I might have to call in that loan.’
‘But–’
‘Joke, Annie, joke. I can keep us afloat till I get another job. Anyway, your business is going OK now.’
It seemed an age since she’d given it a thought. Pieternel would be spitting feathers having to carry her like this.
Mike looked out of the window. ‘Looks like your father’s car. He’s brought your aunt.’
Annie felt tears roll down her cheeks.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Aunt Marian tried to attack a madman in the woods. If he’d got hold of her, he’d have pulverized her.’
Mike came and sat on the bed and held her hands. ‘Yeah, but he didn’t. And he’s dead. Now dry your eyes before she gets here.’
‘She didn’t even think about what would happen to her. She just rushed in. She’s done everything for me, Mike. She’s been there for me when no one else was.’
Her aunt was the only person who could truly know her and still love her. She’d seen that Mike was too decent a guy to throw himself away on damaged goods. How could she begin to explain any of it?
‘She knows me better than anyone. That’s why she’s like she is with you.’
‘I know.’ He spoke gently, not understanding. ‘You do choose some stupid things to worry about, Annie. Of course she’s wary of me. She doesn’t think I’m good enough for you. I’ll win her round. No one would be good enough for her niece to start with.’
‘No, it isn’t that.’ He’d misread it badly.
‘Give it time, Annie. I’ve hardly had the chance to get to know her.’
She didn’t know what to say. He really believed it. And looked at objectively, her aunt’s behaviour could be interpreted as the doting aunt protecting her niece. Of course, her aunt always had been there for her, but as to thinking she could do no wrong, or that someone like Mike wasn’t good enough, that was laughable.
‘I’ll nip down and meet them,’ Mike said. ‘They looked like they’d brought a load of stuff.’