Rye finally broke his staring contest with the camera and strode offstage. The Finlux’s crackling speakers hinted at the confusion left in his wake; chatter rippled through the audience as the chief inspector tried to calm the room, while Eleanor ran after her ex-husband.
She shut off the television, its screen becoming a mirror in which her own face glowered back. She stood and stepped towards the bookcase. Sandie was out cold again from the sleeping pills, but it had been some hours since her last dose. The girl would be stirring at any moment. Renata slid the bookcase aside. Time to see to the little moth. Time to write.
There was a roar.
…reporting from Millbury Peak earlier…
A familiar roar.
…have just given a press conference…
It hadn’t been live.
I know you have my girl.
She grabbed a fresh roll of insulation tape and ran to the cellar. The motorbike soon screeched to a halt on the track outside.
‘Open the fucking door. LET ME IN!’ The pummelling of Rye’s fists was followed by the crisp smash of breaking glass, before he discovered the locked oak shutters. The banging moved around the house to the dining room, kitchen, and back to the front. The yelling ceased as his attention focussed on the ramming of his shoulder against the front door. It crashed open.
Rye stared in.
Renata stared back.
His mouth twisted into a growl. He threw her out of the way and tore up the staircase. ‘SANDIE!’ he yelled, that once-alien New England twang filling the house. ‘I’m here! Call to me, Sandie!’ His voice dimmed then amplified as he went between rooms. ‘Call out, Sandie! It’s Daddy! Tell me where you are!’
Renata listened as the upper level was ripped apart. The ladder to the attic rattled, followed by crashing within the roof. He eventually thundered back downstairs, storming past her to the dining room. He shot Renata a furious look as he charged into the lounge. The house filled with the bellowing of his daughter’s name.
The crashing and bawling finally ceased. Heavy footsteps marked his passage back to the hall, where Renata stood patiently at the foot of the stairs. Before he lunged, a wave of recognition washed over her. She’d seen the look on Rye’s face before, as a little girl. Those locking crosshairs weren’t new to her, but she was no longer a little girl, and fists could no longer hurt her.
He’ll never hurt us, not really. Because he can’t.
She stood, lips pursed, waiting for the inevitable.
Looking forward to it.
He cracked his knuckles then sprang, one hand pulled back like a coiled spring, the other reaching for her. His fist sank into her face.
Choo-choo.
Renata’s head flew back. Her body folded in half as he drove his other fist into her stomach. Her legs gave way. She crumbled to the ground.
‘WHERE IS SHE?’ boomed Rye, before planting one of his crocodile skin Oxfords into her side. She caught a fleeting glimpse of Fred and Wilma Flintstone peeking out from under his corduroys as she scrambled up the first few steps on her hands and knees. She turned to face him.
She smiled.
‘Speak, woman. Open your goddamn MOUTH.’
He dragged Renata to her feet and slammed her into the wall, before hurling her across the hall. The rug slid under her stumbling weight, sending her to the ground. Face down, she ran a hand across the wooden flooring, remembering the last time she’d been down here. She glowered over her shoulder at Rye.
‘WHERE IS SHE?’ He knelt over her, nostrils flaring as his hands locked around her throat. ‘OPEN THAT FUCKING—’
She sprang. Rye reeled back as her lips smashed into his, hands clamped around his face. He tumbled to the floor, gazing into the endless stare of her open eyes as her mouth latched on like a leech.
Then he felt it.
Her tongue probed, vying to enter. He paused, in awe at the extent of the bitch’s insanity, then opened his mouth. He felt the wet, rank-tasting muscle slide between his lips. He bit down as hard as he could, then threw her across the room, yet, somehow, the tongue remained between his teeth.
His face went white.
It wasn’t a tongue.
Rye staggered back, his insides rising in revulsion. He spat the thing onto the rug, coughing convulsive barks as the vile taste expanded in his mouth. He braced himself against the wall as Renata stared from a heap on the floor, her tongue flicking from her mouth like a reptile’s. She looked to the rug on which he’d spat the foreign body. He slowly followed her eyes.
It was a finger.
He dropped to his knees. All fight fell from him as he stared at the yellowing digit. A mental barrier rose between him and the finger; its deadened shade, splintered bone, insect-like curl…it could be anyone’s it’s not hers it doesn’t mean anything this psycho cunt doesn’t have shit on you it’s—
The barrier crumbled as the spiralling tattooed roses fell into focus.
He wept.
She rose.
‘I’ll…the cops…I’ll tell them,’ he blubbered. ‘The cops…they’ll make you…they’ll…I’ll tell them you have her…the cops—’
‘No, you won’t.’ Renata stepped over the lonesome finger, blood streaming from her nose. ‘You’d have done so already. My dear Quentin, I know you’re afraid.’ Her shadow swallowed him. ‘You’re afraid of what I’d say, what they’ll discover about you.’
‘I’LL TELL THEM THAT…’ Rye’s words wilted into a whimper.
‘Then please, tell them,’ she said. ‘Let them come. Let them take me so you can watch the search for your daughter from a jail cell, and I promise you…’ She levelled her gaze. ‘…that search shall not be fruitful.’ Silence hung as her eyes drilled into his. ‘This was your doing. If any more harm comes to me, I swear you’ll never see the girl again.’
His lips trembled.
‘Understood?’
‘What…do you want?’
‘That’ll become clear with time,’ said Renata, turning from the kneeling man.
The front door had remained open as the storm continued to batter the house. The doormat flinched in the wind, sodden with rain. The leaves of a fallen aspidistra quivered in the gale next to the severed finger, upon which bite marks lay visible. It pointed to Quentin C. Rye.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll be in touch,’ Renata said, standing by the open door. She wiped her hands on her sleeves. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I must ask you to leave.’
Daddy, I heard you shouting my name! I tried to call out like you said but couldn’t. She covered my face in tape, my whole fucking face. Cut holes for my nostrils and ears. She wanted me to hear how close you were, Daddy. In my head I was screaming and screaming but nothing came out. I know you’re looking for me. Please, please, please keep looking, Daddy. My finger she cut it off it’s agony I can’t stand it I don’t think I
Daddy, I’ve begged but she won’t listen. I’m gonna try here instead.
I won’t use your name cause if you let me go I won’t tell anyone anything. You could dump me on the side of a road somewhere and I swear on my life and God and EVERYTHING I won’t tell. I’m beginning to think you don’t want anything cause if you did you’d have told them by now and my parents are rich and you’d have gotten anything you wanted and you’d have let me go. So what is it? You just want to hurt me for the sake of it? Torture me?! You don’t even fucking KNOW ME WHY WOULD
Daddy if you ever read this I want you to know I love you. I might lose my mind in here I don’t know how much more I can take it’s either pitch-black or so fucking bright and the pain it’s beyond anything I thought possible and is God even seeing any of this? How could anyone let this happen do other people suffer like this is this just the am I the only I thought they were worse off but this I not like this it’s
I hope I do lose my mind. She keeps saying she’s going to let me black out for a bit but just wakes me up over and over and over I just want to be in the black for
I just r
emembered where I saw that stuff wiped under people’s noses like she’s doing with me I remembered it was on TV that’s where on a crime show oh fuck oh God it was in a morgue dead bodies that’s where they did it to cover the smell is that it is there a body IN HERE WITH ME FUCK SHE
28
Sandie awoke to the glare of fluorescent lights. She looked at the stump where her finger had been, now treated and bandaged. The encrusted blood and vomit and waste and whatever else had now come to define her body were also cleaned. The gaping wound in her knee was redressed and even felt somewhat anesthetised. A fresh blotch of Vicks smeared her upper lip.
Blurry-eyed, she looked up as a handful of pills were rammed between her cracked lips. Once her mouth was full of candy – yes, just pretend it’s candy – the woman held a glass of water to Sandie’s dried out mouth. She groaned as the liquid soothed her aching throat. Renata returned to her desk.
‘Please…’ Sandie croaked. The pretence of intellect had died with her dignity, the awkward shoehorned vocabulary reduced to pitiful begging. ‘Renata, please. Just talk to me.’ The typewriter continued tapping. ‘I’m…sorry.’ The tapping paused, then resumed. ‘I’m sorry for whatever’s happened to make you feel like you need to do this. Maybe I had the life you didn’t. I’m lucky, I know that. Maybe I had the…the…’ The tapping stopped. ‘…the parents you didn’t, and for that I’m—’
Renata’s chair crashed against the concrete as she sprang to her feet, swinging round to stare at the back of the girl’s head.
‘I’m sorry,’ Sandie frantically begged. ‘I didn’t mean…I didn’t—’
The telephone rang upstairs. Renata whipped her head towards the door, then back to the sobbing girl. She grabbed the insulation tape and began wrapping it around the girl’s jaw. Sandie wrestled against her restraints as Renata stormed up the stairs and into the living room.
She picked up the receiver.
‘Hello? Miss Wakefield? I’m sorry to disturb you again. It’s Hector O’Connell.’
She swallowed.
‘I wanted to apologise for my last visit.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Staying in Millbury Peak to care for your father, that’s noble. It’s not my place to tell you to leave.’
Renata switched hands, staring at the bookcase. ‘Will there be anything else, Detective?’
‘Yes,’ said Hector. ‘I needed to reiterate that finding your mother’s killer is still all that matters to me. I won’t rest until they’re brought to justice. Sylvia’s murder, the truck explosion, this exhumed grave, and now the disappearance of Sandie Rye. It’s all linked, and I promise I’ll uncover the truth.’ He paused. ‘I’ll visit again soon, and I’m afraid I won’t take no for an answer. Your father and I go way back, and I consider it my duty to assist in his care. You’re not in this alone, Miss Wakefield.’
Renata opened her mouth, but it was too late. The dialling tone hummed in her ear. She let go of the receiver, letting it clatter against the sideboard as she went to the cellar door.
She stood staring through the narrow gap between the bookcase and the doorway. This girl wasn’t the only moth in her world. The detective, everyone like him: all moths. They fluttered and fought for their share of the light, and, like the insect’s obsession, knew evil only from within the narrowest realms of understanding. To them, evil was the extinguishing of that light. Yes, that was it. The light goes out, you step up and find the switch. Bring it back so the fluttering may continue.
But for Renata Wakefield, the veil had been lifted. She saw evil for what it was: evil was good, and good was evil. Yes, one and the same, an arbitrary human construct. Men like Detective O’Connell, blinded by a preconceived notion of duality, were unable to see past a single face of the coin.
I’ll visit again soon.
The detective had left her no choice. If he ever stepped into this house again, she would show him the truth. Evil is good, good is evil. The coin spins on.
But first she would see if she could stop it coming to that.
She slipped through the gap into the cellar, leaving the bookcase partially covering the door. Her eyes followed the fluorescent strips across the ceiling to the end of the chamber and down to the trembling girl. She edged towards the teenager.
‘You speak of God in your diary entries,’ said Renata, taking the VapoRub from her apron and dabbing it under her own nose. ‘He left me, abandoned me. Just like everyone else. I was discarded, forgotten, left to rot in a purgatory of white corridors. What do you think he makes of your plight, child? What would be the sense of him helping you but not me all those years ago?’ The girl gazed at Renata, her stare hollow. ‘Truth,’ she continued, ‘it can be a killer. No one’s out there for you, least of all God. You apologised for whatever’s happened to me. The truth happened to me, little moth.’ She reached for the bloodstained scissors. ‘Would you mind if I told you a story?’ Renata asked with a smile, snipping the air.
‘Pain…killers. Please, more…painkillers.’
‘There was a woman,’ Renata continued, ignoring the girl’s pleas. ‘Ballet dancer. This woman gave everything for her art, the only thing that made sense to her. She bled for it.’ Sandie cringed at the slicing blades. ‘Then a double-decker ploughed through her. She splattered on the front like a fly, was mangled like a ragdoll – but she lived.’ She looked at the girl. ‘And although she never danced again, she came to feel more alive than she thought possible. Now that she couldn’t dance, time opened up before her. She read, she loved, she travelled. That bus ripped her apart, but it also freed her.’
Renata held the scissors by the closed blades and inspected their orange handles.
‘You see, I was ripped apart,’ she continued. ‘I was torn to pieces by the truth, but then it put me back together. And now, well…I, too, am more alive than I thought possible.’ She moved behind Sandie’s chair and ran her fingers through the girl’s hair, swaying and gazing into the light above. ‘My dear, all I want is for the truth to put you back together, as well.’ She lowered her mouth to Sandie’s ear, wrapping the blonde hair around her closed fist, then whispered, ‘There was no ballet dancer.’ Tears streamed down the teenager’s face. ‘It’s not as easy as that. The only truth that can put you back together is within yourself.’ She ran her tongue up Sandie’s trembling cheek, tasting the tears and mascara. ‘But first,’ she breathed, ‘you have to let it rip you apart.’
Renata yanked the girl’s head back and stared into her eyes from above. ‘Tell me you see.’
She slammed the handles of the scissors into Sandie’s mouth. The sound of dislodging teeth filled the cellar as the butt of the blades smashed a second time, the shock of the sudden onslaught rendering the girl silent until the third blow. She attempted to scream but instead gagged on blood.
In her delirium of pain, she may have thought of all those funfairs, those damned funfairs to which she must have been taken as a child. Maybe she remembered waiting at the popcorn cart while her bucket was filled, staring into the machine, the corn thrown around like teeth in some mad lottery. Maybe, years later, she watched her own teeth flying onto the concrete of her new home in this cellar – her final home – and thought how much fun all those trips to the funfair had been. Maybe it was then, once the pain registered, that she realised her young life was over. The funfair, and with it everything she’d ever cared for: over.
Worlds away, the clock tower struck noon as the girl choked on what remained of her teeth. Renata threw the scissors over her shoulder and pushed Sandie’s head forward, broken teeth spraying onto the girl’s lap from flaking lips.
The chasm of agony into which the girl now tumbled was evident in her eyes. Enlightened to a new definition of pain, these eyes had awoken in a universe dedicated to nothing but fathomless suffering. Renata rubbed an antiseptic wipe between her fingers.
‘Where is your God now, child?’ Sandie looked up to a tinkling sound as the woman stood shaking the bottle of painkillers in front of her. She unscrew
ed the cap and dropped the pills to the floor one by one, where they rattled down an iron drain. Her gaze locked on Sandie’s sobbing eyes, soaking up every shade of her suffering.
‘I have an errand to attend to, and so you may soon rest,’ whispered Renata, picking the bloody teeth from the girl’s lap and dropping them one by one into the empty painkiller bottle. ‘But first you will write.’ She screwed the lid on tight then shook the bottle again. ‘Write, dear.’
I know now she’s going to kill me. She’ll either go too far or she’ll run out of ways to hurt me. Either way, I’m going to die down here.
I also figured out what she wants, what this fucking ‘truth’ is she keeps going on about. She wants me to say who I really am, so I will – but not for her. For God.
I’m a sinner. She was right to cut off my finger. Those roses were meant to symbolise the saving of myself for the right man, but it was a lie. The truth is I’ve slept with more men than I can count. I did it because I felt worthless, despite what I convinced everyone. Thousands, millions of dollars poured into my life and all I can do is…well, what can I do? Turns out I give pretty good head. I did it because I wanted to be worth something. And I was – until morning came.
Then the drugs started. The look on their faces when I hit a line as my big brown eyes looked up at them. Man, I really felt the bomb. No way would they chuck me now. Didn’t expect to get hooked. But that great head I gave, and everything else…well, my body became my currency. It was the only thing that would get me more blow. Think I looked pretty good for a junkie. Not so much now.
So there it is, you fucking bitch. There’s your truth. But, like I said, it’s not for you. God, Daddy, Mom, I’m sorry for all my sins. I hope this counts as confession ‘cause I don’t think I have long left and I don’t wanna burn for all eternity. Forgive me, Jesus. Please forgive me. I repent, Lord. I repent I repent I repent if this is my punishment then let it end take me from here I can’t TAKE IT I CAN’T TAK
For Rye Page 23