Close Your Eyes

by Robotham, Michael

‘You’re being foolish. Give me the sketchbook.’

  ‘No.’

  Emma is looking from face to face, rubbing her bare arms as though suddenly cold. She doesn’t understand. If they run I will not be able to hold them both. I’ll take Charlie. No, the younger one! Charlie won’t leave her sister behind.

  I take a step towards them. Charlie pushes Emma behind her.

  ‘Run!’ she cries. ‘Get help!’

  Charlie launches her body at me, her fists clenched, but I’m too quick and strong. I knock her aside and reach Emma within a few paces, hoisting her off the ground, carrying her towards the top of the cliff.

  I turn to Charlie. ‘Come with me or she dies.’

  49

  Monk hasn’t said a word. He walks ahead of me, his large frame seeming to shake with anger.

  ‘I was wrong about Jeremy Egan, but we found another victim,’ I say.

  ‘Congratulations,’ he says sarcastically.

  ‘It helps us fill in the pieces.’

  ‘Shut up and go home, Professor.’

  ‘The hotel theory is the right one.’

  ‘The only correct word in that statement is “theory”. You had a theory, which proved to be wrong, and now Jeremy Egan is likely to sue me for assault and wrongful arrest.’

  ‘I don’t think he will.’

  ‘Oh, good, I’m relieved. You’ve been bang on the money so far.’

  The temperature has plunged and big drops of rain are beginning to dot the road. Monk pulls up his collar and crosses to the waiting police cars. I pause for an old man pushing a bicycle along the footpath with shopping bags draped on the handlebars.

  ‘It’s going to blow,’ he says, showing me his brown teeth. His eyes look like watery eggs. ‘Best you find some shelter.’

  I’m about to cross, but he grabs my arm, telling me about another storm in which four fishermen died off the coast. I listen to him because it strikes me that nobody else will.

  Dragging myself away, I try to call Charlie again. This time she answers, but I can’t hear her voice. Instead there are muffled sounds, as though the phone is still in her pocket. She must have answered it accidentally, unaware that I’m on the line.

  I shout, hoping she might hear me.

  ‘Charlie – pick up your phone.’

  Nothing. I listen again. There are faint voices, words, broken sentences, snatches of conversation …

  ‘Stop pulling her hair! She’s going to cry if you pull her hair.’

  ‘If you don’t make her shut up…’

  ‘Please don’t hurt her … We’ve done nothing to you.’

  ‘Just let us go. Can’t you see she’s frightened … we won’t tell anyone…’

  A sinkhole opens up inside me and I struggle to breathe. At the same time I feel a teetering sensation, as if my head were half full of water, sloshing from side to side. A clap of thunder detonates above me and I hear the same sound echoing through the phone. They’re close! Where?

  People talk about time speeding up, but it does what it does at moments like these – expanding slowly, creating a space in which every sense pops and fizzes with energy. I can feel my clothes brushing against my skin and the cool air on the edge of my nostrils. I can see the fat drops exploding like miniature atom bombs on the hot asphalt, creating an almost invisible vapour.

  One look and Ronnie Cray knows something is wrong. I don’t recognise my own voice. I am someone else. A stranger. A madman.

  ‘Someone has taken my daughters!’

  Lightning arrows against the dark clouds and trees thrash at the air as though furious at being rooted to the ground. I look over my shoulder and see how the distance has vanished in sheets of rain, along with the village and the pier and the rolling hills.

  The child is getting heavy. I make them both walk, wrapping a fist around their hair, dragging them across the muddy ground. Whenever they slip, I pull them up and they cry out in pain. Nobody is going to hear them.

  We come to an outcrop of rocks and clamber over, buffeted by the wind. Leaving the footpath behind, I push Charlie ahead of me, making her crawl through bushes and brambles, while I drag Emma behind. The sea, wild and woolly, is somewhere to our left and a steep bank to the right.

  ‘You’re hurting us,’ says Charlie.

  I scream at her to shut up. Wind snatches the words away. Emma falls. She has blood on her knees, smeared by the rain. I drag her upright. Charlie beats at my chest with her fists, telling me to stop. I lift her off her feet by her ponytail. She has to grip my forearm to stop her hair being ripped from her scalp.

  There is a signal station above Pigeon House Bay. It looks like a truncated lighthouse, painted white, squatting on the cliffs. My father showed me the station years ago. He told me that in the early days it sent messages to the ships at anchor, telling them when to sail onwards to the docks at Avonmouth and Bristol. They communicated using flags and later radios before newer technology made the station obsolete. Unmanned. Abandoned.

  It’s half a mile from here … too far. I need to find somewhere closer. Sheltered. I need time to think. Plan.

  Clawing our way up the slope, using trees to help us climb, we come to a thick hawthorn bush. It’s growing around the base of a large oak, creating a natural den with a canopy of leaves and walls of green. The bare ground is still relatively dry. Pulling the branches aside, I push the girls through the narrow opening.

  Another blast of thunder shakes the world. Charlie is holding her sister in her arms, whispering words of encouragement.

  ‘Tell her not to be frightened?’ I say, shouting above the noise.

  Charlie doesn’t answer. The little one examines her bloody knee.

  ‘Give me the sketchbook,’ I say.

  Charlie tosses me her bag. The pencil and charcoal drawings are starting to buckle and smudge, the faces melting like Munch paintings or leaching into oily stains. I tear the pages into sodden strips and screw them into balls before tossing them outside.

  Emma has her head tucked under Charlie’s chin, but her eyes are watching me. There is something unnerving about her stare, as though she’s a caged beast who wants to pounce on me and rip out my throat.

  ‘Didn’t your parents ever tell you it’s rude to stare?’ I say.

  She doesn’t look away.

  More thunder. A small stream of water has started to run through the middle of our shelter, carrying dead leaves and trapped insects. Ants are scurrying to escape a flooded nest, crawling over each other as though trying to build a bridge to safety.

  ‘Are you going to kill us?’ asks Charlie.

  I don’t answer.

  ‘If you let us go, I won’t tell anyone. I can keep a secret.’

  Still I don’t reply.

  ‘Emma doesn’t know anything. Let her go and I’ll stay. You don’t need two hostages.’

  ‘Maybe you’re not hostages.’

  Charlie’s sodden blouse is clinging to her chest and shoulders. I can see the outline of her bra and the shape of her breasts beneath the thin fabric.

  She’s the sort of girl I used to fall in love with at school – the ones I grew to hate because they would never look at me or talk to me. She’s a girl just like all the others, greedy and dissatisfied, scheming and resentful.

  – I could do what I want to her now. Right here.

  No, you can’t.

  – Why not? She’s just like all the others.

  But that would make you no better than them.

  50

  In my worst nightmares – the recurring ones – I relive the moment when a man called Gideon Tyler entered my life and destroyed my marriage. Every detail of that silent, sunlit afternoon remains. I remember looking for Charlie, running down Mill Hill Lane, across the bridge, up the next rise. I knew what had happened. I tried to tell myself I was wrong, but I knew.

  I found her bicycle in a ditch, half-hidden by weeds, the frame buckled by the force of the impact. I waded into the nettles and thorns and dragged
the bike free. Crows exploded from the trees above my head, caw-cawing as though mocking me. I bellowed in pain and anguish. I cried out to a God who I didn’t believe in, calling for a miracle that I didn’t deserve.

  We all make promises at a time like that. I promised Julianne that I would get Charlie back. I promised her it would never happen again. How much are my words worth now? Nothing! Abject, meaningless, empty promises. I don’t care if Julianne kicks me out again. I don’t care if I never lie beside her or make her smile. I want my girls back. I want them safe.

  The phone has become the centre of my world. The line is still open. Four of us are huddled around a desk in the incident room, leaning over the handset, trying to pick out words from the background noise, but all I can hear is wind, thunder, waves and occasional snatches of unintelligible sentences.

  Cray encourages me to keep listening and tells me not to lose hope. I know my daughters’ voices better than anyone. I will pick up details that others miss.

  Meanwhile, Monk has taken charge of the incident room. He wants a SWAT team on standby and every available officer ready to mount a search. Patrols are looking for Charlie’s car and detectives are contacting the phone server hoping her mobile signal can be tracked using the nearest towers.

  ‘I can hear a bell,’ says Bennie. ‘It could be a navigation buoy.’

  I’m staring at the phone, which is old and out of date. The girls laugh at me because I don’t have a smartphone, but I tell them that my mobile is going to be hip one day when people start buying distressed phones with cracked screens because they’re retro and cool.

  For the first time I hear Emma’s voice. She wants to go home. Charlie tells her not to cry. My heart is breaking. I want to scream down the phone. Come on Charlie. Give us a clue – a landmark, a direction.

  Then I hear a sentence clearly. ‘Did you kill Harper?’

  Cray has heard it too. There’s no reply. Charlie speaks again: ‘What are you going to do with us?’

  I lean closer, but the storm drowns everything out. Cray shakes her head.

  ‘Don’t touch me! Leave us alone!’

  Suddenly the screen goes blank. We’ve lost the call. My chest goes hollow. I reach for the phone.

  ‘Wait!’ says Cray.

  I look at her as though she’s crazy. ‘We have to call her back.’

  ‘No. Think about it. What if your Charlie ended the call? As far as we know she’s in charge of the phone. She’s keeping it secret. If we phone her back it could alert him – you see what I’m saying?’

  I know she’s right. I’m trying to think rationally but emotion trumps reason every time.

  ‘Let’s give her a few minutes,’ says Monk. ‘See if she calls us.’ He yells across the incident room. ‘How are we going with the trace?’

  ‘Still waiting, guv,’ comes the reply.

  Breathe, I tell myself. Think. My daughters need me. Whoever took them must have killed Elizabeth and Harper. If Charlie worked that out, surely I can. What have I missed? This has something to do with the Regency Hotel …

  A memory catches and tears at my consciousness. I picture a bathroom. I see a tiny square of wrapped soap on the edge of the sink. Above it, a shelf contains dozens of miniature bottles of shampoo and conditioner, all with the same logo. Where? I was in the Washburn house … it was after the funerals.

  ‘Get me Becca Washburn on the phone,’ I say. Ronnie Cray doesn’t question why. The number is found. Called. I listen to it ringing. She answers. I try to sound calm.

  ‘On the night that Elizabeth and Harper died, you had a phone call from Harper. Why?’

  Perhaps sensing my urgency, Becca doesn’t hesitate. ‘I wanted her to babysit. I’d left her a message that morning but she didn’t get back to me until evening.’

  ‘How did she sound?’

  ‘Fine. Normal. She was out with friends.’

  ‘Who answered the phone?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Who answered the phone when she called?’

  ‘Me, I suppose,’ she hesitates. ‘No, it was Francis. My mobile was downstairs. I was getting ready for work.’

  ‘Francis talked to Harper?’

  ‘I guess. What’s this about?’

  ‘You told me Francis had a new job working for a property management company. What was his old job?’

  ‘He was night manager at the Regency Hotel, but they closed it down.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘At work, I suppose.’

  Thunder and lightning detonate simultaneously as though overlaid in a massive display of fireworks that shreds the air and turns the sea to foam. The girls no longer flinch at the noise unless it’s directly overhead.

  I have been crouching. My knees are sore. I lower myself down and sit with my back to the trunk of the tree. I’ve been trying to think, but the noise is driving every thought from my head.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ asks Charlie, pushing wet hair from her eyes and smearing mud across her forehead.

  ‘You should have left me alone.’

  ‘We’ve done nothing to you.’

  ‘You kept asking questions – kept looking for me.’

  ‘I don’t even know who you are.’

  ‘Shut up! I need to think.’

  ‘I gave you the photograph and sketchbook. Let us go.’

  ‘I told you to shut up!’ I lean towards her, cocking my fist. She ducks and wraps her arms around her sister.

  How has it come to this? My mind gropes backwards searching for an answer. The last few days are tumbling in my slipstream, the mistakes and missteps. The photographs were like a landmine waiting to be stepped upon. I worried about the police finding them. Instead it was this girl.

  – I fucked it up.

  You fucked it up.

  – What now?

  Make it right.

  What have I achieved? Nothing. I am what I always was – locked in the same prison, the black vacuum, hearing the same ceaseless laughter. I was doing the world a service. I was punishing the unworthy. I was safeguarding something that other people take for granted.

  The younger one is shivering. I wish she’d stop staring at me. I should cut out her eyes. Two jabs – a quick one-two. She wouldn’t look at me then.

  – She’s done nothing wrong.

  She can identify me.

  – It’s your own fault.

  What’s done is done.

  I can still get out of this. I have to be smart and think ahead clearly. Plan ahead. The police can’t place me at the farmhouse that night. Maggie Dutton didn’t see my face. None of the others can identify me. It could still be all right. I just have to work out what to do with these two.

  They could drown. A young girl is seen paddling by the shore. She goes out too far. Her older sister tries to rescue her, a double tragedy – all too common. By the time their bodies are found I’ll be miles away. I can drop into one of the holiday lets. Shower. Dry my clothes. Later I can help with the search.

  Mrs Hamilton at the nursing home will recognise Charlie and Emma. She’ll tell the police about the sketches and the photographs. So what? They’re gone. Destroyed. I haven’t been seen with the girls … unless someone on the beach…? No, they were too busy packing up.

  The young one is still staring at me. I’ve forgotten her name. I tell her to stop. Charlie puts a hand on her sister’s head and pulls it to her shoulder, whispering something.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I told her to look away. See?’

  ‘That’s better.’

  I lean back against the tree and close my eyes, trying to press reset. I can still get out of this.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Charlie asks.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Are you married? Do you have a girlfriend?’

  ‘Be quiet.’

  ‘I haven’t had a boyfriend since I was fifteen. People make a big deal about sex and think people my age are doing it all the time, but w
e’re not.’ She has moved away from her sister, edging closer to me. ‘I didn’t have sex with him.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My last boyfriend.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  She shrugs. She’s next to me now. Pale. Young. Pretty. Her mouth down-hooked at the corners.

  ‘I’m cold. Will you hold me?’

  ‘Hold your sister.’

  ‘I’d prefer to hold you.’

  She puts her arms around my neck, resting her head against my chest.

  ‘I can hear your heart,’ she says. ‘Are you cold? I’m freezing. We should get out of these wet clothes.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘I normally love storms,’ she says, ‘the thunder and lightning.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Storms. All that power and noise … the ground shaking … doesn’t it make you feel alive?’

  She starts unbuttoning her blouse, peeling it off her shoulders. Her sister has peeked. ‘Turn away, Emma. Don’t look back until I tell you,’ says Charlie.

  Emma does as she’s told.

  Charlie rocks forward on to her knees and moves a little closer to me. ‘I’m just saying that storms are exciting.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be saying things like that. Put your blouse back on,’ I say.

  She reaches out and touches my knee, sliding her hand along the inside of my thigh.

  ‘Please don’t do that.’

  ‘I saw you looking at me. We don’t have to do it in front of Emma. You could let her go. We could keep each other warm.’

  She reaches for my belt buckle and pulls it loose. I grab her wrist. ‘I told you to stop.’

  She slides her hand over my stomach and down into my trousers. I push her backwards, but she doesn’t go away. Instead she reaches behind her and undoes her bra. Her nipples are sticking out in the cold.

  ‘Don’t do that! Put it back on.’

  I see her tears. Who is she crying for? She’s just like all the others. She’ll spread her legs when she wants something, but withhold love and affection when it suits her.

  Emma is still sitting with her back to us, but I can feel her eyes upon me. She’s accusing me. She thinks I’m a pervert.