Tell-Tale

by Sam Hayes

  My legs falter and my breathing becomes shallow. Frazer Barnard beats his walking stick from side to side, smashing down the nettles and brambles that have spread over what was once the path. Vaguely, I hear the sound of gravel crunching, of laughter; I smell the scent of flowers mixed with the tang of the man I am following – the stench of fear, survival; of everything that was normal.

  Finally, we arrive at the arched door. My heart thumps madly. A heavy iron padlock hangs from a chain around the old latch. I think of those that passed through the doors. I think of those that never came out.

  Barnard glances at his watch. ‘Half an hour is all. Don’t touch anything.’ He unlocks the padlock and removes the chain. He pushes open the door and a rotten smell escapes into the autumn air. Despite the vague warmth of the sun, goose bumps chill my skin. ‘Dead rat,’ he says, laughing when I crumple my face.

  ‘I can’t go in,’ I blurt out to Adam. I find myself gripping his arm. It goes some way towards providing the safe haven of contact I crave – the touch of someone who might understand. ‘I’ll wait outside.’ I’m standing on the top step, teetering on the edge of the darkness beyond. Nothing could make me go in. Sweat erupts on my forehead, fear leaks into my veins. I stand steadfastly, arms crossed, face turned up to the sun.

  Adam glances at me. ‘You’re scared of a dead rat?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say quietly. ‘I really don’t like them.’ I accidentally catch a glimpse of the chapel’s interior over Adam’s shoulder. Light falls in coloured stripes from the stained glass above the altar, highlighting a fallen cross, stone steps, a table. I can’t make out anything else because it’s too dark – that, or my eyes won’t let me see.

  ‘Come in when the smell’s cleared.’ He’s disappointed to be going in alone. Adam clutches a clipboard and a Dictaphone. He gives me one last imploring look – perhaps because he’s scared himself – and turns, disappearing through the arched door. The cold, dank atmosphere inside wraps its arms around him, pulling him in until he is completely out of sight.

  I step away from the entrance and feel my heart going crazy in my chest.

  ‘What is it you’re really scared of?’ Frazer asks, hacking as he speaks. He turns away, fumbling with a packet of Superkings. Eventually he gets one lit.

  ‘Nothing,’ I say, shrugging. ‘I’d just rather wait in the sunshine.’

  ‘Think all them ghosts are going to come and get you, do you?’ His wrinkled face puckers meanly.

  My head whips up. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ I walk down a couple of stone steps. The edges are crumbling and lichen crawls over them. ‘You’re not going in. I’m sure Adam could use some local knowledge for his book.’

  ‘He’ll figure it out. Eventually.’ Frazer Barnard laughs and coughs at the same time, still finding enough breath to draw on his cigarette. ‘Unless he dies of old age first.’

  Suddenly, there’s a loud noise from inside the chapel followed by a yell. ‘Adam?’ I call out, running back up the steps. I feel dizzy.

  ‘I’m OK. Everything’s OK.’ Adam’s voice echoes from deep within the chapel. Someone calling out through the years. A lost voice.

  Frazer shakes his head. ‘Touch nothing, I said.’

  ‘It’s dark in there. He probably bumped something by accident.’

  ‘P’raps it’s that young gal’s body, eh? Come to get him.’ Frazer Barnard has a gruff Yorkshire accent, broad and loud, bitter and hard. I wonder if it’s living in Roecliffe that has made him this way, or being keeper of the chapel that sets his cruel tone. He laughs. ‘As if a waif of a little girl could do any harm.’

  My mouth is dry. I don’t feel very well at all. I sit on the step and drop my head between my knees. Waif of a little girl, I think. I bite my tongue until I taste blood.

  ‘You all right, lass?’ His compassion surprises me.

  ‘I feel a bit faint.’ I drop my head and run my fingers through my short hair. ‘I’ll be OK.’ I squint up at him, wondering how I could be so stupid as to allow myself to be seen by someone from the village. Barnard is silhouetted against the sky, steeped in as much history as the chapel. He rummages in his grimy tweed jacket pocket for something. God, I wish I’d not come on this stupid walk.

  ‘Here,’ he says, pulling out a single pill and handing it to me. ‘Take it. I’ve got dozens.’

  ‘What is it?’ But before Frazer replies, Adam comes striding out of the chapel. His face is contorted and his chest heaves inside his jacket.

  ‘Frankie.’ That’s all he says, breathless. Just my name. We stare at each other as if an entire story passes between us. I frown, ignoring Barnard’s outstretched hand. Adam is telling me something. What has he discovered?

  ‘You should come inside with me.’ His voice is suddenly flat. ‘There are some interesting . . . features.’ He stares at me for ages. No one speaks, not even Barnard, who is watching us. I hear the birds sing, the rustle of a breeze through the woods. Adam mumbles into his Dictaphone. I shake my head.

  ‘She don’t feel so good,’ Frazer finally says. I take the pill he’s holding out and roll it between my fingers. Whatever it is, I have no intention of taking it. ‘Best be hurrying along, before she keels over.’ But Adam doesn’t hear. He is already back inside the chapel. ‘Eat up, then,’ Frazer says, turning back to me, slumped on the stone steps. ‘I’ve got lots. It’ll help your head. Help you forget everything,’ he whispers, grinding his cigarette butt into the lichen, not taking his eyes off me.

  CHAPTER 31

  Betsy never sat still in chapel. The only bit of going to say our prayers that she actually liked was the skip through the woods on the way there, and of course the skipping again on the way back. We weren’t allowed to run.

  She’d clutch my hand and strain at my arm, pulling to get ahead. I made her little gloves for winter, knitting them out of scraps of wool, unravelled old sweaters left behind by other kids. Sometimes they fell off, so I picked them out of the mud before the line of kids trampled them into the mush. I pushed them back on to her freezing hands. ‘Tanks,’ she’d say, skipping off until it happened again.

  Summer would see Betsy in one of two flowery dresses. I sewed one of them – a patchwork creation cobbled together from whatever I could find in the drawers. The other dress came from a pile of clothes left by the gone children; the ones who didn’t come back. If they were missing for a day or two, we helped ourselves to their stuff. Any sooner, and it wouldn’t have seemed right.

  Betsy looked a pretty sight, all strawberry-blond curls, eyes the colour of forget-me-nots, cheeks hand-painted. She giggled through those summer months, as if her little spirit was warmed by the long days, the hot sun, the times we played outdoors chasing each other through the woods and thickets.

  But Betsy didn’t like it when I went off to school. She cried when I left and, according to Patricia and Miss Maddocks, she curled up on her bed and whimpered until she knew it was time for the school bus to drop us at the end of the drive. Then she’d sit on the stone window seat and watch for me, just like I’d watched out for my father.

  Betsy liked the school holidays best and, of course, Sundays, except for when we had to sit quietly in chapel for a whole hour and thank the Lord for our blessings. ‘Wassa blessin’?’ Betsy whispered to me. She scratched her head fiercely.

  ‘It’s all the good things God gave you,’ I replied as quietly as I could. Mr Leaby preached above us, his arms flying about in the pulpit. One of the male carers turned round and told me to shut up. I didn’t like him; didn’t even know his name.

  ‘But why do I have to count them?’

  Betsy was nearly five. She knew some numbers and that B was for Betsy. She was slow to learn. ‘You just do,’ I told her. But she’d made me think. Why did we have to count our blessings? And what if we didn’t have any to count in the first place?

  Then I saw Betsy peeling her fingers away from her palm, mouthing the numbers that she could remember. She stared up at the chap
el ceiling, gazing at the dusty oak beams as she totted up her blessings.

  ‘How many?’ I whispered as the first hymn started.

  She thought for a second and stared straight at me. ‘One,’ she told me. ‘I counted it over and over to make sure.’ She grinned.

  ‘One?’ I said into her ear. Her hair got between my lips. ‘What is it?’

  ‘You,’ she said.

  The carers used the picnic as a week-long bribe to make us behave. After the service, if we’d been good and the weather was fine, we walked to the end of the bluebell wood where it opened into a patch of scrubby grass. Enough space for the girls to set out the rugs while the boys marked out a cricket pitch with their sweaters. If we were bad – and it only took one of us to step out of line – there were no tartan rugs, no packed-up food, no rustling packets of greaseproof paper to tear off the soft sandwiches, no plastic cups of squash that refused to stand up on the uneven ground, and no lazing around in the sun after we’d eaten. It would be at least another week until the prospect of fun loomed.

  The picnics took place, I’d worked out, only about once a month. Lots of the boys were naughty, causing everyone to forfeit their fun. But when a picnic was planned, all the carers came along, even the ones that didn’t do much looking after. They were the ones who lurked in the rooms down the forbidden corridor, wearing dark suits, talking in deep voices, using words I didn’t understand.

  ‘What’s a conundrum?’ I asked Patricia.

  ‘It’s a mystery,’ she replied.

  ‘And what’s a predica . . . predictament?’

  ‘Predicament. That means a situation. Something you got yourself into. A pickle.’

  ‘And what’s assaulted mean?’

  Patricia stared at me. She snapped closed the book she was reading as if I were the biggest nuisance out. She shook her head and went to sit under the oak tree along with some of the men carers I didn’t like. She whispered to them, glancing back at me.

  Betsy crawled on to my lap and rested her head on my knee. She often slept after the picnic. Her belly was full of crisps and cake and all kinds of stuff that we didn’t usually get. They were happy days, those Sundays after chapel. As long as someone hadn’t been bad that week, as long as the weather was fine, as long as I could hear Betsy snuffling through the night, as long as no one was taken.

  I’d never felt like this before. Was I ill? My head fuzzed up like cotton wool and my eyes wouldn’t stay open. It was sweets day. I’d only been able to eat a couple, and so stashed the rest in my cupboard. Soon afterwards I felt groggy, strange, as if I wasn’t me at all. I went to lie down on my bed. When I woke, it was the middle of the night. It was the music that stirred me. My belly ached and folded in from hunger. I’d missed supper. I’d missed the fuss and noise of bedtime, and I was still wearing my clothes. I sat upright. Had I heard someone in the room? In the half-light, I saw Betsy lying in the bed beside me. Breath puffed from between her lips. Her eyelids flickered.

  ‘Who’s there?’ A chink of light fell across the floor from the landing outside. The curtains were drawn, rippling slightly from the open window behind. I couldn’t see anyone.

  There was music downstairs. A dull thud-thud. They were having one of their parties. Shrieks and whoops, overlaying the repetitive beat of the bass, pierced through the noise that we’d all learned to sleep through when the staff let their hair down. We liked it the next day, when they were all too tired and grumpy to be bothered with what we got up to.

  The door suddenly opened and two figures were standing there, silhouetted by the light outside. I could see clearly that they were men. One had a bald head, one had shoulders the width of a house. I froze and my eyes stretched wide in the darkness, trying to see who they were.

  ‘Who’s there?’ I whispered.

  A flashlight shone in my eyes, blinding me. Then a hand was over my mouth, forcing my scream back down my throat. His fingers smelled of cigarettes and his breath stank of beer. I was tangled in arms and strange smells as the other man helped hoist me from my bed. I kicked and pushed and would have bitten too, had my mouth not been smothered.

  This is it, I thought. I am being taken by the night creatures. This is what it’s like.

  I reached out for Betsy as I was half dragged and half carried past her bed. I cycled my legs, trying to break free. They strapped my arms round my body and manhandled me from the bedroom.

  ‘Thought you said she was dosed-up,’ one said. The other man grunted. His face was red and pockmarked from acne. He was young, maybe only nineteen or twenty. The bald one reminded me of my dad, and wheezed as he dragged me. His fat belly rolled over my legs as they carried me down the stairs and along the corridors. When we reached the forbidden passageway, the music got really loud. Some song I’d heard on the radio pounded my head.

  ‘No!’ I managed to scream as the hand on my mouth came away.

  Then a sting as the hand skimmed my cheek. ‘Shut it, stupid,’ the older one said. ‘You want to get us all into trouble?’ They stopped walking and my legs dropped to the floor. I tried to run for it, but they still had hold of my arms. I ducked my head to bite one of them but I got knocked back against the wall. For a moment, I saw nothing; just heard a tingling in my ears, saw a bright light in my eyes.

  ‘Do as you’re bloody well told.’ He hit me again. I nodded frantically, praying he would stop if I did what they said. When the grip loosened, when they muttered between themselves, I legged it down the corridor, back towards the light at the end, back towards my bed.

  Then I was on my face, tasting the dust on the floor. They dragged me back by my ankles. My clothes rode up and my belly burned as my skin rasped along the wood. I bumped over a door frame and was hurled into the room where the music was. I saw legs all around me, smelled the beer, heard the calls as I was rolled over, my top up around my shoulders. When I tried to pull it down, I was kicked in the ribs. I froze, breathing in quick bursts. My eyes were unblinking, my mouth dry as chalk. I stared up and saw half a dozen faces peering down at me. Someone spat in my eye.

  Then it all got muddled, out of order. I was suddenly naked, but don’t know what happened to my clothes. I stood shaking until my legs ached, worried that everyone was looking. I pressed my hands against my chest. I don’t know what came first – the laughing or the snap of the cane as my arms were hit down.

  The chair was cold on my back and my wrists ached from the straps. I know I peed myself because I felt the warm pool settle under my bottom. The chair was tipped over, with me strapped in it. The wet ran up my back, soaked into my hair. Another few hits – some on my head, some on my shoulder, some from a boot. Some from a cane.

  Then they ignored me. I was just left on the floor, bent through ninety degrees, the wood of the chair digging into my back. I shivered until my muscles ached. My eyes shot round the room, trying to take it all in, trying to figure out an escape. I saw Chef chatting with some other men. He wasn’t wearing his uniform. Why was he letting them do this to me? I thought Chef liked me. And there was the man from the village shop, where we sometimes bought sweets. The others blurred into anonymous faces.

  Was this where everyone got taken when the night monsters came? I was sobbing; more scared than I’d ever been in my life. The straps cut into my ankles. The pain wasn’t pain any more. I wanted my dad.

  They got on with their party. A party? I screwed up my eyes when I saw one of the men who had carried me from my bed kissing a woman. Patricia and Miss Maddocks weren’t there. I called out their names but got belted in the head.

  Eventually, I gave up screaming, even when one of the men hauled me upright again; even when he removed the straps and forced me to stand. I couldn’t run. I was exhausted, groggy and fuzzy-headed. My legs wouldn’t work and I didn’t even care that I was naked; didn’t care about anything as the room spun around me. It was as if I didn’t have a body any more; it was just me in my mind, floating high above the room, wondering what was happening to that poor s
kinny girl down below as one of the men took off his trousers.

  I saw her pain, watched the agony on her face. When she crumpled to the floor, he stretched her out again. The circle of onlookers clapped and cried out. There was blood. Her fingers and toes had turned blue, as if her veins had closed down. Her head flopped on a neck with no strength, and her heart struggled to beat slowly in her chest.

  ‘Don’t bring this one again,’ he said, zipping up. ‘She’s a menace.’

  When I woke, I was back in my bed. Slowly, I turned my head to the side and saw Betsy’s profile – her little snub nose, the pout of her young mouth. I reached out and brushed my fingers through her soft hair. There they stayed, entwined in the locks, as I stared at the ceiling through bruised eyes, counting my blessings as tears flowed silently on to the pillow.

  I came back, I said over and over in my head. I’m one of the lucky ones.

  CHAPTER 32

  The doorbell rang just as Nina finished tossing the salad. She would be cheerful, go some way to acting like a good hostess, for Mick’s sake. She would pretend she was busy in the kitchen, visit the toilet, hide in the bedroom for as long as she could get away with. The thought of socialising made her feel sick, even if it was going to help secure a better financial future. Mick had suffered the classic starving artist jibe for enough years now. He was good at what he did and deserved to be recognised. This was his chance. However wretched she felt, Nina refused to ruin it.

  ‘Right,’ she said, wiping her hands on a tea towel. She wouldn’t put the fish under the grill until they were nearly ready to eat. It would only take a moment to cook the thin fillets. ‘Set the table,’ she reminded herself.

  She heard Mick let their visitor into the hallway. The man sounded brash as he greeted Mick – almost a shout. She heard the usual exchange of introductions, envisaged the handshake. But then it fell completely silent. Nina wondered if they’d gone to the living room, but when she peeked in from the kitchen, it was empty. Mick would be hanging up his guest’s jacket probably. She closed the door again, not wanting to be watched while she was cooking.