The Boy in the Well

by Dan Clark

  Early morning sun shines through one of the cracks, burning Carolyn’s eyes. She wonders if the back of her head is bleeding, as it was in the dream.

  Who the hell hit me? she thinks.

  The internal voice answers. Now you’re really going to die. You should have gone home.

  She shakes her head and ignores it. Has the attacker gone after my mother and Father Joseph? Does this psychopath want me to watch as they hurt them?

  Surely whoever attacked me last night and brought me here could have easily shoved that knife into my back as they had done with Barry. Why go to all this trouble?

  She screams for help, but her voice is croaky and low. The pigeons above barely notice, flying from one ceiling joist to the other. Droppings splat on the ground next to her. She looks around the old kitchen and sees a broken wooden sign in the corner along with a pile of pallets. The sign reads SUNLIGH- and she realises she has been taken to The Sunlight B&B, not too far from her mother’s home.

  She wonders if the attacker is coming back to torture her, or if the plan is to torture and then leave her here, starving to death, or to slowly go insane, tied to a concrete slab, while probably suffering from concussion. Whoever it is, they must have been sitting outside all night, watching the church, waiting to make their move. She’d walked right into their sight and made it easy for them.

  She sighs and shakes her head. She would chuckle if her life – or her mother’s – wasn’t on the line. Tears begin, and a lump is forming in her throat.

  She stops herself. She will not cry.

  Carolyn looks round and a thought comes to her, one that sends uncomfortable images through her brain. What if whoever brought me here and tied me up to this slab of concrete is sitting outside in their car, waiting for the demolition team to turn up and start their day’s work?

  Carolyn knows she has to escape these restraints. She struggles side-to-side in a bid to loosen the rope, panting and twisting her body. But it’s no good. The rope is tight, and all she’s achieving is more pain to her arms and shoulders. There’s no escape, and no Plan B.

  She has no more strength to fight. All she can do is to wait until the psychopath comes back and does whatever it is they have planned for her.

  If they decide to come back at all, that is.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Barry slept on the sofa in the living room, where Carolyn had left him the night before. He’d visited the toilet twice during the night, and both times were a real struggle and very time-consuming. The hard part was standing. Once up, he could lean along the walls and steady himself. A couple of times during the night he’d felt like making a cup of tea, but couldn’t be bothered with the struggle of getting over to the kettle.

  Sleeping on the sofa meant he could prop himself up like in the hospital bed. This way there was less pressure on his back, which meant less pain. Not that he’d slept much at all. The attack replayed over and over in his mind, and the thought of never seeing his daughter again brought him to tears. A few times he swore he’d heard someone outside on the street, but he thought it had probably just been a fox or stray cats rummaging in the bins for food. Nonetheless, he kept a large kitchen knife at his side, just in case.

  Now he’s awake, and after taking the drugs the hospital gave him, he’s watching his morning TV show about couples from the UK who relocate abroad.

  His phone rings, so he mutes the TV and rests his long-awaited mug of tea on the side before reaching for his mobile, sighing with the pain in his back.

  He answers. “Hi, Carolyn. It’s only been a night. Do you miss me already?” He shakes his head at how silly it sounds.

  “Barry?” Jeanette says.

  “Oh hi, Jeanette. Sorry I… I thought you might have been Carolyn. Erm… Why are you calling me from her phone?” Barry asks, sitting up straight. He hears Jeanette taking a deep breath.

  “So Carolyn isn’t there with you then?” she asks, after a moment.

  “No,” Barry says. “I haven’t seen or heard from her since last night, after she dropped me off at home from the hospital.”

  “Right…”

  “Jeanette, what’s going on?” Barry asks. He’s beginning to feel uncomfortable.

  She explains how she’d woken up and found Carolyn missing, without her phone, and the car still parked outside. She tells him why they’ve had to spend the night at Father Joseph’s, and that Carolyn had been quite upset last night.

  Barry offers his condolences.

  “Father Joseph has gone into town,” Jeanette says. “He’s going to ask around to find out whether anyone has seen her. If she gets in touch with you, please let me know.”

  “Yes, of course. And I’ll ring around a few places where she might have gone. I’ll let you know either way.”

  She thanks him and they say goodbye.

  ***

  Jeanette puts Carolyn’s phone down and picks up her own. She begins dialling 999, and then clears her screen. She’ll give it a little longer, or at least until Father Joseph returns and lets her know if he’s seen her or not. The last thing she needs is to bother the police over something this silly, especially if Carolyn has only gone for a walk. The police already dislike Carolyn. Jeanette doesn’t want them to take against her too. After all, she’ll be staying here when Carolyn heads back to Leeds.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Carolyn doesn’t hear the low rumble of the car’s engine approaching. She only hears the damaged door of the kitchen scrape along the bare floorboards as it’s pushed open.

  The pigeons flap their wings and take flight, dropping feathers that dance through the air. She braces herself for the attacker to enter, or braces as much as the rope would allow. She’s had time to think about what she’s going to say to him or her. First, she’ll apologise like crazy for bringing the well, their dumping ground, to light. Secondly, she’ll explain that nobody believes her, and that the police aren’t interested in what she has to say. Thirdly, she’ll beg that they should just let her go. She’ll head back to Leeds and she’ll even take her mother with her. They’ll never have to see her face again. She’ll never return to Llanbedr for as long as she lives.

  Carolyn means it; she just wants to be home and to forget all about Llanbedr.

  The words are resting on her tongue and she’s ready to start begging for her life, waiting for the footsteps to grow closer and for this grotesque-looking monster to enter the room. But when the monster enters, the lump in her throat grows twice the size, and she can’t bring herself to speak. Shock has taken over, and the person walking over to her is the last one she’d ever expect to see.

  “No,” she says, feeling the colour drain from her face. Her tense body falls limp. Without realising, her head is shaking side-to-side with disbelief.

  The person comes closer.

  “Yes, Carolyn. It’s me.”

  Father Joseph walks over to her with a litre bottle of vodka in his hand and places it on the floor, then takes a seat on a nearby slab of concrete which has sharp metal reinforcing bars sticking out of it.

  “How… how… w-why?”

  “I didn’t want it to come to this, Carolyn. I really didn’t,” Father Joseph says calmly, removing his glasses and cleaning them with a handkerchief. “Last night at the table, you said you weren’t done with looking into the missing boys. I saw in your eyes that you wouldn’t stop, that you’d never stop, never let this go. Even after your mother’s home burned to the ground.”

  “Did you do that?” she says.

  “No, no, that wasn’t me. But if I’m honest, I thought you might have run straight back to Leeds after that. I was waiting for you to jump in your mother’s car and go.” Father Joseph replaces his glasses.

  “Mum?” Carolyn says, thinking the worst.

  “Your mother is fine. I haven’t done anything to her. I even plated up a breakfast for you this morning, you know, to keep up appearances, as if I didn’t know where you were.”

  Carolyn si
ghs. This is probably the end, but at least Mum is safe. After all, I caused this. And the killer was hiding right under my nose.

  She looks from the vodka to Father Joseph. He nods.

  “Yes, unfortunately that isn’t for me… It’s for you. I heard you creeping out during the night. I never sleep any more, not properly, anyway. Not since…” Father Joseph tails off. He’s looking down at the dusty floor, covered in pigeon poo.

  “Not since what? What happened?” she asks, her throat dry.

  Father Joseph sighs and rubs at the lines on his forehead.

  “Where do I begin?” he says. “I killed Elwyn Roberts. That’s probably what you want to hear, right?”

  Carolyn swallows. “Why?”

  “It was an accident. Not that any of that matters now.”

  “An accident?” Carolyn says, her voice not sounding like her own.

  “Yes, a stupid accident. He ran out in front of my car, chasing a ball. If you can believe that.” Father Joseph shakes his head. “You couldn’t leave it, could you? You had to keep digging deeper and deeper and deeper. Now, well, look where you are.”

  He stands up and towers over her. His hand trembles as he unscrews the top from the vodka bottle. He approaches Carolyn and grabs hold of her cheeks. His fingers feel moist with sweat as he squeezes her cheeks together, shouting for her to open her mouth wide. His voice echoes off the bare walls. Carolyn fights. She shakes her head from side to side in an attempt to loosen his grip so she can scream. Father Joseph’s fingernails dig deep into her flesh.

  “I’ll bring your mother here… Carolyn… Don’t make me… OPEN YOUR MOUTH!” he orders.

  Carolyn stops fighting at the thought of him hurting her mother and slowly opens her mouth, allowing the clear liquid to be poured in. She keeps it up, refusing to swallow and considers spitting it out in his face, but the seriousness in his piercing blue eyes shows he isn’t joking, and that he’ll do whatever it takes for her to drink it.

  The vodka burns as it goes down her throat and she gags, almost throwing it back up.

  “Again!” he demands.

  Carolyn opens her mouth again and allows the alcohol to be poured in. Tears fill her eyes as she brings up the alcohol. It runs down her chin and onto her jumper. Father Joseph pours another mouthful in and Carolyn pulls a sour face as she swallows.

  A quarter of the bottle is gone. Father Joseph screws the top back on before sitting down on the slab of concrete.

  “Ever wonder why I don’t drink any more?” he asks. When Carolyn doesn’t reply, he continues. “I had a drinking problem once, and one day I’d had too many and drove home. My driving was fine, if I’m being honest with you. I know that’s what most people would say after they’ve been caught drink-driving, but I genuinely believed I was fine. Then… Elwyn Roberts stepped out in front of me, chasing a football. I didn’t see him, and when I did… he was too close. I took him to the hospital, but it was useless. He was gone. Dead on the back seat of my Volvo.”

  To Carolyn, the room looks as if it’s moving. The floor she is sitting on feels as if it is made of sponge. She hates straight spirits, especially the cheap ones.

  “Elwyn Roberts went missing eight years ago,” she says, coughing. “I… That body I saw down the well. It hadn’t been decaying for eight years. I don’t understand.”

  “That’s true. I… I kept him in the chest freezer. I kept him there for eight years – as a reminder never to drink again. Then, one day, my luck changed. It was the smell that alerted me first. The freezer had packed up, and the body had been decaying for a few days before I discovered it. And when I did…” Father Joseph turns his face, as if the memory of that scent is back in his nostrils. “I had to find somewhere else to put it… to put him… while I sorted out the freezer and got rid of the stench.”

  Carolyn grimaces.

  Father Joseph stands, searching his pockets before he carries on. “Then you and your mother arrived back. That night, I waited until it was going dark before heading over. I was going to retrieve him and find somewhere else to hide him. That’s when I saw you standing at the well.”

  “Why… why not just go to the police and explain your… yourself?” Carolyn burps.

  Father Joseph is now back in front of her and holding her cheeks. He forces a handful of sleeping pills into her mouth, along with more vodka. Carolyn struggles to swallow them all and coughs a couple back out. Father Joseph pokes them back in and gives her another mouthful of vodka to wash them down.

  “No… Trust me, I thought about it, about going to the police and confessing the whole story. Either way they’d look at it, accident or not, I was drunk, Carolyn. I was over the legal limit, and I shouldn’t have been driving. My life would have been ruined. Can you imagine?” Father Joseph shakes his head.

  “Are you being serious?” Carolyn asks.

  “My church would have been taken from me, the people of Llanbedr would no longer look up to me and confide in me. My… my title would have been stripped,” he hisses, examining his hands. “No, no. I couldn’t have done that. I’m sorry. I asked the Lord what I should do, and he came to me in a dream and told me to carry on. ‘What has happened has already happened, and we can’t change that’, he said, so I listened, and I kept it a secret. Until you arrived!” Father Joseph snarls with an angry glint in his eye.

  “W-what did you…you do with his body?” Carolyn manages. Her head is spinning.

  Father Joseph thinks for a moment, tuts and walks towards the window. He pushes his glasses up his nose, puts his hands in his pockets and looks out, concentrating on something only he can see.

  “He’s out there, Carolyn. I buried him out there, next to a huge rock. It’s nice. Peaceful.”

  Carolyn looks at him and drops her head back towards the floor. The dizziness has increased tremendously, causing her to feel groggy and tired again. She wishes she could vomit it all out, but that would only make him angry. Who knows what he would do then?

  She forces herself to stay awake and to ask more questions.

  “What… what are you… what are you going to do with me?” she slurs.

  “Well, I’m not a killer, Carolyn. Whatever you might think of me.” He pauses. “So, it looks to me that with everything that’s gone on lately – the stress of losing your family, and causing all this trouble for your poor mother – it’s all got a little too much for you to handle. It looks to me like you drank yourself into a right state and walked to the second floor of this old B&B…”

  Carolyn looks at him with fear in her eyes.

  “… then threw yourself out of one of the windows,” he says with a cold icy stare.

  Carolyn wrestles at the rope, but now, after the alcohol and the sleeping tablets, all her strength has disappeared. Her head falls to her chest, and she mumbles, “Murdered b-by Dave G-Grohl,” before losing consciousness.

  ***

  Father Joseph unscrews the lid of the cheap vodka. The side of the bottle reads forty percent alcohol, the rest of the words are in Russian. He contemplates a mouthful, just to take the edge off this whole mess, and lifts the bottle to his lips, but stops before it touches. He sighs and screws the top back on, placing the bottle next to Carolyn before leaving.

  I’ll need a clear head for this to work, he thinks.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Jeanette has washed the dishes from this morning’s breakfast, keeping Carolyn’s breakfast in the fridge. She’s vacuumed every room and polished every cabinet and table in the place. Anything to keep her mind occupied, which is hard, because Father Joseph’s place is already spotless. Still, no harm in going over it a second time. Jeanette can’t shake off the thoughts running through her mind: Carolyn has been taken by a masked man, possibly the arsonist from last night. Or the psychopath who attacked that lovely giant Barry. What makes it worse is that when her daughter needed her help, she hadn’t believed her.

  What kind of mother am I?

  Barry had rung back half an h
our after they’d finished talking. He told Jeanette that he’d called a few places around town. He’d even tried the hospital and The Coffee Shack, but nobody had reported seeing her, or anyone answering her description.

  Jeanette has just finished making another cup of tea after leaving the others to go cold. She picks her phone up and places it back on the table. She contemplates making the call to the police. She has never been this worried in all her life. The nails on her fingers have been bitten down deep and now her fingertips ache. She walks to the window, then to the table, and takes a seat. Next she counts the lines on the wallpaper, before losing count, and starting again.

  She opens the message app on her phone to see if Barry might have any news, and is disappointed when the message folder is empty.

  She drops her phone and rests her head in her hands, and thinks about how she wishes she’d done more. I should have got help for her – real help from a professional – when all this trouble first began. Seeing a corpse down a well! What kind of crazy thing is that to say?

  Besides, there’s no way… unless… No, no. There’s no way that’s possible.

  The front door of Father Joseph’s home opens before the tears have time to begin. Jeanette stands to attention as he comes into the kitchen, and begins thinking all sorts of horrific scenes as she waits to hear the news. Carolyn is dead – knifed to death by the same person that got Barry. Or perhaps she’s been arrested and is currently being held in a police cell after she hurled abuse and accusations at an innocent shopper, blaming them for starting the fire.