The Back Road

by Abbott, Rachel

  * * *

  There was a sense of urgency and suppressed tension in the ward, and away from the patients the squawking of police radios was a constant backdrop that added to the general unease.

  Ellie, Sam, Brenda and the agency nurse had all been interviewed, but there was nothing decisive; nothing that told them who the hell had been on the ward, or whether they had actually tried to kill Abbie. CCTV was being checked, but the footage from the camera by the door was inconclusive, so they were trying to backtrack and trace the intruder’s route through the hospital.

  As far as they could tell, Abbie had come to no harm - particularly if suffocation had been the intention. They had taken all precautions, though, and changed the contents of everything on and around Abbie’s bed - from the water jug to the drip.

  Ellie knew that the other staff members would each be feeling as culpable as she did, but then they didn’t have the extra burden of guilt that she was carrying.

  When Kath Campbell finally made it back to the ward, Ellie could see that she had been shopping. She came in looking much more cheerful, and proceeded to fish some pretty new pyjamas for Abbie out of one of her bags, obviously pleased to see that her daughter was sleeping quietly.

  Ellie looked towards the nurses’ station, and saw Sam beckoning her.

  ‘Kath, Doctor Bradshaw would like a word, if that’s okay.’

  Kath looked startled and about to start quizzing Ellie, but Ellie gently took her arm and guided her away from the bed and towards the office.

  Kath’s face drained of all colour as Sam explained to her what had happened, and why the place appeared to be crawling with police.

  ‘I noticed them at the door when I was waiting to be buzzed in,’ she said. ‘I thought there must have been a smash on the motorway, or something, and they were waiting to interview somebody. I never thought it would be my Abbie. Why, though? Why?’

  There was no sensible answer that either Ellie or Sam could provide. That was a question for the police, although it was fairly clear to Ellie that it either had something to do with Abbie’s abduction or her accident.

  ‘How did they get in? We have to be buzzed in, and the staff have security passes,’ Kath said, not unreasonably.

  ‘I’ve heard back from security,’ Sam said. ‘Everybody that came in swiped a card, or was buzzed in and has since been verified. No cards have been reported missing, so we’re going through the CCTV to see if we can spot them, and find out whose card it was.’

  Ellie felt sick. Her vision became distorted as if she were looking through shattered glass, with all the parts fragmenting. Sam’s face was splintered into a thousand pieces, and his voice seemed to be coming from a long way off.

  Now was not the time to admit that this was her fault. That could only add to Kath’s distress - but she had to get out of there and talk to security.

  Thankfully after a few moments her vision cleared, and the feeling of dizziness started to pass. Nobody had noticed. Sam was focusing entirely on Kath’s horrified face as he outlined what they knew.

  ‘All we have at the moment is the evidence from the nurse who was keeping an eye on Abbie. A doctor walked towards Abbie’s bed and pulled the curtains round. He or she was wearing a surgical hat, and scrubs, which can be bulked up to make somebody look a different shape. Their height has been assessed as around five eight, five nine, and it looked like a masculine walk, but that means nothing.’

  Kath was struggling to take all of this in, on top of the horrors of the last few days.

  ‘The important thing is,’ Sam was saying, ‘she’s fine.’

  He was leaning forward in his seat, his hands clasped between his knees, looking at Kath with concern.

  ‘In fact, more than fine. She was moving - really moving - on the bed, and making sounds. She’s continuing to be more intermittently responsive.’

  Kath looked up hopefully at Sam, and Ellie leaned towards her and took one of her hands, putting her own worries aside for the moment.

  ‘She spoke, Kath. I could tell she was trying to speak, but it was just as she fell asleep that I was able to make out what she was trying to say. She was asking for you, Kath. She said “Mother”. I heard it distinctly.’

  Ellie smiled at Kath, but was dismayed to see the colour drain from her face. Kath sat down heavily in a chair.

  ‘After all this time, all that love, and she still wants her mother.’

  Ellie crouched down next to Kath and grasped her hands.

  ‘No - you’re her mother. It’s you she wanted. Why would you think anything else?’

  ‘Ellie, Abbie has never once in her life called me Mother. She has never referred to me as that, and it’s a word she never uses. It’s what she called her birth mother. I’ve always been Mum, but now, when she’s in trouble, she wants that awful woman. After everything she did to Abbie and Jessica.’

  Ellie didn’t know what to say. She’d been convinced that Kath would be delighted, but she looked as if the exhaustion of the last few days had caught up with her as she leaned back on the chair and closed her eyes.

  42

  Tom stared at his computer screen. This wasn’t good. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting when he’d started the search for Leo’s father, but it wasn’t this. Ernie Collier from the Cheshire police had been doing a bit of asking around, and had called back to say that there had been talk that Ted Harris had ‘buggered off to East Anglia’. That piece of information had proved enormously helpful, and Tom had been working through all his sources by phone and email to see what he could dig up.

  An appropriate term, he thought.

  He’d made a brief trip into the village to see if he could pick up any gossip. The newsagent’s had been his first stop, and the only one that had revealed anything - although that wasn’t much.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Talbot,’ he’d said, picking up his daily newspaper and placing it on the counter. ‘Haven’t you got any of the local newspapers left?’

  ‘They’ve all gone, I’m afraid Mr Douglas. A lot of interest, this week. Was there something particular that you were looking for, because I’ve got my own copy in the back if you’d like to borrow it? I need it back, though, because I do like to keep a copy for a week or so.’

  ‘That’s very kind - but I wanted to read more about the accident. You know, Abbie Campbell?’ He didn’t want to do any such thing, but he’d needed an opening.

  As expected, Mrs Talbot had voiced a number of theories, all of which Tom had heard before and all of which he knew to be nonsense.

  ‘It must be a terrible shock for a village like this. I suppose it’s rare that anything happens to disrupt the peace,’ he said.

  ‘Well, you’d think so wouldn’t you. And on the whole you’d be right. But we’ve had our moments.’

  Tom had noticed before that there was some kind of perverse pride in communities that have housed villains. It was the same with neighbours and acquaintances of the most evil criminals. Behind the expressions of shock and horror, there was always a gleam of suppressed excitement, as if somehow their familiarity with a monster made them, and their lives, infinitely more interesting.

  ‘Surely not recently?’ he responded, fishing in his pocket for change to pay for his paper.

  ‘No. That’s true. It’s been quiet for a good few years now.’ Mrs Talbot sounded vaguely disappointed. ‘But we’ve had our share of scoundrels. It’s interesting that all this seems to have happened to young Abbie in those woods, you know. It’s not the first time people have wondered what’s gone on there.’

  Tom handed over his cash, and gave Mrs Talbot an encouraging smile.

  ‘It’s years ago now, but it was summer. I remember that, because it was hot and everybody had their windows open all the time. There weren’t so many houses on that side of the village then, but more than one person swore that one night they heard a terrible scream coming from the woods.’

  ‘Really? What happened?’ Tom asked.

&nb
sp; ‘We never knew. The people that heard it said they listened to see if it came again, but it was quiet after that. They convinced themselves that it was a fox or something. It was only when they all started talking to each other that they got a bit worried. Perhaps it was a scream. Somebody out there might be hurt. So some of the men went to the woods to see if they could find anything, but there was nothing that they could see.’

  ‘Did they call the police?’

  Doreen Talbot had the grace to look shamefaced.

  ‘It was too late. There was nothing there, nobody was reported missing or anything, so least said, soonest mended we all thought.’

  Tom had kept his thoughts to himself. A group of villagers out looking for evidence of a crime was not his idea of the perfect game plan.

  ‘When was this? Do you remember?’

  ‘Not properly. It has to be more than twelve years ago, because it happened before I went into hospital. But less than eighteen, because it was definitely after my Bert died.’

  That had been it. The sum total of the gossip provided nothing that would help Tom with his enquiries, and the other shops yielded less. So it was back to his computer. He had double checked Leo’s research to make sure that the information provided by her stepmother was definitely a lie. And it was. There was no trace of his death certificate in the period she had stated. But thanks to Ernie Collier he now had other routes to research, and step by step the facts were revealed to him. He was able to use his status as an ex-copper to ask a few favours at local newspapers, and he spoke to the local force. Finally, he put all the pieces together. He knew all there was to know.

  He was going to have to go and find Leo. And he wasn’t looking forward to it one little bit.

  43

  It was mid-afternoon by the time Ellie finished her shift, and it had been a hard few hours. After the panic of the intruder on the ward, everybody had finally calmed down but she couldn’t help remembering Abbie’s rigid body as she’d touched her. She was showing good signs of recovery, but Kath was tormented by the fact that Abbie had said the word ‘mother’ and Ellie could think of no way of reassuring her.

  She had admitted to both Sam and Security that her pass was missing, and had been since her shift had started. Sam had been so good about it, saying it could happen to anybody. Security were less tolerant. And rightly so.

  Ellie drove home as if she were driving on auto-pilot, and she noticed nothing of the journey - stopping automatically when she had to, but otherwise oblivious to her surroundings. She was surprised but strangely relieved to see there were no cars on the drive as she pulled in. She was determined to go to the police, whatever the consequences, and it would be far easier to do if she didn’t have to tell Max about it first. She had no idea where he’d gone, but she could hazard a guess. He’d be with her, but for now she didn’t want to think about it. And Leo could be anywhere. What a dreadful time for her to have come!

  Ellie opened the front door and headed straight for the stairs. She wasn’t hungry and all she wanted was a bath and a bit of thinking time. She needed to prepare her story for the police. She tramped wearily up the stairs, feeling more like sixty-four than thirty-four. Throwing her bag onto a chair, she kicked off her shoes and lay back on the bed. She just needed a few minutes, then she would get ready and go and give her confession. She rested her head on the soft pillows, and her exhausted mind shut itself off, as if somebody had pulled down a blackout blind. She fell into a dreamless sleep.

  She was shocked to find that it was after five when she finally woke up. Max would be picking the children up at six, although she knew he would stay and chat with the other parents for a while - but he would be home by six thirty at the latest. She needed to be out of here by then. She raced into the bathroom and had to forego the bath she had been anticipating, ducking under the shower for about two minutes instead. At least it woke her up.

  She’d thought of wearing her best clothes in order to look smart for her visit to the police, but realised this was a ridiculous idea. With what she had to tell them, she didn’t suppose how she was dressed would make the least difference. She grabbed a clean pair of dark blue jeans and a royal blue and white striped top and got ready quickly. She pulled a brush through her hair and contemplated putting some makeup on to hide her pallor. In the end, though, she thought that her tired face might indicate how much her conscience had been pricking her.

  It was still only quarter to six, so she had time to get a quick drink of juice - although a large gin would have gone down a treat right now. As she walked into the kitchen, she saw a note propped up on the worktop.

  ELLIE it said on the front. It was from Max, probably explaining or making up some excuse for where he’d gone that afternoon. But she wasn’t prepared at all for what the note said.

  Ellie, sweetheart - we need to talk. I’m sorry not to be there now, but there is something that I have to sort out before I can talk to you. When I get back, I’ll put the children to bed and ask Leo to make herself scarce. I don’t know what time I’ll be home, but I need to track Sean down and sort things out with him before I can talk to you. See you later. Love Max.

  She gave a brief cry of anguish and crumpled the letter in her hand, letting it fall to the floor. Wrapping her arms tightly round her body as if to hold in the pain, she could barely breathe.

  Why had he gone to see him?

  There could only be one reason. Sean must have decided that he wasn’t waiting any longer, and he must have called Max. Ellie had known that going to the police was dangerous and there was a chance that Max might find out, but she had hoped they would handle the situation with discretion. But now she didn’t have to rely on the police’s tact. By the time she got home tonight, Max was going to know everything. And he was obviously planning to bring his big announcement forward by a couple of days.

  Looking down at her hands, Ellie realised that she was shaking. Grabbing a glass from the draining board, she filled it with cold water and gulped it down. Georgia had been right yesterday. It was as if Abbie Campbell’s accident had acted like a catalyst, and the still waters around them were erupting in seething turbulence, with a geyser about to shoot through the apparent calm surface of all of their lives.

  * * *

  Knowing that she was being a coward, Ellie had driven very slowly to the police headquarters, and it was quarter to seven by the time she arrived. Max would be home by now and wondering where she was. The truth was that in spite of arriving at her destination half an hour ago, she was still sitting outside, trying to pluck up the courage to go in.

  She wasn’t sure what she was going to say. She’d had it all so well planned, but it sounded hollow even to her own ears. One option was not to mention anybody but herself. She could say she had been going to pick her husband up from the rugby club, but had remembered before she got there that he was getting a lift. But that was pretty pathetic. Or she could tell them that there was a man who had been bothering her. She had gone out to meet him to tell him to get lost.

  At midnight. Down a dark lane. A likely story.

  Or the truth. That she had started a relationship with a man other than her husband, and he had wanted to meet her. The fact that she was going to see him to tell him to get out of her life would be irrelevant to the police. And they would be justifiably furious with her for not coming forward sooner. Particularly as she now remembered that she had passed the other car. Not that she could identify it, but she was sure that it was a dark colour.

  She was just opening the car door when her phone rang. Max. She cut him off. But it unnerved her again, and she gave herself a minute or two to calm down. The phone rang again.

  She was about to cut it off when she saw that it said ‘blocked’. That couldn’t be Max. He wouldn’t have a clue how to block his number - but then, he’d never needed to before. Perhaps it was something else he had learned.

  ‘Hello,’ she said tentatively.

  ‘Helllloooo Elllieee.’ The voice
sounded deep and slow, like a recording played at the wrong speed. It was impossible to tell whether it was a man or a woman - because it sounded like neither. It didn’t sound human. Ellie felt a shiver run up her back.

  ‘It’s paaaayback time.’ There was a brief and eerie laugh from the other end of the phone.

  Ellie closed her eyes and bit her top lip. Should she hang up?

  But she couldn’t. She needed to know what this person wanted from her.

  The deep, slow, echoing voice continued.

  ‘I’ve saved this task for you, Ellie, because it’s something that you - and only you - can do for me.”

  “Why should I do anything for you?’

  ‘Don’t interrupt.’ A momentary lapse in the smooth tones betrayed a quick anger, and Ellie recognised instantly that this person wasn’t entirely balanced.

  ‘You will do as I say, won’t you Ellie? Imagine how you’ll feel if your husband finds out what you’ve been doing, and your perfect little family is broken into pieces? If you want your secrets to be safe, you only have to do one very simple thing. If not, you’ll have to face the consequences.’

  The voice hardened. ‘Or perhaps next time, it won’t just be your security pass or a scruffy soft dog that goes missing.’

  Ellie felt a wave of hot fury.

  ‘Don’t you come near my children. Don’t you dare. I’ll hunt you down and kill you if you so much as touch a hair on their heads.’

  There was a sly laugh from the other end of the phone. Even through the distortion, it tugged at Ellie’s memory but she couldn’t place it. Who was it? Somebody who’d had a reason to take her security pass. Somebody who had wanted to hurt Abbie Campbell. But why? And if they could hurt Abbie, what might they do to Ruby and Jake?

  Whoever it was, they seemed to be able to come and go in Willow Farm without detection, because she was sure that her pass had been taken last night, while they were sleeping. The thought made her shudder with horror at what else could have happened.

  She didn’t know what this person wanted from her, but if it was within her power, she would do whatever they asked to take the threat away from the children. That wasn’t enough, though. If it was the last thing she did, she would track this bastard down and remove any lingering threat from her family.