The Retreat

by Mark Edwards

  My whole body went cold. ‘Left her to die. Of dehydration?’

  The detectives’ silence told me I was right. I hung my head, imagining Zara lying there in agony, unable to climb the stairs, cold and growing increasingly thirsty and hungry, her body shutting down. A slow, aware death. It was my greatest nightmare.

  I forced myself to shake the image off though I knew it would return, deep in the night. That it would haunt me for the rest of my life.

  ‘So what about Shirley?’ I asked. ‘Did Heledd confess to killing her?’

  DI Snaith replied. ‘She says it was an accident. They were arguing at the top of the stairs, after the wake. Heledd was furious that Shirley had agreed to talk to you and she was convinced her mother was going to tell you the truth.’

  ‘What truth?’ Julia asked.

  ‘I’ll come to that in a second. Heledd said her mother tried to get past her. She was drunk and wanted to lie down before Mr Radcliffe here turned up. Heledd blocked her way, they struggled for a second and Mrs Roberts ended up at the bottom of the stairs with a broken neck. Heledd says she checked her pulse, realised she was dead and fled the scene.’

  ‘That’s bullshit,’ I said. ‘She’d already killed Zara by pushing her down the stairs. It’s her MO.’

  ‘Maybe,’ DI Snaith said. ‘Although she’s confessed to the other murders.’

  ‘She keeps talking about needing to confess her sins,’ added DC Hawkins.

  ‘And “the sins of the mother and father”?’ I asked. ‘That’s what she was saying last night.’

  Snaith nodded. ‘Again, I’ll come to that. But regarding her mother’s death, even though Heledd is clearly terrified, she doesn’t seem to regret her mother’s death. Her attitude is that her mother was ungrateful for everything Heledd was doing, trying to protect her. She says Mrs Roberts wanted to be punished. She wanted to atone before she died so she could, as Heledd puts it, face St Peter at the pearly gates with a clear conscience.’

  I was pretty sure I knew, now, what Shirley and Heledd’s father had done. But I waited for the detectives to continue.

  DC Hawkins said, ‘It seems Heledd was far more concerned about protecting her father. Concerned, that was, until the Red Widow told her to confess.’ She rolled her eyes.

  The hairs stood up on my arms. Whatever DC Hawkins thought about Heledd’s sanity, we were so close to the truth.

  ‘Her father?’ I braced myself. It had to be Glynn, surely. According to Malcolm’s journal, Shirley had been sleeping with him. Glynn had to be guilty of everything, just as I’d suspected. I was itching for the detectives to get to the end of their account. ‘Glynn Collins?’

  ‘No. Not Glynn Collins.’

  I thought I’d misheard. ‘Sorry, did you say not Glynn Collins?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then . . . then who?’

  DI Snaith and DC Hawkins exchanged a look, as if they weren’t sure if they should tell us.

  ‘Rhodri Wallace,’ DI Snaith said.

  Julia gasped. ‘Oh Jesus!’

  ‘I believe you know him?’ DC Hawkins said to Julia.

  ‘He’s my handyman. I mean, he’s done a lot to help me since we moved here.’

  My mind raced ahead, trying to fit it all together. Rhodri was Heledd’s dad? He, not Glynn, had been Shirley’s lover back in the 1970s?

  ‘So Heledd was protecting Rhodri and her mother . . . because they abducted Carys Driscoll. Oh my God, they did it to protect Heledd, didn’t they? To save their child from the Widow?’

  Julia stared at me, confused, but DI Snaith nodded. ‘I’m not sure how you knew that, but that’s Heledd’s story. Her mother told her the whole thing when she was growing up. I think she wanted Heledd to know how lucky she was. How blessed.’

  DC Hawkins sighed, and DI Snaith went on to recount what Heledd had told them.

  ‘In 1980 the Widow was due to come to the town to claim a child, unless another child was given to her as an offering. Heledd says that her parents’ friend, Glynn Collins, had warned her mother about it at a meeting of the Historical Society.’

  I nodded impatiently. ‘He found some old newspaper articles.’

  ‘That’s right. And Shirley was terrified. She met up with her secret lover, Rhodri, that night, and told him what Glynn had said at the meeting. Of course, they already knew about the legend of the Widow. Everyone in this town is obsessed with it, especially the older generations. Old people and kids.’

  I thought about Rhodri and his conviction that a woodpecker would attack Julia if she moved the peonies. Superstition ran through his veins. Shirley must have believed in the Widow too. I guessed they were brought up treating the Widow’s existence as a fact, passed down from their parents and grandparents.

  ‘And Heledd,’ DC Hawkins said. ‘She believes too. She’s spent her whole life being told she was saved from the Widow. She’s an intelligent woman, though. I’m sure her belief lay dormant for a long time until last night. Now she’s absolutely convinced she saw her, that the Widow came into the chapel and told her to confess.’

  DC Snaith and DI Hawkins shook their heads in tandem, as if despairing of this place where the locals clung to superstition and crazy legends.

  ‘You were telling us about Shirley and Rhodri,’ Julia said.

  ‘Oh yes.’ DI Snaith went on. ‘According to Heledd, they were terrified the Widow was going to take their love child. I think there was something in the legend about how the witch was more likely to take children born out of wedlock or one whose parents weren’t together. So they made up their minds. They would take a child who, according to them, wouldn’t be missed. An orphan from the children’s home. They would take her into the woods and leave her tied to a tree – which is what they did.’

  ‘But what happened to her? Surely the woods were searched after she went missing?’ Julia asked. ‘The Widow can’t have taken her. She doesn’t exist!’

  ‘We don’t know that yet,’ DC Hawkins said. ‘But we’ve arrested Rhodri Wallace. We’re going back to talk to him now. So far, he’s keeping schtum. He won’t even admit that Heledd is his daughter or that he was sleeping with Shirley all those years ago. I guess he’s worried what his wife will say. They just celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary.’

  So that was why he and Shirley weren’t together. He was already married when Heledd was conceived.

  ‘According to Heledd, he lived a double life. Coming to visit her at the bed and breakfast, then going back to his wife and other children. He’s maintained a relationship with Heledd in secret all these years. Maybe his wife knows and has been turning a blind eye. I guess we’ll find out when we talk to her.’ DI Snaith ran a hand over his scalp. ‘People and their fucked-up, messy lives. The way Heledd talks about him, it’s as if he’s some great hero. The man who made huge sacrifices to save her from the Widow, who risked everything each week to visit her. She said she would do anything to protect him. Anything.’

  ‘And that’s what she did,’ said DC Hawkins.

  I got up and crossed the kitchen. ‘I don’t get why Heledd decided she needed to kill Zara, or why she wanted to kill me. We didn’t know anything about what her parents did.’

  ‘But she was terrified you were going to find out. And who knows? Maybe Shirley gave something away to Zara, or Heledd believed she had. It seems she got it into her head that all potential leaks had to be dealt with.’

  ‘What about the journal?’ I asked. ‘Malcolm found out that Rhodri was Heledd’s dad. But he didn’t know they took Carys.’

  ‘Apparently not. But Heledd had been brought up to believe it was imperative that no one find out who her dad was, that it would ruin his life if everyone knew he had cheated on his wife. I guess his secrets were mixed up in her mind so she felt she needed to keep all of them.’

  Throughout the conversation, Julia had been growing increasingly impatient, fidgeting and tapping her foot against the floor. Finally, she couldn’t hold back any long
er.

  ‘But what about Lily? What did Heledd tell you about her?’

  Again, the two detectives looked at one another before DI Snaith spoke. ‘Heledd denies any knowledge of what happened to Lily.’

  Julia stood up and slapped the counter. ‘She must be lying!’

  ‘She’s confessed to two murders and the manslaughter of her own mother. She’s told us about the abduction of another child, naming her own parents as the perpetrators. She seems utterly terrified of the Widow, as if the witch is going to come for her if she doesn’t tell us everything. I’m sorry, Julia, but I don’t think she’s lying.’

  ‘Then it must be Rhodri. That bastard. He was always around here. He used to tell me how lovely Lily was. I thought he was a nice guy. But he was watching her, wasn’t he? Waiting? To do to her what he’d done three decades ago. I bet there are more. And she knew him, she trusted him, would have gone with him if he asked.’

  She paced the kitchen, out of breath. I got up, tried to take hold of her, but she pushed me away. She jabbed a finger towards Snaith.

  ‘You have to get him to tell you what he did to Lily. What he did with her. Let me come to the station, put me in a room with him for five minutes. I’ll get that bastard to confess.’

  Hawkins raised his palms. ‘Mrs Marsh . . . I can assure you, we’re doing everything we can.’

  Julia’s face was red. ‘Then why the hell are you still here? Why aren’t you at the station, getting him to talk? I need to know where my Lily is. I’ve waited so long. I can’t wait any longer!’

  She stormed from the room, leaving me alone with the cops. My brain was whirring. There were still so many questions – but answers were beginning to form, like silhouettes in the mist.

  ‘We will get to the truth,’ DC Hawkins said, picking up her jacket.

  I was lost in thought, her voice coming to me as if from a great distance. When I looked up, they were gone.

  Chapter 43

  I knocked on Julia’s bedroom door. ‘It’s me,’ I said.

  After a long pause she told me to come in. It was the first time I’d been in here. She was sitting on the double bed, her eyes pink from the tears she’d cried; pink from exhaustion too. I sat beside her and put my arms out. She allowed me to hold her against my chest and I looked around the room. It was full of pictures of Lily – on the walls, on the dresser, frames on every surface. There were photos of Julia with Michael too. On their wedding day. With Lily when she was a toddler. A photo of Michael holding the newborn Lily took pride of place on the dressing table.

  I wanted to be able to help her break free of the past, to move on. I knew that if Lily was dead, Julia would never get over that. How could she? But she could still have a life. A good life. Last night, in the woods, she had threatened suicide if she discovered Lily was dead. I was going to do everything in my power to show her that wasn’t the right decision.

  But first, we had to get to the truth.

  ‘Are you okay to talk?’ I asked.

  She extricated herself from my grasp, found a tissue and blew her nose. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Okay. So. There are two things. Last night, at the chapel, we heard a shout, scuffling, like Heledd was fighting with someone. Unless she’s completely mad and was fighting with herself, there was someone else there.’

  ‘She said it was the Widow.’

  ‘Yes. Except we don’t believe in centuries-old witches, do we?’

  Belief. That’s what this whole screwed-up situation came down to. The power of stories, of superstition and fear.

  ‘So who was it?’ I went on.

  Julia shook her head.

  ‘Let’s look at the second question,’ I said. ‘Ursula and her map. I believe in spirit guides about as much as I believe in witches. I still think Ursula found Little Cat in that hut and took it to the chapel, with the ultimate plan of getting you to pay her to talk to Lily. Heledd seemed genuine when she said she didn’t know Ursula, so I don’t think they were working together. There’s something else going on here.’

  ‘Like what?’

  I got up and crossed to the window, looking out towards the woods. The sky was colourless, the world bleak and grey. Below me, Chesney the cat slunk across the lawn.

  ‘Let’s think it through. Heledd came to the chapel to destroy Malcolm’s journal because there’s something in there she didn’t want anyone to see. She was probably planning to move Zara’s body too. My guess is that she got a shock when she discovered us there, which is why she pushed you down the stairs and wedged the door shut. She panicked, was trying to work out what to do. Set the chapel on fire, maybe? But then someone came along and caused her to freak out.’

  ‘Ursula?’

  I shook my head. ‘Surely not. Ursula’s too old. Heledd could overpower her easily. And how would Ursula make Heledd think she was the Widow?’

  Julia got up and headed to the door.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Ursula’s in the cottage. I’m going to talk to her.’

  We entered the cottage. Ursula was at the desk in the Bertrand Russell Room, staring into space, her laptop open but untouched before her. It seemed so long ago since I’d first come here and found Karen writing. Back before the mayhem began.

  Ursula jumped up as soon as we entered. ‘Have the police gone? What happened? What did you find in the woods?’

  ‘Come off it, Ursula,’ Julia said. ‘We know you planted Lily’s toy cat there.’

  She gave us a blank look. It was convincing, I’d give her that. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Was that what you found? Lily’s toy? Oh, Julia, I’m so sorry. I hoped Phoebe was wrong . . .’

  Julia erupted, sweeping Ursula’s laptop off the table. It crashed to the floor.

  Ursula’s mouth opened, a look of absolute shock. ‘Julia, what—’

  ‘Stop lying!’ Julia shouted. ‘You found that cat and took it there. Lucas saw you, out in the woods.’

  Ursula’s attention snapped towards me. ‘What? He’s mistaken.’

  ‘It was two days after you arrived here,’ I said. ‘I know it was you. You were wearing that red coat.’

  Ursula stared at me, then at Julia. ‘Don’t you remember, Julia? The day after I got here, I told you I’d mislaid my coat. I wore it that morning, took it off when I came inside and couldn’t find it later. We searched the house for it – and I still haven’t found it.’

  ‘Oh, stop it,’ I said. ‘You’re just making it—’

  ‘She’s right.’

  I stopped talking.

  Julia repeated it. ‘She’s right. I remember now. We looked for it for ages.’

  ‘You’re saying someone took it? That they wore it into the woods? Who? Why?’

  Julia had gone pale again. ‘Maybe it was all part of a plan.’ She sat down opposite Ursula. ‘Can you describe the experience when you heard Phoebe talking to you? Was the voice inside your head?’

  ‘I’m not crazy. It was inside the room.’

  ‘A disembodied voice, inside the room? Is that how it usually happens?’

  Confusion flickered in Ursula’s eyes. ‘To be honest . . . Phoebe usually speaks to me in my dreams.’ She caught my reaction and said, ‘It’s all in my book. I’m not making this up.’

  Julia said, in a gentle voice, ‘But this time you heard the voice when you were awake?’

  ‘Yes. Well, it was during the night. At first I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming. But then I realised I was conscious, and my guide was talking to me, that she was there. I was overwhelmed at first. It had been a long time since she’d come to me and I feared she’d deserted me, that my book had made her angry. But here she was, a voice in the dark, but there. Really there. I’d never heard her speak out loud before. In the past, her voice was always inside my head, so I was terribly excited. She told me she had an important message to tell me about Lily.’

  ‘That was the first time she came to you?’ Julia said. ‘When she told you Lily was wi
th Jesus?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘You told me your guide spoke to you about my girlfriend, Priya.’

  Ursula couldn’t meet my eye. ‘I wasn’t being one hundred per cent honest with you then . . . I asked my agent about you.’

  Just as I’d suspected.

  ‘What about the second time Phoebe spoke to you?’ Julia asked. ‘When you drew the map? Surely you didn’t draw it in the dark?’

  ‘No. It was shortly after lunchtime and I was at my desk, writing. I heard a voice behind me. She told me not to turn around, to listen carefully. She said she was going to describe a map to me and that she wanted me to draw it. She described it very clearly. As soon as I’d finished I turned around, hoping to see her, but she wasn’t there.’

  ‘Thank you, Ursula.’

  Julia got up and, taking hold of my arm, led me out into the garden, shutting the cottage door behind her.

  ‘You remember how Karen said she’d heard a voice, telling her to get out? And you both heard singing. Actually, didn’t you say Max heard the singing too?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And then there was the incident with the birthday candles,’ she said.

  My pulse quickened as I realised what Julia was saying.

  ‘And what about the night you thought someone was in your room?’ Julia said.

  ‘When my phone and pen went missing.’

  We stared at each other. ‘There’s been somebody in the house, sneaking around, talking and singing and taking things. Not a ghost. A person. Oh my God . . .’

  She ran across the lawn towards the house and I followed her, up the stairs to Room 2: Ursula’s room, which was the same room where Karen had slept.

  It was a corner room so there were two exterior walls, one of which had a window that looked out over the front garden. Could someone have been outside that window, talking to Ursula, and to Karen before her? I looked out. It was a sheer drop, with no balcony, no surfaces for anyone to stand on. The roof was high above. It wouldn’t be possible for anyone to throw their voice from up there into this room.