by Rosie Walker
Mum laughs loud and short, but her face doesn’t smile. ‘Good question, Maggie. The police don’t think there’s anything bad happening. They say there’s not enough evidence. They’re wrong, and it’s dangerous.’ She stabs at her lasagne like she’s trying to kill it. Her mouth is pinched and small, and her eyes are narrow. She puts her fork down. ‘But yeah, my job is to find good stories to write and then, if they’re interesting, newspapers buy them to print.’
Thomas doesn’t want to talk about newspapers, and he doesn’t want to talk about things that make Mum sad or angry. But he can’t stop thinking about Zoe; she bought him an ice cream once, on a hot day last year when the van pulled up outside. It was a Twister. ‘Mum, where do they think Zoe’s gone?’
Mum looks sad again. ‘I don’t know. But I really hope it has nothing to do with the stories I write for the newspaper.’
‘What did you say to Zoe’s Mum?’ asks Maggie.
Mum shrugs. ‘I wanted to tell her not to worry, but that wouldn’t be honest. I think she should worry. So, I told her that if the police won’t help, she should do the investigating herself.’
Him
He can hear sobs from inside the car boot, but he’s parked on the opposite side of the lane, away from the gatehouse and out of earshot from the office. The air smells of autumn bonfires as he opens his door.
The spiked parapets of the asylum loom behind the gatehouse, black outlines against the deep indigo sky. The lights are on in the security office and a stocky figure is silhouetted against one of the windows. He watches the window for a moment, as the figure paces back and forth in front of the window, arms gesturing as he talks to someone.
He opens the boot and the girl is lying on her side, her hands still tied in front. She stares at him; terrified eyes open wide, wide, wide.
There it is: fear. It’s crawling all over her face and in her eyes, like a swarm of insects, and it’s all because of him. Eyes wide, nostrils flared, goose-flesh on her cheeks and bare arms. It’s an interesting thing to watch on someone’s face, as he’s never felt it himself. Fear is not an emotion he suffers from. He has nothing to lose.
A glove is shoved into her mouth, her lips sealed with duct tape.
She’s panting through her nose and whimpering. Her hair is plastered to her forehead with sweat.
He leans down so his face is close to hers. She smells of urine.
‘I can see I’m going to have to shut you up, aren’t I?’ he whispers. She closes her eyes and tears leak out of the sides, trickling down her grazed cheeks towards her ears. She makes some muffled sounds, trying to speak. It sounds like she’s pleading with him. They always plead.
‘No? Are you going to be quiet?’
She nods.
‘Liar.’ He reaches out and grasps her nose, blocking her nostrils. She whimpers again and thrashes half-heartedly, her chest heaving, straining to drag air into her lungs. He longs to wait, watch her stop struggling and know he’s subdued her. Her face reddens, she thrashes, bucking with the need to pull air into her lungs. Her blue eyes roll back in her head, and then swivel to look straight at him again. They’re clear blue, with small flecks of hazel, like freckles on her irises. The whites are bloodshot and tearful. She holds his gaze, steady and pleading.
He tries to hold on, fingers stiff and curled on either side of her nose. But almost against his will, hand shaking, he releases her mouth and nose. He can’t do it.
She wrenches air in through her nose like a swimmer surfacing from a dive.
She shakes her head violently and tries to speak. She might be saying ‘No, no’, but it’s muffled behind the layers of duct tape he wrapped around her face.
He laughs and ignores her, lifting her over his shoulder; she barely weighs a thing. He can feel her shivering against his chest. He curls his arm around her legs. She’s too weak now to fight him.
He watches from the trees as a security guard leaves the gatehouse and climbs into his car. The ancient Escort narrowly misses scraping the gatepost as it trundles away.
He carries the girl up the sloping drive towards the asylum. Tall trees create an archway above his head through which he occasionally catches glimpses of the moon. It’s a bright night.
The asylum looks beautiful. The steep roof gleams silver in the moonlight and the dark windows watch him and the girl like the multiple eyes of a spider. He imagines the faces of the lunatics at the windows, staring through their addled minds. He loves all the words they used for the patients: idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded. So descriptive.
He’s calm, content. He can’t help smiling.
She utters a muffled sob.
‘You’re a very lucky girl. You get to see the workshop. My murder castle. It’s where we kept the others.’ A damp patch on his shoulder indicates that she has urinated again. Not even this can diminish his mood; he’ll make her pay for that later.
He walks past the front entrance, where a stone staircase leads up to the double wooden doors. They’ve been locked for years. It looks more like the sweeping entrance to a palace than a lunatic asylum, but he is not complaining. This palace belongs to him for now. Diamond Security has eyes everywhere, but he knows where to step to avoid the twenty-one CCTV cameras dotted around the asylum.
Around the corner of the main wing and through the archway, set back into the wall, is a small door. This one isn’t usually locked; people rarely get this far into the grounds before a guard shoos them away. The handle turns easily.
The door opens into a wide corridor. Cold air enters his nostrils; the kind of cold which is so permeating that it makes your lungs feel damp inside. Large windows line the wall to his right, moonlight filtering through the dirty glass and pooling on the scuffed linoleum. Along the corridor on the other side, doors stand open to offer a glimpse into what used to be offices and staff rooms for the nurses. When it was decommissioned, they released the lunatics into the community, sending them back to live with their families or into sheltered housing. Many dropped out of contact, and no one followed up. For some, that was a gift.
They emptied the asylum but no one paid attention to the details and the building suffered the same slapdash approach: each room retains an object or two that hints at the room’s former incarnation. A coffee cup abandoned on a windowsill, its handle broken off years ago. An unravelled fire hose slithering across the floor. A hairbrush. A basket, probably woven by a long-dead inmate.
He pauses at one of the doors. ‘This is one of my favourite rooms on the ground floor. I’m glad I can show it to you.’
The door stands wider than the others, shoved back on its hinges. Strips of wallpaper hang down from the high ceiling. A broken window faces out into the courtyard, glass shards in the frame casting jagged shadows across the room. The room is empty except for one item: in the far corner, facing the wall, is a single chair.
‘See that chair? Sat there on its own, staring at the wall? I wonder who used to sit there. I wonder what was wrong with them.’
It’s not a normal chair. Coated in bile-green NHS vinyl, the chair tilts back. And unlike a traditional recliner, black straps on the armrests are ready to grip around a person’s wrists, restraining their arms. The same on the front two legs of the chair, to wrap around the ankles. Two more mould-mottled straps hang from the headrest, waiting to loop around someone’s shoulders and hold the whole body tight and still. Helpless and bound.
He toys with the idea of tying the girl to this chair, spending time in this room where the walls seem to ooze with fear; but they only have a few hours before sunrise and there are much more practical areas of the asylum to utilise. His shoulder begins to ache from her weight. She’s not as light as he thought.
The corridor opens out into the entrance hall, the other side of the grand doors. Up the stairs are the cells, the bedrooms, big dormitories, and the attics, many of which are blocked off with asbestos warnings which repel even the bravest intruders. There are even some old padded cells right up on th
e third floor, at the back of the building. The padding is cursory: just a layer of beige leather coating a normal stone wall. It would still be very easy to smash someone’s skull, even against the walls of a padded cell.
They’re not going up there tonight.
In the corner of the entrance hall is a door, almost hidden in the oak panelling. It creaks on its hinges, the noise echoing through the cavernous foyer. He switches on his head torch; they’re descending deep into the heart of the cellars where the moonlight does not reach.
The girl begins to thrash, kicking her legs and nearly sliding headfirst from his shoulder. He grasps her legs with both arms, holding her in place.
‘Trying to make a run for it, little mouse?’ he purrs. ‘You’d never find the way out.’
She lets out a muffled scream from beneath her tape-gag.
He descends the stairs into the darkness of the basement. Down here are miles of tunnels spreading out in all directions; it might even be bigger than the footprint of the building itself. There is the morgue, and boiler rooms, huge storage caverns, locker rooms and so many other nooks and crannies that he doesn’t think he could ever discover all of it no matter how many hours he prowls around down here.
He strides along the dark tunnel, his thigh muscles pumping as he pushes through a set of double doors, glass panes criss-crossed with wire, towards a barred gate. This is the asylum’s dirty little secret: where they dragged the violent patients when there was nowhere else they could be adequately restrained. He has modified its contents, but it still fulfils its original purposes well.
The room is small, about four metres along each wall, with a low ceiling snaked with pipes and wires. Big storage units line up along one side of the room, with floor-to-ceiling slatted doors to conceal their contents. There’s a metallic smell of dried blood. The walls and floor are tiled in white squares, and in the middle of the floor is a grate, presumably so the asylum staff could hose down the room when a patient made too much of a mess. A bath stands in one corner, thin lines of rust threading from the taps. It’s a practical room which continues to operate long after the rest of the asylum crumbled into disuse.
He crosses the windowless room and lowers the girl to her feet, back against the wall. Her legs are shaking; she can barely stand.
‘Let’s give you a helping hand, shall we?’ he whispers into her ear, and cuts the ropes encircling her wrists.
Before she can rub the rope burns, he pushes her into a chair, a twin of the green restraint chair from the room upstairs on the ground floor. He straps her thin wrists to the arm restraints. Her fingers flex and shake as she struggles against the straps. Her head lolls to the side, held up by the curved headrest, designed for control not comfort. Her legs shuffle as she pulls on the ankle restraints.
He stands in front of her and fastens another leather strap around her shoulders, securing her firmly to the chair. He pumps the pedal, raising it up like a dentists’ chair. He’ll be able to stare straight into her eyes as he cuts her open.
She watches him the whole time, dry-eyed. Looks like she’s gathered some strength.
He considers pulling the duct tape from her mouth, letting her have some conversation before she dies. But he’s made that mistake before and it’s not worth the hassle; they always say the same things: why are you doing this to me? Please, I’ll do anything, just let me go. I won’t tell anyone. I’m a good person. Blah blah blah.
He couldn’t stop this even if he wanted to. He crosses the room and presses a button. Although he can’t hear it down here in the basement, he knows that six storeys up in the asylum’s tower the rusted bell rang once.
‘She’s ready for us,’ he whispers into the darkness.
Helen
The doorbell rings and she springs to her feet, slamming the laptop shut and running to open the door.
‘Oh, it’s all of you,’ she says to Tony, who’s brought Melanie and the twins. Melanie’s holding their hands: Lucy’s already crying and Bennie looks like he’s on the verge of tears. Lucy’s face is red, her mouth open in an outraged square, moments from screeching.
‘Yes, it’s us.’ He steps forward and gathers Helen in his arms in what she’s sure he intends to be a comforting hug. Melanie shoves forwards into the house, dragging the whining twins behind her. Helen’s not sure how much energy she has for this kind of bullshit tonight. Tired toddlers and jealous wives are beyond her capabilities when Zoe’s God-knows-where.
‘Have you called the police?’ Tony asks.
Helen clenches her fists, continuing to channel her worry into frustration because it’s a more functional emotion than pure, sheer, paralysing terror. ‘Of course, I have. They’re on their way round.’
‘Which officers?’ Tony clearly wants the best of the best.
Helen shrugs. ‘No idea. You’ll find out when they get here.’
‘Wanna play in Zo’s room,’ whines Lucy. Bennie, sucking his thumb, nods wildly, his balled fist bobbing up and down with each nod.
Helen shakes her head at Melanie and, in a rare moment of empathy, Melanie raises her eyebrows in understanding. Melanie’s immaculately dressed, her makeup flawless and her long blonde hair pulled back into a graceful bun, latest iPhone in her pocket. Helen feels a flash of irritation that Melanie found the time to do her makeup when Helen’s daughter – Melanie’s step-daughter – is missing.
‘Come on kids, let’s go and see if there are any choccie biccies in the kitchen,’ says Melanie, and Helen suppresses another wave of irritation at Melanie thinking she can help herself to the contents of Helen’s kitchen. But at least they’re out of the room for a minute and she can think.
Tony throws himself down on the sofa, its old legs groaning under the force of his sudden weight. He leans forward and puts his head in his hands. Maybe he’s finally starting to realise how serious this could be.
‘Where is she, Tony?’
He doesn’t say anything, just groans into his hands.
‘What did she say last night? What kind of mood was she in?’
He looks up and sits back on the sofa. ‘I’ve been over it a million times in my head. She was totally normal. A bit sulky and stubborn, but normal Zoe stuff. She said straight to my face that she’d be back for half ten, and she wasn’t lying. She really meant it; she intended to be back.’
Helen draws a breath. ‘Look, I found an article online; I really think—’
The doorbell rings again and Helen gets up to answer it, a tiny sliver of hope in her chest making her imagine that it could be Zoe standing there on the doorstep, even though Zoe has never rung the doorbell once in her whole life. She’d just walk in.
She opens the door to Dane, shoulders slumped, hands shoved into his pockets. Although taller than six foot, he looks small standing on the doorstep, his eyebrows knotted together in questioning anguish.
Helen resists an urge to slam the door in his face. She catches herself just in time. He looks worried, not guilty. And he might know something that could help.
‘I’ve been trying to call her all day,’ he says, holding out his phone as if this proves the truth of his statement.
She opens the door wider and steps back to allow him inside the house. She glances out into the street but there’s no sign of a police car yet. She pushes the door closed and follows Dane into the living room, where he’s already introducing himself to Tony.
Tony has risen from his reclined position on the sofa, and Dane is holding out his hand for Tony to shake. There is a slight hesitation, and Helen knows her ex-husband well enough to deduce his thought process is tracing a similar path to when she considered slamming the door in the boy’s face. Tony takes Dane’s hand and shakes it briefly, white knuckles betraying that although they’re shaking hands, Tony’s still making a point.
‘What happened last night?’ Tony asks, stepping easily back into the role of policeman.
Dane opens his mouth to answer, but is interrupted by Melanie, hovering in the kitc
hen doorway. ‘Isn’t it better that we wait for the police? They’ll just ask all these questions again.’
Helen wants to hit her. ‘We need all the information we can get, Melanie.’
Tony doesn’t say anything.
Dane shrugs. ‘I don’t mind. I’ll say everything as many times as is needed. I just want to make sure Zoe’s okay.’
Helen makes her mouth smile at Dane, before it slides off her face with the strain of faking it.
Melanie slinks back into the kitchen, and Helen is glad she’s gone.
‘Why did you leave her on her own? Where did you leave her?’ Tony still hasn’t sat down, standing over Dane despite being at least three inches shorter.
Dane’s large face looks blank and puzzled. His eyebrows knit together in the middle. ‘I didn’t leave her, she—’
‘Rubbish!’ shouts Tony.
He descends to the couch next to Helen and she jolts from his weight like a kid on a seesaw. There’s a clatter from the kitchen and one of the twins starts to wail.
Helen puts her hand on Tony’s arm. The muscle is tense and shaking with rage. ‘Let him finish, Tony. We won’t find out anything this way.’
Tony opens his mouth to argue and then closes it again. Helen nods at Dane for him to continue.
‘Who were they talking to?’ says Tony, at the same time as Helen says, ‘Have you heard from Abbie or Max?’
Dane looks from one to the other of them, probably trying to work out which question he should answer first, wondering which question is more urgent and which of Zoe’s parents would be angrier if their question doesn’t get acknowledged.
He looks at Helen. ‘I’ve spoken to Abbie. She’s OK, but it really doesn’t sound like she knows anything.’
Tony slams his hands on his knees, and Dane flinches. ‘We’ll have to get her here too. We will have questions for her. Well, the police will. Who were they talking to at the bar?’ Tony asks.
Dane shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. Some guy. Older. Wearing a baseball cap.’