by Steve Mosby
‘Why would Harvey be at Mary Carroll’s house?’ he said.
‘I don’t know, Sam. We’re just missing something, that’s all. But Dave Lewis, Frank Carroll and Charlie Drake - every cop in the city is keeping an eye out for them right now. We’ll find them, and we’ll get some answers.’
Currie hoped that was true. But would they get them in time to save Tori Edmonds’s life? And Mary Carroll’s now, too. In his head, I’m all that matters.
‘Sam?’ Dan Bright called over. ‘Come here a second.’
‘Stay on the line,’ Currie told Swann, then moved round. ‘Have you found him?’
‘Not exactly.’
Bright tapped the screen. It was frozen at 11:57:46, which was about ten seconds after Lewis had entered the shopping centre. When Currie saw the couple in the centre of the frame, he felt his whole body go still. He’d seen a close-up of the man before, and passed him by quickly, but he hadn’t looked at any of the women. If he had done, he would have recognised her immediately.
‘That’s Mary Carroll.’
‘Yes.’ Bright nodded slowly. ‘It is.’
‘Who’s the guy beside her?’
Bright zoomed in on the picture. The man had been caught in profile. Average face. Long hair, tied back. He didn’t recognise him.
‘I think that’s her brother.’ Bright squinted at the screen. ‘It certainly looks a lot like him.’
‘But he’s supposed to be living in Rawnsmouth.’ Currie frowned. ‘In fact, I spoke to him there just a few days before this. John something.’
Bright nodded. ‘Yes. John Edward Carroll. He never changed his name the way Mary did. But then, he always just went by ‘‘Eddie’’.’
Chapter Thirty-four
Saturday 3rd September
Eddie sat in his car, watching his father’s vehicle approach in the rear-view mirror. His body felt like a hollow shell around a heart crackling with electricity.
Outside, the rain was lashing down, and the windows were running with it, but he could see enough. Frank Carroll was driving steadily, his wipers streaking slowly back and forth. The car went past him, tyres slashing the water, then carried on up the street. Eddie had deliberately parked a short distance back from his home.
He didn’t know what had happened at Mary’s house. After seeing his father packing his things into the car and leaving, he’d done as Mary told him, phoned Dave Lewis and given him the ultimatum. The plan was that he would then drive immediately back to Rawnsmouth, leaving Tori Edmonds’s body somewhere on route, and putting himself as far from the scene as possible. But he hadn’t been able to do that. Instead, he’d come here. The fact that his father was here now as well meant that something had gone wrong.
Eddie forced himself to breathe slowly, calmly.
He watched his father pull in a hundred metres ahead. There were other cars between them, so he couldn’t see the vehicle all that well, but he had a decent view of the pavement and his own front door. And a moment later, he saw Frank Carroll standing there, misty in the rain, peering this way and that.
He shivered.
His father was looking for him. So where was Mary? Eddie tightened his grip on the steering wheel and then winced in pain. He kept forgetting what had happened to his hands. He could close his fingers properly now, but he had to do it slowly and carefully.
His father moved back to the car, vanishing from sight, and then reappeared a moment later, dragging a girl across the pavement. She didn’t resist him in any way.
Mary.
He was nine years old, and Mary was twelve, and their father was going away for the weekend and leaving them alone. Before he went, he told Eddie that he would be the man of the house for these two days, and he needed to follow his father’s instructions if he didn’t want to get in trouble.
Eddie had nodded. He knew what trouble meant.
There was food in the fridge, and he could stay up as late as he pleased and do whatever he wanted. There was only one rule he had to follow: he must not, under any circumstances, go into Mary’s bedroom.
She was in trouble, and he was to have no contact with her.
Not even if the house is on fire? he asked.
Not even then, his father said. She has to learn a lesson.
And he’d done as he was told - to begin with, anyway. But a couple of hours after his father had left, Eddie heard a noise from upstairs - some kind of thump - and went to investigate.
He pushed open the door to Mary’s bedroom, and then stood there as he saw what their father had done.
Mary was fully dressed, and tied to the bed. Bound and gagged, he remembered thinking, because he’d seen that phrase in one of the adventure stories he liked to read. Not soppy like that book Mary read every day, the one his father had taken off her. Maybe that was why she was in trouble, although he didn’t understand why.
Her eyes were wide, full of panic.
Please help me.
Eddie’s hand went helplessly to his face and he watched her struggle against the bonds - two belts, coiled around her wrists. He wanted to help her, but then he remembered what his father had told him. Not even if the house is on fire. And then he pictured a flash of trouble in his head, which was something so horrible he couldn’t look at it straight.
Eddie started crying, hugging himself, because he didn’t know what to do. He was practically jumping on the spot and wanting everything he could see and feel to go away. Sobbing. And then he started to get lost inside his own head, the way he did sometimes.
He didn’t know how long it went on for, but it must have been a while, because when he stopped he saw that Mary was much calmer now. She was watching him, almost smiling, and trying to speak from behind the gag. He couldn’t hear what she was saying, but it sounded very soothing, and he understood what she was trying to tell him.
Everything was okay and he didn’t have to worry.
Close the door and go back downstairs.
After a few minutes he did, and he didn’t go back into Mary’s room that weekend. She didn’t thump anymore, and he didn’t hear her do anything else either.
He woke up very early on the Monday morning to find his father standing by the side of his bed in the darkness with a very serious look on his face. Eddie flinched away out of instinct, realising that his father knew he’d gone into his sister’s room, and that he was going to be in trouble.
I didn’t. I never did it. I didn’t go in.
The fear was as big as a monster inside his mind, and he nearly wet the bed. But his father just looked down at him, an expression of disappointment on his face, and then shook his head.
What have you done, Eddie?
He started to protest, but his father put his finger to his lips - shhh - and then knelt down beside the bed, looking so sad …
The memory had returned to him every day since, and each time it brought with it the same emotions he’d felt as he crouched there that morning, the covers pulled up to his mouth, feeling the lie his father whispered reverberating in his heart.
You let her die.
Then, above the insistent hiss of the rain, he heard it.
Sirens.
The noise was drifting in from the distance, but it hadn’t been there before. Were they coming here? What had happened? Eddie knew he was panicking, and he forced himself to keep very still, not wanting his father to notice him. The sirens were still some distance away, but the sound was growing louder.
His father could hear it too and was cocking his head, like an animal sniffing the air. He looked bedraggled in the rain, his shirt soaked through and wrapped tight against his thin, powerful frame. Beside him, Mary was utterly still. She had her hands clasped in front of her, and her eyes were fixed on something on the ground.
Eddie watched his father whisper something to her, and then pull her up the steps towards his front door. Her face remained completely blank. Perhaps she was in shock. He couldn’t imagine what would be going through her mind right
now, or if there would even be anything at all.
And then they were inside.
His father left the door open just a little.
Eddie started to cry. He wanted to hug himself and jump up and down. He wanted to lose himself and make all this go away.
He’d thought he’d moved on from that shameful little boy. He’d found ways to help him understand he was no worse than anyone else, and he didn’t despise himself so much anymore, not after he made others realise they were just as bad. That they let people down as well, and that they were just as weak and selfish as he was.
But sitting there in the car, he realised that he’d never moved on. He was still that same boy, standing in that doorway, too terrified to act. Just as Mary was still the same girl, tied to that bed, sacrificing herself to protect him.
It has to be done, Eddie, she’d told him yesterday. It’s the only way.
But what if he doesn’t come?
She’d just smiled sadly at him, then reached out and touched his face. Even in the silence, he’d understood, and relief had flooded through him. Everything will be okay, and you don’t have to worry.
Sitting there right now, he hated himself more than he’d ever thought possible. He looked out through the rain spattering his windscreen and saw the accusation in the slightly open door his father had left.
You let her die.
And yet he still drove away.
Chapter Thirty-five
Saturday 3rd September
I held the piece of paper in my hands as we drove, staring down at what Rob had written. I knew what had happened. He’d come through for me. Not only had he gone to Sarah’s to protect her, he’d also rung his non-existent friend at the phone company. I’d told him about Thom Stanley receiving a call on the Thursday morning, and he’d found out where it had been made.
Please, I thought. Not praying exactly, but close.
Please let him be all right.
In the meantime, I didn’t know what we were going to do when we reached our destination. The call had been placed from a phone box on Campdown Road. I didn’t see how that was going to help us, but Choc had led me out of the house without saying a word, full of purpose.
Through the gap between the seats, I could see his leg was jittering up and down. The gun was resting on his knee, moving with it. He was psyching himself up to deal with whatever we found at this address. Anticipating it. He hadn’t said anything since we’d set off.
‘Almost there,’ the driver said. ‘Two streets away.’
‘Hear that, though?’ The guy to my right leaned forwards over the wheel and peered out to one side. ‘Sirens, man.’
I listened.
He was right: police cars in the distance.
‘Could be going anywhere,’ the driver said.
‘Charlie?’
But Choc said nothing.
We reached the road thirty seconds later. I saw the phone box up ahead.
‘Here?’
‘A little further.’ Choc pointed. ‘Up there on the left.’
I frowned. ‘What’s going on?’
But nobody answered. The driver took us up, then pulled in. We were outside an old, two-storey house that looked indistinguishable from the ones around it. They were all drab and run-down here, bedraggled in the rain. I wasn’t sure why he’d picked—
Then I saw the front door was open. Just a little.
I got out of the car first, followed by Choc. The rain was coming down in misty sheets, and I was soaked by the time I reached the other side of the road. I glanced behind me, and Choc was still standing by the car. He’d started to cross, but something had stopped him. Now, he was staring off into the distance.
The sirens. That was it. I glanced back towards the house and saw a light flick on in an upstairs window.
‘Choc?’
He looked back the way we’d come, then up the road again. Hedging his bets. I couldn’t believe it - for all his fucking bravado, he was worried about the police. When Sarah and Tori were in there right now.
I took a step towards him, but he clambered back into the passenger seat and closed the door in one motion. Rolled the window down and glared out at me.
‘The Wheatfield,’ he told me. ‘Don’t forget. And stay safe.’
‘What?’
But he tapped on the dashboard, and a second later their car was vanishing away up the street.
I stood there on my own for a moment, full of disbelief. How could he have abandoned her like that, just because the police were going to be here soon? After everything he’d said. And what - he expected me to lie for him as well?
I turned around. Looked again at the light on the first floor.
The sirens were close, but not close enough.
You’ll have to do this on your own, then.
The door to the house was up a short flight of steps. I stopped at the bottom. I still had the knife, but it wasn’t necessarily going to do me much good - Rob had been stabbed, which meant the man who’d taken Sarah had one too. And what else? Nothing but that piece of paper - which I realised was still in my hand, damp from the rain. I folded it up and put it in my pocket. My hand was shaking.
Sarah and Tori are in there right now.
I didn’t hear anything then, because there was nothing to hear, and the sky didn’t go any darker than it already was. But something happened. Some switch clicked on inside me, and I understood that if I didn’t do this, a part of me would stay standing there for ever. For the rest of my life, I’d look back on this moment and hate the person I saw. You can forgive yourself for the mistakes you make. But only when you don’t know they’re mistakes at the time.
I went up the steps before I’d had a chance to question myself any more.
When I pushed the door, it scuffed against the tatty carpet in the hallway. The stairs were directly in front of me on the right. There was a soft glow up on the landing. There. I kept an eye on it as I reached into my pocket for the knife.
I barely had time to see him as he grabbed me. Just caught a glimpse of a tall man in the doorway to the dark living room beside me, a malformed face full of hate, and then the next thing I knew my head collided with a wall, my shoulder with the floor. He’d just thrown me right across the front room.
Sideways on, I saw him close the door, and for a moment the front room was pitch black. Misdirection, I realised. He’d put the light on upstairs, then waited down here.
Then he flicked on the light switch and I saw him properly.
Oh shit.
The man was thin, but there was an air of strength to him too, like he was made entirely of bone and sinew. He had his back to me, and I watched in disbelief as he hefted an old, empty sideboard up from against the far wall as though it weighed nothing, and moved it across to block the door. The muscles contracted in his back, making it look as hard and armoured as a turtle’s shell. His knuckles, where he gripped the wood, bulged out like conkers.
The room seemed to shake slightly as he dropped the sideboard in place.
I rolled over and sat up as best I could, and then saw Sarah. She was sitting on a threadbare settee to my left, her legs tucked up to her chin, slim arms wrapped around them. Rocking gently. Smaller than I’d ever seen her before, with tears streaming silently down her face.
‘Sarah,’ I said.
No response. Her eyes were staring off to one side, and she seemed completely oblivious to everything that was happening. Her lips were moving, I noticed. She was whispering something to herself, but too quietly for me to hear.
The man laughed. I looked across the room at his face. One side of it was sloped and wrong; the eye there was lower than it should have been, and dead. He looked like an old, grizzled predator that had been in too many fights.
‘Sarah?’ he said. ‘Is that what you’re calling yourself these days?’
I didn’t understand what he meant - my head was pounding from the collision with the wall. I touched it and my fingers came away
red with blood. I clambered awkwardly to my feet, but my legs felt so weak that I had to lean against the wall for support.
Blink.
What was that? My vision was going wrong. My mind’s eye felt like it had just clenched shut for a second.
The man looked at me.
‘You’re not my son,’ he said. ‘Where is he?’
I just stared back at him.
‘Run away, has he?’ The man looked down at Sarah. ‘As brave as he ever was. I’m looking forward to his face when he comes home and sees what I’ve done to you.’
I tried to contain the fear. I remembered the power in him when he got hold of me. Despite his age, there was no way I could beat this man in a fight - not even if I could stand up properly, never mind right now. The strength was there in his face, too: in the lack of emotion. His expression was utterly pitiless.
He reached into his jacket and produced a knife.
Pointed the tip at me.
‘I’ve waited twelve years for this. And you’re not going to get in my way, whoever you are.’
Whoever you are? That didn’t make any sense, either.
I stared back, almost hypnotised, then slowly put my hand in my pocket and pulled out the knife I’d taken from my father’s kitchen. His expression changed. He thought I was funny, but there was something else there, too. That I’d dared pull a knife on him. In doing so, I realised I’d just made everything a lot worse for myself. He needed to punish me for even thinking it.
‘What are you going to do with that?’
Blink.
‘What do you think, Mary? I know what I’m going to do with it. I’m going to cut his face off with it. And you’re going to watch it happen, you little bitch.’
Sarah didn’t respond. She was staring into space, her lips still moving quickly and repetitively.
‘Maybe.’ I took a step forward, hoping that my legs would hold. ‘Maybe not. I’m pretty good with a knife, you know.’
Come on, man. Get yourself together.
‘Is that right?’
He looked at me a second longer, then reached around and put his knife down on the sideboard behind him.