On entering the room, he set the tray on the table, then, while Emma poured the chocolate, he closed and bolted the bedroom door. He drew the curtains and went to the wall behind the bed where he flicked a small switch to activate the alarm. Instantly, in all four corners of the room, small red lights glowed. ‘You can relax now,’ he told her.
But she couldn’t. And neither could he.
Sitting there, in their self-imposed prison, they talked about the way their lives had evolved. They spoke of their earlier achievements, and the mistakes that followed, and the way all their dreams had come to this.
Emma took out the newspaper pages and laid them side by side on the table. ‘Tom, tell me the truth. Do you think she really did kill all these people?’ Her voice trembled.
He thought for a moment. ‘Yes, I think so,’ he answered. ‘It all adds up, do you see? She was there, in the area, and she probably believed she had reason enough to kill them.’ Swivelling the articles round to face him, he pointed to each one in turn. ‘See? Mike Peterson. His name crops up in every one.’
‘You think he was the reason?’
He nodded. ‘You know how jealous she can be, and how overwhelming her rages are.’ He shook his head forlornly. ‘And she has an appetite for killing. We know that.’
She pointed to the article on Steve Palmer. ‘They say this one was an accident.’
He laughed. ‘They’re wrong.’ The laughter died away. ‘They don’t know her like we do.’
The woman bowed her head. ‘If I’d known before… I swear I would never have let her live.’
Reaching over, he held her hand. ‘Don’t torture yourself, Emma.’ He got up then, and walked to the window where he gingerly raised the curtain, peeped out and quickly dropped it again. ‘Besides,’ he continued, ‘you’re a kind, gentle woman. You could never inflict hurt.’ His voice thickened with hatred. ‘Not like her!’
They finished their drinks. Tom prepared for bed.
‘I think I’ll have a bath,’ Emma told him. ‘I need to be quiet for a while, to soak my bones, and think… about things.’
‘All right, sweetheart.’ He kissed her on the cheek. ‘Call me when you need me. I won’t be asleep.’ He didn’t sleep much these days; always on the alert, half awake, half asleep. Listening. Frightened. She had done that to him. She had done far worse to Emma.
While Emma soaked in the adjoining bathroom, he lay on the bed, thinking back over the years and wondering where it all went wrong. ‘Too late now,’ he mused aloud. ‘The badness is out.’
The minutes passed. He could hear Emma shifting in the water, that muffled, splashy sound that made a body feel oddly comfortable. ‘Emma?’
‘Yes?’
‘Do you need me to help?’
‘Not yet.’
He waited a moment, reflecting on her answer – given too quickly, sounding too urgent. He wondered, and the wondering became unbearable.
Climbing out of bed, he went quietly across the room. Pushing open the bathroom door, he went inside. Emma was lying with her back to him. She seemed to be reading something. Softly, he went forward. ‘Emma? Are you all right?’
Startled, she let something drop and it slithered to the bottom of the bath.
‘What are you up to?’ He had not meant to frighten her. Reaching down into the water, his fingers curled round the hard edge of a picture fame. Raising it to the surface, he saw what it was, and his face darkened. ‘I thought we agreed you would destroy this.’
Panicking, she snatched it from him, her sobbing pitiful to hear. ‘I tried,’ she confessed, ‘but I can’t destroy it. I can’t!’
‘All right, keep it if you must.’ As she turned it over, his eyes caught sight of the face in the picture. Once he had loved that face, that person. Now, all he felt was repugnance and loathing. ‘But don’t let me see it ever again,’ he pleaded. ‘It haunts me, Emma. Can you understand that?’
‘How did she come to be so bad?’ Emma murmured. With a mother’s fondness she gazed at the picture, a kind of pride filling her eyes as she regarded the young woman. Dressed in nurse’s uniform, and with a black and tan puppy at her feet, she seemed deceptively innocent. ‘She was such a sweet little thing and, oh, I did love her so.’
‘Don’t, Emma. Please.’
Looking up at him with appealing eyes, she asked, ‘Do you remember how beautiful she was?’
‘The beauty was only skin deep.’
‘And how she always longed to be a nurse. Do you remember that?’
‘I remember how she slaughtered the small creatures that innocently strayed into our garden.’
‘Hurting them to make them better, that’s what she used to say.’ She smiled through her tears.
‘Don’t say any more!’ Thumping his fist on the wall, he swung round, his face red with anger. Suddenly he, too, was crying, all the hurt pouring from him. ‘She killed your puppy. Do you remember that, Emma? Do you?’
Struck silent, she stared at him. Slowly, her whole face crumpled with pain. ‘Why did she do that, Tom?’ she cried. ‘Why did she like to hurt things?’
Bending to his knees, he took her in his arms. ‘Because she’s wicked,’ he whispered. ‘Her mind was always twisted.’
‘Was it my fault?’ Like any loving parent, she thought herself a failure in some way she did not understand.
‘Oh, no. Not your fault, or mine,’ he assured her lovingly. ‘It’s the way she was made, that’s all.’
‘I wonder… should we tell?’
‘And I wonder if we haven’t suffered enough already.’ He knew their daughter’s loathing was such that she would never admit to their being alive. For some mad, inexplicable reason known only to herself, she had wanted them dead long ago. If they went to the police and told them she was the one they were looking for, it would drag him and Emma into a nightmare worse than any they had already suffered.
They would have to look her in the face, see themselves mirrored in her eyes. People might not understand that he and Emma were victims too. They might be condemned as being bad parents, and that was never true, they had always done their best, even when they knew it was hopeless. And through the nightmare of everyone knowing they had bred a monster, Emma would shrink and die before his eyes.
His mind shrieked in protest. He could not let that happen. Far better for them to remain silent.
‘Emma?’
‘Yes?’
‘If we did tell them, and all they did was lock her away, I’m afraid she might get out and come after us.’
‘We must never tell them then.’
‘I agree.’
‘I need your help now.’ Handing him the bar of special cream, she let him gently help her forward.
With tender, circular strokes, he moved the bar across her back, occasionally dipping the bar into the water, so the cream would foam and soften her skin. Every time she flinched, he waited patiently until she could let him go on.
When it was done, he cupped his hands into the water and threw the warm, soothing liquid over her back to wash the foam away.
What he saw made him want to cry. Emma’s back and shoulders were a criss-cross of deep, vivid scars, jagged at the edges. Below her right shoulder blade, the scars became tangled where the bone had poked through. She never complained, but then she was not one for complaining.
‘Maybe she got the badness from me,’ he whispered.
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because of what she did to you. And because, if she was here now, I would kill her with my bare hands.’
Emma turned to kiss him. ‘No,’ she smiled. ‘It was a long time ago. Don’t be vengeful. Don’t let her win.’
‘You’re a good woman, Emma,’ he told her, ‘and you’re right. We must not let her taint the future the way she tainted the past.’
Later, when they were lying in bed, Emma heard a noise. Tom got out of bed to peer through the window.
‘What was it?’ she asked.
&nbs
p; ‘Only the wind,’ he replied. ‘Nothing to be afraid of.’
She lay in his arms for a while longer, neither of them able to sleep. ‘Tom, I’m not afraid when you’re here with me.’
‘I’m glad.’
A pause, then, ‘She won’t ever find us, will she, Tom?’
There was a long moment of silence before he answered. ‘We’ve done all we can,’ he said. ‘We moved here to Ireland. We found this hideaway and made it secure from intruders. No, I don’t think she’ll find us.’
Satisfied, she fell into a restless sleep.
Some time later, Tom walked the floor, his heart quickening with fear at every sound.
Pausing, he gazed down at her sleeping face. ‘I’ve done all I can to keep you safe,’ he whispered. ‘Now, all we can do is pray.’
13
Rosie woke to a beautiful morning. Through the partly opened window she could hear the sound of birds squabbling, and when she sat up in bed to peep through the curtain, she was thrilled to see a robin perched on a branch outside her window. ‘Aw, you little beauty,’ she cooed, and was sorry when the sound of her voice frightened it away.
Rising from her bed, she shivered when the cold winter air wrapped itself round her nakedness. ‘Luke!’ Going to the front end of the camper van, she called again. ‘Luke, wake up, you lazy bugger. We need some wood chopped and a fire going before we freeze to death.’
When there was no answer, she drew back the curtain and looked up at his bunk. ‘Luke, are you up there?’ Still no answer. She took a closer look. His bed had not been slept in. ‘What the devil’s he up to now?’ She returned to her own area and she scraped together what pieces of wood were lying in the tiny hearth. With that, she managed to get a small fire going, enough to boil the kettle and make herself a pot of tea.
Seated on the mat, cross-legged, the warmth flowing over her, she stared into the flames, sipping her tea and wondering what would become of him. ‘You’re a real worry to me,’ she muttered. ‘I never know where you are or what you’re doing.’
The minutes ticked away and still she didn’t feel like moving.
When the fire burned out and it got so cold that she couldn’t stop shivering, she stretched her arms above her head and groaned. ‘What I wouldn’t give for a little house and a proper chimney, with a fire to curl my toes over and a kitchen where I could sit and dream.’ Her smile deepened. ‘With Mike beside me, I’d want for nothing.’ At heart, she was no different from the girl she was years ago.
She went to the sink and drew out a basin from the cupboard beneath. Into this she poured a little of the hot water and a sprinkling of cold. Then she stripped down to her skin and washed all over.
Searching out a clean jumper and jeans, she quickly dressed, tied back her auburn hair, and pulled on the floppy denim cap Luke had bought her for Christmas. Then she donned her duffel coat and boots and went out.
Luke always kept a good supply of kindling. Every day, he would come back with an armful of fallen branches. When they were chopped small enough to fit in the tiny stove, he would fill the wooden scuttle, and stack the remainder in a box which he had swung from the belly of the camper.
Rosie went to it now, grabbed a bundle of kindling and hurried back inside to drop the wood into the scuttle. She took off her coat and boots and slipped her feet into a pair of blue and white trainers. Three years old and worn virtually every day, they were a sorry sight, though deliciously comfortable for slopping about in.
A short time later, when she had made her bed and cleaned the living area, she took a short walk to see if Luke might be making his way back. Cutting through the snow, she went down by the spinney and out along the brook, but there was no sign of him. ‘Damn you, Luke! You’ll have me old before my time.’ Hoping he might have come home another way, she made her way back.
He hadn’t.
Inside the van she got the fire going until the little place was warm as toast. She made herself a coffee, and took out her painting materials. Unable to concentrate, she returned them to the cupboard and restlessly paced the floor, pausing only to stare out of the window to see if he was about.
After a while, she sat and did some thinking. ‘What am I doing with my life?’ She felt very isolated. ‘I’m going mad here, forever worrying about Luke. Living from hand to mouth, never sure whether we’ll have enough to keep body and soul together, hiding from the police and trembling at every knock on the door.’
She didn’t want much out of life but contentment always seemed to elude her. ‘I was just a kid when Mike left me pregnant, not caring whether I lived or died.’ Because of what he did, her life had been hard. ‘Not a day passed when I didn’t want to kill him,’ she admitted. ‘We had it all, but he didn’t want a baby. He said he wasn’t ready for all that.’ Regrets overwhelmed her. If she didn’t do something about Mike soon, it would be too late.
She remembered the advert she’d found in last week’s newspaper. Going to the far end of the settee, she grabbed up the cushion and plucked the advert from its hiding place. For the umpteenth time she read it: ‘Urgently required, general domestic help. Apply in the first instance to the Staff Manager, Landsmead Institute, Priory Street, Bridport, Dorset.’
Rosie held the cutting in her hands, pressing it to her heart like a balm. ‘I could change my appearance and if I got this job, I would be nearer to Mike… find out all there is to know. Hospitals keep records. I could watch the house where he lives, choose my moment. He probably has to attend hospital regularly. I could gain his confidence… be his friend.’ A look of anger distorted her features. ‘I could tell him all the awful things I’ve done because of him!’
Suddenly she saw herself in the mirror and was shocked. Bent over like an old witch and talking to herself, she seemed like a crazy thing. ‘Watch out,’ she told the image in the mirror, ‘or you’ll be going off your rocker good and proper. His fault!’ she hissed. ‘His fault!’
Standing there, looking at herself, she was a girl again; sixteen years old, pregnant and abandoned. She remembered it all, the anguish and the uncertainty after he had gone. ‘You did me wrong, Mike.’ She smiled sweetly. ‘And really, you should be punished!’
Rosie decided to take her paints and easel down to the spinney. When the snow lay heavy on the boughs it was the most magical sight and she wanted to try and capture the scene. Wrapped in her duffel coat, and with her rich, auburn hair peeking out from beneath the denim cap, she looked a pretty enough picture herself as she sat and painted.
Suddenly she heard the cracking of twigs and her heart turned somersaults. She snatched up her paints and easel and hid behind an old oak tree.
Waiting with bated breath, she watched to see who was about. A figure emerged, stumbling and bleeding. ‘Luke!’ Even from where she was, she could see he was badly hurt. His arm was hanging limply by his side, and one of his eyes was badly swollen. Shuffling painfully along, he didn’t hear her cry out.
In a minute she was by his side. ‘Who did it?’ She grabbed his good arm. ‘Who did this to you, Luke?’
He just stared at her dully.
‘It’s all right,’ she soothed. ‘Take it easy. I’ve got you.’ Abandoning her belongings, she helped him slowly home.
‘You’re lucky your arm isn’t broken,’ she said when she got him inside the camper van. ‘You’ll be right as rain once I’ve cleaned you up, but you’ll not be out shooting and poaching for a while, I can tell you that!’
She boiled some water and poured a generous measure of disinfectant into the bowl. ‘This will sting,’ she warned him, and when she dabbed the liquid on his open wounds, he almost leaped from the chair.
‘You’ve a cut here needs a stitch or two,’ she said, raising his fist to clean the knuckle. ‘But it’s too dangerous for you to show your face at the hospital.’ Flattening his hand against her knee she cut lint and a strip of plaster and pulled it over the wound as tightly as she could. That done, she covered it with a bandage. ‘Don’t be
nd your fist,’ she told him, ‘or the wound will open again.’
When the washing and binding was done, she made him a hot, sugarless drink and gave him two painkillers to take with it. Then, sitting beside him, she demanded to know, ‘Who have you been fighting with? And don’t lie to me, son.’
They were both startled when another voice answered, a voice familiar to Luke but unknown to Rosie. ‘He hasn’t been fighting,’ the girl said. ‘He was attacked, and it’s all my fault.’
Knowing Rosie was nervous of strangers, Luke told her, ‘It’s all right, Mum. This is Anna.’
Cursing herself for having left the door open, Rosie stared at the girl. She was small and pretty, with long, dark hair, and the sweetest, sorriest face.
‘I’m sorry, Luke,’ Anna said from the door. ‘I didn’t know he sent them after you… I overheard them talking, and I had to find you.’
Impatient, Rosie looked from one to the other. ‘Will somebody tell me what’s been going on?’
‘Let her in,’ Luke urged. ‘She’s taken her life in her hands coming here.’
‘Come in then,’ said Rosie, ‘and close the door behind you.’
Anna sat down close to Luke.
‘Right.’ Rosie pointed to the girl. ‘I’ll hear your side of the story first, young lady, and be quick about it.’
The story tumbled out, and Rosie was shaken by it. ‘So.’ Her gaze shifted to Luke. ‘All this time, when I thought you were out poaching, you’ve been having your way with this girl, and now you’ve made her pregnant, you thoughtless bastard!’
‘It’s not like you and… him,’ Luke protested. ‘I won’t run out and leave her to face it all on her own.’
‘We’re not talking about me,’ Rosie said angrily. ‘It’s you we’re talking about, you and her.’ Looking at Anna, she asked in a quiet, firm voice, ‘You say your father’s the head warden hereabouts.’
Anna nodded. ‘If he finds Luke, he’ll shoot him dead.’
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