“I know,” I say. “I’ve been making plans, just like I said. I want you to come with me.”
“Where to?”
“Wherever you want.”
“Can’t you just … let me go?”
“I need you, Claire. Can’t you see that?”
Her bottom lip quivers. We’ve been through so much together. I have to mean something to her.
There is a loud creak as the lift jolts into action. Someone else is down there – someone I hadn’t accounted for.
“We have visitors,” I say. “How intriguing.”
It took Jock about ten seconds to come to his senses. He pressed the button, but the lift continued to carry him upward. When he finally came to a stop, he pressed what he hoped was the right button to take him back to Dylan. The lift immediately hurtled off in the opposite direction and when the doors opened, the corridor was unfamiliar.
“Sod it!”
He jabbed the button below. Hopefully this time, he would get it right. The lift bumped down another floor. It was the right floor this time. The curtain fluttered like a bat in the breeze. His heart thumped like crazy as he got out. Come on, Jock. Be a bloody man for once.
“Dylan?” he called into the darkness.
He crept slowly along the corridor, glad of what little light shone in through the window. He waved his phone light ahead of him, listening intently for sounds of life. He thought he heard a whimper, but he couldn’t be sure if it was real or imagined. If the dog was still about, it would be on him in an instant. He edged further down the corridor, peering into what appeared to be a loo. One of the cisterns wailed slightly, as if it had recently been flushed. He shone his light into each of the cubicles, but they were all empty. He crept out again, hating his shoes for being so squeaky. The dog would hear that, surely. A dog would hear everything.
He crept out again and was heading back towards the lift when he saw Simon walking towards him with Dylan slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
“Jock? Is that you?”
His eyes shone in the darkness. Dylan was completely still.
“I should have known Dylan would drag you into this. Look, we have to get him to the boat. He’s in a bad way.”
Did he mean it? Jock wondered. Would he really take them back to the boat?
He glanced at him again, but there was nothing to assure him one way or the other. Simon looked as serious as ever. His mouth was set in a solid line, his eyebrows deeply furrowed. He felt a strong hand on his shoulder.
“Jock?”
“No!”
He wrenched himself from Simon’s grip and raced back towards the lift. He didn’t know whether he should trust Simon or not, but his gut told him to run.
Simon was almost upon him as the lift door opened. He jumped in and pressed the button, hating those vital seconds while the lift decided whether to stay open or close.
“What are you doing here?” Jock asked through the closing door.
“What are you doing here?” Simon countered.
But before Jock could respond, the lift took off.
“Wait!” Simon’s voice echoed through the lift as it zoomed up, up, up. It stopped on what Jock thought must be the very top floor. He got out, keeping one foot in the door, while he shone his light around the corridor. All seemed quiet, so he let the lift go and dialled 999 on his phone. He held it up high, hoping that it would help him get a signal. But the phone refused to ring. He found a tiny window and stood in front of it, looking down at the water. If he were Dylan, he would probably jump, but Jock was too scared. He was always too scared.
He tried not to think about Dylan but he couldn’t keep the images from his mind. How awful he had looked with blood gushing from his mangled head. He tried to breathe, but the fear was suffocating him. Before he could stop them, his knees buckled and he sank down to the ground, tears streaming down his face. How the hell was he going to get out?
Gradually, he began to feel a little stronger. He found a tube of peppermints in his pocket and chewed on one. The minty freshness made the air feel a little less stale. He pulled himself to his feet and ventured into a large kitchen. It was empty, but there was evidence of life: a couple of the cupboards were wide open and there was a stack of dirty dishes in the sink. He jumped back as something whooshed past his feet. He looked down, but it was already gone. The sink gurgled loudly and an odd thumping sound emanated from one of the cupboards.
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” he said, though it was hard not to imagine the ghoulish figures who might so easily haunt this warehouse.
There it was again, that thumping noise. His eyes widened. That was no ghost. Someone was in there.
He moved towards the cupboard. It had a strong, heavy door. At first he thought it must be locked, but when he pulled a bit harder, it started to open. He tugged with all his might. When the door finally flew open, he was met with a wall of coldness. For a moment, he thought he had found a balcony, but even the cool evening breeze wasn’t this cold. He looked around at the yellow walls and the hooks on the ceiling. This was a walk-in freezer. And there was someone in it.
“Sapphire!” he gasped. “Bloody hell! It’s really you!”
Sapphire stared in disbelief. She barely recognised Jock, barely remembered him. They had met in another world, another time.
“Come on!” he said, his eyes refusing to connect with Ingrid’s dismembered body. “We have to get out of here.”
“We need a saw,” said Fizz.
“She’s right,” Sapphire agreed. “You have to get something to cut through the chains.”
“Sapphire!” Jock took her by the shoulders. “We have to get out of here before you freeze to death.”
She shook her head. “It’s not that cold.”
He looked at her incredulously. “Your lips are blue and your fingers are like ice. Look at them!”
“I’m fine!”
But when she looked down at her fingers, she noticed they were a strange colour. And they wouldn’t bend, no matter how much she tried. She stared at them in fascination. What was happening to her? She didn’t even feel that cold. She looked at Fizz and Harmony, still chained in place and her mind whirled. There had to be a reason why she had been left unchained. Perhaps it was a test. Perhaps Jock was part of it.
“I can’t leave them,” she told him. She wasn’t in any imminent danger. She couldn’t be. She would feel it.
Jock looked confused. “Who? Sapphire, there’s no one else here but you and me.”
“Of course there is!”
“No! Listen to me; you’re having a delusion. They’re all in your head. We are alone in this freezer. Just you and me.”
35
Even with the door open, Sapphire could see he was shivering.
“Come on! We have to get out of here!” he said.
He made a grab for her arm but she fought him off.
“No, I can’t leave them!”
“How can I convince you they’re not real?”
“Who are you talking to?” asked Fizz.
Sapphire’s mouth fell open. She stared at Jock and tried to picture what he would look like with a green raincoat on.
“Are you saying he’s not real?”
“Who?”
Everyone was talking at once. Sapphire put her hands over her ears.
“Describe them to me,” Jock said, cutting through the noise. “What do they look like?”
“They’re May Queens, like me. They have blonde hair and blue eyes. Well, Fizz’s hair is kind of frizzy, if you don’t mind me saying? And Harmony is small and dinky. And Ingrid …” she pointed at the body on the floor. “Ingrid was Swedish.”
“Sapphire, you need to listen to me. You remember that night I came up to your flat?”
She nodded.
“Well, I had a spot of indigestion, so I opened the bathroom cabinet, looking for Rennies. Instead, I found your pills. You suffer from delusions don’t you? Just like your mum?
”
Anger swelled up inside her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about! I am nothing like my mum!”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have …”
She regarded him with suspicion. “How would you know about my mum, anyway?”
“Gabriella told me.”
“Who?”
“Gabriella Helston. Claire’s friend. Remember her?”
“Oh! I knew her as Gaby.”
“And you were Gertrude?”
“Yes.”
But how could he possibly know so much about her, unless he was just another product of her messed up mind?
“You know all about the May Queens, too,” he reminded her. “You read about them in the papers, didn’t you? After your sister went missing, I bet you became obsessed with the details of each and every one of them. Think about it, Sapphire. The first one, Ingrid, went missing in 1985. She was only nineteen then, but she would be in her forties now. Take a good look at her. Does the Ingrid you’re seeing look that old?
Sapphire looked at Ingrid – really looked at her, taking in her smooth, flawless skin. Even in death, she looked young. Perfect.
“He has a point,” Fizz murmured.
“So you can see him then?” she asked.
“Course I can. I was just pulling your leg.”
“And what about her clothes?” Jock went on. “Are they modern, would you say? Or a bit dated?”
Sapphire looked again. Suddenly, she knew why Ingrid had seemed so familiar. She looked just like the blonde one from ABBA! There hadn’t been much information about the first missing May Queen, so her imagination had had to compensate. And she didn’t know much about Sweden either so …
Sapphire put her head in her hands.
“No, no, it can’t be. They’re not just in my mind. They can’t be!”
Jock cleared his throat. “The truth is, Sapphire, those girls are probably all dead, just like Peter Helston said. And unless we get out of here, we will be, too.”
“Just give me a moment.”
She reached out to touch Ingrid’s hand, but as her skin made contact, Ingrid started to evaporate, her body disintegrating into a fine dust.
“No!” Sapphire screamed. “No!”
It was like losing her all over again.
“Shh!” Jock hissed. “Keep your voice down!”
She barely heard him. She grasped at the air, but there was nothing left to hold on to. All she could see was a pile of dust. She leaned down to touch it. Each tiny, sparkling particle seemed to carry the residue of life. She tried to scoop it up, but her hands felt big and clumsy, like she was wearing boxing gloves.
“Sapphire? Sapphire!” Jock broke through the silence. “You have to get up! We have to get out of here.”
She was barely aware of his hands as he hauled her to her feet. She leaned against him as Fizz started to fade.
“No! Not you, too!”
Harmony reached out for her and tried to grab her hand.
“Help me!” she cried. “I’m scared! I don’t want to die, Sapphire. I’m not ready!”
Sapphire tried to reach her, but the moment she made contact, Harmony evaporated into a fine powder, just as the others had done.
“No!”
She fell to the floor and tried to gather up all the dust with her hands, but it was useless. Her hands didn’t work properly anymore. She was incapable of coordination.
“Come on!” Jock said. “Time to go!”
“No, I need this!”
“I can’t even see what you’re talking about.”
“This! This dust!”
He squinted hard at the floor. “That’s ice, Sapphire. Come on! You’re going to get us killed!”
“Then help me,” she begged.
“How?”
“Just sweep it into my pocket. My hands won’t work.”
“If I let go of this door, we’ll get locked in. There’s no way to open it from the inside.”
“Then I’ll swap places with you. Please, Jock! Just get me that dust! I need it!”
She crawled on her hands and knees to the door. Looking down, she saw that her petticoat was red with blood.
“Just sit here,” he said, helping her sit so that she blocked the doorway. “And whatever you do, don’t move. If you let that door shut, there’s no way out.”
He didn’t take his eyes off her as he swept up the dust with his hands. He didn’t trust her, she realised. Not entirely. He was worried that her madness would lead her to do mad things. Madder things.
“Can we go now?” he asked, as he slipped the remaining dust into her pocket.
“Of course.”
He helped her out of the freezer. She could barely even cling to him; her body was so numb. She felt hot and cold all over and her legs felt like stumps, but looking down, she could see they were still attached to her body.
“What’s happening to me?” she gasped.
“It’s the cold,” he told her. “Goodness knows how long you were in there.”
“But I didn’t even feel it.”
“Must be down to the power of your mind. Your brain didn’t register the cold, so you didn’t feel it. Probably just as well.”
“I could have frozen to death in there,” she realised. “And I wouldn’t even have known.”
He pulled off his fleece and wrapped it around her shoulders, shivering in his cotton T-shirt.
“Come on! We need to find a way out,” he said, “and unfortunately, that means using the lift.”
Sapphire shuddered. “That lift is haunted.”
“I know.”
She closed her eyes as he helped her down the corridor. They stopped in front of the lift and he reached up to press the button. But before he could, a familiar, grating noise began. Someone was in there. She looked at him in panic.
“What shall we do?”
“We have to hide!”
“Where?
They glanced round in desperation, but the corridor was more or less bare.
“It’s pretty dark,” Sapphire said. “Maybe if we stay very still, we won’t be seen.”
“What about the dog?” Jock asked, picturing the savage creature that had attacked Dylan.
“Dogs,” Sapphire corrected him.
As they stood there, paralysed by indecision, the bell tinged.
“Run!” Sapphire hissed, her voice barely audible.
Jock looked left and right. If he let go of her, he might just get away. But he couldn’t leave her, not after all it had taken to rescue her. He pushed her behind the armchair in the corner. It wasn’t the greatest hiding place, but it might just work.
“Keep still,” he warned her. There wasn’t enough room for him, too. He looked around, desperate for a hiding place of his own, but there was no time.
Simon practically tore the lift doors open with his bare hands. He carried an LED lamp that lit up the entire corridor. If he weren’t so tall, he would have easily spotted Sapphire, crouched behind the chair.
“Where is she?” he demanded. His face was grim and his blue eyes blazed.
Jock stepped back towards the window. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere to run.
“I don’t know,” he lied.
“You’re lying,” Simon said.
There was a loud grating sound as the lift took off again. Simon turned in the direction of the sound. There was a slight whirr as the lift changed direction and started climbing up again. It grew noisier the closer it came. Simon looked towards the double doors and switched off his light.
“Keep your mouth shut!” he warned.
Jock leaned back against the wall. If only his stupid legs would let him run.
The lift doors pinged and Verity got out, leaning heavily on her stick.
“What are you doing here, Mum?” Simon’s voice reverberated around the lift, creating a terrifying echo. He punched the lift with his fist, leaving a dent the size of a dinner plate.
Jock heard a movement fro
m the corner and saw Sapphire’s head sticking out. If she weren’t careful, Simon would see her, too.
Verity looked so tiny next to her gigantic son. And yet, her expression was resolute. She had come to reason with him, Jock realised. Perhaps she was the only person who could.
He almost didn’t notice a second person emerge from the lift. The young, gaunt woman looked vaguely familiar, but it took him a moment to place her. It was Claire, of course. He recognised her from the CCTV footage. He saw Sapphire raise her head again. He tried to motion to her to stay put, but she did not heed his warning and instead, moved across the corridor towards her.
“You’re not real, are you?” she asked, reaching out to touch her.
Claire looked at her in the same way you might look at a drunk.
“Of course I’m real!”
“I can see her,” Jock said.
“You can?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, God! Oh, my God!”
Sapphire reached for her with her feeble arms, but Claire did not return the gesture. She was still under the killer’s spell.
Sapphire took a deep breath and lifted her head once more, summoning the last of her strength.
“What do you think he did with them, the women you took?” she asked. “The girls.”
Jock looked at Simon, but it was Verity who answered.
“It was my idea,” she said. “I brought them to him.”
Jock blinked. What was going on?
“Only to stop him from wandering,” Sapphire said. “You knew what his appetite was. You thought you could contain it. But you couldn’t, could you? Peter Helston was a monster – a particularly evil one because none of his friends or family had a clue. Not even his daughter. Not even his wife.”
Was this just speculation, Jock wondered, or had she got it from Claire?
The mention of Daphne turned the old woman sour. She reached out to strike Sapphire with her stick, but Simon caught it first and tossed it aside. She stood perfectly well without it, it seemed.
“How did you know?” asked Verity, turning on Simon. “I mean, how could you suspect your own mother?”
“It wasn’t me exactly,” Simon said. “It was Gabriella. The minute she set eyes on Anthony, she couldn’t help but see the resemblance between him and her dad. She wanted him to do a DNA test, but I took the test instead. And she was right about the relationship. Peter Helston was my dad, wasn’t he?”
The Perfect Girl Page 26