Stig made a move but I kept hold of him, trying to make my arm as strong as steel.
“Please don’t,” I said. “If she rips out the line, the seizures will start in minutes. Seconds maybe.”
“You wouldn’t do that, Miss Naismith,” said Stig. “Not with us here watching. You’d never get away.”
“Stop it, Stig,” I said. “Look behind you.”
“Oh, yes,” said Zöe. “Old Miss Shouty Face. I had to shut her up. And nobody’s even been in to see her since I did.”
I could feel tears beginning to form and fill my eyes and fall. “What did you do to her?” I said. “She’s just an old blind lady who can’t walk. Why did you hurt her?”
“But my God she can talk,” said Zöe. “She recognised me, you know. From years ago. I only came to scope things out, looking for a way to get to Dougall. But obviously I thought wrong. There was no point coming at him through his son when his son meant nothing to him, was there? And I’m glad I didn’t now, because if I’d used this to hurt Dougall it wouldn’t be here for me to use hurting you. Anyway, yes, I’m afraid the old girl got the pillow. And then we had some peace to read our lovely book, didn’t we?” She spoke to Nicky in a stupid sing-song voice, as if he was a dog or a baby.
“We’re almost finished, aren’t we?” she said. Then she pressed the book open and started reading. “‘When the golden day is done, through the closing portal—’”
“No!” I wailed.
“‘Child and garden, flower and sun, vanish all things mortal.’”
“Please, I’m absolutely begging you,” I said. “Why are you doing this? Why did you do this?”
“Come in and close the door then,” she said. “Lock it behind you. We can have a nice chat, but not with that door open so people can come and disturb us.” She was still using the sing-song voice and I wanted to scream from the sound of it.
“Come on, Glo,” said Stig. “Do what she says.”
And so we stepped fully into the room and closed the connecting door, pulling the bolt, shutting ourselves off from help, putting ourselves at her mercy. Even as we did it, I could hear footsteps behind me. The police already? It was too soon. And then voices, Donna and Iveta, talking and then shouting, running. They’d found Miss Drumm at last. At last, they’d get help. The police would come and they’d stop this. Somehow. With a megaphone or they’d talk to her through the closed door how they were trained to. They’d do it. They had to.
“You fucking children,” Zöe said. “You lied about me. I was going to do so much for you all. Making the school lovely. Letting you do woodwork and art and dancing. I had it all planned, and you ruined it. You were shits. Every last one of you. Sleekit, evil little shits. Your lies lost me my clearance. I lost my job; I lost my reputation. I was arrested and put in a cell overnight because no one believed what I was saying and the police thought I was covering something up. For four fucking years I had to go and speak to a social worker and go to classes because of you.”
“Probation,” said Stig. “That’s why nothing happened until you went after Scarlet in ’89.”
“Probation,” she hissed. “I had done nothing wrong.”
“Yes, you had,” said Stig. “You left us out in the woods. I know you did. I heard you in your cabin. You had a bath and you had music on.”
“So I decided that if I was going to be punished for harming children, then I was fucking well going to have all the fun of harming them.”
“Fun?” I said. “You’re a monster.”
“No,” she said, suddenly loud.“I’m the victim here.” She was beginning to sound agitated, and I couldn’t drag my eyes away from her hand on the IV line.
“But I heard you!” said Stig. “You’re lying.”
I squeezed his arm, trying to signal that he should go easy, not upset her anymore. But his challenge made her smile and, if anything, she sat back a little. She let the book drop to the floor.
“Oh-ho! This is going to be good,” she said, and then she really grinned at him, her mouth so wide that white lines formed like brackets around it. “No, you didn’t hear me,” she said. “That wasn’t me. That was your father. He always had a bath to wash me off before he went back to that lipless bitch.”
“My dad?” said Stig.
“Why do you think he opened a school?” she said. “It was a present for me. It was all for me, and when he ditched the bitch he was going to run it with me. We had it all planned, and I worked really hard to get it started, and then you spoiled little brats ruined it for me.” I almost felt sorry for her just then; she had swallowed the biggest lie men ever tell. She had believed he was going to leave his wife. “So it didn’t make sense,” she said, “why he wouldn’t back me up. Why he wouldn’t say where he was that night and say I went traipsing out there to ask if the little shits were having enough precious fun.”
“But it was your idea,” I said, thinking it through. “You wanted them out of the way so that BJ would stay overnight. While Miss Drumm wasn’t there to see him. Don’t call them little shits for doing what they were told to.”
She glared at me and her hand tightened on the line again. I might have been imagining it, but I think she even gave it a little tug.
“So I decided that if he wanted it that way, it would cost him.”
“You blackmailed him!” said Stig.
“I was paid for my services. I took the blame and so I took the rewards too.”
“But he can’t have been paying to stop you telling my mum,” said Stig, frowning, “because my mum knows.”
“Oh, that was delicious,” she said, and she gave a little wriggle of pleasure that sickened me to see it. “That was years ago. He came clean to the bitch and announced to me that the bank was closed. Idiot. I put him straight about that. I reminded him he’d known the truth about the death of a child for ten years and not reported it. He had been there that night and he lied and told the cops he was at home. He knew I went out to check on them and he lied and let the cops believe I hadn’t. And who knew better than me what happens to you if you lie about the night a child died? There was no way out of it for him then. Never mind after the rest of them. And you were going to be the grand finale, Stephen. When his own son was in danger, he’d have to tell the truth at last. Out it would all come. All the deaths, all the secrets, all the grubby little lies.”
“You’re joking,” said Stig. “You think my dad would ruin his life for me? You picked the wrong son, love. You missed the mark there.”
She didn’t like that, not one little bit. Her face grew pinched again and her eyes narrowed. It was more to distract her than anything else that I spoke again.
“So you’re saying Eden was a present to you from your lover, something to keep you sweet and somewhere for him to visit you? But he abandoned you after Moped died. So you blackmailed him for years. And you spent the money on a modelling agency, and a flat in London and drugs, and a honeymoon in France and—”
“Well, well, well,” said Miss Naismith. “You’ve been busy, haven’t you? Modelling agency! I gave some guy on Castle Douglas High Street twenty quid to hand a business card to that little trollop and tell her she was pretty. That’s all the modelling agency ever cost me, and they did all the rest of the work themselves. And LetzGo was a budget operation too.”
“What?” said Stig.
“The anti-paedo vigilante group,” I told him. “You started that too?”
“And April the Cow’s bloody reiki therapy crap,” she said. “At least I’ve managed to off-load all that to some sucker on eBay and recoup my expenses. And Nathan and Edmund didn’t cost me anything. Unless you count the nips and tucks so’s they wouldn’t recognise me.”
“What did you do to them?” I asked.
“Don’t,” said Stig, miserably.
“Why, I’m glad you asked,” she began.
<
br /> I fired another question at her to stop her from telling us. Stig was right; it would be better never to know.
“Why did you save Duggie till last?” I said.
She was smiling again. “You really don’t know? You were married how long and he didn’t tell you?”
“I have no idea,” I said. I guessed that would make her talk. She liked showing off, liked knowing best. I was right.
“Of all the evil little shits at that school, he was the worst of all,” she said. “Playing the innocent the next day, getting them all to lie for him.”
“What did he do?”
She took a deep breath as if to deliver a long speech.
But a hammering came at the door before she could say a word.
“Ms. Harkness? Are you all right in there? This is the police, ma’am. Speak up and tell us you’re okay.”
Zoë stood up and kicked the chair away from behind her.
“Go away,” I shouted. “You’re not helping.”
“We need to hear that you’re all right, ma’am,” said the voice. “Who’s in there with you?”
Zöe was fumbling with the window behind her, at full stretch between her hold on the IV and the latch she was trying to open.
“I’m coming over,” I said to her. “I’ll keep my hands on my head and only take them down to open the window for you.”
“Ms. Harkness?” said the policeman outside. “We know you’re upset. We know you’re under a lot of strain. You’re not in any trouble, ma’am.”
“Jesus Christ,” muttered Stig. “What did that nurse tell them?”
I was walking very slowly over to the window with Zöe’s eyes on me. When I got there, I waited with my hands on my head until she stepped back as far away from me as she could get, far beyond my reach unless I lunged. Then I put one hand down and unscrewed the ball and cup lock on the old sash and opened it as wide as it would go.
“Ms. Harkness?” said the policeman again. “We need you to open this door. We only want to help you.” Then he said in a softer voice. “Talk to her, sir.” What I heard next turned my blood cold.
“What’s up, Gloria?” said Duggie’s voice. “Zöe called me.”
“Its her, Duggie,” I screamed. “It’s not Stig’s dad. She’s going to hurt him.”
“Back across the room now,” said Zöe.
“Your husband came to help you, Ms. Harkness,” said the policeman again. But that didn’t sound like Duggie to me.
“Back you go,” Zöe said. And I stepped away slowly, still facing her.
“Duggie, for God’s sake, tell them,” I shouted. “I’m begging you.”
“Tell us what, sir?” said a policeman.
“No idea,” Duggie said. “She’s been under a lot of strain.”
Zöe gave me a gleeful look. “You weren’t listening to me,” she said, in a worse sing-song than ever. “Those kids said I harmed them, and so I harmed them. You’ve just said I’m going to hurt him.” She grinned, yanked the IV, and then launched herself through the open window like a missile.
I sprang across the room as Stig hurled himself past me and scrambled out of the window after her.
It was still okay at the input end—the bag, the drip chamber, and the line all secure—but the port in his chest had been dislodged, the needle half out, a little blood beginning to seep along the edges of the dressing that held it against his skin. Outside the door they were shouting, the policeman and Duggie, and I could hear Donna’s voice too.
“Break it down,” I shouted, then I concentrated on what I had to do. I held the port hard against him, ignoring the crunch of it on his breastbone, and I pulled the needle out. Then, careful not to touch it or breathe on it, I held it up while I popped the seal on the extra port in his left arm, plugged it in swift and sure, grabbed his hand, and watched him, not even glancing at the door as it creaked and cracked from the policeman kicking it.
“Donna!” I shouted. “She yanked out his sedative. I’ve put it back in, but he needs to be checked. His chest port’s weeping.” Then I kissed his head, hoisted myself through the window, and ran.
Thirty-Two
I knew where they’d be going, and I knew the quickest way to get there too. I crashed through the woods, ignoring the roads, ignoring the paths, ignoring the thorns and twigs that scraped at me. I was almost at the bridge when I caught sight of them, just a flash of Stig’s grey sweatshirt between the trees. I ran faster, ignoring the ragged burning that tore at my chest.
Now I could see both of them on the bridge and they were struggling, her hand clawing at his face and her leg hooking in around his, trying to unfoot him. He leaned back to get away from her nails, those pink and white nails, rimmed in red now as she gouged at him. He leaned further, she lunged, and then he was over the handrail and falling.
“Stiiiiig!” I screamed and leapt forward. She came full at me and could have tipped me over without even having to try, because I was numb and stumbling. Instead she brushed past me, shoving me roughly with one shoulder, and then she was gone. “Stig!” I screamed again, bending over the bridge rail. I could see him far below, thrashing and wallowing in the water. I looked desperately to the steep banks at either end and took one step up onto the ledge to follow him, but then my mouth fell open and I blinked in amazement, looking down.
He had stood up, water coursing off him, his hair plastered down and his clothes dark. He had lost his glasses and his face looked naked as he stood there gazing up at me.
“How did Moped drown in this?” he called up. He waded under the bridge to the other side, and I crossed over it to see where he was going.“How did he drown in three feet of water?”
“They always say you can.”
“Not Moped,” said Stig.
“Maybe … ” I said, but I couldn’t finish it, because I didn’t know. “You need to get out of there before you freeze to death.” Stig nodded and began to wade, heavy-legged, to the edge and then pull himself up, holding on to tussocks of bracken and hauling his exhausted wet weight up the bank to stand beside me.
“How could anyone ever have believed Mope fell off that bridge and drowned?” he said.
“Because he was in there and he was dead,” I told him. “And everyone else was tucked up in their sleeping bags, so it was the only story that made any sense.”
“Only they weren’t and it doesn’t,” he said.
I shrugged off my cardigan and draped it around his shoulders. “Come on,” I said. “You’re freezing.”
But Stig turned away and began to fight through the brambles and bracken until he was twenty feet downstream from the bridge. He seemed to be searching for something.
“What is it?” I asked him.
He stood up with a round smooth pebble in his hand, looked up at the tree branch above him, shuffled a few steps along the bank, took aim and threw the pebble into the water. It made a deep, plunking noise, almost like a gulp, and disappeared, just the rings spreading out to show where it had been.
“‘See the rings pursue each other,’” I said. “‘All below grows black as night.’”
“I’m beginning to see what happened,” Stig said, then he gave an enormous shudder. “I need to go and get dry clothes.”
“I’m going back to see if Nicky’s all right,” I said. “I don’t care where she is or where she goes. You’re okay; that’s the main thing. And I can’t run anymore. I can hardly walk.”
“Open your shed and get my car out,” said Stig. “We’re closer to Rough House than the home.” And so we both turned for the path out of the woods, me limping and Stig squelching. We had got out onto the lane when an engine sounded behind us and a horn tooted. I turned round to see Duggie in his Volvo.
“They’ve got her,” he said. “The backup car coming in from the other road-end intercepted her.”
“How’s Nicky?” I asked. “Is he okay?”
“He’s sitting up in bed playing with his X-box and eating crisps,” said Duggie. “For God’s sake, Gloria, he’s the same as ever. It would have taken about half an hour for the sedatives to wear off. If you hadn’t been so hysterical she’d never even have got as far as she did.”
“Don’t speak to her like that,” said Stig. He was shivering even harder now, not small movements like shivering usually is, but violent jerks that shook his whole body.
“Open up, Duggie,” I said “And give us a lift to the house.”
He cast a look at Stig’s dripping clothes and then one at his upholstery, and his face was twisted up with a wry smile as he popped the locks and let us in. We both slid into the back seat. I put my arms around Stig and draped one of my legs over him.
“Christ, Gloria,” said Duggie.
“For the warmth,” I said. “He fell off the bridge, like Moped did. He’ll be lucky not to get hypothermia.”
“Except Moped didn’t,” said Stig. His voice was shaking so much I almost didn’t catch what he said, but Duggie heard it. I knew he did because the car swerved suddenly and then he braked too sharply before he righted it again.
“What are you on about?” he said.
“I didn’t understand why she saved you till last,” Stig said. “Even my dad’s payback wasn’t the grand finale. That was you.”
“Why who saved me?”
“Christ, haven’t you worked it out yet?”
“What’s that?” I said, peering out of the side window. We were almost at Rough House now, past the last cattle grid, and I could see something that didn’t make sense to me.
“Worked what out?” said Duggie, in that sneering voice of his. “Are you trying to get your dad off?”
“What is that?” I said, looking at a black haze in front of the house that shouldn’t have been there.
“I think Naismitth was scared of you,” said Stig, and the car jolted again. We were coming alongside the garden wall now, almost there.
“Oh God!” I cried out. “No! Duggie, stop the car. Walter!”
The Child Garden Page 27