‘It’s the truth—’ his breathing is laboured, ‘sleeping pills in the dog’s food.’
The wind catches the drone of a siren, she wonders if her mind is playing tricks. Has she too been affected by the gas. Her lips form a hard line, ‘Don’t worry, Billy, you’ll soon be asleep, death is only moments away; you’re going to hell. I’m going to send you there.’ Her voice raises, ‘Hydrogen sulphate, ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide – they’re killing you right at this minute.’
Frantically, he struggles to move, the pit holds him fast. Panicking, he gulps in the toxic mix of air, ‘Please—please,’ his face ashen, the words wheezed out.
Thomasine turns away, gazes into the distance, seeing nothing. An overwhelming flood of sadness consumes her. She had loved this place, he stole it from her along with everything else. She won’t be able to live here after this.
‘Tell me.’ Her eyes narrow in on him.
‘Throw me the r-r-rope,’ his teeth chatter, his body shudders. The eyeball hanging loosely on his cheek stares at her.
She drops to her knees, picks up the rope, takes hold of the end. Casts the rest of it out across the slurry. He tries to grab it. The end of the rope falls centimetres from his grasp. She throws it again, it hits his face, he whimpers, arms flaying about as he tries to catch the end of it before it slips away.
‘Be quick!’ he sniffles, spits.
She drags it back, throws it again, it hits him in the chest. This time, he snatches it up, wraps it around his fist. A look of relief floods his face. Fingers numb with cold, he uses his wrists to grab the rope, pushes it underneath his armpits, manages to tie it in a knot across his chest, ‘Pull me in—’ a coughing fit consumes him momentarily. ‘You… you promised to get me out!’
‘Tell me.’ Thomasine stands rigid. Unmoved by his demands, ‘Tell me—tell me what you did.’
His eyes widen, the pressure on his chest takes his breath. He looks towards the farmhouse. ‘It was her fault. We were in the kitchen, she let me in, I wanted…’ There is no repentance in his voice, only self-pity. ‘Chloroform… she collapsed—’ another coughing fit breaks his words. The slurry sticks to him like glue, drags him deeper into its depths. ‘Got to help me—please.’
‘And, Veronica?’ Her voice pierces the howl of the wind. He is only interested in his self-preservation. ‘What did Veronica do?’
‘She saw me… the car.’ His chest heaves, he starts to hyperventilate, ‘She was walking up the road… out of town,’ he gulps in air, with each gasp poisoning himself. ‘She flagged me down… walked in front of the car, she,’ his lungs are about to give out, ‘heard Karen screaming… I had—’
‘No choice? That’s what they all say, Billy.’ She tilts her head, ‘I’d keep still if I were you,’ a smile freezes on her face, ‘and you can stop calling for God, heaven is not your destination.’ She picks up the length of rope, slides it between her fingers tantalisingly. ‘And Veronica?’
The energy has gone out of him, ‘I… buried them.’ He stops kicking, thick streaks of slurry cover his face and chest.
‘ Karen came to… I don’t know how Veronica…’
‘The photograph, the one of me, how did you get it?’
He doesn’t answer, his body sinks deeper.
Her pulse quickens, ‘Did I ever meet you?’
The movement is almost imperceptible, he shakes his head, ‘No, Please—’
‘Okay,’ that is all she says.
Teeth gritted, she pulls the rope tight, reals him in. With every beat, the knot of rage in her chest burns, fuelling her strength. She could let him die, leave him there, it wouldn’t be enough. Digging in her feet, arm over arm, she pulls him towards her.
When she is within arm’s length, he lets out a groan. She tucks the rope under her arm, drops to the ground, reaches out with her hand. He grabs it, she sucks in a deep breath, the final struggle saps her strength. He’s a dead weight, his upper body lies prone on the crust, blood streams down his cheeks. She grabs hold of his elbows, tugs.
Suddenly revived, teeth-bared he grabs her head, jerks her towards him, pushes her face down into the pit, tries to clamber over her.
In a blind panic, mouth shut tight, she pulls the taser out of her pocket, rams it into his ribs—fires. His body spasms, his fingernails claw her scalp. She fires again, his body fits; his grip loosens.
Lungs screaming, she wrenches herself from beneath him, scrambles back, safe from his clawing fingers. Her body convulses as she vomits up the slurry, rams snow into her mouth, spits it out.
If he’d pushed her under, she would have never got out. Her body armour, the weight of it—it would have killed her.
She turns her head to look, his body sinks beneath the quagmire of snow and slurry, limb by limb.
72
They appear out of the blizzard, see her crouching in front of the wall, arms curled over her head, shivering uncontrollably, her upper body caked in thick grey slime and snowflakes. Sam shouts out to her, ‘Thom, Thom, are you alright?’ He makes his way towards the shotgun.
Her eyes spring open, terrified she lets out a scream. ‘Don’t move—not one more step. I won’t be able to get you out.’
Confused, Sam and Mel look down, the ground is already covered in white virgin snow, there is no sign of where Bennett’s feet had tread.
‘Don’t move an inch.’ Thomasine struggles to her feet, waves them back. ‘I’ll come to get you.’
They look on, perplexed, as she makes her way towards them, mindful of the lumps of granite that seem to show the way, each step carefully taken.
Mel peers into Thomasine’s face. ‘Are you alright? Where is he?’
‘Dead—he’s in there.’ she points in front of them, to the expanse of snow, ‘the slurry pit. He fell,’ her hands shake. ‘When I tried to get him out, he… ’ Teeth chattering, her knees go weak. Sam steadies her.
Mel steps back, horrified. ‘What it’s under there?’
‘Bloody hell—where’s the warning sign?’ Sam’s eyes open wide.
‘The snow covered it up.’ Thomasine wants to lay down, to sleep. Her eyelids droop, she’s been outside in the freezing cold for over an hour, her clothes soaked through.
‘We followed footsteps round the back of the house. The back doors been broken in.’ He looks at Mel, ‘Come on, let’s get you inside lass.’ Sam slips an arm under her shoulder. ‘It’s bloody freezing out here, you’ll do your death.’ His nose wrinkles, ‘Aye, you’ll want to get those clothes off too, you smell like a dog’s arse.’
Thomasine’s legs give way, his arm tightens around her. Mel hurries to take her other elbow. ‘We got your message,’ Her forehead creases. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t answer. We found out he had a lock-up down in London, we were on a conference call with the Met, I had my phone off.’ Thomasine doesn’t interject. Without missing a beat Mel carries on. ‘Then we couldn’t get our vehicle up the field, the lower gate was locked. We heard the gun go off, did he shoot you?’
‘He tried.’ Through weary eyes, Thomasine takes in their appearance, both look soaked to the skin and dishevelled. Sam had a suit on and Mel wore jeans and a jumper, her hair is plastered to her scalp; neither are kitted out for the blizzard that consumes them.
Sam’s eyes narrow in on her, ‘Have you got your body armour on under your coat?’ A look of concern crosses his face, ‘What happened?’
Thomasine can see his mind ticking over, she shudders, untangles herself from them both. Without another word, she points towards the slurry pit, now completely hidden from view by the snow. Her chest heaves as she speaks, ‘He broke in when I was out. As soon as I got back, I knew he was in the house. The curtains were open, I’d left them shut. He had Dad’s gun—I had no idea until I saw him with it,’ she wraps her arms around herself to stop the trembling. ‘He just came out of nowhere. I was out by the barn waiting for you to call back… it’s the only place to get a signal.’ The words stumble out, ‘The gun misfired, it knoc
ked him off his feet, the kickback shattered his eye socket. I tried to get him out but…’ her voice trails off, then flashes in anger. ‘The bastard tried to pull me in with him.’ She starts to shiver uncontrollably. ‘It’s sunk into the ground, over three-metres deep. It’s a death trap.’ Despair washes over her, ‘There were so many things I needed to know.’ Fat tears carve through the grey slime that covers her cheeks, she wipes them away with the cuff of her sleeve.
‘Did he tell you anything? Mel’s voice interrupts her thoughts.
Thomasine closes her eyes, ‘He killed Karen—tried to kill Veronica, he must have thought he had.’
Both?’ Mel looks surprised, ‘Not Jimmy Fairfax? On the tapes, Veronica implied it was Jimmy.’
Thomasine shrugs her shoulders, a grim smile spreads across her lips ‘I can’t explain that. I told him I’d get him out if he told the truth. He said he’d done it. Said that Karen let him in the house. He’d clearly planned to abduct her.’ She goes to sit down on the ground, they lift her up. She carries on, ‘He knocked her out, chloroform. It’s relatively easy to make – bleach, acetone, ice. He’d have most of that to hand, he—’ She stops mid-sentence, suddenly remembering the rags at the lockup. ‘I guess he used it on Veronica too, he didn’t say.’ Her voice drops, more tears come. ‘He buried them together, Karen came to as he was digging the grave. He—’ She stops dead. ‘Look, I just need to get inside. Can we do this later?’
Sam looks across at Mel, ‘Boss, do you want me to wait here to see if he gets out?’ Sam’s face is completely straight, ‘Bastards like that always seem to come back to life.’
‘He’s dead, believe me,’ Thomasine is emphatic.
A look of relief spreads across Sam’s face. He takes the key out of Thomasine’s hand, opens the front door.
He looks over his shoulder, directly into her face, ‘We have to be careful, it’s a crime scene now.’
He helps her on with a pair of protective cover shoes and gloves.
The hope goes out of her as they walk along the hallway and into the kitchen. ‘He said he’d wrecked the place.’ Bennett had spoken the truth. Bar a single kitchen chair, not another piece of furniture nor ornament had gone unharmed. The hammer and chisel casually thrown down by the back door to taunt her.
She sits on the chair, waits for them to process her.
It takes the CSI Team a while to get there. Whilst waiting, she gives a full account to Sam and Mel, well, almost full. She doesn’t tell them about the gun, that she knew it would misfire. Nor, that she’d fully intended to lure him outside. That she’d stood back against the wall so that she wouldn’t fall in it. She told them about the taser, that it was for her own protection. She doesn’t ask them what was discovered in the lockup. She knows exactly what was found.
When the CSI’s arrive, they are meticulous, one processes her body and clothes, the other takes photographs. Unembarrassed, she stands there compliantly, grateful that it is over, grateful that she doesn’t know either of the CSI’s in front of her.
The snow abates, the wind drops, Robert Bennett’s body is recovered hours later. White-clad CSI’s with breathing apparatus carefully bring it to the surface. Thomasine stares into his face, his mouth gaping wide open as though mid-howl. All her emotion spent, she says just two words.
‘That’s him.’
Two weeks later, with Thomasine’s help, Candice Wharton will be found in the same woodland. Her bones entangled in the roots of a tree – just as her sister’s had.
Jimmy’s past finally catches up with him. He will be charged with perverting the course of justice and bribing a police officer; a European arrest warrant will be issued for Frank Tanner.
Charlotte Arnold will be back with her family. For years, Bennett had been feeding her ADHD drugs to restrict her growth. She was the last girl he abducted and couldn’t have been involved in any of his crimes. Months of psychotherapy lay ahead of her.
For now, a sense of calm descends upon Thomasine. He’s dead. He died a terrifying death. Just as she promised her mother he would.
She takes in a breath, the heavyweight she’s been carrying for thirty-seven years evaporates into thin air. She walks around the house, tries to feel her mother’s presence, a waft of her perfume, the sound of her voice.
She’s no longer there.
Nor is Karen.
Epilogue
Tuesday, 26 July 2011
It’s been a long slow recovery. My name is Veronica Lightfoot. I have a sister called Rosie. I no longer need to clean things. I allow the dust to settle on the skirting. I have a cat called Boston. He sleeps on my bed.
No one is ever going to steal my life again.
Thomasine killed him, I’m glad.
I’m not completely healed, I know that. Bones mend, but memories, well, brain damage can mean those memories are lost forever. But, bit by bit, I am piecing my life as Lily together.
The doctors say the ones before Lily are probably gone. They’re not. They come back in my dreams – the touch of my mother’s hand, Rosie’s childhood tears, eating tea at Gran’s, walking through the fields. Wimberry bushes covered in bright red ladybirds.
My hand gripping Karen’s wrist as I claw my way out of the ground. Banging on her chest. Breathing through her lips. Begging her forgiveness as I put on her coat. Burying her again because I couldn’t carry her. Because I didn’t want the animals to take her. Because if Billy came back, he’d see I’d escaped. Every night I wake, my heart thundering against my ribs.
The doctors, they want me to see a psychiatrist. Why on earth would I do that? She probably did more damage than anything else. She left her voice in my head. I should never have said yes. But I did, and that is that. The police traced Ellen Williams, the one who got me sectioned. I know it’s cruel, but I never want to see her again. I’ve told Rosie that.
One of these days I will go on holiday, maybe even find somebody to love, someone who’ll love me back. I’ve discovered lots of new things, like eBay and Amazon. I’ve even bought an iPad. I have a life to live and goals to achieve.
The list is on the fridge.
Read it if you like.
Life goals list 2011/12
Learn to swim – still want to do a triathlon.
Re-learn to drive.
Run three times a week.
Get back to work.
Sort out the legal issues.
Sell both my houses.
Find myself a place back home.
Spend time with Mum and Rosie.
Get to know Thomasine.
Find Paula.
Pay the bitch back.
Make her forget.
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Acknowledgments
My most heartfelt thanks to all those involved in the journey of this debut novel.
In particular, my fantastic agent, Jenny Savill, who took me on when the manuscript was in its early stages and whose insights and suggestions made an immeasurable difference.
For their unending support, my Writers’ Group – Tanya, Penny and Rica. For encouraging me to do the BathSpa MA in Creative Writing, my friend Pat. To Dr Colin Edwards, my wonderful manuscript tutor, and
tutors Nathan Filer, Lucy English and Samantha Harvey who drew out the potential in me. For their insightful feedback and positivity, my fellow students Morag, Linda, Rachel, Eleanor and Tracy. For answering my endless questions into police work and medical procedure, Rachael, Caroline, Jon, Debra and Bev. Any mistakes are purely my own. And to Tanya, Debbie and Pat whose proof reading and observations of early drafts were much appreciated. To writers such as Val McDermid, Clare Mackintosh and Mo Hayder who inspired me.
My publishers, Bloodhound Books, have been wonderful. In particular Betsy Reavley and her team, and my editor, Ben Adams. Without all of whom this book would not have been published.
A huge thanks to my family whose belief in me is unfailing.
To my friends, whose ongoing encouragement has been incredibly important.
And, most of all, the biggest thank you is to my husband, Mark. He’s supported me all the way and without him I probably wouldn’t be writing at all.
She Lies Hidden: a spell-binding psychological suspense thriller Page 31