The Devil's Staircase

by Helen FitzGerald

  Pete sat up in bed.

  They might have to let him go.

  PART FOUR

  35

  ‘Bronwyn?’

  I was about to leave the police station, but Vera Oh was calling me. ‘Your friends left a note.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, walking outside onto the pavement and reading it.

  Bronny,

  We’re going to the Royal to get our heads together, then we want to find somewhere else to stay. We’ll wait for you there.

  Fliss and Cheryl-Anne.

  Fliss and Cheryl-Anne. The Royal. Did I have the stomach to return there? If I didn’t, would I miss them, I wondered, as I walked along a London road in a London suburb filled with Londoners. Would I miss Cheryl-Anne’s over-straightened hair? Fliss’s flippant approach to life and her regular sexual lessons? Zach’s Lenny Kravitz renditions? Hamish’s solid advice? Francesco’s love of food? Could I go and see them now or would I only ever see them again in a courtroom?

  And Pete? My first instincts about him had been right. I should have listened to them. Pete was always there when the noises came, always jumping out at me, scaring me to death. He had tattoos all over and an eerie quietness. His past was a mystery not to be delved into and he had all sorts of tools in his room. The police hadn’t told me much, except that he had a list of previous convictions the length of my arm. How could I have been so foolish? To have thought he was kind and gentle and the love of my life when he was a . . . Bloody hell, I’d lost my virginity to a serial killer.

  I thought about the days I’d spent in the squat. Celia had been there all along, yelling and banging to get my attention, and I hadn’t done anything. If she died, it would be my fault. When I thought about what she’d been through, what the others had been through . . . Oh Jesus. Why hadn’t I looked harder in the hall cupboard? Why had I blocked my ears with my fingers and hummed instead of listening properly? Why hadn’t I wondered about the shoe, the bloodstain, the jumping record, the smoke, the meowing – then disappearing – cat? If only.

  Wandering aimlessly, I found myself standing in front of the squat. The building was covered in plastic and the street was littered with police cars. The occasional onlooker stopped. Inside the Royal next door, I spotted two female backpackers at reception, paying Francesco for a couple of rooms and giggling. I could tell that he was checking them out. I saw Hamish sitting at one of his computers in the Internet café next to reception. I looked down through the basement window of the hostel – ten unfamiliar travellers were drinking and watching MTV.

  A new wave had come and flattened the sand.

  I had almost decided to go inside, to touch base with Fliss and Cheryl-Anne, and maybe go somewhere safe with them.

  ‘Your passport was in there.’ I jumped, scared out of my wits, then turned around to see Zach.

  ‘And your shoulder bag, pinned to the wall. Did you see it?’

  It took me a moment to understand what this meant. My passport, which had been stolen from my hostel room the day after I’d arrived in London, was pinned in that horrible room alongside the passports and tickets of dead women.

  ‘I’d have been next,’ I thought out loud.

  36

  In the Cromwell Hospital Greg sat beside his wife’s bed. Much of her face was bandaged and two drips were attached to her arm, one filled with blood, the other saline. She was still in a coma.

  ‘And at the bottom he wrote, “I’m sorry I was angry, I miss you. Love, Sam.” . . . Spelt the right way and all. I put it on the mantelpiece, in the living room. I’ve been very tidy, just as you like it . . .’

  He knew he was rambling, but he’d been talking to her bandaged face all day, and it was hard to converse with a lifeless woman, especially when he’d been told to expect the worst, and when he felt so angry at himself for letting it happen. Why did he let her convince him it was okay to power-walk home at that hour? Why did he not search the area more thoroughly himself, knock on doors, for God’s sake? Why had he not followed the cat? He might have found the shoe in the skip, or in that girl’s room. Might have heard the noises she’d been making, poor Ceils. What had he done to her? What had she been through?

  A counsellor – female, six feet two, and with the evidence of a child’s breakfast on her shirt – came to see Greg a few hours after they’d stitched and bandaged Celia. He would get through it, the woman told him. He would find the strength. And Celia would get through it too. Her scars would heal.

  ‘But what about the ones inside?’ Greg asked.

  ‘Your love – and the boys’ cuddles – will heal those . . . Go home and rest,’ the counsellor told him. ‘They’ll ring if there’s any change.’

  The boys were at home with all four grandparents, an aunt and an uncle. They were supposed to be watching the television but they were really watching the phone. If it rang, it would mean she was either alive or dead. The television had far less power about it, but still Dr Who’s The Girl in the Wardrobe blared in a vain attempt to divert everyone from self-punishment.

  Sam pinched himself on the leg for not knowing that she was there, for being angry with her for not coming home, and for blaming her for disappearing.

  Celia’s Mum ground her teeth for not offering to pick her up on Tuesday mornings when she was always awake at that hour anyway.

  Her Dad wished he’d offered to help them with the mortgage so she didn’t have to work.

  Her brother wondered why he’d not given them the car he never used, an old Volvo that he hadn’t got around to selling. She could have driven to the hospital.

  Her sister-in-law could have helped Greg knock on doors when he’d asked for help after the search was called off. Why did they tell him to move on for the sake of the boys?

  Many people pondered similarly, absorbing guilt in the airwaves that did not belong to them:

  Detective Inspector Vera Oh, whose own failed marriage had made her doubt Greg’s constant assertion that he and Celia were happy.

  The lowly cops who’d searched the street and not found the trainer in the skip.

  The neighbour who’d said she’d heard Celia say arsehole in front of the boys.

  The colleague who’d repeated Celia’s lamentations about sex losing its oomph.

  The bloke who’d walked down Queensway Terrace just after she’d been taken. He had seen a man looking under a Honda Jazz. Why had he not told the police?

  The hotelier behind the squat who’d noticed someone moving about the garden in the middle of the night before the squatters had moved in.

  And so it went on. Guilt everywhere, except where it belonged.

  Greg wanted to believe the counsellor. He even told himself that if she woke up and smiled at him in the midst of her bandages, then maybe it was true, maybe they could be happy again.

  ‘I can’t leave,’ Greg told the counsellor. ‘I have to be with her if she wakes up.’

  ‘When she wakes up, you’ll scare her to death with that hair,’ the counsellor said. Greg looked in the small mirror. She was right. His hair took up more space than his head, reaching for the sky in thick wads.

  ‘Go home, have some rest and a shower. We’ll phone you.’

  The phone outside Celia’s hospital room rang. A fat nurse with a Welsh accent answered it. ‘No, there’s no change,’ she said.

  Greg looked at the counsellor and sighed. He supposed the police were almost as eager as he was for her to wake up. She could identify him. They were pretty sure they had the guy, but Celia’s evidence would be the clincher. Greg thought about the man who’d done this to his wife. The bastard had helped Greg stand up after he’d slipped on the blood. Greg had actually thanked him for calling an ambulance. He had no. 1 hair, boxer shorts, muscles and tattoos. Did he have big eyes? The girl, Bronwyn, had told police that Celia’s last words were ‘Big eyes . . .’ Were his eyes big? He couldn’t remember.

  ‘Okay,’ Greg told the counsellor. ‘I’ll go get some rest.’

  37
>
  Zach decided to stay at the Royal, but after he’d told me about my shoulder bag and passport, I had an even more overwhelming urge to get away from there. As far as I knew, Fliss and Cheryl-Anne were still there waiting for me. But I couldn’t go in. Couldn’t be near the place where I had touched and loved Peter McGuire, the place where I had failed to save Celia and where I would have been next.

  As I watched Zach walk down Queensway Terrace I thought about his sister’s return journey. She wouldn’t get drunk on Bacardi and Coke and touch up her makeup from the Murray River onwards, excited and nervous about seeing everyone again. She’d be all alone in a dark box in a freezing hold alongside suitcases and skis. And she wouldn’t arrive to the delighted squeals of her family as they marvelled at how healthy (fat) she looked. Instead she and her box would be taken to a quiet room until the paperwork was done.

  Oh God, it was the darkness, wasn’t it? Coming after me.

  As I wandered down Queensway I regretted being too embarrassed to ask Zach for some money. I had none. Not a penny. I’d been getting by on Hamish’s loan and other people’s bread and peanut butter and now that I had no people in my life, I was screwed.

  Where could I go? I was penniless, exhausted and starving.

  I found myself heading for the Porchester. They hadn’t paid me yet. My wages and my bonus were due next week, so I decided to see if the boss was on a late shift and ask for an advance. After all, it wasn’t so very long ago that I had been Employee of the Week.

  The door to the steam rooms was closed. It was only 9 p.m. and should be open for another hour. I knocked, but there was no answer. I went around to the other side of the building and entered the main reception area. The gym and pool were bustling with customers, but the door leading through to the steam rooms had been boarded over and was being painted.

  ‘Why are the steam rooms closed?’ I asked the pretty receptionist who’d chatted up Pete not long ago.

  ‘It’s been shut down,’ she said. I noticed she was staring at me as if I was the serial killer.

  I walked past the notice board – at some point my photo had been replaced by one of Esther, the new Employee of the Week. I walked up to Nathan’s office and knocked on his door. He was still in after a busy day closing down the steam rooms and finding jobs for most of the employees. But he didn’t have a job for me, or any money. He had three other things: the letter I’d half-written to Ursula and left at the towel desk, in which I’d called him a knob-head; the purse I’d been accused of stealing, which was found in Pete’s locker; and some advice:

  ‘Get out of my office. I should have listened to Esther. Get out!’

  Okey-dokey, I thought to myself, skulking down the stairs. Esther and Kate had obviously heard I was around, and had come out to see me off. They stood in line with the receptionist who had fancied Pete, each of them spitting at me with their eyes, as I walked slowly out of the Porchester.

  I needed to find somewhere safe for the night so I could think about what to do next. I wasn’t allowed home yet – I was a material witness – and I had no idea what I would do till it was all over.

  I sat on a step across from the steam room entrance. It was dark and quiet there and if I pressed my face into my knees I could almost make myself invisible. The street reminded me of Bucks Row, where Pete said a woman had been found in 1888. The killer had slit her throat and kept a bit of her. God, I had been so stupid! It was creepy and still – a dead end at the bottom of Queensway – but every now and again someone walked by. Staff from the Porchester. Clients in Lycra. A man and a woman, chatting. A man, alone. Two men – were they the shady men who’d told me when to get out of the squat on the night of the housewarming? A guy with a hoodie – was he Bobby Rainproof, who I’d bought dope from at the Polish Club? My God, the underworld was everywhere, a world that until recently had seemed fun, was now scaring the living shit out of me.

  I wasn’t permitted to get my jeans or anything out of the squat, so I still had my netball skirt and polo shirt on. It was getting cold. The gym and pool section of the Porchester had shut by now and the street was deserted. Rubbing my arms with my hands, I remembered that I still had the keys to the steam rooms pinned to the inside of my polo shirt pocket. In his fury, Boss-man Nathan had forgotten to ask me to return them.

  A man on a scooter whooshed by. I watched him disappear around the corner, then raced across to the huge corner door. The key opened it easily. I shut the door behind me and locked it from the inside; peeking out the keyhole to make sure no one had seen me, then replacing the key in the hole.

  It was dark in there. I didn’t want to put on any of the lights in case anyone outside noticed, so I walked past reception, grabbed a jug of water from the kitchen, drank half and gave the other half to the dry bamboo palm, took some bread from behind the counter, and went through the double doors into the huge relaxation area. The loungers were still laid out around the room. I checked the bright digital clock behind the towel dispensary desk. It was after ten. Chewing the stale bread, I took two towels from behind the desk and sat down on one of the loungers. But I couldn’t get warm.

  I walked back to the reception booth by the front door and turned on the computer. The light from the screen lit up the huge mirror on the wall opposite the booth. It must have been about eight feet by eight feet. Not surprisingly, I looked wired to the moon. I googled Internet Café, Queensway Terrace, then dialled Hamish’s number – a mobile – and praised the lord when he answered.

  ‘Hey you,’ he said. God, his voice was just what I needed. Gentle and kind and sensible. ‘Honey, calm down. Don’t worry,’ Hamish said. ‘Everything’s fine now. It’s all over.’

  When I hung up, I felt a wave of relief. Soon Hamish would come and hug me and reassure me that everything was going to be okay. But in the meantime, this place was bloody freezing.

  I walked across the marble floor, down the sweeping staircase that wrapped itself around the small tear-shaped plunge pool and past the showers and full-length mirrors across from them. Some street-light trickled in from a high window in the body-scrub room opposite the showers. It looked even more like a torture chamber without the lights on. I wondered where Mitt-woman would go now. How much demand was there for mitt-women? The floor hadn’t been hosed, so piles of skin crumbs coated the surface. I walked round the corner to the steam rooms and saunas. It was dark in the bowels of the building, but I remembered that there were two saunas on one side and two steam rooms on the other, with a cleaning cupboard at the end. I felt my way around the wall, looking for the switch box beside the cupboard that Esther had told me I was not qualified or trained to touch, and finally found it. I opened the small metal door, pressed down a switch and waited to see if anything happened. There was nothing for a moment – just darkness – then one of the saunas began to glow. I moved towards it, and tried to open the glass door, but it was locked. So I went back to the control box and fumbled for some keys that were on hooks on the inside of the metal door. After trying three, I finally found the right one, and opened the glass door of the sauna.

  Once inside, I put the sauna key down beside the copper bucket of water and spooned some water on top of the coals. They sizzled, then steamed. I stood over the glowing coals rubbing my hands, until a creaking noise frightened me – it was like a sinking ship. As I crept out of the sauna, a rat scuttled past my feet. I screamed, ran back past the body-scrub room and showers, up the stairs by the plunge pool, through the relaxation area, out of the double doors, past the kitchen, and into reception.

  I dialled my home number. The numbers seemed beautiful, familiar, safe.

  ‘Ursula!’

  ‘Bron, how are you? How’s London?’

  Oh dear, my voice was getting shaky. ‘I love you. I just wanted to hear your voice.’

  ‘You sound flat.’

  ‘I wish I was. I’m over nine stone. It’s the peanut butter and lager.’

  ‘You have an accent.’

  ‘I do
not.’

  ‘I’ll wire some money. Email me the bank details.’ ‘I miss you!’

  ‘You’re upset! Bronny, talk to me.’

  ‘I’m fine. It’s just, I don’t know.’

  Suddenly everything inside me churned. I felt confused. Thoughts and images whirled in my head. Had all this really happened? Had I really fallen in love with a man who killed people? Had I really ignored the screams of a tortured woman? Did I really have a fifty–fifty chance of dying?

  Of course, Ursula and Dad only knew about that last whirling query, and assumed it was only this that was making me upset.

  ‘Bron, you need to ring Dr Gibbons. This is ridiculous. Get it over with.’

  ‘I’m scared.’

  ‘We’re here.’

  ‘I feel worthless.’

  ‘You’re worth more to us than anything. We love you. Listen to me, Mum had a good life. She and Dad loved each other, and us. You’d cope, we’d all cope, together.’

  ‘But for twenty years I’d be dying.’

  ‘In the worst-case scenario, for twenty years you’d be living, which is more than you’re doing at the moment . . . Dad wants to speak to you.’

  He must have been sitting on Ursula’s lap . . . ‘Bronny, I have something for you. Have you got a fax there?’

  I checked and beside the computer there was a fax machine. ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s the number?’

  ‘I looked on the sticker on the machine and read it to him, then switched the machine on.’

  ‘I was supposed to give it to you after the result, but you ran away . . . It’s from Mum.’

  I was silent, waiting. Mum was about to speak to me. She was going to say something I’d not heard her say before, from a single piece of white paper. I gulped, and watched the fax’s ‘on’ button flash red. She’s coming, she’s coming . . . she’s here.