His heart ached, as he looked at her standing next to Verity, cute in dungarees and a yellow T-shirt, her dark hair layered to her shoulders. ‘You have to stay,’ she said. ‘You have to stay with us, Daddy.’
Hugh froze in the doorway, adjusting the child in his arms. ‘I can’t stay. And neither can you. This life isn’t normal, sweetheart. You’ll understand that when you are bigger. But I will get help for you and your mummy. I promise.’
‘No!’ the child yelled, and stomped her foot one, two, three times. ‘Don’t go, Daddy. Don’t take Rosie.’
‘But Rosie is sick.’ Hugh hated that he was going along with the name. ‘I have to get her to somewhere safe, and then I’ll come back for you and your mummy.’
The moments that followed happened so fast. Hugh barely had time to think, let alone react. Faith grabbed the knife from the worktop and ran at him, plunging the blade into his side. ‘You can’t take Rosie, Daddy,’ she cried as the knife clattered to the tiled floor. ‘You just can’t.’
Within seconds, Verity had grabbed a screaming Faith, and the girl’s arms flapped and smacked, as she tried to get free from Verity’s grip.
‘You can’t tell anyone, Hugh,’ Verity cried. ‘They’ll take her away from me. I can’t lose her. I can’t lose her.’
Hugh stumbled through the kitchen door, and across the hall, holding his side, blood dripping onto the parquet flooring. He looked over his shoulder, expecting Verity to follow, but she didn’t.
The keys to her car were in a dish by the front door. He grabbed them, and his coat, and lumbered into the warm summer’s day.
Outside, with shaking hands, he strapped his daughter into the back seat, laid the cuddly tiger in her arms, and wrapped her in a grey beach towel he found on the seat. ‘Everything’s going to be OK,’ he said to her, barely believing his words.
With wide-open eyes, the child stared up at the house, seeming to take it in – filing it in her memory.
Hugh limped round to the driver’s side, wincing in pain as he folded himself inside. He hadn’t driven much since he lived in Bristol, and crunched the gears several times before pulling away at speed.
He drove fast along the causeway, tyres churning sand, desperate to get away, blood oozing from his side, the pain intolerable. But he had to keep on going. He had to.
He glanced in the rear-view mirror, adjusted it slightly to see his daughter on the back seat. Her eyes were still wide open as she looked about her. He moved his gaze to the reflection of Flynn House framed, captured, a tiny version of hell, before pressing his foot down on the throttle, and pulling off the causeway onto the country road, and away. He had no idea where he would go, but knew he would never be back – not even for his sister, not even for the child he once thought was his own.
Chapter 42
Halloween Weekend 2019
Alice
‘Your lips are so pink, Rosie. Rosie-pink.’ Faith giggles. Fake. Childlike. ‘Christine must have put too much colouring into the icing.’ A pause. ‘She didn’t know what else I put into the mixture, of course.’
Alice looks down at the cake; the yellow crumbs sprinkled across the plastic plate, and at the puppets, each with their own pristine, uneaten fairy cake in front of them.
‘I still can’t believe Hugh was a best-selling author,’ Faith says, her tone chatty. ‘I’ve read all his books. Though I didn’t realise at the time who he was. Ironic now I think about it.’
‘The police will be here soon.’ Alice’s voice is weak.
‘Oh dear, you still believe that?’ Faith leans forward, runs her finger over Alice’s lips. ‘I didn’t call them. It was just pretend. I’m good at pretending.’
‘Let me go, Faith, please.’ Alice hears the slight slur in her voice, notices the gradual heaviness of her limbs.
‘No!’ Faith cries. ‘You must stay. Eat more cake.’ She rests the knife blade against Alice’s cheek. ‘Well go on, eat up.’
Alice nibbles at the sponge, knowing it’s laced with something toxic – poison hemlock?
Faith moves the blade, turns to look at the barred window, and Alice takes advantage of her distraction, crushes the remaining cake in her fist, feeling it reduce in size, stodgy in her fingers.
‘Mum thought she’d found you and Hugh once, in Devon. You must have been seven – eight, perhaps.’ Faith shrugs, eyes back on Alice. ‘Then you vanished. Mother cried for weeks after that.’
‘I saw her,’ Alice whispers. Why had her father said she imagined it? But she knows the answer to that before the question barely enters her head: she could never know about his past. She takes a gulp of air. ‘Why didn’t you just tell me who you really are?’
Faith makes a weird puffing sound. ‘You would never have come back here, stayed with me forever.’
Alice sways, her head swimming, her mouth dry. She hasn’t eaten much of the cake. I can fight this. I can fight this.
‘Though I planned all of this long before I found you. You’re just the icing on the cake, as it were. When mother left the house and money to me, it was in dire need of repair,’ she says. ‘I decided to do the old place up. Make it the perfect setting to hold a last supper, as it were. Revenge is the best medicine, Rosie. It’s rewarding. Uplifting. Perfect.’
‘But why Lori and Gabriela? Please tell me you haven’t killed Gabriela,’ Alice says, thinking of the girl who looked so lost – afraid. ‘She’s just a girl – an innocent girl.’
Faith shrugs. ‘To be fair, Gabriela shouldn’t be here at all. Bloody Christine took her on. She has nothing to do with any of this. Of course I will have to kill her. I can’t have any loose ends. She and Lori are somewhere on the island, and I will find them before the tide goes out.’ She laughs, rubs a finger across her chin.
She’s deranged. How hadn’t Alice seen it? She needs to keep her talking.
‘But why Lori?’
‘Nanny Bell? Well, that’s simple. She hated my mother. Made life impossibly hard for her. There were other awful nannies, of course. I tried to find them all. Some were in care homes, others dead. In fact, Nanny Bell was the only one I could find who would remember us. She’d moved back to Suffolk only recently, and will wish she hadn’t. She will die for them all.’
Alice’s head swims, her hands are clammy. Keep her talking. Keep her talking. ‘My yellow dress?’
Faith laughs. ‘Now that’s a very funny story.’ A pause. ‘When I delivered Paulo to your room, I saw your dress screwed up on the bed. I thought it might creep you out to find it outside on the lawn, so I opened the window and threw it out. I never dreamt it would all become so dramatic. That the wind would catch it and it would end up on the rocks. That Leon would see it. It was all rather marvellous, almost theatrical.’ She screws up her face, her eyes wild. ‘Why did you leave me, Rosie?’
‘I was five years old.’
‘But you never came back.’
‘I had no memory of any of this – until now.’
‘I hope you understand why I must make sure you’ll stay this time.’
‘But people are dead, Faith. How do you think you’ll get away with this? The Winslows, Mitch, Christine. Their families will miss them. Don’t you see that? They’ll know they came here. They’ll contact the police. Leon’s parents know we’re here. They won’t rest until they find him.’ A beat. ‘Let me go, Faith. Please.’
‘Sorry, no can do – you will stay with me.’ Faith puts down the knife, unzips both Alice’s ankle-boots, pulls one from her foot, then the other.
‘What are you doing?’ Fear knots inside her as she watches Faith push her leggings up her leg, away from her ankles, her fingers icy cold.
Faith rises to her feet, reaches up and takes the saw from the wall, its wide sharp teeth glinting like they belong in the mouth of a wild animal – a predator.
‘As soon as the drug fully kicks in,’ Faith says, turning back to Alice and smiling, ‘which it will very soon. I will make sure you never leave me again. And we wil
l all live happily ever after.’
Chapter 43
Halloween Weekend 2019
Alice
Let your mind and body combine. Find yourself in a beautiful stillness. Rest in peace.
Alice tries to control the fear rising in her body. Steady. Quell her pulses. Steady. Manage her breathing. Surrender to the stillness.
‘I don’t want to hurt you, Rosie,’ Faith says. ‘But I have to do this. I hope you understand. I promise to sew you up neatly, like I did to Paulo and Ralfie when I removed their feet. You’ll be sore for a while, I expect. But I’ll take good care of you. I promise.’
Alice’s mind is fading. She’s losing her grip on the moment. Keep alert.
‘And in case you’re wondering, the drugs I put in your fairy cake were Mummy’s pills. They will wear off in a few hours. They always do.’
Alice feels Faith’s clammy hands on her ankles once more. ‘You’re shaking. Relax, Rosie. Relax.’
The chill of the metal against Alice’s skin sends a shriek of terror through her body. She has to move. She has to take control. She attempts to move, but the drugs impair her movement. The pain as the blade tears through her flesh is unbearable. She lets out a scream. Feels the cold trickle of blood on her ankle.
A sudden hammering on the door startles both women. ‘Faith? Alice?’ The voice is familiar. ‘Alice?’
Faith rises, places her finger against her lips. ‘Shh!’
Loud thuds follow. Someone is ramming the door over and over. ‘Faith?’ they call. And then there is silence.
Faith crouches down once more. ‘Now, where were we?’ she says, pushing a tear-damp, straying hair from Alice’s cheek.
Within moments, something hard is being bashed against the lock.
‘Go away,’ Faith yells, rising up once more, leaving the saw on the floor. ‘Leave us alone. We’re happy here.’
The lock smashes. The door swings open.
‘Gabriela!’ Faith reaches for the knife, but the young woman lunges at her, pushes her. Faith stumbles, falls to the floor, cracking her head against the wall.
‘You poisoned my father,’ Gabriela yells. ‘You left him to die. You pay for this.’ Her accent is strong, her face pale. She looks at Alice through fired blue eyes, then back at Faith who is lying on the floor, holding her head, crying out in pain. ‘You tell me why. You tell me why you do this.’ She picks up the knife, points it at Faith. ‘Or I kill you.’
‘You’re Mikolaj’s daughter?’ Faith whimpers from where she cowers, eyes widening in shock.
A beat. ‘Tell me. Tell me why you do this – why you do something so horrific to my father.’ Tears fill Gabriela’s eyes.
Faith takes a long deep breath. ‘My mother loved him. She said in her diary that her time with him was the happiest she’d ever been.’ Her eyes are shimmering with tears. ‘And then he walked out.’
‘So you find him?’ The young woman’s voice trembles. ‘You poison him for this?’ Her knuckles turn white as she grips the knife, points it towards Faith, her arm shaking.
‘There was a photo of him in the pages of her diary.’ Faith rubs her head; blood trickles down her forehead. ‘It took months to find him. I wanted revenge. He abandoned my mother, abandoned me – he was my father too.’
‘He had no idea of this.’
Faith shrugs. ‘I know. He was shocked when I told him. But he abandoned my mother when she was at her most vulnerable.’
Alice is sluggish, her ankle throbs in pain, she can do no more than listen to their exchange of words.
‘Poland’s a beautiful country.’ Faith lowers her head. ‘Mother loved it there. For a short while.’ She closes her eyes. ‘I told Mikolaj I was his daughter, that my mother died because of him. He said my mother was deranged – a stalker.’
‘He told me who you are – that you wanted him to come to Flynn House. That when he refused, you pretend to accept this, make him drink—’
‘How do you know? I left him to die. There is no antidote for poison hemlock.’
‘Nie. This is true. When I arrive to see him in agony. But still he tell me about you. What you do.’
Faith’s move is sudden. She lunges towards Gabriela, attempts to grab the knife.
It all happens so fast. Gabriela’s reaction is whippet-quick – she plunges the knife into Faith’s chest.
Alice’s chest tightens as she watches her once friend – her cousin – fall to the floor. She reaches for her hand, her own arm heavy, thinking of the child Faith had once been – a little girl called Tiger who visited the attic room when Alice needed a friend most. She hears a struggle for breath and then nothing. Faith is gone.
Leon
Leon’s heart thumps as he takes the final stairs to the attic room.
He’s left Lori with Christine.
He staggers into the room, taking shaky breaths, eyes wide, bewildered, as he falls to the floor, pulling Alice to him.
He blinks rapidly, his gaze roaming his surroundings. Faith is lifeless, blood saturating her dungarees, a knife in her chest; Gabriela stands, arms rigid by her sides – frozen, pale. Two ventriloquist puppets look macabre, awaiting a tea party that will never happen. The walls are muddy brown, the carpet grass green.
‘There’s a rowing boat in the shed,’ Leon says after a silence that stretched and stretched, his voice shaking. ‘We need to get to the mainland.’
‘Faith thought I was her best friend,’ Alice says, her face expressionless, her voice slurring. ‘She wanted me to stay.’
Alice
The boat bobs on the salty sea, churning Alice’s stomach. She feels sick. Her brain is foggy from whatever Faith put in the cake, her mind a scrambled mess. She blinks, trying to focus on the sun rising on the horizon; its rays glinting on the water, dancing with the joy of a new day.
They are halfway to Dunwold. They are halfway from Seafield Island.
Safe now.
Lori rows, strong and steady, the oars splitting the still water. She hasn’t spoken since they left Flynn House – nobody has.
Christine is curled in the base of the boat, covered to her neck with an old, grey blanket. Lori found a pulse when she and Leon discovered her at the foot of the stairs, but it’s only faint – Christine will need to be taken straight to hospital when they reach the mainland.
Alice leans against Leon, his arm around her shoulders. She’s still woozy, and her ankle throbs, wrapped tightly in a towel. She will need stitches.
Gabriela sits on the other side of her. Alice isn’t scared. Gabriela isn’t a threat to them. She killed Faith because of what she did to her father.
The thought of what the police will find at Flynn Hotel doesn’t bear thinking about. A twisted, desperate woman who was stabbed, after wreaking revenge on the people she believed ruined her mother’s life – her life.
She glances back towards Flynn Hotel, blinks, adjusting her eyes to the Victorian Gothic building standing on the cliff edge, grand and imposing, with its steep, high roof rising to a point, and its arched windows. A shudder runs down her spine. She swiftly moves her gaze back towards the coastline, towards safety, towards home, towards the future.
Chapter 44
November 2019
Detective Sergeant Short isn’t one for letting things get to him – a hefty bloke in his late forties, he worked in Kansas City in the US for thirty years after growing up there. He thought he’d seen pretty much everything by the time he moved to Suffolk with his English wife in 2014. ‘It’ll be a chance to wind down,’ she said. ‘You don’t get any less stressful than Suffolk,’ she said. And now look what he is faced with: two bodies propped up like life-sized dolls in one of the bedrooms, another victim – a middle-aged man – in another room, and a creepy attic room. The whole scenario is off-the-scale weird.
The body of Faith Flynn had been taken from the attic. The odd, footless puppets have been bagged, along with a saw, a knife, and the remains of an apparently drugged fairy cake.
&n
bsp; ‘It looks as if there’s a grave in the wood, boss,’ Detective Constable Martin says, and the DS startles and looks over his shoulder at the young officer framed in the doorway. She’s red-faced and wheezing a little from climbing the stairs. She takes out an inhaler. Takes two puffs. ‘Just a small wooden cross with a “P” on it.’ She shrugs, pushes her ginger hair from her face. ‘Could be a pet. Could be nothing. Could be something.’
‘You should be a detective,’ Short says, trying for humour, but not feeling it. ‘Right, get the area cordoned off.’
‘Will do, boss.’ DC Martin disappears from view, and then pokes her head back round the door. ‘Oh, and they’re about to go into the cottage.’
‘OK.’ DS Short nods, and flicks his eyes around the attic for a final time. ‘This place,’ he whispers to himself, as a shiver runs down his spine. ‘It’s as though someone’s still here. Watching.’ He shudders, and leaves the room.
Back in the hotel’s reception, DC Martin appears through the double doors of the bar, her face drained of colour.
‘You OK?’ Short says, stopping at the foot of the stairs.
‘Yeah, fine.’ Her voice holds a quiver. ‘Just a weird place, is all.’ She shakes her head, glances back over her shoulder towards the bar. ‘It’s creepy, right?’
‘Let’s get over to the cottage,’ he says.
*
The team are searching the place when they arrive, and the DS and DC clamber into fresh protective gear, and enter.
‘Who’s this guy, do you reckon?’ Short picks up a picture of a young couple from the dresser in his gloved hands.
‘Cameron Patterson, I think,’ DC Martin says, as Short puts it back down again. ‘There’s a picture of him in reception. The owner, according to that, but I’m not sure where he is.’
The DS shakes his head, and furrows his forehead. ‘Odd. Alice Hadley said the owner was Faith Flynn, the woman we found dead in the attic. Bag the picture.’
‘Will do.’
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