by C. J. Tudor
I never had, and my dad had worked down the mines most of his life, but I knew mines did have air shafts, to ventilate them. I didn’t see how that would help us much, though. Those shafts were the equivalent of chimney stacks. They ran all the way up to the surface. A drop of around three hundred feet straight down. That wasn’t a way in. That was suicide.
I was about to point this out when Hurst spoke again. ‘Go on, then,’ he said to Chris. ‘Open it.’
Chris looked pained. ‘I can’t.’
‘You can’t?’ Hurst shook his head in disgust. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Doughboy.’
He bent and tried to grasp the edges of the metal, wedging his fingers underneath. But it was so big and heavy I could see he was having difficulty getting any traction. He grunted and heaved then yelled at the rest of us: ‘Well, come on, fucking help me, you bunch of twats.’
Despite my trepidation, I complied, along with Fletch. We all dug our fingers into the dirt and tried to grasp the metal around the edges, but it was impossible. It was just too thick and too deeply embedded into the earth. It had probably been untouched for years. However much we pulled and twisted and tugged, it just wouldn’t budge.
‘Fuck this,’ Hurst gasped, and we all fell gratefully back on to the hard ground, arms aching, chests heaving.
I looked back at the strange metal circle. Yes, it was stuck fast in the earth, but if it was some kind of smoke or escape hatch, surely there ought to be a handle or lever so you could get it up quickly if necessary. That was the whole point of a hatch. But there was nothing, except that odd second circle, almost as if it wasn’t put there to be opened at all. Not to let anyone in, or out.
‘Right,’ Hurst said. ‘We need to get some proper tools and get it up.’
‘Now?’ I said. The light had faded so fast I could only just make out the ghostly circles of their faces.
‘What’s the matter? You wimping out, Thorney?’
I bristled. ‘No. I’m just saying, it’s almost dark. We’re not going to have much time. If we’re going in, we should be prepared.’
Not that I wanted to go in at all, if indeed there even was an ‘in’ to go to, but it seemed the best argument for now.
I thought he was going to argue back. Then he said, ‘You’re right. We’ll come back tomorrow.’ He looked around at us all. ‘We’ll need torches.’ He grinned. ‘And a crowbar.’
We covered the hatch roughly with dirt and rocks and then, as a marker, Hurst left his school tie in a loose knot on the ground. No one casually walking past would think anything of it. Ties, like trainers and socks, were often scattered around the old colliery site.
Then, as the final trace of light withered from the sky, we started to trudge home. I’m not sure, but I think I glanced back once, a strange feeling of unease tickling the base of my neck. I couldn’t have possibly seen anything from that distance, but in my mind I could still just make out the strange rusty hatch.
I didn’t like it.
A crowbar. I didn’t like that either.
17
After Marie has gone I can’t settle. My leg is hurting again, and even the addition of a large bourbon and two codeine tablets can’t ease the twitching nerves.
Sitting makes it ache. Pacing makes it throb. I curse and rub at it viciously. I try to distract myself with a book, some music, then I stand and smoke at the back door. Again.
My mind is also working overtime. Suffocate the Little Children, Rest in Pieces. It’s happening again. The sender of the text must be the same person who sent me the email. And if they know about the Angel, then they must have known me all those years ago. Not Hurst, or Marie. Fletch? I’m not sure Fletch is capable of sending a coherent text message, not with the lack of opposable thumbs. So, who else? And more to the point, why, why, why?
My general state of befuddled confusion has not been helped by Marie’s impromptu visit tonight. I’m not sure if I have done the right thing. If I have shown my hand too soon. A good gambler knows never to do that. Not without being damn certain what cards the other player is holding.
But then, I don’t have much time. Certainly not as much as I thought. Because Gloria is here. Waiting. Impatiently. Tapping those glittery red nails. If I don’t satisfy her demands soon, the game will be over. Because I will be dead, quite possibly with no hands at all. Or feet. Or anything that could be used to identify my body.
I chuck my cigarette out into the darkness and watch the glowing red tip dim and die. Then I turn, limp back into the kitchen and take the folder out from beneath the sink. Because who am I kidding? I was always going to read it. I pour another drink, walk into the living room and place it on the coffee table in front of me.
The twitching nerves in my leg aren’t the only things that are restless tonight. I can feel the cottage shifting around me. The lights seem to ebb and dim occasionally – nothing new with a village electricity supply – but I can hear something too. A noise. Familiar. Troubling. That same faint chittering sound. It makes my fillings hum and the hairs on my skin bristle. Grating, external tinnitus.
I wonder if Julia sat here and tried to tune out the same insidious noise. Night after night. Or if it only came later? Chicken and egg. Did what happened to Ben somehow change the cottage? Or was the cottage already a part of it? The skittering in the walls and the creeping cold feeding Julia’s fear and paranoia?
I drag my hands through my hair and rub at my eyes. The chittering seems to have grown louder. I try to ignore it. I thumb through the folder until, once again, Annie’s face beams out at me.
SEARCH FOR MISSING EIGHT-YEAR-OLD CONTINUES. The headline. But not the whole story. Not even close.
Dad put her to bed that night. About eight. Or so he thought. He was drunk. As he was most evenings by then. Mum was at Nan and Grandad’s house because Nan had had a ‘nasty fall’ a few days before and broken her ankle and wrist. I was out with Hurst and his gang. It wasn’t until the next morning that Mum discovered Annie wasn’t in her bed, or her room, or anywhere in the house.
The police were called. There were questions, searches. Uniformed officers and local men, including my dad, spread out in uneven lines across the old colliery site and the fields beyond, hunch-shouldered against the pummelling rain, dressed in long black waterproofs that made them look like giant vultures. They trod slowly and wearily, as though in time to some sombre internal beat, and brushed at the ground with branches and sticks.
I wanted to go with them. I asked, begged, but a kind-faced officer with a beard and bald crown placed a hand on my shoulder and said gently: ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, son. Best you stay here, help your mum.’
At the time, I was angry. Thought he was treating me like a child, a nuisance. Later I would realize he was trying to protect me. From finding my sister’s body.
I could have told him it was too late to protect me. I could have told the police a lot of things, but nobody wanted to listen. I tried. I told them how sometimes Annie would follow me when I went out with my mates, sneak out of the house. I’d brought her back before. They nodded and took notes, but it didn’t really change anything. They knew Annie had sneaked out of the house. They just didn’t know where she’d gone.
The one thing I couldn’t tell them was the truth, not the whole truth, because nobody would have believed me. I wasn’t even sure I believed it myself.
Every second, minute and hour that passed the terror and guilt grew. I have never been more aware of what a coward I am than in the forty-eight hours that my sister was missing. Fear battled conscience, tearing up my insides. I’m not sure which would have won in the end if the impossible hadn’t happened. I turn the page:
MISSING EIGHT-YEAR-OLD FOUND –
Parents’ joy!!
I was in the kitchen making toast for Mum and Dad when Annie came back. The bread was stale and a bit mouldy. Nobody had gone shopping since last week. I scraped off the mould and stuck it under the grill. It didn’t matter. They wouldn’t eat
it anyway. I would just end up throwing it in the bin with the previous day’s uneaten meals.
There was a knock at the door. We all looked up, but no one moved. Three knocks. Did that mean news? We listened like it was Morse code. Knock, knock, knock. Good or bad?
It was Mum who broke first. Maybe she was the bravest, or maybe she was just tired of waiting. She needed release, one way or another. She shoved her chair back and staggered to the door. Dad didn’t move at all. I hovered in the hallway. I could smell the toast burning, but neither of us moved to take it off the grill.
Mum pulled open the door. A policeman stood there. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I saw Mum wilt and clutch the doorframe. My heart stuttered to a halt. I couldn’t swallow. I couldn’t breathe. And then she turned and screamed:
‘She’s alive! They found her! They found our baby!’
We went to the police station together (Arnhill had its own back then), squashed into the back of a blue-and-white police car: Mum and Dad wet-eyed with joy and relief and me a sweating mass of jangling nerves. As we climbed out of the car my legs gave and Dad had to catch my arm. ‘It’s all right, son,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be all right now.’
I wanted to believe him. I really did. I used to think my dad was right about everything. Always trusted his word. But even then I knew. Things weren’t all right. Things would never be all right again.
‘She hasn’t said very much,’ the officer told us as we walked down a long, pale blue corridor that smelled of sweat and urine. ‘Just her name, and she asked for a drink.’
We all nodded.
‘Did someone take her?’ Mum blurted out. ‘Did someone hurt her?’
‘We don’t know. A dog walker found her wandering up on the old colliery site. She doesn’t seem to have any physical injuries. She’s just cold and a little dehydrated.’
‘Can we take her home?’ Dad asked.
The officer nodded. ‘Yes, I think that would be best.’
He held open the door to the interview room.
‘Joe.’ Mum nudged me and, before I had a chance to gather myself, or make sense of anything, we walked inside.
Annie sat on a plastic chair, next to a lady police officer who obviously didn’t have much to do with children, and looked awkward and uncomfortable.
There was a small cup of squash on the table and some uneaten biscuits. Annie stared straight past them at the dirty, scuffed wall and swung her legs back and forth. Her pyjamas were muddy and torn in places. The police had wrapped her in a blue blanket that was too big and no doubt intended for the adult prisoners who normally frequented the cells. Her feet were bare. And black with coal dust.
She clutched something to her chest, half hidden by the blanket. I could just see dirty-blonde curls, pink plastic, one blue eye. My scalp prickled. Abbie-Eyes. She brought her back.
‘Oh, Annie.’
Mum and Dad ran over and wrapped her in their arms. They smothered her in kisses, getting covered in dirt and coal dust themselves but not caring because their daughter was back. Their little girl was home, safe and sound.
Annie remained still, face impassive, only her legs swinging back and forth. Mum slowly drew away, her face tear-streaked. She reached out and smoothed a hand down Annie’s cheek.
‘What happened, sweetheart? What happened to you?’
I hovered by the door, hoping that the officers would mistake my reticence for teenage awkwardness. Perhaps I was even trying to convince myself it was the reason I hadn’t moved any closer.
Annie looked up. Her eyes found mine.
‘Joey.’
She smiled … and that was when I realized what was wrong. What was so terribly, horribly wrong …
I stand. The closeness of memory feels suffocating, like it’s choking me. I can taste bitter bile at the back of my throat. I stagger upstairs, making it to the bathroom just in time. I spew sour brown liquid into the stained sink. I pause, breathing raggedly, and then my stomach convulses again. More vomit forces its way out of my throat and down my nose. I clutch at the cold porcelain, trying to catch my breath and stop myself from shaking. I lean there for a while, waiting for my legs to regain some solidity, staring at the vomit-splattered basin.
Eventually, I turn on the tap and wash the lumpy brown contents of my stomach down the plughole. I spit a few times and breathe, slowly and deeply. The water from the sink gurgles noisily down the pipes.
That’s not all I can hear. Now I’ve finished vomiting, I’m conscious again of that invasive chittering, skittering sound. Closer. Insistent. All around me. I shiver. The cold is back too. Creeping cold.
I look over at the toilet. The brick still squats on top of it. I carefully lift it off. Then I reach for the plastic toilet brush and use the scraggy end to flip up the lid. I inch forward and peer inside. Empty. I look around. The shower curtain is closed. I grab the mouldy edge and yank it to one side. The only thing lurking behind it is a scum of shower gel and a dirty sponge.
I walk out of the bathroom. The chittering, skittering seems to move with me. In the pipes, the walls? I advance along the landing, still brandishing the toilet brush. I glance in my bedroom. Nothing to see here. Something about this niggles at me. And then it’s gone. I keep moving forward, towards Ben’s room.
There’s a smell. Not the toilet brush. This smell is rich, metallic. I’ve smelled it before. Another house. Another door. But the same feral scent, the same creeping cold, slithering through my guts like an icy parasite.
I grip the handle. Then I push open the door and quickly flick the switch. The bare bulb spews out a jaundiced yellow light. I look around. It’s not a big room. Just enough space for a single bed, a wardrobe and one small chest of drawers. The room has been decorated. Several coats, I imagine …
I see all of this, but I don’t really see it. Because all I see is red. Soaking the new mattress, running down the wall. Slippery, ruby rivulets slithering down from the words painted there.
Her writing. His blood.
NOT MY SON.
When did she decide? When did she realize? Was it a slow accumulation, the horror and dread building every minute, every hour, every day until she could no longer take it? The smell, the creeping cold, the noises. She already had the gun. But she didn’t use the gun on Ben. She killed him with her bare hands. Consumed by fear, rage? Or did something happen that left her with no other choice?
I force myself to close my eyes. When I open them the blood and words have gone. The walls are bare and clean, the same shade of bland off-white as the rest of the house. Malevolent magnolia. I give the room a final glance. Then I back out and close the door. I rest my forehead against the wood, breathing deeply.
Just the cottage. Just playing with your mind.
I turn. My heart stops.
‘Jesus!’
Abbie-Eyes sits on the carpet, halfway down the landing.
Pudgy plastic legs poke out in front of her, blonde curls stick out in disarray, her wonky eye gazes off towards a dusty cobweb in the corner. The good blue eye stares up at me mockingly.
Hey, Joey. I came back. Again.
I stare around, as if I might spot some cheeky doll-depositing burglar creeping down the stairs, giggling at his little joke. But no one is there.
On unsteady legs I walk over and pick Abbie-Eyes up. The loose eye rattles. Her cheap polyester dress rustles stiffly. The weight of her, the feel of the hard, cold plastic in my hand, makes my skin squirm.
The urge to hurl her out of a window, into the overgrown back garden, is almost overwhelming, but I’m seized by an even more unpleasant image of her crawling back to the house, her plastic, rosy-cheeked face pressed to the glass, peering in from the darkness.
Instead, holding her at arm’s length, like an unexploded bomb, I walk back down the stairs and into the kitchen. I open the cupboard under the sink, stuff her inside, along with the toilet brush, and slam the door shut.
Shit. My whole body is shaking. I’m not s
ure if I’m about to faint or about to have a heart attack. I pour a glass of water and gulp it down greedily.
I try to rationalize. Maybe I moved Annie’s doll myself and forgot – some kind of alcohol blackout. I remember Brendan telling me how, in his drinking days, he suffered from hallucinations and memory loss. Once, he woke to find he had pushed a wardrobe down the stairs. He had no recollection of doing it or any idea why.
‘’Course, I was a lot bigger back then.’ He winked. ‘Alcohol weight.’
Brendan, I think. I need to talk to Brendan. I try his number. It goes to voicemail. This isn’t comforting, despite Gloria’s assertion that he is fine. Gloria is not, I don’t think, a liar. But it would be good to hear his voice, even if it is just telling me to ‘feck off’. It occurs to me that I have come to count on Brendan being around when I need him, his presence as familiar and comforting as an old pair of jeans, or my boogie shoes. Worry gnaws at my already ragged edges.
I limp back into the living room. The folder is still open on the coffee table. I haven’t finished it. Some pages I skimmed. But I’m done for tonight. I get the message: Arnhill is a grim little village where a lot of bad things have happened. Jinxed. Cursed. Abandon hope all ye who enter here.
I start to pile the pages back into the folder. One of them catches my eye. It’s another newspaper cutting:
TRAGIC DEATH OF PROMISING STUDENT
The picture: a smiling teenage girl. Pretty, with long dark hair and a glinting silver nose ring. Something about her smile reminds me of Annie. Despite myself, I scan the story. Emily Ryan, thirteen, a student at Arnhill Academy who killed herself with an overdose of alcohol and paracetamol. Described as ‘bright, fun and full of life’.
‘You ever lost one?’
Beth’s voice pops into my head. The student she talked about. Must be. But something about that is wrong. I sit down. It takes me a moment, my frazzled brain taking a while to haul itself up to speed. Finally, it clunks rustily into place.