Desperation Point

by Malcolm Richards

  What was going on there? She’d thought it best not to ask, but when Carrie had started questioning her about Aaron, she’d answered honestly. Which she now regretted.

  Even more reason to hope that further revelations were waiting to be discovered at St. Just in Roseland.

  The road was descending, leading her down a hill. A minute later, she found her destination on the right.

  Set into the hillside, the churchyard was a maze of stone paths and steps leading through copses of evergreens and palms trees, thickets of bamboo, rhododendron, and winter blooms of bright camellias.

  The air was thin and icy, the breeze laced with sea salt.

  Nat descended through the churchyard, staring in awe at its natural beauty, until she reached the bottom of the hill.

  St. Just’s Church stood before her, a beautiful, 13th century stone construct framed by the backdrop of St. Just Creek. A few boats bobbed up and down on the tidal waters, gently tugging at their moorings.

  On the opposite bank, pine trees grew tall and proud. A few white houses sat nestled in between. Beyond them were rolling, hilly fields. Even in winter it was a breathtaking sight.

  Nat felt the peace around her like a comforting blanket. It was a shame she had come here under such morbid circumstances. Circling the church, she peered curiously through its ornate windows. If there had been a Sunday service, it had already come to an end; no one was inside. In fact, she hadn’t seen a single person since she’d arrived. Which was eerie and comforting at the same time.

  Where did she start looking?

  On her way down, she’d spied hundreds of headstones, some peeking through the trees and undergrowth, others lining the paths or climbing the hill in tiers. It could take her hours to find what she was searching for. And she had maybe two left of daylight at most.

  Chewing her lower lip, she glanced around at the nearest headstones. They were old and moss-covered, their engravings worn down by sea salt and years of weather. Most of the death dates were from the 1800s.

  She glanced up the hill, trying to see beyond the trees and shrubberies. Then she started climbing the stone steps, retracing her route. At the top, near the gated entrance, the headstones were newer, shinier. A lot of the death dates were from the 1980s.

  Nat pulled out her phone and unlocked the screen. Opening the photographs folder, she flipped through pictures until she found the one she was looking for—a screenshot of Kathleen-Ann Nancarrow’s death certificate, taken from the Family Historical Research Society database.

  “14th March, 1966,” she read aloud.

  She turned and looked downhill. If the older graves were closest to the church and the newest near the churchyard entrance, then Kathleen-Ann’s grave couldn’t be too far from where she was standing. The only way she was going to find it was to start looking.

  So, Nat began, moving from headstone to headstone, reading names, dates, and epitaphs, walking up and down rows, ducking in between trees, and stepping along paths. And as the minutes ticked by and the sky grew dim, she didn’t once stop to think why she was looking for the grave of Grady Spencer’s wife, whose body had washed up on the shore below fifty years earlier. Perhaps it was because she felt a strange connection to Kathleen-Ann Nancarrow; a connection which she didn’t truly understand.

  Or perhaps it was because she couldn’t quite believe that Grady Spencer had not been birthed from a nightmare. Perhaps she had needed to see that monsters were born just like anyone else.

  Grady Spencer’s birthplace was beautiful and filled with peace, and even though she didn’t believe in a higher power, she could feel it all around her. But the greatest horror could be born out of the greatest beauty, she knew that only too well. And she saw it for herself again, almost two hours later.

  As the day grew dark and bruised the sky, Kathleen-Ann’s headstone revealed itself, partially hidden in foliage beneath the fronds of a Trachycarpus palm. Dropping to her knees, Nat swept back the leaves and read the neatly etched epitaph.

  “Kathleen-Ann Nancarrow, born 29th May, 1944, died 14th March, 1966. Taken from this world far too soon. Loving wife. Loving daughter.”

  Then she stared with terrified eyes at the crudely chiselled words below: AND USELESS BITCH MOTHER.

  31

  WHAT DID HE KNOW?

  Aaron was back at the hotel, his research notes scattered across the bed and the desk, his mind a mess of colliding thoughts. As soon as Dylan Killigrew had appeared in Carrie’s living room with a face full of thunder, Aaron had quickly made his excuses and left. The tension in the air had been palpable, and the way that Dylan had reacted to Aaron’s presence had suggested it was best to leave before bones were broken. Besides, he’d got what he’d come for.

  Carrie had agreed to an exclusive interview.

  Yes, there was the small issue of finding Cal in exchange, but now Aaron had knowledge that the police didn’t: someone was deliberately keeping Cal hidden.

  He’d spent the last hour poring over his notes and printouts, scouring every word and sentence, searching for the key that would unlock a door in his mind and reveal what it was that he knew.

  Because Aaron was certain he knew something about Cal’s whereabouts. He had known it as soon as Carrie had recalled Grady Spencer’s words: They tried to take him away from me. They tried to take him to the farm. But he came back.

  There was something here, hidden among all the information he’d gathered. But where? What had he missed?

  He cast his eyes around the room. Like a flash of lightning, the answer came to him.

  “My camera. . .”

  Grabbing his bag from the floor, he removed the camera, switched it on, then sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. Setting the camera to ‘review’ mode, he began sifting through all the images he’d taken since arriving in Cornwall. He moved backward in time, past photographs of all the places he’d visited, the people he’d interviewed, the rooms of Grady Spencer’s house, until he was back at the beginning, staring at those first images he’d snapped of the beach at Devil’s Cove on a windswept Sunday morning,

  “What am I looking for?” he breathed.

  He flipped forward again, returning to the photographs of Grady Spencer’s house of horrors, until he came to the pictures of the basement. Whatever it was, suddenly he knew he would find it here among the bloodstains and bricked up doors and ghosts of murdered children.

  He slowed down, zooming in on each picture.

  His breaths grew fast and shallow. His intuition tightened its grip on his gut.

  And there it was. The connection he’d been missing.

  He stared at the photograph. He pinched the screen, zooming in. The image was of the etchings he’d found scraped into the basement wall; childlike scratchings of figures and animals and buildings.

  There, in the middle, was a crude etching of a house with broken windows. Next to the house was a Christ-like figure with claws for hands; hands that were nailed to a cross. Except it wasn’t Jesus Christ like Aaron had first presumed.

  It was a scarecrow.

  And yesterday, he had seen one just like it.

  With trembling fingers, he raced forward in time, flicking through the thumbnail images until he found the photograph he was looking for.

  It had been taken at dusk. The house was visible on the right side of the picture, its boarded-up windows like eyes watching from shadows.

  The scarecrow was on the left; a chilling silhouette that Aaron had first seen from the corner of his eye.

  It had frightened him. He’d thought it was Cal.

  What was the name of the farm?

  He scanned back a few images, until he came upon the rusting field gate and its faded, ominous sign.

  BURNT HOUSE FARM.

  This was it.

  This was where Cal was hiding.

  There had been a little girl. A little girl and a red-haired woman, who’d threatened to fetch her husband if Aaron didn’t leave.

  Who were
these people? Why were they keeping Cal hidden like a terrible secret?

  Aaron turned back to the photograph of the scarecrow and the house with broken windows.

  They tried to take him from me. They tried to take him to the farm. But he came back.

  These people knew Grady Spencer. They were connected to him somehow. And if they’d known about Cal, if they’d tried to rescue him, had they also known about all the children Spencer had murdered?

  His head swelling with confusion, Aaron dropped the camera on the bed and moved over to the window. Outside, the street was quiet and empty.

  “What’s going on here?” he thought aloud.

  Why had these people tried to rescue Cal but not reported Spencer to the police?

  It didn’t make sense.

  Unless. . .

  “Unless they’re somehow involved, too.”

  A shrill ringing pierced the air, startling him. It was the hotel room phone.

  “Mr. Black, you have a visitor,” the receptionist said, sounding harassed. “The young woman from the other day.”

  Nat? What was she doing here?

  “Tell her I’m busy,” Aaron said.

  “I’m afraid she’s already on her way up.”

  Aaron hung up. Shit.

  He quickly gathered up his notes from the bed and tidied them into a rough pile on the desk. Switching off the camera, he slipped it back inside his bag.

  He was so close now that he could almost sense Cal moving in the shadows. He could tell no one, not even Nat. Especially not Nat. She couldn’t wait to tell Carrie all about his failing career and she’d almost wrecked his chances of getting Carrie on board in the process.

  What would Nat do if she knew how close Aaron was to finding Cal? Who would she tell? One phone call to the police and they’d be crawling all over Burnt House Farm before Aaron could stop them.

  No one was going to take this opportunity away from him. Not when he was this close to success.

  A loud hammering on the door pulled him from his thoughts. He crossed the room and let Nat in.

  “I’ve been trying to call,” she said, barging past and throwing her bag onto the bed. “Why haven’t you been picking up?”

  “I’ve had my phone switched off. I’ve been busy,” he said.

  “Busy doing what?” Nat glanced at the pile of papers on the desk. Aaron moved into the room, blocking her path.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  Nat’s face twitched as she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. “I found something. Like, something major! This afternoon I went down to St. Just in Roseland, to the churchyard where Kathleen-Ann Nancarrow is buried.”

  Aaron frowned. “Why?”

  Sucking in a deep breath, Nat proceeded to tell him what she’d learned about Grady Spencer’s origins—his parents, the fire, how she believed it was no accident—and then she showed him the photograph she’d taken of Kathleen-Ann’s final resting place.

  Aaron took the phone and stared at the awful words someone had hacked into the headstone

  “Don’t you see?” Nat gasped. “Grady Spencer had a child!”

  Aaron was quiet, staring at the picture. This was a good find; a development he hadn’t expected. But his own, very recent revelation had him distracted.

  “How do you know for sure?” he said, handing the phone back.

  The excitement in Nat’s eyes died. “What the hell are you talking about?” she said. “Why else would someone come along and carve those words into her headstone?”

  “You tell me.”

  Nat was quiet for a moment, gathering her thoughts. “Well, you remember that old news article I found? It said that Kathleen-Ann had been estranged from her family for over a year. That she’d hidden herself away. No one had seen her. Grady Spencer told everyone that she’d had a miscarriage and become depressed because she’d been left sterile. But what if she hadn’t miscarried? What if she’d had that kid?”

  “So, you think she killed herself not because she’d miscarried but because Grady Spencer had what? Murdered their own child?”

  “At first that’s what I thought. That Spencer had killed their child, then murdered Kathleen-Ann, or had driven her to suicide. But that theory left me with a question.”

  “Who carved these words into the headstone?”

  “Exactly. The actual epitaph mentions nothing about Kathleen-Ann being a mother. But someone knew the truth. Someone came to her grave and carved those awful words. And I think it could have only been one of two people. Either Grady Spencer thought he’d add his own epitaph. . .”

  Aaron looked up. A missing piece of the puzzle snapped into place. “Or Grady Spencer didn’t murder his child after all. Jesus Christ. . .”

  “There are two things I don’t understand, though,” Nat said. “Why did he keep the child alive? And where was that child when Grady moved to Devil’s Cove? Rose said it herself, Grady Spencer moved there alone.”

  “Yes, but Grady Spencer also murdered at least eight children inside his house without anyone ever knowing. He’d kept Cal locked up for seven years while everyone else thought he was dead. Sneaking his own child in would have been a breeze.”

  “Okay, fine, but it still doesn’t answer the question why Grady kept him or her alive.”

  Aaron’s mind raced. Why was he suddenly thinking of Toby Baker and the cliff path at Zennor?

  And then it was obvious. How had he gotten it so wrong?

  He stared at Nat. The room closed in on him.

  Grady Spencer hadn’t groomed those kids to help abduct their replacement. Grady Spencer had groomed his own child to abduct them all.

  But what about Cal?

  He hadn’t been abducted, had he? He’d walked right in to Grady Spencer’s basement, a gift wrapped in a bow. What had happened next? Where was Grady Spencer’s child now?

  In that moment, he knew the answers were waiting for him at Burnt House Farm.

  He had to leave. To go there right now. Even if going there meant risking his life—because Aaron was convinced that whatever he found there was about to change his fortune for good.

  Nat was staring at the image on her phone screen, her face pulled into a frown.

  “Those words are so angry,” she said. “Useless bitch mother. But if Spencer's child wrote them, doesn’t that mean they’re free? So, where are they? Who are they?”

  Aaron had to get rid of her.

  In the next minute, maybe two, Nat was going to work it all out for herself. He couldn't let that happen. Because Nat would do something sensible, like tell Rose. Or worse, tell the police.

  “You did good,” he said.

  He moved over to his jacket, which was hanging on the back of the chair, and pulled out his wallet. “In fact, you did great. Thanks for your help.”

  He handed her a large wad of notes without counting how much was there. Her eyes wide, Nat took the money. Confusion rippled across her features.

  “Wait, that's it? But we've only just found out that—”

  “You've done your job, Nat. I asked you to build a profile of Grady Spencer, and you found out as much as you could.”

  “But I haven't finished. There's still a ten, fifteen-year gap between Spencer leaving St. Just in Roseland and arriving in the cove. I haven’t found out what he did for a living. And what about this kid?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I can take it from here.”

  Aaron picked up Nat’s bag from the bed with one hand and grasped her gently by the arm with the other. In one fluid movement, he was moving her toward the door.

  Nat pulled away from him, wrenching her arm from his hand.

  Her mouth fell open. A vein began to pulse in the centre of her forehead.

  “Wait a minute, what the hell’s going on?” she demanded. “Is this because I told Carrie about your flagging career? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—it just kind of slipped out.”

  Aaron opened the door, and kept it held ope
n.

  “It's nothing to do with that. I'm busy, that's all. And like I said, you've done your job.”

  “So, what? That’s it?”

  “I'm not sure what else you want me to tell you.” He stared at her, watching her eyes grow glassy and wet and her shoulders sag.

  But what else was he supposed do? He couldn't let her know where he was about to go. Not only because it was dangerous, but because this moment was his—and he hadn’t lost everything to share it with someone else.

  Nat looked up at him, her eyes hardening and her lips pressing together in a pale white line.

  “Fine,” she growled. “Like I give a shit, anyway.”

  She barged past him, her shoulder slamming into his arm as she stormed through the door and out into the hallway. For a second, Aaron thought she was going to keep on walking. But then she turned, spinning angrily on her heels.

  “Fuck you, Aaron Black!” she cried. “You're an asshole and you're a loser. And I hope your book fucking fails!”

  She spun around again, then stomped away.

  Silently, Aaron shut the door. He rested his back against it, staring at the emptiness of the hotel room, feeling the walls close in on him. He couldn't breathe. It was as if Nat had stolen the air. She was right, of course. He was an asshole. And he was a loser. And she deserved much better treatment than he'd given her.

  When he was dripping in success and riches, he would make it up to her. But right now, he needed to keep a clear head. Right now, he needed to prepare himself.

  Because he was going to Burnt House Farm, where he would find Cal Anderson and get the proof he needed.

  Where he would find Grady Spencer’s now adult offspring.

  32

  CAL WAS RESTLESS, PACING through the rooms of the house. He was beginning to feel like he was back in the cage down in Grady Spencer’s basement. It had been two days since the passing of his test. They’d returned to the farm with the man still unconscious and the young child still sobbing and afraid.

  The man had been taken down to the basement, where he remained. Jacob had given the boy to Alison. She’d been taking care of him ever since. Cynthia had grown increasingly agitated since his arrival. And with good reason.