by Adam Nevill
She also drew some comfort from the idea that Tony Willows and his “witch-wife”, who might even be the Jessica Usher mentioned in the Wikipedia entry, were both spinning an awful lot of plates. Their body count was unacceptable for the postcode.
Vague connections existed between each victim. And if Kat was to take a tumble from the coastal path mere days after her boyfriend, adding herself to a tally that included the two other people she’d recently associated with, Matt Hill and Helene Brown, then such a cluster of accidental deaths and apparent suicides was a risk that Tony and Jess probably weren’t willing to take. Right now, she guessed she was more dangerous dead than alive.
They needed her to lie to Steve’s parents and the police, to throw them off the scent. But for how long the stay of execution would last was the mystery. Not that long, her gut told her.
Her jailers were fanatics enthralled by a mad, bloodthirsty cause. But Headscarf was old and, judging by the headwear, seriously ill too. If the situation arose, woman to woman, Kat believed she could deal with Headscarf. She’d never overpower Beard though. He was a brute. When he wasn’t looking at her, he was never more than a short charge from the front door. He didn’t wash and she hadn’t known him use the toilet with the door closed when she was awake. She’d never fight her way through Beard.
She couldn’t open a window and scream fire either. The windows were locked and the small metal keys that unlocked them had been confiscated. In any case, she wouldn’t have enough time to do it, and her one neighbour was half-deaf and pushing ninety. Escape was only feasible once her opponents had been dealt with indoors. An idea that was cause for much light-headedness.
Kat reviewed potential weapons, because one had to be involved. Her hands and feet would never be sufficient. And as her memory scrolled through what was still within her reach – tweezers, a hairdryer and hair straighteners, a crystal bowl filled with dried petals – she remembered the spray.
Once, while working in Germany for a few days, in Hamburg, Kat had purchased a weapon illegal in Britain. A small item designed for the defence of women if they were unlucky enough to be attacked by predatory men. This device was made of metal, painted yellow, cold to the touch and about the same size as a lipstick: a small yellow canister of pepper spray. She’d brought it back to London inside her luggage, stowed in the boot of her car.
Around that time, two of her friends in London had endured assaults: one inside a taxi, one at a bus stop. Back then, self-defence had been on her mind. But she’d never tested the spray. For years at a time, she’d forgotten that she still possessed it. Occasionally, when she was reorganising her possessions, or having a clear-out, or when she moved house, she’d come across the small metal cylinder. But she’d never thrown it away. Just in case. So the spray must still be in her possession, inside her property. Somewhere.
Where?
Kat had a vague memory of last seeing it in a wooden box she kept under the bed that contained her odds and ends, her bric-a-brac: a travel sewing kit, some old mobile phones, her passport . . . she couldn’t remember what else. But the spray might be in that box.
If the spray was stored in the attic with the Christmas decorations and abandoned hobbies, then it might as well have been buried in Australia: she’d never get the hatch open or ladder down in time. But if it was in the wooden box under the bed and she managed to find an opportunity to locate it, Kat had to wonder whether the nozzle would work when she pressed it with her finger. Did pepper spray have an expiry date? She’d bought it ten years before.
When she’d purchased the spray, and whenever she’d come across it in the past, she’d vividly remembered her schooldays. This was the very reason why she'd hung onto it and why the idea of having the spray in her hand began to glow like a soldering iron in her thoughts. School had taught Kat what pepper did to human eyes.
In the dining tent on a school camp, an idiotic and immature boy called Nigel Baxter had covered her plate in white pepper. When she’d blown the pepper off, a dust cloud had filled her eyes and she’d been unable to see for twenty minutes. Her eyes and nose and everything behind her face had burned so fiercely that she’d secreted gloopy handfuls of clear mucus and a torrent of hot tears through her nose and eyes. Her mouth, one of her friends had said, resembled Geiger’s Alien.
She’d been helpless, insensible and possessed by panic and shame in equal amounts. A true public humiliation she’d never forgotten, its memory still made her face burn. A trainee teacher had led Kat to the toilets to wash her face and eyes. They’d remained red and swollen for two days.
Nigel Baxter got away with it. She’d not told her teachers who had sprinkled the white pepper on her white plate. At her school, ‘grassing’ on the bullies and thieves guaranteed exile until the end of your school life. A rule engraved in stone that helped no one except the thugs. After all, it had been their rule: it was the bullies who had made secondary school feel like prison, not the harassed teachers.
Nigel had actually fancied Kat. That’s why he’d laced her plate with pepper. He’d even asked her out one year after the incident and Kat had said no. But another girl, Olive Newman, had fancied Nigel and wanted him for herself. Olive had been so incensed at Nigel's attraction to Kat that she’d bullied her rival for the entire fourth year. Olive Newman’s campaign of terror only ceased when Olive was expelled for stabbing another girl in the hand with a pair of craft scissors.
Back then, Kat had believed that if the dozen or so male and female thugs in her year, like Nigel and Olive, had been killed on their way to school, then the other two hundred children in her year would have been much happier people, then and now. Or even just happy.
But that kind of justice was rare. If such just deserts occurred they happened by degree and the reckoning was always too slow; it failed to restrict the number of damaged victims the bullies subsequently racked up. Justice should be far swifter, Kat decided, and the thought no longer troubled her.
There have been too many people like this in your life, girl. They’re all still with you, inside. They’re unforgettable. They like that. They like to make an impression and for their influence to linger. It’s all they have of you.
You’ve run as far as you can.
Running was always a good option. When you cannot do unto others what they are doing to you, you have no choice: you leave, you run. But what happens when you can’t run any further?
Kat told Headscarf that she felt unwell.
She and Beard had just opened a large bottle of cider.
Kat told them that she wanted to go to bed.
They seemed pleased with that.
She went to bed and stayed awake with her eyes closed.
* * *
Much later, Headscarf’s bird feet descended the stairs, the sound muffling as the woman reached the ground floor.
At the edge of Kat’s hearing came the squeak of rubber soles as Headscarf turned on the kitchen lino to open the fridge door. Neither of her captors had taken their shoes off indoors. Another black mark. Kat had always forbidden outdoor footwear indoors.
In the past, when one of her captors had broken their surveillance of Kat’s bedroom to use the bathroom, or to smoke in the kitchen – those black marks just kept adding up – the other one had come upstairs and watched Kat from the doorway. By day four they’d stopped doing that. They never left her alone for long but the guard was no longer as vigilant.
The windows were covered and the kitchen doorway was close to the front door, so they were confident that she’d never get out that way. They’d also probably assumed that their prisoner was so devastated and cowed, and she was both of those things, that she was unlikely to offer resistance to their guardianship.
But time was ticking.
Kat shuffled to the edge of her mattress.
The bed was noisy. Movements upon it registered in the living room, directly below her bedroom. Even when moving slowly the bed issued protest.
Kat paused and caught
her breath.
In the kitchen the kettle conveniently boiled.
She swung her head over the side of the bed and peered underneath. She saw a dozen pairs of shoes, lined up like a phalanx of leather-armoured troops, bristling with buckles, patent straps, tipped heels. Behind them were three opaque plastic crates. One contained bank statements and financial records. Another was filled with the equipment and clothes she’d bought for her sole camping experience with Steve. The third box contained notepads, her diaries and a collection of self-help books. There was a duvet under there too, a sleeping bag, three soft animals her ex had given her. She’d hidden those from Steve and been unable to decide whether to keep them or to give them to charity. Perhaps you’ve hung on to the pain?
But near the foot of the bed, in one corner, half-covered by a spare duvet cover, was the wooden chest. Not ideally placed: that part of the bed was closest to the door where her captors had positioned the stool. But at least the box was close to an edge. She wouldn’t need to reorganise the stuff around it. That would make too much noise.
Footsteps on the stairs.
Kat swung her body up, turned about on the bed.
Once her head was on the pillow she made sure to face the other way. And breathed out slowly.
Headscarf resumed her position on the stool. Slurped coffee from Kat’s Elle mug. A memento. Kat closed her eyes and thought of another memento from Hamburg.
27
The great black canopy of night frightened Helene as much as the plain of water she floated upon like driftwood. The sky was vast. The stars frozen at an incredible depth. She pictured how tiny her body would look from far above. That didn't help.
Don’t look up, don’t look down. Don’t think up, or down. Think straight ahead.
At least a minute had passed since she’d surfaced. Her heartbeat and breathing had slowed. ‘Relax. Relax. Relax . . .’ she said to herself through chattering teeth. She unbuttoned her sopping jeans and pushed them over her hips. Her pants went with them. Who gives a shit?
She went under twice. The jean-legs had turned inside out and she’d gone under water to pull at the denim with all her might to stretch and tug each leg from each foot. While under the water she’d seen nothing in any direction. All was black as pitch and she couldn’t tolerate more than a few seconds below the surface, the cold immediately making her desperate to take a new breath. Her jeans eventually floated beside her like a pet with long ears that didn’t want to be left alone.
Without jeans she felt especially insubstantial but at least her legs felt freed in the water and more agile. But they were much colder too and she wondered if she would have done better to leave her jeans on for the smidgen of warmth they provided. She kept her hooded top on just in case it might assist her survival. She kicked her feet to stay afloat.
The water’s fairly calm. At least there’s that.
Currents? We don’t know about currents. Don’t think about currents. You’ve enough on your plate.
Gotta move or you’ll slow down. Slow arms, slow legs in cold water . . . no no no. Can’t have that.
Once panic no longer filled her mind, her daughter inevitably returned to her head. It was as if Valda had just walked into the kitchen casually seeking her mum, or padded into her bedroom expectantly to see what mum was doing. Her little face smiled inside Helene as if an activity could be instigated, a treat negotiated from out of the cupboard above the microwave, or a hug received.
Helene started to cry. ‘Baby . . .’ she said once.
Then she was angry and screaming, ‘You bastards!’ into the sky. That felt better. Much better than thinking about her girl not having her any more.
She’ll have to live with Mum and her arthritis until she goes somewhere else . . .
‘No. No. My baby . . . She’s my baby.’
Parents die all the time.
‘Not this one. No, no. Not this one.’ Helene spat out sea water. She’d sunk a bit and the gentle chop of the waves had lapped her face.
Helene looked towards land. In the far distance and in the direction the boat had gone (the vessel was now a trio of white specks in distant darkness), Helene could see a messy crescent of white light, maybe Brickburgh harbour. But where those lights originated was too far away to swim for.
South of the harbour, a few lights pinpricked the hills above a shoreline unlit and invisible. Maybe that was the stretch of coast she’d walked. A few farms dotted those hills. How far across the water from here to there? Two or three miles. Maybe more.
But swimming in the sea was not like swimming in chlorinated water. The sea was much thicker. It moved more, ever surging with waves and currents. Moving through it was harder work and it stole more of your energy. And there was the cold. In Britain the water temperature rarely peaked at twenty degrees in a hot, late summer. This was May. She reckoned she was treading water with a temperature nearer one or two degrees around her knees. If the cold overcame her, her blood would retreat to her core and her arms and legs would stop working and become sluggish. She’d drown. She already felt like she was wearing a shower cap and face-mask moulded from ice.
But once horizontal she’d be swimming in marginally warmer water, maybe by a few degrees at the surface: water less bloody freezing than it was around her feet and knees while bobbing vertically. A few degrees might make all the difference.
Swim steady. Not too fast.
Go.
Helene began to breaststroke to accustom her body to moving in cold water, to get the blood moving through her muscles again. She wasn’t ready to dip her face and ears into the black freeze to do a front crawl. Backstroke was her third favourite stroke but a straight trajectory was hard to maintain and she couldn’t, at any cost, afford to go off course while swimming on her back.
However she swam, if she hit a strong current she knew she was done. If the wind picked up and she was swimming up and down the chop she doubted she’d be able to swim for more than half a mile, and only that far if she didn’t freeze first. Her extremities, her feet, hands and nipples, already ached. If a cramp crept into her feet it was over.
Don’t!
Valda and the lights. Valda and the lights. Valda and the lights.
She chanted this inside her skull to quell the other thoughts that were as cold as the night. At the same time, stretching out her long body, Helene began a front-crawl in the direction of land.
28
Kat continued to feign sleep. But wasn’t Headscarf bored? For two hours she’d sat upon the stool outside the doorway, vaguely peering into the darkened bedroom where Kat lay. In an age where people were constantly wiping their fingers up and down screens or prodding them, Kat thought this remarkable. Downstairs, the television muttered. And how could anyone stand that much bad television?
The couple had been charged with an important task; they’d been chosen. Maybe the unimaginative made the best killers whether they sat behind a desk or held a rock in their red paws.
Only at midnight did Headscarf finally dismount the stool, with a faint creak, to use the bathroom. She didn’t close the door, only pulled it to. Bitch is good.
Kat immediately slipped her body down the mattress to the foot of the bed, to get closer to the position of the box beneath the bed-frame. But the noisy chaos of compressing springs and squeaking wood soon brought the manoeuvre to an end. She visualised Headscarf tensing in the bathroom, with her pants round her ankles, listening intently to the distant percussion of the bed.
Kat pushed back to her former position.
Whether the two occurrences had been connected she didn’t know, but after the bed creaked the taps briefly ran in the bathroom. Within moments of placing her head on the pillow, Headscarf’s bony face was peering through the doorway, staring at her inert body beneath the duvet. The creature then resumed its sitting vigil.
So close.
* * *
Kat was dozing when the guard was changed. Without a word, Beard assumed ownership of th
e stool at 2 a.m.
At 3 a.m., when she was fighting hard to stay awake, he went downstairs. Moments later the kettle boiled, the fridge door opened, then a cupboard. As he looted her kitchen and made preparations for coffee, his phone rang. She didn’t hear what was said but Beard’s hoarse voice gruffly barked brief statements at the caller. He even laughed for the first time in four days.
Kat had to assume that Headscarf was asleep on the couch. The television had finally fallen silent.
She spread her body wider than before, face-down, and turned herself upside down beneath the duvet. She had to stay on the mattress, couldn’t risk the sound of her feet on the old floorboards. When the coverings blocked her hearing, she pulled the duvet from her head to listen.
Silence in the kitchen, save the final gurgles of the electric jug approaching the boil.
She waited, motionless, fearing that if she was found in this position with her head at the foot of the bed, she’d struggle to convince Beard that she’d been having a restless night.
Another cupboard door was opened. Even a cunt likes snacks.
Kat reached over the end of the bed with one hand and found the wooden box, the hinged lid and the nickel-plated locking mechanism familiar against her fingertips. She swiped the catch free but the lid was too close to the bed-frame to be raised, ruling out a search. The box needed to be withdrawn from beneath the bed to enable a rummage for any toxic treasure it might yet yield.
Footsteps on the kitchen lino. The squeak of training shoes.
Like the big hand of a clock, Kat returned the top half of her body to the pillows, spreading her weight again. Still a noisy manoeuvre and the duvet caught underneath her body.
Stairs creaked under Beard’s feet.
Kat fought the duvet, then straightened her body a moment before her captor reappeared in the doorway, holding a steaming mug.