The Crowlands

by T M Creedy

  I can’t bring myself to touch her skin. I know it will feel so cold, so lifeless, like a wax candle. There is a fountain of red down the front of her chest and the edges of the wide gaping wound in her throat still drip blood slowly, adding to the lake of it on the floor. The hand I can see, the one wrapped in the bedcovers, has been damaged. Her nails are bleeding and torn from their beds, the bones look like they’re jumbled around and in the wrong places, like they have been crushed. There are other injuries too, now that I can see her closely. One of her ear lobes has been sheared off with medical precision, her front teeth are broken and she has a thin cut running from her lip to her nose. She has been tortured, hideously brutalised, before he finally cut her throat. I wonder if he raped her too, but her clothes are intact and she’s wearing jeans which are still zipped up at her waist. Over the thick cloying metallic smell of blood, there is another feral animal stink of piss and shit. She must have been so scared she couldn’t control her body, and it let her down in the most undignified way.

  For the first time since entering the bedroom I glance away from the body by the bed and look around the room, noticing how the wardrobe has been ransacked, its doors hanging off by their hinges. The bedside table drawers spill their contents over the carpet and the mattress has been slashed to the springs. Sara’s backpack is nowhere to be seen but I’m sure the man in black wasn’t carrying it when he crashed into me on the stairs. The laptop, my laptop, is still plugged in, still open where it rests on one of my pillows. The screen has a delicate spray of blood fanning out in a feather shape and for a moment it looks macabrely beautiful.

  I don’t touch anything else and slowly back out of the room. Taking great gulps of the relatively fresh air in the rest of the flat I move from the hall to the lounge and Sara’s backpack is there. It has been tipped up and emptied, the contents strewn across the floor. Clothes, toiletries, books are flung all over the couch, the purple pack now deflated and forlorn looking, the only thing still attached to it is the metal water flask strapped to one of its many pockets. He was obviously looking for something, inflicting deliberate agonising acts on Sara in an attempt to get her to tell him where it, whatever it is, was. I wonder for a moment if she caved in, if she told him or did she hold out until the very end, and it occurs to me then that this was no random killing. Sara knew the man in black. And the man in black knows I saw him.

  The bathroom is a scene from a horror film. He must have tried to clean himself up after killing Sara. The sink and surrounding tiles are splashed with watery red marks and he has used one of my good handtowels to clean his bloody hands before throwing it into the shower tray where it lies, red staining white like an old bandage.

  I have to leave. I have to get out before he comes back. He could be waiting until the house grows quieter in the night before coming back for me. I can’t go through what Sara did, I won’t be able to take that kind of pain, knowing my life was about to be snuffed out with the slash of a knife. I should pack a few things up and find somewhere safe to stay tonight. But I know this is futile. He will find me wherever I go. He found Sara didn’t he? And not a soul apart from me knew where she was. I am not an expert in these things but I do start to think that maybe he tracked her down through her phone or her laptop somehow, if that is even possible. Her phone. Where is her phone? It has my number on it and I can’t bear the thought of that terrifying brute knowing it. I didn’t see it in the bedroom so he must have taken it with him. In a furious panic I go through Sara’s clothes and other belongings that are scattered around the lounge. There is nothing of any value and I can’t see any of the usual paperwork that goes with going on a long trip. There are no printouts of flight details, no address book, and crucially, I can’t find her passport. Racking my brains, I try to think back to what Sara had been carrying on the night I met her at the train station. I remember the huge purple backpack, and the laptop bag because it was identical to mine, but she had no other luggage and no handbag that I can recall, which is strange now that I think about it as where did she keep her purse, her phone? Another quick flick through the clothing reveals that there is definitely no purse, no form of identification at all. So if there’s nothing here they must be…. in the laptop bag. The one I took to work by mistake this morning.

  Overcome with dizziness I crawl on my knees to where the bag lies where I left it on the kitchen floor, and unzip the cover, taking the laptop out and placing it carefully on the tiles. In the side pocket of the bag I find Sara’s phone. It isn’t locked and when I swipe the screen it shows the unread texts I sent to her this morning. The phone is set to silent so when I sent them I didn’t hear her phone ping with the incoming messages. Poor Sara! I had her phone the whole time; she could have called for help when that bastard broke down my door but I had unwittingly taken her only means of communication. Did she even realise I had it? I pictured her, listening to her killer breaking down my door and desperately digging through my own laptop bag, thinking it was hers, panicking when she couldn’t find her phone.

  Searching through the other internal pockets of the bag I spy a leather passport cover and when I open it up there is not one passport tucked in there, but three. Opening each one, Sara stares out at me. The three photos are all identical but the passports are not. There is the familiar maroon British cover identifying her as Sara Bradbury, but of the other two she is apparently both an Australian called Sara Sullivan and a Canadian going by the name of Sara Bouchard. They all look perfectly legitimate to me and each has several entry stamps so they have all been used at some time, but common sense tells me one person cannot have three nationalities, and three different surnames, so two of these passports must be fake. I have no idea which one of these is the real Sara, but anyone who needs multiple identities is either on the run, or up to no good.

  Turning the laptop bag inside out I find several scraps of paper with London addresses scribbled on them, and a receipt from a twenty-four-hour storage facility near King’s Cross station. The receipt is dated the same day she caught the train to meet me in Peckham, and confirms the rental of one locker at rate of ten pounds per day. Putting it to one side I examine the rest of the bag, finding a bulky corner under the strip of stiffened card at the bottom, and I can see that someone has carefully and neatly sliced a long cut into the lining. It’s almost invisible, it’s only because I have the bag turned in on itself that I notice it. It’s difficult to get my fingers in there so with the help of a butter knife I poke at the lining until it gives and rips open a wide slash. Tucked inside, squashed almost flat, is a roll of fifty pound notes. Ripping the lining further I find another roll, and then another, all tightly bound with rubber bands and compressed into a flat, rectangular shape. The bands are stretched so tightly it takes several slashes with the knife to snap them, and I unfold the notes and try to lay them flat, counting as I go. There’s more than five thousand pounds here. I’ve never seen so much cash in my life. Sara’s secret life is looking more and more like she was into some serious criminal shit. Fake passports, a large stash of money, and someone hunted her down and killed her, ransacking my flat at the same time looking for……. what?

  I am cold to the bone and cramped from crouching on the kitchen floor and I know I have to leave, and soon. There is a half formed plan in my head which refuses to go away, even though I know it’s so far-fetched I couldn’t possibly pull it off.

  Here are the facts though – there is a very dead body in my bedroom, the killer knows I saw him, and I’ve seen what he’s capable of so I won’t be hanging around waiting for that to happen to me. I need to disappear, for good.

  There is a loud banging on my barricaded door which makes me jump violently and stifle a scream.

  ‘Sara! Is rent today.’ Mr Benny’s voice on the other side of the door is loaded with meaning. There is the sound of him trying the door but the bar stool does its job and the door doesn’t budge an inch. ‘Sara? You in there? What you done to this door, it’s all busted up.’ He p
ounds on the wooden panels again. ‘Sara, you damage this door so you need to pay me for that too, stupid bitch.’ He pauses and I know he has his ear pressed up against the wood, listening for me making any sound. The hall light is still on so he must know I’m in here, but even Mr Benny knows he can’t force his way into one of his tenant’s flats without their permission. He bangs once or twice again and I hear him muttering furiously.

  ‘OK. I will be back tomorrow morning, eight o’clock. You will have the rent and the money to replace the lock ready for me, do you hear me girl? No excuses. If you don’t pay I will throw you out into the street.’ He declares angrily. He moves away from my door and I hear him go up the stairs to bang on the door of the third floor flats. Stiffly, I stand up and check the plant pot on top of the fridge. The envelope with this month’s rent is still there so I grab it and stuff it with the other money I found in Sara’s bag. No point in it going to Mr Benny when I won’t be here to rent the flat anymore. He took a deposit when I moved in so I consider that makes us quits.

  I’m so tired all of a sudden, thinking of the sheer enormity of what I have to do now but I can’t stop, I have to keep moving, and the first thing I need to do is get away from this place.

  I run into the lounge and start gathering up Sara’s clothes from where they have been thrown about, stuffing them hastily back into the purple pack. I would take my own things but they are in the bedroom, tipped out onto the floor or ripped from their hangers, trampled into the blood that covers the floor. There’s no way in hell I’m going back into that room. There’s nothing in there I need that I don’t have with me or can’t buy with all the money I have now. Glancing at the digital clock I’m surprised to see its only just gone seven o’clock. It feels like days since I left work this afternoon, walking unknowingly and unwillingly into this nightmare. But it’s good, it means I have plenty of time to do what I need to do.

  Ten minutes later I remove the bar stool from the under the door handle and creak open my front door peering warily out into the darkness. The hall is silent, there is no sign of Mr Benny, no sign of anyone. I have Sara’s backpack on my back, stuffed full of her belongings, and her laptop in its bag in my hand. Everything else I will leave behind. My flat, my job, my shit life – it all ends here.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The first thing I need to do is find somewhere safe to sleep tonight, somewhere anonymous where I can pay in cash. I have stuffed my long blonde hair up into an old woollen hat, and with my tatty winter coat I can pass for just another homeless person, carrying all my worldly possessions on my back while I roam from street to street. I am in luck, spotting a sign halfway down a side street advertising the run-down building façade as a private hotel. I’m well aware that this is the kind of place who rents rooms by the hour and sees it fair share of street workers but I can’t be too choosy; as long as the rooms have sturdy locks I’ll take one. The woman on reception barely glances away from the tiny portable television when I ask for a room for the night. She holds up one finger and says ‘Shush! Wait!’ before turning back to the drama on the screen. Only when the programme ends two minutes later does she enquire how she can help me.

  ‘I would like a room, just for tonight. Do you have one with its own bathroom?’

  She looks me up and down, taking in my scruffy appearance, obviously wondering if I have the money to pay the bill.

  ‘We have one double left. Eighty quid. Cash up front. Check out time is ten o’clock tomorrow.’

  ‘Fine.’ I peel off four twenties from the rent money I took back, and she passes me a key with a worn plastic tag attached to it.

  ‘Room twelve. Up the stairs to the left. Single occupancy only, no drugs, no pets, no guns.’ She takes my money and tucks it under her shirt, shoving it into her grubby bra. There are no forms to fill in, no ID required and I get the feeling my stay here will not be registered anywhere on the hotel’s books.

  The room is dirty and stinks of old cigarette smoke but it is a million times better than the bloodbath I left at my flat. The door is solid and has a good lock and a door chain, which I immediately draw across. Able to breath freely for the first time this evening I sink down onto the rickety bed with its faded candlewick cover and rub my eyes tiredly. I have so much to do. First, I need to find out as much about Sara as I can.

  Annoyingly, there is no Wi-Fi in this hotel and I need to snoop through Sara’s laptop so I bundle up in my coat and hat again and carry the laptop down to the Costa on the corner of the high street, taking a seat at a table hidden from view at the very back of the café. Logging in with her weak password I start looking through her files and browsing history, finding only recent searches about Melbourne nightlife and transport links. There are no photos, no personal letters or documents stored anywhere I can see. There is a desktop shortcut to her email and when I click on it her account comes up as

  S_B_Housesitter@gmail.com

  with the cursor flashing in the blank space, waiting for a password. I try Sara123 but it’s wrong. An image of Sara, alive and vibrant, comes into my head. She is standing in front of me, laughing at her choice of password. ‘I tend to use the same one for everything, or a variation of it’ she tells me and her voice is as clear as day. Sara with a small s and 123, but this is wrong too. I have one more try before the site locks me out. My last shot at it is Sara321, and it works. Her emails are laid out before me on the screen; there are three unread ones from today, two from British Airways and one from Margie MacLean entitled ‘Skype Call? It’s this one I open first.

  Hi Sara. We waited for your Skype call tonight but didn’t hear from you – are you having problems connecting? We know you leave London tomorrow so give us a call when you land in Melbourne. You’ll have to get to Ararat on the train and we’ll pick you up from there. All the best, looking forward to meeting you at last. Margie & Mac.

  The two emails from British Airways are informing Sara that the online check-in for her flight from London Heathrow to Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport is now open. I pick through Sara’s recently opened emails, finding the thread from Margie and Mac in Australia and open up the attached photos they have sent her. My breath catches in my throat as the screen is filled with an image of paradise. Margie and Mac’s house is a huge, red brick mansion, with ornate wrought iron verandahs, painted a brilliant white, flowing around the three stories like royal icing on a wedding cake. The sky is unnaturally blue, the surrounding countryside flat and dry and stretches out for miles and miles to the distant horizon.

  There are pictures of Margie and Mac themselves. She is quite a large lady with the elaborate layered bob hairstyle favoured by many women over fifty and coloured an impossible red, but she has a huge smile. Mac is smaller than his wife, and sprightly-looking, with a weather beaten complexion and the wiry body of a man who has worked hard all of his life. They both smile into the camera with open, honest expressions and kind eyes. There are photos of the two cats Sara was supposed to be looking after, one ginger and one tortoiseshell, and they are obviously the spoilt reigning royalty of the family. They have sent photos of the interior of the house and I can see they are in the middle of renovating the old property; the kitchen is new and is straight out of one of those glossy interiors magazines, all polished granite surfaces and recessed cupboards. A couple of the reception rooms downstairs looked finished too, furnished in a luxurious country house style with double doors opening out on the shady verandahs. Photos of a couple of bedrooms, one captioned ‘Your room!’ showing large, airy spaces with dark polished floorboards and double beds draped in filmy fabrics. Margie writes in her emails that they are almost halfway there with the renovating, although the top floor of the mansion is still completely closed off until they have the time to start knocking down walls but not to worry, there’s still plenty of space to kick about quite comfortably, she finishes. I look for as much information as I can, learning that Mac has been offered a years’ contract in the middle east, doing some kind of consultancy wo
rk on a major engineering project there. The cats are called Bali and Bendigo. Margie favours bold colourful prints. They are both looking forward to Sara housesitting for them, she is very highly recommended they say. As far as I can tell, Sara never managed to Skype them like she was supposed to, so they don’t know what she looks like and this is perfect for my plan. I want that lifestyle Sara was talking about and with the cash I found in her laptop bag I think I have a way to get it. I have every intention of getting on that plane in Sara’s place tomorrow. I will turn up at Margie and Mac’s house for the housesitting job as planned and they won’t know any different, they won’t know I’m not the real Sara. It is the perfect solution to the situation I find myself in. I can disappear. I won’t be found. The man who murdered Sara will never find me in Australia.