The Burning Girls

by C. J. Tudor

Throw something and the person will try to deflect it. Instinctively, Wrigley raises his arm. The chair strikes his wrist and the knife flies from his hand. Flo takes advantage. She stamps hard on his foot and slips from his grip. The chair crashes into several candles. They fall to the floor and flames spring up all around. I remember the harsh chemical smell. Accelerant.

  “Run!” I scream at my daughter.

  She turns and sprints for the door. Rosie runs after her and grabs her arm, but before she can raise the knife Flo headbutts her. Rosie screams and doubles over. Flo knees her in the face and she crumples. Good girl. Flo fumbles with the key, and then she’s out, into the darkness.

  My relief is short-lived. Wrigley is still blocking my escape route. He advances toward me. I back up, knocking over another candle. He lunges for me. I try to dart around him, but he’s quicker. He punches me in the face. I stumble and trip, falling backward, head smacking hard into the stone slabs. Sparkling motes spin in front of my eyes. Wrigley throws himself on top of me, his hands around my throat.

  “You fucking bitch.”

  I buck and twist, trying to throw him off. More candles topple. His grip is tight. I’m struggling to breathe. I grab at his hands, trying to prize his fingers loose. I can feel the heat of the fire all around us. I only have one advantage. My body weight. I roll to the right, taking Wrigley with me, toward the flames. He screams as his T-shirt catches alight.

  The grip on my throat is released. I gasp and sit up. Wrigley is batting at the flames, rolling around on the floor to put them out. I start to crawl away. Beneath the pews I can see a glint of metal. The serrated knife. I reach for it. A hand grabs me by the hair and yanks me back.

  His breath is hot in my ear. “I’m going to fuck you up like you wouldn’t believe.”

  My fingers touch the worn bone handle…and close over it.

  “Too late for that.”

  I turn and thrust out wildly. By luck more than judgment, I feel the blade plunge into firm flesh and hear him grunt in pain. His eyes widen. He looks down, clutches at his stomach and sinks to the floor.

  I push myself to my feet, panting. The flames are spreading rapidly, licking at the pews, eating up the old, dry wood. Rosie is gone. I need to get out of here. To find my daughter.

  “Please,” Wrigley moans from behind me. “Help me.”

  I look back. He’s curled on the floor, holding his stomach. A darker stain is spreading out over the charcoal T-shirt. Parts of it have melted into his scorched flesh. He looks thin and young and scared.

  “You can’t leave me here. You’re a priest.”

  He’s right. Reluctantly, I walk back and crouch down next to him. I lay one hand on his brow. I am a priest. A woman of God.

  But I’m also a mother.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I raise the knife and plunge it into his stomach again. Hard. Up to its hilt. And I watch as the darkness reclaims him.

  * * *

  —

  I stand. My muscles don’t want to support me. I stagger and reach for a pew to hold on to, but they are all on fire. The air is thick with smoke. My throat is swollen, tight with heat. The door seems so far away. I feel weary.

  I take a step forward, but my legs give beneath my own weight and I find myself on my knees, staring into the fire. My eyes water and burn. Through the tears, I see something.

  Two figures. Girls. Always girls. Standing side by side. Whole again. Flames halo their heads and sprout like wings from their backs. They hold out their arms. I reach for them, barely feeling the flames crisping the tips of my fingers.

  They tried to warn Flo, I think. Just like they tried to warn Reverend Fletcher.

  They appear to those in trouble.

  “Thank you,” I murmur.

  My eyelids start to close. And then I see another figure, striding between the girls. Huge and dark, reeking of something sour and foul. He looms over me, like a vengeful demon.

  I stare up at his face. I know him.

  As I fall back, his arms seize me and lift me from the flames.

  A memory. Standing outside the chapel with his mum and sister. His sister held his hand. The night air was cool and acrid with the stench of smoke.

  A fire had been lit at the base of the big monument in the graveyard and a large crowd stood around it, chatting and laughing. Flames leaped up toward the night sky, painting their faces in orange, distorting smiles into crazy leers.

  On a trestle table, big urns of warm cider steamed, sweet and pungent. Villagers ladled the cider into crude clay mugs and drank heartily. The clock above the chapel struck the hour and the vicar walked out, stern-faced and somber in his dark robes. He stared around at the gathering.

  “Thank you, everyone, for coming to our annual Burning Girls commemoration. Tonight, we remember our ancestors who died here for their beliefs. We give thanks for their sacrifice and say prayers for their souls. And, just as the Sussex Martyrs gave their bodies to the flame so that they might enjoy everlasting life, we make offerings in remembrance. Please join me in the Martyr’s Recitation.”

  The group chanted: “For martyrs are we. In fire our end. Souls set free. To heaven we ascend.”

  “And now, please cast your Burning Girls to the flame.”

  As he watched, one by one, each villager held up a small twig doll and threw it on to the pyre. His mum nudged him. He took his own crude creation out of his pocket. But he didn’t want to let her go. Didn’t want her to burn. Eventually, his mum snatched the doll from his hands and flung her into the fire.

  The tiny twig body twisted and blackened and finally whitened to ash. Eaten alive by the hungry flames.

  He felt the heat course through his own body. He closed his eyes. A tear ran down his cheek.

  (Two weeks later)

  “Chips.”

  Flo plonks herself down next to me on the bench and shoves a tray of greasy chips into my lap. An aroma of frying and vinegar rises into my nostrils.

  “Yum,” I say, even though I’m not feeling remotely hungry.

  I prong a soggy bit of potato with my wooden fork and stare out at the sea. It’s a peaky kind of day. Washed-out grey sky, the sea an inhospitable mucky-brown color. It looks more like ridges of mud than water. Like you could walk over them, all the way to the horizon.

  We’re staying in a tatty B&B just outside Eastbourne. It is not glamorous or particularly comfortable, but it’s all the Church would stump up for and it’s kept us away from the press intrusion around Chapel Croft. I couldn’t protect my daughter from Wrigley, but at least I can protect her from the fallout.

  Mike has been keeping us updated with events, although even he doesn’t know where we’re staying. I haven’t quite forgiven him for leaving Flo alone, at the mercy of psychopaths, although I understand how he was tricked by the message Wrigley sent from my phone, just as plenty of us were fooled by the messages sent from his dead mother’s phone.

  I think how easy it is to be someone else these days, with our reluctance to engage in person, to even talk to people. We rely upon texts and emails and never question who might be on the other end. Passwords can be worked out. Wrigley just had to use my thumb while I was unconscious to open my phone. But then, I suppose Wrigley fooled everyone face to face too.

  The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was pretending he didn’t exist.

  Rosie has confessed but is claiming that it was all Wrigley’s idea. She was scared of him. He manipulated and controlled her. She was a victim herself. She has perfected the wide-eyed-innocent act. I hope she doesn’t get away with it. But she’s a good actress, and Simon Harper has deep pockets to pay for the best defense. Sometimes, justice isn’t always played out in the courts.

  Rosie’s cousin, Tom, has denied knowledge of everything apart from the “pranks” on Flo. I tend to believe him. There’s a big
difference between a bully and a killer.

  The police questioned me, but there’s nothing to refute my claim of self-defense. As Wrigley himself proclaimed—“fire fucks everything up.”

  There are still loose ends. Like the murder of the couple in the next village. Not all resolutions are neat and tidy. Nor people’s motives. Although Wrigley was regarded as a troubled child, none of the experts who assessed him ever noticed any psychopathic traits.

  “They’re simply put together wrong. You can’t fix it.”

  I glance at Flo. I hope I can fix her. She hasn’t talked much about what happened. Outwardly, she seems fine, if a little quiet. But I can see the damage in her eyes. I just hope it’s not permanent. She’s still young. There’s time to heal. Although we can never really erase trauma, our mind is good at repairing it, layering it over with new experiences, like fresh skin growing over an old wound. The scar remains. It just hurts less and becomes harder to see.

  She glances at me. “Aren’t you eating your chips?”

  I grimace. “Actually, I’m not that hungry.”

  She smiles wanly. “Me neither.”

  We sit for a moment and stare out at the sea.

  “Why does the sea here always look like manky tea?”

  “No idea. Still nice to see it, though?”

  “Meh.”

  “And sea air is good for you.”

  “Smells of sewage and seagull crap.”

  “You’re sounding better.”

  “Sort of.” She looks down. “I still think about Wrigley.”

  “Well, it’s only been a couple of weeks.”

  “Is it weird that I feel sad he’s dead even after everything he did?”

  “No. I think maybe it’s harder to accept what he did because he’s dead. You never had a chance to deal with it.”

  “Yeah, maybe. When I think about him, I still see the Wrigley I thought I knew. The one I liked. Who made me laugh and quoted Bill Hicks.”

  “That’s natural. But it’ll fade.”

  I hope.

  “Did Dad fade?”

  I stiffen. “Yes. But, to be honest, he had faded a long time before he died.”

  “How d’you mean?”

  “It wasn’t a great marriage, Flo. He was an unhappy man and sometimes he took that out on me. I wasn’t sad when he died. I was shocked and angry, but he wasn’t the man I fell in love with.” I wait for this to settle. “I’m sorry. I should have been more honest with you before.”

  “It’s okay,” Flo says eventually. “Life is complicated, isn’t it?”

  I wrap an arm around her shoulders. “Yeah, but I think ours has been more complicated than most, and I don’t want you to think you can’t trust people ever again.”

  “I know. But I might give dating a rest for a while.”

  “Well, as your mum, obviously, I’m thrilled to hear that.”

  Another small smile. “Mum, when can we go home?”

  “Well, the chapel isn’t going to be rebuilt for a while, if ever, so—”

  “No, I meant, home, to Nottingham.”

  “Right. Well—” I take a breath and get ready to broach something I’ve been thinking about. “I need to speak to Bishop Durkin before we can really decide, but…what if we didn’t go back to Nottingham? What if we went somewhere else? Further away?”

  “Like where?”

  “Australia.”

  Before she can reply, my phone vibrates in my pocket. I pluck it out and glance at Flo. “It’s Mike.”

  She nods to say I should answer it.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi.”

  “How are you both doing?”

  “We’re okay.”

  “Good.”

  “How are things there?”

  “Calming down a bit. Fewer press. Most of the police work is in the lab now, and that will take weeks.”

  “It’s a lot faster on CSI.”

  He chuckles. “Who’d have thought that wasn’t wholly realistic?”

  There’s a pause.

  “And how are you?” I ask.

  The revelations about Rosie have sparked renewed interest in his daughter’s death. Poppy has started to open up about some of the cruelties her sister inflicted upon her, including being forced into the abattoir on the day I first met her. I wonder if the scales are finally falling from Simon and Emma’s eyes when it comes to their elder daughter, and what she’s capable of.

  “I’m okay,” he says. “Whatever the truth, it doesn’t bring her back, does it? Nothing changes that.”

  “No.”

  A longer pause. Then he says: “Anyway, another interesting development. The skeletons in the well? The police are pretty sure one is Merry. Right age, and they found a necklace with the initial M. Apparently, both Merry and Joy wore necklaces with their initials on them.”

  “And the other one?”

  “It isn’t Joy. It’s an older woman who had been through childbirth. They think it could be Merry’s mother. Murdered sometime later and dumped there.”

  “I see,” I say flatly. “Guess a well is a good hiding place for bodies.”

  “Yeah. The police are very eager to trace Merry’s younger brother.”

  “Right.”

  “And there’s one more thing.”

  “What?”

  “Merry was pregnant.”

  They say not knowing is worse. But sometimes, knowing is just as bad. Knowing is finally finding that elusive needle in the haystack, only to discover that the needle was the very thing stopping the entire haystack from collapsing and burying you.

  I make some phone calls. My first is to Bishop Durkin:

  “I just need you to tell me something, honestly.”

  “Is that really necessary?”

  “When did my name come up in connection with the position at Chapel Croft?”

  “Not long after Reverend Fletcher’s resignation.”

  “So, before his death?”

  “Yes.”

  “And who suggested me?”

  “Well, as you know, I had a conversation with Bishop Gordon at the Weldon diocese.”

  “Yes, I know that. I want to know who gave him my name.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes. It does.”

  Something in my tone must convince him. He considers for a moment and then he tells me.

  My next call is to Kayleigh’s mother, Linda. I ask for a favor. She is happy to oblige.

  When I tell Flo, she looks at me suspiciously. “So, I’m going to stay with Kayleigh for a couple of nights. What about you?”

  “I just have a few things to tie up here. Boring stuff.”

  She continues to stare at me and then she suddenly lunges forward and hugs me so tightly I can’t breathe. “I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Me? Who do you think I am?”

  She pulls back and stares at me. “My mum.”

  * * *

  —

  I wave Flo off on the train and then I get into my car and head back to Chapel Croft. I drive through the village and pull up outside the same decrepit Victorian house I visited just over two weeks ago. A lot has happened since then. And I have been giving things a lot of thought.

  I walk up to the door, but it opens before I can knock.

  “Reverend Brooks.”

  “Aaron.”

  “I got your call.”

  He opens the door and I step inside.

  “How are you and your daughter?”

  “We’re getting there. I never had a chance to thank you for calling 999.”

  When Flo bolted into the night, she managed to flag down a car. It happened
to be Aaron. Turns out that he drove around every night to check on the chapel. Obsessive, odd, but on this occasion, no pun intended, a godsend.

  “You’re welcome. And how are you, Reverend? It must be hard to reconcile your faith with what you did.”

  “Sometimes there is no choice,” I say tightly.

  “I’ve been praying for you.”

  “Thanks.” I smile briskly. “Now, like I said on the phone, I’d like to talk to your father.”

  “And like I said, you’ve seen him. He can’t talk.”

  “But he can listen.”

  I stare at him pleadingly. Finally, he nods.

  “Five minutes.”

  * * *

  —

  Marsh is awake, just. His breathing is labored. The institutional smell is stronger than ever. And there’s something else. Not specific. But anyone who has been with an ill person toward the end will recognize it. It’s the smell of death.

  I sit on a chair beside his bed and I think how life and illness can be so cruel. Would any of us choose to continue with our life if we knew this might be our fate? And then I remind myself that at least Marsh had a choice. At least his life was not taken away by someone else before it had even started.

  “Hello, Reverend Marsh.”

  He blinks at me.

  “You remember me, don’t you?”

  A small head movement. Maybe a nod. Maybe an involuntary twitch. Hard to tell.

  “Good. Then I’ll keep this brief. We uncovered the vault beneath the chapel. We found Benjamin Grady’s body.”

  A slight hitch in his breathing. I lean closer.

  “I know you were involved in hiding it there. I think you did it to protect the Church, and your family, from scandal. I’d like to think you also did it to protect someone else. A young, frightened girl. Is that true?”

  Another small head movement.

  “But here’s the thing. We both know that Grady wasn’t killed in the church. His body was moved there from somewhere else. And I remembered something Joan Hartman said: you can’t drive. So you must have had help that night.”

  His eyes stare at me helplessly.