“Sorry,” he croaked weakly.
“Why now? What’s happened since…?” A sharp pause. “Alison! It’s her, isn’t it?”
“Er…well…yes.”
“I knew it. I bloody knew it.”
“But only since last night. I swear nothing happened before.”
He could hear tears welling up and he thought he might have to listen to her sobbing again. Instead, she screamed. “Fuck off, Dan. Just fuck off!”
The phone went dead. He looked over the valley again and let the relief sink in. A heavy sorrow that went when a relationship ended, coupled with the feeling that this was now a new and unknown chapter, washed over him. He sighed once then returned, leaving the frost for the warmth of Alison’s bed.
“I think we should stay here until Widdowson actually chucks us out,” said Alison as they sat at the kitchen table. They were both dressed now and had been talking for hours. “He’s not been up yet and it’s Thursday. Let’s give it until the weekend. What about your work?”
“I’ll ring them later. Tell them something’s come up. I’m not leaving you. Not right now.”
“Well, let’s see how things pan out. Besides, all this extramarital sex is going to annoy the hell out of the chapel folk.”
Dan turned to the window. The sound of a car engine approaching echoed up the valley. “This could be it.” He nodded to the window. “Come on, let’s give him a hard time.”
They went to the front door. A black car pulled into the drive of One Farm Road, but it wasn’t Widdowson’s. Dan felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise when he saw DCI Phillip Gould emerge from the Audi.
Gould hadn’t aged well. Wisps of hair clung to his scalp and he looked thinner, his face was certainly more lined.
“Daniel. Miss Coombs, I presume,” he said jovially walking up to the front door. “May I come in?”
“No,” snapped Dan. “Say what you need to say and fuck off.”
“I’ve not come to threaten you. I’ve come to reason with you. Brendan wanted me to interrogate you about this business.”
“Like you and those fuckwits interrogated Karl?”
“I wanted to spare you that. Listen, I’m begging you. Whatever you’re doing, please stop. Just stop. I’ve never seen Brendan so unhinged. It’s driving him mad. He thinks it’s demons doing it. You’ve made your point, so just stop.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
He moved closer. “Then you know who is?”
“I don’t know. The Dark Choir? I don’t know, and I don’t care. I hope they drive him into Berrymoor and he stays there.”
“You don’t understand what’s at stake here. We are the moral protectors of this town. No crime goes on here without us knowing about it. A fly doesn’t fart without our say so. We’ve cleaned up this town and this choir thing is threatening to ruin it.”
“Let’s hope it does. I hope it ruins the fucking lot of you,” Dan said coldly.
He shrugged hopelessly. “You know I’ve been suspended? They’re investigating me. Widdowson went to the chief inspector and gave him evidence, times, dates. He hasn’t implicated himself. Brendan is too clever for that. I come here begging you to stop this, not as the pastor’s strong arm but as a man. A mere man.”
Dan folded his arms. “Then I hope you hang.”
Gould’s face dropped. His last hope had been dashed, and Dan had the strange feeling he was standing before a doomed man. Gould walked slowly back to his car looking utterly defeated. Despite it all, Dan couldn’t help feeling sorry for him which was insane.
“Widdowson must really be scared,” Alison almost whispered as Gould departed.
“The shit’s really hitting the fan if Widdowson went to the chief inspector. Maybe he’ll forget about taking the house from us for a while.”
“Maybe. Or maybe he won’t be around long enough to try to claim anything.” She smiled and turned to go back into the house. “Come on. We’ve got to sort out the rest of Lindsey’s clothes and take them down to Willow House.”
Thirty-Nine
Driving without Alison by his side gave him chance to think, to plan. He’d not been out of her sight since Tuesday night and now it was Friday. He drove to Willow House with the last of Lindsey’s clothes. Dan wanted to get the clothes delivered and be back before Alison got up and dressed, so he could screw her brains out again. Or rather, she could screw his brains out since she had instigated each carnal adventure thus far. Dan smiled at his good fortune, having never felt this way about a woman before. Unlike most of the relationships he’d found himself in throughout his life, he and Alison had got to know each other before going to bed. She’d seen him at his worst. She’d seen him through his worst and despite all this, she still wanted to be with him.
They’d not talked about the future, but as she was jobless, he intended to ask her to move down to London with him. There must be loads of nurse jobs down there. The only thing that would hold her back was this mysterious father she had. Maybe she was needed up here to look after him or something. If that was the case, fuck it, he’d move back up here. He didn’t have to stay in Scarsdale. He could find a place in Derby or Nottingham. He only knew he wanted to be with her.
The vehicle crawled through the mist of the valley. The dark skeletal shapes of branches were softened by the mist. Unease slithered like a serpent into his consciousness. Everything that had gone on was still in his mind, but since Alison the threat just didn’t seem so heavy. Gould visiting had shown him that he wasn’t the target of whoever was behind the Dark Choir revenge campaign. It was Widdowson and he hoped to God they drove him mad.
He arrived at Willow House in time to interrupt breakfast. All of the residents were seated around the table eating or being helped to eat. Lindsey saw him and broke into a toothy grin, angling her head against the wheelchair.
“Hello, Linds. How are they treating you?”
Lindsey grinned.
Melody smiled, preparing her PEG syringe.
“You’re always here, Melody,” Dan said. “Do you live here now?”
“I’m supposed to have gone home an hour ago but my replacement caregiver is stuck in traffic. I was on the night shift and I’m on the night shift tonight.”
He shrugged in sympathy. “I’ll just put this lot in her room and be on my way.”
He took a good look around the table at the other residents, the ones who’d suffered at the hands of those awful people. Nigel Wright, blind and confused, the hole where his right eye should be looking red and raw today. Stephen Shell, his small defenseless body sat at an angle in his wheelchair, his eyes focused in different directions. Small, thin Greg sitting on his chair, his hand in his bowl, wearing a confused look. Dan could imagine him being terrified and alone, chased around the corridors of St. Vincent’s by those cowards and that bastard Jason Hereford. Dan shivered when he looked at Patrick, the child like wonder in his eyes as he gazed into the garden, making approving whooping noises at a squirrel that ran across the fence. How he could have been left alone with that insane fucker over at Berrymoor, Connor Pendred, defied belief. Then there was Shelly, sitting in a wheelchair similar to his sister’s, looking vacantly up at the ceiling. Betrayed so many years by the system, allowed to be abused by that woman.
Then there was his own sister. She looked at him sharply, and their eyes met and just for a second he could imagine her venting her rage on Widdowson.
“Daniel. Are you okay?” Melody was looking at him, concern in her eyes.
He broke out of his thoughts. “Er…yes. Fine. I’ll pop in next week. Visit Lindsey properly.”
“Just put the bags in her room. I’ll sort them out before I go.”
He walked down the empty corridor and left the clothes in her room. She had some cuddly toys and pictures of him and some other pictures of her mother on the chest of drawers. From here he could see the tower of the dead asylum, now a blurred dark shape reaching up
into the mist from the twisted mess of winter trees. He was suddenly struck by an uneasy feeling that the tower was waiting for something. This dark day hung heavy with meaning, as if some storm were about to break, some great secret revealed.
The day became heavy, a thick rain poured through the mist and darkened the afternoon. Alison cooked salmon for dinner and they enjoyed it with a glass or two of red. The evening drew on and they talked. She put some music on and tried to teach him the Tango. This ended up as another marathon sex session, this time on the sofa.
Once they had finished, they lay there under a blanket.
“This is boring,” he said. “It’s Friday. Let’s go down to the pub. You can meet my mates. They’re idiots. You’d love them.”
“Karl sounds okay, but the one who watches porn on his phone sounds like a dick.”
“Mooey. He’s all right. Besides, he might lend us some. Give us some ideas.”
“I’ve got plenty of ideas, Dan,” she smiled wickedly. “Besides, he might have seen me already in one of the films he watches.”
“You’ve done porn? Really?”
She laughed out loud, the way she did when she played a trick on him. “Of course I haven’t.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about you. You’re an enigma.”
“Does this concern you?”
“No. I love you.” It was out of his mouth before he could stop it.
“But you don’t even know me. Really.”
“You live in New Scarsdale. Your dad lives there. That’s all I know. I don’t even know his name.”
“It’s Magnus. My father’s name is Magnus.”
“Okay. Tell me about your first boyfriend. What was he like?”
She laughed, as if he’d asked something stupid. “Why do you want to know about that? Listen, we haven’t got long left in this house. We’ve done it in my room, your room, the kitchen, and now in here. We could do it in the bathroom. Have a bath together.”
“Not after Widdowson’s been in that bath.”
“There must be something else you’d like to do. Something perverse.”
Dan was aware that she was deliberately avoiding talking about herself. She was using sex to avoid this, but his curiosity was masked by that usual gut-churning excitement she managed to ignite within him.
“What about dressing up? I could wear my nurse’s uniform. Or I’ve got several basques in the cupboard you’ve not seen. Come on, what’s your fetish?”
She’d angled herself over him, sitting over him, moving up and down again.
“You really want to know?”
“Yes,” she breathed, her blue eyes flashing with playful glee. “The filthier the better.”
“Okay,” he swallowed hard. “Upstairs in my room…”
“…yes…”
“I’ve got a Rams football shirt. Stick that on.”
“You prick.” She kissed him. “How about I put your mother’s clothes on. Would that turn you on?”
“Yuck. I could wear Widdowson’s suit. He left it here, could quote from the Bible. Leviticus. Would that turn you on? Fuck it, come on, let’s go up to the pub.”
“You’ve had too much to drink already. I need you here tonight and able to perform.” She climbed off of him. “Wait there.”
She went upstairs and he wondered what she was up to. She returned wearing a black Basque and carrying a jockey’s whip.
He liked this scenario. She teased him, hitting and caressing with the whip, and he found he liked it. She’d obviously worked out that he quite liked it when she bit him and he responded with a soft moan. When he was too turned on to endure any more teasing, he fucked her on the sofa again until she wrestled her way on top of him and kept him there, enjoying him for almost an hour.
Dan had the nagging feeling she was keeping him here for another reason, wanting him to stay in this room. Once he’d come, she stayed on top of him and that nagging feeling she was trying to keep him here increased. With each passing minute she pinned him to the sofa, the more acute his suspicions became. He tried to free himself, but she kept him there, trapped under her. Dan tried to smother the realisation of how weird this was, but the look in her eyes had a cruelty to it, as if she were slightly unhinged.
“I’m gonna stay here until you’re hard again.” He detected a hint of threat in her voice. “I’m going to make you come again. Come inside me.” She sunk her teeth into his neck once more and this time he didn’t enjoy it. “I’m enjoying you. Enjoying you immensely.”
He still couldn’t move. She had him pinned to the sofa, her hands gripping his wrists. Her smile was now evil. He suddenly didn’t recognise the Alison he’d got to know over the past two weeks. This was a different woman entirely.
“Who the fuck are you?”
He hadn’t meant it to sound like that. Not so mean.
“Do you really want to know who I am?”
“I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.”
“Stay with me, Daniel. Stay with me,” she whispered in his ear. “Stay until we’re finished.”
What the hell did that mean? This wasn’t funny anymore. She was someone else now. She wasn’t the Alison he’d fallen in love with. This side of her was dark and that disturbed him.
The phone began to ring. She leapt off of him. “You better get that.”
“No, leave it. We need to talk.”
He looked at the clock. It was midnight. Who the hell was ringing at midnight?
“Answer the phone,” she said. “Then you’ll know everything.”
He froze at her words. The phone kept ringing. After thirty seconds, Alison strode over and picked it up, then handed him the receiver.
Fighting through the confusion he answered. “Hello.”
“Mr. Hepworth. It’s Melody.” The faint voice on the other end of the receiver sounded frightened. “It’s Lindsey. She’s gone. She’s no longer in her room.”
Forty
Connor Pendred stopped screaming. From inside the seclusion room there came no noise at all, which worried Philip. When he wasn’t screaming, he was moaning, occasionally singing to himself. Something about blocking your ears when they come.
Philip should have been on a late shift again, but the agency nurse on duty hadn’t turned up. All of the patients in the Berrymoor unit were edgy tonight, and Philip had to admit there was something in the air. A tangible tension that went beyond the usual patient/staff antagonism.
He sat in the office listening for any noise Connor Pendred was making. He couldn’t hear anything. He left the notes he was writing and stood up from his seat. They’d put Connor in there at 6:00 p.m. About an hour before that, he’d started punching thin air, yelling again that they were coming. Connor had left his room and started pounding at the toughened glass of the front entrance trying to get out. That’s when he and Wilson had forced him in the seclusion room and bleeped Dr. Shah, hoping the consultant would give Pendred drugs to knock him out. It was now midnight and Shah hadn’t answered.
Philip opened the small narrow horizontal flap and looked in. The light in the seclusion room had gone off. He couldn’t see if Connor was in there or not.
He called out to Wilson who was halfway down the corridor in the middle of speaking to a female patient who wanted her meds early so she could go to bed. The tall care assistant joined him at the door.
“It’s gone very quiet in there and the light’s gone out,” Philip explained.
“You want to look, see if he’s okay?”
“Please.” Philip fiddled with the keys on his belt, trying to find the key to the seclusion room door. “I want him kept in there until Shah gets here. This is on his head. I’ve bleeped him five times now. He should have been here by now. I can’t have Pendred running around the unit the way he is.”
Philip opened the door and both men tensed, ready to restrain Pendred if he tried to make a dash for it. As Philip pulled open the doo
r the light came on.
“No,” gasped Philip on seeing the empty cell. “I don’t believe it.”
“This is impossible.” Wilson shook his head, open-mouthed. “I’ve been here the entire time, more or less. No one has opened this door. He’s gone. The patient is gone!”
Jason Hereford stretched his arm out and expected his fingers to meet his wife’s torso as he sleepily embraced her. Instead, his fingers hit a hard, gritty surface. Cold stiffened his nerves so he reached down for the duvet only to find it wasn’t there.
His body was no longer on the soft bed but on the gritty, cold concrete. His eyes snapped open, he sat up.
This wasn’t his bedroom. He was alone in a strange, cold place. Above, shafts of dirty pale light illuminated the cracked wall and peeling magnolia paint. He was in a corridor. A corridor he’d seen many times but not for a long time. How the hell did he get here? He’d gone to bed early after taking a sleeping pill the doctor had given him for his nerves. The last thing he remembered was Debbie crawling in beside him just past eleven.
He stood up, looked around. This was St. Vincent’s. He’d been brought to St. Vincent’s!
“Oh, good God in Heaven,” he said out loud. “This is it. This is it!”
The time had come. The final act. No, no, this wasn’t happening. All he had to do was get out of this building, this ruin. Find a phone. Ring Debbie.
Behind him a long, drawn out groan informed him he was not alone. In the darkness down the corridor, he could hear heavy footsteps. Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Followed by the sharp groan of a heavy metallic object being dragged across the bare concrete.
“Who’s there?” he called out. “Hello? Who is that?”
The footsteps neared as did the sound of whatever was being dragged across the floor. When the tall figure emerged, his lean body became illuminated by one of the shafts of pale light which offered a monochrome rendering of his captor. Jason pissed himself. When he saw what it was dragging behind, Jason scrambled across the concrete away from the perpetrator and the chase commenced.
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