‘Come on then,’ she said. ‘Better get it over with.’
The moment Millie opened the door, Gyp was off across the yard. They could hear him barking, out in the dark.
‘Wish that ruddy animal of yours wouldn’t do that,’ Ruby said.
Millie hurried over towards the coop, Ruby trailing along behind. The chickens were squawking and flapping inside but when she peered in, she couldn’t see anything other than their pale shapes fluttering around the roosts.
‘Hush, girls,’ she said. She let herself out of the run, closing the gate behind her and picking up the basket. ‘Did you check their water this morning?’
‘I dunno,’ Ruby said.
A fox rasped out an alarm call from behind the paddock. Ruby shot a hand out and grabbed Millie by the wrist.
‘What the bloody hell was that?’
‘A fox,’ Millie said. ‘That’s probably why the hens are restless.’
For some reason, Ruby's escalating anxiety soothed her and she felt her courage returning. They made their way back across the yard, Millie calling for Gyp to come back in. She could see him, his light coat visible against the shadow of the wall as he flitted along the boundary before disappearing behind the stables.
‘Oh, leave him,’ Ruby said, ‘he’ll be in later.’
As they reached the kitchen door, another animal shrieked – much nearer this time – and Ruby sprang behind Millie, grasping her by the waist to put her between herself and the sound.
‘It’s a vixen scream,’ Millie said, prising Ruby's hands loose and pushing her aside to get to the door. Ruby slammed it shut behind them, leaning against it, laughing with relief.
‘Give me the Blitz any day. This country thing frightens the living daylights out of me.’
The smell of the kitchen was comforting – wood smoke, the apples drying in the pantry, the smell of Ruby’s discarded cigarette. Millie sat down to pull off her boots. ‘Draw the curtains,’ she said, ‘we’ll have the ARP up here otherwise and then we’ll really have something to be frightened about.’
Ruby retrieved her stub and lit it as she walked towards the window, turning to flick the match into the coal scuttle. In that split second Millie saw a movement out in the darkness beyond the windowpane. Ruby closed the curtains, turned round and was about to take a drag on her cigarette when she paused and said, ‘Crikey Mills – you seen a ghost?’
‘There’s something out there,’ she whispered.
Ruby ducked and slunk towards the table with her knees bent.
‘What?’ she said, her eyes huge.
‘I saw something out there, before you closed the curtains.’
Ruby looked over her shoulder and back to Millie.
‘What sort of something?’
‘I don’t know.’
Millie slowly pulled her boots back on, listening.
‘You don’t think that ruddy copper’s back, do you?’ she said.
It was Ruby's turn to be conciliatory.
‘We ain’t heard a peep out of him for months. It’ll be nothing,’ she said with scant conviction, ‘one of those bleedin’ animals is all. That dog of yours would be barking his head off if it was anything to worry about.’
She was right. Why wasn’t Gyp barking? Had she imagined the footstep on the track? Gyp had heard it – so why wasn’t he barking now? She stood up and made her way towards the kitchen door.
‘You’re not bleedin’ well going out to find him, are you?’ Ruby said.
‘’Course I am.’
Ruby snatched at Millie’s wrist, holding her so hard it hurt.
‘Don’t you dare. It’s a bleedin’ dog.’
Millie twisted her arm free and said, ‘All right. Go and bolt the other door, just in case.’
Ruby narrowed her eyes and stared at her, raised a warning finger as she backed away, down the corridor.
‘Don’t you dare,’ she said a moment before disappearing. Millie heard her struggling with the bolt in the distance and thought, I’ll call him. He’ll hear me and come.
She opened the door as quietly as possible, wincing as it grated a piece of stone across the clay tiles. She stepped out onto the threshold.
‘Gyp?’ she called.
She listened. She took another step forward.
‘Gyp?’
She heard heavy footsteps. She turned, thinking Ruby was pounding through the kitchen to tug her inside and slam the door. No, they were in front of her, out in the dark. She turned back, stared out. A great pillar broke from the blackness, travelling at tremendous speed. Before she had time to think, it hit her full in the body. The man’s momentum pushed her off balance and he was through the door and into the kitchen before she had time to block him. Her foot caught. Her body folded. Down she went and crack! Her head struck the tiles, snapping her jaw shut, her teeth cutting her tongue. Blood. She could taste blood.
Dazed and disorientated she rolled onto her side, pushed herself up. She held the back of her head, felt stickiness. Ruby screamed. She heard feet running away. The other door rattling. Ruby was leaving her. She tried to sit up. Her head swirled. Her stomach felt sick. A hand grabbed her roughly by her collar, lifted her, dragged her to a chair. She looked up into the face of a man she’d never seen before. He was drunk. She could smell alcohol on his breath. No chin. Just an Adam’s apple slipping under the skin as he swallowed. One hand wrapped in a filthy bandage. He breathed through his mouth, his lips open. His hair, darkened with oil, fell across his eyes which were filled with a terrible violence.
He planted a heavy fist on the table, leaning forward against it until his mouth was inches from her face. Taking a handful of her blouse he pulled her closer and said, ‘Where’s my wife?’
Chapter Sixty Eight
When the blow came it was more shocking than painful. He caught her hard against the side of her face with an open hand. God, what a clout. Her ear throbbed with blood, her cheek pricked and burned. She righted herself, stared straight back at him. He pulled her close to his horrible face.
‘I said, where’s my wife?’
‘I don’t know your wife.’
It hurt to speak. Her tongue was beginning to swell, to catch on her back teeth. She could taste the iron in her blood. She wanted to spit.
‘June Russell. You know June Russell.’
‘London. She’s in London.’
‘You’re lying.’
She braced herself for another blow. It glanced across the crown of her head, sending a single hairpin singing to the floor. He was too drunk to aim properly.
‘She upstairs?’
‘You’ve made a mistake.’
He glared down at her and to her horror began to unbuckle the belt of his trousers with the bandaged hand. He grunted with the effort, his breath coming in short gasps, his fingers clumsy and restricted – please dear God no, anything but this – but as the tongue flicked free of the eyelet, he began to pull the belt off his trousers, stopping every now and again to snarl at his bandaged hand.
She heard the buckle jangling as he worked it through the trouser loops, thought he might beat her with it, imagined the metal cutting into her skull. He shoved her into the back of the chair with a growl.
‘Stay put,’ he said, stumbling around behind her. Standing with his feet wide apart, he grasped her wrist, pulling it back, tying the belt tight before threading the leather through the bars at the back of the chair, securing her other hand.
He staggered back round her, his footsteps heavy. He looked up at the ceiling, narrowed his eyes as if he was listening, breathing heavily.
‘June!’ he yelled, spittle flying from his mouth, ‘Wait till I get my hands on you…’ He headed off through the sitting room, disappeared round the turn in the staircase. He was above her, crashing from room to room, banging doors open and scraping beds aside.
She struggled against her ties, tried to stand. No good. The chair dragged her back. She cursed Ruby; together they could have defended themselv
es. He was drunk, irrational. Ruby had abandoned her, run away, left her. Where was she now? Hiding in the sheds, lighting up a fag.
There was a pause in the noise from above. Millie strained her ears to listen but could hear nothing. Could he possibly have passed out on a bed? Or had he found something? She heard him descending, a clattering thrum as his heel slipped down several steps – and he flung a child’s shirt onto the kitchen table.
‘What d’you call this?’
‘They’ve gone.’
He snatched up the shirt, pulled at the inside of the collar, shoving a label into her face.
‘Why does it say “Daniel Russell” on it, eh?’
‘They were here. They’ve gone.’
‘Why should I believe you? You’re hiding her. You’ve been hiding Nazis. You’re a fucking collaborator.’
Millie saw him bunch his fist and turned her head. The blow caught her on her cheekbone, stunned her, made her gasp out a sob of fear and pain.
‘Traitor. Whore.’ He struck her again. The room rocked, there was a singing in her ears but as it weakened she heard something else. Barking. Gyp. He could hear her. He sounded so far away.
She dropped her head to her chest. Russell pulled her up by her hair. She let her eyelids flutter, let the muscles of her face go limp. He flung her head aside and she heard him pacing away from her. How could he know? How many others knew? Was this the end? If he didn’t kill her, would she be shaven and beaten and shamed?
With her head hanging, she opened her eyes. Blood, everywhere. It couldn’t all have come from her mouth. It was flowing, falling from her nose, she could hear it landing on her trousers – tap, tap, tap – so much blood, so bright, pouring out of her. She’d bleed to death, surely. She wanted to free her hands, stem the flow before it drained her completely.
She couldn’t see Russell but she could hear him. He was stumbling around, swearing, knocking things over. Something shattered on the floor of the laundry room, a chair tumbled in the sitting room. His brutality filled the house with a sickening energy.
There was a movement behind but she couldn’t work out what it was. Russell came back into the kitchen. The blackout curtain rattled back.
She lifted her head, saw him moving erratically from window to window. Then she heard the grumble of a tractor engine.
Oh, thank God, Hugh was here.
Russell grabbed a chair and braced it underneath the crossbar of the door. He headed back towards the table, started tugging at it, moving it closer to the door. She yelled out,
‘Hugh! Help me!’
Russell pounced at her, grabbed the back of her head and pressed the injured hand over her mouth. The bandage tasted of blood and smelled faintly of iodine. She could see the whites of his eyes as they darted around. Someone began hammering on the door.
‘Millie! Open up!’
Russell turned, his hand slipping further up Millie’s face, the soft crepe of the bandage blocking her nose as well as her mouth. She struggled with all her strength, screaming in her throat until she thought her chest would burst.
She struck out with her boots, her legs flailing in the panic of suffocation, and caught Russell a solid blow on his shin. He cursed. He let go. She didn’t care about the next two blows; she could breathe again and she was furious.
The hammering stopped. She heard a tinny rattling at the kitchen window. She strained her head around. There was a gap in the curtain.
In the tail of her eye she saw Hugh’s face at the window, pale and anguished. He began charging at the leading with his shoulder, pinging out diamonds of glass which fell and shattered on the stone flags inside.
Russell shot across the room and began battling to close the wooden shutters. They hadn’t been used for years. The hinges screamed. He unfolded one, rushed across, grabbed the other.
She jumped the chair round. Hugh had knocked free the middle sections of glass and was tearing at the buckled leading, cursing as the shards stuck into his hands. He wormed an arm through, grappling for the latch.
Russell had the other shutter free. He thumped it against Hugh’s arm, again and again. Pushed his whole body weight against it. Got it shut. Grappled with the locking bar.
Hugh’s shouts were muffled, the shutters jumping and jumping but Russell pressed against them, squeezed the metal bar into place. She couldn’t hear Hugh any more.
Then, Bang! The door into the outhouse jumped in its frame.
Russell rushed down the corridor. The feet of the blanket chest screeched across the floor, Russell panting and grunting with the effort of moving it.
She struggled against the belt, the leather cutting into her skin – she had to get free. No one could get into the house. All entrances were barred. It didn’t matter how many police or Home Guards turned up, no one could reach her. She was doomed.
Russell stopped moving but she couldn’t see why. Was he taking a breather, gathering his strength? In the silence of the kitchen, she heard other vehicles arriving, orders being shouted, feet running around the side of the house. There was Gyp, close now, barking with a ferocity she’d never heard before.
Russell was behind her. She heard a light scrape of metal. He’d picked up the knife Ruby had been using to pare the vegetables the night before. Why did that ruddy woman never put anything away? He stepped in front of her and she saw it in his hand, small and sharp.
There was a noise behind the door of the pantry, a glass jar smashing onto the tiles. Thank the Lord, she thought. There’s another way in. The perforated sheet of metal which kept the room cool but stopped the flies.
Russell started to drag the heavy pine table away from the kitchen door, round towards the pantry. He snarled and spluttered as he pulled. The bandage bloomed with fresh blood, leaving smears across the wood.
He got the table partially across the door when it began to jump on its legs. He rushed to the side and leaned against it. He jerked as another blow vibrated the door. Slowly, inexorably the table inched its way into the kitchen, angling as the door opened one inch, then another. A hand appeared, gripping the door, pushing.
Russell scrambled across the top of the table and stabbed at the fingers. They shot out of sight. A man yelled. Russell had made a mistake. His weight on the table was not as effective. The door gave a mighty jerk, throwing him onto the floor. The knife sprang from his hand, clattered onto the stone.
One man, two men pushed through the gap. Russell snatched the knife up. In a bound he was behind Millie, his bloodied hand gripping her hair, the knife at her throat. His face loomed over her.
The first officer froze, gesturing to his colleague to stay where he was. The door stood half open. Another policeman came into view.
Russell jerked Millie’s head further back and she felt the tip of the knife trembling under her jaw. She panted, small, shallow breaths, trying to keep completely still. Shadows skipped around at the edge of her vision. She could hear other men climbing into the pantry, whispering orders to one another.
She could smell Russell, alcohol and sweat, sharp, like foul wet straw. There was a tang of raw onion on the metal of the knife. Her mouth was filled with the taste of blood. Her skin jangled; her wrists burned; her face throbbed; the roots of her hair stung. Goose bumps and flushes ran along her back, sweat trickling between her breasts.
Sounds came to her in layers, the faint crunch of gravel.
Whispers. Hugh’s voice, quiet but in charge.
Someone pleading.
A strange stillness.
The pressure of the blade slackened. Was Russell listening? He lifted his head. If she strained her eyes, she could look down her nose, see the shape of the policeman nearest the pantry door. He flicked a sideways glance, stepped back.
A deafening cannonade thundered on the kitchen door, someone else was banging and shouting on the door to the outhouse, the shutters over the window juddered and jumped. Russell tensed, looked towards the exits.
She winced. The knife nicked her s
kin. She held her body higher. Russell flicked his head from left to right. A gobbet of sweat dropped from his hair onto her face.
Over the banging and thundering she heard the legs of the table skitter on the tiles. In the corner of her vision she saw Gyp, a blur of fur and fangs, leaping from the top of the table.
Russell roared. She thought the knife would plunge into her neck.
She braced herself, eyes tight shut. A great force hit her on her side. Her hair was free. A singing clatter as the knife hit the floor. A maelstrom of teeth and slavering snarls, a scream of terror, bodies and fists, right next to her.
The chair was toppling. She was going over. She braced herself, tucked her chin into her chest.
Her elbow struck first. A bruising jar. Impossible to stop. Her head. God, the noise in her skull. Ears buzzing. Louder, much louder. All black round the edge of her eyes, shapes fighting, pushing into the middle. Couldn’t hear anything now, just the buzzing, louder and louder.
She wondered if she was unconscious. She felt a hand stroke across her forehead, down her cheek, the skin of the palm rough.
‘Oh God, Millie, my darling, darling girl… what has he done to you?’
Chapter Sixty Nine
Millie lay on the sofa in the shadows of the sitting room. Someone had built up a pile of cushions to support her. She could hear voices, lots of them, murmuring. A murmur of starlings? No, that wasn’t right. It was a lower, bigger noise, like wind in high branches. Had they finally come to get her?
She opened her eyes. Who were all those people in the kitchen? She moved. Caught her breath. Gyp sat up and licked her hand. Everything ached, her shoulders, her arms, her back. She felt a draught of night air from an open door creeping around the floor of the house, cooling her legs. She leant forward to pull the chenille shawl over them.
Her head throbbed. She tried to swallow, her tongue stiff, too big for her mouth. She reached out, stroked the top of Gyp’s head, lifting one of his ears and rolling it between her finger and thumb. She sank back into the cushions. She felt oddly euphoric, warm, safe. She closed her eyes.
A Dangerous Act of Kindness Page 31