“Samuel, where are you?”
His mother’s voice came floating on the wind, reaching him even out here in the barn. She never came this far from the house and he regarded it as his domain, so the fact that her words could penetrate his sanctum annoyed him. He should take the knife from its hiding place in the barn’s stone wall, march through the snow to the house and…
Eventually, he told himself, she will pay for what she’s done. But not yet. Not yet.
“Samuel!” she shouted, her voice harsher now. Harsher even than the cold wind that blew over the farm, whirling the snow into devilish shapes that arose from the ground momentarily and then scattered on the breeze. Maybe they were old ghosts come to haunt him.
He wanted to go to the open barn door and shout at her, “My name isn’t Samuel!” but there was no point. She’d given them new names years ago and ignored any talk of their old ones. Like demons evading conjuration, they kept their true names secret.
He did go to the barn door but instead of shouting at her, he waved. She was standing on the porch, dressed as always in one of her white ankle-length robes. Today, the robe seemed to reflect the whiteness of the snow covering the farm, almost shimmering in harmony with it. Her uniform, she called it. Her uniform as a servant of God.
Funnily enough, Samuel couldn’t recall anyone in the Bible wearing a uniform. His mother’s brand of faith was definitely unique.
And hypocritical.
He knew where her religious fervour came from and it was nothing to do with a faith in God and more to do with a desire to bury her past sins. That was why he was now called Samuel and she had named herself Mary.
That was a joke in itself, unless her name referred to Mary Magdalene.
She beckoned to him to come back to the house. He sighed and left the barn, making his way towards her through the snow, surrounded by the whirling snow devils. He imagined they were whispering to him.
“Do it.”
“Don’t wait. Get the knife now.”
“Make her pay for what she did.”
“We’re watching you.”
“Ruth is watching you.”
“Avenge her death.”
As tempting as it might be to follow their instructions, he ignored the voices in his head He couldn’t do what they wanted—what he wanted— just yet.
As he got closer to the porch, he could see her belly protruding beneath the robe. One of the many men she met from the Internet had planted his seed inside her and now it was growing to fruition.
Samuel could not kill her while she had the innocent baby inside her.
He turned to look back at the barn. Behind the building, buried beneath the snow, was Ruth’s grave. Marked with only a simple rock, upon which he had painted his sister’s name in red paint, it was a place where he often stood and reflected on what he must do.
It was while standing there, looking down at the red-painted rock, that he had finally understood his calling. It had been the day his mother had told him she was pregnant. Blessed with a child was how she’d put it.
After his mother had told him her news, he’d gone out to Ruth’s grave and for the first time since her death, he’d felt how disappointed she was in him. A profound sense of failure had washed over him. He’d told Ruth he would protect her, and he had been neglectful in that duty.
And now she was dead.
He had to put things right.
The idea of taking a woman and a girl had come to him.
He turned away from the barn and hurried to the house where his mother waited on the porch. He wondered how she could bear to be out here in the cold with only the robe protecting her from the elements. Despite the fact that he was wearing a thick, padded jacket and gloves, he felt the chill of the wind deep in his bones.
“What are you doing up there in the barn?” she asked him. There was no malice or suspicion in her voice. She had no idea what he was planning to do to her. It was just a simple question.
“Just checking the hens,” he said. That wasn’t a lie; he’d gone to the barn to make sure the hens were fed. He’d thrown food pellets and grain onto the ground and watched the birds pick at it with their beaks.
He liked animals. Unlike people, they were simple. The people he had to deal with at the delivery depot where he worked were mind-bogglingly complex and he didn’t know how to interact with them at all. So he avoided them as much as possible. That made them think he was weird, and they avoided him as well.
His job as a courier meant he spent most of his workday on the road in his van anyway, which suited him perfectly. The van was his sanctum, shutting out the outside world when he was behind the wheel. And he didn’t have to interact with the customers other than handing them their parcels and asking them to sign for them if required. He could handle that no problem.
“Come inside,” his mother said. “It’s freezing out here.”
So she did feel the cold after all.
He went into the house and took off his jacket, gloves, and boots. His mother took the jacket from him and hung it on a hook behind the door before placing the boots neatly beneath it. “I don’t know why you spend so much time in that barn,” she said. “Those birds can take care of themselves.”
Samuel knew that what she actually didn’t like was him spending time behind the barn where the little red-painted rock marked his sister’s final resting place. But she’d never say that because she never mentioned Ruth or the grave. He wasn’t allowed to either. Even the mention of his sister’s name was taboo and would bring about a harsh punishment.
His mother might believe her sins were forgiven but she obviously didn’t want to be reminded of them.
“Look at you,” she said, flicking her hands through his hair. “You’re covered with snow.”
“I’m fine,” he said, trying to bat her hand away. “Leave me alone.”
She ignored his protestations and continued fussing over him until she was satisfied. “There,” she said, stepping back and looking him over. “That’s much better.”
He went into the living room and looked at the telly, which was on with the sound turned down. The News was on and Samuel could see a photograph of a girl’s face and the words Abigail Newton Found on the screen.
She wasn’t just any girl, of course; she was the girl he’d looked after for three weeks.
Three weeks ago, he’d seen her from his van. She’d been strolling along a country lane like she didn’t have a care in the world. At that moment, he’d been struck by how much like Ruth she looked. The same long, dark hair. The same slight figure. And most of all, there’d been a lightness about her movements, almost as if she wasn’t completely a part of this world at all, that had reminded him of his sister.
He’d pulled over and stopped the van a few yards in front of her. He could remember that moment vividly. Every detail. Although it was Winter, the day had been warm, the sun beating down from an azure blue cloudless sky.
The birds had been singing in the trees and their song had sounded like a joyous celebration of his chance meeting with this girl on a lonely road.
She wore a red padded jacket and jeans. Ruth had worn a red jacket. As he waited for the girl to reach his van, he had to blink at her a couple of times to assure himself that this wasn’t actually his sister strolling along a Derbyshire road with not a care in the world.
It wasn’t Ruth, of course. But she looked so much like her that he couldn’t just leave her here. Everyone knew that pretty girls shouldn’t wander on their own. It was dangerous. To simply drive past and leave her on this country road would be wrong. What if he saw her face on the News in a few days’ time and heard that she’d been murdered? He’d never forgive himself for not protecting her when he had a chance.
He was looking at her face on the News right now, but she hadn’t been murdered. She hadn’t been hurt at all. He’d looked after her.
But now, he wasn’t so sure that Abigail looked like his sister at all. She had the same hair and build bu
t that was all. When he’d seen her from his van on that country road in Derbyshire, he’d been fooled. The Devil had placed scales over his eyes and made him think that Abigail Newton was similar to his sister.
Now, watching the silent television, the scales had been lifted. She was nothing like Ruth.
That was why he didn’t feel a sense of satisfaction from what he’d done last night. He’d believed his actions would quiet the voices in his head, show them that he was seeking repentance for failing his sister.
It hadn’t worked as he’d hoped. It hadn’t worked at all.
The news report about Abigail ended and her photo was replaced with a video that showed men in white overalls stepping carefully into the barn where he’d left the whore.
The video was replaced with a photograph of a woman’s face and a caption that read, Missing Woman Tanya Ward Found Dead.
He leaned forward and frowned at the photograph on the screen and then looked over at his mother, who was standing in the doorway, watching him.
He returned his gaze to the television and felt a sinking feeling. The Devil had fooled him a second time; the woman on the screen looked nothing like his mother.
He was going to have to find another one.
Chapter Ten
“I don’t know what else to say.” The nurse sitting across the table shrugged. “Tanya worked her shift and went home as normal. Well, we thought she’d gone home.”
Dani nodded and resisted letting out a sigh of frustration. She and Matt had interviewed everyone currently on duty in the small mental hospital. No one knew anything and no one seemed to be lying about that fact. They’d all spoken to the police already and had nothing else they could add to their previous statements.
No strange vehicles had been seen in the vicinity of Larkmoor House. No one had been loitering outside the building or hanging around in the woods, as far as anyone knew.
Dani looked at Matt, who was sitting next to her, and saw the same look of disappointment on his face that she knew was on her own. They’d been here for three hours now, interviewing the staff in a tiny meeting room that smelled of sweat and cheese. The cup of tea she’d been given, in a brown plastic cup, had tasted stale and after one sip, she’d left the rest to go cold.
“Okay, thanks,” Matt said to the nurse.
She got up out of her chair and nodded solemnly before leaving the room.
Matt looked up at the ceiling and threw his pen onto the table. “Well that was a waste of time.”
“It had to be done,” she said, getting up and stretching her back and shoulders. “Now let’s get the hell out of here.”
Matt gathered his things, which included photocopied pages from the hospital’s Visitor’s Log, and strode to the door before Dani had a chance to put her coat on.
“Hang on,” she said.
“Sorry, guv, it’s just that this place gives me the creeps.”
“The hospital? Why?”
“When I was a kid, my grandmother ended up in a place like this. My parents took me to see her every weekend and the place terrified me. When people lose their minds, it isn’t a pretty sight.”
“It isn’t,” she agreed, gathering her things and following him out of the door.
When they got to the reception area, they were buzzed out of the front door and stepped out into the chilly night. It was dark and quiet outside. The snow had stopped falling but thick, grey clouds loomed overhead.
Looking out over the surrounding countryside, Dani had a sudden sense of just how isolated Larkmoor House was.
Matt, who was loading his things into the boot of the car, saw Dani contemplating their surroundings and did the same, looking at the vast space around them as if trying to figure out what his boss was seeing that he was not.
“He probably has a connection to this place,” Dani said finally, her eyes on the far horizon.
“Guv?”
“You wouldn’t know Larkmoor House existed unless you worked here, visited a patient here, or were a patient yourself. There’s nothing else for miles around.”
“There’s nothing to suggest he came into contact with Tanya here, though,” he said, taking her things from her and placing them in the boot with his own. “He might have seen her anywhere.”
“The file suggests she lived a quiet life in a small village,” Dani said. “She hardly ever went anywhere except to work and the occasional night out with her husband and friends at a local pub.”
“Not much of a life,” Matt observed, getting into the Kodiaq and starting the engine.
“No,” Dani said, putting her seatbelt on. “But it makes our job easier.”
Matt pursed his lips and seemed to be lost in thought as they drove away from Larkmoor House. “He could be a random killer,” he said when they reached the main road. “He’s driving along this road and he sees Tanya’s car. He gets her to pull over and grabs her. After he’s dragged her into his own vehicle, he hides her car and continues on his way.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “If you were hunting for someone to abduct, would you be driving along this road at two in the morning? There’s nothing here.”
“Nice and isolated,” Matt said. “The perfect place to grab someone. The chance of anyone seeing you is almost non-existent.”
“So is the chance of finding a victim. You could probably drive along this road all night and not see another car. He must have known that Tanya would be here, on this road, at that exact time.”
Matt considered this. “So you think he met her at the hospital at some point and, I don’t know, fixated on her or something? Then, three nights ago, he followed her along this road from the hospital and abducted her?” He sighed. “I don’t know, guv, are you sure he couldn’t just be some random guy?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I think she knew him. If he was a stranger, why would she stop her car, in the early hours of the morning, on an empty stretch of road? No woman would do that.”
“Perhaps he forced her off the road,” he said. “He could have come up alongside her and bullied her into the ditch. Maybe he had a larger vehicle, like a lorry or a van.”
“ So where’s Tanya’s car?”
“He moved it into the trees.”
“If he wanted to hide her car, he couldn’t risk crashing it. It might have ended up disabled by the side of the road. Tanya might have been killed. Then his efforts would have been for nothing.”
“So you think he got her to pull over?”
Dani nodded. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. She wasn’t going to rule out any other possibility, especially at this early stage of the investigation, but she was sure the killer had followed Tanya from Larkmoor House along this road and had somehow persuaded his victim to pull over.
Assuming he was someone Tanya knew, and assuming he wasn’t someone from her close-knit group of friends, the most logical place for him to have met her was at her place of work. Members of the public must come and go all the time at the hospital.
But for Tanya to have trusted this person enough to stop her car on a lonely road, he had to have been more than just a member of the public who’d been visiting a patient at the hospital. He had to be someone the victim knew.
That suggested a staff member. But everyone who worked at Larkmoor House, whether on duty during the night of Tanya’s abduction or not, had been accounted for by the police officers who had conducted the initial inquiry into Tanya’s disappearance.
She rubbed her eyes. Her theory seemed to make sense at the moment, but her sleep-deprived mind might be ignoring holes in the logic that would be obvious in the cold light of day.
“I don’t know,” she said to Matt. “I think I just need some sleep.”
“We both do, guv,” he said sympathetically.
Until she was able to think more clearly, she wasn’t even going to consider how Tanya Ward’s blood had ended up on the nightgown that Abigail Newton had been wearing.
H
opefully, that was something Abigail could explain. The girl was the key to solving this case.
Matt dropped her at HQ and Dani drove her Land Rover home with eighties pop hits blaring from the radio. She sang along with the ones she knew the words to, trying to distract her mind from the case. She couldn’t allow herself to overthink it, especially when she was tired.
At the cottage, the dogs greeted her and she went out into the back garden with them for a while before turning in.
When she slept, she dreamt of a girl in a white nightgown watching with terrified eyes as a man with no face slashed a dark-haired woman over and over with a knife. A rain of blood splattered onto the girl’s nightgown, turning the white fabric a dark, bloody crimson.
Chapter Eleven
December 23rd
Battle stood in the newly created incident room at the Northallerton HQ building. At the moment, he was the only person in there; everyone else was getting ready for the painstaking search of the moors they were about to carry out.
The search should have been conducted yesterday but the news from Forensics that linked Abigail to Tanya widened the area that Battle wanted the search team to examine. A corridor leading over the moors between the place Abigail had been picked up and Brambleberry Farm had been marked on a map. It was a huge area and searching it would be no easy task. He’d decided to hold off until this morning so that they could devote every hour of daylight to it.
Thankfully, the snowstorm had moved on and today, the sky was cloudless and bright blue. Now if the sun could just melt the snow off the moors, conditions would be ideal.
The room in which he now stood contained a number of desks, telephone lines, and whiteboards fixed to the walls. One of these boards was devoted to Tanya Ward and photographs of her—both alive and dead—were affixed to it. Another board focused on Abigail and photos of her—all alive, thankfully—were arranged neatly down the left-hand side.
The scant information they had on the girl and the woman was detailed on each board in blue marker.
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