Love Me to Death

by Susan Gee

  Their footsteps echoed against the damp corridor as rubble and broken plaster crunched under his feet. As Mr Anderson got closer, the door was slightly ajar. The door was heavy, but he pushed it open.

  From the blandness of the old corridor with its plain cream mouldy walls, the first thing that hit him were the feathers. It took a few moments to realise what they are. They covered the floor – pigeon feathers. They were everywhere. There was something surreal about them. There was a clatter of wings as he stepped forward and a bird flew up from the back of the room and up towards the window.

  ‘What the…?’

  As his eyes moved across to the floor he saw him. Sat rigid in the corner of the room. Head flopped limply sideways like a rag doll.

  ‘Jesus.’

  Jacob Clarke, his hair matted with dirt and grease. The smell. He was used to going into bad places, but it was horrendous. The old mattress Jacob was sitting on was stained brown. His eyes were wide and his mouth was almost locked open.

  When Mr Anderson saw Jacob, he felt something, something he hadn’t felt for a long time. He felt like a child again. He could see himself on the chair in the cellar. Left there for days so that he could learn his lesson.

  The boy’s face was calm. It reminded him of the stories his mother would tell him, of fairy tales where a girl with black hair as dark as a raven and lips as red as cherries was laid out on bed, fast asleep, waiting for someone to wake her up.

  Jacob Clarke’s lips weren’t cherry-red though: they were purple and his skin was almost grey.

  As he stared at him, something happened, a sound, a movement, something that told him that Jacob Clarke had been waiting for him, that he was alive. Mr Anderson looked around. There was no one here. There was only the two of them.

  ‘Jacob?’

  The boy looked up at him, his eyes open wide as though he wasn’t sure what he was seeing.

  ‘Hello?’ he rasped.

  ‘What you doing?’ Mr Anderson asked.

  ‘I’m waiting.’

  Mr Anderson didn’t ask what he was waiting for. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t want whatever he was waiting for to appear.

  ‘They’re looking for you.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Not home,’ Jacob said.

  ‘Come on, it’s OK.’

  Mr Anderson looked at the boy and wondered what would have happened to him if someone had come and taken him from the cellar all those years ago. He wasn’t sure if the boy was going to complain, but he didn’t. He just got up and went with him without any word, as though he would have gone anywhere with him. Mr Anderson glanced back at the room as Jacob followed in a daze.

  Mr Anderson pointed to where he’d been sitting ‘Don’t you want your book?’

  Jacob looked back at the book on the floor and shook his head. ‘It’s not mine.’

  It was a relief to get back onto the corridor and, as they walked back, Mr Anderson found that he was still breathing through his mouth so as not to take in the stench.

  When they got outside the fresh air was a relief. He went over to the side of the gravel path and leant up against a tree. There was something about that room. Something about Jacob’s face had taken him back to the dark space under the house where he spent so many days when his mother was alive.

  ‘You alright?’ he asked Jacob. He looked like he was about to put a hand on him before he stopped himself.

  ‘It’s cold.’

  He looked young and yet old. It was strange. Mr Anderson looked back at the house and then at Jacob.

  ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I wanted to be near my mum.’

  Mr Anderson could understand that. He looked up the window and thought about the bed upstairs. He wanted to leave this place and never come back.

  It felt good. He’d been the one to find Jacob Clarke. Mr Anderson looked over at him in the snow and knew that he could do anything he wanted. They were completely alone. No one would find him here, maybe for weeks, months. He inhaled. It could be perfect. He could even keep him here and no one would know. Jacob sniffed and put his hand to his eyes.

  ‘It’s too bright.’

  That’s how it always was, coming out of the darkness into the light. He knew that feeling.

  ‘Someone needs to look at that head,’ Mr Anderson told him.

  Jacob looked up at him. ‘Thanks for coming to find me.’

  Mr Anderson nodded. ‘I like to think we’re friends.’

  Jacob gave him a weak smile. ‘Yes.’

  As he walked along with Jacob, Mr Anderson didn’t worry that someone would blame him for this. He didn’t care that the women from work were going to love that the person to bring him home was him. It didn’t matter.

  He smiled. They really did have a connection, him and Jacob Clarke. This proved it. He had known where to find him when no one else did. They were almost family, but they were something else too. They were friends.

  40

  It started yesterday. As Paula Garrity went into the kitchen, she could have sworn that something moved behind the buddleia bush outside. When she’d gone upstairs to look out of the bedroom window there was no one there. The road was empty. She didn’t know what was wrong with her at the moment. Since Jacob had gone missing she had been a nervous wreck. She’d even been arguing with Jacob’s sister. Now that Jacob had gone she was getting all the attention from his dad and Paula felt like she’d always be second best. She hated the pair of them.

  The feeling was there again – that feeling that someone was watching. The thick bushes in front of the fence around the front garden need to be cut back, she decided, as the dog barked from the kitchen. As she walked through the living room, she told herself that she’d just been spooked and it was all in her imagination, but something told her that it wasn’t.

  Already, night had started to creep across the garden. The sky was grey and the back of the garden was misty and hazy. She closed the curtains before going to the dog. Saffy barked and jumped up and Paula opened the back door to let her out and locked it behind her. She usually took her out for a walk, but she wasn’t going out today. Maybe she’d go out after dinner if she felt better and take Dave with her. They could spend some time alone and she could win him back. He was distant at the moment, as though Jacob meant more to him than she ever had.

  She wondered if it could be Jacob out there, if he’d been the one following her – if he was playing games. She resisted the urge to go upstairs and look out of the bedroom at the street below again. It would be empty. It always was. She’d had this feeling for days and whenever she rushed to the window it was only ever one of the neighbours out there. Paula had begun to think that she was losing it. After all the things she’d said to Jacob about ending up like his mother, she was the one who wasn’t thinking straight.

  Paula put the kettle on and told herself to stop being stupid as she waited for the dog to scratch on the back door to tell her it was ready to come in. The last time they’d spoken, Jacob had had plenty to say, as usual. Not anymore though. She was uneasy about what happened with Jacob. Everywhere she went people were talking about it. They didn’t have any filter and they imagined that she cared.

  The woman from the flower shop asked her about him this morning. Her neck craned forward in interest.

  ‘We just hope he’s alright,’ she’d said. As though she was free to ask her anything she wanted.

  As Paula opened the tin of dog food she heard a bark and then the scratch at the door. It sounded different. A slow scratch. Not how Saffy usually tried to get in. Another scratch followed. Something made her stop before she opened the door. A bad feeling prevented her hand from turning the handle.

  She waited as the scratch came again. There was almost a knock with it. She stayed still, her legs heavy, not wanting to go past the back door or the frosted kitchen window in case he was there. It crossed her mind that this was stupid, what could Jacob Clarke do to her? He was
weak and he was pathetic.

  A shadow moved past the window. Then a crunch as someone ran past. The feeling was like ice down her spine. She wondered if it was Jacob outside on the patio, waiting for her, if something had snapped inside him the way his mother had gone. Paula went over to the side of the room and switched off the living room light. As she did, there was another movement outside, a black shape that moved past the window and across the lawn, towards the gate.

  There was a sound from the garden, a bark from Saff, and the shape of a person as they ran towards the back gate.

  Dave was working late again. He was never there when she needed him. This was supposed to be the time that he came to her and here was proof that the boy was nothing but trouble. Paula had turned a corner. Gone somewhere she thought she never would have done. Thoughts of Lyme Park and the distant peaks of the valleys came into her mind. She tried not to think about Jacob, still out there in the snow. She swallowed. This was a new feeling, the fear of what it was that they wanted from her, this person out there.

  She ran upstairs to the front bedroom and to the window. The road outside was empty. Whoever it was had gone in seconds. As though they were never there at all. It didn’t make sense. Paula was not a timid woman. She was a force to be reckoned with, and yet she felt something that she hadn’t felt for a long time. Paula felt afraid.

  She waited upstairs with the door shut until she heard Dave’s car on the drive. When she heard the sound of his key in the front door she went down the stairs.

  ‘Where have you been? You’ve been ages.’

  ‘Well, I’m back now.’

  His tone wasn’t normal. She could tell he was annoyed about something. He had been getting worse by the day and she wondered why. He didn’t know anything. He couldn’t.

  ‘You should have let me know you were on your way,’ she said with an attempt at a smile.

  ‘He’s been found,’ he said.

  ‘Who?’ she asked, although she knew.

  Dave frowned. ‘Jacob. Who else?’

  He looked tired and she could tell he’d been crying, his eyes were swollen and puffy.

  ‘Where was he?’

  She was good at acting, she’d been practising the lines in her head and the expression she was going to pull when he told her that his body had been found in the snow.

  ‘He’s in the hospital.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s sleeping.’

  ‘What do you mean sleeping? He can’t be.’

  ‘I’ve come back for his things.’

  ‘Well, you can’t go. I need you here. Someone was in the garden. The person that’s been following me.’

  Dave looked her up and down.

  ‘Didn’t you hear me? Jacob is in hospital,’ he told her.

  ‘Did you hear me?’

  ‘She was right, wasn’t she?’

  ‘What are you on about?’ Paula spat.

  ‘You and Jacob. It’s true.’

  ‘You’re not making sense.’

  ‘I should have listened to him. I can’t believe I didn’t.’

  ‘You’re not making any sense.’

  ‘Don’t be here when I get back.’ Jacob’s dad turned away from her and started to make his way towards the stairs.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I want you to go.’

  ‘What rubbish has he told you? He’s been trying to get rid of me. That’s all this is. You do know that?’

  ‘There are places you can go. Your mother’s.’

  ‘You’re not serious? Dave, come on, we can—’

  ‘I’ll send any stuff on that you can’t get sorted.’

  Paula shook her head in disbelief. ‘I can’t believe it. He’s just a nasty little shit. He’s like his mother, not right in the head.’

  ‘I’m leaving before I do something I regret.’

  Paula stood in the hallway and screamed as his car drove away. She walked up and down and clutched her hair. She wasn’t going to leave, how dare he? She knew she could talk him round when he got back. Jacob wasn’t going to win. She’d make sure of that. She just needed to think, to get the story right and to find a way to get rid of him properly.

  There was a whine from outside and she realised that the dog was still out. As she opened the door she saw someone on the path. She jumped and then relaxed when she realised who it was.

  ‘The bins?’ Mr Anderson smiled.

  She frowned. ‘Pardon? I’m busy, if you don’t mind.’

  His eyes glanced over the olive-green satin shirt and the black fitted trousers she was wearing. She felt his eyes move down her long blonde hair as it fell over the delicate folds of the shirt. The way he did it made her uncomfortable.

  ‘Oh dear, you look upset,’ he told her.

  ‘Look, I just need to…’

  Mr Anderson tilted his head. He held a black bag in his hand as he stepped closer. ‘You know, you really remind me of my mother,’ he told her, with a smile.

  *

  Paula Garrity was gone when Jacob’s dad got back. He thought it was strange at first that she’d left all her belongings, until he spoke to Jacob. When Jacob started to talk, Jacob’s dad realised that he had never really known Paula Garrity. It was worse than he’d imagined. She wasn’t the person he’d thought she was at all. Paula Garrity never made it to her mother’s house. No one was sure where she’d gone – only that she never came back.

  41

  Jacob sat in bed and looked out of the window onto the garden. His mum’s daffodils were in bloom and sways of yellow flowers trumpeted the beginning of spring. His dad’s bike was leant up against the fence from their earlier ride down the river path. Mr Anderson had been busy while they’d been out. After a week of digging, he’d finished the work in his garden and the bushes by the back fence had been replaced by a row of apple trees. He’d been out there for hours, digging a hole that was deep enough for a full-size tree, never mind the small saplings that he eventually put in. The sickly sweet smell of rubbish and decay filled the air and Jacob guessed that he was using the old compost heap.

  Jacob heard him out there until late into the night, the sound of his spade scraping on dirt as he filled in the final hole and in the morning there were four trees standing tall by the back fence. Jacob spent less time in the library now. It wasn’t necessary anymore. He felt like he belonged, as though he’d finally got his family back. He still visited Mr Anderson on occasion. Neither of them ever mentioned the day at the asylum.

  Jacob could hear the foxes, faint screams in the night as though they were deep under the ground. The sound was almost human. He hadn’t been sleeping very well, and it wasn’t just because of the nighttime activity of the foxes. It was because of Maggie. He’d lost her. She’d gone and, as the days turned to weeks, he wondered if he ever knew her at all. Despite what she’d done, his feelings hadn’t changed. Maggie didn’t want him to visit, and she hadn’t answered any of his letters. There was still time though; at least time was on his side. Maggie was locked away like one of the pigeons that Mr Anderson had started to keep and their cooing from the garden gave him hope that one day she’d come back to him.

  Matty Vincent knew that the police were coming to arrest Maggie before anyone else did. They came with two cars and a van – just for one girl. Jacob wondered how long he’d known, if he’d seen it in the words of her poems too, or if Maggie had confessed to him. That was the worst part. That thought that she might have confided in Matty instead of him. Jacob would have helped her and they could have gone away together. Matty sent the police instead, and Jacob hated him for it. Jacob would never have told a soul, not ever.

  When they searched the house, there were more of Maggie’s books, poems about her feelings that were beautifully, neatly written. All about Jayne and Matty. When the police checked Maggie’s wardrobe, they found Jayne’s walking boots in a plastic bag under a stack of old clothes. A pair of boots coated in mud and flecked with Jayne’s blood. Maggie had replaced the boo
ts with the red shoes after she’d killed her. Jacob couldn’t stop thinking about them and it was all Matty Vincent’s fault. He was to blame for everything. One girl wasn’t enough for him; he had to have two. He had to have them both and he had to give Jayne those shoes. The shoes bothered Jacob. That final act proved that Maggie wasn’t sorry. She’d taken her time to make a point. Jayne got to keep the shoes, but she was never going to have Matty.

  Jacob thought about Maggie’s poems and wondered if, somewhere, there was one written about him. He felt guilty, because the thing that had bothered him the most about what she’d done was that she’d done it all because of Matty Vincent. He was ashamed to say that he was jealous. She liked Matty Vincent so much that she couldn’t bear anyone else having him, not even her cousin.

  Jacob looked back at the times that she’d not wanted to talk about what happened to Jayne. He thought about that day that they went to the woods together and the look on her face when he’d tried to talk about it. He’d got it all wrong. He thought about the red shoes, the glitter that shone in the sunlight as Maggie walked away from him. Matty Vincent had been acting strange the night they found Jayne. Maybe he’d suspected all along what Maggie had done.

  It had been a surprise to everyone apart from Mr Anderson. He was not surprised at all. He wasn’t surprised, because he was there. He saw Maggie take off Jayne’s boots and slide her feet into those red heels before she tied up the dog and ran out of the woods. He didn’t tell anyone. Why would he? It had nothing to do with him.

  *

  It was spring and Lyme Park was deserted, the staff were yet to arrive and the gates were locked. The wind moved through the branches of the sycamores and the deer herd headed east of the approach road. The police investigation into the Cage Hill murders had reached a dead end. No further bodies had been found and the investigators were focused on other cases. When Paula Garrity went missing there was nothing to link her to it either. She’d simply left her house that morning and never arrived at her mother’s house. No witnesses had come forward and the police were at a loss. Paula Garrity hadn’t gone far though; she was metres away from where she started, chained up to an iron old bed in Mr Anderson’s cellar where she’d remained for the last two months.