In the Moors (34 page)

“Is anyone hurt,” the man persisted.

“Get DS Buckley, Bridgwater division. He's on the case. It's the solicitor—tell him it's Linnet!” I sobbed at the stupidity of it all. “I think he'll be dead. She's got a knife. She's mad. She cut off my hair”—I could hardly speak the word—“she
scalped
me.”

I took a few moments to gather the other information in my head as I spit out the complexities of Linnet's address … quaint sounding villages … dark forests and gingerbread houses.

I watched the bedroom door like a hawk as I whispered, phone in one hand, knife in the other. But suddenly, I felt my gaze being pulled to the window. It was no longer pitch black outside. A powerful light beamed across on the clipped lawn, with its statues and mature trees, and in that light a slight movement caught my attention, so that the voice on the phone faded. For a moment, I was sure I had seen the wings of a large white bird, slowly rising from the ground. It had to be a vision, something in my own mind. Then I realized. It was neither bird nor vision. I dropped the phone and ran.

TWENTY-NINE

I came out from
the front porch and pinned my body flat to the side of the house, moving slowly along the wall, keeping my footsteps silent. As I turned the corner, the grass below me turned from green to black as the security light switched off. It wasn't detecting me, at least.

From the upstairs window, I had seen a white door rise slowly, like a swan taking flight, illuminated by headlights. Now, I located the door. It was part of the double garage. But as I pressed into the wall, I realized the headlights were not coming out of the garage. Their beam was directed the opposite way. This car had come up the drive. I peered through the darkness. It was
my
car. It now stood by the open garage door, its engine running, doors open like flapping ears. For a long moment, I could only gawp. What was she doing with my car?

Then I saw her. She came out of the garage, struggling under the weight of a large, pale bundle. She dipped down, hefting the thing awkwardly into the back of my car. Apparently I wasn't the only one to regret that Mini Ha Ha only had two doors.

The interior car light was on. Its tiny yellow glow fell on the bundle as Linnet heaved it. I saw a pale oval, the face of a child, deathly still, eyes wide and unblinking.
The eyes of the dead
, I thought, and my mind turned red.

Linnet was taking Aidan's body away to dispose of it.

I sprinted towards the car, my newly exposed and raw scalp burning in the cold night air. She stood, staring, her mouth open. She'd left me in the kitchen, tied, bleeding, half dead. I might have come from my own spirit world.

“You!” she exclaimed.

“Yes. Me.” I stood with my feet apart, the knife in both hands. “Me.” I could hear my breath rasp through my throat. “Going to the moors, Patsy?”

She smiled. She seemed calm. She didn't believe I could use the knife.
“Get in the car, Sabbie, you useless fucking female.”

I thought about running. But she was good at turning common items into lethal weapons—a kitchen knife, a bottle of Calpol, a chopping board. My little car, gaily ticking over, had never looked so threatening. But I had the knife now, and I was not going to let Linnet get anywhere near the steering wheel. I stood my ground.

“I can see what you're scheming. You'll take Aidan's body to the burial site and soon as Cliff is released, you'll make him go there. How will you do that? Text from an unregistered phone? Do you really think he's that stupid?”

She laughed. The sound made me grip the knife harder. She was genuinely amused. “And where is Sabbie in that equation? Running to fetch darling detective Rey? Not quite. This is what we will do: We will drive to your house.
Your
phone will text Cliff when he's released. Summon him to you. He won't suspect a thing when I open the door to him. You … well, you're freshly dead, bleeding over your carpet, whisky oozing into the blood—what's not already oozing in your bloodstream anyway. Somewhere in the house, he'll find Aidan. And at that point, he'll do himself in, knife through the heart.”

“They'll see through it!” I yelled. “Rey will see through it!”

“Ah, but Sabbie, they won't want to. Josh's death has only ever had one prime suspect: Cliff. When they find Aidan, they won't look any further. Except with Cliff dead—by his own hand and in your house—they'll be over your car like a rash. Forensics will be conclusive.”

Her words fired out, staccato shots. I faced her, the knife directed at her. I had the power, the weapon, the red haze of anger upon me. Because I was suddenly sure. She'd kidnapped Aidan to set Cliff up. Not like Josh—not because she'd longed for a child, or even because the ghosts in her head screamed at her to do it—but because she needed Cliff to look the guilty party. She wanted retribution, and she'd taken a child's life to get it.

“Come on, Sabbie. Just drop the knife.”

“Fuck off.” I could do it. I could lunge forward with the knife. I could. I felt my muscles tense, ready.

The security light blazed on. I heard the roar of an engine. I sucked in the cold night air. The police! They had arrived! So soon! So magnificent!

I turned my head, just a glance. The car screeched to a halt, spraying gravel. A tall figure emerged. He was armed, legs splayed, gun primed. But this was no officer of the law.

Ivan.

“You bitch.” He gestured at me with the gun. “I've caught you, you
whore
. It's taken me
all fucking night
, you perverted two-timing
dyke
.”

“Point the gun at
her
, Ivan!” I yelled. “She's a killer!”

I turned my gaze on him for one second, imploring him to understand, but in that second, Linnet was upon me. A slash of new pain stung my cheek. She had put all her weight behind the blow. I landed against the wall of the house and slid down it. The knife flew through the air and she scooped it from the drive.

Ivan was watching us both, his face confused, the gun trained first on Linnet, then me. “I have driven round the whole of
fucking Somerset
looking for you. Looking for you and that damn detective.” He took a step towards us, getting us both in his sights. “Took me a long time to work it out. They told me in the village. Hartley's Wood. A woman. Keeper's Cottage. Keeps herself to herself.”

“Ivan—”

“What the fuck'd you do to your head? Bloody short-haired fanny lovers.”

“She killed—Josh Sutton,” I screamed. “And Aidan!”

“Who?” There was uncertainty in the line of his mouth. His face was less hostile. He seemed to finally grasp that the fantasy world he'd invented was being replaced by a horrific reality.

“Aidan Rodderick.” Linnet's voice was unruffled. “Surely you
watch the television news, you caveman.”

Without a thought, she ran at him, driving her arm into him. I saw the knife sink deep. His arms and the rifle were across his chest and she went for the stomach …
right into me belly, once, twice
.

Ivan was coughing, his mouth tight in shock and pain. He crumpled to his knees like a toy dropped by a child, his free hand over the wound, the blood running through his fingers.

Linnet turned and came towards me. Her face was manic with triumph.

“You see?” she said, examining the blood on her knife as if it were a piece of court evidence. “I can kill.” She took another step. She wouldn't wait any longer. She wanted me dead. But I was not watching Linnet. Ivan was still on his knees. He did not hesitate. He didn't even need to check the safety catch.

The blast of noise was deafening. Blood exploded over the house walls on either side of my head. I felt it splat against my cheek. Linnet did not make a sound. She lifted her hands and put them behind her, feeling for the wound on her shoulder. Her pupils disappeared behind her eyelids. She made a single, high-pitched moan, then there was a thud as her head made accelerated contact with the gravel. She did not move. As she lay there, Ivan finally succumbed to his own wound. He sank, rather than fell, onto his face, his air rifle trapped beneath him. I felt a wave of nausea gurgle into my throat.

Aidan was the only one I cared about. I ran to the car and opened the door. The small body was curled into a blanket like a foetus. I heard a high, hiccupping sob. Now I was close to him, I could see his lips, as pale as lily petals, were moving. His eyes were wide with fear, not with the shock of death.

“Aidan,” I whispered. He was looking at me with intensity, as if I was a new menace he might have to deal with. “Aidan, can you hear me?”

As the blanket fell away, I saw that he had been bound in rope, just as I had. I lifted him from the back seat like a swaddled baby and carried him away from the car and the slumped figures. Lightly, I took him to the lawn and laid him on it. I wanted to wrap my arms around him, but it didn't seem right to hug someone so tightly bound. My throat constricted. Aidan lay quiet. Perhaps he was too scared to speak, or maybe too stunned.

“Aidan,” I repeated. “It's okay now, it's okay … it's over.” I trailed off. It didn't seem to me that my words were at all comforting. My shaking hands worked at the knots that bound him. “You're safe, now. Mummy and Daddy will come and get you. They've been so worried. And your granny.”

“Nanny Nora.” It was the first thing he'd said. He was correcting me. I was startled at his composure.

“Aidan, try to tell me,” I asked. “Did she make you drink something out of a bottle?”

He nodded at me, his huge eyes fixed on mine. I felt my stomach cramp. I had no idea how to ask what was needed—how long ago? How much?

“Nanny Nora makes me have it.” His voice was piping, but strong. “It's 'orrible. I sicked it up.”

In the bald light, I could see that his chin was covered with the sticky syrup. I felt like singing out with joy. “Clever boy,” I whispered. “We're so lucky. So lucky.”

“
'Cause I rubbed his tum,” said Aidan.

“That's right, darling.” I thought he was half delirious. “Rub your tum to stop the nasty medicine.”

“Not
my
tum,” said Aidan. A smile flickered onto his face. “My Buddy. You rub his tummy for good luck.”

“Oh, you gorgeous, gorgeous boy, no wonder everyone loves you. Everything will be all right soon. There'll be police and an ambulance.” I glanced round. Ivan and Linnet still lay unmoving. I didn't care to check if they were alive or dead. Aidan was way up above them on my priorities.

“They're coming,” he said.

“Who dear? Who's coming?”

“The p'lice.” He struggled to sit up, the rope falling from him. “
Neeh-na, neeh-na
!”

As if he'd pulled a trick on my mind, I heard those sounds echoing in the distance.

His sharp little ears had been right. Into the cold, dark night came the sirens.

THIRTY

Four Weeks Later

“Thank you for doing
this,” I said to Gloria.

“Girl, I would never let you go to this place on your own. They'd have to put me in chains.”

I gave my foster mother a pained look. “Let's not mention chains.”

“You are one brave lady, doing this.”

I laughed. “Oh no, Gloria. This doesn't count as brave. Surviving abduction is brave. And that goes for Cliff as well as Aidan.”

Even so, my hand went involuntarily to the headscarf I wore round my head at all times. I had been so proud and fond of my heavy, dark locks. As soon as the wounds in my scalp had begun to heal, I'd gone to Debs, a friend of mine right back from our time at The Willows. She was now a hairdresser and beautician. She had actually wept as she'd shaved my remaining hair with a number one razor, but it had to be done. At least now it was an even length, and in the last two weeks had grown enough to almost conceal the scabs. But when I looked at myself in the mirror, the sight sickened me. I was reminded of the creature in my vision. I would never know—had she been Patsy's past, or my own future?

“That woman,” said Gloria, shaking me out of my dream. “She should hang, in my view. I know I'm gonna invite your wrath with my small-minded attitude, but that's how I feel. Hanging's too good in fact.”

“Precisely,” I said. “Well, you know what they'll call it. Balance of her mind.”

“Disturbed?” barked Gloria. “Ha!”

“You didn't see it,” I said. “Her bedroom, stuffed full of toys ready for them to play with, and the place she'd held them. She used the word
cherished.”

We had found the room she'd made for the kidnapped children while the paramedics were easing Aidan into the ambulance. The garage remote was on the seat of the BMW, and as the second door slowly lifted, the strangest sight was revealed. The garage had been turned into a nursery. There were toys and stuffed animals everywhere—at least as many as those still untouched and unloved in Linnet's bedroom. A rocking horse of solid, polished wood; a little pedal bike that had nowhere to go; a remote control car, bashed to pieces, all told their own story. Most horrifying was an entire collection of Slamblasters with the Slamblaster
Fortress, which stood untouched. In the centre was a low divan bed. A Manchester United duvet had slid to the floor, showing a sheet stained with splashes of ketchup. Coke cans, Miss Millie cartons, and pizza boxes, only half empty, were scattered over the floor. An off-cut of thick carpeting covered the concrete base. Overhead strip lighting and high wall heaters had attempted to create a habitable room in this brick box, but that didn't detract from the chilling genius of the security. Linnet had converted her garage into a prison.

“Didn't Rudi want a Slamblaster
Fortress for Christmas?” I asked Gloria.

“Yes, he did. But I talked Charlene out of it. It smothers creative play. We're making one out of junk, instead.”

I turned my head away to smile but didn't quite make it. I was still there, standing outside the second garage, while paramedics dealt with Ivan and Linnet, dressing wounds, putting up tape and coping with Linnet's screams. As Ivan himself would've pointed out if anyone had cared to ask him, air rifles can make a mess, but they rarely do much damage. She was standing up in court to face a refusal of bail a week later. I felt a certain satisfaction that she would be well enough to stand trial.

One of my abiding images of that night was Rey's face as he had finally arrived with the third wave of police cars. The lights of his own car coloured the shocked whiteness of his skin as he found me, tucked into hospital blankets, ready to leave the scene. He had stood in front of me and put one hand onto my shoulder, but said nothing. And I was too shocked to say anything more coherent than, “I found the tunnel.” I'd been trembling uncontrollably and had wanted to explain that it was due to the bitter coldness that comes before dawn, but I could find no further words.

It had been my intention to say nothing about the way Ivan had threatened me at my home, or the fact that he had brought his air rifle along for a rather different intention. But by the time I was in an interview room, a polystyrene cup of tea in my hand, I realized that it would be foolhardy to step around the plain truth. My first loyalty was to Cliff, and to Josh and Aidan; if I tried to protect Ivan as well, it would only distort matters.

I did enquire as to his well-being. Although he had lost a lot of blood that night and needed some corrective surgery, he was discharged soon after. I hoped our paths would never cross again. I hoped he had learnt his lesson and thrown his air rifle into the nearest river. There are enough of those to choose from in this corner of England. Maybe he'll have to undergo an anger management programme or even do community service. I have no idea and even less inclination to find out.

“We're here,” said Gloria. She said it so softly, I hardly heard. She pulled on the handbrake and put her car into Neutral. “You okay for this?”

“Yeah. I'm fine.” I got out of the car and breathed in Somerset air.

Br
okeltuft Cottage loomed like a ghost above us, a shimmering white spectre. A youthful police constable stood by the broken gate. He watched as we moved forward.

“Sabbie Dare,” I introduced myself. “And this is my mum.”

“We appreciate you coming, Miss Dare,” said the constable.

“It's no problem.”

No problem? I could sense a trembling in me, not the sort that makes your fingers shake, but the kind that begins in the very core and chills you from the inside.

A few weeks after Linnet had been dragged away from the gingerbread house, I'd been contacted by a gruff-voiced Rey.

“I came round,” he said. “But you weren't at home.”

“I went up to North Wales for a while, and then I went to stay with my mum.”

“Good,” he said, a sudden surge of energy in his voice. “That's good. You should recuperate. So does that mean you're not available as a shaman at the moment?”

“I am working.” I told him. “I'm seeing Cliff. Can't afford—”

“Not to work, I know. Actually, I wondered if you might consider a paid assignment.”

“Sorry?”

“For us. The forensic team at Brokeltuft, I mean. They're finding it … well, there's this odd atmosphere.”

“They're picking up sensations?”

“Don't ask me,” Rey had barked. “Cops don't usually act like wusses.”

“You want me to go over there?”

“Would that be hard?”

“Not at all.” I hadn't wanted him to think I was a wuss as well. But I had hoped that he would have the decency to meet me here. It would've been nice if he'd said sorry … about constantly doubting me, about conning me with the phoney Slamblaster
.
But apologies didn't sit comfortable with Rey Buckley. I figured asking me to work for the team was the closest he'd get.

The constable took us around the side of Brokeltuft
,
to where they'd set up HQ in a caravan. A female officer helped me kit myself out in the protective gear of the forensic team. It felt as if I was getting ready to be blasted into space. We left Gloria sipping a cup of police tea and moved out of the van as if through an air lock that led onto an alien planet.

The back garden had been flattened and was pockmarked with holes. The lawn had disappeared, as if a bomb had fallen into its centre, except this was a smart bomb—the hole was tidy-edged and flat-bottomed.

“Did you find anything?”

“If it hasn't been on the news, I can't tell you,” said the constable. He smiled, as if suggesting that made him sorry, and held open the back door for me.

I glanced round. I wanted to check the black poplar was still there. “You won't touch the tree, will you?” I said. “It's been very kind, over the years.”

“We'll try, miss,” he said. “If you think it will help.”

It took me a second or two to realize he meant it. They'd asked me to come and were prepared to take my advice. But as I was thinking these things, I passed through the back door.

The cottage had become a shell. The walls were knocked through, and the ceilings, which had fallen in places when I was last here, had been taken down entirely. Looking up, I could see right into the rafters. Looking down, I saw the floorboards had been replaced by sufficient chipboard panels to get from room to room. They were pale and new but already layered with fine dust.

“You must have used some big skips to empty all this out,” I said.

“You might say that, miss,” said the constable. “Take care as you walk.”

I followed the angular path of the chipboard, like a rat in a maze, until I reached what had been the front room. Everything was so changed that it should have been difficult to locate the place where the sofa had once stood, hiding two bodies, but it was not hard at all. Although the bodies had been the first things out of here, I had a clear impression that the fullness of their spirits remained.

As I came to a halt and put down the carrier bag I'd brought with me, the policeman said, “Er … yes, that's sort of the worst place. Martin lost the tip of his thumb there. When we opened …”

I turned back. His back was against the far wall. He was lit by one of the spotlights the forensic guys were working by, stock-still as if caught on stage without his lines. He was not going to accompany me into this vortex of energy.

I took another step. I could feel it on my body, a sensation of cold pressure. It made me light-headed and numb, sick in my stomach. I stopped. They were down beneath my feet, where they had dwelt for so many years.

I hadn't thought much about what I would do. I remembered all too clearly the way I had descended into a trance without even having to try, as if their presence under the boards had sucked me in to them. I stood watching and almost waiting. My heart was yammering in my chest. I had to fight to stop myself turning round to see if the policeman could hear it. All I knew was that I was standing near a concentrated core of power, so bleak and dark that the forensic team had been unable to work within it.

“C'mon,” I whispered. “Show yourselves.” Nothing stirred. “Okay you bastards. I'll get you up.”

Inside my mind, I drew the shield of my cloak around me. I felt the folds of the hood brush my face. I dipped into my carrier bag and retrieved a bundle of herbs, tied round with unbleached cotton. Native Americans call this a smudge stick, I believe, but these were plants raised in Somerset soil … lavender, sage, rosemary, and the end of a yew branch. The flame from my lighter curve around the bundle, caressing it until the dried leaves crackled. Smoke trailed off, a clean scent that made me seize the first proper breath I'd dared to take in this putrid place.

I raised my arms above my head and called out the words I use every day. They keep my clients and me safe in my therapy room, and I was hoping they'd have the same affect here.

“I call upon spirits, seen and unseen, the spirits of the four corners of the earth and the spirits above and below the earth, to be present and work in peace. I call upon their power, benevolence, guidance, and protection to be with me in this place today.”

I'd come woefully unprepared. It's not impossible to for me to work without the defence of my black dress with its totems, bells, rattle, and wand, but now that I'd begun, I heartily wished I'd brought more than a smudge stick from my garden and an imaginary cloak. There was no way I would be able to find true north or any quadrant—it was going to be hard enough to walk in a circle. But I had to try. I had to enclose these murderers with my own shamanic allies and guardians. I felt Trendle settle on my shoulder.

Just do it,
he said. I stepped as lightly as I could, my herbs held aloft, leaping from one board to another.

I enclose these loathsome and damaging spirits in the purity of love and protecting strength … and … the justice of the natural world.

I was winging it now, letting the words come into my mind without a thought between them.

Pinchie!
I called to him first.
Kissie! We bind you in this circle, not to punish or drive you out, but show you an endurance of love that has no beginning and no end. We wish for you to seek out such love and let yourself fuse with it.

I had come full circle. I could see this because, in the garish beam from the spotlights, the smoke I'd trailed in the air had become a ring, end touching end. I lowered myself down, using the empty carrier bag to protect my rump. I crossed my legs and rested my arms on my knees. I kept hold of the smudge stick with both hands so that its smoke circled around my face. I felt it caress my closed eyes and seep into my nostrils. Sweet herbs perfumed the air. It was enough to tip me over.

Trendle stared at me with prettily lashed eyes. I fell into their depths, into the hole in the floor, into the den that these terrible spirits had made for themselves. The air was thick and dingy beneath the gaping boards. A mist, as yellow as the smogs of Avonmouth, oozed upwards. I could see it swirl within itself, as if two strands of smoke were twisting in a dance, or in a fight. I watched as the strands came apart and flew into one another, twisting, clutching, capturing, churning the air. There was no sound at all from the mists, but inside my head was the boom of my throbbing arteries, punctuated by the hiss of my breath, fast and shallow. This rhythm seemed to pull me further into the trance, until their forms separated in my sight, congealing until I could discern arms and legs, and finally, the expressions on their faces.