The Child Garden (25 page)

Thirty-One

“Glo?” said Lynne. “You've
gone pure white.”

I didn't answer. I was dialling again. Iveta answered.

“Hello,” she said. “I'm sorry you're not well. Is it the stomach bug?”

“Who said I wasn't well?” I whispered. “Iveta, listen. It's about Duggie's girlfriend, Zöe. If she comes, you're not to let her in.”

“Oh, Gloria,” Iveta said. “Don't be like that.”

“Iveta, listen to m—”

“Everyone likes her. Except for you-know-who.
She
seems to have a problem, but then she has a problem with everything in this world.”

“Iveta!”

“But Zöe doesn't even mind Miss Drumm. She stayed for an hour last night and she's been here for an hour this morning alread—”

Nicky!

I was up out of my seat, out into the street, into the car and away, leaving Lynne spinning behind me. Never had the miles from work to the home seemed so long, the roads so humped and twisting, the corners so many and so very tight.

Nicky
!

I rounded the last corner before the drive and slammed on the brakes to keep from running into Stig, who was pounding up the middle of the lane, his arms pumping and legs going like pistons. I screeched to a halt and flung open the passenger door, taking off again before he was fully inside.

“She's there,” I said. “I phoned. She's there now.”

I drove the car up as close as I could get to the home's door, hit the brakes, pulled the hand brake, and left it there, flying into the home with Stig behind me.

“Call the p—” I shouted, then saw Deirdre sitting there. I swallowed the shout and looked around. Donna was hurrying towards me along the passageway.

“Gloria?” she said. “I thought you were ill.”

“Dial 999, Donna,” I said, keeping my voice quiet but making it very firm. “The woman who's with Nicky is here to harm him.”

Then I grabbed Stig's arm and dragged him along the corridor the other way, heading to Miss Drumm and Nicky and saying prayers under my breath that I hadn't said for years.

“She came with his dad!” Donna called after us. “He's on as next of kin after you!”

I ignored her.

The door to Nicky's room was locked, but Miss Drumm's was open and the connecting door stood open too. I glanced at her bed as I passed it and hoped against hope that it wasn't the way it looked, that it meant something else the way she was lying there with her eyes open and her mouth wide, not moving.

I stopped in the doorway and grabbed Stig to stop him too. Zöe was sitting in the chair beyond the bed, with one hand on Nicky's IV line and the other holding open the book.

“I wondered if you might be joining us,” she said. “I half expected you last night. I had an hour last night, Gloria, once that old bag next door had finally shut up and gone to sleep. A whole hour, just me and Nicky. I could have done
anything
. Where
were
you?”

“Don't hurt him,” I said. “Nicky, don't worry, darling, Mummy's here.”

Zöe rose and put her mouth very close to Nicky's ear and then she bellowed at the top of her voice. “Don't worry, Nicky! Mummy's here!” She shouted so loud that when she sat down again her face was red and she was panting. “I'm not sure he can hear you, Gloria,” she said.

“You bitch,” said Stig.

“But look on the bright side,” she went on, as if he hadn't spoken, “I'm not sure I can hurt him.”

Stig made a move but I kept hold of him, trying to make my arm as strong as steel.

“Please don't,” I said. “If she rips out the line, the seizures will start in minutes. Seconds maybe.”

“You wouldn't do that, Miss Naismith,” said Stig. “Not with us here watching. You'd never get away.”

“Stop it, Stig,” I said. “Look behind you.”

“Oh, yes,” said Zöe. “Old Miss Shouty Face. I had to shut
her
up. And nobody's even been in to see her since I did.”

I could feel tears beginning to form and fill my eyes and fall. “What did you do to her?” I said. “She's just an old blind lady who can't walk. Why did you hurt her?”

“But my God she can
talk
,” said Zöe. “She recognised me, you know. From years ago. I only came to scope things out, looking for a way to get to Dougall. But obviously I thought wrong. There was no point coming at him through his son when his son meant nothing to him, was there? And I'm glad I didn't now, because if I'd used this to hurt Dougall it wouldn't be here for me to use hurting you. Anyway, yes, I'm afraid the old girl got the pillow. And then we had some peace to read our lovely book, didn't we?” She spoke to Nicky in a stupid sing-song voice, as if he was a dog or a baby.

“We're almost finished, aren't we?” she said. Then she pressed the book open and started reading. “‘When the golden day is done, through the closing portal—'”

“No!” I wailed.

“‘Child and garden, flower and sun, vanish all things mortal.'”

“Please, I'm absolutely begging you,” I said. “Why are you doing this? Why did you do this?”

“Come in and close the door then,” she said. “Lock it behind you. We can have a nice chat, but not with that door open so people can come and disturb us.” She was still using the sing-song voice and I wanted to scream from the sound of it.

“Come on, Glo,” said Stig. “Do what she says.”

And so we stepped fully into the room and closed the connecting door, pulling the bolt, shutting ourselves off from help, putting ourselves at her mercy. Even as we did it, I could hear footsteps behind me. The police already? It was too soon. And then voices, Donna and Iveta, talking and then shouting, running. They'd found Miss Drumm at last. At last, they'd get help. The police would come and they'd stop this. Somehow. With a megaphone or they'd talk to her through the closed door how they were trained to. They'd do it. They had to.

“You fucking children,” Zöe said. “You lied about me. I was going to do so much for you all. Making the school lovely. Letting you do woodwork and art and dancing. I had it all planned, and you ruined it. You were shits. Every last one of you. Sleekit, evil little shits. Your lies lost me my clearance. I lost my job; I lost my reputation. I was arrested and put in a cell overnight because no one believed what I was saying and the police thought I was covering something up. For four fucking years I had to go and speak to a
social worker
and go to
classes
because of you.”

“Probation,” said Stig. “That's why nothing happened until you went after Scarlet in '89.”

“Probation,” she hissed. “I had done
nothing wrong
.”

“Yes, you had,” said Stig. “You left us out in the woods. I know you did. I heard you in your cabin. You had a bath and you had music on.”

“So I decided that if I was going to be
punished
for harming children, then I was fucking well going to have all the fun of harming them.”

“Fun?” I said. “You're a monster.”

“No,” she said, suddenly loud.“I'm the victim here.” She was beginning to sound agitated, and I couldn't drag my eyes away from her hand on the IV line.

“But I heard you!” said Stig. “You're lying.”

I squeezed his arm, trying to signal that he should go easy, not upset her anymore. But his challenge made her smile and, if anything, she sat back a little. She let the book drop to the floor.

“Oh-ho! This is going to be good,” she said, and then she really grinned at him, her mouth so wide that white lines formed like brackets around it. “No, you didn't hear me,” she said. “That wasn't me. That was your father. He always had a bath to wash me off before he went back to that lipless bitch.”

“My dad?” said Stig.

“Why do you think he opened a school?” she said. “It was a present for me. It was all for me, and when he ditched the bitch he was going to run it with me. We had it all planned, and I worked really hard to get it started, and then you spoiled little brats ruined it for me.” I almost felt sorry for her just then; she had swallowed the biggest lie men ever tell. She had believed he was going to leave his wife. “So it didn't make sense,” she said, “why he wouldn't back me up. Why he wouldn't say where he was that night and say I went traipsing out there to ask if the little shits were having enough precious fun.”

“But it was your idea,” I said, thinking it through. “You wanted them out of the way so that BJ would stay overnight. While Miss Drumm wasn't there to see him. Don't call them little shits for doing what they were told to.”

She glared at me and her hand tightened on the line again. I might have been imagining it, but I think she even gave it a little tug.

“So I decided that if he wanted it that way, it would cost him.”

“
You
blackmailed him!” said Stig.

“I was paid for my services. I took the blame and so I took the rewards too.”

“But he can't have been paying to stop you telling my mum,” said Stig, frowning, “because my mum knows.”

“Oh, that was delicious,” she said, and she gave a little wriggle of pleasure that sickened me to see it. “That was years ago. He came clean to the bitch and announced to me that the bank was closed. Idiot. I put him straight about that. I reminded him he'd known the truth about the death of a child for ten years and not reported it. He had been there that night and he lied and told the cops he was at home. He knew I went out to check on them and he lied and let the cops believe I hadn't. And who knew better than me what happens to you if you lie about the night a child died? There was no way out of it for him then. Never mind after the rest of them. And you were going to be the grand finale, Stephen. When his own son was in danger, he'd have to tell the truth at last. Out it would all come. All the deaths, all the secrets, all the grubby little lies.”

“You're joking,” said Stig. “You think my dad would ruin his life for me? You picked the wrong son, love. You missed the mark there.”

She didn't like that, not one little bit. Her face grew pinched again and her eyes narrowed. It was more to distract her than anything else that I spoke again.

“So you're saying Eden was a present to you from your lover, something to keep you sweet and somewhere for him to visit you? But he abandoned you after Moped died. So you blackmailed him for years. And you spent the money on a modelling agency, and a flat in London and drugs, and a honeymoon in France and—”

“Well, well, well,” said Miss Naismith. “You've been busy, haven't you? Modelling agency! I gave some guy on Castle Douglas High Street twenty quid to hand a business card to that little trollop and tell her she was pretty. That's all the modelling agency ever cost me, and they did all the rest of the work themselves. And LetzGo was a budget operation too.”

“What?” said Stig.

“The anti-paedo vigilante group,” I told him. “You started that too?”

“And April the Cow's bloody reiki therapy crap,” she said. “At least I've managed to off-load all that to some sucker on eBay and recoup my expenses. And Nathan and Edmund didn't cost me anything. Unless you count the nips and tucks so's they wouldn't recognise me.”

“What did you do to them?” I asked.

“Don't,” said Stig, miserably.

“Why, I'm glad you asked,” she began.

I fired another question at her to stop her from telling us. Stig was right; it would be better never to know.

“Why did you save Duggie till last?” I said.

She was smiling again. “You really don't know? You were married how long and he didn't tell you?”

“I have no idea,” I said. I guessed that would make her talk. She liked showing off, liked knowing best. I was right.

“Of all the evil little shits at that school, he was the worst of all,” she said. “Playing the innocent the next day, getting them all to lie for him.”

“What did he do?”

She took a deep breath as if to deliver a long speech.

But a hammering came at the door before she could say a word.

“Ms. Harkness? Are you all right in there? This is the police, ma'am. Speak up and tell us you're okay.”

Zoë stood up and kicked the chair away from behind her.

“Go away,” I shouted. “You're not helping.”

“We need to hear that you're all right, ma'am,” said the voice. “Who's in there with you?”

Zöe was fumbling with the window behind her, at full stretch between her hold on the IV and the latch she was trying to open.

“I'm coming over,” I said to her. “I'll keep my hands on my head and only take them down to open the window for you.”

“Ms. Harkness?” said the policeman outside. “We know you're upset. We know you're under a lot of strain. You're not in any trouble, ma'am.”

“Jesus Christ,” muttered Stig. “What did that nurse tell them?”

I was walking very slowly over to the window with Zöe's eyes on me. When I got there, I waited with my hands on my head until she stepped back as far away from me as she could get, far beyond my reach unless I lunged. Then I put one hand down and unscrewed the ball and cup lock on the old sash and opened it as wide as it would go.

“Ms. Harkness?” said the policeman again. “We need you to open this door. We only want to help you.” Then he said in a softer voice. “Talk to her, sir.” What I heard next turned my blood cold.

“What's up, Gloria?” said Duggie's voice. “Zöe called me.”

“Its
her
, Duggie,” I screamed. “It's not Stig's dad. She's going to hurt him.”