The Lake House (19 page)

‘I need you to stay in here, make sure the windows and doors are locked and shut all the curtains.’

‘Mum, how did that get into my car?’

‘I don’t know, sweetie, I really don’t. It’s been in there since I set off from the police station at Windermere so whoever did it is probably still up there, but I don’t want to take any chances.’

‘We locked up before it got dark, but I’ll check again.’

‘Good girl. I’m really sorry but I’m not going to be able to take you to the cinema now. You’re going to have to talk to the police officers who come. They won’t be long and you’ll have to give them a statement, and then I’ll get one of them to drive you to Ellie’s house and you can all stay there. Is that okay?’

All three girls nodded and the sirens in the distance got louder. Cathy had never felt so relieved to hear them and she turned around and walked to the edge of her drive to flag them down. Then Cathy phoned Will.

***

Will put the phone down and relayed what Cathy had told him to Jake, Kav – who’d just arrived – and Annie.

‘I’ve got to go. Please can you stay here with Annie, Jake?’

Kav stood up. ‘I’m coming with you, then we’ll come back if it’s not too late. We need to sort out what we’re going to do about this situation.’

Jake escorted them to the front door where he let them out and then locked it again. He went back into the kitchen.

‘All those bloody flies – now we know why. I can’t believe he would be so brazen as to dump a head in the boot of a police inspector’s car. I can’t sit here; I need to know what’s happening. Do you know where she lives?’

Annie nodded. ‘You’re right, we need to be there. I want to know what’s happening. It’s no good sitting here like a pair of wimps.’

Alex came downstairs and Jake pecked him on the cheek.

‘I’ll be back as soon as I can. There’s been an emergency. All hands on deck sort of thing.’

Alex frowned at him. ‘Please be careful. I’m not too happy that you’re both going wherever it is. Should I know where you’re going and why?’

They both replied ‘No’ in unison.

‘Lock the doors, Alex, and ring me if you need me. I’ll be back here before you know it.’

Alex sighed but shut and locked the front door behind them. He didn’t really want to know but now he was going to be worried sick until they came back. Alice started crying and he turned around and ran back upstairs, glad he had her to take his mind off wondering what the emergency was.

Chapter Fifteen

Will pulled up behind the two vans with flashing lights and ducked under the crime-scene tape that was sealing off the drive. Cathy was huddled to one side, her arms wrapped around herself, and Will didn’t think he’d ever seen her looking so scared. She was talking to the young officer who must have been first on scene and she smiled to see Will.

‘Thank God you’re here. This is a right mess. My daughter found it because I told her to take her sodding football out of the boot of the car. All the way home, around every bend, there was a thudding sound as it rolled from one side of the boot to the other.’ She shivered.

‘How is she? That must have been an awful shock for her.’

‘She’s inside the house with her two friends. I think she’s calmed down now. At least she’s stopped bloody screaming.’

Will walked across to the boot of the car and peered inside; he felt his insides turn to ice as two cold, dead eyes stared back at him. He couldn’t say because that was Matt’s job, but he would bet money that this head belonged to the body Stu had found this morning. He had no idea who this woman was. She hadn’t even been reported missing, but whoever she was she hadn’t deserved to die like this. He turned to Cathy who was relatively calm now that she’d got over the initial shock.

‘What are we going to do, Will?’

Before he could answer he heard Jake’s voice talking to the officers standing guard. He turned and saw Annie in the front of Jake’s car and smiled at her. He was going to kill Jake, bringing her here. He strolled over to Jake, grabbed hold of his elbow and dragged him over to where Cathy was.

‘What the fuck are you doing bringing Annie here – to a crime scene?’

‘She wouldn’t stay with Alex. What was I supposed to do? And do you not think she’s been to enough crime scenes? I think she knows what to expect and I’d rather she was here where we can all keep an eye on her. I made her promise to stay in the car.’

Cathy looked at them both.

‘So I’m asking once more, what are we supposed to do? It’s getting personal. Why would whoever this is put a head in the boot of a police officer’s car? They must have known that it was. I’m trying my best to think of a reason that someone might want to do something so sick and twisted but I can’t. Every single time it comes back down to him. He is the only person sick enough, with an axe to grind and a grudge as big as a mountain. We don’t know where Henry Smith is but I’m positive that he sure as hell knows where we are. We couldn’t be easier to find. We even had the bloody flashing lights and bells to give him a clue.’

Will felt a surge of anger so hot that he turned and punched the brick wall. He wanted to kill Henry Smith.

‘Argh.’

He began shaking his hand and Jake stepped in front of him so Annie couldn’t see what he was doing. Jake grabbed his arm.

‘You need to calm down. What good is it going to do if you give yourself a heart attack? We need to find this bastard and I mean like today, like now, because I know he’s coming for Annie whether we like it or not. She can’t be left alone and I’m completely serious. From now on you or I do not leave her side, and if work don’t like it then they can go fuck themselves. It’s us and Kav and I think Cathy will agree. We need to form our own little task force, and so be it if I lose my job, but we need to turn the tables and hunt him down. And when we find him this time he’s not going to get away. I’ll personally escort him back to that secure unit and throw away the key.’

‘You’re right. I totally agree. It would be too much of a coincidence to have another psycho on the loose, so yes, I’m with you. I’ll get everything together I can. There must be someone who saw him around the time he put the head in the back of Cathy’s car. I mean, come on, it was broad daylight outside a police station. Somewhere there must be a camera in the area that has captured him. We need to find out what vehicle he was driving because he didn’t just stroll through the centre of Bowness with a severed head in his hand.’

Jake nodded. ‘That’s a good point. He needs a vehicle to take his victims away and then drive up to Bowness. He’s playing us all, leaving the bodies in Barrow where you’re on duty and the heads for us to find. I’m not scared to admit I’m worried. He knows exactly what he’s doing.’

Cathy stepped closer. ‘I’m with you. He’s probably mentally unbalanced Georgia for God knows how long. She’s never going to want to look in a car boot again for the rest of her life. As much as I’m all for keeping to the rules, it’s gone past that now. If he’s willing to take such blatant risks as this we need to find him fast.’

She pointed to the boot of the car. ‘He doesn’t care and he has nothing to lose. I reckon he knows it’s only a matter of time before the net closes in and that makes him even more dangerous.’

She stopped talking as the chief superintendent’s black Land Rover pulled up outside her house. She looked at her ex-husband behind the wheel and turned away muttering.

‘Jesus, that’s all I need. I can’t stand the prick on a good day and today’s a pretty shit one. Hold me back if I try to smack him, will you? I don’t want to give him the satisfaction. And don’t say a word about our conversation to anyone. I don’t want him getting involved. You know what a brown-nosing, glory hunter he is. The less he knows the better. It can be between us. We can cut our wrists with a piece of broken glass after and hold our bleeding hands together to seal the deal.’

Will finally broke a smile. ‘Thank you, it means a lot to me to know that we’re not on our own. When we’ve finished here we’ll go to Jake’s if you’re still up for it.’

‘Yes, I’m going to make the idiot take Georgia either back home with him so she can spoil his evening or to her friend’s house so she can get some sleep away from this mess.’

‘I’ll take Annie back to my house. You come as soon as you’re done, Will.’

Will walked Jake back to the car and opened the passenger door where Annie was sitting. He bent down and kissed her on the lips, not caring who was looking. He loved his wife and they could stuff procedures.

‘Why, Will? What’s the point of it all?’

‘Hey, you’re the psychic one, not me. Can you not figure it out?’

She laughed and it made him feel better.

‘I’m still not that great at the whole psychic thing. Sorry.’

‘Look, Jake’s going to take you back to his house. There’s nothing you can do. I will be there as soon as we’ve processed the scene and then I’ll come back with Cathy. Annie, I’m deadly serious. You are not to go anywhere on your own from now on. I’m not taking any chances. We don’t know for sure, but who else could it be other than Henry Smith?’

She lifted her hand and stroked the side of his face.

‘I won’t; I promise I’ll be a good girl.’

‘Well, that would make a refreshing change.’

He shut the door and stepped back so that Jake could drive away and take her back to his warm, safe house.

Will walked over to the chief super who was shooting daggers at the back of Cathy’s head.

‘Right, sir, we have a big problem, a really big problem.’

The chief super tore his attention away from his ex-wife and looked at Will. His face was pale and Will couldn’t help being a little bit glad that he was feeling as bad as Will was.

‘I think you might be right. What are we going to do? Because I’m not happy that someone is going round leaving severed heads in police officers’ cars.’ He lowered his voice. ‘As much as I dislike Cathy, I don’t like the fact that my daughter was the one to discover it. Is this a coincidence? Is whoever this is targeting my family? Should I be worried?’

‘No, sir. I don’t believe he was targeting her as such. I think he was targeting my wife, Annie. He didn’t know what car she was driving so he put it in the only one he could gain access to, which unfortunately was Cathy’s. I’m gravely concerned that this is the work of Henry Smith, sir, and I think he’s going to come after Annie again.’

‘Shite, now what the bloody hell are we going to do? This is a complete mess.’

‘Well we need to find him – and as soon as possible before he does something that I won’t be able to live with.’

‘Yes, right. Leave it with me; I’ll…erm…I’ll get a team together. We’ll have a briefing in the morning, eight o’clock sharp, and see what we can do.’

Will supposed it was better than he expected. At least he’d listened and wasn’t arguing. Two teams would be better than one. Surely between them all they should be able to find the murdering bastard and put him back behind bars.

1 January 1931

James opened his eyes and wondered where he was. Grey light filtered through the curtains and he turned on his side and saw Joseph’s train set on the floor. Then it hit him. He felt around for his wife but she had left him, so he got out of bed to search for her in the bedrooms. He made his way to the staircase and saw her slumped over in a heap on the bottom step. He rushed down the stairs, calling her name, scared that she had died from shock or something. She moved and let out a soft groan and he sighed. Sitting next to her, he pulled her close.

‘I was so scared when I saw you then, I thought…’

He didn’t finish his sentence; he couldn’t say the words out loud.

‘He’s not coming back, James. I went into the cellar to look for him myself last night because I couldn’t sleep. There’s something down there and it chased me. I only just managed to get to the top and slam the door shut, otherwise I wouldn’t be here now.’

‘Who is down there? Why didn’t you call for me and the police?’

He looked at his wife whose pale green eyes blinked back tears as she tried to find the right words.

‘I was too scared. What have you done, James?’ Her voice was rising with every word as the hysteria bubbled below the surface. It finally burst as she screamed, ‘What did you do? Why did you bring that monster into our home? And now our son has gone.’ Her tiny fists began to pummel his chest and he sat there and let her. He didn’t grab her wrists to stop her because he knew, deep down inside, that this was his fault, and if hitting him made her feel better, he’d let her hit him all day.

The tears began to flow and her pounding on his chest slowed down as she slumped down, fear and exhaustion turning her into a crumpled wreck at his feet. She looked up at him.

‘How is that thing in our cellar – that creature that looks like a man – alive? James, you have to believe me. I’m not lying. This is the truth. I saw it and it chased me.’

‘I know you wouldn’t lie. I’m so sorry, Eleanor. I didn’t think it was real. I’m going down there now to look for it, see if I can reason with it.’

‘No. You mustn’t. You can’t because it wasn’t really a man. It had long, black shiny claws and sharp, pointed teeth. You know what it is. I only ever saw it once and it scared me so much. Why did you bring it into our home when I told you not to?’ She shuddered. ‘I can hear the sound of those claws scrabbling across the floor to get to me, echoing in my mind.’ He slid to the floor next to her, taking hold of her hand. James had never known Eleanor to get emotional or spooked, but at this moment in time she was terrified.

‘Tell me everything. I believe you.’

She nodded and dabbed at her eyes with a sodden handkerchief she pulled from her pocket.

‘It looked like that Windigo monster you had in your sideshow the night I met you. It was hiding in the corner and at first I thought it was afraid of me because it was hiding in the shadows, but then it got braver, and when it realised I was on my own it ran after me. I can hear those claws swiping through the air to get to me. I only just managed to get to the top of the steps before it grabbed me and then I slammed the door shut.’