Bye Bye Baby (41 page)

44

Anne looked down at Peter’s face. In repose it reminded her strongly of her father’s and she felt an intense love for this young man she’d been denied access to. And, in equal measure, she felt fury towards the rapist who had sired and then stolen him.

The drug had worked quickly on Peter and he was now asleep, bound, his mouth gagged with duct tape. She hated to do this to him but she had no choice. It was crucial that Pierrot believed she would hurt their son in her madness if she chose to.

She smiled sadly. Hurt Peter? All she wanted to do was hug him. But she wasn’t even going to get that pleasure. She’d felt only despair when she saw him realise he’d been drugged, saw him lose control of his movements and heard his voice slurring. She watched the disbelief and fear register in his eyes as she gave him a potted history of his conception and his birth.

How sad that it had come to this. But he was her precious ace, the card that had turned up at just the right time in the deck. It was despicable to use Peter in this manner, but Pierrot had to pay.

Flynn would be here soon — she was sure of it. And he wouldn’t call the police and he wouldn’t tell the boy’s stepmother. He would be trying to cover his tracks, still vainly hoping that no one ever need know of his sins of the past. She had news for him.

Anne stroked Peter’s hair, then pulled her hand away as the emotion released by this simple act threatened to undo her. She briefly flirted with the notion that she could convince Peter to come away with her. There was still time. They’d be starting their relationship twenty-nine years later, but it was better than nothing, surely?

The lone voice that offered up this utopian notion was howled down by all the demons in her mind. She was definitely deluded if she believed Peter would want to set eyes on her again after she’d done this to him. And he didn’t need another mother. He had one. One he loved. Anne was a complication he’d prefer not to know about. They were strangers. He wasn’t going to run away with her. No, she’d had her precious moments with her son and they would have to be enough to sustain her for however long she had left on this earth.

Ensuring Pierrot’s punishment was a far more realistic option than hoping she might be permitted some new and wonderful relationship with her son. She needed to be strong now. Facing Pierrot again wasn’t going to be easy.

Casting a final soft glance towards her sleeping son, Anne walked carefully around the ruin of the concert hall, ensuring everything was set, then headed out onto the decaying boards of the pier. She checked for the final time that what she needed was there,
wondering whether her luck would hold for this last part of her revenge.

Peter’s phone erupted into song and she saw
Home
flash up on the screen. She wondered whether Flynn had gone back to the house in Rottingdean and was trying Peter once again from the landline. She decided to risk it, knowing she could hang up before Jack’s team could trace their location.

‘Why are you at home, Garvan, and not here bargaining for the life of your son?’

The silence at the other end instantly told her this wasn’t Flynn. Perhaps it was the woman who had happily accepted the stolen child and raised it as her own. What she didn’t expect was the voice that did speak.

‘It’s me.’

She tripped and fell against the wall of the concert hall, upsetting the roosting starlings who took off as one into the darkening sky. Anne staggered back inside, her knee momentarily numbed.

‘Jack, what a surprise. I’m impressed you’ve made it this far, but you really must leave well alone now.’

‘There’s nothing to be gained by this,’ he urged. ‘I have enough on Garvan Flynn to put him away for the rest of his life. Please, don’t do whatever it is you have in mind.’

‘Why? Are you trying to save me? It’s pointless. I’ve killed three men, Jack. What’s one more?’

‘Where are you?’ he begged and she could hear the desperation in his voice. ‘Let me come there.’

‘You still see Sophie, don’t you? Let me be, Jack. I’m Anne now, and she has unfinished business with Garvan Flynn.’

She hung up and went outdoors again, tossed Peter’s mobile phone into the churning sea below. The water had turned charcoal, matching the sky. It was freezing but Anne didn’t care. She wanted the dark to wrap itself fully around her.

‘We didn’t get a trace,’ Kate said, obviously preferring to deliver the bad news without any sweetening.

‘She’s too clever for that,’ Jack said, running his fingers through his hair, his expression one of deep frustration. ‘How much longer for the cousin to arrive?’

‘She said fifteen minutes, so she must be almost here,’ Kate replied, glancing at her watch. ‘Clare’s taken two tablets. She should be asleep soon.’

‘Did you tape the conversation?’

Kate nodded. ‘Here, I’ll play it back.’

They both listened intently as Anne McEvoy’s voice warned Jack to leave her be.

‘She was outside,’ Kate said. ‘You can hear the seagulls in the background.’

Jack’s eyes had been closed as he listened, praying for a clue. Now they flew open, his mouth agape.

‘What?’ Kate said, startled.

He shook his head, looked for the car keys. ‘I know where she is. Oh god, I’ve known all along. We all have!’ He was babbling. ‘Where are the fucking keys?’

‘Here,’ Kate said, digging them from her pocket and throwing them over. ‘What do you mean, you knew all along?’

Jack gave a short, harsh laugh. ‘She even told me,’ he said, his voice distressed. ‘She said to think of her when I looked at her photographs.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘The missing photos in her flat — that’s why she took them. She didn’t want us to work it out too soon. They were all of the same place!’

‘Where, Jack?’

‘The starlings, Kate. Didn’t you hear them suddenly above the seagulls? There’s only one place in Brighton I know of where starlings roost in those numbers. It’s famous for them. I remember now my grandparents telling me about them when I was about four. She’s at the West Pier!’

Kate opened her mouth but nothing came out. Jack was already running, calling behind him. ‘Get a squad car down there immediately! They are not to move in, I repeat,
not
to move in without my signal. Tell them to wait until they hear from me. If Brodie’s still around, tell him to meet me at West Pier. I’m putting my phone on silent. Let ops know.’

He was in the car now.

‘Let me come with you,’ she said, looking around desperately for the car that would bring Clare’s cousin.

‘You can’t, you have to wait here until help arrives.’

He gunned the engine and gave her a final glance of sympathy. He knew she resented it, but there was no time to worry about hurting people’s feelings. He had to get to the pier before this whole sorry mess unfolded.

45

Flynn arrived alone, as she’d known he would. She could hear him coming along the temporary walkway. Anne had already called The Rock Shop, explained to the woman there that she and her son were just watching night come in and that they’d called a friend to pick them up because they were too upset to drive home.

‘I’m locking up now. You’ll have to hurry,’ the woman had said, a note of exasperation creeping into her voice.

‘Can I slide the key under the door?’ Anne had offered, ‘along with my thanks for your trouble?’

‘What do you mean?’ the woman had asked.

‘My son and I would like to leave you a gift. We’ve put two hundred pounds in an envelope and we’re going to return the key in that envelope too, if it’s okay with you?’

‘I didn’t ask for payment,’ the woman said, but Anne heard the change in tone from irritation to sheepishness.

‘No, you didn’t, but we’re so grateful to you for giving us this precious time and this chance to fulfil my husband’s dream,’ she’d lied. ‘We want to thank you properly.’

‘Alright,’ the woman said, melting. ‘Thank you — just put the key under the door when you leave. That’s fine.’

With the kiosk owner maintaining the secret of their presence on the pier, no one would bother them now. She watched the slightly stooped figure approaching up the makeshift ladder in the murky light and steeled her will to do this right.

Jack had put the flashing light on top of the car but refrained from using the police siren. He needed other motorists to move out of his path as he sped towards West Pier, but he didn’t want to alert Anne to his arrival.

He had no idea what he was going to do but hoped his mere presence would derail whatever plan she had in mind for Flynn. He agreed with Kate that Anne McEvoy wouldn’t harm the son she had borne near on thirty years ago, but her intentions towards Garvan Flynn were far from peaceful. And he wanted Flynn alive and in a position to face the justice he was long overdue.

Anne had dragged her sleeping son gently to the back of the concert hall, leaving a wide space between him and Garvan’s arrival at the northern entrance.

‘Stop there!’ she ordered. Flynn blinked into the powerful torchlight she trained on his face as he stepped fully into the hall. ‘Welcome back, Pierrot.’

She looked at the paunchy, middle-aged man who had once terrified the daylights out of her. His hair was cropped close to his head these days and she imagined it was white now. She had never seen his
face clearly before and realised now how nonedescript and plain it was. Peter’s good looks obviously derived from her genes then, and her son simply echoed some of his father’s features. She felt nothing for Garvan other than revulsion. Power rushed through her as she realised she was no longer scared by him.

‘Where’s my son?’ he demanded, the reedy voice filled with anxiety.

‘Right here,’ she said, switching off the torch and lighting the single candle she had prepared nearby. She held her ugly blade close to Peter’s throat, thanking her lucky stars that he would never know she had done this.

Flynn sank to his knees, fear overwhelming him. ‘Don’t hurt him, I beg you.’

‘You beg me?’ she taunted. ‘You have the nerve to beg anything of me!’

‘Please, I’ll do whatever you want. Give you anything,’ he blubbered. ‘Just don’t hurt my son.’

She nodded, her smile cynical. ‘
Your
son. What about
our
son, Pierrot? Tell me why you called him Peter.’

Peter began to stir, his eyes flickering open. She snapped the blade away.

‘What?’ Flynn said, confused.

‘You heard. Wake up, Peter, listen to your father.’

Peter’s eyes opened fully. He struggled against his bonds, made angry sounds behind his gag.

‘Be still!’ she ordered.

‘I . . . I think you murmured it after . . .’ Flynn’s voice trailed off.

‘After you’d finished jumping on my belly and punching me, all the time knowing I was in labour,
trying to deliver my son. Do you hear that, Peter? Tell him, Garvan. Tell him what you did to me, or so help me, I’ll do what you fear most. Don’t push me. You know how many have already died by my hand. Tell him!’

And Garvan Flynn did, in halting, weeping tones. He confessed to his son what he had inflicted on teenage Anne McEvoy when he began stalking her from school. He told his son of his impotence, his inability to impregnate his wife, and the unimaginable pressure his mother-in-law in particular had visited upon him. How she had ridiculed him and made him feel worthless in their family. He told his son of the separation from Clare during the winter of 1974, when everything had boiled over and his world had turned dark. How he had befriended the boys and brought them under his spell and finally gone ahead with his hideous plan to rape Anne and prove that he could sustain an erection. He told of his shock upon realising that Anne McEvoy had become pregnant.

‘I doubted myself so much. By the time your mother and I separated, son, I couldn’t even get it up. I don’t know half of what your grandmother was whispering to her, but she was poisoning her against me and all because she was the only one in the family without grandchildren.’ He gave a helpless sound of disgust. ‘I hated her.’

‘Tell him everything,’ Anne said coldly.

‘I knew I was the father,’ he wept, ‘because none of the others had raped her. Only me. I wanted to kill her when I saw her huge belly and your mother so grief-stricken.’ The old anger slowly emerged through his tears. ‘I wanted this woman dead. I couldn’t believe
she was going to have my baby, the child I couldn’t give your mother. I couldn’t let your mother know, son. I couldn’t disgrace her any further than I already had. I tried to hide behind the teenagers — I thought things might escalate if I got them drunk. I hoped they might do something stupid, but they didn’t. Fools. I had to do it.’

‘Tell Peter that you planned to kill him too,’ Anne said. ‘Let him hear it from your lips.’

Flynn’s voice was ragged now. ‘I didn’t know what was going to happen. I just felt such rage that this woman was pregnant by me, and the one who should be remained barren. I was hoping you’d both die somehow. Until you arrived, that is. You were so perfect, so beautiful, so helpless. And suddenly it hit me that you were mine. I wanted to keep you. I saw how it could be if I took you home and gave you to your mother, how happy everyone would be.’

Peter shook his head in despair and loathing at what he was hearing.

‘I told this woman that you were dead,’ Flynn went on. ‘She was near enough dead herself, and I figured she wouldn’t last through the night as she was bleeding heavily. I knew to wait for the afterbirth, and once I’d tossed that in the sea I let you have a few minutes at her breast, and then I took you. I was already in love with you.’ He shook his head helplessly. ‘By the time I picked you up, I thought she was dead and I was relieved.’

‘Tell him about his name!’ Anne screamed. The blade cut into her palm, she held it so tightly. Blood dripped to the ground.

‘Peter was her chosen name for you. She murmured
it, and I thought she died with that as her last breath. It seemed right to call you by that name.’

‘And you’re too stupid to know that the hideous clown name you chose when you attacked me — the French “Pierrot” you were so proud of — translates to Peter in English,’ Anne said. ‘The stench of your crime has followed your son throughout his whole life.’

Garvan broke into deep sobs. ‘It was nearly thirty years ago. I was a different person then. I’m an old man, Anne. The anger has gone. I’ve been a good father to your son — our son. I’ve raised him well. I want to say I’m sorry, but I can see it won’t be enough. I want to make amends but I don’t know what to do. What do you want me to do?’ he begged.

Anne gathered her composure. Night had fallen. It was time.

‘I want you to do the honourable thing. It’s the only way to make amends to me. Do you see that can next to you?’

Flynn looked, nodded dumbly.

‘Tip the contents over yourself.’

Peter began to panic, shaking his head, screaming behind the duct tape.

‘Hurry, Garvan, or I will slash his throat. I should tell you that I feel nothing for Peter,’ she lied. ‘I hate him as much as I hate you.’

As she said those terrible words, she felt something die inside her. She couldn’t care less what happened now to her, but she intended to see Garvan pay with his blood.

‘Do it!’ she screamed at the haggard man who suddenly looked a century old.

He reached for the can and splashed a sizeable portion of the petrol over himself, the potent-smelling fumes filling the concert hall.

Anne picked up a lighter and a glass bottle. Petrol sloshed around inside it and a dampened cloth formed a wick to help fashion a rudimentary bomb.

‘And now we’ll cleanse your father of his sins,’ she said softly to Peter, who was whimpering on the floor, helpless.

‘Any last words for your son?’ she taunted Flynn. ‘At least I have the grace to grant you that, which is more than you offered me.’