In the Moors (33 page)

“Get up. You can do it.” She was looking at me with a new expression on her face. I'd been stupid enough to think she'd freed my legs as a sort of reward for guessing right. But she had her own reasons, nothing to do with my discomfort. I was frozen with fear. She had a plan, something new. What had her twisted mind come up with? Was it time to sort me? I tried to get my thoughts on track. Keeping ahead of her was my only hope … okay, not a great hope. Not a hope at all, really.

“Get up!” She rammed the toe of her dreadful shoe into the wound on my head. Pain detonated inside my head. “Now!”

It took several attempts. She'd tied my hands behind my back with the same rope that was now falling around my ankles. I had to flounder upright like an ungainly bird with clipped wings. My legs throbbed as blood flowed through them. I swayed in front of her.

“Come here,” she said, gesturing to the butcher's block as if it were a sacrificial altar.

I felt stronger on my feet. Almost instinctively, I shuffled away, glancing round the kitchen. The doors were shut. They didn't even need to be locked; I couldn't get through a shut door without hands. Anyway, where could I go with my hands tied? The answer my heart gave was
anywhere away from her.
I took another penguin step, and found myself on my face on the floor. I'd tripped over the lengths of rope that were coiling round my feet.

“Get up and come here.” Her voice was on the edge of patience, but I ignored it. I was concentrating on what I'd figured out. My bonds were loosening. I wriggled as if struggling to get to my feet, but I was secretly examining the rope. She'd wound it round and round my legs, and now she'd cut the bindings at my ankles, it was falling free, trailing across the tiles behind me.

I tried to work out how I'd been tied. Had she started with the noose at my neck, taken the rope to my ankles, tied it tightly there, then tied up my hands? When she'd bound me, I'd been out cold, harmless, and she had been in Patsy
fuck
mode—desperate, panicked—concentrating on the noose thing, to scare and control me. But now she had a new agenda. She wanted me on my feet, she'd cut the rope deliberately. She'd cut the rope, not thinking about the original knots.

She came towards me. I scrabbled to my feet and shuffled uselessly away. She grabbed my wrists behind me and yanked. Pain overwhelmed me. It was the shooting agony I'd experienced in Horfield Prison, when I'd put my hands on Cliff's. She'd learnt all the tricks from Kissie and Pinchie. A sound wailed round the kitchen and back into my own ears. My scream.

“They started up again,” she was saying. “I heard them plain.
Patsy
take another … try again, Patsy … get it right this time.
They wanted the full bells and whistles.
Patsy take a child … abuse … rape … torture it to death.”

No marks on Josh's body. That was what Rey had told me. He didn't mention if that included the marks of rope around his wrists or neck. How did she keep them from running away if she didn't tie them?

“But I couldn't hurt him.” Her voice was steady. “I didn't even cut his hair.”

“You've never been able to tell anyone, have you?” I kept my voice low, kept my pain to myself. “But now you have, you'll feel better. You won't want more babies to die. It's only Kissie and Pinchie who want that. You're a good person, a lawyer, trapped by these terrible people, their ghosts—ah!”

She pushed my Weeble-Wobble body and I skidded across the floor in my socks, squealing like a piglet. We were heading for the butcher's block, where the knife lay. She let go and I crumpled to the floor, gasping. The pain in my shoulders had gone as she'd released me, but my hands were tingling with slow life. When she'd grabbed me, the bindings had slipped a little more.

I had very little time left, and one final throw of the dice. “Linnet.” I gave her a crooked smile. “I know a way to be free of them.”

“Be free?”

“Yes. They will never stop haunting you. They'll always want another child, another death. But if you give yourself up …”

“Give myself up?”

“Yes.”

“To the police?”

“Think of the relief, Linnet.”

“What, walk into the station and say, ‘it's a fair cop, guv'?”

I could not reply.

“You really do know
sod all,
don't you, Sabbie?” Her eyes had steeled—they were somewhere—
someone
else entirely. She put a tight fist around my ponytail and heaved. I followed the line of the pain, up onto my knees. I was staring across the surface of the butcher's block. She yanked my head onto it. My neck felt ready to break; it was stretched and exposed as my cheek was pressed down onto the sawdusty surface. I tried shifting my legs, but they slid from under me and I was held on the block by the length of my hair, my knees floating handbreadths from the ground. I squeezed my eyes shut. I didn't want to see the blood if she cut at my neck.

“Stop it, Linnet,” I choked out, into the wood. “Just stop it all. Do yourself a favour. You're up shit creek.”

I heard her chuckle. “Shit creek? That's where you are right this minute.”

“Let it be over.” I was whispering, words fast and foolish, like a prayer. “Let it be over for you … for me … for Cliff. Let it be over for him too.”

“Be over for Cliff?” She sounded incredulous. “Why should I ever let it be over for Cliff?”

I stopped muttering. Her words cut through my fear. Why had Linnet taken on this case, when she knew all along that Cliff was as innocent as she was guilty?
Not altogether innocent,
she'd argued. I felt my eyes shoot wide open. I had betrayed Cliff, thinking for even one second that he might be involved with Linnet. But he
had
been involved with Patsy. I could see his pale face, in the prison visiting room, the story of his escape.
I got in her way
.

“You freed him.” It came out as a groan. In my mind I heard Cliff, as the memories came to him
. I wriggle towards the trunk. The girl hisses ‘fucking hurry up'.
“You let him go and stayed behind.”

Chilled steel lay on my neck. My bones liquidised inside my flesh.

“I stayed behind,” she hissed. “And all that night, they kept me tied—feet to neck. I was a stupid young girl, so I struggled a lot. By morning I was half dead, slowly strangled. Thanks to your precious client.”

“The tree—couldn't take his weight.” I felt the blade in Linnet's hand move. My breath was coming in tiny gasps, like my lungs were bellows. “How—how could you blame him?”

“He never even looked back.”

“Linnet. You both survived. Why not just be—glad.”

“He went free, innocent, forgetting everything. I was left, murderess and accomplice. That what you wanted to hear? I was their accomplice. After Cliff escaped, they nearly killed me in all the ingenious ways they had, then, hey, guess what we did? We all went on holiday. Terry nicked a car and we all went off for a nice little summer holiday. Weymouth, I think. Ain't that cute?”

“They thought he'd tell the police.”

“I wish to God that he had! I would be free now—they would be doing thirty years.” The blade trembled, pressed closer, dug into my flesh. “It's his turn. He's had a lifetime without them breathing down his neck. It's his turn.”

My thoughts spun. I saw her plan. So simple. Tomorrow morning, thanks to the efforts of his lawyer, Cliff would walk free. No, not free. Surveillance. The police, watching the wrong suspect, watching Cliff when they should be watching Linnet. Suddenly, I wanted to shout out, as if I could warn him, or warn Rey Buckley.
Don't watch Cliff! Don't watch Cliff!
I could see it, as clear as if it had already happened. Aidan's body, left for Cliff to find, easily discovered. Or worse. Another child snatched, when surveillance went wrong, for just an hour. No one was watching Linnet. It had been going great. But I'd fucked it up—fucked the plan by finding the tunnel.

There was a violent sharpness, a long scratch at the crease of my neck. The knife's flat, cold blade slid upwards. A moan oozed from my lips. I tried to stop myself from peeing. The roots of my hair tightened, resisted, then sprang free. She was scalping me. She wanted me to know all the agonies, all the cruelties she'd suffered, starting with this one. I gritted my teeth against the pain as the knife sawed along my skin.

“Don't do this. Don't do it!”

“I have longed to do this. Forever. Longed to.”

“Don't do it, don't do it! Don't kill me, please don't kill me, you can't kill, you can't, you can't kill me, Linnet!”

I didn't realize that I was crying until the tears began to drip from my cheeks and chin.

“I
have
killed,” Linnet spat back at me, as if I'd insulted her. “I can fucking kill. As you will find, when the time is right.”

Panic swilled over me like a scald of water. It had taken me all this time to realize how dangerous Linnet was.

I was as much her victim as Josh, Aidan, and Cliff.

TWENTY-EIGHT

What do you think
is in there, Ina?

Only one person had ever called me that particular nickname. I was seven or eight, and I can't recall the face, can't remember the gender. I must've known the name at the time, but it's gone. When that memory slips in, through some unguarded back door in my mind, I think of
that person
as Ina … not me. Ina the Vile. Ina—pitiless, callous, vicious. Ina, who technically never laid a finger on me or any other child at the home or foster house or wherever it was. No bruises, no split lips to tell the tale. Ina used terror warfare that only worked on those still young enough to believe that horrors unseen, demons and monsters from dark places, could overcome the miracle of love.

I do recall, in the recesses of my mind, that Ina had many diabolical tricks. They were played in the name of discipline, but that was not Ina's immediate design. Ina loved to see a child's face melt with fear. And if their bladder or bowels melted too, all the better, for that was two punishments all rolled up in one small transgression.

Ina's gift was to know what would terrorize a child the most, and for me it was the cupboard. A swirling rise of emotions choked my throat if I knew the cupboard was threatened. I can still taste each one: Bewilderment and wretchedness growing fast and hot to anger, and the hammering at the inside of the door that left my hands aching for days. Hate and disgust for the tiny space, the harmless piles of towels and sheets. The first blasts of fear; darkness, the feeling that I couldn't breathe. Then after a long time—for it was impossible to gauge the time spent, except by the growing hunger in my belly—the start of the terrors that shocked the heart rate, spasmed the brain, annihilated control of any part of my body. Eventually there was a swollen unconsciousness where my nightmares brought forth the beasts with curved teeth and the men with curved blades.

What do you think is in there, Ina?

Nothing compares. No other life experience has left me with such a sickening memory …

Until Linnet's knife sliced though my hair tight to my scalp. I'd been left out on a field of ice—I couldn't feel anything, not even my heart beating. Black patches were splattered over my vision. Pain built as Linnet removed more and more hair from my head. I could feel her working over me, as if I was the steak for her dinner.

I wanted to mourn for my hair. I'd taken almost ten years to grow it—and in a few more moments, Linnet would be holding all of it in her hand. But I didn't have time to mourn hair. It was my life that was in real danger.

Linnet had dragged me to the block with rope trailing behind me, but she was too absorbed with her new obsession to worry about the ropes that had bound me. I tried my hands, focusing my thoughts on them. When I forced them apart, I felt the coils around my wrists give. I moved my hands in a circular motion, felt rawness as flesh rubbed over rope.

I gritted my teeth against the pain as the knife sawed through the final hank of hair and I fell, free from her hold, onto the floor.

Linnet's breathing was loud and ragged in her throat. She laid the heavy lengths of tangled, curling hair over the block and stroked it. I watched, mesmerized. Some sort of reaction had been set up in her with the cutting. Her shoulders shook. She leaned onto the butcher block as if unable to support her own weight. There was violent madness in her face. She raised the knife above the hair and roared. It was the roar of a wild beast—a monster—the evil witch who cooked children. She roared the knife above her head and roared it down. An inch of its point disappeared into the wood. I was hoping she'd never get it out again.

I didn't delay. I skittered across the kitchen like a wild animal seeking shelter. I bunched up in a corner by the sink. I must have looked done-in, helpless, lifeless. But my mind was whirling—fighting for my existence.

The trail of rope led from the block to my trembling form. She picked up the end of it. She was thinking again—constructing the perfect plan. I needed her to stay unfocused. I liked it when she talked; it made her forget to plan.

“Why didn't you go home, Linnet?”

“Home?” Her frame swayed. Maybe it was the whisky. The bottle was almost empty, but most of it had been poured over me, soaking my jumper. I prayed she wouldn't pour the alcohol on my scraped scalp. She looked desperate. Was she desperate enough to tell her story to someone who couldn't pass it on?

“Back to Arnie, and your mum.”

She licked her tongue around the inside of her mouth. She was remembering. “Terry and Vron didn't believe in banks. They kept it all under the bed. I found an old sports bag and filled it with twenties. Their life savings. It wasn't all that much by today's standards, and you can bet your life it had all been nicked, but I felt as rich as a shipping magnate. I wasn't going to share that with my parents. I hated them almost as much as they hated me.”

“But they didn't …” I trailed off. This was not the time to argue.

“I came back from burying the children. I had a bath in the grotty bathroom. I used up every scrap of hot water and bubble bath. I remember so clearly lying there … I knew they were dead—under the floorboards—but every time I heard the tiniest noise I almost jumped out the bath. I couldn't stay in that house another hour. I did my face with Kissie's makeup and got into some of her clothes. She had nice clothes; thought a lot of herself, she did. I packed the rest of them and everything of use. I washed the bread knife of blood and put it back in the kitchen drawer. Then I drove all night, north, north, careful not to draw attention to the van. When the traffic started building, I holed up in a cheap hotel. I didn't look much like a runaway—not driving that van and thick with makeup. They were happy enough to take my cash.”

She was almost glowing with the story, the words spilling out like winnings from a slot. Meanwhile under cover of the shadows of my corner, I was easing my wrists apart from each other. The bonds held; they were looser, but I couldn't get my hands out. At least I could feel my hands now—pins and needles jabbing all over them.

“It's not just the name.” I kept my voice low, not wanting to rile her but desperate to understand. “The Linnet I met in your office … had drinks with … that's not the same person as Patsy.”

She shook her head several times, as if in disbelieving agreement. “I thought I'd spend that cash like it was the spit from my mouth. Party time at last! But I was too obsessed with what I'd done. Was I guilty? If I'd been caught, charged, taken to court, what would a judge say about my crime? Would he say that stabbing two murderers to death was an execution they deserved?”

She hadn't answered my question. Maybe she didn't know herself. She came towards my limp body, the rope in her hand. I looked away. I wasn't up to a fight. I had no strength left. She lifted my feet. She wound the rope round my ankles and finished it with a couple of half-hearted knots … half hitches, Girl Guides call them. I'd never even been a Brownie, and I regretted my lack of knot knowledge now.

“I was witness, arresting officer, jury … lawyer,” she went on, as if tying my legs was something I'd requested. “I argued the case in my head—searched out books in the library.”

I'd imagined an expensive school, prosperous parents to pave the way to a top law degree. I was way off on that one.

“Night school,” said Linnet, as if she guessed my line of thinking. Her eyes burned red. “Remember the phoenix? Yes, it does work, that myth. You can combust into flame and be reborn. I never wanted to be Patsy Napper ever again. And I did want to help people, Sabbie. Because I hated Kissie and Pinchie. Those bastards never stopped being thirsty for pain, for blood, even after they died. Wanting to do it again . And for a while—quite a while really—I fought against it. I prosecuted the accused and got convictions. It was how I kept them at bay, Sabbie. Kept them at a whisper for a good number of years. I helped send the guilty to jail.”

She gave herself a shake. For a moment, she'd forgotten her agenda, but she was back on course. “Stay there, won't you?” It was a rhetorical question, but I don't think Patsy had been a Girl Guide, either; she was overconfident about her knots and underestimated me, something I attempted to reinforce by swooning back against the sink.

Her clipping shoes took a swerving course to the back door. I heard the lock turn and the door slam. What was she doing? How long would she take to do it? If I'd had my walking boots on, it might have been difficult to get out of the half-hitched bindings though not impossible—without boots, I easily slid one foot free and then the other.

I got up. The knife winked at me. I went over to the block. Everything in reverse. It is hard, using your hands when they are bound behind you. Like doing something in a mirror. I turned away and leaned backwards over the block. Then I felt something—a pressure—but my hands were still coming back to life—I wasn't sure if the blade was pushing against the rope or my skin. I didn't know if I could cut the rope, even though I was stretching it taut, keeping my hands as far apart from each other as possible. I didn't know if the knife would stay in place, embedded though it was. I couldn't see what I was doing, or if it was working. But I did trust the sharpness of Linnet's blade as I sawed, up and down, pressing as hard as I dared.

I kept glancing towards the kitchen door as I worked. As life came into my fingers, I felt sweat drip onto them, warm and sticky. Not sweat. Blood. I worked faster. Something gave. A sort of
ping
. It was not enough, not quite. I sawed again. I felt the knife slide away from me. It was coming loose. My hands broke apart just as it clattered to the floor. I struggled out of the final lengths of rope.

At last I stood, holding my arms in front of me. It was wonderful to see them again. I'd cut the heel of my left hand, just a slice of flesh gone, no real harm done. I bent down and gripped the handle of the knife, moving it from fist to fist to get my hands working. I doubted it had as much as sliced a carrot since its arrival in this kitchen, and now it was smeared with my blood and my hair. It was both adversary and ally.

I knew I would not follow Linnet. I never wanted to see her again or hear Patsy's voice come out of her lips. I stumbled across the kitchen, into the hall. Opposite the office with the dreadful tunnel fireplace was the front door, leading to the porch. I wrenched the catch open. There lay my walking boots, a memory of ancient times. I reached for them, fumbling with the laces.

Darkness had fallen. On the other side of the glass porch door I could see nothing but night. Then the brilliance of a flashlight swung across the dark garden. I felt my blood curdle. Not that way. I turned and hurtled along the passageway towards what must have been one of the original cottage doors, low and with a latch, which stood at the very end of the passage. I was hoping it would let me out into a different part of the garden, closer to the car, but steep cottage stairs loomed up in front of me, confined by a wall on each side.

I took a quick glance behind me. The passageway, framed with insipid floral pictures, stretched the length of the house. There was no sign of Linnet. I closed the door behind me and scrabbled up the stairs, my legs trembling with terror, pain, and exhaustion, until I reached the next floor.

What was I doing here? In films, the victim always climbs, putting themselves in further peril as they inch along a window sill or up the skeleton of some suspension bridge. Now I knew the instinct is true—I had fled upwards. But I was also searching for Aidan. I opened each door as I moved along the upstairs landing. The first two were empty bedrooms, furnished for guests who had never arrived. The last was Linnet's bedroom. I stood on the threshold, taking in the sight.

The room was stuffed with toys, displayed on every surface and shelf. I took a cautious step closer. It was like being in Toys “R” Us. An array of packaged goods—train sets and scooters, dolls and dollhouses, games and puzzles. But mostly, soft toys.

A hundred expensive teddy bears, shiny bows around their necks, and the squashy equivalent of every other animal that walked the face of the earth. Pastel shades and primary colours, fluffy fabrics, suede, leather, tartan, velvet, satin. The beady eyes stared at me as if I was an unwelcome stranger. This was a shrine to early childhood.

Linnet's lost childhood, perhaps? It was not her childhood that Linnet had lost, but rather her opportunity to be a mother. A purpose concealed even from her own full sight. When she'd found Josh, trying to hide from his brother on the Bristol Downs, it wasn't just Kissie and Pinchie who had whispered …
take him … take him.
Linnet had longed to own a child. I could see her leading each of them into this room—c
hoose anything, choose as many toys as you want
—and watching, perplexed, as their lips trembled.
I just want my mummy.
Maybe the boys really had been given an overdose that was accidental. She was a lawyer, after all, not a doctor.

Something was out of place. Between the toys and teddies, the lacy frills and silken pillows. I snapped out of my shock and hurtled towards the phone that lay on the dressing table. I punched the three nines. A man's voice came through, calm, reassuring. When he asked me which service I required, I almost screamed down the phone, remembering to drop my voice at the last moment “Police! Ambulance! Murder, Murder!”

“Is someone hurt?”

“She murdered them,” I heard myself babbling, “the boy they found in the moors. Josh Sutton. She murdered him. She took Aidan Rodderick. It's her!”