One Night (10 page)

‘You can’t keep us here.’ Terror fogged
my brain.

‘Plenty of room.’ The pride in his
voice was nauseating.

‘People will come looking for us.’

But I knew this would take time. It
would take Mr Marse at least three days before he kicked up a fuss about my not
turning up at work. And of course, who would know to search here, miles away,
in the Witch’s Wood? When Mona didn’t arrive at work, they would look for her.
Perhaps they would come to the cottage where she spent every weekend, would hopefully
find her body – and my suitcase. Then –
then
they would search the
woods…

But that could be weeks away.

A furry face with trusting brown
eyes slid into my mind.

Sticky! Oh, Sticky!

Perhaps that was the catalyst: the
thought of Sticky waiting patiently for someone to come, his lonely distress
compounded by the slow pain of hunger, bewilderment and fear. Suddenly, I
didn’t care what Wally Bunting did to us; what I couldn’t bear was the
disastrous effect it would have on faithful, loving Sticky.

‘You sick bastard,’ I screamed.
‘You can fucking
die,
you arsehole!’

I flung myself forward, grabbing
the gun. I surprised myself as much as Wally. He staggered back. His hand
slipped from the trigger. For a split second the gun became a bar between us.
He shoved me back. There was a flurry of movement. Galina’s hands closed around
the gun beside me. The two of us pressed back against him. He lurched. But his
weight was pure beef. He forced us both back. We stood in a sweating,
struggling mass, the gun pointing upwards.

Wally slipped. One foot scooted out
behind him and he fell to his knee. Both Galina and I lost our hold. But Wally
didn’t. In a flash, he swung the gun back to position, focused, aimed, fired.

There was a thudding sound like a
mallet hitting a pillow.

A high-pitched scream tailed to a gurgling
note of astonishment and ceased abruptly.

I turned my head. Galina’s prone
form lay across the floor, her eyes turned wildly to me. Blood patterned like a
bib across her chest, pumping a soggy mess under her collarbone.

A scream like shattered glass ripped
from my throat.

Wally, possibly shaken by the
result of his hair-trigger reaction, seemed momentarily confused.

I took my chance and leapt at him,
landing my full weight on top of the gun. The gun clattered downwards, but
Wally held on. He was on one knee. I sat on the gun. To shift me, he would have
to release one hand. As he did so, I jackknifed to a standing position, both
feet on the gun. He couldn’t lift my weight with one hand. He slid sideways,
still holding the weapon. In that second I crouched, put both hands around the
barrel, pulled the gun upwards. Wally had no choice but to let go. He was on
his feet in a second, coming behind me. As he reached for the gun, I tilted it,
handle to the floor, and pulled the trigger. The bullet drew a straight line
through the base of Wally’s chin and out through the top of his head. It hit
the lone light bulb, scattering it in a confetti of blood and splintered glass.
The cellar sank into darkness.

There was an intense silence. Light
filtered down the stairs from the living room.

Two shapes lay in the murky glow.

I scrabbled my way to Galina.

‘I’m sorry!’ I babbled. ‘I’m so, so
sorry! Oh, please,
please
– hang on! I’ll find a phone. I’ll get help. You
understand? I’ll go for help!’

‘Casey, you are listen,’ she said,
her voice little more than a strained whisper, but controlled as if she’d been
planning a speech, a last rite. ‘Not your fault.’

‘Please – ’

Inexplicably, ‘You must be safe.’

‘I’ll get help. Just hang on – ’

‘Not.
No.
You be safe. Not
worry.’ It sounded like
vurry
…

‘
Galina –
’

‘Have life – you see – you must run
– life – ’

There was a choking sound. Her body
jerked. Then she was still.

I drew away, shrinking back,
falling into a huddle. Any contact with that still warm body would be
appalling. I felt I had been swallowed, enveloped by something dark and suffocating;
slipping and sliding in unimaginable horror.

I sat in the dark and the terrible silence.
Sat until numbness became pain, until the blankness in my mind began to fill
with self-recrimination, with scenarios of what we should have done. The black
surge of grief finally overwhelmed me. I began to weep for all the horrors of
the night; a good friend gone, a new friend snatched away, one man seeking justice
but finding only disaster, another man killed by his own gun.

A dog who had broken his leg…

And in this mindless, nightmare
dark, all possibility of resolution seeped away.

There was a sound. From upstairs.

I raised my head and listened. Someone
was moving in the house. Mad Matty Bunting? Jake perhaps? Had he managed to get
free?

I stood, swaying. Oh,
please
let
it be Jake. Let him be all right. I couldn’t handle this on my own. I felt for
the gun.

My hand slid on the rickety stair
banisters. I crawled up, one step at a time. I tried to call Jake’s name but
the sound smothered at the back of my throat. I reached the door, stepped into
the living room brightly lit, the television still a shimmering reflection of
medieval battle and crusader courage.

I turned my head. The normalcy of
the room was hard to conceive after the abomination of what lay in the cellar.
My neck cricked, rocking on bone. My eyes, hardly focusing, flew wide.

Brent Sedgeworth was standing in
the middle of room.

‘You!’ The word squeezed out of me on a strangled gasp.

His face was a mask of blood, his
nose swollen, his eyes blackened. He was hardly recognizable. His voice,
hoarse, venomous, seemed to ricochet.

‘What the fuck are you doing here?’

‘Looking for a phone.’

His eyes dropped. ‘
Christ!
Where’d you get the gun?’

I swayed, weighing up chances. The
gun seemed too heavy to lift. I doubted whether I could pull that trigger
again. Ever. My legs wouldn’t hold. I sat down heavily on the nearest chair. ‘How
did you know I was here?’

‘I didn’t know. But I do know you
slashed your own tyres. Have to hand it to you, baby shoes. You’re a
firecracker.’ He looked vaguely around. ‘I’m looking to hire a car from Wally. I
have an appointment.’ He swayed. He was talking as if the evening’s events were
no more than an inconvenience in a much grander scheme in his life.

But I had noticed something.

Brent Sedgeworth was unsteady on his
legs and confused. He would be slow. A plan brewed. I had to get out of the
house. The gun was almost useless to me: too big, too heavy. My best weapons
would be surprise and speed. I had to get out of the house. I had to get away.

I put down the gun. ‘Tell you
what.’

His eyes followed my movement.

‘I don’t tell anybody about you,
you take me with you.’

There was a long moment. His eyes
flicked from me to the gun and back again. Caught between disbelief and
possible resolution, he asked: ‘You think I killed Mona. And you think I’ll
kill you. Why the change of tack?’

I gritted my teeth. ‘Because I
killed Wally Bunting.’ I pointed to the gun. ‘Shot him with his own gun.’

Despite the cracked mask of blood,
he managed a startled look. ‘Wally make an unsavoury suggestion?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Where’s the body then?’

‘In the cellar.’

Brent’s eyes shifted to the door
behind me. ‘Care to show me?’

‘I’m not going back in there.’

He studied me, distrustful, not
moving. Then, eyes on me, he edged to the cellar door. He glanced quickly down
the stairs. If nothing else, he would have seen shapes and the ghastly pools of
blood.

He eased back, his eyes reflecting
at last some semblance of emotion that might have been shock.

I said, ‘There’s a van in the yard
with keys in the ignition.’

He stared at me, comprehension
slow.

I pressed, ‘If you take me with
you, I won’t tell the police about you.’

His eyes, that curious bland blue
surrounded by blood and grit, were wary. He was taking time to comprehend my
story, the logic of my request. I knew he had killed Mona. He knew I may have
killed Wally Bunting. If I wasn’t thinking of calling the police, then there
might be a sliver of truth in my words. An advantage he might leverage.

He said suddenly, ‘You leave the
gun behind.’

We went through the kitchen into the backyard. I made him walk ahead of me. The
sensor light clicked on. My eyes swiveled to the spot where Jake had been tied
up.

He wasn’t there.

My heart thudded. Had he managed to
escape my inexpert knotting and just taken himself off? Was he hiding? Hope and
despair did a dizzy dance.

We crossed to the cars lined up on
the opposite side of the yard. As we neared them, I made sure I dragged back a few
feet. I said, ‘That’s the van. There are keys in the ignition.’

He wiped a runnel of blood from his
temple. ‘You sure?’

‘Take a look.’

He took the bait and walked down
the side of the van. He stood a moment peering, then he looked back at me.
‘Well, little Casey, you’re right.’ He leaned forward to open the door. I
waited, judging the distance between us at around eight feet. Now I just needed
the diversion.

It came on cue. A flying shape
cleaved the air, red mouth agape as the dog launched itself towards Brent. I
didn’t wait for the chain to halt the dog’s attack. I had the few seconds I needed.
I turned and raced for the cover of the trees edging the property.

Before I could reach the shelter of
the forest, the noise behind me changed from vicious snarling to a single, high-pitched
squeal, then silence.

Primed by morbid instinct, I turned
and looked back.

Brent lay on his back, blood
spurting from his neck. The dog lay on top of him, a knife handle sticking out of
its chest, shiny chrome against the dark fur. Both Brent and the dog were
still.

Shaken, I saw the dog wasn’t on the
chain. It was free. In the dark behind the cars where it had been chained, Matthew
Bunting was staring at me, the end of the chain in his hand.

‘Girl?’ he said. ‘Girly?’

Then he came for me.

I whirled, my legs rubbery, hardly
functioning as a white-hot flame of pure terror lit a fuse through my body.

4 AM

I no longer had the torch and the woods were pitch. Occasionally a splash
of moonlight would drive me forward but I had no idea where I was going.
Distance was key – as much of it between me and Matthew Bunting I could
possibly gain. I was living on adrenalin, heart pumping like a machine, my
breath harsh in my ears. Eventually the darkness forced me to slow. I’d smacked
into one too many trees…and the last one had definitely left an imprint on my cheek.
Blood was now running into my mouth. I could taste that salty intrusion but the
rest of my body felt numb. I was moving stealthily and with some speed but an
iron band had tightened around my chest and I knew I would have to stop to take
a breath. Hoping on some kind of sixth sense for direction, I focused on
finding the cottage.

I knew if I kept bearing west I
should be somewhere within its vicinity. And all the lights were on. I just had
to keep looking for any tiny chink of yellow between the trees. Except –
bearing west in the confused dark jumble of the woods was almost impossible.
The thought floated in my mind that Matthew Bunting must know the area very
well. I had no idea how long the Buntings had lived there but they seemed
well-entrenched. Perhaps they’d been there since childhood – and if that was
the case then Matthew Bunting had a huge advantage over me. I didn’t have to
speculate what he would do if he caught me. I knew what he would do.

I heard the faint run of a stream.
If I could hear that then I was too far east. I eased to a complete halt and
listened. The woods fell to a crackling silence. If somebody was close to me
and sneaking up, they could be anywhere; sound was emphasized by the creaking
quiet of the forest night. I stood a moment peering into the dark, my breathing
ragged, trying to get my bearings. Fear prickled like a scattering of cold
drops on my back. He was near. I was as sure of it as if I had absorbed all the
wild history of the forest and become super-sensed. Danger was imminent. I
could almost feel the heat of his body.

And then there…up ahead. Something
ridged in a fall of moonlight, an alignment clear-cut against the undergrowth.
The old ruined house that Mona had shown me all those months ago. My breath was
shallow and too quick. I was struggling to focus. Could I hide there? I
remembered the door in the floor to an underground room, the old cellar. Could
I get there unseen? Could I hide until morning?

I edged forward. There was a
rustling of leaves under my feet, the ripe scent of moist soil. I crossed a
small dell which offered little camouflage but allowed me to move faster.
Yes
,
I thought, hurrying,
yes
,
I can get there!

I went up the slope of the dell on
the opposite and saw the lumpy lines of the perimeter wall rising through the
dead leaf ground. I forgot stealth and ran forwards – and into the arms of
Matthew Bunting as he stepped out from behind a tree as though he’d been there
for ages, just waiting for me.

Fear creates its own energy, a different type of vision; a heightened sense
that makes everything sharper, slower, bigger than life. I had no time to
defend myself. Matthew Bunting dragged me into a suffocating grasp. He was
long-armed, big-boned, strong. I screamed but the sound came out like a squawk.
He leaned down to me.

‘Girly,’ he said. He grinned. His
teeth were broken yellow ramparts lined in brown. His mouth, shining with a
slick of spit, came down to mine. I squirmed, reaching for his face but the
faster I scrabbled the quicker he grabbed. We struggled in the damp leaves. He pinched
both my wrists in one large hand, a vice lock, and with the other squeezed my right
breast. In a second I knew I was going to die. There would be a pointless
fight, exhaustion, acute pain, abuse, depravity and death.