The Lost Girl (Brennan and Esposito) (2 page)

C
laire held Damien’s hand. Tight. Heart pounding, legs shaking. Other parts of her body quivering too. So excited. Barely able to believe what she was about to do.

Not her, they.
They
were going to do it. Finally.

She glanced at Damien. Caught his profile in the dying light. God, he was handsome. Maybe not everyone’s idea of handsome, not classically good-looking, perhaps, but he did something to her. Moved something in her that no one else could move. Certainly not Gareth. He hadn’t moved her for years.

She looked away from Damien, down at her feet once more. Moving slowly, the riverside sand still damp from the receding tide.

Behind her, the lane led to the main road where they had parked. Or as main a road as Wrabness could claim. North of Colchester, south of Ipswich, it barely counted as a village. Dotted houses, farms, a slice of beach sporting a few stilted huts and some overturned, rotting boats along the sandy, stony shore. That was it.

And a forest. A dark forest. The kind two people could get lost in. If they wanted to. And they wanted to. They knew what had happened out here. The murders. The madness. The babies. The stuff of nightmares, lurid true-crime books and prurient Channel Five documentaries. And there had been all three. They could have gone to a hotel like everyone else who had an affair, lain in a bed they would pay for but never sleep in, but where was the risk, the thrill, in that? They were transgressing. Where better to do it than in one of the most transgressive places around? The place had been the lair of a predatory sexual, cross-gendered serial killer. It just added an extra layer of excitement. A frisson of sex and death.

Claire used her free hand to pull her blouse back together. Along with her skirt it had been pulled about during their session in the car, their passion so great they could barely keep their hands off each other as they drove. Pulling in her blouse was just for appearances’ sake, though, she thought. Just in case they bumped into anyone. Not that they would. Not down here. Not at this time of day. And if they did, she thought, breath shaking and mind giddy with what they were about to do, perhaps they might want to watch?

She looked round once more. No one about. Instead of keeping her blouse fastened she pulled it apart even more. Damien watched what she was doing. At her exposed black, lace-trimmed bra, the one she had worn specially for him, part of a set that he loved. That he had bought her. She saw the look on his face. Felt his pace increase.

Something in her own body responded to his increased pace. Something dark, hungry and primal.

She couldn’t get into the woods quick enough.

‘And this was where the body was actually found.’ Malcolm pointed to the spot. ‘Right there, ladies and gentlemen…’

He tried to put as much enthusiasm into his voice as he could but he sensed he was wasting his time. Seven people had turned up. That was it. And two had complained at having to walk so far. Three were texting while he was talking like they were in school and he was a particularly uninspiring teacher. Despite what overly theatrical flourishes he could manage, the Colchester Murder Walk just wasn’t the sure-fire success he had imagined it would be.

‘Right there,’ he shouted, feeling another theatrical flourish coming on, giving the buggers what they’d paid for, ‘in front of the light on the lightship. The woman was naked. She had been attacked, mutilated. Almost split in two…’ Shouting the last two words as if he was a fairground barker in some Victorian penny dreadful. Giggles ensued. Not the response he had expected. He continued. ‘Sexually assaulted. Her body riven by the effects of knives, chains, whips…’ He bent forward, eyes wide. ‘And carved into her forehead, the word… WHORE…’

He kept staring. They just giggled.

Jesus, he thought. Pull it back, you’re sounding like you’re enjoying yourself too much. He sighed. Should have stayed at the library.

When the library service was cut Malcolm had been one of the first to go. That was when he had settled on the idea of the Colchester murder tour. He had been on a Jack the Ripper tour in London’s East End and found it impressive. The guide knowledgeable but approachable, the crimes themselves explained in context to the times and the victims given a proper voice. Not sensational at all. A slice of living history, he had thought. On the train home he had got to thinking. Colchester had seen a rise in violent crime in recent years. More than its fair share of serial killers, too. Why not…

And here he was, down on the quayside of the river Colne on a bleak, cold Tuesday night, dressed as flamboyantly as he could, trying to be a character, trying desperately to interest this tiny band of people. He felt like giving up and going to the pub.

‘Any questions?’ he asked.

‘Yeah,’ said one bloke. Big, shaven-headed, tattooed. The woman with him all fake tan and spike heels. Her legs looked sparrow-thin and every time she tottered Malcolm thought she was going to snap.

‘Yes?’ said Malcolm.

‘What had happened to her?’

‘I’m coming to that.’

‘Only my mate used to have a burger van up that way.’ The bloke pointed down the road. ‘Said he helped the police, he did. Told me a few things.’ The man smiled, relishing what he was about to say. ‘He said that —’

‘Well, that’s great,’ said Malcolm, cutting him off. ‘For your mate. I’ll tell you everything else that happened, don’t worry. If you’ll just follow me…’

He turned and walked along the dock towards an old, abandoned warehouse with a rusted crane beside it.

‘Here’s where the story really gets exciting,’ he said, wishing he felt it.

Josh was glad of the darkness. It hid his fear.

Coming down this path, walking towards the house they were heading to, had been his idea. Kind of. It was a dare, something he felt expected to say. If he wanted to hang around with the cool kids, that was.

He looked at the other two. Kyle was small with perfect hair and a face that could look angelic but more often appeared manic and deranged. Eyes constantly waiting to be lit by a dark mischief. Tom was Kyle’s best friend and acolyte. The archetypal follower, doing whatever Kyle said, walking behind him at school, coming to rest slightly behind his left shoulder, always sniggering as if he was constantly savouring a favourite punchline.

Josh wanted to get in with them. Why, he didn’t really know. He hung about with the geekier kids. The scientists and readers. But Kyle and Tom seemed to have taken an interest in him, decided he was to be promoted to their ranks. Josh’s friends had noticed too; they hadn’t been happy about his new liaisons, had begun to withdraw from him. He was sad, of course, but someone else had taken their place. Hannah Cresswell. She liked the bad boys. And once Josh became friendly with Kyle and Tom, she had started paying attention to Josh. And Josh had boxed away his conscience, decided that the trade-off was worth it.

‘So where is it?’ asked Kyle.

‘Just down here.’

They walked away from East Hill in Colchester, down a wooded path, the trees susurrating, whispering above them, all around them. A language Josh didn’t understand. So many trees, so close to the road. Yet they couldn’t see or hear the road. The noise made him feel uneasy.

Ahead was the river. Beyond that the allotments, an electricity substation and a path that led to their housing estate. Deeply shadowed and wildly overgrown, it was the preserve of muggers and rapists. Or so the local legends said.

But before all that was the house. The three houses, really, but there was only one that had their attention.

The house where the mad boy in the cage had been found. The cage made of bones.

It had been huge at the time, with a massive police investigation to go with it. People had died. Secrets had been exposed. But once that was over the house had been left alone, most of the cage still there. Due to be demolished but somehow never got round to, its dilapidated state had increased along with its legend.

‘There it is,’ said Josh, stopping and pointing.

The other two’s eyes followed his finger. Didn’t notice Josh shudder. The house was a ruin, the roof partly exposed and covered with black plastic sheeting, making it look like a huge, malevolent winged creature had perched on top of it. The walls were discoloured, crumbling brick. The back of the house had already been reclaimed by nature. In front of the house at the side of the path were huge metal mesh fence panels, sunk into concrete bases dotted with various signs threatening the unwary to keep out. There were still some streamers of old, dirty, faded police tape slapping against the mesh in the breeze. None of them moved.

Eventually, Kyle pushed Josh in the back.

‘Go on, then,’ he said, no dark mischief in his eyes now, only unacknowledged fear, ‘you first.’

Josh turned to him. ‘Thought we’d all go in together.’

‘Hey, your idea. You wanted to come here. Said you’d show us what was there.’

‘Yeah,’ said Tom from behind Kyle’s left shoulder. ‘You said.’

Josh looked between the pair of them. They were as scared as he was. What had seemed like a good idea earlier at school, a brave thing to say in the daylight, didn’t seem so good now.

‘What you scared of?’ asked Kyle, attempting to cast off his fear onto Josh.

Tom seemingly thought of backing him up but decided against it.

‘Nothing,’ said Josh, hoping he sounded as brave as he wanted to.

‘Go on, then.’

‘You said we’d all do it together…’

Kyle summoned up a laugh. It sounded like a harsh belch in the dark. ‘Don’t do it then. We’ll tell everyone tomorrow that you were too scared.’

Everyone, thought Josh. He knew who that meant. Hannah Cresswell.

‘I’m not scared,’ he said, voice too loud and suddenly angry. ‘I’m going in.’

He began to pull the fence away, try to make an opening wide enough to slip through. The other two just stared at him.

‘You not coming?’ said Josh.

‘We’ll wait till you’ve done it.’

Josh almost laughed. ‘And then run home?’

Anger lit up Kyle’s eyes. ‘Fuck off, I’m not going to do that.’

‘You scared, then?’

‘I’m not fuckin’ scared!’

Tom just looked between the pair of them, speechless.

Josh did laugh this time. The cool kids? They were nothing. Scared to even come with him. He and his mates had done this kind of thing before. Loads of times. They had explored all over the place. His mates. Real mates. He suddenly missed them.

He squeezed through, kept the fence pushed open. Let’s get this over with, he thought. Then I can go and see my real friends again. Leave these losers behind.

‘Come on then,’ he said, holding the fence, ‘haven’t got all night.’

Kyle and Tom reluctantly followed him.

‘Here,’ said Claire, pulling Damien towards her, ‘now.’

Her hands were all over him, pushing his jacket from his shoulders, pulling his shirt from the waistband of his trousers at the same time. Power surged through her, a primal hunger.

‘Careful…’ Damien tried to undo his shirt buttons, stop Claire from pulling them off. Fine thing that would be, he thought, if Joanne went through his dirty washing and came across a torn shirt. She could work the rest out for herself.

Claire gave up on Damien, letting him undress himself, and began to pull her own clothes off. First the blouse which she had been opening as they walked, then her skirt.

She stood in her underwear and stockings and Damien tried to look at her in the fading light, admire the body that he had lusted after for so long, but she was moving so quickly that he didn’t have a chance to savour the moment.

‘Slow down, there’s… there’s no rush…’

She wasn’t listening. She pushed him down onto the ground. The forest floor was damp with mulched leaves, uneven with broken branches and stones.

‘This is it,’ she gasped, ‘I can feel it. Here. Now…’ Pulling at him all the time, hands on his body, clawing his clothes off.

Should have brought the picnic blanket, he thought, then followed that thought with: Now I’ll have to have this suit dry-cleaned. He was beginning to wonder whether all this was just a lot of fuss for a little bit of pleasure, when Claire finally took off her bra and straddled his prone body. He looked up at her. Two kids, he thought, and her tits weren’t even sagging. Well, not much. He felt himself stiffening, her hands on his trousers.

What the hell, he thought. Come this far…

He lay back. Let her do what she wanted to do. Tried to forget the discomfort and just enjoy it.

‘Fiona Welch, ladies and gentlemen, that was her name.’

Malcolm was getting a sore throat from projecting his voice. Even the small number of people in front of him was difficult to reach. But then Malcolm had always had a problem making himself heard.

‘And if you look up here…’ he pointed to the crane above them, etched against the gathering night sky by the quayside lights, ‘this was where she fell to her
death
.’ His hoped-for dramatic crescendo on the final word was undermined by his voice cracking and croaking as he tried to project. ‘’Scuse me,’ he said, hoping that the audience would laugh with him not at him, ‘getting emotional.’ He cleared his throat, continued.

‘Fiona Welch. She was a psychologist, working with the police on a string of murders. But, ladies and gentlemen, as you may well be aware, that was all a smokescreen. Because it was Fiona Welch herself who was behind the murders.’

He waited for that to sink in, continued.

‘She kidnapped women, young, single women, and imprisoned them in here.’ He gestured to the warehouse. ‘Kept in coffin-like boxes, wired up to electrocute them if they tried to move. Assisted by a shambling, mute monster known only as the Creeper.’

So much for giving voice to the victims in a non-exploitative way, Malcolm thought.

‘Why did she do it? What did she hope to gain?’ He looked round the crowd. Expectant now, waiting for him to relate the grisly, salacious details. He had their attention. Hooked. It was a novel, empowering experience. He couldn’t disappoint them. ‘Well, we don’t know. These young women were tortured, mutilated and eventually murdered. All except the final victim. And she fought back. She was a heroine. But more on that later.’