She and her boyfriend had still been laughing when they got to the shop. It was he who’d suggested going back for more.
The last thing she remembered was the child’s face. The spooky child staring at her through the plastic bag. And reaching for her necklace.
NOW
Seventy-one
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2019
Dee
We’ve caught an early coach to Truro. Cal thinks we’re going on holiday. He was excited when I told him, then went quiet. “What about Dad?” he whispered.
“Dad is going to try to come and join us later,” I said. One more lie among so many can’t hurt. We just need to get away.
He falls asleep after Stonehenge and I sit back and try to empty my head. But it’s all still there. Of course it is.
I can see myself slipping out of the house when I heard Liam leave. He’d whispered to see if I was awake. Whether I wanted to go and see the fire at the Old Vicarage.
I’d just pretended I was asleep. Couldn’t even speak to him, I was so furious. Running around the town, sightseeing other people’s misery, when our lives were falling to pieces in front of us. The landlord wanted to evict us—throw us out on the streets—because Charlie wouldn’t pay what he owed us. He was still ruining my life all these years later. And I hadn’t been able to tell him. Why hadn’t he come that night? He must have chickened out.
I don’t know how long I lay there after Liam had gone. But I suddenly got out of bed and started pulling on my clothes. If Charlie wouldn’t come to me, I’d go to him. I could be there and back before Liam got home.
I know who you are, Charlie. And where you are.
It was breathing I’d heard that Sunday when I looked through the letter box. Tall Trees wasn’t haunted. It’d been him hiding.
* * *
—
I drove halfway to the house, left the van outside a weekender’s place where I clean, and walked the rest. I didn’t want to alert Pauline—she might not have taken her sleeping pill that night. I’d got a key to the back door of the big house—it was on the key ring that Pauline had given me originally. I’m sure she didn’t even realize. It’d taken me a while to work out which door it fitted but I’d got to it eventually. But I didn’t need to use it. The door was on the latch. I pushed it open and used my mobile phone torch to light the way.
I can still hear the scuffling sound I heard that night, when I told myself it was only mice. You can do vermin. I decided to start at the top of the house—that’s where I would hide—and began picking my way up the wrecked stairs, listening to myself breathe.
But the scuffling got louder. Then there was a bang somewhere below me. I ran down the stairs, trying to follow the last echoes of the sound. Down and down. Until I was there. My torch flashed onto the floor. And Charlie looked up at me.
I felt as if I stood there for hours, but when I looked at my watch, it was minutes. I was trying to make sense of what I was looking at. Charlie was on the ground. There was some sort of material in his mouth and he was stuck to a chair with what looked like layers of plastic. There was a giant roll of cling film on the floor beside him. I couldn’t move. He was trying to shuffle toward me, humping his body across the floor.
“Stop!” I commanded him. And he did.
I bent to take his gag out—a disgusting rag of a tea towel—and tried to right him but he was too heavy. I needed scissors to cut him free but there was nothing in the room.
“Thank God it’s you,” he croaked. “I need a drink.” And I brought him water in my hand from the sink. He looked so helpless.
“Who did this to you?” I said.
“Never mind that,” he moaned.
He was too busy slurping to ask why I was there. But he will.
“What on earth did you do to make them tie you up?”
“A horrible misunderstanding over money. Can’t you get this stuff off me? I can’t feel my legs.”
“No, it’s wound too tight.” I tried slashing at it with my keys but it was hopeless.
“Go and get a knife from the caravan.”
“And wake Pauline? What would I tell her?”
“I don’t care. I need to get out of here.”
There was a beat and he asked the question I’d been waiting for.
“Why are you here?”
“It’s a bit of a long story.”
His face clouded and he was staring at me intently. It was putting me off, so I said it quickly.
“You owe my husband four thousand pounds and we’ll lose our home if you don’t pay him.”