When it was safe, he hurried into the house. He would collect the paintings and return to the cottage, to his secret there. As he stole silently in through the door and along the passage, he did not know that, in the very same moment, a stranger’s car had drawn up outside. Now, when the knock came on the door, his guilty heart almost leaped from his chest. But then, after the initial burst of fear, he became calm, unruffled. Tip-toeing into the kitchen, he peered out. Another shock. It was the police! No matter. He was safe enough. No one had any cause to suspect. Boldly, he opened the door. ‘Why, good morning, officer.’ His smile was all deceiving. ‘What can I do for you?’
The officer met his smile with a serious face. ‘Mr Armstrong?’ His voice was quiet, not threatening. ‘Mr… Jack Armstrong?’ His gaze roved the man, curious at what it saw there.
‘Yes, I’m Jack Armstrong.’ The smile slipped away, eyes darkened with panic. ‘It’s not bad news is it? My daughter?’
‘No. No… nothing like that, sir.’ The officer saw how badly affected the other man seemed. Strange too, how he had not envisaged ‘Mr Armstrong’ to look anything like this fellow! Still, it was not for him to draw conclusions. He was here to deliver a message, to pursue a certain complaint. That was all. The Station had received notification from up North, and he had a job to do.
‘Come inside, officer.’ He stepped aside, closing the door. Together, they went along the passage and on into the big room. He might have been tempted to ‘do away’ with the law-man, only there was another in the car. It deterred him.
Outside, the second officer was alerted by Rosie’s distressed calls. Inquisitive and concerned, he got out of the car and went to investigate.
Almost out of her mind with worry, and fearing the very worst, Rosie was already beginning to make her way towards the path that would lead her up to the shop, and, God willing, to help. She knew now that she must not delude herself any longer. She had been frantic on finding that Ellie was not in the house. Where was she? ‘Oh, Ellie! Ellie!’ Rosie’s anguished cries echoed through the spinney. She was beside herself with terror at the thought of what might have happened. She blamed herself. How could she have let compassion and pity blind her to the awful truth all these years?
Help. She must get help. And quickly! She knew in her bones that something terrible had happened to Ellie.
There was another who sought to protect Ellie. He, too, had his suspicions. He, too, prayed it was not too late. Unobserved, he went softly towards the big barn; a weary and bedraggled figure, best by nightmares of a kind that stayed alive even in the daylight hours. He knew now, knew for certain. And the knowledge filled him with the worst kind of horror.
As though waking from a deep sleep and pressed down by unseen hands, Ellie shifted, softly moaning, every corner of her body racked and sore. Layer by layer the darkness lifted; now it was twilight, now it was grey, like swirling, misty fog. She forced open her eyelids, leaded weights that hurt, resisted. It would be so easy to lie there, to surrender to the all-enveloping blackness… so easy, drifting away, the pain gossamer light. Oh, so very easy. Too easy. Death was too easy. Too final. She struggled, trying to hitch herself into a sitting position against the wall, cold and damp she could feel it beneath her fingertips. The shudder rippled through her. The effort was too much. Wait, wait a while, let the life flow back into your stiff, sore limbs. She moved herself inch by inch, painstakingly, onto her side. Eyes open now, looking round, searching. There was nothing to see. It was all deathly silent, and dark, oh so dark. Wait! Voices. She could hear voices. Thank God. Oh, thank God! Something was wrong, though. Horribly wrong. She was imagining, hallucinating, her senses were playing tricks on her. The voices, distant, murmuring, now and then laughing softly; one sounding uncannily like that of her dead brother, the other like that of her mother! No! No! How could it be? On and on they went, conversing together, infiltrating her mind until she thought she was crazy. She cried out. Suddenly, all was silent again. A brooding, awful silence that crept right through her. Determined, she pulled herself up; leaning against the wall she listened. In the cold, biting air the sweat trickled down her face, erupting on her back in wet, sticky patches that mingled with the cold moistness of the wall. Summoning every ounce of strength left in her, she struggled to her feet, violently shivering, mortally afraid. And it was dark, so dark. So cold. Suddenly the darkness was relieved by a low, flickering light. Candles, a glowing circle in the distance. There were people there. A stab of hope and gratitude pierced her terror. Slowly, with a fast-beating heart, she moved forward. The room was spinning, she was spinning; light-headed still and mesmerised by the garish brightness, she went towards it on slow, faltering footsteps.
From a distance they watched, smiling, welcoming eyes, beckoning to her, willing her ever onwards. At last, at long last. The smile was beautiful, madly, madly beautiful! Only the heart was ugly, yet satisfied, content a while, the evil simmering beneath the surface. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ the voice whispered, ‘don’t be afraid.’
The voice was soothing to Ellie. It was familiar, yet, it was not. With every step she feared the darkness would descend to swallow her. The voice urged her on; she called to it. When it answered, she was filled with joy. It was her father! Eagerly, she went on, towards the circle of light, to her father, to safety. Now, she could see him. He had his back to her, strong broad shoulders, a voice, his voice, coaxing, ‘Hurry, Ellie. Hurry, sweetheart. Don’t be afraid.’ Only a heartbeat away now. She reached out, loving fingers, touching. Laughing, he slewed round to face her. Barny! Their eyes met – hers scarred with horror, his boring into her, wild, insane. Barny’s eyes! Barny! Barny! The shock tore through her like nothing she had ever known. The face was Barny Tyler’s, the voice was her father’s. The scream began in the pit of her stomach, pushing up, suffocating, trapped inside. Then, like hell unleashed it left her body, splitting the air, time and again. She could not wrench her terrified eyes from that mad, delighted stare. She backed away, her screams stilled; now the silence was deafening, unearthly. Her mind was in chaos, fragmented. She had to get away, get away. Dear God, help me! In her haste she stumbled, the blackness rose in her, smothering her senses. Suddenly he was on her! ‘Oh, Ellie. You disappoint me. Don’t run away. Not from me.’ His voice was strange to her, but the hands, that gentle, loving touch, so familiar, so disturbingly familiar. Trembling, she felt herself being lifted, turned, made to look into those smiling green eyes. ‘You mustn’t be afraid, my lovely.’ His voice was the strangest whisper. She struggled, but there was no escape. The cold green eyes stared into hers, smiling, always smiling. His long, strong fingers closed about her throat, the two thumbs meeting across her Adam’s apple, gently squeezing. Desperately she fought, clawing at his hands, kicking out, but she was no match for his maniacal strength. ‘No, no, Ellie… don’t fight me,’ he murmured, all the while smiling that handsome, charming smile that now hardened into a devilish grimace. His fingers closed tighter, tighter until they were an iron collar round her throat. All thought fled her mind. Only greyness now. Then darkness, closing in, suffocating. She felt her arms drop limply to her sides; inside her head the blackness was bursting, spitting out in starlike bursts. In her heart she knew it was too late, too late, all over. The tears rose but could not flow – like her, they were trapped.
‘No!’ The scream issued into the darkness, bouncing across her fading thoughts. Suddenly, she felt a thud, then a different kind of pain as she was viciously flung to the cold, hard ground. She rolled over, smacking her head into the wall. She felt the blood spurt, trickling down her temple, salty in her mouth. Her eyes popped open, unseeing, then through her fading senses she saw – shadows in the flickering light, intertwined like sinister dancers, writhing, madness there. Madness. Her pained, dimming glance looked beyond, drawn to the halo of light, to the lifeless figures seated round the table, her father, and Alec, both of them bloodied, oh, and a child… a boy… his face strangely melted like a mask, and beside him a
nother… a woman with her hair the colour of Ellie’s, but she had no face! In her arms was the smallest bundle… a tiny infant?
Confused, in the grip of hysteria, Ellie’s shocked glance flicked back to the man, her father? Was it really her father? No. Not him, or he would help. Ellie’s eyelids closed; the gruesome images persisted. Darkness caressed her, uplifting, lapping over her. Until she knew no more.
‘Jesus Christ!’ The officers burst into the cellar, horrified by the carnage that unfolded before them – the macabre scene illuminated in the halo of candle light, Ellie broken and bloody, seemingly lifeless, and the old senile, fighting for his life but losing it inch by inch as the steel blade plunged time and again into his writhing body. Above him the green eyes went on smiling, even while the long, strong fingers drove the blade home, and with each vicious thrust his rasping voice accusing, ‘You were never my father! You lied. You deceived me! Marie Armstrong was my mother. She had to die! They all had to die!’ When the old man slid away, cocooned in a cradle of his own blood, the smile fell from Barny’s face. With a chilling scream he dropped to his knees and took the dying man in his arms, rocking to and fro, in anguish. When the officer closed in he looked up, singing the softest lullaby, the tears rolling unheeded down his face. His heart was heavy with pain, oh, such pain. He had never been free from it. And now it was too late. Much too late. The officer’s hand reached out. The singing stopped. Green eyes smiled. With one last defiant stare he challenged. He knew it was over. He knew what he must do. The knife swiftly pierced his heart. The smile was incredibly beautiful. Then dim. And still. No more pain. Only peace. At last. At long last.
When they reached the one called George, he was clinging to the smallest vestige of life. He was crying.
‘All right, old fellow… be still now.’ The officer spoke softly, with reverence. Death was all around him. When the claw-like hand beckoned him closer, he leaned forward, the warm, sticky smell of blood churning his stomach. He had sent for an ambulance. It was a futile gesture, he knew. ‘Easy, old fellow,’ he murmured, ‘what are you trying to tell me?’ The claw-like hand drew him nearer, the large lolloping mouth made a curious gurgling sound. The blood spilled out, the words spilled out. His confession was not for himself, but for the one who had caused so much loss and suffering, and yet had also suffered. For the only son he had ever known – Barny. His confession was for Barny.
13
Mrs Gregory shook her grey head and scooped the sweets from the jar. ‘It don’t bear thinking about,’ she told Rosie. ‘Such horror… no, it don’t bear thinking about.’ She tipped the sweets from the scales and into the paper bag. ‘Whoever would have thought that Barny Tyler was the senile’s adopted son… that Marie Armstrong was his real mother!’ Her eyes grew wide at the implications. ‘And Ellie… his half-sister.’ Undeterred by Rosie’s cursory glance she went on. ‘What a wicked, wicked thing.’ The thought of it all was too much. She dabbed at her eyes, saying, ‘And you’ve no idea when the authorities will allow the dead to be buried?’
Rosie’s brow creased into a deep frown and a look of disgust spread over her features. ‘They won’t allow it yet,’ she replied, leaning on her crutch and fishing in the pocket of her coat. Presently she withdrew her purse and took the coins into her hand, counting them onto the counter in a careful fashion.
‘But it’s been two months now!’ exclaimed Mrs Gregory, collecting the coins and spilling them into the till.
‘Aye. An’ like as not it’ll be another two months afore they’ve finished with… what they term as “evidence”.’
Mrs Gregory tutted. ‘No, dear me no, like I say… it don’t bear thinking about. Them poor little children – oh, and a man of God!’ She hastily made the sign of the cross on herself. ‘And the letter that old George sent to the priest after his poor wife was… murdered… asking him to come straight away like the old friend he was… that were still in the priest’s pocket?’
‘So I believe.’
‘Poor George, that sorry old thing, he must have been desperate to have sent a letter like that. I understand he sent for the priest when he suspected it was Barny who’d killed her?’ She paused. The thought was chilling to her.
‘George’s wife was murdered by Barny.’ The condemnation was bitter in Rosie’s voice. ‘Murdered! That’s what!’ She stuffed the bag of sweets in her pocket. ‘Butchered, like the rest of ’em.’ She stared at the other woman, her panda-like eyes swimming with tears. ‘George, too,’ she murmured.
Mrs Gregory regarded Rosie with concerned eyes. ‘Look here, Rosie, you must never reproach yourself where he was concerned. You’re a good woman, and you looked after him like nobody else could.’
Through the window, Rosie saw Mr Gregory’s van pull up outside the shop. ‘It’s good of your husband to take me back to the Lodge,’ she said with a half-smile. ‘I hadn’t intended to make my way this far… just felt the need for a breath o’ fresh air… time on me own, to think.’ Her thoughts had not been pleasant, recalling as they did the account of old George’s confession to the officer – an awful catalogue of terror that went back to the day George and his wife told Barny that he was not really their son. From that day on, the boy had grown into a monster, his terrible secret loathing fed by the insane desire to kill, to maim and punish those he held responsible. He had traced Marie Armstrong, the woman who had given birth to him when she was little more than a child herself. He traced her, seduced her and when she was close to bringing his own child into the world, he killed her, slitting her wrists even while she writhed in labour. When the child was born, the ritual was mercilessly repeated. Afterwards, Barny had cleverly removed all trace of his presence there, out in the field where he had lured her. Suicide was never questioned. Only her sanity was in doubt; a sanity that had been sorely strained by the pedlar who paid her a visit, a ragged pedlar who raised so many things from her past – secret things such as having borne an illegitimate child; things that had haunted her; things she deeply regretted. Barny had been that pedlar, her tormenter. She never knew.
Mrs Gregory gestured to the ungainly figure at the steering wheel. ‘He’ll be only too glad to take you back.’ She chuckled. ‘He’s a changed man is that one,’ she said, ‘got taught the lesson he deserves, the night Alec collared him at the Lodge. Frightened the life out of him! I don’t reckon he’ll be so quick to go poaching them woods again in a hurry!’ She put a comforting hand on Rosie’s arm. ‘Thank God Alec and Ellie have recovered! What will you do now that George is gone and Alec Harman’s mending in leaps and bounds? The rumour is that he will be moving out of the area soon. He’ll be giving up the Lodge then… and, as you’ve been staying there, along with his sister Laura and young Ellie, well, what will you do?’ A look of horror washed over her features. ‘Surely to God you’ll not go back to the cottage?’
‘I could never do that.’ The very idea was unthinkable to Rosie. ‘Besides, as you must have heard, the cottage and Thornton Place belonged to Barny Tyler. It was all part of his devious plan to entrap first his adoptive parents, then Ellie and her family.’ Rosie sighed. ‘Of course, when old George sensed the evil in Barny, and deliberately went through emigration procedures… never really intending to go… well, he did put Barny off his trail, but, sadly, only for a while.’
‘So I gather!’ exclaimed Mrs Gregory. ‘And wasn’t it true that Barny put an advert in the papers to deliberately entice his victims to Thornton Place?’
Rosie nodded. ‘The irony of it all is that he bought the place with money he got from his share of the construction company. It was George’s gift to him, long before he truly suspected Barny’s evil nature.’
‘You know Rosie, I wonder how many more might have died, if Alec Harman had not been determined to find out why his uncle… the priest… had so mysteriously disappeared.’ She put her hand to her breast and took a deep breath. ‘It really don’t bear thinking about!’ She watched as Rosie opened the door and began manoeuvring her way out. ‘
But what will you do when Alec Harman moves away?’ she persisted.
Rosie smiled, a whisper of contentment lightening her eyes. ‘We all have homes to go to.’ She laughed quietly, eyeing the other woman mischievously. ‘Well, now, I’m surprised you don’t know already,’ she teased. ‘Alec’s sister, Laura, will return to London and her secretarial career. Alec has a small farm in the West Country, which has been well managed these past years by an employee of his. I’m to be the housekeeper there. I shall be travelling to the farm this very week. Alec won’t be seen there for at least a month, because he’ll be far too preoccupied… with other matters.’ Her smile deepened at the other woman’s obvious frustration. But she had said enough. She was not a woman who liked to gossip – although she had found a wicked delight in teasing the curious Mrs Gregory just now.
‘Will you be sorry to leave this place… the Lodge… the lake, everything you have come to love?’ Ellie gazed up at the man who walked quietly beside her. She loved him so. Not a single day or night had passed during his long stay in hospital, when she had not given thanks for his safety. Life without him would have no meaning for her.
He stopped, drawing her deep into his arms. For a long, wonderful moment, when the strength of their love bound them close, he gave no answer. Together, they looked out across the shimmering lake. It was a chilly March day. The wind sighed, rippling the waters until they shivered. In the far distance could be seen the skyward-reaching chimneys of Thornton Place. It made a formidable skyline. Tenderly, Alec placed his hands on Ellie’s shoulders and turned her to face him. When she looked up, his dark eyes enveloped her. ‘There is nothing here for me,’ he murmured, ‘only bad things… painful memories for both of us.’ Suddenly he was back in the cellar, bound and gagged, propped in the chair, helpless while the madman related his awful plans – of how he meant to torture Alec before finally ending his life, and he told of other things, delighting in the telling, eagerly revealing how he had been given away as a child wrapped in a lavender-scented shawl, how he had exacted revenge, but, in all his well-laid plans had not foreseen that he would come to love Ellie. Alec was to be ‘punished’ because he had ‘watched… made me nervous… the children saw me with the priest, sadly, they could not be allowed to live’.
No Mercy Page 29
