The Woman in the Wood

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘I’m nearly there now,’ she said at the halfway point of the ladder, more to encourage herself than to help them. ‘Another half hour and you’ll be out of here safe and on the way to hospital.’

  ‘You’re being very brave, sis,’ Duncan said. ‘I told Peter the other day that you wouldn’t give up looking for me. I kept sensing you were thinking about me.’

  She could hear how poorly he was by the effort it was taking him to speak. He attempted to sit up but flopped back. She reached the bottom of the ladder and went over to kneel beside him, and stroked back his hair.

  ‘Don’t try to move or talk any more,’ she said, trying hard not to cry. ‘You can tell me all about it when you’re better.’

  His face seemed ravaged, gaunt, with hollow cheeks. In the poor light she couldn’t tell if it was blood or dirt on his face and all down his shirt. The clothes he had on, long trousers and long-sleeved shirt, weren’t his and his feet were bare.

  Down here the smell was even worse. In one way it was good she couldn’t see beyond the beam of light because she felt if she saw it all she’d have to run away.

  She reached over him to comfort Peter then. He didn’t speak and appeared even weaker than Duncan, but she thought he was aware rescue was at hand.

  ‘I must go back up and try to get that window clear,’ she said. ‘Hold on just a bit longer.’

  Such was her relief to get out of the cellar that she attacked the window far more forcefully, prising at the boards. Whoever had put them on had meant them to stay put: the timber was new and strong and they’d been screwed into place.

  As she pushed and wrestled with the wood she asked herself what kind of beast would prepare such a prison for young boys. The picture in her mind of someone capable of this didn’t fit suave, charming Donald Grainger. This was the stuff of horror films. He had to be a split personality like Jekyll and Hyde.

  She got one board off and began on the next one. She was making a great deal of noise, but that didn’t matter any more. She hoped someone would appear soon and offer to help, or just be there with her.

  Hearing a vehicle coming she called out to the boys that rescue was here, and continued to bang harder on the window boards, partly so they’d know where to come.

  Suddenly there was bright light: the beam of a powerful torch. She blinked, trying to see the person behind it, wondering if it was a policeman or ambulance man.

  ‘Thank God you’ve come,’ she exclaimed. ‘The boys are in the cellar.’

  But all at once it came to her that this person had come through the door, which meant they had a key. She hadn’t heard that over the noise she was making.

  It wasn’t a rescue party at all. It was him.

  ‘Why did you have to snoop, Maisy?’ he said, confirming it was indeed Grainger. ‘Now I’ll have to kill you as well.’

  Maisy felt her knees buckle under her with terror, but all the same she lunged at him, brandishing the jemmy. Unable to see him behind the beam of the torch, she just ran into the wall.

  ‘Silly, silly girl,’ he said, grabbing her two arms up behind her back, forcing her to drop her weapon. He was strong, holding her with just one hand, the torch in the other. She fought for her life, kicking out and struggling. Yet she couldn’t escape his grip. He put the torch away – perhaps in his pocket – as the light went dimmer. Then she felt him tying her wrists tightly. She kicked out at him again, but he punched her face hard, knocking her back against the wall, then kicked her legs out from under her so she fell to the floor.

  In just a few moments he had tied her ankles too.

  ‘There now,’ he said. ‘You can’t do any more damage.’

  ‘The police are coming, they’ll be here any minute,’ she screamed at him. ‘My friend drove to phone them. You go and get away while you still can.’

  ‘You’re lying,’ he said, holding the torch so it shone in her face. ‘You came here alone.’

  White-hot anger made her braver. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, it’s too far to walk from Burley,’ she roared at him. ‘My friend followed you from your house to here earlier in the day, then she came to get me. How else would I find this place? You don’t advertise you’ve got a torture chamber right out in the middle of nowhere. And how would I get on the roof without help?’

  She wished she could see his face because by his silence she knew he realized she was speaking the truth. ‘Go now, while you still can,’ she shouted at him. ‘The police will be here any minute. It will take you ages to get Duncan and Peter out of the cellar, you haven’t got time for that.’

  Again a few moments’ silence, then he reached down, caught hold of one of her arms and jerked her up on to her feet. ‘I might not have got time to get them out, but I can take you,’ he snarled at her. ‘You’ll be my hostage.’

  He half carried, half dragged her out to his Jaguar, opened the boot and pushed her into it. He hesitated for just a second, then, picking up something – a rag, sock or glove – he thrust it into her mouth.

  ‘You’re going to bitterly regret your interference,’ he snarled at her before slamming the boot down. A few seconds later he started up the car.

  A little later as the car sped on its way, Maisy heard an ambulance bell clanging in the distance. Although it was a relief in that she knew Duncan and Peter would be taken care of now, she was terrified at what her own fate would be.

  Grainger was desperate. As he drove towards Southampton he realized that he was in the kind of predicament he’d made no advance plans for.

  As soon as the police and ambulance arrived at the cottage and saw the state of the two boys, he would become the most dangerous, wanted man in the country, and every policeman in a fifty-mile radius would be out looking for him.

  He couldn’t go back to his house for clothes, his passport or money, and he had no other place to go and hide up in. There would be road blocks too. As soon as the news broke to the press that the psychopath killing young boys was in fact Donald Grainger, the well-known solicitor with an office in Southampton, the game would be up.

  But he had Maisy Mitcham. Since he had nothing to lose now, he intended to kill her – and before he did he would inflict as much pain on her as possible.

  Grace had to go right into the village of Wellow to find a phone. It was too dark to make out telephone wires so she plumped for a rather grand house which was certain to have one. The man who answered the door was equally grand, but intelligent enough to grasp immediately that this was a real emergency, and he directed her to his phone in the hall.

  She managed to get hold of the emergency service operator and swiftly explained the situation. Asked the name of the lane she’d driven up to get to the cottage, she said she didn’t know, but she described it as best she could and stressed that both boys were extremely badly hurt. She gave the operator the address she was phoning from and they asked if she would stay there in case they needed her to guide the ambulance. She agreed she would.

  As she put the phone down, the man – a big, burly chap with a high colour, wearing a maroon cardigan – had been joined by his wife. She was younger, around the same age as Grace and wearing a lovely dark blue wool dress as if she was expecting guests.

  Their eyes were as big as millstones at what they’d overheard. Grace asked if she might make another call, and could she borrow their telephone directory.

  They obliged, and Grace found Mrs Mitcham’s number and rang her. When the old lady heard who she was she barked at her in a very unpleasant manner, so Grace put her in her place.

  ‘If I could just get a word in edgeways! It is important,’ she barked back. ‘Maisy and I have found your grandson, but he’s very badly hurt. The other missing boy is there too. Maisy is still in the place with him waiting for the ambulance and police to arrive. I dare say we’ll both have to go to the police station with them, so I cannot tell you when Maisy will be home. But I’m sure if you telephone the local police they’ll keep you posted. By the way, your precious solicit
or Grainger is the man who did this – but don’t go warning him, as the police will be on their way to arrest him.’

  She put the receiver down and half smiled at her hosts. ‘Sorry about that. People do take good news the wrong way sometimes.’

  ‘Did you say Grainger the solicitor is responsible for this crime?’ the gentleman asked in his plummy accent.

  ‘Yes, I did. I hope he doesn’t handle any affairs for you?’

  ‘No, but we do know him socially.’ He looked at his wife in horror. ‘He always seemed such a nice chap!’

  ‘Appearances can be deceptive,’ Grace said.

  It was only a few minutes later that a police car called at the house to collect Grace so she could guide them and the ambulance to the cottage. They wanted her to leave her van in Wellow and take her with them, but because Toby was in the van she said she’d drive it and lead the way.

  Grace was very concerned at the scale of the injuries Maisy had said the boys had sustained, but she couldn’t help but be excited as she led the emergency services back up the narrow lanes. She and Maisy had done well: they’d found Duncan and Peter and proved Grainger was responsible. She didn’t think it would be hard for the police to prove he killed the other six boys too.

  She drove right up to the cottage and leapt out to call to Maisy that she was back with help, but as she skirted round to the back door she found it wide open.

  ‘Oh no,’ she gasped, feeling as if her blood was draining away. ‘Oh dear God, please don’t let him have taken Maisy!’

  She ran back to the police car just pulling in behind her van. ‘I think Grainger has come back here,’ she yelled out. ‘The door was locked, and it’s open now.’

  Armed with powerful torches, the police went in, and Grace slunk in behind them feeling sick with fright.

  Two policemen went down to the cellar and one came up again to report.

  ‘It is Duncan Mitcham and Peter Reilly. They’re in a bad way. Duncan said Grainger turned up a little while ago; he heard him hit his sister and say he was taking her hostage.’

  ‘Right!’ The senior officer took control, telling his men this was now a crime scene. Once the boys had been taken to hospital they would examine the cellar for evidence that the dead boys had also been kept here.

  ‘I think they must’ve been,’ the policeman who had already been down there offered. ‘There’s enough shit and blood for an army down there.’

  Grace broke down then. She felt she was responsible for Maisy becoming that evil man’s captive, and there was absolutely no reason why he wouldn’t kill her.

  ‘What can I do?’ she implored the more senior policeman. ‘I rang Maisy’s grandmother while I was waiting for you to come. I thought then both of us would have to go to the police station to be questioned, so I told the old lady Maisy would be late getting home. But she won’t be going home, will she? He’ll kill her.’

  ‘Not if we can help it.’ The policeman put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her. ‘I just wish you’d rung us when you found this place. We could’ve staked it out until Grainger came back. Why didn’t you?’

  ‘Because we couldn’t trust you to act,’ Grace said, tears running in streams down her cheeks. ‘And don’t tell me you would have. You’d have been more inclined to come and arrest me.’

  He at least had the grace to look ashamed and led her out to the police car so she could tell him everything she knew.

  It wasn’t much, just what Maisy had told her about finding Duncan’s buckle in Grainger’s car and seeing Duncan’s bicycle pump in his garage, then how Grace had stayed outside his house and followed him here.

  ‘You know the rest,’ she said. ‘The door was locked, so Maisy climbed up on the roof and got in that way. You can bet she put up a fight with that monster, she’s a plucky wee thing.’

  As they sat there in the car she watched the ambulance men bring out the first boy on a stretcher and put him in an ambulance. A short while later the second one was brought out.

  ‘Can I speak to Duncan?’ Grace asked.

  ‘I think it better you don’t,’ the policeman said, his voice soft with sympathy. ‘Both boys are in a bad way, and if Duncan sees your troubled face he’s going to worry more about his sister. You take your dog home now. We know where you are if we need you.’

  ‘Will you tell Mrs Mitcham what’s happened?’

  ‘Yes, I promise you that. And we’ll leave no stone unturned to find Grainger and Maisy. This time you must trust us.’

  15

  Janice braced herself before entering the hospital side ward where the two boys were. She had been beside herself with fear for Maisy ever since Mrs Mitcham got the call from the police late on Saturday night to say Grainger had got her. She hadn’t slept, she hadn’t eaten anything, all she’d done was pace up and down willing the phone to ring with news that Grainger had been caught.

  But now, seeing a policeman standing guard outside the ward was just another reminder that Grainger was still on the loose. He may even have killed Maisy by now, and the boys who had already been through such hell might still be in danger.

  It was Tuesday, the day after Easter Monday. The boys had been in such a terrible state they hadn’t been allowed any visitors until now. Both Peter’s legs and several of his ribs were broken, he also had a severe chest infection. Duncan’s injuries were untreated, infected cigarette burns and broken ribs, and bruises and lacerations covered almost his entire body.

  The doctor who examined them on admission to the hospital had reported they were victims of systematic beatings and sexual abuse, along with being half starved. One of the policemen who had been first on the scene in that cellar said the conditions there defied description or belief. Duncan had told him that both boys wished they could die to end the torment.

  It seemed Duncan had told the police that before Grainger had taken him and Peter to that cottage and literally pushed them into the cellar, they had been kept in a boarded-up house with other boys. There they had use of a bathroom, they were brought food, and there was furniture too. Duncan said he knew Grainger had killed two of the boys, but he hadn’t known what he did with their bodies.

  While Duncan had tried very hard to tell the police all he could, the medical staff had called a halt on questioning as he was so weak. Peter was far too sick to be questioned at all.

  One visitor was all they were allowed today. Janice had volunteered to come rather than Mrs Mitcham, as the old lady was so severely shaken by what had happened that her doctor feared any more distress might prompt a stroke or heart attack. Tomorrow Alastair would be seeing Duncan, and Peter’s parents would visit their son.

  Janice had never seen Mrs Mitcham cry until Easter Sunday, when the full force of what had happened to Duncan hit her along with the shock of Maisy being taken. For Janice this emotional reaction of her employer proved both astonishing and distressing. The old lady was truly devastated, full of guilt that she had introduced Grainger to her grandchildren, and shocked that she’d been unable to see through his charming facade.

  ‘I let both of them down,’ she wept. ‘Just as I let Alastair down. I was an unnatural mother and I’m an even worse grandmother. I’ve always been selfish and proud, and this is where it has led to.’

  Janice hardly knew what to say. Had she been cruel she would have agreed – after all, Mrs Mitcham was telling the truth. But Janice wasn’t cruel, so she just put her arms round the old lady and said she couldn’t hold herself responsible for other people’s sins.

  Janice’s stomach turned over as she went into the little ward. The other boy, Peter, was in traction for his broken legs, and the pulleys and weights over his bed looked terrifying. He was asleep and all she could really see of him was a shock of strawberry-blond hair. She’d been told that he was utterly traumatized by what had happened to him and that it was feared the mental scars would never fade.

  The doctors might say that Duncan had come off a great deal lighter but it didn’t look t
hat way. He had so many bruises, some fresh, some fading, that he was unrecognizable as the fresh-faced, prone-to-freckles boy who had disappeared over a year before. He was so thin his eyes seemed sunken back into his head. His blond hair had grown so long it almost touched his shoulders, and although a nurse had said they’d tried to wash it as best they could, it still looked very dirty and unkempt.

  His left arm was in a sling because his wrist was sprained and his right arm had a drip in it, but Janice knew that his hospital gown was hiding bruises, cuts and burn marks that would make her want to cry. As for the sexual abuse he’d suffered – she wondered whether he would ever return to being the joyful, generous and happy-go-lucky boy he used to be.

  He smiled at her in welcome, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes.

  ‘I’m so pleased to see you,’ he said, and even his voice sounded weak.

  ‘Oh Duncan,’ she exclaimed, her eyes filling with tears. ‘There were times when we thought we’d never see you again. I’m so very happy to see you, but not looking so poorly.’

  ‘I’m on the mend now. Well, I’m not sure if that’s true. I doubt I’ll get better until they find Maisy,’ he said, then looked at the bag she was carrying. ‘I hope there’s cake and other goodies made by you in that bag?’

  She sensed this was a ruse to stop her talking about how he looked, so she unpacked it on to his locker: chocolate cake, Easter biscuits, a chicken and mushroom pie, chocolate, and one of her special trifles made in a glass jar. ‘I’ll ask the nurse to dole this out to you gradually. You’ll be sick if you eat it all now when you’ve been starved, but I wanted you to have lots to choose from when you’re up to it,’ she said, bending over to kiss his forehead. ‘When you get home I shall give you so much food you won’t be able to move.’

  She placed a pair of pyjamas in his locker along with a toothbrush, comb and face flannel.