The Woman in the Wood

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘Is there any news of Maisy?’ he asked, and his quavering voice told Janice that he would rather have stayed in the cellar than his sister be with Grainger.

  ‘The police are working their way through the files in his office to see if they can find evidence of another property where he might be keeping her.’

  ‘I’ve told them about the one the other side of Southampton,’ he said. ‘I was there with some other boys for a long while.’ His face clouded over then and he reached out for an Easter biscuit from the locker. ‘These are marvellous,’ he said as he bit into it. ‘Will you ask Peter if he wants one?’

  ‘He’s asleep.’

  ‘He isn’t, he just acts like he is. But offer him food and he responds.’

  Janice did as he asked. The other boy looked at her blankly as if his mind had gone.

  ‘It’s an Easter biscuit, Peter,’ she said, holding it out to him. ‘I made them for you both.’

  She took his hand and put the biscuit in it. Gingerly, he lifted it to his nose and sniffed it, then ate it so fast she was afraid he’d choke.

  ‘Food is the only way to get through to him,’ Duncan whispered as Janice returned to his bed. ‘We didn’t know if it was night or day in that cellar, and never knew when we’d get something to eat. Sometimes it was days on end before he brought food. I don’t know how long we were in there, whether it was just weeks or longer. At first Peter used to talk to me – we’d make up stories, talk about our families, we even chanted the times tables. But then he just shut down.’ He paused, his eyes full of despair as if he was reliving it again.

  ‘Tell me about Grace,’ he went on after a few seconds. ‘The police said it was she who found out where we were.’

  ‘So it seems. I wish I could tell you lots about her – goodness knows, it seems we owe her everything – but I don’t know anything much.’ Janice sighed. ‘She and Maisy went to rescue you, but your grandmother and I had no idea Maisy had even left the house, let alone how they found you, or what that entailed. Would you like me to ask Grace to come and see you?’

  ‘Yes, I would like that. I thought about her a lot while we were in that place. I even dreamt about her one night. But tell me, what are the police doing to find Maisy?’

  ‘I only know what I’ve already told you,’ Janice said sadly. ‘Grainger’s picture is in all the papers now. The story was on the news yesterday, and there’s been more today. Someone is bound to come forward to say they’ve seen him.’

  ‘I can’t believe I once thought he was a good man,’ Duncan said and his bruised eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Try not to dwell on that,’ Janice said. Though she thought saying that was about as stupid as asking the tide not to come in, or the wind not to blow. ‘Your father is coming to see you tomorrow.’

  ‘I don’t know that he’ll be able to even look at me,’ Duncan said brokenly.

  Janice sensed he meant because of the sexual abuse. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said fiercely. ‘The dreadful man who did this to you is the only one to blame. Don’t you dare feel you are to blame in any way.’

  ‘But both Peter and I managed to escape being killed by doing what he wanted,’ Duncan admitted, putting his unhurt arm across his eyes to shield himself. ‘Doesn’t that make us as bad as him?’

  ‘No, it doesn’t,’ she said firmly, taking his arm away from his eyes. ‘You had to do whatever you could to survive. No one would blame you for that.’

  ‘I don’t think Father will see it that way.’

  ‘Then you are going to be surprised. I spoke to him on the telephone, the day after Maisy and Grace found you. He was overjoyed you were alive and all his anger and disgust is directed at Grainger. That’s how we all feel, Duncan, your grandmother included. The only reason she isn’t here now is because we were told only one visitor, and I said I thought it would be better if that was me today. She cried, Duncan. The first time I ever saw her do that. She’s an old lady with limited experience of worldly things, and this has shaken her to the core.’

  ‘I can’t bear the thought of what Grainger might do to Maisy,’ Duncan suddenly blurted out. ‘He does it with girls as well as boys, he told us that once and boasted that he was married. But Maisy won’t be able to get round him. He enjoys fear more than anything, and inflicting pain.’

  Janice shuddered. She could easily imagine what terrible things a man could do to a pretty girl like Maisy. In a way she was glad her imagination hadn’t worked so well with Duncan, because if she’d known what he was going through she wouldn’t have been able to function.

  ‘Your sister isn’t easily intimidated,’ Janice said, hoping that Duncan would believe that. ‘I’m sure she’ll find some way of protecting herself. Besides, the police will soon find him.’

  ‘They never found me, and anyway, Maisy may very well be dead by the time they stir themselves,’ Duncan said, his eyes so full of despair that Janice felt his heart was already breaking. ‘You tell me what possible reason Grainger will have for keeping her alive.’

  Janice couldn’t think of one. Alone, Grainger might be able to charm someone to help him get out of the country. Maisy was just a hindrance.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d be able to,’ Duncan said, and grimaced.

  ‘Maisy never gave up on you,’ Janice said firmly. ‘So don’t you take that attitude. You must rack your brain to think of anything, however small, that might tell the police where he’s taken her. Think over anything he said to you, or to one of the other boys.’

  ‘I’ve re-run every word I heard him say already and I can tell you they make me feel sick to my stomach,’ Duncan said, his face darkening with anger. ‘I can’t even begin to tell anyone, least of all you, the sadistic, perverted and horrible things he did to us. I’ll never feel clean again. I wish he had killed me.’

  At that statement Janice knew she was completely out of her depth. She was still a virgin; her experiences with men amounted to nothing more than kisses. Before her sweetheart was killed in the war she was always dreaming of making love with him. In those dreams it was gentle and beautiful, just thinking about it made her feel excited. She had always hoped that both Duncan and Maisy would find their true love, and enjoy that bliss which she had never experienced.

  ‘I’m so very glad he didn’t kill you,’ she whispered, leaning forward to kiss his cheek. ‘I wish I had the right words to make you feel better, but I don’t. All I can say is that to me, Maisy and you were the children I’d have most liked to be mine. I hurt for both of you. I’m going to pray for a miracle to save your sister.’

  Janice left the hospital in tears. It was all so much worse than she’d expected and she felt so impotent. Last night she’d had to telephone Mr and Mrs Ripley in Brighton to tell them what had happened to Maisy. That was bad enough; their shock and horror was evident by the way their voices shook. Today they must have seen the national newspapers and no doubt they were as distraught as she was.

  She supposed that the publicity was a good thing, though – someone might come forward who knew something. But it would also mean packs of reporters in the village, just as there were when Sybil Leek went on television to say she was a witch. Janice shuddered when she remembered what people had said to journalists when Duncan first went missing. How they had loved relating how cold-hearted Mrs Mitcham was and describing how she had never shown any love or affection to her only son, saying she made him so icy and distant that he ignored his own children and drove his wife mad.

  But the news now had some real meat at the core of it. Donald Grainger wasn’t just a murderer; he snatched young boys away from their schools and imprisoned them for his own perverted desires. Once they were of no further use to him, he killed them and dumped them in shallow graves. This was going to be a horror story like that of John Reginald Christie, who killed eight women in the forties and fifties and buried them at Rillington Place: a story that would never die.

  Maisy shivered, her arm throbbing with pain from where h
e had twisted it up behind her back in the cottage. She feared he’d broken it.

  She didn’t know where she was as it was dark when he hauled her out of the boot of his car. She’d been in there since he caught her at the cottage, but she had no idea how long that was.

  He’d been driving some of the time, but for long periods he had parked the car up. She heard him slam the door and lock it, leaving her there. She couldn’t hear a sound from outside, so maybe he’d pulled off the road into a wood or field. But each time he went she thought he wasn’t coming back and she’d die in there.

  Finally he brought her here and threw her down on the bare concrete floor like she was a worthless piece of rubbish. She felt like it too, as she’d wet herself in the boot of his car, and she knew she stunk.

  But between the car boot and here she had smelled sea and seaweed and felt shingle under her feet as he dragged her, still gagged, with something pulled over her head from his car. She had got the idea that this wasn’t another cottage, but something like a concrete bunker or sea defence from the war, because sound echoed in it.

  Once he’d thrown her on the floor, he took the hood off her, grinning as he kicked her legs, arms, back and stomach, ranting at her all the while. She couldn’t even scream for fear of the gag going further down her throat and choking her.

  ‘Why couldn’t you keep your nose out, you filthy, stinking bitch? Your fucking grandmother said you two were soft and not very bright, but what did she know? I think you are sneaky, devious and a real troublemaker, but you aren’t going to live to make any more trouble for me.’

  So he went on, repeating the same thing over and over, blaming her for ‘spoiling his plans’, and kicking her as though he was adding punctuation to the rant. She found it hard to believe that this demented, cruel man was the same charming and sophisticated solicitor who had taken her into a café for tea and cake, and driven her home. What could make a man switch like that?

  For ages after he’d gone she just lay there, her whole body on fire with pain. Somehow she managed to eject the gag from her mouth, and then she lay there sobbing at the hopelessness of her situation. She felt he was bound to return to kill her; in fact, if he hadn’t been so rattled by the police being on his tail she felt sure he would have killed her already.

  But gradually her mind cleared, and despite how hurt and scared she was, she knew she had to try and escape. First she needed to find some way to untie her ankles and wrists and look for a way out. In books and films there was always something sharp close to hand that the prisoner could wriggle up to and use to cut the ropes, but she doubted she’d be that lucky.

  However, she was determined to try, so by turning on to her less damaged side, she wriggled like a caterpillar towards the wall, intending to go right round to assess the layout of her prison. Pain shot through her arm as she tried to sweep her tied hands in a fan shape behind her, but she ignored it, as she had to search for anything that might help her.

  It crossed her mind that she was moving like a seal on dry land, and despite the seriousness of her predicament, it made her smile and gave her the will to keep on going.

  It took forever to work her way around the pitch-dark space, but even if she hadn’t found anything to use to cut her bonds, she had learned that it was an oblong shape, about ten feet wide and perhaps sixteen or eighteen feet long. No one else had been in here for a very long time. It smelled musty but not foul, and there was no litter, only a few empty sacks in one corner. That suggested he couldn’t have used this place to keep anyone else, which could be because it wasn’t secure enough, or it was somewhere people passed by.

  The door to the place was metal, and there was a strong draught coming under it, so as soon as it was daylight she would turn herself so she could kick her bound feet on it. Hopefully someone might hear her.

  She wriggled around again to the door, and feeling the bottom edge she found it was quite sharp, but there wasn’t enough space beneath it to get her bound hands under and rub at the rope. She worked her way to the end of the door, and to her surprise and delight, there was a loose flap of metal on the corner.

  It was very difficult to get herself into a position where she could rub her bound wrists against the metal. Her arms hurt when she tried to lift them, and she cut her hand on the metal flap at her first attempt. But after many attempts, with rests in between, she finally managed to make a little progress and cut a few strands of the rope.

  Hungry, thirsty, scared and in pain, it was hard to keep at it. The draught coming under the door was icy, making it hard to move her fingers.

  ‘Keep scraping for twenty seconds,’ she said aloud, and then tried hard to exceed that time. It was so tempting to crawl back to the sacks and burrow into them. But she knew she mustn’t do that in case he came tonight. She wanted to be ready to fight him off.

  The plan was formed as she lay scrunched up scraping at the rope. She intended to be standing up when he opened the door, ready to spring at him and claw his eyes. She’d read in a magazine that was a good move, and also kicking a man hard in the groin disabled him for long enough to run away. Just the thought of blinding him with her fingernails made her feel stronger – she fully intended to make him suffer grievously for hurting Duncan.

  Grace put her best clothes on again to go and visit Duncan; she thought it would cheer him to see her looking smarter. When she got to the ward and saw how badly the boy had been hurt, she knew immediately what Janice had meant by feeling entirely impotent. No words would ever make him feel better, no gift, holiday or new friend would ever take away the memory of what that beast of a man had done to him. Somehow Duncan had to find something inside himself to get over what had been done to him. She had no advice to give him to help in that search.

  But his smile at seeing her was at least warm. ‘I wasn’t sure if Janice could find you,’ he said.

  ‘She’s a resourceful woman,’ Grace replied. ‘But I’d have come even if she hadn’t braved the forest to find me. How are you now?’

  ‘Feeling much better,’ he said, but the smile and cheery tone didn’t fool her. She knew it was an act to spare her. ‘Lots of aches and pains, but I’m not hungry and thirsty any more, I’m warm, and I know there’s not going to be any more beatings. Now will you explain how you and Maisy came to find me?’

  It wasn’t in Grace’s nature to be boastful and anyway it gave her pleasure to let Maisy be the heroine of the rescue. She even exaggerated a little for dramatic effect.

  ‘I wish you could’ve seen her up on that roof, chucking the tiles off. She was so brave. It isn’t an easy thing to go into an unknown place in the dark. She must’ve been so scared when she found she couldn’t get out the back door.’

  ‘I hope she managed to stay brave once Grainger got her,’ Duncan’s voice trembled. ‘I wasn’t brave at all. The first place he took me to there were four other boys, including Peter.’ He nodded towards the other bed. ‘A boy called Ian died soon after I got there, and his body was left in the room we had to sleep in for three days. I screamed and screamed when I realized.’

  ‘I think anyone would scream at that,’ Grace said. She pulled a chair up beside his bed, sat down and gently took the fingers of the arm that was in a sling. ‘I’ve read so many books about people in prison and concentration camps during the war – all of them expressed horror and outrage at the first dead person they saw, even if later on they became almost blasé about death. Being horrified and distressed doesn’t make you weak, Duncan. Grainger probably thinks he’s a big man, but it’s he that’s the weak one because he hasn’t got the strength to turn away from perversion and cruelty.’

  ‘Does what he did to me make me a homosexual?’ Duncan whispered.

  ‘No, it doesn’t. In fact after what you’ve been through I suspect you might want to live the rest of your life with only women. But if you should by some chance turn out to be that way, that’s the way you were designed, not because anyone made you go that way.’


  ‘Are you sure?’

  Grace smiled. ‘Yes, my dear boy, though why you think I know these things I can’t imagine. Everything I know comes out of books, not life experience.’

  ‘What will I do when they let me out of here?’ he said. ‘Even if they do find Maisy quickly and she’s not been hurt, I don’t think I could bear to be in London with Father. Or with Grandmother, for that matter, however nice Janice is. I’ll be afraid people will be looking at me and thinking things.’

  Grace nodded. ‘That’s what I was like when I left the asylum. In fact, I was like that until I met you, Duncan, my boy.’ She smiled at him and made him smile too. ‘You could come and live in the forest with me for the summer. Just until you feel able to face folk again.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ he said, a dreamy, far-away look in his eyes. ‘But I guess everything hinges on whether they find Maisy. I won’t want to live at all if they don’t find her, or she’s been killed.’

  ‘You mustn’t think like that,’ Grace said firmly. ‘I have every faith that the determined little minx will escape him.’

  Duncan tried to smile. ‘I had a dream last night about her. She was in a kind of shelter, maybe a shed; it seemed to be on a beach. But it was just a dream. She’s probably not in anywhere like that.’ He paused for a moment, looking pensive.

  ‘We used to be able to pick up on stuff about one another when we were younger. Things like her feeling ill in the night – I’d go into her room and it would be for real. Once she was home from school with German measles and she got the feeling someone was hurting me. She made our housekeeper go to meet me, and she found me being bullied by an older boy. We used to try reading each other’s minds.’

  ‘Did it work?’

  ‘Kind of, well, sometimes.’ He smirked. ‘Usually when we thought about food because both of us were hungry. But we do kind of know stuff about each other without being told.’

  ‘So what are you feeling about her now?’

  ‘I feel she’s still alive, but cold and hungry,’ he said. He shrugged and pulled a glum face. ‘But let’s be realistic, Grace – I would think that, wouldn’t I? It’s the way I’ve been.’