The Woman in the Wood

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘She’s so much more human now,’ Duncan said. ‘I can’t say I love her, or possibly even like her, but I respect her for being herself. She’s even started to own up to her failings.’

  As they walked through the garden gate, Janice opened the front door. She looked anxious. ‘Thank goodness you’re back. I was getting worried. You must go straight in to see your grandmother.’

  The twins looked at each other in puzzlement. Something had obviously happened while they’d been out.

  ‘I thought you were never coming back!’ Grandmother exclaimed. ‘They’ve found the boat Donald Grainger got away in, all smashed up on rocks in Cornwall.’

  ‘Was he drowned?’ Duncan asked, trying to smile as if the news pleased him, but he knew that couldn’t be the case or his grandmother wouldn’t look so worried.

  ‘He could’ve been, but they haven’t found his body yet. He might have jumped off, hoping everyone would think he was dead.’

  ‘Well, he won’t come back here, will he?’ Maisy said. She wished her grandmother had been a bit more tactful. Duncan had gone very pale.

  ‘His wife lives here; she might get him money, arrange for him to get out of the country.’

  ‘I would’ve expected her to turn him in to the police after what he’s done,’ Maisy said. ‘Surely she wouldn’t help him?’

  ‘You never know how people will react at times like this. But you two must stay in until we know he isn’t around here.’

  Maisy knew that there was no point in asking if Duncan could go and stay with Grace now. She’d seen that stern look of her grandmother’s before, and she knew it meant no compromise.

  Grainger woke to the sound of people’s voices outside the caravan he had broken into late last night. He had prised off the lock on the door, and it was held closed now only by a flimsy bolt on the inside.

  He peeped out round a curtain and saw a little weed of a middle-aged man wearing a trilby hat and a cream raincoat; his wife was huge, with bleached blond hair. They looked like the couple on the saucy seaside posters.

  She was telling her husband to use some muscle to get the door open.

  ‘No, we can’t do that, the police will want to check for fingerprints. We’d better go over to the clubhouse and phone them,’ the man said.

  ‘You mean you’re scared he’s still in there,’ she retorted. ‘Well, get going then, it’s cold standing here.’

  Grainger pulled his clothes and shoes on quickly. He was angry. He had thought he’d be safe in here for a couple of weeks. He’d chosen this one out of twenty or more without any lights on last night, because it was close to the fence with the woods beyond.

  He peered out again: the man had gone and she had lit up a cigarette and walked a little way away, perhaps to talk to someone. Their two suitcases were sitting on the grass.

  Pulling the bolt back gingerly so it made no noise, he opened the door then leapt out. Running full tilt towards the fence around the wood, he vaulted over it and ran into the trees.

  He heard the woman scream but he didn’t turn to look at her and carried on running for as long as he could manage.

  A stitch in his side made him stop, and when he turned to look back, the caravan site was no longer visible.

  He doubled over until the stitch went, but he was still panting. He knew that if the boat had been found smashed on the rocks, the Cornish police would be searching for him, or his dead body. Unless the men who came to investigate the caravan were complete fools, they would immediately know it was him who had been there. He needed to get out of Cornwall immediately, before they set up a road block and a full man hunt.

  He did know how to hot-wire a car – he’d learned that back in the air force – but that would mean going into a town to pick one and he might be spotted. Maybe there would be a car on a remote farm.

  The wood seemed to be getting denser, and he was beginning to think he’d never get out when he heard the sound of a tractor up ahead.

  Through the trees he saw a field with a man ploughing on the far side. He climbed over the fence and walked as fast as he could, keeping to a narrow strip of grass along the edge of the field. It seemed like miles, but to his relief he eventually came to a hedge with a lane behind it. Once on the lane he hesitated over which way to go. But if the sun was on his back he’d be going east. At least that way he wouldn’t end up in Penzance.

  He walked for about ten minutes up the narrow lane, which was flanked by thick, tall hedges. Hearing a car coming up behind him, he glanced round to see it was a green Rover 90, driven by a little old lady so small she could barely see over the steering wheel. On an impulse he stuck out his thumb to hitch-hike.

  She stopped, wound her window down and asked in a rich Cornish accent where he was going to. That threw him; he didn’t know where he was and where this road led to.

  ‘Dorchester, eventually,’ he said with his widest smile – that usually floored old dears. ‘But I’d settle for the main road so I can phone a mechanic to retrieve my car. It broke down a couple of miles back.’

  ‘You poor thing,’ she said. ‘Hop in. You can use the phone at my house, it’s only about a mile further on.’

  In an instant Grainger knew what he must do. He didn’t want to do it, he liked old ladies with cheeks like rosy apples and sparkling eyes. But she might have family at her house, a housekeeper or a nosy neighbour, and aside from that he wanted her car.

  He opened the back door of the car to put his jacket on the seat, then, moving as if to go round the bonnet, he quickly opened her door and grabbed her by the throat before she even got a chance to call out, let alone attempt to fight him off.

  She stopped breathing in just seconds. Her eyes seemed to almost pop out of her head; her hands came up to try and ward him off as she bucked involuntarily. Then she was still.

  Grainger bundled her over into the passenger seat and then drove. Less than a hundred yards further on there was a passing place by another wooded area. He pulled in, picked her up and carried her through a broken bit of fence and right into the wood.

  She weighed no more than seven stone, but after a hundred yards or so, even such a light body was becoming heavy. He laid her down in a hollow, scooped up some leaves to cover her, then went back to the car.

  The danger period would be someone recognizing her car when he came to some houses. But there was nothing he could do about that, just hope for the best.

  Grainger kept driving until he came to a crossroads. Ahead was Truro, to the left Trelisick and the ferry across to St Mawes. He knew roughly where he was now.

  The car had an almost full tank of petrol, and when he pulled over to see what was in the shopping bag in the footwell, he found her purse containing just over fifteen pounds. There was also a photograph of the old lady with three small blond children, presumably her grandchildren, and a tin with some angel cakes. She must have just collected them from whoever she’d been visiting.

  For a split second he felt a pang of guilt. His aunt in Burley had always made angel cakes for him, and he had a momentary vision of her wagging a disapproving finger at him. Though she had only wagged the finger at very minor misdemeanours, he could almost hearing her saying, ‘He ought to be hung up by his feet and a bit cut off him every day.’ That was what she’d said when John Christie was found guilty of murdering several women. She’d added to it: ‘And after two weeks he should be taken down and hanged.’

  He ate one of the angel cakes, savouring the sweetness. He would be hanged when he was caught, a terrifying thought, especially as he was certain that he had no chance of wriggling out of it. But as he now knew what the end would be, he thought he might as well settle a few old scores before then.

  Grace Deville was someone he had in his sights. If it hadn’t been for her snooping he would never have been caught. He’d like to get Duncan too, because that boy was so proud. He’d never snivelled. He’d fought back, never pretending he liked it the way the other boys did, hoping that would
mean he’d go easier on them.

  He was like his father. Alastair was always true to himself, held himself aloof, and refused to be party to any of the little schemes Grainger tried to involve him in. He also didn’t tell tales. If he had, maybe the young Donald Grainger would have been carted off to an approved school. He’d like to do something to teach Alastair a lesson about looking down his nose at other people. But then if he got his boy, that would hurt him far more than anything else.

  21

  ‘I can’t understand why on earth you would want to go and stay in the forest. It doesn’t make any sense to me when you have such a comfortable home here,’ Grandmother said. She was sitting by the window, the sun streaming in behind her. She always seemed to position herself so that sunshine prevented whoever she was talking to from seeing her face.

  Duncan squirmed. He might not be able to see her expression, but he knew that tone. She hadn’t said he couldn’t go, but she’d be angry if he did.

  ‘I want silence, to dig and plant, feed chickens and not to have to talk to anyone,’ he said. ‘I know that sounds like I’m being weird, but for me it’s the only way to deal with what happened.’

  ‘You think that staying with that crazy old coot in the forest can do what the top psychiatrist your father wants you to see can’t do?’ she roared at him, forgetting the measured and calm stance she had intended to keep. ‘Have you seen the newspapers today? They call her the “Woman in the Wood” and point out once again that she spent years in a lunatic asylum, which is perhaps why she doesn’t care about running water and electricity. That says it all about her. Yes, I’m grateful to her for finding both you and Maisy – God knows she was miraculous – but she’s peculiar, and I’m not happy at you deciding you prefer peculiarity to normality here.’

  ‘Normality?’ Duncan questioned, riled at her being so bigoted. ‘Tell me, Grandmother, what is normal about you? With your total lack of maternal instinct you made my father as chilly as you are. When Maisy and I first came here, you did nothing to comfort or reassure us. Janice did that, a saint of a woman who for some ridiculous reason stays working for you when she’d be valued elsewhere. So how do you expect me to value your opinion that Grace is barmy and I should avoid her?’

  ‘Why is living with her more attractive than living here?’ his grandmother blurted out, her voice shaking with emotion.

  ‘Because she understands what I’ve been through, because she can see that I became an adult while I was imprisoned,’ he shouted at her. ‘You don’t see that, you think I’m just a boy who needs protecting. Well, that ship has sailed, Grandmother. There was no one to protect me, and I survived. I learned things while I was there that no one would ever want to learn or see. I hadn’t even kissed a girl when I was captured; I was robbed of all the thrill and excitement there should be in a first sexual encounter. I’m seventeen now and I’m scared I’ll never be able to behave like a normal man. Somehow I have to find a way to stop being scared of that. And I think I’ll be able to find it with Grace.’

  ‘I agree with that.’

  Both Duncan and his grandmother turned at the sound of Maisy’s voice behind them in the doorway.

  She had fire in her eyes and her mouth set in a straight, resolute line.

  ‘Let him go, Grandmother. Grace is a good woman, she knows things that I doubt even your expensive psychiatrist knows. If he’s just as troubled in three months from now, then you can gloat that you were right. But I’d put money on him being more like our old Duncan again by then.’

  The old lady seemed to deflate before their eyes. She turned in her seat towards the window and looked as though she was going to cry. ‘For goodness’ sake, go,’ she said, making a shooing gesture with her hand. ‘You’ll be freezing cold and bitten alive by midges, but don’t come back grizzling to me about it. And you, Maisy, if you’ve recovered, perhaps it’s time you went back to work in Brighton and finished that typing course.’

  The twins exchanged glances. Struggling not to look pleased they’d won that battle, they turned and went out into the garden without saying anything further.

  The garden was looking beautiful. Warm May sunshine had brought so many flowers into bloom and the cherry trees were heavy with pink blossom. They sat on a bench on the lawn.

  ‘Thanks, sis,’ Duncan said. ‘I shouldn’t have said such nasty things to her, but she makes me so angry!’

  Maisy nodded in agreement. ‘I know, she can be so unreasonable and such a snob. But in her own way she does care about us; she’s just a product of her upbringing. That and having a stubborn streak like a piece of steel running through her.’

  ‘Will you go back to Brighton?’ Duncan asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Maisy sighed. ‘But not immediately, as much as I want to see the kids. I’ll have to wait till they take this plaster off my arm anyway, and however annoying Grandmother is, I think she and Janice need to have one of us here for a bit longer.’

  ‘Because they still haven’t found Grainger?’

  Maisy didn’t answer straight away. It had been a horrible shock to read that the police in Cornwall had found an old lady’s body in some woods. A good friend of hers had said he’d seen a man driving her car through Truro and his description of the male driver, although vague, had matched Grainger, and the timing of it fitted in with the estimated time of the old lady’s death. Also, the previous sighting of Grainger at the caravan park was just a few hours before and a mere three miles away from the body.

  That was nearly a fortnight ago, and if the police had had sightings of him since, or had recovered the Rover 90, they hadn’t released the news to the press. Janice had heard that Grainger’s home was being watched around the clock, although the gossips claimed that Deirdre, his wife, had told the vicar when he called on her that she would never help him or give him shelter.

  ‘He really is a monster, isn’t he?’ Maisy said eventually. ‘Killing an old lady for her car. Her poor husband is in a wheelchair; he’ll have to go into a home now.’

  ‘What makes a person like that?’ Duncan asked. ‘Have we all got the potential in us, or could it be a special little bug thing placed in the brain of just a few people? Or is it caused by something in our childhood?’

  ‘If it was caused by something in our childhood there would be a lot more maniacs,’ Maisy said. ‘Look at the stuff that happened to kids during the war – us included, and we aren’t evil. I think it must be the little bug thing. I wonder where Grainger is now, though.’

  ‘I think he must’ve got out of the country,’ Duncan said reflectively. ‘That fellow who the boat belonged to said that was what he intended.’

  ‘But he turned out to be a crook too,’ Maisy said. ‘According to Sergeant Williams he confessed to destroying his wife’s will, and Williams told Janice they believe he may even have given her an overdose of painkillers. Then there are all those other clients of Grainger’s the police have had in for questioning.’

  ‘Yes, two of them were men that came to the first place Grainger took me to. I was so glad I could identify them by their pictures.’

  Sometimes Duncan thought this whole business would never end. It seemed that every few days a policeman turned up wanting him to look at pictures, ask about someone, or get him to repeat details he’d given them in his original statement.

  ‘It’s quite a little rat’s nest they seem to have uncovered,’ Maisy said. ‘But it’s funny that nothing further has been reported about them since.’

  ‘Probably they got a lawyer to put a gag on the press until Grainger is arrested and charged. I don’t think he’s stupid enough to come back around here, though. If I was him I’d go out into the wilds of Wales or Scotland where people don’t read the newspapers much, and hole up there.’

  They sat in silence for a while enjoying the sunshine.

  ‘So when are you going to Grace’s?’ Maisy asked.

  ‘This afternoon.’ Duncan grinned. ‘Before Grandmother finds some new reason to stop me
going. Will you pop out to see me sometimes, though? Especially before you go back to Brighton.’

  ‘I’ll leave you for at least a week,’ Maisy said with a smile. ‘You may be desperate for my company by then.’

  Duncan insisted he wanted to go to Grace’s alone that afternoon. He packed a few old clothes and a pair of boots suitable for working outside in an old kitbag and slung it over his shoulder. Janice had made a large fruit cake and some jam for him to take with him, and he tied that bag to his handlebars.

  ‘Please don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.’ He kissed Janice. Grandmother was making a show of not coming out to see him off.

  Maisy stood watching him as he rode down the lane to the village. She really hoped Grace could reach those places in his mind that he was keeping locked. Maisy felt she couldn’t go back to Brighton, or to London, until she knew he’d faced his demons and vanquished them.

  She decided to visit Mr Dove, and called out to Janice where she was going.

  He was sitting in his wheelchair at the front of his cottage in the sunshine, reading a book. As usual he had a rug over his missing legs. He’d told her once he put it there to help others deal with his disability, otherwise they tended to look at where his legs should be, rather than at him.

  ‘What a lovely surprise,’ he said, beaming a warm welcome. ‘I had started to think you had either decided you didn’t like me, or you’d gone back to Brighton.’

  She laughed. ‘Of course I still like you. I can’t go anywhere – not Brighton, London or anywhere else – until the plaster comes off my arm. Duncan’s just left to stay with Grace for a while.’

  ‘I think that will do him good,’ Dove said. ‘But it will be lonely for you.’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ Maisy said. ‘People seem to think twins share a brain and a heart. We can work quite well separately.’

  ‘I think by that you mean that you’re prepared to be lonely if he comes back happier?’