Healer of My Heart

by Sheila Turner Johnston

  The pupils tumbled out and sprinted for the dormitories. First ones there got the best bunks. Duncan followed them in to ensure that, at the top of the stairs, the boys went to the right and the girls went to the left. Robyn lifted her overnight bag and stepped into the kitchen.

  David was at the cooker, stirring a huge pan of soup. He looked tired. The warden of the hostel, whom Robyn later learnt was called Jane, had set out the long tables for an evening meal. She was still there, cutting bread. When he saw Robyn, David left the soup and came round the nearest table.

  “I assumed,” he said, “that you were serious yesterday.”

  “Of course I was serious.”

  “So,” he continued, “I’ll show you the room I’ve kept for you.”

  “When did you get here?”

  He reached for her bag. “Lunchtime.”

  “What do you mean – the room you kept for me?”

  He led the way up the stairs. “There are three rooms you could have. One is best.”

  Excited noise came from both right and left. David took a key from his pocket and opened a door just across the landing at the top of the stairs. It was a small plain room with a single bed, bedside table, wardrobe, and washbasin.

  “Why is this room nicer than the others?”

  He set her bag on the bed and walked to the window. “The other rooms are shared. And it’s the view. Look.”

  The room was at the front, its window facing west. A tree loomed out of the dusk on the left, its branches almost touching the building. Through and round it Robyn saw that the sky was already a deep orange above a landscape of shifting clouds. Like ships in mist, they drifted across the gold and pewter space, gilded with all the tones from yellow to the deepest ochre.

  “See up there?” David pointed. “That bit’s just the colour of Tim’s hair.”

  She smiled. “So it is.”

  The lake was visible from here too, and she could make out a narrow path that ran from the patch of lawn, over a stile and down through the dense undergrowth of trees and shrubs.

  David backed away. “There’s your key.” He set it on the bedside table. A bell shrilled through the building. “Supper’s ready,” he said, turning to the door.

  “David.” He stopped but didn’t turn back. She came up behind him. “I was also serious about saying I want to talk to you.”

  “Why?”

  He wasn’t making this easy for her. “I’ve been thinking a lot since… you chewed me up and spat me out.”

  Hungry pupils were passing by on the landing, rattling down the stairs to the kitchen. Some curious looks were directed through the doorway.

  David spoke over his shoulder. “After supper, I think the pupils will be given some background to the fieldwork tomorrow. There should be time then.”

  “OK,” she said to his back.

  There was a washing up rota to organise, rules to be emphasised, fire drill to be explained. It was nine o’clock before the group was gathered into the large lounge for a talk about the work they had come to do.

  Robyn hung up a drying cloth and wiped the ledges, slotting the last knives and forks, scissors and spoons into their places. Where was he? She was trembling like a teenager. He had a barrier around him, a defensive force field. The irony of the role reversal did not escape her.

  The evening was mild and dry as she walked outside, round to the front of the hostel. There was some light but the moon wasn’t full.

  “Do you want to walk down to the lake?”

  David’s voice came from near the front door, under the tree that spread up past the window of her room. Torchlight suddenly flared in his hand. His talent to materialise out of nowhere was as acute as ever.

  “OK.”

  Duncan Maguire’s voice called from inside the front door. “David? Would you mind getting me the flip chart? I forgot to bring it in.”

  It was obvious from his tone that he was well aware David was no longer subject to his orders. He was doing Duncan a favour by being here at all. David handed Robyn the torch. “I won’t be long. Wait for me here.”

  She stood on the dark patch of lawn, sleepy churrs coming from roosting birds. Occasionally the dart of a bat cut past from shadow to shadow. The bushes whispered in air that carried the sharp smell of pine cones. Above, the clouds were iron grey now against the night sky. She decided to go over the stile. It was fairly new and sturdy. Once on the other side, she shone the torch through the bushes, following the track. She looked back. There was no sign of David yet. She wandered on to the first bend to see what was beyond it. Just past the bend, the torchlight picked out some feathers on the ground, half hidden under a hawthorn. She walked the few steps to it and crouched to see what it was. It was a dead…

  Her hair was wrenched hard. She cried out in pain and fell backwards. A rough hand pulled her hair taut, twisting it. The torch bounced away into the undergrowth. Fingers clamped across her mouth. A face lurched over her. Angus Fraser.

  “It’s time, you whore,” he snarled, shaking her.

  Shock streamed through Robyn’s body. Dissolved into a desperate struggle. She twisted, jagging her cheek painfully on the rough ground, but her hair was so firmly clamped that her skin was standing out on her temples. She tried to bite the fingers over her mouth but he moved too quickly and his hand gagged her mouth shut. She heaved with her legs but he placed a knee across her ribs until all the air was gone from her lungs. When a knife flashed in front of her eyes, fear turned from hot to cold. She thought of the alarm David had given her. It was in her bag. Her bag was on her bed.

  “Not a sound,” he instructed, tilting the knife where she could see it, before slowly removing his hand from her mouth.

  Robyn’s mind jolted around in panic as Angus yanked her to her feet and bent her under his arm. He dragged her, stumbling, falling, further away from the hostel, towards the lake. Branches whipped painfully across her face. Had he just got lucky, thinking she was out on her own? Did he know David would be looking for her? Did he intend to attack David too? She knew what he intended to do with her.

  Fir trees bordered the lake and the needles made the ground soft underfoot as Angus flung her against a tree trunk, jarring her painfully. Stars were helping the meagre moonlight, reflecting off the water to glint in Angus’ pale eyes and on the thick gold chain around his neck.

  He waved the knife in front of her face. It was a penknife, but a large one, and honed. He seemed to calm down, now that he had got her in his control. He began to touch her face, stroke her hair like a hungry man who has imagined a meal for many days. That was when Robyn realised she was at the mercy of a madman.

  He dropped the knife and with both hands behind her head, brought all her hair round her shoulders to the front. He lifted it in both hands and buried his face in it. Robyn began to feel sick. She braced her hands against the trunk behind her and jerked her knee up hard. He dodged and caught her leg, tossing her sideways onto the ground.

  She fell heavily on her side, skinning her cheek on a root. He knelt over her. “You’ll not do that to me again, you bitch.” He rolled her over onto her back. His hand gripped the collar of her blouse and ripped it from her shoulders.

  Robyn began to leave her body. It was a trick she had learnt many years ago, a coping strategy, a way to believe this was not happening. She hadn’t had to use it recently. She hadn’t thought she would ever need it again. But with the ease of a lesson well learnt and never forgotten, she went limp and travelled away, far away.

  Impatiently, David went to the school bus and flipped up the side luggage compartment. By the yard light, he hauled out the flip chart easel and the bag of notes and maps which Mr Maguire had also forgotten to bring in. He carried them to the lounge, set up the flip chart in the corner, dug out the marker pens and left.

  He picked up another torch from the shelf beside the front door and stepped outside. He was trying not to think about what she might say to him. It was easier that way. An owl hooted
as he looked for her. He swept the beam from one side of the lawn to the other. He would have seen her if she had gone back into the house. She must have gone on ahead. He threw his leg over the stile and jumped down, picking his way carefully over the rutted track. Round the first bend something in the undergrowth caught his eye. He pushed through the bushes. It was a torch, still lit, but tumbled askew in a tussock of grass. A large moth fluttered in and out of the line of light.

  He swept the torchlight over the ground. The grass had been disturbed, tossed. At one place, the ground was ploughed up in a line, as if a heel had been scored through it by someone being dragged along.

  The hair stood up on the back of his neck. He started to run. Then something told him to stop running and to go quietly. Something told him not to shout her name. Stand still. Stand still for a minute! Listen! Stand still and listen! He braced his feet against the ruts, and snapped off the torch. He stopped breathing and honed his ears to the night. In front of him, towards the lake and slightly to the left, a handful of birds clattered from their roost, squawking their alarm as they rose out from the branches.

  He clicked on the torch again and sped towards the spot, urgency making him sure-footed. The first thing he saw was a pair of white shoulders pressed into the ground. A man was on top of her, roughly pulling and tearing at her clothes. A knife lay on the ground. Robyn looked as if she were already dead.

  Strength shot into his muscles, a blinding power took him across the space in a blur of speed. His first blow sent Fraser spinning into the undergrowth. David braced his feet for another lunge, glanced quickly at Robyn. He couldn’t see her clearly.

  Fraser pulled himself out of the bushes, his fists raised. David didn’t wait for him. Anger, disgust, frustration, and grief poured out of him in a pyroclastic surge, to concentrate on incinerating this monstrosity once and for all.

  Before Fraser could react, David was on him. He swung his right fist hard into his jaw and sent him sprawling back onto the pine needles. Fraser lay winded for a moment then flipped over to scuttle on all fours towards the knife. David reached it just as Fraser’s hand covered it. He brought his foot down onto Fraser’s fingers so hard he felt the fingers snap. Fraser crawled to a tree trunk and pulled himself up, feeling his jaw, blood pouring from his mouth and one finger jutting askew.

  Still seeing through a red mist, David shot out both hands and gripped him by the shoulders. Angus held up his undamaged hand in a gesture of surrender.

  “Hey, stop, stop! OK?” he said through thickening lips. “Look, why don’t we do a deal?” Desperation drenched his voice as David took aim. “There’s only the two of us here. Why don’t we share, eh? You can even go first.”

  He didn’t see the warning in David’s bared teeth. The next blow broke his nose, bone and cartilage mashed into his face.

  David took his slumped body by the chain around his neck and dragged him, strangling, across pine needles, tree roots and stones to the edge of the lake. He threw him on the ground, half in and half out of the water, his face submerged between two rocks. He lifted one foot and put it on Fraser’s head, holding it under the surface. The cold shock brought Fraser round and he began to struggle. David held his foot firm and unyielding, watching the bubbles rise round Fraser’s ears.

  He looked up at the stars. It should have been a beautiful night, by a peaceful lake, under an autumn sky. As if a hand brushed his arm in warning, the red tide ebbed and he knew he had to stop. Robyn. He must go back to Robyn. He lifted his foot and, taking Fraser by the ankles, pulled him out of the water. A trail of blood from Fraser’s nose glistened colourlessly in the faint light as he spluttered and coughed.

  David spun round, a thought attacking him. The knife had been beside Robyn, but when Fraser had reached for it, she had not been there. His torch was flickering as he picked it up and swept it urgently round the bushes and trees. He called her name but there was no reply, just the faintest lapping of water, the tiniest rustle of leaves and the occasional groan from the water’s edge. David called again and shouldered through all the nearer undergrowth. She was gone.

  He ran back up the path, calling, stumbling, his mind refusing yet to contemplate what this had done to her. In the hostel kitchen, several drawers had been pulled out, one wrenched so hard it had spilled onto the floor. Cutlery littered the tiles and ledges.

  He leapt up the stairs and found two girls outside Robyn’s door, their faces worried, puzzled.

  “Is she in there?” he demanded.

  “We think so,” said one. “We heard banging in the kitchen and then this door slammed. It’s locked.” She looked at David curiously. “Were you with her?”

  Duncan Maguire came up the stairs. “What’s going on?”

  David tried the door. “Robyn? Let me in. Please, Robyn. Let me in.”

  He didn’t care now, and wouldn’t care later, what the others thought. He rattled the door handle. Then he stopped, his mind working fast. This would be adding to her terror.

  He backed away from the door and motioned the others to do the same.

  “Nobody,” – he sliced a hand downwards for emphasis – “nobody but me is to go into that room.”

  More pupils appeared at the top of the stairs, mouths open. He turned to the teacher, his eyes imploring. Duncan met his gaze for a moment and then he nodded.

  “Right, back downstairs everyone. Show’s over and I haven’t finished the briefing for tomorrow.”

  Briefly, in the kitchen where Robyn wouldn’t overhear, David told Duncan what had happened. “I’m going to get into that room if I have to take the slates off,” he said. “No matter how long I’m in there, don’t let anybody, anybody, come in.”

  He waited as Duncan’s face drained to ashen white. Then the teacher nodded and made for the telephone to call the police. The signal was poor here; he would have to use the land line.

  Outside, David looked up through the branches of the tree and saw that the light was on in Robyn’s room. He had no torch, so he searched the ground by the faint light escaping from the curtain edge at the lounge window. He found a stone and brushed soil from it, hefting it experimentally in his hand. Satisfied, he pushed it into his shirt and leapt for the nearest branch.

  He swung himself up through the tree, the branches becoming thinner, more supple, less supportive, as he shifted his weight with quick, quiet efficiency. When he was level with the window, he worked his way as far as he dared along a branch and stretched across to grip a drainage pipe which was fixed to the wall beside it. It was old and rusty, powdery on his hand. He pulled on it carefully, so that the branch swung to the window and he could look through.

  Robyn wasn’t visible anywhere. But the bed had been moved. It had been pulled across the door, totally blocking it. Even if the door was unlocked there was no way it would open. She had barricaded herself in.

  But it was what was strewn on the floor that stunned David into shock and immobility. Hair. Strands of it. Lumps of it. Bunches of it. Her beautiful dark hair, shot through with pine needles, was lying like skeins of discarded thread across the room. One twisted clump had blood at the root. The last piece, its ends splayed like the spokes of a spider’s web, lay at the door of the wardrobe. The door was slightly open, trembling on its hinges.

  David made himself harden to steel. He examined the window. It had a conventional opening, with a latch and bar on one side. Thank God for low budgets. This hostel was well overdue for an upgrade. The pipe was grating, slipping against the wall.

  David reached for the stone and raised it in his free hand. He called out: “Robyn. I’m going to break the window.” He waited but there wasn’t a sound. He swung the stone back and called again. “I’m going to break the window now.”

  Glass splintered into the room. Working fast with one hand as both branch and drain pipe weakened, David knocked out the jagged edges with his closed fist and reached for the latches, flicking them up. Still holding himself close to the window by gripping the sway
ing pipe with one hand, he swung both feet up and in one movement knocked the window open, slid his legs across the ledge, let go the pipe and grabbed for the window frame. He dropped onto the carpet of glass on the floor.

  He stayed where he was for a moment. “Robyn?”

  Still no sound. He tried to ignore the clumps of hair, stepping over them as he moved towards the wardrobe. When he reached it, he stopped to listen, then slowly pulled the door open.

  She was curled in a tight ball at the bottom of it, rocking herself to and fro, to and fro. Her jeans were torn and her arms were scratched and bleeding. The remnants of her shirt were hanging like rags from her grazed shoulders. Her face was hidden in her arms where they hugged across her knees. What was not hidden was her head. David’s knees buckled and he sank to the floor.

  29

  THERE WAS no one to hear the crashing of branches, the snapping of twigs, the alarms of startled birds as Angus staggered through the bushes. Shaw had nearly killed him! He had really nearly killed him! Fear and indignation writhed crazily through his body as he stumbled along, his intact hand covering his mouth and nose. Blood poured between his fingers and mingled with the soaked cuff at his wrist. He found the fence beside the road and his shirt ripped as he threw himself under the barbed wire. He lurched down the laneway to a track that disappeared to the right, from starlight into darkness. He found his car where he had left it, hidden in bushes. He collapsed across the bonnet and yelled out as his broken fingers twisted under his weight.

  Hands slippery with his own blood, he reversed the car. Pain shot through his fingers as he worked the gears, found the headlight switch. Back on the narrow lane, he accelerated sharply, slewing round the corners, slicing the hedges, until he reached the road. He put his foot down heavily on the accelerator, roaring downwards, round the corners which curved down the hillside. His whole head throbbed. The steering wheel was slippery as he tore at it one-handed.