“He strangled me, didn’t he?”
“Yes, how did you know?”
“The nightmares I used to have. He strangled me in a house I didn’t recognise… a posh house.” Betty shook her head in disbelief.
“And you were only eighteen! So… that was a short book.” She laughed, trying to lighten the mood, but the discovery that she had been murdered in three of her lives was disturbing to both of them.
“Christ, I haven’t had much luck with men, have I?” Dakota laughed though tears had begun to stain her cheeks. Betty didn’t know what to say, so she told her there was another life under the name ‘Brigid Murphy’ and she was off to locate that volume.
Dakota thought of all the nightmares she had suffered in her last life and felt for certain she had deep down knowledge of her former lives. She felt that somehow she had always known that Jackson would kill her one day. And had she made no effort to stop it happening? With dread in her dead, cold heart, she turned her face to the book that lay open on the table before her.
Dakota began working on Saturdays at the library a week later. She feigned boredom and disapproval of Lula’s decision that she should start work, but when she was there, she stole brief, dangerous moments with Jackson, as usual the fear of being caught heightening the pleasure.
For the last few weeks they had had to stop their almost nightly meetings as Lula’s medication was no longer working and she had begun to wake up occasionally, going downstairs to look for Jackson.
The first night it happened, Dakota had stopped Jackson’s rhythmic movements after hearing a door open somewhere in the house; they lay frozen in panic, listening to Lula shuffling down the corridor and down the stairs whispering ‘Jackson’ to the darkened house. He had quickly jumped up and put on his trousers and crept out, following Lula, explaining that he had been in the bathroom.
After that night, they had to stay away from each other. Dakota lay awake all night, unable to relax without him there, unsure why jealousy of her sister had begun to creep into her troubled mind. She had become too accustomed to his ways with her, and though she sometimes felt she should stop it all, his absence left her lost and in despair. For the past four years he had made her feel special and necessary – the most important thing in his world, which went some way to cancel out the upset she felt at being excluded from everyone else’s world. He had made her feel she mattered and that was all she wanted.
Lula was soon put on new medication, but it was a whole month before she dragged herself off to pick up the prescription.
In the meantime, Jackson had to find another way to have Dakota on her own. For several weeks in a row, he had told Lula that they were working late, but instead they had been driving out to the woods to return to the secret grove they had visited so often before.
It was late December, a few days before New Year’s Eve. The forest floor was blanketed by a thick layer of leaves, dead and dry underfoot, their dreary colours imperceptible in the darkness. The torch that Jackson kept in the car was all they had to light their way through the bleak forest of chattering trees.
Just as they reached the grove, Jackson could no longer wait and began to kiss her passionately, his hands reaching desperately for the fastening of her coat, hungry to feel her skin against his again. They were half into the clearing when a muffled cry made them pull apart.
Jackson turned the torch into the grove, the bright beam framing an intimate moment neither of them wanted to see.
The little girl was no more than eight or nine, and tears streaked her tiny face, blonde hair fell in strands from her disturbed ponytails as she struggled to pull her knickers up.
Then the man who knelt before her stood and turned, flicking his long grey hair impatiently out of his eyes, his grip on the little girl’s mouth and arm not releasing as he swung her round in front of him.
As a semi-toothless grin broke across his lined face, Dakota recognised him.
Back in the library Dakota was gagging and closing her eyes, turning desperately away from the book as though the images would go away. But for all her gasping and eye-shielding, the face remained.
It was the man she knew as Woods.
He may have been a few years younger, but it was definitely him. The same man, who had been creeping around after her here in the afterlife, had known her in life. She didn’t want to go on reading, but Betty calmed her and said she had to go on and find out the whole story.
Jackson shone the torch in the man’s face and whispered.
“Mr Goldman? What the fuck are you doing?”
Dakota's eyes flicked from the little girl to the man who had been her next-door neighbour for the last twelve years. She felt sick as her mind raced. All this time, she thought, he has been messing around with little girls, probably enjoying all the times she and her sister had played out in the back garden, in the summer when they wore bathing suits to play in the paddling pool. All those years he could have been planning to do the same to her.
“Might ask you the same, Mr Shade,” replied the grey-haired man, with a sickly smile, ignoring the tears of the little girl in his grasp.
“Dakota and I were taking a walk,” Jackson explained.
“Oh yeah? Can’t get away with it in the house anymore, then? Thought it had been a bit quiet for a while.”
“What? What do you mean?” Jackson snapped.
“Walls like paper you know.” His grin widened as his eyes fell on Dakota. “Very willing, isn’t she?”
Jackson darted forward and grabbed Goldman by his lapels.
“Watch your mouth, pervert!”
“Hehe, takes one to know one, eh?” The man laughed, appearing and disappearing as the torch in Jackson’s hand wiggled around.
“Right, I am calling the police.” He let Goldman go and shoved the torch into Dakota’s shaking hands. She could hear Jackson fumbling through his pockets for his mobile phone, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the man and the small girl, framed in a circle of shivering light in front of her. The girl moved quickly as though to run away, but Goldman slammed his big hand over her face, holding her still and muffling her squeals.
“Oh yeah? You going to explain what you were doing out here with your girlfriend’s sixteen-year-old sister?”
“Taking a walk!” hissed Jackson.
“In the dark… to a secret grove… kissing?” All the while the smirk never left Goldman’s face. He looked so calm, and Jackson looked so angry.
“You can’t prove anything, you shit! You think they would believe you over me? That is a child in your hands, and I don’t think they would believe you were taking a walk with someone else’s little girl in a dark wood with only the best intentions!”
“And legally, Mr.Shade, she was only a child when you started your relationship,” Goldman replied, pointing at Dakota, who was shaking the torch light violently as her mind reeled with images of what Lula would do if she saw this situation. “Oh and I have photos too...”
“You what?” asked Jackson incredulously, his phone back in his pocket.
“Oh, I have an extensive private collection of pictures. Quite a few of them feature you and your young lady here over the last few years, getting up to all sorts of mischief.” Goldman sniggered like a dirty teenage boy, licking his cracked lips. “You might get me done, but you would be coming down with me, Mr Shade. Believe me, I could have you carted off any time I liked. How would your dear Lula feel about that, I wonder?”
Silence fell over the cold gathering in the black woods. The ring of light trembled like a frightened star in the darkness, as winds shook the empty overhead branches into chattering conversations with themselves. Distant rustles in the undergrowth let them all know they did not belong in this lightless world, and the little girl continued to sniffle and occasionally try to wriggle out of Mr Goldman’s vicelike grip on her tiny face.
“You fucking bastard,” whispered Jackson almost inaudibly.
“Jackson, we can’t do th
is... Lula can’t know!” Dakota began to rattle off words nervously at his side.
“Shut up,” he whispered not looking up at her.
“Well pretty, unless you want everyone to know that he’s been shagging you since you were twelve, I’d bugger off and leave me alone.”
“I don’t believe you’ve got photos!” she half yelled, a light wind alerting her to the tears on her cheeks, a mild rage burning beyond all her fear.
“Don’t you, Pretty?” He turned his full attention to her. “Try sitting in the tree at the end of my garden. Great view, straight into your curtainless bedroom. I only watch in the summer. This time of year, I just listen.” He winked at her.
“Jesus Christ, you bastard. You sick bastard!”
Goldman responded with a cackle.
“I can copy ’em if you like? Got me own darkroom, you see. Bet you’d like to see what I see...”
Dakota lost control and launched herself at him, clawing at his face and hitting him with the torch, the light jiggling and bouncing off the dead branches above them. He laughed, turning away as Jackson pulled her off.
“Leave it, we’re going!” growled Jackson.
“We can’t leave her with him!” she cried as he began dragging her away. She looked back at the little girl, who was wide eyed; her sobbing had ebbed away, replaced by silent tears. Her big blue eyes were the last thing Dakota saw as she was pulled away from the grove and the low sound of Goldman’s laughter.
TWENTY: Consequences
“This isn’t right, Jackson! We should have made him let her go!” she whimpered as she followed him back to the car.
“Dakota, shut up! He has got me by the balls, and I am making the decisions here. I am telling you to forget about tonight; it never happened, OK? God help me, I’ll murder you if you get me put in prison by running your mouth off.”
“But I—”
Jackson cut her short when he turned and grabbed her by the throat. “I mean it, D. Shut it now! Forget tonight, OK?” he half shouted, not releasing his grip until she managed to nod her head.
When they got home, Dakota went straight up to her room, hearing Jackson say to Lula, “Oh, she hasn’t been feeling well all day – got her period or something. Just let her rest.”
“Oh, shall I get her some hot chocolate?”
“No Lula, leave her alone, OK?” he snapped.
“OK baby, OK. Can I get you anything?”
Dakota slammed her bedroom door. She hated hearing Lula being sycophantic to Jackson. He treated her like dirt most of the time, and when he was nice to her, Lula acted like it was Christmas.
She stayed in bed all night and didn’t leave her room until midday the next day.
Wandering downstairs, she found Jackson sitting in front of the television.
“Where’s Lula?” she asked without looking at him.
“Gone to get the Sunday papers. Feeling any better?” he asked as though she really had been ill. She couldn’t even bear to look his way, so she immersed herself in the news as it began.
She had lain awake all night rationalising their actions, and had even told herself that James Goldman had let the little girl go right after their meeting in the woods. It would all blow over and she would ignore him if she ever saw him again. He was a very quiet and reclusive neighbour; she didn’t even know if he had a job. But she did know she would never acknowledge him again.
She allowed the news to take over her thoughts and did her best to put the previous night out of her mind.
“Tonight, parents of a nine-year-old girl are appealing for any witnesses to help with locating their daughter who disappeared yesterday afternoon in Little Mort. Michelle Taybury was last seen going to the shops at around 3.30pm. It is a five-minute walk to the shops from her home, but her parents fear she may have taken a short cut through some alleyways…”
The photo that appeared on screen was a school portrait of a pretty girl in her uniform. Her blonde hair was in plaits that fell down her shoulders, past pink cheeks and a wide smile. The only reason Dakota recognised her was because of her eyes.
“Oh shit, Jackson!”
“I know. Shut up.” Both of them were on the edges of their seats, throats dry, frozen, eyes frantic.
The last time they had seen Michelle Taybury, she didn’t look as pretty. She had been dishevelled and streaked with tears, leaves clinging to her clothes and hair.
“Jesus Christ, has he still got her?” At that moment, Lula came in through the front door and Dakota got up, bolting out of the house, pausing only to slip her trainers on.
She could hear Lula call her name out after her but she kept running down the road, straight to the woods. It was a cold and grey Sunday as she raced through the cemetery to take the quickest route to the grove, her chest burning with a racing heart.
Last night’s rainfall still sat in tiny pools on fallen leaves. Within minutes her trainers and the bottoms of her jeans were soaked through. There was no sun yet, just dull dirty clouds that gathered over the empty branches like nosy neighbours. A light breeze set the leaves cackling around her and she began to wish she had stayed at home. For the first time in her life, she felt afraid of the woods. She had been walking there her whole life, and never been afraid, but now she felt that a thousand eyes were watching her trudge through pathways she was not invited to tread. She passed across the clearing that lay out before the Witch tree and headed past the screaming woman into the dense undergrowth towards the secret grove that lay beyond anybody’s vision.
She paused for a moment. An unseen breeze encircled her, lifting her hair up off her shoulders and making it float around her face for an instant, and goose bumps broke out over her entire body.
She stepped slowly into the grove.
Wind had blown leaves across her. Her pink sweater bore brown mud stains, one of which looked like a handprint, Dakota noticed.
The girl’s blonde hair streamed across her cheek like a skeletal hand reaching from her scalp. Her flesh was pale, her lips blue under the strands of hair.
Dakota's first instinct was to pull the little girl’s skirt back down, but she knew she could not touch anything. What bothered her most was that little Michelle Taybury appeared to be staring at her with the same pleading in her eyes as when she had encountered her in these woods the night before. Dakota couldn’t help thinking that she had been alive only hours before but now she was still, never to move again.
She could almost hear her voice pleading ‘help me’ but it was only the wind murmuring through the dead trees. Dakota felt sure she would collapse but her body was rigid, frozen, staring at the dead girl’s eyes. As she noticed the burst veins around her eyes, the words ‘petechial haemorrhaging’ and ‘asphyxiation’ sailed through her mind along with other phrases she had read in books about murder. All the books she had read about true crimes suddenly sprang into her mind and she remembered how she had often wondered what a dead body looked like.
It was as though the girl’s glassy gaze was all that was holding her up.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Suddenly she was on the floor, wet leaves in her hair and soaking through her jumper.
James Goldman was on top of her, fumbling at the fastening on her jeans. Fear had turned her mind rigid under his frantic body; her mind seemed to float away to where the dead girl lay.
Just as she felt her trousers being pulled down, she snapped into action, bending her knees and bringing her feet up into his face. He flew back, blood spurting from his nose as she leapt up pulling her trousers back up.
“You don’t get to fuck me, too, you prick! That’s not part of the bargain. They’ll catch you even if I don’t tell them about you!”
He laughed through the blood running over his lips.
“Your poor sister might just kill herself if she found out about you, don’t you think?” Dakota stepped forward and kicked him in the head as he tried to stem the blood flow with a handkerchief from his pocket.
“You can kick me all you like! But you can’t tell anyone about me! Still, that shouldn’t be hard for you; you kept Jackson a secret all these years, didn’t you?”
“That’s none of your fucking business!”
“Heh, kinda became my business when I first heard your moans, little one. You and your Loverman have provided me with lots of entertainment over the years… missed it when you had to stop. What was it, Lula’s medication not working?”
“What are you still doing here?” she asked, ignoring what he had just said for fear she might start screaming at him.
“Liked to be here with her when she is quiet. It’s easier when they aren’t wriggling and trying to scream.” He winked again, turning Dakota’s stomach over. “Wondered if guilt might bring you back here and I might get a go of you, too.”
“Fuck you!”
“That’s what I had in mind.” He grinned.
“She was on the news; they are looking for her now. Her poor parents...” she broke off as she looked back at the little body on the bed of leaves. But she didn’t look for long before she was running away, desperate to be away from him and Michelle’s pleading gaze.
At the top of her road was a phone box, and there she stood for a few moments. She was staring through the glass door at the receiver as though concentrated thought alone would do what she knew she had to.
She paused a moment longer, considering the consequences of calling the police, then she snapped into action, briefly glancing around for any possible witnesses. But the roads were empty, shrouded in a clinging mist of rain. She felt as though she was the only person alive on the earth. All there was in the world was her and the dead girl who lay staring into dead trees a mile away.
Purgatory Hotel Page 15
