by Karen Clarke
I began to climb, hand slipping on the rail, when the noise came again, faint but indisputable. Definitely a child. A cry for help.
Mummy!
My blood turned to ice.
It sounded to be coming from the cave, but how could that be? There’d been no one here when I arrived, no way of getting in that cave without being seen. A child couldn’t have survived the night in there, not once the tide flooded in. Unless they’d clung to a rock … The thought made me breathless.
A wail, thin and eerie, sent adrenaline pumping through me. Dropping my shoes, I jumped, landing in ankle-deep water. I fished my phone out to call Vic, or the police. No signal. Should I go back to the cliff path and call for help? But there might not be any phone reception there either.
The water was still rising, but I could surely make it to the cave and back, just check there was no one inside.
I ran through the water, which splashed up the backs of my legs, and I was relieved when I reached the remaining sandy stretch in front of the cave.
I entered tentatively. ‘Hello?’ The acoustics bounced my voice back. Hello, hello, hello. ‘Is there anyone in here?’ Here, here, here.
I remembered following Jamie in during our treasure hunt, pretending to be pirates. It had the same smell as then, slightly sulphurous from the seaweed that had washed in. Shelves of black rock jutted from the walls and there was a boulder further down, covered in lichen, litter scattered around it. Dad would hate that. Why can’t people take their rubbish with them?
Now I was there, staring into the blackness, it seemed unlikely the cave was inhabited. Whatever had made that noise, it wasn’t a child.
About to back out, I heard another sound. Scrabbling, like tiny claws on the slippery surfaces. Rats? I turned on my torch app and angled the beam around the damp walls of the cave. A movement, just out sight, made me drop my phone on the sand, which felt like damp concrete beneath my feet. Behind me, the water crept closer.
Frightened, I bent to retrieve my phone and heard the scraping sound again.
‘Who’s there?’ I took a few steps back, trod on something sharp and gasped with pain. It was the jagged edge of a seashell, embedded in the sand. I lifted my foot to inspect it and a thin trickle of blood dripped from my sole. I needed to get out of here, now.
I turned, limping towards daylight and heard the voice again.
Mummy!
It sounded ethereal, whispering around the cave like a voice from beyond the grave, but I didn’t believe in ghosts.
Spinning round I called, ‘Are you hurt?’ My voice was louder, reverberating back. The wail started again and every hair on my body stood to attention. ‘Hang on, I’m coming!’
I limped back the way I’d come, aiming my phone in front of me to light the way. I remembered the cave was long and winding, and how it had echoed with the roar of surf the last time I was here. It hadn’t seemed scary back then, with voices and laughter trailing us from the beach; families like ours having fun. It had been an adventure.
Now, the walls felt as if they were closing in and fear sluiced in my stomach. My instincts screamed at me to get out, but I couldn’t go without knowing who was in there. ‘Are you hurt?’ I called again. The sound of my own voice was my only reply.
I stopped as I came to a turning, knowing beyond that I’d be cut off from the light at the entrance behind me, where I knew the sea was waiting, inching closer. The torch beam was already fading as the phone charge drained. ‘Please, tell me where you are.’
Are, are, are.
Something wasn’t right. A sweep of goose bumps alerted me to another presence. I was worried I might faint, my legs giving way. I shouldn’t be here.
As I turned to run, the remaining torchlight caught something in the blackness. Glittering eyes, watching me.
I screamed.
‘You took your time.’ A figure stepped forward. ‘I thought you might not come in, but I guess no mother can resist a child’s cry for help.’
A bulb of terror stuck in my throat, rendering me speechless.
‘Thank God for my little recording, though it wasn’t exactly convincing.’ A laugh, devoid of humour, turned my insides to liquid. ‘You’re even more gullible than I thought.’
Horror circled my mind as the figure lunged, striking the side of my head with something hard. I felt a crack, my skull exploding with pain, and had only one thought before everything went black.
It really was the last person I’d expected.
Chapter 31
I opened my eyes, blinking into darkness, white-hot pain in my skull. I tried to lift my fingers to my temples, but my arms refused to cooperate.
Where was I? It was so, so cold. My teeth clattered. I was sitting in water, my shorts soaked through to my skin, something hard and jagged cutting into my back.
Reality crashed in. I was in the cave at Perran Cove. Sensing movement beside me, confusion ricocheted into panic.
‘Sorry about that, but I had to make sure you couldn’t get away.’
‘My head …’ Nausea clawed at my throat, making it hard to speak.
‘Sorry, but I don’t have any paracetamol on me.’
The voice, empty of warmth and emotion, made my skin shrivel. I tried to move, pain slicing across my shoulders. ‘What have you done to me?’
‘I’ve restrained you, just for now.’ A humourless chuckle made my scalp prickle. ‘Can’t having you running off, now I’ve finally got you here.’
I realised with a pinch of terror that my hands were strapped behind my back, my shoulders straining out of their sockets. ‘Why are you doing this?’
‘I think you know why, Beth.’ My name came out like a swear word. ‘You’re not that stupid.’
It hurt to move my eyes. ‘I called the police,’ I said, trying in vain to free my wrists. ‘If I don’t call back in half an hour—’
‘They’re supposed to send someone out, I know, but guess what?’ A dramatic pause. ‘That won’t be happening.’
I closed my eyes. ‘You spoke to them?’
‘Let’s just say, Andrew Fellowes is aware of your fragile state of mind, your paranoia that someone is out to get you.’ The mocking tone was unbearable. ‘I’ve assured him this has happened before, that it’s nothing to be concerned about.’
‘Until I turn up dead.’
‘Ah well, the situation was worse than we thought.’ Fake sympathy now, play-acting. ‘It was all too much, which is why you came down here all alone to where it happened. You got into trouble, or took your own life, we’ll never really know.’
‘Someone could have seen you come down here.’ My voice was a rasp I hardly recognised. ‘You won’t get away with it.’
‘I was only trying to help.’ Mock-surprise now, mixed with pretend sadness. ‘I’ve been looking out for you. I was worried. I followed you here, saw you were in trouble. I did my best to save you but it was too late.’
A painful sob escaped. ‘I have a daughter, Rosa.’
She dropped to her haunches in front of me, and the shock I’d felt when I recognised her smacked into me again. ‘She’ll get over it, just like I had to when my mother killed herself.’
I recoiled, her words landing like punches. ‘Your mother was Linda Taylor?’
‘Well done, Miss Marple.’
She returned to the rock she’d been sitting on and pulled her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. She was wearing a wetsuit, her hair slicked back from her face, her eyes black and bottomless in the white oval of her face. ‘I thought you might figure it out when you spoke to my dear old granny.’
‘She … she didn’t mention Linda had a daughter.’
‘Probably forgotten I existed, just like she forgot about Mum.’ Her voice skimmed the surface of the words, but there was a seam of hatred running beneath. ‘Old alkie,’ she said. ‘No wonder my mother couldn’t cope, but we were good together, me and Mum. We didn’t need that old bitch.’ She smoothed her hair over one shoulder, wr
inging it out, then slid her feet into the water. It was rising quickly, covering my legs, which were stretched in front of me. I drew them up, wincing with pain. My chest constricted with panic and I wriggled against the bind around my wrists.
‘You’ll never get it off.’ There was amusement in her voice. ‘Good old cable ties.’ She looked around as though we were in a restaurant. ‘When the water’s high enough for drowning, I’ll take them off.’ Her smile chilled me more than the water. ‘It would look a bit suspicious otherwise.’
I tugged my wrists again, the pain excruciating. If the cable ties left cuts, it would raise suspicion when my body was found.
‘They won’t leave a mark,’ she said, slicing through my lumpy thoughts as if she could read them. ‘Why do you think I didn’t use handcuffs?’
She dipped her fingers in the water and flicked it in my face.
I flinched away, crying out as agony seared through my head, becoming aware of a warm stickiness at my temple. ‘My head’s bleeding.’
‘Plenty of rocks around,’ she said, hunching her shoulders in a shrug. ‘You fell and knocked yourself out.’
I let that sink in, fear pumping through me. ‘How did you even know I’d come down here today on my own?’
‘I actually didn’t.’ She spread her arms. ‘I had a whole other plan, involving laying a trail to get you here, or Vic being with you, making it look like he was behind it all – maybe a murder, suicide event. I covered every possibility, believe me. I’ve been watching your every move, but you actually made it incredibly easy by checking the tides, getting up early this morning and coming straight down.’ She sounded almost disappointed.
‘Have you been here the whole time?
She nodded. ‘Staying in the old cottage at the end of the lane. It has a tunnel into here, would you believe? A lot of the cottages round here do – they were used by smugglers back in the day.’ She sat back on the rock, head on one side as she studied me like I was a chemistry experiment. ‘It’s worked like a charm,’ she said. ‘You can’t imagine how satisfying it is to finally achieve your life-long goal. The planning it’s taken, you’ve no idea.’
‘But how could you know we’d come to Perran Cove?’
‘It’s taken a lot of hard work,’ she said, as if expecting a round of applause. ‘I suggested it to your brother first, that it might be nice for the whole family to visit, but he was horrified.’ She gave an unpleasant laugh. ‘He thought it would be terrible for you, the poor sap.’ She pressed her hands over her heart. ‘But he’s my sap,’ she said, in a soppy voice. ‘He doesn’t hate you half as much as you think he does, but that worked in my favour.’ She’d reverted to her normal tone. ‘I worked on Vic after that. We get on well, you might have noticed.’ Not waiting for an answer, she continued. ‘I said I’d read this study about facing your worst fears, told him I reckoned if he could get you here while your dear ex-husband was away with your daughter, and get you in the water, you’d probably marry him you’d be so grateful.’ She rested her hands on her knees and wagged her head. ‘You do know he’d do anything for you, don’t you?’
Not anymore.
‘Anyway, the rest was easy,’ she said. ‘Fun really, like your face when you tried to show me the messages I’d sent and deleted from your phone while everyone was greeting the birthday girl.’ She smacked her lips together. ‘Hilarious, actually.’
She was literally insane. ‘It was all you,’ I said weakly. ‘You ruined my painting, sent that inflatable, put the swimming leaflet on my car.’
She made a ticking motion. ‘Top of the class, Beth. It was easy to pop in while no one was home, especially as I made a copy of your door key, although your nosy neighbour nearly caught me. I had to hide.’
‘You left the bath taps running.’
‘I did.’ She was enjoying herself now, like a child showing off. ‘Oh, and the art book your little shadow gave you – that was my idea.’
My head jerked painfully. ‘Katya?’
‘She’s been working with me, without knowing why.’ Rosa’s teeth flashed white in a grin. ‘It’s obvious she’s attached to you. I saw her trailing behind you after one of your sessions, like a love-sick puppy. I waited for her the next day and told her I thought you were being followed, asked her not to say anything, but to keep an eye on you for me, report back anything strange. I said she mustn’t tell anyone in case it escalated.’ She lowered her voice to a dramatic whisper. ‘It was our little secret.’
‘That’s horrible,’ I said, my words wobbling higher. ‘Katya’s vulnerable; you shouldn’t have involved her.’
‘Vulnerable’s the best type.’ Her delight was frightening. ‘I said she should come to your party, even gave her an art book to give you as a gift—’
‘That was you?’
‘Of course.’ She twirled her hand like a magician. ‘She chickened out of coming, thought you might not like it, but I caught her the next morning hanging around outside your house. She was going to leave the gift on your doorstep, but I’d already left a parcel and didn’t want her to see it, so I picked her up and told her she should stay away in case someone reported her.’
‘You’re sick.’ I tried wrenching my wrists once more, realised the water had risen and was lapping around my waist. ‘You’ve been playing with people’s lives.’
‘That was the point,’ she said, as though it was obvious. ‘I wanted to make you wonder about everyone in your little circle.’
‘I suppose it was you … asking about my painting at … at the café.’ My teeth had started to chatter, breaking my words up.
Rosa shook her head, pushing back a coil of damp hair that had fallen across her face. ‘I asked someone to do it for me,’ she said. ‘I was outside, watching your reaction.’ A smile split her face once more. ‘You looked like a ghost when you came out.’
I could barely begin to process what she was saying, let alone take it in. ‘Were you at the swimming pool the other day?’
She nodded. ‘I was just watching. It was fun, seeing you try to hide how terrified you are. Did you know your husband – or should I say ex – was there too, keeping an eye on things. I don’t think he trusts you, Beth.’ She tutted and wagged a finger at me. ‘But I have to say, I was impressed when you took off like a trained dolphin, because you thought Hayley was in trouble.’ She cocked her head. ‘It made me realise, you could be brave if you had to be, which makes this—’ she brandished her arm around ‘—more of a challenge, but let’s face it—’ she gave an exaggerated wince ‘—this isn’t the leisure centre, is it? There’s no lifeguard coming to save you, just like there wasn’t last time.’
My body juddered with cold and fright. She was nothing like the Rosa I thought I knew. But that Rosa wasn’t real. ‘Did you know … who I was when you met Jamie?’
‘Obviously.’ She snorted, not so cool anymore. ‘Everything I’ve done has been with this moment in mind,’ she said. ‘I joined the police force so I could find you.’
‘What?’ I felt dizzy, as if I couldn’t breathe; as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the cave. ‘That’s crazy,’ I whispered. ‘Why would you do that?’
‘Have you any idea how many Beth Abbots there are in the UK?’ She threw up her hands. ‘That’s all I had to go on. A name in the local paper.’
‘You put that newspaper in the cottage.’
‘You really should take a Mensa test.’ Her voice dripped with sarcasm. ‘I got inside before you did,’ she said. ‘Being an officer has so many advantages, the biggest one being that people trust you, but as it happened, you’d left a printout in your kitchen at home with the details of the cottage, including the code to the key box.’ She mimed unlocking the door. ‘You obviously found the copy of the tide table I left too.’ She waited for the penny to drop. ‘Yeah, that wasn’t real,’ she said, triumphant. ‘I needed you to think you were safe to come down here, you see? Low tide is actually this evening.’
I made another, desperate at
tempt to release my hands, but felt the strength leaving my body. The water was icy as it stroked my chest, sloshing around my arms. I would probably die of hypothermia before I drowned. ‘I’m truly sorry your mum died, Rosa, I really am.’
‘Oh yeah, I know all about the guilt, the counselling. It’s cute that you’ve suffered, but really, you all came through it pretty well,’ she scoffed. ‘You’ve no idea what it’s like to really suffer, to lose the one person in the world you loved and relied on.’
I shrank from her words, frozen as much by the void in her gaze as the sea. ‘How could I have known that would happen?’ I said, pushing the words past my clattering teeth. ‘I was only seven.’
‘Mike was going to take us away from that crappy estate.’ Her voice was low and intense now, pain spilling over. ‘He’d bought a house, we were going to go travelling, he was going to send me to a private school. Mum stopped drinking because of him, she loved him, and she loved me better when she was with him and then he died.’ She slid into the water in front of me, pushing her face close to mine. ‘Because of you,’ she hissed through her teeth, jabbing a finger at my collarbone. ‘Because you were too stupid to learn to swim, his life – our lives – were over.’ She grew still. ‘I hated you from the moment I saw your name in the newspaper. When I found Mum dead, I vowed I’d find you one day and make you pay.’
In spite of my terror and the bone-numbing cold seeping through me as the water, disturbed by Rosa, splashed around my chest, the urge to lash out was strong. ‘He wasn’t going to stay with you. He left Angie a note.’ My breath was too shallow for my words to make much impact, but I saw her flinch. ‘He’d had enough,’ I said. ‘He’d planned to kill himself – that’s why he drowned.’ I paused, panting. ‘He chose to die.’
The relief of saying it, of finally feeling the truth of the words, gave me a burst of energy. ‘You became a police officer, Rosa.’ I wriggled again, trying to force my wrists apart, while the water slapped and danced against the rocks around us. ‘You’re a success, in spite of everything. Your mum would have been proud. You don’t have to do this—’
