That little girl bounds her way over, almost tripping over her feet. She wraps her arms around my waist and starts to cry into my shirt.
‘Denny,’ she says. ‘Are you here to save me?’
Chapter Forty-Three
AIDEN
I almost don’t hear the door moving along the carpet above the sound of Gina’s tears. But I do hear it, and my body reacts more quickly than my mind. First, I push Gina away, which I hate, but know I need to do. Then I spin around to see Faith quietly closing the door behind us. That’s when I realise that she’s trying to lock us both in.
First, I shove my foot between the door and the frame, getting to it just as she’s about to close the door. She continues to tug the handle, trapping my foot between wood. It hurts, but I grit my teeth, grasp hold of the door with my right hand, and jerk it back. Faith stumbles forwards as I manage to make the momentum work for me and not her.
When she lets go, I push her into the hallway and hold up the scissors. She lifts her hands to protect herself. There’s a blur of movement near my leg, but I’m so focused on Faith that I barely notice it. Neither does Faith. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Gina running down the stairs, but it seems that Faith hasn’t seen her at all.
‘What did you say about Amy Perry?’ I ask, still brandishing the scissors.
‘I said you should ask her about your dad.’ She lifts her chin and her eyes flash. ‘They had an affair, back before you were born.’
I frown, not sure whether to believe her or not. Is it even an affair if you’re that young and not even married? ‘How do you know about this?’
‘Amy told me,’ Faith says, smiling. ‘Like I said, Hugh was friends with my father, but what you don’t know is that I’ve been friends with Amy since Hugh brought her to our house for a visit five years ago. We were in touch again after you came back from the bunker.’
‘Then you knew,’ I say. ‘You must have known that Hugh had kidnapped a child.’
‘No, I never knew. My father only made friends with Hugh when he was interested in buying a chapel from our estate. You have to believe me. I hate Hugh for what he did to you. So does Amy.’
My head starts to spin with all of this new information and I’m not sure I know who or what to believe. ‘You’re wrong about that. Amy always knew.’
Faith falters. ‘That isn’t true.’ She takes a step back, closer to the stairs. ‘All Amy wanted to do was teach Emma a lesson. It was because of Emma that Amy lost her baby. Emma hurt her, you see. Emma bullied her at school, and then she pushed Amy and made her lose her baby.’
There’s sweat forming on my palms and the handle of the scissors becomes greasier and more slippery. My arm aches from holding them up. But most of all, I’m confused. Mum can be fierce, but it’s a protective fierceness, not a mean one. Even at an age younger than I am now I can’t imagine her bullying someone. I definitely can’t imagine her pushing Amy and making her miscarry. If that was true, why were Mum and Amy friends after school? Out of the corner of my eye, I see Gina scurrying along one of the corridors.
‘Amy took Gina,’ I say, trying to keep Faith’s attention on me. ‘Am I right?’
She nods.
‘Where’s Mum? Is she with Amy?’
Faith nods again.
‘Where?’
But her eyes drop to the scissors in my hand. I know in that split second that she’s going to try and take them from me.
When she lunges for me, I make the choice to throw them away. Her eyes track the trajectory of the weapon as it falls, and she makes her move towards them, but I block her way. The way we meet in the middle makes my thoughts turn straight to Hugh in the bunker when I hit him over and over. I put my hands up to defend myself and she screams, pushing me back towards the open door. Panic seizes me. Every limb grows heavier, my breath catches, my blood runs cold, but I know that I can’t end up locked in that room. Not again. I can’t allow it to happen again.
Before she can force me closer to the room, I shove her as hard as I can. The force of it makes her stumble, but as she tries to right herself, she steps on the scissors, which move beneath her feet. She loses her balance, landing heavily on the top stair. A scream rips from her throat as she tumbles over herself, rolling and flailing down the staircase. Her body bangs painfully into the wall, ricochets and continues down the next flight. I wince with every blow, every cry until finally Faith lands at a broken and twisted angle, her face bloodied by the fall. She stares up at me with glassy, unfocused eyes. The life has gone.
Gina calls tentatively up the stairs. ‘Denny?’
‘I’m OK,’ I reply, with a hoarse voice.
‘The police are coming,’ she says.
Chapter Forty-Four
EMMA
I place two fingers on Amy’s neck and feel for a pulse. It’s there. I don’t know whether I’m relieved or disappointed. But even though she’s still alive, it doesn’t mean she will ever wake up again. She could quietly die without ever regaining consciousness. I don’t know.
The keys didn’t help me but maybe she has a phone.
After taking a break, eating a little of the beef jerky and recovering from my previous exertion, I attempt to roll Amy over so that I can reach her other pocket. I twist Amy’s body left and right to make sure she doesn’t roll in the opposite direction. It’s laborious work, but I finally get her into the position I want.
When I see the rectangular outline through her jeans pocket, my heart soars with new hope. My fingers wiggle greedily into the pocket to discover the hard, smooth surface. I get better purchase on it, sliding it gently from her jeans. I’m almost back in the bars when a set of fingers wraps around my wrist.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she says, slurring slightly.
Without answering, I jam her hand against the metal bars. She lets go, but I also allow the phone to fall from my fingers. It bounces on its corner; drops back from the bars. We both lurch towards it at the same time. I’m hindered by the cage; she’s hindered by her head injury. I get there first but can barely reach. My fingers stroke the surface. Amy’s hand comes down. I let out a roar of frustration and somehow flick the phone towards me, grab it and retract my arm as fast as I can.
Amy is half up from the ground as I’m dialling 999. She has to pull herself up using the bars. Half her face is covered in blood, the hair matted to the wound. Her skin is milk-white, an alarming contrast to the red.
‘There’s no signal down here, Emma,’ she says quietly.
I move the phone from my ear and look at the bars on the screen. There are none. I move to a different part of the cage and try again.
‘Give up, Emma.’
But I won’t. I try every part of the cage while keeping away from Amy. Whenever I move closer, one of her arms dangles through the bars, idly trying to catch me. We play this game over and over again as I continue to dial the emergency services.
‘You’re not going to win,’ she says. ‘You’re going to die down here. You’re never going to see your children again. This is it. Your final days on this earth.’ She gently lowers herself down onto the floor and I do the same onto my mattress. I keep the phone next to me. ‘Give up. Just give up.’
But I won’t.
Chapter Forty-Five
AIDEN
I haven’t told Mum this before, but I can admit it now. For a long time, I felt as though I was still in the bunker. My mind wouldn’t come back from there. Sometimes I’d even hear Hugh laughing because he knew that he’d tricked me into thinking I was safe. When I walked in the countryside or went to the cinema or took Gina to the park, he’d be there in the back of my mind telling me that soon I would be going home to him, and those thoughts were dark, sour things that I couldn’t shake.
I was a bitter, angry person. Though I rarely raised my voice, inside I would be screaming. And in therapy, that bitterness would come out. It took time, but eventually I stopped hearing Hugh’s laughter and most of the bitterness eb
bed away.
Now Gina’s back, I feel like part of myself has returned. But there’s still a piece of my family missing, and I need to find her.
‘Tell me what happened,’ I ask Gina. ‘Tell me everything before the police get here.’
We’re sitting on the bottom step of the stairs, staring at the front door. I wanted to keep her away from Faith’s dead body. No child should have to see something like that. She snuggles into my side as though we’re on the sofa watching X-Factor.
‘The lady told me Mummy wanted me to go with her. She said she was Mummy’s friend.’
‘Was it Faith?’
Gina shakes her head. ‘No.’
Amy then, I think. It was Amy who kidnapped Gina.
‘What happened after?’
‘We walked a long way. I got scared. When I tried to run away, the lady said she’d hurt Mummy if I didn’t do what I was told.’
‘It’s OK, Ginny, you’re safe now. Nothing like that is ever going to happen again. What happened after you were walking. Did the lady give you to Faith?’
She nods her head.
‘Did Faith hurt you?’
She shakes her head.
‘Have you seen Mummy since you came to this house?’
She shakes her head again.
I ask her some more questions about whether Faith fed her properly. It seems, at least, that Faith did make sure Gina had enough to eat and kept her in the bedroom with the en-suite bathroom for the duration of her kidnapping. About the size of the bunker. My spine grows cold.
There are sirens and blue lights outside. I take Gina’s hand and we look for the keys to the door to let the police in. I find them in the top drawer of a cabinet. Just before I unlock the door, I pull Gina aside.
‘Did Faith mention anything about a church or a chapel?’
Gina shakes her head.
As I let the police in, I can’t shake the feeling that Faith’s throwaway comment about the chapel on her father’s grounds was important. Could it link back to the plans I found in the Manchester flat? The ones Hugh drew up, that I scribbled on when I was a child. She said Hugh had been friends with her father for about eight years. That might coincide with the time Hugh decided he wanted a second bunker for another child. Could Mum be stuck in that building?
The PC registers shock when I give him mine and Gina’s names. He goes to contact his station and I tell him to get in touch with DCI Stevenson.
‘You did a good job calling the police, Ginny.’ I rub her head, noticing how Faith has plaited her hair, like she’s a doll.
‘Mummy showed me how,’ she replies. I almost laugh. I’d rolled my eyes every time Mum ran through an emergency drill, showing us both exactly how to call the police on a mobile and a house phone, but she’d been right after all.
Gradually, more and more police officers arrive at Faith’s house. A black body bag is carried away. She’ll never message me again, and I’ll have to come to terms with that, but for now DCI Stevenson steps into the foyer.
‘Is everything all right, Aiden? Gina?’
‘She hasn’t been hurt.’ I tell him the story of how Amy kidnapped Gina and used her friendship with Faith to keep Gina here. It’s my suspicion that Amy manipulated Faith, using plans that Hugh started while he was alive but never finished. ‘Faith is the one who sent me those Instagram messages. I guess this is all my fault. I let her into our lives.’
‘The thing is,’ he says. ‘She could’ve been good. She could have become a lifelong friend. Someone to pass the time with. She could’ve helped you at some point. It just so happens she was bad. There’s no way of knowing. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Perhaps we’ll go over a few ways you can keep yourself clued up in future.’
I nod, relieved that he didn’t give me a dressing down for being so dumb. I glance across at Gina, sitting at the kitchen table being distracted by one of the PCs showing her a magic trick with a fifty pence piece.
‘Faith said something about Hugh wanting to buy a chapel on her father’s estate. I don’t know if Dad told you, but I found some old drawings from the bunker. There were plans on the back. Grandad looked at them and thought they looked like a church or a chapel or something. I think Hugh was building another place for a child and using Faith’s father’s estate. She hinted that he was abusive. Maybe it was some sort of arrangement.’
Stevenson’s face pales. ‘I’ll have a unit search the grounds.’
‘Can I come?’ I ask.
He nods.
As we head outside, I realise that the Indian summer has broken, and it’s now raining. A light drizzle, with a hint of warmth in the air. There’s a damp smell that makes me think there’ll be a much worse downpour soon. I remember the way water would run into the bunker. The mildew air that came first.
Faith’s family home stretches into fields, some of which are heavy with dense crops of trees. We dodge through the trees looking for some sort of outbuilding. Every part of the house and its cellar has already been checked, but Stevenson believes some households used to own small chapels outside their main building. It seems to me that some people have too much and others too little. There’s no rhyme or reason to who gets what. Nothing is fair or equal.
‘Over here!’
The group turn left in unison and continue on beneath the thick canopy of trees. Once we come to a clearing, I see the small building.
The PC points to a lock on the front door. ‘Anyone got bolt cutters?’
Once the appropriate tools are passed along, he snaps away the lock and the door opens with a creak.
Inside there’s no electricity. The police turn on their torches, sweeping them across the floor, up the walls, the ceilings. I don’t like the smell here. It’s too damp, too earthy.
Stevenson stays close to me as we make our way between the old rows of pews. They’re dusty. In disarray. There are puddles of water on some from the leaking roof. My stomach flips over. I want to call out to her, but my voice is lodged deep inside my throat.
‘There are some stairs back here,’ someone shouts.
The team continue down to the back of the church. I hold my breath. The officer who shouted goes down first.
With each step, my legs feel unsteady. I hear Hugh’s voice laughing at me in my mind. I’ve already killed her, he says. But I won’t listen to it. I found Gina safe and sound. I can find Mum, too.
By the time I reach the bottom step I know something is wrong. There would be voices by now, but there’s been nothing but silence so far. I swing the torch back and forth, checking each wall, each dusty cavity. The officer says it for me.
‘There’s nothing here.’
Chapter Forty-Six
AIDEN
We arrive back in Bishoptown at midday. Stevenson drops us both at Dad’s B&B, where there’s a welcoming party for Gina. Even Josie is there. But none of that matters, because the one person Gina asks for isn’t here and she doesn’t understand why.
Grandma takes Gina for some lunch and a bath while I tell everyone what happened. No one speaks until the end. I hold my breath, waiting for them to tell me how stupid I am, how I messed everything up. No one does. Then Grandad pours everyone a whisky and we collapse into the sofas.
‘Emma’s still out there,’ Dad says. ‘She’s still missing.’
Josie leans forward on the sofa. ‘I got your email, Aiden. About the picture your investigator found. He said the person who took it was somewhere in the Midlands. Well, I remembered something. Hugh and I once went on a trip to the Midlands, about six or seven years ago.’
‘Did he take you to a church?’ I ask.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I think he did. It wasn’t a proper church, though. It was this old abandoned chapel in the woods.’
My heart begins to beat faster. Dad rests his elbows on his knees. Even Grandad is listening intently.
‘Are the plans still here?’ I ask Dad.
‘Yes,’ he says.
After he’s gathered e
verything, we spread them out over the table along with the picture of Amy in the supermarket. Dad fetches his laptop and we load Google maps on the screen.
Josie points to the map. ‘This is Lower Rothby, the village we stayed in.’ She pinches the screen and zooms in. ‘I think this is the shop from the photograph.’ Josie leans back in her chair. ‘I remember this strange building. We went walking in the woods and Hugh insisted we veer away from the path, which I thought strange at the time. It was as though he knew where we were going.’ She pinches the map again, zooming in. ‘These woods. We walked until we found this old, rundown chapel. The roof was sagging in and the doors were all crumbly. This was two years ago, so God knows what kind of condition it’s in now.’
‘Can you remember whereabouts in the woods it was?’ Dad asks.
She shakes her head. ‘I think we walked from the road here. But we were walking for a while. There was a half-built wall blocking it from the main path, but Hugh made me walk around it. I felt like I was trespassing. It was pretty isolated. Easy enough to hide someone.’
Another woods, another abandoned building. Another small village with a small population. This is Hugh. I close my eyes and picture him standing over me, smiling. Hey, kiddo. Comfortable? Aren’t you a lucky boy with the new mattress? It’s only when Dad pats my hand that I realise my fingernails are digging into the table.
My voice has grit in it when I speak. ‘We need to go there. Now.’
Grandad says. ‘You need some rest.’
But Dad nods to me. ‘We should leave now.’
We’re in Dad’s car, silent except for the sound of the engine and the rain on the window. It’s misty outside, with smears of yellow and red lights tracking up and down the wet motorway. In the backseat, Josie is taking a nap. I keep staring at the blur of the cat’s eyes, Hugh’s voice at the back of my mind. A laughing voice that repeats over and over that Mum is already dead.
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