Watching Over Me

by M K Farrar

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “It’s down here,” he insisted.

  “What is?”

  “The suitcase my mother was supposed to have taken with her when she left.”

  Her heart seemed to lurch into her throat, and she stepped forward to help.

  He must have figured the case was too big and heavy for him to try to get it from the house, that he’d have never got it out without his father or someone else noticing.

  Beneath where the sofa had been, the floorboards were loose, and Edward got to work, pulling them up, revealing a hole beneath. Of course, these houses had old coal cellars built beneath them. Not that they were in use any longer.

  Edward straightened. “Look. It’s right there.”

  He stepped out of the way so she could move into position. Though there was light in the room, the coal cellar beneath seemed to absorb it, so she felt as though she was peering into utter darkness. She squinted and crouched lower, trying to peer through the gap Edward had created. As her eyes adjusted, she could make out a shape on the floor a good six feet or more beneath her.

  “Yes, I can see—”

  Something hard and heavy cracked against the back of her skull. White, bright pain exploded through her head. Her vision went black.

  And she was falling...falling...

  Then nothing.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The sound of someone groaning brought her back to consciousness. It took her a moment to realise the moans had come from her.

  Her head thumped in a steady beat with her pulse, the pain sharp and piercing in the back of her skull. She blinked against the dark, trying to piece together where she was.

  What the hell had happened?

  One moment, she’d been looking down into the old coal cellar, and the next something—or someone—had hit her over the back of the head. Edward’s father must have come home and seen that Edward was showing her what had happened to his mother’s suitcase.

  Edward.

  Was he hurt, too? Had Robert thrown the boy down here with her?

  There was something over her mouth. A wide piece of tape. The floor beneath her body was cold brick, and when she tried to move to push herself up, she realised her hands were taped as well. It didn’t take much longer to understand that her feet were also taped.

  She was in serious trouble.

  Panic surged through her like a wildfire in a high wind.

  Amy screamed behind the tape, though her voice was too muffled for anyone to hear her. She bucked and thrashed, trying to dislodge the tape from around her hands and feet. She screamed until her throat hurt, but it didn’t make any difference. The tape meant she wouldn’t be loud enough to be heard.

  Finally, she ran out of steam and slumped back against the floor, breathing in short, frantic huffs of air through her nose. What the fuck was she going to do?

  Though it was hard to see, she didn’t think Edward was down here. Had his father punished him? Had he locked him up somewhere else? Surely the boy would try to get free and go and get help?

  She needed to focus and use her head. There must be a way out of this.

  From the slats of wood above her head, she assumed she was underneath the Swain house, in the old coal cellar. Since central heating had come in, and coal was no longer used to heat homes, the cellars were all sealed up and forgotten about.

  Was there any other way out of this place? There must have been a coal chute for the coal to have been put into the cellar from the street, but most of them had been blocked up. She remembered seeing the tiny front garden, where the bins had been kept, at the front of the property. That was most likely where the coal chute had once been.

  Amy didn’t even know which direction was the front of the house. Her eyes strained against the dark. It wasn’t fully dark—the gaps in the floorboards offered the tiniest amount of light, so she could just make out shapes, but that was it.

  The smell she’d caught in the house, that she’d put down to neglect and teenage boy, was much stronger down here. Her gut churned with unease, and something niggled at her. What the hell was that? She had far more important things to consider in her current situation, but it was playing on her mind. Something she recognised instinctively.

  She wriggled and squirmed, trying to get to sitting. With her ankles bound and her hands taped behind her back, it was difficult to get upright. She’d never realised how hard it was to stand when you couldn’t use your hands or separate your feet to get your balance.

  Her feet hit the crunch of plastic, and she froze. There was something else down here.

  Fresh unease stirred inside her. The material had been all wrong for whatever her foot had touched to be the suitcase Edward had talked about. A part of her mind balked, not wanting to know. She wanted to pull her foot away and squirm to the farthest corner, but the other part of her—the part that had been searching for the truth, and that needed to know what she was dealing with—had to find out.

  Her eyes were growing used to the poor light now, and she lifted her head. The bundle was the same size as she was—too small for it to be Edward. Besides, it seemed to be body-shaped.

  Even though it was dark, and the thing was wrapped up—perhaps thankfully obscuring whatever might remain of the face, if any—Amy had no doubt as to what, or who, she shared the space with.

  Susan Swain.

  Vomit surged up the back of her throat, and she fought to hold it down. With the tape across her mouth, if she threw up, she was likely to choke. She wasn’t going to die like this, tied up and in the dark, with only the body of another woman for company.

  It wasn’t just his mother’s suitcase that had been hidden down here. Edward’s mother’s body had been sealed in plastic sheeting and secreted here as well. Had Edward known? Or had it only been the suitcase he’d seen? She found it hard to imagine that he could have known about one thing and not the other. Was it possible that he’d been so traumatised that he’d blocked the memory of the body—or what remained of it—out? If she’d had any idea that they’d have found Susan Swain’s body, she’d have called the police in an instant.

  Muffled voices came from above. The creak of a heavy foot on the floorboards.

  Amy froze, sucking in a breath. Then she burst into movement, thrashing around and shrieking against the tape across her mouth. Help! Someone help me!

  But there was no point in screaming. Whoever was up there already knew she was down here.

  She recognised Robert’s deep voice. “What the hell have you done, Edward?”

  Edward’s voice came next. “Only what needed to be done.”

  Only what needed to be done?

  So, he’d done this?

  No, no, no.

  Dismay and disbelief filled her. No, not Edward. Surely, he hadn’t been the one to hit her and tie her up.

  Fresh tears came, filling her eyes and spilling down her cheeks. With a bolt of panic, she realised crying caused her nose to block up with snot, and if she couldn’t breathe through her nose, she was going to suffocate. A fight between wanting to cry out of fear and misery, and needing to suck in breath, hyperventilating, because of the panic attack threatening to take over.

  She had to calm down. Crying and losing her mind wasn’t going to get her out of this situation.

  She couldn’t stop her mind going to the contents of the plastic. Poor Susan Swain. All this time, her body had been down here. What an awful death she must have suffered. No, not only death. Murder.

  “You’re going to have to let her go,” Robert said. “You can’t do this again!”

  Let her go?

  Please, please, let me go.

  “No!” Edward sounded exactly like what he was—a stroppy almost teenager who wasn’t getting his way. “She’s mine.”

  “What happened with your mum can’t happen again. Do you hear me? I won’t go through all that again. I’m done protecting you.”

  Realisation sank in. That
was why Robert Swain hadn’t liked her asking so many questions about what had happened to Edward’s mother. It wasn’t because he was worried Edward would say something that would reveal Robert had done something bad to his wife, it was because Robert had been terrified Edward would reveal what Edward had done. But Edward was too smart for that. He’d played Amy every step of the way. He’d made her believe he was the vulnerable one, and his father was capable of violence, and she needed to protect him. Otherwise, she would never have let him into her home, would never have followed him here. She’d been a fool.

  But there had been fear in Robert Swain’s voice, too. He might be the boy’s father, but he was frightened of him. Frightened of what he was capable of, and of what he’d already done. Had Robert Swain loved his wife at all? Maybe he had, but it seemed he loved his only son more.

  She’d got this all so wrong. She’d been sure it was Susan’s husband who’d been responsible for her disappearance, but it had been her son all along. How could he have done that to his own mother? He must have only been ten years old at the time. How did a ten-year-old kill a grown woman? But there had been cases of children committing matricide before. It wouldn’t have been the first time it had happened.

  She’d never thought him capable of doing such a thing. What had Ros said about him—that he was clever and manipulative? That some of the teachers had been uncomfortable around him? That he’d claimed he was being bullied, but the other students told a different story? She guessed she believed them now. She’d learnt for herself exactly what Edward was capable of. She’d trusted him

  “I’ve taken care of it.”

  She recognised the boy’s voice. No, he wasn’t a boy. He was a fucking monster.

  “What do you mean, ‘you’ve taken care of it?’” Robert said.

  “She won’t bother us anymore.”

  “You stupid shit. If you’d just turned up to those damned sessions and kept your mouth shut, this would all have gone away by itself. Don’t you think someone is going to come looking for her?”

  “They don’t know she’s here.”

  “Maybe not, but now we have two women connected to us who have gone missing, and I guarantee the police are going to search a little harder this time.”

  Amy gave a sob of hope. Maybe the police would search for her? But when? Who was going to miss her? There was a chance Gary would come back to the flat to pick up some of his belongings. He still had a key and would let himself in if she wasn’t there, but would he bother trying to get in touch with her? She honestly didn’t know. And it wasn’t as though anyone would miss her going into work, either. She’d been suspended, so no one was expecting her to be coming in.

  How had she ended up so utterly alone in the world that no one would even notice when she was gone?

  Chapter Twenty-six

  How much time had passed since she’d been down here?

  The father and son had long gone, though she had no idea where. Maybe they’d been tired and had simply taken themselves to bed.

  The only way she could tell the passing of time was via the amount of light filtering through the floorboards overhead, but even then, she couldn’t be completely certain if the change was due to daybreak or simply electrical lighting inside the house. She thought she’d never have been able to sleep with the amount of adrenaline racing through her veins, her whole body poised for any change in movement or sound. But as the hours dragged on, she found herself drifting off, floating in that place between awake and asleep. She jerked awake at the slightest noise, only to remember where she was and what had happened. She fought against her imagination as it tried to conjure the details of what remained in the bag. After two years, and sealed up, she was sure the body would be little more than bone and a soup of flesh, but, in the dark, her mind teased her, picturing a rotten hand bursting through the plastic to grab her ankle. Then the rest of Susan Swain’s body would tear through her swathe, using Amy’s legs to drag her decomposed remains higher and higher up Amy’s body until she was covering her completely.

  Amy was an adult. She shouldn’t be afraid of things in the dark, but under these circumstances, she thought she could probably be excused.

  There was another issue she had to deal with.

  Ever since she’d woken, her bladder had been aching. With her hands taped behind her back, there was no way she could undo the front of her jeans. They were too fitted for her to try to yank them down at the back. How long could she hold on for? She didn’t think it would be much longer. Would Edward and his father come down here soon? She couldn’t decide if that was something she wanted or not. Though she was terrified Edward would hurt her, there was still a part of her hoping this was all some horrible mistake and she could talk her way out of it.

  The pressure in her bladder intensified to the point of pain. She curled up and groaned. She couldn’t keep going like this. It could be hours before anyone came down to her. Fuck, they might not come at all. There was a very good chance they’d tied her up down here and left her to die.

  With her mind made up, Amy wriggled around and managed to get her knees under her body. From there, she was able to shuffle into the corner of the cellar. She wanted to hold on, but she doubted anyone was going to take her for a bathroom break anytime soon.

  It’s only urine. It’s natural. It doesn’t even matter.

  She knew it didn’t, not right at the heart of things, but despite her bladder being painfully full, she couldn’t bring herself to let it out. Every part of her brain rebelled against the idea of her wetting herself. It was like the ultimate in degradation, though she felt sure there was far worse to come.

  Just do it. You don’t have any choice.

  Finally, a hot rush of urine filled the inside of her underwear and spilled down her legs. She was grateful for the warmth, if only for a few seconds, but knew it would turn cold soon enough and then she’d be in an even worse position—if that were possible.

  But, for the moment, the relief she felt at no longer feeling the strain in her bladder was greater than her discomfort at the way her wet jeans clung to her legs.

  She shuffled away from the wet patch and tried to figure out what to do next. There was something else down here, not far from the bundle of Susan Swain’s body, and she realised it was the suitcase Mrs Swain was supposed to have taken with her when she’d left. Her heart broke for the other woman.

  The creak of a floorboard came overhead, and Amy froze, her face tilted upwards, watching for any sign of what might happen next. She felt dizzy. Sick with fear. A scraping followed, and extra light shone through the floorboards. Whoever was up there must have moved the sofa out of the way.

  Wanting to put as much space between herself and either Edward or Robert—or maybe both—she scrambled back as best she could, her spine pressed to the rough, cold brick of the cellar wall.

  One by one, the floorboards were pulled up.

  Her breathing came fast, puffs of air in and out of her nose. She strained her eyes in the new light, a part of her aware she should be using this opportunity to find a way out of there, while the other part was too terrified to think.

  A pair of long legs dangled through the gap in the floor, then Edward dropped down. He held a torch in one hand and lifted it to shine the beam directly in her face. Amy twisted her head away, her eyes watering at the sudden brightness after hours of being in the dark.

  “Hello, Doctor Penrose.”

  Amy screamed against the tape across her mouth, stamping both feet together on the floor. Though she knew it wouldn’t do any good, she couldn’t help herself, her natural instincts overriding any conscious thought.

  He took a couple of steps closer.

  “Don’t scream. If you scream, I’ll hurt you. You can see from what remains of my mother over there that I can do it.”

  Frantic, she glanced towards the plastic bag. Now he had the torch down here, she was able to get a better look. She wished she hadn’t. The contents were brown—a
lmost mummified—and clearly had once been human. It was better not to think about it.

  “Tell me you won’t scream. Nod.”

  Just wanting the tape to finally be off her mouth, she nodded. There was no point in screaming. The only other person who might be in the house was Robert, and Robert already knew what his son was capable of and had allowed him to do it anyway.

  Amy nodded.

  “Good.”

  He reached down and tore the tape from her lips in one smooth, determined move. She gasped with pain, the delicate upper layer of skin on her lips stripped off. Water filled her eyes, and she blinked the tears away.

  “Why, Edward?” she blurted. “Why would you do this?”

  She had been talking about herself, about him luring her to the house and hitting her and throwing her down here to be kept prisoner, but he thought she was talking about what he’d done to his mother.

  He glanced towards the plastic bag then back to Amy again. “I didn’t mean to kill her. She wouldn’t give me what I wanted. I horrified her.”

  Despite his words, the lack of emotion in his tone was terrifying.

  She was almost too scared to ask. “What did you want from her, Edward?”

  “I just wanted her to hold me.”

  He reached to touch the ends of her hair, stroking them between his fingertips. Amy pressed her head against the wall behind, as though she could merge into the brick.

  “My mum had hair just like yours,” he said. “It was the first thing I thought when I saw you. It felt like someone had hit me in the chest.”

  Amy’s mind blurred with confusion. What was he talking about? She’d seen a photograph of Susan Swain when she’d pulled up the newspaper article and she’d thought the other woman had had light-brown curls, nothing like her straight, almost-black hair. Her fear was so intense, she could barely breathe. How had she missed it? Edward was crazy.

  “I mean, I knew you weren’t her, but just for a moment, I felt like I was standing in front of her again. And then you were so kind to me. I liked that. I wanted someone to care about me.”