The Rotting Spot

by Valerie Laws

  ‘Erica Bruce will kick up a fuss, I’ll bet.’

  ‘Yes, Hassan, I can’t wait. I’d nail these smug bastards if I could, and I’m gonna try, believe me, but I can’t help feeling we’re sunk.’

  ‘How, ye!’ A strident voice behind them carried on a puff of cigarette smoke cut in on their reflections.

  They swung round to see Stacey, carrying Noosh, little legs almost horizontal in the effort to encompass her mother’s massive hip.

  ‘Stacey, would you mind,’ began Sally, unable to face another tirade about when Stacey’s ‘compo’ for sexual abuse would be forthcoming.

  ‘Yeah, I fkn do mind! Ye’s lot, ye cannot do owt! Waste of taxpayer’s fkn money, the lorra ye! Ah give yer a solid tip- off, and where’s that hippy lass, eh? Lerra gerra way, did ye? Fkn useless, man!’

  ‘Tip off?’

  ‘Ye knaa, I tellt ye that Erica bitch was in the Seatons’ crib, and wodda ye dee? Fkn nowt! Nee reward for the likes of me, naa, just cos she’s posher than me, ye hush it up, fkn bizzies …’

  ‘It was you was it? There’s a law against making false emergency calls, you know,’ Will was in no mood for Stacey. Noosh’s huge eyes were fixed on him in a most disconcerting way as drool ran down her chin.

  ‘Whey it wasn’t false, man, fkn hell!’ squawked the unlikely Madonna of Stonehead. ‘I see her go in, ’bout an hour ago, more mebbes, and I’ve been sat here eva since, I seen the Seatons gan in, and ye gan in, but I’ve not seen hor gan oot! I bet ye never searched, did ya? Oh no, take the word of the stuck up Seatons … the lass’ll be hiding, man, she’ll likely come oot and morder the pair of them, and it’ll be your fault, man, ye’ll get sued good and proper, cos ye ignored me valuable fkn information – I’ll gan to the tabloids, man, it’s a fkn scandal man …’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Stacey,’ said Sally, stroking Noosh’s soft cheek with her little finger.

  ‘Gerroff me bairn! That hoose man, it’s got cellars and aal sorts, secret passages, so they say, and I knaa they’ve got a hidey-hole doon there, me mam tellt iz, she used to play with their Molly ye knaa, will ye listen man!’

  From the window, Liz watched the police car pull away, Stacey Reed giving them the finger as they went. Probably after her compensation again … Stacey’d unknowingly repaid the care Liz’d given her, all right. Her allegations about Spence lent credence to his guilt; a surprise ally, a free gift … pity the summer days are so long, Liz reflected, stroking her husband’s hair. Erica will be dead by now, but I can’t move her til dark. Better get a body bag from the hospital though … at least that’s done now, she can’t give me any more trouble. And she can’t get near Lucy again, either.

  The doorbell rang. The cruel hope rose again in Liz’s heart. This time, it must be … She headed back towards the door, to find Seymour had got there first. He flung it wide, his face alight with hope, and the three police officers walked in past his open arms as he gazed stupidly at them.

  Liz confronted them. ‘Was there something else?’

  ‘You told us earlier you haven’t seen Erica Bruce today.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘We have reason to believe she may be in this house.’ Will snapped out the words.

  ‘Rubbish! Really, Inspector,’ Liz snorted, but her pulse began to race. Danger, danger … Will noted her tiny, almost imperceptible, involuntary glance towards the door under the staircase.

  ‘We’d like to check, please.’

  ‘Not without a search warrant, you don’t! How dare you!’

  Seymour stood now beside his wife. ‘Really, this is too much…’

  ‘Surely you can’t object to us looking? A possible intruder in your home?’

  ‘How could she have got in?’ Seymour asked. ‘There’s no sign of a break-in. The alarm didn’t go off.’

  ‘We just got a call from the station, sir. Apparently Steve Jackman reported that after Ms Bruce left his home, his key to Hex Tower was missing. This makes it more likely that our original, erm, informant, was correct.’

  ‘Well look all you like, Inspector, she’s not here.’ Seymour stood aside. ‘But I’ll be reporting this to your superiors.’

  ‘No!’ Liz shrieked. She lunged forward to grab the door knob, but Sally was faster, and had the door open before Liz grabbed her. The other two officers pushed past and charged down the stairs, as Sally restrained Liz as best she could. Seymour stared at his wife, and for a moment his eyes cleared and they exchanged looks before the agony of realisation became too much for him and he turned to face the wall, his hands over his eyes as if to protect them from seeing for a little longer.

  Hassan spotted the chest with its heavy old lid and dashed over to it. There were bolts on the outside, and he carefully slid them back without destroying any possible fingerprints. He opened the lid and gasped. Will felt a shock go through him, as he leaped forward. For a second, he took in the sight. Erica lay still, her hair tangled round her, her eyes closed, no visible sign of breathing. An acrid smell of terror-inspired sweat filled the air.

  ‘Help me get her out!’ panted Will, scooping Erica’s limp body out of the chest leaving her cast-off baseball cap behind. He and Hassan placed her carefully on the floor.

  ‘She’s dead!’ Liz’s howl was half triumph, half despair.

  ‘Guv!’ Sally Banner acted fast, snapping her handcuffs on Liz, and rushing to help, as Seymour hovered above, utterly astonished.

  Will bent over Erica, feeling her neck for a pulse. Yes! He bent his head and placed his lips on hers. At the same moment Erica’s eyes fluttered open, and her breast rose as she took in a deep breath. Will recoiled in shock.

  ‘Oh thank god, thank god,’ Sally whispered, she and Hassan grabbing Erica’s cold hands and rubbing them. Erica looked up serenely into Will’s shocked face, then abruptly burst into loud sobs, inhaling the chill cellar air in huge gulps and letting out the desperation she’d suppressed.

  ‘Erica, you – you jammy lass, you king-sized pain in the arse!’ Will put his arms round her shoulders and rested her head on his arm as she thrashed about, shaking and juddering as if in a fit. ‘Sally, make sure that ambulance is on its way.’

  ‘How did you know she was in there?’ Seymour asked, bewildered.

  ‘A tip-off from a member of the public, Mr Seaton. Hassan –’

  ‘Guv.’ And Hassan began the process of arresting both the Seatons.

  ‘I’m arresting you for unlawful imprisonment and attempted murder…’

  ‘What!’ Liz Seaton wore the handcuffs like jewellery. ‘This girl breaks into our house and hides in our cellar, accidentally shuts herself in the chest…’

  ‘Nice try, Mrs Seaton.’ Hassan took her arm. ‘I undid those bolts. No way they could have shut themselves or been shut from inside. Either you or your husband shut her in there, as I’m sure she’ll confirm when she can speak, and you let us sit upstairs while she suffocated down here…’

  ‘How she survived I don’t know. I just hope there’s no brain damage…’

  Erica jerked in Will’s grasp at his words. Her mouth worked, and she managed to gasp out, ‘You – bastard! Nothing wrong – with my brain…’

  Will laughed with relief. Sally and Hassan escorted the Seatons out, Seymour stumbling like a sleepwalker. Liz was saying urgently, ‘My husband knows nothing of this…’

  Erica began to struggle up. ‘Get me out of here!’

  Will carried her up the steps and out into the sunshine. Stacey Reed and assorted villagers and visitors gazed at the scene, as Liz and Seymour were ensconced in the police car.

  ‘I don’t need an ambulance.’ Erica fumbled for her mobile. ‘I’m calling Rina for some homeopathic remedies- rescue remedy, arnica, aconite…’

  ‘Look, Erica, alternative medicine is all very well, but you need a proper doctor…’

  ‘Yes, well if it wasn’t for my alternative lifestyle I’d be dead. How’d’you think I survived in that fucking chest? Transcendental meditation, th
at’s how!’

  ‘Meditation?’ Will was incredulous.

  ‘Slowed down my oxygen use to almost nothing. Prolonged my life. Saved my life, Will. Fact.’

  ‘That’s amazing…’

  ‘Yeah, hardest thing I’ve ever done. Clearing my mind of thought, when I was dying … only chance I had, to stay alive until she came to get me out. It was a gamble, she might have waited too long. But I could only hope she wouldn’t risk leaving me there forever.

  ‘What made you lot turn up anyway?’

  Will told Erica about Stacey and Steve’s phone calls.

  ‘So Steve grassed me up,’ she said disgustedly.

  ‘Good thing he did! Erica, if you didn’t know we were coming, by doing that meditation thing, you might have been, well…’

  ‘Prolonging the agony. I know. I just felt I had to give myself every chance. But I was sure I’d had it.’ She began to shake again as the ambulance arrived. ‘Fuck, that cow…’

  ‘Will you be ok?’ Will helped Erica into the ambulance.

  ‘Yeah, you go and do your cop thing … I think they killed Molly, Will. Don’t know if you can prove it…’

  ‘We can get them good on what they did to you, Erica, so you haven’t suffered in vain.’

  ‘Oh good, that makes me feel so much better.’

  Will shut the doors, and turned towards the police car. He felt strangely sick and shaky. So much that was horrible had been hidden in Stonehead all these years.

  ‘Ah saved that lass’s life ye knaa,’ Stacey was announcing. ‘Them two had ’er chained up in a sex dungeon…’

  He opened the car door. Outwardly so different, Stacey and Erica were both survivors, both tougher than they looked.

  A small yellow car shot into view, skidding to a stop. Will paused, looking at the new arrivals. Erica, looking out of the rear window of the ambulance, saw a slim tanned girl, with bleached blonde hair, leap out, together with the tall frame of Steve Jackman who put an arm round her. They stood stock still, at the sight in front of Hex Tower. Despite the hair, recognition was inevitable. Even after five years.

  ‘Wait, stop! Let me out – Lucy!’ Erica banged on the door, but the ambulance pulled away, taking her from Stonehead, where Lucy had just returned to find the couple she’d been raised to call her parents under arrest. Erica, pressed to the window, glimpsed Liz Seaton’s white face through the car window, reaching out her handcuffed hands towards her daughter, as she was carried out of sight.

  30

  Some weeks later

  Ivy Lodge

  Erica was sitting with Rina having lunch between appointments, when Steve Jackman walked in.

  ‘Sorry, I haven’t an appointment, any chance of a word, Erica?’

  ‘I’ll go and do something else, if you like, Erica,’ Rina got up to go with a backward look at her friend.

  ‘No Rina, it’s ok. Steve, Rina knows all about it, well as much as I know.’ Erica didn’t fancy being alone with him after the events they’d shared and witnessed. The kissing, the betrayal of her theft to the police. She didn’t know where he stood or what his relationship with Lucy now was. She was getting counselling to help with her suffocation nightmares, but there was a lot still unresolved.

  ‘Lucy not with you then?’ Her tone was ironic.

  ‘Er, no, she’d still rather not, you know, see you. This whole thing’s been very difficult for her…’

  ‘Yeah, not exactly a walk in the park for me either.’ Rina took Erica’s hand in hers. Erica let her.

  ‘Yeah, Luce’s getting counselling and all that.’

  ‘Good. Maybe she can learn not to blame Erica for trying to help her, and for what her own family did to each other.’ Rina was hostile.

  ‘She doesn’t blame you, Erica, it’s just … she can’t cope with seeing you right now, as well as everything else.’

  ‘Whatever. Just say what you have to say, Steve, why don’t you.’ Erica swigged mineral water with hands that shook only a little.

  ‘Yes, where was Lucy all that time everyone was looking for her?’ demanded Rina.

  ‘With her mate’s – you know the one who did the DNA test for her? Her mate’s cousin runs a woman’s refuge in London. Told them she was hiding from an abusive husband.

  ‘Poor Luce, that day,’

  ‘Father’s Day,’ put in Erica wearily. More fucking irony.

  ‘Right. She visited her gran and Violet in Point View, heard about her gran’s secret first boyfriend, put two and two together and realised our Toby’s colour blindness meant Peg was her mother, not Liz. She was devastated.’

  ‘Devastated, and wrong. Molly was her mother.’

  ‘Well, anyway, she was really upset, you know? Brought Tobes to me, went haring back to Hex Tower to have it out with her family. Parked the car, feeling really ill with shock, thinking her dad had made her aunt pregnant, you can imagine … well of course you can. She felt dirty, like she was contaminated, thought about her blood, her rotten blood, she actually cut her wrist with the car keys, bled a bit, didn’t do it properly. Sort of symbolic gesture … anyway, she couldn’t bring herself to go in and ask them. Still hoped it was some mistake. So she nipped in, all was quiet, she nicked Liz’s mascara, and legged it. She had her gym stuff in a rucksack in the car, she changed, put her clothes in the rucksack instead, and ran off down the beach like a jogger. Left everything the Seatons had given her. Tied her hair up and put a wide sweatband round it. Went all the way to this mate’s house, running like a mad thing, then walking, she was shattered, asked her to do a DNA test on the quiet for her. Mate fixed her up with dosh to get to the refuge and some hair dye. She’s been blonde for three weeks.

  ‘Course, events took over. Molly’s skull turning up, Spence’s death, she was scared to come back with all that was going on. Still waiting for her result. Which told her Liz wasn’t her mother. And now she has to deal with the fact that Molly was.’ Steve shuffled uncomfortably before the gaze of the two women.

  ‘So what now?’ Erica put down her glass. She didn’t offer Steve a drink.

  ‘She won’t see Liz. Or Seymour. She’s visiting Peg though. Poor old Peg’s really cracked up now.’

  ‘So Liz’s lost her family,’ said Rina. ‘The whole thing is horrible. How will Peg ever know what happened to Molly, Liz and Seymour won’t say will they?’

  ‘No, they just keep saying I harassed and intimidated them and they locked me in the chest to scare me off. Though the fact I was there while the police came and went doesn’t look good for them. I have to say, Steve, it pisses me off, that they’re going to get away with murder. Double murder. Poor Mickey … Molly and Mickey, two innocents, the skull and the skull-hunter, both victims of Liz Seaton’s greed and jealousy, and Seymour’s perviness.’

  ‘Yeah, I hear his ex-conquests are coming out of the village woodwork all over the place,’ Rina said coldly. ‘Seems like he thought he had droit du seigneur over the village girls years ago. Odd to think Liz was so jealous of Peg, when everyone thought it was the other way round.’

  ‘Fiona in the Stone Arms hinted Seymour couldn’t keep it in his pants. Liz and Peg, it’s like Blake’s poison tree,’ said Erica, remembering her dream. ‘Liz destroyed her foe, Peg, who’s now stretched out under her fucking branches. At least old Lily’s too far gone to realise what went on. Oh well. Then there’s the trial, not looking forward to that. Giving evidence…’ She thought of Liz’s eyes on her in a court room. But after all, she’d won the day. And lived.

  ‘They won’t budge on their statements, I hear.’ Erica had been in touch with Will. They’d been for a drink a time or two. They’d almost managed a normal conversation at times. ‘I’d expect Liz to stick to her story, but Seymour won’t crack, insists they gave Molly money and she went off baby-less but alive.’

  ‘They’ve had long enough to rehearse their stories, get them perfect. What now for Lucy then?’ Rina turned to Steve.

  ‘Yeah, she can be an actress now or whateve
r,’ said Erica.

  ‘Well, she’s sticking with medicine. Wants to make a difference. Help people. She’s going to specialise in genetic disorders. And, er,’ he glanced at Erica, ‘she and me, well we’re getting back together. Getting married in fact. Be a proper family for Toby. So…’ He let his voice trail off.

  So I won’t get to kiss you again, thought Erica. Big fucking deal. Even though his phone call to the police had saved her life, she couldn’t get past his reporting her taking the key instead of trying to get it back from her. Still trying to keep in with the Seatons then, wasn’t he? Boy did he back the wrong horse.

  To break the awkward silence, Rina said, ‘I see Stacey’s sold her story to the tabloids. Made some cash with her lurid account of saving Erica, not to mention hints of Seymour abusing her. Now she says her allegations about Mickey were a cry for help, that the real culprit was too powerful locally…’

  ‘She deserves every penny.’ Erica put in. ‘I hope she puts some by for Noosh. And some relationship counselling for her mum and dad. I’ve passed Julie on to a colleague. I can’t deal with all that just now. And good luck to you and Lucy, and little Toby. I think you’re doing the right thing.’

  ‘Yeah, thanks, well, ok, I’ll be going,’ and he walked out with obvious relief. He stuck his head back round the door.

  ‘And Lucy says, thanks, and you don’t owe her a thing, never did. Wishes you luck.’

  He was gone. ‘Big of her,’ remarked Rina. ‘Are you ok about Steve and Lucy getting back together?’

  ‘Oh yeah. It’s better for all concerned. I’m not holding my breath for a wedding invitation either. And I’m doing all my running in the opposite direction in future, anywhere but Stony Point. And the next time I see a skull on the beach, I’m running right on by.’