by Pryke, Helen
‘I want you to stay away from them now, I don’t want you contaminating them like last time. Yes, I know. It’s only a matter of time before they have to go down to the cellar. Everything’s ready. Jane’s already tasted the fire… I will use it again, when the time is right. And this time I’ll purify us all together.’
* * *
Charlotte had no idea how long she remained hidden behind the sofa after he made his way upstairs, each step creaking under his slow, heavy tread. She didn’t move for ages, terrified he would come back, until eventually she could bear it no more. She slowly edged her way out from behind the sofa and stood, stretching her arms and legs with relief. She went to the kitchen to get herself a glass of water; the constant fear had left her with a raging thirst.
‘I didn’t hear you come down.’
Charlotte almost dropped the glass, and bit on her tongue to prevent the scream from coming out. ‘Jane!’ she hissed. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Same as you.’ She raised her hand, the glass twinkling in the moonlight coming through the window.
Charlotte filled her glass at the sink, her hands shaking so much she was sure she’d drop it.
‘You all right?’
Charlotte desperately wanted to talk, share what she’d heard that night. ‘I…’ She stopped. She still wasn’t sure where she stood with Jane. Could she trust someone who kept herself shut away in her room, only coming out for five minutes to eat and drink, and ignored Charlotte whenever she saw her? Especially after Jane had betrayed her before. No, what little trust she’d had was gone. And she needed to process what she’d overheard – were they the ramblings of a madman, or was he seriously thinking of killing them, and himself? ‘I had a nightmare and woke up, so thought I’d get myself a glass of water,’ she said instead.
‘Same here. Guess we’re more alike than we thought.’ Jane sat in the shadows, her eyes glistening. ‘You look like you need to get something off your chest.’
Charlotte wavered, torn between her desire to let her feelings out and her reluctance to involve Jane. Her emotions won.
‘What would you say if I told you we’re in danger?’ she whispered, studying Jane’s face intently.
Jane leaned forward. ‘I’d say you’re being a drama queen, as usual,’ she whispered back.
Charlotte’s heart sank. ‘I’m being serious.’
‘Charlie, you had a nightmare. I get it. So did I. Go to bed and forget about it.’
‘We need to talk,’ Charlotte insisted. She drank her water and put the glass on the draining board, then stood and faced Jane. ‘Tomorrow morning. Please.’
‘What about I go upstairs right now and let him know you’re making up stories about him?’
Tiredness suddenly hit Charlotte, she couldn’t cope with Jane anymore. She slowly walked to the kitchen door, then turned round. ‘If you do, we’re dead.’
35
Maggie read the article out loud, her voice trembling slightly. ‘“A raging fire swept through a house in Butterton, killing two sisters and seriously injuring their mother, on 28 June 2002. Firefighters battled all night to put out the fire. A teenage boy, believed to be their brother, is being cared for by social services until other family members can be reached. A firefighter on the scene told us that one girl was found in her bedroom with the mother, while the other was at the bottom of the stairs. The boy had been out and came back to find the house already on fire. Neighbours had already alerted the fire brigade. The police are treating it as a tragic accident, but their investigation is ongoing”.’
‘Holy crap,’ Mike said, his face white.
‘Quite.’ Maggie pursed her lips, deep in thought. ‘It must have been pretty traumatic, coming home to something like that.’
‘Did they ever find out what caused the fire?’ Andy asked. ‘Maybe some later article mentions it.’
Maggie scrolled down the page, going past the articles immediately after the incident until she found one dated a month later.
‘“Investigators into the fire that killed two sisters in Butterton, Staffordshire, discovered an overloaded multiplug near one of the girls’ bodies and have concluded that an electrical fault started it. The investigation has now been closed. The young boy is currently living with a foster family, as he has no immediate family members”,’ she read.
‘What about the father?’ Chloe asked. ‘Wasn’t he around?’
Maggie slapped her hand on her knee. ‘You should be a journalist, Chloe. Let’s see if there’s any mention of him.’
She continued scrolling, reading each listing. But Andy was ahead of her.
‘Look.’ He pointed at the title of an article near the bottom of the page.
‘“Fire survivor committed to a mental health unit”,’ Chloe read. ‘“The teenage boy who lost his sisters in a house fire two years ago has been in and out of foster care ever since, as no other family members have ever been traced. We have been told that he voluntarily checked into a mental health unit last week, due to PTSD caused by the events of that tragic night”.’
‘He didn’t go back to his mother? She must have been in a bad way if he had to go into foster care.’ Maggie paused. ‘I don’t like the sound of this. He’s abducted two girls who have the same names as his sisters, and it sounds like he’s mentally unstable. Is there any mention of which unit?’
Chloe quickly reread the article. ‘Nope.’
‘Which paper is it?’
‘The Staffordshire Evening Herald,’ she replied.
‘That must be the local paper.’ Maggie yawned. Every muscle in her body ached, and her head was starting to throb. It was late, for her, and every twinge in her body reminded her of the danger of overdoing things. She knew from past experience that she had to stop and rest. She stood up and stretched. ‘Sorry, guys, but I’m exhausted. I can’t do any more tonight. Why don’t we carry on tomorrow morning with clearer heads? There’s still so much to do.’
Mike and Chloe started to protest, but Andy cut in. ‘Maggie’s right. We’ve got a lot done today, but we’re not robots. Let’s get some rest and start fresh first thing tomorrow.’
They both nodded, their faces a little sullen.
Maggie sighed. ‘Okay, I guess I should tell you. I’m ill, not cancer or anything like that, but I have an auto-immune disease and it knocks me out every now and then. I have to be careful, stress can trigger a flare, which will put me out of action for days. I can’t risk my health deteriorating and taking days to recover, not right now.’
‘Oh. Okay.’ Chloe looked embarrassed.
‘You weren’t to know. I don’t go round telling everyone, not if I don’t have to.’
‘No problem, we can stop here,’ Mike said. ‘We understand.’
Chloe nodded in agreement.
‘Thanks. I’ll go and get us a drink,’ Maggie said. She didn’t like to disappoint them, especially when they were so close, but she couldn’t do anything else that evening. She listened to them chatting from the kitchen as they continued to read the articles, and smiled at their enthusiasm.
‘Mags, put that down. I’ve found something,’ Mike said as she returned carrying a tray.
‘I thought we said enough for today.’
‘You’re going to want to read this,’ Andy said.
‘Okay, what did you find?’ she asked, amused at Mike’s flushed face. He didn’t usually show his emotions, but the day had left them all agitated.
‘This medical report.’ Mike gestured at a headline in the list of search results on the computer screen.
‘And?’ Maggie was tired, she wished he’d just come straight out with it.
‘It was written by the psychiatrist from the mental health unit.’
* * *
Maggie wandered into the living room, yawning, and almost jumped out of her skin at the sight of a body on the sofa. It stirred at her squawk.
‘Sorry, I forgot you stayed. Scared the life out of me.’
Andy r
uffled his hair, a sleepy grin on his face. ‘Not used to having someone over, eh?’
‘Not just lately, no. I’ll put the coffee on, if you want some.’
‘I always knew I’d wake up with you one day,’ he said with a wink.
‘In your dreams.’ She threw a cushion at him and shuffled through to the kitchen, tying her dressing gown more tightly around her. She sighed as the smell of coffee permeated the house, breathing in its aroma.
‘Mike and Chloe will be here soon, so make yourself decent.’ She handed a mug to Andy and sat down on the sofa next to him.
‘I’m always decent.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Okay, you know me too well. Let me drink this, then I’ll go and freshen up.’
‘Great. As soon as they get here, we’ll get cracking. I thought you could try and find out where Kevin Bourne is, while I look for James Sorensen.’
‘I’ll message some of Kevin’s Facebook friends, maybe someone knows where he is. Otherwise, we could ask your friend Sally to help us.’
Maggie grimaced. ‘Let’s leave her out of this for now. I already had to phone her about Joe, I don’t want to take advantage.’
‘But she was pleased to hear from you, right?’
‘That’s not the point. No Sally, not for now.’
Andy held up his hands. ‘Fine. You’re the boss.’
Maggie was about to retort when the doorbell rang. ‘That’ll be Mike and Chloe, they’re early.’ She stood and glanced at Andy’s hair sticking up all over the place, his face pale under dark stubble. ‘You’d better get in the bathroom, you’ll give them a fright.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
She giggled as he dashed along the corridor, then went to answer the door. She buzzed Mike and Chloe in and waited for the lift to arrive.
‘You’re early,’ she remarked as they traipsed into the flat. ‘Let me go and get dressed, then I’ll stick the kettle back on.’
‘Sounds good, I’m dying for a coffee.’ Chloe jumped as Andy stepped out of the bathroom.
Maggie chuckled. ‘Good job you didn’t see him earlier. Make yourselves comfortable, I’ll be out in a tick.’
When she’d finished, she found Andy had prepared something to eat and fresh coffee, and they were sat around the kitchen table, waiting for her.
‘You’re lucky there’s some left,’ Mike said, his mouth full of toast. He passed her a plate. ‘So, what’s our plans for today?’
Maggie buttered a slice of toast and added a thick layer of jam. ‘I’m going to check out that article you found last night, Mike. I’m sorry I was too tired to look at it yesterday, but I’m feeling better now. Let’s hope it will give us some information we can work on.’ She took a bite of toast, surprised at how hungry she was.
‘But it was a medical report with limited access,’ he protested. ‘I tried, you can’t open it unless you’re authorised.’
Maggie winked at him. ‘Well, maybe I am.’
‘What?’ Mike’s mouth hung open.
The sight of half-chewed food wasn’t a pleasant one. ‘Ew, Mike,’ Maggie said. He mumbled an apology and hastily swallowed his mouthful of toast. ‘Thanks. It just so happens my stepfather was a psychologist, famous in his field of work. Dr David Turner.’ She looked at their blank faces and sighed. ‘Oh well, like I said, he’s pretty well known. Even though I didn’t have the best childhood with him, he comes in useful at times like this. It’s not the first time I’ve used his credentials to sign up to a site to read some report.’
‘Is that… legal?’ Chloe asked.
‘Probably not,’ Maggie replied cheerfully. ‘And I wouldn’t usually advocate doing this kind of thing, but in the circumstances, I think we can skip the moral lecture for once. And like I said, he put me through a lot of shit. I reckon he owes me.’
‘I think you owe us an explanation, Mags,’ Mike said, putting down his coffee cup and leaning back in his chair. ‘If we’re doing something illegal, we at least have the right to know why.’
‘There’s no big mystery,’ Andy interrupted. ‘Maggie wouldn’t do anything to get you into trouble.’
Maggie put her hand on his arm. ‘It’s okay. It’s about time I told them a bit about me. They’ve been patient up to now. So, my real dad died when I was one, and Mum married David a couple of years later and had another daughter with him, my sister Nicola. We were one big happy family for a while, but then things changed. I remember the first time he did it.’ She was barely aware of the two teenagers staring intently at her, while she was lost in thoughts of the past. ‘I was playing in the garden with a trowel I’d found, digging up the weeds. I’d seen Mum doing it a few days earlier and complaining about her back hurting, so I thought I’d help. Only they weren’t weeds.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘They were some plant David had lovingly tended for weeks, watering it and talking to it, and I dug it up. I was only six, I didn’t know. He dragged me indoors, his face black as thunder, and threw me into the cupboard under the stairs. I screamed as he shut the door on me, I remember how the click of the lock echoed in my head as it went completely dark.’ She shuddered, and Chloe reached out to her.
‘I cried and yelled and beat my fists on the door, then, exhausted, I dropped to the floor, scared stiff. I heard strange noises, and imagined there were shapes moving around me in the dark. I could feel long fingers touching my skin. I was so scared I wet myself. I’ve no idea how long he left me there, just that I was a quivering wreck when he finally opened the door. He did it many more times during my childhood. I never learned to be good.’
Chloe and Mike stared at her in stunned silence when she finished.
‘Is that why you freaked out when we went down into the cellar yesterday?’ Chloe asked.
‘I had a flashback when I opened the door,’ Maggie admitted. ‘It happens sometimes. Nightmares too. And think, David was a psychologist. I never got the chance to confront him about it, as he and Mum died in a car accident about ten years ago. So, no closure for me, just nightmares and flashbacks.’
‘Now we know, we can help,’ Chloe said.
‘I just hope we don’t have to go into any more cellars,’ Maggie replied with a shudder. ‘Now, let’s finish breakfast and take a look at that article.’
* * *
Maggie hit the return key one last time and gave a satisfied smile. ‘I’m in. Now, let’s see what this article by Doctor Pearson is all about.’ The others pulled up chairs next to her as she read.
‘“The patient came to me in 2004 at age eighteen and asked to be admitted to our psychiatric ward. After a preliminary examination, I agreed he needed treatment. He had signs of psychosis, with auditory hallucinations, and social dysfunction. He has been with us for ten years, during which time he has undergone various treatments and medications.
‘“During our sessions, we discovered that his problems started at age sixteen, during a house fire in which his sisters died. He blames himself for the incident, even though he wasn’t at home at the time, and repeatedly says he wants his sisters back, he didn’t mean for them to die. He has nightmares every night where he relives his sisters’ last moments, and says he can hear his mother’s voice constantly in his head”.’
Maggie looked at the others. ‘Whoever he is, this guy has a lot of problems,’ she said in a quiet voice.
‘And they released him back into society?’ Chloe shook her head in disbelief.
‘Let’s see,’ Maggie said. She carried on reading. ‘“The patient came to us after experiencing what we believe was his first psychotic episode. Although initial treatments were successful, the patient had another psychotic episode at age twenty-three, beginning just before the anniversary of his sisters’ death, where he would speak to his mother as if she were in the room with him and talk about his sisters burning in the fire. The episode worsened on the actual day, but was brought under control with stronger medication, whereupon he returned to his previous behaviour. He then had another psychotic episode this year at age twenty-eight.
Each episode was more difficult to bring under control”.’
Andy looked up. ‘That’s once every five years.’
‘You’re right.’ Maggie read the article to the end. ‘“As yet, we have no medical reason for the cyclical nature of these episodes, although we believe his tolerance to certain drugs may be responsible and this must be monitored. As per the patient’s request to be allowed to return to a normal life, it is my view that, with the right medication and medical care, he could eventually be reintegrated into society while being kept under close observation. But it’s not something we can contemplate in the near future”.’
‘Shit.’ Mike paced up and down the living room, clenching his fists. ‘We’re talking about a fucking psychopath!’
Maggie looked at Chloe’s face, white with fear. ‘Mike, calm down. We’re going to do everything we can to find him and get your sisters back, okay?’
‘What date was the last episode?’ Andy asked.
‘I don’t know…’ Maggie reread the article. ‘Here. It was 2014, the year the article was written. Why?’
Andy pointed at the screen. ‘The article was written five years ago. The anniversary of the sisters’ deaths is in three days’ time. Maggie, what if he has another episode? Who’s going to stop this asshole from hurting Jane and Charlotte?’
36
Jane hadn’t woken him up the night before. Instead, she’d gone to bed and pondered over Charlie’s behaviour in the kitchen, wondering what had happened to upset her so much. Now she listened as Charlie told her everything she’d overheard that night. Jane had to admit, she didn’t think she’d have had the courage to spy on him. Talk about walking into the lion’s den. She looked closely at Charlie as she spoke. Her face was white, her eyes red-rimmed with lack of sleep, and she looked like she would burst into tears at any moment.
