by Nina Milton
I didn’t delay. I skittered across the kitchen like a wild animal seeking shelter. I bunched up in a corner by the sink. I must have looked done-in, helpless, lifeless. But my mind was whirling—fighting for my existence.
The trail of rope led from the block to my trembling form. She picked up the end of it. She was thinking again—constructing the perfect plan. I needed her to stay unfocused. I liked it when she talked; it made her forget to plan.
“Why didn’t you go home, Linnet?”
“Home?” Her frame swayed. Maybe it was the whisky. The bottle was almost empty, but most of it had been poured over me, soaking my jumper. I prayed she wouldn’t pour the alcohol on my scraped scalp. She looked desperate. Was she desperate enough to tell her story to someone who couldn’t pass it on?
“Back to Arnie, and your mum.”
She licked her tongue around the inside of her mouth. She was remembering. “Terry and Vron didn’t believe in banks. They kept it all under the bed. I found an old sports bag and filled it with twenties. Their life savings. It wasn’t all that much by today’s standards, and you can bet your life it had all been nicked, but I felt as rich as a shipping magnate. I wasn’t going to share that with my parents. I hated them almost as much as they hated me.”
“But they didn’t …” I trailed off. This was not the time to argue.
“I came back from burying the children. I had a bath in the grotty bathroom. I used up every scrap of hot water and bubble bath. I remember so clearly lying there … I knew they were dead—under the floorboards—but every time I heard the tiniest noise I almost jumped out the bath. I couldn’t stay in that house another hour. I did my face with Kissie’s makeup and got into some of her clothes. She had nice clothes; thought a lot of herself, she did. I packed the rest of them and everything of use. I washed the bread knife of blood and put it back in the kitchen drawer. Then I drove all night, north, north, careful not to draw attention to the van. When the traffic started building, I holed up in a cheap hotel. I didn’t look much like a runaway—not driving that van and thick with makeup. They were happy enough to take my cash.”
She was almost glowing with the story, the words spilling out like winnings from a slot. Meanwhile under cover of the shadows of my corner, I was easing my wrists apart from each other. The bonds held; they were looser, but I couldn’t get my hands out. At least I could feel my hands now—pins and needles jabbing all over them.
“It’s not just the name.” I kept my voice low, not wanting to rile her but desperate to understand. “The Linnet I met in your office … had drinks with … that’s not the same person as Patsy.”
She shook her head several times, as if in disbelieving agreement. “I thought I’d spend that cash like it was the spit from my mouth. Party time at last! But I was too obsessed with what I’d done. Was I guilty? If I’d been caught, charged, taken to court, what would a judge say about my crime? Would he say that stabbing two murderers to death was an execution they deserved?”
She hadn’t answered my question. Maybe she didn’t know herself. She came towards my limp body, the rope in her hand. I looked away. I wasn’t up to a fight. I had no strength left. She lifted my feet. She wound the rope round my ankles and finished it with a couple of half-hearted knots … half hitches, Girl Guides call them. I’d never even been a Brownie, and I regretted my lack of knot knowledge now.
“I was witness, arresting officer, jury … lawyer,” she went on, as if tying my legs was something I’d requested. “I argued the case in my head—searched out books in the library.”
I’d imagined an expensive school, prosperous parents to pave the way to a top law degree. I was way off on that one.
“Night school,” said Linnet, as if she guessed my line of thinking. Her eyes burned red. “Remember the phoenix? Yes, it does work, that myth. You can combust into flame and be reborn. I never wanted to be Patsy Napper ever again. And I did want to help people, Sabbie. Because I hated Kissie and Pinchie. Those bastards never stopped being thirsty for pain, for blood, even after they died. Wanting to do it again . And for a while—quite a while really—I fought against it. I prosecuted the accused and got convictions. It was how I kept them at bay, Sabbie. Kept them at a whisper for a good number of years. I helped send the guilty to jail.”
She gave herself a shake. For a moment, she’d forgotten her agenda, but she was back on course. “Stay there, won’t you?” It was a rhetorical question, but I don’t think Patsy had been a Girl Guide, either; she was overconfident about her knots and underestimated me, something I attempted to reinforce by swooning back against the sink.
Her clipping shoes took a swerving course to the back door. I heard the lock turn and the door slam. What was she doing? How long would she take to do it? If I’d had my walking boots on, it might have been difficult to get out of the half-hitched bindings though not impossible—without boots, I easily slid one foot free and then the other.
I got up. The knife winked at me. I went over to the block. Everything in reverse. It is hard, using your hands when they are bound behind you. Like doing something in a mirror. I turned away and leaned backwards over the block. Then I felt something—a pressure—but my hands were still coming back to life—I wasn’t sure if the blade was pushing against the rope or my skin. I didn’t know if I could cut the rope, even though I was stretching it taut, keeping my hands as far apart from each other as possible. I didn’t know if the knife would stay in place, embedded though it was. I couldn’t see what I was doing, or if it was working. But I did trust the sharpness of Linnet’s blade as I sawed, up and down, pressing as hard as I dared.
I kept glancing towards the kitchen door as I worked. As life came into my fingers, I felt sweat drip onto them, warm and sticky. Not sweat. Blood. I worked faster. Something gave. A sort of ping. It was not enough, not quite. I sawed again. I felt the knife slide away from me. It was coming loose. My hands broke apart just as it clattered to the floor. I struggled out of the final lengths of rope.
At last I stood, holding my arms in front of me. It was wonderful to see them again. I’d cut the heel of my left hand, just a slice of flesh gone, no real harm done. I bent down and gripped the handle of the knife, moving it from fist to fist to get my hands working. I doubted it had as much as sliced a carrot since its arrival in this kitchen, and now it was smeared with my blood and my hair. It was both adversary and ally.
I knew I would not follow Linnet. I never wanted to see her again or hear Patsy’s voice come out of her lips. I stumbled across the kitchen, into the hall. Opposite the office with the dreadful tunnel fireplace was the front door, leading to the porch. I wrenched the catch open. There lay my walking boots, a memory of ancient times. I reached for them, fumbling with the laces.
Darkness had fallen. On the other side of the glass porch door I could see nothing but night. Then the brilliance of a flashlight swung across the dark garden. I felt my blood curdle. Not that way. I turned and hurtled along the passageway towards what must have been one of the original cottage doors, low and with a latch, which stood at the very end of the passage. I was hoping it would let me out into a different part of the garden, closer to the car, but steep cottage stairs loomed up in front of me, confined by a wall on each side.
I took a quick glance behind me. The passageway, framed with insipid floral pictures, stretched the length of the house. There was no sign of Linnet. I closed the door behind me and scrabbled up the stairs, my legs trembling with terror, pain, and exhaustion, until I reached the next floor.
What was I doing here? In films, the victim always climbs, putting themselves in further peril as they inch along a window sill or up the skeleton of some suspension bridge. Now I knew the instinct is true—I had fled upwards. But I was also searching for Aidan. I opened each door as I moved along the upstairs landing. The first two were empty bedrooms, furnished for guests who had never arrived. The last was Linnet’s bedroo
m. I stood on the threshold, taking in the sight.
The room was stuffed with toys, displayed on every surface and shelf. I took a cautious step closer. It was like being in Toys “R” Us. An array of packaged goods—train sets and scooters, dolls and dollhouses, games and puzzles. But mostly, soft toys.
A hundred expensive teddy bears, shiny bows around their necks, and the squashy equivalent of every other animal that walked the face of the earth. Pastel shades and primary colours, fluffy fabrics, suede, leather, tartan, velvet, satin. The beady eyes stared at me as if I was an unwelcome stranger. This was a shrine to early childhood.
Linnet’s lost childhood, perhaps? It was not her childhood that Linnet had lost, but rather her opportunity to be a mother. A purpose concealed even from her own full sight. When she’d found Josh, trying to hide from his brother on the Bristol Downs, it wasn’t just Kissie and Pinchie who had whispered … take him … take him. Linnet had longed to own a child. I could see her leading each of them into this room—choose anything, choose as many toys as you want—and watching, perplexed, as their lips trembled. I just want my mummy. Maybe the boys really had been given an overdose that was accidental. She was a lawyer, after all, not a doctor.
Something was out of place. Between the toys and teddies, the lacy frills and silken pillows. I snapped out of my shock and hurtled towards the phone that lay on the dressing table. I punched the three nines. A man’s voice came through, calm, reassuring. When he asked me which service I required, I almost screamed down the phone, remembering to drop my voice at the last moment “Police! Ambulance! Murder, Murder!”
“Is someone hurt?”
“She murdered them,” I heard myself babbling, “the boy they found in the moors. Josh Sutton. She murdered him. She took Aidan Rodderick. It’s her!”
“Is anyone hurt,” the man persisted.
“Get DS Buckley, Bridgwater division. He’s on the case. It’s the solicitor—tell him it’s Linnet!” I sobbed at the stupidity of it all. “I think he’ll be dead. She’s got a knife. She’s mad. She cut off my hair”—I could hardly speak the word—“she scalped me.”
I took a few moments to gather the other information in my head as I spit out the complexities of Linnet’s address … quaint sounding villages … dark forests and gingerbread houses.
I watched the bedroom door like a hawk as I whispered, phone in one hand, knife in the other. But suddenly, I felt my gaze being pulled to the window. It was no longer pitch black outside. A powerful light beamed across on the clipped lawn, with its statues and mature trees, and in that light a slight movement caught my attention, so that the voice on the phone faded. For a moment, I was sure I had seen the wings of a large white bird, slowly rising from the ground. It had to be a vision, something in my own mind. Then I realized. It was neither bird nor vision. I dropped the phone and ran.
TWENTY-NINE
I came out from the front porch and pinned my body flat to the side of the house, moving slowly along the wall, keeping my footsteps silent. As I turned the corner, the grass below me turned from green to black as the security light switched off. It wasn’t detecting me, at least.
From the upstairs window, I had seen a white door rise slowly, like a swan taking flight, illuminated by headlights. Now, I located the door. It was part of the double garage. But as I pressed into the wall, I realized the headlights were not coming out of the garage. Their beam was directed the opposite way. This car had come up the drive. I peered through the darkness. It was my car. It now stood by the open garage door, its engine running, doors open like flapping ears. For a long moment, I could only gawp. What was she doing with my car?
Then I saw her. She came out of the garage, struggling under the weight of a large, pale bundle. She dipped down, hefting the thing awkwardly into the back of my car. Apparently I wasn’t the only one to regret that Mini Ha Ha only had two doors.
The interior car light was on. Its tiny yellow glow fell on the bundle as Linnet heaved it. I saw a pale oval, the face of a child, deathly still, eyes wide and unblinking. The eyes of the dead, I thought, and my mind turned red.
Linnet was taking Aidan’s body away to dispose of it.
I sprinted towards the car, my newly exposed and raw scalp burning in the cold night air. She stood, staring, her mouth open. She’d left me in the kitchen, tied, bleeding, half dead. I might have come from my own spirit world.
“You!” she exclaimed.
“Yes. Me.” I stood with my feet apart, the knife in both hands. “Me.” I could hear my breath rasp through my throat. “Going to the moors, Patsy?”
She smiled. She seemed calm. She didn’t believe I could use the knife. “Get in the car, Sabbie, you useless fucking female.”
I thought about running. But she was good at turning common items into lethal weapons—a kitchen knife, a bottle of Calpol, a chopping board. My little car, gaily ticking over, had never looked so threatening. But I had the knife now, and I was not going to let Linnet get anywhere near the steering wheel. I stood my ground.
“I can see what you’re scheming. You’ll take Aidan’s body to the burial site and soon as Cliff is released, you’ll make him go there. How will you do that? Text from an unregistered phone? Do you really think he’s that stupid?”
She laughed. The sound made me grip the knife harder. She was genuinely amused. “And where is Sabbie in that equation? Running to fetch darling detective Rey? Not quite. This is what we will do: We will drive to your house. Your phone will text Cliff when he’s released. Summon him to you. He won’t suspect a thing when I open the door to him. You … well, you’re freshly dead, bleeding over your carpet, whisky oozing into the blood—what’s not already oozing in your bloodstream anyway. Somewhere in the house, he’ll find Aidan. And at that point, he’ll do himself in, knife through the heart.”
“They’ll see through it!” I yelled. “Rey will see through it!”
“Ah, but Sabbie, they won’t want to. Josh’s death has only ever had one prime suspect: Cliff. When they find Aidan, they won’t look any further. Except with Cliff dead—by his own hand and in your house—they’ll be over your car like a rash. Forensics will be conclusive.”
Her words fired out, staccato shots. I faced her, the knife directed at her. I had the power, the weapon, the red haze of anger upon me. Because I was suddenly sure. She’d kidnapped Aidan to set Cliff up. Not like Josh—not because she’d longed for a child, or even because the ghosts in her head screamed at her to do it—but because she needed Cliff to look the guilty party. She wanted retribution, and she’d taken a child’s life to get it.
“Come on, Sabbie. Just drop the knife.”
“Fuck off.” I could do it. I could lunge forward with the knife. I could. I felt my muscles tense, ready.
The security light blazed on. I heard the roar of an engine. I sucked in the cold night air. The police! They had arrived! So soon! So magnificent!
I turned my head, just a glance. The car screeched to a halt, spraying gravel. A tall figure emerged. He was armed, legs splayed, gun primed. But this was no officer of the law.
Ivan.
“You bitch.” He gestured at me with the gun. “I’ve caught you, you whore. It’s taken me all fucking night, you perverted two-timing dyke.”
“Point the gun at her, Ivan!” I yelled. “She’s a killer!”
I turned my gaze on him for one second, imploring him to understand, but in that second, Linnet was upon me. A slash of new pain stung my cheek. She had put all her weight behind the blow. I landed against the wall of the house and slid down it. The knife flew through the air and she scooped it from the drive.
Ivan was watching us both, his face confused, the gun trained first on Linnet, then me. “I have driven round the whole of fucking Somerset looking for you. Looking for you and that damn detective.” He took a step towards us, getting us both in his sights. “Took me a l
ong time to work it out. They told me in the village. Hartley’s Wood. A woman. Keeper’s Cottage. Keeps herself to herself.”
“Ivan—”
“What the fuck’d you do to your head? Bloody short-haired fanny lovers.”
“She killed—Josh Sutton,” I screamed. “And Aidan!”
“Who?” There was uncertainty in the line of his mouth. His face was less hostile. He seemed to finally grasp that the fantasy world he’d invented was being replaced by a horrific reality.
“Aidan Rodderick.” Linnet’s voice was unruffled. “Surely you watch the television news, you caveman.”
Without a thought, she ran at him, driving her arm into him. I saw the knife sink deep. His arms and the rifle were across his chest and she went for the stomach … right into me belly, once, twice.
Ivan was coughing, his mouth tight in shock and pain. He crumpled to his knees like a toy dropped by a child, his free hand over the wound, the blood running through his fingers.
Linnet turned and came towards me. Her face was manic with triumph.
“You see?” she said, examining the blood on her knife as if it were a piece of court evidence. “I can kill.” She took another step. She wouldn’t wait any longer. She wanted me dead. But I was not watching Linnet. Ivan was still on his knees. He did not hesitate. He didn’t even need to check the safety catch.
The blast of noise was deafening. Blood exploded over the house walls on either side of my head. I felt it splat against my cheek. Linnet did not make a sound. She lifted her hands and put them behind her, feeling for the wound on her shoulder. Her pupils disappeared behind her eyelids. She made a single, high-pitched moan, then there was a thud as her head made accelerated contact with the gravel. She did not move. As she lay there, Ivan finally succumbed to his own wound. He sank, rather than fell, onto his face, his air rifle trapped beneath him. I felt a wave of nausea gurgle into my throat.
