by S J Bolton
Evi’s hands were at her mouth. She was going to fall. She reached out and grabbed hold of the banister again. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you tell someone? Your parents, your mother, surely she wouldn’t…’ She stopped. Jenny didn’t need to answer. Children didn’t tell. They were told not to and they didn’t. Children did what adults told them to do.
‘Did he threaten you?’ she asked.
Jenny was coming towards her again. She’d been drinking, Evi noticed now. ‘He did more than threaten us,’ she said. ‘He locked us in the mausoleum, with all the stone coffins. Even after my mother was laid to rest there, he’d lock us in. Or he’d carry us up to the top of the stairs, to the gallery in the church, even up to the Tor, and dangle us off the edge. By one ankle sometimes. We had to be good, he’d say, or he’d let go. I know he used to do it to Christiana too; she’s petrified of heights.’
Evi tried to blink away the picture in her head. ‘You must have been terrified,’ she said.
‘I never screamed, Evi, there was no point. I’d just close my eyes and wonder if this was the time, this was the day when he’d let go and I’d feel that rush of air and know it was over.’
She’d been wrong. Evi had accused Gillian and she’d been wrong. She’d sent Harry and Gareth off on a wild-goose chase and now Gillian could be dying, Joe and Tom were missing and Alice – where was Alice?
‘Jenny,’ said Evi, ‘has your grandfather been killing the children? Does he have Joe?’
Pull up the chain. No need to think about anything else. Pull up the chain and pray to the God who’d abandoned him that there was nothing on the other end of it. Don’t look at Gareth, who was close to losing it, could have lost it already. The only really sensible thing was to get the two of them out of there, before one of them got killed, except Harry knew he’d never do it. So pull up the chain, because they’d come this far and now they had to know.
The chain was moving, coming up with each heaving armful, but there was something heavy on the other end. Pull with his right arm, ease it over the edge with the left, don’t think, just keep going. Something was scraping against the side of the walls, something was catching, making it harder to pull up, something was getting closer.
The muscles in Harry’s arms were screaming at him and still he had no idea how much more of the chain there was to come up. Twenty more tugs and he’d have to rest. Wasn’t sure he’d make it to twenty. Ten more, seven more… no more needed. Clipped on to the end of the chain was a large canvas bag with a heavy, old-fashioned zip. Without stopping to think or rest, Harry pulled it up on to the stone floor of the hut, reached out and pulled open the zip.
Eye sockets – empty – were the first things he saw.
Tom blinked. Snow was blowing in his eyes and he really couldn’t see that well. He was definitely looking at the moon, shining through the stonework of the north-east bell tower. He risked turning his head around. The moon was over his shoulder. Two moons? Ebba was nearing the tower now. She scampered up to one side of it and looked back, waiting for him. What was she thinking of? The helicopter had passed overhead several times that day. The small roofs on the top of the bell towers would have stopped the helicopter crew seeing inside the towers themselves, but the choppers had heat-seeking equipment, they would have spotted a warm body. Ebba was beckoning him forward.
The church had been full of people. When the helicopter started its search, the police had brought everyone off the moors and they’d all gone into the church. Nearly two hundred people had been inside when the helicopter was searching. Two hundred warm bodies. Where do you hide a needle? In a haystack. Tom was close enough now to touch the bell tower, to put his hand through the stone pillars that sat at each corner. He reached out and saw the reflection of his hand coming towards him, saw his own face in the mirror-tiles that sat between the stone pillars of the tower, to create a small box on the roof of the church, just large enough to take…
‘Shall I tell you the worst thing, Evi? The worst thing he did to us?’
‘What?’ said Evi, thinking that she really, really didn’t want to know. When was the last time she’d heard Alice calling? Shouldn’t the police be here by now?
‘We have an old well up on the moor. There used to be a water mill there and some cottages for the workers. The buildings are all gone, but the well was never filled in for some reason. We built a stone hut around it to keep it safe. Safe from sheep and stray children. Not safe for us though, not Christiana and me, because he rigged up a harness and a rope, and if we were difficult, if we dared to say no or if we didn’t suck quite as hard as he wanted us to, he’d put us down the well. He’d fasten us in the harness and lower us down. Leave us there, in the dark, for hours. He did it to other children too. Until he left one down there too long and that little game had to come to an end.’
Jenny was too close, Evi had no choice but to step backwards, up the stairs. The minute she did so, Jenny followed her.
‘Jenny, you need help,’ she said. ‘You know that, don’t you? None of it was your fault, but you need help to come to terms with it. He’s damaged you. Christiana, too. I can find you someone who’ll work with you. It will take time, of course it will, but-’
Jenny leaned towards her. ‘Do you really think that sort of damage can be mended, Evi?’ she said. ‘By talking?’
She had a point. Evi just wished she wouldn’t insist on standing so close. ‘Not entirely, no,’ she answered. ‘Nothing can take away those memories. But the right therapist can help you come to terms with it. The important thing now, though, is that we find Joe. Harry and Gareth have gone up to that well. Is that where Joe is?’
Something shimmered across Jenny’s face. ‘They’ve gone to the cottage?’ she said. ‘Nobody’s been up there in fifteen years. We shut it up after…’
‘After what? What’s up there?’
‘Listen to me. Just listen to me.’
Gareth Fletcher wasn’t listening, he was screaming, banging his head against the stone wall of the hut, pounding it with both fists. Already, the skin on his forehead was scraped away, blood running down the side of his nose. Harry grabbed hold of one arm and tried to swing him round. Gareth’s loose fist came hurtling in Harry’s direction. Harry stepped back, dangerously close to the well.
‘It’s not Joe!’ he yelled at the top of his voice. ‘It’s not Joe!’
Was he getting through? Gareth had stopped howling, was leaning against the wall of the hut, his head hidden in his hands.
‘Gareth, you have to listen to me,’ said Harry. ‘This child has been dead for years. Look at it. No, you have to look at it. It can’t be Joe, I promise you, just look.’
Gareth raised his head. His eyes looked unnaturally bright as he took a step towards Harry. Harry braced himself. He was the taller of the two, but the other man was probably stronger. He really didn’t want to get into any sort of physical struggle this close to the edge of a well. He took hold of Gareth by his shoulders and forced him down until both of them were kneeling on cold stone once more.
‘Look,’ he said, opening the sides of the canvas bag. His hands were shaking as he picked up the torch and shone it inside. ‘This child has been dead for years,’ he repeated. ‘Look, you have to look. The flesh has nearly all gone. It can’t be Joe, it just isn’t possible.’
Gareth looked as though he were struggling to breathe. Each breath he took was a great, gasping sob, but he was looking at the bag, at the child inside the bag.
‘Not Joe,’ said Harry again, wondering how many times he’d have to say it before the other man believed him. Whether it really was Gareth he was trying to convince by this time.
Gareth ran a hand over his face. ‘Jesus, Harry,’ he said. ‘What are we dealing with?’
‘Joe!’
Tom blinked the snow from his eyes. He was looking at his brother, curled like a snail in the north-eastern bell tower, trussed like a Christmas turkey with ropes around his wrists and his ank
les. Joe, pale as a mushroom, cold as an icicle, but still alive. Joe, shaking like a jelly and staring up at him with eyes that had lost all their colour but were still the eyes he remembered. Joe – here – less than a hundred yards from their house, after all.
Ebba was leaning into the bell tower, tucking a filthy patchwork quilt higher up around his brother’s shoulders, trying to keep him warm.
‘Joe, it’s OK,’ whispered Tom. ‘It’s all right now. I’ll get you down.’
Joe didn’t respond, just stared up at Tom with his translucent eyes. His head was juddering, his limbs twitching. He wasn’t well, Tom could see that. Somehow Joe had survived a night and a day on the church roof; he wouldn’t last much longer. They had to get him down. Tom leaned into the tower, trying to get his hands under his brother’s shoulders. He could reach him, touch skin that felt too cold to be covering living flesh, but when he pulled, Joe stayed where he was.
Tom turned to look at Ebba. She was still crouched on the other side of the box, her over-large hands gripping the edge of the mirror-tiles, staring at him.
‘How do we get him out?’ Tom asked.
‘A child died, Evi,’ Jenny was saying. ‘A little gypsy girl Tobias found wandering around on her own when he’d gone to look at a horse near Halifax. He just left her there, up on the moor, hanging in the well.’
Where the hell were the police?
‘You’re nice to talk to, Evi. You listen. You don’t judge. I’m going to get Millie now.’ Jenny was actually pushing her way past Evi, gently but firmly, manoeuvring herself on to a higher step. Evi turned, kept a tight hold on the banister to stop herself falling.
‘No one would judge you, Jenny,’ she said. ‘You were a child. Did you never think that perhaps you could tell your father what was going on?’
Something glinted in Jenny’s eyes. ‘You think he didn’t know?’ she said.
‘Surely not?’
‘Why do you think he was so opposed to the Fletchers buying this land? He knew they had a daughter. He knows this town isn’t safe for little girls.’
Evi was struggling to take it in. ‘But his own daughters?’
‘He sent me away to school when I was thirteen, just after Heather was born. He couldn’t turn a blind eye after that. It was too late for Christiana, of course, she was too old for school.’
Evi reached out her hand, touched the other woman on the arm. ‘Jenny, we need to tell the police all this,’ she said. ‘They have to stop him before another child gets killed. I should phone them again. Get them here sooner.’ She took a step down.
‘Wait, please.’ Now Evi’s arm was caught in a tight grip. ‘I haven’t told you everything.’
Christ, what more could there be? Evi glanced at the window that overlooked the street, hoping to see the flickering of police lights. ‘What do you need to tell me?’ she asked.
Jenny dropped her head. ‘It’s so difficult,’ she said. ‘I never thought I’d tell anyone this.’
‘How do we get him out?’ repeated Tom. Ebba’s expression didn’t change, or give any hint she’d understood him. Tom turned back to his brother and tried again to pull at least part of him up. Joe wasn’t moving and Tom realized why. The ropes that bound his brother were also securing him to the tower itself.
‘Joe, I have to go and get help,’ he said. ‘There’s a policeman downstairs. I’ll be five minutes, Joe, I promise.’
Joe’s eyes had closed. Leaving his brother in the tower was the hardest thing Tom had ever done, but somehow he made himself turn and crawl back along the roof guttering. He couldn’t hear Ebba behind him and hoped that perhaps she’d stayed to comfort Joe.
He was back at the real bell tower that led down into the church. His foot found the top step and a hand closed around his bare ankle.
The two women were sitting on the stairs. Jenny had sunk down, taking Evi with her. They were both shaking.
‘When did it all stop?’ asked Evi. ‘When you went to school?’
Jenny shook her head. ‘Things got a bit better before that. He’d found someone else to pique his interest, you see. Our housekeeper’s daughter. She was blonde and pretty and very young, just what he liked.’
‘Gillian?’ said Evi. ‘He abused Gillian too?’ Was there something at least she’d been right about?
Jenny shrugged, then nodded. ‘I think Gwen Bannister guessed what was going on,’ she said. ‘She’d never have challenged my grandfather, but she got her daughter out of harm’s reach. More than anyone did for me.’
‘Did he start on you again, after Gillian left?’
‘When I was home from school, yes. And then when I was nineteen, his luck ran out. I got pregnant too. By the time I plucked up the courage to tell Dad, it was too late to get rid of the baby so he talked Mike into taking me on. And he persuaded Tobias to sign over control of the estate to him.’
‘I can’t believe your father colluded with all this. You must have felt so betrayed.’
Jenny dropped Evi’s hands. ‘Evi, men have been selling their daughters for wealth and power for thousands of years,’ she said. ‘You think it all stopped when we got to the twentieth century? But it was good for me too. I got out. And I got Lucy.’
Tobias’s daughter. Lucy had been the incestuous child of her great-grandfather.
‘What happened to Lucy?’ asked Evi in a small voice. ‘How did she really die?’
‘I loved her so much, Evi.’
‘I’m sure you did. Did he do it? Did Tobias kill her?’
‘She was only two when he started to look at her, Evi. She was blonde and gorgeous, just like Christiana and me when we were tiny. I’d watch his eyes going over her body. He could still drive back then, he’d come up to the house all the time. I would never change her or bathe her anywhere near him, but he always seemed to be hanging around her. I knew I couldn’t let it happen again, not to Lucy.’
‘But Lucy was different. She had you to protect her. And Mike.’
‘But I knew how clever he was. I knew he’d get to her in the end. So I started planning ways to kill him. It seemed like the only way. Does that shock you?’
Evi thought she was way beyond being shocked. ‘I think it’s very understandable that you should be so angry,’ she said.
‘I thought about smothering him in his sleep, putting something in his food, pushing him down the stairs, tricking him to come up to the Tor with me and shoving him off. But then, one day, I realized. I didn’t have to kill him to stop him getting what he wanted.’
‘You didn’t?’
‘No. I could kill her instead.’
Tom was being tugged downwards, his back jarring painfully on the stone steps.
‘What the fuck are you doin’?’ said a voice he knew. Two large hands grasped his waist and pulled him down more steps. ‘Back off, let us get down,’ the same voice instructed. Tom heard several pairs of footsteps retreating behind them and then he was in the church gallery once more.
‘Joe’s on the roof,’ he managed. ‘In the other bell tower, the one that everyone thinks is empty, but it’s not. He’s in there and he’s freezing and we have to get him down now.’
The four boys stared back at him, as if they’d captured an alien that had suddenly started giving them orders.
‘Your brother?’ Jake Knowles was the first to speak. ‘The one we’ve been looking for all day?’
‘On the roof?’ repeated Jake’s older brother, whose name Tom couldn’t remember.
Tom looked back at the four faces and felt like his heart had stopped beating. ‘You did it,’ he said. ‘You put him there.’
The older boy’s face twisted. ‘What the fuck do you think we are?’ he said. ‘Fuckin’ psychos?’
‘He’s actually up there?’ said Billy Aspin. ‘Alive?’
Tom nodded. ‘He’s tied up,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t get him out. I need to get my dad. What are you doing here? If you didn’t put him there, why are you here?’
‘We follo
wed you in,’ said Jake. ‘We saw you and that Renshaw cretin running through the graveyard and we followed. Got fuckin’ lost in that cellar. Where’d she go?’
‘We have to get help. There’s a police…’ said Tom, realizing he had no idea what had happened to Ebba.
‘Come on,’ interrupted the eldest Knowles boy. ‘Let’s see what he’s on about.’
Evi felt like she was burning up. Funny, she’d heard patients talk about feeling terror many times. None of them had ever told her how hot it was. Or how it seemed to throw your brain into slow motion. Jenny? Jenny was the one who’d been after Millie the whole time. No, that couldn’t be right. She’d misunderstood something. She was overtired.
‘And the really ironic thing was, Tobias did love her.’ Jenny was clutching Evi again, making it impossible for her to move. Her face was flushed, her eyes unnaturally bright. Evi had to get up somehow. Then what? Upstairs, to Millie’s room, or outside to the phone?
‘He was absolutely devastated,’ Jenny went on. ‘I made him watch, you see. I knew he was going to the church – he was churchwarden for years – and I followed him there with Lucy in my arms. I climbed up to the gallery and then I shouted for him.’
Sweat was trickling down between Evi’s shoulder blades. The police weren’t coming. Jenny hadn’t called them. And why did she have to be so close?
‘I’ll never forget it,’ she was saying. ‘He came out of the vestry and I was dangling her from her ankles, the way he used to do to me, and she was screaming and screaming and I could see him shouting at me, yelling at me to stop. He started running forward and I let her go, just like that.’
The smell of the woman was almost worse than the heat: alcohol and perspiration and exotic flowers. Evi knew it was going to make her retch if she didn’t move. Hands down, push hard, ignore the pain; she had strong arms, it would work.
‘It took so long for her to fall,’ Jenny went on. ‘I had so much time to think, to realize it was always meant to be this way, that I would destroy him in the end, because of what he did to me.’
