by Mark Edwards
Edward stared at us over the flames then retreated into his office, slamming the door.
‘Who the fuck was it?’ Sophie said, pushing herself into a sitting position. Her voice was hoarse, her eyes pink and watery.
Everybody in the corridor was staring at us. I pushed myself to my feet, surprised to find I felt OK, apart from my desperate anxiety about Edward, trapped in his office, the flames beating against the door, hoping he’d managed to find something to block the space beneath it to stop smoke pouring through. And a question pulsated in my head: was this my fault? In his line of work, I assumed Edward must upset numerous people. Husbands who’d been exposed as cheats. Employees caught with their hands in the till. But so much disaster had followed me lately—
The evil from that house . . . It followed us home.
—that I couldn’t help but think this was down to me. That someone was trying to stop me from telling Edward my story.
But who? Camelia? No, the person who threw the Molotov was definitely male. Camelia’s companion, assuming it was her, from the CCTV video? As Sophie sat and sobbed beside me, black mascara streaking her face, I hugged myself, shivering despite the heat that emanated from the burning room.
A minute later, I heard the blessed sound of sirens and the fire brigade arrived, several of them running up the stairs, clearing us out of the building. I stood on the street and watched as they did their work, putting out the fire. The police were there too, and an ambulance which Sophie was sitting in the back of now, an oxygen mask clamped to her face. I felt fine, had somehow breathed in less smoke than her. Please God, I prayed silently, let Edward be OK. I can’t be responsible for another death. Please.
My prayer was answered quickly. Within moments, he was escorted through the front door of the building by a firefighter. He sat down on a low wall and I hurried over to him.
‘I’m all right,’ he said, waving away my concern. ‘The fire didn’t get through the door and I had a towel in my gym bag that I used to block out the smoke.’ His face darkened. ‘But what I want to know is who the fuck just tried to burn down my office.’
He looked at me as if I could tell him the answer.
The three of us were taken to the nearest hospital where we were checked over. None of us had been burned, and although I still felt a little wheezy, the doctor told me I could go home. They wanted to keep Sophie in for the night for observation. As I came out of the room where I was checked by the doctor, I saw Edward talking to a police officer, shaking his head. The policeman walked off and Edward spotted me and came over.
‘Have they got any idea who did it?’ I asked.
‘No. They wanted to know if I did. They want to interview me tomorrow.’ He rubbed his face. ‘I’ve been doing this for fifteen years and nothing like this has ever happened before. The worst I’ve had is an abusive phone call and some dog shit shoved through the door by a woman who I caught shagging her yoga teacher.’
‘Maybe they were after me,’ I said quietly.
He studied me. ‘I think we should talk, Daniel. If they were after you, or were trying to stop you talking to me, this is my problem now too. Sophie could have been killed. I could have been killed. And let’s not even mention the state of my office and the fact that everyone else in the building is now in fear of their life.’
I nodded.
‘I’m going to go and say goodbye to Sophie, see if she needs anything. Then we should go.’ He licked his lips. ‘I don’t know about you but I could bloody well do with a drink.’
We took a taxi to the Lord Palmerston pub near Dartmouth Park. It was quiet at this time on a weekday afternoon. Full-time drinkers perched at the bar and condensation clung to the windows. Edward led me over to a corner seat and fetched two pints of lager. He produced his notepad from his pocket.
‘I need you to tell me everything,’ he said. ‘I need to know what kind of people you’re mixed up with. And if you don’t tell me, then I’m going to have to talk to the police.’
‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I want to tell you.’ I took a big gulp of lager, soothing my throat.
‘Come on then. I’m waiting.’
I started with the first strange incident back home: the time when somebody might or might not have tried to push Laura under a Tube train. ‘That’s my girlfriend. I mean my ex-girlfriend. She insists she tripped,’ I said. ‘So that might not be relevant.’
‘It might be,’ he said, making a note.
‘OK, so the first concrete thing that happened was when I had a break-in.’
I went on to tell him everything that had happened since then: meeting Camelia at Jake’s gig; my bank card being used fraudulently; the return of my laptop; Dr Sauvage’s death, though that now seemed to be unrelated; seeing somebody watching Laura in Camden, not far from where we sat now. I brought him up to date by telling him about the dog and Jake’s supposed suicide.
For now, I left out the part about Laura seeing ghosts, and the disappearing photos. I didn’t want him to think that Laura or I were crazy.
‘I’ve got a surveillance camera in my flat,’ I said. ‘It’s motion-triggered.’
He nodded.
‘The video of the intruders and the dog are here, on my phone.’
I opened the app and leaned across the table, angling the screen towards Edward. He took a pair of glasses out of his pocket and put them on, instantly making himself look ten years older. He took the phone from me and watched the video.
‘I think that’s her,’ I said. ‘Camelia. It looks like her body shape.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Any idea who the man might be?’
‘No. But . . . he could be the person who firebombed your office. I wonder if he’s Romanian too . . .’
Edward tapped his notepad. ‘There’s a huge chunk that you’re still not telling me, isn’t there? Like, what has Camelia’s nationality got to do with it? What’s your connection to Romania?’ When I didn’t reply straight away he glanced down at his pad. ‘You haven’t told me anything at all about why you think Camelia is interested in you. What she’s after?’
I gave myself another second by sipping my pint. ‘OK. So . . . last summer Laura and I went travelling around Europe. We ended up in Romania on a night train to a place called Sighisoara. Something . . . happened. That’s why I think Camelia’s nationality is important.’
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere.’
I told him about meeting Alina and Ion, getting robbed in the sleeper carriage, how we were thrown off the train. He jotted down more notes, occasionally butting in with questions. Once or twice he gave me an incredulous look. I reached the point where we tried to find Alina in the forest. There was a man at the slot machine near our table and I was paranoid that he might overhear. I waited until he wandered back to the bar.
‘After that,’ I said, ‘we ran to the nearest town and went to the police—’
‘Hang on.’ He held up a hand. ‘What happened in the house?’
Suddenly, it seemed very quiet in the pub.
‘It’s obvious that you’re frightened,’ he said. ‘But you have to tell me, Daniel. You can take your time—I’ve got all afternoon.’
I rotated my empty pint glass on the table, staring at the wet ring it created on the surface. I felt exactly as I would before getting up on stage in front of a thousand people. Sick and shaky. Could I do this, finally? Finally face the memories?
I pictured the Molotov cocktail as it was thrown into the office. Imagined a pair of hands trying to push Laura onto the Tube tracks. Saw the black dog leaping towards me.
I had to do this.
‘OK. But let me get another drink first. And one for you.’ I grabbed the glasses and stood. ‘I think you’re going to need it.’
Part Three
Romania
August 2013
Chapter Thirty-F
our
I started by telling Edward what I’d already told Jake: the walk up the path to the house, going inside, looking around the entrance hall of the strange, secluded house. I told him how scared I felt, how I wanted to turn around, run.
The pub seemed to vanish around us as I told him my story.
The noise from upstairs.
It was an unmistakeable sound, even to non-parents like us. A noise that a mother or father is programmed to hear from a hundred feet, through stone walls and locked doors.
A baby. Crying.
That was it. From that moment, I knew that we wouldn’t be able to leave this place until we had discovered the source of the crying, had seen for ourselves that the baby was well and safe. It was a primal instinct. Protect the young and the helpless. Perhaps this place wasn’t bad after all. Maybe it was a family home, a woodcutter and his wife and kids. A happier scenario sprouted in my imagination. The woodcutter or hunter had been out in the forest checking traps and he had found the injured Alina—perhaps she had stumbled into one of his traps—and he had helped her, brought her back here to ask his wife to tend to her injuries. And all these goings-on had woken the baby. That made sense, was logical. I drew strength from it.
The cry came again, growing more urgent and frantic. Wherever the baby was, nobody had gone to comfort it.
Laura headed towards the staircase and I followed her. We trod as quietly as we could. The stairs were disintegrating in places, the floorboards loose and springy. I noticed something snagged on one of the steps and, looking closer, saw that it was a clump of hair.
There was a window halfway up the staircase, where it turned a corner. The view was of the back of the house and I saw, with surprise, that there was a narrow road that led through the trees into a backyard where a flatbed truck was parked. I had imagined that the house was only accessible through the forest. My spirits lifted a little further. We weren’t completely isolated here. The road was a link to civilisation. The woodcutter/hunter scenario seemed increasingly plausible. We had simply approached from the wrong angle.
The baby was still crying, its sobs ebbing away before returning stronger and more urgent. Where was the mother?
We reached the next floor. Like downstairs, it was in darkness and I wondered about the source of the flickering candlelight we’d seen from outside.
‘It’s coming from further up,’ Laura said in a hushed voice. The staircase continued to another floor and the crying was still coming from above us.
I took another deep breath and urged my legs to continue. I kept following Laura up the stairs, which were even more rickety here, creaking and protesting as we headed into deeper darkness. The walls around the staircase narrowed. As we climbed, the stench of mildew and rotting animals shifted, overpowered by other odours. Baby shit and human bodies. It stank like the part of a hospital where terminal patients spend their last days. Sickness and death, mixed with the smell of a dirty nursery. The more positive scenario I’d dreamed up receded with every step.
All I felt now was dread.
We reached the top of the staircase. Before us was another wooden door with a metal latch fixed across it, the type you just need to lift to open. A lock designed to make it easy for the person going in, but impossible for the person trying to get out.
The crying was coming from just behind this door.
I lifted the latch and, holding my breath against the stench and the fear of what we’d find, pushed the door open.
Chapter Thirty-Five
I raised my eyes to gauge Edward’s reaction. He was staring at me, lips parted, enrapt.
‘Go on,’ he said.
I took another big gulp of my beer. It hurt to tell this part of the story. I thought about getting up, telling him I needed the toilet. Then I would slip out, run away like I had thought about doing back then. I hesitated for the final time, knowing how distraught Laura would be if she thought I was about to tell someone exactly what happened.
I would tell him what he needed to know.
On the far wall, against the windows, a number of fat white candles were lined up along the top of a pair of dark wood chests. Behind the chests, the windows were boarded up, so the light we’d seen couldn’t have come from this room. I stared at the candles because they were the only thing here that made sense. Both Laura and I were paralysed by the scene in front of us, rocked by the smell in the air, the baby’s screams echoing the sound that reverberated inside me.
There were four single beds and three wooden baby cots in the room. Two of the beds were empty, stripped back to reveal their thin mattresses. They looked like the beds you might see in war films—springs sagging, hard, like torture devices. The crying baby was in one of the cots, lying on its back, screaming, its face shining with tears. It waved its arms above it, clawing at the air, but was too small to roll over or sit up.
On the other two beds were a pair of women. The woman in the nearest bed was asleep or unconscious (or dead?), a filthy white sheet drawn up to her waist. She was wearing a thin pink gown that revealed how malnourished she was. Her arms were like pipe cleaners and her flat chest rose and fell jerkily as she breathed. Her head looked like a skull with stringy brown hair attached. Forcing myself to step closer, bracing myself against the acrid smell of urine and rot that emanated from her, I saw that her ankles were manacled to the foot of the bed.
Laura gripped my arm as I tried to step closer, holding me back. She raised her free arm slowly and pointed at the further occupied bed.
This woman was less skeletal than the first. She had blonde hair that was matted and stuck out at all angles. Her eyes were sunken, cheekbones like razors, arms skinny and weak. She was wearing a gown like the other woman, her sheet bunched up by her feet, which were also chained to the bed. Her skin was covered in bruises and tiny round scabs. Cigarette burns.
She was awake, her eyes screwed tight. Tears slid down her cheek, dampening her thin pillow.
Shaking, I approached the bed. As I did, the baby, who was in a cot close to this second bed, fell quiet, like it had run out of breath and tears. Laura walked over to the cot and leaned over it, her hand shaking as she brought it to her mouth, emitting a little sob. For a moment I thought there must be something wrong with the baby, but it was in a better state than the women. It was dressed in a pale blue sleep suit and wrapped in a wool blanket. A boy, I guessed. He had thick blond hair, a pink face, rosebud lips.
The blonde woman (his mother?) opened her eyes and saw me. Panic flared in her eyes, and I braced myself, sure she would start screaming. But she stayed silent, staring at me with wide eyes, then turning her head to look at Laura. She didn’t move, or attempt to sit up.
She whispered something, the act of doing so seemingly causing her great pain.
Leaving Laura by the cot, I moved closer to the woman, crouching beside her.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I don’t understand. I’m English.’
She gazed at me with the look of a prisoner who has been tortured, broken.
‘Do you speak English?’ I asked.
‘Help,’ she said. I held her hand, realising the reason she hadn’t sat up was that she was too weak.
To my right, Laura had lifted the baby out of the cot, was holding him against her, his head resting in the crook of her neck, one hand stroking the baby’s back through the blanket he was wrapped in. The woman in the bed looked towards the baby, a mixture of love and fear in her eyes. Then her gaze flicked towards the door.
‘My baby,’ the woman said. ‘Help.’
‘Who did this to you?’ I asked in my softest voice.
She stared at me. Maybe she didn’t understand. She whispered something else in what I assumed to be Romanian, then spoke in English again. ‘Please. Baby. Help.’
A scream came from below us.
Both Laura and I froze. The woman in the bed
looked towards the door again.
‘Go. Baby,’ she said.
I looked at the door, then at Laura. ‘What shall we do?’
Edward’s mouth was ajar, his eyes wide. No one had ever listened to me more raptly. He was there with us, in that room.
‘For God’s sake, you can’t stop now. What did you do?’
‘I . . . Laura hugged the baby against her. I asked her again, “What shall we do?”’
I told him the rest of the story.
The scream came again. My heart was banging so loudly that I was sure whoever was downstairs, whoever had done this to these women, would be able to hear it.
‘We have to get out,’ I said, answering my own question. ‘We’ll go to town, get help. Send the police.’
I turned to the woman in the bed.
‘We’ll send police,’ I said. More tears fell from her eyes.
I turned back to Laura and reached out to take the baby, to put him back in his cot. But Laura backed away, hugging the baby against her.
‘He’s coming with us.’
‘Laura . . . We have to leave him. We can’t run through the forest with a baby. We have to get away.’
‘No,’ she snapped. She held the baby like he was her own, like I was threatening to take him and feed him to lions. ‘I’m not leaving him.’
‘Laura . . .’
‘Look, Daniel. Look.’ She pointed to the far side of the room, beyond the cots.
A small bench was positioned against the wall. Stacked on top of this bench were items you might find in a normal nursery: baby clothes, nappies, barrier cream, bottles, along with tubs of formula milk. There were a couple of small teddy bears too, lying askew. Their fur was stained with something dark that looked black in the candlelight.
There was something beside the bench. It was a tiny coffin, about two feet long. It looked like it had been built by an amateur, the angles not quite right. On top of the coffin lay a few flowers, the kind we had seen growing in the forest, along with another teddy bear.
