He brought two steaming mugs to the table and put one into my hand.
‘So what are we doing here?’ I asked then.
‘Taking stock, buying time,’ he replied stoutly.
‘Carl, we’re hiding and this time we’re really hiding, like rats in a hole.’
Carl reached over and touched my face. ‘Don’t be melodramatic,’ he said.
‘Carl!’ I waved a hand vaguely at the dimly lit hut. ‘I’m hardly being melodramatic. Look at the place.’
I shivered. The shed felt cold and damp. It was, after all, still only quite early in April. The sun outside might have been bright and warm that day but there was a thoroughly unpleasant chill inside this old disused building. I dreaded to think what it would be like to sleep here, to spend a night here, maybe several nights, and found it hard to grasp that it really was Carl’s plan to do so.
‘It’s not so bad,’ I heard him say stubbornly. ‘And it’s only for a little while. I’ll think of something, you’ll see.’
‘This isn’t what I want, Carl.’ I pushed the point, determined not to be overruled by him. ‘I want to face up to things, sort things out. Why don’t we do that? It would be for the best, I’m absolutely sure of it.’
He sighed.
‘You don’t know the full story . . .’ he began haltingly.
‘Then tell me, for goodness’ sake,’ I said.
‘No, I can’t. I just want to protect you, that’s all.’
‘Oh, Carl, I’m not a child.’
He looked startled. ‘Drink your tea,’ he said. ‘It’ll make you feel better.’
I opened my mouth to tell him not to be absurd, but I picked up the mug and swallowed instead. The tea was hot and sweet. Maybe it would at least revive me a little and help clear my head.
It seemed to do just the opposite. I struggled even to keep my eyes open. After a bit I was vaguely aware of Carl helping me to one of the camp beds, then there was only blackness. He was singing to me softly when I woke.
I hoisted myself on to an elbow. I realised I was lying in a sleeping bag with blankets piled on top. Nonetheless my teeth were chattering with the cold. And the bedding felt damp.
Carl was sitting on the floor by the bed tinkering with the gas heater. But his eyes were on me. His voice seemed to come from a distance as he sang, repeating one verse over and over again. Eventually, even in my thoroughly befuddled condition, the words became clear to me.
Your master took you travelling
At least that’s what you said
And now do you come back
To bring your prisoner wine and bread?
I struggled to focus on him. He leaned towards me and began to stroke and kiss me, gentle and caring as always.
‘That’s me, my darling, I am your prisoner,’ he told me.
His eyes seemed very bright even though the room was so dimly lit. I had no idea whether it was night or day, although I thought that the wood which covered what had once been windows had been only roughly fitted and that, were it day I would be able to see at least some chinks of light.
Carl was still talking. ‘I couldn’t let them take you away from me, Suzanne. I couldn’t let you go. I have to keep you with me so that I can look after you.’
His face looked strangely contorted in the candlelight, or perhaps that was the fuzziness in my head. For a moment I could hardly remember where we were. And I didn’t like it much when I did remember.
I tried to pull myself upright, to get up off the bed, and Carl did not attempt to prevent me doing so, but I could not stand properly. When I fell backwards, however, he caught me and laid me safely down into the musty pillows.
‘There my darling, there,’ he soothed. ‘You’re just not strong. You never have been. You have to let me look after you, you must . . .’
‘Carl, you’re not looking after me. You know I have a weak chest. I’m so cold.’
‘I know honey, I can’t get this damned heater to work, that’s the problem. But I will, I promise you, then we’ll be really cosy . . .’
I fell asleep again. I don’t know for how long. When I woke for the second time my head was much clearer, but it ached. The hut seemed colder and danker than ever. My chest was really starting to hurt.
I was still lying on the camp bed. Carl was sitting next to me looking anxious, the gas heater still in pieces between his legs. There was a slightly glazed expression in his eyes that I couldn’t quite recognise. Then it dawned on me. It was desperation. I stared at him. The kindness was still there, the usual concern, the caring. I could see that in his eyes too. But I had so many questions. I really didn’t understand what he was doing.
‘What are we doing Carl, why do we have to stay here?’ I asked, for what seemed like the umpteenth time.
‘I’m looking after you,’ he replied doggedly. ‘Just like I always have.’
I saw that he had made more tea. He fetched me a mug, dodging all my questions.
‘Later,’ my darling. ‘Have some tea, then I’ll make you some breakfast.’
‘B-but,’ I began to protest.
‘Drink your tea,’ said Carl again, as if he were my nanny, not my lover, the man I had shared my life with for almost seven years. But then, he was always like that with me. I had encouraged him to be so, I supposed. I had needed that. Needed to be looked after as much as he had needed to look after me.
I drank my tea. First, I would do what he wanted, as I always did. Then, afterwards, I would insist that he told me what was going on.
But there was no afterwards. Soon, there was only the blackness again.
I don’t know how long I was out for that time, but when I came round, or woke, or whatever, I did not open my eyes properly. Instead I squinted out of one half-open slit. Carl was sitting on a chair by the bed watching me. I had never thought it strange that he liked to watch me sleep, that he would sit for hours just looking at me while I slept. I was used to that kind of attention, that kind of obsessive care. I had been brought up to it.
He seemed to have given up trying to fix the gas heater. He was wearing a thick sweater, a fleece, a sheepskin coat and a woolly hat – just about all the winter clothes he possessed on top of each other in layers. I noticed that he had unzipped the second sleeping bag and covered me with that too. I was still terribly cold.
I studied him through my half-open eye again. Was it a kind of madness I could see in him? I didn’t know.
I decided to show some courage. I forced myself into a sitting position and, before he could speak or make a move towards me, I demanded: ‘Have you been drugging me, Carl?’
He looked pained and shook his head. ‘Of course not, honey. I just gave you something to make you sleep, to soothe away your troubles, that’s all. I’ve not drugged you, no, that’s not it at all.’
He knelt down on the floor beside me and rested his head in my lap. ‘I’d never hurt you, never, you know that,’ he said in that gentle, soothing drawl that had always captivated me.
‘Carl, you are hurting me. I don’t want to be here. And I’m freezing. It’s damp in here. I really don’t feel well.’
I began to cough. It was not a deliberate ploy to prove my point. With my tendency towards bronchitis I didn’t have to pretend anything, not in those conditions. I felt terrible. In the six and a half years that I had lived by the seaside in St Ives I had suffered, by my standards, from only the mildest of chest infections, certainly nothing serious enough even to necessitate consulting a doctor, which had been all for the best as neither Carl nor I was registered with one. This was different. My childhood memories of chronic bronchitis remained vivid; and I feared that I was in for a serious bout.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, all concern. ‘Look, I’ll heat some soup for you and then I’ll have another go at that damned heater . . .’
I watched him open a tin and pour the contents into a saucepan. The Primus stove was already alight. I assumed he had left it on in the hope that it might heat the r
oom a little. It hadn’t succeeded. Eventually he handed me a steaming mug of soup. And I suddenly knew with devastating clarity that I must not drink it. But I did not know quite how to avoid doing so until he turned his back on me and bent over the dismembered gas heater again.
The camp bed was in a corner of the hut. The concrete floor was rough and uneven and in places had cracked and crumbled away. I simply emptied the contents of my mug into the corner so that the hot liquid ran down the wall and under the bed, hoping that it would somehow seep away, or congeal there, and not trickle out anywhere that he might see it. When Carl looked round at me I continued to appear to sip from the mug and then, when I thought I could reasonably have drunk it all, I pretended to become drowsy and to lapse into deep sleep again.
After a while I was aware of him moving around the room. He snuffed out all but one candle and then lay down on the second camp bed. I listened to the sound of his breathing, which eventually settled into the deep, even pattern I knew so well. He was definitely asleep.
As quietly as I could I crawled out of bed and went to the door. There were two big bolts, which had been pushed across. I struggled to pull them back. I still felt weak and they did not move easily or silently. I was sure I would wake him – and I did.
He was beside me swiftly, his arms around me, still gentle, still caring. But when he spoke his stammer had reappeared with a vengeance. He had real trouble getting the words out. And I knew that was a bad sign.
‘My d-darling, my darling,’ he said. ‘Y-you mustn’t l-leave me, you know that, you must n-n-never l-leave me . . .’
I had not thought I could ever be scared of Carl, but suddenly I was very frightened indeed. He was not my prisoner, I was his. There was no doubt about that. I screamed at him: ‘Let me go, let me go.’
I even shouted for help, although I was sure there would be nobody nearby to hear me.
He tried to quieten me in the way he always had during my terrible dreams, but I would not be quiet.
Eventually he pushed my head back and forced something liquid into my mouth. I choked on it, trying not to swallow, but he closed my mouth and stroked my throat and eventually, of course, I did swallow.
Soon the blackness came again.
Twelve
The next time I regained consciousness I did not seem able to stir at all. I could open my eyes but my arms and legs felt paralysed.
I tried to lift just a foot or a hand, but nothing would move. At first I thought it was maybe because I was so groggy. Then I began to panic. Although my eyes were open and I was awake after a fashion, I could not focus properly. I was in a state of considerable confusion in which the only stark reality was the sensation of paralysis. The panic began really to take a grip. Finally the burning pains in my wrists and ankles as I struggled to move my arms and legs told me what was really wrong.
I was tied to the framework of the camp bed.
Once I realised this my panic changed direction but it did not lessen. I wrenched myself upwards. The ropes cut searingly into my skin. I started to scream.
I could hear Carl’s voice making soothing sounds. His face was very close to mine. He was leaning on the flimsy camp bed holding it down, staring at me as usual, his eyes full of concern.
The shed, with its windows boarded fast, was only dimly lit from a couple of flickering candles and my focus was still a little bleary, but I was able to see clearly enough now. Although perhaps I had yet to grasp the full meaning of it all.
Carl reached out and stroked my hair. ‘Shush, sweetheart,’ he soothed, the way he always did. ‘Look, I’ve got the gas heater going. I told you I’d make it warm and cosy in here . . .’
I suppose the temperature in the damp old building had risen a little, but I was still shivering with the cold. My forehead was burning though. The shakes were hard to control. I wondered vaguely whether I had a fever.
Carl was still talking, his voice a kind of drone, saying the same things again, the same things over and over in different ways. ‘. . . It’s just that I can’t let you go, I can’t be without you. I can’t let them take you away. I had to make sure you would stay with me, so that I could protect you always. I would kill myself if I let any harm befall you. You know that, don’t you? You know I’d never hurt you, only take care of you. That’s all I ever want to do . . .’
This was worse than any of my nightmares. In many ways this was more dreadful than anything Robert had done to me, because I loved and trusted Carl so much. I felt betrayed. The man I adored had tied me up and was holding me prisoner. He had kidnapped me. And although I was still puzzled by so much of it, there were things I seemed able to see with sudden clarity.
I had a sudden terrible thought. ‘You sent the letters, you did it all, didn’t you, Carl?’ I whispered through lips that felt dry and chapped. ‘You sent those awful letters; you daubed that message on the cottage door. It was you.’
The accusation clearly shook him. ‘No, darling, don’t even say it. Why would I do something like that?’
‘To bind me to you,’ I said. ‘Just as these ropes tie me to the bed. To keep me your prisoner.’
‘You shouldn’t even think such awful things,’ he said quietly. ‘You’re confused, honey. Try to get some rest.’
I stopped struggling, and lay back against the pillow. I knew he was lying, that he had done it. All at once I felt almost devastatingly calm. It seemed that nothing worse could ever happen to me than this. Surely there could be nothing more horrible than a betrayal of this magnitude. For a moment or two I was overcome by a coughing fit, the palms of my hands were clammy, but when I finally managed to stop, I tried again. ‘Carl, I keep telling you, don’t you think you’re hurting me now?’
He had been kneeling next to the bed, hanging on to it. He sank back on his heels, then, and released his grasp. He continued to stare at me for a moment or two longer, then he buried his head in his hands. ‘I’m keeping you safe, my darling,’ he muttered through his fingers. ‘That’s all, keeping you safe . . .’
He was babbling. And still stammering. ‘I l-love you, Suzanne. I’m the one who saved you. I will always p-protect you . . .’
There was more, too, an endless stream of protestations of devotion, which suddenly seemed so meaningless.
I did not take my eyes off him. Neither did I struggle any more. I realised there was no point. I shut his voice out of my head and started to think back over the various threats and the way they were worded, and of the night that our front door was daubed with the red paint. The more I thought the more it made sense that Carl had damaged his own van, written the letters, Carl himself had been responsible for the shocking message in blood red, Carl was behind all the sinister threats we had received.
‘You did it, Carl, I’m sure of it,’ I said eventually. ‘I’ve been thinking about the night we got home from the Inn Plaice and found the door had been painted – you left the restaurant, allegedly to get me flowers. You were gone a long time, plenty of time to paint the door . . .’
He continued to squat there, his face buried in his hands. Then he started to moan. It was the eeriest sound, an endless low wail of a noise.
‘Why, Carl, why did you do it?’
He stopped moaning and spoke then, but only through the fingers still covering his face. ‘I’ve d-done nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing except try to remind you of how dangerous the outside world is for you, that’s all.’
‘You never intended to let me stop having the nightmares, did you?’ I continued flatly. ‘You might have lost control of me then.’
It was as if he had not heard me. ‘You’ve always understood, you see,’ he said. ‘Understood how much we n-needed each other.’
He took his hands away from his face, swung his body forward and kneeled by the side of the bed again, leaning close so that his face, illuminated by a candle on the box serving as a makeshift table, was closer than ever, just an inch or two away from mine. ‘I had to g-get you away. I know, you see, I kno
w things you don’t. Sometimes it’s right to r-r-run away and if you wait, well, that’s when terrible things happen,’ he whispered. ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you, sweetheart.’
I was frightened, though, frightened of Carl. It was extraordinary.
‘Let me go, please let me go,’ I pleaded.
‘We have to be t-together,’ he said flatly. ‘We always have to be together. You must see that, you always used to. I have to keep you safe, away from d-danger.’
I continued to struggle to control the trembling, which was threatening to engulf my body from head to foot, unsure whether it was caused by the cold, by fever or by fear, or maybe all three.
I did not want him to see just how terribly frightened I was.
‘Carl, you must know we can’t hide for ever,’ I said eventually.
‘Suzanne, we have hidden for almost seven years,’ he countered. ‘We were happy, weren’t we, content in our little cottage in St Ives. Even though we were hiding it didn’t feel as if we were, did it? We would still be there if you hadn’t decided to go the police.’
He muttered the last few words through clenched teeth and without a hint of a stammer. I had not realised before quite how angry I must have made him.
I was extremely uncomfortable, as I was hardly able to move at all. I coughed again and the ropes dug into my wrists and ankles. I wasn’t quite as cold as I had been, but the shivering continued and the pain in my chest was becoming more severe. It seemed inevitable that I was developing bronchitis. Then I realised abruptly that there was an additional reason for my discomfort. I needed to go to the lavatory. And I told Carl so.
He barely reacted. Just looked uncertain.
‘For goodness’ sake untie me, Carl,’ I said.
He still did nothing.
‘Do you want me to lie in my own filth?’ I asked. ‘Is that what we’ve come to?’
He shook his head then, and began to untie the ropes fastening me to the bed.
A Deep Deceit Page 16
