I grab at Charlie’s shoulders and try to shove her away. She grips my head in both her hands and rocks back, before whipping forward, driving her forehead into my nose. A flash of white pain explodes in my skull and seem to rocket down my spine. I almost black out, falling sideways. Dizzy. Disorientated.
The bitch! I thrust my arm out blindly, touching a foot. My fingers close. I pull at the leg. She kicks me in the stomach. I lunge again.
She’s gone. I touch my face. I’m bleeding. The bitch has broken my nose. I get to my knees, swaying, groaning, the pain turning from fire to ice. I can hear her shouting. She’s telling her sister to run.
Run, Rabbit, Run.
51
Five detectives are squeezed into Cray’s office. My phone is still on the desk, silent yet calling to me.
‘There’s no proof that Francis Washburn was anywhere near the farmhouse that night,’ says Monk. ‘He comes across as the only sane member of the family – happily married with a new baby. Why would he kill his niece and sister-in-law?’
‘I think Harper saw him on the footpath when Maggie Dutton was attacked,’ I say.
‘There’s no evidence—’
‘Harper signed and dated every drawing. That day she was sketching a nursing home only a few hundred yards from the footpath. That night Harper saw a TV news report about a woman being attacked. According to Sophie Baxter, Harper became agitated. She phoned her aunt soon afterwards.’
‘About babysitting,’ says Monk.
‘Yes, but first she talked to Francis. He brought the phone upstairs to Becca, who was getting ready for work.’
Cray interrupts. ‘Washburn was looking after the baby that night.’
‘That’s not an alibi,’ I reply.
‘His mother-in-law was in the house.’
‘She lives in a self-contained wing.’
Monk scoffs. ‘So you think Washburn left his baby at home, drove to the farmhouse, murdered his niece and sister-in-law, cleaned up and went home again without anybody noticing his car or his bloody clothing.’
‘No, he took the baby with him.’
This triggers laughter from the group. Even Cray looks sceptical.
‘I’m serious. We’re all agreed that Elizabeth let the killer into the house some time around midnight, so it must have been someone she knew and trusted – like her brother-in-law. I think he arrived carrying baby George.’
My mind is picturing the scene – the knock on the door, Elizabeth coming downstairs, surprised by such a late visitor, but pleased to see her nephew. Francis left George with Elizabeth and went upstairs to Harper’s room, knowing he had to silence her. He choked her quietly and then returned, taking a knife from the kitchen and killing Elizabeth in the sitting room. Everything that followed was theatre – the pentagram, the candles, the Bible and the break-in.
‘Do you still have the crime scene photographs?’ I ask.
Cray boots up a nearby computer and calls up the images. I scroll through them quickly, ignoring Elizabeth’s defiled body. I concentrate on the rest of the room, particularly the floor. I remember the unexplained pattern on the rug – the bloodstains forming two axis of a right angle.
‘See that? Right there!’ I point to the screen. ‘Something was covering the rug when Elizabeth was stabbed. If I’m right, it was a baby seat.’
My mobile begins ringing. My heart leaps. I don’t recognise the number. Monk grabs my arm. ‘It could be Washburn.’
‘What should I do?’
‘Put it on speakerphone.’
I press green. ‘Professor O’Loughlin,’ says a female voice.
‘Yes.’
‘This is St Michael’s Hospital. There has been a complication with your wife’s surgery.’
‘Why? What’s wrong?’
‘She’s been moved to the ICU. You should come to the hospital.’
‘But I only just saw her…’
‘She’s suffered an embolism. They’re operating now. Can someone drive you?’
‘I can’t come now.’
‘Take a taxi—’
‘No, you don’t understand. I can’t come.’
I hang up and stare at the phone. Nobody speaks or moves in the room. It’s as if someone has hit the pause button on a recording and the actors are frozen in place.
‘You should go to the hospital,’ says Cray. ‘We can handle this.’
‘No.’
‘We have this under control.’
‘I’m not leaving without my children.’
She argues with me, but I can’t hear the words. I try to concentrate on watching her lips move but all I can hear is a long continuous eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee noise like a car alarm going off in my head. I cannot think. When I last talked to Ruiz he planned to check out of his hotel and drive back to London. I need him now. He’ll know what to do. I call his mobile. He answers and I swallow a sob, my voice a half-octave too high. ‘I need you to get to St Michael’s Hospital in Bristol.’
‘Why? What’s happened?’
‘Julianne has gone back into surgery.’
‘But you said—’
‘It’s an embolism. Somebody should be there.’
‘Where are you?’
Again I have to swallow. ‘Charlie and Emma are missing.’
‘What?’
‘Francis Washburn has taken them. I think he’s the killer.’
In the background I hear tyres screech and horns blare. Ruiz has done some sort of U-turn or radical manoeuvre in traffic. ‘I’m coming.’
‘I need you at the hospital. Someone has to be there when Julianne wakes up.’
‘I’ll be there.’ He hammers on the horn. ‘How did he get the girls?’
‘I don’t know. They’re somewhere near the sea.’
‘The nursing home,’ says Ruiz.
‘What?’
‘Charlie wanted to go back to the nursing home. She was looking for the old man in the sketch.’
Almost in the same breath, Bennie yells from across the far side of the incident room. ‘Francis Washburn’s father is at a high-dependency nursing home in Clevedon.’
52
There are no sirens. Police cars pull through the stone gates and block both entrances of the curved driveway. Heavy boots splash through puddles and pound up stairs. Raincoats drip on the floor. The woman behind the reception desk barely has time to get to her feet.
‘Do you know a man called Francis Washburn?’ asks DCS Cray.
‘He was here earlier,’ the woman stammers, forgetting to close her mouth.
‘When?’
‘Um … ah … before the storm.’
‘You talked to him.’
‘He came to see his father.’ She thinks of something else. ‘There was someone looking for him – a teenager – she was with her little sister.’
‘Where did they go?’ I ask.
‘I think they went to the beach.’
I don’t hear the rest. I’m already outside, leaping off the steps, sprinting crossing the lawn, down the slope, out of control, over the lane on to the footpath. The world is being lit by flashes of lightning – branches, buds, leaves, rain, rocks and water. I’m running but nothing feels as though it is happening quickly enough, except for the throb of my heart, which batters at its walls. Who is this man – born with winter in his heart – who would take my children? How dare he touch what’s mine.
Clumps of spume are floating through the air, splattering against trees or clinging vainly to leaves. More night than day, there is no horizon. The sea and air seem joined and the entire land has disappeared. I wish for more light. I wish I could hear Charlie’s voice or Emma’s voice.
My phone is ringing. I fumble with the receiver and almost drop it.
It’s Charlie. Breathless. Running.
‘Help me!’ she cries.
‘Where are you?’
‘We got away. He’s behind me.’
‘Emma?’
‘I told her to run.’
‘What can you see?’
She doesn’t answer. I hear her panting.
‘Charlie, what can you see?’
‘Nothing … it’s raining … we were on the beach … He’s coming!’
Monk catches up with me, shouting above the rain. I tell him to shut up and press the phone to my ear. A gust of wind almost knocks me over. Monk stops me falling.
‘We should wait for the others,’ he yells.
I shake my head, flicking water. He tries to say something else, but his words are stolen by the wind. Charlie isn’t talking any more. I can hear her breathing. Running. I shout into the phone. Nothing.
Waves are exploding against the rock shelf, sending clouds of spray into the air, where the wind turns each droplet into a needle stabbing at my exposed skin. I keep wiping my eyes, but nothing comes into focus.
I set off again, making a choice, heading east along the path, which begins rising sharply. I seem to be slowing down, as though I’m being sucked into the mud, taking root in the earth. My legs are aching and I struggle to stay upright, but each time Monk catches me before I fall.
A small figure appears on the path ahead of us. Emma. Her legs and arms are pumping and she runs with her head down, slipping and sliding, trying to stay upright. Leaves and twigs on her clothes. Mud. Blood.
She looks up and sees Monk. The sheer of size of him makes her mouth open in a scream. In the next instant I seize her and bury my face into her neck, holding the back of her head as she sobs.
‘I’m here … I’m here … I’m here … Are you hurt? Shhhhh … I’m here … Where’s Charlie?’
I’m dimly aware of people shouting behind me. Bennie and Cray and the others are coming.
‘Here, take Emma,’ I say to Monk.
‘Wait!’
‘No.’
Emma clings to my neck, not wanting to let go. ‘I have to get Charlie,’ I shout. She releases her hold.
I run ahead again, holding the phone. I have only desperate minutes. That’s how Charlie’s life is measured now, minute by minute: Charlie time.
‘Talk to me,’ I say. ‘Talk to me.’
The bitch! The bitch! The bitch!
She broke my nose. Now I can’t breathe properly. How am I going to explain that? I was a fool. She tricked me. I will deal with her first. No, I’ll make her watch her sister die and then make her beg.
She’s thirty yards ahead of me, pulling on her blouse, trying to climb and do up the buttons. Slipping. Falling. Blinded by the rain, and she doesn’t know the path as well as I do. Only fifteen yards away now. I’m closing the gap. How stupid to think she can outrun me.
She’s close now – almost within touching distance. I reach out for her neck. Fingertips swipe her blouse. Suddenly, she stops and drops. I trip over her, throwing my hands out for the fall, palms stinging as I hit the ground. Grunting. Hissing. Fuck!
I look around. Where did she go? She’s hiding in the trees. Smart thing. Foolish thing.
‘Come here, you little shit.’
I dance to the side, looking behind the trunks and under bushes. Where are you? I know you’re there. I can hear your little heart beating.
A branch snaps. I look up. There! I can see you now.
She shoots out from her hiding place, the slope pitching her downwards. If she’s not careful she’ll run straight off the cliff. Good! Save me the trouble. Bitch! Cunt!
I hurl myself down the slope, branches stinging my face, roots turning my ankles, the wind and rain forgotten. Any second. Any second. She crawls through a wall of brambles. I have to follow. Thorns tear at my skin and tug at my clothes.
We’re out again, open space at the top of the cliff. She stops at the edge. Spins. Wide-eyed. Oh, rabbit, where are you going to run to now? There’s nowhere to go.
Boom! The sky splits again.
She looks over her shoulder at the waves. I move closer. She kneels. Defeated. On her stomach, forcing herself to move, slipping away. She’s trying to climb down the cliff. I’ve got to give her credit. She’s a game little thing.
When I try to grab her wrist, she lets go and slides down the rock wall. For a moment she drops from sight. I think she’s gone. I can’t see her in the water. I lean out further and see a rock shelf only inches wide. She’s balancing on her toes and clinging to two handholds.
A wave surges and smashes into the rock wall, creating a cloud of mist that engulfs her. She emerges, still clinging on. Foolishly brave. I feel sorry for her and almost proud.
She takes one hand off the cliff face and reaches into her pocket. What’s that she’s holding?
My legs fold under me and I try to stand. Nothing happens. I try again. Up. Back. Stop. Engage. Forward. It’s like trying to stand in a canoe. Mr Parkinson is laughing at me. What good am I when I cannot keep my family safe? Julianne was right all along – this is my fault. I’ve brought this upon my family.
Visibility is so poor that I stumble from the path and almost run headlong off the cliff. Swaying on the edge, I glance down at the roiling sea, which buckles and bulges as though a sea monster is trying to breaking out of a white womb.
Brrrrrrp-brrrrrp! Brrrrrrp-brrrrrrr!
I grip the mobile with both hands.
‘Daddy!’
‘Where are you?’
‘The waves are going to knock me off.’
‘I’m coming.’
‘I can’t hold on. It’s OK. I can swim.’
‘Don’t go in the water!’
‘Did you find Emma?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m going to fall…’
‘No.’
‘Look for me!’
‘Charlie? … Charlie? … CHARLIE!’
I draw my head back, open my throat and bellow her name, demanding to be heard by some higher power. I will howl Him into being. I will demand He help me.
Sucking in another breath, I charge forward. Time has slowed again. I see my daughter born, slick with amniotic fluid, her face scrunched up and her eyes open, full of wisdom and wonder. I see her at age two dancing to Van Morrison’s ‘Brown-Eyed Girl’. At four she’s pulling a red wagon full of toys. At six she’s going to school in an oversized tartan tunic that reaches below her knees. I see her picking blueberries, catching tadpoles, running under a sprinkler, chasing a Labrador across a field, riding a horse, blowing out birthday candles, playing Miss Dorothy Brown in a school play and holding my left hand when it trembles. A thousand such images blur together as though a giant pack of cards is being peeled back at the corner and released.
The rain is starting to ease. I can make out the shapes of trees and the edges of the path and the ridge above me, where fresh waterfalls are sweeping down and cascading from the cliffs.
A figure leaps from hiding to my left, smashing his fist into the side of my face. I hear my jaw crack and my knees buckle. Arms churn at nothing. He is younger, stronger. He is armed with a blade. I’m aware of him lifting my head, tilting it back, exposing my throat. He raises the box-cutter.
This is death. This is my death.
A bubble of time seems to expand and slow, heightening every sense. I must fight. I must call upon every memory of every failure. One chance. I drive my fist into his groin and he doubles over. The blade falls and skitters into a puddle.
He has his arm around my neck, tightening his elbow around my throat. I kick out, trying to get purchase on the muddy earth, clawing at his skin, grabbing at his clothes. My field of vision is darkening at the edges. My fingers are weakening. My legs shake. He grunts and squeezes harder, flexing his bicep.
My hand searches the puddle, opening and closing emptily. I’m being pulled by the blackness, drawn into the heaviest sleep, while behind my closed lids I see a spectacular explosion of cinders burning and fading. Darkness descends like a velvet curtain falling upon a stage. No applause. No encores. My fingers close around the box-cutter. I raise it with my left hand and bring it down along his thigh, severing his artery. He clutche
s at his leg. He mumbles, urging himself to do something, but his trousers are already turning red. I roll away as he rages, his head lashing from side to side, his shoe filling with blood, his breathing shallow …
‘Where is she?’ I yell. ‘What have you done to her?’
He gets up. Falls. Half sits. Robbed. Desolate. He looks at the blood pumping from his leg.
‘Where? Please?’
He points to the sea. Monk has reached us. He kneels beside Francis, pressing his fist into the wound, trying to stem the bleeding, but it’s too late.
I’m standing on the edge of the cliff. A wave explodes against the rock shelf, creating a cloud of fine mist. I can’t see anything. Monk is on his mobile. He’s calling the coastguard and Royal Lifeboat crews.
I’m on my knees, my stomach.
‘You can’t go down there,’ says Monk, grabbing my belt to stop me sliding forward.
‘Hold me.’
I lean out further, looking into the maelstrom of white water. I scream her name. The sound hits a wall of wind. I try again, blinking into the spray.
‘Did you hear that?’ I glance at Monk. He’s heard it too. We both listen. It’s a hoarse baby-cry like a gull, startlingly close.
‘She’s down there?’
‘You can’t go – it’s too dangerous.’
The waves suck back and I see Charlie’s head bobbing in the swell. She’s trying to swim away from the rocks, but is being swept back and hammered against the cliff-face. She won’t survive.
I look at Monk. ‘I have to go.’
‘You’ll kill yourself.’
‘Let me do this.’
He doesn’t hesitate. A man with a wife and three sons at home doesn’t pause to reconsider. ‘We go together,’ he says. ‘Wait for the next wave.’
Side by side we contemplate the jump as rain runs down our faces and the sky and sea are one.
‘Now,’ he screams, and we’re running, falling. We hit the water feet first, plunging into the cold. Kick. Surface. Breathe. Salt stings my eyes. I can’t see Monk or Charlie.
The water sucks away. I’m at the bottom of a trough, between the swells, and can feel rock beneath my feet and the cliff ahead. I see some sort of cave. Then I’m hit from behind by the next wave and carried forward, slamming into rocks. Curling into a ball, I try not to fight the current or lose my bearings. The water seems to be holding me under. I need to breathe. The wave sucks back. Air. Light.
Close Your Eyes Page 33
