Red Ribbons

by Louise Phillips

  Farther down the track, to their left, the land opened up to harvested fields, while the dirt track continued to skirt the back of the sand dunes. When the track narrowed, she saw the trees up ahead. They were elderberry trees, just as Ellie Brady had written in her copybook. He was taking them to his ‘hideout’. This meant that, in his eyes, she was still within his trust. She knew she must not do anything to risk breaking that trust. Right now, his fragile sense of connection was all that was keeping them alive.

  Declan would have tried to phone her after five o’clock, as promised. Would he keep trying to call, or wait for her to call him back? Would he go to the apartment? At what point would someone raise the alarm about Sophie? She had no way of knowing if anyone would miss either of them. She felt so alone, with Charlie in her arms and William Cronly at her back. It was all down to her. She knew her son’s life was in her hands, and she wasn’t altogether sure she was equal to the task of protecting him.

  At the end of the path, they met a steep incline and, beyond it, she could see the woods. Dark twigs and fallen leaves from the last few weeks felt slippery and wet underfoot. When she lost her footing, Cronly touched her right arm.

  ‘We’re okay,’ she assured him.

  ‘Not long now, Kate.’ After the incline, Kate could see a steep drop to her right into more woodland, stone boulders covered in moss, the air filled with forest smells, creaking branches, birds and insects buzzing. It was like everything was in high definition as she tried to remember the way, tried to take in any detail that might prove helpful.

  When they reached the edge, she put Charlie down, telling him to wait while she made her way to the ledge below. He whimpered, his eyes bloodshot. Cronly lifted him into her waiting arms, then followed them, jumping with the agility of a man half his age. The way down got steeper the farther they went. All the time William Cronly stayed close behind them. When they came to another clearing, the ground levelled off, and William stepped past her, walking on ahead for another twenty metres. He stopped suddenly, pulling back branches and all manner of natural camouflage, to reveal what could only be described as a cave.

  Kate felt the panic rising in her, facing the prospect of going inside this hidden place, a place that if you didn’t know existed, you would never find. As soon as she stepped inside with Charlie, they would be trapped in a whole other way. A feeling of sickness swept over her again. How could she get them out of this?

  Once inside the cave, he lit a hurricane lamp. The light revealed a small camp burner for cooking, comics, and books covered with clear plastic sitting on a flat-topped trunk to her left. All manner of tins and boxes were lined up on metal shelves in the corner. She saw an oval mirror with steel grips hanging on a silver chain, supported by a masonry nail hammered into a groove in the granite wall. She thought about pulling it down and wrapping the chain around his neck. It was a chance, but she hesitated a second too long and the chance was gone. She had to be ready. If she got any kind of an opportunity, she would have to take it.

  As Kate’s eyes adjusted to the lamp light, other items gradually became clear. There was a basin on a stand. To the left of it, some soap and a towel, it too covered in clear plastic. Against one wall stood a toy soldier wearing a red uniform, half a metre tall, dressed like a sentry with a toy gun held high on his shoulder. Many of the tins on the shelves had stickers: Tea, Coffee, Marbles, Matches, Nails. The place smelled of paraffin and moss and damp, the ground a mix of clay and grit.

  ‘Sit down.’ He pointed to a grey stone boulder to the right of the cave opening, one big enough for both Kate and Charlie to sit on together. Kate sat down first. Charlie wanted to sit on her lap, but she placed him to her side so she would be ready to leap forward at the faintest glimmer of opportunity. She put her arms around him, rubbing her fingers through his hair, trying to keep him calm. Lowering her head, she whispered, ‘Shush, shush,’ over and over into his ear, until his body eased and his crying settled.

  ‘Is this your place, William?’ she asked, already knowing the answer.

  ‘Yes, it’s brilliant, isn’t’ it?’ His voice now more enthusiastic than before.

  ‘Yes.’ She kept looking around her. ‘How long have you had it?’

  ‘Since I was a boy. I found it one day purely by accident. I was on a treasure hunt.’

  Suddenly it all made sense – the comics, the toys, the secret hideaway. He was stuck. Part of William Cronly had never moved on into adulthood. In his mind, he still craved being that small boy. What happened to Silvia had never left him. He was trapped, caught in a time before whatever guilt or loss had got mixed into the whole sorry mess that was his life.

  ‘I have a present for you, Kate.’ He took a small silver crucifix out of his inside pocket.

  ‘You shouldn’t have.’ She reached out, took it and opened the clasp, then fixed it around her neck, before pulling Charlie back in tight beside her.

  ‘Oh, but I had to, Kate. I have a confession to make, you see.’

  She looked up at him. The height of his body above her felt oppressive. Again, he reached into his jacket pocket. He took out a length of red ribbon, the same colour and size as he had used to plait Caroline and Amelia’s hair. She said nothing as he placed it on the shelf behind him. Then he showed her a pearl earring – one she recognised as her own.

  ‘I’m a bit of a magpie, Kate. I hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘I don’t mind at all, William.’

  He took a torch out of his backpack and switched it on, sending the light to the ceiling of the cave. She heard a flapping noise. He stuck the base of the torch into the part-mud, part-grit floor and sat down opposite her on another boulder.

  ‘Now we’re here, Kate, I have a question for you.’

  She waited.

  Ellie

  DETECTIVE O’CONNOR IS TELLING SINEAD THAT under no circumstances is she to leave the car, assuring her that he will stay close to me. Another police officer gets in beside her. I can tell young Sinead is out of her depth.

  I hear O’Connor issue instructions into his walkie-talkie. ‘Everyone is to take it nice and easy. We don’t want him knowing we’re here.’

  There are police dressed in SWAT gear, dogs, German shepherds, and men who I assume are plain-clothes detectives. I feel the breeze coming in from the sea. I shiver. O’Connor puts his jacket around me and for the first time, I can see his gun.

  The shutters on the amusement arcade are all down, but I can hear the whiz of the slot machines, the ping of the pinball, see the silver coins moving back and forth on trays, everyone trying to win a prize.

  I walk down the pathway I went down with Amy.

  ‘Try to remember everything,’ O’Connor says.

  I want to turn back time. To be with her again, instead of stopping the way I did all those years before, not doing as she asked. I want to follow her this time.

  ‘Are you sure this is the way, Ellie?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  I taste the wet salt air, sand blows into my eyes from the sand dunes, the fields to my left are flat. I can see Amy; she is running ahead of me. She turns and smiles, pulling some wild grasses from the side of the dirt track, making a pretend fan. I hear the sounds of strangers, families playing on the beach, ghosts in her world. The road narrows ahead of me, and I see the elderberry trees. Their berries are dark red, shrivelled, limp. Out of season.

  O’Connor is telling his people to spread out. They move like silent whippets, quieter than the creaking trees. We reach the point where the ground drops down into the woodland. I can no longer see the sand dunes.

  ‘Where did you go next, Ellie?’

  I can hear Amy’s voice, begging me to follow her. I look all around me.

  ‘Where Ellie, you have to remember? Where did you go next?’

  I wish I could turn back the clock, change everything, take Amy by the hand, go with her.

  ‘Ellie?’ His voice rises for the first time.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’r />
  ‘Ellie, you need to remember. Where did you go next?’

  I look at him, wanting to give him the answer. I hate myself all over again.

  ‘I didn’t go any farther with Amy.’ I shake my head from side to side. ‘I told her we needed to go back.’

  The Hideout

  KATE WAITED FOR HIM TO ASK HIS QUESTION, ALL THE time wondering how she should handle her next move. He still had the knife in his right hand. Somehow, she had to persuade him to put it down. If she had the knife, she and Charlie had a chance, however small. She needed him to relax more. She had to encourage his belief that she could give him everything he wanted – trust, loyalty, friendship. If she could do that, it was her best chance of getting that knife away from him.

  ‘Yes, Kate. It’s a rather difficult question to ask.’

  The words ‘trust, loyalty, friendship’ repeated in her head. He had to believe her.

  ‘I don’t mind, William. Go right ahead. We’re all friends here.’

  He smiled back at her, but Kate could tell he still wasn’t sure if he should believe her just yet.

  ‘I do hope so, Kate. I value friendship enormously.’

  ‘I know you do, and so do I.’

  ‘Kate, I know about the attack. The one when you were twelve. I read the report.’

  She was furious at herself. She should have worked this out. He had been in her apartment, had waited for her, but he could have been there before, taken her earring then. He had noticed her out running, admired her determination. The investigation had brought her directly into his focus. If he had read the report, he knew all about her vulnerability, had already likened it to his own – a common bond.

  ‘These things make us who we are, William.’

  ‘I know they do, Kate. But the report, it wasn’t specific. It lacked detail. The truth of everything is in the detail, don’t you agree?’

  Kate thought before answering. She needed this man to trust her fully, even if he was the last person on earth she wanted to share her fears with. She had no choice. Trusting someone with a secret, sharing a piece of yourself, was the quickest way to establish a higher level of friendship, parting with information normally given to those you cared about, people you believed would understand.

  ‘I feel I can trust you, William.’

  ‘You can, Kate.’

  She sensed him softening, his shoulders relaxing. The grip on the knife, was it less tight? Was she imagining it?

  ‘I was very frightened.’ She wrapped her right arm tighter around Charlie, holding his hands in her left hand.

  ‘Go on, Kate.’

  ‘I’d gone out with friends. We got separated. I could still hear them talking up ahead, but I knew someone was following me.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I’d seen him earlier, out of the corner of my eye. It was just a fleeting movement. I’d forgotten about it instantly. But then I knew something wasn’t right. I got a kind of sense.’

  ‘What kind of sense?’

  ‘I don’t know, as if I’d heard him, a feeling that someone was closing in. I told myself not to be stupid. I kept on walking, as fast as I could, trying to catch up with the others. It was then that he grabbed me from behind.’

  Kate looked to check any change in his reaction. There didn’t seem to be any.

  ‘He held a knife to my throat.’

  He looked down at the knife in his hand, but kept holding it.

  ‘I started to scream. I kept on screaming. It must have been loud, but I could barely hear it. It was as if it was inside of my head instead of being outside. As if the sound only existed in my mind, loud and silent at the same time. I was sure no one would hear it.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘At first, nothing. He pulled me farther into the woods. He wasn’t speaking, but I could hear him breathing, heavy breaths, the stench of alcohol, his panting on my neck. It felt wet from him, and the sweat, his arms locked around me, the knife cutting into my throat. It was then I saw them. Two men – they seemed so far away. They were my only hope. I kept screaming, even though I knew they couldn’t hear me, but it panicked him. He loosened his grip ever so slightly. It was only for a split second, but it was enough. I pulled away from him and ran and ran and ran, until I could no longer hear him, feel him, smell him.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘I was safe. At least at first I thought I was. I thought I’d got away from him, but in my mind I never did. In my mind, he never left me.’

  ‘Did they ever find him, Kate?’

  ‘No. I still don’t know who he was. He’s a stranger, a man without a face.’

  ‘Do you dream about him, Kate?’

  ‘All the time.’

  He believed her. She was sure of it. The truth isn’t an easy thing to falsify. He looked at the knife again, this time as if he felt guilt about it being there. She was so close to getting him to release it. She had to continue.

  ‘Sometimes at night, I can still feel him close to me again, his breath wet on my neck, the tinge of the blade. Even now, I can’t bear to have someone walk close behind me.’

  ‘I’m sorry about earlier. I hadn’t realised.’ His eyes softened. ‘Is that why you run, Kate?’

  ‘I run, William, because I feel it gives me control. If I run, if I keep on running, all the time getting faster, pushing myself hard, I believe I can outrun him.’

  Kate glanced down at his left hand; his grip was definitely loosening. He pulled down the zipper of his jacket with his right hand, undid the top button of his shirt. She would only get one more chance.

  ‘I see,’ he said, exhaling a deep breath.

  Kate looked away, seeing again the pile of comics and books. Under the clear plastic, she could make out the name – Blake, William Blake.

  ‘William, you read Blake I see.’ She pointed to the books.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ He pulled himself out of his reverie, smiling. ‘I forgot all about your interest in literature. Your copy of Palgrave’s Golden Treasury, a present from your father, I understand.’

  She wanted to scream again.

  ‘Such a shame, Kate, that they left Blake out of that collection. Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Keats, all included, but no Blake. Songs of Innocence – are you familiar with his poem, ‘Night’?’

  ‘No, William. I’m afraid I’m not.’

  Would he want to show her the poem? It was a chance.

  ‘Oh, it’s wonderful, Kate.’ He stood up. ‘It speaks of an innocent world protected by angels.’

  ‘Can I read it?’

  ‘Of course you can.’ He still had the knife in his hand. He bent down beside her, leaning in to open the plastic covering on the books. ‘You see, Kate, the angels thought they had the power to protect, that they could prevent the slaughter of lambs by wolves and tigers. Silvia thought so, too.’

  The plastic is difficult to prise open. He puts down the knife.

  Kate leapt with a decisiveness she didn’t even know she was capable of. She lunged for the knife where it lay on the ground, using the split-second of his surprise to get to it first. She didn’t hesitate for a second – sticking the blade deep into his neck and shoulder, close to his throat. She pulled it back, then pushed it down again, harder, deeper, until she saw the blood. When he fell back to the ground, she grabbed Charlie and ran. She ran faster than she had ever run, faster than she thought possible, holding Charlie in a vice grip across her chest, only looking forward, even though she could hear him closing in behind her.

  The Woodlands

  O’CONNOR LOOKED ALL AROUND HIM, TAKING IN everything he saw, everything he could hear, knowing it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. If this was it, he would have to send in the tracker dogs, even though it risked alerting Cronly to their presence. He divided the SWAT teams up further, spreading out the search area, putting the tracker teams on alert. Ellie was standing beside him, quiet a
nd watchful.

  He looked up to the sky. The light was fading fast. This would become almost impossible once they were working in darkness. Where are you, Kate?

  It was then that he heard it, the first noise. It sounded like an animal in the undergrowth, branches breaking, scuffling. He looked sharply in the direction from where the noise was coming. He felt Ellie’s body tense up beside him, she had heard it too.

  Then it came – a scream from deep in the woodlands. Above him, the jackdaws took flight from the trees.

  He heard someone call out. A man’s voice. The man was roaring in a rage, ‘Kate. Kate. Kate.’

  O’Connor gave the signal and the teams moved immediately and in unison, closing the net on the area. As they worked forward, there was a flash of colour through the trees. The noise of scampering increased – like a fox running away from a pack of hounds. The teams raised their weapons, at the ready.

  ‘Hold fire. Wait. Hold back,’ O’Connor called.

  Then he saw her: it was Kate, crashing down through a pathway in the woods, her hair streaming behind her, her eyes wild, her son clutched across her chest. She wasn’t thinking, wasn’t looking – she was just running blindly, running for her life.

  O’Connor moved quickly, Kate and her son were still a good way down, a steep drop separated them. He ran towards the incline, closing the gap, leaving Ellie behind him. When he saw Cronly emerging from the trees, he could see he was gaining pace on her. O’Connor saw the blood coming from his neck. He had a bloodied knife in his right hand, holding it up high, his face a mask of anger and hatred.

  O’Connor bellowed into the walkie-talkie. ‘Suspect armed with knife. Cronly’s injured.’

  O’Connor jumped down to the ledge and Kate finally saw him. Her eyes registered disbelief before her face clamped down with a determined look – she ran even faster, straight towards him.

  He shouted to his teams again. ‘Victims close. Get ready to make your move.’

  ‘O’Connor,’ she screamed. Cronly was almost in touching distance of her.

  O’Connor lunged for her, pushing her to one side and throwing himself on top of her and the boy. He roared into the walkie-talkie. ‘I have them. Get him. Now!’