The Quiet Girls: An absolutely addictive mystery thriller

by J. M. Hewitt

  Harry felt the saliva dribbling from the side of his mouth as he stared at this stranger. Police? Manchester police? And he wanted a… mobile phone?

  He tried to push himself upright in the chair but his arms were soft and liquid. He gave up, gazed open-mouthed at the man, before turning his attention to Alice.

  ‘What?’ he managed.

  He saw Alice’s clenched fists, the red rash on her chest and neck, the fury in her eyes. He remembered their fight, her kicking the table, not seeming to feel the pain in her bare foot.

  She pounced, suddenly, and Harry tried again to lift his arms to protect his face, certain she was going to scratch his eyes out. He let out a thin wail as her fingers grazed his leg, felt the breeze as she spun away from him.

  He blinked through sleep-encrusted eyes. She stood in the centre of the room, holding something, looking triumphant, almost.

  ‘Liz’s fucking pills!’ she spat, holding the bottle aloft like a prize, rattling it. The noise cut through Harry’s fog.

  ‘Hey,’ he mewled, reaching for them, struggling once again to stand.

  Off to one side, the police officer blew out a frustrated breath of air.

  Alice threw the bottle behind her. ‘He’s no help,’ she hissed. She made to leave, before turning back to Harry. Crouching down, she put her face very close to his. ‘Gabe is a paedophile,’ she hissed. ‘He’s got your daughter.’

  At her words Harry felt panic manifest in the room. It touched him, worried at him, even though he didn’t understand what his wife was saying. A terrible lie, an awful thing to say about a man.

  Alice stormed past him, headed towards the door. The police officer, the strange man who didn’t belong on the island, followed her.

  And was it Harry’s imagination or did he throw a filthy look in his direction?

  The door opened, a breeze ruffled the curtains. Moments later it slammed shut. Harry swallowed past the lump in his throat.

  ‘Wait,’ he called, weakly.

  But they had gone.

  ‘He’s a fucking liability, I can’t fucking believe it.’

  Alice felt the heat of her anger threading through her body. She turned to Paul, suddenly furious that he was standing there, scanning the horizon for his partner, while her daughter was in the hands of that man. At her glare, he seemed to snap to attention. He turned to Willow, standing like a sentry in front of the door to the second cottage.

  ‘Your mother is in there?’ he asked.

  Willow nodded.

  ‘I looked in there earlier, I didn’t see her,’ he said.

  When neither of them replied, he stepped closer and peered at Lenon.

  ‘What about him?’ he asked. ‘Can we find out what he took?’

  ‘It could have been anything, mushrooms, berries, pills. Anything.’ Willow slipped her thin arms around her brother’s shoulders. ‘Watch it,’ she said to Paul as he stepped closer.

  Alice saw it then, the splash of vomit that Paul had nearly stepped in. Grimacing, Paul moved carefully around it.

  ‘It’s probably good, if he’s vomited,’ he said cautiously.

  Alice let out a grunt of fury. ‘This is…’ she tailed off, closed her eyes before opening them wide. ‘Liz, Lenon, Harry, all drugged up to the eyeballs. I need to find Melanie.’ She wrenched Paul’s sleeve, a plaintive plea for him to help.

  Paul set his mouth in a firm line and walked up to the door. Hesitating for just a moment, he pushed it open and walked in.

  Alice paced around, darting fleeting glances at Willow and Lenon. She wanted to run, sprint and find that son of a bitch and wrench him away from her little girl. A part of her knew she needed these officers. And couldn’t Melanie be inside that house right now? Quietly, making no sound, she slipped through the cottage door after Paul.

  It was gloomy in this cottage, the drapes always closed. Dust mites made an arc in a strip of sunlight from a rip in the material that hung at the windows. It smelled real bad, Alice noticed. Even worse than the last time she’d been in here.

  She could make out Paul’s shadow in the bedroom through the open door, and eager to stick close to him, she padded across the room.

  Liz was on the bed, Paul bent over her. At first she thought he was crying, chest heaving, rubbing at his eyes, before she realised the stench was attacking him.

  She heard two sets of breathing and she held her own breath to make sure one of them wasn’t her. Paul, steady, noisy, inhaling though his nose. Liz, jerky, in spasms with an accompanying wheeze.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ muttered Paul.

  ‘She’s no better then?’ said Alice.

  Paul lurched forward at the sound of her voice, reaching out to steady himself on the bed post. He turned to face her.

  ‘How long has she been like this?’ he asked.

  Alice shrugged, holding on to the door frame, peering inside, looking at the wall, the ceiling, anywhere except at the inert woman.

  She heard Paul swallow as he looked back at Liz. ‘I looked in here earlier, she was so quiet and still under the bedclothes I didn’t even notice her.’ He straightened up. ‘Can we get her some water, please?’

  Alice nodded and slipped out towards the kitchen. When she came back Paul was bent over Liz, one hand taking her pulse, the other on her forehead.

  He waited while Alice lifted the bottle to Liz’s dry, cracked lips before asking, ‘Are there any phones that work on this island?’

  Alice shook her head.

  He nodded, as though he’d been expecting that answer.

  ‘No internet? What about 3G coverage?’

  ‘No.’ She pushed herself upright, turned back to the door. ‘I need to find my girl,’ she said.

  ‘Right.’ He backed out of the room. ‘Let’s move outside,’ he said, and he jogged back to the door.

  Carrie saw the look of pure relief on his face when she came around the corner.

  He stalked up to her, his face closed and cold. ‘Don’t ever do that again,’ he murmured in a clipped tone.

  She restrained herself from reminding him who was in charge. She let it go, knowing she would have said exactly the same if he had done what she did.

  ‘I didn’t see where they went,’ she said before turning around to face Alice. ‘Where else have we not covered?’

  Alice began to speak, rattling off the points of the island she was familiar with. She stopped suddenly as the cottage door creaked open and Harry emerged.

  ‘W-what’s happening?’ he rasped. ‘Where is Melanie?’

  Carrie stared at him, something tugging at her inside at the sight of his watering eyes.

  ‘Are you saying that man has got my daughter? But you called him a-a…’ He tailed off as though repeating Alice’s words would make it all so real. Suddenly to Carrie he looked as sick as Lenon.

  Carrie glanced at the boy, drew in a sharp breath.

  ‘Lenon,’ she said. ‘Where is your sister?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, and his slate-grey eyes glinted.

  Carrie breathed heavily. ‘Stay here,’ she said to Alice. ‘Stay together and don’t move.’ Turning to Paul she said, ‘come on.’

  ‘What’re we going to do, walk round and round the island until we stumble upon them?’ Paul asked.

  ‘If we have to,’ replied Carrie.

  ‘We need help, we need to get––’

  She raised a hand. ‘Shh.’

  ‘What?’ he whispered back.

  Footsteps behind them. Carrie turned, visibly relaxed as Alice came into view.

  ‘We really could do with you staying with Harry and Lenon, and keeping watch over them and Liz,’ said Carrie.

  Alice raised her chin. ‘I need to find my daughter,’ she said. ‘If you were me, if the missing were one of your own, would you stay put?’

  It was like a knife through Carrie’s heart.

  I did worse than that, she thought. I turned away, I walked away.

  ‘Stay behind us,’ she ordered a
s she began to walk again, faster now, the sense of urgency pulling her along.

  ‘Look,’ said Paul, pulling up so abruptly Carrie almost collided with him.

  She looked to where he pointed, saw the blossom, a trail of it, stretching ahead of them on a beaten path. Bright pink; a beacon against the dark brown earth.

  ‘A trail?’ she wondered aloud.

  Alice looked up at the sky. ‘There’s no trees here where it could have fallen from.’

  They were like breadcrumbs, like the fairy tale, thought Alice as they broke into a run. Only they were flowers, not crumbs, and they were leading not to the witch, but to someone far worse.

  ‘Where does this path lead?’ called Carrie as they jogged along.

  ‘Back to the cliff top, where we were earlier,’ Alice huffed. ‘Oh God, the cliffs.’

  What was he planning? He would be feeling cornered, with no route for escape. Her daughter would be his bargaining chip, or, if he were truly mad and he had nothing to lose and he liked the idea of someone else’s fear and suffering… The frightening thought pierced at her along with the vision of Melanie, held hostage above those deadly rocks. One push and it would all be over.

  Alice began to sprint, easily passing Carrie and Paul as her fear lent her wings.

  ‘What did she say to you?’ Gabe asked, his tone just as it always was; conversational, pleasant.

  Melanie gasped a breath, heard it rattling in her chest.

  ‘N-n-nothing,’ she managed.

  They had stopped walking after what felt like day, though in all probability it was only an hour or so since she had been sitting in the cave after discovering the terrible truth. She remembered Willow, her awful dead eyes, the cool way she had spoken of killing this man, her own fear that Willow would hurt Alice.

  Now she saw the girl wouldn’t. The girl was after one man, and one man only. And that man was on the run, and Melanie was stuck with him.

  She glanced around, realising for the first time they were on the cliff top, the sound of the water slapping on the rocks below.

  He sat opposite her, his back to her, trusting her not to move, not to run. Briefly she considered it, after all she knew this island as well as he did, knew where the paths were, the obstacles, the holes which the animals dug to get to their burrows and the traps which she had laid with Harry.

  The traps!

  Melanie envisaged the last one she had watched Harry make; the steel he had found in a part of the old industrial building, the spring he had fashioned, the jaw trap it had become. She closed her eyes, the scene playing out in her mind, darting along, leading Gabe towards the trap, him lumbering, moving clumsily, not knowing where to step and where to avoid like she did.

  She closed her eyes, stared at the back of the man who was not who he seemed.

  His colours were those that she’d never seen on him before. Red and silver, edged with black. Excitement, she realised. And another thought struck her; maybe Willow had the right idea in what she had planned to do to him.

  She stood up, her eyes never leaving him. Was this what he relied on when he preyed on girls? That they would be immobilised by fear? That they wouldn’t run or scream or try to escape him?

  But you’re different, she whispered to herself inside her head. Everyone’s always told you you’re different. Use it to your advantage.

  Melanie turned and ran.

  35

  It wasn’t far from the cliff top, a hundred yards or less in the opposite direction from the underpass, but to Melanie it seemed like a marathon. She didn’t dare glance behind her, or try to listen for his footfall, sure if she did she would be caught.

  Instead she put her head down, pumped her arms and legs, and ran as fast as she possibly could. A flash of white in her peripheral vision, a face, a shape in the long grass. Melanie didn’t stop until she was almost at the trap and she leapt, clearing it easily, already imagining him when he followed her and put his foot in those steel jaws.

  Ten more feet and she flung herself down to the ground, pushed herself up, enough to be seen, understanding the need to draw him in, knowing she was his bait, sensing now she had stopped running that he was close.

  She screamed as she turned, the sight of him, literally on her tail, so close, the tears rising and spilling over that he was faster than she’d realised, that she’d barely had a head start. Did he know the trap was there? Had he seen her leap? Had Harry shown him the steel jaws he’d constructed?

  She moaned as Gabe closed in on her, grinning now, his mouth stretched in a smile that was terrible, worse than the mask he’d worn.

  Bearing down on her, looking bigger than she’d ever seen him, and Melanie sank back to the ground, not wanting to see when he reached her, not wanting to look at his face, not wanting to see his colours that danced around him, bright red and orange as his excitement grew, like a fire surrounding his body. He enjoys the chase, she realised. The danger of her almost-escape had only made it better for him.

  She closed her eyes.

  A snap, the sound of metal on metal, a thump, a yell that grew into a panicked shout. Silence, and then, another noise, something crashing through the grass, a crack and then… nothing.

  They heard the scream, all three of them, and while she sensed Alice slow down, Carrie ran faster, not caring when Paul overtook her, silently urging him on towards the sound of the awful cry that had pierced the air.

  Carrie chanced a look behind her, saw Alice moving again, gripping her skirts, her mouth moving, soundlessly repeating her daughter’s name. Ahead of them, the trail opened up into a field, Paul striking at the long grass, creating a makeshift path which Carrie followed.

  The pink blossom stopped suddenly, heaped in a small pile. She caught up with Paul, nudged ahead of him, horrified at what she might see, remnants of clothing, just like before.

  She wilted with relief at the sight of Melanie emerging to her right, staggering, legs shaking. Carrie opened her arms, a natural motion, but Alice shoved past her, grabbed at Melanie, sinking to her knees, pulling her daughter with her.

  Carrie blinked, lowered her arms, hoped that Paul hadn’t noticed. She was the officer here, not the mother, not the comforter. Never had she been those things.

  ‘What have we got?’ she asked, treading where Paul had, her words sharper than she had intended.

  She saw the foot first, a boot on the end of an outstretched leg. An arm, and then, the man, spread-eagled, face down in the dirt. A chain, rusty brown snaked around his leg. She followed it to see the spiked metal that enclosed his shin. Blood pooled around his head. Next to him crouched Willow, a rock larger than her fist in her hand, the fingers that clutched it white down to the knuckle.

  Carrie darted past Paul, skirted around Willow, shooting a look at the girl’s expression; stoic, unfeeling, unmoved.

  Gabriel Hadley’s face was totally concealed, but she noted the movement of his torso, the chest that rose and fell.

  ‘Are you both okay?’ she called to Melanie and Willow.

  Melanie, her head tucked into her mother’s chest, moved her face at the sound of the unknown voice. Her mother murmured to her, and they got unsteadily to their feet. Carrie cast one more glance at Gabe. Satisfied he was out of action for the moment she walked over to Willow.

  ‘Come with me,’ she said, but the girl moved sideways, away from Carrie, never taking her eyes off the man on the ground at her feet.

  ‘You left the blossom trail,’ Carrie said to Willow. ‘That was a really good move. Clever.’

  Still no response. Carrie walked smartly over to Alice and Melanie. ‘Alice,’ she said. ‘Can you stay with Willow? I think she needs a familiar face,’ she said.

  Alice stilled, her hands on her daughter’s shoulders, not wanting to leave her, not even if she were going to be within her sight. Carrie understood. ‘I’ll stay with Melanie,’ she said.

  Alice swallowed, and with her hand trailing down Melanie’s arm, she walked over to Willow.
r />   Carrie watched them go before turning to Melanie. ‘Did Willow set up the trap?’

  ‘My dad made it,’ said Melanie, and then, ‘who’re you?’

  ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Carrie Flynn, that’s Detective Constable Paul Harper.’ She nodded towards Paul, crouched in the grass, checking the pulse of the man whom Melanie had lured into a trap and whom Willow had smashed on the head.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked anxiously of the girl who stood silently in front of her, never taking her eyes off the people who clustered around the man who had taken her.

  Melanie shrugged. ‘I’m all right,’ she said.

  ‘Come, sit here for a moment. Is it okay if I check you over?’ Carrie asked as she drew the girl to sit on a fallen trunk out of the long grass.

  She checked Melanie’s vitals quickly, satisfied with her pulse, happy there were no injuries that had befallen her. Not external ones, anyway, she thought sadly.

  ‘Melanie, that’s such a pretty name,’ Carrie said, for something to say.

  Melanie smiled slightly. ‘I’m named after Melanie Hamilton, from the book Gone with the Wind.’ She paused, narrowed her eyes. ‘Do you know the book?’

  It was like being punched. Carrie managed not to double up with the physical pain. She forced herself to nod, made her mouth smile in acknowledgement.

  Melanie tilted her head to one side, her eyes big and round. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

  Carrie cleared her throat, mentally checked herself. She hadn’t moved, hadn’t changed her position or her expression at all. How did the kid know her reference to that particular book was like being bashed with a metal pipe? Curiosity got the better of her.

  ‘Why do you ask that?’

  Melanie dropped her gaze. She scuffed at the dusty ground with her trainers. ‘Your colours changed,’ she said softly.

  ‘What?’ Carrie blinked as the sun came out from behind a cloud. ‘What do you mean?’