by Rosie Walker
‘Where are you, you little fucker?’ he whispers. ‘I’m going to get you.’
There’s a knock at the door and Alexander jolts with sudden energy, his heart pounding. The computer mouse crashes to the floor, its case bursts open and the battery rolls out and under the desk.
‘Shit.’ He kicks the rest of the mouse under the desk and rushes to the door. It’s only 6am, long before Paul would arrive for his nine o’clock shift. Who the fuck is knocking on the office door at this time in the morning? It’s not exactly going to be the girl, is it?
He unlocks the door and pulls it open slowly. Two people stand outside in the dawn light, a man and a woman. The woman looks vaguely familiar, her thick grey-blonde hair tucked into a purple paisley headscarf, curls escaping out at the sides. Her eyes are tired, her skin pale and cheeks hollow. Why does she look familiar?
‘Hello,’ says Alexander. ‘Can I help you?’
The man steps forward and holds out his hand for Alexander to shake. ‘Tony. Retired Detective for the Lancashire Police.’
Alexander takes his hand and releases it as quickly as he can. ‘I’m Paul Herbert,’ he says quietly. ‘And you?’ he looks at the woman.
‘Helen.’
As she speaks, Alexander realises why she’s so familiar: this is the one who was prowling around the asylum a few days ago. The one he saw on the CCTV monitors and followed as she trespassed inside the building. She’s often here as the sun rises, striding through the long grass in her wellingtons and bright red jacket.
Her wavy hair and button nose are the same as the girl he’s been playing with for the past few hours. This is the mother. The one whose daughter was tied up in the basement until a short while ago.
A growl rumbles through the air. Ah yes. The one with the dog.
She’s holding a lead, and the animal is straining against its bonds, trying to get at Alexander, but every time the dog gets closer and catches his scent, it gets scared and backs behind the woman’s legs again. The dog must catch a whiff of the girl on Alexander’s clothes and can’t decide between its revulsion of Alexander or the scent of its owner. Ridiculous creature.
‘We met the other day.’
The woman opens her mouth to speak again but the man cuts her off.
‘Can we come in?’ says Tony, gesturing into the office. ‘It’s a bit nippy this morning.’
Alexander grips the doorframe so tightly it could splinter in his hands. He digs his nails into the wood, trying to control his frustration. ‘I’m afraid now isn’t the best time. Lots to get done before the end of my shift – perimeter checks, patrols, you know. If you come back around ten, though, you might want to talk to my colleague Pau—’ he stops. Slow it down, Alexander. You’re in danger of making a grave mistake.
But the girl – where is she? She’s either lost in the tunnels or she got out of the basement somehow and is in the main building or the grounds. She can’t have gone far. She’s not on any camera feeds, so she’s either in the woods or downstairs inside the building, somewhere deep in the maze of corridors and tiny rooms. He’s got three hours until Paul arrives to start his shift. Three hours to find her and dispose of her and all evidence she ever existed. Three precious hours that these two people are now wasting.
She taught him not to transport more than once. That kind of precaution reduces the likelihood of DNA transfer, and witnesses; but today’s little unravelling triggers a shift in protocol. Mum had her chance, and she didn’t take it. He just needs to get the girl off the property and then he can destroy her.
Even if there’s evidence left behind, he’s done enough to direct attention away from him and towards Paul Herbert. For a while, at least. And, like always, he’s ready and willing to pick up everything and start again somewhere else.
The man coughs, a forced bark startling Alexander back into the moment. What do these people want? How could they possibly have traced him here?
‘I’m afraid we can’t wait until ten,’ says the woman, and Alexander grits his teeth. ‘This is an emergency.’ She steps forward as if to push her way into the office. He’s moments away from lashing out, caving their skulls in and having four bodies and a dead dog to dispose of in the ever-diminishing time remaining before Paul shows up.
‘Fine,’ he says, and steps aside to let them into the room. ‘Make yourselves at home, I suppose.’
Helen sits on the battered armchair in the corner and Tony takes the desk chair, swivelling it around so he sits with his back to the monitors, their grey glow lighting him up from behind and casting his face in shadow. Alexander wonders if he’s chosen that seat specifically to gain an upper hand, like a power stance. Maybe they taught that in the police back in this guy’s police training days. It’s a good tactic.
This leaves Alexander with the rickety folding chair that ordinarily rests against the wall behind the door. He unfolds it and sits down, blocking the door and positioned directly across from Tony so he can watch the screens over Tony’s shoulder. Two can play the power game.
‘Well, let’s get right to it, as I don’t have much time.’ He speaks quickly to get this over with as soon as possible and get back out there. ‘What brings you here at 6am? Can I help with something?’
He knows what they’re here for, but he needs to know why. How have they traced her here? It’s not GPS; he threw her handbag and dead phone in a ditch near Heysham, Paul’s home town.
‘Our daughter is missing.’
He looks at them, from one to the other, his face blank of any expression. The woman is hunched over, leaning forward. Her head tilts towards the floor but her eyes look directly at Alexander under a frown. She definitely doesn’t trust him. She looks at him just like her dog does. Thankfully, she left the creature tied to a post outside.
Next, he raises his eyebrows high on his forehead to look surprised and concerned. ‘Your daughter? Sorry to hear that. How awful. How long has she been gone?’
‘Nearly forty-eight hours,’ says Tony.
Actually, Alexander knows it’s closer to thirty-one. He nods. ‘Forty-eight hours. You must be beside yourselves.’
Helen looks up at him carefully.
He wants to have a little fun. ‘She could be anywhere by now. With anyone.’
Tony stands up, his large frame blocking the screens and reducing what little light shines into the room from their grey flicker. ‘The police are working very hard to find her.’
‘I’m sure they are.’
Helen reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out a photograph. Alexander takes the photo and pretends to examine it. It’s from a couple of years ago; the girl’s face is rounder here, skin clearer – her cheeks smooth and plump. She’s grown up since this photograph was taken, her childish cheeks hollowing out and her whole face elongating. He resists the temptation to tell the woman that she should have picked a better picture, something more recent.
‘This is Zoe. She’s only seventeen years old. Have you seen her?’
He shakes his head. ‘She looks like you,’ he says to Helen.
‘Have you seen her?’ Tony asks again.
Alexander looks up at him. Over his shoulder, the screens cycle through their feeds. Alexander shifts in his seat to see a sliver of their flickering displays: the main entrance, the driveway, the edge of the forest, the back kitchen doors. Nothing. No movement.
‘I haven’t seen that girl before,’ he looks Tony right in the eye as he speaks, daring him not to believe his words. ‘What makes you think someone here at the asylum would have seen her?’ he asks, sitting up straighter to scan the feeds behind Tony’s shoulder.
Tony coughs and looks out of the window, but Helen shifts forward in her seat.
‘The location of th—’
Tony cuts her off. ‘We’re exploring a lot of lines of enquiry at this time.’
Helen closes her mouth.
A movement on one of the CCTV screens catches Alexander’s eye. He glares at the screen, but the feed circula
tes to the next camera before he can focus on what was happening. Is it the girl?
He stands up out of his chair. He needs these fools to leave immediately.
‘I’m sorry, I still don’t understand why you’re here?’ he asks, taking a step towards the screen. But he stops; if he looks too intently, they’ll follow his gaze to the screens too and they might see their daughter, and it’ll all be over. He must keep their gaze on him. ‘You said you’ve called the police? If there’s something to find, they’ll find it, surely? I hear Lancashire is a particularly strong force.’ He nods at Tony and the man almost swells with pride.
‘It is,’ he agrees, nodding. ‘It’s won a number of—’
Helen cuts him off with a raise of her hand. ‘We have called the police about this. They’re conducting enquiries and I’m sure this is on their list to get to later today.’ Her gaze flicks to Tony and then back to Alexander. ‘But we were anxious to start work. If we can find anything, we want to try.’
He nods. ‘I understand. I wish I could help.’ He makes his face look serious and focused, instead of mirroring the frantic flutterings inside his brain.
The feed flips around to the next camera. Another thirty seconds and it’ll be back on the feed where he saw the movement. What was it?
‘But unfortunately, I don’t think there’s anyone here who will know anything. I’ve been here all night and it’s been very quiet. There’s just me and two other colleagues, both normal, friendly guys with nothing to hide. In the main. I mean, I’m sure they have their pasts,’ he pauses here and makes eye contact with Tony. ‘But nothing relevant to this kind of investigation. I’ll say the same to the police if they come around later. I’ll give all the details I can, of course.’
He gestures to the door and strides across the room to open it. ‘I’m afraid I have to get on with things, so you’ll forgive me if I usher you out.’
Twenty seconds until the feed flips. She’s out there somewhere. Alexander must find her. Before they do.
Helen remains seated. Alexander nods at her, trying to encourage her to move. ‘I’m sure the police will be here later today; I will get contact addresses for my colleagues, pass them onto the investigators. That’s best, right? Communicate with the appropriate channels?’
Fifteen seconds.
‘Oh yes, that’s best,’ says Tony, clearly a slave to process and convention.
‘Again, I’m sorry I couldn’t offer more hope. If I see anything which might be even slightly important I’ll be sure to report it.’
Helen finally stands up and Alexander tries not to sigh with relief. They walk slowly to the door and he closes it behind them as quickly as he can without hitting them in the back.
Five seconds to go. He scrambles to collect the wireless mouse and its lost battery under the desk, and rights himself to standing just as the feed switches around. As he’s watching, his eyes scanning the blurred and grey, pixelated image to discern any detail, he shoves the battery back into the mouse and clicks to lock the display onto that feed so it won’t cycle again.
It’s one of the cameras trained on the perimeter of the asylum building, at the corner of the west wing. There’s a movement near the ground. A head emerges from underneath the building. Head, hands, shoulders, arms. A child. A boy. The boy wriggles out and turns back to the window, reaching his head and shoulders back through.
Alexander stands up, gripping the sides of the monitor. ‘What the fuck?’ he growls.
There’s another one coming out, a girl this time. He’s pulling her out by the arms.
When she’s out of the hole, Alexander realises what he’s seeing. They’ve been in the basement. Alexander’s basement. They’re climbing out from one of the windows.
They lean back down, reach into the basement again and there she is: the girl. The black and white, grainy CCTV feed shows the stains on her clothes of sweat and other bodily fluids. She can barely move, but the two kids are dragging her out of the hole like a sack of potatoes.
His skin tingles. His forehead beads with sweat. They’ve been in the basement. It’s all he can think, over and over. They were in the basement all the time. Those children know what he is. How long have they been down there?
He’s caught.
Okay. Cold, calculated, rational. He can deal with this, just like he dealt with Zoe missing from the tiled room. He’s got a plan; it just needs executing.
He bursts out of the office, plunging into the forest, pushing through the undergrowth, branches scratching at his arms and face. They’ve been in the basement.
He runs, runs, runs, thigh muscles stretching and flexing, lungs full bursting heaving. Out of the trees, into the open, heading straight for the west wing.
Zoe
Zoe’s blind.
Her eyes have swollen shut, some kind of reaction to the tape, and it’s a relief not to open them; she doesn’t need to see, she just wants to keep her stinging eyes closed and drift off to sleep.
Her lungs are bursting and everything hurts in her whole body. Her limbs won’t carry her much further. She managed to muster the strength to climb up the filing cabinets the kids moved to the window and out into the fresh air, but now she’s done. She just wants to lie down on the ground and go to sleep, she’s so tired.
Her mouth is so dry and her nose is blocked. Her lips are chapped and all she wants is a big drink of water and a warm bed. A while ago she was scared, but she’s not any more; she’s just so, so tired.
The little kids won’t let her lie down, whenever she tries to sit on the ground they pick her up again, shake her awake, and once the little girl even slapped her around the face. The boy shouted at her for that, but the girl – Maggie – was adamant that’s what you do in films when someone’s falling unconscious. But Zoe doesn’t feel like she’s losing consciousness, she just feels like she wants to sleep.
They’ve hoisted her up again, wrapped her arms around their shoulders and are pulling her through grass and trees. She’s not wearing any shoes; no idea where they went, so she can feel the grass, twigs and soil under her feet as they move.
‘Come on, we’ve got to go faster.’ Thomas sounds really worried.
Are we being chased? She wonders, but her mouth is too dry to speak. She tries to move her legs, to help.
‘He’s not following us,’ says Maggie.
‘He will be. He’s not going to let us get away with her. And Zoe saw him kill that old woman; she’s a witness.’
Maggie lets out a sob.
Zoe will never, ever forget the horrific crunch when the man dug his thumbs into his own mother’s neck, crushing her windpipe. It’s playing on repeat in her brain. He’ll never let them get away. They’re still trapped, even though it feels like they’ve escaped. They’ve just moved into a different part of his territory.
She listens like an observer, like it’s all happening to someone else. She just keeps moving her feet, stumbling over branches and trying to stay upright, waiting for a moment when they stop so she can lie down on the soft forest floor and fall into a deep sleep.
She does a mental appraisal of her body from the ground up. Her feet are one of the only parts of her which don’t hurt, but the way these kids are dragging her through the woods, they probably will soon. She nearly got caught in a tree root earlier when they stopped paying attention to her while they argued about which direction they should turn.
Her legs are shaky and weak, like she’s walked miles and tired them out. But that’s not the case, she’s barely walked anywhere in what must be days. She’s just been tied up, waiting, hurting. Her thighs sting, the skin tender from dried urine, and despite everything her cheeks burn with shame knowing why her skin is sticky and why she smells.
Her stomach aches because it’s so empty, and she knows there’s a cut on her neck but strangely that doesn’t hurt too much. The man did that one almost for fun, he didn’t mean for it to hurt her or even kill her, she thinks. But the blood dried on her t-shirt and
she knows she must look like someone out of a horror film.
She is in a horror film, but it’s real life. It’s like Texas Chainsaw Massacre or something. Did the main characters survive in that one? She can’t remember. They usually all die at the end, though, right? Or just one of them survives, so they can pass on the story.
These kids are cute, but if it comes to it, Zoe hopes she’s that one, the one who survives. Just as she thinks this, her foot catches in a tree root and she smashes face first into the forest floor.
Helen
‘We can’t go yet. We need to stay longer, have a look around,’ she says, turning to gaze up at the hospital, its stones damp and mossy.
Tony pulls open the driver’s door and throws himself into the seat. ‘Just get in.’
‘But we could go into the main build—’
‘Helen.’ Tony talks through gritted teeth. ‘Get in the car. I’ll explain in a minute.’
She stays where she is. ‘Tony, why do you have to be so obstructive? We’ve come all the way here, now why—’
‘For God’s sake, Helen,’ Tony says, his voice barely louder than a whisper but very forceful. ‘Trust me on this one. It’s just like we talked about. Get in the car.’
There’s something about the look in Tony’s eyes: desperation and panic combined with complete certainty. She climbs in the car and slams the door behind her.
Alfie is panting in the back seat, his front paws on the central console and his hot doggy breath brushing against her cheek. She reaches back and pushes him down. ‘Get down,’ she pats his head to apologise for her roughness.
Tony starts the engine and pulls away from the hospital, tyres crunching on the old tarmac.
‘Watch the mirrors,’ he says.
‘There’s something about him, right?’ she asks, gazing at the hospital in the rear-view mirror, willing Tony to agree with her.
He doesn’t reply. The only noise is the car’s engine and Alfie’s panting. They’re driving slowly down the long, narrow driveway, with trees growing thick on either side, so big and leafy that they join at the top to create a green tunnel. It must be almost sunrise, but the dawn light is grey.
