The Taking of Annie Thorne

by C. J. Tudor

  I stared, my guts heaving. I looked at my hand. The palm was stained crimson. I turned and half ran, half stumbled back down the stairs. I noticed now that the walls and banister were covered in more red smudges.

  ‘Annie! Dad?’

  I jumped the last step and into the living room. Dad was still slumped in the armchair, his back to me.

  ‘Dad?’

  I edged around the armchair. His face drew into view, eyes half closed, mouth half open, a small, rattling wheeze of breath coming from his lips. He wore an old Wet Wet Wet sweatshirt. He’d won it in some local-radio competition (he’d wanted to win the holiday to Spain). Weird the things you notice. Like I noticed that below Marti Pellow’s face a huge stain had spread out from the centre of my dad’s chest. Like an ink stain. Like when I left the lid off my fountain pen. Except it was too big. And it wasn’t blue. It was red, dark red. Not ink. Blood. Wet, wet, wet.

  I tried to fight down the panic. Tried to think. Stabbed. He had been stabbed. Annie was missing. I needed to call the police. I needed to call 999. I ran over to the phone on the wall and picked up the receiver. I dialled with trembling fingers. It rang and rang and then a pleasant voice said: ‘Which service do you require?’

  I opened my mouth but the words dried up. Blood. Red. Fresh.

  ‘Hello? Which service do you require?’

  The bathroom. Splodges on the floor. But not splodges. Shapes. One splodge, five small ones.

  Footprints. Small footprints.

  ‘Hello? Are you still there?’

  I lowered the phone. From behind me, I heard a noise. A tiny giggle. I put the receiver back and turned around.

  Annie stood in the doorway. She must have been crouched in the cupboard beneath the stairs. She was naked. Blood streaked her body and her face, like war paint. I could see gashes on her arms, her narrow chest. She had slashed at herself too. Her eyes glittered. In one hand, she held a large kitchen knife.

  I tried to breathe, tried not to throw myself screaming out of a window.

  A knife. Dad. Wet, wet, wet.

  ‘Annie. Are you all right? I – I thought someone broke in.’

  I saw confusion flicker.

  ‘It’s okay. I’m home now. I’ll protect you. You know that, don’t you? I’m your big brother. I’ll always protect you.’

  The knife wavered. Something in her face changed. She almost looked like my Annie. Like she used to. I felt my heart clench.

  ‘Put the knife down. We can sort this out.’ I held out my arms, tears thickening my voice. ‘Come on.’

  She smiled. And charged at me with a growl of guttural ferocity. I was ready. I sidestepped and shoved her hard. She flew forward, tripped on the hearthrug and fell. I grabbed for the poker by the fire, but there was no need. Her head caught the corner of the fireplace. She crumpled to the floor, the knife falling from her hand.

  I stood, shaking, half expecting her to leap straight back up. She continued to lie still. Because whatever was inside, it was still inside the body of an eight-year-old girl. And eight-year-olds are fragile. They break easily.

  I looked back at my dad. I had to get him to a hospital. I glanced at the phone. Then I ran into the kitchen. A while ago Dad had given me a few driving lessons. Just up and down the local roads. Back then, in Arnhill, no one really gave a shit about a fifteen-year-old behind the wheel. I wasn’t great. But I knew the basics.

  And I knew where Dad’s keys were.

  Dad was heavy. He had put on weight. I dragged him to the door, inched it open and glanced out at the street. No one about. Curtains drawn. I couldn’t be sure that some busybody like Mrs Hawkins wasn’t peering out of her net curtains, but I had to take the chance.

  I heaved his body down the short pathway and over to the car. I propped him against the back door and opened the passenger side. Then I manhandled him in, body first and then his legs and feet. I stood back. My hands and the front of my school shirt were covered with blood. No time to worry about that. The hospital was twelve miles away, in Nottingham. I had to move quicker. I hurried around to the driver’s side and stopped. I looked back at the house. Annie.

  I couldn’t just leave her.

  She stabbed your dad.

  She’s still just a kid.

  Not any more.

  She might die.

  And?

  I can’t leave her. Not again. Not like before.

  I ran back into the house. Half of me expected to find Annie had gone, like in horror films when you think the hero has killed the bad guy only for them to disappear and then reappear later, wielding a chainsaw. But Annie still lay where she had fallen. Naked. Shit. I ran back upstairs, heart thudding like an internal clock, reminding me that time was running out. I flung open the small white wardrobe in Annie’s room, grabbed some pyjamas – pink with white sheep – and ran back down the stairs.

  She didn’t stir as I dragged them on her, although I could feel her breathing faintly. I lifted her in my arms, as slight as a baby deer. She felt cold. And a part of me couldn’t contain a shudder of distaste.

  I was almost at the gate when I saw a shadow approaching along the street and heard excited panting. A dog walker. I backed up and waited in the shadows as they passed. The dog stopped near the gate, sniffed then recoiled, tugging its owner faster down the road.

  ‘All right, all right, got scent of a fox, ’ave yer?’

  No, I thought, but it got a scent of something.

  I bundled Annie into the back of the car. Then I ran around to the front and flung myself into the driver’s seat. My hands were shaking so badly it took me three attempts to fumble the keys into the ignition.

  Fortunately – miraculously – the engine started first time. I put the car into gear. Suddenly remembered my seatbelt. I clicked it in and lurched off down the street. I concentrated on trying to stay on the right side of the road, and also on not bumping the kerb. It distracted me from thinking about what I would do if Dad died on the way, or what I would say if he didn’t.

  I needed a story. I remembered what I’d said to Annie – an intruder. Someone broke in. They would believe that. They had to. And if Dad was alive, he could tell the truth.

  I was out of the village now. The black country road twisted in front of me like an oily snake. No street lights, only cat’s eyes. I couldn’t find the full beam. A car emerged from a side road and pulled close behind me. Too close. The glare in the rear-view mirror was blinding me. What if it was the police? What if they had traced the 999 call and they were following me? And then the car signalled and pulled past, horn blaring.

  I glanced down at the speedo. I was only doing 35 mph, on a 60-mph road. No wonder they were pissed off at me. And I was drawing attention to myself. Despite the blackness and my tenuous grip on the wheel, I forced myself to push my foot down harder on the accelerator. I watched the needle creep up to forty, fifty. I glanced in the rear-view mirror again.

  Annie stared back at me.

  I swerved, the tyres bumped the verge, I wrestled with the steering wheel to drag it back again. The rubber squealed but managed to regain its grip on the tarmac. Dad fell heavily against me. Crap. I’d forgotten to do up his seatbelt. I shoved him back into his seat with one hand, trying to control the steering wheel with the other.

  Annie lunged from the back seat. Her fingers clawed at my face and grabbed my hair, yanking my head back. I tried to bat at her with my free hand but her grip was surprisingly strong. I felt her nails rake my flesh; the roots of my hair screamed. I bunched my hand into a fist and struck her hard in the face. She fell back.

  I grabbed the wheel again, just in time, as headlights flashed by on the opposite side of the road. Fuck. I pressed my foot down harder still on the accelerator. I had to get to the hospital. Had to. The speed crept up to seventy. I saw Annie pull herself up to a sitting position. I tried to strike back with my elbow, but she ducked past and wrapped her hands around my eyes. Her fingers dug in. I yelled. I couldn’t see, my eyes were strea
ming. Just glimmers of darkness and light.

  I let go of the wheel with one hand, tried to pull her fingers away. My foot slipped on the accelerator. The engine screamed. I felt the car spin, the wheels leave the tarmac and hit the grassy bank.

  The car bucked. Annie’s fingers let go. A huge black shadow loomed ahead. A tree. I tried to grab the wheel back, stamped on the brake. Too late.

  Impact. A monstrous jolt. Crunching metal. My body flew forward, nose smashing against the steering wheel. The seatbelt flung me back again. Dazed. Something crashed past me out of the windscreen. Pain. My chest. My face. My leg. MY LEG! Screaming. My own.

  Blackness.

  35

  ‘That was how we found you.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Me and Dad. We were coming back from the footie, evening match. Dad spotted the car, all smashed up against a tree.

  ‘We pulled over, to see if we could help. Saw straightaway that your dad was dead. I found your sister’s body a little way from the car. I couldn’t help her …’ He pauses. ‘I went back to the car and Dad said: “The boy’s still alive.” Then he said, “And he’s got a big problem, hasn’t he?”

  ‘I knew what he meant right away. You were only fifteen. You shouldn’t have been driving.

  ‘We decided to move you. Put you in the passenger seat and your dad in the driver’s so the police would think he was driving.’

  ‘Why? Why did you care?’

  ‘Because, whatever differences we had, Dad believed you looked after your own. You were part of my gang. Your dad was a miner – even if he was a scab. You didn’t dob your own in to the pigs.

  ‘I was supposed to come and see you in hospital, tell you to stick to the story. But turned out you’d already got one of your own. Couldn’t remember anything about the crash, a nurse told me. That true, Joe?’

  I stare at him. Lies, I think. There are no such things as white lies. Lies are never black or white. Only grey. A fog obscuring the truth. Sometimes so thick we can barely see it ourselves.

  To start with, I wasn’t sure what I remembered. It was easier to just go along with what the police and the doctors told me. Easier to close my eyes and say I didn’t know what had happened. Couldn’t remember the crash.

  I never told Mum. But then, she never asked. About any of it. She must have had questions. She must have cleaned up the blood. But she never said a word. And once, when I tried to talk to her, she gripped my wrist so hard it left bruises and said: ‘Whatever happened in that house, it was an accident, Joe. Just like the crash. D’you understand? I have to believe that. I can’t lose you too.’

  That was when I understood. She thought I had done this. That I was somehow responsible. I suppose I couldn’t blame her. I had been acting weird for weeks. Hardly eating, not talking, staying out as much as possible. And in a way, I was responsible. I had caused it. All of it.

  When I returned home, on crutches, pins in my shattered leg, the house had been aired and cleaned and Annie’s room had been freshly decorated. Everything was the same as it was before.

  I didn’t try to put Mum right, or tell her what had really happened. And she never put into words what I saw in her eyes: that the wrong child had been lost. That it should have been me. Until the day she died, Mum pretended she still loved me.

  And I pretended not to know that she didn’t.

  I clear my throat. My head feels too full, conflicting thoughts wrestling with each other in the mud of my consciousness.

  ‘You want me to thank you?’ I say.

  Hurst shakes his head. ‘No. I want you to take these’ – he gestures at the crowbar and the tie – ‘and chuck them into the River Trent. And then, I want you to fuck off and never come back.’

  I feel sick. Loser sick. That feeling when you see the other player’s cards and know you have been screwed. That you are done. Well, almost done.

  ‘The police will ask you questions too. Why you moved me. Why come forward now? Tampering with the scene of an accident. That’s a crime.’

  He nods. ‘True. But I was just a kid. It was my dad’s idea. Now I’m older and wiser, it has made me re-evaluate things. I need to come clean. If I have to, I can spin this. And they’ll believe me. I’m a respected member of the community. While you? Well, look at yourself. Suspended from your current job. Suspicion of theft from your old school. You’re hardly a model citizen.’

  He’s right. And what if they start asking more questions? Investigate the scene again. Question my dad’s injuries.

  ‘So,’ Hurst says, ‘I think this is what we call a stalemate.’

  I nod and stand. I take the carefully wrapped items and put them back into the holdall. I don’t really have any other choice. I take my phone out of my pocket.

  Hurst stares at it. ‘You’re still going to call the police?’

  ‘No.’

  I bring up my contacts and raise the phone to my ear. She answers on the first ring.

  ‘Hi, Joe.’

  ‘You need to talk to him.’ I hold out the phone to Hurst.

  He looks at it like I am holding out a grenade. And I am. In a way.

  ‘And who exactly am I talking to?’ he asks me.

  ‘The woman who will kill your wife and son if I do not walk out of here thirty grand richer.’

  He takes the phone and I watch his face turn grey. Gloria can do that to people. Even before she sends him the pictures: shots of Marie and Jeremy finishing their dinner in town right now.

  He hands the phone back to me.

  ‘You’d better get that money,’ Gloria says. And then: ‘They’re leaving. I need to follow them.’

  I end the call and look at Hurst. ‘Thirty grand. Transfer it now and I’ll be out of your hair for good.’

  He just stares at me. He looks dazed. Like someone has just told him all at once that the world is flat, aliens exist and Jesus is on his way back for a visit.

  Gloria can do that to you too.

  ‘What the hell have you done?’ he croaks.

  ‘I just need the money.’

  His eyes find focus. They are full of tears. ‘I don’t have it.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. That car sitting out front is worth sixty grand at least.’

  ‘Contract lease.’

  ‘This house.’

  ‘Re-mortgaged.’

  ‘The villa in Portugal.’

  ‘I sold it, barely broke even.’

  The sick feeling is back. Worse now. It feels like a rat is worrying away at my insides. Chewing through my stomach lining. Heading for my bowels.

  ‘I don’t think Gloria will like to hear that.’

  He runs a hand through his perfectly coiffed hair. ‘It’s the truth. I don’t have thirty grand. I don’t have twenty or ten or even five fucking grand.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘It’s all gone. Marie’s treatment in America. Do you know how much a miracle cure costs?’ A bitter chuckle. ‘Over seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds. That’s how much. It’s everything I’ve got. I’ve nothing left.’

  ‘Liar.’ I shake my head. ‘Just like always. Trying to save your skin. You’re a liar.’

  ‘It’s the truth.’

  ‘No. I called the clinic in America. Marie told me about it. And guess what – they’d never heard of you or Marie. She isn’t booked in there for a fucking ingrowing toenail, let alone a miracle cancer treatment.’

  I stare at him in triumph. I expect to see the usual defiant snarl. A man challenged and angry at being caught in a lie. But instead I see something else. Something not expected. Confusion. Fear.

  ‘That can’t be right. She paid them. I transferred the money.’

  ‘More lies. Do you ever stop? I know what you’re planning.’

  ‘I can show you the bank statements. The account number.’

  ‘Right. Of course you can –’ I stop suddenly. I stare at him. ‘She?’

  ‘Marie. She found the clinic. She arranged it all. The hotels, flig
hts.’

  ‘You transferred all the money to Marie?’

  ‘Into our joint account. She made the payment from there.’

  ‘But you didn’t talk to the clinic. You didn’t check they received the money?’

  ‘I trust my wife. And why would she lie? She’s desperate. She doesn’t want to die. This treatment was her only chance.’

  And desperate people want to believe in miracles.

  I try to stay calm, to think. ‘Why have you been obstructing the country-park plans?’

  ‘Because it’s more profitable to build houses on the land.’

  ‘Even with what’s underneath?’

  He sneers. ‘A rockfall sealed that place off years ago.’

  ‘That’s what I hoped. But it seems your son has found another way in.’

  ‘Jeremy? No. And what the hell does this have to do with anything?’

  ‘You never told him what we found?’

  ‘I told him never to go up there. To stay away.’

  ‘And kids always do what their parents tell them?’

  ‘Of course they don’t. In fact, Jeremy couldn’t care less what I say. But he listens to Marie. Always has. He’d do anything for her. He’s a mummy’s boy.’

  I swallow and it’s like swallowing fragments of ground glass.

  He’d do anything for her. A mummy’s boy.

  And sometimes the apple does not fall so very far from the tree.

  I’ve just been barking up the wrong tree.

  My phone starts to ring. I grab it. ‘Yes?’

  ‘How’s it going?’

  I glance at Hurst. ‘Fine. How long till they get back?’

  ‘That’s why I called. They’re not coming back.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They drove back from town. Marie dropped the boy off on the high street to meet some mates. Now she’s heading along the road towards your cottage.’

  ‘My cottage?’

  ‘No, wait, hang on – she’s stopped. She’s getting out of the car. Okay, this is weird. She’s got a torch and a rucksack.’

  Shit.

  ‘The pit,’ I say. ‘She’s going to the pit.’