The Needle House

by Robin Leslie Roughley

  'Susan, we have to go, right now…'

  'She's alive?' her face appeared to shift, her lifeless eyes suddenly sparked; it was like seeing someone brought back to life.

  'She's fine…'

  'Oh thank God!' Susan started to cry, her shoulders began to shake uncontrollably, everything swept away on a tidal wave of relief.

  'Susan, you have to listen to me, the man responsible for all this is on his way here, right now!'

  Her words filtered through the euphoria, yet the idea seemed preposterous 'What for?'

  'He's coming to kill us, Susan,' she paused, 'all of us.'

  103

  Lasser dropped the phone onto the passenger seat, slammed the key into the ignition and started the engine, his clothes were saturated, his breathing ragged. Frantically, he spun the wheel, executed a quick three-point turn before slamming his foot on the accelerator, the wheels of the Audi spun in the mud as they tried to gain traction. 'Come on, for fuck's sake!' he rode the clutch trying to get forward momentum.

  The dash back to the car had felt like a marathon run through thick molasses, it seemed as though the swollen, rain clouds above were moving faster than he was. He had fallen countless times, the last one had left him sprawled in a trough of muddy water, trying simply to breathe. Every second he lay breathless like an old wino the killer was making his way to the farm.

  Suddenly the wheels snatched at the earth and the car took off, he snapped on the main beam and swung left at the junction, huge trees loomed over the road, the higher branches clattering together in the howling gale.

  He just hoped Cathy was in the car, heading away from the farm with the Fotheringays safely ensconced on the back seat.

  When he hit the first bend he was doing almost sixty, the car slithered to the right; he grappled with the wheel as the vehicle brushed through the tall ferns that grew at the side of the road, missing the wall by inches. As soon as the ribbon of road straightened out he slammed his foot down, the car twitched, righted itself, and surged forward.

  The clock on the dash said two-seventeen, for all he knew the killer could be in the house by now, making good his promise to Jenna. Slowing for the hairpin bend, he was crossing the reservoir, by the time he reached the other side of the water, he was doing a hundred and ten. When he saw the flashing blue lights ahead he eased off the gas slightly, as the two cars rammed past he felt buffeted by the turbulence. In the quarter of a mile it took to reach the crossroads, four other squad cars went hurtling past. All heading up to the moors, yet the irony was when they reached their destination there would be nothing for them to do.

  He turned left, all the time hoping to see red taillights in the distance, but the road was empty, no sign of a Land Rover with a maniac at the wheel. It was hopeless; every step of the way the killer had been playing them. He must have been watching as they blundered towards the house. The bastard had probably found their amateurish attempts to capture him hilarious. He was in no doubt the killer could have stayed out of sight and slaughtered them all, he thought about Simms standing in the field, a look of aggravation on his face just before the bullet sliced through his head.

  Lasser slammed his hand on the wheel, he knew there would be those who blamed Simms, he hadn't been prepared for this, he was too long in the tooth. Of course, while the cameras were rolling he would be 'first-rate officer, who had given his life in the pursuit of a dangerous killer.'

  Yet secretly the big knobs who held the purse strings would be rubbing their hands together like some Victorian miser, thinking of the money they would save when they didn't have to pay out on his pension. The same people who put community officers on the street, because it was the cheaper option, it made him seethe, made him want to find the faceless bureaucrats and… He threw the big car into a series of S-bends not even bothering to slow down, driving on intuition, his mind on the rampage.

  104

  Cathy hovered in the kitchen doorway, feeling like some kind of voyeur. It was touching to see, David and Susan clung to one another, the big farmer had tears rolling down his face. Cathy wondered when he had last cried, probably not since he was a boy. He was whispering something to Susan, his voice shaking with pent-up emotion.

  'We have to go, right now.'

  Ever since Lasser had told her about the killer, time seemed to have slowed down, yet she knew it was an illusion. While they were standing in this room, the man responsible for so many deaths was closing in. 'Listen, I don't want to say this but if we don't go now then Jenna will have no parents to come home to.'

  David eased himself from Susan's grasp and reached up to the top of the kitchen cupboard, when he slid the shotgun down Cathy took a backward step. 'What are you doing with that?'

  'If I see anyone on my property then I'm going to kill them,' he gripped the gun between his huge hands, his face rigid with determination.

  'OK fine, let's go.'

  'Hang on, there's a security light comes on at the back.' David slid open a drawer and pulled out a box of shells. 'Maybe it would be better to go the front way.'

  'Fine, just as long as we get a move on,' Cathy urged.

  The three of them headed out of the kitchen, Susan flicked off the light as they left room.

  He was standing in front of the blackened fireplace, a big man with mousey-blonde hair, dressed entirely in black, somehow blending in with the stone walls, all shades and shifting shadows. Cathy gasped as David shouldered past; the barrel grasped between his hands, as he dashed forward he began to swing it back. Cathy watched the man's face as David steamed towards him; the gun reached its backward arc and began its descent. The killer remained motionless, as if oblivious to the fact that he was seconds away from having his skull caved in. At the last second, he dipped down, the stock of the gun whistling inches above his head. David grunted as his arms snapped rigid, by the time he corrected the swing the man had bulleted upright, his right fist slamming into the underside of David's jaw with sickening force. It was like watching some huge tree being felled; he went down sideways smashing through a small, glass, coffee table before slamming into the hardwood floor.

  Susan ran across the room, a hand clasped to her mouth.

  'Leave him,' the man's voice was deep, no hint of a local accent.

  Susan ignored him and knelt down by her husband's side, her hand hovering in the air above his head as if she were afraid to touch him. 'What have you done?' she snapped her head around, her eyes blazed with anger.

  The man ignored her and looked towards Cathy, a smile on his face, a smile that said you have nothing to worry about, I am a misunderstood guy. Although the eyes told a different story, they said if you run, speak, or do anything other than breathe, I'll make you scream. Cathy found herself nodding, although she was sure that he hadn't actually said a word.

  'Move away from him, Susan.'

  'No!' her chin jutted out in defiance.

  'If you don't sit down, I'll come over there and remove your husband's head,' he gave a shrug of his shoulders. 'It's up to you.'

  Cathy took a backward step, he flicked her a warning glance, his laser eyes pinning her to the spot.

  'You can't threaten me…'

  'Susan. Do as he says,' Cathy hissed.

  She glanced at Cathy, a sudden look of uncertainty in her eyes. 'I'm not having this…'

  'Just do it!' Cathy snapped.

  'You should listen to her, Susan, I'm not known for my patience,' from nowhere he suddenly had a knife in his hand; the blade glittered as he pointed it at David. 'Last chance.'

  Susan leapt to her feet as if she was seeing the man for the first time, seeing what he was capable of. 'I'm sorry.'

  'Both of you, sit there,' he flicked the knife towards the sofa.

  For a couple of seconds Cathy felt incapable of movement, as soon as he began to turn towards her she started to walk or rather she staggered to the sofa and all but collapsed onto it. Susan slid in by her side and reached for her hand, taking hold and gripping it
tight like two best friends on their first day at infant school.

  'Do you know who I am, Susan?'

  'Where's Jenna?'

  'I don't want to talk about Jenna.'

  Cathy felt the grip on her hand tighten.

  'I want to know where she is.'

  'She's up on the moors in the old crofter's cottage; the police are with her, so you don't have to worry.' He looked at Cathy, his eyes a swirling mass of contradictions, a flicker of pure hate, and a hatred that would see the world burn shimmered in the depths.

  She dragged her eyes away.

  'You see we don't have much time, now I'll ask you again, do you know who I am?'

  Susan heaved in a shuddering breath. 'James Wickham.'

  'And how long have you known about my existence?'

  'I didn't, not until recently.'

  He took two long strides towards them; both women cringed back onto the sofa, at the last instance he veered to the left before kneeling at David's side. When Susan tried to pull away, Cathy grabbed her hand tightly and dragged her back.

  'Jenna told me exactly the same thing and you see I believed her,' he tilted his head to one side. 'I'm not so sure about you though.'

  'It's the truth.'

  Wickham reached down and grasped David's wrist. 'We had quite the conversation, she told me certain things of which I was unaware, and I told her a few home truths about her precious grandfather.'

  'Shut up!' Susan could feel the anger building, this man had terrorised her family, given her the worst moments of her life, hours filled with despair and horror. 'You're sick, do you even realise that?'

  Cathy tried to keep a firm grip on Susan's hand, but she felt it slipping away.

  'You must have thought I was going to kill, her, I bet you imagined all kinds of horrors, didn't you, Susan?'

  'What do you think?' she spat the words back at him.

  He smiled. 'And believe me it was my intention to make her suffer but you see I like the girl and after all she's family…'

  'Family!' Susan snorted in disgust.

  Wickham paused for a moment and drew a deep breath as if trying to keep his anger in check. 'So, I reconsidered, it's the same with you, part of me wants to open you up right now,' he twisted the knife, drawing it through the air as if he was practicing the cut. 'Then again what would be the point?'

  'They'll catch you and when they do you'll never be let out…'

  'You think I don't know that.' Wickham suddenly twisted away from them, the hand holding the knife disappeared from view. When he turned back towards them, his eyes were torrid with animalistic fury. 'Catch.'

  David's severed finger landed between then, Cathy scuttled across the sofa, a scream locked in her throat. Susan leapt to her feet, a hand clasped to her mouth, her eyes – wide and glassy – stared down at the chunk of severed flesh.

  'You see, Sue, you don't mind if I call you Sue?'

  She didn't look at him, couldn't drag her eyes away from the finger. Cathy was clutching the arm of the chair trying to keep the bile locked in her throat.

  'I'm a man with plenty of options, I could kill you all and then sit on your front step and wait for the police to arrive. Live the rest of my days in some high-security prison with three meals a day and a fully equipped gym, that doesn't sound too arduous, does it?'

  Susan turned and looked directly at him. 'Why can't you just leave us alone; we haven't done anything to you?'

  'Maybe you haven't but what about dear old Dad, do you think he shares the blame for how I've turned out?'

  'Don't you dare say that, he's a good man…'

  'Well, you obviously know him better than I do but you see I look at things differently. He abandoned me, my mother turned into a drunken slut because of what your father and the Radfields did.'

  'I don't know anything about that,' she glanced at Cathy, her face suddenly flushed with colour, and then she quickly looked away.

  'I was left to fend for myself, ten years old and living on a barge with nothing. While my real father lived less than two miles away,' he held up two fingers to emphasise the point. 'Do you know something, Susan, I used to sneak around here at night, grab a few eggs and whatever else I could get my hands on, just to survive, and yet here you were brought up in a loving, caring family,' he paused, 'now you tell me, does that seem fair to you?'

  'You can't hold us responsible for what happened.'

  Cathy closed her eyes, oh but I think he can, Susan.

  'Just before I torched the boat, my mother had been gone for three months; I thought she must have died. Truth was she was living in the crofter's cottage; Radfield had set her up nicely, his own little whore on the moors, less than a mile away from the boat. You know something, if I had known about all this when I left, I would have come down here and killed you all,' he pointed the knife at Susan. 'What's it feel like – to know I was out there going through your bins, while you were safely tucked up in bed?'

  'I…'

  'To know that your precious father had been fucking around with someone like my mother?'

  Susan glared at him but kept her mouth closed.

  'I can see you hate me, it's in your eyes. You really don't care do you, all you see is some monster who turns up out of the blue and kidnaps your child. I could tell you everything and it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference.' He let David's wrist drop back to the floor and stood up. Cathy could see the blood pumping from the wound, spreading out across the floorboards. 'I thought about paying Father a visit, Jenna told me he's in hospital, heart attack, shame…'

  'Shut up!' Susan screamed, spittle flying from her lips.

  'Temper, temper,' he chided. 'Then I changed my mind, why bother killing the old man, better to let him eke out his remaining years knowing what he's done…'

  'He's done nothing; it's all in your sick head, all of it. If my father had known about you then he would have done something about it.'

  'But he did do something about it, Susan; he ignored it and now look what's happened. First the boy, then the old man in the woods and Malcolm Radfield,' he paused as if trying to recollect the victims. 'Then Ashley who was so helpful and the four unfortunate policemen on the moors who died while they were trying to rescue your daughter. I'm sure that will be a consolation to their grieving wives and children that they died doing the job they loved. '

  Cathy swallowed her disgust, all those people it was unfathomable.

  'You…'

  'Of course, when all this is over, you'll get the sympathy, being held by a maniac responsible for so much horror. But inevitably questions will be asked and the truth about who I am will surface and then what?'

  'You bastard!'

  'What will people say when they find out that you're my sister, when it's spread on the front of every newspaper and they put our pictures together on the TV screens.'

  'People around here know us, they would never…' her voice faltered.

  Wickham smiled. 'So, you see, it's much more productive from my point of view not to kill you. It's all about the stigma, Sue, the gossip, the pointing fingers. Of course, Jenna will have to give up college. I'd imagine sharing the same house with you and your father will become unbearable. She will…'

  'You filthy…!' Susan leapt to her feet.

  In an instant Wickham reached down and grabbed a handful of David's unruly hair, yanking the head back, exposing the throat. Cathy pushed herself up from the sofa and grabbed Susan's sleeve.

  'Susan, don't!'

  She tried to snatch her arm free; Cathy kept hold dragging her back.

  'After all what will Jenna think when she knows her father's dead and you did nothing to stop it from happening. In fact, you caused it and all because you refused to tell the truth,' he grinned, the insanity flooding from his eyes.

  105

  As soon as the dark bulk of the house came into view, Lasser turned the headlights off and coasted to the end of the drive. Climbing from the car, he walked around to the boot; the wi
nd buffeted him as he fumbled around in the small space. Heaving up the heavy mat, he reached in and pulled out the baseball bat. It had been lounging in there since last summer, confiscated from a kid who had been waving it about in the street, off his face on some horse tranquilizer and smashing all the headlights of the cars he came across. Two weeks later the same boy was found behind Stilettos Pole Dancing bar, minus one ear. They never found out who was responsible but as far as Lasser was concerned, he had either been peeking in through one of the windows whilst having a wank or one of the irate car owners could have sliced it off as a form of retribution. The surgeon said it had been done with a Stanley knife, which, considering about ninety percent of the male population of Hindley carried one, didn't really help at all. What made matters worse was the fact that the kid wore glasses. He remembered thinking that maybe the scrote would have to make do with a monocle; pretend it was a fashion statement.

  Closing the boot, he set off up the drive, the sound of his feet on the gravel lost to the howling wind, the bushes either side of him taking a battering.

  When he saw Cathy's squad car parked in front of the house he stopped for a moment, his shoulders sagged at the implication. Then he was running, the fury flooding through his system like a Class-A drug, the red mist descending.

  'James, don't do this.' Cathy pushed Susan hard, sending her back against the sofa.

  Wickham twisted his head and looked up at her.

  'Why not?' he seemed genuinely curious.

  'Because these people have suffered enough, everything you said about the truth coming out is going to happen anyway.'

  'I realise that, but what's your point?'

  'You said you like Jenna, you could have killed her, yet you didn't.'

  Wickham pursed his lips. 'Despite the rest of her family she seems like a good kid.'

  'But if you kill her father then all she will ever do is hate you. She'll never understand why you did these things because she won't be able to get past that one fact.'