Текст книги "The Lake House"

Автор книги: Helen Phifer

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

Chapter Twenty

Megan got into the van in a good mood for a change. Henry had almost had a panic attack when he saw the number of yellow stab vests wandering through the town. They were in pairs. Each pair had a clipboard. He didn’t look at them after that and tugged his baseball cap down as far as it would go. Maybe he should grow a beard. But wouldn’t they be expecting him to do something like that? Sometimes being blatantly obvious was the best disguise. Look at Megan. She was working in the busiest café in Bowness, which also happened to be the one Annie used a couple of times a week. She was chattering on and on about how stupid the police were, about how stupid Annie was, and then she dropped the bombshell, which made Henry want to stop the car and smash her face against the dashboard.

‘She came in today, looking very flustered. I even talked to her, but the best part was I touched her hand. Just think, Henry, while you were whacking off thinking about her this afternoon, I let my fingers brush against her skin, ever so delicately. And do you know what’s even better? She shivered at my touch. Maybe she’s a closet dyke. Imagine me and her naked. I bet you’d like to watch that.’

He carried on staring at the road ahead. He couldn’t pull over or start an argument. There were too many officers around. Instead he gripped the steering wheel as tightly as he could and imagined it was Megan’s neck. He loved her but he wouldn’t have her making fun of him or Annie, or touching her, because she was all his. He whispered ‘You stupid, fucking bitch’ under his breath, which was enough to knock the grin off her face. He glanced at her and was glad to see she had gone white. Good. He hoped she had realised exactly how much she’d crossed the line. He was trying to keep himself calm but he couldn’t, because deep down in the pit of his stomach a tiny flare had gone off, which had ignited the fire. A fire that could only be extinguished by death. It would burn and burn until he had killed someone and she’d better pray it wasn’t her. They got to the caravan but he left the engine running.

Megan looked at him. ‘Are you not coming in?’

Henry shook his head. ‘No, I need some time to think and calm down because right now, Megan, I want to hurt you so bad you wouldn’t believe it. So you best get out of the van and let me have some space.’

Realising she’d overstepped the line she did as she was told without saying another word. She shut the van door and ran up the caravan steps, not even glancing behind her. Good. He wanted her to sit on her own and think about what she’d just said, let her sweat it out and worry if he was going to come back and slit her fucking throat. Henry wasn’t worried that she’d panic and ring the police. Her fingerprints were all over that barn the same way his were. She would be arrested and banged up before she could cry for help. He also knew that he wouldn’t kill her, but he was going to have to kill someone. He needed to go for a drive away from here and hope he would come across someone he could kill on the way. He was having a bad day, but not nearly so bad as whoever he decided was going to die today.

The roads were busy but that was okay. It kept his mind occupied. He decided to turn left at the roundabout at Newby Bridge and head in the opposite direction to Barrow and Detective Will Ashworth. It was getting dusky and he had been driving for some time when he saw the flashing orange hazard lights in the distance. All the other cars kept on zooming past but Henry was intrigued to know who it was that had broken down on this deserted stretch of road. No doubt they had phoned for help, but if it was a woman alone, regardless of what she looked like, she would do the trick. He didn’t care if she didn’t match Megan’s profile. He needed to kill. He was pretty sure Megan wouldn’t argue either when he told her it was a choice between her and this complete stranger. He indicated and pulled up behind. He could see a woman who looked about the same age as Megan shouting down her phone at someone. He got out of the van and smiled at her.

‘Do you need a hand?’

She looked at him. In a split second she appeared to decide that this middle-aged man wearing a baseball cap that looked pretty stupid wasn’t a threat. She nodded her head. ‘Ring me back when you’re on your way. There’s someone here. They might be able to help.’

He watched her slip her phone into her pocket. ‘Would you mind? It started to judder and then it completely cut out on me. Do you know much about cars?’

‘I know a little.’ He grinned at her and walked over to the bonnet. ‘Lift the catch and I’ll take a look.’

She leant into the car and he heard the pop as she released the catch. Feeling underneath he managed to find the button to get the bonnet up. He didn’t have a clue about cars except how to put oil and diesel in, but she seemed to know even less, so it wouldn’t matter. For the next five minutes he messed around, finally telling her to turn the engine on. He hoped that it wouldn’t work or she would be driving away to live another day. It didn’t. ‘Sorry, I can’t seem to find what’s wrong.’

‘Don’t worry. Thank you for trying. At least you bothered to stop. Do you know how many cars have just flown past and not given me a second glance?’

‘Look, it’s pretty dangerous to be standing here when it’s almost dark. Do you want a lift to the nearest garage where you can wait in safety for recovery and at least keep warm while you’re waiting?’

She didn’t even hesitate. ‘Yes please, that would be wonderful. My boyfriend can’t come for another hour. He can’t get out of work. Thank you.’

Henry opened the car door for her and she smiled as she got inside. He ran around to his, trying to suppress the smile that was threatening to take over his face. He got inside, and started the engine. Slipping his hand down the side of his seat he felt for the cold, steel blade of his knife. She began to chatter away about the car and how useless her boyfriend was, never there in an emergency. Starting the engine he nodded and laughed when he thought it was appropriate because he wasn’t really listening. He was trying to control the butterflies in his stomach. Reaching out, he turned the radio on to drown out any noise, then he turned and smiled at her. She looked at him properly for the first time and a shiver ran down her spine. Blindly feeling for the door handle, panic began to set in. She took her eyes away from him to find the handle and escape, but it was too late.

The van was a mess. She had bled a lot. He looked across at her face. Her eyes for ever open, staring at him. He pushed her body so her head was facing the other way. It was like having a life-sized doll sitting next to him. He realised that he needed to get moving. Her boyfriend might not be that useless and on his way, so he wiped his hands on his trouser legs and grabbed the steering wheel. The traffic was a steady flow and his indicator kept on ticking. He tried to slow his racing heart down. Finally a car slowed down and its headlights flashed to let him join the flow of traffic. He would drive as far as the next turn-off so he could double back and go to show Megan what he’d done without her help.

The roads were so dark around here, which was a blessing because driving around with a dead body next to you wasn’t a very wise thing to do. Especially when you were the most wanted man in England. He realised that he had taken some very stupid risks just to satisfy his needs. He had done what he had been making Megan put off for months. She would probably go mental with him, but then again he’d never really had an argument with her. It was more the case that she would say something that would annoy him and he’d give her the silent treatment for a few hours.

He felt sick. He’d never liked confrontation or arguing and this was going to make her freak. What if the camp site was crawling with uniformed officers? The whole town had been full of them. Megan might have decided to cut her losses and run. He could be driving to his downfall. The caravan might be full of coppers all waiting for him. A calmness spread over him. If that was how it was going to end, then so be it. He had managed to have a practice run. He knew, if it came to it, that he would cut his own throat rather than be locked away again without seeing or touching Annie one last time.

When he reached the turn-off to the park he was relieved to see it wasn’t swarming with police. He drove on down to the caravan and parked on the small gravel space next to it. The caravans around him were empty; winter wasn’t as popular in the Lake District. Making sure there was nobody around he got out and went up the steps. The door was unlocked and he walked in to see Megan sprawled on the sofa in the shortest of shorts and a skimpy vest. She took one look at him and sat up, the colour draining from her face. He had dark patches of blood all over his pale green sweatshirt.

‘Oh my God, what’s happened? Have you hurt yourself?’

He shook his head. ‘No, but I did hurt someone else. She’s out in the car.’

Megan ran across to the door, pushing past him. In bare feet she ran outside to look through the car window. It was steamed up so she opened the driver’s door and squealed in shock. After slamming it shut she ran back inside.

‘What have you done? What were you thinking, Henry? You make me wait for months, telling me it all has to be just right, we can’t risk anything, and then you turn up here with a dead woman in the front seat of the van on the day half of the Cumbria constabulary are out looking for us. You fucking idiot.’

She ran to her bedroom, slamming the door shut for good measure. He nodded. She had a point. He wouldn’t argue with her, but what he needed to do was hide the body. The only place he could put it was the ramshackle boathouse next door. He went outside, turning off the lights so it was as dark as it could be. Then he walked around to the caravan, peering through the hole in the hedge. The house on the other side was in darkness as well, so it would be just fine. He wasn’t too sure how he was going to get a body through the window, but if he managed it, he could go back when he needed to and cut off her head. He wanted to leave another little present for Annie. Megan was just going to have to get a grip and help him. Between the two of them they should be able to do it. He opened the passenger door and she slumped towards him. Catching her, he dragged her the rest of the way out. She was heavy and it was a struggle. There was no way he could do this on his own. He knocked on Megan’s door.

‘I need a hand.’

He was greeted by complete silence, so he knocked again much louder.

‘I said I need a hand, so stop being a drama queen and come help me.’

‘Why, Henry?’

‘Because I need to hide the body and I can’t lift it on my own. At the moment it’s lying on our lawn and if anyone was to wander down to the shore they would get a bit of a shock. What’s done is done. I can’t change that now, but we can slow down the car crash that’s waiting to happen if you help me. Please.’

He heard some shuffling around and stepped back as she opened the door. Her cheeks were wet and her eyes were red. He didn’t say anything. She’d been the one to piss him off. She was lucky it wasn’t her body lying outside on the gravel.

‘You’d better put a jumper on. It’s freezing outside.’

She turned and pulled on a pair of leggings and a black jumper. He nodded his approval and then he went outside.

Megan, who for the first time since the day she’d met Henry had actually spent ten minutes contemplating her own mortality, followed. She blanched when she saw the body lying so blatantly obvious on the grass, but waited for him to tell her what to do.

‘Right, when I say, we’re going to carry it through the hedge to the boathouse. I’ll climb inside and open the window as far as I can, then we’ll both have to shove it through the gap.’ She nodded and walked around to the woman’s feet, not wanting to have to stare into the bloodied mess that was at the other end. It was a struggle and before long the sweat was running down Megan’s forehead and into her eyes, but they half shuffled, half dragged the woman towards the boathouse.

When they reached it Henry climbed through, opening the window as wide as it would go. After what seemed like forever, with one final shove they managed to get her inside. He didn’t catch her and there was a loud thud as her body hit the floor. Henry disappeared, leaving her standing there, shivering. A noise from somewhere in the garden made her whip her head around to see what it was, no doubt a fox or a badger, but it sounded loud. She looked around, wondering if it was a deer, but a sharp, clattering sound of claws being scratched along a hard surface made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. It sounded creepy. She couldn’t see much because of the complete darkness, but she felt as if she was being watched by something that wasn’t an animal, yet wasn’t quite human either. Something was out there. She whispered ‘Henry’, but there was no reply. Finally he clambered back out of the window, pulling it shut behind him.

‘There’s something out there.’ The minute she said it she thought about the horrible face she had seen peering through her window. What if it was some freaky person who lived in the house that no one knew about?

‘What do you mean, there’s someone out there?’

She lowered her voice. ‘Something is watching us. I heard it.’

‘Someone, something? If it was a someone I think they would have phoned the police by now and we would be about to be taken into custody. It’s probably a fox. They’re sneaky and could probably smell the blood.’

She knew in her heart it wasn’t a fox. It was out there watching them and it gave her the creeps. Henry pulled a cloth from his pocket and began to wipe the blood smears from the glass. She stayed close to him, convinced that it was waiting for its moment to pounce and use those huge, scary, black claws on her. He turned and knocked into her; she was standing so close to him. ‘What are you doing? You gave me a bloody fright.’

‘Can we go back? There’s something there.’

He nodded and led her through the hedge, then she ran ahead into the caravan. He took one last look at the boathouse window. It looked clean enough but he would check it again first thing, as soon as it was light. He didn’t want to leave a huge bloodstain running down the wood underneath it. There had been a large, blue tarpaulin that he’d used to wrap around the body. He went into the caravan and locked the door behind him.

Megan’s clothes were in a pile outside the bathroom and he heard the sound of the shower running. Taking a black plastic bin liner, he scooped them up into it, then he undressed to his boxers and did the same with his own. He would dispose of the bag in the morning when taking her to work.

He had no idea why she had freaked out so much. Maybe she had realised that if he hadn’t killed a complete stranger it could have been her. Or she could be plain jealous that he hadn’t let her be a part of it. Whatever, it would teach her that he was the one who was still in control. She might have helped him to escape but it was Henry Smith who was the infamous serial killer, a bit of a local legend. Henry felt good. In fact he felt better than he had in months because, as much as he liked Megan, this whole thing had always been about him. She had been a means to an end. He didn’t think he would be able to catch Annie or kill Will without her help, but if she wasn’t around he would die trying.

She came out of the tiny bathroom wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around her body and he nodded. Her eyes were redder than before and she looked as if she’d been crying more in the shower. It hit him just how young she was. She looked like a teenager and he wondered if she was regretting throwing her old life away for this one. He had his shower and still couldn’t wipe the grin from his face. He was back in control and in full fighting form, and this time no one was going to stop him.

Chapter Twenty-One

Will called Annie. He had to speak to her. All day his stomach had been in complete knots. He hadn’t been able to settle and they were no closer to finding Smith than they had been this morning. She answered straight away. ‘Well, hello, pretty lady; how are you?’

She laughed and it was the sweetest sound he’d heard for hours. ‘Missing you but apart from that I’m not too bad. My bodyguard has done a pretty good job up to now.’

‘Good, because I’ll kill him myself if he lets that bastard anywhere near you. I can’t concentrate. I’ve been thinking how much I want to come pick you up, get our passports and take you as far away from this place as possible. Should we run away and leave them to it, let them find him and come home when he’s back behind bars?’

‘As tempting as that is I can’t leave. You know as well as I do that he will hurt someone close to me to bring me back, and that means Jake or your parents. He’s clever, Will. He won’t just give up and hand himself in at the nearest police station. You and I both know that he’ll keep on going until he’s got what he wants.’

Will paused. ‘Damn it, Annie, I hate it that you always have to be so practical and that you’re always right.’

‘I’m not always right, but there’s something about Henry that makes me think like him, and I don’t like it. I wouldn’t hurt anyone unless it was in the line of duty and completely necessary, but that man makes me think like a killer. For some bizarre reason I can’t explain I feel as if I have a connection to him. I love you.’

‘I love you more. Is the big guy there?’

‘He’s in with the inspector who sounds about as happy as the rest of us. I’ll tell him to ring you when he comes back.’

She ended the call knowing full well that he wouldn’t be the one to press the red button first. He hated saying goodbye. Will was well aware he had turned into a complete wimp since he’d met Annie, but he didn’t care. She was the only woman who had ever taken his heart completely. His desk phone began to ring so he picked it up to hear a call handler on the other end barking orders on the radio, as well as down the earpiece.

‘Is that Will Ashworth?’

‘Speaking.’

‘There’s a guy on the phone. Says he’s a farmer from Walney, a Gordon Corkill. He thinks he’s seen Megan near the field where the body was found. He’s only just been catching up with the papers. Wants to speak to whoever is in charge.’

‘Brilliant, thank you.’

He waited for the call to be transferred. ‘Hello, Detective Sergeant Ashworth speaking.’

‘Are you the chap in charge of this case?’

‘I am, sir. Can I help you?’

‘I’m thinking more along the lines of if I can help you, son. I’m sorry I haven’t rung before but I work long hours and only have Wednesday afternoons off. It’s then that I sit down with a cold beer and read the week’s papers. Well, I’m pretty sure I recognise that young lass that you’re looking for. She doesn’t have blonde hair, though. When I spoke to her it was dark brown, but she has the same ears as the one in the picture.’

Will tried not to groan as he leant forward and banged his head against the desk. Stu looked across at him wondering if he’d finally flipped.

‘I’m sorry but I don’t understand what you mean. How can you recognise someone by their ears?’

‘They are the one thing that never changes. You can dye your hair, bleach your teeth, straighten your nose, but not many people mess with their ears. I noticed she had a small birthmark above the earring on her left ear. It was like a large brown freckle. Well, that picture in the paper – when you look at it closely – you can just make out a brown smudge in the same place.’

Will jumped up from his chair and turned round to look at the picture of Megan that was taped to the whiteboard behind his desk. He squinted and, yes, he could make out what looked like a large brown freckle on her left ear, just above where her earring was.

‘Sir, you are a genius. Can I come and speak to you right now with one of my officers? It’s a matter of life and death.’

‘Aye, I thought it might be serious. That man she’s shacked up with is bad news. I live in the big, stone farmhouse next to the riding school. You know which one I mean?’

Will didn’t have a clue but he’d find it. ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes. Thank you.’ He put the phone down. ‘Come on, Stu, we have our first eyewitness. A farmer who reckons he spoke to Megan a couple of months ago near to a field.’ He didn’t go into detail about the birthmark. Stu would argue it was a coincidence, but Will didn’t care if it was. Any witness was better than the fuck-all they had at the moment. He grabbed a set of car keys off the board and rushed out of the door, with Stu close behind.

He reached the road to the riding school and was surprised to see the farmhouse. All the years he’d been coming over here, he’d never noticed it. He carried on until he reached the big wooden gates that were propped open. There was a brand-new Land Rover parked in front of the house. Who said farmers were poor? The door opened and a man who looked fitter than him and Stu put together walked towards their car. Will got out and shook the man’s hand. ‘Thank you. I can’t tell you how much this means.’

‘No problem, son. I just wish I’d heard about it sooner. Come inside and I’ll tell you what I know, which isn’t a great deal, but I saw her a few times after that afternoon. Sometimes it was walking but mainly she was driving a small silver van.’

‘Do you know the registration?’ Will prayed to God that he did.

‘No, I didn’t take much notice of it, to be honest, but I can describe the van to you.’ He led them both inside his house and into the warm kitchen that smelt of home-made soup.

‘Wife’s gone to the Bingo, so I make the dinner on a Wednesday.’

Will’s stomach let out a groan. He hadn’t realised just how hungry he was. ‘Was she always on her own?’

‘No, sometimes she had a chap with her. Always had one of those baseball caps on. I never saw him without it and, if it wasn’t hot, sometimes he wore his hood on top of it as well.’

Will wanted to kiss the man in front of him. This was their first solid lead and eyewitness. ‘Where do you think they were coming from?’

‘Oh now that I can tell you – the caravan park a couple of miles up the road. I sometimes take the grandkids swimming up there and I would see the van parked, near the clubhouse. They must have been stopping in one of the static caravans up there. I can’t say as I remember seeing it lately, though, and I was up there just this morning.’

Will nodded. Taking out his phone he began to give orders to the control room inspector, telling him exactly what he needed. He asked for the task force team to be brought in armed to the teeth. They needed to find the caravan and fast. Stu had his head down and was busy taking down as many details as he could. Will couldn’t concentrate so he went outside for some fresh air and to wait for the patrols that would be arriving soon to help with the search.

1 June 1931

Martha wiped her brow with her sleeve. She was concentrating so hard it was making a fine film of perspiration form on her brow. She was in Joe’s room even though she wasn’t supposed to be. It was hard to breathe. The air was so hot and stuffy with the windows closed. Her mother no longer allowed anyone in here but she liked to sneak inside when she could. She would sit on the chair by the window, snuggling down into the soft cushions and trying to make herself invisible. There she would clutch on to Joe’s favourite stuffed rabbit, which only had one eye because they had ripped the other one off in a struggle for it last year.

She didn’t go out into the garden much because she was sure she had seen the thing that took him twice out there, looking up at the house. The first time she had been told off and had come in here to sulk. It had been getting dark outside and there were shadows all around the garden, but she had seen something scurry across the grass by the water’s edge. It had been too big to be a cat or a dog and it hadn’t waddled like a bird would. Instead it had moved fast, like a rat, but it had been too big for one of those and it looked half human the way it was bent over. She had seen the rats that Davey sometimes caught in the traps and they were a thousand times smaller than the thing that had run across the lawn.

She had watched it, her heart racing, the fear making her whole body feel as if an electric current was running though it. Yet she had been fascinated. It had paused for a second, turning to look at the house, and she had let out a small screech and pushed herself down into the chair so that it couldn’t see her. She didn’t want it to know that she knew about it because she didn’t want it to eat her just like it had eaten Joe. She shivered. Poor Joe. He had been a pain but he hadn’t deserved to be stolen by some scary monster. Then the monster disappeared near the hedge and was gone.

Martha wondered if she should tell her father about it, but he had only just stopped turning the house upside down in his hunt to find Joe. It would only set him off again. Things were no longer the same now that Joe wasn’t here. Her mother was always so sad. She spent a lot of time in her bedroom, locked away from them all, and it hurt Martha that she didn’t want to spend time with them. Her father still played with her and read her bedtime stories, but he always seemed as if he wasn’t quite there.

She was lonely and none of her friends ever came to play because their parents wouldn’t let them. She had overheard Lucy and Mary gossiping in the kitchen about how the house would have a reputation now. No parent would let their child come here when Joe had disappeared and never been found, and as sad as it was, Martha could understand why her friends weren’t allowed here. Their parents wouldn’t want the same thing happening to them.

The more she thought about it the angrier she would get. What if the monster came back for her? It must like children and she was the only one left. She had asked her mother if they could live somewhere else and for the first time in her life she had screamed at her. ‘No, we cannot because what if Joe comes home? He won’t know where to find us, you silly girl.’

The words had stung so much that her heart had actually ached for her brother and she had wanted to scream back, ‘But what about me, Mother? What if it decides it liked how good Joe tasted and wants to come back to eat me up?’ But she hadn’t. She’d run upstairs and thrown herself onto her bed, crying with anger, fear and pent-up frustration at Joe for being stupid and getting himself eaten. She had begged him not to go into the cellar and he had anyway. Sometimes she would think that he had got what he deserved for trying to scare her, but then she would feel even worse and hate herself for even thinking such bad thoughts. What she wanted was for him to come home, then they could all move as far away as possible from this house and the monster that lived in the cellar.

Today it wasn’t the thing that looked like a giant human monster that she saw, but the figure of a little boy standing by the boathouse. Martha had jumped from the chair and felt her heart miss a beat at the sight of him. She wanted it to be Joe but whoever it was was too far away for her to get a clear view and the rain that had been running down the window all day made it harder to see. She pushed her face against the glass. It looked like her brother but she could be forcing herself to believe it when a new family might have moved in somewhere along this stretch of the lakeside. But he had the same sandy-coloured hair that stuck up on the crown, much to Joe’s annoyance. Joe would spend ages trying to get it to stay down, only for it to stick right up again not long after.

Martha wanted to shout to him as loudly as she could, but she was scared in case her mother heard her. She would be in trouble for being in here and for calling Joe’s name if it wasn’t him. She banged on the glass, hoping to catch his attention, but he never heard. How could he? The boathouse was at the end of the garden. Martha turned and ran out of his room and down the stairs as fast as her legs could carry her. Not caring that she wasn’t wearing any shoes she burst through the front door and down the steps to the gravel path that led to the boathouse, pumping her arms to make her run faster. Looking up she could still see the boy and she shouted at the top of her voice, ‘Joe Beckett, don’t you move an inch or you’ll be for it. Wait for me; I’m coming.’

Finally the boy began to move. Ever so slowly he began to turn around to face her and that was when she let out the loudest scream anyone in the house had ever heard. It was Joe, but he had no face apart from one blue eye that stared back at her. She fell to her knees, the fear paralysing her. He shook his head at her, opening his lips. ‘Don’t go into the cellar, Martha. It’s waiting for you. It’s waiting for all of you. Soon it will go to sleep and you will be safe until it wakes up again, but I don’t know when that will be.’

Then he was gone. He didn’t fade away but disappeared completely as if he had never been there in the first place. He left her screaming at the top of her voice, on her knees on the gravel. It was Davey and her father who came running to find her. Her father scooped her up into his strong arms and ran back to the house with her where Mary and Lucy were fussing by the door. He carried her into the lounge and laid her on one of the huge blood-red sofas. ‘Get me some brandy now. She’s in shock,’ he barked at Lucy who began to pour some from the crystal decanter into a small glass. She passed it to him and he lifted it to Martha’s lips. She was shaking so much her teeth were chattering.

‘You must take a small sip, darling. It will make you feel better and warm you up. You’re frozen. What were you doing out there in this weather with no shoes and coat on?’