A Whisper to the Living (27 page)

‘Hadn’t you best get back down for the poker then?’

She stiffened as a hand came from behind the door and grabbed her hair.

‘Scream and I’ll bloody strangle you,’ he said quietly. He twisted her round then hurled her onto the bed.

‘Take your clothes off,’ he growled.

She lay frozen and still as he approached her. He pulled her to the edge of the bed and began to fumble with her clothes, his hands tearing at the waistband of her skirt. ‘Thought you’d got away with it, didn’t you? But I’ve seen you with the lads, oh aye, I have that. And you didn’t finish me with that bloody poker, not by a long chalk. If anybody’s having you, it’s going to be me, right?’ He began to chuckle and she knew then that she dared not fight or scream; if she provoked him, he would surely kill her.

‘And you’ll tell nobody about this,’ he went on. ‘Because guess what? I’m going to say you’ve been after me for years, flaunting yourself, showing me your titties and giving me feels. I’m going to say as how I resisted you for a long time, but you finally got the better of me. Oh, it does happen, you know. Now get your things off before I rip them off.’

Like somebody in a dream, Annie removed her clothes then lay flat and terrified as he threw away his own garments. He eased himself onto the bed. ‘You’ll like it,’ he whispered lewdly, the stench of stale beer and whisky pouring from between his grinning lips. ‘I’ll get you ready – see . . .’ And he began to stroke her body, crooning almost as he lingered over her full, supple breasts.

Annie moved over towards the wall, her hand groping for the edge of her mattress. For how long had she been prepared for this? And wasn’t this premeditation? Her fingers closed around the handle of a knife, the weapon that had been concealed beneath her mattress for two years now. He mounted her, his bony knees forcing her thighs to part. Just as she felt his ugly hardness against her body, just before he could pierce her flesh, she managed to pull out the knife.

He grunted his pleasure into her ear. He was there. After all these years, he was there. He found the virgin entrance and began to push gently against her. She hadn’t screamed, hadn’t given him a bad time, so if she was going to cooperate, then he may as well go at a proper pace, no use ripping her open when he could have her again and again if he treated her right and gave her a bit of fun. A split second before he could ease himself into her, a pain shot through his shoulder and down his left arm. This was quickly followed by another and another and his mouth gaped wide as he watched blood pouring from somewhere, all over the bed and all over her. He drew back as the red river continued to spurt, then he realized that she was stabbing him with a large carving knife, tearing at him wildly and repeatedly.

He rolled onto the floor taking a sheet with him and he used this to try to staunch the flow as he stumbled away from her. She was crouching now like a wild thing on the bed, her teeth bared, the dripping knife pointed towards him as she crept slowly forwards.

‘You bastard!’ she breathed between gritted teeth. ‘You dirty, filthy, smelly bastard. Get out! Get out now or I’ll stick this thing in your belly! You die slowly – very slowly – with a knife in your belly. Did you know that?’ She walked round him in a slow wide circle. ‘No, you wouldn’t know that, would you? You don’t know anything, because you’re so bloody stupid. Did you really think I’d just lie there and let you? Did you?’

He writhed on the floor in agony. The sheet was soaked through and a large pool of crimson was spreading over the lino. But he would have to move – she was coming for him! He crawled out of the room on to the small landing, then fell headlong down the attic stairs, coming to rest on the larger landing below where he blacked out completely, mercifully released.

Annie opened her hand and let the knife slide to the floor. What now? What had she done and what must she do? The haunted face of Ruth Ellis entered her mind and she fled from this image, tearing around the room, stopping only when walls or pieces of furniture impeded her quick, aimless movements. Clothes. She would need clothes. After grabbing the nearest items, she left the room, climbing over his inert body at the foot of the stairs as she entered the bathroom. He looked dead. She was a murderess because she had planned this for years, hadn’t she?

As quickly as she could, she rinsed the blood from her face and hands, then stepped into her clothes. She must think. Who would help her now? Where must she go? The doctor, she must get the doctor.

She flew from the house and ran blindly across the road, not caring about the traffic, not hearing when horns sounded. Dr Pritchard, slippers on his feet, newspaper rolled under his arm, answered the door.

‘You’ve got to come,’ she shouted. ‘He’s dead – I know he’s dead!’

David Pritchard grabbed his bag from the hallstand and raced after Annie. When he reached the house, she was already waiting for him at the front door.

‘He’s at the top of the stairs,’ she said, her voice filled with fear and panic.

David took the stairs two at a time and found Eddie Higson stretched out on the landing, stark naked and with a sheet wrapped around a badly gashed arm. He wasn’t dead, of course. The bleeding had slowed, David thought, judging from the amount on the sheet and the rate at which the cuts were now bleeding.

Higson groaned and opened his eyes, then let out a faint cry as a needle entered his arm. The bugger was sewing him up and not giving him anything for the pain! He blacked out again as another stitch was inserted.

David Pritchard was a man of strong instincts. He drove the needle viciously into the patient’s skin, not caring whether or not he hit another vein, not worrying about the pain he might be inflicting. The lacerations were not really deep anyway and there seemed to be no damage to muscle tissue. Whoever had done this had been defending rather than attacking. Anne, poor Anne. That fine healthy girl could have finished him off if she’d wanted to. For a few minutes he felt heartily weary of being a doctor, sick of the way he was forced to heal the injured no matter what the situation. For David understood this particular situation only too well at this moment. Somehow, he knew what had happened – the girl splattered in blood, the man lying naked at the top of the stairs.

When he was finished, he went down to attend to his real patient, the one who truly needed him. She was sitting by the fireplace as still as a statue, her face frozen with shock.

He cleared his throat. ‘I’ve put him to bed.’

Without moving, she whispered, ‘He isn’t dead then?’

‘No.’ There followed a long silence.

‘I planned it, you know. Just like Ruth Ellis, I planned it. That knife was under my bed . . . he will be dead next time. There’s no way I can stop it happening.’ She was staring at the floor as she spoke, obviously to herself, as if she were alone in the room.

He knelt beside her and reached for her hands, trying to rub some life into the icy fingers, but she recoiled from his touch.

‘It’s alright, Anne – it’s me – David. David Pritchard. I’m your friend. Do you understand?’

She nodded mutely.

‘Did he . . . hurt you?’

‘Yes. Yes he did.’ She was talking like someone in a hypnotic trance.

‘How long has it been happening – this sort of thing?’

She looked at him now with great sadness, returning from wherever she had been in her nightmare. ‘All my life, Doctor. All my life . . .’

Hot anger surged through his veins as he looked at this poor child, because she was a child, in spite of her womanly shape and her adult way of talking. He had never liked the man, had not cared for the shiftless, mean-looking creature. But he would never have believed that something of this magnitude had been going on right under his nose without him, the family doctor, being aware of it. Yet he had known in a sense, known that something terrible was troubling this girl. Why, dear God, oh why had he not forced it out of her?

‘Anne. Look at me – that’s it. Now. Did he push himself inside you? Do you understand what I mean?’

‘I haven’t been raped.’

‘Has he ever raped you?’

‘No.’ She folded her hands in her lap and began to twist them about as if wringing out a dishcloth. ‘The last time – a few years ago – I hit him with the poker. He had to go in hospital.’

David began to pace about the room, striding back and forth as he tried to organize his thoughts. ‘Have you told anyone else about this?’

‘Just a priest. He tried to help me, but he couldn’t. Nobody can help me. Nobody.’

He brought a chair and set it down beside hers. ‘We have to tell the police about this, Anne.’

She stared at him. ‘Because I’m nearly a murderer? It was premeditated, wasn’t it? I read that in the paper about the woman they hanged . . .’

‘It’s not that!’ he cried. ‘We have to tell the police because he’s a child-molester. He’s the one in trouble, not you!’

‘No!’ The ferocity of this response startled him. ‘If I’ve done nothing wrong, then there’s no need for the police – don’t you see? We can’t tell anyone.’

‘But he must be punished – he can’t carry on – you can’t carry on . . .’

‘Doctor, for years I’ve been told what I can and can’t do. People think we’ve no sense because we’re young, but I can make decisions . . .’

‘This is the wrong decision, Anne.’

‘Will you listen to me please? I have to protect my mother . . .’

‘No. Your mother must protect you, my dear.’

‘Please, Doctor?’

‘Alright, I’m listening.’

She leaned back in the chair before continuing and he watched the small beads of sweat pouring down her face as she struggled against shock, fought to find the words with which she might explain herself.

‘Dr Pritchard, if people knew – the police, the newspapers and all that – then my mother would suffer unbearably.’

‘These cases are not reported and anyway, that’s hardly the point . . .’

‘That’s just a part of the point, Doctor. I would suffer too. I would be removed to a place of safety and the few rights I have as a mere child would be taken from me. I’d probably have to leave St Mary’s in order to avoid explanations as to why I had been moved to a council home . . . don’t you see? I’d be living in a home with orphans?’

‘But that would not happen if he were imprisoned, Anne.’

She half-smiled patiently and with the air of one trying to explain a complicated fact to an infant. ‘If he were imprisoned, then my mother would lose the chief breadwinner. She might even lose her home. Do you think I could live with her, look at her every day, knowing I’ve put her income in jail? And there’s another thing too. He swore to tell her that I’ve encouraged him. What if she believed him?’

David sat very still as he took in the implications of what she had just said. By God, this one had a head on her alright. To think that she’d worked all this out and so accurately too. It was true enough, what she’d said. He wondered how many other intelligent and abused children had reached the same conclusion. How many such children were there, children who endured rape and molestation because they had not the courage or the strength to protect themselves as this one had?

She cut into his thoughts. ‘I can’t stop you doing what you think is right, Doctor. But please, I beg you – don’t ruin what’s left of my life.’

He took both her hands in his. ‘I’ll talk to him upstairs first. Look – I haven’t decided what to do yet. Just try to keep calm and I’ll bear in mind all that you’ve said.’

He rose and began to pace about once more. He should report this, he knew he should. But could he really go out now and destroy this child’s future? On the other hand, did he dare to leave her to the mercies of a potential rapist?

They heard the front door opening and Annie shot a worried look in David’s direction. ‘Don’t tell her . . . please don’t tell her . . .’

Nancy Higson stopped in the doorway, her husband’s note in her hand. ‘What’s going on? Is she ill – is she hurt?’

‘Sit down, Mrs Higson.’ He looked quickly at Annie, noticing the pleading in her eyes. ‘There’s been an accident,’ he went on. ‘Your husband fell over and cut himself . . .’

‘But he left a note to say he was at his brother’s . . .’

‘Yes . . . well.’ He coughed to give himself time. ‘Before going out he . . . er . . . went up into the roof-space and did a lot of damage to his arm on a rough beam.’

‘Whatever was he doing up there?’ asked Nancy.

‘Looking for somewhere to put an indoor aerial for a television,’ said Annie quietly.

‘My God!’ Nancy sank into a chair. ‘Talk about accident-prone. How bad is he? Does he need the hospital again?’

‘No, I’ve seen to him,’ said David quickly. The man probably did need hospitalization – possibly even a transfusion. But no. A hospital would recognize knife wounds, would ask questions, too many questions. He glanced at Annie. There, it was done. Rightly or wrongly, Dr David Pritchard was now part of the conspiracy. And he knew only too well that Eddie Higson would be glad to go along with the story.

‘I’d better go up to him.’ Nancy rose and took a step towards the door.

‘No! No, you stay here with Anne. Make her some sweet tea – she’s had a terrible shock. There’s a lot of blood in her room and on the stairs – Mr Higson used one of Anne’s sheets to stop the bleeding, you see. It hasn’t been a pleasant experience for her. I’ve given him the treatment he needed, but I must go up and check on his progress before I go. You put the kettle on, Nancy. I’ll be down in a few minutes.’

In the bedroom, David Pritchard shook the patient roughly until he woke, swearing because of the agony in his arm and shoulder.

‘Right. You listen to me, you no-good skunk. Stay away from Anne – do you hear me?’

Higson nodded, his face contorted with pain.

‘I know all about it, Higson. I know that you almost raped a minor tonight and that this is not the first time you’ve tried it. But it will be the last, you can be sure of that. If the poor child was not in such a bad state, I’d examine her just to make sure you haven’t damaged her. Now.’ He took from his pocket an empty envelope which he waved under Higson’s nose. ‘See this? Anne has made and signed a statement which I have witnessed, so it is now a legal document. Tomorrow, my solicitor will take a fuller account of what has happened and that will be lodged in his safe. If anything, anything at all happens to that child, my lawyer and I will bear witness against you. I’ll see you go down if you so much as breathe on her again.’