Deadly Thyme (27 page)

Her insides hummed. He was lying.
The stark knowledge of something terrible became clear in her mind: her mother was in danger, more danger than even she was in chained to a cave wall inside a mountain of rock. Her mother would not escape this danger because she would not have time to think, time to whittle away the rock from around the bolted pipe. “Sure,” she said, “Where is the paper to write on?”

“I
’ll bring it next time I come. Perhaps tomorrow. You’ll do it, then?”

“Yes.” What choice did she have? It wasn
’t until he had gone away again that she wondered why he would let her go if she did what he asked. She knew his face. She knew he must live in or near the village. He looked familiar, like she’d seen him around the village, but not acting weird like he was when he was in here.

No, she didn
’t believe he would let her live. She grabbed the chain, furious at it. She pulled it and jerked it around trying to get it loose. She screamed until she was hoarse and fell to the mattress. Sobs wracked her. No, he wouldn’t let her go. He would not care what happened to her after he had her mother. He would not bring her food, he would not take her filthy rags away to wash them, and he would let her die. One thing she knew—and it was real—he must not be allowed near her mother. She must think of something convincing to write, something that would give her mother a clue.

The tiny cuts along her arms and legs itched
. One in particular on her left leg looked infected. She splashed the cold water on it. She washed the cuts with soap he had left her, but this one wouldn’t get better.

35

Thursday afternoon

R
uth finished with her workout. The activity not only helped keep her strong physically, but it also helped her to think clearly. She still needed a walk or a jog in the lanes around the village and along the coast. The sky and the land worked together to open everything up with fresh air, birdsong, and the distant bleat of sheep. As she rounded a curve in the land, she startled a group of four wild ponies. They tossed their winter-thick manes and flicked their tales and moved up the hill away from her. She jogged past.

Her mother had gone through everything in her liquor cabinet. She must have some secret helper buying her more, because Ruth hadn
’t been to the grocery or the liquor store since Annie disappeared. Then there was Sam. He had shown up with his new tactic of moaning, moping and sighing. She wasn’t sure it hadn’t been Sam sticking to her like a coating of paint that needed to be peeled off. Sam was likely her mother’s liquor supplier.

She ventured along the cliff path to one of her favorite spots among a grouping of huge boulders.
There was a place she could sit and look out at the sea, the color of jewels sparkling in the sun. The boulders sat around her like quiet companions. The air was pungent with the scent of new spring grasses. With her back against the sun-warmed rock, the chill of the breeze didn’t bother her. She watched the sea where white horses danced across distant waves.

She reflected on the conversation she
’d had that morning with Sergeant Perstow. He’d caught her sobbing in the churchyard and he’d asked her to walk with him as he was just going to pop in to see his lovely wife for his lunch break. He was so kind to patter on so cheerily. Then he had said the thing that set her to sobbing again, “God is still listening, lass.”

And she
had said, “Have you ever left someone in anger, determined to never speak again? And then you find you have to, because without speaking to Him again the world didn’t need to go on and may as well end?”

He hadn’t
replied, only nodded. And she said, “I hadn’t prayed in years; now I can’t stand not to. But I left God for so long, I don’t think He wants to hear from me. Why doesn’t He answer?”

“Sometimes it feels like He has fallen asleep, p
’r’aps?”

“I
’m scrabbling around down here, useless, while my daughter needs me. I pray and pray, but nothing happens. She’s alive. God must know where she is.”

“I understand.”

“No one believes me.”

“He sends His angels to watch o
’er us, lass.”

“Where were the angels that Sunday morning, Mr. Perstow?”

“Watching. And where e’er she is, they’re watchin’ still.”

“You believe me?”

“A mother knows her own. If you say ’tis true, lass, I’ve no call disbelievin’ you.”

She had hugged the sergeant and walked away from him
, then took the cliff path where she could be alone. She leaned back against a boulder. She wished she could
believe
as thoroughly as Sergeant Perstow. An unfamiliar dark car turned into the lane below the boulder patch. The driver was too far away to identify. The car slowed, pulled into the layby, and stopped in the shade of some trees. The motor was switched off. Peering down from her high perch she could see there was someone in the back seat. She stood taller to get a better look.

It was then that she heard the noise, like a muffled scream. Could someone be in trouble? She stepped down the path. The car
’s motor roared to life. Gears ground and belts shrieked. The car kicked up gravel as it spun into reverse and whipped back onto the road.

Was that a little girl
’s hand clutching at the back seat?

Her breath left her. By now the car was too far to read its plate numbers. An old dark car
—the police were looking for the driver to help them with their inquiries. She ran. The car crested the hill and disappeared over the far horizon, traveling away from the village.

The creeper chained her again and left the cave and Annie alone. She screamed, “Come back here, you filthy bastard!”
—the worst words she could think of.

He didn
’t come back.

She could hardly believe that she had been that close to her mother. The creeper had been driving. She was strapped to the seat in the back and couldn
’t see where they were. When he turned the motor off, she had scrabbled around and was able to free a hand and use it to pull herself up and peek over the back of the seat.

Her stomach hurt so much. She crumpled into a sobbing pile on the nasty mattress. She
had only wanted to warn her mother, but her cries brought her mother closer to the car. If the creeper had gotten out of the car then, with her tied up in the back, her mother might have been hurt. She couldn’t let him hurt her mother. She would have to be smarter.

She strained at the chain again. Her wrist was raw and painful where the metal cuff bit into her flesh. Rock dust flaked to the knobby floor beneath the pipe in the wall. She would clean it up, drop it down the hole. The bolt was wobbly. Her heart beat double quick. She was going to get loose.

She had enough length of chain to move to the rough toilet built over a hole in the cave floor, to the pool of water at the center of the area, and to lay on the pile of rags he called her bed. Every few days, she would wake up with clean sheets. The wake times and sleep times blurred together. She couldn’t understand why. He left her soup sometimes. After the soup, she always slept. He must be putting something in it.

The reeking
, padded mat that kept the cold to a minimum at night, the thing with the dangling button in one spot—he never cleaned it. She ripped the button off. It was a large, cloth-bound button, soiled around the edges. She pressed the side with the metal grommet into her palm, rubbing the smooth cloth side with the thumb of her other hand. So far, it was the only thing she had been able to reach that was not tied down or soft. But what could she do with a button?

Ruth rang the police from her mobile, but hung up before anyone answered. What would she say? She
’d seen a dark car? The driver had been wearing gardening gloves? Light faded beyond the cloud-blurred horizon as Ruth made her way along the cliff path back toward the village. On the way she saw the sign for the short path to the Hasten Inn Bed and Breakfast, where Jon Graham was staying.

She could tell him that she saw her daughter. Ye
s, and everyone would think she’d lost her mind. She had to have something definite, right?

She wiped her sweaty palms along her jeans.
The sore hand was healing well. She had seen Annie. Her daughter was alive. She knew it beyond a doubt before, but now, now she had absolute proof. Even if no one else believed it, she did. Thank you, Jesus, it was an answer.

S
he kept to the wider path and walked toward her cottage, but just as she stepped down to High Street, she paused and looked back. Fifty feet back along that path, the B & B sign stood. Okay, she was desperate. So what? She could at least press Officer Graham for answers.

Ruth hesitated after entering the B&B
’s entrance. Mrs. MacFarland greeted her and, when she learned why she was there, directed her to the guest’s lounge. Ruth didn’t want to barge in and interrupt, so she opened the door quietly. Jon was bent over a large dictionary-like book that lay open under a lamp.

He
shut the anatomy book. He turned as she came in, and when their eyes met, his opened wide in shock. He said, “Mrs. Butler?”

“Excuse me, Mr. Graham,” Ruth said
, “something’s happened.”

“Tell me.”

“I saw a little girl in a car. It was an old Renault. I couldn’t read the plates.”

“Was there something that led you to believe the little girl was in trouble?”

“Yes.” She rubbed her eyes with her good hand.

Jon pulled out his mobile. “Where was this?”

“Up the cliff path, just south where there is a bend. It’s private land and there is a lane with a place to park beneath the hill. The car pulled in there.”

“And what happened?”

“I think the girl was screaming.” She held a hand over her mouth, breathed deeply with her eyes closed, then put her hand against her chest. “I hope she wasn’t hurt. But I think she saw me because she screamed when I stood up.”

“I
’m calling DCI Trewe, Mrs. Butler, if you will take a seat.” Jon punched in some numbers. Trewe must have answered immediately. “Yes. Mrs. Butler is here at the B & B. No, she came by herself.”

Ruth heard him sigh.

He quickly repeated what she had told him, then said, “She is here. I … yes, sir.”

“What happens next?”

“They will get the description of the car and where it was seen last.”

Ruth heard herself scream inside her skull.
That isn’t enough!
Her hand was beginning to throb. She searched to come up with a reasonable way to get him to talk to her about her daughter. “My daughter wasn’t a drug addict.”

He jerked back as if she
’d slapped him. “Mrs. Butler, we don’t believe your daughter was a drug addict. The drugs were probably injected by the killer.”

“I overheard DCI Trewe say that the still photo wa
s from a video. Mr. Graham … You gave it to me didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You saw a video of her? What was she doing?”

“It looked like she was talking to herself.
She sees something—or someone—and she walks toward the shadows. That was all there was.”

She noticed his face went very pale as he spoke of her daughter. She asked,
“What do you think she saw?”

“I don
’t know.” He stood up and fidgeted, rearranging books, checking his mobile. “I wish I had something more to give you than flimsy platitudes. You’re worth more than that.”

“And the handwritten notes I couldn
’t read?”

“Tavy. Apparently it was his way of communicating when he was emotional.”

“And no one told me that.”

“That was a mistake. I
’m sorry. When we discovered him missing, the notes were momentarily forgotten. There is no excuse for not communicating with you.”

“What did you mean
‘you’re worth more than that’?”

He cleared his throat. “You
’ve been through a lot. You deserve better.”

“Why?”

“I … you just do.”

She waited for more but he would not look up from his mobile. So she turned and left.