The Four Last Things (40 page)

The shed was very close now. Eddie heard a high-pitched wail. For an instant, he thought the wail was inside his mind – a sound of disappointment, because the bath, the hot-water bottle and the bed weren’t real after all.

Lucy was crying. Eddie put on a spurt of speed. Tripping over tree roots, skidding in the mud, he flung himself towards the shed. The crying continued. The grief of children was unconditional, fuelled by the implicit belief that it would last for ever; for a child, grief was not grief unless it was eternal.

He stopped in the doorway of the shed. Lucy was sitting where he had left her, clutching herself, hunched over the makeshift table. Her tears fell on the conjuring set. The vase had fallen to the floor. Her face was white, tinged with green. It seemed rounder than usual, the features less well-formed, the eyes smaller. That was another effect of grief on children: it made them a little less human.

‘Lucy, darling.’

He picked her up, sat down on the other cement tin and held her on his lap. Her arms clung to his neck. She rammed her face painfully against his cheek. The sobbing continued, violent surges of emotion that rippled through her whole body. He patted her back and mumbled endearments.

Gradually the sobbing grew quieter. As the crying diminished, Lucy went through a stage of making mewing noises like a kitten. Then the sounds turned to words.

‘Mummy. I want Mummy. Daddy.’

After a while, Eddie said, ‘I’ve just talked to your daddy on the phone. He’s –’

‘You left me alone.’ Lucy let out another wail. ‘I thought you weren’t coming back.’

‘Of course I was coming back.’

‘Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.’

‘I won’t, I promise.’ He had spoken without thinking. Of course he would have to leave her. ‘Your daddy’s coming to collect you. He’ll take you home to Mummy.’

‘Don’t leave me.’ Lucy seemed not to have understood what he had said – either that or she had automatically dismissed it as meaningless. ‘I’m cold.’

Still holding her, Eddie leant forward and picked up his coat, which had fallen on the floor. With his free hand he wrapped it clumsily round her shoulders. Automatically he rocked her to and fro, to and fro. Lucy’s breath was warm on his cheek.

‘I must go.’ Eddie felt the arms tighten round his neck. ‘We must go.’

Lucy shook her head violently. ‘Want a drink.’

Eddie leant down and picked up the can of Coca-Cola from the floor. Judging by the weight, it was well over half-full. He handed it to her. Leaving one arm round his neck, she pulled away from him a little. She drank greedily, her eyes glancing at him every few seconds, as if she feared he might try to take the can away. He stroked her back.

Time trickled away. Eddie’s head hurt. Part of his mind rose above the pain and the fear and surveyed his situation from a lordly elevation. Every moment that passed increased the risk he was running. But how could he leave Lucy before she was ready? She needed him. What would it be like if the worst happened and the police arrested him and he was eventually sent to jail? He knew that prisons were foul and overcrowded, and that sex offenders were traditionally picked on by the other prisoners; and that those whose offences had involved children were the most hated of all and were subjected to unimaginable brutalities.

‘Eddie?’ Lucy held out the can to him. ‘There’s some for you.’

He disliked Coca-Cola but on impulse he nodded and took the can from her. She rewarded him with a smile. For an instant the roles were reversed: she was looking after him. He drank, and the fizzy liquid ran down his throat and refreshed him unexpectedly. He lowered the can from his lips.

‘Drink,’ Lucy commanded. ‘For you.’

He smiled at her and obeyed. When the can was empty, he rested it against his cheek and the cool of the metal soothed him. Lucy slithered off his knee and picked up the wand from the conjuring set.

‘Let’s do more magic.’

Eddie stood up suddenly. The dizziness returned. He leant against the wall to support himself. ‘There’s no time. We must go.’

‘To Daddy?’

Eddie nodded. He bent down and pushed their belongings into the bag.

‘And Mummy?’

‘Yes.’ He straightened up, his head swimming, with the bag in one hand. ‘Come on.’

Lucy refused to be parted from Jimmy, Mrs Wump and the conjuring set. She clasped them in her arms and allowed him to push her gently towards the doorway. But as she reached it, she gave a whimper. Instantly she backed away. Eddie heard footsteps among the dead leaves. A branch cracked. Then he saw what she had seen.

‘No,’ Lucy whispered, retreating to the corner of the shed furthest from the door. ‘No, no, no.’

‘We’ll go in a minute,’ Eddie said to her. ‘See if you can find the magic wand and learn another trick.’

He stood in the doorway. Angel had stopped just outside the shed. She was wearing her long white raincoat with the hood. Her lips were drawn back and her face was lined and old.

‘And where are you thinking of going?’ she asked, her voice soft.

‘I – I’m taking Lucy away.’ The words came out in a trembling whisper. ‘She’s going home.’

‘I don’t think so.’

Eddie stared at Angel, desperately wishing to do as she wanted. ‘She’s going home. No one need know.’

‘About what?’

Eddie gestured towards the house. ‘About all this.’

‘You’re a fool. Mr Reynolds saw you in Bishop’s Road. He said you were coming out of a phone box. Who were you phoning?’

Eddie felt sweat break out all over his body. ‘No one.’

‘Don’t be absurd. If you didn’t phone from the house, it means you didn’t want the call traced. So you were phoning the police.’

‘I wasn’t.’

‘You’re lying.’

Angel turned her body slightly. The full skirt of her raincoat had concealed her right hand. Now Eddie saw not only the hand but what it was holding: the hatchet, the one that his mother had used on Stanley’s last dolls’ house. He had not seen it for years. Most of the blade was dull and flecked with rust, as it had been before. But not the cutting edge. This was now a streak of silver. He thought of the joints of meat in the freezer and of the three lives, cut into pieces, wrecked beyond repair like the dolls’ house.

Behind him, Eddie heard Lucy murmur, ‘Abracadabra. Now you’re a prince.’

‘What have you told them?’ Angel said, swinging the hatchet to and fro.

‘Nothing. I haven’t phoned the police. I promise. I just want Lucy to go home so I tried to phone her mother but she wasn’t in.’

Angel hit him on the collarbone with the hatchet. He heard the bone snap. He heard himself scream, too. Then she hit him again, this time on the side of the head. He fell against the jamb of the doorway and slid slowly to the ground.

He wanted to turn to Lucy and say, ‘It’s OK. Your daddy’s coming.’

Angel lifted the hatchet once more. Warm liquid trickled down Eddie’s left cheek. There was a great deal of pain, which swamped the headache completely. Men were shouting in his mind. Were they cheering or condemning him? He heard cracking and rustling, the sounds of fire devouring wood. He burned. Angel was no longer beautiful, but an old, foul woman, a witch, an avenging fury. The blade was descending. There was blood now on the silver edge.

Two men were running towards Angel. It was all just a dream. When you had a fever, you had terrible dreams. A man was screaming and screaming. Eddie wished the man would stop. The sound might frighten Lucy. She had been frightened enough already.

A thunderbolt hit him. The force drove his body deep into the ground, into a lake of fire with flames streaking across the surface. There was a bubbling sound. He could not breathe. Someone hung a piece of red gauze across his eyes.

Finally, the flames died, the sun went down, and the grown-ups switched off the light.

‘This is the day whose memory hath onely power to make us honest in the dark, and to be vertuous without a witness.’

Religio Medici
, I, 47

‘Do you think Michael’s already there?’ Sally asked. ‘Oh God, I hope he is.’

Oliver turned into Bishop’s Road. He was driving far too fast and the Citroën tilted dangerously towards the near side. ‘Could be. Depends on the traffic.’

Michael had used the mobile to call Inkerman Street. He had phoned just after Sally and Oliver returned from Hampstead Heath; Oliver had taken the call. Michael had been in Ladbroke Grove with David and Bishop Hudson when the kidnapper phoned, because Maxham had sent him away with a flea in his ear.

‘But Michael hasn’t got a car,’ Sally wailed.

‘Hudson lent them his.’ As Oliver drove, his eyes flicked from side to side of the road. ‘It must be here. There’s nowhere else.’

He swung the wheel round and the Citroën cut across the stream of oncoming traffic. A horn squealed. The car surged into the little alley. Sally registered the frightened face of a woman they had nearly knocked down. The woman’s shopping bag lay on the pavement, disgorging tins and packets.

The car rocked and jolted in and out of ruts and potholes. Sally saw a school on the corner, its playground empty. Next came high brick walls on either side. The alley curved round a corner. Oliver braked hard.

Immediately in front of them was a small, white car, parked at an angle across the alley, the driver’s door hanging open. Beyond the car was a pair of high metal gates between tall brick posts.

Oliver pulled up alongside the other vehicle. Sally leapt out, pushing her door so vigorously that it collided with the open door of the white car. She noticed in passing that the keys were still in the car’s ignition, and that on the back seat there was a black umbrella and a copy of the Church Times. She broke into a run.

‘Where’s Maxham?’ said Oliver behind her. ‘He should have got the local boys here by now.’

There was still a notice on one of the gateposts.

JW & TB CARVER & Co LTD.
RAILWAY ENGINEERING
ALL VISITORS MUST REPORT TO THE OFFICE

She raised the latch of the wicket gate. It swung outwards.

‘Sally – let me go first.’

Ignoring him, she stepped through the opening into the wilderness beyond. Even in winter, the predominant colour was green. The remains of the buildings were barely visible. For the time being, nature had the upper hand.

‘It’s huge,’ Oliver said behind her. ‘We’d better try shouting.’

‘No.’ Sally pointed to the ground. There were footprints in the mud leading away from the gates on a course roughly parallel with the fence to the right. ‘They’re fresh.’

‘Padlock’s smashed. From the inside.’

Sally was studying the mud. ‘There’s such a jumble here.’ Her voice rose. ‘I can’t tell if any of them belongs to a child.’

Oliver joined her. ‘Looks like three people. One in trainers.’ He pointed. Then his finger moved. ‘Trainers go both ways, to and from the gate. Another pair of shoes with smooth soles. Size eight or nine.’

‘David’s? That one’s Michael’s, I think.’ She too pointed, at a single footprint from a moulded sole, as crisp and unblemished as a plaster cast. ‘See? So maybe the trainers belong to the man who phoned Michael.’

‘He said it might have been a woman.’ Oliver straightened up. ‘Or a man trying to pitch his voice high. They’re small enough for a woman’s.’

As they talked, they were moving, casting about, trying to find more footprints. They kept their voices low, almost at the level of a whisper.

‘Here.’ Oliver set off at a run.

Sally followed. She stumbled several times, and once she fell, bruising her shoulder against an abandoned oil drum. She was praying, too, if you could call the word ‘please’, repeated over and over again, a prayer.

They crossed a patch of open ground. For a moment Sally could see ahead. She glimpsed a high wall and beyond it grey blocks of flats, faced with weather-mottled concrete. A woman was standing on one of the balconies and Sally clearly saw binoculars in her hand.
A ghoul
. The woman was looking at something below her at a point roughly midway on a line between herself and Sally. Then the wall, the flats and the woman were gone.

Sally plunged after Oliver into a thicket of brambles and saplings. Thorns tore at her clothes, her hands and her face. Oliver tripped over a fallen branch and fell head first into a clump of nettles. He swore. Sally overtook him and struggled out of the embrace of the thicket.

She found herself on what once might have been a path. Crumbling concrete was visible among the mud and the puddles; so too were more footprints, including those of the trainers. In the distance was a small brick building, almost roofless. Sally ran towards it. She was almost there when she heard Michael’s voice say, ‘Drop it, please. Drop it on the ground.’

She put on a final rush of speed and burst round the corner of the building. Her first impression was of a bright, vivid redness.

Michael and David were five yards away. They did not look at Sally. Their eyes were on the woman in the doorway.