What She Saw (6 page)

Rosen summoned the attention of everyone in the room. ‘Early warning. All present and correct here around nine thirty. Film to watch on the SmartBoard.'

14

8.37 A.M.

E
mily Glass didn't turn or acknowledge her husband's return to Thomas's hospital bed. Instead, she carried on doing what she'd done since shortly before midnight: she talked to Thomas, her voice slowed by sedation.

‘Thomas, I want to talk to you about your bedroom.'

Behind her back, John Glass concealed a sigh at the futility of his wife's endless chatter.

‘Thomas, I'm opening the door of your bedroom at home. Thomas, look, look at the wonderful painted murals on all four walls. Space, outer space, your favourite subject. Look at the wall by your bed. Look at the Apollo moon rocket racing through the. . . star-spangled night, flames pouring from its tail. Look at the wall behind your bed. Look at the solar system and how all the planets turn around the sun. Look at the Milky Way. What a fabulous artist. All your. . . ideas, mind. Look at. . . the last. . . wall. Look at the purple. . . cloud. . . the birth. . . of. . . a. . . star.' She yawned, a long, slow, exhausted sound. ‘Thomas, I might have to go to sleep soon. I'm finding it hard. . . to keep my eyes open. I want you to know, I'm still here, even if you can't hear my voice, I'm right. . .' She fell asleep but woke in a beat. ‘I'm right here. . . and when I wake up, I'll tell you. . . about. . .'

John Glass put his hand on his wife's shoulder and she stiffened.

‘How long are you going to keep this up? Emily? This not talking to me? Emily, we've got to talk.'

‘Are you deaf?' At her words, he lifted his hand away. ‘I need to sleep. Talk to him. Let him know you're here. God knows you weren't around him much up until. . . this!'

John Glass decided to humour his wife. ‘Hello, Thomas. Hello, son.' And wondered what to say next. ‘It's me. It's your dad.' Football. His son watched football on TV, kicked a ball around the expanse of walled garden around their house.

‘Remember when I bought you that Arsenal shirt, signed by all the players? Hey? Remember that?'

Emily sank back in her chair, her breathing slowing and, within a minute, a woman who had slept for only twelve hours in the previous eight days was out.

Her husband fell silent. He stared at the bandages around his son's face and head and wondered if he could pay for plastic surgery to minimize the damage. He could pay for the best doctor. Then he wondered if his son was going to survive.

Looking at the bandages, he tried to picture the pitch darkness and complete silence that reigned in Thomas's brain.

15

8.38 A.M.

H
is dad's voice gurgled like he was talking into a tube with one end beneath the water in a fish bowl. And then it went quiet. The darkness surrounding Thomas Glass was as absolute as the silence.

Something in Thomas's mind shifted. He remembered where he was and what he must do to avoid punishment.

The wind blew outside and rattled the door, and the metallic din filled him with horror. It felt as if a fist was curled inside his skull, squeezing his brain like a lump of dough. Even so, he managed to swallow the gasp that rose inside him, because he had been ordered to stay utterly silent.

He was in a lock-up garage, with a roller-door just like the ones at home. And behind that, far away, a siren receded into the distance, thickening the darkness with tension.

Thomas heard a noise, an out-breath, and hoped with all his heart that he hadn't made that sound.

And then he hoped it wasn't someone else, that it wasn't one of
them
.

A rasp and the flaring of a single match. He shut his eyes against the sudden, unbearable brightness and smelled the smoke of a cigarette. After a moment he opened his eyes, blinking until he
could make out the glowing tip of a cigarette.

I want to go home now. I want my mum
, he thought, and as soon as the thought crossed his mind, he bit his tongue, knowing that it was dangerous.

They could read his mind and see in the dark.

The red tip of the cigarette came slowly towards him through the darkness in the direction of his left eyeball.

‘No blinking.' It was the one called Ash. Thomas opened his eyelids and felt the heat of the burning cigarette near his eyeball. The tip moved right towards his other eye and drew a tight little circle in the air, round and round the pupil.

A small clump of warm cigarette ash landed on his hand. ‘Ouch!' Thomas's voice was tiny and lost. He fought down the urge to weep. Sound was crime, and crime received immediate punishment.

A thin drawing in of breath and the tip of the cigarette receded. Another thick, hot, out-breath. ‘We have reached our verdict.' It was the one called Oak.

A light came on, a brilliant white light that shone directly into his eyes. He twisted his head and closed his eyes. It was a light that was infinitely more hideous than the absolute dark that he had lived in for days – or was it weeks now? He had lost all sense of time.

‘Thomas.' Ash, the old man – or was it a woman's voice? It was a voice that had confused him with its kind sound but nasty words. ‘The prisoner has permission to speak. What do you want, Thomas?'

‘I want to go back home; I want my mother.' The words poured out unbidden, and he was washed over with terror.

‘There is only one Mother. Your mother is not your real Mother. There is only one Mother. Say it.' Ash's voice sounded almost sing-song.

‘There is only one Mother. My mother is not my real Mother. There is only one Mother.'

‘And that Mother, your real Mother, wants you here, where you are, right now.'

‘But' – Thomas bottled up the thought
My mother
is
my mother
and tried the words they'd drilled into him over days and nights – ‘the woman who fooled me into thinking she was my mother, she wants me to be with her.'

‘Our Mother, the real Mother wants you here with us. And we have reached a verdict on her behalf,' said Oak, the other one, the one who craved blood. Thomas's heart rate increased and he sat up as straight as possible, tied to the hard-backed chair. He couldn't work out if Oak was old or young. Oak carried on: ‘Emily Glass is a criminal, and you prefer her over your real Mother? You've been brainwashed and we have reached a verdict on Emily Glass. I know where she lives.'

‘No.' Thomas mouthed the word.

Oak's voice grew louder, more angry. ‘Jumping to defend her,' he mocked.

‘Please.'

‘Silence.' Ash. ‘Hush now.' As kind as milk, as vicious as a snake. ‘I'm sorry, Thomas, but Emily has been found guilty. I am sorry, but she's going to have to suffer for what she's done. Oak, pronounce sentence on Emily Glass.'

‘By my red hand, Emily Glass is to be skinned alive from the neck to the belly and left in the woods where she played with Thomas Glass when he was a small child, in the place she brainwashed him, for the insects and the feral beasts to make of her what they will.'

Thomas tried not to make a sound but sobs of terror and despair escaped from his mouth.

‘Hush now, hush,' said Ash.

‘I. . . can't. . . help. . . it. . .' ‘I'm not talking to you, Thomas. I'm trying to calm Oak's anger.'

Underneath his own crying, Thomas heard the sound of metal scraping against stone, back and forth.

‘I don't want you to be in any doubt: Oak is sharpening his knife for Emily.'

‘Please,' urged Thomas.

‘Please what?' asked Ash.

‘You're the leader. Make him stop!'

Rasp, rasp, rasp
.

‘I can make him stop. . . if you do what I say. . .'

‘I'll do what you say, I'll do anything you say, leave her alone.'

Rasp, rasp, rasp
.

‘Oak, stop!'

Silence.

‘Thomas?'

‘Yes?'

‘Give prayers of thanks to the one true Mother for the silence.'

‘I'm praying.' He shut his eyes against the light, the words
I'm praying
racing around his head.

Thomas felt the flat surface of cold metal pressing against his cheek. He stifled the sob that rose within him and held his breath as the metal blade was rolled slowly across his cheek, one sharp edge to the other. The flat of the blade was drawn down to his throat and then turned so the lethal sharpness of the weapon pressed directly across his windpipe. He understood fully what would happen to his mother.

The blade was drawn away from his throat and he released his stifled sobs as a series of panic-driven breaths. ‘I'll do. . . anything. . . you say,' pleaded Thomas. ‘But don't hurt her. Ash, please, stop him.'

‘You'll do anything I say?' asked Ash.

‘Anything.'

Thomas still felt the coldness of the blade on his cheek and imagined the blade slicing his mother's throat and a pair of rough hands pulling the skin away from her body.

‘Anything you say, anything!'

‘Then I think we have an understanding.'

If his heart beat any harder, Thomas felt it was going to explode.

‘Open your mouth, please,' said Ash.

Thomas opened his mouth and felt a cloth being driven into the space behind his teeth. On that cloth was a long thin strand, a hair perhaps.

‘Say thank you – don't forget your manners to Mother.'

‘Thank you, Mother,' grunted Thomas, through the gag, his senses reeling from the stench of petrol on the fingers that had forced it in his mouth.

The white light went out.

‘If you do anything I say, Thomas' – Ash's voice dropped to little more than a whisper, and he had the feeling Ash didn't want Oak to hear – ‘I'll appeal to Mother for mercy on Emily Glass and make sure that Oak goes nowhere near that woman. If you don't do what I say, there will be no plea for mercy and I can't stop Oak. And nor would I want to.'

The glowing tip of the cigarette swung back and forth again, like a pendulum.

‘She'll scream for me to put her out of her agony. But I would show no mercy.' Oak spoke with relish and energy.

The red ember stopped, a coal in the darkness.

‘And that, Thomas, would be all your fault,' said Ash. ‘What happens to Emily is entirely in your hands.'

Suddenly, at speed, the cigarette tip flew towards Thomas's face and directly into his left eyeball.

He screamed, but the sound was absorbed by the gag. A volt of agony ricocheted from his brain through his entire nervous system.

‘You must look on the bright side, Thomas. When you wake up – because you're about to pass out – pray to Mother that you get to keep your good eye, the one you can still see with. Thank you, Thomas, and good night to you.'

As the roller-door rose up, a wave of white flooded Thomas's senses. As the door shut again, and consciousness left him, Thomas saw his mother, Emily, being marched into the woods at the back of their
house.
All my fault
, he thought. And from the depths of his heart, a single word echoed, hopeless and forlorn.

Mummy!

*

E
MILY WOKE SUDDENLY
and saw John staring silently into space. Through sleepy eyes, she saw the ECG machine that Thomas was attached to going haywire. Jumping up, she threw open the door and screamed.

Sister Barker came running round the corner.

‘His heart!' Emily cried.

Sister Barker stopped at the boy's bed. The ECG showed a raised but steadier pattern of activity. As moments passed, Thomas's heart rate settled. She waited. After a minute of what passed for normality, Sister Barker said, ‘I'll come back and monitor him. Try and rest.' She closed the door after herself.

‘I—' began John.

‘You didn't notice because you weren't even looking at him. I can't even trust you so that I can close my eyes and sleep.' Emily turned her back on her husband and looked at her son, as if seeing what had been done to him for the first time.

‘I'm sorry, Thomas,' she cried. ‘I'm sorry.'

16

9.38 A.M.

R
osen concluded the grim summing up of events by playing the mobile phone footage from Bannerman Square.

Stevie Jensen's film of Thomas's agonized responses ended and Rosen watched the grim expressions of his team. No one said a word.

‘He knew his abductor. His abductor was male. “They'll do it again,”' said Rosen.

He turned his attention to the back of the group, to Bellwood, who sat at her desk. He was surprised by the sheer volume of paper she had generated there so quickly.

‘Carol, how's the trawl through Glass's contacts going?' asked Rosen.

She indicated the neatly stacked sets of paper and said, ‘I'm only an hour into it.' She felt her head spin from sheer concentration. ‘The personals? The only groupings in the personal list are families and married couples. My initial thought is that this list's a dead end.' She paused and rubbed her eyes. ‘The business contacts? I've dipped into the business contacts, picking out all the small businesses in a twenty-mile radius, eliminating all the big corporations initially. I've picked out ten contacts within five miles of here. I've googled. I can't figure any obvious link, how Glass is connected to them. But they all appear
to be
groups
.' She read from a list: ‘AllKinds CDs, Outlaws, Pearsons Water Spa, C & C Tylers, Outlook, Huntleys, Pampers Health Shop, Fingertips, HomeBrands, D. Bannion Cured Meats. Anyone have any ideas?'

‘Maybe he lends to small businesses?' suggested Corrigan.

‘Businesses wouldn't borrow money at his rates,' replied Bellwood; ‘247.9 per cent APR.'

‘Maybe he invests in other businesses,' said Rosen.

‘Maybe, but I can't see a pattern here, not yet.' Bellwood put the paper down on her desk. ‘OK, I need some help here.'