Blood Harvest (50 page)

‘Evi, he was starting to taunt me.’

‘Joe?’

‘My grandfather. You have no idea what an evil old devil he is. He kept cracking jokes about how the Fletchers had more security than the crown jewels, that Millie was never out of her mother’s sight, and he was coming here just about every day, sitting for that stupid portrait, and I knew he’d be playing with Millie, getting her to sit on his lap, stroking her legs, his fingers getting higher and higher, and forgetting all about Lucy. I couldn’t let that happen.’

‘But Joe? What has—’

‘I knew the only way Alice would take her eye off the ball was if one of her other kids went missing.’

Evi felt like she’d been slapped. ‘Joe was a decoy?’

Jenny shrugged. ‘Sweet lad,’ she said. ‘He came with me without arguing. I told him his sister had had an accident and his mum wanted me to take him to visit her in hospital. Couldn’t half fight though, once the penny dropped. I had to knock him out to get him—’

‘Where? Where is he?’

‘Somewhere they’ll never find him. They didn’t find Megan, they won’t find Joe. Evi, can you manage another step?’

Jake Knowles’ oldest brother stepped past Tom and started to climb the staircase again. ‘He’s tied up,’ insisted Tom. ‘You can’t get him out.’

The boy reached his hand into his jeans pocket and brought out
a thin strip of metal about five inches long. His thumb twitched and a long, silver blade shot out. ‘No sweat,’ he said, as he disappeared into the tower. One by one the other three followed. Jake was the last. His foot on the bottom step, he turned back to Tom. ‘Come on,’ he said, before disappearing.

Tom followed, not sure if this were better or worse. Joe needed a grown-up, not these four idiots. Even if they managed to get him out, they’d be as likely to fall off the roof with him as bring him down. Ahead, Jake was climbing out on to the roof. Tom scrambled up the last few steps and peered out.

‘Dan’s almost there,’ said Jake. Tom looked across the roof. Jake’s brother, Dan, was just a few paces away from the north-eastern tower. The middle brother was just behind him. There was no sign of Ebba.

‘He’s here!’ shouted Dan, who had reached the opposite tower and was bending inside it. ‘I’ve got him.’ The second brother had arrived at the tower too now. Tom could see two denim-clad bottoms sticking up towards the night sky as both boys leaned inside. Then first one and then the other began to straighten up.

‘Will’s got him,’ said Jake. ‘He’s pulling him out, look.’

Jake’s other brother had both arms around Joe’s middle and was tugging him out of the tower. The patchwork quilt got left behind and Joe’s pale naked body gleamed like a shell in the moonlight as he and Will Knowles tumbled on to the roof. Then Dan Knowles bent and lifted Joe. Carrying the small boy in his arms like a baby, he began to walk back along the guttering towards Tom, Jake and Billy. As he neared, they could hear him shouting something that sounded like, ‘Well, mell, ding-dong bell, ring the ruddy bell, you wazzocks.’ Jake understood a second before Tom did and then both boys were tumbling down the staircase, fighting each other in their effort to be the first to unleash the bell rope and give the first tug.

Clang. The old bell shuddered in protest at being roused from sleep so late at night. Clang. Louder now, getting its confidence back. Clang. Tom half wanted to let go of the rope and put his hands over his ears, but he didn’t because tugging on that rope and ringing that bell felt so good. Clang. Get out here, everyone, get out and see Joe being carried across the rooftop. Joe, OK after all, Joe, coming home. He couldn’t wait to see his mum’s face.

*

‘Jenny, you can’t go in that room.’

‘And I’m going to be stopped by a cripple? I don’t think so.’ Jenny stretched up on tiptoe, looking over Evi’s shoulder. ‘Stone floors in the hall,’ she said. ‘Do you know what it sounds like, when a child’s skull breaks on stone? A bit like an eggshell cracking, only amplified a thousand times. You’ll hear it – maybe.’

‘Where is Joe?’ demanded Evi.

Jenny was walking backwards along the landing, her hand reaching out for the handle on Millie’s door.

‘Does Heather know where he is?’ asked Evi.

For the first time, Jenny looked uncertain. ‘No,’ she said.

‘Are you sure?’ said Evi. ‘Because I think she knows all about you. I think she’s been trying to warn people, in her own way. She’s been trying to make friends with Joe, Tom and Millie, to talk to Harry. She’s even been trying to tell Gillian what happened to her daughter.’

‘She’s a brainless idiot.’ The handle was turned, the door pushed two inches open.

‘She came for Tom tonight,’ said Evi. ‘Why would she do that, so late in the evening, unless she knew where you’d put Joe?’

Jenny thought for a moment, then she shrugged. ‘It makes no difference,’ she said. ‘He’ll be dead by now.’

Evi took a step forward. ‘You know what really pisses me off, Jenny?’ she said. ‘You’re a complete fake. You’re pretending you’re doing all this because Millie is your grandfather’s next victim. Well, bullshit. He’s probably barely been near her. He almost certainly didn’t touch Hayley either, or Megan. You said yourself he was never allowed near Lucy. You’re killing these girls because you like it.’

‘Shut up.’

‘I saw the look on your face when you told me about Lucy’s death. You enjoyed it.’

‘I don’t have to listen to this.’ Jenny was turning away.

She had to stop her, had to give her something to focus on other than Millie. ‘Your grandfather, everything that happened to you in the past, it’s just the excuse now. You’re doing it for fun.’

‘You have no idea.’ Jenny was in the bedroom, making her way across the carpet.

‘I’m a psychiatrist,’ called Evi. ‘I’ve been dealing with twisted bitches like you for years. Now get away from that cot.’

Jenny was coming towards her. She was out of the room in moments; a second more and her hands were around Evi’s throat and the two were staggering backwards, past the stairs.

‘Ever wondered what it would be like to fly, Evi?’ Jenny hissed in her ear. ‘You’re about to find out. They’ll think you slipped with little Millie in your arms and fell down the stairs. Only old Tobias will know the truth.’

Evi’s windpipe was being crushed. The pathologist would know she’d been strangled. Small comfort. The banister was digging into her back, it hurt like hell but it was supporting her weight. She brought her good leg up and kneed the other woman hard in the crotch. Jenny grunted and her hold slackened, but she was a woman after all and it hadn’t done too much damage. Evi twisted round and tried to get a grip on the banister but found herself being lifted off her feet, forced over the top of it.

Before she could brace herself, her hips had gone over the edge and she was close to falling. She grabbed out, one hand caught hold of the banister but her legs were lifted high, she was being pushed and something was banging at her hand, stamping on it, and she had no choice but to let go.

It seemed to take a long time to reach the slate floor.

They’d stopped ringing the bell. The three boys climbed inside the tower. Did they still have Joe? Yes, there he was, wrapped up in the patchwork quilt again, his face pressed against Dan Knowles’s chest, still bound tight with thin, nylon rope, still shaking, still alive.

Dan Knowles, who seemed to have grown during his brief time on the roof, looking more like the young man he’d be in a year or so than a teenage bully, was at the bottom of the steps, climbing into the gallery. His brother Will followed, then Billy, just as the sound of a heavy door being opened echoed around the church.

‘Hello!’ shouted a loud Geordie voice.

‘He’s up here! We’ve got him!’ called back Dan Knowles.

‘Joe!’ yelled Tom’s dad.

‘Dad!’ screamed Tom.

‘Police! Everybody keep still!’

The two groups met on the balcony stairs, Gareth Fletcher and Dan Knowles almost colliding. The small, shivering parcel was passed from one to the other and Joe gave a quiet moan as his father’s arms closed around him. Higher on the steps, over his father’s head, Tom’s eyes met Harry’s. Then the vicar turned, pushed his way past the bewildered-looking police constable, and ran from the church.

Evi was barely conscious. She was very cold. An icy wind was blowing all around her. Snow was falling softly on her face and the world was growing dark. Was she back on the mountain? No, in the Fletchers’ house. That was Millie she could hear, howling like a banshee. The front door was open and a man was standing not three feet away from her. Brown leather shoes, damp patches around them on the stone. Something in his left hand, long and thin, fashioned from metal, something she thought she recognized, but it seemed so out of place that she really couldn’t be certain.

‘Put her down,’ said a voice. Too late, thought Evi, I already fell.

‘Oh, I will,’ replied a woman’s voice from high above them.

‘Don’t take another step,’ said the man. ‘And put that child down.’

‘You’re not serious,’ replied the woman.

The thing the man was carrying was lifted up until Evi could no longer see it.

‘It’s over,’ he said. ‘Put her down.’

A silence, when the world seemed to pause; then a footstep and an explosion of sound. Evi didn’t hear the second gunshot, but she felt its vibration flutter through her body and she saw the blinding flash of light. Then nothing more.

Harry heard the first shot as he jumped over the wall and dodged his way around Alice’s car. He caught a glimpse of Alice herself, racing towards the church, but there was no time to stop. He saw the open front door and the tall form of Tobias Renshaw standing in the doorway, pointing a rifle at himself. A second later the old man’s head exploded in a mass of bone and blood. Harry leaped over the corpse before it had completely settled on the ground.

A sharp cry caught his attention. Millie, awash with blood and tiny pieces of grey matter, was standing at the top of the stairs. The
prone body of a woman lay across the upstairs landing. At the sight of someone she knew, the toddler stepped forward, dangerously close to the edge of the top stair. Harry ran up the stairs and picked her up. Then he turned. At the foot of the stairs, not three feet from the body of Tobias, lay a young woman in a violet sweater. As he watched, a snowflake settled on her black lashes. Her eyes were as blue as he remembered.

F
EBRUARY HAD
BROUGHT EVEN
MORE SNOW
TO THE MOORS
and men had been out since early morning, clearing the path from the church to the graveside. Even so, the mourners walked gingerly as they made their way down.

Following the low-pitched instructions of the funeral director, the six pall-bearers lifted the coffin from their shoulders and lowered it. The roses on its lid shivered as it came to rest on the thick, flat tapes suspended over the open grave. Harry straightened up and rubbed his hands together. They felt like ice.

The elderly priest who had taken his place in the benefice, who would serve until a permanent replacement could be found, began to speak.

‘For as much as it has pleased Almighty God to take from this world the soul of our sister here departed …’

The young woman in the coffin hadn’t died on the night of the winter solstice, the evening Joe Fletcher had been returned to his family. Her injuries had been serious, but for a few weeks there had been confident hopes of her recovery. Early in the new year, though, she’d caught an infection that had quickly turned into pneumonia. Her badly damaged body hadn’t had the strength to fight it and she’d died ten days ago. When he heard the news, something in Harry died too.

As he and the other pall-bearers began to lower the casket into the ground, Harry realized that Alice was standing directly
opposite. It might be the last time he saw her. The family was leaving Heptonclough in a matter of weeks. Sinclair Renshaw, who still faced the possibility of a police investigation and charges, was nevertheless determined to maintain his hold over the town. He’d made the Fletchers a generous offer for their house and they’d accepted.

The boys were doing well, Alice seemed to be constantly reassuring everyone who asked. Their new counsellor kept telling them to keep talking, admit when they were scared, be honest when they were angry. Above all, not to expect miracles, it would take time.

Of all the Fletchers, only Millie seemed the same as ever. If anything, she seemed to be growing noisier and cheekier and happier by the day, as though the energy missing from the rest of her family had found a way to channel itself into her. Harry sometimes thought the family wouldn’t have survived the last few weeks without Millie.

Standing beside Alice, her oversized hand clutching Alice’s tiny one, stood her new goddaughter: Heather Christine Renshaw. Early in the new year, in his last official duty as minister of the benefice, Harry had baptized Heather. The service had been short, attended only by the remaining members of the Renshaw family: Christiana, Sinclair and Mike, and also, at their own insistence, Alice, Joe and Tom. Heather – or Ebba, as he would always think of her – was getting medical treatment now. It was too late for the damage caused by years of neglect to be entirely reversed, but the medication would help. More importantly, her days as a prisoner were over.

Out of the corner of his eye Harry saw movement further down the hill. Mike Pickup, who’d been in church earlier, hadn’t followed the mourners. He was standing instead by the grave that was Lucy’s new resting place and that now held her mother as well. Tobias lay like a fallen king in one of the stone coffins of the family mausoleum.

The priest had finished speaking. He glanced over at Harry, who forced his lips into a smile. The funeral director was handing round a casket of earth. People were gathering up handfuls, throwing the earth on to the coffin and stepping away. One by one, the mourners turned and made their way back up the hill until Harry was almost
alone. A tall, heavily built man he didn’t know muttered something and then walked away a few paces. He glanced back once at the two people left at the graveside and then turned to stare across the valley.