The Reckoning on Cane Hill: A Novel (29 page)

What am I looking for?

There was nothing obvious to see. Groves searched the building as quickly as he could. A side door from the bay led into the broken-down reception area. Pared-down stone steps rose two flights to the top, where an entirely open space stretched across the whole building, interspersed with pillars and, in the far corner, a pole that ran down through a hole in the floor. The walls were covered in dirty tiles, and there was a squared-off area in one corner that turned out to have plumbing for absent toilets. In life, this all might have housed a gym and rec room, but now it was just a waste ground. The windows along one wall were vacant squares. A breeze brought the rain in a little, but nothing stirred; the litter and leaves up here had long since been pressed into corners or blown under dropped beams and settled there.

Nothing.

Groves made his way carefully back outside. What was he meant to see here? It was a mystery. He walked across the front of the bay again, wondering, then made his way down one side and behind the building.

And paused.

From the front, the station had obscured it: a slim three-storey tower, standing some distance away. It had a missing
door and empty square gaps for windows, and the brickwork was burned black and sooty from top to bottom.

A practice tower, Groves guessed. He moved across to the doorway, his shoes crunching on the gravel and broken glass, then stepped over the threshold. Inside, there was a ten-foot-square space, with torn maps of fabric scorched to the stone floor, melted at the edges. The air was sour. Even after all this time, he could smell the soot in it.

A blackened staircase led upwards in the near corner, curling around out of sight to the first floor. Groves walked over, looking down. The steps were covered with a thick layer of mulch: ash and dust, moistened slightly by the rain. It had obviously been disturbed recently. The messy footprints suggested a flurry of activity, although the impressions left were impossible to decipher.

He gazed up the stairs. The policeman in him didn’t want to disturb the scene – but then he was hardly here as a policeman right now. After a moment’s hesitation, keeping his back to one wall, he made his way up the steps, avoiding the other footprints, listening carefully, hearing only the squelch of the mush beneath his feet.

The room on the first floor was silent except for the slight rush of air coming in through the empty window. It was identical to the space below, but the stone steps leading up were at the opposite corner, and the thin, skeletal remains of a settee rested against one wall, its metal wires scorched black. In its parched state, it reminded him of Edward Leland’s front room. Once again, there was nothing to see.

One floor to go.

He headed up the stairs, keeping to the side as before.

The tower’s final room was at the top of the steps. As Groves reached it and stared at what was there, his heart dropped away, and for a moment he couldn’t even move.

This was what he’d been summoned to see.

The second floor contained a replica of a bedroom. The stone floor was covered with layers of burned foam and charred
bedding. Against one wall were the remains of a double bed: just an iron frame with square posts, a blackened web of springs and metal wires strung between them.

And lying on that, the body of a woman.

Mark

Ella

After I showed the officer stationed outside the Baines Wing my ID, I led Mercer through to the waiting room, where we found Charlie sitting with a book. She seemed engrossed, but as we approached and she recognised our presence, she closed it and placed it back on the table. I was used to the sight of the scars by now, so what I noticed first was the look on her face. She no longer seemed quite as confused or frightened as before. If anything, seeing Mercer behind me, she looked almost triumphant.

I noted the book she’d been reading.

‘The Bible, Charlie?’ The expression on her face annoyed me. Stockholm syndrome aside, her capitulation with her abductors annoyed me too. A man was dead. ‘Must be a bit poignant, surely? What are you doing, checking for loopholes?’

She ignored me, still looking at Mercer.

‘Is this him?’

‘Yes.’

I glanced behind me. For his part, Mercer didn’t display any kind of shock at the sight of her injuries. He stepped forward to stand beside me, his hands in his pockets, staring down at her with a look of concentration on his face, as though she were less a human being than a problem he needed to solve.

‘And you must be Charlie,’ he said.

‘That’s right.’

‘Do we know each other, Charlie?’

‘No.’ She stared back at him. ‘I don’t know anything about you. All I know is what I need to tell you.’

‘So I understand.’ He was still squinting down at her. ‘No, I don’t think we’ve ever met. Even without the scars, I’m sure I’d remember you.’

‘Do you like them?’ she said

‘No.’

If Charlie was insulted, she didn’t show it.

‘I like them very much.’

‘I don’t understand why.’ He took his hands out of his pockets and rubbed his jawline thoughtfully. ‘If it were me, I imagine I’d hate the man who’d done that to me. The Devil, or whatever you want to call him.’

‘Why would anyone hate the Devil?’ she said. She picked the bible up again. ‘That would be ridiculous. God is all-powerful, remember? It’s Him that allows the Devil to do what he does. It’s Him that allows evil and lets all the wrong things be done to us.’

‘I suppose that’s true.’

Mercer sat down across from her, a little awkwardly, as though the movement caused him pain.

‘You were right, Mark. Now that I’ve seen her in the flesh, the scarring is clearly deliberate, isn’t it?’ He looked her over. ‘Designed. There’s a specific pattern to it. It reminds me very much of the spiderwebs. It’s different, but clearly related somehow.’

‘Spiderwebs?’ Charlie said.

‘Patterns drawn on walls,’ I told her. ‘We found one this morning in the house of a man who was murdered. We think he’s the doctor who helped you. The
kind
one who brought you back.’

She blinked at me, startled by that.

‘Here.’ I slid my tablet across the table, showing her the
photograph of Gordon Peters. She looked down at it, then closed her eyes for a second before looking back up at me.

‘It is, isn’t it?’ I said.

‘Why would they ... ?’

‘I guess the Devil moves in mysterious ways. Maybe he doesn’t always keep his promises. Why don’t we find out?’

Charlie looked down at the photograph again, unsure now what to say or do. The news of Peters’ death had clearly unsettled her; she didn’t understand the implications, or what it meant for her. And when she looked up a few seconds later, she didn’t appear half as triumphant as before.

Mercer was still watching her. Patient. Curious.

‘Well?’ he said.

She stared at him for a moment, considering. But what choice did she have, ultimately, apart from to see this through to the end?

‘I need to tell you about Ella,’ she said.

‘Who is Ella?’ I said.

She looked at me.

‘Ella is my daughter.’

On the day she died – as she continued to put it – Charlie told us she had left the house as normal, but called in sick to work from the car. Neither her husband, Paul Carlisle, nor her employers had known where she was really going that day. At that point, she was eight weeks pregnant, but she hadn’t told anyone else, and she had no intention of doing so. She wasn’t planning on carrying the baby to term. But she also knew that Paul would be delighted by the news, and that he would try to persuade her to keep the child.

‘He always wanted children,’ she said.

‘And you didn’t?’

‘God, no.’ She relented slightly. ‘It’s different when they arrive, of course. But Ella wasn’t here back then. She wasn’t
real
. And the whole thing was an accident. I’d never wanted a child. Paul wouldn’t have understood. It had always been one
of those things between us. He respected my decision, while it was just theoretical. But I think my having an abortion would have been too much for him.’

‘So you kept it secret?’

She bristled at that.

‘No.
Secret
implies that someone else had a right to know. That I was
keeping
it from them. But that’s not how it was. It was nobody else’s business.’

‘All right,’ Mercer said. ‘So you were planning to have an abortion?’

‘I had an appointment. I went. But in the end ... ’

‘You couldn’t go through with it.’

‘No.’ She looked down at her hands, her hair obscuring her scars. ‘I don’t know why. I remember being annoyed with myself at the time, because it was as though I was being the sort of weak woman I hate. I thought I’d be strong and matter-of-fact when it came to it, but ... I wasn’t. I couldn’t do it.’

‘You decided to keep the baby?’

‘No, I just decided not to do it there and then – I wanted some more time to think. But I didn’t know what to do afterwards. It was too early to go home, and I didn’t want to turn up at work.’

So she had driven to the north-east of the city, spent some time in a café – she couldn’t remember the name – and walked aimlessly around. The afternoon turned to evening and, lost in thought, she found herself late, so set off home in a hurry, or tried to at least. But it was raining, and it was already getting dark, and she was distracted ...

‘And I crashed.’

‘You know that’s not true,’ I said.

She didn’t reply. It didn’t matter, though. At some point, she’d been intercepted and abducted, and the crash scene had been staged with Rebecca Lawrence. The important thing right now was that I thought she was telling the truth about the pregnancy. The story fitted with the details in the file about her missing day – and also, I remembered, with what she’d
told me during the first interview, when she’d been speaking about the scars.

It was like childbirth. It hurts, but very quickly afterwards you forget how much
.

‘And your daughter? Ella?’

‘Was born seven months later, yes.’

‘In the other place?’

‘Yes.’ She looked down at the tablet. ‘That’s how I knew the man was a doctor. He was there when Ella was born. He helped to deliver her.’

Both Mercer and I were silent for a few moments. I had no idea what was going through his head. I was thinking that it at least made sense of Charlie’s refusal to cooperate with us. Not Stockholm syndrome – or at least not wholly that. She was determined to do what she had been told for another reason entirely.

‘Ella is still there?’ I said.

‘Yes.’

‘In Hell?’

‘No, no.’ Charlie shook her head emphatically. ‘Of
course
not. God would never allow that. She was born without sin, so there was no need for her to go through Hell. She went straight to Heaven.’

I hesitated. I wanted to shake my head too.

‘Heaven?’

‘Yes.’ A look of upset appeared on her face, and for once the emotion held. ‘But they let me see her quite often. They would take me to the edges of Heaven and let me spend time with her, hold her, play with her. And when I go back, that’s where I’ll be too. It’s what I’ll have finally earned.’

‘Charlie,’ I said. ‘Slow down. Tell me about Heaven.’

Her face brightened at that.

‘It’s lovely.’

She described ‘Heaven’ as best she could, and it provided a stark contrast with the vision of ‘Hell’ she’d given. There was a kind of park, she said – a field, with a wood and an
orchard. It was silent and peaceful, and even when it rained there was a sense of tranquility and calm. At the centre, there was a large white building, like a cliff face made of chalk. On a few occasions, when visiting her daughter, Charlie had been allowed inside. The rooms were all white, the furnishings new and clean, and the bed sheets soft. Ella had wanted for nothing.

‘Who looked after her?’ I said.

Again that look of surprise.

‘God,’ she said. ‘Of course.’

And for a moment, I couldn’t think of anything to say.

If what she was telling us was true, she was describing something far more extensive than we’d been previously considering. Not just a hell for punishment, but a heaven too. And not necessarily just a single madman, even with accomplices to help him, but more than one. A group – a
cult
, perhaps – with the patience and resources to act over a period of several years.

Beside me, Mercer spoke gently.

‘And that’s where you’re going back to, now that you’ve told me all this?’

‘Yes.’

‘But Charlie,’ he said, ‘how will they even
know
?’

‘They’re all-powerful.’

I started to answer that no, of course they weren’t – but then they hardly needed to be. You had to go through the main entrance by the car park to reach the Baines Wing. These individuals were well organised. It would hardly be beyond them to have someone watching.

Someone who might still be there now.

I stood up. ‘John. We have to go.’

‘Wait,’ Charlie said. ‘I haven’t told you yet.’

‘Haven’t told us what?’

‘What I’m supposed to. Ella is part of it, but not everything. I haven’t told you about the sins I’m wearing.’

I stared at the scars on her face and realised that no, of course she hadn’t. Because how could being pregnant count
as a sin? And what was it supposed to mean to Mercer in particular anyway?

‘Go on, then,’ I said. ‘Tell us.’

She took a deep breath, gathering herself.

‘My sins,’ she said slowly, ‘are numerous, but the one I am wearing now is very specific.’ Her hand went to her stomach. ‘My sin is that I didn’t abort my unborn daughter. That I decided to keep her for a second longer than I had to.’

I was losing what little patience I had left.

‘Why would that be a sin, Charlie? You said Ella was born without sin. That she was being taken care of in this ...
Heaven
.’

‘Yes. That is true. But it was my sin to keep her back then, because deep down,
I knew
. Before I died, I could pretend I didn’t; I could hide the truth from myself. But I’ve admitted it now. I have worn it. There’s no need to deny it any longer.’