Blood Atonement (18 page)

“I can’t remember,’ he said sullenly. Then he smiled.

‘She started dressing funny.’

‘Really? How?’

‘She just started dressing funny. Like she used to wear short skirts and tops and things like that. But then she stopped. She wore like long dresses and tops. There was some girls who was her friends who kept teasing her about it and stuff. Then she wasn’t friends with them no more.

Said they was wicked and she didn’t mean good wicked, she meant bad. They said she was a stuck-up bitch. One of them punched her and she didn’t fight back. I was amazed because she was a good fighter, Leonie. No one used to mess with her before then.’

‘Did she tell you why she changed the way she dressed?’

‘No. Think it was something to do with what the man said. She changed a lot,’ grinning almost, putting much emphasis on the last word of the sentence. The smile disappeared from his face. ‘She said she’d make sure I was safe,’ he added softly.

Well, she’s not around, Gary. It’s up to us to keep you

safe.’

The eyes burned with hatred. You think she’s dead, don’tcha?’ Voice rising with anger.

Foster held his hands out. “I don’t know, Gary.’

Well, I know. She isn’t.’

‘Because she promised to come back for you?’

‘Because I’ve heard from her.’

Foster almost did a double take. ‘Since she disappeared?’

No response.

‘Gary, if Leonie has been in touch with you then I need to know.’

Again, the boy didn’t speak but stared ahead at the wall.

Foster rubbed his face. ‘People have died, Gary. You can help me find the people who are doing this. You can help me find the fourteenyear-old girl who went missing last week.’ Still no reaction. You can help me find Leonie and stop anything happening to Rachel.’

Gary shook his head slowly; he looked as if he might cry. “I promised.’

Foster sighed. ‘Please, Gary.’

Another slow shake of the head. The kid was a stubborn mule.

‘If you don’t, I’m going to have to take you in for obstructing the police.’

You don’t scare me. You think I’ve not been arrested before?’

The kid had a point. More than a hundred times, if his charge sheet was to be believed.

“I can help you find Leonie, Gary. Then you’ll be safe.’

Silence. His eyes appeared to brighten, as if lit by hope.

But he still wouldn’t talk.

‘Sleep on it. Let’s talk in the morning.’

Her mother forced the corners of her mouth into a smile but she could not hide the sadness that seeped out from her sorrowful eyes, like gas from an unlit lamp. Sarah stood in the heavy dress; despite its prettiness, for all she cared it could have been a suit of tar and feathers. Her younger sisters twittered playfully around them, delighted at the prospect of a wedding and an open house.

‘Will there he dancing?’ Henrietta asked excitedly.

‘Will there be food?’ asked Emma, who, at six, was still to lose the puppyish layer of fat that encased her body.

At least the open house might involve some laughter, though not hers. In the pit of her stomach she felt nauseous. The prospect of the house emptying and of being taken to his chosen place to consummate the marriage — the bile and terror rose just thinking of it. The last few nights the dream had been the same. He leaned in for a kiss.

Those rotten teeth, those stained yellowing whiskers, the hairs like spider’s legs protruding from his fleshy nose, the sickly sweet odour that filled the room, it was like no nightmare she had ever had before.

Yet soon it would be real.

She could tell that her mother saw it all. But she could not question it. She was to be her father’s gift to the most respected man of the town and there was nothing that could be done to change it. Her mother tried to explain what an honour it was. How she was serving the calling of the Lord. But she cared nothingfor this Lord that tore her away from the people she loved and turned her into a breeding mare for some slovenly old fool. She had never been the most pious of children, though she had tried. She read the book, she memorised the doctrine and covenants, she listened to the Gospel in church, and all the time closed her eyes, willing herself to submit, to believe, to make it all worthwhile, but the nagging doubt and injustice that lodged like a tick in the back of her mind refused to be quelled.

“I, too, stood where you are now,’ her mother intoned. ‘I, too, experienced the same fears and doubts that you are feeling. You are but a child, albeit a strong one, Sarah. He is a good man who will make sure you are very comfortable. Far more comfortable than I ever was. Particularly back then. In your own way, you will come to love him.’

Sarah swallowed the urge to laugh, to bellow, to scream, ‘No, I WON’T!’ Instead she looked at her mother, at that dark-skinned mournful face, lined with hardship and struggle. She had been found as a young girl, left for dead at the massacre of Bear River, buried under the carcasses of her kith and kin. A. kind man of the faith, not long since off the boat from the old world, had found her. She had been taken back to his family, newly settled, where she had worked as a domestic servant but been cherished like one of their children.

The faith had saved her, offered her hope, a new family, afresh start.

No wonder she agreed to be wed to Sarah’s father when she was chosen. It was time to repay the debt.

They hugged. Hot tears stung her eyes but she kept them in. ‘Oh, Mother,’ she said. Her mothers hands ran down the back of her head, like they had many times before, as a means of comfort. She wondered if it was to be the last time they would do that. She could not help it. The tears broke free and she began to convulse, to sob.

Her mother gripped her tighter.

‘Shhh,’ she said softly. ‘It will be all right. It will be all right.’

Sarah could not admit why she was so sad. That it was nothing to do with that sweating warthog she was supposed to marry. That it was because she would never see them all again. She knew it would be all right.

She knew he would come for her.

A shot of pain woke him. One leg was curled underneath

the other and he’d tried to straighten it in his sleep, but the arm of the sofa was in its way and a gentle collision was enough to cause him discomfort. Foster rubbed his face, preparing himself. A chink of light through the curtains told him it was morning, the end of one of the longest nights of his life — and there had been many. He knew

when he sat up his aches and pains would scream for

attention and the stiffness would be with him for a few

hours afterwards. His battered body was no longer fit for sleeping on couches, but with Gary upstairs in the spare room, he wanted to be ready if the boy tried to run away.

As a result, he’d spent most of the night awake, primed to react, listening to the wind in the leaves and the clank of the central heating system shutting down slowly and then later, much later, shuddering to life.

He rose groggily to a sitting position, a dull ache behind his eyes.

‘Brian Harris,’ he thought to himself for the hundredth

time. ‘Of all the bloody blokes in the world.’

After a few more moments summoning the will, he

stood, wincing with discomfort. All told, it wasn’t too

bad.

He made his way gingerly upstairs to the bathroom and

splashed some cold water on his face. He dried off and

went to the spare bedroom. The door was closed. He

knocked. No answer. He knocked again. Silence. That

meant nothing. When he was a kid that age, he could sleep through a marching band passing his bed. He eased the door open and popped his head round.

The bed was empty.

The window was open, the curtain billowing in the

breeze. Foster went over and looked out. It was a sheer

drop into the garden. That wouldn’t have fazed Gary. He

remembered one of his previous convictions for escaping

from police custody. He’d scaled the high, flat wall of

a magistrates’ court and got out through a ceiling window, down the side of the building and away. A miniSpider-Man.

Looks like I slept more than I realized, he thought.

He went downstairs and filled the kettle. His mobile

phone, charging on the sideboard, showed a missed call.

Nigel Barnes.

Foster struggled to understand. Barnes was babbling

about a breakthrough, so he agreed to meet him in

Farringdon near the London Metropolitan Archives, in

the same cafe where he and Heather had approached him

about the Hogg case earlier that year. First he phoned in a missing persons report for Gary, giving a description and asking anyone who found the boy to call him immediately.

He phoned the care home. No sign of him there. Please

stay out of trouble, he thought. If he starts robbing after I signed him out of the home then my arse will be toast, he thought.

Barnes was waiting, hair mussed and wild, running his

hands frantically through it. He was wired on coffee and adrenaline. It turned out he’d barely slept. That makes two of us, Foster thought. He ordered a black coffee, sat down and emptied two sachets of sugar into it. Barnes must have spent most of his night smoking, because he reeked

of tobacco. His experience with Karl Hogg made him

very sensitive to the smell, plunging him right back into the box-filled room, the pain, the sickly sweet nicotine breath of his tormentor …

‘Come on then, what’s the news?’ he asked, snapping

himself out of his brief, unpleasant reverie. ‘Barely understood a word of what you said on the phone.’

Barnes drew a deep breath, pushed his glasses further

up the bridge of his nose. He told him about Anthony

Chapman, how his mother gave him away shortly after his

birth because she believed that his life was in danger if he remained in the family bosom. The Church privately arranged the adoption and all details of it were erased.

After her husband died she had confessed to the new

vicar of her parish that it was the word of an aunt that convinced her to take such drastic action. That aunt had been locked up for most of her life in a notorious mental hospital, Colney Hatch. It had retained the old moniker informally despite changing its name to Friern Hospital in the 1930s. The hospital was long gone, demolished to make way for luxury flats, though the old facade had been retained. Princess Park Manor. Foster knew it as a haven for city boys, football players and minor glitterati. He chuckled inwardly. Did they know their pads were built on the drool of tens of thousands of raving nutters?

‘All very interesting, but how does it help us?’ he asked.

‘The records for Colney Hatch are in the London

Metropolitan Archives. Case notes, admittance registers, that sort of thing. This aunt may well have told the doctors about her fears. Who these people were that sought some sort of revenge. In which case, they may have made

a record of it.’

‘Back up,’ Foster said, holding up his hands. You’re

telling me there might be something in the delusional

rantings of a woman so mad that she spent her life in the nuthouse, the same woman who was ignored by her entire family bar one for being completely doolally?’

Barnes shrugged. Well, I’d put it in slightly more sympathetic terms, but yes, I am. What this woman said so spooked Edith Chapman that she gave away her child.

From what I know, Edith Chapman was a decent, upstanding member of the community —’

‘She gave away her child,’ Foster interrupted. ‘Hardly a decent and upstanding act, is it?’

‘No. But we know that someone appears to be tracking

down and killing the descendants of Horton and Sarah

Rowley. We don’t know why. This aunt prophesied all this.

OK, she was a few decades out, but what’s to say she

wasn’t right? From where I’m sitting, it certainly looks like she might have been.’

Foster sipped at his coffee. He knew Barnes was on to

something — this was a lead worth pursuing. If they could work out why this was happening, finding out who was behind it would become a damn sight easier. He could

only imagine what Harris might say when he went to him

claiming the words of a long-deceased mental patient

marked a breakthrough.

Were Harris and Susie going out? Was it a one-off? Did

he stay the night? No, stop it, he thought. Don’t think

about Harris.

‘OK,’ he said eventually. What do we do?’

Nigel flicked open his notebook. ‘The patient’s name

was Margaret Howell. She was born in 1909, first child of Emma Howell, nee Rowley, the elder daughter of Horton and Sarah Rowley, the couple who moved here in 1891

from regions unknown. She died in 1964, aged 55, in

Friern Mental Hospital from a “seizure”, though what

sort it doesn’t say. Epilepsy, perhaps.’

‘Doesn’t tell us much,’ Foster said.

‘No, but her case notes might. There’s one problem:

patient records are usually subject to a hundred-year

closure rule. Unless.’

‘Unless what?’

‘Unless the police make an application.’

‘That could take days, even weeks,’ Foster replied. He

rubbed his chin. It had been a few days since he’d last

shaved. You said the archives have the records for the

mental hospital?’

Barnes nodded.

‘They have them even though they’re not available to

the general public’

Nigel nodded again.

Foster drained his coffee cup. ‘In that case, follow me.’

Nigel sat at the desk waiting for Foster. He’d been invited into the back office where he’d been sitting patiently for the best part of an hour. The archive was sparsely populated, just a few dedicated researchers, most of them

students, he guessed, going quietly about their task, alongside the occasional amateur. Foster returned clutching a faded brown packet.

‘Here you go,’ Foster said, dropping the bundle on the