Epitaph (15 page)

‘Can you hear me?’

Paul Crane froze where he lay as the words were repeated.

One part of his mind told him that he was hallucinating. The other that he dare not believe what he heard because to do so would have been to cling to hope and hope was something that currently had no place in his world. However, one tiny fraction of his tortured brain told him that he had heard those four words spoken before. That was what he’d heard. Not the gnawing of graveyard rats, not the projection of thoughts about Amy and not his own internal voice somehow made tangible. None of those things. What he’d heard was the voice of another human being. And they were the words of the person who was going to save his life.

‘I know you can hear me,’ the voice repeated.

Six words this time, he thought joyously. But where were they coming from? Who was speaking them?

Why? What? When? Who?

He exhaled deeply and waited, trying to focus on the sounds. They were distorted. It was even hard to tell if they were male or female at first.

‘You can hear me,’ the voice went on. ‘Can’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Paul said breathlessly, praying that he wasn’t merely talking to himself. ‘Yes, I can hear you.’

He spoke the words with a joy he had long forgotten. A surge of ecstatic relief that knew no bounds and that coursed through his entire body like a new and highly potent and benign drug. Forget the pathetic attempts to push the coffin lid open, banish the thoughts of picking a hole in the wood and somehow crawling out. Those were false hopes, fantasies that only came about because of desperation. This voice offered real hope. It offered the promise of release.

The promise of life.

‘I can hear you,’ he repeated. ‘I can hear you.’

Paul wondered if shovels were already being driven into the ground as a team of eager rescuers dug down into the earth towards him. In his mind’s eye he could see them toiling away above the surface, getting closer and closer. The earth would be flying as they dug, hurrying to reach him and prise the lid from the coffin. Or perhaps they were using one of those small JCB diggers that you sometimes saw on building sites so that they’d reach him more quickly. There’d be an ambulance waiting by the graveside, too, ready to whisk him off to hospital. Paramedics prepared to take away the searing pain in his hands and to give him some much needed oxygen. Someone had found out that he’d been buried alive and now he was going to be saved. He felt like crying again, but with relief rather than despair.

‘Get me out of here,’ he called, a smile on his lips.

There was a long silence.

Again Paul wondered if this was some kind of cruel hallucination. A last trick that his mind was playing on him before he entered his final moments.

‘Help me, please,’ Paul called. ‘Please. Get me out of here. Can you hear me? I said, get me out of here. I don’t know what happened but I shouldn’t be here. Please, help me.’

Again there was silence.

Paul imagined that the diggers were more than halfway to reaching him by now. In fact, dependent on when they started, they might even be only inches from the lid of the coffin. Soon he would hear the clunk of shovel blades against wood and then they would be able to free him from the coffin for ever. He imagined someone kneeling on the lid of the box carefully removing the six screws that held the top of the casket securely in place. When all of them were removed the lid would be lifted and fresh, clean air would envelop him. He would drink in huge lungfuls of it as he was helped from the casket, embraced by his rescuers. And they would help him from the hole where he’d been placed and the nightmare would be over.

‘I don’t know what happened to me. I don’t know how I got in here but I’ve got to get out. You’ve got to get me out. I don’t know how much oxygen I’ve got left but it’s getting difficult to breathe in here. Please help me.’

‘Why would I want to help you?’ the voice asked flatly. ‘I was the one who put you there.’

Frank Hacket saw the police car as he rode up the street on his pushbike.

For a moment he didn’t realise that it was parked outside his own house but, as he wheeled the bike off the road on to the path, he could see that the vehicle was indeed outside his house.

He could also see faces in the windows of the other houses in the street peering in his direction, similarly puzzled or concerned by the presence of the emergency services.

Frank headed along the narrow passageway that led to the back of the house, wedged his bike against the nearest wall and let himself in the back door.

He heard the sound as he walked in.

Loud crying punctuated by wails of pure despair.

It was Gina.

He could also hear a deeper voice. One that was trying to calm her but having little joy.

Frank blundered into the living room and saw the two policemen, both of whom turned to face him.

Gina got to her feet instantly and snatched the blood-spattered cardigan from one of them.

‘Gina’s dead,’ she shrieked, holding up the garment as confirmation of her words.

Frank looked at the small cardigan and then at the face of the older policeman.

‘Mr Hacket?’ the older officer said quietly.

Frank nodded.

‘Is this about my daughter?’ he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

‘She’s dead, Frank,’ Gina interjected, tears rolling down her face. ‘I told you. I said there was something wrong but you wouldn’t believe me. I knew something had happened.’

The older policeman took the cardigan back from Gina and motioned for both her and Frank to sit down. They did so on either end of the sofa.

‘The body of a little girl was found, Mr Hacket,’ the policeman went on. ‘She hasn’t been identified yet so we don’t know for sure that it’s your daughter.’

Frank felt sick. He felt his stomach contract and he thought that he was going to vomit. He clenched his teeth together in an effort to prevent this.

‘That’s her cardigan,’ Gina reminded him.

Frank nodded.

‘Where is she?’ he wanted to know.

‘She’s at the hospital,’ the policeman told him.

‘And you need someone to identify her?’ Frank murmured.

The policeman nodded.

‘I know this is painful,’ he said.

‘You don’t know what it feels like,’ Gina chided. ‘How can you know what it feels like?’

‘This isn’t easy for us either, Mrs Hacket,’ the older man told her apologetically.

‘They’re just doing their jobs,’ Frank reminded his wife, his gaze fixed on his daughter’s cardigan.

‘We are going to have to ask you to come with us to the hospital,’ the older man informed them.

‘To identify the body,’ Frank murmured.

‘I’m sorry but it has to be done as soon as possible so the investigation can begin in earnest,’ the policeman told him.

‘We’ll come with you,’ Frank said. He got to his feet despite the fact that his legs felt distinctly shaky. He extended a hand towards Gina who merely looked at the outstretched limb dumbly.

‘We’ve got to do it,’ he told her, his hand still outstretched.

‘I can’t,’ she told him.

‘Then I will. But you don’t want to stay here alone, do you?’

‘No,’ Gina said sharply. ‘I’ll come too. It might not be her. There might have been a mistake.’

Frank looked at the cardigan once more.

‘I hope so,’ he breathed, his voice quivering. ‘Oh, God, I hope so.’

The words hit Paul Crane like a thunderbolt.

He felt his chest and throat tighten as they seemed to echo around the inside of the coffin. Spoken with such seething anger that they raised the hairs on the back of his neck.

The fear that he had come to know all too well during the preceding time inside the coffin now resurfaced with renewed ferocity and he felt himself shaking. He tried to control his breathing.

Just like at the beginning.

His heart was hammering against his ribs so hard he feared it might burst through the protective cage and explode before his eyes.

‘Who are you?’ he said slowly.

‘I’m the person who put you in that coffin,’ the voice told him triumphantly.

‘But why? I haven’t done anything to you.’

‘You don’t know who I am. How do you know you haven’t?’

Paul tried to swallow but it felt as if someone had filled his throat with chalk. He licked his lips, feeling that they too were dry and cracked. As if he’d been trekking across a desert beneath a blazing sun.

‘It’s what you deserve for what you did,’ the voice continued.

‘What did I do?’ Paul asked. ‘Whatever it was it can’t have been bad enough to deserve this. What am I supposed to have done?’

‘I knew you’d do this. I knew you’d be like this.’

‘Tell me what I’m supposed to have done.’

‘You murdered my daughter.’

Paul heard the words as they seemed to echo around the inside of the coffin and he felt that all too familiar icy chill course through his veins again.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve never killed anyone in my life. Never even hurt anyone.’

‘I knew you’d say that. I expected it. You must have thought you’d got away with it when the police didn’t find you. I bet you were thinking you were so clever, weren’t you?’

‘Please. I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Please? Is that what my daughter said before you killed her? Did she plead for her life? Well, now you’re going to have to plead for yours but this time I’m in control. I decide whether you live or die, just the way you decided if my daughter lived or died. But you didn’t give her a chance, did you? She never had a chance once you’d made up your mind.’

Paul tried to concentrate on the words he was hearing. Not just their content but their timbre and tone.

The voice that he heard was metallic, almost robotic. As if it was not only coming from far away but as if it was being spoken by some automaton. And then there was the question of how he was hearing the voice in the first place. The words that were being spoken became almost secondary to discovering their source.

‘Tell me who you are,’ Paul asked, anxious not to inject too much anger or fear into his voice.

You want to know how you can hear them. How about how they can hear you?

He extended both arms as far as he could, trailing them slowly over the satin there, not completely sure what he was doing or what he was looking for.

A speaker of some kind? It’s got to be that. How else could you hear them?

And yet the voice still sounded androgynous. Neither male nor female. Was it, he wondered, being fed through some kind of audio filter?

Why would they do that? In case you get out suddenly and come after them? Get real. They’ve got you, whoever they are. You are completely at their fucking mercy. So just shut up and listen carefully.

‘Can you hear me?’ Paul went on when there was no response from his captor. ‘I asked who you were.’

‘I heard you,’ the voice told him.

‘Please tell me who you are.’

‘I’m the mother of the girl you murdered.’

Paul exhaled deeply.

‘I never killed anyone,’ he said breathlessly.

‘You’ll be telling me next that you’ve forgotten her name.’

‘How can I know her name when I didn’t do anything to her? You’ve got the wrong man. I swear to God. This is all a mistake. It’s not me you want.’

‘Don’t swear to God. He’s not going to help you. No one’s going to help you except me.’

‘Then tell me what to do.’

‘Admit you killed my daughter.’

‘And then what?’

‘If you admit it, I’ll let you out.’

‘No you won’t.’

‘You’ll have to trust me. What choice do you have?

‘If I say I didn’t kill her you’ll leave me here to suffocate. If I say I did kill her then you’ll leave me here as a punishment. You’re not going to let me out, no matter what I say.’

‘I told you, you’ll have to trust me.’

‘I’m not going to admit to something I haven’t done.’

‘Not even to save your own life?’

‘I never touched your daughter. If I had the police would have arrested me, wouldn’t they?’

‘The police never found my daughter’s killer.’

‘So what makes you think that it’s me? If the police couldn’t catch the man who did it what made you come after me?’

‘You weren’t the only one. There were lots like you. People who could have done it.’

‘Then why me?’ he shouted, unable to control himself any longer. ‘Why did you put me in this fucking coffin?’

‘Because I want the truth.’

‘Get me out and we’ll talk.’

‘We’re talking now.’

‘Face to face. I promise I won’t press charges.’

‘You won’t press charges,’ the voice said mockingly. ‘Am I supposed to be grateful for that? You won’t press charges. A murdering rapist won’t press charges against me.’ There was a sound like bitter laughter. A sound that raised the hairs on the back of Paul’s neck. ‘And another thing. Don’t raise your voice to me like you just did. If you do that again I’ll walk away and you’ll die where you are now. Do you understand? Show some respect. But I suppose you don’t know much about that, do you? Anyone who would rape and kill a little girl wouldn’t know anything about respect.’

‘Tell me what I’m supposed to have done,’ Paul said, trying to stay as calm as possible.

‘I told you, you raped and murdered my little girl.’

‘When?’

‘Eighteen months ago.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘Liar.’

‘All right, I did, now let me out. I killed her. That’s what you wanted to hear, wasn’t it? Now let me out. Call the police, let them come and arrest me and you’ll have your revenge.’

‘You think seeing you arrested will be enough for me after what you did to my daughter?’

‘Well, you can’t see me down here, can you?’ he snapped. ‘I would have thought that part of the fun, part of your revenge, would be to watch me suffer. How can you do that while I’m in this fucking box?’

‘I told you not to raise your voice to me.’

‘Where did you get the coffin, by the way?’ he said
conversationally. ‘I mean, coffins aren’t that easy to come by without attracting attention. Where did you get it? Did you just wander into an undertaker’s when they weren’t looking and slip it in the back of your car?’

‘That’s a stupid question,’ the voice said disparagingly. ‘Really stupid. Does it matter? What use would knowing do you? All that matters is that you’re inside it. And you’re going nowhere unless I say so.’

‘When are you going to kill me?’ Paul laughed in spite of himself. It was a twisted, uncontrollable exhortation that made his whole body shake and caused him to cough when he’d finally finished.

‘I warned you not to shout,’ the voice said, reproachfully. ‘I don’t have to listen to this any more. I’m going.’

‘No,’ he shrieked. ‘No, don’t leave me.’

Silence.

‘Please,’ he roared, pounding on the lid of the box. ‘Can you hear me? Are you still there?’

There was still only silence.

Once more, Paul Crane began to cry.