Path of Needles (11 page)

She leaned in and looked at Little Red’s face. This girl didn’t look anything like Chrissie Farrell. Even under the pall of death, Cate could see that she was gaunt, with the fine lines around her lips that betrayed a habitual smoker. Her face was bruised, unless it was some sort of discoloration. And unlike Chrissie’s, her eyes were closed. There was something else that struck Cate as being different, too: she knew she had seen something without really taking it in. She looked back at the girl’s arms, studying them more closely this time, and she saw it: beneath the crusted blood from the pins were marks that were older still. Then it was obvious: she had the track marks of a drug user. And her thinness – no, this was no Chrissie Farrell. Chrissie had been healthful, beautiful, cared for. This girl was not.

Heath’s voice broke into her thoughts. ‘Christ,’ he said, ‘talk about fairy tales, Cate. So what killed her, do you
think? Is there a big bad wolf around here somewhere, or did story time at the library just get seriously out of hand?’

Cate never got the chance to answer; one of the SOCOs stepped forward and took hold of the edge of the girl’s cape. He raised it, and Cate saw there was blood after all, getting tacky where it had been exposed to the light. A fly crawled from beneath the fabric and lifted itself into the air as the SOCO turned the cloak back further.

Cate took a deep breath and instantly regretted it. The smell was stronger now, pervading everything, embedding itself deep in her throat.

The girl’s belly had been torn open – that was why it smelled so strongly. The stomach contents had spilled amid the entrails, and there was more blood, gelatinous and bright, and the pale gleam of fat. Amongst everything were yellow-white blowfly larvae, clustered like balls of sticky rice.

The SOCO let the cloak fall back again.

Cate looked up to find Heath’s eyes fixed on her. ‘Feel all right, Corbin?’

She was surprised he’d asked; she nodded. Yes, she was all right: it was bad, but on the face of it, she had seen worse. It was what lay beneath this scene that was disturbing, like something stirring the surface of dark water.

‘I think you’d better get your expert down here.’ Heath’s voice was unexpectedly quiet. ‘We’re going to need her to take a look. ASAP.’

Cate stared at him. She remembered the way Alice Hyland had reached for the photograph of Chrissie Farrell’s body, obviously not liking to touch it; her reluctance, as if the paper itself was tainted.

‘No time to be squeamish, Cate,’ he said, as though reading her mind. ‘It’s no good waiting for reports or photographs. If she can help, she needs to do so fast.’ He nodded towards the path. ‘Go and find a uniform, get them to fetch her.’ He met her eye. ‘I’m going to want you to stay on-site.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Alice was staring into her mirror when she heard someone banging on the door. She jumped, startled. She had been whispering something under her breath, barely conscious of what it was. Now she realised:
Mirror, mirror
, she had been saying. She hadn’t been able to get Chrissie Farrell out of her mind since she’d seen the policewoman’s photograph: the fairest of them all, with her wan skin and pale eyes, staring up at nothing. She shuddered, suddenly reluctant to answer the door. Inside, her fairy tales stayed where they belonged, close and yet distant:
safe
. In order to reach their magic Alice had only to open a book. The things that Cate Corbin had shown her … She frowned. She knew the tales had their own power, but to see them intrude on reality in that way … she didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want to know who was knocking at her door. She stood there, staring into the mirror, brushing back her pale blonde hair.

Then the banging came again,
blam-blam-blam
, and she
knew she couldn’t ignore it. If she had ever had a choice about becoming involved, it had vanished when Cate put the dead girl’s picture into her hand.

It wasn’t Cate at the door. This time it was a policeman standing there, glancing over his shoulder as if impatient to be gone. Alice’s eyes narrowed. ‘What is it?’ Her voice came out harshly, making her think for a moment of the rooks that lived in the woods at the back of the house.

He frowned. The skin around his eyes was raw-looking, as if he hadn’t slept in a long time. He introduced himself as PC Nicholls. ‘Ms Hyland, we need your help, if you’re willing,’ he said. ‘There’s something we need you to look at.’

Alice was silent as the policeman eased the car down the lane and turned onto the main road. She couldn’t take in what it was he wanted. The silence was awkward, and she felt he was waiting for her questions: where were they going, exactly? What was it he wanted her to see? She didn’t ask anything. After Cate’s earlier visit, she didn’t want to know. She stared out of the window, only half conscious of their whereabouts as they headed past Newmillerdam Lake. A stab of sunshine found its way through the clouds and reflected back from the water. The day which had begun so clear had changed, and paleness closed over the blue like scar tissue. She looked at the wing-mirror on her side of the car and saw the faint outline of her face layered beneath another reflection, of the clouds overhead. It made her feel like a ghost. The
fissure where the sun shone through blanked out half of her forehead and her left eye, and she shuddered.

The car slowed and the policeman flicked on the indicator. They hadn’t even left the lakeside; she had thought they would be going further, the Heronry perhaps, somewhere else not so close to home.

Everything happened quickly then: he pulled in near an unmarked van. The rear doors were open and someone was sitting on the baseboard, easing white overalls up their legs. A uniformed policewoman was standing at the edge of the woods, watching their arrival.

Alice just sat there while PC Nicholls got out. Her limbs felt heavy, almost as if she were being pushed down into her seat. She glanced at her reflection again:
Mirror, mirror
. Then her door opened and the officer was there, waiting for her to step out, and after a moment, Alice did. She suddenly wanted to ask all the questions he’d no doubt been expecting earlier and she opened her mouth, but he was already turning towards the trees. Alice looked up and saw their dark crowns, heard their soughing as a breeze caught the topmost branches. It occurred to her that she could have refused to come – they surely couldn’t have made her – but now it was too late. She followed him, passing into the cool shadow of the trees.

Everything felt dreamlike, as if she had stepped into the pages of some story, and not one of her choosing. The policeman gave her white overalls to put on and took her name and details and added them to a register. Seeing it
being written down made it worse somehow, as if this must really be happening.

She took the unfamiliar clothing in her arms and the strange fabric rustled and slid under her fingers. The policeman gestured impatiently and she started to pull it on over her clothes. She found two smaller pieces among the material; she didn’t know what to do with them until she saw the policeman pulling similar items over his shoes. She did the same, relieved she didn’t have to ask.

She heard voices and looked up to see two people in identical white suits coming towards them through the trees. Oddly, being dressed the same way made her feel more out of place. The newcomers stopped to exchange a few words with the policeman she was with and ignored Alice. She caught the words ‘something in her mouth’.

PC Nicholls shot a glance towards her. ‘Now, please,’ he said, his voice pinched, and led her uphill. Alice looked at her feet, saw the clinical white overalls brushing past bursts of red campion and clusters of woodruff. She thought back to the morning she’d opened her eyes to the sound of birdsong; the way she had known, deep inside, that springtime had come. Then the wood opened out into an odd place, where the trees grew behind fences and the ground was scattered with old wood.

The policeman led the way towards a group of people in the centre of the clearing. There was a bad smell, nothing she could identify; her mind didn’t want to register what might be the cause. The officer stood back to let her see.

There was a body lying on the ground. It was at once real and unreal, a figure she knew as well as her own face: a girl in a blood-red cape lying next to the basket she was carrying to her grandmother.

Alice closed her eyes and shook the image away. Instead, she caught another glimpse of that springtime morning when she’d awakened and known that something new was about to begin; the blue bird flying at her with its wings outstretched.

She blinked. One of the white figures stepped towards her and with a start, Alice recognised Cate. She didn’t say anything, and when Alice glanced about, she noticed the other people dotted around the figure on the ground were all watching her, waiting for a reaction, for her to do or say something that would make everything begin again. But how could she make sense of something that didn’t make any sense?

Alice didn’t want to see their eyes on her any longer, so she looked back at the girl on the ground. The cloak was so bright it was violent against the dull greens and browns of the earth, like an illustration from a book, everything a little too clear, too vivid. And it was all a little
too
right. Even the basket by the girl’s side was exactly as it should be, the arch of the handle, the checked cloth covering the contents. Now Alice had begun to notice the detail, she couldn’t take her eyes from it. She edged closer; the smell grew worse and she made a choking sound in the back of her throat and stepped away again.

‘Take your time,’ said Cate.

Alice just stood there, her hand over her mouth. Nobody moved and nobody spoke; there was silence, save for the silvery sound of foliage stirring in the breeze.

Surely Alice had nothing to give; this scene must be obvious to anyone. There didn’t appear to be any hidden signs, nothing obscure like in the photographs of Snow White. No one could possibly mistake it for anything else.
Red in tooth and claw
, she thought. She had said it before, many times, but had she really believed it? She forced herself to look at the body again, suddenly glad she couldn’t see the dead girl’s eyes. She could see her arms, though, and when she looked at them, really
looked
at them, it sent a shock through her.

‘They’re pins,’ Cate said, and Alice realised she was standing at her shoulder.

‘No,’ Alice said slowly, ‘I don’t think they are.’ Despite her reluctance she leaned closer, wanting to be sure. ‘No, they’re not pins. They’re needles.’ Each silver point was tipped by a narrow eye.

‘She chose a path,’ said Alice, backing away, ‘in the story. Little Red was sent into the woods by her mother, taking some food – it varies from version to version, sometimes it’s a pot of butter or bread and milk, in others cake and wine. Instead, she encounters the wolf. He asks which way she’s going to the grandmother’s house and he makes sure he gets there first. Little Red has to choose from the path of pins or the path of needles.’

Her eyes narrowed. The girl looked so thin – it made her look so vulnerable. She was glad the cloak was covering much of her body, keeping her face half hidden. But her arms – the needles had caught her attention first, masking what lay beneath. Was the skin there bruised from what had been done to her, or was it more than that?

She took a breath and held it, moved closer to the girl and bent down so she could see her face. She told herself it wasn’t so bad, but she had to steal a small breath, and that
was
bad.

The girl’s skin had paled in death – at least, she
thought
it was that – but wasn’t there a faint bruise underlying the shadow of her cheekbone? This girl didn’t look like some fairy-tale princess, she wasn’t like the first: someone’s daughter or granddaughter who had been cherished. She hadn’t been crowned, hadn’t been honoured, she wasn’t the queen of anything.

She glanced back at the track marks on her arms before stepping away. It looked as if this girl had chosen the path of needles long ago.

*

Cate stood at her side and prompted Alice with questions as they stood at the edge of the clearing. Alice kept her eyes fixed on the trees; she didn’t want to see that body any more, or watch what they did to her, what indignities she still had to suffer. She tried to tell herself that it wasn’t real, any of it, but Cate’s questions intruded, making her realise that it was. Her sense of dislocation remained.
She wanted to go home, to turn her back on this and pretend she’d never seen it.

‘The way she’s been left looks more obvious this time,’ Cate said. ‘No one would take it for anything else. Anyone can see it’s a fairy tale.’

Alice drew a deep breath. ‘You know, you’re right. I’m really not sure you need me any more.’

‘There must be things he’s done that could give us some indication of what he’s thinking – don’t forget, we don’t know these stories like you do. We might miss even obvious things that you would see at once. And this has all been done deliberately, the placing of each little thing. That took forethought, planning.’

Alice remained silent.

‘The thing about the pins – what did you say it meant?’

‘They aren’t pins,’ said Alice. Her voice was faint. ‘They’re needles.’

It was Cate’s turn to be silent. Someone standing nearby shuffled their feet and Alice realised a man was watching them. She felt Cate’s hand on her arm and she took a deep breath. The air was mercifully clean.

‘The path of needles and the path of pins,’ she started. ‘When Little Red Riding Hood meets the wolf – or the
bzou
, the werewolf – he wants to race her to the grandmother’s house. She can choose which path to take. There’s a lot of disagreement about what the path of needles or the path of pins signifies, or even if it means anything at all.’ She paused. ‘There is one interesting interpretation, though.’

‘Which is?’

‘Some people think it can be seen as a choice between sexual maturity and innocence.’ Alice took another deep breath. ‘The story was shaped by retellings throughout rural France before Perrault wrote it down in the late seventeenth century. Oral storytelling was a female tradition, and female work – sewing, spinning, weaving – often cropped up in the imagery.