Secret of the Shadows (11 page)

He skimmed through the pages as I watched the blood seep through the paper towel. He was looking at the photograph.

‘You think all these women are Sister Kelly?’

‘That’s exactly what I think.’

I slumped into a chair. I felt weak. ‘I think my gran had found out about her too . . . but she died before she could do anything about it.’

‘And what can we do?’

We
– how I loved the sound of that word. I wasn’t alone.

‘Find some kind of real proof. I don’t know. I just know we have to tell somebody.’

Paul looked at my arm. ‘You really are going to need that stitched.’

And that’s when I remembered the doctor. I checked the time. 2.55. How long had I been in that kitchen?

No matter. It was almost three. Surely, I could call him now.

It was the same officious receptionist who answered. ‘I phoned earlier,’ I reminded her, ‘about my aunt? You said I should call at three?’

‘Oh yes, I remember,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, but the doctor’s been called out on an emergency.’

‘But my aunt isn’t well, and now I’ve cut my arm, and you said he’d be there!’

I didn’t mean to shout. Didn’t even realise I was shouting. I heard her draw in her breath.

‘The doctor’s been called out on a
real
emergency,’ she said it as if mine wasn’t. ‘I mean, what are you calling for exactly? Your aunt or your cut arm?’

I could feel the anger building in me. ‘Can’t you get the doctor on his mobile? Tell him to call here too?’

‘You’re not even one of his patients,’ she snapped back. ‘If your arm’s that bad, get yourself to a hospital.’ Then she rang off.

‘I don’t think that’s bad advice,’ Paul said when I told him. ‘Your arm needs attention.’

I shook my head. ‘I can’t leave my aunt.’ Then a thought struck me. What was Paul doing here?

‘I’ve been trying to call you,’ he said when I asked him. ‘It kept coming up number not in use. I thought something must be wrong.’

‘I tried calling you too, and it was the same thing, number not in use!’

Paul shrugged. ‘Signal’s rubbish down here.’

But I doubted that was the reason. This was Sister Kelly’s work again.

‘Look, now I’m here I can help. You go to the hospital, and I’ll stay with your aunt.’

‘You’d stay here, after everything that happened to you?’ I couldn’t believe he was offering to do this.

‘I’ll sit with your aunt, in her room. It’s broad daylight. And you’ll be back long before dark. I’m not scared during the day.’

‘But look what she did just now in the kitchen.’

He hesitated, and I could see he wasn’t quite prepared to believe that anything had attacked me in there. He probably thought that my own fear, my overactive imagination had made me fall with the knife in my hand. I wished I could believe that myself.

‘I . . . I can’t leave you here. What if my aunt wakes up and there’s a strange boy in her room?’

‘Do you think she will wake up?’ Paul said, and I knew she wouldn’t.

He was already on the phone. ‘I’m calling for a taxi to take you to Accident and Emergency. The sooner you go, the sooner you’ll come back. We’ll talk then. There has to be something we can do.’

‘But Aunt Belle.’

‘I’ll keep phoning for the doctor. I promise.’

As I waited for the taxi, I asked him over and over again if he would be OK in the house.

‘I’m not going to move out of that room, Tyler.’

But Sister Kelly was growing stronger, more powerful. Who knew what she could do?

‘You have to promise me you’ll be careful, Paul.’

He stood at the door as the taxi drove off. I watched him from the back window waving and smiling. It was such a good feeling to know I wasn’t alone in this any more.

Chapter 28

I had expected a long wait at the hospital, but Accident and Emergency wasn’t too busy and the receptionist told me I’d be seen within half an hour.

A nurse took me into a cubicle not long after I arrived and checked that the bleeding had stopped. She wrapped a temporary dressing around it, then sent me back to wait to see a doctor.

I took out my phone and punched in our house’s landline number. Paul answered on the third ring. ‘I’m fine,’ he said at once. ‘OK? I’ve even left the room to go to the toilet, didn’t like to use your aunt’s en suite. Nothing happened.’

I saw the receptionist approaching me. My turn, I thought, standing up.

She pointed to a sign on the wall.

MOBILE PHONES MUST BE SWITCHED OFF
.

‘I’m afraid you can’t use that here,’ she said.

‘Sorry,’ I said, and into the phone I said to Paul, ‘I’ll call you later.’ And I added softly, ‘And please, be careful.’

I closed the phone over and apologised again. Then I sat watching the clock, praying for the minute hand to move more quickly and all the while I sat there my imagination went haywire.

I had left my aunt with a complete stranger. She might wake up and see him sitting there beside her bed and, well, what would she do? Scream? Faint? Not Aunt Belle. She would most likely attack Paul. The thought made me smile, but only for a second, because what if Paul wasn’t what he seemed, even now was rifling through Aunt Belle’s bags and purses, looking for money, jewellery.

And all the time the clock ticked on ever so slowly.

I stood up and went out through the automatic doors and phoned again.

‘Is that you on your way home?’ Paul asked, and when I hesitated he added, ‘Or are you just checking up on me?’

‘I’m sorry.’ All I seemed to be doing was apologise.

‘Stop worrying, Tyler. The sun is shining, your aunt is sleeping and I’m reading that book. Wow! If you’re right and Sister Kelly really is all these other women, what a story! But how can we prove it?’

We
again, it made my spirits soar. ‘You should check out the stuff I found out about her on my laptop.’

I went back inside feeling better and took my seat once more, and waited. It seemed everyone was watching me. The receptionist behind the glass in her booth kept glancing at me suspiciously, waiting for me to whip out my phone again. Orderlies passed pushing trolleys, their eyes seeking me out. I was sure of it. And time ticked on slowly.

The hands of the clock clicked exactly on the half-hour when a nurse appeared at the door of the waiting room. ‘Tyler Lawless?’ she called out.

I stood up and followed her along a corridor and into a curtained booth. ‘Doctor will be with you shortly.’

‘You mean I’ve got to wait again?’

Her smile wavered. ‘The doctor will be with you as quickly as possible.’

I phoned Paul again. It rang and rang, and I imagined the house still and silent except for that ringing phone, saw my aunt still sleeping, and the phone lying on the floor and Paul . . . nowhere. An open door, an empty room.

I jumped in surprise when he answered. ‘Tyler, give me a break.’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m so worried, it’s as if I know something is going to happen.’

‘Well, I can’t feel anything. Honest. Your aunt hasn’t stirred.’

The curtain was suddenly pulled across and the doctor stepped in.
Doctor Ho
, his badge read. ‘You are not allowed to use your phone in here.’

Another muttered apology and I switched the phone off without even a goodbye.

The nurse appeared behind the doctor. Her face was grim. ‘She’s been warned about that before,’ she said it as if I was some kind of persistent troublemaker.

Doctor Ho unwrapped the dressing from my arm. The gash looked to me like a gaping mouth. My legs turned to jelly.

‘How did this happen?’ he asked.

I wished I could tell him the truth. I looked into his eyes. I wasn’t good at lies.

His eyes moved to mine. My hesitation wasn’t impressing him at all. ‘How did this happen?’ he asked again.

‘I was making a sandwich . . . and the knife slipped.’

His long fingers moving around my arm, stopped. Again his eyes met mine. ‘It must have slipped with a lot of force to give you a cut like this.’

‘What do you mean?’ My voice was shaking.

Did I look guilty? I must have. The nurse whispered something to the doctor behind her closed hand.

‘Have you ever cut yourself like this before?’ he asked now.

And my eyes automatically shot to the cut on my other arm. He saw it too. It was obviously what the nurse had spotted. ‘That,’ I stuttered, ‘that was an accident too.’

But what they were thinking hit me like a brick. Self-harm.

‘You think I did this to
myself
!’ I shouted, though I didn’t mean to. ‘It was an accident!’

Yet, even as I said it, I knew I sounded as if I was telling a lie. But I
was
lying. Because it wasn’t an accident. Sister Kelly had been responsible for that too. And I couldn’t tell them that.

The doctor took a deep breath. ‘You’re going to need a few stitches,’ he said and then turned to the nurse. ‘Get it cleaned up and stitched.’

The nurse began cleaning up my wound. ‘Will this take long? I have to get back home.’ I tried to explain as calmly as I could. ‘Look, my aunt’s not well. I’ve been trying to get a doctor for her. I’m on my own, I need to get back to her.’

And all the while I spoke I knew I was giving them more reasons that would make them think I would self-harm. I had too many problems for a teenager to cope with.

‘Would you like to speak to a social worker? They might be able to help.’

That was the last thing I needed. I just wanted to get out of this hospital and to be back with Aunt Belle.

‘No, no. I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’ll be fine.’

Twenty minutes later I was stitched and bandaged and ready to leave. In the foyer I opened my phone to call a taxi, but the receptionist rapped at the glass of her booth and shook her head. She pointed outside.

I looked back as I stepped through the automatic doors. Doctor Ho was deep in conversation with a policeman. And of course the policeman, probably the only policeman in this little community, had to be Sergeant Ross. They were talking about me, no doubt about that. As I looked, they both turned to me. Sergeant Ross nodded, acknowledging something Doctor Ho was saying. That I was a danger to myself probably. To make matters worse, I began to run as if I was guilty. As if they might just come after me.

The whole time I waited at the taxi rank I expected one of them to come racing out of the doors. I was desperate to get away. As soon as I was in the taxi, I phoned Paul again to let him know I was on my way, I’d be back soon.

The phone rang and rang and finally went on to the answering machine. ‘Paul, call me as soon as you get this.’

I tried his mobile after that. Once again there was no answer, only that same message.
NUMBER NOT IN USE.
I sent a text just in case he could access it. I called the house again. And still there was no answer.

All the way along the sun-scorched coast road, I phoned. And he didn’t answer.

Something was wrong.

Chapter 29

When the taxi pulled up, the house looked quiet, as if all was well. Paul hadn’t heard the phone, I kept telling myself. That was all.

The driver turned to me. ‘Home safe and sound, hen,’ he said.

A part of me wanted to ask him to come into the house with me, but it would sound so silly.

‘Are you feeling OK?’ he asked. And before I could reply he went on. ‘Somebody should have gone to that hospital with you. A young lassie like you, and you got stitches. You shouldn’t have had to go on your own.’

‘I’m fine, really,’ I said.

And for all his concern, he was gone, almost as soon as I stepped from the back seat.

I took a deep breath and opened the door. I knew right away that something
was definitely
wrong. The house was silent. I called out, ‘Paul?’ but there was no answer. I walked past the open door of the living room, then looked into the dining room. Empty, both of them. I walked to Aunt Belle’s room and pushed open the door. Paul wasn’t there. Aunt Belle lay quiet, breathing heavily. She didn’t sound well at all. The book lay on the floor, spine open, as if Paul had been reading it when something had disturbed him he had let it drop from his fingers.

‘Paul!’ I called his name again and Aunt Belle stirred, then lay still. Nothing was going to wake her up for now.

I stood in the hall and stared at the closed door of the other bedroom. I stood staring at it, willing it to open, not wanting to have to go in there, knowing I had no choice.

Then, it appeared. A spider the size of my hand crawling up the door. I knew what that meant. She was close. She was here.

It was now or never. I took a deep breath and I ran at that door, had to or my courage would have failed me. I flung the door wide open and there he was. Paul, lying on his back on the floor, his eyes wide open, staring in terror.