Tarnished (42 page)

‘Chloroform,’ Parker said, stooping to catch it and glancing at the label.

But Peg didn’t stop, because she knew who it was in that chair.

‘Loz!’ she cried.

Pale as the snow just settling outside, Loz was slumped in the armchair. Her body was limp, her eyes rolled back under half-closed lids, showing only the whites, and her lips were dry and ringed with sores. Her arms and legs had been tied with circulation-stopping tightness to the armchair.

Peg shook her, but she flopped as if she were only held together by a fragile thread.

‘Let me at her,’ Parker said and Peg stood aside as he scooped his oily fingers inside her mouth.

‘What are you doing?’ Peg said.

‘Checking her airways. See them sores? Chloroform. Bastard. But if it was that bloke in the car last night, he would’ve had to use something else too. Chloroform don’t last that long unless it kills you.’ As he took Loz’s pulse, he scanned the garage. ‘What’s that?’ He pointed to a packet on the desk.

Peg rushed over and grabbed it. ‘It’s Aunty Jean’s sleeping pills,’ she said, handing the package to Parker.

‘Jesus, that’s a hell of a dose,’ he said, reading the package. ‘If whoever did this gave this little girl more than two of these, she’s lucky to still be breathing. Here, go and get some snow while I get her untied.’

‘Snow?’

‘It’s our best shot at waking her up.’ He worked at the knots that bound Loz to the armchair. ‘That and getting her moving around.’

Peg rushed out into the freezing air, chucked her parka on the ground, scooped snow into it, then hurried back in to Parker.

‘Rub it round her face,’ he said, battling with the last rope.

As Peg did so, Loz began to move her head. Her eyelids fluttered and she licked her sore lips. Then her eyes shot open, distorted with terror, and she kicked and struggled to be free of Peg’s arms.

‘It’s all right, Loz . . .’

‘Steady on there, girly,’ Parker said.

Startled by the strange male voice, Loz turned her head.

‘It’s me, love. Parker, from the end garage.’

Loz looked around her wildly.

‘We’re in the garage,’ Peg said. ‘You’re all right now.’

Freed, Loz fought her way up out of the armchair. But her feet gave way underneath her and she crumpled, landing against Parker, who took her in his arms and settled her back down.

‘Take it easy, girly,’ he said. ‘You’ll be a bit woozy for a while.’

‘War . . .’ Loz said, her voice hoarse and indistinct.

‘Give her some water,’ Parker said.

Peg packed some snow into a ball and held it up for Loz to suck on. It wasn’t very successful because, as well as trembling all over, she was trying to say something.

‘Th-th-th . . .’

‘What is it, Loz?’

But she couldn’t string her words together. It was as if she were drunk.

‘Let’s get her out of here and into the warm and I’ll try to get some coffee down her,’ Parker said.

He went to pick Loz up, but first she yelped in pain, then she resisted, struggling out of his arms, trying to pull him back into the garage.

‘The b-b-b . . .’ Loz lifted a shaking hand up to point to the mound of sheets. ‘L-l-look . . .’

‘What’s she saying?’ Parker said.

‘No, look . . .’ Loz said. She wrenched herself away, then lost her footing again. As she fell to the floor, her head took a hit on the corner of the table.

‘Jesus, Loz!’ Peg threw herself to the ground and scooped Loz up. But she was still struggling, grasping her way towards the sheets.

Parker moved past the two women and pulled the sheets away.

Then he stumbled back, his hand to his mouth.

‘Fuck.’

Loz strained against Peg’s own unsteady arms and vomited onto the lino that Peg now knew – from the evidence in front of her – was splattered with blood.

The skull hung back from the rest of the small body at almost seventy degrees. Leathered skin gaped at the throat where once it had been cut, making a second, obscene mouth to match the one lined with braces in what remained of the face. Apart from the reddish curls which lay like floss around the little sundress – whose flowery pattern had been all but obliterated by a flood of blackish-brown bloodstains – it looked to Peg like an Egyptian mummy she had once seen on a school trip to . . .

She knew instantly who this papery corpse had once been.

The hair was too horribly familiar. And the dress, too.

The dress, too
 . . .

The truth burrowed through Peg’s brain, like a worm making tunnels. But try as she could to drag it out, it was still stuck there, unable to gather its constituent parts to make something coherent, something that could give meaning to all of this.

All she had to go on was a dense sickness combined with a heavy feeling of guilt, of responsibility.

‘Burned,’ Loz said, struggling to get up. ‘He – he said find the burned . . .’

‘Burned what?’ Peg said, holding onto her.

‘Burned books . . .’

‘Let’s get her out of here,’ Parker said, backing away from what he had uncovered. ‘She’s had enough horror. So have I, come to that.’

Between them they managed to pull the struggling Loz from this place of nightmares: this last resting place – if rest were the right word – of ten-year-old Anna Thurlow, who, twelve years previously, had vanished without trace from her parents’ three-million-pound Hampshire home.

Then

It’s the start of the summer hols and I’m nine years old.

Wayne has fetched me from school and, before he’s even finished taking my bags up to my bedroom, I’m in tears in Nan’s arms.

I’m so glad I’m back.

All term I’ve wanted to be back here.

‘What is it? What is it, Meggy?’ she asks me.

‘I don’t want to go back to school ever again,’ I say, bawling through my words. ‘I want to stay here and go to the normal school with the normal kids.’

‘But Meggy, your school’s ever such a good one. If you want to be a doctor, it’s the best place to be.’

I’ve never actually said I want to be a doctor, but Nan has decided that’s what I’ve got to do. It stands to reason in a way, because that’s what she always wanted to be and now there are loads of women doctors, she says there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be one.

Except that I don’t want to be one.

‘It’s hell at my school,’ I cry.

‘Come on now, Mrs Fubs. You come in and tell me all about it. See what we can do to make it all better.’

She leads me in, telling Wayne off for walking through the kitchen with his muddy shoes, although I can see that they’re not muddy: they’re as shiny as ever.

‘Good afternoon to you too, Mrs T,’ he says, tipping his hand to his forehead in a sort of salute. Then he bends and gently puts his knuckle up against my cheek.

‘Cheer up, Meggy. Your nan’ll look after you now. See you in September.’

And he’s gone.

Nan leads me through to the lounge, where the table’s set with the coming-home tea. But for once I’m not hungry. I just sit there with little sobs still coming out of me.

‘Come on, Meggy, have a little bite,’ she says, scooping up a big, creamy slice of chocolate cake on a fork and holding it out in front of me.

I shake my head.

‘I’m fat, Nan.’

‘What?’ Nan says, astounded. ‘Who on earth’s been telling you that?’

‘Everyone at school says I am,’ I say, the tears once again breaking through. ‘And ugly. And stupid.’

‘What complete and utter nonsense!’ Nan says. ‘Who’s this everyone? What are their names? I won’t allow this sort of thing to happen, Meggy. Believe me. We’re going to do something about this.’

I write Anna Thurlow’s name on the piece of paper she puts in front of me.

Later, when we’re unpacking my bag upstairs in my bedroom, Nan finds the school photograph I’ve brought back. It’s a big print, about the size of a normal sheet of paper.

‘That’s a lovely picture, Meggy,’ she says.

I shrug. I don’t think it’s lovely. It’s just proof that Anna has a point: I
am
fat. I certainly
look
fat in the photo. And ugly.

Nan unwraps the photo and turns it over.

‘I suppose this is the photographer what took the pictures,’ she says, pointing to a gold label with Happy Days Photography and an address and phone number printed on it.

‘I suppose it is,’ I say.

A few days later, while Nan’s in with Aunty Jean, the post arrives.

There are two envelopes: one has Private and Confidential printed on the front and the other has a gold sticker on the back with Happy Days Photography on it.

I think perhaps Nan likes my photo so much she’s ordered another copy. But then I realise there must be some mistake, because it’s addressed to Mrs Thurlow, and Nan’s name is Mrs Thwaites.

Forty-Three

‘Shudoor . . . Shudoor!’ Loz wheezed when they were inside Parker’s garage. She was still unable to stand, and her speech was hard to decipher. ‘He – he –’

‘He’s not going to get you again,’ Peg said, as Parker first ran back to close the garage they had just escaped, then returned and slammed his own door shut against the cold. Peg sat down next to Loz on a camp bed in the corner, and Parker tucked a rough woollen blanket over her.

‘Rub her, get her warm,’ he said to Peg. ‘And here’s one for yourself.’ He tossed another blanket to Peg, who hadn’t noticed how cold she was without her parka.

Either cold or in shock.

Anna Thurlow
.

She would never get the image of that desiccated body out of her mind. She knew that already. But worse than that, she knew that somehow it was entirely her fault the poor girl had ended up there.

‘You
were
right, Loz. He killed them all,’ she said at last as she tried to warm Loz out of her tremors. ‘All of them. And Nan and Aunty Jean must’ve covered up for him.’ She closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘And if it hadn’t been for Parker finding your wallet, you would’ve been his next victim.’ She put her forehead against Loz’s and closed her eyes. ‘I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you. So sorry.’

‘N – n – n . . .’ Loz said.

‘Keep rubbing her, getting her warm, there.’ Parker reached up and twisted a bare light bulb in the ceiling, turning it on and casting a thin yellow light over the garage. ‘It don’t stand to reason though,’ he said as he poured water from a plastic container into a kettle.

Peg’s eyes took a moment to accustom themselves to the gloom, but when she could focus, she saw that half of this odd, makeshift home was neatly arranged as living quarters, with a small portable stove, a bed, a pile of tidily folded clothes. The other was some sort of metal workshop – a blowtorch and various hammers, spanners and cutting tools lay on the floor by what looked like a collection of small horses made from scrap metal.

‘My statues,’ Parker said, seeing Peg’s look at them. ‘I make them and sell them to this shop down Bermondsey Street. They pay all right for them.’

‘What do you mean, it doesn’t stand to reason?’

‘Well why didn’t he finish Loz here off too? If that’s what he done to that poor girl in there, then he’s got all his tools to hand and no compunctions . . .’

‘Perhaps he thought he’d done the job with Jean’s horse pills. Thing is, the bastard doesn’t know how tough my Loz is.’

Loz shivered and groaned.

‘Oh Loz. What did he do to you?’ Peg whispered. Her mind was red with hate for her father. She wanted revenge. Blood and revenge. ‘What did he want?’

‘He – he . . .’ Loz’s eyes rolled back into her head and she passed out.

‘Oh God,’ Peg said. ‘Parker!’

He moved in and lifted Loz’s eyelids. ‘Hard to tell because she’s still so out of it from the sleeping pills, but I reckon she’s concussed too now from that hit she took when she fell down. ‘Loz, love, wake up,’ he said, gently shaking her. ‘We’ve got to keep her awake. Sit her up and keep shaking her and I’ll get on with the coffee.’

‘Come on Loz, wake up,’ Peg said, putting her arms round her, trying to get her to her feet. But because she was so floppy, her meagre seven or so stone seemed like a dead weight. As Peg grabbed her, she came to, jolting with agony. Again, she tried to speak.

‘He – he . . .’

‘Shhh!’ Parker said sharply. He stopped what he was doing at the stove, stood, and held his hand out flat.

Peg froze, motionless, head craned, ears tuned to the alleyway outside.

Soon she heard it too: a vehicle roared up the lane into the garages, coming to a screeching halt somewhere up the far end.

Parker hobbled over to the wall where the door was and held his eye up to a tube protruding from the wall. ‘Knobbing shite,’ he whispered.

‘What?’ Peg asked, still supporting a wilted Loz, who, now she was coming round, seemed to be in a lot of pain. ‘What’s that?’

‘My periscope. Take a look.’ Parker took hold of Loz while Peg peered into the tube. ‘I rigged it up for security, see. It pans round the whole alley in case of bastards or bailiffs, so I know when to stay schtum. What is it, girl?’ he asked Loz. ‘Does it hurt here?’

Loz nodded.

‘You’ve probably got a broken or bruised rib or two. Did he rough you around?’

Loz nodded again.

‘Cunt. I never liked the look of him. I’ll strap you up once we’re in the all-clear.’

With one eye up against the periscope, Peg made out a white van that had drawn up in front of what she now thought of as Raymond’s garage.

A white van. Not exactly a surprise.

A fat bald white man got out of the passenger side, ran and opened the van’s back doors then climbed inside.

As the driver walked into view to join him, Peg drew in her breath.

He was fat, black and bald, and not only the glimpsed driver of the white vans that had followed her, but—

‘Wayne!’ she gasped, under her breath. Tearing her eyes away from the periscope, she turned to Parker.

‘They’re my dad’s men,’ she said. ‘His driver Wayne and some white guy.’

‘Fuck me.’

Peg put her eye back to the periscope. ‘The white guy’s handed Wayne something. A sleeping bag, I think. Now he’s climbing out of the back of the van with a canister of something. Pretty full and heavy from the look of it. They’re going to the door now . . .’