The Taken (18 page)

Especially Kay… we should do something for Kay. We can’t leave her. Not like that.”

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Voices were rising around her and Alex called for quiet, but the indignant conversation didn’t stop until Crouch reached across the bar and rang the bell again, this time loud and angry.

“We’ve got to leave them where they are. The police will want to examine the crime scenes exactly as we found them. We’ve probably destroyed some evidence as it is.” Alice’s eyes were wide and welling up, and Alex’s tone softened slightly. “Remember what the reverend would have told you. They’re gone. It’s just their earthly remains that are left. No more harm can come to them now. Now we have to worry about the living.”

There was a moment of silence and Alex felt some of the tension slip out of the room. Maybe country people were more pragmatic about death, or maybe nobody really wanted to go into the Chambers’s house and cut Kay down. That was probably closer to the truth.

“But who would want to do that to anyone? And why here?” Alice Moore called out, and was immediately seconded by others.

Not having the energy to shout over them, Alex waited until the voices had lowered to a hum. God, she was tired, and the pain inside her was starting to burn upward from her pelvis. She needed painkillers, but she was damned if she was going to ask Dr. Jones. She’d get this out of the way and then see if Crouch had any behind the bar.

Taking a deep breath, she let the words out. “This isn’t just bad luck. And I don’t think that Kay and Reverend Barker were just random victims. Horrible as it sounds, whoever’s doing this is doing this to us on purpose. They were chosen for a reason. Now, maybe Kay

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didn’t know what that reason was, but I think the vicar did. He said some things before he died. Some things that we have to make sense of.” She paused. “And some of this stuff may not make sense. Not in the traditional sense.”

“He was still alive when you found him?”

Crouch’s voice carved into her from behind. “God, how awful.”

“There was also a message left in the window at Kay’s house.”

“She’s come back. I always knew she would. She’s come back.” Rocking backward and forward, perched awkwardly on the old two-seater in front of the fire, Mary muttered aloud and only stopped when Alice wrapped her arm around her, her grip perhaps a little too firm. Still, although she fell silent, Mary’s lips continued to move, mumbling silent words.

“What’s she talking about?” Dave Carter, a retired pilot who’d only recently moved into the village, seemed to speak for all, as once again the sea of skin, worn and smooth, looked at Alex expectantly.

“I don’t know. But I think this might all have something to do with a little girl that went missing years ago. It sounds crazy, but nothing else seems to make much sense. Mary thought she saw her in the garden yesterday. And the vicar said her name when he was dying. Melanie Parr. And he said we had to warn the others. That she’d come for us. Mary said that the Catcher Man had brought her back.” She paused. “Neither of those names meant anything to me until Paul told me Melanie had gone missing in a storm years ago.”

As she spoke her eyes wandered around the room looking for signs of recognition or reactions of any

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kind. Some looked puzzled, especially those younger than her; some just looked tired and frightened and wanting answers; but on the faces of those older than herself, some not that much older, a guarded look had crept in. Some of those faces surprised her. Ada and Daniel Rose had exchanged glances before their eyes slid to the floor. Alice Moore’s hands fluttered to her throat and Mary’s rocking increased. Yes, something was being hidden.

“What did the message say? The one you found at Kay’s place?” Even Crouch’s ruddy complexion seemed harder, more defensive.

“Paul found it. It was written in steam on the window, but god knows how it got there. He said that it said, Come inside Paul. Let’s play fishing with Kay. It was gone when I arrived.” Crouch looked disbelieving, but Alex pressed on. “I know it sounds weird, but Paul wouldn’t make something like that up. And there are other things that are wrong. There are children in the town. Children that shouldn’t be here. We’ve all seen them. Haven’t we?” She glared around, knowing she was in danger of making a fool of herself, but tired of pretending that everything was okay. “I know James Partridge has, because he told me.” She stared at his wife, who ducked her head. “And I think if we all started being honest, we’d discover that strange children aren’t the weirdest things that have been going on.”

Again, a series of furtive glances scurried backward and forward across the bar.

Yes, she’d made her point.

Mary turned around, clutching the back of the sofa, hands like desperate claws in the fabric. “It’s all real. She’s real. The Catcher Man brought her back. He knows. She knows.”

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Ada stormed over to her, and Alice twisted in her seat as Daniel’s wife shook the hysterical woman by the shoulders. “Stop it, Mary! She’s gone! She was gone a long time ago. Stop it now! It’s done. It’s all done.”

Alex stood up from her stool. What was winding these women up? What was making Ada so angry?

“What does she mean, ‘The Catcher Man knows’? Knows what?”

“She doesn’t mean anything. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. The Catcher Man doesn’t exist. He never has. He was made up by someone generations ago. He was just a stupid, stupid story told to scare children. That’s all.” Ada looked around her as she spoke, seeking support from those around her. She found it in the nods of those whose expressions Alex didn’t trust. She’d lived alongside these people all her life, and now she wasn’t sure she knew them at all.

Looking at Ada’s defiant expression, she let out a humorless laugh. “Well, something’s real now, and it’s scaring the shit out of me, I don’t know about the rest of you.” Alex’s words echoed around the room, challenging the women from a different generation, and she stared at her aunt, whose gaze slipped away to the fire, guilty and burdened.

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There was a long silence after Alex spoke, and from deep within her, Mary felt an ache for her niece. Alex was looking at them all like they were strangers, and she could understand the young woman’s hurt. But they weren’t strangers.

They just carried secrets, that was all, and didn’t everybody? Theirs were just darker and maybe better hidden than most. Hidden to protect those they loved.

The warmth from the fire barely penetrated her skin and Mary wondered if she’d feel this cold, this detached from the world for the rest of her life. Sighing heavily, she decided she didn’t really much care either way. Melanie would be waiting for her out in the storm, of that she was sure, and if it was up to that little girl, that little monster, then they’d be meeting again soon enough. And then it would be Ada’s turn. She looked around her at the bar, where it seemed that everything was standing still and waiting for her to decide what to do. If she was gone, and Ada, then who would be left 182

that would be strong enough to tell? To finally let their awful secret out and put an end to this terrible tale?

Ada had released her grip on the back of Mary’s chair, but was still standing behind her, awkward and out of place. Mary wondered if Ada was having the same dark thoughts she was. And Alice. Poor Alice.

Her limbs aching and heavy, Mary turned and stared at the two old women, shaking her head. “You just don’t understand, do you? She’s come back. And she’s taking her revenge on us.” Her shoulders slumped slightly, as if the small outburst had drained all her energy. “And maybe we deserve it. The secrets may as well come out now as when the police come. Maybe if we tell, then this might all stop.”

Her breath hitched slightly. “At the very least, it might all stop for us.” She glanced at Alice. “Don’t you think, dear?”

Alice was comforting herself by stroking Sailor, Crouch’s cat, who, woken by the noise from his slumber by the fire, was winding himself through and around her legs. But Mary thought she saw a slight nod and wondered for a moment if Alice was the best of them all, keeping that inside, letting it worry away at her and yet never saying a word, despite that she could have done so with no shame to herself. She really hadn’t been part of it.

“What do you mean?” Dave Carter moved away from the bar, lowering himself into the one empty chair near Mary. Alex came forward too, and it seemed to Mary as if she were about to start some old-fashioned story telling, which perhaps she was, taking them all with her as she drifted backward, back to another time linked so definitely with this here and now, and yet so distant, so already done, so cannot be undone.

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She smiled at Dave Carter for a moment, her face beautifully serene, before her vision floated somewhere in the space above the harsh outline of the energetic flames, where the promise of light was welcoming and soothing. There might not be that much time before Melanie came to visit her or the police arrived, but there was all the time in the world for her; enough time to say what needed to be said. She wondered how the story would taste when she regurgitated it. Her voice was smooth as she started the release, and she led them back into the past, melodically, like a children’s storyteller, and then she was there, or should she say then, the sweet smell of damp air around her, skin itching with oppressive heat. Her muscles didn’t ache anymore, the years lifting from her flesh and soul, her hair long free as her heart speeded up.

Resting her chin on her arms, Mary leaned on the back of the sofa and gazed out the cottage window, her legs tucked under her. It was just too hot, and the thin layer of sweat that seemed to constantly cover her itched at her scalp.

Occasionally her eyes drifted over to where Alicia was playing the piano, and she idly wondered why her younger sister’s hair didn’t ever stick to her head or look greasy with this oppressive weather.

She normally found Alicia’s music soothing, but something about this unpleasant heat was leaving her irritated. She stared at the gathering gray clouds above the house, now spreading across the village. It would be a couple of hours before David came home from the farm, so there was no point in thinking about cooking yet. Not that on a day like this any of them would be particularly hungry, and that was fine by her. The idea of 184

standing for any length of time over that stove was enough to make her jaw twitch with annoyance.

No, she thought, running her hand through her sticky hair, salad and cold ham would do them all today, even Paul. Her eyes wandered across the familiar scenery outside, looking but not really seeing it as she thought about her son, and she didn’t hear the sigh that escaped her, low and haunting.

What was the matter with him at the moment? He’d lost weight, and although even she would have to admit that he’d had a bit of puppy fat to lose, there was something radical, painful even, about the way the pounds had dropped off. He had shifty eyes too, these days. Only ten, and yet already she was getting the feeling that he had secrets from his mother. Not allowed in the bathroom, not allowed to see him getting dressed. So much of their relationship had been disallowed. Maybe that was just his age, but something wasn’t right. It seemed like something was eating him from the inside out. And not just him, either. All his friends were different these days. They’d changed over the past year or so, since that Joe kid left. They’d all got so serious, so intense.

Grayness absorbed the sky, pressing down on the roof of the old cottage, as Mary’s mind skipped over the issue of Paul’s stutter. She didn’t want to think about how bad that had got. She’d tentatively asked the doctor about it, her own face twitching as if by raising the question she had betrayed her child’s sense of privacy, and that if he’d found out then he’d never forgive her. The doctor had smiled sympathetically at her and put it down to his age, all those hormones starting to fire up, and she’d accepted that, trying to push aside the argument that there was more to it, that ten was too young for all those hormones’

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Her gaze drifted back to Alicia, not wanting to look anymore at the aggressive weather that was gathering outside, and something about her ethereally beautiful sister added to her irritation, and she allowed it to run for a moment.

Sometimes it seemed so unfair that Alicia, the late-in-life and unplanned youngest daughter of their dead parents, was beautiful and talented and unburdened with the realities of domestic life. Men constantly fell in love with Alicia’s sweetness and that rare talent she had, but she almost floated over them, sometimes lingering for a moment, but never enough to form a relationship.

God, she wouldn’t be surprised if after all these years of marriage, even her own husband didn’t occasionally think of Alicia when they were panting together in the dark. They were happy as happy goes, but Mary knew she’d never been the type that caught a man’s eye in the same way as her sister did, and love him as she surely did, David was only a man.

Yes, sometimes she thought Alicia had it too easy. Alicia, who lived in her own little world, just her and her beloved music. She played in the concert hall in Taunton sometimes, and the breathtaking quality of her work there kept the steady stream of well-to-do children from the town coming out to the village for their private lessons. There were more than enough for her to pick and choose, and that kept the fees high. No one could deny that she was worth it. She was almost as talented a teacher as she was a musician.

The sweat at the back of her knees was making her too uncomfortable and standing up, Mary gave her sister a smile she didn’t feel. Something was definitely wrong in the air today and it niggled at her insides, the cottage now claustrophobic, the music too loud in her head. The

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back of her legs ached from crouching in the vegetable garden that morning and she needed to stretch them.

“I think I’ll go.”

Alicia just nodded, smiling her sweet smile from beneath that soft ash-blond head. Raising her hand to give a small wave, Mary caught sight of her fingernails and the earth that still lingered underneath, despite the scrubbing she’d given them. For a moment it seemed they summed up all that was different between her and her beautiful sister—earth and air, real and unreal. With that thought, her irritation disappeared. Yes, she was real. She wouldn’t trade her life and all its imperfections for Alicia’s. Alicia made music. She, Mary, had made Paul, her beautiful baby boy, and nothing, no symphony or concerto, could ever rival that.