What doesnt break us, p.10
What Doesn't Break Us, page 10
He clears his throat, spits on the grass, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, as he always has, and strides back towards the farmhouse. It’ll be dawn soon. Another day. He’s got staff to cover the work, so he’s not needed in the fields. They’re scared enough of him even now that they’ll do what needs done and then some. He’s not concerned about that. And they’re no lazy, that lot, not even the students – Ricky’s always known that proper work, physical work, demands that you do it, and you come to like it at that. He wouldn’t have it any other way. In fact, as he pushes the door to his farmhouse and Debs calls out in greeting despite the hour, he’s alright with his lot. He’s had options, much as he might once have denied it, and when your options become choices that lead you to right where you are, what’s the point in regretting them?
She’s at the table, their table, where they scratched their names with the point of his da’s knife forty years back. Where he used to set a place for her years after she’d gone, until he gave up on the hope. She’s been sanding it down. Says she’ll make it like new yet, though if you ask Ricky that’s wrong-headed thinking. He told her it could be worth more money looking old. She seemed to find that funny. The night’s dark is still coming in through the windows, but she’s got the lights on in here and she’s cradling a mug in her hands.
Aye and she’s changed a bit. All those years in the city, mixing with other people, not him, not their mam and their da, not taking the glares of the villagers. It’s like she came back shinier than when she left. The years between have no done that to him.
‘What you thinking about, all on your own here?’ he says, taking his seat.
‘That poor boy in the hospital.’
‘Lee Prowle? He made his choice—’
‘Ricky…’ A tilt of her head, a plea for a bit of sympathy.
‘He did, Debs.’
Her eyes flick away, then back.
‘It’s looking better, d’you not think?’ she says, feeling the smooth surface of the big oak table between them. ‘I might varnish it next. Or try some wax maybe. You can get this furniture wax these days…’
Falling into a silence, years between them again. It keeps happening, though God he’s glad to have her back. Just wishes she didn’t sometimes look like a total stranger to him. He clears his throat and the noise of it is disgusting, makes him feel self-conscious, ashamed.
‘I’ve been thinking, Debs.’
‘Oh dear.’
She smiles at him then and she’s suddenly his big sister again. The windows are closed but the heat’s not too heavy yet. His farmhouse – their farmhouse – always had a way of keeping cool. Thick walls and stubborn stone. He’s never been too hot in here, he’ll say that for it.
‘Andy was in that caravan, Saturday night,’ he says, voice dissolving into a cough even as Debs reaches for his empty glass, fills it from the tap over the sink. ‘Now I don’t know exactly what they were taking, and I don’t know where they got it, but I reckon Andy knows more than he’s letting on.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘No,’ he says, hand across the back of his mouth, holding the cough in again. ‘No, I’m not sure. That’s why I need you to talk to him. If we can find out what they were taking, where they got it from—’
‘Then we can go to the police,’ she says.
Aye, forty years in the city have changed her. But she’s back here now, with him.
‘What I mean is,’ he says, ‘then we can get ourselves some options.’
THE DAWN CHORUS
It’s getting light now. The sun’s not visible but the haze through Georgie’s window is undeniable; a mist of pink and green, fleeing from the predawn to claim the daybreak. She rolls over, checks her phone. It’s 5.50 a.m. It’s 6 a.m. It’s 6.15 and her alarm is ringing and her legs are heavy, her stomach unsettled from the sense of falling that haunted her sleep all night.
A new hallucinogen, or an old one, something like DMT. But local, ingested, bringing on seizure and unconsciousness in Lee but not in the others. Vomiting, shaking, disorientation, in Lee but not in the others.
Case One, she tells herself.
Case One: What is the drug, who is making it and how.
Her head feels weighted, hazy, like she was drinking last night, but she wasn’t – Georgie was never much of a drinker, never looked to drugs to lose herself. She never felt she deserved that. She had to remember Errol’s death, to relive it over and over: her big plan when she heard about the protest, how she was going to make a difference and make damn sure Errol would too. You couldn’t lie around being cute and charming and knowing your dad had your back forever.
She’s never worked out how two people growing up in the same town, in the same household, ended up with two such different temperaments. Her instincts, when she was a teenager, were always to argue, to fight back, to risk it. Errol’s were to smile and disarm, to let it flow over him. Decades of trying to learn that trick are failing Georgie now. All those years with Fergus, with his ability to see only the good in people – and what use is it? She needs to stay clear and focused, find out who’s making the drugs and distributing them. Was it a trial run, with Lee and the others? Someone getting them to test a new product? They couldn’t have had much money to buy it with.
The sky is losing its colour, rushing into the white heat of the day. She looks away, looking for something, for someone, then shakes her head; listens for birdsong instead, like she used to with Fergus, when they woke to hear the dawn chorus. Chaffinches today – there are always chaffinches in her garden – and the pair of blackbirds they have every year. Maybe siskins too. She saw one last week, an unexpected flash of yellow and brown. Then there’s the screech of gulls. They’re not in her garden but they’re close: up on the cliffs, down by the beach. Through the spring, she’d felt like there were swarms of them gathering in the village, but they’re all by the sea now, flocking to the coast. Even they want out. Georgie’s not stepped foot on the beach for a while, but she needs to. Can’t keep knowing there’s something down there, knowing it with a shudder that tightens her skin, and not confront it. The hidden cave in the cliffs. She’s sure Dawn Helmsteading was hiding in there at the start of the year, and Si found her. Then something happened to him and he let her go.
Perhaps she would have done the same.
Mrs Helmsteading says Dawn’s safe now. She’s safe and far away and she’s never coming back. Georgie’s glad. Must be good to be far away and never coming back. Frazer said Betty Marshall, his witness in the city, never returned to Burrowhead after what she saw: a young woman, Abigail Moss, being sacrificed in the woods, surrounded by masked people, chanting. At least, she claims that’s what she saw. Sixty years ago. An old woman with dementia, living in a care home. It would be easy not to believe her, but for the fact Georgie knows Dawn was almost sacrificed on the cliffs, surrounded by masked people, chanting, twenty years ago. And Natalie Prowle sacrificed Ricky Barr’s horse in the woods not two weeks ago.
Natalie and the horse she understands. It was a threat to Ricky Barr, because Natalie wanted him to leave. Because she thought he was leading her boys astray. Maybe she also believed the sacrifice would summon the Others to protect the village; maybe she still believes everything Walt Mackie told her. But there’s no indication it had anything at all to do with making a drug – and Natalie wouldn’t have been involved in anything like that. No, first and foremost it was a threat.
What is Fergus thinking?
Georgie suddenly stands, throws the duvet back onto the bed and storms through to the bathroom.
So why was Abigail Moss being sacrificed? If that’s what was even happening – what was the motive, why her, why then? Could DS Frazer be right, could it have been to collect her blood to make the drug? And if someone cared enough to dedicate a bench to her on the cliffs, then why does no one remember who she was?
There it is, Case Two: What happened to Abigail Moss. And why.
She sets the shower to cold and lets the water wash over her.
The little girl is gone. She told her to leave, so she left.
And the birds are louder in the kitchen. Her flock of long-tailed tits, five, six of them, are all gathered at the feeder. Georgie loves those birds and they’ve not been here for a while; it’s a relief to see them. She pulls out her phone to get a photo, texts it to Pami. She’ll appreciate it. Fergus can find his own birds to watch now, and Trish never gave a shit about wildlife anyway. Right. Her coffee smells good. She’ll take her toast warm, with butter, today. Sometimes the simplest ways are the best. And she has a plan.
Case One: Who is manufacturing and selling the drug, today.
Case Two: What happened to Abigail Moss sixty years ago and why.
Case Three: Rachel and Pauly.
They fell from the cliffs last year. Did they jump? Were they pushed?
They’d been taking the same drug as Lee and the others – so they were connected to Case One. Except there was no sign of them getting sick like Lee.
They’d been dancing outside at midnight, like the group Betty Marshall witnessed – so they were connected to Case Two. But they weren’t killing anyone. Were they?
There was animal blood in their stomach contents, though. Rabbit, Cal said. She feels a pull to the coast, a restless tugging at her insides telling her to run from the village and stand on the clifftop and she’s falling again, the force of salt wind streaming against her face, the crack through her bones and it’s there, the cave in the cliffs, where Rachel and Pauly fell, the hidden cave that needs her to see what happened to them.
Stop it!
It’s an ordinary cave in the cliffs. It must be visible at low tide, and at high tide it is inaccessible. That’s all. It’s just a cave. There is no little girl tugging at her clothes, and right now she is sitting in her kitchen and she has finished breakfast. Enough.
She stands up, impatiently shoves what she needs into her bag. She’ll call in on Pamali on her way to work, that’s what she needs. Take her a flask of coffee and spend a few minutes with her friend. Spending time with Pami always gives her the strength to face the day. Then she is going to solve her three cases, because it’s her job to do so.
PASSING THROUGH
Frazer has been to Wyndham Manor before, but he’s not been inside it. The hotel where Betty Marshall was working when she witnessed the murder – or so she thinks – of Abigail Moss. The hotel where Abigail had been working before she vanished, her room emptied, Mrs Pettigrew the housekeeper silencing any questions about where she’d gone.
They had both been working here, in 1962, through the grand entranceway of Wyndham Manor, flanked either side by the crumbling statue of a sphinx.
That’s where he starts, this morning. At the entranceway. Breaking and entering. Except it’s not, seeing as he’s police and the door to the hotel is literally hanging wide open. Nettles and brambles have already claimed the hall, though beneath them there’s a carpet of buttercups; it would be easy to follow them and forget the danger of being stung or snagged by the plants that accompany them. Still, it’s impressive, despite the heavy damp festering in the heat and the translucent brown fungi crawling across the plasterwork. The grand staircase rises from the entrance hall, splits in two at the landing and circles elegantly round on either side, still adorned by large portraits hanging on the walls. There must have been some serious money here, once. All gone now.
He tries the first step gingerly – it could collapse underfoot, who knows if it’s stable or rotted to nothing. It feels like a staircase though, something solid beneath the moss. Another step. He doesn’t want to hold the banister, doesn’t want to touch it, not with everything that’s growing on it. He’s careful not to let his arm accidentally brush the sides, though keeping in the middle of the wide staircase has its risks too. If it’s going to break, this will be where. Then he’d be falling, or trapped, and there must be things living in here, with all this plant life. When nature decides to take over it does so entirely.
Georgie might call that a comforting thought. Frazer would not.
Pausing where he is, he listens for what other life is in here with him.
The buzz of insects is the top level. Flies, bees, wasps, no doubt, in this heat – his skin itches, his neck, behind his ears – something small, biting him. But below that it gets worse. There are clawed creatures here, mice or rats, pine martens, something that could scamper and scratch. Trish now, she’d love it here. He slaps at his skin, scratches at the bites of microscopic insects, takes another step.
There’s a knock.
Another step. It doesn’t help to listen, he needs to see the rooms, get a feel for the place – though he knows he’s climbing when he should be descending, looking for staff quarters, for the room where Betty Marshall would once have stayed, where Abigail Moss had slept.
Another knock.
Instead he’s heading for the guest rooms, the luxury as it once was, the sense of rich tourists ordering the staff around, taking breakfast in bed, admiring that beautiful view. Stopping on the landing, he can see it through a triplet of wide arched windows over the grand entrance, smashed so long ago that even the shards of glass have vanished. The rain has lightened, finally, leaving only a light mist in the air. Elegant trees appear through it, following the slope of the landscaped gardens down to the stream. It must have been quite something to see, for Betty, aged eighteen. The first job she ever had, her first summer from home, four months as high-season staff here: serving this privilege.
Another knock.
Lee still doesn’t feel like he can turn his head and he’s no fucking idea why – they’ve took out that fucking tube and he’s only got the IV in the back of his hand now but it feels like he’s immobilised, plugged into so many drips and machines that he’s no control over his own body any more.
Three knocks in quick succession.
Why the fuck are they even doing that? The door’s no locked, they don’t lock doors in this place, anyone could walk in – like his mam does several times a day whether he likes it or not. She even crept in when he was sleeping last night, finally falling asleep alone only to wake to her face, her eyes peering at him, all concern and love and, beneath that, judgement and questions, her questions, it made him want to scream You killed a fucking horse you psycho, what the fuck do you know about real life? He didn’t though, just stared back, stared back and eventually closed his eyes.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The others have gone, so the nurse told him, all discharged yesterday. Terry and Penny-Ann and Julie and his brother, so it can’t be Aaron at the door. Or can it? Coming back to the hospital once he’s out, that’d no sound like Aaron. Unless he’s more threats to make. The door pushing open a crack, creaking like that, the breathing of whoever’s behind it and he needs to turn, regain some control of his fucking body. It must be in his head. There’s no reason why he can’t turn to face the door but he can’t, he fucking—
‘It’s little Lee,’ says the voice, and Lee’s not trying to turn around any more, he’s staying exactly where he is, doesn’t need to see, doesn’t fucking want to.
‘How are we today,’ says the voice. ‘Better?’
He can feel a scratch down the back of his neck, a fingernail, a knife, and he scrunches his eyes shut.
‘I’ve no said a fucking thing to the cops.’ His throat raw from the tubes, from the vomit, raw and scratching rough and burning. ‘Of course you haven’t, Lee,’ says the voice. ‘Of course you haven’t. That’s why I’m here. To make sure they’re keeping you comfortable. Tell me, are you comfortable here, Lee?’
His eyes open to see the wall beyond his bed, the window, a sudden image of the glass shattering around his fist and how it would feel, blood spurting from his hands, his wrists, then the scratching returns and the voice behind him says, ‘And have you had any other visitors?’
The care home told Frazer that Betty Marshall wasn’t taking visitors. They said she was weaker, but comfortable. They said the best thing for her was to stay in her room, where she was safe. He’d called them as soon as he knew he was staying on to investigate – he’d thought it would be good to have Betty here with him, remembering, guiding him through exactly what she saw – but the new woman on reception refused.
‘She’s taken a turn for the worse, I’m afraid,’ she’d said. ‘She’s barely left her bed this week, inspector, let alone the care home. And you want to take her out to the coast and make her relive these nightmares she has?’
Actually he’d thought Betty Marshall might want to be here. His memory had softened her frailty, her dementia, and latched onto her personality, her determination.
‘Could be the death of her, something like that.’
‘I understand,’ he’d said, and he’d sent her some flowers, because everyone likes receiving things like that, don’t they? Although looking out of one of the first-floor guest rooms, its bay windows opening over what was once a pristine lawn and looking all the way to the woods, he wonders if they were wrong in the care home. If sometimes we place a little too much emphasis on staying comfortable, on avoiding what scares us. Betty Marshall hadn’t seemed like a woman scared of being scared.
He steps closer to the window frame and the salted air from outside tugs at him to leave the stale room he’s in, to leave the mould and the damp and the king-sized bed to rot. And he can see the rot crawling all over the mattress. There are no squatters, no sign of habitation, no sense of anyone having used this vast hotel for anything. It’s been left, abandoned in the truest sense, not only in a financial one but in a personal one too. There is no human life left here – and he feels it again, a tug at his chest, the promise of clean air and fresh grass, the image of what it must have been when they were here sixty years ago: Betty Marshall and Abigail Moss.
Betty’s running through the crumbled walls of the rose garden to the woods, through silver birch and whispering aspen. Her legs are bare beneath her mini and the sweat’s collecting behind her knees, in the dip of her spine. All the high-season staff are here. The boys are unbuttoning their shirts already, the heat barely dipping though it’s gone midnight and the stars are out. The stream looks fresh and cool and such a perfect blue, like gemstones and ice and she can imagine it between her toes, the feel of cool pebbles underfoot. She closes her eyes and sways until she feels something calling her away and she has to go. She has to move through the trees, brushing bark with her fingertips, letting branches caress her hair, and she’s barefoot, grass between her toes, mud slipping. Earth and soil shadowed by oak and there, the flutter of wings in the trees, the single call of an owl, unanswered, and a tap-tap-tapping and she looks up to see the impossible red and black streaks of woodpeckers in the moonlight and there are voices now. Sounds.
