S Bolton - Blood Harvest

‘OK, but that’s not enough by itself,’ said Harry, looking up at Rushton, trying to read the older man’s face.

Evi sipped from her glass again. ‘No, it isn’t,’ she said. ‘But I’ve been talking to her mother as well, over the last week or so. Gillian’s father was killed in a car accident when she was three. She was in the car with him. She wasn’t hurt, but when the police pulled her out she was covered in her father’s blood.’

‘Christ,’ muttered Gareth.

‘Well, yes. Enough to have a damaging effect on any child. Gillian’s mother married again and – I have no proof of this, but I think Gillian was abused by her stepfather when she was still quite young. Her early medical history shows textbook examples of symptoms of abuse and she talks about him in a way that is very disparaging and full of sexual references. I’ve had to be very careful when I’ve been talking to Gwen. Obviously, I couldn’t ask her outright if Gillian had been abused, but I could hint around the subject. There was something there, I’m sure of it. Gwen knows more than she’s saying. Then when Gillian was twelve her eighteen-month-old sister was killed. She fell from the top of the stairs at her home and landed on the stone floor. Sound familiar to anyone?’

Harry saw Alice reach back and take hold of her husband’s hand. Neither seemed capable of speaking.

‘It’s worrying,’ said Harry, looking at Rushton again. ‘But isn’t it what you call circumstantial?’

‘Her stepfather found the child, but Gillian was in the house too,’ said Evi, before Rushton could respond. ‘She would have seen the blood, heard the man she hated howling in agony. That could make a disturbed teenager feel pretty powerful.’

‘It’s still speculative, Evi,’ said Harry.

‘That’s what I was saying at this point,’ said Rushton, nodding his head.

‘Gillian’s husband was cheating on her,’ said Evi. ‘I think she killed Hayley to punish him, the way she punished her stepfather by killing his daughter. She kills because it makes her feel powerful. Gillian and her mother were at the Renshaws the day Lucy was killed.’

‘Gwen told you that?’ asked Harry. He thought for a second. ‘Actually, I think I knew that. I think Jenny mentioned it herself.’

‘Gillian helped to look after Lucy sometimes, she was a sort of unofficial nanny,’ said Rushton. ‘And she used to babysit for Megan. Of course, we can’t guess why she would want to kill those two, but as I say, questions need to be asked.’

For a moment no one spoke.

‘Gillian was seen catching a bus to Blackburn early yesterday afternoon,’ said Evi.

Still silence.

‘She knew about the pantomime,’ said Alice. ‘She was round here yesterday morning with Jenny. I told her where the boys would be.’

Treading softly with bare feet, Tom made his way down the stairs. The kitchen door was closed. He could hear several voices behind it. He stepped into the living room and crossed to the window that overlooked the garden. It wasn’t easy, pulling back the curtain, she would be so much closer now, but somehow he managed it.

Two eyes. Large and brown, with crepey, wrinkled skin around them, wrinkles that made her look old and not old at the same time. Two eyes staring in at him, with an expression he’d never seen before. He’d seen her full of mischief. He’d seen her threaten him and Millie. He’d never seen her scared.

‘Ebba.’ No sound came out, his lips were forming the words.

‘Tommy,’ she mouthed back.

He stepped away, allowing the curtains to fall back into place. She rapped softly on the window.

What should he do?

If he yelled for his dad, she’d go. And he wanted her to go. It was bad enough without Joe, he couldn’t deal with monsters too.

Tap, tap, tap. Louder this time. He had to make a decision before she broke the glass.

Silence. He reached out and moved the curtain. She was still there. When she saw him she pointed at the window lock, her hand jabbing up and down. She wanted him to open the window. She wanted to come in.

Not in a million years. He opened his mouth to yell.

She might have Joe.

He didn’t care, he wasn’t that brave, she wasn’t coming in. He shook his head and took a step back into the room. The curtains fell back but didn’t quite meet. He could still see her. He saw her reach down into the neck of her dress and pull something out. He saw her press it against the glass.

She did have his brother. How else could she have got hold of Joe’s trainer?

Tom couldn’t stop himself taking a step closer to the glass. When he and Joe had got their new trainers they’d customized them. They’d put stickers on the heels and swapped laces, so that Tom’s mainly black trainers had red laces and Joe’s mainly red trainers had black laces. A red trainer with a black lace was being pressed against the glass and the remains of a Spiderman sticker were visible on the back of the heel.

She had Joe. That’s what she’d wanted all along, one of the Fletcher children. She’d tried to get Millie and when she’d failed she’d gone for Joe instead.

She was pointing at the window lock again. She really, really wanted to come in. His dad and Harry were just along the hall. If he let her in he could grab her, then yell for the others, he could hold her until they arrived. Once his dad got hold of her, she’d have to tell them where Joe was. Let her in, yell blue murder and hold tight. He could do that, couldn’t he? He could be that brave?

Without giving himself time to think, he nodded at Ebba and held up one finger. ‘Give me one minute,’ he was saying to her, without any idea whether she would understand or not. He ran from the room to where the keys were kept in the hallway. One of them unlocked the windows.

Seconds later, he half expected Ebba not to be there any more, but she was. He put the key in the lock and turned it. As soon as the handle was pulled up, she was tugging at the window, opening it and clambering through, as though she’d done it many times before. He stepped back immediately, because he really didn’t want to go anywhere near that horrible lump on her neck. Before he’d had time to think, she’d dropped to the carpet and was dashing across the room.

He cried out and ran after her, but she stopped at the door and closed it. She was between him and the grown-ups now, but he could still yell and grab hold of her.

Could he?

‘Tommy,’ she said. ‘Tommy, please come.’

The window was open and the cold from outside was flooding into the room. Tom knew, though, it wasn’t the cold making him shake; cold didn’t get you like this, not deep down inside. Ordinary cold made by wind and rain didn’t turn the most secret part of you to ice.

It took the sound of his brother’s voice to do that; Joe’s voice, coming out of this girl’s mouth like a message, like a cry from a place he could never go to, like a…

‘Tommy, please come.’

… like a plea for help.

‘What I don’t get,’ said Gareth, ‘if you’re right, is why she switched from girls to Joe. She’s breaking her pattern.’

‘She is,’ agreed Evi. ‘And I don’t think she was ever really interested in Joe. It was Millie she wanted. I think she took Millie out of the party in September and up to the church gallery, and it was just sheer good luck that Harry and the boys arrived when they did.’ She turned to Harry. ‘But do you remember, she was there? When you and the children came out of the church, she was waiting for you.’

Harry nodded. ‘She carried Millie home. None of us were in any fit state. You think she’d been hanging round just to see…’

‘I think she realized someone was coming and fled,’ said Evi. ‘She just didn’t go far. There was still a chance it would work, that you wouldn’t get to Millie in time. Then I think she tried to take her again, back in November, when Tom and Joe stopped her. Since then, I think she’s been biding her time. Until yesterday.’