S Bolton: Blood Harvest

‘It’s not Joe!’ he yelled at the top of his voice. ‘It’s not Joe!’

Was he getting through? Gareth had stopped howling, was leaning against the wall of the hut, his head hidden in his hands.

‘Gareth, you have to listen to me,’ said Harry. ‘This child has been dead for years. Look at it. No, you have to look at it. It can’t be Joe, I promise you, just look.’

Gareth raised his head. His eyes looked unnaturally bright as he took a step towards Harry. Harry braced himself. He was the taller of the two, but the other man was probably stronger. He really didn’t want to get into any sort of physical struggle this close to the edge of a well. He took hold of Gareth by his shoulders and forced him down until both of them were kneeling on cold stone once more.

‘Look,’ he said, opening the sides of the canvas bag. His hands were shaking as he picked up the torch and shone it inside. ‘This child has been dead for years,’ he repeated. ‘Look, you have to look. The flesh has nearly all gone. It can’t be Joe, it just isn’t possible.’

Gareth looked as though he were struggling to breathe. Each breath he took was a great, gasping sob, but he was looking at the bag, at the child inside the bag.

‘Not Joe,’ said Harry again, wondering how many times he’d have to say it before the other man believed him. Whether it really was Gareth he was trying to convince by this time.

Gareth ran a hand over his face. ‘Jesus, Harry,’ he said. ‘What are we dealing with?’

‘Joe!’

Tom blinked the snow from his eyes. He was looking at his brother, curled like a snail in the north-eastern bell tower, trussed like a Christmas turkey with ropes around his wrists and his ankles. Joe, pale as a mushroom, cold as an icicle, but still alive. Joe, shaking like a jelly and staring up at him with eyes that had lost all their colour but were still the eyes he remembered. Joe – here – less than a hundred yards from their house, after all.

Ebba was leaning into the bell tower, tucking a filthy patchwork quilt higher up around his brother’s shoulders, trying to keep him warm.

‘Joe, it’s OK,’ whispered Tom. ‘It’s all right now. I’ll get you down.’

Joe didn’t respond, just stared up at Tom with his translucent eyes. His head was juddering, his limbs twitching. He wasn’t well, Tom could see that. Somehow Joe had survived a night and a day on the church roof; he wouldn’t last much longer. They had to get him down. Tom leaned into the tower, trying to get his hands under his brother’s shoulders. He could reach him, touch skin that felt too cold to be covering living flesh, but when he pulled, Joe stayed where he was.

Tom turned to look at Ebba. She was still crouched on the other side of the box, her over-large hands gripping the edge of the mirror-tiles, staring at him.

‘How do we get him out?’ Tom asked.

‘A child died, Evi,’ Jenny was saying. ‘A little gypsy girl Tobias found wandering around on her own when he’d gone to look at a horse near Halifax. He just left her there, up on the moor, hanging in the well.’

Where the hell were the police?

‘You’re nice to talk to, Evi. You listen. You don’t judge. I’m going to get Millie now.’ Jenny was actually pushing her way past Evi, gently but firmly, manoeuvring herself on to a higher step. Evi turned, kept a tight hold on the banister to stop herself falling.

‘No one would judge you, Jenny,’ she said. ‘You were a child. Did you never think that perhaps you could tell your father what was going on?’

Something glinted in Jenny’s eyes. ‘You think he didn’t know?’ she said.

‘Surely not?’

‘Why do you think he was so opposed to the Fletchers buying this land? He knew they had a daughter. He knows this town isn’t safe for little girls.’

Evi was struggling to take it in. ‘But his own daughters?’

‘He sent me away to school when I was thirteen, just after Heather was born. He couldn’t turn a blind eye after that. It was too late for Christiana, of course, she was too old for school.’

Evi reached out her hand, touched the other woman on the arm. ‘Jenny, we need to tell the police all this,’ she said. ‘They have to stop him before another child gets killed. I should phone them again. Get them here sooner.’ She took a step down.

‘Wait, please.’ Now Evi’s arm was caught in a tight grip. ‘I haven’t told you everything.’

Christ, what more could there be? Evi glanced at the window that overlooked the street, hoping to see the flickering of police lights. ‘What do you need to tell me?’ she asked.

Jenny dropped her head. ‘It’s so difficult,’ she said. ‘I never thought I’d tell anyone this.’

‘How do we get him out?’ repeated Tom. Ebba’s expression didn’t change, or give any hint she’d understood him. Tom turned back to his brother and tried again to pull at least part of him up. Joe wasn’t moving and Tom realized why. The ropes that bound his brother were also securing him to the tower itself.

‘Joe, I have to go and get help,’ he said. ‘There’s a policeman downstairs. I’ll be five minutes, Joe, I promise.’

Joe’s eyes had closed. Leaving his brother in the tower was the hardest thing Tom had ever done, but somehow he made himself turn and crawl back along the roof guttering. He couldn’t hear Ebba behind him and hoped that perhaps she’d stayed to comfort Joe.

He was back at the real bell tower that led down into the church. His foot found the top step and a hand closed around his bare ankle.

The two women were sitting on the stairs. Jenny had sunk down, taking Evi with her. They were both shaking.

‘When did it all stop?’ asked Evi. ‘When you went to school?’

Jenny shook her head. ‘Things got a bit better before that. He’d found someone else to pique his interest, you see. Our housekeeper’s daughter. She was blonde and pretty and very young, just what he liked.’

‘Gillian?’ said Evi. ‘He abused Gillian too?’ Was there something at least she’d been right about?

Jenny shrugged, then nodded. ‘I think Gwen Bannister guessed what was going on,’ she said. ‘She’d never have challenged my grandfather, but she got her daughter out of harm’s reach. More than anyone did for me.’

‘Did he start on you again, after Gillian left?’

‘When I was home from school, yes. And then when I was nineteen, his luck ran out. I got pregnant too. By the time I plucked up the courage to tell Dad, it was too late to get rid of the baby so he talked Mike into taking me on. And he persuaded Tobias to sign over control of the estate to him.’

‘I can’t believe your father colluded with all this. You must have felt so betrayed.’

Jenny dropped Evi’s hands. ‘Evi, men have been selling their daughters for wealth and power for thousands of years,’ she said. ‘You think it all stopped when we got to the twentieth century? But it was good for me too. I got out. And I got Lucy.’

Tobias’s daughter. Lucy had been the incestuous child of her great-grandfather.

‘What happened to Lucy?’ asked Evi in a small voice. ‘How did she really die?’

‘I loved her so much, Evi.’

‘I’m sure you did. Did he do it? Did Tobias kill her?’

‘She was only two when he started to look at her, Evi. She was blonde and gorgeous, just like Christiana and me when we were tiny. I’d watch his eyes going over her body. He could still drive back then, he’d come up to the house all the time. I would never change her or bathe her anywhere near him, but he always seemed to be hanging around her. I knew I couldn’t let it happen again, not to Lucy.’

‘But Lucy was different. She had you to protect her. And Mike.’