S Bolton - Blood Harvest

‘Shut up.’

‘I saw the look on your face when you told me about Lucy’s death. You enjoyed it.’

‘I don’t have to listen to this.’ Jenny was turning away.

She had to stop her, had to give her something to focus on other than Millie. ‘Your grandfather, everything that happened to you in the past, it’s just the excuse now. You’re doing it for fun.’

‘You have no idea.’ Jenny was in the bedroom, making her way across the carpet.

‘I’m a psychiatrist,’ called Evi. ‘I’ve been dealing with twisted bitches like you for years. Now get away from that cot.’

Jenny was coming towards her. She was out of the room in moments; a second more and her hands were around Evi’s throat and the two were staggering backwards, past the stairs.

‘Ever wondered what it would be like to fly, Evi?’ Jenny hissed in her ear. ‘You’re about to find out. They’ll think you slipped with little Millie in your arms and fell down the stairs. Only old Tobias will know the truth.’

Evi’s windpipe was being crushed. The pathologist would know she’d been strangled. Small comfort. The banister was digging into her back, it hurt like hell but it was supporting her weight. She brought her good leg up and kneed the other woman hard in the crotch. Jenny grunted and her hold slackened, but she was a woman after all and it hadn’t done too much damage. Evi twisted round and tried to get a grip on the banister but found herself being lifted off her feet, forced over the top of it.

Before she could brace herself, her hips had gone over the edge and she was close to falling. She grabbed out, one hand caught hold of the banister but her legs were lifted high, she was being pushed and something was banging at her hand, stamping on it, and she had no choice but to let go.

It seemed to take a long time to reach the slate floor.

They’d stopped ringing the bell. The three boys climbed inside the tower. Did they still have Joe? Yes, there he was, wrapped up in the patchwork quilt again, his face pressed against Dan Knowles’s chest, still bound tight with thin, nylon rope, still shaking, still alive.

Dan Knowles, who seemed to have grown during his brief time on the roof, looking more like the young man he’d be in a year or so than a teenage bully, was at the bottom of the steps, climbing into the gallery. His brother Will followed, then Billy, just as the sound of a heavy door being opened echoed around the church.

‘Hello!’ shouted a loud Geordie voice.

‘He’s up here! We’ve got him!’ called back Dan Knowles.

‘Joe!’ yelled Tom’s dad.

‘Dad!’ screamed Tom.

‘Police! Everybody keep still!’

The two groups met on the balcony stairs, Gareth Fletcher and Dan Knowles almost colliding. The small, shivering parcel was passed from one to the other and Joe gave a quiet moan as his father’s arms closed around him. Higher on the steps, over his father’s head, Tom’s eyes met Harry’s. Then the vicar turned, pushed his way past the bewildered-looking police constable, and ran from the church.

Evi was barely conscious. She was very cold. An icy wind was blowing all around her. Snow was falling softly on her face and the world was growing dark. Was she back on the mountain? No, in the Fletchers’ house. That was Millie she could hear, howling like a banshee. The front door was open and a man was standing not three feet away from her. Brown leather shoes, damp patches around them on the stone. Something in his left hand, long and thin, fashioned from metal, something she thought she recognized, but it seemed so out of place that she really couldn’t be certain.

‘Put her down,’ said a voice. Too late, thought Evi, I already fell.

‘Oh, I will,’ replied a woman’s voice from high above them.

‘Don’t take another step,’ said the man. ‘And put that child down.’

‘You’re not serious,’ replied the woman.

The thing the man was carrying was lifted up until Evi could no longer see it.

‘It’s over,’ he said. ‘Put her down.’

A silence, when the world seemed to pause; then a footstep and an explosion of sound. Evi didn’t hear the second gunshot, but she felt its vibration flutter through her body and she saw the blinding flash of light. Then nothing more.

Harry heard the first shot as he jumped over the wall and dodged his way around Alice’s car. He caught a glimpse of Alice herself, racing towards the church, but there was no time to stop. He saw the open front door and the tall form of Tobias Renshaw standing in the doorway, pointing a rifle at himself. A second later the old man’s head exploded in a mass of bone and blood. Harry leaped over the corpse before it had completely settled on the ground.

A sharp cry caught his attention. Millie, awash with blood and tiny pieces of grey matter, was standing at the top of the stairs. The prone body of a woman lay across the upstairs landing. At the sight of someone she knew, the toddler stepped forward, dangerously close to the edge of the top stair. Harry ran up the stairs and picked her up. Then he turned. At the foot of the stairs, not three feet from the body of Tobias, lay a young woman in a violet sweater. As he watched, a snowflake settled on her black lashes. Her eyes were as blue as he remembered.

FEBRUARY HAD BROUGHT EVEN MORE SNOW TO THE MOORS and men had been out since early morning, clearing the path from the church to the graveside. Even so, the mourners walked gingerly as they made their way down.

Following the low-pitched instructions of the funeral director, the six pall-bearers lifted the coffin from their shoulders and lowered it. The roses on its lid shivered as it came to rest on the thick, flat tapes suspended over the open grave. Harry straightened up and rubbed his hands together. They felt like ice.

The elderly priest who had taken his place in the benefice, who would serve until a permanent replacement could be found, began to speak.

‘For as much as it has pleased Almighty God to take from this world the soul of our sister here departed…’

The young woman in the coffin hadn’t died on the night of the winter solstice, the evening Joe Fletcher had been returned to his family. Her injuries had been serious, but for a few weeks there had been confident hopes of her recovery. Early in the new year, though, she’d caught an infection that had quickly turned into pneumonia. Her badly damaged body hadn’t had the strength to fight it and she’d died ten days ago. When he heard the news, something in Harry died too.

As he and the other pall-bearers began to lower the casket into the ground, Harry realized that Alice was standing directly opposite. It might be the last time he saw her. The family was leaving Heptonclough in a matter of weeks. Sinclair Renshaw, who still faced the possibility of a police investigation and charges, was nevertheless determined to maintain his hold over the town. He’d made the Fletchers a generous offer for their house and they’d accepted.

The boys were doing well, Alice seemed to be constantly reassuring everyone who asked. Their new counsellor kept telling them to keep talking, admit when they were scared, be honest when they were angry. Above all, not to expect miracles, it would take time.

Of all the Fletchers, only Millie seemed the same as ever. If anything, she seemed to be growing noisier and cheekier and happier by the day, as though the energy missing from the rest of her family had found a way to channel itself into her. Harry sometimes thought the family wouldn’t have survived the last few weeks without Millie.

Standing beside Alice, her oversized hand clutching Alice’s tiny one, stood her new goddaughter: Heather Christine Renshaw. Early in the new year, in his last official duty as minister of the benefice, Harry had baptized Heather. The service had been short, attended only by the remaining members of the Renshaw family: Christiana, Sinclair and Mike, and also, at their own insistence, Alice, Joe and Tom. Heather – or Ebba, as he would always think of her – was getting medical treatment now. It was too late for the damage caused by years of neglect to be entirely reversed, but the medication would help. More importantly, her days as a prisoner were over.