Table of Contents ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN ELEVEN TWELVE THIRTEEN FOURTEEN FIFTEEN SIXTEEN SEVENTEEN EIGHTEEN NINETEEN TWENTY TWENTY-ONE TWENTY-TWO TWENTY-THREE TWENTY-FOUR TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX TWENTY-SEVEN TWENTY-EIGHT TWENTY-NINE THIRTY THIRTY-ONE THIRTY-TWO THIRTY-THREE THIRTY-FOUR THIRTY-FIVE THIRTY-SIX THIRTY-SEVEN THIRTY-EIGHT THIRTY-NINE FORTY FORTY-ONE FORTY-TWO FORTY-THREE FORTY-FOUR FORTY-FIVE FORTY-SIX FORTY-SEVEN FORTY-EIGHT FORTY-NINE FIFTY
MISSING PIECE EMMA SNOW
Contents ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN ELEVEN TWELVE THIRTEEN FOURTEEN FIFTEEN SIXTEEN SEVENTEEN EIGHTEEN NINETEEN
TWENTY TWENTY-ONE TWENTY-TWO TWENTY-THREE TWENTY-FOUR TWENTY-FIVE TWENTY-SIX TWENTY-SEVEN TWENTY-EIGHT TWENTY-NINE THIRTY THIRTY-ONE THIRTY-TWO THIRTY-THREE THIRTY-FOUR THIRTY-FIVE THIRTY-SIX THIRTY-SEVEN THIRTY-EIGHT THIRTY-NINE FORTY FORTY-ONE FORTY-TWO
FORTY-THREE FORTY-FOUR FORTY-FIVE FORTY-SIX FORTY-SEVEN FORTY-EIGHT FORTY-NINE FIFTY FIFTY-ONE FIFTY-TWO FIFTY-THREE FIFTY-FOUR FIFTY-FIVE FIFTY-SIX FIFTY-SEVEN FIFTY-EIGHT FIFTY-NINE SIXTY SIXTY-ONE SIXTY-TWO SIXTY-THREE SIXTY-FOUR SIXTY-FIVE
SIXTY-SIX SIXTY-SEVEN EPILOGUE
They told her he was dead. They told her she was safe. They lied. Martha Coleman lost her childhood the day she was sexually assaulted by the man who was supposed to care for her, the serial killer who came to be known as The Gamesman. Her only solace came from the fact she survived the fire at Beeches Care Home while he died in the inferno. It's been ten years but the memories of those months of sickening abuse have never faded. Martha tried to move on, finding a semblance of peace through her job at Helmsley Castle. But as she works hard to come to terms with the past, she receives a message that suggests not only is the killer still alive, he's coming after her. As a storm begins to build around Martha, she finds an unlikely ally in Ben Robertson, loner and gruff
heir of the castle, a man she refuses to fall for. Last time she was close to someone, it cost them their life and nearly destroyed her. She can't let that happen again. But does she have a choice as mutual tragedy bonds her to Ben? And what will happen when the Gamesman finally tracks down his missing piece?
© Copyright 2017 Emma Snow All characters in this book are fictitious. All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part. This book is intended for mature audiences only and may contain explicit language and scenes. Cover design: The Cover Collection
ONE The only sound in the room, other than her muffled screams, was that of the clock ticking on the mantelpiece. The clock was warning him. Time was running out. He sat at the table, not looking at her, not looking at the clock. He was looking at the guidebooks spread out like a fan before him, one open in his hands. The sun was setting and it was irritating him. Soon, he’d need to either switch on the light to continue reading or leave the house. He wasn’t prepared to do either, not until he knew for sure where Martha was. The answer was in front of him, if he could only put the pieces of the puzzle together in the right way. Outside the autumn wind was picking up. A storm was due in a couple of days. He saw it as
another omen that time was running out. He hoped the bad weather wouldn’t hit before he was ready. After he was done, it wouldn’t matter what the skies did. It wouldn’t matter about anything at all once he was finished. As long as he could see the sky when he needed to. But that was further ahead. Not time to think about that yet. First he had to find Martha. The computer sat ignored in the corner of the room. He hadn’t needed to use it. He’d got everything he needed from her mobile phone. Modern technology was his friend. A password or PIN and he’d have had to force it out of her. She might even have lied long enough for the phone to lock up completely. But with fingerprint recognition, all he had to do was press the phone to her hand and it was unlocked in an instant. All she could do in response was scream louder into her gag while he sat and read through her emails. Technology had led him to her house and it would lead him to Martha. He hadn’t used the phone for long. He wasn’t sure about mobile tracing but he guessed it worked similar to
landlines. Stay on too long and you could be traced. He had no intention of being caught that easily. He had spent a lifetime being careful, making sure he didn’t stand out, didn’t draw attention. That concept even washed over into his choice of clothes. A plain pair of blue jeans, a teeshirt under a woollen jumper that was once white, now greying, small hole at the left elbow. Over that was a charity shop raincoat in black, the uniform of the nondescript. He wouldn’t stand out anywhere, his greying hair cut short, his beard long enough to allow him to remove it and become a different person should the need arise. His car was just enough years old to blend into the street, not draw any attention. “She’s at a castle,” he said, folding the brochure closed before sliding his hand towards the next guidebook. “But which one?” The pile of brochures and guidebooks was all he had to go on. She still wasn’t talking. Tantallon castle. Warwick. Alnwick. Dover. He’d try the big names first, the tourist draws. But he needed something to help him narrow it down.
He didn’t have enough time for a leisurely search. The night was approaching. He’d remained hidden for so long, it was hard to accept he might have left it too late to emerge from hiding. It had been a hard balancing act. Move too soon and he risked alerting her that he was coming, that he wasn’t dead like she thought. Move too late and he would miss the deadline. He could still do it as long as she played ball. He looked down at her. He had kept an eye on social media whilst he was hidden. He knew it would be key to finding her. She never appeared but her best friend had. It was all the help he needed. The email had given him the next clue. Sitting there on the phone, one more helping hand just when he needed it most. This was his destiny, he could feel it coursing through him like pure adrenaline, keeping him wired, keeping him alert. I’ve finally done it. You were right. It took a long time but I think I’m settled at last. You remember which castle I was going to, don’t you? Come and
see me some time. He turned back to the brochures he’d gathered from her bookcase. He had looked into how many castles there were in Britain after reading in the email, wanting to know how big a task it was going to be, using her Internet to find out. There were more than six hundred castles in the United Kingdom. Two hundred and fifty in England alone. Was Martha even in England? Would she have gone further than that? What if she’d travelled into Europe? He needed to know quickly, which is why he had the brochures in front of him. She wouldn’t have chosen one at random. She’d have chosen one that meant something to her. He had wracked his brain before he began his hunt for her, thinking all the way back to when he last saw her, well worn paths in his mind that he had walked along many hundreds of times. Nothing came to him for a long period but finally, out of nowhere, he realised what he needed to do.
She had vanished, not showing up online anywhere. As if she didn’t exist anymore. But she was still out there somewhere, he knew she was. He needed to think laterally, not easy with the excitement of the chase already building inside him. It was time to emerge, like a butterfly from a cocoon. He was ready to fly up to them. It was time to finish the game. Type Martha Coleman into Facebook, Twitter, Google, nothing useful comes back out. There were Martha Colemans out there but none of them were her. All of them were dead ends. But she wasn’t in control of what her friends did. There was less than a week to go when it happened, the key to finding her appeared before him. He’d been utterly demoralised, his calendar showing him the time he’d wasted, each passing day making the hunt more urgent. With six days left, he dug out the photo, the one photo he had of Martha, the one he kept hidden under the loose floorboard in the bathroom. Peel back the lino, lever up the board, reach all the way in until his elbow was covered in
dust and there, taped to the underside, almost out of reach, was his sole link to when the game had begun. It was a yellowing photo, the image containing five smiling faces and him. He was with them, the last existing piece of evidence that he had ever been with them, the building behind them long gone. Five of them and him, five girls, four of them smiling. She was on the far left, not looking at the camera. She was not smiling, her eyes were fixed on his. Just looking at the photo was hard. It brought on the shame of arousal combined with the knowledge of his failure. But there was also the spark of warmth, the way he had felt whenever she’d looked at him. She never knew how hungry he had been for her, how much she outshone her companions. She found out of course after the photo was taken. He educated her in so many things. And was she even grateful? Not once had she thanked him for what he’d done for her. The bitch. He felt that way every time he looked at the
photo. Churning emotions running through his head. It was hard to do but a necessary evil. It gave him strength. It helped him to keep going, to remember why he was doing this. He was doing this because he wasn’t going to lose again. He could handle the pain of looking at her as she was then, he had handled far worse. He only had to glance at the wrinkled and gnarled flesh on his arms and hands to be reminded of that fact. The photo was a talisman as much as a memento. He had kept it despite the risk. He had to. It had kept him safe. It would help him to find her one day, he somehow knew that even back then. A hero’s journey couldn’t be easy or else it wasn’t worth the effort. It had to be hard. And he was right. It had been hard and the photo had helped. He had looked at the photo with less than a week to go and he had tapped the face of the girl next to Martha. Lisa Kirke. Her best friend. The only other one still alive. Why hadn’t he thought of her? Typing that name into Facebook brought up a whole new list of faces to go through and halfway through the
third page, he’d seen her. Even with ten years of aging, Lisa was still recognisable. She was in Chester. Everything on her profile was visible. He tried to contain his excitement as he scrolled down through her past, seeing more than a year of updates, photos, memes, likes, a life on screen, a life that missed out the most important thing about her, the fact that she’d met the Gamesman and lived. Then he found what he needed on the next page of images. OMG New house! An album of photos and best of all there was a view from the front. Not only was the number on the door visible, in the corner of the shot was the street sign. Acorn Lane. It was all he needed. If he had more time, he might have played with her when he found her. But the clock was ticking. He looked up Acorn Lane, then used Google Street View to narrow down the search. By the time he went to bed that night, he knew exactly where she was. He hardly slept. He was too excited.
The next day he drove just over two hundred miles until he reached Acorn Lane, Chester. He parked up at the end of the street and walked up to Lisa’s door. He pressed the bell and waited, parcel in his gloved hands, the gloves hiding the damage to his skin, his jacket hiding the rest. A car drove past as he waited. The driver didn’t even look in his direction. It had been a long time since the Gamesman had been in the news and he’d kept a low profile since then. The world had moved on. It had forgotten him. It would remember him again soon enough. When he saved them all, he’d be lauded as a hero, not vilified as a murderer. It was the injustice of their opprobrium that angered him the most. His job was to save the world. Could he help it if he wanted to have some fun along the way? Relieve the stress, use her to lift a little of the burden from his shoulders. The door opened and he curled his toes in his boots, the way he always did whenever he needed to keep his emotions in check. Lisa was standing there and it wasn’t easy to keep the excitement
from his face. He was one step closer to Martha. She was the key. He just had to get her to talk. Lisa was blonde now, she’d swelled out, her chest in that tight white top drawing his eyes. Playing with her would be so much fun, seeing how her body had changed since last time he’d had her alone. Her missing eye made him harden, he had done that to her. A permanent mark. A reminder of his power over her, something she’d never have chance to forget. She might not have burned like she was supposed to but he’d marked her nonetheless. The report of her injuries had reached him in hiding. One eye lost in the blaze. Whatever she looked at, he’d be there in her mind, taking the place where her depth perception should be. For a second he could hardly breathe. “Yes?” she said, not a hint of fear in her voice. No sign that she recognised him. His cap was pulled low over his eyes, just to be safe. “Delivery for a Miss Kirke.” His voice disguised, higher than usual, a slight lisp and a hint of a West Country accent, enough to put her off.
“That’s me.” “I’ll bring it in for you, it’s heavy.” “That’s fine, you don’t have to.” But politeness won out. She wasn’t pushy enough to tell him to stop when he walked past her and along the hallway. He glanced in each room as he went, not lingering long enough to make her suspicious, just making sure she was alone. Then he stopped in the dining room, putting the parcel down on the table, turning to find Lisa standing in the doorway. Could she see how hard he was? “Do you need me to sign something?” she asked as he reached into his pocket. “No,” he replied, taking a step towards her as he pulled out the knife. “I need you to tell me where Martha is.” An hour later, he had her safely tied up while he looked through her emails, finding the one he wanted after ten minutes of searching. She watched him from the corner of the room. So, Martha was at a castle. He was too excited to think about checking the sent folder. If he had,
he might have seen the pages of messages, each one identical, each one sent to the same recipient. It simply didn’t cross his mind to look. He had an email from Martha, proof that she was still alive. All his focus was on that. It was almost too much to bear. He found the brochures and the guidebooks on the bookcase in the living room. She was still refusing to talk. He was patient, giving her time. She would talk in the end, especially when she saw what he’d brought in the parcel, the means to remove her other eye. His mother had been very clear with him. He could make them do anything if he worked hard enough. You’re special, Samuel. You’ve been chosen to do this, you should feel honoured. I know it might seem scary, such a weight on such young shoulders. Treat it like a game, Sam. Here, let me show you. He’d tried to do what he was chosen to do. He’d made it a game. But he’d failed last time.
He’d let Mother down. He wouldn’t fail again. He opened the parcel. “Where is she?” he asked, turning to look at Lisa. She flinched, screaming into her gag and trying once again to free herself, her head smacking into the wall next to her, no longer able to see where she was. “Tell me and I’ll let you live.”
TWO At the same time that a board game was being laid out on Lisa Kirke’s dining room table, a sixty year old man in Worcester was sitting with his cordless phone in his hand, trying to decide whether or not to call the police. It was the first time she hadn’t sent her message and he was worried. He had long ago come to an arrangement with Lisa, soon after Martha vanished. She would ring or email him every day, tell him she was safe. If he didn’t hear from her, he would assume something had gone wrong. Timothy Burleigh knew that something was wrong, no call, no email, something was definitely amiss. He had become increasingly nervous when the sun began to set and he still hadn’t heard from her. It was possible she’d forgotten. No, that
wasn’t true. She wouldn’t forget after so long. Something had gone wrong. Something had happened to her. He had promised to protect her, protect them both. Martha had gone, disappeared, her trauma too great to bear. He didn’t blame her although it had hurt to lose contact with her. Lisa told him that Martha had done it to try and free herself from her past. But the two girls had kept in occasional touch with each other. He hadn’t pried, he had just made Lisa promise to let him know if Martha needed anything. It had been a long time ago but he hadn’t forgotten his vow to protect them both, to make up for the failures of the past. He had let them down back then. He had let down all five of them. Samuel Lyons had abused five girls at Beeches Care Home, although Martha had borne the worst of it, the most sickening treatment. Three of them had died in the fire with Samuel in the care home, at his care home. He had invested in it, he had profited from it. Was it his fault? Although he hadn’t liked Samuel, he wasn’t
responsible for staffing, that was the job of the home manager who had reeled off a list of the new employee’s credentials, all of which turned out to be false. But the truth didn’t come out until after the fire. Samuel had abused at one care home after another, there were even rumours that he had killed, rumours which were proved accurate in the detailed enquiry that took place after the fire. The pieces had been put together. He had killed children, he had abused and murdered them. And then when the net had tightened around him, he had burned the place down with him and five children inside. Timothy had been able to get two of them out, Lisa and Martha. Martha had screamed at him, hating him for rescuing her instead of the others. She had to live with seeing three of her best friends burned alive. Even then, Burleigh had his doubts about Samuel or the Gamesman as he was already being called by the papers. Martha’s interview with the police had been leaked, the gruesome details of the
board game he made them play, the way he made light of what he was going to do, the tabloids lapped it all up. They chose that element to focus on, playing down the rest. It was barely mentioned that he had told the girls about a prophecy. He had been searching for an offering. He had to sacrifice the shining light among them, the others mere vassals to assist him in his quest. They had to burn in the flames, their essences going up to the Churymov comet, a comet that arrived once every ten years, a comet that held the Gods within it. If he failed to make the offering, the earth would be doomed. Burleigh hadn’t forgotten that part of the interview. Ten years until the comet came back. What if there wasn’t just him that believed in the delusion? The police thought Lisa and Martha were safe. He wasn’t so sure. Three dead because of a delusion. That was what had broken Martha. Knowing they had died because Samuel believed in an arcane ritual from the cult his mother had belonged to, a belief that allowed him to play with the offering first, to play
in the most sickening manner. Martha had vanished, hiding from her past. His only link to her was Lisa. Lisa who hadn’t sent her daily message for the first time ever. He’d come to an agreement with her a month after the fire, when he became certain that it wasn’t Samuel’s body that had been found in the ruins, when he thought the Gamesman would come back to try and finish the job, complete the sacrifice, make his offering. She would message Burleigh every day to say she was safe. Reassure him about her and Martha. She had kept to that agreement until today. Something was wrong. Martha refused to contact him every day, refused to even speak to anyone from that time except Lisa. She had been just twelve years old when it had happened. Orphaned, living in a care home, abused, then nearly burned to death, her friends killed. Was it any wonder she had decided not to trust adults with her safety? To run, to trust only herself?
THREE By the time Burleigh decided to call the police, Samuel had left Lisa’s house and was driving north. Lisa had told him the truth in the end. He’d never really doubted she would. His mother would have been so proud. He had left Lisa in the bath, her limbs still bound, the gag still tied around her mouth. He had wanted to stay and play with her but he had a job to do. Mother had made it clear. He was the saviour of mankind. He was going to save the world. And time was running out. He was going to save everyone. That thought had kept him going through the long years of waiting. He had wanted to find Martha sooner. He missed her throughout the years of hiding. But he knew if he gave in to his urges, he wouldn’t be
able to offer her up. He even thought about kidnapping her soon after the fire, before she vanished, keeping her with him for the decade until the comet came back. But the risk was too great. Ten years was a long time for her to escape, tell the police, get him locked up. Then the world would be doomed. If he didn’t make the sacrifice before Martha turned twenty-five, it would be too late. Why twenty-five? He had asked his mother that and been slapped across the face for his audacity in questioning her and her beliefs. That was just the way it was. No more questions were acceptable. She had made him see the truth. You did not question what had to be done. You just did it. It was the same when his search for an offering first began. He wouldn’t know who it would be until it happened. One day he would meet the offering. He would know who it was the moment he saw her. All he had known was that it would be a girl. It was always a girl. The offering was always a girl. Girls were slu*ts and dirty and deserved to die. He thought, when his mother told him that,
that it meant the offering wasn’t as pure as it should be. If girls were bad, why sacrifice them? His mother had dripped the truth into his ears until all doubt was gone. It was a girl. He was not to question the way things were. He was to accept the truth as it was. His mother sent him out into the world to find the one, setting him up at work at his first care home, telling him that was where the daughters of whor*s always ended up. He should begin his search there. His reward would be freedom until he found her. He was free from the laws of man as long as he didn’t get caught, as long as he didn’t kill her until the time was right. He could play with them while he searched, as long as he was careful. At the age of sixteen he began looking at the Shady Oak, finding no girls good enough for his purpose. The comet came and went and he had found no one worthy. His mother died but his search still continued. It came and went again. Doubt was just beginning to creep in, he was beginning to wonder if he would ever find the one after so many years of looking without
any sign. What if his mother was wrong? Then he met Martha at Beeches. The clock had begun ticking.
FOUR It was Martha’s favourite time of day. She had the entire castle to herself. For a few minutes every evening, she could almost believe it was hers and hers alone. She had worked there for a little over five years and yet she still enjoyed the fantasy each time she locked up. Close her eyes and she was a princess, sweeping across a courtyard past her subjects. But she always had to open her eyes and see the reality, the faded burn on the back of her hand a permanent reminder that she was no princess, she was just daydreaming damaged goods. The sun was slowly setting behind her, colouring the grass in the soft light that only came at that time of day, taking the edge off the jagged stone of the chapel wall. She crossed the
drawbridge over the earthworks, glancing down to check below. It wasn’t unknown for people to try and hide under the drawbridge at closing time, teenagers for the most part, hoping to remain on site after the staff had left, unaware that Martha lived in one of the houses next to the castle, close enough to hear their laughter on the few occasions it had happened. It hadn’t happened since she’d begun making a point of checking every potential hiding place before locking up. The castle consisted of a roughly rectangular curtain wall, complete in some places, down almost to nothing in others. Within the boundary was a wide stretch of grass containing the remains of the East Tower, the Great Hall, the chapel and two underground storerooms, reachable down crumbling stone steps. The tower was missing one wall, pulled down during the Civil War, the roofless insides open to the elements. The Great Hall, in contrast, was still complete, the rooms divided up into exhibition spaces. Walking through them, Martha ducked down the spiral staircase to what was once a secret
escape route out to the earthworks, now a door to nowhere. In front of the permanently locked door was the alarm and she punched in the code, counting down the seconds as it beeped loudly in time with her counting. She had half a minute to get outside, any longer and the alarm would go off. She made it in twenty seconds, locking the door with the heavy iron key as the sound faded to nothing. Once that was done, she paused, looking around her at the growing darkness. The place was so peaceful when the visitors left, just her and the pigeons which waddled slowly across the grass. Through a gap in the curtain wall, she could see the town, the castle overlooking it, built on high ground, designed to impress and command the surrounding population during the middle ages. Amongst the pantiled roofs was the one that belonged to her. It brought a warm feeling to her heart to think of it. A place of her own. She might not have paid to buy it, she might only be renting it from the owner, the same man who owned the castle, who had given her the job all those years
ago. But it was still hers, a sanctuary. For a long time, she hadn’t had a home, somewhere she could return to, somewhere she felt safe. For too long she’d felt lost, the result of everything that had happened to her as a child. Sometimes, most often when a happy family passed through into the castle grounds, she felt a flare of jealousy, wondering what it would be like to have a childhood that wasn’t filled with fear and self loathing. But she had no way of knowing and she knew if she let thoughts like that in, they would consume her. They almost had, for more than two years after the fire, she had sunk into the depths of despair, wishing she had died in the blaze, not survived to feel the guilt of leaving Sophia, Janet, and Clare behind. They would never grow older than twelve. It was a thought that ate away at her for a very long time. Taking the job at the castle had saved her really, given her a purpose, a distraction, a way of redefining herself. She wasn’t a victim anymore. She was a survivor. And when she was alone, looking at the town from inside the castle, she was
a medieval princess. She was glancing that way, squinting as the light continued to fade, when the wind began to pick up, the leaves on the trees that surrounded the car park beginning to rustle softly. The weather was due to turn, the last of the autumn warmth due to die out in a storm according to the forecast. She zipped up her coat as she began to walk back towards the gatehouse, passing through and looping around the earthworks for one final check before returning to the visitor centre to finish up the paperwork. The castle had been put to bed for another day. When she walked into the office that adjoined the gift shop, she found the red light on the phone was blinking urgently. Someone had left a message. She hit the button, fairly certain it would be from Peter, wanting to know if his baby had been put to sleep properly. For a man heading towards retirement he didn’t seem to find it easy to let go of control of the place. Even on his days off, he’d pop in to check on her and the other staff, to dust the shelves, to talk to the visitors, tell
them about the history of the place. Martha doubted he’d ever retire. Even when he did, she couldn’t imagine him sitting at home completing jigsaw puzzles. He’d probably be haunting the place long after his death, joining the ranks of ghosts said to roam the grounds late at night. The site had been owned by his ancestors for generations, all the way back to the 1700s when the family who built it, the Especs, decided it was too old fashioned for their needs. They’d built a mansion a couple of miles up the road, the descendants still living there. The castle itself was left empty for fifty years, long enough to begin to crumble, a process sped up when local residents began carting away stone to build their cottages almost up to its doorstep. The Robertson family had bought the place in the late eighteenth century, looking after it ever since, slowly consolidating the ruins, keeping the ivy in check, employing first sheep to cut the grass, then lawnmowers as the twentieth century began. It had been open as a visitor attraction since 1890 at a shilling a time with a free glass of lemonade
thrown in. Times had changed but the castle had remained pretty much the same since then, though the visitor centre had been built in the 1970s to accommodate the growing number of day-trippers who were drawn to Helmsley and the moors beyond. A voice emerged from the answerphone, filling the office as Martha listened. “This is Doctor Harris at York Hospital.” Her heart began to race. A doctor ringing was not going to be good news. “I’m trying to reach Martha Coleman. We have a Peter Robertson here with us, he’s been in an accident. Could you please ring as soon as you pick up this message.” Martha scrambled for a pen as he read out the number. She hit play again, making sure she had it right before punching the number into the phone. Ten minutes later she was in her car, heading towards York. The doctor had refused to be drawn over the phone as to how serious it was but she could tell by his voice that it was bad. Peter had been driving out of Helmsley when a lorry had come barrelling down the hill. At the bottom, just
as you entered the town, there was a humpback bridge, the road narrowing over it. Martha had had a few near misses herself driving over it. The lorry hadn’t slowed, assuming anyone coming the other way would react quickly enough to move. But Peter hadn’t been able to swerve in time, or the lorry had been going too fast. Either way, the result was he’d been slammed into by a vehicle four times the size of his, ending up trapped in what was once his car, crushed between the side of the lorry and the stonework of the bridge. He’d been rushed to hospital and had regained consciousness long enough to give them her name and location which was why they’d rung her. She tried not to cry as she drove, knowing that if the tears started to fall, she’d risk being in an accident of her own. She’d just driven over the bridge, seeing the missing section of wall where it had fallen into the river, pushed off by the impact of Peter’s car. The sight shocked her, it must have been a hell of a smash. She tried not to think of her parents, how they’d died in a car crash all those years ago. Was it her? Was she cursed?
She put her foot down, catching up with the car in front before swerving out and around it. She would have set off sooner if it wasn’t for having to deal with the man knocking on the visitor centre door, asking if he was too late to look around. She had tried to get around him but he’d blocked her path, trying to be polite in his needling. “Just a couple of minutes,” he said. “I won’t take long.” “Come back tomorrow,” she’d replied, pushing roughly past him and heading for the car park. That often happened. Visitors would expect her to work on their time, not accepting that she might need a break after slogging solidly for twelve hours or more. Normally, she was polite, explaining to them the hours of business, how much they valued their visitors. But not when her employer might be dying. It took forty minutes to get to the hospital. She left the car haphazardly parked in the Accident and Emergency car park, crossing the few yards to the entrance at a run, getting inside and skidding to a halt by the desk. “Peter Robertson,” she said to the nurse who looked up at her. “Where is he?
I’m Martha Coleman. Doctor Harris rang me.” “Through that door, turn left,” she replied. “He’s expecting you.” She ran over to a set of automatic doors which remained stubbornly closed. “You need to push the button,” the nurse called after her, pointing at the side of the door. Swearing under her breath, Martha saw what she meant, hitting the green button on the wall, waiting impatiently as the doors slid open. She marched through, turning down the corridor, the smell of disinfectant knocking her back. She was just turning another corner when a man walking the other way bumped into her. He stopped short, looking at her with tired eyes. “Miss Coleman?” “Martha, yes.” “I’m Doctor Harris.” “How is he, Doctor?” “I’m not going to lie, it doesn’t look good. He lost a lot of blood before we could get him stabilised. His left leg’s broken in two places and he’s cracked a couple of ribs.” “He’ll live though, right?”
“If we can get the swelling of his brain to come down, then he’s in with a chance but if he’s got any relatives, you might want to get in touch with them, just in case.” “Can I see him?” “Not at the minute. My team is still working on him. Does he have any family that you know of?” “A son and an ex-wife. That’s it.” “Are you in touch with them?” A voice called out from behind the doctor. “Martha, is that you?” “That’s Peter,” she said. Doctor Harris spun on his heels and stuck his head in the room behind him. “Wait there,” he said as he disappeared inside. She caught him asking, “Is he conscious?” as his voice faded away. Peter shouted out again. “Martha, get in here.” She stood in the doorway, torn between the doctor’s command and her employer’s. For a few seconds she couldn’t move but then she pushed open the door, finding Peter laid on the bed surrounded by people. “Just try and relax,” Doctor Harris was saying. “Someone get a hold of him
before he does any more damage.” Martha moved around the bed, finding Peter’s flailing hand and wrapping it around hers. “I’m here, Peter,” she said. “I’m right here.” She tried to focus on his eyes, not wanting to look at the blood, the swelling, the way his body looked so broken. “I told you to wait outside,” Doctor Harris snapped at her. “She stays,” Peter snapped right back at him, turning his gaze to her. “Take care of the castle for me, Martha, won’t you? Don’t let her get her claws into it.” “Don’t worry,” she replied, squeezing his hand. “You’re not going anywhere.” “He’s going downhill,” someone shouted. A nurse took Martha by the arm, pulling her away as the activity grew more frantic, Peter’s eyes closing. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s wait outside for a minute.” Martha looked back over her shoulder at the man who had taken her in, who had looked after her, given her a new life. He was out of sight, there
were too many people around him. Once in the corridor the nurse paused to say, “If there’s anyone important in his life, you should ring them,” before heading back inside, leaving Martha to walk in a daze towards the chairs at the end of the corridor, the subtext all too obvious from the nurse’s expression. She sank into a chair, realising her hands were trembling. Was he dying? Should she ring Ben? She had never spoken to Benjamin Robertson, his son. She’d had the pleasure of taking a number of calls from the ex-Mrs Robertson, each of them laced with passive aggressive abuse aimed at Peter. But of the son, she knew only his name and his number. She knew his name because there was a framed photograph in the office at the castle of him as a boy. She knew his number because it was listed in the ancient phonebook that lived on the desk next to the enamel Dad’s Army mug filled with pens and the ledger which Peter still used instead of a computer to keep his accounts in check. The phone number might not even be up to date.
Should she try and ring him? Peter had mentioned that he had a son who he didn’t speak to, though she didn’t know why. She was just taking her phone out of her pocket when she noticed the sign on the opposite wall, a mobile phone in a red circle with a line through the middle. Standing up, she walked slowly back to the reception area, heading outside and taking a deep breath of night air. She rang Chloe. “Hi,” she said when Chloe answered. “I know it’s your day off but I need you to do something for me.” Chloe was a decent if ditsy employee. She was eighteen, had been working at the castle for a year and luckily didn’t ask any questions about why she was being sent back to work on her day off and long after closing time. She rang Martha back ten minutes later. “I’ve got the number for you,” she said. “It was in the book like you said. Are you ready?” “Hold on.” Martha put her on speaker, getting ready to type the numbers in as they were said. Once she had it, she thanked Chloe before
hanging up. She paused for a second. What was she even going to say? You don’t know me but your father is dying and you need to get over to York. What if the number wasn’t valid anymore? She thought about Peter, about how the doctors and nurses had looked as they dashed around him. How she’d regret it if she didn’t even try. Then she rang the number Chloe had given her and waited for Benjamin Robertson to answer.
FIVE It was a little after ten when the phone rang. At first, Ben was confused. It had been so long since anyone had rung him that he’d forgotten the thing was even connected. He could have sworn he’d detached it sometime the previous year and even as the ringing continued he couldn’t pinpoint the location. The phone was buried somewhere under the sofa. He’d only come home to load his catch into the freezer. Another couple of minutes and he’d have been on the way back to the beach. He wouldn’t have heard a thing. The whiskey bottle was waiting back on the shoreline, beside it was his fishing line with lantern illuminating it and the waves. Next to that was a blanket and the embers of the dying fire.
The sun had set but he hadn’t needed it to find his way back to the cottage with the cool box, after so long living there, he could have found his way around with his eyes shut. The cottage itself was on an island off the west coast of Scotland. Beside his place, there was a small village on the far side and a couple of farmhouses dotted about. There was a jetty at the village, bringing in the very occasional tourist or birdwatcher. Most people seeking out the peace and solitude of Scotland went further north. Jude Island was not easy to land on, nor did it look like much from the mainland. But Ben had come to love its secret charms. He had arrived not long after his sister died. Aged eighteen when that happened, he had exchanged words with his parents that could not be taken back. He’d gone from the golden child to the black sheep over the course of one particularly bad drunken argument. The weeks after the funeral just made things worse, jabs into his heart from his father, him jabbing back, both of them unable to deal with the grief of the loss without
hurting those around them. He made his mind up to leave a month later. He left them a brief note, not saying goodbye, just telling them he wouldn’t be back. He had been in touch once since then. It was a year later, he had travelled through Europe and then back, ending up in Scotland on the shores of the west coast, watching the seals splash along the shoreline. Falling in with a group of fishermen, he was able to talk one of them into taking him across to Jude Island. Once he was there, he had another stroke of good fortune. There was a cottage the owner never used, having grown too old to make the twenty mile journey on foot through the hills to get to it. He was offered the use of the place for a peppercorn rent and so that was where he had settled. His first night there, he found the farmer’s whiskey supply and got blind drunk, hoping to block out his memories of the past, of the part he’d played in his sister’s death. He decided the next day to write to Peter and Erin, tell them he was safe, see if there was any
chance of an apology from his father. He gave the number for the phone in the cottage, the only modern luxury in the place. He didn’t own a mobile phone anymore, it had gone into the sea somewhere off Venice. He didn’t get a reply. He wasn’t surprised but it was one more piece of proof that he had done the right thing. They wanted nothing more to do with him and he would therefore have nothing more to do with them. He was comfortable with his own company anyway and in a place like this, he didn’t need to worry about anyone disturbing him. The village was twenty-five miles away. The walk to it took all day and he rarely undertook it, only when his supplies ran too low. He grew his own food, almost starving that first winter when the snows came. But he got better at it with each attempt, his trips to the village becoming rarer as his knowledge of farming and foraging grew, helped by the array of self sufficiency books on the cottage shelves. He spent his time writing and exploring for the most part. His novel was slowly taking shape. He
had little hope that he would ever finish it but it wasn’t about the destination, it was about the journey. Sometimes, he would sit on the beach and think, his sister’s face coming to him, the castle looming up in his mind. On those occasions he would start to walk, on the worst days, he would run, not stopping until he was too exhausted to think anymore. He came to know every inch of the island, and yet the place never truly felt like home. Something about it wasn’t quite right but he could never put his finger on what that was. On the night the phone rang, he had been on the beach all day, fishing, watching the tide slowly coming in, enjoying the peace, feeling like the King of his own private Kingdom. It was possible at times to believe it was his island alone, that there was no one else in the world but him and his domain. The life of a hermit had intrigued him for a long time. It had begun when he was eight years old. He found an old story in the castle library, the tale of a man who’d given up the life of a Lord and
gone to live alone in the forests for the rest of his days, contemplating God, humanity, and the stars that filled the sky above him. The story had struck a chord with him. All the hustle and bustle and noise of humanity made him yearn all the more to be away from it. Had he used his sister’s death as an excuse? It was possible that had been the catalyst that brought him to Jude Island but the likelihood was that he would have ended up somewhere like that anyway. His father had wanted him to inherit the castle, to take over looking after it, telling him it was his duty, that he couldn’t walk away from generations of caretaking. “It’s been in the family for hundreds of years,” he ‘d said. “Promise me you’ll take it on.” He hadn’t promised. His father had never forgiven him, offering it instead to his sister, calling him all the variations of ungrateful that he could think of. Then Zoë had drowned and he had again been told he had to take it on. “Just because I’m all that’s left, doesn’t mean I
suddenly have no say in things.” His father had been furious with him for saying that, the conversation turning into a blazing row that lasted long into the night. “And why are you all that’s left?” Peter had yelled, tears streaming down his face. Forget it, Ben told himself as he sat on the beach that evening. It’s in the past. With the sun long set and only the light of the fire to guide him, he had gathered up his catch and headed back to the house. He had dealt with the fish, closed the freezer and crossed to the sink, turning the tap until ice cold water flowed down into the plughole. He was just drying his hands when the noise began. He turned, frowning, trying to pinpoint it. It was coming from the living room. The cottage was divided into kitchen, living room, and bedroom. There was no upstairs. What counted as a bathroom was outside, a compost toilet and a shower rigged to a tank that held rainwater. Electricity was supplied by two solar panels on the roof, attached by the farmer five
years earlier, before his arthritis got too bad. It made for a simple life with little need for outside help. If he could work out how to make the whiskey for himself, he’d not need to go into the village at all. The ringing noise was coming from underneath the battered old sofa. He moved towards it, reaching down and pulling out the phone, knocking the receiver from the cradle as he did so. He lifted it to his ear, hearing a woman’s voice talking. “Is that Benjamin Robertson.” “Ben,” he said. No one had ever called him Benjamin. “Mr Robertson? Is that you there? I’m sorry, the connection is very weak.” “Who is this?” “I’m calling from York. I work for your father.” “And?” “He’s been in a car accident. He’s in hospital.” Ben was surprised by his initial reaction. It wasn’t joy. He felt no gladness that his father had been injured. Perhaps the years had tempered his emotions after all.
He had thought after their last argument that he’d lost all connection with his family, a fact reinforced after he’d sent the letter and had no response. “Is it serious?” he asked. “I’m afraid so.” “Did he tell you to ring?” “No, I just thought-” “I don’t care what you thought. I have no interest in speaking to my father ever again. Do me a favour and forget this number. Understand?” “I understand that you should be more grateful.” He had been moving the receiver back to the cradle when he stopped. “Grateful? What the hell do you think I should be grateful for?” “Because you might get a chance to say goodbye. Not everyone gets that.” He opened his mouth to retort but she was still talking. “I’m not going to argue with a complete stranger over the phone. He’s in York hospital. He might get to go home, he might not. If you want to see him, you know where he is. Goodbye Mr Robertson.”
She hung up, leaving him holding the phone and trying to process what had just happened. A car accident. How serious could it be? If it was that serious, he’d have died already. She was some nurse playing it safe. No, she wasn’t. What was it she’d said? That she worked for Peter? That was it. Could it really be possible? He thought about the letter he’d sent. The fact his parents hadn’t even bothered to reply. Where was his mother? Why hadn’t she been the one to ring him? He walked back to the beach, telling himself he was going to carry on fishing. But he walked past the line and over to the boat, looking inside to see what supplies he had ready. An hour later, the boat was chugging forwards across the water to the next island, Ben calculating the timings. He would be over in half an hour, tie up the boat in the harbour, get to the ferry crossing. Take that to the mainland, then hire a car. The drive south was around four hundred miles. He might be there by sunrise or soon after. She couldn’t hang up on him in person. He’d be
able to tell her exactly what he thought of her rudeness. He’d also be able to tell his father what he thought of him. He hated him. As the boat moved forwards in the dark, a tear rolled down his cheek. He wiped it away, telling himself it was spray from the churning waters, nothing more.
SIX Samuel didn’t hear the conversation that took place over the phone in the castle office. He saw it through the glass of the window but from his distance he couldn’t hear a thing. Standing behind the curtain wall, he was peering through a gap in the stone, the darkness keeping him perfectly concealed. It had been child’s play to hop over the boundary wall that surrounded the castle, a slight climb, a twist of his body over the top and he was inside, no one any the wiser. One minute he was in the car park, the next he was striding through the grass. He had a fluorescent jacket on and a clipboard in his hand.
He had found over and over again that it was the perfect camouflage, no one questioned a man in a fluorescent jacket, they all assumed he was there for a reason, wherever he was. He looked in through the well lit office window. Something was wrong. She had changed more than she should. She looked very different to how he remembered her. He knew he was taking a risk in snatching her now. The day of the offering was approaching but it wasn’t here yet. Taking her now meant holding her until the allotted time. But the sight of her had made it hard to keep calm. He had to touch her again. It had been so long since he’d touched her. As she moved to the edge of the office, flicking out the light, he flitted silently towards her, tapping on the glass before moving back into the shadows. He hoped it would work. It did. She unlocked the door into the site, leaning out into the darkness. “Who’s there?” He didn’t move. Let her take one more step. He held his breath, cursing silently as she hovered in place. “The castle’s closed,” she called out and as
she spoke, he moved forwards. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I thought you were going to lock me in.” He fixed a warm smile on his face and was rewarded with one back. “You startled me,” she said. “I thought everyone was off site by now.” “I guess I lost track of time. I was doing a risk assessment for the council.” “Right, I see. Well, come on through and I’ll let you out.” She stepped aside and he walked into the visitor centre, waiting while she locked the door behind her. “This way,” she said, moving towards the front door. “Am I too late to buy this?” he asked, picking up one of the decorative daggers displayed on the walls. It felt heavy and cold in his hand. “Afraid so. The till’s shut down.” “That’s a shame,” he said, taking a slow step towards her. “Are you sure I can’t buy it?” She shook her head, not noticing that he was avoiding the camera above the till, making sure he stayed out of sight of the unblinking eye, not
wanting his image to be captured or recorded. “Would you mind putting that back?” “Of course,” he said, beckoning her over. “Where did it go?” “Just up there,” she said, crossing the floor and pointing to the empty rack as the phone began to ring in the office. As she turned away, he moved fast, pressing the knife to her throat. “Don’t scream,” he whispered into her ear. “Please,” she gasped, trying to squirm away from him. “What are you doing?” “We never got to finish our game,” he replied, feeling himself harden as the heat of her body dug into him. He put an arm around her waist, drawing her closer. “What? What game?” “Don’t pretend, Martha,” he hissed in her ear. “I know you haven’t forgotten.” “I’m not Martha,” she said, bursting into tears. “Please, you’ve got the wrong person.” Samuel was momentarily stunned. She didn’t sound like she was lying and he had learned how
to spot a liar from a mile away. But if she wasn’t Martha? “What’s your name?” he asked, still holding the knife to her throat. “Chloe,” she stuttered out between sobs. “Chloe Sparks. Please, don’t hurt me.” “Shush, Chloe,” he said, sniffing her hair, getting a hint of coconut from her conditioner. “We’re going to take a little walk, that’s all. If you’re good, you’ll be home in an hour.” He had no idea if she was as good at spotting a liar as he was. He didn’t care. As long as she went with him, the rest would be easy. By the time she realised she wasn’t going home, it would be far too late.
SEVEN Hiring a car took longer than Ben had anticipated. When he landed, the place was deserted. The taxi rank was just as empty and in the end he settled onto the bench just inside the door to the ferry terminal, using his bag as a pillow and closing his eyes, hoping he wouldn’t be too late by the time he got there. He slept restlessly, each time he stirred, he had the horrible feeling that his father had died. It was hard to shake the idea and by the time the sun rose the next morning, he was anxious to be going. He sat up, noticing the light was on inside the car rental booth. He crossed to it and found the place manned by a bored teenage girl whose badge proclaimed, “Happy to help!” “Hi,” Ben said, setting down the bag beside
him. “I need a car.” “All out.” She said it without looking up from her magazine. “Excuse me?” “All out.” “You’re telling me you have no cars at all?” She shook her head slowly. “Nope.” “Do you know when you’ll have one?” “Fiesta’s due back in the next half hour.” “Great, can I book that one?” “Suppose.” She flicked a piece of paper out at him and he filled it in before leaving it with her. “I’ll wait outside,” he said. He walked over to a bench that overlooked the harbour. He was about to sit down when he noticed a cafe was open further down the road. He bought a coffee before returning to the bench to wait for his car. When he’d finished the drink, he dropped the cup into the nearest bin before returning to the rental booth. “Me again,” he said, evincing a slight nod in return. “Do you know if there’s a phone box around here at all?”
“Outside the arcade.” “Which way’s that?” A sigh before she responded. “Down there.” She lifted a finger and jabbed to her left. “Your heart’s not really in this, is it?” he asked, getting a blank look in response. He headed back outside and made his way down the road, following the curve along the shoreline. The arcade was closed, the graffiti covered shutters pulled down to the ground. The phone box next to it had seen better days, the glass in two of the panes broken, the red paint peeling. At least the phone inside worked. He rang the castle but no one answered. He hung up when the answerphone kicked in and tried his parents’ house. No answer again. He closed his eyes with the receiver in his hand, trying to remember his mother’s mobile number. He drew a blank but then he thought about his journal. Hadn’t he written all the numbers down in the back of there before he left? Maybe he’d known he might need them someday. The number was there. He punched it into the
phone, wondering if she’d answer. Was she at the hospital? Sat by his side? It was answered on the third ring. “Look, if you’re trying to sell me something I’m not-” “It’s me, Mum.” “Ben?” A pause. The only sound was that of the waves crashing on the beach behind him. “I almost didn’t answer, it says unknown number on here.” “I’m calling from a phone box. How is he?” “Who?” “Dad.” “Your father? How should I know?” “What? Aren’t you there with him?” “Benjamin, me and your father broke up quite some time ago. Did he not tell you?” Ben tried to keep the shock from his voice. “I haven’t spoken to him.” “You two still refusing to talk? Why am I not surprised?” “But you know about the car crash, don’t you?” “Oh, yes. I know all about that.” There was something in her tone that he couldn’t pinpoint.
Was it anger? “So, how is he?” “I’ve no idea.” “But you said you knew about the crash?” He realised he was gripping the phone too tightly and he forced his hand to relax. “How can you have no idea how he is?” “I had a phone call from the hospital, Doctor Harris, I think. Where are you? The line’s awful.” “In Scotland but I’m on my way down tonight.” A man’s voice in the background. “Who is it, darling?” “Who was that?” Ben asked, gripping the phone again. He thought he might recognise that voice. “It’s Ben,” she said, her voice faint for a moment as she spoke to whoever was next to her. Who the hell was that? “Look, Ben. This is probably all for the best. I’ve been trying to get him to sell up for ages. He’s been wasting his life away in that place.” “Wasting his life?” “Exactly. Twenty years I waited for him to sell
up.” Waited. She said waited. Why was she talking in the past tense? All of a sudden the pieces fell into place in Ben’s head. She’d tried to persuade him to sell. The entire time he’d been growing up, she’d talked about how much the place was worth, the conversation morphing into how much better it would be if they passed it on, spent some of that money on themselves. He realised his mother was still talking and he tuned back into what she was saying. “-and I thought he’d want to retire and have some fun, not have that millstone round his neck forever. Alex made him a very generous offer and do you know what he did? He turned him down flat. I swear he only did it to get back at me.” “What kind of an offer?” Ben asked through gritted teeth. “A very substantial one. He was going to turn the place into the Tower of London of the North. We’d come up with a better name for the adverts, obviously.” “We?”
“Well we were going to do it together. Alex had the idea and he’s got the people lined up to get started. All we needed was for your Dad to stop being such a stubborn bloody fool and accept the inevitable. The world’s changing, Ben. People don’t want boring old castle ruins anymore, they want fun, they want excitement. They want jousts and knights and sword fights. It costs a fortune to look after the place and he’s working himself into the grave. An accident like this could be just what he needs to bring him to his senses.” Ben shook his head, looking out of the phone box at the rolling waves out at sea. He should have stayed on the island. If he’d done that, he wouldn’t have heard any of this. He could have happily remained oblivious. There was still time, he thought, putting the receiver away from his ear for a moment. He could turn around, head onto the ferry, head home. It would be leaving in about twenty minutes for the return trip. He could just hang up, go home, unplug his phone, put them all of his life, put him out of theirs, leave their problems to them.
He closed his eyes and a vision came to him. He was looking up at his father, the sun blinding him. He was five years old, toddling across the grass, marvelling at the fact that he was playing in a real castle. He felt like the luckiest boy in the world. “I’m looking after this for you,” Peter said, smiling down at his son as he ruffled his hair. Was the memory even real? Was his subconscious playing tricks on him? Trying to trick him into feeling something, into tugging at his emotions? He realised his mother was still talking. He put the phone back to his ear and interrupted her. “I’m going to see him,” he said before hanging up. The last thing he heard as he replaced the receiver was his mother’s faint voice saying, “Try and talk some sense into-” He stepped out of the phone box and leaned over the railings, looking out at the horizon. She wanted him to sell the place. She wanted to turn it into some gaudy tourist attraction and his father wasn’t even dead yet. Who had she been talking to? Alex. That was
the name she said. It came to him in a flash. That was Alexander Hill. His voice was deeper than it had been but it couldn’t be anyone else. He’d got his hands into the Robertson family in the end, even if it hadn’t been Zoë like he originally planned. All of a sudden, Ben felt nauseous. He let out a long slow breath from between his pursed lips, waiting for the dizziness to pass. He stood up slowly and took his time walking back to the ferry terminal. When he got to the car rental booth, the girl inside had the keys ready for him. “You’ve got one week on here,” she said, running her eyes over his form. “You want the extra insurance? Without it you’ll be liable for-” “I’ll take my chances,” he snapped back at her, his eyes narrowed. “All right, touchy,” she said, visibly affronted. “It’s out front. Bay three.” Ben didn’t thank her and then headed outside, throwing his bag into the passenger seat before climbing in and starting the engine. There was a GPS built into the dashboard and it came to life at
once. It took a few minutes and more than a few swearwords to get the hang of it but eventually he had it programmed to take him to York. Four hundred and ten miles and he’d be there in just over nine hours. It was half past eight in the morning. If he didn’t stop, he’d be there at half past five that evening. He just hoped it wouldn’t be too late. During the first few miles of the journey, he thought only about his father, trying to reconcile the depth of emotion he felt about hearing he was dying with the anger he still felt towards him. Would he still blame Ben for Zoë's death? Would that be his final words on this earth? To curse him for what he did? As if Ben hadn’t cursed himself often enough over the years. As if the death of his only sibling hadn’t torn him up inside, broken a part of him that he thought would probably never heal. The best he could hope was that it would scar, the tissue thin, never as strong again, ready to be ripped open with the slightest provocation. He blamed himself for what happened. His
thoughts moved from his father to his mother and to Alexander. Alex was like a virus. He’d been a part of Ben’s life for a long time when Ben had wanted nothing to do with him and now here he was, back again, cropping up with a whole new round of infection to try and destroy him, to wipe out his ability to cope. Ben aged five, not long after the walk around the castle with his father in the sunshine. Moving into the first year of primary school, Alex older, in the top year, about to go on to Secondary. Taking a dislike to Ben. He remembered being in the classroom and seeing his books had been pulled from his drawer, tossed onto the floor. No one ever found out who did it. Ben knew. It was Alex. It had always been Alex. Being bullied was like an inverted friendship. He had developed a bizarrely inverted relationship with Alex. Whatever friendships he developed, Alex would try to take them away, warning them not to get involved with the Robertson kid. By the time Ben moved into
secondary school, he’d gotten used to constantly watching over his shoulder, watching for the predator on his heels. The worst thing was that Alex always held back. He never went too far. Ben might get a bruise, but only on his upper arm, occasionally his stomach, locations his parents were unlikely to spot and if they did spot them, they put them down to horseplay, not the violence of which only children are capable, the violence of the sad*st. It was never a full fight, adults would have found out. Ben’s hands gripped the steering wheel tighter as he drove through the Scottish countryside. The view was spectacular, the mist hanging in the valley, the loch next to him smooth as a millpond. There was no wind. Birds flew overhead, the trees were all the colours of autumn. Ben didn’t notice. He was too busy trying to calm himself down. This is why, he thought as he turned into a bend, heading gradually uphill. This is why he went away. Dealing with people meant dredging up the past. He would go and see his father, either to say his goodbyes or pay his respects. Then he would
turn around and drive the four hundred miles back to his real home, his new home, the place where no one could get to him, where he could be alone and at peace. He did his best not to think about getting involved with his mother, with stopping the sale of the castle. It wasn’t his battle. He’d failed against Alex before, he’d fail again. He shook his head. He wasn’t a child anymore. He was an adult. He was tougher than he’d ever been, years of solitary life with no one to rely on had made sure of that. But just the thought of what happened with Zoë made him regress. Get down there, see his father, get out. If the castle was going to be sold, so what? It didn’t affect him. I’m looking after it for you. No, he thought. Just drive, don’t think. He turned the radio up, the sound of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody blasting out of the speakers. He hoped it would drown out his thoughts. It didn’t.
EIGHT Martha found the scourge in the castle chapel, by the spot where the altar used to stand. She knew what it was at once. A length of plaited wire with three tails at the end. At the tip of each tail was a wire ball, the edges of the ball rough, ready to tear into the skin. It was unmistakeable. Even if she hadn’t the scars on her back from the one he’d made her use, it was clear what it was. She was opening up when she found it. Chloe was late in so she’d had to leave the paperwork and head out to unlock first, the division of the tasks not possible until her colleague arrived. It wasn’t like Chloe to be late. She’d give her until eleven and then ring her, find out what was going on. She would not be happy if Chloe had decided to have a lie in on the basis that Peter
wasn’t going to be at work for a while. Just because the boss was away didn’t mean standards could suddenly start slipping. She stopped thinking about Chloe when she saw the scourge. At once she thought of him, of Samuel. It couldn’t be him of course. She knew she was being paranoid. He’d died in the fire. But that knowledge didn’t stop her glancing around her when she found it, as if she thought he might pounce from behind the nearest wall. It looked a lot like the one he’d made her use on herself, each blow helping to strike the sin from her body as he’d described it. But it wasn’t his. It couldn’t be. She felt her breathing quicken and she forced herself to keep calm, taking several deep breaths until the tremor in her fingers began to subside. The Pagans. That would be a more likely explanation than a man raising himself from the dead to torment her. On occasions the site was broken into at night, local Pagans believing it to be a site of special significance to them for reasons best known to themselves. Sometimes burnt
candles would be found in the chapel and once Peter had brought a knife wrapped in mistletoe into the office, throwing it into the bin whilst muttering, “Pagans,” as he passed Martha by. Who knew why they did what they did? Martha had learned there was no point asking. No one in the town claimed any knowledge of them. It was entirely possible they travelled a great distance to carry out whatever ritual it was they carried out at the altar. Why didn’t they go to the nearby Rievaulx Abbey? Martha had no idea. Perhaps they did. Peter told her once that he had contacted the police about it but their response was that without video footage of the break in, there was little they could do other than suggest a higher perimeter fence. The idea of ugly security fencing around the castle distressed Peter more than finding the occasional strange artefact so he decided to live and let live. “They’re not doing any real harm,” he said with a shrug when he called a staff meeting about it after the knife was found. “As long as we
don’t find a giant wicker man out there, hey?” Martha carried the scourge back to the office and put it in the desk drawer. She’d show Peter when he was back at work, whenever that would be. At least he was being allowed home. The swelling had gone down better than any of them had expected and he was being released into Martha’s care. She had been as surprised as him. Doctor Harris might have said, “He’ll feel better in his own bed,” but the clear subtext was that they needed the hospital bed freeing up. He would have a cast on his leg and need help getting around but the doctor had assured her that was the worst of his problems. Martha wasn’t convinced but Peter had apparently been telling everyone in sight that he wanted to go home so she was in a minority of one. He was coming home and she’d show him the scourge. He’d tell her it was the Pagans and she would be able to relax, stop thinking about being in the room that smelled of cleaning chemicals, her top on the floor next to her, the scourge whipping over her shoulder as she wept and he smiled.
“Good,” he said with each fresh blow as he started unbuttoning his shirt. “That’s a good girl.”
NINE The police officer looked bored. “I will certainly pass the information on.” His eyes went to the bookcase, running along the titles. Timothy knew just from looking at him that he would do no such thing. They’d lied to him. He was already working out how long it would take to get to Chester from Worcester. He knew the distance. Just over a hundred miles from his house to Lisa’s. The police could get there so much faster. Why were they so bloody stubborn? “Can’t you get someone to check on her?” he asked yet again. “Just knock on the door, then charge me with time wasting, with anything you like. Please.” The police officer had seen plenty of people like Timothy in his time, bored old men with nothing to do but worry. The old man didn’t know
that for every minute he was spending in the Burleigh house, the switchboard would be getting fourteen calls, all of them marked urgent. “We really are very busy.” “I appreciate that but please, just check on her.” “I will pass the information on like I said. If you hear anything else, don’t hesitate to ring us on the non emergency number.” “Non emergency? How is this not an emergency?” “An old friend not ringing you does not constitute a priority, I’m afraid.” “But I’ve explained already. She was one of the Gamesman’s victims. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” “Of course, and if he were still alive, the risk to her would be higher accordingly. But he’s not alive is he?” “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, he is still alive.” “But you have no evidence of that?” “You’re twisting my words.”
The police officer put his hand on the door, already beginning to turn it. “Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any further concerns. Good night, Sir.” Timothy watched him go. Unbelievable. He had spent ten minutes on the phone trying to persuade someone to go to Lisa’s house and instead they’d sent an officer round to him the next morning. All night he’d waited, while they reassured him with every call that the matter was being dealt with, that they’d be in touch. Then he found out the truth when this one appeared on his doorstep, no one had gone to check. No one was going to check. Now there was no one else left to ask. He had to do it. He should have gone last night. He shouldn’t have relied on the police. He tried not to think of the time he’d lost waiting for them to get back to him. He shouldn’t have trusted them. He should have known better. He walked through to the living room and picked up his glasses and car keys. His battered old Vauxhall Vectra was on the driveway and he climbed into it whilst glancing at his watch again.
He knew from the officer’s look that he hadn’t believed him. The first thing P.C Wilson had discussed was the rows of books on the shelf in the living room. Hunting Serial Killers. The Mind of the Murderer. Inside Evil. “Interesting collection.” He knew what P.C Wilson thought. That he was an old kook obsessed with a theory that didn’t match up to reality. He had tried to reason with him but he’d failed. So much for the support of the boys in blue. Once the representative of the law had gone, Timothy set off in his car, cursing himself for not going last night. He should have gone. She could be dead by now. Samuel could have taken her. He could already be gathering up Martha, finishing the game he started all those years ago. He’d never forgive himself if he was too late. He tried to calm down, almost losing it on a bend. No point crashing on the way there. That would help no one. He tried to say to himself that she’d forgotten, that she’d gone out and got drunk or was staying over at someone’s house, some mundane reason why she hadn’t rung. But in all
the years since the fire, she had never failed to ring him once a day. Some of the calls went on for a long time, her talking about her day, about the people she worked with, about everything and nothing. Other times only a few seconds long. Just “I’m fine,” and then gone. But never had she forgotten. Something had to have happened. He rubbed his eyes as he drove towards the motorway. Lisa. He thought about Lisa, about the life she’d led since the fire. First she’d gone to hospital. He’d spoken to her a week later, when she was just beginning to calm down. He’d tried to speak to her sooner but she was in no fit state to talk. Wrapped in bandages, she was doped up on painkillers and it was a full seven days before he was allowed to sit by her bedside, his fingers gently laid on top of her hand on the blankets, not saying anything until he could get the words in the right order. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “You’ve nothing to be sorry for,” she replied. That was just like her. She had been nearly burned
alive and she was still her. She hadn’t changed. Or so he thought. She had hardened, he found out later, developing a protective shell, shielding her from the past. By the time she left the hospital, the light in her eyes had dulled, not surprising given everything that had happened. She had seen children her age burn to death next to her, a sight that would never leave her for as long as she lived. The home she was moved to was used to dealing with traumatised children. She was there for a year before a foster family was found. The Maitlands, a couple in Chester. Jonathan and Emily. A lovely couple by all accounts. His background check on them had brought up nothing. Two years after that she was adopted by them, in time for her sixteenth birthday. She was so excited when she rang Timothy to tell him, he could hardly get a word in edgeways. She still rang him every day, a foible that the Maitlands were only to happy to oblige, despite the effect it had on their phone bill. She passed her GCSEs, four A stars amongst her glittering
results. She passed her A-Levels too, doing well enough to go to Oxford to study chemistry. She decided not to go yet, wanting to spend some time outside of education. She had taken a voluntary post with Amnesty, moving out of her adoptive parents home and into her own. That was her most recent change. Since then, she had settled into a routine as far as he could tell, working in the local Amnesty office five days a week, helping with fundraising. She still rang him every night, occasionally during her lunch break, reassuring him again and again that she was fine for another twenty-four hours, resetting the clock once again. He had tried not to think about what would happen when he was gone. He hoped that by then the risk of the Gamesman being capable of anything would be limited. He was probably already dead. Timothy knew he was being too cautious, but that didn’t stop him from worrying as he drove. She had her whole life ahead of her. His was already over. It had been over from the minute Samuel Lyons had lit the fire next to the
cleaning cupboard, the chemicals inside turning the blaze into an inferno, preventing Timothy from returning to save the other three. He had tried but the fire brigade had held him back, strong arms that prevented him from running back inside. He had to hear them die, listen to their screams reaching fever pitch before fading into a silence that was not peaceful, it was black and dark and rotten in all the ways that silence should not be. P.C Wilson had left at a little after nine in the morning. Timothy was in the car ten minutes after that. At quarter to noon, he pulled onto Acorn Lane. He had not stopped once and tiredness sucked at his strength. It had been a long time since he’d driven anything further than the local shops. He realised he had become complacent over the years. He should have practised more often, been better prepared for this eventuality. He should have moved to Chester, that way he could have kept a closer eye on her. But he hadn’t moved for one very important reason, his daughter lived in Worcester.
He didn’t write to Lisa beyond an annual birthday card. Sent on May twelfth, ready to arrive in time for her birthday on the fourteenth. The last one had been her twenty-first. She was an adult. Sophia, Janet, and Clare would never be adults. That jabbed at his heart every time he had written the card out. He should have been writing five. One for Lisa, one each for the three dead girls, and one for Martha, Martha the missing. He stepped out of the car by Lisa’s house. He’d not seen it in person before, he only knew the address from her giving it to him during one of their phone calls. The Maitlands. He could have called them to check on her. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Was his mind too blinkered by worry to think straight? He could have kicked himself. He should have rung them last night. Why hadn’t he? Idiot. He pushed open her gate, his keen eyes noting that the white paint had peeled and needed redoing. Flecks of red, the previous colour, were showing through in a number of places. He walked up the path and stopped at the
door. The curtains were not drawn in the living room. The light was not on inside. Was she in? He rang the bell and counted to ten, hoping she would answer but feeling strangely certain that she wouldn’t. Nothing. He tried again, holding down the bell for the count of fifteen. No answer. He looked around him before turning the handle. The door opened. “Hello,” he called out loudly into the house. “Lisa? Are you in?” No answer. Not a sound. There was still a chance she wasn’t there, that she’d left the door unlocked. It looked like a safe area after all. But would she do that? After what had happened to her? After his warnings to always be on her guard? The hallway was carpeted and his feet made no sound as he walked inside. He closed the door behind him before walking into the living room. She was a tidy person. The TV in the corner was turned off. The floor was spotless, the only thing on the coffee table was a remote control and a single coaster, the image a 1950s advert for Guinness.
The sofa didn’t look as if it had been sat on recently, the cushions perfectly level. The armchair looked like it was where she settled of an evening, in the corner, able to see the TV but more importantly where she could see both into the hallway and out of the window at anyone approaching the house. Behind the armchair was a photo in a frame, on the wall, low, as if she wanted to see it whenever she turned her head that way. It was her and Martha side by side in the Beeches garden, aged twelve. It couldn’t have been taken any more than three months before the fire. It was a terraced house, the hallway turning right out of the living room. There was a staircase to one side and to the other a door that led into the dining room and then the kitchen. The dining room was empty, the table was not. Brochures and guidebooks for castles and abbeys were laid out in a rainbow around one chair. Another bookcase, filled so heavily the shelves sagged in the middle. On the wall was a poster in a frame for a film Timothy had not heard of. The
computer was switched off. The kitchen was less tidy than the living room, crumbs on the surfaces, a loaf of bread with the end of the bag untied, the remains of a dinner in the sink, a single plate, knife, fork, mug, glass. “Lisa?” he called out again, reaching to try the back door. It was locked, the key sitting in the hole, ready to turn. He unlocked it and glanced outside. Just a small yard. Nothing there. He opened the fridge. The milk was three days from expiring. She had been here recently at least. But then he knew that, he’d only spoken to her the day before yesterday. He headed upstairs, calling out for her again. “Are you in, Lisa?” Upstairs were two doors, one open, one closed. Through the open one he could see her bed, the duvet neat and tidy, the pillows in a straight line. “Lisa?” he called out, spinning around and taking hold of the handle of the closed door. He pushed the door open, finding Lisa in the bath. Empty eye sockets stared up past the ceiling, her head tilted back. Her wrists were bound in
front of her, her ankles also bound, bent awkwardly, as if he’d had to twist her body to fit her into the tub. The water was scummy, though not enough to conceal her nakedness. He collapsed to the tiled floor, his head resting on the edge of the bed. Closing his eyes, he let out a long low wail of pain. He was too late. He had failed her. Opening his eyes through his tears, he knew he had to ring the police. Samuel would already be on his way to Martha. He didn’t want to ring them. He didn’t want to leave her alone. He wanted to sit there and cry but he fought the need, getting to his feet. He took another glance at her, frowning as he noticed something sticking out from between her fingers. He had fixed his gaze there to avoid looking at her face, no face should look like that. From between the middle and index finger a tiny plastic something jutted out. He didn’t need to look closer to know what it was. That was all the proof he needed. If there had been any doubt, it was wiped out as he looked at
the boardgame piece protruding into the air, as if it was put there just to taunt him. Samuel was alive. He was alive and Lisa was dead. He had failed her. The little white knight taunted him. His legs felt weak and he had to hold onto the wall as he made his way back downstairs to the phone. He rang the police, the few seconds it took for him to dial was long enough for a wave of dizziness to wash over him, sending him spinning down into the blackness. He fainted, the voice of the switchboard operator bringing him to less than a minute later. He scrabbled for the phone, stuttering words into it. He should have come as soon as he was suspicious. The fact that she was probably already dead by the time he missed her phone call didn’t matter to him. What mattered was that he had failed her. And if they didn’t hurry, Martha would be collected too. Would they find her in the tub with a gaming piece in her hand? Or did he have something else planned for her? He was finishing his game. Was he going to get to make his offering after all?
Poor Lisa. Up there with that blank expression on her face. They lied when they said the dead looked as if they were at peace. She didn’t look at peace. She looked in pain. How had he done it? Had he drowned her? Strangled her then put her in the tub? Why was she naked? Why take out her other eye? Stop thinking, he told himself, turning to look at the photo on the wall. Lisa and Martha. Twelve years old. 2007. Lisa smiling in the photo, no idea she only had ten years left to live. A decade then gone, snuffed out like a candle. It wasn’t long enough. Timothy was sixty-two. It didn’t seem fair. Why had he warranted such a long life when that innocent girl in there had been so cruelly taken from the world at just twenty-one? Outside the sound of sirens grew louder.
TEN Ben pulled into Helmsley Castle car park at five past five that evening. The car park was next to the castle. It was almost empty, more of the daytrippers having headed for home before the castle and the shops all closed up at five. There was a track at the far end and he headed over to it, ignoring the PRIVATE sign on the grass verge next to him. He stopped the car in the courtyard at the end of the track. Surrounding him were three houses. When he had lived here, the one nearest the castle had been empty, his father doing it up slowly in order to rent out. The ivy covered cottage next to that was the one he knew best, the one he’d grown up in. Then there was the one behind him, the one with the lights on. Someone
was home. He climbed out of the car, his mind instantly back. So little had changed. The trees were taller, the view of the East Tower in the castle grounds obscured a little by the overhanging branches. But the sound was the same. He could hear the trickle of the stream back by the side of the car park. The crows cawed above his head, settling in the trees. The last of the evening light was fading as he walked over to the cottage that was lit up inside. Was his father in there? Were they preparing for a funeral? For an instant before knocking, he thought he might just walk in. But it wasn’t his home anymore. Then he raised his hand and knocked loudly, waiting and thinking how this was a precious moment, the last few seconds of freedom, of not knowing and not caring what was going on back here. He refused to say back home. This wasn’t home, not anymore. The island was home. This was just a part of his past, like the castle. It was ancient history. It tugged at his heart nonetheless.
ELEVEN Martha was washing up when she heard the knock on the door. She jumped, still on edge despite the hours that had passed since finding the scourge. She’d had to work alone all day and she was tired. Chloe had texted her a little after eleven, apologising for missing her calls, explaining that she was ill and would have to miss work for a few days. Martha hadn’t let her irritation show through in her replies, simply putting, “Get better,” and leaving it at that. It was annoying, the staffing levels and rota organisation left little room for manoeuvre at such short notice. She would normally leave such problems for Peter to deal with, passing them on up the chain of command. But he was on his way home from the hospital
and she wanted to keep his recuperation as stress free as possible. So she had worked alone, snatching food and toilet visits during the few lulls during the day. She hadn’t found anything else on site when she’d locked up and for that she was grateful. The entire day, a little voice had whispered to her that he would arrive, brandishing a knife or maybe even a gun, force her to use the scourge again, to play his twisted games. By the time she locked up, she had a stress headache and it was only just starting to fade by the time she was home. She saw the lights on across the courtyard and headed over in time to find the hospital transport driver was leaving, the door open ready for his assistant to follow. “How is he?” Martha asked, catching them as they began to walk out of the courtyard towards the car park. “He’s comfortable in bed,” the older man said. “Sorry, you are?” “Martha Coleman. I work for Peter.” “Right, great. We weren’t comfortable about
leaving him alone in there so we were about to ring you from the van.” “Well, I’m here now.” “So you are. Did you not get the message that he needs someone to keep an eye on him? We rang his wife. Did she not pass it on?” Martha shook her head. “I’m afraid not.” The man frowned. “He was asleep when we left him. We got him into bed and he’s had his evening painkillers so he should be all right for the night. You might want to think about moving his bed downstairs. With his leg like that, the stairs aren’t going to be easy.” Martha smiled. “Wouldn’t let you do it, right?” “Nope.” “He can be a stubborn one sometimes. I’ll see what I can do. Anything else I need to know?” “There’ll be a nurse coming out to check on him every other day. Just make sure he takes his medication and he should be all right. He was pretty lucky, all things considered.” “I guess he was.” “If you notice him getting worse, give us a ring
straight away, won’t you?” “Of course.” “Great. Good night then, Martha was it?” “Yep. Good night, and thank you.” “Just doing our jobs.” The men turned and headed away and Martha returned to the open door in the courtyard, passing through and listening for any noise upstairs. She could hear him breathing up there. She walked up as softly as she could, tiptoeing onto the landing and peering in through Peter’s bedroom door. He had a bandage wrapped around his head, ending just above his eyes which were tightly closed. Next to the bed were a couple of crutches. Martha wondered if they’d tried to get him in a wheelchair. She could imagine what a pointless attempt it would be. Peter had always shunned the help of others, wanting to keep on top of everything himself. It had taken two years of Martha working at the castle for him to start letting her do any of the paperwork. For six months after she began, he had double-checked her figures every night, his trust in
her very slowly growing. It felt strange to see him asleep in bed. She’d never seen his bedroom before. She’d been in his house, sitting at the battered old dining room table drinking tea and watching the sunset outside the mullioned windows. He wasn’t moving in bed, the only sign that he was alive was the slow rise and fall of his chest. Martha turned away, suddenly feeling that she was intruding on his privacy. She headed back downstairs and into the kitchen. The least she could do was wash up for him. She poured water into the sink and waited for it to fill up, glancing outside as a bat darted past the window, catching her eye. She was halfway through when someone knocked on the door. Drying her hands on a towel, she crossed to the hallway before stopping, thoughts of the scourge coming back to her mind. She knew it wasn’t Samuel out there but she still slipped the chain across before opening the door and peering out. There was a man standing there, half lit by the
glow from inside the hallway, half in darkness. He was older than Martha but not by much. “Can I help?” she asked, her eyes moving down his checked shirt to his jeans, both looking shades of grey rather than colour in the gloom. He was standing perfectly upright with his hands clasped behind his back. All at once Martha felt as if she was the one intruding even though he’d knocked on the door. It was a very odd feeling. “I’m Benjamin Robertson,” he said, thrusting a hand towards her. “And you are?” Martha couldn’t place the name for a moment but then it came to her. “You’re Ben?” she asked, taking his hand, feeling him grip her fingers. His skin was rough but warm. She liked the feel of it. At once she jolted her hand away from him. “I didn’t think you were coming.” “Neither did I but here I am.” A half smile spread across his face, lighting it up despite the tiredness in his eyes. “Was it a long journey?” As she asked the question, she pushed the door closed
momentarily, sliding the chain off its hook before opening it wide again. “Can I make you a tea?” “Is he here?” Ben asked, stepping inside and pausing in the hallway, suddenly looking like a wild animal that had become trapped. Unbidden an image came into Martha’s mind, an image of him if she shut the door. He would be sprinting around the walls, fighting to find a way to get outside to freedom. A few years ago she had watched a film about a girl who tried to tame a wild fox. She had spent a long time patiently tempting it towards her, coaxing it with food and kind words. Eventually she had been able to persuade it to enter her house but of course it had wanted to escape as soon as she shut her bedroom door. After crashing into her furniture it had finally leapt out of the closed window, shattering glass and injuring itself whilst teaching the girl a lesson about trying to tame wild things. Ben reminded her of the fox in the film. Not in appearance, in appearance he reminded her more of a grizzly bear. But in manner he looked tense as
soon as he stepped inside. It wasn’t an overt display but after what had happened to her at the care home, she had learned to read the little signals people gave out. His left hand was curling and uncurling as if he was trying to resist clenching it into a fist. His eyes were fixed on her but they kept darting to the sides of the hallway, as if he was looking for an exit. “He’s upstairs,” she said, wanting to do something to ease the tension he was clearly feeling. “He’s asleep though.” He was already heading upstairs, leaving her to close the front door and head back into the kitchen, putting the last of the pots onto the draining board. By the time she had done she could hear voices. Father and son were talking. She didn’t want to listen but nor did she think it wise to leave. Peter sounded angry and she wanted to be nearby, ready to step in and separate them if needed. “Bullsh*t,” Peter was saying. “You came back to take the place for yourself. Too bad for you I
survived, hey?” Ben’s voice replied, quieter, trying to keep calm. Martha stood in the hallway, straightening a picture on the wall that was already perfectly straight. “Is that what you think? Let me put your mind at rest on that one, Dad. I have no interest in this place or what happens to it. That isn’t why I’m here.” “How did you even find out?” “The hospital rang me.” Martha was relieved her name hadn’t been mentioned. She had no desire to rush into the conversation she was going to have to have at some point, explaining to her employer her part in bringing Ben back home. “Well, you’ve had a good look at me. You might as well get going. Drive carefully. It’s a long way back to Scotland.” Martha was just able to get into the kitchen before Ben stamped back downstairs. He stopped in the hallway, rubbing his eyes and sighing. She coughed politely, letting him know she was there. “He’s glad you came,” she said, taking a step back
as Ben walked into the kitchen. “You can tell by his voice,” she added in response to the look he gave her. “I should go,” Ben said, sounding defeated. “I don’t know why I bothered.” “He’s in a lot of pain,” she replied. “Give him some time to sleep.” Ben shook his head. “All the sleep in the world won’t stop him being as stubborn as a mule.” “Where are you going?” she asked as he headed towards the front door. “I’m going home.” “Listen,” she said, following him outside. “Why not stay the night? See what he’s like in the morning?” “Why do you even care? What’s this got to do with you?” “I don’t like seeing people argue.” A flash through her mind. Samuel screaming at her and Lisa. “You can stay in my house tonight. I’m only there.” She pointed at her front door. “I’ll sleep here and keep an eye on him overnight.” Ben looked as if he was going to refuse but
then all of a sudden he looked utterly exhausted. “Fine,” he said, the word more of an exhalation than anything else. “But I’ll watch him. You go home, you’ve done more than enough.”
TWELVE While Ben and Martha were standing in the courtyard by the castle, Timothy Burleigh was explaining for the tenth time what had happened since he spoke to the police officer at his home. He was sitting on the wall outside Lisa’s house, a detective in a dark grey suit leaning on the wall next to him, his arms folded. “I don’t know how many times you want me to go over this,” Timothy was saying. “I’ve been here all day. Am I under arrest or what?” “Not as far as I’m concerned,” D.C.I Gregg replied. “Just for me, once more, please.” “I arrived at the house wanting to speak to Lisa. I hadn’t heard from her all day.” “And that’s unusual because?” “Because she rings me every day without fail.
I’ve already told you all this.” “And why is that? Why does she ring you every day? You’re not related are you?” “No, we’re not but I fail to see-” “I don’t speak to my daughter every day. She’s at university. Sometimes I don’t hear from her for weeks.” “Good for you.” “I’m trying to help you here, Mr Burleigh. Think how this looks to us. You turn up at a house you’ve never been to before to speak to someone you’re not related to. Her body is in the bathtub, limbs bound. She’s been there at least a day, maybe longer. Convince me you didn’t do it.” “Do you think I did it?” “I doubt you’d have rung us if you did. But who did do it?” “I told you. Samuel Lyons.” “The Gamesman? Dead for almost a decade.” “He’s not dead, that’s the whole point.” “Do you have any evidence that the body found at the time was wrongly identified as being his? Anything you can share with me? I’m all ears,
Mr Burleigh.” “No. Look, am I under arrest?” “As I said, not at this point.” “So I’m free to go?” “I’d prefer if you didn’t.” “But are you going to stop me?” There was a long silence, the detective looking at Timothy without blinking. “No,” he said at last. Timothy walked towards his car, not looking back. “We’ll be in touch, Mr Burleigh,” the detective called after him as he climbed inside and started the engine. He drove away slowly, needing to weave his way through the assembled emergency vehicles. An ambulance almost blocked the road and he had to mount the curb to squeeze past. Once that was done, he was able to pick up speed. He thought about the letter he’d read. The police would find it. No doubt they’d go through the house with a fine toothcomb. But by the time they’d realised Martha might be in danger, it would be too late.
He could close his eyes and picture the scene. Samuel tortured Lisa into revealing where Martha was hiding out. He’d then strangled her, dumping the body in the bath, leaving the gaming piece because he couldn’t not do it. Then he would drive to Martha to finish the game. How long would that take? From Chester to Martha? Was she even there? Timothy could only hope so, the letter from Martha to Lisa saying how she was thinking of “working at the place we always talked about,” how she had an interview lined up. There was no return address on the letter. His mind went back to the care home. He had just stopped mowing the lawn, mopping his brow with a handkerchief. Behind him, sitting on the steps that led inside, five girls. He knew all their names. He knew the names of everyone who stayed in the home, he considered it his duty to know them despite the fact he rarely spoke to them. Martha was talking, listing all the things she loved about history, moving from the middle ages to the Civil War. He stood for a
moment and listened, impressed by the depth of her knowledge. “One day, I’ll work at Helmsley Castle,” she was saying. “But why?” Sophia asked, leaning back on her elbows and staring up at the fluffy clouds floating past. “Because then I can dress up as a princess.” Timothy was amazed he’d even been able to dredge the conversation up from his long term memory. Had she talked about working anywhere else? Not that he could think of. But she’d talked about that castle several times after seeing it in one of the books in the Home library. He liked thinking about protecting Martha as he drove, about finding her and protecting her. It stopped him thinking about Lisa, about how he’d failed her so badly. He could have told the police to go to Helmsley, make up for his failure. But he had a sneaking suspicion that detective would arrest him if he mentioned it. If he was locked up because he seemed to know too much where would that leave him? Where would it leave
Martha? Would they even visit her? They knew nothing of the link between Lisa and Martha, of the bond they had had. Let them find the letter, see if they could work it out. By then, he’d already be there. If she was still there, she’d at least have someone watching over her, keeping guard, looking for Samuel, trying to stop the game before he had a chance to play it out. What more could he do?
THIRTEEN Timothy set off from Chester as the rain started to fall. He was glad to be away from the house, though the image of Lisa’s swollen body in the bathtub travelled with him, continually popping back into his head as he looked out at the worsening weather. He wanted to mourn her, wanted to stop and weep for the sheer injustice of her death. But there wasn’t time for that. He needed to get to Martha. That was why, when his phone rang, he ignored it at first. It was in his jacket pocket on the passenger seat, the sound of it’s trilling tones echoing around the inside of the car. When it rang for a second time, he pulled over to the side of the road, leaving the engine running.
The indicator blinked on the dashboard as he dug out the phone, wondering if by some miracle it might be Martha, contacting him to tell him she knew what was happening, that she was safe, that the police were with her. It was his daughter. “Timothy,” she said without preamble. “I need you to do something for me.” He rankled at the sound of those words, the fact she still wasn’t willing to call him Dad. “You haven’t spoken to me for two years and now you need something from me?” “Yes. I need you to look after Jennifer.” “What?” The flare of anger was evident in his voice before he could get it under control. A lorry drove past too close, making it impossible to hear what she said next. He caught the end of it. “-for me.” “Hold on,” he said, moving the phone away from his ear, finding the volume button on the side and turning it up. “Say that again.” “I said I just need you to do this for me.” “Listen, Catherine. I’m not-”
She interrupted him. “Let me guess, you’re not free at the moment? You’ve got a lot on. You’re busy doing something involving Lisa sodding Kirke. Christ, you should have adopted her, you know that?” “Lisa’s dead.” “Oh.” She fell silent for a moment. “I’m sorry.” “So am I.” “I’m in a real bind though. Will you look after Jenny, please? It’s just for a couple of days.” “Are you in some kind of trouble?” “I can’t explain right now. Would you please just do this for me? Please.” He sighed, closing his eyes as he did so. He kept them closed while he answered. “Where are you?” “She’s at homework club. I’m supposed to pick her up at nine. Can you get there for nine?” “Homework club? She really is just like you.” “Can you do it or not?” He looked at his watch. Back to Worcester. Two hundred miles. It was already six o’clock. He could be there by half past eight if he didn’t stop. Then back up to Helmsley. It would make it pretty late
by the time he got there. He froze for a moment, trying to calculate frantically in his head. If he said no, any chance for a relationship with his granddaughter would be gone, she’d never forgive him. But if Samuel was already on his way to Helmsley, what then? “I’ll come and get her,” he said quietly. Give me the address.” “Can you hold onto her for a couple of days for me?” “What about school?” “It’s half term next week. She won’t miss anything. What do you say? Will you do it?” He could hear an undercurrent of tension to her voice. Something wasn’t right but he didn’t want to push, he might push her away again. “Sure, I was heading on holiday anyway. I’ve a cottage booked in Yorkshire. She can come with me.” “Great. I’ll leave the key under the mat. Let yourself in and pack her a few things. She’s got a backpack in her wardrobe.” “Are you all right, Cathy? Are you in trouble?”
“I can’t talk about it now. I’ll be in touch, okay?” “Fine.” She gave him her address, different to the one he remembered though still located in Worcester. Once he was off the phone, he loaded the Internet and typed in Helmsley Castle. It was worth ringing. It was possible she might answer. He could at least warn her. He tried the number twice, getting the answer phone both times. He didn’t want to leave a message, just in case Samuel was already there and was listening. He might still have a chance to catch him by surprise. The thing Samuel believed in required a strict timeline, in amongst all the completely insane beliefs he held. He had spoken of a comet, how the offering needed to be made when the comet was brightest in the sky. Timothy had looked up all the celestial events around the time of the fire and had come to the conclusion that the comet he spoke of was the Churymov, due to return in 2017. He couldn’t be sure his calculations were correct but the proof
was back in Lisa’s house. He was looking for Martha in order to offer her up when the comet returned. He doubted Samuel would act before then. If he was in Helmsley already, he would be watching, nothing more. He had to hold onto that thought, remain positive that it wasn’t too late. Any other thoughts would have crippled him. He drove back along the roads he so recently travelled. On the way up, he’d been nervously hoping he wasn’t too late to help Lisa. She was already dead and he hadn’t even known. The image of her in the bath again. Think about something else, think about Jennifer. Little Jenny who he hadn’t seen since she was eight. She would be ten now. How much would she have changed in two years? All because of a stupid argument. He had not approved of the complete moron his daughter had chosen to live with but he had kept his mouth shut for as long as he could. But when Anthony had begun waxing lyrical at the Christmas table about rights for whites and how people should stick to
their own kind, he’d been unable to keep quiet any longer. He thought Cathy would back him up, remind Anthony that freedom of speech did not mean freedom from consequences. But she had sided with her partner, telling Timothy that the fool “had a point.” Then she had launched into a long prepared speech about his “obsession” with Lisa Kirke as Anthony vanished into the garden for a cigarette. “Not all of us have got the martyr complex so finely tuned,” Cathy snapped. “But you, you care more about her happiness than your own daughter’s. I like Anthony, Dad. Why can’t you accept that?” It had been too much for Timothy to bear. He had retreated to the lounge and an hour later they had left, taking a crying Jenny with them. She hadn’t even had chance to open her Christmas present from her Granddad. He hadn’t seen any of them since. He knew which school Jenny attended although the concept of a homework club
weighed heavy on him. She was too young to be drowning in such things. Another image of Lisa flashed into his head. He shook it physically away, twisting his neck rapidly from side to side, forcing his thoughts back towards his own family. He arrived at the school after a painful journey, his jaw hurting from grinding his teeth together for the last half hour, anything to stop himself thinking about Lisa. There was a short driveway into the school playground. A number of cars were parked up in front of the doors and he headed to the last space at the end of the row. From there, he could see to his right through one of the classroom windows. The lights were on but there was no one in sight. Climbing out of the car, he looked at the time. Quarter to nine. He had made it in time. There were several parents standing by the entrance, waiting for the door to open, some talking, others staring down at their phones. He remained by his car until nine. Only then did he walk across to the door, in time for it to open and children begin to emerge.
He looked for Jenny, hoping he would recognise her. She was the last one out, stopping on the top step and looking down at him. “Granddad?” she asked, running and throwing her arms around him. “What are you doing here?” “I’m here to take you on holiday of course,” he said when she let go of him. “If you want to go, of course?” “Duh!” she said, giving him a shove. “Of course I want to go. Where are we going?” “That’s a surprise.” “Does Mummy know?” “She was the one who suggested it. Now we need to head to yours and pack. You’ll need things for a few days.” “Can I bring some books?” “I suppose so.” As he talked, he walked towards the car and she skipped alongside him. “How was homework club?” “We found out about the life cycle of the frog. And I got to practise on the piano too.” “Have you been learning piano?” he asked as he opened the passenger door for her. The child’s
seat was still there. He’d never had the heart to take it out. “For about a year. Didn’t Mummy tell you?” “She probably did. My memory’s not as good as it used to be. Come on then, you can tell me about frogs playing piano on the way.”
FOURTEEN Ben looked up at the castle. He had checked on his father a few minutes earlier, finding him fast asleep. He had tried to sit downstairs and read but found himself unable to sit still for more than a few seconds at a time. In the end, he’d stood up and walked outside, stopping only to pick up his jacket. He was drawn towards the castle and he walked across the courtyard to the wall that backed onto the site. Leaning on it, he was able to see the East Tower looming over him. Silhouetted below it was a shape, moving slowly across the grass. Intrigued, he climbed over the wall and dropped down onto the ground on the other side. Walking quietly, he felt strangely younger than he was, as if he was sneaking in, about to be told off
for doing so by his father when he was found out as he always had been when he was little. He could keep nothing from Peter back then. He stopped by the chapel. The figure was coming towards him. Another few steps and he recognised who it was. “Trespassing on private property?” he asked, allowing himself a smile. “I suppose so,” Martha replied. “Although so are you.” “Ah, well my father owns the place so I thought it was allowed.” “And I work for him so I thought it was allowed.” “I guess that’s that sorted then.” Martha sat on the bench next to her and looked up at him. Even in the darkness, he could see the sparkling of her eyes. He sat down next to her, looking at the silhouetted great hall, silent and still. “Do you often walk around here at night?” he asked after a minute’s silence. “Sometimes.” She paused as if waiting for him to answer before continuing. “Aren’t you going to
ask me why?” “I’m guessing it’s because you like the peace and quiet.” She answered quietly. “That’s right.” She was lying. That was interesting. Ben found himself wondering why. He felt a spot of rain hit his cheek as he looked up at the sky, the stars nowhere to be seen. “Do you like working here?” he asked. “I do,” she replied. “What about you? How’s it feel to be back?” “I’m not sure yet. I should head back and check on Dad.” “You did the right thing,” she called after him as he began to walk away. He stopped and turned back to her. “About what?” “Staying the night. Peter can be stubborn but I know he loves you.” “What makes you say that?” “I’ll show you.” She stood up and joined him, angling towards the visitor centre. Pulling a set of keys from her
pocket, she unlocked the door and stepped inside. “Wait there a second,” she said as a box on the wall by the office began to beep slowly. She hit four buttons on its keypad and it let out a long tone in response before falling silent. “In here.” He followed her into the office. She pointed at the wall and he followed her finger, spying the portrait of him, the one that had been on the wall for as long as he could remember. “He kept it,” he said, shaking his head slowly. “I know he’s angry and I know it’s none of my business but life is very short, Mr Robertson. If I were you, I wouldn’t be so quick to run away this time.” He grunted. “I better get back.” “Sure, I’ll let you out the front if you like, save you climbing back over the wall.” “Are you coming?” “I might walk around a little longer. Goodnight, Mr Robertson.” She unlocked the front door and held it open for him. “Ben,” he replied as he stepped out, placing his hand on top of hers, hoping to reassure her. She
looked frightened all of a sudden and he didn’t know why. “Call me Ben.” “Goodnight, Ben,” she said as she pulled the door closed. He heard the key jangling in the lock as he walked back around to the courtyard. He was about to head into his father’s house when he returned to the wall, looking over it once again. He wasn’t looking to see her again, he was just looking. He leaned on the wall, his head on his elbows, thinking about when he was too small to even see over this wall, how he used to think the knights might come back any time, come bursting out of the castle on horseback, swords at the ready. He had nightmares sometimes in which a red knight, horse’s nostrils flaring, would burst into his room, swing a sword down at him as he slept. He hadn’t thought about that dream for twenty years. What had brought that back? He shook his head, standing up straight, suddenly feeling very tired. He was about to turn and head inside when he heard the scream. It was
loud, piercing, a woman’s scream. His head jolted upright. He was wide awake in an instant. The scream was coming from inside the castle grounds.
FIFTEEN Martha hadn’t been able to tell Ben the truth. It would have led to a question she didn’t want to answer. Why? She walked around the castle at night sometimes not to clear the air, or to enjoy the peace. She did it to test herself, to prove to herself that the fear wouldn’t win, that he hadn’t beaten her. She didn’t like to see herself as victim or survivor of what had happened to her as a child. She preferred to see herself as separate to both of those things. They were part of her past and she was a different person in the past. As an adult she was in charge of herself and her emotions. That was why she sometimes walked onto the site long after nightfall. Around every dark corner,
she expected someone to leap out, to dive on her. Her unconscious whispered to her that she was being stupid, that fear was a helpful emotion, it was there to keep her safe, to keep her away from dangerous situations. She did it anyway. Walking across the grass in the dead of night was her way of proving she could overcome fear, that she could handle the terror that bubbled up in her. She would tell herself she was safe as she walked and her strolls took the same pattern every time. For the first couple of minutes, she would feel stricken by gut wrenching terror, her bladder seemingly full to bursting, her hands shaking, nausea washing over her. That would slowly subside the longer she walked. After about ten minutes, it would reduce to a low hum and she would start to feel better. Her fingers wouldn’t dig into her palms any longer, her heart would start to slow until by twenty minutes in she would feel good, feel that she had once again conquered the fear of the dark, of what might lurk out there.
It was embedded in her to be scared of the dark. It wasn’t just because Samuel would take her into the cleaning cupboard for the worst of what he did to her, leaving the light off. It was because in the bedroom with the lights out was worse. She would lay and relive what he’d done, disgusted with herself for letting it happen. When he was physically touching her, there was at least a time limit. He began. He stopped. But in bed, he did it again and again, her mind forcing her to relive it whether she wanted to or not. The fear of the dark had remained with her since then. When she began working at the castle, she made a decision. She was tired of feeling frightened. He was dead. Nothing out there could ever be as big a threat as he had been. She had taken to evening strolls, deliberately taking them after work. At first, she had barely lasted a minute before sprinting for her house, switching on all the lights before leaning back against the front door and sobbing quietly, the way she had learned to do it, so as not to draw any attention to herself.
She refused to give up. As time went by, it became easier until by the night Ben returned, she was able to walk around the grounds for any length of time she chose. The initial fear was still there, overwhelming as ever. It ebbed and flowed in receding waves, each one smaller the longer she was out there. But all in all, she had come to enjoy her walks, proof that she was winning against all the odds. Imagining the castle was hers alone helped with that, allowing her to dream of a life in a world long since vanished. She had watched Ben walking away from the visitor centre, unsure why he had put his hand on top of hers. She was also confused as to why the touch had calmed her, the warmth of his skin on hers making her feel something she didn’t recognise or understand. Perhaps it was because he was connected to the castle, a place to which she had already developed a great affinity. Walking back onto the site, she had lingered on the thought of his hand on hers, somehow it kept the worst of the growing terror at bay. She crossed the drawbridge over the earthworks, walking
slowly, breathing as calmly as she could, the dark enveloping her as if it was thick and solid, like treacle, penetrating her lungs and her bloodstream, doing its best to crush her, to squeeze the life out of her. “There’s nothing here that can hurt you,” she said out loud, thinking of the scourge sitting in the office drawer. Finding that had made her want to hide away, refuse to do anything but lock the doors and close the curtains. That was why she was more determined than ever not to give into the fear. It was like walking across hot coals, it wasn’t done because it was easy, it was done because it was difficult, because it proved she wasn’t the scared child of her past. No longer was she beholden to others and what they wanted her to do, she was in charge of her life, in charge of her emotions. He appeared from behind the chapel wall just as her fear was starting to fade away. It came roaring back in an instant. She was twelve again, alone with him, terrified, her heart trying to leap out of her chest, her feet fixed to the
floor. In a minute he’d have her out of her clothes, his hands sliding up her thighs, shoving her knees apart. She staggered back as the figure loomed over her with a sword held high above his head. Tripping over her own feet, she fell to the ground. The sword moved down towards her and the scream that had been stuck in her throat since he’d first appeared finally escaped into the night air. The sound pierced the silence as she scrambled backwards, trying to get away from him. This all took place in just a couple of seconds. From a great distance, she heard someone saying something but she was still screaming, her hands flailing, knowing what would happen if the sword swung downwards. There was the sound of sprinting footsteps rushing through the grass and then a second figure was by her side. “I’m sorry,” the figure in front of her said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” She blinked, not hearing the words as a hand fell onto her shoulder, forcing her to look to her
right. A man was there, kneeling next to her, putting his around her. “Martha,” he was saying from a very long way away. “Are you all right?” She screwed up her eyes, coming back to herself as she realised it was Ben knelt there, looking anxiously across at her. “I’m sorry,” the man said again. “I didn’t think anyone was here.” Martha looked up at the figure standing over her. He was shorter than he had been a moment ago, stooped over. He was wearing a long white robe, hood low over his face, and she realised as he turned away from her that it wasn’t a sword held over his head, it was a long staff. In her panic, she had seen something that wasn’t there. Her heart was still racing as the man walked away, picking up the pace as Ben called for him to stop. “Should I go after him?” he asked. “No,” she said. “There’s no point.” “Who was he?” “Pagan,” she said, a slightly hysterical giggle bubbling out from between her lips.
“What?” “A Pagan,” she said, taking his offered hand and getting slowly to her feet. “They sneak in sometimes. He probably came back to get his scourge.” “His what?” “Never mind. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you like that.” Ben smiled, his eyes lighting up in the darkness. “You’re apologising to me? That’s very British.” “I suppose it is.” She fell into silence, feeling awkward all of a sudden. She also felt more than a little embarrassed. It had been a long time since she’d screamed about anything and it was only her imagination. She realised she still had a long way to go in overcoming her fear. For a moment, she had been sure it was Samuel. “I’ll walk you home,” Ben said, bringing her out of her thoughts. “You don’t have to do that.” “I’m going to anyway. I want to be sure you’re all right. What if that guy turns out to be a weirdo?”
“A Pagan in a white robe with a staff conducting some bizarre ritual in a castle chapel in the middle of the night? You think he might turn out to be weird?” She was glad of the joke, it took the edge off the tension she was feeling. At least you can still joke, she thought as she let Ben lead the way across to the visitor centre. She unlocked the door, dealing with the alarm once again whilst Ben waited in the doorway. Once it was switched off, she crossed towards the front door just as someone knocked on the outside of it. “What now?” she muttered as Ben appeared next to her. “Who’s that?” he asked. “No idea,” she replied, unlocking the door and leaning out. “We’re closed until the morning.” “I know,” the man replied. “I just wanted to pick up the key for the holiday cottage. I’m supposed to be staying in it for the week. I’m bringing my girlfriend up, you see. Don’t tell her but I’m going to propose.” “Oh, right,” Martha said in her politest voice.
“How lovely for you. Was the key not in the box by the front door?” “I forgot the combination,” the man said sheepishly. “I know it was on the letter that got sent out but I managed to lose that. Well done me.” “Never mind. It’s 1 - 1 - 3 - 2.” “Oh, the year the castle was founded,” the man said with a smile. “That’s clever. Well, thanks very much. I’ll maybe see you in the morning.” “Maybe,” Martha said, pulling the door closed once again. She turned to Ben and lowered her voice. “We’ll give him a minute to go. I’ve had enough of making small talk for one day.” “Fine by me,” Ben said, reaching for a book on the shelf next to him, flicking through it by the light of the drinks cabinet. “I think he’s gone,” Martha said a few seconds later. She hadn’t wanted to admit being too scared to leave yet. Nor did she want to admit how glad she was that Ben walked her all the way to her front door, seeing her inside before bidding her goodnight and turning to head to his own
house. She locked the door before calming down. There’s nothing to worry about, she told herself, walking through to the kitchen and flicking on the kettle. While waiting for it to boil, she opened the bread bin and pushed two slices into the toaster, collecting the margarine and jam from the fridge in time for them to pop back up. She didn’t feel hungry, the adrenaline yet to fully fade from her body. She knew she had to eat something though which was why she sat at the table with the toast and tea, loading the Internet on her phone. She checked her email, nothing from Lisa. She wondered if Lisa was going to come and visit her. It had been a while since she’d sent her the email and she’d only had a non-committal response back. It wasn’t like it was a thousand miles from Chester to Helmsley. She missed her friend, not something she would ever have admitted to anyone but she did. Much as she liked to think she needed only herself to get by in the
world, she missed her company. Theirs was a shared pain, no one else could possibly know what it was like to have survived contact with the Gamesman after all. Only her and Lisa. Done with her email, she loaded one of her books on the Kindle app and continued reading. She thought about Lisa and about the game he’d made them play, rereading the same sentence again and again, her mind back in the past. The last time she’d felt as scared as she had tonight was when he’d told them it would be their final game. For a while there was a cultural cache attached to having the board game he’d used. The Knights of Yore. Four knights, black, red, white, green. The game was out of print but copies did the rounds on Ebay, normally snapped up by fans of the Gamesman. People idolised him in a love/hate way as they had Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy. That was because they hadn’t lived with it. They could never know what it was like to be handed the canvas with the four knights inside. Martha had learned that if you angled the bag,
you could just make out the colour of the knights before you brought them out. Whoever found the black knight was the ‘winner.’ She would choose the black knight to make sure she won. It was the only way to protect the others. She couldn’t make him stop but at least she could control who he did it to. It was the only power she had and she learned to use it to protect the other girls as best she could. He would always pick one extra girl, make her watch. Lisa had to watch what he did to her on too many occasions. He must have known he was taking a risk, doing it with a witness present. But he didn’t seem to care, pointing out that they would be dead long before he was arrested if they dared tell anyone. “I’ll find out and it’ll be far worse for you. Think anyone will believe you? Go ahead and try it but remember I have the keys to your bedrooms.” In theory, the bedrooms were private. In reality, copies of the keys were easily available, held in the central office in case an evacuation needed to be carried out. Martha was not
surprised to find out Samuel had keys. She’d often found gifts on her pillow, unwanted gifts designed to remind her just how much control he had over her. Underwear that he told her to wear for the next game. Perfume she had no interest in. Books on subjects that repulsed her. She switched off the screen on her phone. It was no good. She wasn’t going to be able to distract herself. There was only one other option. She got most of the way through the vodka bottle before she fell asleep. She had challenged herself to finish the whole thing and she came pretty close. She slept in the armchair in the living room, unaware of the gap in the curtain, oblivious to the pair of dark eyes peering in at her from the courtyard.
SIXTEEN When Ben woke up the next morning, it took a few seconds for him to work out where he was. The surroundings were familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. He sat up and noticed the portrait on the far wall. At once, it came back to him. He wasn’t in Scotland, he was in Helmsley. The portrait was of his grandfather, painted in oils, surrounded by the kind of ostentatious wooden frame that would have been better suited to the Victorian era. He had never liked the portrait, the eyes following him around the room on top of an unsmiling face, as if whatever he did was very much not approved of. Jeremy Robertson, his father’s father. He wondered if Peter had a poor relationship with Jeremy. Were all fathers and sons doomed to fall
out? He could hear Peter in the next bedroom, the bed creaking as he sat up with a groan. Should he have gone home? Avoided the awkward conversation he was about to have? It was a difficult question to answer but it was a moot point anyway. He had stayed the night, sleeping in his childhood bedroom, bereft of any of the things he remembered from his time there. Had they hidden them away somewhere? Boxed them up? Or perhaps got rid of them when he left. Somehow he didn’t think so. If Peter had been so furious with him as to dispose of his things, the picture of him as a child wouldn’t still hang in the office. Climbing out of bed, he opened his bag and dug out a fresh shirt. It was creased from its confinement, not that he minded but no doubt his father would comment on it. Peter didn’t say a thing about his shirt. When he saw Ben walking into his bedroom, he instead said, “You’re still here then.” “Apparently so,” Ben replied.
“Going to stand there all morning or going to make me a tea?” “I’ll put the kettle on if you take your pills.” “You’re my nurse now, are you?” “Just do it. I’ll fetch you some water.” Ben headed downstairs, filling the kettle in the sink, looking out of the window whilst waiting for it to boil. The sun was up. It was a little after eight, later than he would usually rise. But then it had been a long day. He’d spent some time in bed the previous evening thinking about Martha, wondering what had caused her to scream like that. She had acted as if the trespasser had been about to murder her. Was Helmsley so dangerous a place as to warrant a reaction like that? He had looked about fifty to Ben, and in no fit state to attack anyone, his gut filling out his robe far more than was healthy. The kettle flicked off and he made two mugs of tea, leaving his on the table and taking his father’s upstairs with a glass of water. “About time,” Peter grumbled. “And what are
you doing with yourself today?” “I thought I might have a look around the castle.” “Did you now?” A silence descended between them. Peter looked as if he was about to say something but instead he pushed two tablets out of the foil blisterpack, swallowing them with a slug of water, grimacing as he did so. “I’ll see you in a bit,” Ben said, turning and heading downstairs. Whatever his father had been thinking about saying, it had gone. He sat alone in the kitchen and drank his tea, remembering the family meals he’d had at that table. It was strange to think his father lived there alone in what had once been a house for four. The perfect nuclear family. Boy, girl, mother, father. What would become of the place if his father did agree to sell to Alex? Would it be turned into another holiday rental cottage? The idea made the tea taste bitter and he drained the last of it down the sink before slipping on his shoes and heading outside.
The sun was fighting its way through a bank of clouds, flashes of light between grey gloom. The wind had died down since last night but was still lingering, as if it was waiting for a chance to come back. He walked around Helmsley for a while, passing through the empty marketplace, down to the river and then back up again, each location linked to a memory in his past. The tunnel where the stream fed under the road and then out to the river, forced into that tunnel by Alex and told not to come out ever again. There was a little lip of stone about ten feet into the tunnel. He wondered if it was still there. He’d sat at that makeshift seat and waited for an hour before tentatively emerging, ready to dive back in should Alex still be there. He wasn’t of course. The tree that he used to climb, the wide branch that was his base for watching the birds had snapped off, leaving a jagged stump. The bookshop he so enjoyed browsing through was now a cafe. The Helmsley of his past was gone, the
only part of it that remained was the castle, unchanged, still watching over the rest of the town. He walked back past the visitor centre, noticing it was open. Pushing the door open, he stepped inside. The place looked different in daylight, the large glass windows letting in plenty of light where the night before they’d been black as if they were painted that way. Martha was behind the counter talking to a man and a little girl. He stood watching the man talk to the girl, unable to stop himself from comparing their interactions to that of him and his father. Were they father and daughter? No, he just heard her call him Granddad. Martha gave him a smile before continuing to talk to the pair in front of her. He smiled back, waiting for them to finish. As he stood there, the phone in the office began to ring. “Excuse me a second,” Martha said to the man in front of her, leaning round him to look at Ben. “Would you mind getting that? If it’s Chloe, tell
her I’ll ring her back in a minute.” Ben nodded, heading into the office and picking up the phone. “Hello?” “Ben?” His father’s voice. “What are you doing answering the phone? Where’s Martha?” “She’s busy with some visitors.” “Right. Well is Joanne there?” “I don’t know.” “Well find out.” Peter coughed loudly. Ben left the phone on the desk, sticking his head back out of the office. “Is Joanne here?” he shouted across to Martha. “She’s in the stockroom. Who is it?” “It’s my Dad.” He turned back to the phone, picking it up. “She’s in the stockroom apparently.” “Right, when she comes out, get her to take over. I want to speak to Martha. You as well.” Ben went to reply but Peter had already hung up.
SEVENTEEN Martha was just finishing talking her first visitors of the day through the map of the site when Ben came back out of the office. She glanced up at him before continuing with her talk. “And that will take you round to the gatehouse, worth looking for the remains of the portcullis while you’re there.” “That’s great,” the man said, still looking at her rather than the map. He’d already made her feel uncomfortable when he first came in, not taking his eyes off her as he crossed the floor towards the till. Even when his granddaughter spoke to him, she had to tug his arm to get his attention. Chloe had texted first thing to says she was still ill and wouldn’t be coming in. Martha gave Joanne
a ring in the hope she’d be able to fill in. Luckily, she could. Martha had set her to work in the stockroom when she arrived, pricing up the delivery from two days earlier that should have been out on the shelves already. Once that was organised, Martha was ready to open, leaving the doors unlocked whilst she did her best to do the paperwork behind the till. She was glad when the man and his granddaughter walked in, an excuse to stop totting up how much people had spent the previous day, how much they hadn’t and every permutation demanded by Peter’s esoteric accounting system. “Good morning,” the man said, smiling expectantly at her, not blinking. “Good morning,” she replied, piling the paperwork together as she spoke. “Coming for a look round?” “Yes, please,” he replied, still not blinking. Although he was smiling, the look in his eyes was disquieting. “Well it’s six pounds for adults but luckily for
you,” she nodded down at the girl who was glancing behind her at the princess costume in the window, “children are free.” The man handed her a ten pound note and she opened the till to retrieve his change. “Been here before?” she asked. “No, never.” “On holiday are you?” “That’s right, just up for a few days.” “Well, here’s the map. You’re here.” She was explaining the site to him when she noticed someone in the doorway. It was Ben. He looked tired, as if he hadn’t slept. She wondered if she should introduce him to the vodka based sleeping system she’d developed. Her hangover suggested it might not be the best solution but at least it had meant she slept. When he came out of the office after answering the phone, he walked over in time for her to finish up with the man and his granddaughter. “Have a good time,” she said as they walked over to the door that led into the site. “We will,” the girl said back over her shoulder
before vanishing outside. “Peter wants to see you,” Ben said when they’d gone. “In fact he said he wants to see both of us.” “Really, what about?” “He didn’t say. He just said to leave Joanne in charge and come over to the house.” “Intriguing.” “That’s one way of putting it.” “Hold on a second.” Martha left him by the till, crossing to the stockroom and pushing the door open. Joanne, can you cover the tills for a bit. The master calls.” “Ooh, what have you done?” Joanne asked, getting up from the floor, pricing gun still in her hand. “We’ll soon find out. See you in a bit.” Joanne walked out of the stockroom, positioning herself behind the till, nodding at Ben who smiled back before following Martha out of the door and around to the courtyard, passing several people heading into the visitor centre from the car park. Peter was in the living room when they walked
in, a pile of papers on his lap. Martha frowned at him. “I hope you’re not going to tell me you’re coming back to work yet,” she said. “You’ve still got a bandage on your head.” “The nurse has already been to change it,” he replied, motioning for them both to sit on the sofa opposite. “I’ll be right as rain before you know it.” “That’s good to hear. What about the car?” “That’s going to take a little longer. I’ve just spoken to the insurers. But that’s not to talk about now. I’ve got something important to say and I wanted you both here to hear it.” “If it’s an itch on your leg, I can’t help you,” Martha said, nodding at the plaster cast. “I thought I might die,” Peter said bluntly. The smile fell from Martha’s face at those words and she sat perfectly still while he continued. Next to her, Ben remained silent. “I need someone to look after this place once I’m gone. I’ve been going through all this and if I go without getting this-” he held up a piece of paper, “-signed, then Erin gets it and I know
exactly what she has planned. Advertising slogans draped from the walls, the back field replaced with tarmac and fairground rides. I’m not having it.” He leaned across to the small table next to him, picking up a pen and signing the bottom of the paper in his hand, leaning on the other documents, wincing as the action put pressure on his leg. “Martha, I want you to promise to look after the place when I’m gone.” Martha could hardly believe what he’d said. She was so sure she’d misheard, she just smiled. “Sorry, what?” “If you sign this, the place will be yours after I’m dead.” Ben sat bolt upright. “Are you serious?” “What? Thought you were getting it? You’ve shown your true mettle, disappearing at the first sign of trouble. You can’t be trusted, Ben. Martha on the other hand, she’s never once let me down.” “So you’re giving her a castle worth millions to teach me a lesson about trust?” “What would you have me do? Sell it to Alex?”
“No but-” “It’s a done deal.” Martha coughed, drawing their attention towards her. “I don’t want it,” she said quietly. “Excuse me?” Peter replied, looking astonished. “I can’t take it from Ben. It’s not right.” “Has he told you to say that?” Ben jabbed his finger at his father. “You think I’d do that? How could I? I didn’t even know what you had planned until just now did I?” Peter turned away from him to look at Martha, pleading with her. “Please, take it,” he said. “I need to know the place will be safe, not some bloody theme park.” “I don’t know,” Martha said. “It’s a lot to take in.” “Of course. Take your time. I know it might be a bit of a shock. Why not think it over?” The pleading tone was still evident in his voice. Martha stood up and crossed to the door, looking back at them both. She thought about saying something but then didn’t, heading outside
and around to the castle. Luckily, Joanne was busy talking to a family which meant Martha could bypass her and get onto the site. She slowed down her walk when she had crossed the drawbridge. She looked up at the East Tower. She couldn’t take it. Peter wasn’t thinking straight. That was the only reasonable explanation. He couldn’t really want her to look after the entire place. What did she know about owning a castle? It was one thing to welcome people in and sell them postcards, it was something else to protect part of the heritage of the nation. It was too much responsibility. But was it? There was a part of her that had been excited by the very idea. She’d stamped on that part but it bubbled back up as she walked into the chapel. She was about to head out of the other side when she noticed something in the corner by the remains of the altar. Thinking it was a piece of litter, she headed towards it, stopping dead at the last second as she realised what it was. Sitting poking up out of the grass was something that could not possibly have come to
be there accidentally. Martha blinked as fear rose up inside her, unable to breathe, unable to think, she could only stare at the sight of a one inch high gaming figure. She realised at once what it was, it was a black knight.
EIGHTEEN “I thought you’d fight more,” Peter said. Ben looked across at his father. He felt sorry for him more than anything. Not because of the bandages and the broken leg but because of the way he was speaking, deliberately antagonising. Was he just trying to call his bluff? “If you want to give the place to Martha, that’s entirely up to you.” “You’re trying to trick me, I know you are.” “I’m really not. I came down to see you, that’s all.” “So why are you still here?” Ben thought for a second before answering. Why hadn’t he gone back to Scotland yet? He could tell himself it was because Martha had suggested he stay, try to work things out with his
father. Or he could admit the truth. He didn’t want to leave yet because he didn’t want to say goodbye to Martha yet. Was that a good enough reason? When had he realised that? Was it when he’d first met her in the doorway of the house? No, not then. It was later. When she’d screamed and he’d run to her. The look on her face had troubled him and he wanted to know what had caused it, what had made her so afraid, her eyes glazed over as if she wasn’t even there anymore, as if she was somewhere far away in either distance or time. “I’m thinking of staying for a little while,” he said out loud, noticing his father was waiting for an answer. “That’s all.” Peter nodded slowly. “I see.” A wry smile appeared on his lips. “What? What are you smiling at?” “Nothing. Well, seeing as you’re here, would you mind fetching the green file out of the shed?” Ben stood up. “Happy to.” He walked out of the house feeling as if he’d been winded. That was the calmest conversation
he’d had with his father for as long as he could remember. He’d even elicited a smile from him, though he had no idea why. He headed out of the courtyard, through the path along the edge of the car park and then into the visitor centre. Joanne was behind the counter. “Can I help you?” she asked as he walked in. “I don’t think we’ve met, I’m Ben, Peter’s son.” “Oh, of course. I thought I recognised you.” She saw his confused look. “From the photo in the office. You’ve hardly changed a bit. If you’re looking for Martha, I saw her heading through a couple of minutes ago.” “Thanks. Have you got the key to the shed by any chance?” “Martha’s got it on her, I think. Do you want me to go find her?” “No, it’s all right. She can’t have gone far. Well, nice to have met you Joanne.” “And you.” She smiled in the same way his father had done as he turned and headed outside. The sun was just breaking through the clouds as he walked along the gravel path, pausing for a
moment by the model of the castle. It stood on a base of reused stone. He remembered when that base was built. He’d sat on the grass bank of the earthwork and watched his father mixing the cement together on a flat wooden board. He ran his fingers along the bronze castle, something he hadn’t done since he was a child. Then, shaking his head as if to clear away a cobweb or two, he carried on, around the corner and then over the drawbridge. No trolls today, he thought as he crossed, another childhood memory coming back to him. The longer he spent on and around the site, the more he remembered what he liked about the place. How had he forgotten about the drawbridge? About running over it in fear in case a troll reached up with long hairy arms to grab him and pull him down. On the far side, he paused, looking across the grass, hoping to spot Martha. There was a family coming out of the underground store room in the corner by the gatehouse. Two children were just heading into the great hall. She was nowhere to
be seen. He walked forwards, catching sight of something out of the corner of his eye. Glancing across at the chapel, he saw what it was, the top of Martha’s head visible behind the wall, her hair blowing in the wind. He walked over, calling her name as he did so. As she came into view he realised something was wrong. She was standing perfectly still, her arms out in front of her as if she was pushing something away. Her neck muscles stood out like cords and she was muttering something, shaking her head slowly, staring past him, then through him as he stopped in front of her. “Martha?” he asked, waving his hand in front of her face, “are you all right?” She blinked, her eyes focusing on him at last. She looked pale, all the colour drained from her face. “Wh…what?” “Are you all right?” She leaned past him, looking down at the ground, squinting as she did so. He turned to see what was holding her attention and noticed something sticking up through the grass. “What is
that?” he asked, walking over to it. He bent down and picked it up. It was a tiny little black knight, made out of stone, ivory perhaps, and about an inch tall. “Is this out of the shop?” he asked, holding it in the flat of his hand. “Put it away,” she blurted out, bursting into tears a second later. “All right, I’m sorry,” he said, slipping the knight into his trouser pocket. “Hey, come here.” He put an arm around her shoulder and she glared at him as if she was about to push him away. But then she let him lower her onto the wall next to her, the two of them sitting together, his arm resting on her shoulder. “It’s okay,” he said. “What’s wrong?” “Nothing,” she snapped, wiping her face. “I’m fine.” “You’re not fine. What’s the matter? Has something happened?” “I told you, I’m fine. What are you doing out here anyway?” “I came looking for you.” Her eyes narrowed. “What for?”
“I know you came out here to think but I need the key to the shed.” “Here,” she said, pulling a keychain out of her pocket. There were no less than twenty keys attached to it but she immediately spotted the one he needed, working it loose before passing it to him. “Leave it in the office when you’re done,” she said, getting to her feet and marching away without another word. Ben watched her go, bewildered by her behaviour. He didn’t for one moment think it had anything to do with the plastic knight in his pocket. It never occurred to him that something so small and insignificant could trigger that kind of a response. He felt something in his hand and looked down, seeing the key there and remembering what he was supposed to be doing. He headed out of the chapel and across the grass to the far side of the site. What everyone who worked there called the shed was in reality the old entrance booth. Made of concrete with a wooden roof, it had served its
role for fifty years before the visitor centre was built. Positioned by the old entrance to the castle, where the Lords on horseback would have ridden in, it was no longer in use except as storage. Ben unlocked the door and flicked on the light, surprised that the bulb still worked. The place was filled to the rafters in place. Directly in front of him was the shuttered window where the owners used to sit and serve the public. Below that was a rusting freezer, he could remember digging ice lollies out of that long ago. There was a set of metal shelving to his left, each shelf filled with files and boxes. He had to squeeze through the piles of old guidebooks on the floor to get to the shelves. The green file was on the second shelf down and as he reached for it, he caught sight of a painting on the next shelf below. He reached down and picked it up, examining it closely. It was a painting of the castle on a heavy piece of paper. Not professionally done but completed with love, in watercolours that had faded a little. He remembered the day Zoë painted that. It was
the height of summer. She had set up her easel by the great hall, capturing the East Tower and the town beyond, her tongue stuck out of the corner of her mouth when he found her. It felt very strange to look at the painting, knowing the person who had completed it was dead. Holding it felt almost like connecting with her, as if he could almost reach out and feel her hand reaching back towards him, her tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth in concentration. In his head she was ten, painting the castle, not sixteen as she was when she died. How had the painting ended up in here? It didn’t deserve to be dumped in storage and forgotten. It felt too much like Zoë had been dumped there too. He carried it and the file out of the shed, locking the door behind him. He would give his father the file but the painting he was keeping for himself. That was going on the wall in his room for as long as he stayed. He thought about Zoë as he walked back, about how things were back then, how happy the
family had been. The rot had set in with her death. Something had broken in their home and it was never fixed. His mother became bitter, his father a workaholic. He was angry too, feeling that he was to blame for her drowning, that he should have been there to stop her, to save her. He still felt that guilt whenever he thought about her, about the girl who liked to paint. He wondered if his mother thought of her, if she cared that what she was doing was an affront to the memory of her daughter.
NINETEEN Erin Robertson didn’t go by that surname anymore. She had returned to her maiden name of Gulber, a name she hated, the sound of it grating to her ears. Whenever she heard the name used, she thought of her mother, shrieking at her father as she put her hands over her ears to drown out their argument. Returning to the name Gulber had not been pleasant but it had been necessary. She had no intention of being associated with the name Robertson after the divorce. She wanted a clean break to start again. While Ben was thinking about Zoë, Erin was thinking about the castle. She was on the phone to Alex. He was at the office whilst she sat at home, a glass of wine half drunk in front of her.
She had spent the morning looking through the contract for the food stalls. If they didn’t get things sorted soon, the deals would fall through and Alex was making sure she hadn’t forgotten that fact. “He was your husband,” Alex was saying. “You should be able to make him see sense.” “I was never able to make him see sense,” she replied with a sigh. “It’s not my fault.” “What the hell happened anyway? I thought he was halfway into a coffin?” She winced at his choice of language but didn’t let her reaction escape into her tone of voice. “I have no idea but he’s home and we just have to deal with that fact, don’t we?” “What we have to deal with is that I have spent a fortune lining up investors for this and if we don’t have something solid by the end of the month, we’re both up sh*t creek.” “He’ll sell.” “How can you be so sure?” “Because if it’s a choice between selling and giving it to Ben, he’ll sell.” “I hope you’re right because if you’re not-”
“I know, I know. Just be patient, it’ll all be fine. This time next year, we’ll be millionaires.” “Or out on the street. Have you any idea what the mortgage is on my place?” Erin knew exactly how much was owing on the place. She just wished she’d known before hooking up with Alex. He had come across as richer than Croesus but in reality had been hiding a multitude of financial sins. “Try and relax, Alex. There’s no point being a millionaire if you’re dead of a heart attack before you have a chance to enjoy it.” They were overstretched, there was no other way of putting it. Bribing council officials for the relevant permissions was not cheap. Alex was in the red for a little over half a million and buying the castle seemed to be their only way out. The money had been borrowed off the back of returns that were almost too good to be true for the investors. They would only become true if Peter, the stubborn bastard, agreed to sell. Once they had the castle in their hands, they could get the ball rolling. The concession stands,
the car park meters, the enlarged shop, turning the great hall into a conference and wedding venue. It was all on hold until he sold. She had no idea just how stubborn he’d be. Twice she’d rung him since the accident to persuade him to accept the offer, twice she’d been rebuffed as if they had no history together at all. The marriage seemed to count for nothing. Peter point blank refused to deal with her or Alex. She drained the last of the glass before pouring out another generous measure. She might have sounded calm and reassuring to Alex but inside she felt a cold dread that the alcohol was doing little to thaw. What happened if it all fell through? Could they recoup enough to at least keep the house? The figures suggested it was very much touch and go. All she could do was wait for the right moment. Something had to come up soon. After finishing the second glass, she passed through to the lounge, standing in front of the window and looking out into the town. Their house was situated on top of a hill, high
above Helmsley. From where she was, she could just see the castle tower, down in the valley far below her. Should she have confided in Alex? Should she have kept secret that she had sold off a number of the artefacts from the castle? Ones that were officially still in storage? The paperwork said they were there but the objects themselves were in the hands of private collectors only too happy to ask few questions. All that mattered to them was owning items of huge historical significance. She felt trapped. Alex knew what she’d done. If the sale fell through, she had the horrible feeling the truth might slip out, revenge for her failure to assist in his grand scheme. But then if Peter were to happen to visit the store and find the pieces missing, what then? There was no proof that she had taken them but that didn’t stop her worrying. The guilt was overwhelming at times. She decided to ring Joanne that evening, see if she could get anything out of her that she could use to her advantage. She might get lucky. Peter might not have been paying his taxes, cooking the books to increase his profits. It wasn’t likely but it
was worth a shot. She didn’t have time to stop and think about Zoë, or to think about the part that her choice of business and life partner had played in her daughter’s death. She was too busy worrying about herself.
TWENTY Jenny was sitting on one of the many benches dotted around the castle site. She didn’t know it but the one she’d chosen was the one Martha always chose when she had time to spare, the one where she liked to sit and read on sunny days. It was located on the north side of the grounds, between the great hall and the underground storeroom in the corner. Behind the bench the curtain wall reached almost full height. That meant the wind, so bitter for the last few days, was kept mercifully at bay. Jenny was doing her best to listen to her Granddad talking about the castle, giving her a potted history of the site. Her mind kept wandering though. She wondered if she could perhaps ask him the question today.
She had wanted to ask Timothy for a long time. Since she was little, she had noticed the scars on both his hands, rippled and darkened flesh that ran up his arms past the elbows. She had asked her mother what they were from but was never able to get a satisfactory answer. She was also warned never to ask Timothy. “He doesn’t like to talk about it so you just mind your own business, okay?” But her mother wasn’t around. She was alone with Granddad and he seemed in a pretty good mood. He was enthusiastically talking about the destruction of the East Tower, how the wall had been pulled down by the grappling hooks of Cromwell’s army. “Imagine the noise of it,” he said, glancing at her before looking back at the tower. “Standing for four hundred years and brought down in moments, forever uninhabitable.” Jenny nodded. “I’m sorry, I’m rambling,” Timothy said. “It’s fine,” Jenny replied, looking at his hands again. “Granddad, can I ask you something?”
“Of course you can.” His eyes tracked a man in a red raincoat walking slowly past, the man had an audiotour glued to his ear. “How did you get those scars?” She regretted asking him as soon as the words were out of her mouth. The half smile that had been on his lips vanished in an instant. His eyes narrowed and he suddenly looked incredibly sad. He shifted in his seat, twisting his hips so he was facing her better. “Did your mother never tell you?” Jenny shook her head. “She told me not to ask you about it.” “I suppose she had her reasons. You’d only just been born when it happened.” He looked intensely at her, examining her for a moment. “Are you sure you want to know?” “I do.” “There was a fire at the place where I used to work. It was a care home, do you know what one of those is?” “Sure, like Tracy Beaker.” “Exactly like that. Well, at this one some of the
children who were there got trapped inside during the fire. I had to break a door down to get into the room where they were. I managed to get two of them out but I…I couldn’t save them all.” His voice faded into nothing. “So you burned your arms rescuing them?” He nodded slowly, looking into the distance. “I didn’t rescue them all.” “What were their names, the ones you managed to save.” “Martha and Lisa.” Jenny didn’t say it out loud but she knew the name Martha. Where from? Then she remembered. The woman in the visitor centre. It was on her name badge. Was that the same woman? Surely it was just a coincidence. “What caused the fire?” He was silent for a moment. “Someone started it.” “Who? Was it one of the kids?” “No, it was someone who worked there.” “How did you find out who did it?” “Let’s go get something to eat, we’ve been
sitting here long enough.” He was up and walking across the grass before Jenny knew what was happening. She got up and jogged after him, catching up as he reached the side of the chapel. She slipped her hand into his. He looked down at her, his eyes wet. Then he looked away again.
TWENTY-ONE Ben saw Jenny and Timothy walking across the grass towards him, hand in hand. The sight made him smile. He had his sister’s painting in one hand and the green file in the other. He was on his way back to the house but had stopped by the drawbridge for a moment. From where he stood, he could see where Zoë had sat down to paint the picture. Close his eyes and he could imagine she was there at that very moment, tongue out, brush in hand, the sun high in the sky above her. Back when he’d been in primary school, Zoë had been the only one who’d been able to stop Alex from bullying him. It was strange to think how much things changed in a few short years. When he was thirteen, he was in a fight with Alex, the
first proper fight they’d had in a while. It was outside the Portacabins that served as extra classrooms. The school had expanded beyond it’s ability to house all the pupils enrolled. About twenty years earlier, Portacabins had been built on the edge of the field, the plan being for them to serve while money was raised for new school buildings to be constructed. The money was never found and the Portacabins had lasted long beyond their supposed five year lifespan. By the time Ben was there, they were damp and mouldy. They also had dead space between them, dead space where Ben would try and hide during break times, keeping away from Alex as best he could. He was there on his own when Alex found him. “All right, Billy no mates,” Alex said, walking towards him with a grin on his face, giving him a shove backwards into the splintery wooden wall behind him. Ben saw red. He had no idea why after so long of putting up with the abuse. But that day, for whatever reason, something inside him snapped
and he lunged at Alex, lashing out with one ineffectual punch after another. None of the blows were particularly strong but Alex was surprised enough to stagger back, tripping over the paving slab behind him as he reached the path. He fell back just as Zoë appeared from the door of the canteen, walking up the steps towards them. Ben could picture the sequence of events as if they had just happened yesterday. Him and Alex trading blows, his sister coming running up, telling them to stop, getting caught in between them. Then time slowing down as one of Alex’s fists caught her on the jaw. She spun away, skidding back down the steps, landing on her side. Then events sped up again. The memories blurring. Alex told everyone who’d listen that Ben had hit his own sister. He had expected her to tell the truth, to correct the lies, to back him up when he tried to explain what had really happened. But of course she was dating Alex by then. She never even thought about it. Never hesitated, defended her love, not her sibling. From that day
on, everyone thought he’d punched his own sister, sent her sprawling down a flight of stairs, given her a swollen jaw. Their parents were furious, choosing to believe Zoë over him. He sometimes thought that was why they considered him responsible for what happened on the night that she died. That he was enacting some kind of bizarre revenge for getting a temporary exclusion five years earlier, as if he was capable of that level of spite, as if he could ignore his own sister while she was drowning. He loved her. Despite her lies, despite her dating his mortal enemy, the boy who made his life a misery. He still loved her. True, he had been there the night she died. But he was doing what he thought was best. She had rung him from Alex’s house, telling him she needed picking up, that she’d been in an argument. He’d set off straight away, telling her he’d wait at the edge of Alex’s estate. Or his father’s estate as it was then. He’d sat in his car and waited for her. And waited.
It was just after eleven o’clock at night, pitch black. It had stopped raining an hour before and the ground was still soaking wet. She had a torch on her phone but either she hadn’t used it or she’d forgotten about it. He was able to piece together what happened from the inquest afterwards. She’d walked out of the back of Alex’s house, drunk as a skunk. She’d staggered around the side of the house and then instead of getting onto the drive, she’d taken the track to the left by mistake. After a minute or two of walking, she’d slipped on the wet grass and slid down the side of a ditch that had recently been dug to sort out the drainage problems towards the edge of the estate. She’d hit the bottom of the ditch and blacked out, her head under water, tangled in a mess of weeds. She was found the next morning. She was dead within minutes of hitting the water. All the while he was sitting in the car, wondering where the hell she was. If only he’d gone to look for her, if only he’d not been so petty as to refuse to set foot on Alex’s land. But if only if
only would not bring her back. Her death had destroyed the family. For his father to blame him, to even hint that he might have let her die, it was too much to bear. Was it all his fault though? If he’d driven up to the house, she might still be alive. But he’d just assumed she had made up with Alex and after an hour of waiting, he’d rung, got no answer, then left a message cursing her for mucking him about before going home and going to bed, waking up the next morning to two police officers in the house, his mother in floods of tears, his father glaring at him as he came downstairs. Watching Jenny and Timothy holding hands brought it all back to him, how the family had been when he was young versus how it was now. Broken forever. Never to be healed again. He began walking again, heading into the visitor centre and finding Joanne behind the counter, telling Jenny and Timothy where the nearest cafes were. Once they’d headed out, she turned to him. “Find what you were looking for?” she asked.
He waved the file. “I’ll leave the key with you if you like.” “That’s fine, I’ll pass it on to Martha.” She smiled. “So how long have we got the pleasure of our company for?” “Probably another day or two.” “Then where are you headed? Where’s home for Mr Benjamin Robertson?” “Back up to Scotland.” “Oh, whereabouts in Scotland?” “Jude Island.” “I don’t know that one.” “Not many people do.” She glanced around her, as if making sure the visitor centre was empty. “Between me and you,” she said, her voice low. “You’re probably doing the right thing.” “Oh, really?” “Yeah. I don’t know how much your Dad’s told you but this place is losing a lot of money. I’d hate for you to see it get closed down.” “Right, well I better get back. Speak to you in a bit.”
Ben couldn’t get out of there fast enough. There was no reason for her to tell him that. She’d shoehorned it into the conversation. For the life of him, he couldn’t work out why but then it hit him. Was she working for Alex? It would make sense. Was she getting paid to spy on the place? The easiest way to find out was to see just how much money the place was making. But to do that he’d need his father’s permission to look at the accounts. Or maybe not. Maybe he could talk to Martha instead. The thought of an excuse to talk to her made him strangely excited. He had completely forgotten about the black knight in his pocket.
TWENTY-TWO Timothy sat with Jenny in the Old Police Station cafe. From his seat he could look outside at the day-trippers parking up and stretching their legs. Jenny was demolishing her piece of chocolate cake at record speed but he had yet to take a bite of his slice of lemon drizzle. His tea was also ignored. He was thinking about Jenny, about how she was just a couple of years older than Martha when it had all happened. He wanted to wrap her up in cotton wool, lock her away somewhere so nothing could happen to her. It was a thought that hurt him. The reality of the world was that you couldn’t protect those you love from every danger that lurked out there. All you could do was try to equip them with the
ability to take on the world. Had he brought Cathy up well? Sometimes she seemed to hate him. Yet she had asked him to look after Jenny completely out of the blue. She must still have some feelings for him. He leaned back in his chair, refusing to think about the fire. But then if he did that, the thought of Samuel came back to him, the thought of Lisa, of what had just happened to her. How she’d been left in that bathtub. It shocked him to think of her. He’d not thought of her for some time and he felt guilty, as if his every moment should be spent mourning her, as if he had no right to think of anything else. He pushed his plate away, knowing that his appetite wasn’t going to come back. “Enjoying it?” he asked. Jenny nodded, grinning with chocolate smeared over her teeth. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he said. “Well, when you’re done we can take a walk up onto the moors if you like, or pop into the book shop down that way.” “Books,” Jenny said, spraying crumbs across the
table. She put her hand over her mouth and giggled. “Sorry.” “Books it is,” he replied, picking up a napkin and gathering up the crumbs. “If you promise not to spray me with food anymore.” Was Samuel out there at that very moment? He couldn’t stay in the castle the entire time, not without drawing attention to himself. But he could still remain vigilant, ready to act as soon as he was needed. He tried not to think about what he might have to do, about what would happen if he failed. Instead he made himself think about Jenny, helping her to choose a mountain of books from the bookshop to take back to the holiday cottage. He told himself he was only buying them to stop her getting bored if the storm that was due hit early. But in the back of his mind he knew that if she was occupied reading, he would better be able to keep an eye on Martha, watch her at work, be ready to save her from Samuel. Once he showed up. He had no idea that Samuel was sitting just two
tables away from him, eyes fixed on Jenny.
TWENTY-THREE D.C.I Gregg stood in the reception area of the Beeches Care Home thinking what a waste of his time all this was. He’d travelled there against his better judgment and all because of a hunch. The classic detective’s hunch. This one hadn’t paid off. Something had been off about Timothy Burleigh and he needed to know what it was. It would niggle at him otherwise. He wasn’t the only detective working on the Lisa Kirke case but he was the only one who thought Burleigh hadn’t done it. The rest of the team was working on the assumption that the old man had killed her, for reasons they had yet to work out, then rung the police deliberately to throw them off the scent. Gregg wasn’t so sure. Ever since he’d begun his training, he had followed his instincts. They hadn’t
let him down yet. He had searched the house and found the letters, had found a link to this Martha Coleman. She was next on his list of visits. No one else was interested in her yet. They were all digging into Timothy’s background. He wanted to know what link the old man had to this place. His background said he used to fund this place, that was his link to Lisa and to Martha. But no one he’d spoken to remembered him. Nobody even knew his name. He’d seen the paperwork that showed the site had been sold after the fire that had killed three of the girls and an employee, the man who became known as the Gamesman. He intended to look at the details of the deaths when he got back. First he wanted a feel for the place. He’d found nothing. There was no remains of the old building. What had been left after the fire had been pulled down and a replacement built shortly afterwards. The new owner, a Mr Lancet, had told him as much, backing up the paperwork. “I took over in 2008, he said during the interview. “I’m sorry I
can’t be more help. Apparently, Mr Burleigh hadn’t been on site since the fire and had basically switched off from what he should have been doing.” “And what should he have been doing?” Gregg asked, sitting in Lancet’s office. “More hands on. Not leave it all to the site manager. You can’t just invest and expect a return on this kind of place. It’s a home for children who have lost everything. All I ever saw Mr Burleigh do was potter about in the garden.” “Did he ever talk to you about Samuel Lyons?” It was the only time the light faded in Lancet’s eyes. “That was a tragic case but you must understand things were different back then. Background checks weren’t carried out as thoroughly as they are now. If they had been, he would never have been employed here.” “Was Mr Burleigh responsible for hiring him?” “No, that was the manager at the time.” “And that was?” “Adrian Ferns.” “Do you have his details handy at all?”
“I’m afraid he died not long after the fire.” “Did he? Do you know what from?” Lancet lowered his voice. “Suicide. He felt responsible for what had happened.” “I’m sorry. I didn’t realise.” “You couldn’t be expected to know. And that’s all in the past now. We’re a very different place D.C.I Gregg.” “I’m sure you are.” The interview had gone on for most of the morning but it had been almost a total bust. All he had found out was that Burleigh was hands off, leaving Ferns to make all the decisions, and to take the blame for what Samuel Lyons did. It was when he was leaving the building that he finally got a decent lead. He had said goodbye to Lancet. He had stood in reception, thinking this had been a waste of his time. Then he had walked out of the front door and as he did so, a caretaker had beckoned him over to the corner of the building. “You’ve been asking about the Gamesman?” the caretaker said in a quiet voice, cigarette
sticking from the corner of his mouth. Gregg nodded. “You know something?” “I know that there was a man here at the time who was off the books.” “Who?” The caretaker held his right hand up and rubbed his fingers together. “You don’t get paid much in a job like this.” Gregg sighed, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a twenty. He’d been in this situation before. He could make it formal, take the man in to question. But then he’d clam up and he’d get nothing out of him. “We called him Tony. He was one of them slow people, you know, an idiot.” “Mentally deficient?” “That’s it. That. He hung around the place and helped out a bit.” “And what happened to Tony? Where is he now?” “That’s the funny thing. He vanished the day before the fire. No one ever saw him again.” “Wasn’t he reported missing?”
“Burleigh didn’t know about him. Only Lancet did and he liked him, saved paying for another member of staff.” “What do you think happened to him?” “I think Samuel Lyons was the cleverest man I ever met and if someone that clever got stuck in a room with no escape when it was on fire, I’d be a Dutchman.” “Go on.” “Well, what if your suspect wanted everyone to think he was dead? What would he do?” Gregg shrugged, letting the man talk, just as he’d been trained to do. “He might take someone no one would miss. He might deal with him and then have his body near the chemicals in the storeroom so the heat would be too much to identify him from his teeth. Then when the police start knocking around, they find a man’s body and think all’s well and good. What do you think?” “I think you’ve got a very vivid imagination, Mr…?” “Frank. Call me Frank.”
“You got a surname, Frank?” “Donaldson. What do you reckon, detective?” “Why are you telling me all this, Frank? Why didn’t you say so at the time?” “Don’t you think I did? I tried to tell ‘em. No one would listen. Told me to keep my mouth shut and keep out of it. I knew it’d come back around someday though. As for Burleigh, I never saw a man so torn up. He was obsessed with them girls, never wanted them out of his sight after that.” “What makes you say that?” “You ever save anyone’s life?” “Once or twice.” “You ever run into a burning room and drag two girls out and see three dead ones next to ‘em? Leave your arms scarred to hell by the blaze?” “Can’t say I have.” “Well he did, and he never stopped talking about them. He talked about the girls long before the fire, used to stand and chat about how pretty they all were.” “And were they?” Frank shrugged. “Can’t say I noticed that
much? But Burleigh, he’d have had paintings done of them if he had his way.” Gregg sat in his car five minutes later, running through what he’d learned. There were two options as far as he could tell. One was that Timothy Burleigh was right. Samuel Lyons hadn’t died in the fire and was still out there. He had killed Lisa Kirke and was at that moment travelling to kill Martha Coleman. He’d get the locals to look her up, check she was all right. That would do for now. Not everything Frank had told him had the ring of truth to it. There was a bitterness to his voice. What seemed much more likely than the mysterious Tony being the body in the fire was that Frank had been hard done by when Burleigh was in charge. There was a suggestion of score settling to the things he said. But he had to follow the line of investigation where it would take him. Burleigh could have been obsessed with the girls. Burleigh could have started the fire himself. It wasn’t impossible. He could have found out about Samuel’s history and
known he would be blamed for their deaths. He could have kept tabs on Lisa and Martha afterwards, make sure they stayed quiet about what he’d done. Then when Lisa threatened to talk, he paid her a visit. Then what would he do? He’d pay Martha a visit too. Perhaps tie up the last loose end of the whole thing? The biggest problem with noble man rescuing girls from inferno was that people weren’t that noble. He’d learned that from the years of work on some of the cases that would give the public nightmares to hear about. The balance of probability said that Samuel was dead and that Burleigh was the killer. But did that fit the facts as they stood? He decided he needed to talk to Timothy Burleigh again. Interview him properly. He had let him go because he felt certain he needed to, needed to see what he would do, where he would go.
TWENTY-FOUR Martha sat on a bench at the edge of the castle site, Ben sitting next to her. Behind them was a tall hedge, blocking out the worst of the wind. Behind that was a row of holiday cottages, Martha could just hear a radio playing back there, every now and then a hint of music would make it through the hedge before dying away again. The only other sound was the rustling hedge. Ben was silent, looking deep in thought. She’d found him sat there when she’d done her sweep of the site, preparing for the guided tour she was about to give. She always liked to check there was no litter dotted about, knowing what a poor impression that would give to those who’d paid handsomely for a personalised tour of the castle and its surroundings. The tour group was due to arrive in half an hour, giving her time to see why Ben looked so serious. She was surprised by how happy she was to see him sitting there. She’d already told herself
not to get excited about him being here, about there being a man around her age to talk to. He wasn’t going to be there for long. He would be back in Scotland soon, according to Jenny. But at least she could see what was wrong with him. He’d said little when she sat down, before suddenly asking her what she thought about families. Just out of nowhere. “What do you think of families?” “What about them?” “Is there a normal one, do you think? One where everyone gets on well and they have conversations and meals around the table and days out and things like that?” “I don’t know. What makes you ask a question like that?” He glanced across at her. “I was looking at that guy in with his granddaughter earlier. They looked happy, didn’t they?” “I suppose so.” “Were you happy with your family?” Martha didn’t answer straight away. She’d had several occasions like this, where she had to
choose between lying or telling the truth. Lies meant fewer questions. The truth meant very long conversations that she didn’t often like having. “I guess,” she said, hoping that was a reasonable compromise. The truth but not all the truth. “Were you?” He sighed, stretching his legs out on the grass in front of the bench. “I remember being happy when I was little.” “What was your Dad like? It’s hard to imagine Peter being a parent, or you being little.” “The castle looked bigger, I remember that.” “Is that it?” “He was always busy. There was always something that needed doing. I remember having to play with my sister a lot.” “You have a sister?” “Had. She died.” “Oh, Ben, I’m so sorry.” “You weren’t to know.” He lapsed into silence. Martha looked at him and then out at the site. “I lost someone I loved to,” she said at last. She waited for him to answer
but he continued looking down at the ground so she carried on. “I had some friends, very close friends. They died in a fire.” Ben looked up at her and she caught his eye before looking away, afraid she might cry if she had to look at that compassionate gaze any longer. “I know what it feels like is what I mean to say.” He nodded slowly. “I miss her.” “I understand.” “Martha!” a voice called. Martha looked up to find Joanne panting for breath as she ran over to her, stopping front of the bench. “Your group’s here early,” she said, wheezing loudly. “They want to get started.” “I’m on my way,” Martha said, standing up before turning to Ben. “Are you going to be all right?” “I’m fine,” he said. “Go do your thing.” She tapped the top of his hand, squeezing it gently, feeling the warmth of his skin for a brief moment before turning and following Jenny back to the visitor centre.
The group were all lined up outside, looking like there was an enormous queue to get in. Martha found the group leader, a woman in a business suit with a clipboard in her arms. “This is not a good start,” she said in a strong German accent. Martha resisted telling her she wasn’t due for another twenty minutes, managing a smile as she said, “If you’d like to bring your group through, we’ll get started now.” At the back of the group, someone had joined the queue, unnoticed by the others. As they filed through the visitor centre, he went with them, passing by Martha so close he could smell her. He breathed deep of her scent, his heart racing. Then he passed through into the grounds and waited for her to come out.
TWENTY-FIVE Samuel was entranced by the girl in the cafe. She was so excited by the prospect of going looking for books. He could empathise with how she felt. He was excited too. First of all because he was so close to achieving his life’s ambition that he could barely keep still. Secondly, maybe there was more fun to be had. He knew he should be focusing on his task, on the work that needed to be done. But he couldn’t stop looking at the girl. She had a soft innocence to her face, she had never known true fear, never contorted her face in terror, never screamed for mercy. Did he have time to introduce her to those things? Perhaps. She was pretty too. How would she look running away from him? Begging him to stop? Would she look like Martha did? Would
Martha look like that this time? He watched the girl go out of the door, the wind blowing in for a brief second, making the sugar sachets on his table shift towards him. Once she was gone, he stood up. A tiny part of him wanted to follow her but he had to remind himself to concentrate. Things were moving on at a fast pace and now was not the time to get distracted. He walked out of the cafe and through the town, making his way amongst all the daytrippers, none of them knowing how important he was, how he was going to save them all, how he would have willingly sliced the throats of any of them if they should get in his way. Once he reached the holiday cottage near the castle, he headed through the gate and into the private garden. He was about he go inside when he heard a voice drifting towards him. His ears immediately picked it up, it was her. She was in the grounds of the castle, just the other side of the hedge. He could also hear music coming from the cottage next to his but he tuned that out, honing in on her voice, feeling a flare of jealousy as he
realised she was talking to a man. The cottage was one of three in a row. The first two were owned by Peter Robertson, custodian of the castle. The third was run privately, having been sold off back in the 1920s. Samuel was staying in the one nearest the visitor centre. The cottage itself was a detached house, built of yellowing stone with pantiled roof. It was surrounded by a tall beech hedge, most of the leaves orange and red, ready to fall. The hedge towards the back of the house was the only thing dividing the garden from the grounds of the castle. It was originally part of the surrounding lands, where the serfs would have farmed on behalf of their Lord. On the other side of the hedge, approximately ten feet from where Samuel stood, Martha and Ben were sitting on a bench talking about their respective families. Samuel walked quietly over to the hedge, making sure he couldn’t be seen through it, standing perfectly still and listening. He needed her more scared than this. The scourge was supposed to have set her on edge, the
knight to have intensified her fear. From listening to her, she hardly sounded scared at all. That would never do. He needed her terrified. If the offering was going to succeed, she needed to be utterly petrified. The Gods he worshipped did not like calm, they liked fear, they devoured it. He would provide it for them but he was clearly going to have to work harder to make sure she was ready. As he listened to her voice, he thought about how lucky he was. Modern technology had worked in his favour. First Lisa and then Chloe. Both of them had mobile phones containing fingerprint recognition. Lisa’s phone, accessed with the touch to her hand, had brought him to Martha. Accessing Chloe’s phone had been just as simple. Bound in place, all he had to do was wrench her cold hand away towards the side of the phone, press her finger in place. That was it. Her phone was unlocked. If she was still alive, he might have been able to get the PIN needed to unlock it. But dead, she couldn’t give him the
number. He had cursed himself, thinking he had gone too far, that his plans were about to become unstuck. But then he had found his luck held, her finger on the phone and he gained access. It was so simple to send Martha messages, telling her how ill Chloe was, how she wouldn’t be coming into work for at least a few days, all written in the first person. Martha would have no reason to suspect the messages weren’t coming from her colleague. By the time the truth came out, it wouldn’t matter anymore. He thought about how she’d looked when he spoke to her. How scared would she have been if she’d known what he’d done already. In the cellar of the holiday cottage Chloe lay silently. They could find her after he was done. It wouldn’t matter then. He had one thing he needed to do and he had given no consideration to after. All his attention was fixed on the offering. After didn’t matter. But the girl in the cafe had thrown him. What if there was an after? What if he was still around?
Would the Gods be kind to him? Was his mother already up there? Would she persuade them to let him have a reward? A girl like that would make a perfect reward. He could keep her forever, like a pet. His own special pet who he’d love and feed and clothe and torture. It was a pleasant thought. Through the hedge he heard another woman’s voice, Martha was needed for a tour. He didn’t think for another second. He jogged out of the garden and around to the visitor centre, joining the back of the queuing tour group. He was going to see her up close. He was going to stare at her and she wouldn’t have a clue what was planned for her. He’d look at her, knowing what her body looked like under those clothes. None of the others would know but he would. The queue began to move into the visitor centre. He shuffled forwards with them, a smile flickering across his lips.
TWENTY-SIX Martha stood in front of the gatehouse, waiting for the group to gather around her. Once they were still, she began with the next stage of the tour. “As you can see from these grooves in the walls, this is where the portcullis would have slid up and down, providing a final line of defence along with,” she pointed above her head, “the murder holes. From those, boiling water or oil would be poured, perhaps rocks onto the heads of the attacking force, corralled into this small space. Picture the invaders, hammering at the portcullis, trying to force their way in whilst liquid death splattered onto their heads, breaking in through the chinks in their armour, literally boiling them alive. Is it any wonder that the castle was never successfully assaulted.” She paused for effect
before finishing. “Until the Civil War of course. This way.” With a wave of her arm, she moved on, heading through the remains of the gatehouse and across the grass to the east tower. “Was there any self flagellation here?” someone shouted out. She paused, turning to see who had asked the question. Unable to identify who it was, she spoke to the whole group. “That was more of a monastic tradition. At Rievaulx Abbey, a few miles from here, they have a scourge in the museum and it’s certainly worth a look but as far as we know, there’s never been anything of that nature in the medieval castle here.” She thought about the scourge she’d found in the chapel, about the scourge she’d been forced to use when she was just a child. She had to bite her lip to stop her mind from travelling back. She almost drew blood in her efforts, her lip stinging as she continued with the tour. It never occurred to her that the person asking the question had spoken in perfect English, the rest of the tour group all having thick German accents.
“It is worth mentioning the abbey,” she continued. “It was founded by the owner of this castle, Walter Espec. He was said to have seen a vision of God in the sky although more modern calculations suggest it was a comet rather than a deity above his head. Certainly a celestial being, just not the kind he thought.” That line sometimes got a laugh when she gave the tours but she got nothing back. Perhaps it was lost in translation. “Each year, Espec made the short pilgrimage to Rievaulx, seeking absolution from the battles he had partaken of, and of course checking on the progress of the building work. The abbey was not finished in his lifetime but his descendants continued the pilgrimage and even today we have monks and nuns from all over the world who come here and walk the three miles from here to there along the same track Espec himself followed. But I’m wandering, I was talking about the Civil War, wasn’t I?” She began to explain how the wall of the East Tower had fallen but her mind was still trying to
take her back, fear rising within her as she thought about the scourge, about the knight that she’d found, about how she had a horrible feeling that she was being watched. It felt ridiculous, of course she was being watched, the tour group were all staring at her. But it was more than that. It was the sensation that something was out there, something bad. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t feel that the castle was a sanctuary. She began to feel that maybe she was going to have to move on. She knew Peter wanted her to look after the place but she had to put her own well being first. There was no point remaining at a place where she was beginning to feel permanently on edge.
TWENTY-SEVEN Ben sat with his father feeling oddly at ease. The feeling wasn’t one that he was used to. It was like being little again, as if at any moment his mother and sister might come in and join them for dinner. He was at the kitchen table, a mug of coffee in front of him. At the counter top, his father was slicing carrots, having stubbornly insisted that he was going to make them both lunch. Ben had expected him to give up with plenty of swearing after less than a minute’s effort but the old man was still hard at work, leaning on the counter top, his crutch nearby, ready to grab when he needed to move. “She turned this whole place around,” Peter said, picking up the pile of sliced carrots and dropping them into the waiting pan on the hob.
“Did you know that?” “How did she even end up here? She hasn’t got a local accent.” “It was a few years ago now. We’d advertised on one of those heritage websites for three people, we needed them in the shop. Your mother thought it was a bad idea, shelling out for wages when we didn’t have the profits coming in but it was more complicated than that. We needed more staff to sort the queues out. You can’t sell to people if you haven’t got someone to operate the tills.” “And she just showed up, just like that? And now you want to give her the castle?” “She didn’t just show up, Ben. She worked her fingers to the bone. In six months our profits went up by seventy percent. She was telling me what was selling best, what products to drop, what people were asking for that we hadn’t got. It was only meant to be a temporary contract. The other two went at the end of the season but I kept her on and she’s been pretty much running the place for the last year.”
“Are you still making money, then?” Ben asked, thoughts of what Jenny had said to him fresh in his mind. “More than ever. I spent so long in the red, I hardly know how to feel about being in the black at last. It’s a wonderful feeling and your mother just how to spoil it, trying to persuade me to sell up.” Ben shook his head slightly, not willing to go down that line of conversation. “How much do you know about Martha?” he asked to change the subject. “Do I detect a hint of interest that’s not entirely professional?” Peter replied, reaching for his crutch. “Do you still like peas?” Ben nodded. “I’ll chuck some in.”
TWENTY-EIGHT D.C.I Gregg was glad he got the warrant. It had been touch and go for a while. He had tried simply knocking on Timothy Burleigh’s front door when he finally got there but there was no answer, nor was there any sign of life inside. With the warrant, he was legally permitted to enter. It was a gamble, he’d had to suggest he was more certain that Burleigh was involved in Lisa Kirke’s death than the evidence could back up. If he was wrong, he’d be in a world of trouble. But his instincts had told him to go for it. He sat at Timothy’s computer, working his way through the documents folder. He had just opened a file marked “The Comet,” when his phone rang. He dug it out of his pocket and answered it.
“Chief?” the voice on the other end said. “What is it, Lucas?” “We’ve identified the gaming piece found in her hand.” “And?” “You were right, it is bone.” “Human?” “Looks like it but they’re running a few more tests to be sure. A knuckle bone carved into shape and then painted.” “Any way of identifying the paint? Where it came from?” “Already working on it.” “What’s your gut telling you, Lucas?” “That either Samuel Lyons is back from the dead to pick off the two that got away or our copycat is pretty dedicated to attention to detail. Anything from Burleigh’s computer?” “I’m working on it. Call me when it’s been confirmed and in the meantime, see if you can find Burleigh’s daughter, ask her if she knows where he might have gone.” “Will do.”
Lucas rung off, leaving Gregg to continue trawling through the computer. A message beeped on his phone. They’d found a letter at Lisa Kirke’s house. It was possible that Martha Coleman was working at Helmsley Castle. Gregg looked at the time, making silent calculations. Was he better off finishing looking at the computer? He rang Lucas. “Get over here and take over from me,” he said. “Where you going?” Lucas asked. “Helmsley Castle,” he replied. “She might be there.” “Want me to come with?” “No, there might be something useful on here and if there is, you ring me straight away, all right? I want to know if Burleigh is capable of killing and I think the answer’s somewhere on this computer.” “On my way.”
TWENTY-NINE D.C.I Gregg was listening as he drove. His mobile phone was connected via Bluetooth to the car speakers. Lucas was talking through what he’d been able to find out. “He had a sort of diary on the computer. It’s got a lot in it but no smoking gun as far as I can tell.” “How much detail is there?” Gregg asked, swinging into the middle lane of the motorway to overtake a lumbering supermarket lorry. “A lot. Looks like he sees himself as a bit of a novelist. I’ve been working through it for an hour but it’ll probably take a couple of days to get through it all. Shall I send a copy through to the team?” “Do it but keep it quiet, we don’t want him finding out what we know. What have you found
out about the care home?” “How much time have you got?” “Satnav says another three hours until I get to Helmsley.” Lucas began to read. At first he didn’t tell Gregg anything he didn’t already know but the document filled in some of the blanks for him. Timothy Burleigh had been the main investor in the Beeches Care Home, set up to provide care for maximum of forty-eight children, aged four to sixteen. At the time of the fire, there had been twenty-seven children registered there and three of those had died in the fire. The blaze hit an old classroom that was being used for storage. The room backed onto the cleaning cupboard and the initial assessment was that the fire had begun in there. It was soon established what had actually happened. Samuel Lyons had been taking five of the girls into the old classroom or “game room,” as he called it on a regular basis. There he had forced them to play a board game called The Knights of Yore. The loser of each round had a pay a forfeit,
ranging from kissing him to removing an item of their clothing. Burleigh’s diary didn’t detail all of the forfeits, nor did it go into detail about the other games that Samuel made the girls play. Gregg already knew the details from the interviews that had been carried out with the two survivors. What he cared about was whether Burleigh had become so wrapped up in the world of his former employee that he might be capable of taking over from him, of finishing what he started? It seemed implausible but in all his years with the police, Gregg had seen the almost impossible on several occasions and had learned the hard way that no possibility could be discounted. After all, Burleigh had been the one who found Lisa Kirke’s body. The other possibility was that Samuel Lyons had not died in the fire. Two unlikely leads to follow up. He wondered what might be waiting for him in Helmsley. It could be a dead end. He had forty minutes until he would know one way or another.
Lucas was still talking, giving him more details. Burleigh had apparently lost a fortune when the care home had burned down. The insurers had found a loophole to avoid paying out, something to do with the storage of the chemicals that had caught. He had been left personally liable after taking them to court and losing, leaving him with paying their costs alongside the hit he took over the blaze. It would likely have left him bitter, to have been thrown to the wolves after rescuing two of the girls, running into the blaze to drag one out, only seeing Lisa in the smoke, then catching sight of Martha. He’d burned himself pretty badly doing that and it wasn’t entirely unfeasible that he would build up a resentment of them, seeing them as representing a system that had let him down. His daughter was apparently not happy with him for losing so much money, angry with him for not working for a long time afterwards. He’d been funding the training for her career but the money troubles had brought that to an abrupt halt. Burleigh was a complicated character. From the
sound of his notes, he loved and hated his daughter, a single mother of a little girl called Jenny. He doted on his granddaughter but hadn’t seen her for some time, since Catherine had fallen in with a man called Anthony, a man Timothy hated with a vitriol that dripped out from the words he’d written. There was a lot of anger there. Was there enough anger to make him a killer? “Looks like he was telling the truth,” Lucas said. “About Lisa getting in touch every day. She must have meant a lot to him.” “Or he was controlling,” Gregg muttered, more to himself than to his colleague. He ran through his plan. He would get to Helmsley Castle and see if Martha Coleman was there. If she was, great. He’d find out what she knew about Burleigh and then base his actions on what she told him. If she wasn’t there, then he was back to square one but the team were already working on tracking her down. She was receiving payslips from the castle according to the tax office so the odds were good that he’d find her there, the address he’d been given was a cottage next to the castle.
“I’m almost there,” he said to Lucas. “Keep going through it, see what else turns up. Once I know anything, I’ll be in touch.” He pressed the button on the steering wheel to end the call then turned his attention to his plan, running through it, thinking of the different options that might result from what he found. He had a horrible feeling he might find Martha’s body in the cottage, that Burleigh would go from a person of interest to a murder suspect. If that happened, he’d take a ton of flak for letting him go. He’d have to just take the hit if that was the case. The only way to find out what was really going on was to let Burleigh go and then follow the breadcrumbs, see where they took him. They were taking him to Helmsley. His instinct told him this was where things would come to a head. He just hoped he wasn’t too late.
THIRTY Ben didn’t want to speak to his mother. She’d rung twice already and he knew that if he ignored it this time, his father would answer. He could hear him upstairs, coughing in the bathroom as he cleaned his teeth. Another few seconds and the water would stop running, then he’d hear the phone and want to answer it. Last time he spoke to her was in the castle office. Martha was giving her tour and he was passing through on his way to go get something to eat when Joanne stopped him, passing him the phone. As soon as he heard his mother’s voice at the other end, he hung up. He had no interest in speaking to her. He turned to Joanne. “If she rings again, tell her the succession has been decided.” But if he didn’t answer this time, his father
would get the phone. That was worse. He didn’t want to hear them argue. He picked up the phone, her name flashing on the display unit as he brought it up to his ear. “Hello,” he said but she was already talking, sounding furious. “So he’s giving you the castle, is he? I might have known, that’s just bloody typical of the pair of you. You swan back here after God knows how long and…” Ben smiled to himself. So Joanne had told her about the succession and she’d assumed it meant he was taking over the place. At least he’d proved that Joanne was working with her. That was something he’d need to tell his father at some point, though it was also information that might come in handy, a card to pull out and play when the time was right. “If you sell to Alex once it’s in your name, it’ll be more than worth your while,” she was saying when he tuned back into her voice. “You can go back to wherever you were staying and be a millionaire. I know the place is losing money, Ben.
Do the right thing and we can all come out of this very rich indeed. What do you say?” “I say that’ll be up to the new owner,” he replied, finally able to get a word in. “But I’m going to be doing everything in my power to make sure Dad doesn’t sell.” He hung up on her, feeling his heart race as he did so. He didn’t like making her angry. Despite it all, she was still his mother. This was Alex, poisoning her, whispering in her ear that money was all that mattered. He had long ago established that there were far more important things in life. All the money in the world wouldn’t bring Zoë back to life, wouldn’t put his family back together again. “Who was that on the phone?” Peter asked from the top of the stairs, shuffling slowly down them on his crutches. “Mum,” he said, seeing little point in lying. “She wants you to get me to sell, right?” Ben nodded. “What did you tell her?” “I told her the same as I’m about to tell you. It’s
up to the owner what happens to this place.” “What do you think though? Truthfully?” “I think it’s a castle, not some tacky theme park. I think if you sell to Alexander, I’ll never forgive you and if you don’t, she’ll never forgive you.” “Piss off my son or my ex-wife? What a choice.” “If it tips the scale, I was about to make you a tea.” “Bribery too. I like it. Throw in a slice of cake and that might seal the deal. “I’ll put the kettle on.”
THIRTY-ONE As D.C.I Gregg headed towards Helmsley and Ben sat talking to his father, Samuel Lyons was outside a sawmill. He’d picked this location as the perfect distance to test the response time of the emergency services. He knew there was a difference between police and fire response but he also knew both would need to travel the same distance to get to Helmsley. The car he’d stolen was parked up next to a conveyor belt. The ground was covered in sawdust, perfect for what he had planned. He was excited. By tomorrow morning there would only be two days to go. He couldn’t help but keep checking the skies, in case the comet came early. If it did, he’d have to speed up his
plans. There wasn’t long to go. Martha hadn’t recognised him on the guided tour, giving him a chance to observe her closely for the first time in years. It was one thing to look in through her window at her, it was another to be just a few feet away as she talked about the castle. Her lips moved so seductively and every now and then she’d glanced at him. He’d stiffened each time, thinking about how she used to look. If he closed his eyes for a second or two, he could picture her, naked in front of him, the black knight in her hand, the others crying behind her. Would her skin feel as soft as it had back then? Would she smell as good? Would she cry when he killed her? Would he beg her to let her live? The sense of power was overwhelming. It had been worth the wait to stand so close to her again, to know that in a couple of days he would f*ck her and then kill her, perhaps not even in that order. She would become the offering his Gods wanted. It would be glorious. First he needed to make sure he would have
time. He squirted the last of the lighter fluid across the rear seats. That was when he noticed the rabbit. It was limping, trying to move away from him. It had been hiding under the conveyor belt. The sawmill was along a track in the woods north of Helmsley. There were probably dozens of rabbits that would have run from the sound of the car engine. In the glow of the headlights, one remained, limping slowly, its leg clearly badly damaged. He ran over and leaned down, grabbing hold of it before it could get away. Shushing it quietly, he stroked its fur, walking back towards the car. “You’re a cute little thing,” he said as he placed it on the back seat, stepping back and smiling. The Gods had given him his first offering. It was small but it was a sign. Do this and greater things would be his. Martha would be his. He didn’t hesitate for a second. Flicking the lighter, he held the burning tip to the screwed up paper in his hand. Only when the flames were licking towards his fingers did he toss it in through the open window. Then he faded into the trees
behind him and found a good spot to sit and wait. He started the timer on his watch as he sat there. It was nearly an hour before the fire engine rumbled down the track. By then the car was almost burnt out. Samuel thought about the rabbit, how it would have felt as the car burned around it. Would it have known what was happening? Would it have been afraid? Did it understand his power? Or was it too busy being scared of the growing heat around it? Would Martha feel the same fear when she too felt death approaching?
THIRTY-TWO Ben found Peter in the living room. The wind was building outside. It had been building all day. It looked like there was going to be a hell of a storm but the weather forecast had suggested it might skip Yorkshire and hit further north. There’d been few visitors to the castle all day. Martha had been behind the desk looking bored when he’d been to see her. He was pleased to find her smiling when she realised he was there. She still seemed distracted when he’d talked to her but he suspected that was because she was getting used to the idea of taking over the whole site. He had no idea that Martha was planning to leave, that she’d been sorting things in her house, trying to decide what to take with her and what to leave behind. He had no idea how hard it was for
her to think about leaving the place she loved. But he hadn’t seen the man on the edge of the tour group, the one who wouldn’t stop staring at her, the one who put her more on edge than ever, who reinforced that she was making the right decision. She had to leave. She didn’t feel safe there anymore. All Ben knew was that she smiled when she saw him and that was enough for him. He’d smiled too. The more he thought about the castle, the more he thought he might stay, and the more he thought that a big reason for wanting to stay was so that he could get to know her better. Peter was reading in his armchair, the crutch on the floor next to him, the heating off. He never seemed to feel the cold. He had the obligatory old man blanket over his legs though. That blanket had been over his legs when he read for how long? Ben could remember feeling the roughness of the wool when he was no more than five. It had survived a long time. As had Peter. He looked at his father for a brief moment from the doorway. He had been in a car crash that had
almost killed him and here he was a few days later, carrying on where he left off in his book as if nothing happened. The crutch and the plaster cast the only sign anything had changed. He’d even taken the bandage off his head, only putting it on when he knew the nurse was due to visit. There was a nasty gash on his forehead that was going to leave quite the scar. He didn’t look up as Ben walked in, turning the page in silence. Ben sat on the sofa thinking about the conversation he’d just had. He had bumped into the old man and his granddaughter in the middle of Helmsley. They were on their way back to their cottage from the bookshop down the side of the marketplace. Ben knew that bookshop well. It had been there longer than he had, although the original owner had long since died. Mr Brawley, he had been one of the old fashioned shopkeepers, viewing the admittance of customers as an unfortunate side effect of owning a bookshop. He had a special dislike of children. Whenever Ben had gone in to
buy something with his pocket money, he’d been watched like a hawk. Occasionally he’d been thrown out before he could even look round, warned that “children steal,” without a chance to defend himself. That time was long gone by the looks of the little girl, her arms weighed down with her purchases. They had somehow ended up chatting in The Old Police Station Cafe, itself a relic of the past. In Ben’s childhood, there had still been a local police force, long since amalgamated into a regional headquarters, all the little town police stations closing down when budget cuts kicked in a decade earlier. It had become a cafe and it felt odd to Ben to sit in the same spot where he’d tried to report Mr Brawley for calling him a “little sneak thief.” He’d been laughed out of there, told if they arrested everyone who insulted children, there’d be no room in the cells for the real criminals. At least no one laughed at him this time. He had been served his tea by a teenage girl and he sat with it whilst the old man and his
granddaughter sat opposite him. The old man had introduced himself as Timothy, his granddaughter was Jenny, the two of them on holiday for a week or so. When Jenny had gone to the toilet, located where the cells used to be, Timothy had talked quietly and quickly. “Keep a close eye on Martha for the next few days.” “What? Why? How do you know her?” “I know her from a long time ago and if you care about her, you’ll watch her closely.” “Why? What are you talking about?” “There’s someone else from her past hanging around and he’s up to no good. Here’s my mobile number. Ring me if you see anything suspicious will you?” “Like what?” But then Jenny had reappeared and the conversation had moved on to her book choices. She had waxed lyrical about how much she loved her Granddad, how grateful she was that he had doubled the size of her personal library in the few days they’d been in Helmsley so far.
It had made him think. When he sat opposite his father in the cottage, he continued to think. “I wrote to you,” he said at last. “When I went, I wrote you a letter.” Peter grunted but still didn’t look up. “You never replied.” Peter sighed, putting the bookmark in place before folding the book closed and setting it down on the arm of the chair. He looked up at Ben, his eyes wet. “I’m going to have to sell.” Ben realised he hadn’t been listening to him, he was too lost in his own thoughts. “What do you mean, you’ll have to sell? Why?” “Alex has got the council in his pocket. They’ve found some bloody loophole that if I can’t work, the terms of the contract I have with Historic England is invalid. I’m going to have to go back in tomorrow.” “But that’s stupid. You can’t run the place. You can barely get up and down stairs.” “They’ve got me over a barrel, son.” Ben sat upright, feeling the anger bubbling up inside him. “I’ll make it right,” he said, getting up
and walking over to his father. “Leave it with me.”
THIRTY-THREE Samuel was silent as he dug the things out of his bag. He wanted to sing with the joy he felt in his heart but he knew that was a bad idea. It was gone midnight and if anyone heard singing coming from the altar, they might wonder what on earth someone was doing there that late at night. It was better to be as quiet as possible. Two days to go. Tomorrow would be the penultimate day. Ten years of waiting and it all came down to this. All he had to do was prepare the altar, hide the items he needed. Then he would get Martha here. The system he had devised to do so was perfect. It couldn’t fail. He couldn’t fail. Everything was falling perfectly into place. The fire brigade had taken an hour to get to the
car. If the police response was anything like that, then he should be absolutely fine. By the time they arrived, he’d already be done. It would all be over. What happened after that didn’t concern him. That was in the hands of the Gods. It would be up to them. He might be taken up to join them. He might be arrested, he might be able to run, to start a new life, perhaps wait out another ten years until the next offering. Would they choose him again? It was possible. After all, he’d been chosen once and the odds of that were so small, there had to be a chance he’d be chosen again. He shook his head. Now was not the time to be thinking about that. Now was the time to be making sure everything he needed was to hand, ready for him in advance of the day of the offering. He’d found a loose stone in the wall behind the altar. That was just one more sign that this was meant to be. Into it, he deposited the contents of the bag. The candles, the knife, the lighter. The scourge went in there too, his heart thumping
when that went in, unable to stop himself thinking about making her use it, making her beat the sin out of herself, her pain absolving him of the bad things he’d done to her. They weren’t bad in his mind. Like mother had said, girls were slu*ts and whor*s. Their bodies were designed to trap people like him. He couldn’t be blamed when he fell for the charms of their flesh. He was only human. Not for much longer, he thought to himself as he slid the stone back into place. Soon he would be so much more than a man. All because of Martha. He had failed before. He had prepared her well but on the day, he had been caught in the act. Burleigh had seen him with them, had tried to stop him, had taken her from him. He had a back up plan. He always had a back up plan. Except this time. There could be no excuse for failure this time. Not that he expected to fail. His plan was foolproof. She would come to the altar willingly. There he would strip her of her clothes and her adulthood, return her to innocence without the
trappings of the modern world. She would leave the world as naked as she came into it, offered up to the Gods as the most perfect sacrifice. And it was a sacrifice. He didn’t want to kill her. He wanted to keep her, to use her, to make her his for the rest of their lives. She had always outshone the others, physically she was perfect. Mentally, she had been the strongest, the longest to hold out. Even when he’d taken Lisa’s eye, Martha hadn’t lost that defiance, still visible in her face as she submitted to him to protect her friend, not because she wanted to. He knew she wanted to, the little slu*t. They all wanted to, really, Mother had said so. She still spoke to him sometimes, whispering in his ear, telling him to do what he wanted to them, to defile them, to corrupt them, to make them his, to exert his power over them. It never occurred to him that it might not be the voice of his mother speaking to him, that it might just be his own warped desire seeking an excuse for his needs. He whispered a quiet prayer at the altar before walking quietly away. Soon he would return with
his offering. Ten years of waiting and two days to go. In the morning, one more day. The excitement made him grin in the dark. The best part was knowing that mother was on his side. She was pleased with him, he knew she was. She was probably up there on the comet with the Gods, hurtling through space towards Earth, ready to watch him carry out their bidding, prove his loyalty to them and to her. It was time to put the plan into action. He needed to make a phone call.
THIRTY-FOUR D.C.I Gregg cursed silently. He had been an hour from Helmsley when he’d been called back. Another body had been found and they wanted him there at once. “I’m in the middle of something,” he’d said when the call came in. “Send Lucas.” “Where are you?” “On the way to Helmsley.” “Helmsley? Where the hell’s that?” “In Yorkshire. I’m following up on a lead in the Kirke case.” “That’s why we need you back. We’ve had a phone call from someone calling himself the Gamesman.” “sh*t, seriously?” “He gave us a location and told us to go look.”
“And?” “And we found a body there with a gaming piece in its hand. I want you here yesterday, Gregg.” “But I’m almost here.” “We’ll send in the locals to do whatever it was you needed. There’s a time pressure on this, he’s supposed to be ringing us back tonight. I want you here and no excuses, understood?”
THIRTY-FIVE Samuel had planned things well. He knew there was a chance that the police would find Lisa and then put the pieces together, that they might send someone to Helmsley to seek out Martha. That was why he’d left one of the bodies somewhere findable. One phone call and anyone closing in on him and Martha would find themselves with a set of clues leading them in the opposite direction. He’d laid the bait with the call. The clues would hint that he’d gone on to Cornwall and that if they hurried they’d catch him in time before he did the next one. He’d told them things about Lisa in the call, things that hadn’t been released to the press, things that proved he had been there when she died. He had no idea how well his plan had worked,
that the sole detective close enough to catch him had turned around at the last minute and was at that moment heading in the opposite direction, chasing a lead that would take him precisely nowhere. All Samuel knew was that the Gods were on his side. Everything was ready. He had taken every precaution he could but he’d forgotten one thing. The car he’d stolen had belonged to the corpse the police were standing over. He had forgotten to remove the number plates from it before setting it alight. The body was found and quickly connected to the missing car. The number plate details were circulated on the central system in the hope that it might be traced. In normal circ*mstances that would have taken time. But in Helmsley the landlord of The Black Swan pub on the edge of time was the brother of the local constable. When Richard Hope had heard about the fire by the sawmill the previous day he’d been curious. Checking the external CCTV footage of the pub, he’d seen a car heading onto
the track that led to the sawmill the previous evening. He’d mentioned it to his brother when he’d come in for a drink after finishing his shift. Michael Hope had taken note of the number plate and then the ball began rolling downhill, picking up speed as it went. It wouldn’t take long for the dots to be joined together and as the team investigating the Gamesman headed south, D.C.I Gregg would decide to ignore his superiors. He would once again head north. If he was wrong, he would take the hit. He already felt bad for going back against what his instincts had told him. The body they’d found had been in the derelict building for weeks. He should have ignored them. He should have stayed up there. But it took nearly twenty-four hours to undo the damage and by then, although he didn’t know it, time was running out.
THIRTY-SIX Ben didn’t know anything of the machinations of the Gamesman. He did know the Gamesman existed and he was starting to put the pieces of the puzzle together. The previous evening, after talking to his father, he had used the ancient laptop that used to belong to his mother. It still fired up and accessed the Internet, which was all he needed, albeit running incredibly slowly. He had the black knight gaming piece on the table in front of him and he had decided to do some research. It took hours. He had finally gone to bed at three in the morning. What he learned had told him he needed to have another conversation with Martha. He talked to his father about his initial findings. His father already knew, which surprised him.
“You didn’t think you should have told me?” “It’s her private life, not yours,” Peter had replied. “If she wanted to tell you, she would.” “But what if he’s still out there? What if he didn’t die in the fire?” “Then she’s safest here, where we can keep an eye on her, don’t you think?” Ben disagreed. To think that she had been a child when that happened. It beggared belief. To have gone through all that at so young an age, abused by that sicko, that murdering deluded psychopath. He thought about what Timothy had said, that he should keep an eye on her. Did the old man know something too? Was he the only one in the dark about the woman who stood to inherit the castle? He helped his father climb into bed before returning to the laptop, looking up more about the Gamesman. There were various lurid tabloid reports from the time but a lot of the information was contradictory. The only consensus that he could find was that an employee of a care home at the time used to play board games with some of
the girls in his care, part of a sickening ritual abuse he carried out undetected for years before finally losing it completely and attempting to burn them to death. It seemed that he tried to escape but was unable to, dying with them. There was a single report that he found that suggested discrepancies with the official line taken at the time, noting the inability of the coroner to identify the adult victim by his teeth as they were too badly damaged by the intense heat of the blaze. It was unlikely to be anyone other than Samuel Lyons who died with the three children though, according to all the other available information out there. The girls had seen him head into the chemical store at the last minute and not come back out. Ben thought about the black knight he’d seen out on the site, the one that had scared Martha so much. Was someone trying to frighten her? Who would stand to gain the most from doing so? He stroked his chin absently as he thought. The only name that sprung to mind was Alexander. If the information about the
Gamesman was out there, it was entirely possible that Alex had found out the truth about Martha, that she was one of his victims. He might also have got a head’s up from Joanne that Peter was planning to leave the place to her. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that Alex had planted the black knight to frighten her into leaving. He thought hard. Was it feasible? Or was he so biased against Alex that he was capable of making him the culprit without thinking things through properly. He rubbed his eyes, deciding he was too tired to think clearly anymore. He’d sleep on it and see what his subconscious had decided by the morning. Heading upstairs, he stuck his head around his father’s door, finding him fast asleep and snoring slightly. Relieved that he seemed on the mend, he headed through to his own room a moment later. He had been in bed ten minutes and was just drifting off to sleep when he shot upright. His father was crying out from his bedroom. He leapt out of bed and ran across the landing, finding him
with his teeth gritted, his face white. “It hurts,” Peter was saying, his voice slurred, rubbing the wound on his head. His eyes rolled back as he slumped down on the bed, not moving. “Dad!” Ben shouted, grabbing his wrist, feeling for a pulse. With his other hand, he groped for the phone which was supposed to be somewhere on the bedside table. On the third attempt, he got hold of it, ringing 999 whilst trying to rouse his father at the same time. The ambulance arrived in twenty minutes, way outside of its target time. Ben saw the lights in the courtyard through the curtains. His father still hadn’t moved. He ran downstairs just as they knocked on the door, unlocking it and opening it to two of them. “He’s upstairs,” he said, stepping aside and then following them up, looking at the stretcher they carried, fearing the worst. “What’s wrong with him?” he asked from the doorway as the two men marched over to the bed. “I don’t know yet,” the man knelt by Peter’s side said. “How long’s he been like this?” “Since just before I rang you.”
“What’s his name?” “Peter, he’s my Dad.” “And your name?” “Ben. Look I don’t-” “Just give us a minute, will you, Ben?” the paramedic interrupted. Ben felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up to find Martha standing there, anxiously glancing from him to his father. “Come on,” Martha said. “Let’s wait outside.” Ben followed her downstairs, allowing himself to be led by the hand outside into the courtyard. “How did you know?” he asked. “I saw the lights,” she replied. “What’s happened to him?” “They don’t know yet.” He looked into the house in time to see the two paramedics carrying Peter out on the stretcher. His eyes were open and he was trying to speak. “We think he’s had a stroke,” the paramedic said as they passed by Ben and began loading his father into the back of the ambulance. “Are you coming with us?”
“He stays here,” Peter said, his voice more slurred than before. He fixed an eye on his son. “You stay here.” Ben looked at his father and then at Martha. He thought about what Timothy had told him, to keep a close eye on her. He thought about what he’d just found out about the Gamesman, then he shook his head. “Where’s he going?” “York.” “I’ll follow on in the car.” Ben watched them go. He could feel the unasked question from Martha. Why had he stayed behind? He turned to look at her, she looked pale, shivering in the cold wind. He noticed she was only wearing a pair of pyjamas. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you home.” She shook her head. “I want to come with you to the hospital.” “You heard what he said, he doesn’t want me there.” “But he’s not thinking straight. What if he dies?” Ben winced internally. He wasn’t willing to
even think about that question. Turning away from her, he paused, his emotions threatening to boil over. He took a deep breath, staring at the open door to his house. He wanted to walk away from Martha, sit alone and do nothing apart from think. Then he felt her arm on his shoulder again and he thought about everything he’d learned. In the brief second before he turned to look at her, he thought about her past, about his own, about how different they both were, how unlikely it was that they had ended up standing there next to each other. Then he looked into her eyes and all his thoughts went away, all that was left was the raw sensation of pain combined with the deep seated fear of being alone. He said nothing.
THIRTY-SEVEN Martha sat on the sofa while Ben rummaged in the kitchen. She was surprised by how calm he seemed. When she’d first woken up, it had taken her a few seconds to work out why her bedroom seemed lit up like a Christmas tree at an office disco. Then she realised it was an ambulance outside and she feared the worst. She had found Ben looking taciturn as ever, his lips pinched as his looked down at his father, his voice little more than an angry growl as he berated the paramedics at work on Peter. Son and father were more alike than they realised, both of them doing their best to hide their true feelings. She knew what was really going on in Peter’s mind most of the time, she’d got used to the subtle clues about his feelings, how he hid
them behind his gruff manner. But the main difference between him and his son was that she didn’t know Ben enough to know what was really going on in his head. He went from furious to upset to calm in the time it had taken to load Peter into the ambulance. But then out of nowhere, he’d invited her in for a cup of tea. She could hear him in the kitchen and she marvelled again at his ability to stay calm through all this. If Peter was her father, she would have brushed aside his protests, she’d have been pacing up and down next to his hospital bed at that moment, not making tea at home. She felt guilty when Ben returned. Her momentary anger at him for not being upset enough vanished when she saw the look on his face. He looked hurt and the sight touched something deep inside her, made her want to comfort him. He was carrying a tray with a bottle of wine and two glasses. “I thought this might be a better option than tea,” he said with a shrug. “Wine at gone three in the morning,” she replied, glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece.
Had only fifteen minutes gone by since she was woken by the ambulance? It seemed a lot longer. She thought Ben would sit on the armchair but he came and settled in on the sofa next to her. As he did so, their sides brushed together and she felt a shiver pass through her. She told herself it was the remains of the cold night outside. The fire was dying in the grate but enough warmth filled the room to make her eyes sag as she sipped at the wine. For a long time neither of them said anything but at last Ben turned to look at her. “I think you should have the castle,” he said quietly. “If anything happens to him, I mean. I can’t think of anyone better suited to look after the place.” “Nothing’s going to happen to him,” she replied, placing her hand on top of his and squeezing lightly. “They’ll put him right.” “It’s not that,” he replied, looking down at her hand in surprise but not moving his away. “If he’s not able to work, he has to sell.” “Who told you that?” “He did. There’s some condition attached to
the terms of the place. If he can’t work, the place has to go.” Ben was silent for a brief moment. “Unless…” “Unless what?” Martha asked but Ben had turned away again. He took a sip from his glass before putting it down on the table beside him. When he looked at her again, she saw something else there, something she hadn’t seen before. “What?” she asked as he continued to stare at her. “Can I be honest with you, Martha?” She nodded, feeling her heart flutter as if she knew what he was about to say. “What? What is it?” “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.” “What? What about?” “About my father, about the castle, about my life. I haven’t got a clue. You want to know something? I thought I was coming down here to say bye to the old man. I thought he hated me. Then I find out that he’s not dying. Now he is again. But he doesn’t want me by his side. My mother has run off with the biggest arsehole this
side of the Scottish border and to cap it all, I then go and meet you.” “You sound furious.” “I am. I didn’t want to meet someone like you. I was all settled with living alone and not speaking to anyone but the fish and then I come back down here and find someone who makes me want to be part of the world again and I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to be doing.” He leaned back on the sofa and sighed, his eyes fixed on the wall in front of him. When he spoke again, the anger was gone from his voice. “I should have stayed up there. Then I wouldn’t have known about any of this. I should have unplugged my phone, I shouldn’t have taken your call.” “I’m glad you did,” Martha said, shifting in her seat to look at him, taking in the way he was trying to get his emotions locked away again. She didn’t want it to happen. “I’m glad we met.” “You are?” he asked, glancing across at her. She nodded slowly, feeling her throat turn suddenly dry as his eyes fixed on hers. “It might be the wine, it might be the fact that it’s nearly the
morning, or it might be that I can’t keep this inside anymore. But I like you, Ben. I didn’t want to. I don’t want to. But I do.” “Why don’t you want to?” “It’s complicated, I can’t really explain.” “Then don’t,” he whispered, shuffling towards her, his hand sliding on top of hers. She felt the heat coming from his fingers and that sensation passed through her skin, reaching somewhere deep inside her. Was he about to kiss her? He looked as if he was. Where had that come from? A few minutes ago she was furious with him, terrified about Peter. And now, now he was looking at her with such intensity that she could barely match his gaze. It was as if he was a blazing log and she a block of ice. The more he looked at her, the more she melted and if he kept looking at her like that, she thought she might just vanish entirely. The person she thought she was seemed to have gone from the room, replaced with someone new, someone she didn’t know. All she knew was she hoped she wasn’t wrong. She hoped, in that
moment, that he was about to kiss her because if he wasn’t, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to handle the disappointment.
THIRTY-EIGHT Martha yelled in her head, desperate for him to kiss her. The rumbling dark clouds of her past grew heavier in her mind, turning black, twisting through her thoughts, threatening to pour down at any moment and extinguish the desire she felt as Ben leaned towards her, his eyes still burning bright. She blinked, silently cursing the thoughts, pushing them back into the cabinet they had escaped from. Sometimes, in the years after she left the care home, she thought of her memories as thunder clouds. They would rain at the most inappropriate moments, forcing her to think about things she wanted nothing more than to forget. She, in her childish way, thought of those thoughts as rain as
they would leak out of her eyes, bringing tears that she had been unable to find at the time, too caught up in the anger at Tim, the way he’d brought her out instead of the others? She had not heard of survivor’s guilt at the time, thought in later years she came to better understand why she had been so angry towards him. She hated him for not saving them, they seemed more innocent than her, they hadn’t been the victim of his games as often as her, they hadn’t endured the touch of his hands in places that left her sick afterwards, making her hate her own body, hate the fact that it had made him desire her. She had tried to come to terms with the idea that it wasn’t her that had tempted him, that he was twisted, that he would have taken from her no matter what she looked like. But being told she was beautiful by that man, that tortured her more than anything else, making her hate the word itself. At other times, she saw the thoughts not as thunder clouds but as pieces of paper, moving
pieces of paper, animated and alive. She had seen Who Framed Roger Rabbit when she was fifteen and that fitted perfectly with the concept she had formed. There was a filing cabinet in her mind and within each section were the thoughts she had conjured up since birth. The earliest ones were in the lowest drawers, at the back, hardest to get to. What she wanted was for the good thoughts to be the easiest to access, to be at the front, ready to be pulled out and dreamed about, thoughts that made her feel good. There weren’t many. To make that happen, she used to picture herself in front of the filing cabinet. When he did things to her, she would immediately take the thoughts and memories, the emotions tied up with them going too, and cram them into one of the drawers, clasping a padlock over it, locking it tight, taping over it, making sure it would never open again. But the thoughts were like the cartoons in the film. They might have been on paper but they were alive. They twisted and moved like snakes,
squeezing out of the gaps, bursting into her mind when she let her guard down, when she let go of the lock for the slightest of seconds. She only had to relax for the briefest time and into her mind would burst a thought of what he’d done, of the things he’d made her do to herself while he watched, while the others watched. Then she’d forget how to breathe, all the air would leave her lungs and not come back and she’d be falling, falling, her eyes blank, glazed over, her mind full of the screams she hadn’t been allowed to let out at the time. As Ben leaned towards her, the filing cabinet rattled in her head, the thoughts of the past threatening to burst out. She clenched her fists, pushing her nails into her palms, using the pain to make her concentrate on the present, refusing to give in to what her mind wanted, to let those thoughts come out and ruin what was about to happen. He had broken her, he had spoilt any chance she’d had of a decent relationship. She thought that for a long time. But with Ben in front of her,
she didn’t focus long on that thought, using the alcohol in her system to help her relax, to help her fix her eyes on him. There was no one else there. The past was locked away. It was just her and Ben. She looked at him and suddenly thought he was the most handsome man in the world. His hand was sliding up her arm and for a second, she was repulsed, wanting instinctively to push him away, to run, knowing she was running the risk of letting the papers escape in her head. The emotions bubbled up inside her and she shivered. “Are you all right?” Ben asked. She lunged forwards and kissed him, refusing to answer, refusing to think. She pressed her lips to his, seeing the surprise in his eyes at the suddenness of it. She didn’t close her eyes, knowing whose face would appear if she did. She told herself again and again that it was Ben in front of her, that it was all right, that she was allowed to feel good about this. That was the thing she hated most about herself in that moment. She was enjoying the touch of his lips on hers, the way his tongue was
easing into her mouth. And enjoyment was anathema to her sense of self control. So she couldn’t just enjoy the moment. Her mind was telling her to stop, that the emotions that were growing in her would have a way of taking over her, of stopping her from being able to control herself. What if she had a flashback? What would it do to him? He’d be disgusted with her, like she was with herself whenever they happened. His hands slid around her back and he brought her against him, the two of them pressed into one corner of the sofa. She felt a mixture of safety, of feeling protected by him as he continued to kiss her, but she also felt trapped. Trapped not just by his arms but by her own past, by the bitter thought that she might never truly be able to overcome what happened to her. She wanted more than anything to enjoy the moment, to revel in the pleasure of his touch, of the warmth radiating off him, of the way he wasn’t forcing himself on her as she pushed him away, he was gentle, he was slowly embracing her, making her want him, making her tingle inside.
The tingle made her feel more guilty. She screwed her hands together behind his back, her arm muscles rigid. “Take me to bed,” she muttered through their embrace. “Are you sure?” he asked. “Now,” she growled, grabbing him and almost sprinting up the stairs. “Look,” he began as he followed her up. She stopped halfway, putting her finger on his lips before he could get any further. “No talking.” She was surprised by how aggressive she sounded. She was doing her best to focus on the moment, to not let all the thoughts of the past back in. They were waiting. She knew they were. She wanted to drown them out and she had decided there was only one way to do it. She held his hand on the way to his bedroom, stopping by the corner of the bed, drawing him towards her. She didn’t say anything else, just guiding his hands up to her chest. She felt the warmth of his fingers through her thin top, her nipples hardening under his touch. He squeezed gently, his fingers moving of their
own accord, his mouth back on hers. She blinked and her top was sliding up her body. She urged him on, tugging it free, tossing it aside. His hands were back on her and then he was kissing her neck, his lips were moving down, taking her nipples into his mouth, his tongue flicking over them. Be in the moment, she told herself, leaning against the cabinet as heat rose within her. She couldn’t remain in control and let those feelings continue to grow. She had to take the risk. His hands slid lower, brushing over her stomach as he kissed her again. The room seemed to grow darker, shrinking away as the only sensation she registered was need. The waistband of her pyjamas was loose enough for his fingers to slip inside. Between her legs was a burning need, a dark feeling that terrified and excited her in equal measure. This is it, she thought. This would be the moment of truth, the moment where she would find out how damaged she was. Could she let go for long enough to enjoy the moment?
His hand slid down between her legs as he whispered, "You're beautiful." She shoved him away with such force that he hit the wall behind him. She opened her mouth to apologise, seeing the look of shock on his face. But nothing came out. The clouds opened and her eyes began to leak tears, great wracking sobs that made her chest shake. She fought for breath, gasping for air as she sank onto the bed, her hands tightly pressed across her chest. Ben looked at her from across the room and she had her answer. She was damaged beyond repair.
THIRTY-NINE Timothy knew about Martha’s pain. He had similarly suffered over the years since the fire, running over and over the scenarios that didn’t play out. Was there a way he could have saved them all? Should he have worked out what was happening earlier? Could he have stopped Samuel? His way of handling the pain was different from Martha’s. He had written down what had happened to him in two places, each with their own variations. On his computer, he had written a diary of sorts, as clinical as he could manage. He had begun his diary long before investing in the care home but it had been a sporadic endeavour, entries coming in a blur when the mood took him, several hundred words per day. Then there would
be gaps when he wrote nothing at all for weeks or months on end before the urge took him once more. The entries became regular after the fire, detailing his attempts to understand what had happened combined with the knowledge he had gained from studying the contemporaneous reports published in the aftermath. He kept a second diary and that wasn’t where he left it. He had left it in the bedroom of the holiday cottage before informing Jenny that he was going out for a walk. He had left her alone in the house with some qualms but had decided, based on some instinctive desire deep within him, that he needed to check on Martha, something had niggled at him for some time that she was in trouble and he was finally unable to ignore the feeling. He told Jenny he wouldn’t be long. She had replied that her books would keep her occupied for as long as he was gone. They did at first. She had gone to the bathroom upstairs ten minutes after he left and as she stepped out onto the landing she heard a noise outside. She walked
into his room and around his bed, peering out through the window and finding herself face to face with an inquisitive looking barn owl perched on the windowsill outside. She froze in place as it stared at her imperiously. Holding her breath, she watched it in silence until it suddenly swept its wings apart and took off into the dying light of the late evening. She walked backwards a step before turning and that motion was enough for her heel to catch the edge of the bed and jolt it slightly. Turning towards the door, she noticed something sticking out from under her Granddad’s pillow. It was a book. Curious as to what it might it, she never thought that perhaps it might be there to remain hidden from view. She was just intrigued as to what it was. Picking it up, she found herself looking at Timothy’s second diary, one that recorded in vivid detail his thoughts and feelings. Flicking through the pages, she felt as if she was invading his privacy and a wave of guilt washed over her. She was about to put the book back
when a name caught her eye. It was her mother’s name. She paused, wanting to return the diary to its home but unable to, unable to stop herself from reading. She stood in the bedroom with her eyes scanning the page, oblivious to the opening of the door downstairs. She read with a growing sense of disbelief, turning back through the pages, each paragraph making her want to know more, making her need to know more.
I tried to atone for what happened. Cathy told me not to but I ignored her. I visited and the sight of her bandages burned me deeper than the flames of the inferno. I was in the same hospital and was able, though it took some time, to find out where she was being kept.
Jenny flicked back through the pages, reading on, not hearing the door to the holiday cottage closing quietly.
He tried to justify what he’d done when I found him in there. Sitting there with them, her half naked, blood running down her back, tears on her cheeks and he tried to justify it. Even thinking about it makes my blood boil. Told me she loved it, told me it was her choice, her way of showing her devotion to him, her atonement for her sins, for his sins, for those of all of mankind. Did his best to convince me he was right. All the while they sat there and me barely able to believe what I was seeing. I tried to help but he was stronger than me, shoved me out of the room, locking the door. I only went in there to find the old figures for the audit. He locked me out. I can’t begin to describe how it felt to hear that door lock. I had a key but he’d snapped his end in the lock. I should have broken it down. I shouldn’t have
gone for help. By the time I got back, the smoke was already filling the corridor and the door was red hot to the touch. I thought I had time. He had said he’d three days to prepare them for what he had planned, for the comet. I thought it was the ramblings of a madman. He’d flipped. He was always an eccentric one but I had no idea, not a single clue of what he was really up to.
Jenny paused. She’d heard something. “Granddad?” she shouted. There was no answer. Just the wind, she thought, returning to the page.
FORTY Jenny didn’t stop reading until it was too late. She had been drawn into the words, skimming over the paragraphs too convoluted for her to understand.
The more I think about it, the more obvious it becomes. Why else start the fire there? What purpose could it serve? The room he was in was far too close to the main corridor, the risk of getting caught with them was too high for a cautious man. And he was a cautious man, despite his madness. He had managed to keep what he did quiet, had been able to keep five of them from telling for months. He could only have done it for one reason. He
would have known that the fire would burn that hot, that the chemicals would take, that the fumes would mean it took longer to bring under control. The extreme heat burned the body beyond recognition. I learned a bit about magic in my younger days, bait and switch. Keep the focus on one hand while the other does all the work out of sight. He knew. He bloody knew that they’d see a body in there and they’d be so busy sorting out the dead and being happy that he had burned up that none of them would give much thought to the idea that it might be someone else. I know what he did. It’s so obvious now. He hid a body in the store. There’s a dead space behind the room that hasn’t been used for years. He was always in and out with that laundry cart, gathering cleaning stuff, refilling the shelves. It would have been no work at all to load a body into the cart around the back, where no one bothered to go. Put his car there, load the body in the cart, dump it in the dead space. Then when he was sure all the attention was on one hand, make the other hand do the work. Get the body out, leave it with the burning
girls. If I’d been able to get back in there, I might even have seen him do it but by the time I got Martha and Lisa out, the flames were too strong, the smoke too black and choking. I still tried, though they held me back and stopped me going in. They should have let me. I might have died but at least I’d have seen the truth, I’d have known for sure what I’m now certain is the case. He didn’t die in there, he’s still out there somewhere, waiting to finish his twisted game.
Jenny flicked forwards a couple of pages, not hearing the creak of a footstep on the stairs behind her.
Human sacrifice. He was more insane than I thought. To tell them that, expecting them to be happy to help him, to want to be offered. I looked up what I could, getting more than a few odd looks at
the library as I gathered up everything they had on cults. From what I can tell, combined with what he said, it must be done when the comet is nearest to earth. It’s hard to believe he can seriously think this sh*t could be true. The Gods live on the Churymov comet. You’d think that he might ponder on those words, on the madness of them. But nope, he takes them as Gospel, as the Truth. He was going to sacrifice them to a comet, burn them in the flames, according to Lisa. But something stopped him, something made him change his mind. Maybe he had second thoughts, maybe there is still some hint of a conscience somewhere in that warped mind of his. I suspect that once I’d got hold of Martha and dragged her out, that was what did it. Would he have needed the body if she'd died like he planned? Would he still have tried to escape? Was he perhaps not as certain as he’d claimed? Is it even worth trying to understand the mind of someone like that? I remember an aunt of mine, back when I was sixteen. June Riverson. She got hit by a car and the damage to her brain was fairly extensive. She was
never the same afterwards. She only lived another year but in that time she changed completely. She was the only person I could compare him to. She spoke of God living in her bedroom, making her cut herself. But she wept when she talked about it, as if she knew she was wrong. My mother told me she had become like a river, she wanted to stop the water running but she had no control over it. I didn’t get it at the time but the more I thought about it after she died, the more it made sense. I get the feeling he thinks he’s more in control than he is. I think he’s scared. I think being scared makes him more dangerous, like a wounded animal. I think he’d have got on with June, his Gods on the comet and hers sitting on the chair next to her bed. I remember seeing her talking to him, moving her face as if he was standing up and walking from left to right. I can’t remember what she was talking about but I remember thinking it was funny. I was sixteen. I don’t think I took anything seriously then, apart from myself. He ran because he lost the nerve at the last minute. I think he’ll come back. The books say the
comet will be back in ten years. They also say the offering has to be made before the victim turns twenty-five. But the books said no one has carried out such a heinous act in centuries, that the cult has pretty much died out, that we are far more civilised now that the primitive people who believed such things to be true. They didn’t die out. He believed in it. He learned about them from somewhere, I’d put money on it being in his family. A father, probably, drilling it into him, passing the knowledge down the generations. I’d seen it in the kids at the home, I’d seen the behaviour of the parents coming out in the kids. He’s like the worst of that in one person, all the bad things a person can be compacted together to make him evil. There’s no other way of looking at someone like him. So what can I do? All I can do is watch them, do what I can to keep them safe, the two that are left. He’ll be hiding under a rock like the worm he is, biding his time. But-
Jenny stopped reading, the book dropping onto the bed as a hand fell on her shoulder, gripping tightly. She spun round, her mouth open in silent shock. “What are you doing reading my book?” her Granddad asked.
FORTY-ONE Martha wasn’t in the room with Ben. Her body was there, sitting on the bed, muttering pointless apologies. Her mind was far away. It was in the old classroom, the room she hated. The home was laid out in such a way that to get from her bedroom to there took about three minutes. She used to dread that walk. When he told her to go there, that it was time to play games, she couldn’t not go. He’d threatened not to kill her if she refused, but to kill her friends. He knew who was friends with who, he knew which buttons to push to make them do his bidding. He knew what to say so she went. It worked. She walked the eight thousand miles, each footstep taking an eternity, her mind filling with dread, all hope and joy draining out of her. She
knew what was coming. The worst part was knowing but being unable to do anything to stop it. She was in the classroom, having walked the death march to it. The others were there, sat around the board game, doing their best not to cry. He liked it when they cried. It was the day he told her the truth about the gaming pieces, the day when the misery turned into a nightmare from which she was certain she would never escape. Lisa was to her left, reaching into the bag to pull out a piece. He was watching with his tongue sticking out in excitement, breathing heavily. The game had finished and the final thing to do was to choose who ‘won.’ He said the Gods would choose for them. Martha took the decision out of their hands. She held the cloth bag in just the right way, she could see inside. She took the black knight. He noticed. He took her to one side. He made her use the scourge again, warning the others not to look around. They all stood facing the wall.
He watched her whip her bare back with the scourge, his hands on her nipples, the touch of him far worse than the bitter sting of the scourge cutting into her skin. He leaned forwards, his voice no more than a whisper as he took the scourge from her. She could feel his breath on her ear and she recoiled as far as she could, wanting to run, too afraid of what he’d do if she did. “Do you know what they’re made of?” he asked, waving the black knight in front of her face. She shook her head, not wanting to speak, knowing the tremor in her voice would only excite him further. “Bone,” he breathed into her ear, the sound little more than a soft hiss. “The knuckle bones of naughty little girls like you. You cheat again and your pretty fingers will make me a new set of pieces, understand?” She was there as if she’d never left. The sheer unadulterated terror she’d felt at that moment was as real as it had been at the time, as pure, as undiluted a fear as she’d ever known, far stronger
than anything that came before or since. She knew at that moment that he would kill her. Sooner or later he would kill her and there was nothing she could do about it. She opened her mouth as he loomed over her, his hands on her shoulders, a scream escaping that was so loud, it hurt her ears and made her throat burn.
FORTY-TWO When she screamed, Ben let go of her shoulders. He had thought that he would be able to comfort her. The look in her eyes had scared him. She looked so vacant, as if she wasn’t there, as if her mind had melted away, leaving nothing at all behind. Yet her face continued to twist, to contort with fear as if she was in agony. It had only been a few seconds since she’d pushed him away but it seemed a lot longer. He crossed the room slowly towards her, seeing her staring past him, her mouth muttering apologies she had no need to say. All he wanted to do was comfort her. He put his hands on her shoulders but she screamed so loudly, he jolted backwards as if he’d been electrocuted. The scream seemed to bring her back. She
blinked, her eyes focussing on him for the first time. The noise faded away as she wrapped her knees up under her chin, perching on the edge of the bed and looking utterly miserable. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “You should go. I’m sorry.” “I’ll go if you want me to,” he replied quietly, risking taking a single step towards her. “But I’d rather stay.” “Why? Want to look at the freak a little longer?” “No,” he said, frowning slightly at the thought that she could think that way. “I’m worried about you.” She didn’t look up, her eyes fixed on the floor. He crossed the space between them and sat on the bed, saddened by the way she recoiled from him. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “I’ve ruined things, haven’t I?” she said into her knees. “Not in the slightest.” He held her. She let him. He thought about what had happened to her. Should he tell her that he knew? Would it help? Or
would it look like he’d been sneaking around behind her back? The wine had left his system the moment she pushed him away, the warmth of desire had turned into something deeper. He wanted to look after her. It wasn’t a feeling that he was used to. He’d spent a long time being certain that the only person he wanted to look after was himself. But sitting next to him was another human being and he cared more deeply about her than about people he’d known for far longer. He wasn’t sure how it had happened. He didn’t even care that much. The important thing was that it had happened. He wanted to look after her, he wanted to make her feel better. She was in so much pain and he would have given anything to take even the smallest amount from her. He could only hold her. He said nothing, it wasn’t the right time. He felt her shivering though the room wasn’t cold. He knew about flashbacks, he’d had enough of his own after Zoë had died, reliving that night many, many times afterwards. It was obvious that
something he’d done had brought out a memory of what had happened to her all those years ago and she had lost control of herself while it happened. He couldn’t judge her for that. She was a long way from getting over her past. He realised something then, something that scared him. He refused to countenance it for more than the briefest of moments. It was far too soon to think like that. He’d barely gotten to know her. It was madness to think like that. So he put the thought away, he would deal with it some other time. Instead he looked at her. He didn’t think about his father. Afterwards, he felt guilty for that forgetfulness. But at the time, his mind was only capable of thinking about her, about what he could do to make her feel better, about hoping that she wouldn’t push him away in her pain. He wasn’t sure he would be able to bear it if she did that.
FORTY-THREE Jenny lay in bed feeling a mixture of guilt and anger. She was furious with herself for not hearing him come home, for reading his diary. If anyone read hers, she would never forgive them. And yet he had simply taken the book from her and then told her, “It’s time for bed.” He’d left her cleaning her teeth and when she emerged, his bedroom door was already closed. She called goodnight through the door but got no answer. Climbing into bed, a wave of guilt washed over her. It stopped her from sleeping. There had been large parts of the diary she hadn’t understood. He had talked at length about things that meant nothing to her but despite that, she felt she understood him better than before. She had only known him as an old man with a few
scars, someone she rarely saw for reasons she didn’t understand. Now she felt a new bond with him and that was why she felt so guilty. There was little shame in sneaking behind the back of someone you barely knew, but she saw him as a hero, someone who had saved the lives of two girls little older than she was.
FORTY-FOUR Tea didn’t solve everything, Ben thought as he carried the mugs through to the living room, but it at least took the edge off the worst of things. Martha was wrapped up in a blanket on the sofa. A little of the colour had come back to her cheeks, he noticed as he sat down next to her, but she still looked shaken. He was glad she’d shared. It had clearly been difficult for her. Upstairs, he’d dressed her, putting her pyjama top back on as she sat as immobile as a statue. Then she’d just begun to talk, so much coming out it was hard to take it all in at first. She told him things he already knew and things he would never have guessed. He found out how she ended up in the care home in the first place, how she wanted to die for a very long time, how long
the abuse went on for, why the black knight gaming piece had scared her so much when she’d seen it in the castle grounds. He sat and listened, his heart going out to her. All he wanted to do was wrap her in his arms and protect her from everything, keep her safe and take all the pain away. Unable to do that, he made tea instead. “You’re safe now,” he said after a long silence. He wanted to continue talking but couldn’t think of how to go on. “If he died, who put the black knight out in the chapel?” “Someone who was trying to scare you away from here. Think about it. Someone finds out about your past, someone who stands to gain if you’re no longer around.” “Who?” “I think I’ve got a good idea and I’m going to pay him a visit tomorrow morning.” “Don’t do anything stupid, Ben, I don’t want anyone getting hurt.” “I’m not some Mafia hitman, you don’t need to worry about that. I’m just going to talk to him.”
“To who?” “I’ll explain everything afterwards, I promise.” “But why can’t you tell me now?” “Because you’ve got enough to be dealing with and I refuse to throw any extra sh*t at you.” They lapsed into silence. Ben looked at Martha. She’d fallen asleep, her head lolling to one side. He caught her mug just as it slipped from her hand. Looking around, he saw a blanket on the arm of the chair on the far side of the room. Picking it up, he unfolded it before draping it over her. He watched over her, running through his plans in his head, exactly what he was going to do when he went to visit Alex.
FORTY-FIVE D.C.I Gregg reached Helmsley. He parked in the main visitor car park, noting how empty it was, not surprising given it was ten at night. He’d all the information he needed. Lucas had been thorough. Timothy Burleigh had used his credit card to pay for the holiday cottage Gregg was walking towards. He’d bought food in a cafe called imaginatively The Old Police Station. He’d paid for entry to the castle that loomed above the car park amongst numerous other items that placed him firmly in Helmsley. D.C.I Gregg didn’t know how heavily Timothy was sleeping. The old man didn’t hear him knocking on the door downstairs. Someone else heard him knocking though, someone Gregg would have been very surprised to meet.
FORTY-SIX Jenny sat up in bed when she heard the knocking downstairs. She could hear her Granddad snoring in the next bedroom. She had not long been asleep herself, her dreams filled with the things she’d read about in the diary. As she sat up, she yawned loudly, rubbing her eyes and hoping he would wake up and deal with whoever it was. She had no intention of going downstairs and opening the door. She was already more scared of the world than she’d been before the start of the holiday. She hadn’t known there could be people like Samuel Lyons in it. She had been lucky enough to not know what people like him did to children like her. From the corner of the room was a movement and before she could react, a figure had leapt out,
grabbing hold of her and pressing a hand over her mouth. She tried to scream but he pressed harder, blocking her nostrils too. Leaning down, the man hissed in her ear. “Make a sound and I will cut your throat. Understand?” She nodded slowly, feeling a sudden need to pee so urgent it was painful. She tried to squirm away from him but he was too strong for her, lifting her to his feet. “I’m going to move my hand away,” he whispered. “You are going to be a good little girl and come downstairs with me. Understand?” She nodded frantically. He lifted his hand away from her mouth, curling his fingers into a fist. “Make any noise and I use this,” he said, revealing a knife in his other hand. “Now come with me. We're going to write a little note, that's all.”
FORTY-SEVEN D.C.I Gregg thought about knocking again but then decided against it. If there was anyone in there, they were asleep. There were no lights on. He was very interested in speaking to Timothy Burleigh but he wasn’t one hundred percent certain the man was in there. Breaking down the door was not a good idea, not when all he was really going on was his instincts. Lucas had got back to him about Martha. She had changed her surname to Coalman on the tax forms, enough to make an easy search for her into a surprisingly long winded one. He went to her cottage next but the lights were also out in there. No one answered his knock. Something wasn’t right about all this but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. The dead body
he’d been dragged back to had owned the car that had been found burnt out a few miles north of Helmsley. The number plate information had been given to Lucas by the local bobby up here. It could be a coincidence but he doubted it. The pieces were there, he just had to put them together. Something was missing and until he found it, he was lost. He turned away from her door, glancing at the time on his watch. Either everyone in this town went to bed early or something was going on. He knew he had to make a choice, break in and risk his career being thrown in the dustbin if he was wrong, or wait until the morning and try again. He made the wrong choice. He decided he was better waiting until the morning. She worked at the castle, she wouldn’t just vanish, the tax office had shown how long she’d been there, long enough to make a career of it. He would walk into the castle tomorrow and find out exactly where she was. Someone would know. Then he’d talk to her, find out what she knew about Timothy Burleigh, if she thought he might be a threat. He’d
have to word things carefully so as not to scare her but he could handle that. Walking towards the marketplace, he saw that at least the lights were on in the pub by the fountain. He hoped they had some rooms available, he didn’t fancy sleeping in his car.
FORTY-EIGHT On the day the comet was due to appear in the sky, Samuel was in his holiday cottage. The body in the cellar was beginning to smell, the pungency of her decay seeping upwards to where he sat and ate breakfast. It was the day of the offering. He was more excited than he’d ever been in his life. The wheels were turning. There was no stopping it now, not now that he had the little girl in his keeping. To think how happy the Gods would be when he offered them both up instead of just Martha. He looked down at Jenny, seeing the fear in her eyes, tasting the beauty of the pure emotion as if it were a solid thing. She wept. He grinned at her.
FORTY-NINE While Samuel ate the last meal of his stay in Helmsley, Timothy slept, the exertions of the previous few days having caught up with him. Martha slept too, as did Peter, though his sleep had been induced with the help of copious amounts of morphine. D.C.I Gregg was finishing his breakfast, preparing to go and knock on Martha’s door again. He planned to speak to Timothy afterwards but ended up spending far longer than he thought with the last surviving victim of the Gamesman. Ben had been up the longest. He had awoken with a pain in the back of his neck, the result of sleeping at an awkward angle on the sofa. To his right, Martha was still. He left her, quietly heading out to his hire car. He had a long journey ahead of
him if he was going to get to Alex and he wanted it over with as quickly as possible. He knew it was a risk heading so far away with his father seriously ill but he didn’t feel that he had a choice. It wasn’t a conversation he could have over the phone. It needed to be in person. It took four hours to get there. Alex had built up his business enough to have two offices. He couldn’t have been in the York one, no, that would have been too simple. He had to be in Edinburgh. A call to his offices had helped establish that, his secretary only too helpful to a potential investor. Ben spent the drive thinking about Martha. It was gone noon when he reached the office, getting lost in the maze of Edinburgh streets for some time before finally finding the office. He then had to waste more time finding somewhere to park. Once that was finally achieved, he walked back to the office. There were brochures in the reception. Most were related to projects in Scotland but a few showed pictures of a place Ben hardly recognised.
It was Helmsley Castle but it wasn’t. Where flat expanses of grass had been, there were stalls and rides, next to reassuring language about guaranteed profits and the chance to get in on the ground floor. The holiday cottages were gone in the aerial photos, replaced by a gleaming glass apartment tower. Next to that was a tarmac expanse twice the size of the current car park, a few trees all that was left of the woodland. Ben was disgusted. Flicking through the pages he couldn’t believe the audacity of the man. The Great Hall reimagined as conference venue. The only thing missing was a zipline from the top of the East Tower. He had to have bribed the planning committee, there was no way they could have signed off on such things without serious amounts of money in their back pockets. “Mr Hill will see you now,” the smiling receptionist said. Ben had to concentrate to not let his anger show.
FIFTY Martha woke up and immediately felt awful. She’d shared too much. Why had she done that? She looked for Ben and it didn’t take long for her to realise he’d gone. Of course he’d gone, he would have taken the first chance he could to get out of there. She was no good for him. She was no good for anyone. All she had wanted was a bit of uncomplicated sex with someone she thought was hot. Was that too much to ask? Apparently it was. Apparently, she was incapable of doing anything without ruining it. She had had enough. She couldn’t hang around now, not after a night like that, not now he knew everything. She rang the hospital, wanting to know how best to arrange things. Peter was still out of it.
She’d leave him a note. No messages from Chloe who was presumably still poorly. Joanne would be opening up soon. She’d take Chloe’s shift, helping Joanne for one more day, say goodbye to the site, goodbye to this life. Then she’d go. She didn’t know where. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. She just knew she had to go, the ideas about leaving becoming more concrete after what had happened the previous night. She kept the blanket wrapped around her as she walked back to her cottage to change for work. She had barely finished brushing her hair when someone knocked on the door. For a brief moment she thought it might be Ben, excitement running through her before she realised that of course it wouldn’t be him. There was no chance he’d come to speak to her of his own volition, not after what she’d told him. He’d be unable to look at her without thinking of Samuel Lyon’s hands on her body. It wasn’t Ben. It wasn’t anyone she recognised. “Can I help you?” she asked, peering out through
the gap in the door, the chain in place, stopping it opening any further. “Martha Coleman?” “Yes, sorry, who are you?” The man held up an ID card. “D.C.I Gregg. I wondered if I might come in.”
FIFTY-ONE Ben sat opposite Alexander Hill for the first time in years. He felt strangely calm, in comparison to the fury building up in him whilst waiting in the reception area. “How have you been?” Alex asked from behind his desk. The room was filled with models of buildings, shelves piled high with them. There was no paper to be seen. It was like he was playing at his job. “He’s not going to sell to you,” Ben said, ignoring his question. “Why are you trying to force him?” “Your mother sends her love,” Alex said, winking at him. “Shall I call her in, you can have a lovely family reunion.” “You destroyed our family a long time ago.” The smile faded from Alex’s face, his lips
thinning as he leaned forwards. “Don’t drag all that up, Ben. Learn to let things go.” “You want me to forget about my sister?” “Look, Ben. She’s dead, all right. I can’t do anything about that, can I? So why don’t we just put the past where it belongs and you tell me why you’ve come to see me?” “You killed her.” “I didn’t kill her! I didn’t force her out of the house, I tried to stop her. She was too drunk to leave. But she wouldn’t listen. I’m not a babysitter. She was old enough to make her own decisions.” “Why did she want to leave, Alex?” “I’ve no idea.” “I have. I’ve thought about it a lot recently. I think you tried to get her to do that thing you boasted about in school. I think you got her drunk so she’d agree to let you do it to her and when that didn’t work, I think you threw her out despite the fact she could hardly walk in a straight line. And I think that instead of going after her to make sure she was all right like any decent human
being, I think you left her to it.” “You’re not exactly an angel,” Alex snapped back at him. “You could have come up to the house and got her, couldn’t you? But you just sat in your car because you were too petty. You always were petty, Ben. It’s why I didn’t like you in school. Look at me, I’ve two multimillion developments on the go. I’m worth a bloody fortune. And look at you. Christ, that shirt looks like it might fall apart any minute and it’ll be competing with your shoes to see which is the first to go.” “Stop trying to scare Martha away.” “What? What are you talking about?” “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to. Get rid of her and get your grubby mitts on the place, well it isn’t happening and I warn you, if you keep trying to push her, I won’t be so nice. Leave Martha alone.” “What are you on about?” Ben pulled the black knight from his pocket and put it on the desk in front of him. “What’s that?” Alex asked.
“Don’t bullsh*t me. You planted it in the chapel, didn’t you?” “Ben, I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.” For Ben, the missing piece finally slotted into place. The realisation hit him so hard, it almost knocked him over. A sense of dread filled his stomach, making him feel nauseous, it remained there, weighing heavy, as he got up and left the room without another word. It wasn’t Alex. He wasn’t clever enough to do something like that. And that left only one option. If it wasn’t Alex who had left the black knight in the chapel it could only have been one other person. He set off, praying he wasn’t going to be too late, cursing himself for being blinded by the past. He had been so sure it had been Alex because he wanted to hate him, he wanted a reason to justify continuing to hate him. He had twisted the facts to fit his emotions. He’d been a bloody fool and unless he was lucky, Martha might be about to pay the price for his inability to think clearly.
FIFTY-TWO Timothy woke up and his first thought was to wonder what time it was. He felt groggy, as if he’d only been asleep for a few minutes but when he looked at the clock on the far wall, he was appalled to find he’d been asleep not only all night, but far into the next day. It was gone four in the afternoon. The sun was already moving down through the sky, though it was obscured through thick clouds when he pulled back the curtains and looked out of the window. What had woken him? He realised it was the wind. It was starting to howl outside. The storm that had threatened was finally going to hit. He had watched Martha for long enough the previous evening to make sure she was safe and he would check on her again but only after he’d
eaten something. He was starving. He was half dressed before he remembered about Jenny. What was wrong with his mind? It was all over the place. He hoped she hadn’t been too bored while he slept. Then he remembered the diary. He had no idea how much of it she’d read. It had been stupid of him to hide it in such an obvious place with an inquisitive child nearby. He had been too tired when he found her reading it to do anything but send her to bed. She deserved an explanation though, a proper one. He would talk to her after he’d eaten, explain exactly why he kept the diary, how it was the only way he had of remembering his thoughts as they happened. His memory had never been brilliant but recently it had grown much worse which was why he’d written in much more detail in the most recent diary entries. He was glad he hadn’t encountered Samuel yet. It suggested that perhaps he was wrong. He would have loved to have been proved wrong. Get through tonight,
when the comet was due, and he might be able to relax for the first time in years, knowing she was safe. Then he’d be able to properly mourn Lisa, give her passing the respect it deserved. Jenny had left a note in the living room. “Gone for a walk in the woods. Will be back for tea. Love you.” He frowned. He wasn’t sure how to feel about her going off on her own. She was very young, after all. But then he’d been off exploring from the age of eight. Sure, things were different then, no TV, no computers to play on. But there wasn’t a huge amount he could do about his discomfort. Helmsley was surrounded by woods and she could be in any of them. She didn’t own a mobile phone so he couldn’t ring her. All he could do was wait. He ate dry toast, trying to quieten the growing sense of unease. He got the feeling he would only feel better when she came back. He hoped she wouldn’t be long.
FIFTY-THREE Martha got through the day at the castle by concentrating on the work, doing her best to focus on the visitors, nothing else. The weather meant it wasn’t busy enough for her liking though and her mind kept going back to the conversation with detective. He’d tried to dress the words up as nicely as he could but the facts remained. There was a chance that someone was coming after her. The detective hadn’t named any names but had gone into detail about her personal safety, going so far as to give her his mobile number so she could ring if she had the slightest of concerns. Then they’d talked about the past, her forced to drag it up once again as she explained what had happened to her. He seemed to already know most of it. Then he’d gone, leaving her more
certain than ever that she should leave Helmsley. If a detective thought she was in danger, that was enough proof for her. He obviously thought Samuel was still alive but didn’t want to say so. That evening, Martha went onto the site to lock up for one last time. She had her torch in hand as the sun had already set. She muttered a silent goodbye to the bakehouse, the brewhouse, the Great Hall. Then she froze. Over the noise of the howling wind, she heard something. It was coming from the underground store in the west corner. She listened carefully. There it was again. It was a girl crying. Someone was lost on site. She walked over to the stone steps, pointing the torch down them. “Are you all right?” she asked, descending slowly. “Hello?” As she reached the bottom step, she shone the torch into the store. In the far corner, a girl was crouched down, facing away from her. “Hey,” Martha said, walking across to her. “What’s your name?” “He’s there!” the girl screamed, jumping up and grabbing her. “Please, help-”
Martha heard nothing else. The blow to her head knocked her out before she even realised someone was standing behind her, someone who had missed her, someone who was very glad that his plan was working as well as if there could be no doubt that the Gods were guiding him.
FIFTY-FOUR D.C.I Gregg looked at the spot where the burned out car had been found. How had it got up here? Who had driven it all this way? Would Timothy Burleigh have stolen it? Could he have killed the owner? But then why use his credit card, so easy to trace? It didn’t make any sense. His phone rang and he had to shout to make himself heard over the noise of the wind. “What’s up?” he asked. “I found something on the stiff’s computer,” Lucas replied, his voice cutting in and out as the signal struggled to maintain a connection to the phone. “Say again.” “I found something you need to know.” “What?”
“There was a booking confirmation on his computer. He hired a holiday cottage in Helmsley.” “Address,” Gregg snapped, another piece of the puzzle falling into place. It wasn’t the piece he wanted. He didn’t really want to arrest an old man if he didn’t have to but it was becoming clear what he’d done. He was obsessed with Martha. Why he’d felt the need to use a stolen car was still a mystery but there was only one way to find that out. Time to pay Timothy another visit. He had a reason to knock down the door this time. But the address Lucas gave him wasn’t that of Timothy’s cottage. It was another one. Gregg climbed into his car and drove back along the track towards Helmsley, bumping over fallen twigs and branches that had snapped off in the gathering storm. It was already getting dark. He wasted too much time staking out Timothy’s house, waiting for him to return home. He shouldn’t have given up on that and gone off exploring Helmsley, trying to find out if anyone knew anything. He should have stuck to Martha.
He should have told her more. He should have done a lot of things. He was going to put the mistakes right. He got to the address Lucas had given him. The cottage backed onto the castle. There was no answer at the door but this time, he didn’t walk away. It took three firm kicks for it to give but give it did at last, splintering at the hinges enough for him to shoulder barge his way inside. Bollocks to a warrant. He’d been patient long enough. The first thing that hit him was the smell. He found the body in the cellar and had to waste precious minutes calling it in. She looked young, whoever she was. At first he thought it might be Martha but experience told him the smell of decay was too much. He had only seen her that day. He would work out who this one was later. For now, he needed to get to Martha, get her the hell out of there. The local bobbies would be on their way and they’d help but he needed to act faster. Where would she be? Joanne was just locking up the visitor centre when he arrived there. “Is Martha here?” he
asked. “I think she’s gone home,” Joanne replied. “I waited for her but I don’t get paid after five. I'm not hanging about. It floods down my way when it rains.” “Can you let me through?” “I’m sorry, we’re closed. Maybe if you come back tomorrow.” Gregg swore quietly while pulling out his ID card, brandishing it under her nose. “Let me through now.”
FIFTY-FIVE Joanne saw the rude detective through before locking the doors again. It was no business of hers what trouble Martha was in. What she cared about was getting home in time for her favourite show. She was already risking missing it by hanging around for Martha to finish locking up. She had probably done what she’d done herself a few times, hopped over the wall to take a shortcut to her car. It was no biggie. She headed for the car park, seeing two men talking on the far side. It was too dark to make out who they were and she didn’t care to look any closer. There was a chance they were druggies. Helmsley was supposed to be a safe place but she read the papers, she knew the dangers of the modern world. A detective wandering about only
proved it. Better to stay out of it. She climbed into her car and drove away, passing by Timothy Burleigh and Benjamin Robertson, her mind already focussing on what to have for dinner.
FIFTY-SIX Ben was frantic. The traffic, the roadworks, three separate crashes, all had slowed him down until he was sure he’d be too late. He pulled into the car park at twenty past five and nearly crashed into Timothy who was shouting something past him. He climbed out of the car and Timothy grabbed him. “Have you seen my granddaughter?” “No, I’ve only just got here. Why? What’s happened?” “She was supposed to be back for tea but now it’s dark and I don’t know where she is.” “Have you called the police?” “I tried but I think the phonelines are down. This bloody storm. Have you got a phone on you?” “No, sorry.”
“He’s got her, hasn’t he. I know he’s got her.” “Who?” A car drove past the two of them, the noise of the engine almost drowned out by the wind. “The Gamesman of course. Samuel Lyons. He’s got my granddaughter and I brought her here so it’s all my fault.” “Hold on, you know about the Gamesman?” Timothy nodded. “The altar. He’ll have her at the altar.” Timothy broke into his attempt at a run, half limping as he headed for the visitor centre. Ben went after him, leaving his car there. He had hoped Martha would still be there but all the lights were out and the place was locked up tight. “This way,” Ben said, tugging Timothy’s arm. “We can hop over the wall.” “It’s my fault,” Timothy muttered as Ben helped him to clamber up and onto the site. “I should have looked after her better. I shouldn’t have slept so long. It’s all my fault.”
FIFTY-SEVEN Timothy stood alone by the altar. His heart had been thumping too hard from the climb over the wall. Now, standing in the chapel, he forced himself to keep still. He would be no use if it gave out. He needed to keep going at least until he found Jenny. Ben went on, looking around the site, calling Jenny’s name while he waited for the pain to subside. Ben brought a bracelet back to him as he rested. “I found a torch too,” he said. “In the underground store. Do you recognise these?” “That’s Jenny’s,” Timothy replied, looking at the bracelet in the torchlight. “But the red…” He almost dropped it. The red wasn’t part of the fabric of her friendship bracelet. It was stained. The only thing that would stain like that was
blood. “Was she there?” “No sign of her,” Ben said, wiping his brow as the rain began to fall, the long threatened downpour finally beginning. “Any ideas?” Timothy fought hard to clear his mind. Stop thinking about her, about what he might be doing to her. Where could she be? He thought about the offering, about the need for it to be in the right place. He’d thought the altar was the place because that was part of the cult’s beliefs, to use the sacred spaces of the ‘wrong’ religions. It hit him a moment later. “I know where they are,” he said. “They’re at Rievaulx.”
FIFTY-EIGHT D.C.I Gregg saw them climbing into Ben’s car. He shouted to them to stop but they didn’t hear him. He’d scouted out the castle site and found no evidence of Martha. He hadn’t noticed the entrance to the underground store but then he didn’t know the site as well as Ben did. If it wasn’t for the storm, he’d have heard them on the site conducting their own search but the wind was too loud and he passed them by on his travels. He was down in the earthworks while Ben and Timothy stood up at the altar. They were out over the wall and already getting into the car just as he climbed after them, having seen the light of Ben’s torch shining across the grass. He thought they’d stop when they heard him but they just drove off.
Who were they? Why were they in the castle grounds after dark and where were they going in such a hurry? He ran for his car, hoping to catch up with them before they vanished into the night.
FIFTY-NINE Timothy explained while Ben drove. “He wants a sacred space to do it, he needs one.” “So what was wrong with the altar?” “It wasn’t enough. A little chapel in a castle. He needs something purer. The abbey was one of the most important Christian sites in the country. Still is. There’s nowhere else like it round here until you get to York Minster and he’d never be able to get in there. Plus he might not make it in time. But the abbey, hop over the wall and you’re in. No one would be any the wiser.” “You’re sure?” “Trust me.” The car skidded to a halt, Timothy looked up. “What’s that?” “A sodding tree.”
Ben climbed out. An enormous oak had been blown down by the storm, completely blocking the road. “What do we do now?” Timothy asked. “We run,” Ben replied. Timothy followed him to the edge of the road where Ben was already clambering through the branches of the tree, getting over the trunk and down onto the verge on the other side. He held out a hand to Timothy who managed to get over with some difficulty. He had barely got his feet down before Ben was running, the light of the torch swinging in front of him as he continued up the hill. “How far is it?” Timothy asked, wincing as his heart lanced pain into his chest again. “About three miles,” Ben called back over his shoulder. “You can wait here if you want.” “Never,” Timothy said through gritted teeth, rubbing his chest as he spurred himself forwards.
SIXTY D.C.I Gregg found their car with the doors open and the lights still on. The key was in the ignition. They’d clearly been stopped by the fallen tree from driving any further. He climbed through the branches and squinted, looking down the road. There was a light in the distance ahead of him. He followed it on foot, keeping his own torch in his pocket, not wanting to alert them to his presence. Whatever they were up to, it wasn’t good. He had thought about calling in the number plate but had decided time was not on his side. He called in help for the tree before the signal died. He could turn back but he refused to stop. More important to keep them in view, the light was already vanishing down the side of the hill. He didn’t know the area as well as Ben. He
didn’t know about the shortcut through the woods to get to the abbey. At that point, he didn’t even know they were headed towards the abbey. He followed along the road, turning off onto a single track lane, the wind howling around him as he did his best to keep the light in view. He hoped his message got through. There had been no acknowledgement, the storm playing merry hell with his phone signal.
SIXTY-ONE The candles in the lanterns kept going out. They weren’t solidly constructed enough to keep out the wind. It was a little calmer in the valley but the storm was still making itself known. Martha was soaking wet. She had come to in the driving rain, no idea where she was. Looking up, she saw him at the altar. He was tying Jenny down to it, ignoring her muffled cries, muttering something in Latin. “You’re dead,” she said, trying and failing to get to her feet. She looked down, seeing the ropes holding her in place. For some reason her first thought was, ropes, not zipties, how old fashioned. A hysterical giggle almost bubbled up but the sight of the knife in his hand was enough to quash
it completely. She thought she was dreaming, it couldn’t be real. He was dead. He couldn’t be standing there in front of her. “Purity from the past and purity from the present,” he said as he turned away from Jenny to look at Martha. “Thy will be done.” “Please,” she said, shuffling backwards in her bonds, feeling them loosen around her wrists. In his excitement, he hadn’t tied her tightly enough. Either that or the journey to the abbey had shaken them loose. How had he gotten her there? She couldn't remember. “Don’t.” She wanted him to talk to her, not to notice her trying to force her wrists free. “I have to,” he replied and for a moment he looked upset, as if he was being forced to do this. “I’m saving us all. You will be honoured up there. You will thank me when you see the truth.” He pointed at the sky, blinking as the rain fell into his eyes. “They love you, Martha.” He turned his eyes down to her, running the edge of the knife between his fingers, a drop of blood falling,
mingling with the rain. “It’s time to put away our childish games and carry out the job for which we special ones were chosen.”
SIXTY-TWO Ben whispered into Timothy’s ear. “Ready?” Timothy nodded. Ben moved deeper into the darkness. It had taken too long to get to the abbey but they'd finally made it. He’d had to slow to a jog for a spell near the end, his lungs unable to keep up with the pace he wanted to maintain. Slowing had allowed Timothy to catch up with him and together they reached the abbey grounds a few minutes later, seeing the lantern light, knowing he was there. They tiptoed towards him, moving as quietly as they dared. He could see the flickering lights on the altar but they were extinguished a moment later. By the time they were relit he’d moved forwards, getting ready, Timothy beside him. They whispered the
plan to each other before waiting for the right moment. When the candles went out again, they both began to move. He had seen the man holding the knife. He’d seen the girl tied to the altar. He couldn’t see Martha but the man was looking down. She was presumably on the ground near him, hidden by the pillar that soared up to the remains of the ceiling. He needed to time it right. He couldn’t risk running forwards. By the time he got to the altar, the knife could be in the girl or Martha.
SIXTY-THREE Samuel had not been there long. He had no idea anyone was coming for him. He felt shielded by his Gods, by his mother, who he knew was watching, proud of him for the first time. His excitement had given him strength but it had still been an arduous journey. It hadn’t been easy to carry Martha’s unconscious body and force Jenny to walk the three miles from Helmsley to Rievaulx but he’d done it in the end. Getting Jenny to cry had been easy, reeling in Martha like a fish on a hook. The girl might have screamed a warning at the last minute but it was too late by then. He had them both right where he wanted them. Then all he had to do was get to Rievaulx, to the sacred spot, the high altar. He could feel a buzz in the air, the comet was getting
closer. Would he be taken up with them? Would they be made his wives? He grinned at the thought, looking down at Jenny and thinking how good she would look in his bed. On the cusp of womanhood. He would induct her into his world just like he'd done with Martha. She would love him for it. Sure, she might fear him at first, but she would eventually thank him. He was doing her a favour. She should be grateful. He carried Martha in a fireman's lift. He never once thought she would come to on the journey, it was too close to the moment, the end of the game, the start of reality, his new reality. It would all change once he made the offering. The Gods would protect him. Somehow it was all the more satisfying to have walked. They had made the pilgrimage together. The idea to do so had come to him during Martha’s talk to the tour group. The abbey high altar would be much more suitable for a task as important as his. Making a pilgrimage to it made things even more perfect. The weather didn’t concern him. He knew that the skies would clear
eventually. The Gods favoured him. They wouldn't let him down and he wouldn't let them down. When he got to Rievaulx, he climbed over the wall, shoving Jenny on and up the hill to the church. He watched as she climbed onto the altar, still crying. The pure tears of terror, they made him smile. He had tied Jenny down to the altar using the ropes he'd hidden. He set Martha down on the ground beside him. Now all he had to do was wait for the comet to reveal itself to him. Then he would finish the game. He would make the offering. He would become a God among men. Her body would be his plaything and it would be glorious.
SIXTY-FOUR The Gamesman was looking at the sky when Martha got her hands loose. He was smiling. The clouds had separated in a tiny spot, just enough to reveal the night sky behind. He lifted the knife above his head, still looking up, poised over Jenny’s squirming body. "I offer her up to you, my Gods," he shouted over the wind. Martha got slowly to her feet. When she’d first woken up and seen him, the child in her had screamed, wanting nothing but to run and hide. But she had seen Jenny looking at her and she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t leave the innocent little girl to her fate. She pushed aside her own terror, becoming strangely calm as she undid the rope around her ankles. Still he hadn’t looked at her. He was continuing
his speech, his attention on the sky. She leapt up and ran at him, her hands clenched, the fury of her ruined childhood contained within them. He noticed her at the last second. She landed one punch but it wasn’t enough, her second fist sliced through empty air. He pushed her backwards. She tripped over a loose stone in the grass and fell onto her back. “Patience,” he said, putting his foot on the centre of her chest. “Your turn next.” He pressed down and she felt her ribs on the verge of cracking. She was sure he was going to break her in two but he stopped, wrenching her upright and then throwing her against the altar. Her head caught the corner of the stone and she bit her lip to avoiding screaming, falling limp onto the grass, keeping still as the sound of a man shouting came down from above the nave. Someone was out there on the grass, calling Samuel’s name. Her head hurt more than it ever had before. “Mother?” Samuel said. The distraction was enough. Martha slid one hand slowly upwards to the ropes holding Jenny in
place. Samuel was moving towards the shouting voice, giving her time to get up and work Jenny loose. She felt dizzy as she fiddled with the knot but at last she got Jenny out of the bonds and together they moved into the darkness, away from the light of the lanterns. They ran to the end of the nave and through a gap in the stonework. As she leapt through, a hand grabbed her and she screamed.
SIXTY-FIVE Ben couldn’t believe it had worked. Timothy was still shouting and Samuel had disappeared towards him, into the darkness. He hoped Timothy would realise and move further away. He noticed that he still had hold of Martha and slowly loosened his grip on her chest. He shushed her as he did so, pulling her down with Jenny beside her, putting a finger to his lips. They sat together in silence, the only noise other than the wind was that of Timothy's shouting. Ben was about to move when the tip of a knife appeared through the gap in the nave wall. It was barely visible in the gloom but with his eyes adjusted to the dark, he could make out the lightness against the wall behind it. The knife moved slowly forwards, fingers gripped tightly
around the handle. He bristled, getting ready to jump up. Samuel was already coming for them. The figure moved silently through the gap in the wall and stopped, eyes fixed on Martha. He didn't even acknowledge Ben. "Time to finish the game," he snarled, lunging down to grab her. Jenny screamed, scuttling backwards as Ben leapt up. Samuel batted him away with his free hand, sending him thudding into the wall. As Ben scrambled to his feet, Samuel leaned down once more, reaching out to grab Martha's arm. She still had the stone she’d picked up in her hand. As Samuel took hold of her, all of the fear within her turned to rage and she swung her arm upwards, slammed the stone against the top of his head before he even knew what was happening. He looked surprised by the blow, his eyes widening as he dropped the knife, his fingers running through the blood that began gushing down his face. “I-” was all he said as he staggered backwards,
falling to the ground a second later. He tried to turn over as Martha ran over to him. She stood over him and roared as she struck another blow to his head. She would have hit him again but Ben caught her arm, turning her away, wrapping her up in an embrace. “It’s over,” he said, looking down at the shadowy form of the Gamesman's corpse, the bloody stone on the ground next to him. “It’s all over.”
SIXTY-SIX D.C.I Gregg had followed the light of the lanterns into the abbey grounds. It seemed to take forever to descend the hill into the valley where the abbey lay hidden. He maintained light discipline throughout, ever wary of being spotted. Halfway down the hill, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He listened to two voicemails that came through at once, just before the signal died again. The locals were on the way to block off the road and to follow on down to the valley as soon as they could. A farmer had been woken up to bring his tractor out and shove the tree trunk off the road to let the cars through once more. When he lost the light of the torch, he put on a burst of speed but that only made him trip over the roadside verges as he almost fell into the river
beside him. He paused, squinting as he looked ahead through the rain. In the distance there was a twinkling light and he honed in on that, marching as quickly as he dared. By the time he got there, it was all over. He found two adults and a child standing next to the body at the end of the nave. There was no one by the altar, just two lanterns with candles ablaze inside. It didn’t take long to work out what had happened. He led the group out of the abbey and into the car park, sitting them down under the shelter by the visitor centre, keeping the worst of the rain off them. He told them that back up was coming. They would to answer some questions but he’d do his best to keep them for as little time as possible. Then Timothy appeared out of nowhere.
SIXTY-SEVEN Timothy found them under the shelter. He had held out in place for as long as he could, shouting ridiculous threats at Samuel, hoping to tempt him away from the altar. At first it seemed to work. From his hiding place on the hillside, he'd seen Jenny and Martha escape, Samuel heading towards him. But then he'd turned away, as if coming out of a trance. He'd walked to the end of the nave and then through the gap. For a long time Timothy had stayed there. He'd heard noises but hadn't dared to move, his heart stabbing him in the chest and making him pray for the first time in many years. Just let me last a few more minutes. When the pain finally subsided, he saw torch light down the near the visitor centre. He made his
way towards it, stepping out into the car park and seeing his granddaughter safe in Martha's arms. The detective who'd interviewed him what felt like a lifetime ago was there too, he was the one holding the torch. "Granddad!" Jenny shouted, jumping up when she saw him. Timothy caught D.C.I Gregg's eye. The detective nodded slightly at him before turning away. Jenny leapt into his arms and he held her for a long time, his tears soaking into her hair. It was hard to believe she was safe. That it was over. But that was what Gregg was saying into the phone. One body. Presumed to be Samuel Lyons. Believed to have tripped and fallen onto a loose stone, died instantly. Ben and Martha sat together on the seat in the shelter, holding hands. The detective stood apart, watching the four of them, talking into his phone. Above them all, the clouds slid back together, the clear section of sky vanishing. The comet came and went. Up on the altar, the candles went out one last time. This time no one relit them.
EPILOGUE It was an unusually warm week. It was half term and the castle was filled with visiting families. A few of them stood for a spell to watch the two old men playing chess. They didn't watch for long, the kids would get bored and wander off, parents in tow. Timothy sat on one side of the table. Peter sat on the other. Timothy had just moved his knight and was putting Peter’s Queen under pressure. Neither of them minded who won. They were just glad to be playing. Peter moved his pieces slowly, concentrating on the motion of his fingers. The game was helping his recovery. It was helping Timothy’s too. His heart was still giving him pain but it was nothing like as bad as it had been. He hoped never to need to run like that again. He
wasn't sure he would survive it. Timothy looked up when his daughter appeared next to him. “Good afternoon Cathy,” he said. “How are you?” "I brought her. She wouldn't stop going on about it." "I asked how you are. How are you, Cathy?" "How do you think I am? You nearly get your Granddaughter killed and now you act like nothing happened. I can't believe she still wants to see you." "I think she likes it here. So do I. You might like it up here too." "And what's that supposed to mean?" He turned from his daughter to Peter. "I'll be back in a minute." The conversation lasted a long time. Timothy was patient. Cathy shouted, then cried, then sat and listened. Then they hugged for the first time in years. After the talk was over, Jenny came up to her Granddad. “Mum says she asks you to look after me and this happens. She wants to know why I’d want to come back here so soon. She tried
to get me to stay at home.” “Why did you come back?” Timothy asked. “Because I want to spend time with you.” “Tell her that,” he replied, ruffling her hair. “And tell her that’s the power of family. Then ask her if she wants to stay for the picnic.” Once the game was finished, which Peter won, against expectations, the picnic was retrieved and laid out on the grass. To the visiting families, it looked like just any other picnic. But they didn’t know the story behind it. Or how hard it had been to bring all these people together. Timothy and Peter sat in camping chairs. Jenny sat with her mother on the red and green striped blanket. Beside them was Martha, Ben serving out the sandwiches next to her. “To think this could all have been tarmac,” Peter said, looking around him. Nobody talked about Samuel Lyons. He was gone. They would all deal with what happened in their own way, separately and together. Jenny would need the most help to come to terms with it. But she had a lot of people around her who
were only too willing to assist in any way they could. The police case was still ongoing and the memory of Chloe's funeral was fresh in all their minds. There was a lot that could have been said about both things but nobody talked about them during the picnic. It didn't seem right. Nor did anyone mention what had happened to Alex and Erin. They didn’t need to. Someone had leaked the details to the local papers and it would serve as gossip for Helmsley for years to come. Alex had indeed bribed a number of officials on the local planning committee to approve his plans for the castle. He had gotten in too deep by taking money from investors and spending it on himself, hoping to use the purchase of the castle and future profits to get himself out of the hole he’d gotten himself into. When the sale didn’t happen, one of the investors started digging. Alex and Erin went bust when the truth came out. Charges were probably going to be filed but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that the
castle was safe. Peter had made clear what he wanted to happen and Ben had no desire to go against his father’s wishes. Ben and Martha would run the place together. They were happy to oblige. Ben’s only trouble was with the car hire company. They were not pleased that their vehicle needed retrieving from Yorkshire. In the end, he arranged to drive it back up with Martha. He wanted to show her his Scottish house at least once before settling down in Helmsley for good. The two old men talked about chess while they ate. Ben and Martha talked about the future and about their future. Jenny talked to her mother about the siege of the castle during the Civil War. Martha thought for a brief moment she could see someone who looked like Chloe over near the Great Hall. When she looked again, there was no one there. Behind them all, the sun slowly began to set.
Also by the same author A Girl to Die For - A Novella
About the author Emma Snow is a romantic thriller writer living in the UK. She has written A Girl to Die For, before turning her hand to her first full length novel which became Missing Piece. She spends her days reading, writing, and drinking too much tea. Her bookcases are overflowing with old favourites and new works she will get round to reading at some point. She can usually be bribed with chocolate. Please consider writing a review if you enjoyed her book. You can get in touch with her to let her know what you thought of Missing Piece via her Facebook page. Connect with the author: Facebook fan club Instagram Twitter Bookbub Sign up to my mailing list
