Tell-Tale Read online

  Nothing. I couldn’t hear the wailing sound now. Perhaps I’d never heard it, or perhaps it was someone else hiding, a balled-up body of fear snivelling in the corner, waiting to be found, waiting to die.

  I screamed as a rat ran over my feet. I wasn’t wearing any shoes. Convinced that Betsy wasn’t in the basement after all, I ran as fast as I could back to ground level.

  Roecliffe lay still. The children were asleep. The old clock told me it was quarter to three. A spillage of light came from the office where Patricia sat on night duty, hunched over her desk, praying that no one would disturb her.

  ‘Who’s there?’ she called out. I froze against the wall, pressing myself into the shadows as she ducked her head out of the office, then shrugged and settled back to her book. She didn’t want trouble; didn’t want to notice what went on at night.

  I saw that the front door was open a crack. Had someone just been through it? My eyes cut through the darkness outside as I ran down the steps, praying that I was on the right track.

  Barefoot, I flew across the rough stones, tarmac and cold mud. I ran as if my life depended on it.

  Dizzy with fear, I spun round, staggering backwards while staring up at the grey façade of Roecliffe Children’s Home towering above me. ‘I hate you! I hate you!’ I screamed over and over at the silent stone. A thousand imaginary faces peered out of the dozens of dark windows, each one laughing at me. I lunged at the air, at the shadows, at the drizzle, and ran on again, tripping over my own terror.

  On and on I stumbled, feeling as if I was tearing through a nightmare – one stride forward and three back. My arms flailed like wings. If I could have flown, I would. ‘Take me instead!’ I called out. Spit foamed on my lips. My ears rang from the bitter cold. Blood seeped from the welts on my feet as I tore down the drive that led to the gates of hell. I didn’t know where I was going.

  I stopped suddenly. There was a light in the woods.

  I ran towards it.

  Everything familiar became unreal. The trees that we’d charged around, hidden in, climbed, suddenly became monsters with arms reaching out to snatch me.

  I kept going.

  I trampled the ground where the bluebells lay dormant. Don’t. They’re special, I’d told her as she’d ripped them from the ground. Later, during the sermon, her eyes flashed like coins as she crushed the petals in her palm. Purple confetti fell around our ankles, tumbling across the stone floor.

  I charged on, leaping over twigs and branches that had fallen in the recent storms. I’m coming, I’m coming. . . I panted, convinced that the light would lead me to Betsy. Somebody was out in the middle of the night. I prayed they would have Betsy safe.

  The drizzle turned to pelting rain, stinging my face as I ran. The trees grew closer together the deeper I went, as if they were joining arms to stop me trespassing in a place I wasn’t welcome. I focused on the light.

  The undergrowth and trees finally cleared into an open space with the chapel at its centre. I slowed down. I didn’t want to be seen. I crept round the edge, careful to stay in the shadows. I stared up at the big arched window. Someone was in there and had lit candles – dozens of them lined up along the sills.

  ‘Please be all right, Betsy.’ She was in the house of God. She had to be safe, didn’t she? Or maybe she’d taken herself off there, preferring the comfort of the chapel at night, away from prying hands. ‘Brave little girl,’ I mouthed, imagining her curled up on a pew. But until I knew for sure, I had to be careful. It might not be Betsy in there.

  A clump of bushes stretched from the wood to the chapel. I crouched, following their path until I reached the dank smell of wet stone. I pressed my hands on to the lichen-covered building and followed the wall. Above me the candlelight drew me on, lighting my way to the front door.

  I stopped. If I went that way, I’d be seen instantly.

  At the end of the Sunday service, the older ones were taken to the back room for extra Bible lessons. The younger kids remained fidgeting in the pews, singing hymns under Mr Leaby’s direction. I knew that other room had several windows and a door leading directly outside. Last time we were there, the catch on one of the windows had jammed and Patricia had cursed. ‘Damn thing will have to stay open then,’ she said, and clapped a hand over her mouth.

  I crept to the window and reached up, hooking my fingers under the rotten wood. It gave and lifted. As soon as I raised it, my nostrils were filled with a strange scent. The chapel usually smelled of damp and rot and wet books, but now a gentle aroma spiralled out. Someone had lit incense.

  I curled my toes into the notches between the bricks, and dug my fingers around the window frame. In a moment, I’d heaved myself up and squeezed through the open pane. The room was completely dark, lit only by a thin horizon of light coming from beneath the door leading to the main chapel.

  Silently, I jumped down off the sill. I felt my way around the wall to the door opposite. I kicked something – a chair or a wooden box – and it scraped loudly across the floor. I held my breath, stifling the cry of pain as my bare toe throbbed, waiting for the door to burst open, my head to be whipped back and forth as my shoulders were shaken.

  Nothing.

  I exhaled and drew up to the door, my feet stepping into the invitation of light. Then I heard the chanting. It was like nothing I’d ever heard before.

  I put my hand on the door handle. The altar would be to my left, the congregation pews to my right. My fist shook on the knob, but a tiny brave part of me turned it. Praying it wouldn’t make a noise, I eased the door open no more than the breadth of my little finger. To the right, I saw the empty racks of wooden pews that had made our bottoms numb on countless Sundays. I couldn’t see anyone.

  Driven on by the strange noise – somewhere between monks chanting and old dogs growling – I dared to open the door a little wider. When it was open about the width of my hand, I could just make out the windows and the big old door opposite. There was still no one in sight. I closed my eyes for a second, begging God to protect me.

  I daren’t open the door any more so I peered through the crack at the hinges. There was a vertical shaft of light – a flickering mass suggesting Christmas, angels, some kind of celebration. I twisted my head sideways, waiting until my eyes adjusted to the brilliant array of candle flames around the altar.

  My fist rammed the scream back down my throat. I gagged. I bit the thin bones of my hand to prevent the cry that would give me away.

  A naked child was tied to a table with swathes of coloured cloth. It was a girl. The bench was perpendicular to the altar with the toes saluting the cross. The body’s short length gave away her young age. Four figures, all dressed in black, loomed over her, one at each side of the table. I couldn’t see her face.

  Tears filled my eyes. ‘Please don’t be Betsy, please don’t be Betsy,’ I muttered against my fist. I had no idea what was going on. Perhaps it wasn’t as awful as it first appeared. There was no struggling. The child was lying still. The candles gave off a warm and homely glow to the usually cold chapel, and the chanting offered some comfort.

  I stared in disbelief at the man standing opposite.

  I knew who he was.

  Mr Tulloch. He’d taught me when I was at the village school. His sandy hair was ginger in the candlelight. His pockmarked skin stretched tight over a good deal of fat. He was the shortest of the four and appeared to be in control of the gathering. He raised his arms and waved them above his head. Suddenly the chanting ceased.

  Short staccato bolts of fear left my lungs.

  Don’t make a noise. Don’t make a noise.

  Sweat broke out on my face. My hands shook – one still glued to the doorknob, the other rammed in my dry mouth. The skin on my arms and legs crawled and prickled as if insects were clambering all over me.

  ‘Let’s get on with it,’ said one of the others. They walked round the table. Their arms were held out with their palms facing down over the poor wretch on the table.

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p; Another face came into view.

  I knew him too.

  He was the young man from the village, the one who rode the mowers around the grounds, not much more than a boy himself. His hair was frizzy and his ruddy face was pale and intense. He looked excited. I’d heard the other girls calling out his name as he worked the grounds, teasing and flirting with him. ‘Hey, Karl,’ they sang. ‘Come and get us.’

  The next face to come into view took my breath away.

  Mr Leaby.

  He followed in the slow parade, illuminated by the circle of candles around them. The low lighting gave him hollows above his eye sockets instead of underneath. My hands crushed my mouth, twisting away any possibility of making a noise. This was the man in charge of the home, the person responsible for our safety.

  Why, then, did he draw out a long knife from beneath the table and pass it to the fourth person in the group?

  The final man turned to receive the instrument. I held my breath, ready for the shock of someone else I knew. But when he turned into the candlelight, all I saw was a black hood with pale almonds cut out where his eyes should have been.

  It all happened so quickly.

  The knife went into her chest vertically. More chanting concealed the brief but piercing shriek. Hot vomit spilled silently down my front as blood poured off the edge of the table. I still couldn’t see the child’s face. Two small arms flailed sideways and one knee rose involuntarily.

  Please, dear God, don’t let it be Betsy.

  Then stillness as the blade was withdrawn and inserted again, this time in the stomach. The metallic stench of blood seeped across the chapel as the hooded man worked like a surgeon.

  Finally, when the child lay quite still, words were exchanged and the four men backed away from the body.

  Then I saw her.

  My little friend, little Betsy, lay lifeless on the table.

  My eyes dizzied in and out of focus, refusing to believe what I was seeing. Her soft hair flowed off the edge of the table. Her sweet face with its wide eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. Blood poured from dark holes in her naked body. Her concave chest held a small puddle, while the crook of her armpits released a thickening river of red.

  I stared at her for what seemed like my entire life. From the moment I’d found her waif-like and alone in the corridor to only an hour or so ago when she was warm and safe in bed with me, I replayed every moment of our time together.

  Betsy was dead. They had killed her.

  I couldn’t move.

  I saw fresh bruises on her face, her legs, the insides of her thighs. I unconsciously drank in the details of the scene, taking in everything with dreadful clarity – every mole on their faces, the colour of their eyes, their hair, what shoes they wore, the tone of their voices, how long their fingernails were, and the way they grinned and applauded each other for a job well done. I saw them all except for the hooded one.

  Then, as I crept backwards, I stumbled, and something crashed to the floor.

  The men swooped round. I saw the blood drain from three of their faces, just as it had done from Betsy’s limp body.

  There was a roar followed by clattering and swearing, shouts of anger, thundering feet.

  In slow motion, I turned and fumbled my way back to the window. My shaking hands wrenched it open and I scraped myself through. It slammed shut on my fingers. The men were close behind me, crashing into the back room. They were yelling out, threatening me, ordering me to stop.

  I jumped down on to the soft earth outside the chapel. Then I ran.

  I looked back once, stumbled, locked eyes with the youngest man: Karl.

  The woods closed in around me, swallowing me up in branches and thorns and roots and fallen leaves. All I could hear was the sound of my breath as it flooded in and out of my lungs, and the whoosh of blood in my ears as I ran on, one foot after another a thousand times over. Cold mud splattered up my legs; I stumbled on knotty roots rising up from the earth.

  I stopped. I glanced back with hands on knees, panting. There was no one there. I’d lost them in the dark woods.

  But how could I leave Betsy?

  In the distance I heard shrieks undercut by low voices. They were still searching for me. But there was no stampede of footsteps, no chase through the trees. They didn’t know which way I’d gone; didn’t know the woods as well as I did.

  I trembled. They didn’t want to leave the body either. Betsy’s body, I sobbed to myself. I couldn’t afford to let it out. Not yet.

  What were they going to do with her?

  Driven by hatred, and by a loyalty to Betsy that overrode any sense I had left, I crept between the trees and headed back towards the dim light of the chapel. Every step I took matched every controlled breath that entered or left my chest. I listened, I waited, I advanced a foot more. I half expected a hand to come from behind, clamping around my mouth, binding me up next to Betsy in the chapel.

  Ahead, I saw the flash of a torch.

  I was close. One of them carried a candle. It was the hooded one. I crouched behind a bush, squinting through the scratchy twigs at the scene outside the chapel. They spoke in low voices, occasionally punctuated by a raised voice, an angry yell as they disagreed on something. One of them shoved Mr Leaby. He fell over. I had upset their ritual. They didn’t know what to do. They didn’t know how much I’d seen. They were fighting among themselves.

  Carefully, I held on to every detail of the gruesome scene in my head. Every last feature on those three faces, the colour of every piece of fabric, hair and clothing was printed on my mind. It was a scene I would never forget.

  There was more shouting, a scuffle. I wanted to get closer but daren’t. One of the men was carrying something. Something pale in the white glare of a torch. Flashing in and out of focus, I followed their jerky passage.

  Karl, the one who worked in the grounds, brandished a shovel and began to dig furiously. I heard the ring of metal followed by cursing as he struck a rock. Soil pattered in the night.

  ‘Get her in,’ one of them said. It was Leaby’s voice. The hooded man bent over the hole and allowed Betsy to flop into the earth. An arm and a leg stuck out so he kicked them into the shallow grave.

  Karl leaned in and plucked something from the body, holding it up. I couldn’t see what it was, but the torchlight bounced off it as if it were metallic.

  Then he shovelled the earth back and within minutes all that was left of Betsy was a gentle mound in the blackness of the woods. ‘We need to go,’ one of them said. Grabbing the shovel, the candle, a discarded jacket, the four of them walked briskly away from the chapel. With his back to me, the man with the hood dragged the black covering from his head. Then they were lost in the dark.

  I stared at the muddy mound. Above it, an oak tree towered. After an hour, perhaps two, certain the men had gone, I crawled towards Betsy on all fours. I was a forest creature, hunting, prowling, searching. When I reached the grave, I pushed my hands into the damp soil. The smell of it lined my nose. The rain had stopped, but fat drops fell from the branches.

  I scraped away the soil, slowly at first, but then with desperation, scared that she wouldn’t be able to breathe. Panicking, I shovelled the wet earth as fast as I could, eventually catching my nails on something soft, something skin-like only colder.

  It was Betsy’s shoulder.

  I wiped the tears off my face, leaving smears of black soil on my cheeks. I pummelled at the ground, tearing it off her face as I exposed her chest, her neck and, finally, dirty strands of her baby-like hair. In it was a strawberry-shaped hairclip – one of a pair that she always wore.

  ‘Betsy, Betsy . . .’ I sobbed. My tears fell on her face. Pure white skin beneath a mask of mud, she slept with her dirt-filled eyes open. She stared up into the trees.

  I shook her. I kissed her. I wiped the blood off her chest with my pyjamas.

  She was gone. Taken from me. Dead.

  I pulled the clip from her hair, snagging some strands as it ca
me out. Then I ran. I didn’t stop until I reached the village. Exhausted, sobbing, hysterical, bereft, I slammed into the telephone box. I called the police. Enough was enough. After ten years of silence, it was time to tell.

  CHAPTER 51

  Nina stared at her husband, unable to move. She gripped the car keys. ‘Were you in a fight? Who did this to you?’ Her voice shook. She approached him cautiously, as if even her presence might hurt the puffy bruises that sat beneath each eye. Mick’s nose was crooked and bloody, quite possibly broken, and his bottom lip was split in two. He sat at the kitchen table looking like the bottom had fallen out of his world.

  ‘Oh my God, Dad. Look at you!’ Josie ran up to hug her father, but he kept her at arm’s length.

  Nina tentatively knelt down beside him. She couldn’t stand to think that Burnett had done this to Mick. ‘Were you in a car accident?’ She hadn’t noticed any damage on Mick’s car when she’d raced back from Laura’s with Josie. He’d called to ask when she’d be home, that he’d had an accident. He’d hung up before Nina could ask if he was OK. ‘Josie, run to the bathroom and fetch some dressings and antiseptic cream.’

  Mick shook his head and winced. ‘It’s so stupid,’ he said, trying to smile. He sounded as if he had a mouthful of food. ‘You wouldn’t believe it, but I fell down the stairs.’ He touched his cheek and grimaced.

  ‘The stairs?’ she said incredulously. Perhaps it wasn’t Burnett. ‘I’ll get you some ice.’ Nina rummaged in the freezer and emptied a tray of ice cubes into a plastic bag. She wrapped them in a tea towel and gently held them against Mick’s skin. ‘So how did you manage to fall? Are you sure it was the stairs, Mick? Not a car accident or a . . . a fight with someone?’

  Josie yelled out that she couldn’t find the items.

  ‘They’re in the cabinet,’ Nina called back.