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HS: When would that have been?
KE: Erm. About twenty minutes or so before my mum got back.
HS: So someone came into your house? Do you know who it was?
KE: It was probably our neighbour. She was always popping in. Ingrid.
HS: So Ingrid Taylor came to your house that night?
KE: I’m just saying that the doorbell went and I could smell fags. Ingrid was always coming round when Mum was out. Why do you want to know about that night anyway? I thought there were only three attacks?
21
Rachel
The chip shop was rammed, queue coming out the door. Impossible to park anywhere near. I found a space eventually on the other side of St Michael’s church. That’s why I cut through the graveyard, in case you were wondering. And can I just say, I did think twice, of course I did, I’m not daft. It was dark, and though I might be a bit past it, I’m still a woman and like every other woman have spent my whole life avoiding shady corners and empty streets, scurried along many a road late at night listening behind me for footsteps. But I was starving, my kecks – sorry, my trousers – were sticky and I just wanted to get the chips and get home. Anyway, talking to Phil every day, I’d started seeing the world in terms of odds, and I reckoned the odds of me getting through the shortcut without being seen were in my favour, what with me being invisible.
The iron gate whistled on its hinges like something out of a gothic horror. I had a good grin to myself about that, even whisperedwoosarcastically under my breath as I set off down the path. I walked slowly at first, but after no more than two or three paces, I heard a heavy scraping noise behind me. That wiped the grin right off my face. I walked faster. When the noise got faster too, I stopped. The noise stopped. Hulking graves crouched all around. My heart was hammering by now and my forehead was drenched. I was an idiot. I’d cut through a graveyard in the mizzling dark, to gain, what, five minutes? Madness, bloody madness. I took three quick strides – heard three dragging scratches behind me. A whimper escaped me. I half walked, half ran.Sht sht shtcame from behind,sht sht sht, faster and faster, in time with me. My breathing came shallow and fast. I had at least another fifty paces to get to the other side.
I stopped. The noise stopped. With all my courage, all my strength of will, I made myself turn around.
Nothing. No one.
‘Hello?’ I squinted down the dark path. The cemetery was as silent as, well, a graveyard. On the far side, the street was deserted. I peered into the gloom. ‘Who’s there?’ I called out. ‘If you think this is funny, well, it’s not.’
Nothing. The whisper of leaves. Night’s cut-out shapes. My throat thickened. I turned back. Took one step.
Sht.
‘Oh for God’s—’ I spun around on my heel, furious now, looked behind me, up, down. And then I saw it.
I glance up. Blue Eyes is on the edge of her seat.
‘It?’ she says.
‘There was a big twig,’ I say, ‘caught on the hem of my trousers, one end on the path. It had been dragging behind me.’
And for the first time in all these hours we’ve spent together, she laughs.
‘What did you do?’
I tell her I pulled the twig off, tutting and swearing, my heart not slowing, not yet, the sweat on my forehead going cold. I tell her I called myself names: bloody idiot woman, daft bat, loony tune.
It was funny, I knew that even then. Would be funny in a bit, anyway. It would be a story to tell Lisa. Lisa would do a whole routine on it, take the mickey until neither of us could breathe. But still, I was shaking and, for the second time that day, nearly crying. I ploughed on, a sick feeling in my stomach. Kept up a brisk pace. My mother had a plaque here; she’d been cremated. The plaque was on the far wall but I didn’t have time to visit it now. Not like she was there. She never bothered much with me when she was, to be honest, too wrapped up in my dad, as he was in her. My dad, now him I did need to visit. I hadn’t been to see him for a week or so.
The church loomed. In its shadow, the ground darkened. I could see the arch of the sandstone doorway up ahead, the recess of the porch black as all hell. I was walking silly fast by now, like one of those race walkers in the Commonwealth Games, all elbows and wiggling bottom. I told myself not to be so stupid. It wasn’t far now to the other side. There was no one here, no one at all. It was all in my mind. It had been a twig, just a twig, and now I was spooked, that was all. The chill on my legs got colder. I was about two or three metres from the church when I heard a grunting sound. I stopped. It was coming from the doorway. A noise I recognised and didn’t all at the same time, if you know what I mean. The grunting was regular, rhythmical. I knew exactly what it was but no part of me wanted to admit that that was what it could be. I screwed up my eyes and stared towards the doorway. A man’s back, shoulders hunched forward, head tipped down. His arm chugged back and forth in a rhythm that meant I could no longer deny what I was hearing, seeing.
‘Oh for goodness’ sake,’ I whispered to myself. ‘In the doorway of the church, for Pete’s sake.’
I had half a mind to shout at him, call him a pervert, tell him to sling his hook. I didn’t, but I must have whispered louder than I’d thought, or gasped in shock or something, because he turned quite suddenly to look behind him. Turned and stared right at me. I swear to God, he peered into my face as if he were trying to make out if I had a nose or not. Apparently seeing nothing at all, he looked past me then, over my shoulder, into the silent darkness. A second or two later, he turned back and carried on.Carried on, would you believe? Animal.
I took a step nearer, another. My hands sank into my pockets – well, into Mark’s pockets. The jump leads were still in there. I dug them out and stopped walking, teased them apart and returned one to the pocket. Alligator clip in one hand, I wound the lead around my other hand, pulled the smooth, thick cord tight, testing it. It was very strong.
I ducked behind a gravestone so he wouldn’t see me. He was engaging in this indecent activity to shock, that much was obvious. To shock himself mostly. The noise I’d made had excited him, for crying out loud. He was getting off on being seen, on being observed in a holy place doing an unholy thing. ‘Dirty bastard,’ I whispered. ‘Have you no shame?’
The cord was wrapped double around my hand. It slid about on my knuckles. Teeth gritted, I pulled tighter. Echoes of images took shadowy shape in my mind’s eye. In them he became a child, a child abused by, oh, guess what, by a ruddy priest. Not in this church, not in any church in this town. How original, though. How depressing. It started to make sense. Poor chap.Have you no shame?I’d wanted to spit in his ear. But he was riddled with shame; I felt the queasy roll of it in my guts, the cold heat of it burning through my body, head to toe. All his life, this shame for something that had been done to him when he was a nipper, a shame that was not, was never his. And my God, the loneliness, loneliness to make a grown man howl at the moon. He’d been lonely all his sodding life.
Blackness. The rustle of leaves above me. A pain throbbing on the left side of my head. I coughed, once, twice. I was on my knees, coming to my senses. I had the impression that time had moved on, but I couldn’t say how far. The jump lead was loose around my hands but my knuckles were sore. I had dropped to my knees, here, behind a gravestone. I was still here, behind the gravestone. Had I passed out, hit my head?
