A Dark Dividing (20 page)

Isobel might put up an objection, and Martin Brannan might support her, but not even Izzy would think that Joe was capable of murder. And so his story would be believed, and even if they recovered Mel’s body all they would find would be traces of paracetomol, not big enough to be an overdose.

But I don’t have time to argue with him about any of that and I barely have time even to think it, because I’ve got to get out for the twins’ sake I’ve got to get out… But each time she tried to get free the quicksands pulled her deeper, slopping and squelching as if the marsh were smacking its slabby lips over this unexpected morsel. She was going to die, and once she was dead Joe would have the girls to himself, and he would use them in his campaign, and he might keep using them—over and over again… Oh God, I can’t let this happen!

She said, ‘Joe, listen, I’ll do whatever you want. If you want the twins to stay as they are I’ll accept that. I’ll try to understand your feelings and—and respect them.’

‘Will you? Can I trust you, Melissa? If I really thought I could trust you I might let you live,’ he said.

‘You can trust me, truly you can!’ The mud smelt like wet, creeping mould, and it was gaining a hold on her. This would be a dreadful way to die. One of her hands was caught in the mud now, and the more she struggled the more it pulled her down. Like sticky grey fingers. Like horrid snatching goblins deep below the surface.

‘Joe, I promise! I’ll agree to anything in the world—’

If there had been a tree root nearby that she could hang on to, she might have managed to get out under her own steam, but there was nothing. Nothing except the swirling mists which were already clearing to show a hazy sunshine, and nothing but desolate wastes of the marshes.

Joe said, as if considering the matter, ‘I suppose if you’re really promising—And there’s a rope in the boot of the car that I could get.’ He stood up and appeared to consult his watch. ‘I could run back to get it, but I don’t know if there’s time now—I think I might have left it too late.’

Oh, you fucking bastard, thought Mel who hardly ever swore. You’re playing with me! You know to the second how long it will take to get the rope, and you know to the instant how long this murderous mud will take to drown me! Forcing a note of calm into her voice, she said, ‘Yes—please Joe—please fetch the rope.’ The mud was around her waist now, and her right arm was starting to ache intolerably with the strain of keeping it above the surface. But I must keep that hand free because he’ll get the rope and I’ll be able to grab it—I know he’ll get the rope, really—

He did get it, of course. He had always intended to get it. He went swiftly back to where the car was parked, reaching into the boot for a coil of rope, and returning nimbly along the towpath. Mel managed to watch him all the way there and back. Once she thought he had missed his footing and that he was about to tumble off the path into the marshes’ waiting lips, but he did not. He came back and stood looking down at her again.

‘There’s one more thing, Melissa.’

‘What?’ The muscles of Mel’s right arm and shoulder were screaming with pain. ‘Tell me—quickly!’

‘We’re never going to speak of today,’ he said. ‘None of this ever happened. If you tell anyone about it, I’ll deny it, of course. I might even have you declared unfit. Mentally sick. Yes, I could do that, I think.’

‘I understand.’ Her right arm was a mass of red-hot agony; any minute she would be forced to lower it, and it would go down into the mud, and then she would be unable to reach the rope that he was still coiling and uncoiling between his hands. Horrid hands. How could I have let those hands anywhere near my body? She said, ‘I won’t tell anyone about it, Joe. You have my word.’

Precious seconds ticked by, seconds which could not really be spared. Then Joe said, ‘OK, here’s the rope. Get ready to be hauled out.’

The ancient quicksands did not easily give up their prey. There was a bad moment when Mel saw panic flicker in Joe’s eyes, and when she thought, He didn’t intend to let me die after all! But he’s miscalculated—he really has left it too late!

And then slowly, inch by reluctant inch, the slopping, sucking mud loosened its grip, and with a sound like a wet wound being forced open she was out; she was being dragged on to the towpath, and she was shivering and sobbing and the landscape was spinning around her, and she had to cling to Joe because she could barely stand. But she was not going to die.

He had to help her to walk along the path: by herself she would certainly have fallen on the treacherously narrow path. And then she did fall. She missed her footing or she skidded—perhaps the path or her shoes were slippery from the mud—and she stumbled hard against him.

He fell back, flailing at the air to regain his balance, and went straight into the quicksands where, only moments earlier, Mel had struggled for her life.

He struggled just as she had done. Of course he did. He fought like a thing possessed to get free of the glutinous morass, and with every movement he made he sank deeper in. He looked grotesque, wallowing in the slabby grey mud; he looked like a monstrous human fly trying to drag itself free of a gunked-up flypaper.

Mel sank to her knees, still helplessly dizzy and weak, but looking round for the rope he had used to get her out. Nowhere to be seen. Of course it was not—they had let it fall back into the mud minutes earlier.

Joe was screaming at her. ‘Get me out, you stupid cunt! Do something!’

Do something… Yes, something, anything—Mel dragged the narrow leather belt of her cords off, fumbling the buckle a bit because her hands were still slimed with mud and desperately cold, but managing it in the end. ‘Joe—grab the end of my belt—’

He made one feeble attempt to reach the belt but missed. ‘It’s useless! It’s not long enough, you mad bitch! Get something stronger! For fuck’s sake do something!’

He was disgusting and obscene, panting and spluttering, his eyes bolting from his head in panic. The mud was slopping and licking around his waist, and one of his hands had become stuck in it as well.

‘I’ll go for help,’ said Mel, but when she stood up the world tilted and spun all round her again and she half fell back on to the path. But she said, ‘I’ll get back to the car—I think I can manage to reach it. Can you stay above the level of the mud?’

‘For Chrissake, of course I can’t!’

‘I’ve got a mobile phone in the car—’

‘There’s not
time
—can’t you see there’s not time! It’s pulling me down by the minute—I can
feel
it! Like hands clutching at me—’ So he was feeling those hands as well? ‘Oh God,
do
something—’

This time Mel managed to stand up properly and to scan the horizon, because surely, surely, there would be someone at hand who could help. But there was no one to be seen, and there was nothing to be done, and he was sinking faster now, because his weight was displacing more of the mud. Once his shoulders went under he would have no chance at all of getting free. How long would it take? Five minutes? More?

In the end it took nearer eight minutes, and those eight minutes seemed absolutely endless. Once he said, ‘I’m going to die, aren’t I?’

‘
No
. I’ll get you out,’ she said, kneeling on the towpath, fighting off the blurry dizziness, trying uselessly to stretch out a hand to him. ‘We’ll manage it somehow. Try to reach my belt again.’

But he could not, and there was no longer anything in the world except the mist-shrouded quicksands and the wailing of the seagulls overhead, and the oozing mud and Joe’s flailing hand that she could not reach. He had horrid hands. How could I have let those hands anywhere near my body? Yes, but I can’t let him die like this…

‘Joe, I won’t let you go under—’

But he did go under. He sank down and down into the heaving marsh and at the end he began to choke, slowly and horribly, helplessly inhaling the silty mud, frantically trying to keep his mouth and nostrils clear of it, but unable to do so. His face was streaked with the slopping ooze; it was in his eyes, blinding him painfully, and although once he tried to get a hand up to wipe it away he could not. Several times he retched violently, sicking up the mud that was slopping into his mouth.

Even after he had gone completely under the surface it was still possible to hear the dreadful wet gasps for several minutes. Little air-bubbles came up to the surface, but they finally stopped.

After what felt like a very long time Mel recovered sufficiently to drive Joe’s car back to the cottage. It was a nightmare journey and it was as well there were no other cars on the road because she was barely able to steer straight.

She left the twins lying happily in the sitting-room, and before she did anything else she mixed and drank a pint of warm water with a heaped tablespoon of mustard stirred in. It made her violently sick two or three times over, but although she still felt shaky her head was clearing. She thought she had got rid of most of the paracetamol and the revolting mud, and after this she phoned the local police on her mobile phone to report what had happened.

While she waited for them to come out to the cottage she got into a hot bath and tried to scrub and scour and shampoo away the stench of the marsh.

Joe’s body was recovered, of course, although it took two days to do it, and it was a messy, distressing process. But in view of the media interest—which was as much due to the twins as to Joseph Anderson himself—the body had to be got out.

Everyone was very kind to Mel and very patient with her and everyone accepted without question her explanation of an after-breakfast walk and a mis-step on the narrow slippery towpath. Dreadful, they said. And of course they understood that she had wanted a few weeks of anonymity somewhere with her babies, after all the press attention. Perfectly understandable. But how tragic that it should end like this, with her husband dying in such a macabre way on the very day he had driven up to spend a few days with her.

Isobel drove up to Castallack and stayed at the cottage with Mel. God, what a frightful thing, she said. An absolute tragedy. Mel thought she would not have got through it all without Isobel.

There had to be a post-mortem of course, and there had to be an inquest. The post-mortem showed death to have been due to the ingestion into the lungs of wet mud, in fact, in layman’s terms, Joseph Anderson had choked to death. An analysis of the stomach’s contents indicated eggs and bread and coffee, the digestion process suggesting it had been eaten about an hour before death. Questioned, Mel said yes, they had had toast and scrambled eggs for breakfast.