As the girl leant over to take one of the glasses from the table, her arm was grabbed roughly by the man next to her. She froze, fear flashing across her pretty face. The hood turned towards the girl’s chest and closed around it. When the man pulled away, an angry red mark lingered on the girl’s bare breast and her skin was slick with moisture. Was that man Mark? Beth couldn’t bear to watch any longer.
The figure at the head of the table spoke again and the room was silent. His words were commanding and must have been aimed at the girl, as she immediately walked over to stand next to him. He took a handful of her thick blonde hair and pushed her face roughly into the table. Beth cringed as she heard the thump of flesh connecting with wood even from where she stood. The figure motioned for the man next to him to stand and approach the girl from behind. Beth saw the dark robes open from the front and close again around the girl’s slight frame. She knew what was coming next and she really could watch no more. Gasping for breath, tears streaming down her cheeks, she turned around and ran into the darkness.
54
Cassie’s house is much like she is, always spotless and looking its best. I don’t know where she got the money from, and I’d never ask – knowing the details will probably only make me an accessory to some crime or other – but somehow she acquired this beautiful house and a car less than a year after her release. She’s proud that it’s the first place she’s ever owned without a man’s help – although I seriously doubt she saved up her weekly wages from her canteen job at Oakdale for a deposit.
I spot her car in the drive and feel stupid that I’m so nervous about seeing someone I spend almost every day with. Taking a deep breath, I knock on the door.
‘Susan?’ Cassie looks suspicious to find me on her doorstep. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m in trouble, Cass, can I come in?’
She looks reluctant to let me in and I get a fleeting crazy notion that there’s someone inside with her.
Is it Nick?
After a couple of seconds she nods and opens the door wider. There’s no one there. I’m getting paranoid and crazy.
Crazier
.
‘Thanks,’ I say gratefully, following her into the front room.
‘So what is it?’ Cassie’s voice is tinged with ice and I instantly regret coming here. Something’s changed between us and I know I’ve caused it.
‘It’s Nick,’ I say almost reluctantly. Should I just leave? Go to my dad’s and confess my stupidity? I don’t know why I don’t tell Cassie about Kristy Riley but for some reason I don’t want to. This isn’t the Cassie I know and trust.
‘What’s the matter, did he leave the toilet seat up? Crumbs in the bed, or wait, was it wet socks on the bedroom floor?’
‘What are you talking about? I’m not sleeping with him, if that’s what you’re implying.’
My best friend laughs without humour. ‘I’m not implying it, Susan, I’m saying it. You must think I’m so stupid.’
‘We’re both stupid, Cass,’ I inform her wearily. ‘We’re both really stupid. I’m so sorry.’
Cassie looks confused. ‘Don’t tell me, he’s married.’ Her voice still sounds cold, but now she’s curious too.
‘I have no idea. He could be married, widowed . . . hell, he could be gay for all I know about him.’ I tell her about turning up at his office to find the real Nick Whitely, bald and elderly, and when I’m finished she looks just as pissed off as she did before, if not more.
‘So when it all falls apart and golden boy turns out to be a dirty rotten liar, you come running to me,’ she spits out venomously. ‘And I’m expected to pick up the pieces and not say “I told you so”.’
I’m genuinely surprised at the anger in her voice. I mean, I can understand her being slightly fed up with me, but this is out of proportion.
‘I’m only going to say this once: yes, I’m attracted to him but there has been nothing between me and Nick . . . well, whatever his name is. I’m sorry we took off to Durham without you, and I shouldn’t have shut you out. It’s just been so crazy, everything’s been happening at once. If I’d known you were going to get jealous . . . I didn’t even realise you liked him . . .’
Cassie looks at me with pure disgust in her eyes. ‘I think you’d better leave,’ she says, and I feel like someone has punched me in the stomach. I don’t know where else to go.
‘What?’ I say stupidly.
‘Just go, Susan,’ Cassie repeats, shaking her head. ‘I do really hope you find Dylan and get your happy ending.’
I pick up my bag and leave the house, feeling hurt and bewildered. OK, I made a mistake, but surely it isn’t worth ruining three years of friendship over. I’m tired and every muscle in my body aches. All I want to do is collapse on to a bed, any bed, and sleep. But I can’t. I’m going to have to go to the police. I’m going to hand myself in; tell them everything I know about Dylan, Mark and even Kristy Riley. At least in prison I’m safe from all the people trying to drive me crazy, or worse. Exhausted and confused, I get back in my car and head for the nearest police station.
I’ve been driving less than ten minutes when my phone rings. Nick’s name flashes across the screen and my heart begins to pound. Barely taking my eyes off the road ahead, I reach over, click the cancel button and the call joins the other three missed calls on the list. My phone responds by ringing again. This time ‘Dad’ shows up on the screen.
‘Dad, hi. I’m driving right now, can I call you back?’
‘It’s urgent, Susie. I’ve just had a visit from the police. They, erm, they want to speak to you.’
My heart speeds up again and fear spreads through me, starting with a tightening in my chest. ‘What do they want? Is it about Mark?’
‘Yes and no. Susan, they said a woman is dead and they want to speak to you and Mark in connection with her murder. They think you killed her.’
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. ‘I didn’t, Dad. I had nothing to do with that woman’s death.’
‘Of course you didn’t, darling,’ he says with absolute conviction. Relief floods through me. If my dad believes me, then everything is going to be OK. ‘I just wanted to warn you. Whatever’s going on, a woman is dead and I’m worried about you. What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know, Dad. I’m scared.’ It’s good to admit how I feel out loud and I’m so glad to have my father back in my life. Even if I am potentially about to go back to prison for another murder I didn’t commit.
‘I’ll call you in a little while,’ I say before my father can speak again. ‘I think I’m going to hand myself in and explain, hope they believe my crazy story. I’ll call you. I love you.’
‘I love you too, Susan. Take care of yourself.’
‘I will, Dad.’
I pull into a side road opposite a park full of mothers playing happily with their children. There’s a toddler on the slide, laughing gleefully as he slides down into his mother’s arms and quickly runs around to the steps to start again. I sit and watch, imagine that I’m that mother, that Dylan is the little boy sliding down towards me. I whisper a silent prayer that I’ll find him safe and sound and that I’ll be whole once more, no longer a jigsaw without a piece, a snuffed-out candle, a mother without a child.
The shrill sound of my mobile phone ringing for a third time shocks me from my trance. I look down, but it’s a number I don’t recognise.
‘Hello?’
‘Is that Susan?’ The voice is female and unfamiliar. She doesn’t wait for me to answer. ‘This is Margaret. Margaret Webster.’
I know who this woman is. Although we’ve never met, her presence was with me throughout my married life. She was conspicuous by her absence at my wedding, the birth of my son, and then his funeral. Margaret Webster is my ex-mother-in-law.
‘Margaret? What are you doing in this country?’
‘I live in this country, Susan, in Halifax. I’m not sure what Mark has told you, but I’ve always lived here. And I’m ringing because Mark is missing.’
‘Mark is missing?’ I snap angrily. ‘You do surprise me. Tell me something I care about.’
So she does. ‘He’s gone to find Dylan.’
55
Mark: 27 November 1992
What was he doing here?
Mark had asked himself the question over and over on the drive up. He’d only just managed to convince Beth not to go to the police after last week, thanks to Kristy. And she’d threatened to call off the engagement if she ever found him near this place again.
Yet here he was.
He’d been trying to tell the Brotherhood all week that he was leaving, but he’d not yet managed to conjure up the strength.
Tonight. When tonight was over, he’d tell Jack once and for all.
The dark room was slowly filling up with the hooded figures, a ritual he’d become accustomed to over the past few months. He still remembered the night Jack had introduced the robes. That was the night things had begun to change, to twist and distort until nothing but a warped interpretation of the Brotherhood that Jack’s great-great-grandfather had been a part of had remained. Eleh Toldot. These are the generations.
Jack was the last to arrive, as always. Mark shuffled uncomfortably, picking up his wine and putting it back down again in between wiping his clammy palms against his floor-length black garb. It was impossible to relax, even more so than usual. Beth thought he was away for the weekend, visiting his parents as a way of escaping the weekly meeting until he could tell them his time was up, yet here he stood, drawn to the disused warehouse like a crack addict to his pipe.
‘You OK?’ Matty’s voice broke into his thoughts, dragging his mind back into the room. Matt was the only one who knew of his intention to leave, and Mark still hoped he would come with him. Matt had gradually become the best friend he had, as he’d come to realise what Jack was really like. He thought Kristy wanted Matt to leave too, but Matty had known Jack longer, plus Kristy wasn’t as insistent as Beth. Kristy had known about Eleh all along, although she’d only discovered the depths of the Brotherhood’s depravity when Beth had turned up at her room last week and broken down. Even then she’d accepted it. Mark knew that Kristy was the definition of a gold-digger; he’d swear she’d only come to university to find someone who could give her the privileges that came with being associated with the Durham elite. She valued that too much to force Matt to make a choice. She was different to Beth: no morals, no principles.
The air inside the room was saturated with tension, a mixture of excitement and fear. Some of the faces visible to him beneath the hoods were filled with boyish glee; others looked like they were going to be sick. Mark knew he wasn’t the only one horrified by what the Brotherhood had become; he also knew none of the others would have the courage to leave with him.
‘Mark? I asked if you were OK,’ Matty repeated, his voice low.
‘I’m fine,’ he replied, not trusting his voice enough to elaborate.
‘Well you look like shit. Pull yourself together or Jack will see there’s something wrong straight away. Just get through tonight and we’ll find a way for you to tell him you’re out.’
Mark nodded.
Just get through tonight. Easier said than done.
56
The words seem to take an eternity to sink in. ‘He’s what?’ I say stupidly, but there’s no way I misheard her. My ex-husband has gone crazy. He’s killed an innocent woman and
he knows where my son is
.
‘I’m so sorry, Susan, I know this will come as a massive shock but I’d rather not talk about it over the phone, we really don’t have time. Richard is out searching for them now.’
‘Richard?’ I interrupt quickly. ‘As in Richard Webster, Mark’s father?’ I don’t add
Mark’s dead father.
‘Yes, you sound surprised.’ She doesn’t wait for me to elaborate. ‘Can you come here, Susan? I think we need to talk.’
‘Where is here? Where has Mark gone? Where’s Dylan been all this time?’
‘I don’t know where Dylan’s been, Susan, Mark doesn’t know. There’s some explaining I need to do.’ She gives me details of their address in Halifax.
I mentally calculate how fast I can get there. It’s going to take me over an hour – anything could have happened to my little boy by then. Pictures of Mark sitting in his car, windows closed as exhaust fumes fill the small space, run through my head, but what choice do I have? He could be anywhere by now; there’s nothing for me to do here except call the police, and what’s the likelihood they are going to believe a murder suspect when she says that her ex-husband has gone to find her dead son, and her dead father-in-law is out searching for them both?
My decision is made. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
‘Have you found them?’ I demand the minute Margaret Webster opens the door to me fifty minutes later. I’ve broken every speed limit on every road on the journey here, and between speed cameras and congestion charges I’m likely to be bankrupt and banned from driving for life. I don’t wait to be asked in. I don’t introduce myself. ‘How does he know where Dylan is? How does he know he’s alive?’
I push past Mark’s mother. The house is beautifully kept, a huge detached show home, and normally I would soak in every detail. Right now I wouldn’t have cared had the walls been painted in molten gold and a naked footman answered the door.
‘No sign of them,’ the woman replies. She’s biting her lip and her eyes flit to the door every few seconds. ‘Oh God, this is such a mess. I’m so sorry.’
She takes my elbow and leads me through to the living room, where a pot of tea and two mugs sit on a glass coffee table. It would seem even the very rich put the kettle on when the going gets tough.
‘We hadn’t spoken to Mark for years when Dylan was born.’ Margaret pours me a mug of tea and passes me the sugar. With shaking hands I add four spoonfuls. The hot sugary drink calms me down slightly, although the intense feeling of dread doesn’t dissipate. I try to tell myself that Mark would never hurt Dylan, but the fact that for the past few days I’ve been telling myself he couldn’t have hurt his ex-fiancée only for him to murder his best friend’s wife hasn’t entirely escaped me.