Someone to Watch Over Me (33 page)

‘I hope you don't mind me coming here,' he said.

He looked less unkempt than he had when they had last seen him, as if he had made a special effort to look respectable before leaving the house. He was freshly shaved and had a small bloodied nick on his chin. She wondered how he had found out where she lived, but Pam answered her unspoken question.

‘I answered your mobile this morning when you were still asleep. I saw it was from Simon and I thought it might be important,' said Pam. ‘He said he had something more from Charlie.'

Carrie sat down at the table and Pam put a cup of tea down in front of her.

‘Is it about Max again?' asked Carrie. ‘Because I went to his house yesterday and he isn't there and the police are involved.'

‘You went where yesterday?' asked Pam, looking shocked.

‘He was describing a strange kind of building,' said Simon. ‘Over and over, he kept talking about a very tall chimney. If you get me some paper, I'll try and draw you what I think he was describing.'

Pam bustled off to get the required paper and pen and gave them to Simon who began to sketch the outline of a building, or rather a series of buildings connected to each other. In the centre was a tall thin chimney. The buildings looked Victorian with their sloped roofs and brick facades and high, small windows.

‘He said that Max was inside somewhere very dark and he was finding it hard to breathe,' said Simon. ‘He also said that Max was coming to join him soon.'

Carrie looked at the sketch that Simon had made and it didn't look like anywhere she had been to or seen in a photograph.

‘I think you should take this straight to the police,' said Pam. ‘You can't deal with this by yourself.'

‘I'm not sure the police don't think we are all a bunch of nutters,' said Carrie. ‘I got the distinct impression last night that they thought that grief had addled my brain. Which it very well may have done.'

She thought for one wild moment that perhaps she had dreamed the whole thing and that her sorrow and guilt about the death of her child had caused her to have elaborate hallucinations. In many ways the idea that this might be the case was more comforting than the reality. If she could be sitting in her own kitchen, believing that her dead son was communicating with her through an alcoholic medium who was currently drawing strange pictures on the back of her telephone pad with a pen, then anyone could believe anything at all.

Carrie went through to her front room and got her laptop and brought it through to the kitchen. She did a Google search for chimneys in East Anglia and got page after page of chimney sweeps and chimney renovators. She refined her search to tall chimneys in East Anglia and almost straight away got a picture that looked very similar to the one that Simon had drawn. It was of a steam pumping station situated in a village near Ely. Now a museum, the building used to pump water from the Fens and into the drainage ditches that marked out the edges of fields and roads. The configuration of the buildings was just too similar to Simon's drawing to be a coincidence. The group of buildings consisted of a scoop wheel, an engine room and a boiler room to which the chimney was attached. Carrie didn't understand how a museum could possibly be the place where Molly and Max were being kept, but it was a lead and she intended to follow it.

Carrie had a quick breakfast and shower and got herself dressed. Bowing to pressure from Pam that she wouldn't go anywhere by herself, she rang Paul and asked him if he would come with her. She drove around to his and Jen's house and he was standing, anoraked and ready outside the door. Enif picked his way disdainfully into Carrie's car, as if he couldn't believe he had sunk so low as to travel in such a shabby vehicle.

‘I'm sorry to have to involve you with this,' said Carrie as she navigated the congested streets around the centre of town. ‘Mum's convinced I am going to get myself into trouble.'

‘It's no problem at all,' said Paul. ‘Glad to get away from the computer. The dots do start to swim before the eyes after a while.'

‘Did you go into the shop yesterday?' asked Carrie. ‘I feel really guilty about the amount of time I'm having to be away.'

‘I like being in the shop, besides, I need the extra cash if I'm to get through the next bit of the research project. Enif is getting to be a faddy eater.'

They found their way to the museum without any trouble and parked the car on a narrow strip of grass by the canal. The building was solid and imposing, the square chimney being the highest landmark for miles around. The arched wooden door was locked and it was clear that the museum wasn't open to the public. An elderly man who was passing with his dog shouted out to them.

‘It's closed. Only open on certain days of the week, I'm afraid,' he said, his small, low-bellied dog eyeing Enif fearfully as if he knew he was in the presence of the devil. Carrie and Paul wandered over to the man, who had stopped to let his dog do a trembling crap. That was the Enif effect for you.

‘It's worth a look though, if you are round this way again,' he continued. ‘If it wasn't for these old steam pumping stations the whole place would have stayed a bog longer than it did. Imagine how cut off this area was when most of it was underwater.'

‘Were there many stations like this one?' asked Carrie.

‘I think there were about a hundred at one time, but this is the last preserved example in this area of the country. It wouldn't surprise me if there were the remains of a few still dotted around, probably mostly ruined, maybe some of them used as farm buildings.'

Carrie suddenly thought about the painting that Molly had brought into
Trove
to be sold – the picture of the strangely configured ruin. She was almost certain that the building had had some sort of broken-off chimney with vines half covering it. Where had she said it was? Near her house, Molly had said. They had stumbled upon it when they were walking.

Enif made a sudden lunge at the other dog's hindquarters, so Paul hastily pulled him away and into the car. The man made a point of waving Carrie and Paul off, before continuing up the road. Carrie thought that he probably liked to pass the time of day with the odd stranger who strayed into his path, but he also liked to know that they weren't hanging around for too long on his patch.

Molly wasn't sure exactly at what point in the night Max stopped his regular bouts of tapping. For a while, she consoled herself with the thought that he had drifted off to sleep and she tried to do the same, despite the fact that she had severe cramp in her legs from lying with them bent up against the end of the barrel. On a number of occasions in the night, she thought she heard the door of the building open, and each time it happened she held herself ready in case Rupert opened the door of the barrel, but he never did. She also thought that she could hear objects being dragged across the stone floor. She tried banging against the top of the drum to attract his attention, but Rupert seemed to be ignoring her. She had stopped feeling hungry now, but an overwhelming weakness had taken hold of her and she was desperately thirsty. She thought longingly of the half-full bottle of water they had left at the corner of the room. She thought of the colour of the sky through a green canopy of leaves. Of her father pacing the blue carpet. Of the way Rupert had held her wrists on the first anniversary of their marriage and of the strange undulations that Max had set off across her swollen belly as he moved inside her. She tried calling out to him and then banging louder with the handle of the scythe, but this time there was no answering tap.

Max lay curled up like a baby in the tunnel. He thought he heard his mum tapping nearby, but he didn't have the strength to answer her. His head felt big and hot and his body had swollen up too and was floating over water. He thought of the way his mother had of cupping his chin when she had something to tell him and of the soft feeling of her hair after she had washed it. He thought of the way that Craig at school had pushed him hard in his stomach so that all his breath went. He thought of the way he used to line his animals down the hallway. He could feel the sway of the water, could see Charlie a little way ahead, holding out his hand to him. It wasn't far now to the edge of the sea where Charlie was.

Molly came to with a start. The door of the barrel was being opened. She held herself ready. She knew she only had one chance. As the door opened Molly swung her arm as hard as she could at Rupert's face. The scythe sliced through his jaw and lodged in his cheek and he fell backwards in shock. She quickly pulled herself out of the drum, wincing as her legs took the weight of her body and almost buckled underneath her. He tried to bat the scythe away as if it was a fly, but it was stuck too far in. Rupert flailed around the room, trying to dislodge the implement from his flesh and at last, with a snarl of pain, he freed it. His hands went up to his face and blood dripped through his fingers and down his front. He seemed blinded by the blood. Molly ran to pick up the fallen scythe, taking advantage of his temporary confusion to strike him again, a great swipe at his side that caused him to double up in pain and hold himself. Again she slammed the scythe into him and the force of the blow sent the rusty blade into the side of his neck. This time he fell to the floor. He lay with his hands up to his throat, great streams of blood pouring from the wound. Although she could hardly bear to touch him, Molly quickly felt in his pocket and pulled out the key. She was vaguely aware of the fact that there was now a great pile of hay bales in one corner of the room, and she could smell the sweet, dry odour. She ran over to the barrel that had Max in it and opened the door and pulled her son free. He was unconscious but still breathing. She held him in her arms and ran to the door, balancing the bulk of his body across her bent knee as she put the key in the lock and tried to turn it, crying out in frustration as she jiggled the key in the lock, trying to find the right position. She felt the key turn and at the same time a hand clamped itself around her ankle, bringing both her and Max to the ground.

Paul and Carrie decided that it was worth at least having a look for the other pumping station. It was a long shot but it was just possible that this was where Molly and Max were being kept. Carrie could feel Charlie urging her on. The sky was full of huge shifting clouds that were being chased across the sun by a keen wind and so the light changed constantly, by turns bright and then almost dark. A tractor full of manure held them up for a while as it lumbered down the road ahead of them, dropping great steaming lumps in its wake.

Carrie had no problem finding her way back to Parson's Bridge and retraced the route she had made the day before along the road that had become even muddier overnight. Enif had begun to get restless and was making a warning noise at the back of his throat.

‘I think he might be thirsty,' said Paul. ‘I'll give him some water when we stop.'

Beyond Molly and Max's house the road became even rougher and Carrie worried for her car suspension as they bounced alarmingly over the stony surface. It began to seem unlikely that there was anything other than the sodden fields stretching out as far as the eye could see and the whirl and sweep of the crows. Occasionally they went past a copse of trees and Carrie slowed, thinking that the branches might be obscuring a building, but there wasn't anything. Finally the track petered out into what was nothing but boggy grassland and Carrie no longer felt confident about driving. It would be all too easy to go the wrong way and end up nose down in a ditch. She parked the car and they got out. Enif had a quick slurp from the water bottle that Paul squeezed into his mouth and then he was off, nose down, tail up.

‘What's he doing?' asked Carrie, alarmed to see the dog disappear so quickly.

‘He usually knows where he is going,' said Paul and set off after his dog. Carrie had no choice but to follow. They walked for a while past reed beds and the occasional patch of water and then came to a small wood of beech and willow trees. Enif still romped ahead, sniffing deeply. This was the most animated Carrie had ever seen the creature. Gone was the fatigued and sardonic air he usually adopted and in its place were bright eyes and an eager gait. He looked like a dog on the trail of a whole heap of trouble.

Beyond the trees the ruined pumping station came into view. Most of the building other than the tall central section had crumbled and was open to the elements. The top of the chimney had also deteriorated and was now half the height of the one at the museum, which would explain why you couldn't see it from any of the roads. There was evidence that someone had been making improvements to the ruin; a water butt had been placed up against the wall and the one wooden door had been reinforced with a new frame studded with nails. It looked as if someone had been sleeping there too; a makeshift tent had been set up with some plastic sheeting and some string. There were also various tools, some containers, a rope and a length of piping that had clearly been put there recently. Otherwise the place was steeped in neglect. Ivy had twisted its way along the branches of the nearby trees and then attached itself to what was left of the walls, growing violently through the brickwork, heedless of the damage its relentless progress was making to the fabric of the building. Moss and mould clung to the bottoms of the walls where water had once breached and would do so again.

Enif had stopped, ears pricked, his head alert and Paul got hold of his collar and slipped his lead on. For just a moment they all stopped to listen, at first hearing nothing but the slide of the wind in the trees and the oddly human cry of lapwings some distance away. Then faintly, but distinctly, they heard the sound of a scream coming from inside the building. Carrie ran over to the door and tried opening it, but it was locked. She looked at her phone and saw that there was no reception and she turned to Paul.