EIGHTY-EIGHT

‘Here. He’s here. They are under here.’ Amber stood in the middle of the garage and pointed at the smooth, shining concrete floor beneath the soles of her Converse. She wasn’t cold, she wore a fleece and jeans, but her whole body was shaking and adding a slight warble to her voice.

Josh stood in the mouth of the garage as if unwilling to enter the space. He looked hard at where Amber was pointing, at the floor, and slowly moved his eyes up to her face. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Fuck.’ Amber looked at the ceiling, hands over her mouth, trying to think quickly enough to find the words to explain, to express what she wanted to say, what she needed Josh to accept. It felt hopeless before she’d even begun. ‘At night, Josh. After the dreams—’

‘Amber. You know what I think about—’

‘Please, please, please, listen to me. Please.’

Josh sighed. ‘OK. But I need to call the police very soon about that caravan.’

‘The police won’t find him alive. You will never find him alive. He’s dead, Josh. Dead. You were right.’

Josh never spoke, but could not suppress the usual mixture of embarrassment and pity he felt for her.

‘He was dead before I came back to Devon to live here. Before this place was finished. Don’t you see? That’s how I can see him. It’s why I can see him and why I can hear the others, even if they’re not there, like we are here. They’re ghosts. But the dead, the victims from number eighty-two are here. All of them. Or bits of them. Fergal brought them here. The trophies.’

‘Amber, please.’

‘Think. Think about it. Think like me for one second, yeah? Be a crazy girl, yeah? Margaret was missing hair. Ryan teeth. They’re here, those things Fergal took from his two victims. The other women, the girls, they were all missing body parts. Fingers. Toes. Maybe hair, but it wasn’t always easy to tell. Some of them had been buried for a long time. But think about the missing parts that were never found. They, the people, the presences, the ghosts, were all stuck inside eighty-two Edgehill Road because their remains were there. She kept them, kept them all close. That’s how it kept going, for a century. It’s what she needed to keep them with her. So that they stayed with her and couldn’t get away; even if the bodies were removed she had other mementoes.’ Amber peered about her feet, not even wanting the soles of her trainers to touch the floor.

Josh was frowning because he did not know how to react. ‘Bennet and his dad must have had a stash off-site where they kept their . . . their trophies. They died and left no records. If it was anywhere, the stash would still be in Birmingham.’

‘No it’s not. That’s almost like what we were meant to think. Because it’s all here. She has them. They, somehow . . . are a part of her. It’s how she keeps them close. Captive. Even though they are dead, they’re not free. She kept parts of the dead. The ones I have seen and heard. She makes me see them.’ Amber began to tear up. She thought of Ryan and sobbed, but quickly forced herself to stop. ‘And Fergal was alive, barely I’d say, but still alive when he brought her here, with her fucking entourage of the murdered, whose torments never, ever stop. I know it. This makes sense. To me, Josh. Please, for me, do this for me. Help me with this.’

She had worn herself down trying to figure out the final part of the puzzle, but it had finally revealed itself to her at the caravan: Fergal had been here all along, at the farmhouse, ever since the renovations, waiting inside the building, where she determined to winter. And he had been with her, the Black Maggie; he had always been in Amber’s home, with her, physically and otherwise, even after death. At the caravan he was just waiting for a chance to transport himself and his keeper into her new home.

Temple.

Josh had stepped towards Amber when she became too upset to continue. He tried to keep an instinctive smile from spreading across his face. ‘In here. They’re all in here, the murder victims from Birmingham, or bits of them? And this Maggie thing, that you claim Fergal worshipped, and Arthur and his old man too. Fergal brought it here from Birmingham? Amber. Amber, please.’

Amber wanted to scream. Her fists clenched so hard her cuticles began to hurt. ‘Yes!’

‘Look, kid, a man wants you dead. A murderer. He is in Devon and knows you live here. That is a fact and that is very serious. And now we need to notify the police and have them search for him and pick him up. That is the plan. That is what we are going to do right now.’

‘Waste. Of. Fucking. Time.’ The shaking was getting worse. She was wasting time; the man she paid to protect her was wasting time. ‘Hammer. Sledgehammer. Drill. One of those things that smashes floors. One of them. I need to get one. Torquay. There must be a shop in Torquay—’

‘Whoa. Hold your horses. You are not going to smash up your house, Amber.’ Josh looked around himself, aghast at her, his face paler than she had ever seen it; she worried he might soon try to restrain her. ‘This place? Think. Think about how much money you spent on this house. The time that was spent making this beautiful. Amber? Where are you going?’

Amber broke from her position in the garage and raced through to the kitchen.

Josh followed her. ‘What are you doing now?’ He stopped moving and glanced at the dust on the kitchen counters. Peered at the floor, noticing the grey balls of dross.

Ryan had been inside the garage. Twice Ryan had been outside her room but he had returned here – down here where they were all stored. She recalled the night she’d opened the door and there was nothing inside the garage, nothing but an impenetrable darkness that slipped inside her and turned her mind inside out. In here, every time, right in here, inside the garage. The garage and the ground floor flat of 82 Edgehill Road: the black room. Both close to the earth she blessed, where she wintered.

Amber swept up her phone from the kitchen counter. ‘Fergal broke in here. He did not take anything. Why? Why was he here then? If he was still around he could have got to me any time I left the property in the last two weeks. What is he waiting for? You think alarms would put him off? Because he’s not waiting any more, Josh. He’s arrived. Got here months ago, before I even opened the bloody door. He wasn’t looking to steal anything from the building site. He came here to leave something behind. That is why he was here. The box. The wooden box was not inside that caravan. Nor was it inside number eighty-two when they found me. Think, mate, for God’s sake help me!’

‘Amber, Amber, calm down. Kid, please, calm down. Take it easy. Water. Sip some water. Catch your breath.’

‘His last words to me, Josh: “You’re not having her”. Not having her. He wasn’t talking about Svetlana. He was talking about her, the bloody Maggie. He went downstairs with his face covered in acid. He was burning alive, Josh, but he still made it down those stairs to the ground floor flat. To get her. To collect her. That’s why he ran. To protect her. To get her the fuck out of that house. There was enough of her in me to know where I was, where I’d go, maybe she even made me come here, where she wanted to be. But for her to start this again, she needed to be here in person. Needed to be hidden here . . .’

Because she chose you.

I will come unto thee. For I have determined there to winter.

Amber slumped against the kitchen counter, her face pressed into the cold surface. Josh placed a hand, gently, upon her back and said consoling, comforting things that she could hear but never registered. She slowed her breathing, her heartbeat, and tried to clear her mind so she could think of the next step; the one she had to take today.

Josh’s voice eventually drifted back to her as if a radio had found its signal. ‘. . . and we can see someone. OK. Relaxants. Couple of tranqs and a cup of tea, kid. Let’s call the doc, and then I’ll call the police. But don’t worry, I won’t let you out of my sight. We will find him. I promise you. I’m not leaving this bloody county until we have him banged up.’

Amber turned her head to one side, rested it against her forearm. ‘Josh. If you really want to help me, you’ll come with me to a DIY store and then help me get that floor up.’

His face and shoulders seemed to slump. He removed his hand from her back. ‘I can’t. I can’t help you be crazy, kid. And that floor’s got to be six inches thick. You start breaking into the foundations and the whole thing could come down on you. This is just nuts.’

‘Then I will break this place apart myself.’

Amber leant on the kitchen counter, supporting her weight with her elbows, her phone pressed to her ear. Josh was still outside. He’d said he wanted to check the grass and flowerbeds under the walls for footprints. He had remained committed to the lines of inquiry and detection and protection he felt comfortable with; he’d stuck with what he could accept. And so had she. Occasionally she watched Josh’s head pass the kitchen windows as he made his inspection of the grounds, as much, she suspected, as an excuse to remove himself from the presence of a crazy woman as to establish the security situation at the property.

The man she had spoken to, at the third local building firm she had called, came back to the phone. ‘Today, you say? Garage, yeah?’

‘Yes, today.’

‘We can get someone round to look at it Friday. But we can’t start ’til next week earliest.’

‘No. It has to be today. Do you know anyone else who can do this for me?’

‘You can try Wellings.’

‘Already tried . . . Tools! If you can tell me what tools I will need, then I will buy them. Hire them. Do it myself.’

‘I wouldn’t recommend that, miss. Garage floor, you say? Well, most of ’em need chipping drills. Jackhammer too. Cus the concrete will be thick, see. Plus you might have wires running underneath the cement. Pipes you don’t want to break either. You’ll need to find that out first, then cut a section round ’em with a breaking chisel in a rotary hammer. Whole floor will need a saw, grinder too. It’s a big job, love. There’s only the lad and me here, and we both gotta get up Shaldon way.’

A cold disappointment seemed to press her weight harder and further into the surface of the counter. The idea of demolishing the garage floor suddenly seemed ludicrous after this sudden intrusion of technical information, this insertion of reality into her frantic, irrational thoughts. She swallowed the despair that wanted to surge into her mouth; the prickly frustration that electrified her fingers, made her want to scratch her face and tug her own hair. She was so thwarted she wanted to hurt herself.

‘Sorry, love. Nothing we can do today. But if you give me the address, I’ll get the lad to come up Friday.’

‘No. Not Friday. I’ll give you two grand each, today. If you can get here today and smash that floor out, I’ll give you two grand each. Just the floor. Today. The floor, that’s all.’ Right down, right down deep.

There was a long silence at the other end of the phone, which she accounted for as the time required for the builder to decide on her mental health. ‘Something was lost in there, you say? In the garage floor when it was laid?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Jewellery or something like that?’

‘Not exactly, but something that needs to be found. And fast. Today, while it’s still light. Will I see you later, Mr Finney?’

‘I suppose I could shift things around a bit. If it’s that important.’

‘Matter of life and death. That’s how I see it.’

‘There’ll have to be a deposit.’

‘I’ll pay you up front. Right now with a credit card. Or today in cash if the bank authorizes that amount. I’m good for it.’

‘Cash is better for this kind of job.’