The Hiding Place, page 16
“Dawson’s Dust Busters?”
“There you go,” says Beth.
Which would make Lauren—Sullen Barmaid, Reluctant Dog Walker—Marcus’s sister. And now I can see the resemblance. The gangly awkwardness. The social weirdness. I consider. The text came from Marcus’s phone. He was in the graveyard that day. Not a coincidence. But how did he get hold of my number? And how would he know about the graffiti, about my sister? No. There’s something more. Something I’m missing.
“Marcus’s mum—has she lived here all her life?”
“Haven’t most people in Arnhill?”
“What’s her first name?”
“Ruth.”
And now something stirs at the back of my mind. Just like it did on my very first day at the school gates. An old memory reawakened.
“Is Dawson her maiden name?”
Beth rolls her eyes. “Jesus! What d’you think I am? The marriage register for every person in Arnhill? I do have a life outside this crappy village, you know.”
“Right. Sorry.”
She folds her arms and glares at me. “Why d’you need to know anyway?”
Because I do. Because I need answers.
“I think I may have gone to school with her.”
She sighs heavily. “Actually, no, it’s not. Her husband died several years ago. No loss—he was a nasty piece of work, by all accounts. Lauren won’t even use his surname.”
“And you know this how?”
“I helped Lauren fill in some job applications. Noticed the surname was different. She told me she uses her mum’s name—”
“Which is?”
“Moore.”
I almost palm slap my forehead.
Ruth Moore, she’s so poor, gets free meals and begs for more. Ruth Moore, ugly and poor, licks up shit from the toilet floor.
Another awkward, socially impaired kid. Another victim. And yet, sometimes, those are the kids that see the most. Unnoticed, they absorb everything that goes on—the stories, the gossip, the detritus of school life, catching it like a log bobbing in a busy river current. And no one ever realizes how much they know. Because no one ever asks.
Beth is frowning. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I was just thinking, maybe I could talk to her…about Marcus.”
Among other things.
“You could try. But she’s a little odd.” She looks at me and reconsiders. “On second thought, you two will probably get on fine.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” She strolls to the door. “I’ll see you later.”
I wait until the squeak of her shoes has faded then I take out Ruth’s card. Dawson’s Dust Busters. On the back, a number and a slogan: “No job too small. No mess too big.”
If only that were true. Unfortunately, there are some things you can’t just scrub away with a scouring pad and a bucket of bleach. Like blood, they remain, festering beneath the surface.
I know what happened to your sister.
And sometimes, they come back.
21
The row house is small and neatly kept. It does not look poor by any means. New PVC windows, smart wooden door, a bright hanging basket outside. A blue Fiesta is parked on the curb, “Dawson’s Dust Busters” written along the side in shiny silver lettering.
I walk up the short pathway. A fat tabby cat lounges on the windowsill. It eyes me with a lazy contempt. At the door, I pause. Even though I’ve had all day to think about it, I’m still not sure exactly how to approach this. Those messages were anonymous for a reason. If Ruth sent them, she doesn’t want to talk. The question is, why did she send them?
I don’t know Ruth. I never really knew her all those years ago. No one did. At school, she was never part of any group. Never friends with anyone. Never included. Never picked first unless the team sport was humiliation and torment.
I remember one day some of the other girls stole her panties in PE. A gang of kids—boys and girls—armed with sticks and rulers followed her out of school. They surrounded her as she tried to escape home, jeering, calling her names and lifting her skirt to reveal her nudity. It was cruel and horrendous and not even sexual. It was brutal and simple degradation. I’m not sure quite how far it would have gone if Miss Grayson hadn’t spotted what was going on out of a window, intervened and taken her home.
Not that home was much better. Her mum liked a drink and her dad had a temper. Not a good combination. Apparently, you could hear them screaming at each other all the way down the street. About the only companion she had was a mangy old dog she used to walk up over the old colliery site.
I wasn’t one of the kids who bullied her. Not that day. But that’s nothing to be proud of. I didn’t help her either. I just stood by, watching her torment. And then I walked away. Not for the first time. Or the last.
Ruth was one of those kids you try hard not to think about after you have left school, because to do so makes you feel just that little bit worse about yourself. And I had far bigger things to feel worse about.
I raise my hand to knock on the door…and it swings open.
A short, stocky woman stands in front of me. She is dressed in a magenta cleaner’s smock, the company name neatly embroidered on the chest. Her thick, dark hair has been cropped short. For practical rather than aesthetic reasons, I presume. Beneath the blunt fringe her square face has the stoic look of someone who has become accustomed to disappointment. A face battered by life’s small blows. They are often the ones that hurt the most.
She regards me suspiciously, arms folded.
“Yes?”
“Erm, Mrs. Dawson? I left a message earlier. I’m Joe Thorne. I’m a teacher at—”
“I know who you are.”
“Right.”
“What do you want?”
The lack of social niceties evidently runs in the family.
“Well, like I said in the message, I wanted to return Marcus’s phone. He lost it at school today. Is he here?”
“No.” She holds out her hand. “I’ll give it to him.”
I hesitate. If I give her the phone now, I’m pretty sure I will be continuing this conversation with a closed door.
“Could I come in?”
“Why?”
“There’s something else I’d like to talk to you about.”
“What?”
I debate with myself. Sometimes you need to show your cards. Others, you need to play the long game.
“A cleaning job.”
I wait. For a moment I think she’s still going to slam the door in my face. Instead, she stands to one side.
“Kettle’s on.”
—
The house is as pristine inside as out, a little unnervingly so. It smells of disinfectant and air fresheners. I feel my sinuses swell and a dull throb begin in my temple.
“Through here.” Ruth leads me into a small kitchen. Another cat squats on the kitchen counter: gray, fluffy, malevolent-looking. I wonder where the dog is. Perhaps Lauren is out walking him.
I take Marcus’s phone out of my pocket and place it on the kitchen table.
“It got a bit wet but I think it still works.”
Ruth glances at it. Her face betrays nothing.
“Marcus has an iPhone.”
“Not anymore, I’m afraid. It got broken.”
She gives me a sharper look. “Broken or smashed?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“Of course not. No one ever can.”
“If Marcus wants to make a complaint about bullying—”
“What? What will you do? What will the school do?”
I open my mouth then flounder like a grounded fish.
Ruth turns to the cabinet and takes out two mugs. One has a picture of a cat on it. The other proclaims: “Keep calm. I’m a cleaner.”
“I’ve been up to the school. Loads of times,” she says. “Talked to your head.”
“Right.”
“Fat lot of good that did.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I thought things might have changed. Schools don’t put up with that type of thing no more. They crack down on bullying.”
“That’s the idea.”
“Yeah. Nice idea. Crap, though.” She turns to the kettle. “Tea?”
“Um. I’d prefer coffee.”
I’d prefer to tell her that she is wrong. That schools do crack down on bullying now. That they don’t brush it under the gym mats for the sake of a decent inspection report. That who someone’s daddy is has no effect whatsoever on their treatment by the teachers. That’s what I want to tell her.
“We don’t have any coffee.”
But we can’t always get what we want.
“Tea is fine.”
She fills the mugs with boiling water, adds milk.
“I remember you from school,” she says. “You were part of Hurst’s gang.”
“For a while.”
“I never thought you were like the rest.”
“Thanks.”
“Didn’t say it was a compliment.”
I wonder how to respond. I decide to say nothing, for now.
She finishes making the tea and brings the mugs over. “Are you going to sit down or what?”
I plonk my backside down in a chair. She takes the seat opposite.
“I heard you were renting the cottage.”
“Word gets around in Arnhill.”
“Always has.”
She reaches for her tea and takes a sip. I look at the brown liquid stewing murkily in my mug and decide against doing the same.
“You cleaned the cottage for Julia Morton?”
“That’s right. Though I doubt she’ll be giving you a reference.”
“You must have gotten to know her and Ben?”
She wraps her hands around her mug and regards me shrewdly. “Is that why you’re really here? You want to know about what happened?”
“I have a few questions.”
“It’ll cost you.”
“How much?”
“A deep clean.”
I remember Lauren’s price list. “Fifty pounds?”
“Cash.”
I consider. “I’ll live with the dust. Twenty-five pounds—and it will have to be a check.”
She sits back in her chair and folds her arms. “Go on.”
“What was Julia like?”
“All right, as teachers go. She wasn’t too up herself. But she thought she was better than this place. Most of them do.”
And most probably are.
“But she wasn’t depressed?”
“Not that I saw.”
“And Ben?”
“A good lad. At least he was, before he went missing.”
“What happened?”
“Didn’t come home one day after school. Had everyone out looking for him.” She pauses. “And then he came back.”
For the first time, I sense discomfort, a crack in the hard façade.
“And?”
“He was different.”
“How?”
“He’d always been a polite, tidy lad. After, he’d leave the toilet unflushed. His bed was always stained with sweat, and other stuff. His bedroom stank, like something had crawled in there and died.”
“Maybe he was just going through a phase,” I say. “Kids can turn from sweet youngsters into smelly teens in the blink of an eye.”
She looks at me, swigs some of her tea. “I used to clean there last on my rounds. Sometimes Ben would be home from school. We’d chat. I’d make us both tea. After he came back, I’d turn around and find him standing there, just staring. It used to make my skin crawl. The way he looked at me. The way he smelled. Sometimes, I could hear him muttering under his breath. Foul words. It didn’t even sound like him. It wasn’t right.”
“Did you say anything to Julia?”
“I tried. That was when she said she didn’t need me anymore. Gave me my notice.”
“When was this?”
“Just before she took him out of school for good.”
I glance at my mug and wish I had a strong coffee. Strike that. I wish I had a bourbon and a cigarette.
“Open the back door,” Ruth says.
“What?”
“You want a smoke. I wouldn’t mind one neither. Open the back door.”
I stand and walk over to the door. It opens onto a small backyard. Someone has tried to brighten it with a few wilting plants in pots. At the far end, there’s a kennel. I walk back inside and sit down. I slip two cigarettes out of my pack and offer one to Ruth, then light both.
“What do you think happened to Ben?” I ask.
She takes a moment to reply: “When I was a kid, we had a dog. I used to walk him up at the old pit site.”
“I remember,” I say, wondering where this is going.
“One day he ran off. I was gutted. I loved that dog. Two days later he came back, coat matted with dirt and dust, a huge bloody scar around his neck. I bent down, fussed him. He wagged his tail and bit my hand. Right through to the bone. Dad wanted to throttle him right there and then. ‘Once a dog turns bad,’ he said, ‘that’s it. There’s no going back.’ ”
I stare at her. “You’re comparing Ben Morton to a dog?”
“I’m saying something happened to that boy and it was so bad his mother couldn’t live with it anymore.” She drags on the cigarette, blows out a thick cloud of smoke.
“Did you tell any of this to the police?”
She snorts. “And have them call me crazy?”
“But you’re telling me.”
“You’re paying me.”
“And that’s all?”
She drops the cigarette butt into her mug. “Like I said, you weren’t like the rest.”
“Is that why you sent me the email?”
She frowns. “What email?”
“The one about my sister—it’s happening again.”
“I never sent you any email. Today’s the first time I’ve set sight on you since we were kids.”
“I know you sent the text.” I pick up the Nokia from the table. “It came from this phone. I’m guessing it’s an old one of yours that Marcus borrowed.”
“I never sent you any bloody text neither. And that’s not my phone.”
The confusion on her face looks genuine. My head throbs harder. Right on cue, the front door slams. Marcus shuffles into the kitchen.
“Hi, Mum.” Then he spots me. “What’s he doing here?”
“I brought your phone back,” I say, holding up the Nokia.
His face falls.
“Where did you get it?” I ask.
“I’ve had it ages.”
“Really? So, does this mean anything to you—Suffocate the little children. Fuck them. Rest in Pieces?”
Guilt radiates off him like body heat.
“Marcus?” Ruth prompts.
“It was just a joke. A prank.”
“All your idea then?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true.”
“Did someone make you send the text?”
“It wasn’t like that. No one made me do anything.” He juts out his chin defiantly.
“Fine.” I tuck the phone into my pocket. “I think I should let the police deal with this.”
I take a step toward the door.
“Wait!”
I turn. “What, Marcus?”
He looks at me desperately. “She won’t lose her job, will she?”
22
1992
More steps. Different from the first. These were carved out of the rock and they curved gradually downward, like a staircase. A slippery, treacherous staircase. Some of the steps crumbled a bit when you stood on them, sending bits of rock skittering down below. It sounded a long way down.
The walls on either side were jagged, the roof above me low. I had to crouch a bit. I’d adjusted the battery on my helmet but, because of the curve, the light only illuminated one or two steps at a time, so sometimes it seemed like the third step was straight out into darkness. Ahead of me, I could see the other two flashlights bobbing up and down, but they only provided odd, abstract patches of illumination. However, they did at least confirm that nobody had fallen off the edge of a precipice and broken their neck. Yet.
Occasionally, I heard one of the others curse, usually Marie. I had no idea how she was managing in stiletto heels. Beneath my miner’s overalls I was coated in sweat. It slid down my brow and trickled around my eyebrows. My heart hammered and my breath was growing more ragged. Not just because of tension and exertion. My dad once told me there’s less oxygen in the air the deeper down you go.
“How much fucking further?” Fletch grumbled, because, if I was finding it hard going, Fletch—with his ten-smokes-a-day habit—must really be struggling.
I expected Hurst to reply, but Chris got there first. “We’re close,” he said calmly, and I could swear he didn’t sound breathless at all, didn’t sound as if he was even breaking a sweat.
We resumed our unsteady, stumbling progress. After a few more minutes I realized something. I wasn’t bending over quite so much. I could stand upright. The roof was getting higher. The quality of the light seemed to be changing too. Even the air felt a little more breathable, as if there was more of it around us.
Getting close, I thought. But to what?
“Be careful,” Chris called back now. “There’s a drop.”
He was right. We rounded the next corner and the narrow passageway opened out into a much larger cavern. It was big. Really big. I looked up. The ceiling rose high above us in a rough dome shape. Thick wooden beams formed supports. They crossed and curved in a way that reminded me of the vaulted roofs in barns or churches. Similar but more rudimentary. The steps continued but there was no wall to our left anymore. Just a straight plummet down.
“Shit!” Marie suddenly yelped. Glass shattered, brittle and abrupt in the darkness. “The cider.”
