What if she was never found? A skeleton in the ice cellar. They’d find her car parked in the layby and wonder why on earth it was there. Surely Woody would come looking? He was due home tomorrow evening and he was bound to phone her when he did. Perhaps if he didn’t get any reply on her mobile or the landline he might begin to worry. Her mobile – where had Hetty dumped her mobile? She’d probably stamped on it, broken it in a million pieces and then dumped it into a bin somewhere on her way to bloody Bournemouth.
Kate felt her chances of escape diminishing again. But maybe they’d start to comb the area on Sunday? Could she survive that long? Kate looked around. There wasn’t a glimmer of light anywhere, so this hole was well and truly sealed off, which it would be of course, due to its original purpose as an ice cellar. She suddenly thought how awful it must be to be blind. They did say though, didn’t they, that if you were blind, your other senses became sharpened: hearing, feeling, smelling, tasting. Nothing here to listen to, apart from the patter of the rain, nothing to smell – apart from mould and damp – or feel, apart from cold, hard stone.
How had one tiny, eighty-something-year-old woman got the better of her like this? Would she ever see her boys again? Or the lovely little grandson? She tried to imagine how they’d receive the news. ‘We regret to inform you that your mother, Katherine Elizabeth Palmer, aged 58, was found dead in a cellar belonging to a large house in Cornwall.’ They’d be horrified. What the hell was she doing in a cellar? they’d ask.
Woody would know she’d been investigating. ‘You shouldn’t have got involved,’ he’d shout at her lifeless body. ‘I told you not to get involved!’ And, of course, no one would ever suspect dear little Hetty. Dear little Hetty with the dying sister. The mystery of who killed Edina Martinelli, Sharon Starkey and Kate Palmer would never be solved. All evidence would long ago have disappeared and no one would point a finger at a tiny old lady. Would she ever tell David Courtney that she was his mother? Probably not. She’d look on fondly while he spent the money on reviving his business, and he’d never know what she’d done.
Were her actions that of a mother sent mad by grief, or had she always been a psychopath?
Kate awoke with a start and a crick in her neck. Her head had fallen forwards while she dozed. It took a few seconds to work out where she was and then she remembered and the nightmare returned. She rubbed her neck and her bottom which had become numb on the hard, cold floor. It was 22.25, and there was a long night ahead.
She staggered to her feet and began to walk up and down. It took five normal paces, she discovered, to walk from one wall to the opposite one. Perhaps she’d try walking round the four of them, her right hand against the wall to guide her. Kate walked and walked, being careful when she got to the steps which broke up the fourth wall. She wondered if she might become dizzy walking round and round in such a confined space.
She was thirsty. She’d ration herself to one Polo mint and hoped that might help. If only she’d thought to bring a bottle of water with her, like she did when she walked the dog. The dog! How was poor Barney? Kate sat on a step and tried not to cry. No amount of crying was going to get her out of this hell-hole. And no amount of shouting was going to be heard by anyone at this late hour, so she’d conserve her strength in an effort to survive as long as possible.
Then Kate prayed again that Angie might decide to stay only one night in Plymouth. She prayed too that Woody would try to phone her and then wonder where on earth she’d got to. Kate was not a religious woman but, like most people, was not above begging for some divine help when needed. And, God, did she need it now!
She resumed walking round the walls. Five or six paces, turn, another five or six paces… How did people survive in solitary confinement in dungeons and places, sometimes for years? At least they must have had some inflow of air and water. Aware that she had neither, Kate reckoned again that perhaps the diminishing oxygen supply could be maximised if she didn’t use up too much of it exercising. But exercising, such as it was, was preferable to sitting on that hard floor again, her back against the wall. She considered lying down; perhaps if she got herself into some sort of foetal position she might be able to doze. Anything was worth a try.
Kate lowered herself gingerly onto the floor. If she folded up the hood of her anorak into a ball, it might serve as some sort of pillow. She was never ever going to complain about hard mattresses or lumpy pillows again! Never!
She closed her eyes and prayed for sleep.
Kate woke after half an hour, then dozed for a few minutes and then woke up again. This pattern repeated itself until quarter past three, when she decided she was too cold and too uncomfortable to contemplate any proper sleep. She walked round the four walls again, realising she was coming to know them quite well. There was some protruding stone on wall number two, and a row of little dents in wall number three. Number four featured the steps, and number one was relatively smooth. Then she sat on the second-to-bottom step
