Callie was having great difficulty placing one foot in front of the other. The stairs seemed a long way away. She felt as if everything was sliding away from her and the light kept fading in from the edges, not smoothly but in jagged little pieces. She had no idea what time of day it was or how long she had been there.
Suddenly there was the bang of a door closing and Mrs Savage froze for a moment.
“Hello?” A man’s voice came up the stairs and Mrs Savage let go of Callie. Without her support, Callie slid slowly to the floor.
There was the sound of footsteps on the stairs and then Ted Savage was there.
“What the hell’s going on, Teresa?”
“She knows.”
“You said you had it all under control.”
“I did, but I found her snooping round, looking for the boat.”
Ted knelt down beside her and Callie struggled to focus on his face, so that she could understand what he was saying to her. She hoped it would help, because she hadn’t got a clue what was going on, either.
“Are you all right, Dr Hughes?” he asked her solicitously. There was also more than a hint of anxiety in his voice, she thought. “Are you hurt?”
She tried to shake her head but that only made things worse.
“Drugged,” she managed to say through thick lips. She hoped he understood what she was saying because she wasn’t sure how clearly she was speaking and she didn’t think she could manage to say it again. He nodded his understanding.
“We need to deal with her.” Mrs Savage was taking charge again and Callie knew that was not a good thing. “Find her keys, they must be in her jacket pocket.”
“No!”
Callie was surprised by the vehemence in his tone.
“We have to do it. She knows everything.”
“I can’t.”
“You are so bloody useless!” Mrs Savage shouted at him and then bent down and started going though Callie’s pockets, finding her keys quickly.
“Go and fetch her car and bring it to the front door.” She handed the keys to Ted. “Now!” she ordered.
He moved towards the stairs but then stopped and stood there for a moment, doing nothing. Callie tried to will him to refuse.
“This isn’t right,” he said, weakly.
“You brought this on yourself,” his wife said, “with your stupid self-destructive behaviour. Now you have to help me clear it up.”
“I can’t. It has to stop.”
“You managed to help me get rid of the girl’s body. This is no different. Now go and get the bloody car!”
But still he didn’t move to do as she ordered.
“No. This is different.”
“In what way?”
“She’s alive, for God’s sake.”
“Well, if that’s your only worry,” she spat.
Mrs Savage went to the kitchen area and came back with a large, cast-iron frying pan. She headed over to where Callie was half-sitting half-lying near the top of the stairs, drawing back her weapon as she did so, preparing to strike. Callie tried to hold up an arm to protect herself but, she knew, even in her drugged state, that her arm would be useless to stop the blow, even if she did manage to raise it. There was nothing she could do to stop herself from being killed and she felt strangely calm about it.
“No!” Ted grabbed the pan and wrenched it out of his wife’s grasp. “You can’t, Teresa. I won’t let you hurt anyone else. It has to stop.”
She lunged at him, trying to get the pan from him and in the struggle to keep it, he pushed her away from him, a hard push, a deliberate push, and there was a surprised cry and the sound of someone tumbling, bumping down the stairs.
Ted stood there, frozen. An anguished expression on his face, frying pan in his hand, looking down towards the hallway.
Callie managed to get onto her hands and knees and crawl to where she could see. Mrs Savage lay in a crumpled heap, her head against the front door and her neck at an odd angle as a slowly expanding pool of blood formed under her head.
Ted Savage let out a whimper and dropped the pan, making Callie jump. He didn’t go to his wife, but came and sat next to Callie, tears pouring down his face. She comforted him, as best she could, just by being there.
After what seemed an age, but was probably no more than ten minutes, Ted reached into his pocket and brought out his phone. To Callie’s relief he called for the emergency services, because she was in no state to do it. Once she knew help was on its way, she closed her eyes and let sleep take over.
Chapter 34
Callie was sitting in the back of an ambulance, a blanket draped over her shoulders. She was shaking with a mixture of cold, fear, shock and whatever drugs she had been given by Teresa Savage, as Miller came and sat next to her.
“We must stop meeting like this,” he said, voice deep and cracking with concern, belying the smile he was trying his best to muster.
Callie tried to smile back too, but she found her chin was wobbling slightly.
They watched as two white-suited technicians wheeled a trolley, loaded with a full body bag, to a plain grey mortuary van. Mrs Savage was leaving home for the final time.
“She was completely mad,” was all Callie could say as a tear made its way down her cheek. “A monster.”
“Is that your professional opinion, Doctor?” he asked, gently wiping the tear away with his thumb.
She did manage a better smile at that, and a sniff. He slid his arm round her shoulders and pulled her close. It felt nice.
“So, she killed both of them on her own? My body
