‘And a dog. She kept talking about a dog. How she’d managed to get away and hide in a ditch but the dog had found her.’
The room was spinning. I opened my eyes again, and realized Evi had stopped talking and was just staring into space. It was as though she’d left the room. Her body was still sitting across the table, but Evi herself had gone somewhere else entirely.
‘Evi?’ I said. Her dark-blue eyes flicked back to me. They were swimming with tears. ‘You were talking about Jessica?’ I prompted.
Evi gave herself a little shake. ‘Yes, then she started talking about her room at St Catharine’s,’ she said. ‘How it was her room but wasn’t her room, how they’d changed it, turned it bad, and how they were watching her all the time.’
‘Sounds just like Bryony.’
‘That’s what I thought. That’s why I needed to see you. The other thing is that Megan Prince phoned last night asking to see me today. I went to meet her at nine o’clock but she didn’t show. She’s not answering her phone either but I don’t want to make it too obvious I’m chasing her.’
‘No,’ I agreed. ‘Let her get in touch with you again.’
She nodded. ‘Yes, that’s what I figured.’
‘Evi,’ I said, ‘has something else happened to you? Frankly, you look like I feel.’
Evi stared at me for a moment, then shook her head. ‘Bad news from home,’ she said. ‘I can deal with it. I’m fine.’
She wasn’t, but it was hardly the time to get into an argument. Especially as what she’d just said had finally filtered through. Blimey, I was slow.
‘Evi, what did you just say about trees?’
‘When?’
‘About Jessica. What did she say about clowns hanging by the neck from trees?’
‘Well, she was rambling,’ said Evi. ‘A lot of stuff about running through a forest, and bats and clowns having a tea party. She said there had been clowns hanging by the neck from trees. It just struck me as a particularly bizarre image.’
‘The sort of thing you wouldn’t forget,’ I agreed. ‘Right, there’s something I need to do. Are you on your way home now?’
‘What is it?’ said Evi. ‘What have you thought of?’
‘Probably nothing,’ I said. ‘Just something I need to check out. I’ll come round later, if that’s OK. Just to walk the dog.’
I walked Evi to her car and waved her off.
As soon as she’d gone I went to my own car and looked at the map. The day I’d had my close encounter with the buzzard, I’d found myself in a small wooded area that not only had given me the serious heebie-jeebies but was also very close to an industrial estate that Scott Thornton was connected to. An industrial estate that still had an old foundry bell.
Jessica had talked about a dog finding her. The industrial estate wasn’t far from Nick’s house. On Friday night, when I’d been at his party, Jessica had been missing. I’d heard a woman scream. A minute or two later, Sniffy had appeared.
Joesbury had told me to sit tight. And feeling better or not, I was still in no fit state to go driving around Cambridgeshire. But I had no idea when he’d be back and I couldn’t help a horrible feeling that we were running out of time. I pulled out my mobile and composed a text message.
The tall, dark-haired man was getting into his car when the call came in. ‘She’s figured it out,’ said the voice. ‘Can you get over there now?’
‘I thought Scott was there?’
‘Can’t get hold of him. He may have nipped out for food. Which means he won’t have set the alarm or closed everything down. You know what he’s like.’
‘I’m on my way. What do you want me to do with her?’
‘Hang on to her. They know about the drugs as well. We have to do it today.’
Evi was sobbing as she let herself in through her front door. The trip to St John’s to check on Laura had sapped every last bit of her strength and now the pain running up and down her leg and back had reached her head. She felt as though her brain had swollen and was pressing against the bones of her skull.
Harry. Just to know he was in the world somewhere, maybe even thinking about her, seemed like bliss compared to what she had now. She was thirty-four years old, had maybe another forty years left to live and didn’t know how she was going to make it through the next ten minutes.
Sniffy walked through from the kitchen, tail wagging, and pressed her damp nose against Evi’s palm. Patting the dog on the head, Evi limped across the hall and into her bedroom. Just a bit longer, just a few more days, until Laura didn’t need her any more. She lay down on the bed and pulled the quilt up around her.
*
It took me barely fifteen minutes to reach the industrial estate. I carried on past and travelled a few hundred yards further up the B1102 before pulling into a small lay-by. The last thing I felt like doing was standing upright, never mind moving forward. On the other hand, if I approached the unit on foot, I’d be much harder to spot.
Slowly but steadily, the fresh, cold air helping, I made my way through the woods and down towards the units, keeping a sharp lookout for Jim Notley or anyone else who might be around. When I passed the spot where he’d found me the previous week, I could see that the lights were still in position along the path, but the hanging figures had been taken down.
Clowns hanging by the neck? The hanging figures I’d seen hadn’t been clowns. They’d been dolls, with horribly disfigured faces. Had they been for Bryony?
There was a wooden fence between the edge of the copse and the narrow, flagged path that rimmed the estate. I ducked down and climbed through. Unit 33 was one of the more recent buildings on the estate, made of huge vertical sheets of corrugated steel with a gently sloping steel roof. A massive air-conditioning unit lay silent on the moss-covered path and, just above it, a small window that had been blacked out with dark paint. I walked to the corner of the building, so that I could see the rear and the side elevations at once.
One CCTV camera, almost at roof height, directed towards the front of the building. I couldn’t afford to be recognized on film, but I’d tied my hair back and brought the hood of my sweatshirt up. As long as I kept my head down, I wouldn’t be identifiable.
Two windows very high up at the front suggested there might be an upper floor. The front door was locked, as were warehouse doors on the next side I came to. There wasn’t going to be an easy way in.
Back at the rear, I gave myself a couple of minutes to get my breath back. Then I searched round on the ground, found a piece of old concrete, pulled my sleeve down over my fingers and drove it through the blackened window pane. In my delicate state the crash seemed unnaturally loud. I waited a moment for an alarm but there was nothing. Knocking the broken glass free of the window, I scrambled up.
At first I was trapped. Not a metre from the window was a tall, flat sheet of something blocking my way. It was slanted towards me too, leaning against the rear wall a few feet above my head. It gave slightly when I pushed against it but I didn’t want to send the whole thing toppling so I moved sideways and stepped out from behind tall plywood boards.
I counted twelve in total, stacked against the wall, four to a stack. The ones at the front had been painted to resemble brickwork. As artwork went, it was pretty crude, knocked up in a hurry, but still clear what it was meant to be. Old, crumbling, damp brickwork, the sort that would line Victorian cellars or tunnels. The boards had a look of theatrical scenery. The rest of the room wasn’t the cavernous space I’d expected but quite a confined area and the resemblance to the backstage of a theatre was increased by some large black floodlights, mounted on tripods in one corner. Coiled black extension leads stood at their feet. Could I be in a theatre? There was one door. It opened silently upon a vast, dark space. I raised the torch I’d brought from the car and stepped through into the very last thing I’d expected. A fairground.
