Bessie was glad she didn’t have animals anymore. When her mother had lived up here with her, they’d kept a goat and some chickens. It had only been one of Bessie’s many duties to feed and look after those gentle creatures, but it had been the one she’d enjoyed the most. Now however, in terrible weather like this, it would have been quite difficult. It wasn’t that Bessie was too frightened to go outside. Fog was just fog – it was cold mist, and they got lots of it up here in the Cradle – but when you couldn’t see anything, even your own back garden felt different and strange. Despite having a torch to hand, she doubted she’d easily be able to find the coop where the chickens had once roosted, or the shed where she’d used to milk the goat.
At present, she was settled down in her cosy little living room in front of the television, with a nice fire in the grate and a pile of darning next to her on the couch. It wasn’t her favourite task – despite her mother putting in long hours trying to teach her, Bessie simply wasn’t very good with a needle and thread – but it needed to be done, and she was happy to get on with it, because keeping busy was very important. That said, it was still difficult to ignore the black-grey nothingness outside. She kept trooping to the little window next to her front door and peeking out, hoping for signs the fog was dissipating. She certainly hoped it would have gone by tomorrow, because she was due to make a trip to Cragwood Keld to see if there were any odd jobs she could do, while there were also some bits of shopping she needed to pick up. All that, and the weekly village bus service wasn’t due for another three days. The last thing she wanted was to walk down that lonely tarn-side road in a pea-souper like this. It was bad enough when it was so cold that the road was slippery with ice, but this was the worst – when you couldn’t see anything or anyone, and could only hear your own breathing and your own footsteps. She shivered just to think of it.
It pleased her that she’d be able to ask Constable O’Rourke when the fog was expected to clear. The police officers would be bringing their launch back at some point soon this evening, and they’d definitely know about the weather. It was quite unusual for the police to be out on the tarn for this long – by Bessie’s reckoning they’d had the boat almost the whole of the day. She glanced at the big wooden clock on the mantel, and was surprised to see that it was after six. Yes, that was a long time for the police to have their boat out, but Bessie knew it was an important job they had to do. Those poor missing lasses. Presumably the officers would have to keep looking for them, whatever had happened. It might be ages yet. And there was no reason to get worried either, because being the police, they weren’t likely to run into trouble. They would certainly know how to look after themselves, especially Sergeant Heckenburg.
Bessie blushed cherry-red just thinking of him. That warm feeling flooded through her again. She knew what it meant, and that it was probably a hopeless thing, but it was all new to her and very, very nice. It had happened the first time she’d seen him, two and a half months ago, and on all the occasions since. As such, Bessie took every opportunity she could to talk to him. And he always chatted back. He was never cold or stuffy with her, the way other people tended to be, even those she was looking to do chores for. Okay, maybe he was sometimes a little distant, like he had stuff on his mind, but that was understandable. He had lots to do. Especially today, with those two missing girls. That thought made her wonder again why they were so late getting back. It occurred to her that maybe Heck and Mary-Ellen had already got back and she hadn’t noticed, though normally she’d have heard the boat as it came chugging into the boathouse, and nearly always in the past Constable O’Rourke had knocked on the door to let her know and to give her the key.
Bessie crossed her cluttered living room to the window. On the other side, the fog was solid – as if a blank wall had been erected only a couple of feet away. She went through to her tiny kitchen to peer out of the small window over the sink. This one looked down towards the boathouse, but there was less chance of seeing anything down there. Even if the boat was docking at this moment, she was unlikely to notice, as its lights wouldn’t be able to penetrate the fog. She hung around for a minute or so before going back to the living room. She’d already made herself some peanut butter and jam sandwiches, but she wasn’t hungry yet, so she settled back in front of the telly to continue darning and watch the game shows.
These were the programmes she liked the best. She liked films too and most television shows, though some of those could get a bit scary, and that wasn’t ideal at this time of year, with the long dark nights and no holiday-makers in any of the other cottages. Winter could be a difficult time when she only had Mr Ramsdale to share it with.
There was a loud rapping on the door.
Though she’d been half expecting this, Bessie jumped off her sofa and hurried across the room. She lifted the latch and opened the front door, expecting the police officers to be on the step, but seeing only swirling fog.
Puzzled, Bessie stuck her head out, looking left and right. Nobody was there. It didn’t bother her too much. One of them had probably just nipped around the front to knock on the door and let her know they were here and had now returned to the boathouse. Bessie would meet them down there. She grabbed her duffle-coat, her mittens and her hat, and dashed through the kitchen, drawing the bolt on the back door and stepping out.
There was less light on this side of the house, so the fog was almost black. She took the torch from her coat pocket and switched it on. But the beam illuminated nothing.
‘Hello, I’m here!’ Bessie shouted as she blundered forward, feeling her way down the gentle slope of the garden with cautious steps.
In these conditions, she didn’t expect that she’d be able to see the lights from the boat, even though it was only about thirty yards away. But it surprised her that she didn’t hear anything. If the boat was already in the shed with its engine turned off, she’d have thought she’d at least be able to hear their voices.
But she heard nothing.
Puzzled, she pressed on, finally reaching the boathouse – walking right into it in fact, only her outstretched hands preventing her banging her nose on its rickety timber wall – and still she couldn’t hear anyone. She shone her torch the length of the building. The entrance door stood open. It wasn’t locked while the boat was out, but she was sure she’d closed it earlier. In fact, she knew she had. She moved forward curiously. This surely meant they were here. Yet, again, why could she not hear them? Why could she not see any lights from the open door?
‘Sergeant Heckenburg?’ she said, sticking her head through.
Bessie’s voice echoed from the hollow chamber. Her torchlight struck rippling liquid shadows from the muddy water in the docking bay – but then caught something else. To Bessie’s astonishment, the boat was in there, moored, and yet riding so low that it was partially submerged. In fact, it was largely submerged. Only the tops of its gunwales were visible above the surface. She couldn’t even think how this might have happened; she had a vague idea the craft must have sunk while it was in here, or else how would they have brought it back? Another thing caught her attention.
On the opposite side of the boatshed interior was something completely new. At first she had to blink because she thought she was seeing things in the gloom – but it looked like big handwriting on the wall opposite; graffiti of some sort. She shone her torch over it.
REMEMBER ME?
Bessie was utterly bemused. The two words meant nothing to her. Remember who? And from when? And how had the graffiti artist even got in here?
But she didn’t stay bemused for long, before another emotion slowly took over.
The large spiky letters, which were at least half a foot tall each, were bright red. Crimson, even. And they’d dribbled a little.
Paint might dribble, or ink – but she knew without needing to be told that this message was composed of neither of those innocent substances.
All Bessie could think about as she stumbled wordlessly out through the boathouse door was those two missing lasses on the fells. Good God, what had happened to them? Oh good Lord … good, good Lord! Was the same terrible thing about to happen here?
The breath groaned out of her as she staggered blindly up the garden, stabbing the torch wildly in every direction. She ran into her back door the way she’d almost run into the boathouse, though this time she didn’t stop in time. Her nose smashed on the hard oak planking, spattering it with gore. She barked her knees as well, and yet none of this meant anything to her. Nor did the fact the door was now mysteriously closed and locked.
Bessie wheezed frantically as she toppled around the side of the house. It didn’t matter about the back door. The front door would still be open. She could get inside that way, and then she could lock it behind her, and she’d be safe.
But the front door wasn’t open either.
When she finally reached it, it too had been closed, its latch falling into place on the other side. She beat on it madly, squawking – making that terrible sound she’d tried to restrain for so long. That sound she’d only got on top of as a young teenager, when her mother had said it made her sound like Jemima Puddle-Duck.
Bessie gasped, sucking in the ice-edged air with such force that it briefly froze her throat and sinuses. None of this made sense. How could she be locked out? How could someone have been writing with blood in the boathouse? Why would they do it? What was wrong with them?
It had to be something to do with the missing girls. The ones Sergeant Heckenburg was looking for.
Then she heard the whistling.
She looked slowly around, her broad face bathed in sweat.
At first it was almost friendly, as if someone was whistling a nice song.
‘Sergeant Heckenburg,’ she said under her breath. ‘Sergeant Heckenburg!’ she tried to shout, but it came out as a cracked whimper.
Almost instinctively, Bessie realised that whoever this was, it was no friend.
She flicked her torch off. The only light now came from the window beside the front door, and was nothing more than a pale, grimy smear. Even so, she stepped aside so that she wasn’t framed in front of it. Now he, whoever he was, was standing in deep darkness – just like her. In fact, maybe the fog could help her. This wasn’t like they were standing in a room with the lights out; it was like they were standing in a room with the lights out and blankets thrown over them. He wouldn’t know where he was anymore than she did. In fact, things might be worse for him than they were for her – she knew her own garden very well.
Almost on cue, as though the whistler had been reading her thoughts, he stopped.
A piercing silence followed.
Did that mean he was approaching? Sliding towards her through the fog?
But he couldn’t be, because he didn’t know where she was. And yet – he might have seen her light, and she was still standing near the same spot.
Bessie lurched away to her left, only to stumble over a plant pot, managing by a miracle to keep on her feet but sending it clattering along the side path. Frantic, she tried to hush it, at the same time struggling to recollect what lay between here and the path leading up to the road. That would be the best thing, the path that led to the road. It was all flat paving-stones. She could walk up that in complete safety. And along the road it was only three miles to Cragwood Keld. She’d walked that distance lots of times. So she could easily run it now.
But maybe he could run it too. Maybe he was up there now, waiting on the road, because he knew that was the way she’d come. Instead, why not go to Mr Ramsdale’s house, which was the next one along? He hated her; he would doubtless shout at her again, but at least in his house she’d be safer than out here. That said, Mr Ramsdale’s house was a good sixty yards away. Would she be able to make it that far?
The whistling started again, now from somewhere on her right, whereas previously she’d thought it was to her fore. It also sounded a lot closer.
Bessie continued lurching left, almost running, kicking over another couple of plant pots. Away from the front window, it was so dark she could easily have bypassed the path leading up to the road, but by now she didn’t care. The outbuildings were on the south side of the house: two ramshackle old structures that she hardly used anymore. But there were lots of hiding places around there. He’d never find her, and once he’d moved on, she’d hurry on over to Mr Ramsdale’s. He had a telephone too, so they could call for help.
She reminded herself that however frightened she was, she shouldn’t make a sound from this point on. As such, she tried to make progress with stealth. But now she was in the uncut grass, amid bits of rubbish that had spilled from her dustbins – so her feet kept striking tin cans or crunching plastic cartons. It didn’t help that she whimpered each time and kept shushing herself.
And then she collided with the first outbuilding. Thankfully, her hands were in front of her again, so though it was noisy, at least she wasn’t hurt. It was the rotting old timber shed, the one she’d always thought of as ‘the stable’, though it had never been a real stable in her lifetime. The reverberations of the blow resounded through the night. Tears flooded Bessie’s cheeks as she groped her way to the eastern end of it. Beyond this point there was a gap, and then the building she always thought of as ‘the garage’, though again it had never been used as a garage, because neither she nor her mother had ever owned a car. This one was in an equally poor condition to the first, but built of bricks and covered with pebbledash, with a sagging tarpaper roof. She’d been planning to hide inside this, but now it occurred to her that there was only one way in – a single entrance around the back, which was also the only way out. It suddenly seemed a much cleverer plan to insinuate herself into the passage between the two; that way she’d have an exit at either end. The passage was about two feet wide, so she could work her way along it easily enough. It was filled with old thorns and weeds, which in summer reached to waist-height, but now they’d turned to desiccated bracken. At least it was damp though, so there was no loud crackling as she thrust her way along it. Bessie hunkered down somewhere around the middle of the passage, and waited, listening.
The sweat beading her face slowly turned cold. It was amazing, she thought – the fog even penetrated into this narrow space. She couldn’t see the entrance ahead of her. Or, when she craned her neck around, the one at her rear. And this was good because he wouldn’t be able to see in here either.
He wasn’t whistling anymore, she realised. In fact suddenly she couldn’t hear anything. Did that mean he’d gone? Had he given up?
Bessie knew better than to take such a chance at this early stage. So she waited, clutching the torch tightly, the moisture on her palms seeping through her woollen mittens, making its handle slippery. The heart was banging in her chest so loudly it was more like a drum. But aside from that, there was no sound at all. She couldn’t even hear the gentle lapping of the tarn, which was kind of a pity. She’d always loved that sound; it had never failed to remind her she was home. But what sort of home was this now, where people she didn’t know could come in whenever it suited them and write strange, horrible messages? And then, five seconds later, she did hear something – a dull, hollow thud.
Bessie stiffened where she crouched.
Now she heard another thud, followed by a low scraping sound.
Slowly it dawned on her that these sounds were issuing from the stable, which was just on her right. Still she didn’t move.
He couldn’t know she was here. He was probably just bumping around in the fog, like a silly idiot, or some daft, spoiled lad kicking at doors and stuff, angry that he couldn’t find her. But the next thud sounded as if it came from the stable roof. As did the one after that, which was much louder and heavier, and the one after that, which was heavier still – and much closer.
Bessie stood up, but before she could get out of there, she sensed movement directly above her. She gazed up, her face drenched with sweat, and saw a bulky form – it looked like a man’s head and shoulders in heavy clothing and a hood – leaning out over the edge of the stable, peering intently and silently down at her. With duck-like squawks, Bessie turned and fled along the narrow passage. On exit, she fought her way through briars and thickets. There was only one thing for it now. She had to make a run for it. With luck, she could still make it to Mr Ramsdale’s. As Bessie scrambled forward through the sodden undergrowth separating their two properties, she realised there was an old fence somewhere around here. She wouldn’t see it until she ran into it. But it was flimsy and decayed, and indeed, when she struck it thighs-first, the whole thing collapsed. Of course there was a strand of barbed wire in there too, which half-tripped her and tore at her duffle-coat as she climbed over it. But she didn’t care about any of that. She just ran, kicking through more tussocky grass, and then slipping and tottering over what had once been an ornamental rockery. The angular shape of Mr Ramsdale’s house loomed in front of her, blurry light shimmering from its windows. From the first one she ran to, she could see straight into the downstairs living area. And she could see him as well.
He was sitting at his table, with his back turned, working on his computer.
‘Mr Ramsdale!’ she shouted, banging on the mullioned glass.
He didn’t look around, too engrossed in his work.
A rotten twig snapped somewhere behind her.
With more squawks, Bessie buffaloed along the side of the house and around the corner to the front door. Mr Ramsdale would hear that for sure. He had a knocker, and she would bang it loudly – so loudly he would get angry. But she didn’t care, so long as it brought him out to see her.
And yet, when she got there – wonder of wonders – the door was open. Only a little bit, slivers of light shining around its edges, but so what? Without waiting for an invitation, Bessie pushed the door open.
‘Mr Ramsdale!’ she panted. ‘Mr Ramsdale?’
He was still at the desk with his back turned. She stomped across the room in heavy, uncoordinated fashion. She was exhausted now, her throat raw, breath ripping in and out of her lungs. But she was here, she’d made it – she didn’t care if he shouted and bellowed. She was safe, and the relief flooded through her.
‘Mr Ramsdale!’ Midway across, the stone floor turned slippery; she skidded a couple of feet but somehow kept her balance. She grabbed at his right shoulder, shaking it hard. ‘Mr Ramsdale!’
Bessie stood bewildered as, with the creaking of the chair’s oily pivot, he turned slowly around, jerking to a halt when he faced her. The expected foul-mouthed tirade didn’t come. It would never come. Mr Ramsdale’s head was slumped stiffly to one side, his white face twisted into a rigid rictus of horror. And only now did it strike her that the mysteriously slippery floor was red, that her neighbour’s desk and computer were red, that the entire front of his clothing was red, that the streaks running down from his empty eye-sockets were red, and that the sickle-shaped, double-edged cleft where his throat and larynx had been crudely butchered was monstrously red.
She spun around, screaming hoarsely, slipping and sliding back across the greasy, gore-clotted floor – to be confronted by a rectangle of fog where the open doorway stood, and that whistling again, from somewhere on the other side of it.
This brought her to a slithering halt. Frantic, Bessie tried to hobble backward, this time losing her feet properly and landing hard on her front, her chin smacking the floor with such force that sparks shot before her eyes. For seconds Bessie lay dazed – until approaching footfalls drew her attention to a pair of heavy boots tramping in from the fog. Her dimmed vision roved upward, catching a momentary glimpse of a stocky body dressed all in black, and of a black leather-gloved hand clasping and unclasping around the hilt of a large, hook-bladed tin-opener. Too groggy and feeble even to moan, she lay helpless as those feet came thumping towards her.