The Woman in the Wood

  ‘Are you all right, Duncan?’

  He heard the schoolmaster’s voice from what seemed a long way away and came back to the present with a start.

  ‘You don’t have to go on telling me about it if you don’t want to,’ Dove said. ‘I can imagine how much that took out of you.’

  ‘I told you?’ Duncan whispered. ‘I thought I was just remembering.’

  ‘Yes, you told me.’ Dove’s voice trembled, and when Duncan looked at him he had damp eyes.

  ‘When the other boys told me what he’d been doing to them I couldn’t believe it,’ Duncan said, putting his hand over his eyes as if to shut it out. ‘It’s too nasty to describe, worse than stuff we used to read about in those trashy books about Japanese POW camps. But those other boys weren’t like me, sir. They hadn’t come from good homes, or had enough education to know how wicked it was for anyone to do such things.

  ‘Michael and James had become like animals. They grabbed the food in the kitchen, and they’d push anyone out of the way if they thought they’d gain anything by it. They sucked up to Grainger when he came, and played with his thing – you know what I mean? I think they thought that would make them special to him. But it didn’t, I saw he despised them for being so willing. He was always hitting them and torturing them.

  ‘Peter – that was the boy who was with me when we were rescued – he was a poor thing, weak, the kind of kid other boys pick on. He couldn’t stand up for himself at all and Grainger loved to torture him. One time he visited he kept shoving things – a bottle, a corkscrew and other things – into his bottom. Peter screamed and screamed, he had blood pouring out of him, but the louder the screaming got the more Grainger seemed to enjoy it.’

  ‘Couldn’t you all have got together and overpowered him?’ Dove asked.

  ‘I suggested that, but the others were all so scared I knew they wouldn’t back me up when the time came. When Grainger came he used to call out and tell two of the boys to go into the kitchen and close the door. They always did what he said. I stood behind the door one day and whacked him with one of the kitchen chairs as he came in, but my God he made me pay for that. He tied me up and made Michael do stuff to me while he watched.’

  ‘You don’t need to go on,’ Dove said, reaching out and clasping Duncan’s forearm, shocked by the pain in the boy’s voice and the way he was hiding his face.

  ‘I think I do,’ Duncan said. ‘He beat me black and blue after that. I didn’t get any food for days either. He told Michael and James they could have my share. Peter tried to give me some of his, but they just snatched his as well. The worst thing of all was when Ian died. We thought he was just asleep at first, but then it dawned on us. We were there with his dead body for what must have been three days before Grainger came back and took him away. I don’t know what killed him. I suppose once the police found his body, they would’ve found out.’

  Dove knew, his friend Harry had told him. Ian had died of a broken neck, due to the force put on it while he was being raped. But he wasn’t going to tell Duncan that; he already had enough terrifying pictures in his head.

  ‘How long were you at that place?’ he asked instead.

  Duncan shrugged. ‘It felt like forever, but when you’re without sun or daylight you find yourself sleeping as much as you can. No one had a watch, so we didn’t even know whether it was night or day. The only time we saw daylight for a few seconds was when Grainger came through the door.

  ‘I didn’t even want to talk to the others, not after the first few days anyway. I did talk to Peter but the others got nasty about that. The place was very dirty. Along with the main room there was a kitchen, a bathroom and another room with mattresses on the floor. I used to clean it up, more for something to do than anything. Grainger brought us food – just sandwiches, pork pies and stuff. We never had a hot meal except the times he brought us fish and chips. But days would go by when we had nothing. That was another of Grainger’s ploys. It was like dog training – give you a treat and then you’ll do tricks. But I never crept round him. I looked at him like he was a maggot, and oh, how he hated that!’

  ‘Didn’t it make him punish you more?’

  ‘Yes, with beatings, swearing and belittling me, but he didn’t do the sex thing to me as often as the others. I think he was afraid I’d bite his cock if he forced that into my mouth.’

  Duncan stopped at that, tears running down his cheeks, sobbing like a small child.

  ‘That’s it now, stop,’ Dove said. ‘I think you’ve said enough, don’t you?’

  Duncan cried for some time, till eventually the tears turned to hiccuping gulps.

  ‘I told Peter when we were in the last place that I’d never be able to talk about it if we got out, and I really thought I wouldn’t be able to.’

  ‘I think it was your courage in standing up to Grainger that saved you,’ Dove said gently. ‘So it was worth it.’

  ‘Maybe. I fought him for Peter too. He was going to take him somewhere one time; I was sure it was to kill him as well, so I lashed out at him as it was only us left. Just after that he took us to the cellar where we were found. He never did anything further to us once we were in there, I think because we were too dirty. He just dropped food and the odd bottle of water down through the hatch. But he stopped coming for days on end, and when I saw how frail and ill Peter was getting I really regretted demanding he stayed with me.’

  ‘Well, thanks to you and Maisy, Peter got to be rescued, he had food and medicine, and he wasn’t strangled and put into a shallow grave.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Duncan sighed. ‘But I’m not sure Peter was aware enough at the end to know he’d been saved. He might have fought harder to live if he had been.’

  ‘You must stop reproaching yourself about Peter. You did the best you could.’

  Duncan’s eyes were filled with pain and sorrow.

  ‘I can’t really believe I’ve told you all that. Did you know men could do such things?’

  ‘Not till I was a lot older than you, Duncan,’ Dove said. ‘I think the army attracts its share of bullies and men with perverted tastes. But you must always remember that men like that are a very small minority. When you get married and have children of your own you mustn’t start thinking your sons and daughters are going to be attacked. Teach them how to keep safe – no going off with strangers and suchlike – but always try to remember there are more good and noble people in the world than there are bad.’

  ‘Like you, Grace and Janice,’ Peter said. ‘All three of you are inspirational.’

  Mr Dove smiled at the compliment. ‘And you, Duncan, will get to be a doctor even if I have to rap you over the head with a biology book to keep you at your studies.’

  At the end of May, a few days after Duncan had talked to Mr Dove, Maisy had the plaster taken off her arm.

  ‘I bet it felt marvellous when they cut it off,’ Janice said, taking Maisy’s forearm in both her hands and rubbing it gently with a little cream because the skin looked so dry.

  ‘It’s liberation,’ Maisy said. ‘I might have learned to do most things with one arm, but I’m dying to submerge myself in a bath, to wash my hands properly, and to turn over in bed without it clonking on something and waking me.’

  Janice smiled. ‘I’m glad you won’t be complaining about itches and asking me to poke knitting needles down it any more.’

  ‘See how weak and sickly-looking it is compared to the other, suntanned one, though.’ Maisy held up her arms together. ‘I shall be known throughout the county as the girl with odd arms.’

  ‘I could rub some gravy browning into it if you like,’ Janice suggested. ‘But I suppose you want to ride out to see Duncan now?’

  ‘I thought I’d go tomorrow,’ Maisy said thoughtfully. ‘When he came over last week he seemed so much more relaxed, didn’t he? And so suntanned. I got the feeling he wants to stay there forever.’

  ‘Is he starting to come to terms with what happened to him, do you think?’ Janice ask
ed.

  ‘I don’t suppose he’ll ever talk to me about it. He might be my brother but he’s very like his father in many ways. Sweetly old-fashioned, believing ladies mustn’t be told bad stuff.’

  ‘I don’t think you should know nasty things either,’ Janice said. ‘You’ve changed so much since the day Duncan disappeared. Most of it is good, but I worry about a few things.’

  ‘Something like that makes you grow up fast,’ Maisy said soberly. ‘But what is it that worries you?’

  ‘That maybe you need to step back and be a young girl again, have foolish fun, go dancing, have a sweet romance. I sometimes feel you’re like a lioness poised for danger. It isn’t good for you to be so suspicious of everything and everyone.’

  ‘I suppose as long as Grainger is out there free to attack another young boy, I can’t help looking over my shoulder.’

  ‘I’m convinced that wife of his has hidden him,’ Janice said. ‘Not necessarily round here, but he could have rung her and got her to meet him somewhere.’

  Maisy shook her head. ‘She’d have to be very stupid to do that. If she has helped him, she’ll end up in prison. Besides, I can’t believe any woman would condone what he’s done.’

  Deirdre Grainger was in despair. She had done absolutely nothing wrong, yet she was being treated as though she was a murderer.

  She was completely trapped. She couldn’t drive to the north of Scotland or somewhere far away because the police were watching and would follow her. The idea she’d had of taking her jewellery to London to sell wasn’t a viable one either – she was sure if she attempted to get on a train she’d be arrested. Yet she felt if she stayed in here another day with the curtains drawn against prying eyes, she’d go mad.

  She couldn’t even go along to the grocery shop down the road for food because they had refused to serve her, so she had to get in her car and drive into Bournemouth or Southampton with a headscarf and sunglasses on, praying no one recognized her from the newspapers and television news. Even then the police followed her.

  Did they really believe she would help Donald after what he’d done?

  Her own family, her brother, two sisters and her mother, had disowned her. She had written to each of them, pleading for them to believe she was as much a victim as all the others. But they had hardened their hearts to her, and the worst of it was that they were never going to relent, not even when he was finally caught and hanged.

  The days were endless, the nights even longer, and she had absolutely nothing to fill the time. She cleaned things, she tidied drawers, but she couldn’t go into the garden because people threw things at her. They managed to attack her from the back of the house too, which they could reach from an alleyway. She’d had the fence set fire to, tins of paint thrown over the lawn, dog mess hurled at her windows, weedkiller put on her bushes and flowers.

  In many ways the garden now mirrored what had happened to her life. Once it had been her pride and joy, almost a show garden with a manicured lawn, a fish pond and flower beds and not a weed in sight.

  Now it was destroyed: plants dead and dying, and the pond full of rubbish and dead fish, because they’d been poisoned too. The lawn looked like a bit of waste ground now, with clumps of grass growing around the many broken bottles and cans that had been hurled on to it.

  It was a similar story when she looked in the mirror. She saw a blotchy complexion, and her eyes, which had always been described as cornflower blue, were now dull and red-rimmed. Her auburn hair had lost all its shine and bounce. She’d even found several grey hairs. She was no longer the glamorous woman who used to turn heads.

  She was thirty-seven, and Donald had not only laid waste to her life and her future; he had destroyed her will to even try to rebuild her life. She had married him because she loved him; richer or poorer was what she had vowed. If he’d lost all his money and they’d had to go and live in rented rooms because of some failed business venture, she could have lived with that.

  But when she’d said those other words at the wedding, ‘for better or worse’, she never dreamed ‘worse’ could be this kind of hell. Night after night she’d lain awake thinking on what she knew he’d done. Not just killing those boys, but raping and beating them. The tragedy didn’t stop with their deaths; it had ruined the lives of their parents, siblings, relatives and friends. If he was to walk in here now she would pick up the carving knife and thrust it through his black heart.

  Of course he wouldn’t walk in here. He would know that he could never look any decent person in the eye again, especially her.

  She couldn’t look anyone in the eye herself. Deep down she felt that he may have become like this because of her – something she did or didn’t do.

  Getting up off the sofa she went to the cupboard under the stairs and pulled out the hank of washing line he’d promised to put up over a year ago. When the police had searched the house they’d asked her about it. If it hadn’t still had the pristine paper band around it, bearing the name of the local ironmonger, they would probably have taken it away as potential evidence.

  Deirdre had learned to do many kinds of knots in the Girl Guides, and Donald had often complimented her on her slip knots when they needed to tie something to the roof rack. She intended to make this the best and final slip knot of her life.

  An hour later she was ready, the rope secured round the balustrade on the upstairs landing, with just enough slack over the stairwell to achieve her aim.

  She took off her slippers, placed a chair on the little bit of landing by the window and stood on it. There was a touch of irony in that when they’d come to see this house with a view to buying it, she’d loved this small space behind the balustrade, just big enough for a small bookcase and an easy chair. She thought it was rather grand but Donald had always said it was a waste of space. Since she’d become trapped in the house, she often sat here with a book, as it felt safer.

  Picking up the noose she’d made, she tried sliding the knot up and down a few times to check it didn’t stick. She then put it around her neck, stepped on to the balustrade, and jumped.

  It was just after one in the afternoon when Grainger rode the BSA motorbike up the small, rutted lane into the forest.

  He was feeling smug at finding a method of transportation which enabled him to travel cheaply, but also without being noticed. He had acquired it by a stroke of luck. After he abandoned the Rover 90, he stole an old Ford and drove it along the south coast in the direction of Eastbourne. He had no real plan about where he was going, but coastal resorts were safer with so many strangers coming and going for holidays.

  It was six in the evening and raining when he turned off the main road to visit Seaford Head, a place where he’d often camped with the Scouts as a boy. He remembered an old coastguard’s cottage there which he thought he might be able to get into to stay the night.

  There were no cars parked below the steep walk up to the cliff top, and the whole area was deserted, not even a lone dog walker. But standing alone in the car park was the BSA motorbike.

  For a brief period in his life he’d had the same motorbike, so he stopped to look at it. Then when he looked up, he saw the owner of the bike, a young man of about twenty wearing an old leather flying jacket which was too big for him and holding his crash helmet, coming down from the cliff top.

  Grainger could see he was upset. He was mopping at his eyes, his shoulders hunched up.

  ‘What’s up, son?’ Grainger asked the lad as he got nearer.

  ‘Everything,’ the man replied, sniffing. ‘My girl told me to go and sell the bike – she’s sick of getting cold and wet riding pillion. She said until I come back with a car to take her out, she don’t want to see me.’

  Grainger was pretty certain the lad must have gone up to the cliff top with the crazy idea of ending it all, but thought better of it once he was there. Grainger couldn’t feel any sympathy with someone so feeble they’d even think of suicide because their girl didn’t like motorbikes. But he di
d see an opportunity looming.

  ‘I’m sorry, but if she means that much to you why don’t you sell it?’ he asked.

  ‘I asked at a couple of garages, but they only offered me thirty quid for it, and the only cars you can get for that are clapped out.’

  ‘You need a motorbike enthusiast,’ Grainger said. ‘Funnily enough, I’m one. I’d swop my car for that bike any old time.’

  ‘Really?’ The boy looked at the Ford, which was in good condition, back to the bike and then back to Grainger. ‘You serious?’

  Grainger hadn’t been entirely serious, not because he didn’t want the motorbike but because any sensible person would expect there to be a catch. But by the slow way the lad spoke, he wasn’t too bright. It was like taking candy from a baby.

  ‘Never more so,’ he said. ‘I used to ride a bike back when I was your age and I miss it. You say the word right now and I’ll swop. I’ll even take your jacket and you can have my raincoat. It’s an Aquascutum, cost a small fortune.’ He flapped it to show the checked lining and label. Not that the dim lad would know an expensive raincoat from a cheap one. ‘You could drive to your girl’s place right now. Think how impressed she’ll be that you did it for her.

  ‘Tell you what,’ he went on. ‘Write down your address and I’ll pop the log book in the post to you when I get back to Hastings tonight. I’ll give you mine so you can do the same thing.’

  He took a card from his wallet belonging to Richard E. Wyatt, a businessman from Hastings who had approached him over a year ago about doing some legal work for him. His business was an engineering company. As it happened, Wyatt found someone else, but Grainger was quite happy to be Wyatt for now.

  The lad stared at the address; clearly it was a good one. ‘Well, if we’re going to do this, let’s make it now before we get soaked to the skin,’ Grainger chivvied him, handing him the notebook.

  The lad scribbled down his name and address, and Grainger smiled as he read it: the boy lived in a village just outside Eastbourne. ‘Let’s be having the leather jacket. Your girl is going to think you’ve won the pools when you turn up.’