We edged sideways between a pair of spiky bushes. Julia almost slipped and I grabbed her hand, holding on to it for a moment, and then we emerged into a clearing. There it was: a small stone building, with a steeple and arched windows that had been boarded over. Crumbling stone steps, ripped apart by tree roots that broke through like the tentacles of some underground monster, led up to a pair of wooden doors. A metal strip had been nailed across the doors, presumably when this place closed, but at some point it had been ripped open – either by nature or human hands. Ivy had swarmed across every surface of the church like a virus.
‘What the hell is a church doing out here?’ I asked, looking around. Nature pressed in from all sides, slowly reclaiming this place. One day, the gap would be filled, the building buried, invisible. Bare branches already poked through the church’s roof, and green moss coated the walls where ivy didn’t cling.
‘I’ve heard about this place,’ Julia said. ‘It was an estate that’s been abandoned for years. An estate with a private chapel. The house will be nearby.’
So a chapel, not a church.
‘Michael came out here once to take a look and came back telling me how amazing it was, how exciting it would be to hire an architect and redevelop it, turn it into a wedding venue or something. Of course, he never did anything about it.’
I was frozen to the spot, pulse throbbing in my ears, a shiver running through me as I took in the scene. There was something beautiful about it, and not just in the detail, the curlicues on the pillars either side of the doors, or the rusted bell that hung visible in the broken steeple. It was in the connection to the past. The secret history of this place. It spoke directly to the horror novelist in me, the lover of all things macabre. But more than that, one thought shone through: it was the perfect place to hide a body.
The perfect place to hide a child.
Julia tapped the X on Ursula’s map. ‘This is definitely the spot.’
She took a deep breath and went up the steps, unhooking the rucksack and taking out one of the flashlights. I followed, catching up as she squeezed through the gap between the doors. It was dark inside, with the windows boarded up, though a few chinks of light entered through cracks in the walls. She turned on the flashlight and placed it on the floor. Darkness turned to gloom.
It was larger than I’d expected, about the size of a school classroom, with an altar at one end and three rows of pews. Everything was blackened by neglect, the smell of damp filling the air. Vines hung from the ceiling. One touched my neck as I turned around, making me tense up so the muscles cramped painfully.
Over in the corner, propped on the floor, was a huge painting of Christ on the cross, turned on its side. I guessed it must have hung here once, but had fallen or been taken down. The frame was cracked and the paintwork was dark with mould. Jesus stared out at us, eyes filled with pain, blood trickling down His forehead.
Julia looked around, peering into nooks, running a hand along the cold walls. She walked over to the altar, peered beneath the pews. She found a Bible, sodden with rainwater and falling apart. A draft blew through the building and made me shiver. My body was telling me to get out, to go somewhere warm and light and modern. Because there was nothing here. No proof that Lily was dead.
I wasn’t surprised. Ursula had made it all up.
‘We should go,’ I said.
‘No. There must be something here. Why would she send us here otherwise? How would she even know about this place?’
‘I told you, I saw her exploring the woods. She must have found it. I know what’s going to happen next, Julia. She’ll tell you we must have missed it, that you need her help to find it. And that’s when she’ll mention money.’
But Julia wasn’t listening. She was in the far corner, staring at the painting of Christ. She grabbed hold of one edge and pushed it to one side. It was heavy, the frame made of solid wood, and I went over to help her. We shoved it to the right, the effort making me grunt. I pulled myself up straight and, seeing what the painting had been concealing, said, ‘Fuck.’
It was a wooden door. The wood was a little warped in its frame and there was a gouge down the centre, as if it had been swiped at by some giant creature.
I turned to Julia to remark on this find, but she wasn’t looking at the door. She was staring open-mouthed at something that lay on the ground in front of it.
She crouched down and picked the object up, then stood, clutching it like an explorer who’d found the Holy Grail.
‘It’s a cat. It’s Little Cat.’ I gaped at it. The toy Lily had been carrying when she vanished; the other cat left floating in the river. She held it out to me, looking like she was going to throw up. ‘Look.’
One side of the toy was matted with a dark, brownish substance. A liquid that had dried and stuck to the cat’s fur.
‘It’s blood, isn’t it?’ Julia said, her voice catching.
I swallowed. ‘You should put it down. The police . . .’ They’d want to check it for DNA, wouldn’t they? This was evidence.
But Julia wouldn’t let go. She held the small soft toy against her chest. Then her attention shifted to the painting. ‘What did Ursula say? She’s with Jesus.’
‘You think . . . you think she meant it literally?’
We both stared at the painting of Christ, then at the door it had been concealing. I pulled at it, expecting it to be locked.
It wasn’t. It was heavy and stiff, but I pulled it open without too much effort.
‘We should call the police,’ I said. ‘Now.’
I took my phone from my pocket. Unsurprisingly, I had no signal. Not out here, deep in the woods.
Julia got to her feet, still clutching the cat. She went to go through the door.
‘Wait.’
I checked behind us; it was almost completely dark outside now. I grabbed the other flashlight from the rucksack and turned it on. The beam was bright, doubling the amount of light in the chapel.
‘Let me go first,’ I said. ‘Just in case.’
In case Lily’s body is in there.
Julia was mute as I pulled the door fully open, revealing not a room but a set of stone steps. Steps that led down into the earth.
‘A crypt,’ I whispered.
‘Oh God, what’s that smell, Lucas?’
The stench of something rotten wafted up the stairs. Rotten meat. A wave of nausea hit me and I had to rest against the damp wall beside the doorway for a moment.
Julia moved towards the stairs, but I held out an arm to stop her.
‘Let me go down first,’ I said. ‘If Lily’s down there . . .’
‘I want to see her. I need to see her.’
‘No. Julia, please. If she is down there, we don’t know . . .’ I felt horrible saying it. ‘We don’t know what state she’ll be in.’
‘Oh God. Oh God oh God.’ She took a step backwards, hugging the filthy, sodden Little Cat.
‘I’m going to check it out,’ I said. ‘Then we’re going to leave here, find a house and call the police. Okay?’
‘Okay.’ She sat down at the end of the nearest pew.
I hefted the flashlight in my hand and, with one last look back at Julia, ducked through the low doorway and started down the stairs. The steps were a little slippery, narrow and steep, so I had to hold on to the wall, shining the flashlight down so I could see where I was treading. As I descended, the smell grew more sickening. I pulled the collar of my coat up over my nose in a vain attempt to block the smell.
I reached the bottom of the stairs.
I was in a narrow room with an arched ceiling, small and cramped. There was a small wooden table at the far end, with a cross hanging above it. I had been afraid there might be coffins down here, family members left behind when the chapel was abandoned, but if there ever were, they must have been removed.
Something lay on the floor in the corner, beside the table.
It was a body. I was certain of it. A body, covered by a thick sheet which wa
s actually, I realised as I inched closer, a heavy, old curtain. The smell was almost unbearable now and I covered my nose and mouth with one palm, laying the flashlight on the ground, the beam pointing at the body beneath its makeshift shroud.
I wanted to bolt from this place, to go and call the police, but I needed to see. Julia would want to know.
I crouched beside the shroud and, after counting to three, pulled it back to reveal a white, moon-shaped face.
I fell back, dropping the flashlight and sending it spinning in a circle. Light danced around the crypt, ramping up my dizziness and nausea. I grabbed the flashlight and got back up onto my haunches, directing the light at the human face.
Her eyes were closed. She looked almost peaceful. But this wasn’t a child. It wasn’t Lily.
It took a few seconds for my fear-stricken brain to make sense of it, to figure out who I was looking at. And the relief was replaced by guilt. She was here because of me. Because of something I’d started.
Zara.
There was no blood. No visible sign of injury. I had peeled the shroud back just far enough to see the shoulders of her black puffa jacket. I could see her feet too, poking out: trainers with mud creeping up over the soles. I covered her face and stood up.
I heard the door above me open. Julia. I was about to tell her to stay where she was, but before I could speak, she was falling. She fell onto her back, sliding down the stone steps, landing on the hard ground of the crypt and rolling onto her side.
I rushed over to her. She lay panting, looking up at me, wincing with pain.
‘Are you okay? Are you hurt?’
She pushed herself to a sitting position, rubbing her back. ‘I’m just bruised. I’m okay.’ She tried to get to her feet, but her face contorted and she fell back onto her bottom. ‘I’ll be all right, I just need a minute,’ she said. Then she caught sight of the body beneath the shroud. ‘Oh!’
‘It’s okay,’ I said hurriedly. ‘It’s not Lily.’
The meaning of what I’d said sunk in. ‘Is it a child?’
‘No. Her name’s Zara Sullivan.’
‘What? You know her?’
‘Knew her. She was the private investigator I hired.’
She drew in a breath.
‘Why did you come down? I told you . . .’
‘What? I didn’t come down. Didn’t you see what happened?’ She looked up the staircase and I followed her gaze. The door was shut.
‘I was pushed,’ she said.
Chapter 40
I climbed the steps as quickly as I could. I grabbed the rusty door handle and rattled it. The door moved an inch but then stopped. There was something blocking it. I pushed harder, but it wouldn’t budge. Something was wedging it shut.
I tried not to panic. We were trapped in the crypt of an abandoned chapel, as night was drawing in. Did anyone know we were here? Yes . . . but only Ursula.
Ursula, who had to be in on this. Whatever this was.
I banged on the door and called out, ‘Hello? Let us out!’ I pressed my ear to the wood, but it was too thick to hear anything outside.
I made my way back down the steps to where Julia was sitting, as far from the body as she could get. She had dragged herself across the floor, her face screwed up against the pain in her back. I sat down beside her.
‘Tell me what happened,’ I said.
‘You were taking ages,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘I was going out of my mind, sitting up there, waiting for you to tell me if Lily was down here. I couldn’t wait any longer so I went to the door, to the top of the steps.’
‘And somebody pushed you.’
She nodded. ‘I felt hands on my back. Luckily, I managed to twist so I went down on my back rather than face first.’
‘Did you see them?’
‘No. They must have come into the chapel while I was standing there. They were fast because I was only there a few seconds before they pushed me.’
I searched her eyes. Part of me thought she was lying, that she’d thrown herself down. A scenario played out in my head: Julia had killed Lily. She was responsible for all the weird stuff that had happened in her house. She was the person Max and I had followed down to the river, the person who’d attacked us. None of this had anything to do with what happened thirty-five years ago. Julia was a murderer. She had killed her daughter and her husband. Then Max. Maybe she had killed Zara too after finding out, somehow, that I’d hired her.
‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’
I pinched the bridge of my nose, tried to shake the dark thoughts away. It couldn’t be Julia. Not unless she was the greatest actor on earth. Her grief, that was genuine. The way she’d acted when she found the extinguished birthday candles.
Unless she was insane and didn’t know what she’d done . . .
I stood up and paced the small space, staying clear of Zara’s corpse. I told myself not to be so stupid. It wasn’t Julia. She was innocent. I couldn’t have misjudged her that badly. Could I?
Julia tried to get to her feet again, but her eyes watered and she swore. ‘Ah, my back.’
I looked into her eyes, at the pain there – both physical and emotional – and told myself again that I was being stupid, that she wouldn’t have thrown herself down those stairs and hurt herself. This time, I believed it.
‘Is the rucksack still up there?’ I asked. ‘The shears?’
‘Yes. I—’
A yell came from above us. Then a series of thumps.
‘What the hell?’
Now I believed Julia one hundred per cent. I ran up the stairs and pressed my ear against the door. I could hear scuffling. A voice cried out in pain. Then all went quiet.
Julia called up, ‘What’s going on?’
I thumped on the door and shouted again. Nothing.
Then somebody screamed. The sound almost sent me hurtling down the stairs. It sounded like it came from inside the chapel, just beyond the door. One thing I was sure of – it was a woman.
‘Lucas, please, what’s going on?’
I ran back down to Julia, more confident on the slippery steps now, and began to tell her what I’d heard.
She grabbed my arm. ‘Lucas.’
‘A woman. Who could it be? Ursula. But why—’
‘Lucas!’
I shut up.
Julia pointed at the stairs. ‘The door. I think someone just opened it.’
‘Oh shit, I should have brought a weapon, a knife . . .’
I hesitated, listening for sounds of life above us. It was completely silent. I had to go up, to find out what was going on, even though I knew it could be a trap, was probably a trap. But what else could I do?
Slowly, I crept back up to the door. I turned the handle and pushed it open.
I didn’t know where Julia’s flashlight was and I’d left mine down with her, so the room was dark. I waited for my eyes to adjust. Shapes sprang out of the darkness. A chair, which had been used to wedge the door shut, lay to my right.
There was somebody on the floor between the pews. They weren’t moving.
I crept closer.
They sprang to life.
‘Get away from me! Get away!’ It was definitely a woman, but it was too dark to see her face, and although I recognised the voice I couldn’t place it.
‘Who is it?’
I spun round. Julia was in the doorway. She must have dragged herself up the stairs. She was bent almost double from the pain, but managed to lift the flashlight to cast the beam onto the woman on the floor, who was cowering in terror against the altar.
The woman lifted her face towards us.
‘What the fuck are—’
She cut me off with a groan.
It was Heledd.
‘I saw her!’ she babbled, eyes darting around the interior of the chapel. ‘She told me to confess my sins. The sins of my father and my mother.’ She crossed herself, gazing past us at the painting of Jesus.
I approached her and she shrank away.
‘She said . . . she said if I don’t confess she’ll come back for me.’ She began to mutter to herself, her words a rapid blur. It was a prayer. She crossed herself repeatedly. For a confused moment I wondered if Heledd had a twin sister, because this woman seemed so different to the cool, sane woman I’d been talking to just a few hours before. But no, this was definitely Heledd. Two books lay beside her. One was the ruined Bible I’d spotted earlier. The other, clearly identifiable in its brown leather binding, was Malcolm’s journal.
‘Who told you?’ I asked.
Heledd picked up the Bible and held it against herself. ‘The witch. The Red Widow.’ She pointed towards the door. ‘She was here. She told me to confess. The sins of the father and the mother. The sins of the daughter.’
Julia approached her, pointing the flashlight at her face.
‘Confess? What did you do?’ she demanded. Her voice rose to a shout. ‘What did you do?’
But all Heledd could do was sob.
Chapter 41
LILY – 2014–2015
It had been the worst Christmas ever. Not because the presents Mum and Dad got her were rubbish – Lily got pretty much everything she had asked for, except a new kitten – and not because it rained all day which meant she couldn’t go outside to try out her new Heelys. Dinner was nice too. Mum gave her an extra helping of roast potatoes and didn’t make her try any sprouts.
All of that was great. Lily’s tummy still fizzed with excitement at the Christmassy-ness of it all, even though she wasn’t a baby who believed in Santa any more, despite Mum’s insistence he was real. But what ruined it, what made it the worst Christmas, was the atmosphere between her parents.
Christmas night, Lily went to bed, taking Chesney with her, along with Big Cat and Little Cat, and bit back tears. Her tummy still hurt from eating too much dinner and she couldn’t get to sleep. So her brain churned.