The phone scraped against the old floorboards as it skittered past the wrappers and beer bottles, spinning as it came to rest near Charlie’s feet.
The gun was still in his right hand, pointed shakily at Stanley.
He took a step forward, and Pip thought he was going to pick the phone up, but he didn’t. He raised his foot and brought the heel of his boot down hard, shattering the screen. The light inside it blinked out and died as Pip flinched from the sudden sound, her eyes fixed on the gun.
‘Charlie . . . what are you doing?’ she said, her voice shaking like his hand.
‘Come on, Pip,’ he said with a sniff, eyes following the line of the gun. ‘You’ve worked it out by now.’
‘You’re Layla Mead.’
‘I’m Layla Mead,’ he repeated, a look on his face that was either a grimace or a jittery smile, Pip couldn’t tell. ‘Can’t take all the credit, Flora did the voice when I needed her to.’
‘Why?’ Pip said, and her heart was so fast it was like one held note. Charlie’s mouth twitched with his answer, gaze darting between her and
Stanley. But the gun never moved to follow his eyes. ‘The surname is Flora’s too. You want to know what mine used to be? Nowell. Charlie Nowell.’
Pip heard the intake of Stanley’s breath, saw the abject look in his eyes. ‘No,’ he said quietly, barely audible. But Charlie heard him.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Emily Nowell, the final victim of the Monster of Margate and his son. She was my sister, my big sister. Do you remember me now?’ he shouted at Stanley, jerking the gun. ‘Do you remember my face? I never remembered yours, and I hated myself for it.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,’ Stanley said.
‘Don’t give me that,’ Charlie screamed, the tendons sticking up like tree roots on his reddening neck. ‘I was listening to you talking, giving her your sob story.’ He indicated his head at Pip. ‘You want to know what he did?’ he asked her, but it wasn’t a question. ‘I was nine years old, out in the playground. My sister Emily was watching me, teaching me how to use the big swings when this boy comes up to us. And he turns to Emily and he says, his eyes all big and sad, “I’ve lost my mum, please can you help me?”’ Charlie’s hand danced as he spoke, the gun shifting around with it. ‘So Emily, of course she says yes, she was the nicest person in the world. She told me to stay by the slide with my friends while she went with this little boy to help him find his mum. And they left. But Emily never came back. I was waiting there for hours, on my own in the playground. Closing my eyes and counting, “three, two, one” and praying she would appear. But she didn’t. Not until they found her three weeks later, mutilated and burned.’ Charlie blinked, so hard the tears fell from his eyes straight to his collar, leaving his face untouched. ‘I watched you abduct my sister and all I could think about was whether I could go backwards down the slide.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Stanley cried, his hands up, fingers splayed. ‘I’m so sorry. I think about her the most, your sister. She was so kind to me, I –’
‘Don’t you dare!’ Charlie shouted, spit foaming at the edges of his mouth. ‘Get her out of your ugly head! You were the one who chose her, not your dad. It was you! You picked her! You helped abduct seven people knowing exactly what would happen to them, you even helped him do it. But, oh, the government just hands you a brand new shiny life, wipes all of that away. You want to know what my life has been like?’ His breath growled in his throat. ‘Three months after they found Emily’s body, my dad hung himself. I was the one who found him, after school. My mother couldn’t cope and turned to alcohol and drugs to numb everything out. I almost starved. Within a year I’m removed from her care and sent from foster family to foster family. Some were kind to me, some were not. By seventeen, I was living on the streets. But I pulled my life around, and there was only one thing that got me through all that. Neither of you deserved to live after what you did. Someone already got to your father, but they let you walk free. But I knew that one day I would find you and I would be the one to kill you, Child Brunswick.’
‘Charlie, please just put the gun down and we –’ Pip said.
‘No.’ Charlie didn’t look at her. ‘I’ve waited nineteen years for this moment. I bought this gun nine years ago knowing that one day I’d use it to kill you. I’ve been ready, I’ve been waiting. I’ve followed every single tip and rumour about you on the internet. I’ve lived in ten different towns in the last seven years, looking for you. And a new version of Layla Mead came with me to each one, finding the men who fit your age and description, getting close to them until one might confide in me who they really were. But you weren’t in any of those other towns. You were here. And now I’ve found you. I’m glad that Jamie failed. It’s right that I do it. This is how it’s meant to be.’
Pip watched Charlie’s finger, flexing and tensing against the trigger. ‘Wait!’ she shouted. Just buy some time, keep him talking. If the police were at Stanley’s house now, with Ravi and Connor and Jamie, maybe Ravi would send them here. Please Ravi, send them here. ‘What about Jamie?’ she said quickly. ‘Why get him involved?’
Charlie licked his lips. ‘The opportunity presented itself to me. I started talking to Jamie because he fit my Child Brunswick profile. Then I found out he’d lied about his age, and discounted him. But he was so eager. He’d fallen for Layla in a way none of the others have before, kept messaging saying he’d do anything for me. And it got me thinking,’ he sniffed. ‘My whole life, I accepted that I would be the one to kill Child Brunswick and most likely forfeit my life in return, end up with the life sentence
he should have had. But Jamie made me think, if I just wanted Child Brunswick dead, what if I could get someone else to do it for me? And then I could go on and have a life afterwards, me and Flora. She really pushed for that, for a chance for us to stay together. She’s known I’ve had to do this since we met at eighteen, has followed me around the country looking for him, helping me. I owed her to at least try.
‘So I started to test Jamie, see what I could get him to do. Turns out it was a lot,’ he said. ‘Jamie withdrew twelve hundred pounds in cash and left it in a graveyard at night for Layla. He beat up a stranger, though he’d never been in a fight in his life before. For Layla. He broke into my house and stole a watch. For Layla. I was escalating each time, and I think it would have worked, I think I could have got him to the point where he would have killed for Layla. But everything went wrong at the memorial. I guess that’s what happens when you bring an entire town together on one field.
‘I’ve run this Layla scheme nine times before. I quickly learned that it’s best to use the photos of a local girl, manipulate them slightly. Men were always less suspicious when they could see photos taken in places they recognized, and a face that might seem vaguely familiar to them. But it backfired here, and Jamie found out Layla wasn’t real. And he wasn’t ready yet; I wasn’t ready yet. But we had to try the plan that night, while Jamie was still under Layla’s thumb.
‘But I didn’t know who Child Brunswick was. I’d narrowed it down to two suspects: Luke Eaton and Stanley Forbes. Both the right age, the right appearance, neither had jobs that ruled them out, neither ever mentioned any family and avoided questions about their childhood. So I had to send Jamie to both. I knew it had all gone wrong when I heard Jamie was missing. I suppose you killed him?’ he said to Stanley.
‘No,’ Stanley whispered.
‘Jamie’s alive. He’s fine,’ Pip said.
‘Really? That’s good. I was feeling guilty about what happened to him,’ Charlie said. ‘And then of course, after everything went wrong, I couldn’t make any more moves to find out which one of them was Child Brunswick. But that’s OK, because I knew you would.’ He turned his face, gave Pip a small smile. ‘I knew you would find him for me. I’ve been watching you, following you. Waiting for you. Pushing you in the right direction when you needed help. And you did it,’ he said, steadying the gun. ‘You found him for me, Pip. Thank you.’
‘No,’ she shouted, stepping in front of Stanley with her hands up. ‘Please don’t shoot.’
‘PIP, GET AWAY FROM ME!’ Stanley screamed at her, pushing her back. ‘Don’t come near me. Stay back!’
She stopped, her heart so wild and fast it felt like her ribs were caving in on her, bony fingers closing around her chest.
‘Back!’ Stanley screamed, tears chasing down his pale face. ‘It’s OK, get back.’
She did, four more steps away, turning to Charlie. ‘Please don’t do this!
Don’t kill him!’
‘I have to,’ Charlie said, narrowing his eyes along the sight of the gun. ‘This is exactly what we talked about, Pip. Where the justice system gets it wrong, it’s down to people like you and me to step in and set things right. And it doesn’t matter if people think we’re good or not, because we know
we’re right. We’re the same, you and me. You know it, deep down. You know this is right.’
Pip didn’t have an answer for him. Didn’t know what to say other than: ‘PLEASE! Don’t do this!’ Her voice ripped at her throat, words cracking as she forced them out. ‘This isn’t right! He was just a child. A child scared of his own father. It’s not his fault. He didn’t kill your sister!’
‘Yes, he did!’
‘It’s alright, Pip,’ Stanley said to her, barely able to talk because he was shaking so hard. He held his trembling hand up and out, to comfort her, to keep her back. ‘It’s OK.’
‘NO, PLEASE,’ she screamed, folding in on herself. ‘Charlie, please don’t do this. I’m begging you. PLEASE! Don’t!’
Charlie’s eyes twitched. ‘PLEASE!’
His gaze shifted from Stanley to her. ‘I’m begging you!’
He gritted his teeth. ‘Please!’ she cried.
Charlie looked at her, watched her crying. And then he lowered the gun. Took two heavy breaths.
‘I-I’m not sorry,’ he said quickly.
He lifted the gun and Stanley gasped. Charlie fired.
The sound ripped the earth out from under Pip. ‘NO!’
He fired again.
And again.
And again.
Again.
Again.
Until they were just empty clicks.
Pip screamed, watching Stanley stagger back off his feet, falling hard against the floor.
‘Stanley!’ She ran to him, skidding to her knees beside him. Blood was already overflowing the wounds, sprays of red on the wall behind him. ‘Oh my god.’
Stanley was gulping at the air, a strange whine in his throat. Eyes wide.
Scared.
Pip heard a rustle behind her and whipped her head around. Charlie had lowered his arm, watching Stanley writhing on the floor. Then his eyes met Pip’s. He nodded, just once, before he turned and ran out of the room, his heavy boots careening down the corridor.
‘He’s gone,’ Pip said, looking down at Stanley. And in just those few seconds, the blood had spread, seeping out until there were only small channels of white shirt between the red.
Stop the bleeding, need to stop the bleeding. She looked over him: one gunshot in his neck, one in his shoulder, one in his chest, two in his stomach and one in his thigh.
‘It’s OK, Stanley,’ she said, pulling off her jacket. ‘I’m here, it’s going to be OK.’ She tore at the seam attaching one arm, biting it until she ripped a hole and pulled the sleeve free. Where was the most blood? His leg; must have hit the artery. Pip slid the sleeve under Stanley’s leg, the warm blood coating her hands. She made a knot above the wound, pulling it as tight as she could and double-knotting to keep the material in place.
He was watching her.
‘It’s OK,’ she said, pushing the hair back from her eyes, a smear of wet blood on her forehead. ‘It’s going to be OK. Help will come.’
She ripped off the other sleeve, bunched it up and held it to the gushing wound in his neck. But there were six holes in Stanley, and she only had two hands.
He blinked slowly, his eyes slipping shut.
‘Hey,’ she said, grabbing his face. His eyes snapped open again. ‘Stanley stay with me, keep talking to me.’
‘It’s OK, Pip,’ he croaked as she tore more strips of fabric from her jacket, balling them up and stuffing them against the other wounds. ‘This was always going to happen. I deserve it.’
‘No, you don’t,’ she said, pressing her hands against the hole in his chest and the hole in his neck. She could feel the pulses of blood pushing against her.
‘Jack Brunswick,’ he said quietly, eyes circling hers.
‘What?’ Pip said, pushing down as hard as she could, his blood pooling out in the webs of her fingers.
‘It was Jack, that was my name,’ he said, with a heavy, slow blink. ‘Jack Brunswick. And then I was David Knight. Then Stanley Forbes.’ He swallowed.
‘That’s good, keep talking to me,’ Pip said. ‘Which name did you like best?’
‘Stanley.’ He smiled weakly. ‘Silly name, and he wasn’t much, he wasn’t always good, but he was the best of them. He was trying.’ There was a crackling sound from his throat; Pip felt it in her fingers. ‘I’m still his son, though, whatever my name is. Still that boy that did those things. Still rotten.’
‘No you aren’t,’ Pip said. ‘You’re better than him. You are better.’ ‘Pip . . .’
And as she looked at him, a shadow crossed over his face, a darkness from above, something smothering the light of the torch. Pip glanced up and that was when she smelled it too. Smoke. Rolling black smoke creeping out across the ceiling.
Now she could hear them too. The flames.
‘He set it on fire,’ she said to herself, her stomach falling away from her as she watched the smoke pour in from the hallway across from where the kitchen must be. And she knew, knew it would only be minutes until the whole house went up.
‘I need to get you out of here,’ she said. Stanley blinked silently up at her.
‘Come on.’ Pip let go of him, pushing up to her feet. She slipped in the blood at his side, staggering over his legs. She bent down and picked up his feet, pulling him, dragging him.
Holding his shoes up by her hips, she twisted round, front-facing so she could see where they were going, dragging Stanley behind her, her grip on his ankles, trying not to look at the trail of red following behind him.
Out in the corridor, and the room off to the right was filled with fire: an angry, roaring vortex up every wall and across the floor, spilling through the open doorway into the narrow hall. Flames were licking along on the old, peeling wallpaper. And above her head, the exposed insulation in the ceiling was burning, dropping ash down on them.
The smoke was getting lower and darker. Pip coughed, breathing it in.
And the world started spinning around her.
‘It’s going to be OK, Stanley,’ she called over her shoulder, ducking her head down, out of the smoke. ‘I’ll get you out.’
It was harder dragging him, out here on the carpet. But she dug in her heels and she pulled as hard as she could. The fire was growing on the wall beside her – hot, too hot – and it felt like her skin was blistering and her eyes were burning. She turned her face away from it and pulled.
‘It’s OK, Stanley!’ She had to scream over the flames now.
Pip coughed with every breath. But she didn’t let go of him. She held on and she pulled. And when she reached the threshold, she sucked the clean, cold outside air into her lungs, dragging Stanley out on to the grass, just as the carpet behind them started to catch.
‘We’re out, Stanley,’ Pip said, dragging him further through the unkempt grass, away from the burning house. She bent and laid his feet gently down, turning her eyes back to the fire. Smoke was billowing out of the holes where the upstairs windows once were, blocking out the stars.
She coughed again and looked down at Stanley. The wet blood glistened in the light from the flames, and he wasn’t moving. His eyes were closed.
‘Stanley!’ She crashed down beside him, grabbing his face again. But this time his eyes didn’t open. ‘Stanley!’ Pip lowered her ear to his nose, listening for his breath. It wasn’t there. She placed her fingers on his neck, just above the gaping hole. Nothing. No pulse.
‘No Stanley, please no.’ Pip settled on her knees, placing the heel of her hand in the middle of his chest, right beside one of the holes. She covered her hand with the other, leaned up and started to push down. Hard.
‘Don’t, Stanley. Please don’t go,’ she said, keeping her arms straight, compressing his chest.
She counted to thirty and then pinched his nose, placed her mouth over his and breathed into him. Once. Twice.
Returned her hands to his chest and pressed down.
She felt something give way beneath her palm, a crunching sound. One of his ribs cracking.
‘Don’t go, Stanley.’ She watched his unmoving face as she pushed all of her body weight into him. ‘I can save you. I promise. I can save you.’
Breathe. Breathe.
There was a flash in the corner of her eye as the flames exploded, the downstairs windows shattering outward as whirls of fire and smoke climbed up and out, engulfing the outside of the farmhouse. It was incredibly hot,
even twenty feet away, and there was a line of sweat running down Pip’s temple as she pushed. Or was that Stanley’s blood?
Another crack under her hand. Another rib gone.
Breathe. Breathe.
‘Come back, Stanley. Please. I’m begging you.’
Her arms were aching already, but she kept going. Push and breathe. She didn’t know how long for; time didn’t seem to exist any more. Just her and the crackling heat of the flames and Stanley.
 |
The first thing she heard was the siren.
Thirty and breathe. Breathe.
And then the slamming of car doors, voices shouting that she couldn’t understand because words didn’t exist here. Only one to thirty and breathe.
Someone’s hand was on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off. It was Soraya. Daniel da Silva stood over them, the fire mirrored back in his horrified eyes. And as he watched, there was a thunderous, end-of-the- world crash as the roof collapsed, caving into the flames.
‘Pip, let me take over,’ Soraya said gently. ‘You’re tired.’
‘No!’ Pip shouted, breathless, sweat falling into her open mouth. ‘I can keep going. I can do this. I can save him. He’s going to be OK.’
‘Paramedics and Fire will be here any minute,’ Soraya said, trying to catch her eye. ‘Pip, what happened?’
‘Charlie Green,’ she gasped between presses. ‘Charlie Green, from number twenty-two Martinsend Way. He shot Stanley. Call Hawkins.’
Daniel stepped back to speak into his radio.
‘Hawkins is already on his way,’ Soraya said. ‘Ravi told us where to find you. Jamie Reynolds is safe.’
‘I know.’
‘Are you hurt?’ ‘No.’
‘Let me take over.’ ‘No.’
The next siren wasn’t far behind, and then two paramedics were around her in their high-vis jackets and their purple-gloved hands.
One paramedic asked Soraya for Pip’s name. She bent low so Pip could see her face.
‘Pip, I’m Julia. You’re doing really well, sweetheart. But I’m going to take over compressions from here, OK?’
Pip didn’t want to, she couldn’t stop. But Soraya dragged her back and she didn’t have the strength to fight her and the purple-gloved hands replaced hers on Stanley’s sunken chest.
She collapsed back in the grass and watched his pale face, glowing orange from the fire.
Another siren. The fire engine pulled up to the side of the farmhouse and people peeled out of it. Was any of this real any more?
‘Is there anyone else inside?’ someone was shouting down at her. ‘No.’ But her own voice felt detached from her.
The paramedics swapped over.
Pip glanced behind her and a small crowd was there. When had that happened? People standing in coats and dressing gowns, watching the scene. Other uniformed constables had arrived, helping Daniel da Silva to push the onlookers back, cordon off the area.
And how long was it after that that she heard his voice? She didn’t know. ‘Pip!’ Ravi’s voice fought over the flames to reach her. ‘Pip!’
She pushed up to her feet and turned, saw the horror on Ravi’s face as he looked across at her. She followed his eyes down. Her white top was fully soaked through with Stanley’s blood. Her hands red. Smudges up her neck and across her face.
He sprinted towards her, but Daniel caught him, pushed him back.
‘Let me through! I need to see her!’ Ravi yelled in Daniel’s face, struggling against him.
‘You can’t, this is an active crime scene!’ Daniel shoved him back, into the growing crowd. Held his arms out to keep Ravi there.
Pip’s eyes returned to Stanley. One of the paramedics had withdrawn, speaking into her radio. Pip could only catch a few words over the noise of the fire and all of that fog inside her head. ‘Medical control . . . twenty minutes . . . no change . . . call it . . .’
It took a moment for those words to work their way into her head and make any kind of sense.
‘Wait,’ Pip said, the world moving too slowly around her.
The paramedic nodded to the other. She sighed quietly and pulled her hands away from Stanley’s chest.
‘What are you doing? Don’t stop!’ Pip charged forward. ‘He’s not dead, don’t stop!’
She crashed towards Stanley, lying there, still and bloodied on the grass but Soraya caught her hand.
‘No!’ Pip screamed at her, but Soraya was stronger, pulling Pip into her arms and wrapping her up inside them. ‘Let me go! I need to –’
‘He’s gone,’ she said quietly. ‘There’s nothing we can do, Pip. He’s gone.’
And then things really came undone time skipping other words half- heard and half-understood: coroner and hello can you hear me?
Daniel is trying to talk to her and all she can do is scream at him. ‘I told you! I told you someone was going to end up dead.
Why didn’t you listen to me?’
Someone else’s arms on her. Stopping her.
Detective Hawkins is here now and where did he come from? His face doesn’t move much and is he dead too, like Stanley? Now he’s in the front of the car driving and Pip, she’s in the back watching the fire recede away as they drive. Her thoughts are no longer in straight lines, they
cascade
away from her
like ash.
The police station is cold, that must be why she is shivering. A back room she hasn’t seen before. And Eliza is here: ‘I need to take your clothes, darling.’
But they won’t come off when she pulls, they have to be peeled off, the skin underneath no longer hers, streaky and pink from blood.
Eliza seals the clothes and all that’s left of Stanley inside a clear evidence bag. Looks at Pip. ‘I’m going to need your bra too.’
Because she’s right, that’s soaked red as well.
Now Pip’s wearing a new white T-shirt and grey jogging trousers but they aren’t hers and whose are they, then? And be quiet because someone is talking to her. It’s DI Hawkins: ‘It’s just to rule
you out,’ he says, ‘to eliminate you.’ And she doesn’t want to say but she already feels eliminated.
‘Sign here.’ She does.
‘Just a gun powder residue test,’ says a new person Pip doesn’t know. And he’s placing something sticky, adhesive against her hands and her fingers, sealing them away in tubes.
Another sign here.
‘To rule you out, you understand?’
‘Yes,’ Pip says, letting them place her fingers into the soft ink pad and against the paper. Thumb, forefinger, middle, the swirling lines of her fingerprints like little galaxies of their own.
‘She’s in shock,’ she hears someone say. ‘I’m fine.’
A different room and Pip is sitting alone, a clear plastic cup of water between her hands but it ripples and shakes, warning her of an earthquake. Wait . . . we don’t get those here. But the earthquake comes all the same because it’s inside her, the shakes, and she can’t hold the water without spilling.
A door slams nearby but before the sound reaches her, it has changed.
It’s a gun. It fires two three six times and, oh, Hawkins is in the room again, sitting across from her but he can’t hear the gun. Only Pip can.
He asks questions. ‘What happened?’ ‘Describe the gun.’
‘Do you know where Charlie Green went? He and his wife are gone.
Their belongings look packed up in a hurry.’
He has written it all down too. Pip has to read it, re-remember it all. Sign at the bottom.
And after, Pip asks a question of her own: ‘Did you find her?’ ‘Find who?’
‘The eight-year-old abducted from her garden?’
Hawkins nods. ‘Yesterday. She’s fine, was with her father. Domestic dispute.’
And ‘Oh,’ is all Pip can say to that.
She’s left alone again listening to the gun no one else can hear. Until there’s a soft hand on her shoulder and she flinches. An even softer voice, ‘Your parents are here to take you home now.’
Pip’s feet follow the voice dragging the rest of her with them. Into the waiting room, too bright, and it’s her dad she sees first. She can’t think what to say to him or Mum but that doesn’t matter because all they want to
do is hold her.
Ravi is behind them.
Pip goes to him and his arms pull her into his chest. Warm. Safe. It’s always safe here and Pip breathes out, listening to the sound of his heart.
But oh no, the gun is in there too, hiding beneath every beat.
Waiting for her.
It follows Pip as they leave. Sits beside her in the dark car. It tucks itself up into bed with her. Pip shakes and she blocks her ears and she tells
the gun to go away.
But it won’t go.
