Last Wrong Turn (12 page)

“I'm your mother,” I tell Hugh, sensing that maybe for the first time he's starting to understand. My hand is still reaching for him. All he has to do is take it, and then follow me away from this miserable place. “Please, Hugh,” I continue. “Let's go home.”

I wait, hoping against hope that he'll take my trembling hand.

Instead, he's slowly edging toward me with the shovel still raised, as if he's getting ready to strike again.

“You're making a mistake,” Enda says, still standing behind me. “Penny, he'll kill you. To him, you're just a threat to his home. He's not your son, not after all this time. He belongs to the farm now. He belongs to me.”

“You're wrong,” I whisper, forcing myself to hold my ground as Hugh gets closer. “He senses who I am.”

“You're an intruder,” she replies, her voice tinged with anger. “That's all he sees when he looks at you. It's all he'll ever see.”

“I'm not going to run from you anymore,” I tell Hugh, maintaining eye contact with him as he edges closer. “I'm your mother. I love you, and I trust you. I know you won't hurt me.”

He raises the shovel a little higher, but then finally he stops just a couple of meters away.

“You
do
know who I am,” I continue, feeling a faint rush of relief. Taking a deep breath, I tell myself that no matter what he does, I won't run or pull away. I'll show him that I believe in him.

I wait, with my hand still outstretched, hoping against hope that he'll finally drop the shovel and come with me.

“He's going to kill you,” Enda whispers in my ear. “This is your last chance. If you insist on staying, I won't feel bad when I bury you out by the trees. It'll be your fault.”

“He's not going to kill me,” I reply, even though I still see pure hatred in Hugh's eyes. “He knows...”

Again I wait, as rain falls all around us and crashes against the mud, and against the roof of the truck, and against the farmhouse itself. Hissing and singing as it strikes every surface, the rain seems almost to be watching us as it falls.

“Hugh,” I whisper. “Please...”

Suddenly his face slowly starts to twist into a snarl, and the anger in his eyes becomes more intense, and finally he lets out a cry of fury as he raises the shovel and runs at me through the rain.

I flinch, but I refuse to duck out of the way. Instead, I look straight into his eyes as he charges toward me.

He's my son.

I'll show him that I'm not scared.

He'll realize who I am.

The next few seconds seem to play out in slow-motion. The shovel's blade races toward my chest, and Hugh's cry of anger rings out through the rain. I tell myself to stay strong, to prove to him that I'm his mother and that I believe in him. At the same time, the shovel is just inches away now, hurtling closer to my breastbone, and at the very last moment I start to realize that Hugh isn't going to pull back, that he's truly going to hurt me. In the blink of an eye, my mind races with possibilities, even as I tell myself that I have to stand firm.

And at the very last second, my instincts take control and I duck out of the way.

The shovel's blade slices against my arm but, for the most part, misses my body as I slump down and land hard in the mud. I wince as I feel a sharp pain in my side, and I can still hear Hugh's cry ringing out as I start to sit up in the rain. Shivering and in shock, I turn to see where Hugh is now, and as I do so I realize there's another scream filling the air. Finally I turn just in time to see Hugh stumbling slightly in the mud and falling, and in doing so he crunches the shovel straight into Enda's body, cutting through her chest with such force that the blade slices out through her shoulder-blades. She cries out as she falls back, and the shovel scratches against the stone wall.

Still on the ground, I stare at the horrific sight. Hugh has frozen in his tracks, still holding the shovel's handle, but the other end has run straight through Enda from armpit to armpit, slicing a horizontal line in her chest. Blood is already seeping from the wound and washing down her rainswept shirt, and when I look at her face I see an expression of pure shock in her eyes, as if she can't believe what just happened.

“No,” Hugh stammers after a moment, finally pulling the shovel out and tossing it to the ground.

As he does so, more blood erupts from the wound in Enda's chest and she drops to her knees, almost falling on her face until Hugh grabs her shoulders and manages to hold her up.

“I didn't mean it!” he screams, hugging her tight. “I was trying to get
her
, not you!”

Trembling as more and more blood flows down her body, Enda puts her hands on Hugh's shoulders and grips him tight. She opens her mouth to say something, but no words come out. Instead, blood rushes down her chin and drips to the ground.

“You'll be okay!” Hugh stammers, struggling to hold her up until finally he starts lowering her down into the mud. “You'll just have to spend a few days in bed, Mama. It'll be like when you cut your hand on one of the nails.”

His trembling hands hold Enda tight, but she's on her back now in the mud and she's starting to shake as yet more blood rushes from the wound in her chest. From the angle the spade entered her body, it's impossible for it to have missed her heart.

“Make her better!” Hugh screams, turning to me. “Make Mama better right now!”

“I...” Too shocked to say anything, I look down at Enda and see that she, in turn, is looking up at me.

Slowly her lips start to move, and although she's too weak to make a sound that can be heard above the pouring rain, I swear I can just about make out the words she's trying to say:

“Look after him.”

She blinks one more time, and then I see the life fade from her eyes.

“Make her better!” Hugh sobs, hugging her corpse even tighter. Blood from Enda's chest is all over his arms now, but still he draws her lifeless body into his embrace as tears stream down his rain-soaked face. “Make her alive again!” he screams, his voice choked with tears. “Make her better! Bring her back!”

“I can't,” I stammer, still too shocked to move. “No-one can...”

“Mama!” he shouts, hugging her tighter and tighter. “Come back to me!”

“She's not your mother,” I whisper, before crawling through the mud and trying to pull him away. “I'm your mother, Hugh! It's me, I'm right here!”

“Bring her back!” he sobs, cradling her in his arms. “You have to bring her back!”

“I'm here,” I tell him again. Reaching out, I try to gently peel his arms away from Enda's dead body, but he simply squeezes her even tighter. “Hugh,” I continue, “I'm your real mother and I'm right here, and I'm going to look after you. One day, you'll forget about this whole place, and you'll live a normal, happy life.”

“Come back, Mama,” he whimpers, squeezing his eyes tight shut as he gently rocks Enda's body in his arms. “Don't leave me. I need you.”

“You have
me
,” I tell him, with tears streaming down my face. “Hugh, you have -”

“Bring her back!” he screams suddenly, letting go of Enda's body and lunging at me, landing on my chest and pushing me back down into the mud as he rains punches down against my face. “It was an accident!” he yells. “I was trying to kill
you
, but you jumped out of the way! I didn't mean to hurt Mummy, you have to bring her back!”

“Stop -”

“Bring her back!” he shouts, hitting me harder and harder. “Bring Mama back to me!”

Reaching out, I put my arms around his shoulders and twist him around, forcing him off my chest so that I can grab his arms and keep him from hitting me again. He keeps struggling, but there's no way I'm going to let go of him, not again. I'll just wait here in the mud, holding him until he realizes that
I'm
his mother. Soon we'll get away from this farm and never look back, and once I get him to safety he'll definitely start to recover. I know it won't be easy, but I'm his mother and I know I can look after him. I just need him to stop fighting first, and I need him to stop screaming for Enda.

“Mama!” he sobs, still struggling to get back over to her corpse as rain crashing down all around us. “Mama, don't leave me!”

I've got him back. That's the important thing. I've got my little boy back.

Epilogue

Detective Palmer

Twenty-four hours later

“The kinda face only a mother could love, huh?” Briscoe mutters with a chuckle, as he holds the body-bag open for a moment. “Jesus Christ, look at her!”

“Show some respect,” I tell him, pushing him aside and zipping the bag shut. “What name did you put on the tag?”

“Her real name, obviously,” he replies. “Victoria Williams.”

Grabbing the tag, I check that he hasn't added any comments, and then I take a step back.

“Get her out of here,” I tell the guys from the forensics unit. “Full autopsy, the works.”

“She took a fucking shovel to the chest,” Briscoe points out. “It's pretty fucking clear what -”

“Did you check the pigs?” I ask, turning to him as the body of Victoria Williams, aka Enda Clare, is wheeled toward the waiting ambulance.

He shrugs. “They're pigs. There's four of 'em, they're ugly as sin, and they'd look a lot nicer in a bacon buttie. What more can I tell you?”

“We searched for this place for so long,” I whisper, looking toward the dilapidated old farmhouse. “I kept working the case even when everyone told me I was nuts. Why could we never find it until now? I swear, I personally looked at aerial images of this exact spot, and there was no sign of a building or a yard or anything. How the hell did it stay hidden until Penny Latimer called it in?”

“Maybe there was a magic spell,” Briscoe suggests with a laugh. “You know, like, it couldn't be found until there was no-one living here anymore. Something like that.” He chuckles again. “I dunno, stranger things have happened, right?”

I want to tell him to go to hell, but as I stare at the farmhouse and see members of the forensics team making their way through the rooms, I can't help wondering whether in some way Briscoe might actually be right. After all, the existence of this farm has been rumored for years, and we certainly weren't the first people to search for it and come up empty-handed. We
are
, however, the first people to finally set foot in the place, and it can't be a coincidence that our arrival came just a few hours after Enda's death.

“Have you heard from the hospital?” Briscoe asks as he steps past me, heading back toward the farmhouse. “How's the feral little kid doing?”

“Not great,” I reply, bristling slightly as I remember the screams I heard earlier over the phone. I spoke to Penny briefly, too, and I've never heard a human being sound so drained and exhausted. She kept telling me that she's going to help little Hugh recover, but somehow I don't think there's much chance of that. I'll drop by the ward later and offer to help in any way that I can, even though I doubt there's anything I can do. Hugh Latimer spent six years being raised by Enda. I can't imagine the damage will ever be undone.

Stopping to look in at the pigs, I watch as they bump against one another and make their way around the pen. After a moment, I spot a few chunks of white bone mixed in with the mud.

“We have to analyze every speck in this place!” I call out to Briscoe. “We have to run DNA matches on any fragments of bone, and see which victims we can identify. Even if it's just a few of the more recent ones, we have to at least try! Maybe we can find some trace of Peter Latimer.”

When he doesn't reply, I head over to the front door, just as more techs wheel Lindsay Collins' body out on a stretcher. As it bumps over the step, the stretcher rattles slightly and I instinctively reach out, grabbing the rail to keep it steady. Once the body has been taken over toward the waiting ambulance, I make my way into the hallway and then through to the room where the kidnap victims were kept. Roscoe's already taking a look at the tools on one of the nearby tables, but I'm more interested in the metal table in the center of the room.

In the distance, voices can be heard calling to one another as the techs continue their work in the rest of the house. Collecting samples. Taking photos. Ripping this place apart to discover all its secrets.

“It's just like Lindsay described,” I mutter, looking down at the restraints that hang from the side of the table. “Penny too. How many people do you think ended up here?”

“Fuck knows,” Roscoe replies, examining a rusty old buzz-saw. “I'll tell you one thing, though. If
I'd
ever woken up in a place like this, surrounded by a bunch of freaks, there's nothing in the world that could've kept me here. I'd've fought my way out.”

“And how would you have done that?” I ask.

“Pure, brute strength.” As if he's trying to underscore his point, he slams the buzz-saw back down on the table. “Survival instinct. When the adrenalin gets pumping, there's not a fucker in the world that can hold me back. First thing I'd do would be to rip the restraints off that table, and then I'd break the door down, and then I'd beat the crap out of anyone who tried to stop me. These fucking freaks sure as hell wouldn't be able to keep me down.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” I mutter under my breath, before turning and looking over at the various saws and drills on one of the other tables. “How does something like this happen?” I ask finally. “How do people like this exist without the rest of the world knowing? How do they literally hide away from us all?” I turn to him. “We scoured the countryside for them, we knew exactly what we were looking for, and we still couldn't find them.”

“They just got lucky,” he says dismissively as he heads out into the hallway.

“I'm not so sure about that,” I reply, standing alone for a moment in the empty room. “Sometimes I think the more we try to know the entire world, the more the world works to keep little pockets hidden from us. Out of stubbornness, if nothing else. It's not mankind's destiny to be master of everything.”

Running my hand over the metal table, I can't shake the feeling that this farmhouse exists at a slight angle to the rest of the world, as if it doesn't quite fit in with everything else. And even though we've finally managed to find the place, I can't stop wondering how many other places there might be that manage to remain unnoticed. How many in this county? How many in the whole of England? How many in the world? Just little tracts of land, with a few people living on them, and with everyone else somehow kept out.

Stepping around the table, I head over to a set of cupboards. Each has a piece of glass on the front, and I see my own tired reflection as I pull one of the doors open and look inside, only to find nothing more than some old, unopened tins of paint. Checking the other cupboards, I discover an assortment of brushes and other tools, but nothing too exciting. In fact, in some ways this entire farmhouse is incredibly mundane, although it's clear that Enda worked hard to keep the place tidy.

Reaching the last cupboard, I reach out to grab the handle. At the very last moment, however, I spot another face reflected in the mirror.

Enda Clare's face, as if standing right behind me.

Startled, I turn and look across the room, but there's no sign of anyone. My heart is racing, but I quickly remind myself that Enda is dead and gone. Still, feeling a little uncomfortable here in the storeroom, I make my way out into the hallway, keen to get on with things. As I reach the stairs, however, I turn and look back at the doorway, and I stare for a moment at the metal bed in the middle of the room.

Suddenly the door slams shut, with enough force to leave the frame rattling for several seconds.