Lewis had organised a night out for the foursome in Slayton’s old asylum. It hadn’t stood out as unusual – lots of teenagers checked out Slayton’s abandoned buildings at that time of year. But it was just an excuse for him to get her alone.
It was only today that Sarah revisited that night – shortly before Halloween. She had been excited and nervous to be somewhere so off limits with her friends. But when David and Maggie ran off into one part of the building to explore, Lewis had found her. She still remembered the expression on his face as he made his confession – that he had always wanted, lovedher.Not Maggie. Sarah’s cheeks had burned with betrayal, knowing how her best friend felt about Lewis. She hadn’t known what to say when she was saved by the headlights of a car driving up the road. Her parents. They had guessed where she was and were coming to pick her up.
‘Don’t go,’ Lewis had pleaded, touching her cheek. ‘Please.’
At fourteen years of age, Sarah couldn’t handle such grown-up emotions and didn’t have the words to let him down. As her parents’ car beeped outside, she was relieved to have an excuse to run away. Her parents had been worried sick, which was the reason she was with her baby brother on Halloween night, instead of out with her friends. Had Lewis taken her silence as compliance? She should have found a way to tell him how she felt … that she loved him as a friend but no more. And now Lewis was looking at her with pain which had festered into hatred strong enough to kill.
‘I took an overdose, did you know that? Came to Blackhall and swallowed a bottle of sleeping tablets just so I could be with you.’
‘I’m sorry …’ Sarah stuttered. ‘I—’
‘Then I joined the army to forget you …’ Lewis interrupted, holding the gun firm. ‘But every time I came home, I visited Blackhall, retracing your father’s steps … wishing I could turn back time.’ His breath trembled as he delivered each painful word. ‘All these years, I carried the guilt. It ate me up inside. Then you walk back in like nothing happened, married toDavid, without giving me a second thought.’
‘I had no idea …’ Sarah said, looking at the man he had become. His face was slick with sweat. He had withdrawn into a world of hatred and regret.
‘Shut the fuck up!’ Lewis’s words echoed around the room as his finger curled over the trigger. ‘All of this … it’s because of you. It’s time you know how it feels.’
But Sarah could barely comprehend his words. She stood, unmoving, her need to protect Elliott forcing her words. ‘Lewis, I know you have your reasons for hating me, but leave Elliott out of this. Please. He looks up to you. He wears your medal. This … this has nothing to do with him.’
‘Get into the wardrobe.’ The words weren’t spoken but growled. Elliott’s safety depended on her cooperation. But Sarah wasn’t giving up her life that easily.
‘How do I know you won’t hurt Elliott?’ The thought of the little boy lying in Robin’s old room crushed her heart. She couldn’t face the pain of losing another child she loved. Talking seemed to be an effort as Lewis spoke between clenched teeth.
‘Because that’s not how the game goes. You shouldn’t have survived.’
‘But you’ve framed Christian for the murders. If you hurt me, they’ll know it was you.’
‘It was never my intention to let Christian go down for this.’ Lewis clenched his gun, flecks of spittle forming in the corners of his mouth. ‘I was just buying time. They’ll know who it was soon enough.’ It was then that it struck her. He didn’t care about killing her because he had no intention of going on. He wanted to die, and to take her with him, just as he believed her father had planned.
Cold steel grazed her neck as he pressed the gun to her head. ‘Get in, or I’ll shoot you as you stand.’ He leered at her. ‘I’ll make it like before. You stand a fair chance. You might even make it out alive.’ She could hear the smile in his voice. The anguished pleasure he was taking from this.
‘You think you’re fixing a blip in history because you’re stuck in a loop,’ she said. ‘My father didn’t kill his family. You’ve got it all wrong.’ The walls seemed to judder around them as the corridors filled with the clicks and chatter of bats.
‘You’re lying!’ he roared, the flame of dancing candlelight reflected in his eyes.
‘The search team found a silencer hidden in the walls of the house,’ Sarah replied. ‘It has my father’s blood on it. The whole thing was a set-up.’ The test results may not have come back, but she knew in her heart it was fact. She turned to face him for a second time. Silence grew wide between them. ‘Please. Don’t do this.’
Sarah watched his eye twitch. A flicker of recognition. ‘I can shoot Elliott, or you can take your chances with the wardrobe. When I get to five, I’m pulling the trigger. One … two …’
‘Alright!’ Sarah forced herself to open the wardrobe door. Like the rest of the furniture in Blackhall, it was riddled with woodworm – eaten as it stood. Wire hangers jingled and memories of the past wrapped themselves around her … How her father’s old coats had brushed against her, and her mother’s dresses carried the faint scent of her perfume. She tried to focus her thoughts as they wavered between past and present. Lewis let Libby go, and seemed to have released Jahmelia. He might do the same for Elliott, his own son. He had kept his word in the past, and it was her death he cared about. Right now, it was the only hope she had.
Climbing into the wardrobe, she listened as the lock in the door clicked shut. Dust rose from the base and she pinched her nose as she ingested a sneeze. At the back of her mind, her body’s sense of self-preservation screamed. Why was she complying with Lewis’s demands? Why had she come here unarmed? A sense of resignation washed over her. Perhaps this was what her life had been leading to all along. She wasn’t a religious person, but as she sat in the wardrobe, she felt the presence of her family nearby. It was why she’d stockpiled the pills in her bedside table. After David’s death, life had got too hard. How easy it would be to just close her eyes and succumb to it all. The cramped space was dark, apart from the tiniest chink of candlelight through the keyhole. This time, she didn’t look out. Sitting in the darkness, Sarah pulled her knees close to her chest. She blinked, adjusting her vision as she took in movement around her. In the darkness, white moths fluttered, gently touching her hands, her legs, her face. How was she seeing their downy wings? They appeared out of nowhere, like messengers of light, the soft beat of their wings invoking a sense of peace. She wasn’t afraid. Her family weren’t gone. They were waiting for her. Whether it was now, or in decades to come, she would see them again.
Curling into a ball, Sarah pushed her hands over her ears as the booming thunder of a gunshot filled the air.
54
‘I’m coming!’ Maggie called, drunk from sleep. She stumbled out of bed, shoving her arms into her dressing gown. Silence. Had she dreamt her son’s cries? ‘Elliott?’ she whispered, creeping down the corridor. She paused at her son’s bedroom door. The clothes were pulled back from his bed. It was empty. She glanced out his window. All she could see was thick white fog. Twelve minutes past midnight. Where was he?
A noise rose from the kitchen. ‘Elliott?’ she said, making her way downstairs then silently entering the room. Her hand rose to her chest. Her son was standing at the locked back door, a statue in the moonlight as he stared into the night. ‘Elliott!’ she rushed towards him. ‘What are you doing? Are you OK?’
‘Sarah’s in trouble. She’s with the Midnight Man.’
Maggie’s mouth gaped open in horror as she took in her son’s tearful expression.
‘Is she in trouble like Jahmelia?’
Elliott nodded. His eyes were dark and full as he stood, cold and rigid in the dark.
