The Haven, page 32
I need to get going too. I’m terrified of what Mo could do to Joe. I put on my backpack and sling Dad’s rifle over my shoulder.
‘Please don’t leave us.’ Maudie clings to me.
‘Let the police track him down,’ pleads Mum. ‘That’s their job.’
‘And even if they find him, what will they do?’ I ask. ‘They’ll let him go because no one will be able to prove he’s done anything wrong. He’ll lie and try to pin everything on Dad. You don’t know what he’s capable of. No one knows how he works like I do …’
My voice trails off.
Mum puts her hands on my shoulders and traps me in her gaze. ‘Did he hurt you, Cass? Tell me, did he hurt you?’ I look away. I can’t bear to tell her the truth because it would be like I’m allowing him to hurt Mum too. The voices get louder. I cock my head and cup my ear to listen. Someone calls our names.
‘Isn’t that Cara?’ asks Mum in confusion. There’s been no time to explain anything to her. Different voices call us. Wass and Kovac are with her too. I take advantage of her distraction to leave: it’s time to split.
I’m not just doing this for Dad, I’m doing it for everyone Mo has ever hurt. For Joe. For Aida. For Morden Spilid. For me. I edge back into the trees and start to run. The Remington lies across my back and my feet seem to glide across the snowy landscape. When I glance over my shoulder, there are no tracks. I’m content to be alone again. That’s my superpower. My movements are instinctive, my breath steady. I belong to the forest. My plan is to head upstream onto higher ground where the oak and beech give way to the sheltered gloom of the pine forest. I’m guessing Mo will be looking for somewhere to sit out the blizzard brewing in the sky above. Thick clouds with a pink tint hang low in the sky and soon it’s snowing again. Big fat flakes that muffle sound and turn everything still and silent. As I get to the bottom of the slope, I listen out for the hyperactive gurgle of the river, but there’s not even a whisper. When I reach the bank and peer over the edge I see why. It’s frozen solid like the lake.
I trudge uphill along the bank of the icy riverbed, stopping once to rehydrate. I’m too filled with nervous energy to eat. The higher I climb, the lower the temperature dips. The voices and the noise of the dogs get quieter. I’m completely focused on what lies ahead. I look for signs of carelessness. Snapped branches. Cat holes. Broken ice. And then I find it. The bloody pelt of a dead rabbit lying in the snow. I can tell from the single perfectly clean cut through the stomach that it’s been expertly skinned. There are prints in the snow leading away from it. Evenly spaced, oval, in a perfectly straight line. I follow them up the bank and into the dense woodland.
I’m closing in on him. I look around and see a small but obvious gap in the undergrowth. The branches and twigs have been snapped and there’s a small track that looks as if something heavy has recently been dragged along it. I remove the rifle from my shoulder and hold it across my body, barrel pointing down, finger resting on the safety.
I slowly edge through the forest, hyper-aware of my surroundings. I can feel that he’s close. The snow falls heavier and covers my tracks within seconds. Through the trees, about ten metres in front of me, I see a figure dressed in layers of clothes, trying to light a fire. It’s him. And then it happens again. The sensation of the hands around my neck, the gold ring, the feeling that I’m drowning. But this time when I look up at the circle of light, those flashes of memory don’t atomize: they merge together, and I see Mo’s face. I step forward, away from the fear, away from the sensation of not being able to breathe.
Just behind him is a small shelter, hidden among the trees, constructed from branches, deadfall and logs with a tarp on top. It’s almost an exact replica of the one he built at Maudie’s birthday party. I see myself at that party and realize I am no longer the same person, but I don’t dislike who I have become. I crouch and watch Mo attempt to balance a pan of water on the fire.
‘We’ve been expecting you, Cass,’ he says, without turning round. ‘You did well to find us.’
We. Us. He immediately throws me off balance. Keeping my head completely still so I hold him in my sightline, I scrutinize the area around him to check he’s alone and step forward a couple of paces to show him I’m not scared.
‘I know who you are.’
‘Why so serious?’ He laughs.
‘You go by the name of Morden Spilid.’
‘And what of it?’
‘He’s a Danish man you killed in Spain …You stole his identity.’ It’s a shot in the dark.
‘He left me no choice,’ says Mo. ‘He threatened to report me to the police. He accused me of raping a woman.’ There’s no pleasure in being right. He points back towards the shelter. In the corner of the hide, I see a small figure crouched on the ground.
‘Come here, River,’ he orders. River crawls out and stands up with her hand protectively folded across her stomach. Apart from the soft roundness of her belly, she’s gaunt and frail.
‘I couldn’t let anything happen to our baby,’ Mo rasps. He puts his arm around River. He’s done it. He’s managed to disarm me. He’s enjoying my discomfort. I look at River in confusion.
‘It’s not Joe’s baby,’ she says. ‘Your brother was trying to help me escape from the Haven. But he never knew I was pregnant. You were the only person I told.’
‘You said that Joe told you to get the pregnancy test!’
‘It was a lie. So you wouldn’t guess the truth.’
The saucepan lurches precariously on the fire and Mo scrambles away from us to right it. River steps towards me. ‘Mudder threatened to kill me if I told anyone about our relationship,’ she whispers. ‘It was safer for me if you thought Joe was the father.’
My throat jams at the truth of what she’s saying and there’s a roar inside my head. I’m not the only one. I choke my emotions back down because I have to be strong for River. ‘Did he hurt other girls at the Haven?’ I know the answer already. She nods and stares down at the ground. I feel her shame because it mirrors my own.
‘Did anyone else know?’
‘Lila sensed he was a shadow-side person,’ says River. ‘That’s why she started making the dolls, to protect other girls from him. But she couldn’t. He gets into everyone’s head. He’s stronger than all of us.’
She explains how Lila put together the dolls in the van using real hair and clothes that belonged to girls she thought were at risk from Mo. She drilled a small hole to represent their vagina and knotted a red thread coated in blood through the hole. If Mo had raped one of these girls, she undid the knot. There were four dolls without a thread in the van.
Mo grips her arm again and River falls silent.
‘We’re building a tribe out here, Cassia, and now you can be part of it too,’ says Mo. ‘You can live with River and me.’
‘The police will be here any minute,’ I tell him.
‘No, they won’t.’ He laughs again. ‘You’ll have made sure that no one can follow you. You’re a natural. One of us. I told you that at the beginning.’
‘Shoot him, Cass,’ orders River.
This unnerves him. He grabs River around the neck and pulls her tight against him.
‘Here’s what’s going to happen,’ I say coolly. ‘You’re going to let go of River and she’s going to come and stand behind me. Then you’re going to kneel on the ground with your hands behind your head.’
‘Here’s what’s going to happen,’ he mocks me. ‘You’re going to drop that rifle and give it to me.’
I point the Remington at Mo, but he’s holding River right in front of him like a human shield. He laughs scornfully again, ‘You won’t hurt River. You’re not a killer, Cassia. You lack that killer instinct. I saw it the day we went hunting.’ He tightens his grip around River’s neck.
‘Walk into your fear, Cassia,’ he mocks me.
‘Kill him,’ River orders. She’s completely calm.
‘I can’t get him without hurting you.’
‘If you let him go, we’ll never be rid of him. We’ll always be scared.’ She stares at me and nods. ‘Do it for all the other girls he’ll hurt.’
He pushes towards me.
‘He won’t ever stop, Cass.’
I push the stock into my shoulder and squint through the front sight to gauge if I can get a clean shot of Mo, but it’s impossible.
‘Just shoot,’ says River.
I know there’s four rounds in the chamber because I did the checks. I try not to think about the baby in her belly. I wish I could close my eyes so that later, when I look back on what I’ve done, I can’t see it.
‘I love you, River.’
‘I love you too.’
I click off the safety and use my index finger to pressure the trigger. Mo looks me in the eye. There’s a strange noise. A whooshing sound and then a thud. River stumbles into me but Mo falls sideways onto the snowy ground. A red stain seeps into the snow and I see the bolt from a crossbow lodged in his spine.
My brother steps out of the trees with Lila.
‘It’s over,’ he says. ‘It’s over.’
Acknowledgements
I owe a big debt of gratitude to my amazing editor, Clio Cornish. Every draft of this novel has benefitted from her impeccable advice and insights. Thanks also to all the other Penguin people who have helped so much along the way: Ciara Berry, Clare Bowron, Jennifer Breslin, Emma Henderson, Hazel Orme, and Phillipa Walker. To Jonny Geller and Viola Hayden and the wonderful team at Curtis Brown, who make the long journey from concept to publication feel possible, I am truly grateful. And, finally, to my first readers: Maia Simpson-Orlebar, Gabby Turner, Sally Bruce-Lockhart and Louise Carpenter, no thanks are big enough for the ruthless edits.
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1
Daisy
Three is a good and safe number. I close my eyes and whisper the words three times so no one can hear. They sound like a sweet sigh. If Mum notices she might worry and the days of worry are over. I say this three times too, just to make triple sure, remembering how the words have to be spoken on the outbreath.
As I exhale, cold air blows in through the letter box into the hallway, making it flap against the front door. An ill wind, ill wind, ill wind. I look round to check Mum is still in the kitchen and bend down to examine the letter on the doormat, even though I recognized the large attention-seeking scrawl the instant it landed. Why, why, why is she writing to Mum after all these years? I don’t touch it. Yet.
I hear Mum giggling. It’s always a great sound. I can tell she’s on the phone to my brother, Max, because he’s so good at making her laugh. Much better than me. Even when I tell her entertaining stories about the Russian boy I’m tutoring or something that’s happened at uni, there’s caution in her response ― as if she still doesn’t dare trust in my happiness. Parents are the worst for holding you prisoner to the person you used to be. Or rather Mum is. Dad stopped being the resident jailer a long time ago. I used to accuse Mum of being neurotic but now I understand that Dad’s cool was a way of avoiding responsibility. Besides, it’s in his interests to believe in happy endings and new beginnings because he got his.
Mum has an uncanny ability to notice tiny changes in me. She’s like a meteorologist for my moods, collating and crunching information to predict subtle shifts in patterns. And she rarely makes mistakes. But, as she used to tell me back in the days when nothing was solid and reliable, you learn more by the things you get wrong than the things you get right.
I’m not sure I agree. If you are in Paris, for example, and you look the wrong way when you step out into the road you could get run over and even if you aren’t killed you might end up quadriplegic. Generally death and disability don’t provide good life lessons. If Max said that, Mum would fall around laughing. If I said it she would want to swab my soul for signs of impending darkness.
A big part of my mother’s job is to observe people. She’s a doctor, a breast cancer specialist, and she has spent years making sure that her emotions don’t leach into her face. She’s always trying to explain why empathy trumps sympathy. Patients need their doctor to appear under control, she says, especially when the news is bad. Any other response is self-indulgent. But I can tell when she’s emotional because she chews the inside of her right cheek.
My attention returns to the letter. The inside of her cheek would be savaged if she saw this.
My mind is made up: it can’t be ignored. I pick up the padded manila envelope and turn it in my hands, noting the following: 1) it is postmarked Norfolk, 2) she has written in baby-blue ink, 3) truly, truly, truly a good and safe number, she has included something heavy that feels like a small spoon. And 4) it is sealed with Sellotape. People only do that when they have given a lot of consideration to the contents. I also note that I make four observations rather than three. Good work, Daisy, I congratulate myself, although almost immediately I’m aware that counting is a retrograde step.
I head towards the shelf in the hall and randomly grab a hardback book that is big enough to conceal the envelope. Dust flies everywhere because Mum isn’t the kind of woman who cleans to relax. It falls open on a well-thumbed page. ‘Anxiety Disorders in Teenagers’, reads the chapter heading.
Since Dad walked out on us when I was fourteen, Mum has become our responsibility. ‘Look after your mother,’ Dad always used to say when he dropped us back home from a weekend at his house after they split up seven years ago. Note I never called his house ‘home’. The first time he said this, Max ― who was only eleven at the time ― told him to fuck off. He didn’t like the implication that we didn’t look after Mum, or the fact that the person saying it was responsible for causing the pain that meant she needed looking after. Dad told Max not to be so rude but it sounded half-hearted. And besides, Max had started crying as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Sometimes back then Dad cried too and I had to comfort him. Things have been calmer over the past four years. Or at least I thought they were. Until this letter.
I head into the toilet and lock the door behind me. It’s designed so you can open it from the outside if necessary. There are four holes above the lock where the old bolt used to be. I peer through one of these to check Mum is still in the kitchen. It’s an old habit because I used to spend a lot of time in here: it was the one place no one could disturb me. At least I no longer check the lock three times. Reviewing myself in the mirror I see my face reflect the gravity of the situation back to me. When I’m emotional my lips always go cartoon rubbery. I run my finger across the hole at the bottom right-hand corner of the mirror where there is a tiny slice of glass missing. My fault. But let’s not go into that now. The mirror came from the house in Norfolk where we used to go on holiday when we were children. ‘Back in the day,’ as Mum says breezily. She is all about living in the present. Even though she has spent the best part of a decade involved in the same clinical trial.
I turn my face from side to side to let the light fall on it at different angles and tousle my fringe and short dark hair in an effort to appear effortless in a French sort of way. Kit likes it like this. In fact, I think it’s fair, if miraculous, to say that Kit likes pretty much everything about me. The timing of this parcel isn’t great because he is about to arrive to meet Mum for the first time. She’s been angling for an introduction since I first started going out with him eight months ago, but I wanted to wait until I was completely sure about him.
I close the loo seat and sit down. I’m not proud of what I do next. But who hasn’t done the wrong thing for the right reasons at least once in their life? I honestly thought this would be the end of something, not the beginning. I carefully peel off the Sellotape and the padded manila envelope flaps open. I just knew Lisa wouldn’t have licked it. She’s as careless with things as she is with people. I breathe in and out, as deep as I can, one hand holding the envelope, the other resting on my diaphragm as it rises to make sure that my abdominal muscles are contracting properly on the inbreath. I know more about breathing than any yoga teacher.
In my defence I should say that at this moment I did try to reseal it with the same piece of Sellotape that I had peeled off a second ago. Privacy is a big issue for me. And there was no doubting who was meant to be opening it: Rosie Foss. It still surprised me to see Mum’s surname because until my parents got divorced we all shared the same one. At the beginning Max and I made a big thing of this. We wanted to become Foss so she wasn’t alone with her new name like she was alone with everything else. It felt strange to no longer have the same surname as my closest living relative but Mum argued, quite convincingly, that she had been Rosie Foss for most of her life before she married Dad and that at work she had always kept her maiden name. Max politely pointed out that just for the record, at thirty-nine years old, with two children, Mum most definitely wasn’t a maiden. Mum had cracked up at this. Max doesn’t have to try to be a light person. He was built that way.
I think about all this as I keep trying to stick the envelope back down. But of course Lisa has used cheap Sellotape. She’s always dropping hints about how she and Dad don’t have enough money, which annoys me so much because Mum has always worked so hard and Lisa hasn’t had a job since she moved in with Dad. Part-time yoga teacher doesn’t really cut it. Irritation makes me clumsy and the letter emerges tantalizingly from the top of the envelope so that I can see the uneven line of huge kisses beneath Lisa’s signature.
I pull it out, taking care not to crease the flimsy paper. It’s two pages long when it could have been one but Lisa’s scrawl is big and confident, which is probably why I am even more surprised by what follows.
My dear Rosie,
I am writing to let you know that I have recently been diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer. (You know better than anyone that there is no Stage 5.) I thought the lump was a cyst or something left over from breastfeeding all those years ago. Do you remember those lovely, lazy days on the beach in Norfolk? But a recent biopsy proved otherwise and unfortunately the cancer has spread. I do not expect your sympathy. The reason for contacting you is simple: I want to see you one last time. I want to ask your forgiveness for the pain I caused you and tell you something that you need to know before it is too late. I am enclosing the key to the house so that you can let yourself in. I haven’t told Nick about this letter and am increasingly too tired to get out of bed to answer the door. I have decided to keep my illness private for the moment and would be grateful if you could respect this final wish.
