Bring Me Back (B.A. Paris)(60)

FIFTY-FOUR

Finn

The hairs on the back of my neck, on my arms, stand on end. I haven’t been up to the attic since I first moved into the house when Harry asked me whether I’d mind if his friend, the owner, kept some of his things up there. As far as I’m concerned, it’s out of bounds and Ellen, to my knowledge, has never been up there. The weirdest thought comes to me – what if Layla has been hiding up there? It would take her closer than you think message to a whole new level. It would also explain how she’d been able to leave the Russian dolls so easily. I dismiss the idea almost at once. I’ve been wrong about many things today but to think that Layla could have been living in the attic without me and Ellen knowing is ridiculous. There’s always one of us around. Before, Ellen and I would take Peggy for a walk every afternoon, and be gone for at least an hour, but we hadn’t been doing that lately. One of us usually takes Peggy on our own, so there’s always someone here. Even though I spend a lot of time in my office, I could come in at any time. Unless Ellen had helped Layla hide. Maybe Layla turned up one day and begged Ellen to hide her. But why? And would Ellen really have hidden Layla in the attic without telling me?

There’s only one way to find out. I stretch up, push the trap door open with one hand, release the ladder that’s there and pull it down. I go up the first couple of rungs, testing it for my weight, then carry on up and into the loft. The roof is too low for me to stand upright so I stay hunched over, looking for the light switch. I flick it on and a dull gleam fills the attic.

I look around. Nothing seems out of place and there aren’t any signs of someone having lived up here, no mattress, no personal belongings, no remnants of food lying around. I walk over to the carefully labelled boxes stacked against the far wall and, using my mobile to throw a little more light over them, I check that none have been displaced. Everything seems in order; they don’t look as if they’ve been disturbed in all the years they’ve been up here. I turn to the wall on the right where a couple of chairs, an old writing desk and a chest of drawers are propped. I go over and take a closer look. They’re covered in a thick layer of dust, reminding me of the cottage in St Mary’s. In the writing desk I find a couple of old pens, and in one of the drawers, some old coins. But the others are empty.

I cross the attic to the left-hand wall. There’s a large wooden chest, about five feet by three, with a pile of blankets neatly stacked on top. Nothing out of place there either. I take a last look around, glad that my fears about Layla hiding up here are unfounded. I’m just about to go back to the trapdoor when I find myself taking another look at the wooden chest. Nothing out of place – yet there’s something about it that doesn’t seem quite right. It’s the dust, I realise. Or rather, the lack of it. I reach out and run my finger along the edge of the lid; it comes away clean.

I bring my hand down hard on the top blanket, expecting dust to fly everywhere but there is very little. Which means they were protected by something until very recently. My heart quickens. Had they been in the chest and were taken out to make room for something else?

Something else. Unease prickles my spine and I find myself taking a step back, away from the chest. My heartbeat slows to a dull thud, a response to the horror that is spreading through my body. I try to close off my mind, to not go where it wants to take me, but everything – the countdown, Layla’s last message telling me that I should have chosen her, the little Russian doll placed directly under the trapdoor as a kind of clue – all seem to point to one thing. It isn’t possible, I mutter to myself, it isn’t possible, Layla wouldn’t harm Ellen. But hadn’t she told me to get rid of Ellen, hadn’t she given me ten days? Had she ended up doing what I couldn’t?

I can barely breathe. I need to call the police, now, before it’s too late. But it is too late. If Layla has done what I think she’s done, it’s already too late. Unless she hasn’t – I can hardly bear to think the word – killed Ellen, only hidden her.

I drop to my knees in front of the chest. I don’t want to open it but I know that I have to. Please God, please God, don’t let Ellen be dead, please don’t let her be dead.

My hands are shaking as I move the blankets from the top of the chest and lay them on the floor. My breath judders in my throat, stopping air from reaching my lungs. I grip the edge of the lid, steadying myself. Then, dragging my courage from where it’s residing in the pit of my stomach, I throw the lid open and look inside.

My mind spins in disbelief, draining the blood from my face.





FIFTY-FIVE

Finn

I stare down at the dissected corpses of hundreds of Russian dolls, wondering if I’m hallucinating. I reach out and touch one. The feel of the painted wood against my hand tells me they’re real. But my mind won’t accept it. I was so sure that I’d find Ellen trussed up inside the chest, dead even, that I begin digging underneath the dolls, scooping them to one side of the chest, then to the other, believing that I’m going to find her. And then, when I finally accept that she isn’t there, I let out a howl of pure rage at being fooled by Layla yet again. I can’t believe that I’m no nearer to finding Ellen, or that I’m still part of Layla’s macabre game, that now I’m going to have to figure out why she’s left a chest full of Russian dolls for me to discover, and try to work out the message behind it.