Roots of Evil(16)

And now he had reached Mother and he was grabbing her arm, lifting the dripping scissors over his head with his other hand. Curses streamed from his mouth – you could almost see the words coming out, wet with the blood and the eye-fluid…Kill you, kill you, bitch, murdering bitch-cunt, and then kill the child as well, kill both of you…

She was fighting him off, clawing at his face – yes, her hands were like claws! – but he had too strong a grip. The two of them fought and struggled, and just when it seemed that Mother was about to push him away, he brought the scissors flashing down, stabbing them deep into her neck. The blood spurted out at once, like a tap turned full on, splashing the floor and the walls, and Mother was crumpling to the floor, a look of surprise on her face.

Time seemed to run down and stop completely, so that it might have been hours or only minutes before there was a wet rattling sound in Mother’s throat, and she fell forward. Dead? Yes, of course she was dead, it did not need a second look to know it. Like a light going out. Like something collapsing deep inside.

The man standing over her remained absolutely still: it was impossible to know if he was recovering his strength or fighting his own pain. Then the terrible listening movement came back. He turned his head from side to side, and the dreadful face with the two wet, bloodied sockets seemed to search the room. He’s still holding the scissors! He pulled them out of her neck, and he’s still holding them! And now that he’s killed her, he’s searching for me!

The realization brought a fresh wash of terror. He’s mad with pain, but he’s still as cunning and as brutal as ever. And he’s searching for me because I saw what he did. If he can get me, he’ll kill me so that I can’t tell people he’s a murderer.



There was surely nothing easier than escaping from the murderous hands of a man whose eyes had been destroyed. It was the kind of thing people made jokes about: a blind man on a galloping horse would never see that, they said. Or they said that something was about as much use as a blind man in a coal-hole on a dark night.

But when you are eight years old, and when the two outside doors of your house are locked, the escape tips over into a macabre cat-and-mouse game. It begins with the need to move silently across the room, trying not to make any sound at all – quenching a shudder when you step in a slippery patch of blood – and then slipping out into the dark little hall beyond. Had he heard that? Had he sensed the movement – perhaps felt the cold breath of air from the opening of the door? Yes, he was following – there he was, horridly silhouetted against the red glow from the electric fire, already starting to feel his way along the passage to the stairs. He knows the hiding places, of course. He knows about the cupboard under the stairs, and he knows about the little space between the kitchen and the old washhouse…

But he can’t see them any longer. And he must be in agony – surely he won’t be able to search for very long? So where would be safest to hide? The stairs – yes, the cramped cupboard under the stairs with the smothering smell of old raincoats…I can close the door tightly and fold up into a tiny creature, as if I’m not really there at all…He’ll go past the door because he won’t know exactly where it is, so I’ll be perfectly safe. He’ll grope his way into the kitchen and once he’s done that I can be down the hall and I can unlock the front door and be outside…

The front door. It would be locked and the keys would be upstairs, on the chest of drawers in the front bedroom, where they were always kept. Then I’ve got to get upstairs and get them, and come back down and unlock the door. Panic rose up, because it surely could not be done without being caught.

The door of the stair-cupboard was jerked back, and the blinded face appeared in the opening. The blood was still wet on the cheeks, but a crust had started to form over both eyes, and it was still a nightmare thing, that head, it was still something to shrink from and scream, only a scream must not happen because it would give the hiding place away. I’m-not-here, I’m-not-here…

A hand came reaching out, groping in the little space, so that it was necessary to shrink right back against the wall and to stop breathing so that he would not hear…Please don’t let him find me. Please don’t let him know I’m here…

The raincoats swished around and the world shrank to the tiny damp-smelling cupboard, and to the nightmare face. And then – oh, thank you God, thank you! – the head moved back and the cupboard door swung in again, and the shuffling footsteps went stumbling down the two stone steps into the kitchen. I ought to feel sorry for him, but I don’t, I don’t! And if I can get upstairs and snatch up the keys, I can be out of the door and away. Yes, but where to? Where is ‘away’?

Again there was the rush of panic, and then, like the unfolding of a secret, like the soft, silken drawing back of a curtain, the answer came, and with it a deep delight.

‘She lives in a place called Mowbray Fen,’ Mother had said. ‘It’s a tiny village on the edge of Lincolnshire. You have to go through Rockingham Forest, and along by Thorney and Witchford until you come within sight of Wicken Fen…’.

Thorney and Witchford and Rockingham Forest. The litany came as easily and as smoothly as ever it had done. The house on the marshes. The house called the Priest’s House, whose owners had helped to smuggle priests out of England hundreds of years ago. Could it be found? Would the lady from the stories still be there? How long ago had that letter with the cheque been sent? Months? Years?