Roots of Evil(26)

He turned it to face the main door, and then he arranged Trixie Smith so that she was sitting upright, her hands lying along the carved wooden arms, her head turned slightly as if she was watching for someone to enter. It took longer than he had expected because Trixie was heavier than he had allowed for. Dead weight, of course. But in the end it was done and he stepped back to consider the effect. Yes, very good indeed.

And now there was one final thing. It must seem as if the killer had had to break in. The police were not fools; if there were no signs of forced entry, they would instantly start suspecting anyone who knew where the keys were kept. That would mean Liam Devlin, and possibly his staff if he had any: presumably Devlin employed other people at his office. Edmund would not lose any sleep if Devlin came under suspicion, but he was not going to risk coming under suspicion himself.

It was clearly impossible for the door to be broken in or the lock snapped off, but what about those nailed-up windows? Edmund walked across to examine them. They were a bit more solid than he had previously thought, but he managed to prise a corner free, and saw that there was a second board nailed on outside. Awkward, but not insurmountable, although he would need something to use as a lever. He hunted around again, and found a section of steel that appeared to have fallen off some sort of structure – it was impossible to know what it had originally represented, but the steel piece would do very well for Edmund’s purpose.

He went out into the lobby, propping the outer door carefully open, and around to the side of the building. Ah, here was the first of the windows. It was quite high up, but Edmund was fairly tall, and by dint of levering the steel under it, he managed to lever a whole section free. The plywood was brittle with damp and age, and it came away without too much difficulty. It would be easy enough for someone to clamber through and drop down on to the floor on the other side. Edmund was not going to attempt this, of course; he was not going to risk leaving fibres from his clothes or shoes on the window frame because they might later be found by the police, and identified as his.

He went back in, and levered an equivalent section of plywood from the window, then stood back to consider. Yes, it looked all right; it looked as if someone had got in, and had afterwards tried to replace the boarding to hide the traces.

One last look around the dim studio to make sure nothing was missed or forgotten. Yes, he thought everything was all right. He barely glanced at the thing in the elaborate old chair, its face half in shadow. And then he switched off the light and went out into the night, remembering to slam the main door to engage the lock.



It was a long drive home and it was still raining quite heavily, but Edmund did not mind either of these things. There was not much traffic about, and most of the roads were straightforward dual-carriageways with only an occasional traffic island. He remembered the road quite well, and he did not falter or take any wrong turnings. And with every mile he covered, Ashwood became more and more distant.

He reached his own house midway through the evening, took a hot bath, and put the things he had worn into the washing machine. The thick rain-jacket he had worn and the gloves could be burned; he put them in the potting-shed for a bonfire tomorrow, and then made himself a supper of scrambled eggs with grated cheese. Before going to bed he drank a large whisky and soda, and swallowed a couple of aspirin. He had suffered from quite bad nightmares in his youth, especially after the death of his father. He hoped he would not have a nightmare tonight.

Falling asleep, it was necessary to force his mind away from that last glimpse he had had of Trixie Smith, her eyes destroyed, and the blood drying to a dark crust on her face.





CHAPTER EIGHT




It had been absolutely vital not to think about those dreadful bloodied eye-sockets during the journey to the place called Mowbray Fen. The ambulance would have reached Pedlar’s Yard long ago, and if there was anything to be done for the fearsome blinded thing that had groped stumblingly along the darkened hall, then it would have been done by now. There would be a very bad memory of those last moments in the house – of crouching in the dark under-stairs cupboard, not daring to breathe in case the blood-smeared head appeared around the door – and it would be a memory that would last for a very long time, perhaps for years and years. But it could not be allowed to get in the way of leaving London and reaching Mowbray Fen.

And although it was quite scary to be going off into the unknown like this, completely alone, it was not as scary as sleeping in the house in Pedlar’s Yard, trying not to hear the stumbling footsteps on the stairs. So I’ll cope with the scary feeling and I’ll just think about finding that house.

It was not so many years since a child travelling alone would have attracted concerned attention – ‘Shouldn’t you be with your mother, my dear…?’ ‘Where are you going on your own…?’ But it had been the start of the so-called liberated 1970s: children went more or less where they liked and did more or less what they wanted, and respecting your elders was uncool, boring, a thing of the past. What’s it to you where I’m going, mister?

Mother had always said it was ill-mannered to talk in that way, but at least it meant nobody took much notice of a child travelling alone. And it turned out to be easy to slip into the big anonymous railway station and hide in the lavatories until it was morning and there were enough people milling around not to look twice at a child. It was easy, as well, to carefully study the glass-fronted maps in the railway station, and then buy a train ticket to Peterborough which seemed to be the nearest big town to Mowbray Fen, although it was suddenly heart-bumpingly anxious to sit waiting for the train to come in. What if police come storming in before the train arrives, looking for me? What would I do?