‘I suppose.’
Gareth stood and reached into his pocket. He held out a penny. ‘I want you to have this.’
‘What is it?’
‘I found it on the pavement outside the front gate. It was made the same year Dad died.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You ever heard the phrase, Pennies from Heaven?’
‘No.’
‘I think Dad dropped it.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘To let us know he’s watching over us.’
‘Really?’
Gareth nodded. ‘Think about it, Mattie. It’s right outside the gate, and it was made the same year he died. It has to be from him.’
Mathew took the coin and examined it. Just a regular old penny. No golden halo of light around it. ‘Thanks.’
‘Keep it with you. It’ll help you stay safe and look out for you when I’m not around.’
Mathew clutched it in his right hand and closed his eyes. Pictured his father’s face in his mind’s eye. The kind blue eyes. The hint of a smile. The slight tilt of his head, as if always listening intently.
‘I’ve gotta go, buddy. Sort a few things out. Anything you need, anything at all, just call me, okay?’
Mathew opened his eyes, releasing the image like a helium balloon to the wind. ‘Okay.’
He waited for Gareth’s footfall on the stairs, then closed the door and threw himself on the bed. He cried until there was nothing left inside him.
Recovering his mind from memory lane, Mathew trudged upstairs to his room. He rummaged in the bottom drawer of his pine dresser and fished out the penny. Kissed it and slipped it into his pocket. He would keep it with him from now on.
As he went back downstairs, hand wrapped around the coin, he felt better about Jim Bentley’s threat. Bentley was just an ignorant bully who didn’t know the first thing about him. A druggie loser who wasn’t worth wasting his energy on.
He walked into the kitchen, grabbed Tortilla’s bowl of food, and headed into the garden. Mathew’s heart jolted. The shed door was open, swinging back and forth in the breeze. Which was impossible, because he always closed it at night. It was part of his evening routine. Just like brushing his teeth for three minutes. Flossing. Washing his face before going to bed and thanking God for everything he had. Promising to be good, even when the darker days were upon him and he didn’t feel like being good.
At least the back gate was still closed. The bolt slid across the top.
Maybe you didn’t latch it properly, what with all this bad stuff happening.
Mathew wanted to believe that, but he knew, even at his lowest ebb, he always made sure Tortilla was safe before going to bed. He would never get to sleep otherwise.
The shed door creaked. Mathew crept forward. The baked earth felt as hard as rock beneath his bare feet. A shiver rolled down his spine. He called Tortilla’s name.
Silence. Except for some piece of machinery running somewhere up the road. He stopped a few feet away from the door, watching it swing back and forth on its rusty hinges.
He spoke in his mind to the tortoise, asking him if he was all right. Tortilla was unusually silent. Ten feet away, something white was lying on the shed floor. For a moment, he thought it was a fish. But that couldn’t be right. The river was over a mile away, and even when it burst its banks, the water never got anywhere near the Brooklands Estate.
Seven feet away. It wasn’t a fish. It was a bare leg. For one crazy moment, Mathew thought a homeless person had taken up residency in the shed. But the leg was too small for an adult. Way too small. And as smooth and white as polished alabaster.
Three feet away. He didn’t need to see her face to know it was Jodie Willis. His heart seemed to drop into his stomach. He wanted to run, to scream. He rested one hand on the shed wall and peered inside. With a mouth as dry as the weather, he gawped at the lifeless naked body.
He dropped Tortilla’s bowl of food on the shed floor. ‘Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.’ Tortilla was in the corner of the shed, virtually obscured by the body.
Call the police!
Mathew wasn’t sure if that was his own thought or an instruction from the tortoise.
Run!
The girl with the startled eyes was lying on her back staring at the roof. Perhaps looking for the angels to take her to Heaven.
Dead, Mattie! She’s dead. Dead as the dinosaurs.
His phone was on the kitchen table. Ten seconds away. All he had to do was walk into the house, pick it up, and call the police.
He suddenly realised that Jodie’s hair had been cut off. There wasn’t even a speck of stubble on her head. Why hadn’t he noticed that straight away?
Maybe you had another fugue and cut it off yourself.
He looked at his hands. No. It couldn’t have been him. He didn’t have any scissors.
Unless you did it earlier.
Mathew thumped the side of his head to shut the voice up. It wasn’t helping matters making scary suggestions. He would never hurt anyone, especially a child.
‘Why is this happening to me?’ he whispered. ‘Oh God, why?’
Jodie’s mouth hung open, exposing a set of wonky front teeth. It was as if she was trying to tell Mathew who did this to her. But then he already knew the answer to that question: Jim Bentley.
He stepped a little closer to the body. His imagination treated him to an image of the Book Café engulfed in a ball of flame. His mother trapped inside. Burning to death with her beloved books.
‘Did Jim Bentley do this to you?’ he asked.
Jodie wasn’t saying. The freckles on her face moved, as if they wanted to leave her skin before she was buried. But then Mathew realised that the “freckles” were red ants. He wanted to sweep them off, but he knew not to touch the body.
In his mind, he entered the cave. His secret place. A sanctuary where he could seek refuge when he was unable to cope with reality. Without being consciously aware of doing so, he walked into the shed, stepped over the body and sat next to Tortilla. He drew his knees up to his chest and closed his eyes. No more body. No more terror. Just an empty, dark, safe place.
For the time being.
Chapter Sixteen
Sonia arrived home at just after six. It had been a quiet day with very few customers at the Book Café. Most people who’d come into the shop had seemed more interested in talking about the missing girl. Sonia thought it was terrible that a child could just vanish on her way home from the shop, but she’d elected not to talk about Mathew seeing her, or fibbing about going to the river afterwards. She didn’t understand why her son had lied, but it made little difference to her opinion of him. He was a good lad with a good heart.
She called up the stairs to tell him she was home and that she’d stopped at Waitrose and bought some frozen burgers. ‘Do you want them with chips?’
No answer. Maybe he was asleep. She put the bag of shopping on the floor, walked upstairs, and knocked on his bedroom door. No answer. She knocked again, this time opening the door a few feet and peering inside. ‘Mathew?’
The room was empty, the bed unmade. Sonia’s heart jumped. He never left his bed like that; it was one of his many golden rules. Along with putting his clothes away and making sure his bookshelves were tidy and the books all lined up in alphabetical order.