She checked the bathroom and the other two bedrooms before going back downstairs and looking in the lounge. Empty. Despite the humidity, she shivered. Mathew never went anywhere without telling her where he was going. Even if it was only a brief text message.
‘Mathew? You home?’
Nothing. Just the ticking of the clock. She checked the downstairs loo, grabbed her bag of shopping and went back into the kitchen. The back door was open, and Mathew’s phone was lying on the table. Relief. He was probably in the shed with Tortilla.
She put her shopping away, then ventured outside. The shed door was closed. It had to be roasting inside that wooden box. How Mathew could spend so much time shut away in there with that tortoise was beyond comprehension.
Sonia opened the door. At first her brain refused to process the horrific scene. She stood with her hand clamped over her mouth, gagging at the stench emanating from the baking-hot shed. She gawped at the naked child lying next to her son, Tortilla’s food scattered across the floor next to her.
‘Mathew?’
He didn’t answer. He stared straight ahead as if in a catatonic state. His right hand tapped slowly against Tortilla’s shell, and his bare feet thumped the wooden floor. It sounded to Sonia like the rhythm of death.
She looked back at the child. ‘What have you done, Mathew? What the hell have you done?’
Tap, tap, thump! Tap, tap, thump!
‘Mathew? Speak to me.’
Tap, tap, thump! Tap, tap, thump.
As if seeing clearly for the first time, Sonia noticed the child was bald. And there were several patches of red on her skin that seemed as if someone had scrubbed her clean with something abrasive. ‘Oh… my… dear… God.’
Sonia backed out of the shed. She needed to call the police. Or maybe she should call Gareth first and get him to come over. Calm Mathew down and coax him out of the shed before the police arrived.
She stumbled into the kitchen. The heat was unbearable, and there was hardly enough air to breathe. The kitchen walls seemed to close in around her. She staggered into the hall, intoxicated with shock. She fished her phone out of her handbag and sat on the stairs.
Bringing up the menu, she dialled Gareth’s number. A female voice informed her that Gareth was busy with a client.
‘I need to speak to him. It’s urgent.’
‘Can I take a message?’
‘Tell him it’s his mother and I need to speak to him right now.’
‘Please hold the line.’
Seconds ticked by disguised as minutes. Mathew’s rhythmic tapping drummed in her head. She tried to tell herself that her son would never harm a child. He even took ants and spiders out of the house and set them free. He’d once nursed a bird with an injured wing and cried for hours when it had died.
‘What is it, Mum? I’m really busy.’
‘You need to come home.’
‘Why? What’s happened?’
‘It’s… Mathew.’
‘What about him?’
‘I think he’s killed someone.’
There was a silence on the other end of the phone that seemed to stretch on for hours. Then Gareth said, ‘I don’t think I heard you right.’
‘I think Mathew’s killed that child who went missing. He’s in the shed with her, and she’s dead.’
‘Fuck.’
‘She’s naked, and all her hair’s been shaved off.’
‘Have you called the police?’
‘Not yet. I want you to come home and try to get him out of the shed first.’
‘What has he said?’
‘Nothing. He just keeps banging his feet on the floor and staring into space.’
‘I’m on my way.’
The phone went dead, leaving Sonia alone with only her terrifying thoughts for company.
***
Fifteen minutes later, Gareth let himself in the front door. His face was red, and beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. ‘Tell me this isn’t true. Please tell me this isn’t true, Mum.’
Sonia hauled herself up on legs that felt barely able to support her eight-stone frame. ‘Oh God, Gareth, I can’t get my head around this.’
‘Is he still in the shed?’
‘Yes.’
‘How long’s he been in there?’
‘I don’t know. He didn’t come to work with me this morning because he said he had a bad head. I only got home ten minutes ago, and that’s when I found him.’
‘Are you certain the kid’s dead?’
‘It stinks to high heaven in there, and she’s not moving.’
‘Have you checked her pulse?’
‘I didn’t want to touch her.’
‘I can’t believe this,’ Gareth said as they stepped into the garden. ‘Mattie even gets upset when the birds catch worms.’
‘He has his dark days, though,’ Sonia said, the words settling like blisters on her lips. ‘And his blank moments.’
Gareth approached the shed, hands held out in front of him as if to ward off an attack. He stopped in the open doorway and turned to his mother. ‘You call the police. I’ll talk to Mattie and see if I can get him out of there.’
‘She is dead, isn’t she?’
‘I think so. You go back inside.’
Sonia walked back to the house. Welcome to Hell, a voice whispered inside her head. How does it feel to be back where you belong?
Chapter Seventeen
Mathew had no concept of time in the cave. He sat with his back against the cold stone wall listening to bats screeching and rustling on their perches. He didn’t mind them, except when they wanted to drink his blood. At least he now had his father’s penny from Heaven to protect him. His own special crucifix.
Occasionally, a small orb of light visited the cave and silently observed him reciting poetry. These were the words he would never share with anyone else. Not even Gareth or his mother. Verses of love and unfulfilled ambition.
He sat deep within the cave, a tiny pinprick of light at the entrance. A large rock guarded against predators. As if conjured from thought, the orb appeared. A pure, white light surrounded by a golden aura. Love poured from it, filling his heart with peace. And then, for the first time in all the times the orb had visited the cave, it spoke in his mind the same way Tortilla did.
Hello, Mathew. How are you feeling?
He stared at the orb, dumbfounded by its ability to communicate with him. ‘I’m tired.’
That’s understandable. The soul has to endure a long arduous journey to reach the truth.
Mathew didn’t have a clue what that meant. It sounded religious.
I want you to know that you’re loved.
‘I know.’
And I want you to listen. Can you do that for me?
Mathew nodded.
You must leave the cave now and go back into the light.
‘Why?’
Because you need to put things right.
‘What things?’
You’ll know when the time comes. Do you know what courage is, Mathew?
‘Fighting lions?’
Having the strength to do something, even when you don’t want to do it.
‘Like working late at the Book Café when I want to write in my journal?’