‘Whoever set that fire in the woods was long gone by the time we arrived,’ Mairéad says. ‘If Meunier knew their identities, that gives them the perfect motive for silencing him.’
‘My thoughts exactly,’ Deacon replies. ‘Which means you might not be looking at suicide after all.’
A jagged peninsula swings into view. Felted headlands terminate in cliffs of volcanic rock cracked open by wind and sea. Huge waves foam white around shattered stacks.
‘There,’ says the pilot, pointing.
Mairéad sees the Strumble Head lighthouse sitting squat on its island, and the stubby metal bridge connecting it to the peninsula. Further south-east she sees a U-shaped coastal road, blocked at either end by police vehicles.
The pilot isn’t directing her attention to the ground support. Instead, he indicates a dilapidated stone shack, some distance to the east. Parked outside is a rust-flecked white van.
‘That’s it!’ she shouts, adrenalin shortening her breath. ‘Take us down.’
II
As the Eurocopter plunges from the sky, Mairéad’s stomach rises into her throat. She grips the doorframe, her mind whirling with what-ifs.
At a command from DS Halley behind her, four police cars stationed at the eastern end of the coastal road accelerate along it. At its apex, a gravelled track leads up a steep slope towards the lookout perched at the top.
As if reacting to the helicopter’s approach, the door to a lean-to shed beside the lookout clatters open. Someone staggers out. Mairéad snatches up her binoculars and trains them on the figure.
It’s her. It’s Elissa.
Kyle
I
The average human body, I once read, contains around five litres of blood. But if Papa and I are any indication, that figure is a wild underestimate.
We’re drenched. Blood sticks my jeans to my legs, my T-shirt to my ribs. It pulses from the holes in Papa’s body and creeps out beneath him in an ever-expanding pool.
He lies between my legs, head resting on my shoulder. The chain from my manacle is still looped twice around his neck. Through the links, I see the weak echo of his heartbeat.
I’m done stabbing him. There’s a point, I think, where justice descends into barbarism. One thrust for each boy and each girl he snatched, that’s all. I didn’t count Gretel, because she took her own revenge.
My own wounds are almost as severe. Three times Papa plunged his blade into me. Two of those injuries I can now barely feel, but the pain from the third is stunning. I don’t want to die in this shed, with Papa lying between my legs. Before my strength fails completely, I need to go outside.
And before I do that, I have to kill him.
II
The carving knife is still buried in his flesh. When I yank it out, a last tide of Papa’s blood gushes over me. He kicks his legs and sighs.
It’s so intimate, this. So weirdly emotional.
Because of my injuries, it takes me a while to draw back my knee and wedge it against his spine. Once that’s done, I grasp the ends of the double-looped chain and pull. Papa kicks again, but his struggles make no difference. He gargles, his eyes bulge; it’s all quite pathetic.
And then, just like that, it’s over.
I unloop my chain from his neck and loll forwards. Closing my eyes, I almost drift off. It’s such a shock that I jerk back my head, terrified that my life will end here, in a gross pool of his blood.
A helicopter blasts over the tool-shed roof. Coastguard, probably, on a regular patrol of the peninsula.
Working quickly, in case I pass out fully, I root through Papa’s clothes until I find the manacle key. Moments later, I’m free. I roll him off my legs and try to pull myself up. My attempt is a joke – if I wasn’t dying, and in a nauseating amount of pain, I’d probably find it funny.
My feet scissor back and forth, creating ripples in the blood lake. Somehow, I get a knee beneath me. Finally, I manage to stand. Blood drips from my clothing like rain. If I go down, I won’t get back up. I’m panting before I’ve even taken five steps.
Outside, I hear the asthmatic rattle of a diesel. I recognize it immediately – the white van that ferried me here. If Gretel’s trying to steal it, she won’t have any luck. Only Papa’s ever known the trick of firing up that engine from cold. Sometimes even he can’t do it on the first attempt. It’s probably why he didn’t worry unduly about leaving the keys in the ignition.
At last I reach the tool-shed door. The wind on my face, so fresh after the horrors at my back, is a blessing straight from Jesus. What I see unfolding down the slope is without doubt the work of the devil.
Elissa
I
The scream pierces Elissa’s skull like a drill.
Looking behind her, she sees Annie emerge from the shack. Such violence in the witch’s expression; for a moment, it freezes her rigid. Seconds later, a wasp-like helicopter blasts past in a violent sundering of the sky. The noise is incredible. It shakes Elissa loose of her paralysis. Turning from the shack, she stumbles down the slope.
In the fairy tale, Gretel burned the witch in her oven before freeing her brother from his cage. Elissa, by contrast, has allowed the witch to live and has left Hansel to his fate. It’s a failure of duty that might cost her everything.
The helicopter swoops in again. Printed on the door in bold yellow letters is the word she’d given up hope of ever seeing: POLICE.
‘Help me!’ Elissa shrieks, lifting her good hand to the sky.
This part of the slope is treacherously steep. To her left, jagged promontories thrust mossy elbows of rock into the sea. Far below her, a fleet of police cars bumps along the coastal road, emergency lights flashing. They look so far away.
At her back she hears a groan of metal. Glancing behind her, she sees the witch throw open the van door and climb behind the wheel.
II
The grass is slippery with moisture. Slick arrowheads of rock thrust up from the soil. Elissa knows she can’t descend any faster. If she falls, slams her injured arm, she’ll lie there screaming until Annie runs her down. Instead, she moves at a worm’s pace, carefully picking her way, checking each step before she takes it.
The helicopter plunges past on her left, the thwap of its rotors vibrating in her chest.
‘Help me!’ she shrieks. ‘Tell me what I should do!’
There’s a loose rattle behind her – the van’s engine turning over. Elissa slips on to her backside, barely preventing her injured arm from smashing into the ground. For the space of two breaths she sits there, stunned, while chaos flows around her.
Again, the van’s engine turns over. Again, it clatters out.
‘Good, bitch!’ Elissa screams. ‘That’s what you get!’
In response, the witch runs the ignition a third time. The pistons punch and counter. This time they’ll surely catch a spark, but they don’t, even though Annie keeps them spinning for a good ten seconds.
The police helicopter blasts past yet again, rapidly losing height. Elissa sees, at the base of the slope, the flat patch of ground for which it’s aiming. Its nose angles up. The skids hit the ground and bounce once, twice. The pilot throttles down.