Prologue
The rain lashes across her face like a whip. She’s running into the night and even the trees feel like they’re conspiring against her, their gnarled branches twisting like the interlocked fingers of old men. These woods are dense, and she has no idea which direction to even head for. All she knows is her pursuer is gaining ground and what’s ahead can’t be worse than what’s behind. The earth beneath is wet and leafy and she can taste the salt on her lips from the sea which is rolling and roaring somewhere close.
Panic forces her to quicken her pace. Her Nikes, bought with such pride in another time and place, are coming apart and she stumbles on a root sending her tumbling. For a second, she remains down, feeling the stitch in her chest mercifully subside a little. She considers staying put—hiding in the shadows. Then she hears it—hears her—that hint of cold laughter caught on the night air and knows it’s not an option. With a whimper, she forces herself back up onto her feet and starts running again.
She tries to imagine a road on the other side of the trees and that thought gives her renewed hope. In her mind’s eye, she sees a car with its headlights cutting through the darkness like laser beams. A kind stranger leaning across to open the passenger door. An escape back to a world she should never have left, to people she should never have hurt. Behind her the urgent rush of her pursuer is getting louder, wood snapping underfoot as it scrabbles after her. If she’s caught, there won’t be any mercy shown.
The tears streaming down her face are a distraction. The only thing that matters is getting away and she’s starting to lose faith that it’s even possible now—that the reach of what’s chasing her is too long. It feels like these woods have been waiting for her all her life and that this is where everything surely ends.
She skids on some moss and crashes against something hard. There’s immediate sharp pain in her side. Something’s cut through her jeans into her thigh. She sees a huge fallen branch, jagged spikes of wood jutting out of it randomly, cloaked by the darkness. Swearing under her breath she reaches down and can feel the blood leaking through her fingers. She can’t stop herself from crying out—more in despair than pain. That’s a mistake and she knows it straightaway.
She hears it stop, imagines its head turning now, craning to listen before changing direction. There’s a pitter-patter as the rain begins to get heavier. Just as it has for the last week it quickly starts pounding down, the noise increasing with a rumble. She takes advantage of it and begins moving again. There’s a bank in front and she hauls herself up and over with a desperate heave. The woods seem to be thinning out now but everything’s a blur. She’s not sure what’s on the other side of these trees but is hoping for a break. Something, anything.
She finds herself on open ground and runs raggedly across the long grass, but not fast enough. And then her heart stops as it dawns on her where she is. There’s a short, battered fence in the middle distance, and on the other side of it she can hear the sea pounding against the rock face far below. There’s sheer terror now as she realizes there’s nowhere left for her to run, and she turns to face what’s coming.
It’s her—of course it is. The thing she’s been running from for so long, and everything seems to coalesce at that moment. All she can hear now is a roaring in her ears and the cold seems to go right through her. The rain is sheeting down and the terrible cowled figure slowly, jerkily, raises an arm and holds it out towards
her accusingly.
Her nerve breaks. She turns and sprints towards the cliff edge, not looking back. Climbing the short fence she stands for a moment, pressing her back against its rotting wood. The jagged rocks glint below, showing her the way—and without hesitation, she leaps into the abyss.
Chapter 1
Today
The first thing that hit her was the sound of the place. Seagulls— lots of them circling overhead, crying and squalling as the ferry inched closer. Some people enjoy traveling like this, but Jenna Tipton knew she definitely wasn’t one of them. The whole process was laborious and tiring and she felt sick. But that wasn’t because of the choppy waters—she’d been living with the nausea for days and was almost getting used to it. Almost. She knew there was only one thing that was going to make that go away. In her early forties, the last week had aged her badly. Her mousy brown hair had turned frizzy, her lips were dry and chapped, and her skin felt like battered old leather. But none of that mattered, not in the way they normally would.
She’d been told Athelsea Island was stunning but now that they could see it properly, there was nothing that stood out about it. A small rock tucked thirty miles or so off the Cornish coast. In the summer months, it was overrun by tourists—but in the cold blast of February, the huddle of white-brick buildings clustered around the harbor looked more like the death of hope.
“Nearly there, Jen. Are you okay?” said a voice behind her and she turned to see her sister Hattie fiddling with her phone trying to get some sort of signal on it. Much as she loved her, Jenna hoped it wasn’t because she wanted to upload a picture of the bloody island onto her Insta. Then she felt bad for having the thought because without her she’d never have made it even this far.
“I’m fine,” she said, answering the question with a dirty fat lie.
Hattie was three years younger. Wearing a navy fur-lined puffa jacket, she looked impossibly glamorous, which was standard. Long black locks cascaded around her neck, tousled from the wind, which made her seem even more stunning than usual. It was all the more impressive given how much she hated the sea. A city girl by nature, she’d had a phobia about water since childhood and had done a decent job of covering it since they’d set off. Jenna turned back to face the island, which was getting ever closer.
“Have we made a mistake coming here?” she said, but Hattie shook her head.
“We’re following the breadcrumb trail, aren’t we? And from what we know this is the likeliest option, isn’t it?” She said it as if explaining the search for a misplaced set of keys.
“What if I’m wrong though?” said Jenna, wincing as yet another blast of cold wet wind swept across them. “What if we’re wasting valuable time? What if this is just a self-indulgence and we miss something important back home because of it?”
The questions had been tormenting her all day and Hattie had already heard them several times over.
“And what if the moon’s made of green cheese? More to the point—what if she is here? That’s why we’ve come, isn’t it? To bring her home?”
Jenna nodded—there was that.
She could see the bay a bit more clearly as the ferry got closer and its attractions were becoming a little more obvious now. There were boarded-up seafront cafés and restaurants which presumably did a roaring trade fleecing tourists during the summer. Pretty cobbled streets divided them, and old-fashioned-style signposts pointed the way to attractions such as the Athelsea Lighthouse and the Haunted Coves.
“It looks dead,” said Hattie and she was right. It also had that superficiality that all these kinds of places possessed which crowds and fine
weather helped mask. In ordinary circumstances, it wouldn’t take Jenna more than an hour to get bored here, but these weren’t ordinary circumstances.
“Who lives here?” she said. “And why would you live here? I mean—it’s like this during the winter, then gets overrun by drunken twenty-somethings in the summer. I can’t see the attraction.”
Hattie smiled. “That’s because you’re middle-aged.”
“Thanks, mate. Don’t get too cocky—you’re not that far behind me.”
The dynamic between them sometimes felt like it had been frozen in aspic from when they were teenagers. The passing of time didn’t seem to affect them. It felt as if it would always be like that.
“You know what I mean, Jen. I imagine the population here is largely retired. It’s not meant for people like us, is it?”
“So why in the world would she come here?”
And for that, her sister had no answer.
The ferry finally eased to a halt, and after a few minutes they began to disembark, both glad to be on dry land once again. They were each dragging small cases on wheels which rattled noisily as they walked off the wooden jetty and out onto the gray, cobbled thoroughfare.
“Jenna Tipton?”
The voice was rich and fruity, and she turned to see a hearty-looking man in his mid-forties wearing a thick Aran jumper walking towards them. He had ruddy red cheeks, wiry brown hair, and was wearing a warm, friendly smile. Jenna wondered if he had a bag of Fisherman’s Friend in his pocket too, to complete the ensemble.
“That’s me,” she said and extended a hand.
“Ben Markham—from the B&B?”
“You’re our taxi driver?”
His smile widened and there seemed to be a twinkle in his eye. “You can call me that if you like. You won’t get your Uber working
around here though.” He said the word “Uber” as if it were a substitute for “Martian.” “I run the place with my wife, so I’m used to picking up guests from the harbor. I’m parked up just around the corner. They’ve pedestrianized this bit because it gets so congested during the summer. Bloody stupid if you ask me when it’s like this most of the year.”
He gestured at the deserted marina before turning and striding away. Even the locals seemed to share her assessment of the place and Jenna shot Hattie a look that said “I told you so.” Her sister rolled her eyes and they both trailed after him.
As they turned the corner, it became obvious that the harbor was much larger than just the small area where their ferry had docked. There were actual signs of life now with more people milling around and even one or two shops open doing business. Hattie was right though; the vast majority seemed to be much older. This was a retirement home set on a tourist trap, not a natural place for young people.
“So, what brings you to Athelsea out of season?” he said as they walked on.
“This,” said Jenna, stopping. She fumbled in her handbag for a sheaf of slightly crumpled papers, plucked one free and handed it to him. “I’m looking for my daughter, Chloe. She’s sixteen, though I think she probably comes over as a bit younger than that. She disappeared about a week ago.”
“Disappeared?” he replied uncertainly. “As in ran away, or…”
The question hurt like a needle under a fingernail, and she shrugged helplessly. Awkwardly, Ben focused on the flyer. At the center was a large color photo of a teenage girl sitting around a kitchen table. It was a particular favorite of Jenna’s—a good one of her daughter actually smiling. She had bright pink dyed hair with a low fringe, alabaster skin, and milky blue eyes that she’d inherited from her mother. Underneath, together with contact details were written the words “Missing: Have you seen this girl?” Ben held the piece of paper with both hands and ran his eyes over the image. The extended amount of time he spent examining it briefly raised Jenna’s hopes, but then he shook his head.
“No … I’m, sorry, I haven’t seen her. She’d have stood out a mile here with hair that color.”
blow.
Jenna was becoming increasingly aware of how cold it was, far fresher on land than it had been on the ferry. Now that they were here it seemed even more extraordinary to her that Chloe would, could, have made this journey. Her daughter bellyached if the house was anything below greenhouse temperature in the autumn. Jenna shook her head in bemusement. Why has she done this? Why is she doing this to me? Where the hell is she? The same old questions. And she tried not to think of all the worst-case scenarios because she couldn’t let herself go there.
She was about to delve into her bag again for some tape to attach the flyer to a nearby lamppost when something caught her eye. A workman in blue overalls was clambering out of a manhole onto one of the cobbled streets. He was wearing thick industrial gloves and had the look of someone who’d like to be just about anywhere else than here. In his hands was a dark round mound of something. At first glance, it looked a bit like a wreath, and she thought it was maybe a collection of moldy leaves but then the smell hit her, and she gagged. It was like death itself had just climbed up her nostrils.
They all looked more closely at the object which he was now carefully placing down on the ground. It was a collision of matted wet black hair, razor-sharp white teeth, flashes of pink flesh, and thick wiry white lengths knotted randomly together like spaghetti. Rats, Jenna realized with horror, lots of them, dead and intertwined. She could feel the bile rising in her throat as multiple sets of glassy eyes stared up at her.
“What is that?” she said.
The man saw her looking and gave her an appalling grin.
“It’s a rat king,” he said.
“A what?” said Hattie, who usually couldn’t handle a spider in the bathtub.
“I thought they were just urban legends?” said Ben, who seemed equally hypnotized by the sight. The man shook his head.
“No, they’re more common than people think. I’m clearing them out of the harbor bay sewers all the time.”
Hattie looked like she was about to throw up there and then, and Jenna was praying she didn’t because she knew she wouldn’t be too far behind. The stench coming from it was almost too much to bear.
“It’s what happens when a nest of rats gets their tails entwined together,” he continued. “They can’t free themselves and eventually end up starving to death. But not before they’ve taken a few chunks out of each other in the process.”
It sounded like nonsense to Jenna but then she saw the agonized look on the face of one of the dead creatures and wasn’t arguing. Ben’s attention had now been caught by something in the middle distance and she followed his gaze, glad to look away from the putrefying heap on the ground.
On the far side of the harbor, a small crowd of people had gathered. There was a police car there too and they seemed to be waiting for a small fishing boat which was crawling its way towards them.
“What’s that all about?” said Ben. “Isn’t that the Hanway’s boat?”
The man in the manhole nodded, busy now loosening up some green industrial-strength waste disposal bags.
“Yes. There’s a rumor going round that they found a body in the water this morning.”
Jenna’s stomach instantly heaved at the words, and she didn’t even notice the smell of the rats anymore. Blood was rushing to her ears, and it felt like her whole world was about to collapse.
Chapter 2
The wait was agonizing. They stood watching with the rest of the small crowd as the fishing boat bobbed on the waves like a child’s rubber duck in the bath. To Jenna’s eyes, it didn’t seem to be progressing and yet simultaneously was somehow inching forward through the frothy water.
“It’s not her,” whispered Hattie into her ear.
“How the hell do you know that?” thought Jenna. Groundless reassurances were more irritating than helpful. She was a journalist by trade, so she knew a thing or two about the importance of staying dispassionate. Hattie was also smart enough to understand that it could be Chloe, which made the words even more unhelpful.
Jenna could see a police officer cast straight from every TV cop drama she’d ever watched, standing at the head of the queue waiting to greet the vessel. Frowning in a long brown raincoat, he was a tall, mixed-race man with sharp features, probably in his late thirties—and attractive with it, she found herself observing randomly. She assumed she was noticing details like that because she was on the verge of hysteria now. Ben caught her staring and leant across.
“That’s Liam Tandy. Detective Inspector Tandy, I should say. This must be important—he’s the most senior officer on the island.”
The boat had finally reached the jetty, and Tandy stepped forward to greet its occupants. A craggy-faced man in a woolen bobble hat emerged and he seemed to immediately recognize the policeman. The pair began talking—bobble hat man, gesticulating and pointing at the dark green water behind him. Jenna was watching their faces, looking for any kind of clue but the exchange seemed more businesslike than emotional. Finally, the conversation ended, and both men walked out onto the deck of the small vessel. Bobble hat man bent over and lifted a dark tarpaulin to show the policeman something underneath that Jenna couldn’t see.
She was fighting every impulse to barge her way through the crowd and join them. In her mind’s eye all she could picture was Chloe’s face, bloated and gray from days in the sea and couldn’t stop herself from letting out a small cry of anguish. Hattie’s hand immediately curled around hers in response and the two sisters stood and waited for whatever fate was about to deliver them.
“Do you want me to go and try and find out what’s going on?” said Ben.
“Or, alternatively I could find out for myself,” said Jenna, already deciding she wasn’t going to wait. She began weaving her way through the onlookers. She’d convinced herself of the worst now, bracing her body for the shock—the lightning bolt that was about to strike.
“This is my fault,” she muttered.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” whispered Hattie but the worry was audible in her voice too. Ben had followed them and went straight over to the side of the boat.
“Ross!” He shouted at one of the other fishermen on board. He was a young-looking man with a neat black beard, barely more than a boy, and looked animated as they spoke. Just as before, there was an excruciating wait for them to finish. Ben gave him a pat of thanks on the arm and then walked back over. Jenna knew there was a moment of truth coming and saw a small smile of reassurance spread across his features.
From that alone, Jenna knew it wasn’t Chloe on the deck of that boat because there’s no way of telling a stranger that their daughter was dead which begins with a smile of any kind. She still needed to hear the words said out loud though.
“They’ve found several human bones,” he said. “But they’re clearly not recent.”
“See…” said Hattie and Jenna’s tears of relief came thick and hard.
“Come on, let’s get away from this circus,” said Ben and Jenna nodded as she reached into her bag for a tissue. But even as she wiped her face, she was watching Tandy, now on his radio, and selfishly thought whatever they’d found wasn’t helpful to her. Briefly, their eyes met as she caught him staring. He was someone she’d need to talk to, but he was going to have his hands full for the foreseeable future. ...
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