Chapter 22: The Robbed Grave
I threw a five pound note on the cafe table and followed Eddy to the door. The idea that he would even consider killing a child made my stomach turn. “I don’t believe you. You couldn’t do something like that.”
He turned to me. “Maddie, you’ve got no idea what I can do.” His eyes flared like burning holes in his paper white face. “I’m sure you can guess, though, what I’ve done.”
My knees buckled and I leaned against the outside of the cafe window. “Have you, have you killed people?”
He shrugged. “Of course I have.”
I shuddered as I tried to make my image of Eddy, and the love for him it had caused, fit with these new sides of his personality. “But it’s a baby.” I gasped. “I mean, no its not, it’s not even born yet.”
“You saw her. You know she’s pregnant. It’s been a few hours and it already shows, doesn’t it?”
I grimaced, remembering the pregnant woman admiring herself in the mirror. “She looks, like four months or something.”
“The baby will be born tomorrow. Where was she?”
I hesitated, looking from one side of the road to the other, then darting my eyes up at gulls screaming past.
“What? No.” Eddy jabbed a finger at me. “I know what you’re thinking. Maybe you should protect her, or the baby? Are you serious? Maddie, more or less, she raped me.”
I looked at my shoes. The words he chose were like knives and clubs, dangerous and worrying.
“Maddie, I know it’s not the conventional definition. I’m big and strong, she’s a small, slim, woman, but she tricked me. She probably didn’t drug me, but she may as well. She raped me.”
I didn’t want to tell him Morgan’s location, but his face was urgent and tight with an expression I had never seen on it. Fear. I coughed and tilted my head to one side. “She looked like she was in a hotel bathroom. A cheap hotel. A motel or a guest house maybe.”
“Oh man.” Eddy pressed his hand against his forehead. “Look around you. How many cheap hotels or guesthouses are there?”
I shrugged at him sympathetically. Inside, though, I felt only relief. He wouldn’t get a chance to do anything horrible. “Okay. Um, now I really have to go and check on Mum.” I tried to pretend our conversation about killing hadn’t happened. “Are you coming, or...?”
He shook his head. “I have to find her.”
There was no way he could. “You’ve got your phone, yeah? When I’m finished with Mum I’m going to school.”
“To school?”
“I don’t know why we didn’t think of it before. I’ll stay in Logres till Mum gets out of hospital.”
“Okay. I’ll go with you, make sure you’re okay. Meet me at the bus stop by the supermarket in, how long? Three hours?”
“Okay.” Hurrying away to the hospital, I focused on the thought of seeing Mum soon, and on the dead leaves and empty crisp packets pushed along the gutter by the wind from the sea. Anything to block out the thought of what had happened to Eddy, and what he might do next. What he might be doing while I sat in the hospital ward.
When I arrived at Mum’s bedside her wide eyes made my throat tighten, but she smiled when she saw me, and as I sat there, holding her hand, she became more and more like her old self. She scolded me for leaving London, but she understood why I had done it. I stayed for tea, then went back into the centre of Weston to meet Eddy.
I stared apprehensively at his silhouette as he approached, but his arms hung empty. No baby lay in them.
“So?” I walked towards him. “Any luck?”
He leaned against the bus shelter. “Nope. I’ve been to every crumby bed and breakfast in this whole town. Nothing.”
“Oh dear.” I suppressed a smile of relief. “How did you do it?”
“I just said I was looking for my sister, she was pregnant and I had some important test results from the hospital.”
“Ooh.” I shook my head. “You little liar, you.”
“Anyway.” He shrugged. “How’s your Mum? I hope you gave her my best wishes.”
“She’s alright and-”
He turned away, pointing across the supermarket parking lot. “I know that car.”
I sighed. “Really, I’m sure that-”
Eddy grabbed my hand. “Come on.”
I had to run fast, jerking and bobbing, to keep up with his elegant lope. We arrived beside a battered Land Rover at the same time as an elderly man carrying bags of shopping.
“Afternoon Mr. Naylor.” Despite all the strain he was under, Eddy managed to sound commanding and confident.
I tried to remember where I had heard the name before.
“Oh, afternoon young Eddy.”
Naylor gave me a nod. I responded with a tight, half smile. It was Naylor’s dogs that chased me down the road two months before.
“So, Mr. Naylor, I was wondering if you were heading back our way. Maybe you could give Maddie and me a lift?”
Naylor looked at me again. “Well, got a lot of shoppin’.” He stepped in front of the bags. “Been gettin, um, dog food an’ that.” His West Country accent stretched his words long and flat.
“It’s alright, she doesn’t take up much room.”
He shifted his jaw from side to side as he sucked on his teeth. “Well, I suppose.”
“Thanks a million. Let me help you with those.”
“No, no, no.” Naylor hastily grabbed all the bags himself and crammed them into the back of his car. A large tin rolled from one of them and Eddy leaned down to pick it up. His face tightened as he did so, and he tilted the tin towards me. I read the label, ‘Infant Milk Formula,’ and frowned.
“Come on Maddie.” Eddy’s voice stayed smooth and warm. “You get in the other side.”
Naylor drove slowly down the long slope from the coast onto the levels. In the back I stared at the nape of Eddy’s neck, my mind a confused, tired blank.
Naylor stopped on the Levels main drive and Eddy jumped out to open the back door of the car. He leaned in and helped me out with one hand, but with the other he swiftly pulled at the tops of the shopping bags, peering at whatever was inside.
“Eddy,” I grumbled as I clambered along the seat. “What are you...?”
“Never mind. Thanks Mr. Naylor. Much appreciated.” Eddy slammed the back door shut, tapped on the roof, then turned to me. “Come on.”
We went to Logres first. Mum had called the school and explained my predicament, and the matron, Sally, had sorted me out with a bed in Sarah’s room. My new roommate was waiting for me in the common room.
“Oh my God, Maddie, this is so cool! Let’s get up early in the morning and do each other’s hair. Come and choose which one of my school skirts you want to borrow tomorrow.”
“Hi Sarah.” Eddy gave her a very direct gaze from his golden eyes.
“Oh.” She flushed. Though Sarah had expressed all sorts of unpleasant opinions of Eddy, this was the first time I’d seen her speak to him. “Hello. You, you...”
“It’s alright Sarah, you get Madeleine settled in. It’s really kind of you. I’ll wait here and take her over to Camelot.”
I frowned at him and he snapped a hot look at me. I bit my lip and followed Sarah up the stairs.
Five minutes later I stood in front of him. “Right, your majesty, that’s all done. Now any chance you’re going to explain any of your ordering and commanding?”
“I’m going to take you over to Camelot, then I’m going to pay Naylor a visit.”
I followed him away from the Logres door. “Why?”
“Those bags were full of baby food and diapers. His wife’s sixty years old. There’s something going on.”
“Really? You think he may have the baby? But you said it would be born tomorrow.” My heart sank. I had hoped that when he failed to find Morgan in Weston Eddy would give up his search. I should have known better.
Eddy shrugged. “I might have been wrong. I’m not sure. But whenever it’
s born she won’t want to raise it herself. On the other hand, I don’t know why she would choose an old farming couple. I have to check though.”
“Okay.” His pessimism was reassuring. “Why should I go to Camelot?”
“If I’m not here I need somebody else to look after you. The four horsemen will do it.”
“Them? But...”
“They’re brave and strong. What more can you need?”
I wrinkled my nose. Just because the four horsemen now accepted Eddy as their leader, didn’t mean that I accepted they weren’t snobby idiots.
We strode quickly along the path to Camelot. Eddy led the way around the side of the castle and in the back door, through the kitchen. Younger kids were buzzing around making toast and pot noodles. As Eddy strode in they stopped what they were doing.
“Hiya Eddy.”
“Hello Eddy.”
“Alright Eddy?”
He nodded and smiled, tapping a couple of boys on the back as he swept me through, towards the common room. I stared. What had happened to the gawky new boy I used to know?
The Four Horsemen stood together in the middle of the room.
“Hey Eddy.” Tiago stepped forward. “I got your text.” His eyes switched to me. “Hello Mah-da-leina.”
Eddy nodded. “Good.”
Gennady narrowed his eyes. “What’s the problem? You say there’s a problem.”
“It’s probably nothing.” Eddy motioned at them all to sit down. “It’s just, maybe Maddie’s got a stalker. Somebody was hanging around her house, and around her Mum.”
“Really?” Kieran raised an eyebrow. “What kind of person?”
“Not sure.” Eddy moved towards the door. “Might be a woman, or a kid.”
“A kid? That’s weird.”
“I know. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Stay in the house, yeah?”
I nodded, and he was gone. I trailed after him and stood in the castle doorway, watching his broad-shouldered torso fading in and out between the old fashioned street lamps.
“So.” I looked from one boy to the next. The situation was very weird. I didn’t believe I would be any safer in Camelot than Logres. “What shall we do then?”
Rami smiled. “I was going to make us some protein shakes. Would you like one?”
“I guess.”
“Chocolate or vanilla?”
“Chocolate.”
A group of younger kids clattered down the stairs. Tiago switched on the TV and turned to me. “It’s Simpsons time. You like The Simpsons?”
“Of course. Everybody likes The Simpsons.”
More kids tumbled through the door from the kitchen as the familiar theme tune started up. They sprawled on the couches, on the floor in front of them, and some of them perched on the backs, sharing plates of buttered toast.
I was surprised to see Rami Ahmed drop a cushion from behind his back to the floor in front of his shins, so Peebles – the junior who answered the door - could lean against him.
Tiago and Gennady huddled together, talking, and a small girl scowled at them. “Quiet! It’s starting!”
I winced, waiting for one of them to snap at her. Instead Gennady put a finger to his lips and flashed a mock glare at Tiago, who held up one hand in apology.
I found an old classroom chair under a table and pulled it to the edge of the hubbub. I had thought of Camelot as an austere, arrogant kind of boarding house, but like this it seemed cosy, familial. I smiled.
I watched two episodes of The Simpsons back to back, while sipping from a chocolate protein shake. At first my mind skittered around the issues and stresses of the last three days. Morgan, Mum’s illness, the broken window, London, the vision of Eddy’s seduction, the prospect of Morgan’s baby being born freakishly early, and Eddy’s horrible plans for it. After a while the warmth of the common room and shouts of laughter lifted my mood. There probably wasn’t a baby, and if there was Eddy wouldn’t find it. Even if he did find it he wouldn’t be able to harm it. I didn’t believe him capable of something so dark and horrible.
When the second episode finished a small freckled boy produced a DVD of an old season of The Simpsons and offered to choose the funniest show for us.
He was true to his word, and I laughed so loudly that Tiago turned and looked at me. Not wanting to attract any attention to myself, and knowing that my face must be super red and shiny, I stood up and moved to the wall, rummaging through my bag for a hair brush.
The window behind me erupted in splinters of glass. For a split second I saw the shocked faces of all the children turned towards me, then two iron arms catapulted me into the night.