A Deep Deceit

Eleven

I didn’t think that was what I wanted. Not any more. But I always did what Carl said. Doing what somebody else told me to had always been a habit for me and old habits die hard. In any case I did not seem able to think clearly. Everything appeared blurred.

I let him help me outside and down the alleyway to where the van was parked in the street leading steeply down to the harbour. We were just pulling away when Detective Sergeant Perry arrived.

She was slowing down, obviously looking for a parking space, when she spotted us and flashed her lights. Carl said ‘Damn!’ loudly. He didn’t stop the van.

I looked at him, startled. He just hit the accelerator and carried on driving, swerving around the policewoman’s car. I hadn’t wanted him to do that. Whatever the police had to say I felt I was ready for it, even if Carl didn’t agree.

I turned and peered out of the back window. DS Perry’s car was facing the wrong way. I wondered if she would try to turn and follow us, but she did not seem to be attempting to do so.

‘I want to talk to her, Carl,’ I said. ‘Please go back.’

He shook his head and carried on driving, swinging the car around the twisting streets of St Ives.

‘Carl, I need to hear what she has found out,’ I said. ‘I want to know what the police have discovered about Robert. I have to.’

‘You know already,’ he said abruptly. ‘And I expect they know now, too.’

I really didn’t understand any of it.

‘They’re bound to know the truth by now,’ he muttered.

‘I’m beginning to wonder if I do.’

‘How can you not?’ asked Carl. ‘You were there. You were responsible, and me too, for what we did afterwards.’

He looked frightened and I had never seen Carl afraid before. That had always been my prerogative.

‘Whatever the truth, we can’t keep running, Carl,’ I insisted. ‘I don’t want to run any more...’

He took one hand off the steering wheel and put it on my knee. ‘Honey,’ he said. ‘What choice do we have? What choice have we ever had?’

I started to argue with him. I had virtually never argued with him before. Not seriously, anyway. ‘The choice is to go back to the police station, carry through what I’ve begun...’

‘No,’ he interrupted. His voice very sharp.

‘You’re wrong, Carl, I’m sure of it. This has to end, for both of us.’

I could see that he didn’t like me speaking out like this, making a stand against him. He shot a glance at me sideways. He really did look angry now.

But when he spoke again he was my usual kind, gentle Carl. ‘I only ever want to do the best for you. You trust me, don’t you?’

I nodded. Of course I trusted him.

‘I don’t want you to be forced into anything, that’s all,’ he went on. ‘Just do it my way one more time, just for a bit...’

The sun was still shining and my head still felt muzzy. We were on the open road now, the B road which wends its way along the north coast via Zennor and St Just towards Land’s End. It twists and turns its way through miles of scrubby moorland. Even the main highway, the A30, is of such a low standard right down in the foot of Cornwall that the locals always said it would not have been given A status anywhere else in the UK. Carl and I had a record at home, that we’d bought second-hand from a market, of West Country folk singer Cyril Tawney singing ‘Second-hand City’, a song about Plymouth, which contains the line ‘hanging on to England like Lucifer’s tail’ – and Plymouth wasn’t even quite in Cornwall. We passed a great many familiar places and sights we had learned about from books and then explored in the van and on foot. The beautiful cliff-edge home of the painter Patrick Heron, one of Carl’s heroes, the remains of old tin mines, flocks of rough sheep, occasional ponies. I descended into a kind of trance again, only half aware.

I didn’t have the strength to argue with Carl any more. It was very warm in the van, and eventually I found the muzziness inside my head overwhelming me and I drifted off into a fitful dozing sleep.

I was woken when the vehicle began to bump and swerve. I opened my eyes and could see that we were on a narrow, winding, uneven track leading straight through a rough moor-land area.

It looked vaguely familiar. Then I realised that just off the track was a small tucked-away bluebell wood, which Carl and I had discovered in the early days of exploring the countryside around our home and had since visited several times. It was April. There would still be bluebells in bloom.

‘Are we going for a walk, Carl?’ I asked, feeling even more bewildered.

He smiled tightly. ‘Not exactly,’ he answered.

In fact we drove right past the entrance to the wood. I had not previously been so far along the track. It became progressively more uneven, until it was barely any kind of thoroughfare at all, just an expanse of rocky outcrop and mud.

‘Where are we going?’ I enquired. I wasn’t alarmed, just tired.

‘You’ll see,’ he replied.

Eventually we came across a deserted old shed alongside a disused quarry, which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. Carl drove straight into the quarry down a precariously steep slope and parked the van in the middle of a covert of tangled scrubby bushes. And he did so in such a way that I felt sure it was not the first time he had been to this place. He climbed out from the driver’s seat, walked around to the passenger side and helped me out. I still felt woozy and leaned on him heavily as he assisted me up the steep incline to the shed, which was granite-built and quite solid-looking in spite of its obvious state of neglect. Its windows were boarded up, a heavy wooden door, firmly shut, to one side. The place did not look as if anyone had been near it in years.

‘Come on, we’ll be safe here,’ said Carl. ‘Nobody will find us.’

I glanced back down into the quarry where we had left the van. It was totally concealed. I tried one more time to reason with Carl. ‘But why, Carl?’ I asked. ‘I want to be found. Honestly I do. I keep telling you, I don’t want to hide for the rest of my life...’

‘Trust me, honey,’ he answered. ‘Like you’ve always done. It won’t be for ever, just till I can find out exactly what the police know.’

He produced a key and unlocked the big, rusty-looking padlock, which was attached to the heavy wooden door. The lock turned surprisingly smoothly and the door opened easily, although it looked as if it had been wedged shut and unused for years. Obliquely I thought that both lock and hinges must have been oiled quite recently.

I glanced at Carl in surprise.

‘I stumbled across this place by accident one day,’ he said. ‘The padlock was in place, but it wasn’t locked. I went to that old ironmonger’s in Penzance to get a key for it, oiled it and put it back on. All I had to do was make sure that I kept the shed looking the same from the outside as it has done since it was abandoned God knows how many years ago. But inside – well, see for yourself.’

We were still standing in the doorway. Carl took a torch out of his pocket and shone it inside, steering me into the shed and closing the door behind us. I could see two camp beds, a Primus stove, a Calor gas heater, a couple of straight-backed wooden chairs and an old table. There was a new-looking sleeping bag on each bed. My eyes questioned him.

‘I had to have somewhere for us to go, for us to hide, just in case,’ he said. ‘Particularly after the threats started...’

‘You’ve been planning this...’ I began and knew that the shock was clear in my voice.

‘I hoped we’d never need it,’ he said quickly.

‘Why didn’t you tell me about it, show me the place, ask me what I thought?’

I was quite disturbed by what was happening.

‘I didn’t want to worry you more than you were already, with the letters and everything,’ he said.

‘Carl, I’m worried about being here.’

‘Don’t be,’ he instructed. ‘It won’t be for long, I promise. Everything will be just fine.’

He led me to one of the chairs and I obediently sat on it. My legs and my head still felt rather as if they belonged to someone else.

‘I’ll make us some tea.’ He lit an oil lamp and some candles before switching off the torch. There appeared to be no natural light.

I sat in silence watching as he busied himself with the Primus stove and a kettle. I could not fight the fuzziness inside my head and for a moment or two I could think of nothing more to say.

He brought two steaming mugs to the table and put one into my hand.

‘So what are we doing here?’ I asked then.

‘Taking stock, buying time,’ he replied stoutly.

‘Carl, we’re hiding and this time we’re really hiding, like rats in a hole.’

Carl reached over and touched my face. ‘Don’t be melodramatic,’ he said.

‘Carl!’ I waved a hand vaguely at the dimly lit hut. ‘I’m hardly being melodramatic. Look at the place.’

I shivered. The shed felt cold and damp. It was, after all, still only quite early in April. The sun outside might have been bright and warm that day but there was a thoroughly unpleasant chill inside this old disused building. I dreaded to think what it would be like to sleep here, to spend a night here, maybe several nights, and found it hard to grasp that it really was Carl’s plan to do so.

‘It’s not so bad,’ I heard him say stubbornly. ‘And it’s only for a little while. I’ll think of something, you’ll see.’

‘This isn’t what I want, Carl.’ I pushed the point, determined not to be overruled by him. ‘I want to face up to things, sort things out. Why don’t we do that? It would be for the best, I’m absolutely sure of it.’

He sighed.

‘You don’t know the full story...’ he began haltingly.

‘Then tell me, for goodness’ sake,’ I said.

‘No, I can’t. I just want to protect you, that’s all.’

‘Oh, Carl, I’m not a child.’

He looked startled. ‘Drink your tea,’ he said. ‘It’ll make you feel better.’

I opened my mouth to tell him not to be absurd, but I picked up the mug and swallowed instead. The tea was hot and sweet. Maybe it would at least revive me a little and help clear my head.

It seemed to do just the opposite. I struggled even to keep my eyes open. After a bit I was vaguely aware of Carl helping me to one of the camp beds, then there was only blackness. He was singing to me softly when I woke.

I hoisted myself on to an elbow. I realised I was lying in a sleeping bag with blankets piled on top. Nonetheless my teeth were chattering with the cold. And the bedding felt damp.

Carl was sitting on the floor by the bed tinkering with the gas heater. But his eyes were on me. His voice seemed to come from a distance as he sang, repeating one verse over and over again. Eventually, even in my thoroughly befuddled condition, the words became clear to me.

I struggled to focus on him. He leaned towards me and began to stroke and kiss me, gentle and caring as always.

‘That’s me, my darling, I am your prisoner,’ he told me.

His eyes seemed very bright even though the room was so dimly lit. I had no idea whether it was night or day, although I thought that the wood which covered what had once been windows had been only roughly fitted and that, were it day I would be able to see at least some chinks of light.

Carl was still talking. ‘I couldn’t let them take you away from me, Suzanne. I couldn’t let you go. I have to keep you with me so that I can look after you.’

His face looked strangely contorted in the candlelight, or perhaps that was the fuzziness in my head. For a moment I could hardly remember where we were. And I didn’t like it much when I did remember.

I tried to pull myself upright, to get up off the bed, and Carl did not attempt to prevent me doing so, but I could not stand properly. When I fell backwards, however, he caught me and laid me safely down into the musty pillows.

‘There my darling, there,’ he soothed. ‘You’re just not strong. You never have been. You have to let me look after you, you must...’

‘Carl, you’re not looking after me. You know I have a weak chest. I’m so cold.’

‘I know honey, I can’t get this damned heater to work, that’s the problem. But I will, I promise you, then we’ll be really cosy...’

I fell asleep again. I don’t know for how long. When I woke for the second time my head was much clearer, but it ached. The hut seemed colder and danker than ever. My chest was really starting to hurt.

I was still lying on the camp bed. Carl was sitting next to me looking anxious, the gas heater still in pieces between his legs. There was a slightly glazed expression in his eyes that I couldn’t quite recognise. Then it dawned on me. It was desperation. I stared at him. The kindness was still there, the usual concern, the caring. I could see that in his eyes too. But I had so many questions. I really didn’t understand what he was doing.

‘What are we doing Carl, why do we have to stay here?’ I asked, for what seemed like the umpteenth time.

‘I’m looking after you,’ he replied doggedly. ‘Just like I always have.’

I saw that he had made more tea. He fetched me a mug, dodging all my questions.

‘Later,’ my darling. ‘Have some tea, then I’ll make you some breakfast.’

‘B-but,’ I began to protest.

‘Drink your tea,’ said Carl again, as if he were my nanny, not my lover, the man I had shared my life with for almost seven years. But then, he was always like that with me. I had encouraged him to be so, I supposed. I had needed that. Needed to be looked after as much as he had needed to look after me.

I drank my tea. First, I would do what he wanted, as I always did. Then, afterwards, I would insist that he told me what was going on.

But there was no afterwards. Soon, there was only the blackness again.

I don’t know how long I was out for that time, but when I came round, or woke, or whatever, I did not open my eyes properly. Instead I squinted out of one half-open slit. Carl was sitting on a chair by the bed watching me. I had never thought it strange that he liked to watch me sleep, that he would sit for hours just looking at me while I slept. I was used to that kind of attention, that kind of obsessive care. I had been brought up to it.

He seemed to have given up trying to fix the gas heater. He was wearing a thick sweater, a fleece, a sheepskin coat and a woolly hat – just about all the winter clothes he possessed on top of each other in layers. I noticed that he had unzipped the second sleeping bag and covered me with that too. I was still terribly cold.

I studied him through my half-open eye again. Was it a kind of madness I could see in him? I didn’t know.

I decided to show some courage. I forced myself into a sitting position and, before he could speak or make a move towards me, I demanded: ‘Have you been drugging me, Carl?’

He looked pained and shook his head. ‘Of course not, honey. I just gave you something to make you sleep, to soothe away your troubles, that’s all. I’ve not drugged you, no, that’s not it at all.’

He knelt down on the floor beside me and rested his head in my lap. ‘I’d never hurt you, never, you know that,’ he said in that gentle, soothing drawl that had always captivated me.

‘Carl, you are hurting me. I don’t want to be here. And I’m freezing. It’s damp in here. I really don’t feel well.’

I began to cough. It was not a deliberate ploy to prove my point. With my tendency towards bronchitis I didn’t have to pretend anything, not in those conditions. I felt terrible. In the six and a half years that I had lived by the seaside in St Ives I had suffered, by my standards, from only the mildest of chest infections, certainly nothing serious enough even to necessitate consulting a doctor, which had been all for the best as neither Carl nor I was registered with one. This was different. My childhood memories of chronic bronchitis remained vivid; and I feared that I was in for a serious bout.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, all concern. ‘Look, I’ll heat some soup for you and then I’ll have another go at that damned heater...’

I watched him open a tin and pour the contents into a saucepan. The Primus stove was already alight. I assumed he had left it on in the hope that it might heat the room a little. It hadn’t succeeded. Eventually he handed me a steaming mug of soup. And I suddenly knew with devastating clarity that I must not drink it. But I did not know quite how to avoid doing so until he turned his back on me and bent over the dismembered gas heater again.

The camp bed was in a corner of the hut. The concrete floor was rough and uneven and in places had cracked and crumbled away. I simply emptied the contents of my mug into the corner so that the hot liquid ran down the wall and under the bed, hoping that it would somehow seep away, or congeal there, and not trickle out anywhere that he might see it. When Carl looked round at me I continued to appear to sip from the mug and then, when I thought I could reasonably have drunk it all, I pretended to become drowsy and to lapse into deep sleep again.

After a while I was aware of him moving around the room. He snuffed out all but one candle and then lay down on the second camp bed. I listened to the sound of his breathing, which eventually settled into the deep, even pattern I knew so well. He was definitely asleep.

As quietly as I could I crawled out of bed and went to the door. There were two big bolts, which had been pushed across. I struggled to pull them back. I still felt weak and they did not move easily or silently. I was sure I would wake him – and I did.

He was beside me swiftly, his arms around me, still gentle, still caring. But when he spoke his stammer had reappeared with a vengeance. He had real trouble getting the words out. And I knew that was a bad sign.

‘My d-darling, my darling,’ he said. ‘Y-you mustn’t l-leave me, you know that, you must n-n-never l-leave me...’

I had not thought I could ever be scared of Carl, but suddenly I was very frightened indeed. He was not my prisoner, I was his. There was no doubt about that. I screamed at him: ‘Let me go, let me go.’

I even shouted for help, although I was sure there would be nobody nearby to hear me.

He tried to quieten me in the way he always had during my terrible dreams, but I would not be quiet.

Eventually he pushed my head back and forced something liquid into my mouth. I choked on it, trying not to swallow, but he closed my mouth and stroked my throat and eventually, of course, I did swallow.

Soon the blackness came again.