Poppet

The Old Mill

LYING ON HER bed, fully dressed, a stone-like emptiness settles in Penny’s head. The Old Mill is empty and silent beneath her – not a creak, not a sound. DI Caffery is long gone. Penny watched him go, through the heart holes in the shutters at the front of the house. He didn’t get straight into the car, but walked through the side gate. She had to dart across to the back windows to find him again, standing on the back terrace where all her plant pots are gathered. He stood for a while, gazing across the valley at the treetops where Upton Farm is. A wind came up and flapped open his jacket, flicked up his tie and flattened the shirt and trousers against him. It seemed to break whatever spell was holding him. He headed back the way he’d come, got in the car, and was gone.

Caffery must be about her age, maybe a little younger. A lot of women would think he was sexy, but he wouldn’t be the sort they’d want to marry. A lot of women need charmers, flatterers, men who spend money on Valentine’s day gifts wrapped in cellophane. He’s none of those things – she could see it a mile away. Instead there’s something straightforward about him that Penny recognizes. An honesty. No wedding ring, she noticed. Maybe because of the gifts.

She closes her eyes. There’s no point wondering what age Caffery is, whether he’s single or not, because he will live in a fancy city loft apartment. He will eat at the best restaurants with loads of friends every night. He has a string of beautiful, accomplished girlfriends. He is an utterly different species from Penny. All men are. Or rather, she is the different species.

Penny can’t read other humans – she can’t decipher their moods and the layers of deception they pile on themselves. Isaac, for example. There’d been a time she actually thought he liked her – she even believed he saw in her a mother more caring than Louise, the same way she imagined Graham saw in her a wife more caring than his own. She was wrong there, as she has been so often. She’s learned this lesson over and over: in this huge human jigsaw puzzle there is no mirroring piece to match her, no niche for her to slot into. She’s given up hoping.

She thinks about that day – all those years ago. It was cold and damp and very still, the clouds squatting over the country like a warning. She remembers Isaac cannoning down the stairs and out of the front door, knocking down the coat stand in the hallway. He wore his school shoes and socks and nothing else – his torso and arms were smeared in blood and faeces. A stranger might have misunderstood – might have believed Isaac was being attacked, that he needed help, but Penny knew.

She leapt back in the car. Engaged the central locks. He raced towards her. Penny, Penny – his voice low and unnatural. As she started the car, he clambered on to the bonnet, his legs and genitals stained and bloody. She leaned on the horn and rammed the car into such quick reverse that he somersaulted off on to the ground. She slammed on the brakes, flicked up the headlights and sat trembling, watching him. He was already getting up, unsteady on his feet – maybe he’d been drinking – he swayed around, fumbling on the ground until he found what he’d dropped: one of his poppets. He was so hot with blood and death he was steaming in the frigid air.

He straightened and turned to look at Penny.

‘No,’ she hissed. ‘You won’t get me too.’

She floored the accelerator. The car danced and skidded forward, forcing him to scamper away into the barn. He slammed the doors closed behind him and Penny, high on fear and adrenalin, dared to leap out and run home the big latch, locking him in. It was only when she got to the first phone booth and dialled Harry’s number that the shaking started.

Now, in her unlit bedroom, she curls up in the bed, the quilt over her ears. She never saw the bodies, never saw the bedroom. She pieced it all together – some from what she saw smeared on Isaac’s naked body, some from later newspaper articles, but mostly from the questions Harry refused to answer. He was never the same man after what he saw in the Handels’ house.

Something occurs to her. She sits up and switches on the reading light. Grabs her glasses and lifts up the quilt. The missing patch. Two mornings ago its disappearance reminded her of Isaac and his habit of stealing clothing for his poppets. She didn’t know then that he was out of hospital, so she hadn’t given it much thought. Now, trembling, she inspects it feverishly. The stitching all over the quilt is loose. The piece could have easily come away from general wear and tear, nothing to suggest it’s been cut out.

The thought doesn’t go away though, the sudden shaky idea that Isaac has come back. She gets up and goes downstairs. The big old painted grandfather clock says eight o’clock. She rechecks all the windows and the doors. She’s about to turn to the stairs when her eye is caught by the medlars in the prep room. There’s a store cupboard there where she keeps boxes of citric acid and gelatine. At the back of it is a door. The door leads to the basement. It has a lock on it but she hasn’t checked if it’s closed.

Stupid, stupid, she tells herself, you’re turning into a bundle of neuroses. Over-reacting. A doctor would say you’re suffering from the curse of the female – hysteria brought on by an imbalance of hormones. When’s your next period due, Miss Pilson? But she can’t stop staring at that cupboard.

Under the floorboards are the skeletons of the mill. The water-wheel has long rotted away, but the huge stone troughs they used for washing the fleeces are still there, and the old maintenance hatches for the days when they’d send a child down to unlodge a branch that had entangled in the mill wheel. There’s a whole labyrinth of tunnels and culverts and sluice gates – most are wadded and sealed to prevent draughts coming up through the floorboards, but if someone really wanted to come into the house – if they really wanted …

From the kitchen she gets her heaviest skillet. There’s a torch hanging next to the back door – she loops it round her wrist and clicks it on. She creeps into the prep room and into the larder. There’s a bare electric bulb in here which she switches on. Then changes her mind and switches it off. She’s picturing what she will look like from the other side of the door – lit up and emblazoned like on a movie screen. A perfect target.

She steps forward. Rests her fingers on the handle. She’s been through this door several times: it leads to a rickety flight of wooden stairs that creak and complain at the smallest weight. There is no electricity down there – nothing. Just moss and stone and hardened expanding foam in the cracks.

Open it. Open it. There’s nothing there. Nothing.

Her hand trembles.

Open it. Open it – prove to yourself he’s not standing there. Open it.

She lets all her breath out. She runs the two huge bolts at the top and the bottom, turns the old key in the lock. Then quickly she pulls boxes off the shelves and stacks them against the door. Anything heavy – anything with glass that will make a noise if disturbed. The outer door has no lock, just an old-fashioned T-hinged latch. She uses string to wrap around it several times. Then she pushes a chair against it and drops back against the wall, shivering and sweating.