The Burning Girls Read online

  She stands, pulling a face. “And people make creepy twig dolls to remember them?”

  “And on the anniversary of the purge, they burn them.”

  “That is way too Blair Witch.”

  “That’s the countryside for you.” I give the twig dolls a final contemptuous glance as I walk past. “Full of ‘quaint’ traditions.”

  Flo pulls out her phone and takes a couple more pictures, presumably to share with her friends back in Nottingham—Look at what the crazy yokels do—and then follows me.

  We reach the chapel door and I stick the iron key into the lock. It’s a bit stiff and I have to push down hard to get it to turn. The door creaks open. Properly creaks, like a sound effect in a horror movie. I shove it open wider.

  In contrast to the August sunshine, it’s dark inside the chapel. It takes my eyes a moment to adjust. Sunlight peters in through the grimy windows, illuminating a cloud of dust motes floating thickly in the air.

  It’s an unusual layout: a small nave; barely enough room for half a dozen rows of pews facing a central altar. Either side, a set of narrow wooden stairs leads up to a balcony where more pews look down upon the proceedings, like a tiny theater, or gladiator’s pit. I wonder how the hell it ever passed a fire inspection.

  The whole place smells stale and unused, which is odd, considering it was used regularly until a few weeks ago. It also manages, like all chapels and churches, to feel both stuffy and cold at the same time.

  At the bottom of the nave, I notice that a small area has been cordoned off with a couple of yellow safety barriers. A makeshift sign is hung on one of them:

  “Danger. Uneven flooring. Loose flagstones.”

  “I take it back,” Flo says. “Total and utter shithole.”

  “It could be worse.”

  “How?”

  “Woodworm, damp, beetle infestation?”

  “I’ll be outside.” She turns and stomps from the building.

  I don’t follow. Best to just let it lie. There’s little I can say to console her. I’ve uprooted her from the city she loves, the school where she felt settled, and brought her to a place with nothing to offer except fields and the aroma of cow shit. It’s going to take some work to win her over.

  I stare up at the wooden altar.

  “What am I doing here, Lord?”

  “Can I help you?”

  I swivel round.

  A man stands behind me. Slight and very pale, his chalky pallor accentuated by oily black hair, slicked back from a high widow’s peak. Despite the warm weather, he wears a dark suit over a collarless grey shirt. He looks like a vampire on his way to a jazz club.

  “Sorry, never had a direct reply before.” I smile and hold out a hand. “I’m Jack.”

  He continues to stare at me suspiciously. “I’m the warden of this church. How did you get in here?”

  And I realize. I’m not wearing my collar and he’s probably only been told that “Reverend Brooks” is arriving today. Of course, he could have looked me up online, but then, he also looks like he still uses an ink and quill.

  “Sorry. Jack Brooks. Reverend Brooks?”

  His eyes widen slightly. The tiniest hint of color touches his cheeks. I admit, my name causes confusion. I admit, I enjoy it.

  “Oh, goodness. I’m so sorry, it’s just—”

  “Not what you expected.”

  “No.”

  “Taller, slimmer, better looking?”

  And then a voice shouts: “MUM!”

  I turn. Flo stands in the doorway, white-faced and wide-eyed. My maternal alarm shrills.

  “What is it?”

  “There’s a girl out here. She’s…I think she’s hurt. You need to come. Now.”

  The girl can’t be more than ten. She wears a dress that might have once been white, her feet are bare…and she’s covered in blood.

  It has turned her blonde hair a dirty russet, streaked her face with crimson and stained the dress a deep maroon. As she staggers up the path toward us, her feet leave small, bloody footprints.

  I stare at her, frantically trying to work out what could have happened. Has she been hit by a car? I can’t see one on the lane. And there’s so much blood. How is she still standing?

  I approach her carefully and crouch down.

  “Hi, sweetheart. Are you hurt?”

  She raises her eyes to mine. Startling blue, shiny with shock. She shakes her head. Not hurt. Then where’s all the blood come from?

  “Okay. Can you tell me what happened?”

  “He killed her.”

  Despite the heavy heat of the day, a chill snakes down my spine.

  “Who?”

  “Pippa.”

  “Flo,” I say carefully. “Call the police.”

  She takes out her phone and stares at it in disbelief. “No signal.”

  Shit. Déjà vu comes over me so hard I feel sick. Blood. A little girl. Not again.

  I turn to Jazz Vampire, who is hovering by the door. “I didn’t get your name?”

  “Aaron.”

  “Is there a landline inside, Aaron?”

  “Yes. In the office.”

  “Can you go and use it?”

  He hesitates. “The girl—I know her. She’s from the Harper farm.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Poppy.”

  “Okay.” I smile reassuringly at the girl. “Poppy, we’re going to get some help.”

  Aaron still hasn’t moved. Maybe shock, maybe just indecision. Either way, it’s not helpful.

  “Phone!” I bark at him.

  He slinks back inside the church. I can hear the sound of a car engine accelerating. I glance up, just as a Range Rover tears around the corner and abruptly squeals to a halt outside the chapel gate, tires screeching on gravel. The door flies open.

  “Poppy!”

  A heavy-set man with sandy hair jumps out and pounds up the path toward us.

  “Oh God, Poppy! I’ve been looking everywhere for you. What were you thinking, running off like that?”

  I straighten. “Is this your little girl?”

  “Yes. She’s my daughter. I’m Simon Harper—” Said as if it should mean something. “Who the hell are you?”

  I bite hard on my tongue. “I’m Reverend Brooks, the new vicar. Care to tell me what’s going on here? Your daughter is covered in blood.”

  He scowls. He’s a few years older than me, I’d say. Broad, not fat. A bullish face. I get the impression he’s not used to being challenged, especially by a woman.

  “This is not how it looks.”

  “Really—’cos it looks like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” This from Flo.

  Simon Harper flicks her an irritated glance then turns back to me. “I can assure you, Reverend, it’s all just a misunderstanding. Poppy, please come here—” He holds out his hand. Poppy cowers behind me.

  “Your daughter said someone had been killed?”

  “What?”

  “Pippa.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” He rolls his eyes. “This is ridiculous.”

  “Well, we can always let the police decide what’s ridiculous—”

  “It’s Peppa, not Pippa…and Peppa is a pig.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The blood is pig’s blood.”

  I stare at him. Sweat tickles my back. A tractor chugs slowly along the road. Simon Harper sighs heavily.

  “Could we go inside—clean her up? I can’t take her back in the car like this.”

  I glance over at the ramshackle cottage.

  “Walk this way.”

  * * *

  —

  My first time inside our new home. Not quite the housewarming I expected. Flo brings in a couple of plastic chairs from th
e garden and we sit Poppy down. I locate a cleanish-looking cloth and half a bottle of liquid soap under the sink. I also spot a flashlight and a spider the size of my fist.

  “I’ll have a look in the car,” Flo says. “I think there’re some wet wipes and a sweatshirt of mine that Poppy could wear.”

  “Good thinking.”

  She trots back outside. She’s a good girl, I think, despite the attitude.

  I run the cloth under the tap and crouch down next to Poppy. I wipe at the blood on her face.

  Pig’s blood. How did a little girl get covered in pig’s blood?

  “I know this looks bad,” Simon Harper says, in an attempt at a conciliatory tone.

  “I don’t judge. Rule number one of the job.”

  Also, a lie. I clean blood from around Poppy’s forehead and ears. She begins to look more like a little girl and less like a refugee from a Stephen King novel.

  “You said you were going to explain?”

  “I own a farm. Harper’s Farm. It’s been in the family for years. We have our own slaughterhouse on site. I know some people struggle with that…”

  I don’t rise. “Actually, I think it’s important to know where our food comes from. My last parish, most of the kids thought meat grew in buns from McDonald’s.”

  “Right…well, exactly. We’ve tried to bring both our children up to understand the farming process. Not to be sentimental about the animals. Rosie—that’s our older daughter—has always been fine with that, but Poppy is more…sensitive.”

  I get the feeling that “sensitive” is a euphemism for something else. I smooth back Poppy’s hair. She stares at me blankly with those brilliant blue eyes.

  “I told Emma…that’s my wife…she never should have let her name them.”

  “Who?”

  “The pigs. It made Poppy happy…but then, of course, she got attached, especially to one.”

  “Peppa?”

  “Yes.”

  “This morning we took the pigs to slaughter.”

  “Ah.”

  “Poppy wasn’t supposed to be home. Rosie was taking her to the playground…but something must have happened. They came back early and the next thing I know Poppy is standing there….”

  He breaks off, looking bewildered. I imagine a child running into such a horrific scene.

  “I still don’t understand how she got covered in blood?”

  “I think…she must have slipped and ended up on the floor. Anyway, then she ran away, and you know the rest….” He looks at me. “You have no idea how bad I feel, but it’s a farm. It’s what we do.”

  I feel a small sliver of sympathy. I rinse the cloth out and use it to wipe the last of the blood from Poppy’s face. Then I fish in the pocket of my jeans for a hair bobble and wind Poppy’s sticky hair up into a ponytail.

  I smile at her. “I knew there was a little girl in there somewhere.”

  Still nothing. It’s a little disconcerting. But then, trauma can do that. I’ve seen it happen before. Being a vicar in an inner city is not all cake bakes and rummage sales. You meet a lot of troubled people, old and young. But abuse is not confined to city streets. I know that too.

  I turn to Simon. “Has Poppy got any other pets?”

  “We have some working dogs, but they’re kept in kennels.”

  “Perhaps it would be a good idea for Poppy to have a pet of her own. Something small, like a hamster, she could care for?”

  For a moment I think he might accept my suggestion. Then his face closes again.

  “Thank you, Reverend, but I think I know how to deal with my own daughter.”

  I’m on the verge of pointing out that the evidence would suggest otherwise when Flo reappears in the kitchen, holding baby wipes and a sweatshirt with a picture of Jack Skellington on it.

  “Will this do?”

  I nod, feeling suddenly tired. “Fine.”

  * * *

  —

  We stand at the door and watch as father and daughter—Flo’s sweatshirt flapping around Poppy’s knees—climb into the four-by-four and drive off.

  I sling an arm around Flo’s shoulders. “So much for the peace of the countryside.”

  “Yeah. Perhaps it will be fun here after all.”

  I chuckle and then I spot a ghostly figure in black walking toward the cottage holding a large rectangular box. Aaron. I’d completely forgotten about him. What on earth has he been doing all this time?

  “I presume the police are on their way?” I ask.

  “Oh, no. I saw Simon Harper pull up and thought it wasn’t necessary.”

  Did you, now? Simon Harper obviously wields influence here. In many small communities, there’s a family who others defer to. Out of tradition. Or fear. Or both.

  “And then I remembered,” Aaron continues. “I was supposed to give you this when you arrived.”

  He holds out the box. My name is printed neatly in bold type on the front.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. It was left for you at the chapel yesterday.”

  “By whom?”

  “I didn’t see. I thought perhaps it might be a welcome gift.”

  “Maybe the last vicar left it?” Flo suggests.

  “I doubt it,” I say. “He’s dead.” I glance at Aaron, realizing that might have sounded insensitive. “I was sorry to hear about Reverend Fletcher. It must have been a shock.”

  “It was.”

  “Had he been ill?”

  “Ill?” He looks at me oddly. “Didn’t they tell you?”

  “I heard his death was sudden.”

  “It was. He killed himself.”

  “You should have told me.”

  Durkin’s voice is barely audible at the other end. “Delicate…—ation…best not…details.”

  “I don’t care—I should have known.”

  “I didn’t…personal…sorry.”

  “Who does know?”

  “Few people…church warden…found him…the parish council.”

  Which probably means pretty much everyone in the village. Durkin is talking again. I hang further out of the upstairs bedroom window—the only place I can get a workable signal on my phone—and gain a magical third bar.

  “Reverend Fletcher…mental health issues. Fortunately, he had already agreed to resign before it happened, so officially he wasn’t the residing vicar anymore….”

  So, in other words, not the Church’s problem. Durkin’s lack of empathy verges on pathological. I often think his skills would be better put to use in politics rather than the Church, but then, perhaps there isn’t so much difference. We both preach to the converted.

  “I should have known. It affects how I run things here. It affects people’s perception of the chapel and the vicar.”

  “Of course. I’m sorry. It was an oversight.”

  It bloody well wasn’t. He just didn’t want to give me another reason not to come.

  “Is that all, Jack?”

  “Actually, there’s one more thing—”

  It shouldn’t matter. If death is simply a release to a higher plane, the circumstances should not be an issue. But they are.

  “How did he do it?”

  A pause, long enough for me to know—having known Durkin a long time—that he is wondering whether to lie. Then he sighs.

  “He hanged himself, in the chapel.”

  * * *

  —

  Flo is kneeling on the floor in the living room, taking things out of boxes. Fortunately, there aren’t that many. When the removal van eventually arrived, it took the two tattooed young men all of twenty minutes to unload our worldly possessions. Not much to show for half a lifetime’s work.

  I flop on to the worn sofa, which only just fits in the cramped living roo
m. Everything in the cottage is tiny, low and wonky. None of the windows open properly, making it unbearably warm, and I have to keep remembering to duck through the doorway between the kitchen and the living room (and I’m not exactly Amazonian).

  The bathroom is olive green and speckled with mold. There’s no shower. Heating is provided by an oil-fired boiler and an ancient-looking log burner, which probably needs a safety check, or we’ll gas ourselves come winter.

  In the spirit of counting our blessings, the house is rent free. We can do our best to make it our own. Just not right now. Right now, I want to eat, watch some TV and sleep.

  Flo looks up. “I hope today’s events haven’t blinded you to what a dump this place is.”

  “No, but tonight I’m too tired and hungry to feel depressed about it. I don’t suppose there’s such a thing as a takeaway nearby?”

  “Actually, there’s a Domino’s in the next town. I googled it on the way here.”

  “Hallelujah. Civilization. Shall we see what’s on Netflix?”

  “I thought BT hadn’t connected the broadband yet?”

  Bugger.

  “Stuck with normal TV, then.”

  “You’ll be lucky.”

  “What? Why?”

  She gets up and sits on the sofa next to me, slipping an arm around my shoulders.

  “What’s wrong with this picture, Michael?”

  I smile at the Lost Boys reference. At least some of my cultural influences have rubbed off.

  “No TV aerial. Do you know what it means when there’s no TV aerial?”

  “Oh God.” I throw my head back. “Really?”

  “Yup…”

  “What have we got ourselves into?”

  “Hopefully not the murder capital of the world.”

  “Vampires, I can deal with. One thing I do have is crosses.”

  “And a mysterious box.”

  The box. I’d been so furious at Durkin for not telling me about the circumstances of Reverend Fletcher’s death that I’d almost forgotten what kicked it all off in the first place. I look around.

  “I’m not sure where I left it.”

  “In the kitchen.”

  Flo hops up and returns with the box, which she plonks down next to me. I eye it dubiously.