The Child Garden Read Online Free PDF

leading away from the door to the far side in front of the alcove. There they were muddled and scraped about, and at one spot the floor was completely clear. A square with no dust at all.
    I walked over and looked down at it. Stig followed me, the torchlight sending a monstrous shadow dancing on the wall.
    â€œWhy would she clean off that one slab and leave footprints everywhere else?” he said.
    â€œShe didn’t,” I answered. “I think the dust slid off when the stone tilted.” I crouched down, feeling along the edges.
    â€œTilted?” said Stig. “Like a trap door? Glo, this place is freaking me out. Let’s get ou—”
    I had found the spring, or the latch or whatever it was, and the clean stone slab lifted at one end. I grabbed it and pulled until the slab stood up like a gravestone. I don’t know what I had been expecting: a staircase, a tunnel, treasure? Or maybe deep down inside I knew what I was about to see. And there it was.
    Nicky!
    â€œOh Jesus fuck,” said Stig behind me. A brutal, needless pair of words, so wrong to put them together that way. But looking into the hole, I nearly echoed them.
    â€œIs that April Cowan?” I whispered.
    â€œOh Jesus fucking Christ,” said Stig, and I knew from the way his voice had softened and grown guttural that he was almost retching. “It’s been so long. It’s—But I think so.”
    I reached down and pulled the thick brown hair away from her face.
    â€œYes, yes, that’s April. Jesus,” he said. “Oh Christ.”
    She was cold, but it hadn’t been long. I brushed her cheek, moving her hair, and it was still soft to the touch. Her eyes were half open and still shining. The knife was shining too. Blood had poured over the handle and coated her hands, drying in the creases of her knuckles and around her fingernails, but its stubby little blade was clean, wiped clean when she’d pulled it out of the long gaping gashes on both her arms. I remembered a nurse at the home telling me one time that someone crying out for help slashes sideways, but if they mean it they open the veins from wrist to elbow.
    I heard electronic bleeps from behind me and saw a new bluish light added to the torch beam.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” I shouted, standing, turning, and grabbing Stig’s arm all in one movement.
    â€œI’m calling the police,” he said.
    Nicky!
    â€œNo. Don’t.”
    â€œGloria, what are you talking about. We’ve got to.”
    â€œThere’s no signal,” I said. “You won’t get a signal until you’re back on the road at Crocketford. Let’s go. And use my landline.”
    â€œWhat are you doing?” said Stig. I had pulled my coat sleeve down and I wiped it over her hair where I had touched. Then I pushed the stone until it was closed again and wiped my fingerprints away. “Gloria? Why are you doing that?”
    â€œSsh,” I told him. I pulled the scarf from round my neck and, walking backwards towards the door, pushing Stig along behind me, I swished it over the floor, wiping all the footprints, his, mine, and the ones we had found. Mixing them all up into a churned mess of dust. He squeezed out through the door first. I followed, took the torch, and ran it all up and down the opening looking for fibres. But my anorak was shiny and Stig was so wet that nothing would have come off him. I pulled the door closed, surprised I was strong enough to shift the swollen wood, then I polished the handle.
    â€œWhat about them?” said Stig, pointing to our muddy prints on the gravestone path.
    â€œIt’s going to rain all night,” I told him. “Let’s go.”
    â€œBack to yours and call the cops?” he said. “Only why did you wipe—”
    â€œWe need to talk,” I said.
    The silence lasted a long time. I thought it was because I had shocked him. But then he spoke again.
    â€œYes,