A Twist of the Knife

Christmas is for the kids

Kate saw him standing at the Tesco checkout and presumed he was with his mother. The store was quiet. It was Christmas Eve, the last hour of shopping.

The doors opened and a loop of tinsel swayed in the draught. ‘Silent Night’ echoed around the darkening car park. The queue moved forward and the boy tugged his stacked trolley. The woman in front of him was stuffing her purchases into her carrier, and Kate realized then that the boy was on his own. His head barely reached the top of the trolley, and he had to stretch to reach the lower packages.

He looked about six. Floppy blonde hair, freckles, a snub nose, wearing a quilted jacket, jeans and trainers. Something seemed wrong about his being there alone.

She watched him unload two twelve-packs of Coke, sweets and chocolate bars, more fizzy drinks in lurid colours, ice cream, burgers and frozen chips. What kind of a mother did he have? Too busy or disinterested to cook anything but junk and convenience foods?

She’d never let her kids eat such rubbish. Never. When she had kids. Or, as she worried increasingly, if. She felt a pang of sadness. Christmas was for kids, not for lonely adults. She’d split up with Neil in February. Ten months she had been on her own and there was no one on the horizon.

The kid paid cash from a wad of notes, then began packing his groceries. By the time she had signed her credit card slip, he had already left.

A fleck of sleet tickled her face as she unlocked her car, but there was no forecast of a white Christmas. The engine turned sluggishly before clattering into life and she revved hard for some moments before driving off. As she pulled onto the main road she noticed the tiny figure of the kid struggling under the weight of his packages.

She stopped. ‘Can I give you a lift?’

‘It’s OK. I only live just—’ At that moment one of his bags broke and several cans clattered onto the ground; a bottle of ketchup smashed. Kate got out to help him. ‘Come on. You can’t manage all these. I’ll run you home.’

‘I–I better not.’ He looked scared of something and her concern about him deepened. She loaded his groceries into the boot and he climbed, subdued, into the front seat.

She drove about a mile, and was passing a row of new houses behind a developer’s hoarding when he said, ‘There!’

She turned onto a tree-lined track that went up a slight incline, past a sign warning WORKS ENTRANCE. HARD HAT AREA. ‘I’m Kate,’ she said. ‘What’s your name?’

‘I’m getting a computer for Christmas,’ he said after some moments, ignoring her question.

After half a mile, a solitary detached Edwardian house came into view. It looked in poor condition, and what she could see of the grounds looked neglected.

‘Are you going to come in?’ he said as she pulled up. She wanted to, very much. Wanted to give his parents a piece of her mind.

‘I’ll help you with your shopping,’ she replied.

He turned imploringly to Kate and she could see again that he was frightened.

‘Would you like to stay with us?’

‘Stay with you?’ She felt a sudden prick of anxiety, the boy’s fear transmitting to her. Her curiosity about his parents was increasing. ‘I’ll come in with you.’ She smiled at him. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Daniel Hogarth. What’s yours?’

‘Kate Robinson.’

He ran up to the front door and knocked loudly. A girl of about seven with black hair in a velvet band opened it indignantly. ‘We’re not deaf, you know.’

The boy whispered and she looked at Kate. Kate lugged a couple of bags out of the boot and the two children carried the rest.

There was a huge Christmas tree in the hall that rose up the stairwell; it was beautifully decorated, with real candles which were flickering and guttering in the draught, and the base was surrounded by finely wrapped presents. There was a smell of wood smoke that made Kate nostalgic for her own childhood.

She followed the children into a kitchen, where there was a pine table at which a girl of about five in a pinafore and a boy of about the same age in a striped jersey and jeans sat, the girl reading, the boy furiously pressing the keys of a small electronic game.

‘This is my brother, Luke, and my other sister, Amy,’ Daniel said. Then he looked at Kate solemnly. ‘You will stay with us for Christmas, won’t you?’

Kate laughed, then realized the boy was serious. ‘It’s sweet of you, but I don’t think your mummy and daddy would like that.’

The children at the table turned towards her. ‘Please don’t leave us,’ the little girl, Amy, said.

‘Please don’t go,’ Luke added. Tears filled his eyes.

‘If you leave us,’ Daniel said, ‘we won’t have Christmas. Please stay and let us have Christmas.’

The kids looked clean, well nourished, no bruises. And yet there was an overwhelming sense of sadness in their faces. She fixed her stare on Amy, her heart heaving for them. ‘Where are your mummy and daddy?’

Amy looked silently at the floor.

Kate’s imagination went wild for a moment. Were their parents dead somewhere in the house and the kids were too afraid to tell her?

Shivers as hard as needles suddenly crawled across her skin. She began walking back towards the front door. Daniel ran along beside her and tugged her hand. She opened the door and noticed to her surprise that it was snowing outside; fat, heavy flakes were settling on the drive.

‘Kate, if you stayed with us, maybe we could have Christmas after all.’

‘What do you mean, Daniel?’

‘We’ll never get to open our presents if you go.’

She looked into his frightened eyes and patted his cheek tenderly. ‘I–I’ll be right back, OK?’

‘It only works if you stay,’ he said forlornly.

‘What only works?’

He shrugged and said nothing.

‘I won’t be long, I promise.’

Tearfully, Daniel closed the door behind her. Kate climbed back into her car and turned the ignition key. Nothing happened. She tried again, then again, but the battery was dead.

Exasperated, she got out, then noticed to her surprise that all the lights in the house had gone off. Sharp prickles of fear again raked her skin, harder than before. Had they tampered with her car?

She swallowed, the grip of fear tightening around her. Then she started walking quickly down the drive, turning her head and staring back at the darkness every few moments, her leather shoes inadequate, slipping on the settling snow.

The tunnel of trees seemed to be closing in around her and she broke into a run, her heart pounding, her chest feeling as if it were about to burst. Just a prank, she thought. Just a prank. But it wasn’t just a prank, she knew.

Headlights crossed ahead of her. The main road. Kate ran faster, past the developer’s hoarding and out into the road. Police. She needed to call the police, then cursed as she realized she had left her phone in the car. She ran along the pavement. There was a phone box ahead and she dived into it, then saw to her dismay that it had been gutted by vandals.

She ran on towards the town centre, crossed one busy street and then another. A car coming towards her had a perspex panel on its roof. A police car.

She leapt out in front of it, flapping her arms frantically. It pulled up and the driver wound down his window.

‘Please,’ she gasped. ‘Please, I think there’s something very wrong... children very frightened... I...’

There was a WPC in the passenger seat and Kate was aware she was looking at her oddly.

‘Could you calm down and give us a little more detail?’ the driver said.

Kate explained, trying to gather her breath. ‘I don’t know for sure,’ she said. ‘It’s just a feeling I have.’

‘OK, jump in the back. We’ll go and take a look.’

The WPC spoke into her radio and the car accelerated.

‘Turn right up this track,’ Kate said.

‘There’s nothing up here — this is all part of the development site,’ the driver said.

‘No, there’s a house at the top... you must know it: a big Edwardian place,’ Kate replied.

‘Only house up there is the Hogarth place.’

‘Yes! Daniel Hogarth. That’s right,’ Kate said, remembering his name.

As they drove up through the tunnel of trees, she frowned. There was no snow on the ground yet it had been settling only minutes ago. Then the house came into view. It was still in darkness. The dull paintwork of her car glinted in the headlights. Then she gasped in shock as they neared the house and she could see it more clearly.

It had been gutted by fire.

The roof was gone completely and half of the walls had collapsed, leaving the charred rooms open to the elements. Pipes and wiring hung out like entrails. Kate swallowed, her heart crashing wildly inside her chest. ‘I–I - I came here... I–I went in... I—’

‘Happened five years ago,’ the driver said, halting the car.

The WPC turned to face her. ‘The parents were separated. The father was up north. The mother must have had some kind of breakdown — bought them all their presents, gave them a wad of cash then left them home alone, instructed them not to speak to anyone, and went off to Switzerland with a boyfriend. Sometime on Christmas Eve, while the kids were asleep, the house caught fire and they were all killed. The mother committed suicide after she was arrested.’

Kate sat in numbed silence and stared at the blackened shell where only a short while ago she had stood in the warm kitchen and smelled wood smoke and seen a tree surrounded by presents, and odd thoughts strayed through her mind.

She wondered whether, if she had stayed, the snow would have continued falling, and whether the kids would have got to open their presents. And she resolved that next year she would go back to the supermarket and, if Daniel was there again, she would accept his invitation to stay.