In A Dark, Dark Wood Part 8

'Nora, what happened? Clearly something did. You don't act like this over a normal break-up.'

'Nothing happened. He dumped me. End of.'

'That's not what I heard.' She rolled onto her side again, and I felt her gaze on my face in the darkness. 'I heard you dumped him.'

'Well, you heard wrong. He dumped me. By text, if you must know.'

I got rid of the phone soon after. The cheerfully insouciant 'cheep-cheep' alert never stopped stinging.

'OK ... but still. Look, I never asked, but did he-'

She stopped. I could hear the cogs in her brain turning, trying to work out how to phrase something tricky. I kept silent. Whatever it was she was thinking, I wasn't going to help her.

'Oh f.u.c.k it, there's no way to say this without prying, but I have to say it. He didn't ... he didn't hit you, did he?'

'What?'

I wasn't expecting that.

'OK, clearly not, sorry.' Nina turned onto her back. 'I'm sorry. But honestly, Lee-'

'Nora.'

'Sorry! Sorry, Clare's got me doing it. And you're right. It doesn't make any sense. But honestly, though, the way you reacted after you guys split up you can't blame people for wondering-'

'People?'

'Look, we were sixteen you leaving town and James falling apart was pretty dramatic. There was talk, all right?'

'Jesus wept.' I stared up at the ceiling. There was utter silence but for a strange soft patter outside, like rain, but softer. 'Is that really what people thought?'

'Yup,' Nina said laconically. 'I'd say that was the most popular of the theories. That or gave you an STD.'

G.o.d. Poor James. In spite of what he'd done, he didn't deserve that.

'No,' I said at last. 'No, James Cooper did not beat me up. Or give me an STD. And you're very welcome to tell anyone that who "wonders" about it in your hearing. Now, good night, I'm going to sleep.'

'What then? If it wasn't that? What happened?'

'Good night.'

I turned on my side, listening to the silence, the sound of Nina's exasperated breathing, and the soft patter outside.

And then at last I slept.

10.

VOICES. IN THE corridor outside. They filter into my dream, through the morphine haze, and for a moment I think I'm back at the Gla.s.s House, and Clare and Flo are whispering outside my door, their shaking hands holding the gun.

We should have checked the house ...

Then I open my eyes, and I remember where I am.

The hospital. The people outside my door are nurses, night orderlies ... maybe even the police officer I saw earlier.

I lie there blinking, and trying to make my tired, drug-addled brain work. What time is it? The hospital lights are dimmed for night, but I have no sense of whether it's 9 p.m. or 4 a.m.

I twist my head to look for my phone. Always when I wake, I check the time on my phone. It's the first thing I do. But the locker beside my bed is empty. My phone is not there.

There are no clothes hanging on the chair by the window, no pockets in the hospital gown I'm wearing. My phone is gone.

I lie there, looking around the small, dimly-lit room. It's a private room, which seems odd but maybe the main ward was full. Or perhaps that's just how they do things up here. There are no other patients to ask, and no clock on the wall. If the softly blinking green monitor by my head has a time display, I can't see it.

For a minute I think about calling out, asking the policewoman outside my door what the time is, where I am, what's happened to me.

But then I realise; she's talking to someone else, it was their low voices that woke me. I swallow, dry and sticky, and pull my head painfully off the pillow, ready to croak out an appeal. But before I can speak, one sentence filters through the thick gla.s.s of the door and glues my dry tongue to the roof of my mouth.

'Oh Jesus,' I hear, 'so now we're looking at murder?'

11.

I WOKE TO a clear, bright silence, broken only by Nina's soft snoring in the bed next to mine. But as I lay there, stretching my muscles and wishing I'd refilled my water gla.s.s, I began to disentangle the sounds of the forest: birdsong, a snap of twigs, and a soft 'flump' that I didn't recognise, followed by a flurry of gentle sounds like sheets of paper falling to the floor.

I glanced at my phone 6.48, still no reception and then grabbed a cardigan and padded to the window. When I drew back the curtain I almost laughed. It had snowed in the night, not heavily, but enough to transform the landscape into a Victorian picture postcard. That was the strange pattering I'd heard the night before. If I'd got up and looked outside the window, I would have known.

The sky was a blaze of pinks and blues, the clouds peach-coloured and lit from beneath, the ground a soft speckled carpet of white, criss-crossed with bird prints and fallen pine needles.

The sight made my feet itch, and I knew immediately and piercingly that I had to go for a run.

My trainers on the radiator were crusted with mud from yesterday but they were dry, and so were my leggings. I pulled on a thermal top and a hat, but I didn't think I'd need a coat. Even running on a frosty day, I give off enough heat to keep myself warm, provided the wind doesn't get up. The morning outside was still. Not a tree branch waved in the wind, and the only snowfalls were caused by gravity, not wind; tree branches bending beneath the weight of their load.

I could hear gentle snores from all the rooms as I padded quietly down the stairs in my socks, pulling on my trainers only when I got to the doormat, to save Flo's aunt's floors. The front door had an intimidating array of locks and bolts, so I tiptoed through to the kitchen, which was just the kind with a handle and a key. The key turned smoothly, and I lifted the handle. I winced as I pulled open the door, suddenly wondering if there was an alarm I should have deactivated but no screaming siren rang out, and I slipped out into the frosty morning undetected and began my warm up.

It was maybe forty minutes later when I jogged slowly back up the forest path, my cheeks glowing with the cold and the exertion, my breath a cloud of white against the piercing blue of the sky. I felt light and calm, the frustrations and tensions left somewhere back in the forest, but it was with a slightly sinking heart that I saw the combi-boiler was emitting a cloud of steam like an express train. Someone was up, and using the hot water.

I'd been hoping to have a quiet hour to myself as the others slept, breakfast on my own terms, without awkward small talk. But as I came closer, I saw that not only was someone up, but they'd been outside. There were footsteps leading from a side entrance to the garage, and back. How odd. All the cars were parked out in front of the house, in the open. What reason could anyone have for going into the garage?

But my sweaty top was starting to make me feel cold, now that I wasn't powering up the hill, and I wanted coffee. I headed back to the kitchen door. Whoever was up would have an explanation.

'h.e.l.lo?' I called quietly as I opened the door, not wanting to wake the others. 'Only me.'

Someone was sitting at the counter, bent over a mobile. She lifted up her head, and I saw it was Melanie.

'Hey!' She gave a smile, her deep peachy dimples coming and going in her cheek. 'I didn't think anyone else was up. Have you been out for a run in that snow? You nutter!'

'It's gorgeous.' I stamped the snow off my trainers on the outside mat and then pulled them off, holding them by the laces. 'What's the time?'

'Seven-thirty. I've been up for about twenty minutes. It's b.l.o.o.d.y ironic my one chance to get a lie-in without Ben waking me up, and here I am, I can't sleep!'

'You've been conditioned,' I said, and she sighed.

'Too b.l.o.o.d.y right. Want a tea?'

'I'd rather have coffee, if there's one going.' Too late I remembered. 'Oh b.u.g.g.e.r, there's no coffee is there?'

'Nope. I'm dying. I'm a coffee-girl too, at home. Always used to be tea at university, but Bill converted me. I've tried to drink enough tea to give me the equivalent caffeine but I think my bladder can't physically take it.'

Oh well. Tea would be hot and wet, at least.

'I'd love a tea. D'you mind if I just hop in the shower first and change my clothes? I ran in these yesterday too, I probably stink.'

'No worries. I was making toast as well. I'll have it ready when you come down.'

When I came downstairs ten minutes later it was to the smell of toast, and the sound of Melanie humming 'The Wheels on the Bus'.

'Hey,' she said as I came into the kitchen, towelling my hair. 'So there's Marmite, marmalade or strawberry jam.'

'No raspberry?'

'Nope.'

'Marmite then, please.'

She spread it on and shoved the plate across at me, and then looked surrept.i.tiously down at her phone on the counter top. I took a bite and asked, 'Still no reception?'

'No.' Her polite smile slipped. 'It's really getting to me. He's only just six months, and he's been a bit unsettled since we started him on solids. I just ... I know it's lame, but I hate being away from him.'

'I can imagine,' I said sympathetically, though I couldn't really. But I could relate to the longing for home, and that must be several times stronger with someone small and helpless waiting for your return. 'What's he like?' I said, trying to cheer her up.

'Oh, he's lovely!' Her smile came back, a bit more convincing this time, and she picked up her phone and began flicking through gallery shots. 'Look, here's a photo of him with his first tooth.'

I saw a blurred shot of a moon-faced child with no discernible teeth at all, but she flipped past it looking for something else. We went past one that looked like an explosion in a Coleman's mustard factory and she grimaced.

'Oh G.o.d, sorry about that one.'

'What was it?'

'Ben with a ma.s.sive poo that went right up to his hair! I took a pic to show Bill at work.'

'Bill and Ben?'

'I know,' she gave a sheepish laugh. 'We started calling him Ben in my tummy, as a joke, and somehow it stuck. I do feel a bit bad, but I figure, he's not going to be paired up with his dad very often in life. Oh, look at this one his first swim!'

This one was clearer a shocked little face in a bright blue pool, the mouth an outraged red 'Oh!' of furious indignity.

'He looks lovely,' I said, trying not to sound wistful. G.o.d knows, I don't want a baby, but there's something about seeing someone else's happy family unit that feels excluding, even when it's not meant to be.

'He is,' Melanie said, her face soft. 'I feel very blessed.' She touched the cross at her neck, almost unconsciously, and then sighed. 'I just wish there were reception here. I honestly thought I was ready to leave him, but now ... two nights is too much. I keep thinking, what if something goes wrong and Bill can't ring?'

'He's got the house phone number though, hasn't he?' I took a bite of toast and Marmite.

Melanie nodded. 'Yes. In fact,' she looked at the time on her phone again, 'I said I'd phone him this morning. He was nervous about ringing early in case he woke everyone up. D'you mind if I ...?'

'Not at all,' I said, and she got up, drained her cup, and put it on the counter. 'Oh, by the way,' I suddenly remembered as she headed towards the door, 'I meant to ask, did you go out to the garage?'

'No?' She looked surprised, her voice framing the word as a question. 'How come? Was it open?'

'I don't know, I didn't try the door. But there were footsteps going out there.'

'How odd. Wasn't me.'

'Bizarre.' I took another bite and chewed thoughtfully. The footsteps were crisp, so they must have been made sometime after the snow had finished falling. 'You don't think ...' I said, then stopped.

'What?'

I hadn't thought through what I'd been about to say, and now, as I said the words, I felt an odd reluctance to voice them. 'Well ... I a.s.sumed it was someone coming from the house to the garage and back. But it could have been the other way round.'

'What ... like someone snooping round? Were there footsteps coming up to the garage?'

'I didn't see any. But the garage is so close to the wood, and I don't think the tracks would show there the snow's too patchy and broken up.'

Plus, although I didn't say it, if there'd been any tracks on the forest path my run had probably just effectively obliterated them.

'Never mind,' I said, picking up the tea determinedly. 'This is silly. It was probably just Flo going out to get something.'

'Yeah, you're right,' Melanie said.

She gave a shrug and left the room, and a minute later I heard the 'ching' of the receiver as she picked up the handset. But instead of the sound of the dial clicking around, I heard 'ching, ching, ching' and then a bang as the receiver was slammed down.

'For crying out loud, the phone line's down! Honestly, this is the last straw. What if something's happened to Ben?'

'Hang on.' I put my plate in the dishwasher and followed her into the living room. 'Let me try. Maybe it's his number.'

'It's not his number.' She handed me the receiver. 'It's dead. Listen.'

She was right. There was no dial tone, just an echoing empty line, and a faint sound of clicking.