Wake Wood (7 page)

Stopped in her tracks, she finally let out the scream that had been building inside her since she’d seen the bloody figure of the man emerge from the shell.

Patrick grabbed her arm. ‘Louise, it’s me. What’s the matter?’

‘We have to get out of here.’ She fought to free herself. As soon as she succeeded she charged past Patrick. He ran after her.

‘Louise!’

She heard him but continued to run.

‘Louise!’

She headed for the road. There she’d feel safer than she had in the fields. Cars used the road! People would pass and see her. Strangers who’d help her if she flagged them down and asked them to assist her.

Nothing could happen to her on the road – unless the people she stopped had been in Arthur’s yard and seen her watching them.

She continued to run and didn’t slow down until their cottage came into view.

Dawn was beginning to break, a pale grey line on the horizon as she headed for the back door.

‘Louise, you’re behaving as though you’re demented. Stop and talk to me, will you?’ Patrick gasped breathlessly behind her.

She shrugged his hand from her arm. ‘I just want to go to bed.’ She opened the back door, entered the kitchen, stripped off her sodden coat, boots and jeans. She left her boots to dry on sheets of newspaper. In sweater and underclothes she stepped into the living room.

Mesmerised, she stood stock still.

Sitting watching her from one of the easy chairs at the side of the fireplace, very much at home and as comfortable as if he owned the place, was Arthur.

LOUISE SHIVERED FROM
more than cold as Arthur continued to appraise her coolly. The expression on his face reminded her of the dispassionate way she’d seen farmers eye livestock in auction pens.

Terrified, she called out, ‘Patrick.’ She’d intended to shout, but she barely managed a croak.

It was Arthur who broke the silence. ‘Louise.’ He was as relaxed as if he were acknowledging her arrival at a garden party.

Louise sensed Patrick moving into the doorway behind her. His presence gave her the impetus she needed to flee. She charged up the stairs. Heart pounding, legs trembling, she sank down on a stair close to the top, out of Arthur’s immediate reach. She crouched over, covering as much of her bare legs as she could with her oversized sweater, all the while fighting the fear that crawled down her spine, icy and paralysing.

Patrick glared at his senior partner. ‘Arthur, what on earth are you doing here?’ he demanded incredulously.

‘I just wanted to make sure everything was all right.’ Arthur spoke quietly, conversationally, as if he were an invited guest. ‘With both of you,’ he added.

‘What do you mean? Why shouldn’t everything be all
right
with us?’ Patrick’s voice rose as his initial surprise was superseded by anger.

‘Well, is it all right with you?’ Arthur pressed, looking up to where Louise was ensconced on the stairs in sweater and panties.

‘Our car broke down in the middle of nowhere. We walked to your place hoping you’d be able to help us. We couldn’t raise you … But …’ Patrick’s voice rose in indignation when he realised that he was actually offering Arthur an explanation for their behaviour when Arthur was the one who should be making excuses for his unpardonable rudeness in breaking into their cottage. ‘What’s this, Arthur? Why have you just let yourself in to hang out in our house?’

Arthur smiled sheepishly. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have. Country habits, I suppose. We’re used to unlocked doors and treating our neighbours’ homes as our own in Wake Wood. I’d forgotten that you haven’t had time to become accustomed to our rustic ways. What did you say happened to your car?’

‘I told you, it broke down,’ Patrick reiterated irritably.

‘And you came to my house looking for help. Well, that would make sense.’ Arthur glanced up the stairs at Louise, who was watching him intently.

‘It makes sense!’ Patrick repeated in bewilderment. ‘Sense! Nothing makes sense! What the hell’s going on here, Arthur?’

Arthur reached for his cane, levered himself out of the easy chair and rose stiffly to his feet. ‘All right, I can see you’re upset and my presence isn’t helping. I’m going.’ He moved slowly and awkwardly to the door,
leaning
heavily on his stick. Then he paused. ‘Have I told you what a fine job you’re doing here, running the practice, Patrick? I’m so glad you chose to make your home in Wake Wood. I hope you’ve found solace here. Both of you.’ He glanced up at Louise again.

‘We’re fine,’ Patrick asserted, holding the door open to emphasise that he wanted Arthur gone.

Louise looked down at Arthur. She was still shivering but was incapable of making the effort needed to move.

‘You’re highly thought of here, Patrick. And Louise’s work in the pharmacy is very much appreciated by everyone in the town. The two of you are making a wonderful contribution to the daily life of Wake Wood. We couldn’t do without you.
I
couldn’t do without you. I’d hate to see you leave. Anyway …’ Arthur smiled again; a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. ‘I’m just happy that you’re both all right.’

‘We’re fine,’ Patrick stated yet again, snapping in a tone that suggested they were anything but.

Arthur walked past Patrick and looked to Louise. ‘How about you, Louise? Everything all right with you?’

Louise finally found the strength she needed to rise. She ran on to the landing and fled into the master bedroom without replying. She slammed the door so hard behind her the entire house shook.

Arthur nodded to Patrick, placed his trilby on his head and left without another word.

Exhausted by the trek through waterlogged fields and his sleepless night, Patrick watched Arthur close the door. He waited until he heard Arthur’s car
drive
off before checking and locking all the windows and doors. Only when he was certain that the house was secure did he walk up the stairs and into the bedroom.

Louise lay, curled into the foetal position under the duvet on their king-size bed. Her eyes were shut but he couldn’t be certain whether she was sleeping or not. He whispered her name.

‘Louise?’

When she didn’t stir, he lowered his voice. ‘Stay with me, please. We’ll leave together.’

He sank down beside her, lifted his feet up on to the mattress and moved her head on to his shoulder.

Just to be physically close to her was enough for that moment. He’d lost Alice. He simply couldn’t bear the thought of losing Louise as well.

When Louise woke, the hands on the clock on the bedside cabinet pointed to ten but the light was pale, greyer, colder and softer than usual. The curtains were open. She looked out through the window and saw snow falling, thick and fast, silvering the leaves and branches of the trees next to the house. She left the bed and walked to the window. The snow was sticking and the lawns around the cottage were already carpeted with white. She listened hard.

The house was in silence and she sensed Patrick had gone. There was a yellow Post-it note in the dent in his pillow where his head had lain. She went to the bed, picked it up and read it.

STILL LOVE YOU
.

A tear fell from her eye. He still loved her – despite the loss of Alice, and her withdrawal from him and life – he
STILL LOVED HER
.

The three words burned into her consciousness with the force of a branding iron. If only she were still capable of feeling enough emotion to love him back.

Patrick stood at the side of the road behind a tow truck that had pulled in close to the front of his car. A mechanic was peering beneath the open bonnet of the estate, his toolbox open on the ground at his side.

‘Anything obvious?’ Patrick asked impatiently, shivering as snowflakes settled inside the collar of his jacket. They melted rapidly, trickling icy water down his neck and into his sweater and shirt.

‘From what I can see, it’s nothing that looks too bad.’ The mechanic poked around in the depths of the engine.

Patrick moved away from the car. The countryside was quiet, unusually so. It was as if the snow had deadened the small sounds such as rustlings in the undergrowth and birdsong. Even the bleating of sheep in a distant field sounded as though it had been muted.

He looked up the hill towards a copse of trees planted just below the summit. A boy was standing there, watching them from a distance. He was dressed in a denim jacket and beige trousers, summer clothes that were far too thin for winter weather. He was stock still, as though rooted to the spot like the trees around him. He saw Patrick looking back at him and waved, swinging his arm wide, from side to side, as if he were
signalling
or drawing an arc in the air. His movements were wild, extravagant, reminding Patrick of the wind turbines outside the town’s limits.

Patrick returned the boy’s wave. Seconds later his car engine roared into life. He turned his head to look at the mechanic. His head was still under the bonnet. When Patrick looked back at the field the boy had gone. Patrick scanned the landscape for any sign of him. There was none. It was as though he’d vanished into thin air. He looked carefully at the copse of trees. They were skeletal – surely he’d see the boy if he’d run to them and was hiding among them.

‘There you go, Mr Daley. All sorted.’ The mechanic slammed the bonnet shut.

‘What was wrong with it?’ Patrick asked.

‘Beats me. I found nothing obvious.’ The mechanic shrugged.

‘But the car was completely dead,’ Patrick insisted.

‘Well, it’s alive now and ready to go. You can drive off whenever you want.’

‘How much do I owe you?’ Patrick asked.

The mechanic picked up his toolkit. ‘You’ve moved into the green cottage, haven’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Patrick confirmed.

‘I’ll drop the bill off the next time I’m passing.’

‘Thank you.’ Patrick couldn’t help feeling that the mechanic thought he was an idiot. No, worse than an idiot – an incompetent who didn’t even have the right to own a car because he couldn’t get it restarted once it had stalled.

Louise watched the snow settle over the town from her pharmacy window. It had already cloaked the road and houses, covering the grey stones and roof slates, softening the signs of dereliction in the run-down, boarded-up buildings and transforming Wake Wood into a glittering, sparkling fairy-scape. Inevitably, her thoughts turned to Alice. Her daughter had loved the snow. Not that she’d had many opportunities to see or play in it during her short life. But there had been one winter when Alice had been six years old when she, Patrick and Alice had built a snowman in their garden and thrown snowballs at one another in the yard …

A couple appeared in a doorway across the road. There was something familiar about them, yet Louise was sure she hadn’t been formally introduced to either one. Both were tall, slim, handsome, fair-haired and each was warmly dressed against the weather, her in a sheepskin jacket, him in a thick coat. They were wearing hats and gloves, with scarves wrapped around the lower part of their faces, covering their mouths.

The woman lifted her head and kissed the man’s cheek. The gesture was so tender, so loving, it reminded Louise of the strange scene she’d witnessed in Arthur’s yard. It was then that she made the connection. She recognised the tall, slim, fair-haired man as the one who’d emerged from the chrysalis covered in blood. And the woman who was with him as the blonde who’d held out the towelling robe and wrapped him in it.

Louise watched them cross the road and walk away along the pavement. They continued to gaze lovingly, almost hungrily at one another. They had no time or
attention
to spare for anyone else. It was as though they’d just been reunited after a long separation; if they were even aware of their surroundings they ignored them. They were totally and completely engrossed in one another.

Were they the same couple? Or had she dreamed the entire bizarre episode? Now, in cold clear daylight, she simply couldn’t be certain. Any more than she could be sure that the peculiar exchange early that morning between Arthur and Patrick had actually taken place in the cottage.

The bell rang on the shop door. Reluctantly she turned from the window to her shop and her customers. An elderly man was browsing the shelves of patent cough medicines. Two teenage girls were trying the lipstick and eyeshadow testers on the sides of their hands, and a middle-aged woman was examining bath products. The woman saw Louise looking at her, smiled and approached, holding a box.

‘This shower attachment …’ she thrust it at Louise, ‘will it work on any bath tap?’

Louise checked the box. ‘Only if your bath has twin taps. Does your bath have one tap or two?’

‘I think it’s one big one,’ the woman answered doubtfully. ‘Do you know, it’s really odd, I use the bath every day and now I can’t remember. Perhaps I’d better check before I buy.’

‘It might be as well to save you from making a mistake.’ The bell on the door rang again. Louise glanced up and saw Deirdre walk in. She smiled at the young girl but Deirdre was so engrossed in looking
around
and examining the goods on the shelves she didn’t even see Louise. As Louise watched, Deirdre wandered over to the rack that held sunglasses. She lifted down a pair and tried them on, studying her reflection in the mirror on the stand. She leaned back, eyeing herself from first one angle then another.

Louise couldn’t help imagining an older Alice behaving in the same way as Deirdre and the other two girls in the shop. Trying on fashionable accessories, experimenting with clothes and make-up.

As she watched, Deirdre began to shake uncontrollably. The trembling escalated, becoming a full-scale convulsion.

Louise ran to her, but just before she reached the girl Mary Brogan rushed in and pushed her aside.

‘There you are, my pet.’ Mary hugged her niece, enveloping her tightly in her arms.

‘Should I telephone the doctor?’ Louise asked anxiously.

‘No. There’s no need. She’ll be fine.’ Flustered, Mary guided Deirdre, who was still shaking, around the back of the sunglasses display and into a quiet area between two sets of shelves. ‘Look at me, Deirdre.’ Mary held Deirdre close, until the girl focused on her. ‘You all right, my pet?’ Mary murmured.