The Woman in the Dark

by Vanessa Savage

  He doesn’t believe anyone is watching the house. I can tell from the sarcastic tone in his voice. Humor the little idiot who jumps at every noise and sees people looking in at her.

  “But…”

  He sighs. “I’ll ask around, find someone to clean the windows. But leave it for now, okay? I don’t need this on top of everything else.”

  But it seems wrong. So out of character for Patrick and his obsession with perfection. More wrong to imagine his mother having the same casual reaction.

  After Patrick leaves the room I step closer to the window. The sea is gray and choppy today, the sky a brooding dark cloud. The glass is lined with salt, except for the clear patch where I licked it. It looks like an I—like I’m asserting my claim: I live here, I exist. And it’s a perfect spy-hole—I can look out, but no one can see me.

  CHAPTER 10

  I’m washing the breakfast dishes when Patrick comes in to say goodbye the next morning. He pulls me into a hug and rests his head against mine for a moment. “I’m sorry I was in such a bad mood yesterday. You were right—I was so disappointed about the kitchen and I took it out on you.”

  “It’s okay,” I say. “I understand. But it’ll work out—we have our whole lives to get new kitchens. It doesn’t have to be perfect right away.”

  “But I want it to be.” He steps back. His tone is light, but I hear an edge of frustration. “Unpack the rest of those boxes, okay? Get them all done, and we’ll buy some more paint to finish off the living room.”

  My hand squeezes the sponge. Water drips and splashes my foot. I remember the early days, when Patrick would tell me to leave the housework, to spend the day painting, enjoy the kids being at school and having time to myself.

  I’m angry with myself more than him. He didn’t put me in this situation: I let myself be put here. No qualifications, no employment record, I’ve turned myself into a Stepford Wife for him. Isn’t that half the reason I’m reaching for the wine at six o’clock and yearning for the chemical calm the pills give me?

  The front door slams and I grit my teeth as I turn away from the sink to make coffee. I’m walking through to the living room with my mug when I notice the cellar door is open. It definitely wasn’t a few minutes ago. The first thing Patrick did when we moved in was make sure the door was locked.

  “There’s going to be dangerous things kept down there—chemicals, paint thinners, bleach. It’s not safe for the children,” he’d said while he turned the key in the rusty lock, as if Joe and Mia were toddlers.

  But the door is open now, the key in the lock. My heart pounds and the hairs rise on the back of my neck. Patrick must have opened it before he left.

  But he didn’t. I saw him pick up his wallet and keys from the hall table and I followed him to the front door to say goodbye. The door wasn’t open then. I don’t even remember seeing the key in the lock. Didn’t Patrick put it away in the drawer in the kitchen on a key ring with all the spare keys? I hesitate before closing the cellar door. Of course Patrick must have opened it. I try to turn the key, but it won’t move, so I’m forced to leave it unlocked as I back away into the kitchen. I pull open the drawer and take out the bunch of keys as an icy trickle of fear seeps through my veins. The cellar key is still on the ring.

  Calm. Be calm, Sarah. Patrick must have had another key cut, that’s all.

  But neither key looks new.

  I’m still standing—hiding—in the kitchen when someone knocks on the door. I jump and then laugh because at first, for a stupid moment, I think it’s someone in the cellar, knocking on that unlocked door.

  I’ll have to pass the cellar to get to the front door and my instinct is simply to hide, to wait till the knocker goes away. Then I think it may be Caroline, whom I’ve barely spoken to, in person or on the phone, since that day in the hospital. I’ve been avoiding her calls, putting off inviting her here, but right now all I want is for her to have ignored all that and come here uninvited.

  But it’s not Caroline; it’s Anna. She’s dressed in black: jeans, boots, leather jacket, a black scarf with white stars on it. The covered dish with a red gingham cloth draped over it looks incongruous, like a joke. Lift the cloth and something will jump out at me.

  “Sorry, I know I’m a bit early,” she says. “But I’m working later. I’ve brought pie—not homemade, sorry. Left over from the café.”

  I’d forgotten I asked her to come today. She’s standing a wary six feet from the front door, looking like she might bolt at any second. Behind me, the cellar door clicks open again and swings gently back and forth in the breeze from the open front door.

  I take the pie and put it on the hall table before stepping outside, pulling the door closed. “Thanks so much, but… change of plan,” I say. “Can we go out somewhere?”

  She hesitates, and I wonder if she’s going to be like Lyn Barrett, if it’s not me she wants to see but a guided tour of the Murder House. But she shrugs. “Sure,” she says, turning away from the house. I feel lighter as I lock the door and follow her down the street.

  She takes me to the fairground. “I come here all the time,” she says. “I love it, bloody love it. It ignites my inner child—isn’t it the best thing ever, to have a fairground on your doorstep? I don’t even go on the rides, just come and people-watch. All the lights and the noise and the smells. You can’t beat it.”

  I can smell sweet cotton candy, a meaty waft from the hot-dog stall, mingled scents of sweat and perfume from the people walking past. It’s quiet this early, but the lights still flash on all the rides; tinny music clashes and merges as we walk around; a lone lost unicorn balloon floats into the distance. I know what she means: it smells like childhood—seaside trips with donkey rides, chasing the seagulls away from your chips.

  “I forgot to tell you—and thank you. I met Ben yesterday, the guy from the gallery.”

  She looks blank for a moment, then smiles. “Ben, yeah. He’s a nice guy and a really good painter. I don’t know him that well, but we got chatting when I went in the gallery one day.” She laughs. “He invited me to one of their exhibition opening nights last month and I thought he fancied me, so I got all dressed up, but he just talked about the paintings all bloody night and ignored my pathetic efforts at flirting.”

  I remember the feel of his hand in mine. Perhaps his invitation to dinner was innocent. Perhaps I misread the situation just as Anna did. “He was nice. I was a bit surprised to find him on my doorstep.”

  She raises her eyebrows. “That’s probably my fault—sorry. When I mentioned your name and that you were new to town, he guessed right away which house. But I did tell him to call you first.”

  “Oh…”

  “I suppose it was easy for him to figure out where you were. Small town and all. He really is nice, I promise.”

  “I guess.” It unsettles me, though. I thought Anna had sent him—that was why I invited him in. And if she’d told him my name, why did he look so surprised when I said I was married to Patrick?

  “So what did he say?”

  “That I can have a solo exhibition.”

  She smiles wider. “Seriously? I was worried I was interfering too much, telling him about you. That’s wonderful. Oh, wow… When?”

  My own smile fades. Do I tell her I think he asked me out? And even if I was mistaken, how inappropriate Patrick would find it? That I haven’t told Patrick about the possibility of me exhibiting because he might ask me not to because he used to know Ben? “I need more paintings. I haven’t done anything new for so long… I have to find somewhere to work. What will I paint?”

  “I told you I’d show you some beautiful places if you want. There’s a beach—it’s difficult to get to, but worth it. Bring your sketchbook, a camera. Bet you’re inspired to paint after you see it. I hope you have your exhibition before the summer, anyway. I’m planning to spend it in Europe—find myself a job in Spain or Greece. I’ll rent out my apartment here and go soak up the sun.”

  I close
my eyes against the gray skies and cold wind and imagine it. Heat and sunshine and sleeping under the stars. “I wish I could come with you.”

  Anna laughs. “You? You’re married, two kids, a million walls to paint. Have you forgotten?”

  I open my eyes. Of course.

  “You could, though,” she says, after a pause. “Come with me. Run off, leave it all. We’ll do a European Thelma and Louise.”

  “What? And end up driving our rented Peugeot into the docks at Calais after an epic police chase?”

  “You screaming at the cops, ‘I couldn’t take any more decorating’?”

  I laugh and it settles the unease in my stomach.

  “Look—the carousel’s just stopped. Let’s go on,” Anna says.

  “What? No—we’re too old.” I laugh, and she turns to me, a huge smile on her face, her eyes shining.

  She grabs my arm, tugging me along. “Come on,” she says. “Pretend you’re twelve again.”

  As we spin faster and faster I close my eyes and rest my forehead against the painted mane of my carousel horse. Everything whirls, like I’ve been drinking, and the music runs a bit too slow, a bit off-key.

  “How long have you lived here?” I ask as we stagger off and walk toward the beach. Maybe Anna grew up here too.

  She stops at a stall to hand over money for two coffees in polystyrene cups. “Not long. I moved here last year.”

  “In small-town terms, I guess that makes you as much of a stranger as me.”

  She nods. “It is a bit like that, isn’t it? I used to be a nomad, traveling around. I was passing through, no intention of staying. I’ve always lived in cities, thought I needed that buzz. But this place… it’s the peace, the space, the air, something about it. I drifted away again, but the town had gotten in my blood, you know? It drew me back.”

  “I hope it gets me like that. I want to love living here.”

  “Careful, though,” she says with a grin. “Before long, you’ll know everyone’s name and they’ll have all the intimate details of your life. Definite small-town hazard.”

  I pull a face, thinking of Lyn Barrett’s needling questions about Patrick, her avid gaze on the pill box I’d left on display. This town already knows too much.

  “Well, I’m very glad you moved to town, Sarah Walker.”

  “Me too.” But am I? Am I really glad to have moved here?

  “It’s good to have a new friend,” she says. “It seems like every week more people move away—it’s becoming a bit of a ghost town.”

  A ghost town with a murder house. Which is where I sleep, where I brought my children to sleep. I think about the cellar door again and shiver as the wind picks up, whipping at my hair.

  “How come you bought the house? Sorry if I’m being nosy, but you must have known its history,” Anna says.

  “Patrick loves it. He grew up there, so he’s not a stranger to the town. He was long gone before the tragedy, before any of that happened, so for him it was a happy house. He thinks we can make it what it was.”

  Anna looks at me oddly.

  “He’s told me stories of what it used to be like,” I say. “I can imagine it—I can almost see it. But then again, how am I supposed to forget what happened there? Can anyone really forget that?”

  She looks down and brushes sand off her knee. “Wow. Imagine growing up here…”

  I smile. “Patrick makes it sound like Paradise.”

  “Well, I think it’s brilliant you’ve taken it over. It’s always been such a depressing sight, empty and tainted by what happened.”

  “Patrick and I are determined to make it into something special, get rid of the taint. That poor family is gone and the man who did it is locked up for good, so…” Her smile is replaced by a frown. “What?”

  She leans forward and lowers her voice. “You don’t know? He’s out!”

  “Out? Who?”

  “Ian Hooper—the murderer.”

  “What do you mean he’s out? I thought he got a life sentence.”

  “Not sure, but I know he was released a few months ago. It was in the local paper.”

  I think of the person I saw watching the house and my stomach turns. Oh, God. He watched us move in. I pour the remains of my coffee onto the sand. “I have to go,” I say.

  I’ve got my phone out to call Patrick when I see his car in front of the house. It’s not even lunchtime—what’s he doing home?

  “Patrick?” I call as I open the door.

  He steps out of the kitchen. “I was wondering where you were. I had a meeting in the area, so I thought I’d pop home, see how the unpacking was going.”

  I can’t tell him about Ben yet, but I can tell him about Anna. “I went out for some fresh air,” I say. “With someone I’ve met—her name’s Anna, she works in a café in town. She said…” I stop, take a breath. “Did you know Ian Hooper was out of prison?”

  He looks away.

  “Why didn’t you tell me? Jesus, Patrick, didn’t you think it was important?”

  “It’s not important,” he says.

  “How long has he been out?”

  “A couple of months.”

  My nails dig into my palms. “Since before we moved in here? What if it’s been him watching the house?”

  “This is why I didn’t tell you—I knew you’d freak out about it.”

  “And why wouldn’t I? You know what he is—what he did. You moved our family here and… Oh, God—did you know before we moved in?”

  “Of course not, but it doesn’t matter, even if I did know.”

  “It doesn’t matter? He murdered a family—he murdered a child.”

  “For God’s sake, it was fifteen years ago. It wasn’t a random attack. He had reasons, a motive—he knew them.”

  “You told me he knew you,” I say. “All your talk about how scared you were for me after the pills, after what happened with Eve, was that all lies? You lied to make me agree to move here before I knew Ian Hooper was out. You knew I’d never agree if I knew he was on the loose.”

  “He’s been released, Sarah; he’s not on the run. Yes, he committed a horrible crime, but it’s not like he’ll come back here. He’ll be looking for a fresh start somewhere completely different, under the watchful eye of the probation service. Why would he ever want to come back? I would never have moved us here if I’d thought there was any danger.”

  He doesn’t answer my question, though. “But he has come back, he’s here. He’s here, watching the damn house.”

  “No. You need to stop listening to bloody gossip. Those damn murders ruined my family once already. I’m not letting it happen again fifteen years later.”

  “What do you mean, ruined your family? You weren’t even here when the murders happened.”

  “Enough, Sarah. It isn’t him watching the house; it isn’t anyone. He would never be stupid enough to come back. You need to let it go.”

  Let it go? How am I supposed to do that?

  I wait until she leaves the house to play postman. It took me a while to source the perfect gift to leave next. After she found the shell, it struck me that your wife is the right person to leave my next gift for. I’ve seen her looking out the window, double-locking the door, little paranoias creeping in. It seems fitting that she’s the one bringing me, piece by piece, into the house, the house that used to be just a house once upon a time. Like the darkest of fairy stories, I’ll send in my truths and tales, let you find them with her fingerprints all over them—hers, not mine. Do you know? Have you already guessed I’m haunting your house? Not yet. I don’t think you’ve scented me on the sea air that creeps in and wakes you at night.

  It won’t take you long, though, will it? To remember me. After all, haven’t I always been there, in a dark corner of your mind?

  CHAPTER 11

  Over the next few days I find myself drawn back to old press stories about the murders. I’d stopped looking, determined to keep my promise to Patrick and make this a real fresh st
art, but now Ian Hooper is out of prison and I have to know. I have to know exactly what happened in this house.

  Did Tom Evans know Ian Hooper had been released? Was that why he finally put the house up for sale?

  “What are you doing?”

  I go to close the browser window, but Mia gets to the mouse before I do and zooms in on the newspaper article I’m reading. “That’s them, isn’t it?” she says, her voice flat.

  It’s a picture of the murdered family, one of those smiling portraits you have done in a photographic studio. We have our own version on the wall in the hallway. This one of the Evans family was taken a few months before the murders. The little boys are grinning, gap-toothed, and Marie and John Evans look sweetly, almost painfully young.

  In a smaller photo beneath it, Ian Hooper is blank-faced, good-looking. The old articles hinted at rumors about him and Marie Evans—the bad boy who seduced the married woman, then murdered her and her family.

  “God, it gives you the creeps, doesn’t it?” Mia says. “To think we’re living in the same house where they were killed.”

  “Not all of them.”

  “No.” Mia touches the face in the picture with the younger boy. He’s like Joe was at that age. The look in her eyes makes me think Mia sees it too, but then her smile dies. “Lara and the others thought it was so cool when I told them where we were moving. She started a Murder House WhatsApp group and kept posting old pictures and stuff. God, even I did for a bit—like we were moving to some Gothic horror place from a film or something. But this isn’t fun anymore. I’m sure I’ve felt those cold spots in the house, Mum. They’re real.”

  I look back at the screen, a chill creeping up my spine.

  Mia’s biting her nails again, so far down that her fingers are sore and red. I see the circles under her eyes that match the circles under mine. I’ve heard her moving around at night, long after she should have been asleep.

  Mia has shown me the cold spots—six areas in the house that are cooler than the rest, places that make the hairs on my arms rise, where the air is damp. I don’t know if it’s real or my imagination, fueled by Mia’s ghost stories. Mia’s room is one, a place in the hall next to the stairs another, on the landing, in the bathroom, the kitchen, and Joe’s room. The living room is fine, and so, according to Mia, is my room.