Never Alone

by Elizabeth Haynes

  There was snow every year, of course. Sarah couldn’t remember them ever bothering to make a snowman again, much less an igloo. They were teenagers by then and the snow was an inconvenience, something to be trudged through, something that cancelled clubs and meet-ups and dates.

  The clock ticks and the wind blows, and the landline doesn’t ring. She checks her watch. Fifteen minutes have passed since she talked to the police about Kitty. They told her someone would call her back, and that it might be a little while but to rest assured that someone was dealing with it.

  ‘It’s urgent!’ she’d said to them, her voice sounding high and quavery even to her own ears.

  Someone will call her back. They are dealing with it. She has to trust that they are.

  This is no good – what can she do, sitting here? She pulls on her boots and her coat and finds her hat and gloves. Tess jumps up from her bed.

  The snow is knee-deep in parts of the yard. If she wants to get the Land Rover out she might need to dig a path through to the driveway and probably beyond. The snow piles over the top of her boots and soaks through her jeans quickly. When she gets to the gate it feels deeper; the wind has blown it across the road between her house and the Buttons’, and it’s only a low hump in the white expanse that shows where the dry stone wall is. The ditch must be just in front of it, but you’d never know. Underneath the snow, the stream must still be flowing down the hill.

  Something looks odd about it; even with the drifts, there is an odd shape on the Buttons’ drive. She trudges a few steps closer. It’s a car, half-hidden in the snow. It takes a while to get to it, minutes more to brush enough of the snow away to confirm what she suspected: it’s Aiden’s car. She pushes snow away from the passenger window, suddenly fearful that he’s inside it – but the car is empty.

  Why would he leave the car here? Perhaps her driveway looked worse, and maybe he left the car here knowing the Buttons were away? But that raises another question, one that is more terrifying still. Aiden’s car is here – so where is he?

  There are no footprints here, no sign of life. Kitty must have cut through over the stile behind the cottage, gone down to the village through the fields.

  She fishes her mobile phone out of her pocket, dials Kitty’s number.

  Leave a message, it’s Kit Carpenter, bye!

  She cuts it off. There is no point leaving another message. She tries Sophie’s phone, which doesn’t even ring, then George’s, then she gives up. The phone bleeps an alarm – the battery is almost gone. It should have lasted longer than that; the cold must have drained it.

  The village below her is lost in a swirl of grey-white cloud. She can barely make out shapes, and then they are gone. Turning to go back to the house, she can hardly see that either; it is snowing again, and within a few moments it’s swirling and drifting and hitting her face like needles. She pushes her way through, trying to match her feet into the tracks she has already made. At the gate she gets her foot caught in something and falls face-first, hands out in front of her diving through soft snow. It’s difficult to stand up again; there is nothing solid to push against. In the end she gets to her knees and manages to get up.

  Now it becomes urgent to get back to the house. There is something menacing about the way the sky has turned dark and now she cannot see the road, cannot see the Buttons’ house, can only just make out the back wall of the cottage and the posts of the stile into the sheep field sticking up through the drifts.

  ‘Tess! Tess!’ she calls, her words snatched away as soon as they leave her mouth.

  She hears an answering bark from somewhere.

  In the shelter of the cottage the snow has banked up, driven by the wind up from the valley. She fights her way through it, around the corner and into the yard. Between her and the house she can just make out a figure, something moving.

  At first she thinks it must be Tess, but it’s too big for that. It’s a person, someone wearing white, moving slowly, and nearly at the door.

  ‘Kitty!’

  She moves faster, pushing through the drifts, exhausted already, until she gets to the door too, shoves it open and shuts it fast. Even in those few seconds the snow has blown into the hall. She stamps it off her boots, tries to shake herself down.

  ‘Kitty?’

  Tess is in the kitchen, wagging her wet tail at the figure who is trying to rub her down with a towel. It takes her a second to recognise who it is, because the person is wearing white ski trousers and a grey pullover. A white ski jacket with navy blue piping along the seams is hanging, dripping, over a kitchen chair.

  It’s Will. Of course it is Will.

  ‘Where’s Kitty?’ Sarah asks, as soon as she can speak without coughing.

  ‘Kitty? No idea. Isn’t she here?’

  Sarah launches herself at Will, taking him by surprise and pushing him up against the wall. ‘Where is she? What have you done?’

  He laughs at her. He actually laughs.

  And then he turns sideways, twisting out of Sarah’s feeble, frozen grip. He stands in the middle of her kitchen, his hair wet at the ends, his blue eyes intense, hands loose at his sides. A sob that she is powerless to stop rises in her throat and she drops into a crouch, falling back against the wall and pulling her knees up to her chest.

  ‘Sarah, Sarah,’ he says, soothing. ‘It’s all right. It’ll be okay. Has Kitty gone somewhere? What’s happened?’

  ‘She – she went down to the village… I got a text from her phone…’

  He waits for her to say more but she cannot. She is shaking from the cold; her lips are numb.

  ‘We need to get you out of these wet things. Come on.’

  She resists him as he starts to peel off her coat, pulls her up to a standing position, then manoeuvres her round to the kitchen chair, where he unzips her boots and pulls them off. Her jeans are soaked.

  ‘I’m going to find you some dry clothes,’ he says. ‘You stay here, I’ll be back in a moment.’

  He puts the kettle on, then leaves the room. Sarah listens to him going up the stairs, then hears the creak of the floorboards in her room. I don’t want him here, she thinks. Her coat is hanging over the chair in front of her. She reaches for it, then searches through the pockets for her mobile phone.

  It’s not there.

  She looks again, checks all the pockets, even the ones she doesn’t use, checks the lining in case the phone has fallen through. Outside, the wind howls; the snow patters against the kitchen window, even drowning out the rattle of the water in the kettle rising to a boil.

  ‘No!’ Sarah yells, and rushes for the door. She must have dropped her phone outside, maybe when she fell. The wind blasts through the house the moment she opens the door. The snow has drifted against the door and it falls inside.

  Strong arms catch her just as she is about to run out in her socked feet.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Will drags her back from the door and wrestles it shut against the wind. ‘You can’t go out again – look at it!’

  Sarah presses her hands against her face. ‘My phone – I must have dropped it! What if Kitty’s in trouble?’

  ‘Then she’ll call the landline. Look, come on – you need to get a grip. Everything’s fine, I’m sure of it. Come on, come back into the kitchen.’

  She lets him lead her by the arm and sit her down again. The kettle clicks off and the wind howls around the house, rattling at the windows. She watches, almost dazed, as he makes a pot of tea, taking care to warm the pot and stir the tea around inside before putting it on a trivet on the kitchen table.

  ‘Where did you get those clothes?’ she asks. Her teeth are chattering. He looks odd, in those white ski trousers that are too big around the waist and a little too small in the leg. The braces are still on his shoulders; if he slipped them off the trousers would fall down.

  ‘I borrowed them. Better for this weather, right?’

  ‘Borrowed them from whom?’

  Jim has a pair for the snow. They wen
t skiing years ago, in fact the first time was at university with the Ski Soc. The three of them, her, Jim and Aiden, fooling around in Val d’Isère with all the posh kids. Jim’s ski gear is dark blue, though, flashes of neon yellow through the sleeves. Sarah is shaking so much when he finally hands her a mug that she doubts she can hold it.

  ‘Right, I’m going to help you undress now. Is that okay?’

  She doesn’t assent but he does it anyway, helping her to her feet and undoing her jeans, tugging them away from her skin. Her legs, when they’re finally on show, are mottled and bluish with bright pink patches. He has found a pair of jogging bottoms and he helps her to step into them, a pair of thick socks. Sarah has been watching all this take place as if she is one step removed from it all, as if it is happening to someone else, and now she looks down at the top of Will’s head as he kneels at her feet, pushing a thick sock, rolled up, over her toes and then pulling it up her calf. He strokes her foot firmly but tenderly, then moves to the other foot and does the same, applying full concentration to it.

  He is here, she thinks. If he’s here, he is not with Kitty. She must be fine. She’s safe.

  ‘Stand up,’ he says.

  She does as she’s told. He pulls her sweater over her head while she raises her arms like a good girl. Under it she is wearing a vest and her bra. He has found her a T-shirt and a zipped top that she hasn’t worn in years. Casually he runs his hand across the front of her chest, over her breasts, as if he’s feeling to see if the fabric is wet, nothing more. When she doesn’t react, he does it again, this time lingering.

  She tries to fold her arms across her chest but he gently pulls them away. He rolls up the T-shirt and puts it over her head. She puts her arms through the sleeves and then takes the sweatshirt from him. ‘I can manage,’ she says.

  ‘Sure.’

  He sits at the kitchen table and lifts the mug of tea to his mouth, sipping it.

  ‘Good job I’m here, right?’ he says. ‘You’d be in hypothermic shock now. You might have collapsed and had a heart attack.’

  ‘Hypothermic shock’ sounds like something he might have made up, just to sound knowledgeable. She doesn’t want him here, wants him to go, but she is wary. She is on her own. Where is she going to go? Where is he going to go? And in any case, the police are supposed to be calling her back, or coming out to see her, if they can. She will just have to manage this the best way she can.

  Stay calm. Think. Don’t piss him off.

  Try not to show him you’re scared.

  ‘Take your time,’ he says, when she takes a big gulp of tea. It’s hot and burns her mouth a little, and makes her cough. Why does she feel so dazed?

  ‘I wish Kitty would call me,’ she says.

  ‘Where did she go?’

  ‘She went for a walk,’ she says. Perhaps he doesn’t know, after all? Perhaps Kitty went to a friend’s house, and they have taken a picture as a joke, sending it to her by mistake?

  All of this, she knows, cannot be true. But, for now, she can continue the pretence.

  She looks through to the living room, at the landline phone which is lying discarded on the sofa. ‘I should try to phone her again.’ She gets unsteadily to her feet but he’s there first.

  ‘I’ll get it; you just sit down. You’re still a bit wobbly, aren’t you?’

  She feels a little better, actually, but it can’t hurt to have him imagining she’s still unstable. He brings her the phone. As he hands it to her she notices that there is what looks like dried blood around his fingernails. His knuckles are swollen, scratched. The sight of this makes her heart pound heavily in her chest: Kitty’s blood? Is she hurt?

  He is watching her, studying her face.

  There are no missed calls.

  Sarah presses the green button to make a call, but there is no dialling tone. There is nothing, just the sound of her hair rustling against her ear, the wind outside.

  The landline is dead.

  ‘Well,’ he says, ‘that’s that. We’re stranded, aren’t we? You and me together?’

  The wind finds the tiny gaps in the window frames, whines like an animal in pain. Tess has disappeared, probably hiding under one of the beds. She can tolerate any weather, but strange noises have always unnerved her.

  ‘We could walk down to the village,’ Sarah says slowly. ‘I’m sure all the phone lines can’t be down.’

  Will laughs.

  ‘Go out again? What for?’

  To find Kitty, Sarah thinks.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘No point going anywhere, is there? We’ve got other things to do, here. We need to talk.’

  Even with dry clothes on, Sarah is shivering.

  ‘Come through here, come on.’

  He takes her through to the living room, holding her hand as if she’s five or ninety-five, leads her to the sofa and wraps around her shoulders the blanket that Basil sometimes sleeps on. Then he busies himself with the fire, stoking it and adding some more logs. Sarah looks at his back and thinks it would be easy to do something right now, push him or hit him with something, and she gets as far as looking around for something suitably heavy, but then he interrupts her.

  ‘I can tell you’re worried,’ he says. ‘I know you’re not happy with me being here, are you? Well, it’s a bit tough, that, because I’m here now, and I’m not going away just yet.’

  He stands and turns his back to the fire, stretching his arms over his head. His fingertips brush the low ceiling. Then he moves the magazines and the empty mug and the coaster from the coffee table and sits facing her, his knees touching hers.

  ‘Now, how shall I put this?’ he says, fixing her with his piercing blue eyes. ‘There’s going to be an easy way and a hard way, and I’m really hoping we can do this the easy way, get it all over with and then I can leave you in peace.’

  He takes hold of her hand, strokes the back of it. Sarah flinches at the touch, but he’s holding her too tightly for her to pull away.

  ‘See, I know all you want is for Kitty to come home safe and well, to your lovely, cosy little family home. I know you want me to go away and not come back. All of that can happen, you know, even with the snow and the wind. I can make it happen. But if that’s what you want, you have to do something for me. Are you listening, Sarah?’

  Sarah nods. Tears are falling now and she can hardly see him.

  ‘So, let’s do this the easy way, shall we?’ He pats her hand comfortingly, as if that’ll help. ‘All you need to do is tell me where Sophie is.’

  She stares at him, horrified.

  ‘I don’t know where Sophie is,’ she whispers.

  Will looks at her for a long moment, as if trying to assess whether she’s telling the truth.

  ‘See, that’s a shame,’ he says. ‘A real pity. I thought you were going to do the right thing, Sarah.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand, I really don’t know where she is. She didn’t tell me anything. She didn’t tell me she was seeing Aiden, she didn’t really even tell me about you, I hardly saw her –’

  With no warning he hits her across the side of her head with the back of his hand, sending her sprawling on to the arm of the chair. She clutches her face with both hands, gasping with shock. Her cheek is tingling with it, her ear ringing. He has caught her earring stud somehow and it’s come out, and her ear is bleeding.

  ‘Ow!’ he says, shaking his hand. ‘Bloody hurt, that did.’

  Tess has turned up out of nowhere and is barking furiously, baring her teeth.

  ‘Come on, Tess,’ he says in a consoling voice. ‘It’s okay, girl. Come with me.’

  He goes into the kitchen, taking Tess with him. Sarah gets to her feet, is about to run for the door, but he returns with a wet tea towel wrapped around his hand, shutting Tess in the kitchen. He pushes Sarah back on to the sofa. She can feel a slow trickle of blood running down the side of her neck. She rubs at it, wipes her fingers on her jogging bottoms.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going, eh? Sit d
own.’

  But now Sarah has found a gutload of courage from somewhere. He’s hit her and that feels like the last straw. She stands up again immediately. ‘This is ridiculous! What do you think you’re doing?’

  He looks startled, takes a single step back. Tess is barking like a mad thing in the kitchen.

  ‘I’ve told you I don’t know where she is. You’re not going to accomplish anything by threatening me. Now where’s my daughter? Where is she?’

  She sees something in his eyes, a flicker of a little boy being told off, but then it’s gone. It takes a second for him to remember who he is, why he’s here, but then it’s back with force. He screws up his eyes, draws back his lips in a snarl, hunches his shoulders and with both hands shoves Sarah hard, back on to the sofa, and then he’s on top of her, his knees digging into her thighs, his hands around her throat.

  She claws at his fingers, tries to pull his wrists off her, but his elbows are locked, all his weight pushing down on to her throat. She cannot breathe. She looks up at him desperately, then tries to reach his face, to dig her fingers into his eyes, anything to make him stop, but she can’t reach.

  Then there is a flurry of black and white fur, snarling teeth and barking and the pressure stops. Tess must have managed to push open the kitchen door. Clever girl, Sarah thinks. She heaves a deep breath in, and again, coughing and falling off the sofa on to her hands and knees. She can hear barking and Will shouting, then a yelp of pain from the dog.

  ‘Tess,’ she gasps.

  The kitchen door is shut again, properly this time. Then Sarah sees Will’s boots appear on the carpet in front of her and before she can move he has taken hold of her by the hair, dragging her upright. The pain in her scalp is intense, sudden, and her legs fight to gain purchase on the carpet to ease the pressure. He pulls her by the hair and by the sleeve of her jumper up the narrow staircase, Sarah’s socked feet slipping and stumbling.

  ‘Let me go! Let go!’