by Ruth Ware
‘Thanks, guys, I’ll pay you back as soon as we get into Salten, they’ve got an ATM in the post office now.’
‘No need,’ Fatima says, but Kate has already shut the Mill door behind her, and I hear her voice outside and the farmer’s answering rumble as she hands over the cash, and then the crunch of tyres as he reverses up the lane, the dead sheep in the flatbed of his truck.
When Kate comes back inside she is pale, but her face is relieved.
‘Thank God – I don’t think he’ll call the police.’
‘So you don’t think it was Shadow?’ Fatima asks, but Kate doesn’t answer. Instead she goes over to the sink, to wash her hands again.
‘You’ve got blood on your sleeve,’ I say, and she looks down at herself.
‘Oh God, so I have. Who’d have thought the old sheep to have so much blood in her?’ She gives a twisted smile, and I know she’s thinking of Miss Winchelsea and the end-of-term Macbeth that she never got to play. She shrugs off the coat and drops it on the floor, and then fills up a bucket at the tap.
‘Can I help?’ Fatima asks. Kate shakes her head.
‘No, it’s fine, I’m going to sluice down the jetty, and then I might have a bath. I feel gross.’
I know what she means. I feel gross too – soiled by what I saw, and I didn’t even help the farmer sling the corpse into the back of the truck. I shiver, as she shuts the door behind her, and then I hear the slosh of water, and the scccsh, scccsh of an outdoor broom. I stand and put Freya in her pram.
‘Do you think it was Shadow?’ Fatima says in a low voice, as I tuck Freya in. I shrug, and we both look down at where Shadow is huddled miserably on a rug in front of the unlit stove. He looks ashamed, his eyes sad, and feeling our eyes on him, he looks up, puzzled, and then licks his muzzle again, whining a little. He knows something is wrong.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. But I know now that I will never leave Shadow and Freya alone together. Kate’s jacket is crumpled on the floor by the sink, and I am seized with a need to do something, help in some way, however insignificant. ‘Does Kate have a washing machine?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Fatima looks around. ‘She always used to put her clothes through the school laundry. Do you remember Ambrose used to hand-wash all his painting clothes in the sink? Why?’
‘I was going to put the jacket in, but I guess I’ll just put it in to soak?’
‘Cold water’s better for blood anyway.’
I can’t see where a washing machine could be, so I put in the plug, and run cold water into the sink, and then pick up Kate’s jacket from the floor. Before I put it in the sink, I feel in each pocket, to make sure I’m not about to submerge anything valuable. It’s only when my fingers close on something soft, and unpleasantly squishy, that I remember Kate picking something up from the jetty, and shoving it surreptitiously into her pocket.
When it comes out, it’s unrecognisable, whatever it is – a matted lump of white and red in my fingers – and I make an involuntary sound of disgust as I swish my fingers in the cold sink water. The thing unfurls like a petal and floats gently to the bottom of the sink, and I fish it out.
I don’t know what I thought it would be, but whatever it was, I was not expecting this.
It is a note, the paper soaked crimson with blood and fraying at the edges, the biro letters blurred, but still readable.
Why don’t you throw this one in the Reach too? it reads.
The feeling that washes over me is like nothing I’ve felt before. It is pure, distilled panic.
For a minute I don’t move, don’t say anything, don’t even breathe. I just stand there, the bloody water running from between my fingers, my heart skittering erratically in my breast, my cheeks hot and flushed with a scarlet wave of guilt and fear.
They know. Someone knows.
I look up at Fatima, who isn’t watching, who has no idea what has just happened. Her head is bowed over her phone, texting Ali, or something. For a second I open my mouth – and then a kind of instinct takes over, and I shut it again.
I feel my fingers close over the ball of mushy paper, grinding it, grinding it into pulp, feeling my nails in my palm as I rip and shred and mash the paper into flecks of white and crimson until it’s gone, quite gone, and not a single word remains.
With my free hand, I pull the plug, letting the bloodstained water drain away, out of the jacket, and I dip my fingers in as it disappears down the plughole, letting the shredded mush float free into the spiralling water. Then I turn on the cold tap and I sluice away every trace of the note, every fibre, every fleck of accusation until it’s as if it never existed.
I HAVE TO get out.
It’s ten o’clock, and Kate is in the bath, Thea has gone back to sleep, and Fatima is working, her laptop open on the table in front of the window, her head bent as she ploughs intently through her emails.
Freya is sitting plump-bottomed on the floor, and I am trying to play with her, quietly so as not to disturb Fatima. I am reading to her from the flap book that she loves, with the little babies playing peekaboo, but I keep forgetting to turn the page, and she bangs the book with her hand and chirrups at me as if to tell me, come on! Turn faster!
‘Where’s the baby?’ I say quietly, but I’m distracted, not properly entering into the game. Shadow is still lying unhappily in the corner, still licking at his muzzle, and all I want to do is snatch Freya up and hug her against me and get her out of here.
Outside I can hear the whine of insects, and I think again of the spilled guts of the sheep, spattered across the walkway. I am just opening the flap to show the baby’s surprised face peeking out, when I see, right by Freya’s chubby, perfect leg, a jagged splinter of wood sticking up out of the floorboard.
This place, where I have spent so many happy hours, is suddenly full of threat.
I stand, picking up Freya who gives a hiccup of surprise and drops the book.
‘I might go for a walk,’ I say aloud. Fatima barely looks up from the screen.
‘Good plan. Where will you go?’
‘I don’t know. Salten village, probably.’
‘You sure? It’s a good three or four miles.’
I suppress a spurt of irritation. I know the distance as well as she does. I walked it often enough.
‘Yes, I’m sure,’ I say evenly. ‘I’ll be fine – I’ve got good shoes, and Freya’s buggy’s quite sturdy. We can always get a taxi back if we’re tired.’
‘OK, well, have fun.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ I say, letting my annoyance break through, and she looks up and grins.
‘Oops, was I doing that thing? Sorry, I promise I won’t tell you to wear a coat and make sure you’ve done a wee.’
I crack a smile as I strap Freya into her buggy. Fatima could always make me laugh, and it’s hard to be pissed off while you’re grinning.
‘The wee might not be bad advice,’ I say, pulling on my walking sandals. ‘Pelvic floor ain’t what it used to be.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Fatima says absently, tapping out a reply. ‘Remember those Kegels. And squeeze!’
I laugh again, and glance out of the window. The sun is beating down on the glassy, glinting waters of the Reach, and the dunes shimmer with heat. I must remember Freya’s sunscreen. Where did I pack it?
‘I saw it in your washbag,’ Fatima says, speaking around the pencil gripped between her teeth. My head jerks up.
‘What did you say?’
‘Sunscreen, you just muttered it as you were looking through Freya’s nappy bag. But I saw it upstairs in the bathroom.’
God, did I really say it aloud? I must be going mad. Perhaps I’ve got so used to being alone with Freya on maternity leave, I’ve started talking to myself, voicing my thoughts aloud to her at home in the silent flat?
The thought is a creepy one. What else might I have said?
‘Thanks,’ I say briefly to Fatima. ‘Keep an eye on Freya for a sec?’
She nods, and I run upstai
rs to the bathroom, my walking shoes clomping on the wooden stairs.
When I try the door, it’s locked, and I can hear sloshing from within, and belatedly I remember that Kate is in there.
‘Who is it?’ Her voice is muffled by the door, and echoey.
‘Sorry,’ I call back. ‘I forgot you were in here. I’ve left Freya’s suncream inside – can you pass it out?’
‘Hang on.’ I hear a rush of water, and then the lock clicks, and a slosh as Kate gets back into the tub. ‘Come in.’
I open the door cautiously, but she’s fully submerged beneath icebergs of foam, her hair drawn up into a straggly topknot showing her long slim neck.
‘Sorry,’ I say again. ‘I’ll be quick.’
‘No worries.’ Kate sticks a leg out of the tub and begins to shave it. ‘I don’t know why I locked it anyway. It’s not like it’s anything you lot haven’t seen before. Are you going out?’
‘Yes, I’m going for a walk. Maybe to Salten, I’m not sure.’
‘Oh, listen, if I give you my card, could you get out two hundred pounds so I can pay you and Fatima back?’
I have found the suncream now, and I stand, twisting the cap in my hands.
‘Kate, I – look, Fatima and I … we don’t …’
God, this is hard – how to say it? Kate has always been proud. I don’t want to offend her. How can I say what I’m really thinking, which is that Kate, with her crumbling house and broken-down car, clearly can’t afford two hundred pounds, whereas Fatima and I can?
As I’m scrabbling for the right words, an image flashes sharply into my mind, distracting as a jab from a stray pin when you’re dredging for your purse in your handbag.
It’s the note, slick with blood. Why don’t you throw this one in the Reach too?
I feel suddenly sick.
‘Kate,’ I blurt out, ‘what really happened out there? With Shadow?’
Her face goes suddenly blank, unreadable. It’s like someone has drawn a shutter down.
‘I should have shut the gate,’ she says flatly, ‘that’s all.’ And I know, I know she is lying. Kate has become as remote as a statue – and I know.
We swore never to lie to each other.
I stare at her, half submerged in the cloudy, soapy water, at the uncompromising set of her mouth; thin, sensitive lips, clamped together, holding back the truth. I think about the note that I destroyed. Kate and I both know she is lying, and I am very close to calling her on it – but I don’t quite dare. If she’s lying, it must be for a reason, and I’m afraid to find out what that reason might be.
‘All right,’ I say at last. I’m conscious of my own cowardice as I turn to go.
‘My card’s in my wallet,’ Kate calls as I shut the door behind me. ‘The PIN’s 8431.’
But, as I clatter down the stairs towards Fatima and the still-sleeping Freya, I don’t even try to remember it. I’ve got no intention of taking her card, or her money.
OUTSIDE, PUSHING FREYA’S buggy along the sandy track that leads up the side of the Reach, away from the Mill, I begin to feel the oppressive mood lift.
The day is calm and quiet, and the gulls are bobbing tranquilly on the rising tide, the waders stalking the mudflats with intent concentration, darting their heads down to pluck up unsuspecting worms and beetles.
The sun is hot on the back of my neck, and I adjust the sunshade on Freya’s pram, and wipe the residue of the sunscreen I have slathered over her fat little limbs onto the back of my neck.
The smell of blood is still in my nostrils, and I long for a breath of air to blow it away. Was it Shadow? I can’t tell. I try to think back to the spilled guts and the whining dog; were those tears from a strong jaw, or cuts from a knife? I just don’t know.
There is one thing for sure, though – Shadow could not have written that note. So who did? I shiver in the bright sunshine, the malevolence of it suddenly striking through to my bones. All at once, I have a strong urge to snatch up my sleeping baby and press her into my breast, hugging her to me as if I can fold her back inside myself, as if I can protect her from this web of secrets and lies that is closing in around me, dragging me back to a long-ago mistake that I thought we’d escaped. I am starting to realise that we didn’t, none of us. We have spent seventeen years running and hiding, in our different ways, but it hasn’t worked, I know that now. Perhaps I always knew that.
At the end of the lane, the track opens up to a road that leads in one direction to the station, and in the other across the bridge into Salten itself. I pause on the bridge, rocking Freya gently to and fro, surveying the familiar landscape. The countryside around here is fairly flat, and you can see a long way from the shallow vantage point of the bridge. In front of me, black against the bright waters of the Reach, is the Mill, looking small in the distance. To the left, on the other side of the river, I can just see the houses and narrow twittens of Salten village.
And to the right, far off in the distance, is a white shape that glimmers over the tips of the trees, almost invisible against the sun-bleached horizon. Salten House. Standing here, it’s impossible to pick out the route we used to walk across the marsh, when we broke out of bounds. Perhaps it’s overgrown, but now I marvel at our stupidity, remembering the first time, that chilly October night, dusk already drawn in as we climbed out of the window onto the fire escape, torches between our teeth, boots in our hands so we didn’t wake the teachers as we crept down the rattling iron structure.
At the bottom, we shoved our feet into wellingtons (‘Not shoes,’ I remember Kate telling us, ‘even after the summer we’ve just had, it’ll be muddy’) and then we set off, running lightly across the hockey fields, suppressing our laughter until we were far enough away from the buildings that no one would hear us.
That first part was always the dangerous bit, particularly as the days grew longer, and it was light outside long after curfew. From Easter onwards, any teacher looking out of their window would have seen the four of us fleeing across the close-cropped grass, Thea’s long legs eating up the distance, Kate in the middle, Fatima and me puffing behind.
But that first time, it was almost pitch black already, and we scampered under cover of darkness until we reached the clutch of the stunted bushes and trees that marked the edge of the marsh, and could let out our suppressed giggles, and turn on our torches.
Kate led the way, the rest of us following her through a dark maze of channels and ditches filled with black brackish water that glinted in the torchlight.
We climbed over fences and stiles, jumped ditches, paying careful heed to Kate’s muttered instructions over her shoulder, ‘For God’s sake, keep to the ridge here – the ground to the left is pure bog … Use the stile here, if you open that gate, it’s impossible to shut again and the sheep will escape … You can use this tussock of grass to jump the ditch – see where I’m standing now? It’s the firmest part of the bank.’
She had run wild on the marsh since she was a little girl, and although she couldn’t tell you the name of a single flower, or identify half the birds we disturbed on our walk, she knew every tuft of grass, every treacherous bit of bog, every stream and ditch and hillock, and even in the dark she led us unerringly through the labyrinth of sheep paths, boggy sloughs and stagnant drainage ditches, until at last we climbed a fence, and there it was – the Reach, the waters glinting in the moonlight, and far up the sandy bank in the distance, the Mill, a light burning in the window.
‘Is your dad home?’ Thea asked. Kate shook her head.
‘No, he’s out, something in the village, I think. It must be Luc.’
Luc? This was the first I’d heard of a Luc. Was he an uncle? A brother? I was almost sure that Kate had told me she was an only child.
Before I had time to do more than exchange a puzzled glance with Fatima, Kate had started off again, striding up the lane this time without looking back to check on the rest of us, now we were on firm, sandy ground, and I ran to catch up.
At the door of
the Mill she paused for a moment, waiting for Fatima, who was bringing up the rear, panting slightly, and then she opened the door.
‘Welcome home, everyone.’
And I stepped inside the Mill for the first time.
It has hardly changed, that’s what’s remarkable, as I think back to that first time I saw the place – the pictures on the wall were a little different, the whole place slightly less drunken, less tumbledown, but the twisting wooden staircase, the lopsided windows casting their golden light out across the Reach, all that was the same. The October night was cold, and a fire was burning in the wood stove, and the first thing that struck me when Kate opened the door, was a blast of warmth, and firelight, woodsmoke mingling with the smell of turps and oil paint and seawater.
Someone was there, seated in a wooden rocking chair in front of the fire, reading a book, and he looked up in surprise as we entered.
It was a boy, about our age – or, to be exact, five months younger than me, as I found out later. He was actually only a year older than my younger brother – but he was a world away from little pink-and-white Will in every other respect, his lanky limbs tanned nut brown, his dark hair jaggedly hacked, as if he’d cut it himself, and he had the slight stoop of someone tall enough to have to worry about low doorways.
‘Kate, what are you doing here?’ His voice was deep and slightly hoarse, and there was a touch of something that I couldn’t place, an accent not quite the same as Kate’s. ‘Dad’s out.’
‘Hi, Luc,’ Kate said. She stood on tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek, a rough, sisterly kiss. ‘Sorry I didn’t warn you. I had to get out of that place, and, well, I couldn’t leave the others to rot at school. You know Thea, of course. And this is Fatima Qureshy.’
‘Hi,’ Fatima said shyly. She stuck out her hand, and Luc shook it, a little awkwardly.
‘And this is Isa Wilde.’
