The Road Ahead

by Amanda Radley

  “I’m fine,” Rebecca argued.

  The car slowed to the toll booth, and Rebecca pressed the button to open her window. They’d been through countless tolls in Spain, Arabella complaining at the ridiculous cost of each one. She thought they were all a scam, the country extracting money out of road users with no alternative.

  The automatic booth flashed up an amount. Rebecca picked up a large handful of coins that she had stored in the cup holder. She looked at the coins with a frown on her face. Something she’d not done before.

  It suddenly became obvious that Rebecca was struggling to identify the denominations of the foreign currency. Something that hadn’t happened before and was clearly another sign of her tiredness.

  Arabella waited a few moments before picking the correct coins out of Rebecca’s cupped hand and holding them for her to take.

  Rebecca took the exact change and threw it into the automatic change counter. A few seconds later the barrier opened.

  “I’m fine,” she repeated.

  “Okay,” Arabella replied.

  Of course, she knew that Rebecca wasn’t fine. They needed to stop, and a ten-minute break at a petrol station in the middle of nowhere wasn’t going to cut it. They needed to stop for the night.

  She wasn’t even the one driving, and she was finding it almost impossible to keep her eyes open. They couldn’t go on, even if Rebecca seemed adamant to do so. Arabella couldn’t believe that she was just doing it so she’d get home in time for the party.

  She assumed there was another reason for Rebecca’s desire to get home as soon as possible. Probably to watch some inane television program, some overly advertised Christmas special perhaps. Or to participate in some tradition that her family upheld every year, eating a mince pie, or unwrapping one present before sitting in front of the television in a drunken stupor and a onesie.

  Well, that wasn’t going to happen if they carried on the way they were. They had to stop and rest for the night. And she had to make it happen.

  She unlocked her phone and opened her accommodation application. She hoped that it wouldn’t be too difficult to find somewhere to stay so close to Christmas.

  “What are you doing?” Rebecca asked.

  “Playing Angry Birds,” she lied.

  “I don’t see you as an Angry Birds kind of person.”

  “Oh, I love it.” She tapped in her requirements for the search filter. “Those birds. Being… angry.”

  “Yeah, I can tell you’re a real fan.”

  “Why don’t you talk about yourself?” Arabella changed the subject.

  “What do you mean? I talk about myself.”

  “Not really. You lied about your profession, supposedly to teach me a lesson about making assumptions. Aside from that, you’ve evaded many of my questions.”

  Rebecca chuckled. “I’ve not evaded your questions.”

  The spinning search icon appeared while her phone sought out a connection. “If you say so.”

  “Ask me something, something I’ve supposedly evaded.”

  “There’s nothing specific, just that you don’t say anything.”

  “Maybe there’s nothing to say? Maybe I’m just boring?”

  “You’ve flown to Portugal to photograph a band, that doesn’t sound too boring.”

  “Thanks, I think. And that was just one job. Their original photographer dropped out at last minute and they asked me to do it.”

  “You don’t sound like you wanted to do it?” Arabella asked. She thumbed through a few hotels, checking for available rooms and a green light to indicate that the owner was online. No point in booking a last-minute room and surprising the host by turning up ten minutes later.

  “I didn’t. Didn’t really want to be away from home, you know?”

  Arabella laughed. “Not really. I wanted to be away from home.”

  “How come?”

  Arabella paused as she thought about her reply.

  She knew the answer, she just wasn’t ready to verbalise it yet. Luckily, she was saved from the awkward truth by the search result providing its response.

  “Take the next left.”

  “What? Why?”

  Arabella sighed. “Just do it.”

  She was thankful that she had all her details saved on the application so she could take advantage of one-click booking. She felt the car starting to slow down and knew that Rebecca was doing as she had asked.

  “What are we doing?” Rebecca sounded frustrated.

  “Continue up this road for a kilometre and then turn right.” Arabella quickly went back into her search result to secure another bedroom. While she didn’t think Rebecca was a murderer, she wasn’t about to share a room with the girl either.

  “Arabella?” Rebecca asked, anger creeping into her voice.

  She secured the second room and lowered the phone.

  She turned to Rebecca.

  “We’re stopping. I’ve booked us in at a local bed and breakfast. No arguments. There’s no way you can carry on like this. We’ll stop for the night and get started early in the morning. By my calculations, we should get into London around seven in the evening on Christmas Eve.”

  “No, I told you, I’m okay to carry on, I—”

  Arabella leaned over and put her hand on Rebecca’s knee. “You’re unable to keep your eyes open, you’re smothering yawns, you’ve drifted lanes seven times in the last hour and that is only going to get worse. I know you’re desperate to get home. But Christmas will wait a few hours longer. You’re exhausted, and you need to rest.”

  She removed her hand and leaned back, waiting to see if Rebecca would argue the point or give in and accept that it was time to rest.

  “You know, if this is an excuse to seduce me, forget it. You’re not my type,” Rebecca joked.

  Arabella laughed. “Damn, you got me,” she replied.

  Rebecca sighed, seemingly resigned to the fact that they would have to stop. “Okay, so where is this bed and breakfast?”

  Arabella breathed a sigh of relief. She picked up her phone and accessed the map. “It’s about ten minutes away. It seems to be in the middle of nowhere, but then a lot around here seems to be in the middle of nowhere. Luckily for us that means it has two rooms available at short notice.”

  “But we start again early in the morning, right?” Rebecca pressed.

  “Absolutely, I’m used to an early start, so whatever time you want to set off is fine by me.”

  Rebecca nodded. She slowed down and started to indicate right. “This road?”

  Arabella looked at the map on her phone and then at the fog-covered road. The further they moved from the main road, the thicker the fog seemed to become.

  “Yes, seems to be the one.”

  The road was narrow and set between two tall stone walls. The farther they went, the thicker the fog seemed to get.

  “I can hardly see,” Rebecca said.

  “Just go slowly,” Arabella said calmly.

  She didn’t feel calm. The fog was so thick that she could barely see the end of the bonnet. If another car came from the other direction they would be stuck. There was no room to pass with the stone walls on either side of them.

  Arabella held her breath as Rebecca slowly navigated the road. She saw an email come in from the bed and breakfast owner, confirming their bookings and advising them that they were expecting their arrival. She quickly typed a response back to say that they were in the area and would arrive momentarily.

  She looked up again and swallowed. The road was so narrow and the fog so thick. If she’d known this was the road in, she would have chosen somewhere else. On the bright side, the adrenaline rush was sure to wake Rebecca up for a while.

  After a few heart-stopping moments, the walls ended, and the road expanded to two lanes again.

  “Where now?” Rebecca asked.

  “It should be up here on the right,” Arabella replied after checking the map on her phone.

  Rebecca slowly drove, le
aning forward and looking out of the window to the right.

  “Are you sure? I mean, if you wanted to kill me and leave me out here—”

  “Don’t be silly,” Arabella said. “It’s here. Somewhere.”

  She looked at the phone again and then at the GPS map on the car dashboard.

  “It should be a few more metres,” she said.

  A brick wall started to emerge through the fog. As they continued to crawl forward, the wall gave way to a large, open wrought-iron gate.

  “Whoa.” Rebecca stopped the car and looked at Arabella. “Bed and breakfast? Are you kidding me?”

  Arabella looked at the mansion beyond the open gate, shrouded in wispy fog. A pebbled driveway led to a set of stone steps which in turn led to an imposing front door. Two large lanterns illuminated the door. It was very gothic, presumably very grand-looking in good weather. However, in the fog it just looked eerie.

  “It said Château de Bernard, but everything is a Château around here,” Arabella argued. She looked at her phone and then at the building again. “This must be it.”

  “What if it isn’t?” Rebecca asked.

  “Then we apologise and drive out again.” Arabella pointed towards the gate. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Chapter Ten

  “You know, I’m suddenly feeling wide awake,” Rebecca said. “Maybe we should, you know, keep going?”

  Arabella glared at her.

  “Okay, I’m going, I’m going.” Rebecca took Arabella’s phone, the booking receipt open and visible on the screen. She opened the car door and got out.

  She swallowed hard as she looked up at the imposing building. It looked like something out of a crime drama. This was where Countess McDeath lived, appealing to the police that she was feeding her horses at the time of the murder, the tiny fact that she was feeding the horses body parts of the victim only coming to light at the end of the show.

  Arabella rapped on the window, and Rebecca jumped. She turned and stared at her. Arabella waved her away from the car and pointed towards the front door.

  “Wish I was the one with the broken leg,” Rebecca muttered.

  She turned back towards the house. The house that was surrounded by an eerie fog. Why couldn’t Arabella have picked somewhere a little less creepy? A generic chain would have been just fine. Not that she suspected many of them were available in the French countryside.

  The wind started to pick up, and she wrapped her leather jacket around her body, only now realising that she was driving north in winter. It was going to get a lot colder. Although not as cold as she felt now, the atmosphere chilling her more than the weather ever could.

  She took a steadying breath and made quick work of the front steps. Before she had time to reconsider, she pulled on the large metal hoop to ring the bell. She’d not seen an old-fashioned doorbell in person before, but she’d watched enough period dramas to know what it was.

  She heard a dim chime sound inside the house. As tired and exhausted as she was, she hoped that the house was empty. Everything gave her the creeps about the building. She wanted to be back in the car and making her way home.

  The sound of footsteps became audible. She took a tiny step back and glanced towards Arabella in the car. She knew that if anything happened, the older woman would be out of the car and charging an assailant with her crutch in a matter of moments. She was struck by the thought that Arabella, an unknown quantity half a day ago, was now her security blanket.

  The door swung open.

  “Miss Henley, I’m assuming?”

  An elderly British lady stood in the doorway. She was tall and extremely thin. She wore a tartan skirt suit, and her hair was swept up into a bun. She looked like the kind of person who had never worn a pair of jeans, but she was smiling and seemed friendly enough.

  “I’m Rebecca, Rebecca Edwards. Miss Henley’s in the car. We were just checking we have the right place,” Rebecca replied.

  “Indeed, you do. I’m Mary Davenport, and this is Château de Bernard. Shall I ask my husband to help with the bags?”

  Rebecca shook her head, she didn’t think Arabella would want some unknown person touching her luggage. Nor did she want to ask an old man to drag Arabella’s seventy-two cases up the stone steps.

  “No, thank you. We’re not sure what we’re bringing in and what we’re leaving in the car.”

  “Not a problem, I was just getting some tea ready. Would you both like some tea? Maybe some sandwiches?”

  Rebecca felt her heart soar at the thought of a hot cup of tea. “Yes, please, that would be amazing.”

  Mary nodded and stepped back into the house, leaving the door open.

  Rebecca hurried down the stairs and opened the car door. Arabella was literally on the edge of her seat, hands wrapped around her crutch.

  “This is the right place,” Rebecca confirmed.

  Arabella let out a relieved sigh. “Ah, yes, well, I did know that. Of course it is.”

  Rebecca rolled her eyes. “Yep, of course you did. Anyway, we need to get our luggage in. And by our luggage, I mean yours. What bag do you want? Notice I said bag, singular.”

  Arabella balked. “I need at least three!”

  “No, you don’t. You’re infirm, and I’m not dragging your entire wardrobe up and down those steps.”

  “Isn’t there a bellboy?”

  Rebecca pursed her lips. “No, this is someone’s house. The woman who greeted me is about a hundred years old, and I’m not going to ask her husband to carry our things.”

  Arabella visibly deflated. “Fine. But I need two bags, one is my makeup case.”

  Rebecca chuckled. “You need a case of makeup?”

  “We can’t all be twenty-seven.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “How do you know I’m twenty-seven?”

  Arabella paused for a second. “You told me, during your incessant blathering on.”

  “Hey, I don’t incessantly blather—”

  “Don’t just stand there, help me out of the car.”

  Arabella opened the passenger door and started to try to edge her way towards it. Rebecca shook her head. One moment Arabella was bordering on nice, the next she was as cutting as ever.

  She held the door open as Arabella tried to pivot herself out of the vehicle. Rebecca frowned. Arabella had seemed pretty spry before, but now she appeared to be struggling. She assumed that it was something to do with being stuck in the same position for so many hours.

  In a sudden burst of movement, Arabella launched herself up out of the car. Her crutch gave way on the shingled driveway and Arabella pitched forward. Rebecca quickly moved in and grabbed her by the upper arms to hold her up. Arabella panted hard at the shock of slipping and almost falling.

  “Thank you,” Arabella murmured.

  “That’s okay, I’m not staying in this place overnight by myself,” Rebecca joked.

  “Your concern for my wellbeing is heart-warming.” Her tone was light.

  Rebecca waited for Arabella to right herself and hold onto the top of the car. Once she was sure that she was steady, she bent down and grabbed the abandoned crutch.

  “So, was she cleaning a meat cleaver with a bloodied rag when she opened the door?” Arabella asked.

  Rebecca laughed. “Don’t! I’ll never get any sleep!”

  “Good, one of us needs to keep an ear out for bumps in the night.”

  Arabella took the crutch from Rebecca and adjusted her stance. She let go of the car and pivoted to face her.

  “Thank you,” she mumbled again. “Shall we?”

  Arabella bit her lip. She took in the decor while her host was away preparing tea and sandwiches. At first, she had just seen a very large but old-fashioned sitting room. Fabric wingback chairs and leather sofas. The kind of thing you would expect in an older property, especially one that welcomed guests on a regular basis.

  Mary Davenport had led her in, treating her as if she were an invalid. She’d guided her to a wingback chair in fro
nt of the fire. As soon as Arabella had sat down, a footstool had been dragged across the room and her plaster-covered leg was being hoisted on top of it.

  With the promise of fresh tea, Mary had left the room, which allowed Arabella the time to see the other occupants of the room: shelves upon shelves of porcelain dolls. Arabella had often visited houses of clients who were collectors. Sometimes their collections lived on the odd shelf throughout the home, sometimes an entire room was dedicated to it. But she’d never seen anything on this scale.

  She guessed that there were at least two hundred dolls in the room. They were on shelves, on the coffee table, one even sat on the sofa. All of them stared at her. Their dead eyes looking right her.

  Even the large Christmas tree in the corner of the room had a few smaller dolls hidden in the branches, like something out of a gardener’s worse nightmare.

  “Hey, you should see upstairs, Jesus.” Rebecca stopped dead in the middle of the room and followed Arabella’s gaze. “Oh, they’re in here, too.”

  “They’re upstairs?”

  “Oh, they’re everywhere,” Rebecca told her. She pulled her leather jacket off, the heat from the fire making the room overwhelmingly hot. “They are on the stairs, like in the corners, ready to grab your ankles. On the landing. Sitting in chairs on the landing. On windowsills. On the second set of stairs, on the second landing.”

  Arabella bristled at the idea. She was suddenly even more pleased to have Rebecca with her.

  “None of this was in the photographs online,” Arabella said. “It just said charming bed and breakfast, not fog-obscured gothic mansion owned by geriatric doll-collecting maniac.”

  “Shh.” Rebecca turned around to see if she could see their hosts.

  “Have you seen the husband?” Arabella asked.

  “No, why?”

  “Do we know that there is a husband?”

  Rebecca glared at her. “Stop, I’m already freaked out.”

  “I’m serious. I’ve only seen her. He’s not upstairs?” Arabella tried to twist her body around so she could see the door. Only now was she wondering why her host had put her in a chair with her back to the door.