The Woman in the Woods

by Lisa Hall

  Naomi hadn’t been lying when she said she knew how Rav was feeling. The day I saw them together in the pub was the first time he had asked to meet her, telling her he was worried that I wasn’t sleeping. She had become upset, confessing that she too was worried about me and he had put his arm around her to comfort her, nothing more sinister than that. As my behaviour had become more and more erratic, he had met with her more and more often, trying to understand what was happening to me, why I was behaving the way I was.

  ‘I’m sorry anyway,’ I say. ‘I should have known you wouldn’t have done anything like that.’ Rav leans forward and I let him kiss me, my breath coming short in my throat. It’s been a long time since I let him kiss me like that.

  ‘Are you coming up to bed?’ Rav asks. ‘It’s been a long day for you, and I don’t want you to overdo it. I was thinking we could start packing tomorrow.’

  Packing. For the trip Rav booked for the four of us to Goa. The four of us – not Rav, the children and Naomi. Another thing I got wrong. He thought booking us an extended stay in India with his mother’s family would help me, give me a rest and enable me to cope. After I was admitted to the hospital, he rearranged the flights – only this time we discussed it before he booked anything.

  ‘I’ll be up in a minute.’ I smile up at him as he leaves, and then wander through into the kitchen, happy to be back in my own home. The chimney is silent, not a single scratching noise since I got home.

  I pour myself a cold glass of water and take my medication, my feet seeming to move of their own accord towards the pantry. I never told Rav about the silver rattle, and I find it stuffed where I hid it, still wrapped in a clean tea towel. I unwrap it carefully, my heart starting to thump hard in my chest. The cool silver feels familiar under my fingertips, but when I shake it gently there is no sound. There is no ring of a bell, no dull thud of movement inside. It is silent. I rewrap it and carefully place it back in its hiding place before heading back into the hallway. At the foot of the stairs the mirror hangs in its original position, the glass clear and the frame gleaming. Rav must have rehung it, and I’m sure the cleaning is Avó’s handiwork. I step closer, peering into the glass, waiting for her to appear, but there is nothing. The staircase is empty, there is no breath on my neck. Goosebumps prickle on my arms and I look down at the new ring on my finger, the pearl a misty white under the yellow warmth of the overhead kitchen light, imagining it sitting around Agnes Gowdie’s neck as she fled Scotland for Kent. She was never really here.

  ‘Allie?’ Rav’s voice floats down the stairs, and I tear my eyes away from my reflection in the glass. As I climb the stairs to our bedroom, Rav is on the landing in a pair of pyjama bottoms, closing the door to Mina’s room.

  ‘Everything all right?’ he asks, as I go to him, wrapping my arms around his waist. He smells of toothpaste. ‘You didn’t hear anything down there, did you?’ I can hear his heart thudding in his chest, his pulse rapid.

  ‘No,’ I say, letting the relief wash over me. I am tired now, genuinely ready for sleep for the first time in months. ‘There’s nothing down there.’

  ‘No more talk of spirits and witches?’ Rav asks warily.

  ‘No more talk of anything like that.’ I shake my head, his chest hair tickling my nose. ‘I know now there was nothing like that. No Agnes Gowdie, no ghosts in the trees. None of that was real.’ I pause, breathing him in. ‘Do you think Naomi will be all right?’

  ‘Naomi?’ Rav pulls away and looks down at me. ‘I don’t know. I hope so. I mean, it’s tough isn’t it? Nursing someone you care for.’ I look away, my cheeks warm, even though I know he’s not referring to us, to him taking care of me. ‘And after the way she was when Jason left, well, she’s always been a little fragile, hasn’t she? But, Al, you can’t worry about her, not now. You have to focus on you.’

  I lean against him again, breathing in his warmth. He’s right, Naomi has always been fragile. I was always the strong one in our friendship, the one mopping up the tears and fixing things. The coper. Perhaps that’s why part of me couldn’t let myself lean on her no matter how much she offered to help.

  ‘Come on. It’s late. Let’s go to bed.’ Rav walks into the bedroom and I move to the light switch on the landing to put out the light.

  Moonlight streams in through the landing window, and I can’t help it, I go to look out one more time, as I did so many nights before. The leaves on the trees wave silently, the moon shining a fat, white circle on the area where the pond used to be. Rav has finally filled it in. The fox appears, slinking his way along the border and I suppress a smile, pleased and a little comforted to see that my old friend is still here. I turn, ready to join my husband in bed for the first time in six weeks, when I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. A flash of white, a blank oval of a face looking back at me, before it begins to move through the trees, quickly, silently.

  Acknowledgements

  Pluckley is a real village in the heart of Kent and, according to the Guinness Book of Records, is said to be the most haunted village in Britain. I have taken some liberties with regards to the layout of the village (there isn’t a Co-op, but there is a good butchers), and while the other ghosts mentioned are believed to haunt the village, Agnes Gowdie is a figment of my imagination (I hope). Her sister, Isobel Gowdie, is not – she was a Scottish woman who confessed to being a witch in 1662. So, thank you, residents of Pluckley (both living and not) for lending me your village as the perfect setting for Allie and Rav’s story.

  Thanks as ever to Lisa Moylett and Zoe Apostolides – your ability to see the things I can’t (including the ghosts) and pushing me towards them makes for a better book every time.

  Thank you to Kate Mills for your insight, and to Becky Heeley for all your hard work. And always, to Lisa Milton.

  Thank you to my mum for reading early draft after early draft, telling me each one was brilliant. Sometimes you just need your mum to tell you you’re ace. To Kate and Amy, Natalie and Charlie, for listening to me when I’m trying to hash out plot points and telling me when I’m not making any sense.

  And thank you to Nick, Geo, Missy and Mo, for everything.

  Gripped by The Woman in the Woods? Then try …

  The Perfect Couple is available now.

  Turn to the next page for an extract.

  Prologue

  How well do you really know the people in your life? The person closest to you – the one you live with, share a bed with, have children with… have made an entire life with? The one person you think you know every little detail about, the one you choose to let in – your significant other. It’s a question we rarely have cause to ask. You think you know it all – you know that he can’t play football anymore because he’s ruined his knees, that he has high blood pressure, that sometimes he laughs in his sleep, that he’s a good dad and a hard worker. You know that she tells everyone she is allergic to mushrooms but really she just hates them, that she can’t tolerate liars, that sometimes when she’s tired stupid things make her laugh so hard, she cries. You notice gestures, gait, intonations that are exciting at first, until they become part of everyday life, things that are as familiar to you as your own movements. But do you know what lies underneath? The secrets that hide beneath the skin, burning and branding their way into that person until they’re indelible. Until they are a part of them, hidden from view, but still there, waiting to be exposed.

  And then, how well do they know you? You let slip little details as you sit over dinner, sipping wine on the perfect first date, and then as time goes on, more is uncovered. Accidentally, you reveal little bits of yourself on romantic weekends away, holidays, and then snatched moments on the sofa in the evening after a long day at work.

  You think you know them inside out and you let them think the same about you, but do they really? Have you told them every little detail of what makes you, you? Do they know what really drives you? The things you keep hidden, tucked inside yourself, too ashamed to ever let them see
the light of day?

  Secrets. We all have them. They are the things that turn the ordinary everyday into an enigma, sometimes exciting, sometimes explosive. But some secrets are so shocking, so devastating, that you’ll do anything to keep others from finding out. So, I’ll ask you again. How well do you know the other person in your life?

  Chapter One

  It’s time you got yourself sorted out. Sadie’s words echo in Rupert’s ears as he drains the last of the red wine from the bottle into his glass, grubby with greasy fingerprints. He greedily swigs at the purple liquid, shuddering slightly at the furry film it leaves on his teeth. Can he really be blamed for letting things slide? He’s been on his own for months since Caro died; surely everyone is allowed some sort of mourning period, in which they don’t have to wash the dishes every night, and red wine is allowed for dessert?

  He pushes himself upright from the depths of the sofa, a struggle in his mildly inebriated state, and glances around the living room, in the house he used to share with Caro. The cushions – ridiculously expensive electric blue Wolf & Badger cushions, which he’d had to bite his tongue over when Caro brought them home – are saggy and squashed without anyone to plump them. Two empty pizza boxes sit on the marble coffee table, although he hasn’t had pizza since he worked late into the evening last week. An empty white wine bottle sits alongside the now empty red wine bottle on the floor by the sofa and Rupert knows for a fact that his recycling bin is crammed full of more. He gets to his feet, stumbling slightly, almost sloshing red wine all over the cream rug in front of the open fireplace.

  As he walks into the kitchen, past the pile of unopened post that sits on the worktop, the dishes that are stacked in the sink even though the dishwasher sits empty beneath the counter, cornflakes welded to the rim of the crockery, he catches sight of himself in the reflection of the kitchen window. Outside is pitch black, and his face in the glass is a stark, white oval. His hair falls over one eye, and dark circles ring his eyes. He peers into the glass, squinting at the purple stain on his lips from the wine, and bares his teeth, the purple carrying over to the enamel. It’s been a long day. Moving to the sink, Rupert tips the wine down the drain, watching as it swirls away before running the cold tap and refilling the wine glass. Sadie’s voice nips at the back of his mind, and he has to concede that maybe she does have a point, but did she have to choose today to voice her opinion?

  Rupert slides into a kitchen chair, weariness infusing his bones. Today was not the best day for Sadie to tell him to get his act together. Today was Caro’s memorial. He closes his eyes and takes a sip of water, the liquid cold on his tongue and leaving his mouth full of a sharp, metallic taste.

  The death knock, he believes that’s what they call it. That hard, fast knock that signals the beginning of the end of something for a family. When that knock came at Rupert’s door, on a miserable, wet January evening, the bare branches of the trees bending and swaying in the wind as rain began to lash at the windows, Rupert knew he would open the door to the police. He’d been waiting for the knock for three days. He knew what they would tell him, and his stomach had rolled as he pulled the door open, slowly, as if to delay the moment.

  ‘Mr Osbourne-Milligan?’ They’d stood there, grim-faced, before he’d nodded and let them into the house, and they’d told him that they’d found her car, that it was found not far from the Severn Bridge, with her purse and a card with a single word scrawled across it – ‘Sorry’ – on the passenger seat inside. That given her state of mind and previous history, they were in no doubt about what she had done.

  Nothing has been the same since those two police officers stood on Rupert’s doorstep, with their serious faces and grave voices, and told him that his life was about to change forever. Everything is washed out, faded, blurred by a persistent tug of guilt every time he lets himself think of her. More so today, the day they held a memorial service in Caro’s name. Everything is over for Caro, she is at peace. He has to keep on going, guilt balanced on each shoulder.

  The church had been freezing cold earlier this morning despite the weak sunshine outside, as they all shuffled in and sat, straight-backed, waiting for the vicar to start his speech. All except Michael, Caro’s father. His shoulders were rounded, hunched, grief scored into his face as he finally took his seat next to Esme, Caro’s mother. The tip of Rupert’s nose was cold, meaning he had to keep sniffing, inhaling the cat piss scent of the lilies that adorned the aisles. Thinking he was crying, Esme turned to pat his hand, a tissue pressed against her own nose, and he was grateful when numbness overtook him as the vicar stood to give Caro’s eulogy. A man who barely knew her – Caro hadn’t attended church for years despite Esme’s requests – standing talking about Rupert’s wife, telling the church how loved she was, how generous, how kind, how caring. Rupert felt disconnected, removed from the moment as the voice of the vicar boomed around the echoey chambers of the church, as though they weren’t talking about Caro. As though the vicar was talking about someone Rupert couldn’t recognize, someone he’d never met before. Then he’d had to endure drinks and a buffet at Caro’s parents’ house, as strangers – Caro’s people, not his – told him that they were sorry, but at least he could move on now. He expects this kind of thing from them, but not from Sadie.

  ‘Rupert? Are you OK? Well, I know you’re not OK, of course you’re not. It’s just, you don’t seem to have spoken to many people. I’m just a little worried that you’re… oh, you know what I mean.’ Sadie appears beside him in the dining room of Michael and Esme’s home, thinner than ever in her black dress, her collarbones jutting out white and bony above her neckline. She holds a glass of white wine in one hand and Rupert wonders if it would be crass to ask her to get him one.

  ‘I know what you mean. I can’t speak to them, Sadie. They’re Caro’s friends, not mine. I didn’t want a memorial, you know that. I did it for her mother more than anything.’ Rupert resisted the idea of a memorial for almost a year, but when Caro’s mother had cried on his last visit to her, telling him she needed a memorial before she could let Caro go, he didn’t have the heart to deny her any longer. Now, he tries to temper his tone; Sadie is – was – Caro’s best friend after all. She is feeling the loss of Caro today just as much as she did a year ago. Sod it, he needs a drink. ‘Where did you get the wine?’

  ‘Someone handed it to me in the kitchen. Here.’ Sadie thrusts the glass towards him, and he takes it. The wine is warm, sour on his tongue, but he swallows it down anyway.

  ‘I don’t even know who half these people are. I don’t even know if Caro would know who half these people are,’ Rupert says. There is a heavy lump in his stomach, weighing him down. Sadie is right, he hasn’t spoken to many people here at all, just accepted their condolences, letting Sadie and Miles brush them away. People mill about in the spacious living room, keeping their conversation to a respectable low level, as Caroline stares out from the huge framed wedding photo on the mantelpiece, her face alive, eyes sparkling, a glass of champagne in her hand as bride and groom beam into the camera.

  ‘I bet she could tell you the name of every person in here. She was very popular,’ Sadie says, her eyes roaming over the crowd that fills the room. ‘Everyone loved her, you know that. She was… God, Rupert, I’m so sorry.’ Her eyes fill with tears and Rupert has to look away. ‘Shit.’ She dabs at her eyes with a tissue. ‘I thought it was getting easier – it’s been a year.’

  ‘Old chap.’ Miles appears beside Sadie, giving her a peck on the cheek, his hand sliding around her waist as he aims a thin smile in Rupert’s direction. ‘People are starting to leave. Do you want to say goodbye?’

  ‘Do I have to?’ The wine has gone to his head, after he necked it on an empty stomach. Caroline would never have approved.

  ‘Well, not if you don’t want to…’ Sadie starts to say, before Miles interrupts.

  ‘Best if you did,’ he says. ‘It’ll only take a few minutes, and then they’ll all be gone. Just show your face.’ Subt
ly reminding Rupert that that’s what you do, when you’re upper-middle class like Miles. Show your face, keep up appearances. It’s what Caro would have wanted. Rupert hauls himself to his feet, ready to shake hands, hug, kiss cheeks until the last of the stragglers depart, and at last he’s able to think about leaving.

  Finally, Sadie and Miles drive Rupert home, and they stand in the chilly living room of the house Rupert once shared with Caro. The house that still holds hints of her scent, catching him unawares, as though she is still here, a ghost that roams the rooms. He is hoping that Sadie and Miles will be leaving straight away, but Sadie shrugs off her jacket and heads through to the kitchen, and Miles starts to lay a fire in the hearth.

  ‘I poured you some more wine.’ Sadie comes back in carrying three glasses and a bottle on a tray, and Rupert thanks her even though he doesn’t want any more wine, the first sip feeling like acid as it burns its way down his throat. ‘You did so well today. Caro would have been proud.’

  ‘You did bloody well, mate.’ Miles slaps Rupert a little too firmly on the back in his attempts to sound like a regular bloke, instead of a trust-fund-supported, slightly-too-posh corporate lawyer. Which he is. ‘Cigar?’ He offers one out, a fat, juicy Cuban, and Rupert shakes his head. Where he comes from, a cigar is only for celebrations, not an everyday occurrence. ‘Mind if I…?’ Miles nods towards the door, still respecting Caro’s wishes about not smoking in the house, even though she isn’t here anymore.

  ‘Go ahead.’ Rupert watches him leave and when he turns back Sadie is stood beside him, so close he can feel the warmth of her breath on his face.

  ‘Rupert. Are you sure you’ll be OK on your own? It’s been a rough day.’ She cocks her head on one side, a sour tang of alcohol like a cloud around her. Her eyes are rimmed with red, her face pale. There is a faint smudge of mascara at the corner of her left eye, but her lipstick looks freshly applied.