by Koko Brown
A sense of déjà vu overwhelmed him. Nothing about belongings going into a boot at one in the morning could be good. The man returned inside and Lonán fought the desire to fiddle the boot open and see what he had left inside. Clenching and unclenching his fists, he watched the cottage, lights illuminating the windows upstairs, until the man emerged again. Lonán stepped away from the window and saw his daughter standing in the middle of the room.
“What are you doing, Dada? Are you spying?”
“Yes, I’m being nosy.”
She leapt into his arms and tugged at the curtain. “Can I be nosy, too?”
“No, darling, it’s time for bed now. All right, let’s get you some milk and back to bed.”
“Can I have a story?” she wheedled.
“Warm milk and a story,” he agreed, pressing his mouth to her sweetly scented temple. Setting her on her raised seat by the kitchen table, he warmed some milk and added a spoonful of Horlicks to make sure she would see the land of nod. She chatted away about their plans for the weekend. Elegete Farm’s animals wouldn’t feed themselves.
“Very true,” he agreed. “You’ll need to have lots of sleep to make sure you’re able to do that.”
“And then,” she said, through an enormous yawn, “I’ll have so much to talk about when I go back to school. I like school.”
He carefully avoided any response to school. Saoirse seemed to accept his noncommittal response and asked, “Dada, what story are you going to tell me?”
“I am going to tell you about the Princess and the Seven Swans.”
She frowned at him. “I don’t like that one.”
“Whyever not?” he asked, scooping her into his arms and simultaneously collecting her mug.
“The Princess has brothers. I don’t have any and it makes me sad.”
Ah. That. “Sorry, darling. We’ll read something else. To make you dream.”
As soon as she was asleep, half way through his one-thousandth reading of Finding Nemo, he turned on her night-light and closed her door. Settled into his own bed once more, his mind drifted to the cottage across the road. For as long as he’d lived in Morningway, the cottage had been uninhabited—and even longer for his own neighbours, who had welcomed him and his daughter with open arms.
Stay out of it, came the ultimate command of his brain. Saoirse comes first. Everything else doesn’t matter.
ONE
Xiu opened the door first, hesitating in the doorway, before sense reminded him no one had been near the cottage in years. It didn’t stop his instinct from gesturing Atarah to wait while he made his own security checks. She barely acknowledged him, the blood flecks on her face like black freckles in the muted moonlight.
Quickly he swept through the property, opening wardrobes, peering behind doors, looking under the beds as if he were the most paranoid of men. The back door he secured firmly with the twist of a key that sat inside its lock. He turned on the boiler and ran the hot water until steam filled the air. Satisfied, he stalked back to the car and lifted Atarah to her feet, closing the door behind them. While the countryside held its own urban legends, it was nothing less than the safest place in the world for Atarah to be.
London would be her death.
“Go and have a shower,” he suggested, placing her at the table in the kitchen.
“Why?” she asked, blinking at him with the same unnerving blankness that haunted her for the last three hours.
“You need to wash. And I need your clothes.”
She sighed heavily. “Let me enjoy the filth for a minute.”
He paused, touching his tongue to his top lip for patience. She didn’t mean that. She couldn’t. He had no idea who she was, if she did. “Go and wash and I need those clothes from you. Now.”
She stood up and stripped off in the middle of the kitchen, dropping the leather jacket she wore, then the blood-drenched T-shirt and crimson-stained jeans. He swallowed bile, seeing the bloom of blood over her white bra, how it stuck to her brown skin. The shallow slash from her knife wound ran from hip to hip. Had it been any closer, her bowels would have been on the floor of that horrible flat.
“Underwear, too,” he said into the quiet.
She shrugged. “Nothing you haven’t seen before, right? Although I’ve had a bit too much of a penchant for Pret sausage breakfast.”
He’d have held her, reassured her that he couldn’t see anything but the most beautiful of women standing before him. But he couldn’t bring himself to do that. Not when she was drenched in the blood of a dead man.
Xiu snatched out a plastic bag and shoved the bloodied clothes inside, avoiding looking directly at either her naked breasts, or at the apex of her rounded thighs.
“I’ll get rid of these, but make sure you shower before you go to bed.”
“What if I’m hungry?” she asked, crossing her arms over her breasts. He caught the barest of winces crossing her gaunt face in her action. Her wounds must sting like a bastard.
“I’ll bring you back something in a few hours. I have to check in at the station. As far as I know, I haven’t a fucking clue where you are. I can’t do that if I’m getting you McDonalds.”
She snorted. “We passed about four Marks and Spencer petrol stations. You can get me a microwave meal at the least. And some milk. And fucking tea.”
He almost laughed. Back to normal. Banter and food. Until the scent of her—sweat and anger and fear and murder—drifted towards him. Bile once more became his owner and he struggled to disobey the desire to retch.
“I’ll get you everything you want. Where’s your phone?”
She traced a fingertip over her knife wound. “I left it in the apartment. So unless you want to get it, I’m pretty deeply implicated in a murder.”
Xiu couldn’t help but wince. “I’ll work it out. We’ll work it out. Don’t worry. Try not to, at least,” he corrected himself, as soon as he caught her expression. “I swiped most of your things into a bag, so you can do what I have been asking you to do for the last five minutes.”
“Where is the bathroom?”
“Upstairs on the left.”
She nodded and left without saying another word.
Xiu took the plastic bag to the car and threw it into the back seat, along with the cling film he used to wrap Atarah’s seat. He’d have to thoroughly clean the car with bleach spray and a steam cleaner; make sure there was no trace of her presence in the vehicle.
He didn’t quite know what to do about her mobile phone. He had a vague recollection of seeing it on the floor next to the man’s body and hoped Atarah’s memory echoed the same. He’d been a copper for over twelve years and nothing had ever disturbed him as much as seeing Atarah sitting next to that mutilated man, rocking with her knees clutched to her chest.
Oh yes…I picked up her phone.
Diving for the car boot, he saw the phone inside a freezer bag, tucked in the corner with a change of clothes and her toiletries. What had she done? Why had she been at that man’s home? Why had she murdered him so brutally?
Why was he the first person she’d called?
Through the plastic, he unlocked the phone, having seen her type in her number a hundred times and deleted his number from the phone. He then deleted her number from his phone, along with the calls and the messages between them. Habit forced him to do that after every encounter with her, for safety. Laziness and lust had convinced him otherwise.
With an antibacterial wipe, he cleaned her phone and placed it in a fresh freezer bag, just in case. Turning it off altogether, he closed the boot and locked the car, taking her bag up the stairs. Steam filled the bathroom; he noticed when he pushed the door open. Atarah didn’t answer his call. Through the steam, he saw her resting against the tiled shower cubicle, her eyes closed, and her arms tucked close to her body.
“Hey,” he said softly, tapping on the glass.
She yelped. “Jesus!”
“It’s just me,” he soothed. “With shampoo. And conditi
oner.”
She touched a hand to her wet hair and scrunched her face. “Will you give me a car?”
“That’s my car, Atarah. I can’t give it to you. Just like you can’t use your credit cards or your phone.”
“I don’t have that,” she reminded him, her voice thick and hoarse. As his eyes adjusted to the steam, he could see the onset of bruising on her throat. Self-defence? “I don’t have anything. All my…” She stopped, and held out her hand for her toiletry bag. “Please. Thank you.”
“I’ll be back,” he promised. “Just go to bed, and when you wake up…”
“I’ll still have killed someone,” she finished for him. “Thanks, Xiu. See you later.”
He nodded and closed the bathroom door.
Letting himself out of the cottage, he briefly observed the surrounding area. Nosy neighbours had been the death of many a protected person. He could only hope that no one had paid attention to their late night, yet quiet arrival. It was way past one in the morning. A time when all thoroughly decent, law-abiding citizens were in bed asleep.
As he pulled the car away, he missed the curtain swishing back into place at the property opposite Atarah’s latest hiding place.
TWO
She woke up struggling. Her hands clawing at air; the very real echo of hands about her throat and a knee ramming into her ribs.
“It will pass,” she said out loud. “I’ll be okay.”
Not being able to call anyone or see a television, or even access the internet had to be the worst. And fucking Xiu hadn’t returned with food.
God’s sake.
Atarah tucked her damp towel around her body, cold seeping into her sleep-sweated skin, and padded down the stairs in search of the time. She had no phone to reach blindly for. Her watch, a present from a boyfriend years ago, was probably being burned with everything else she wore yesterday. She really liked that watch, too. More than she ever had the boyfriend.
In the unnatural stillness of the kitchen, the clock ticked with dull repetition. She’d been asleep two measly hours. Fair enough. It gave her the chance to explore her surroundings.
The cottage, cosy in size, had all the modern touches. Radiators, painted in the same colour as the warm white walls, camouflaged themselves to make way for the brick and black corrugated fire place and the open plan kitchen—again in exposed brick—bowed to a deep red Aga. If she got a phone and Wi-Fi, she could work out how to use it. Two large arm chairs framed the fireplace, within arms-reach of an overflowing bookcase.
Fair does, she thought, padding over and running her sore hand over the spines of the books. She really couldn’t bear the lecturing of a Joanna Trollope. Nor was she in the mood for the unbearable lightness of a Jilly Cooper. David Gemmell, she noted, joy filling her belly. Normalcy. Fantasy.
She opened her favourite novel, and her joy quickly faded on recognising how much death and rape pervaded his novels. The spoils of war.
She stopped reading and put the book back in its place, her eyes blurred with tears. Her throat ached when she swallowed them down. What she was crying for, God only knew.
Understanding finally dawned that Xiu would not be returning any time soon. Fuck… How could he leave her in a home with no single fucking distractions? She immediately resolved not to give him anything ever again, only to be swayed by the idea of him turning up with cupcakes. Weak, she thought. Food should not equal pussy. Murder will make one hungry. Immediately, an image of her victim dead swam through her vision and she retched.
Okay, maybe not.
She skimmed through a few nonsensical books until light warmed the sky to a clear blue. Shuddering, Atarah threw on the few clothes she had. Time to sneak back to civilisation. Stepping outside, she tucked her hands into the pockets of her parka.
Across the road, a man circled his vehicle, a red-headed little girl in his arms as she chatted away. A pink bobble hat set off the colour of her hair.
“What did I do with my keys, darling?” the man asked, patting down his pockets.
“You didn’t pick them up from the fruit basket, Dada,” she explained. The man looked up at the sky.
“Okay, wait here.”
The man rushed back inside and the girl turned her attention to Atarah.
“Hello!” she said loudly. “Did you make all the noises last night?”
“Sorry if I disturbed you,” Atarah replied, waving a stiff hand in her direction.
“It’s naughty ’cause everyone was asleep.”
“I know.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why were you so late?”
“You ask a lot of questions.”
The girl grinned. “Dada says the same. We’re going to the farm to feed d’animals. Would you like to come?”
Atarah laughed. “No, thank you. That’s very kind of you to offer.”
The girl looked up and down the lane. “Are you waiting for a taxi? Dada will take you, he doesn’t like the farm.”
Dada came out of the cottage and observed his child in conversation with a strange woman. Something strange shifted in Atarah’s stomach, the hairs of the back of her neck charged with electricity and her breathing shallowed. Automatically, her hand went to her hair and then skimmed her face. The touch revealed a complete lack of makeup.
Great—not only had she committed murder, she had the audacity to not even have any lipstick.
“What’s this?”
“Dada, this lady is waiting for a taxi and I don’t think it’s coming. Can you give her a lift before we go to the farm?”
He lifted his brows, the same colour as his daughter’s brilliant hair. “You’re wearing her favourite colour,” he said as if it explained his daughter’s behaviour.
“Good to know.” Atarah’s voice sounded so much higher than normal to her own ears. Calm down.
“You’re a neighbour,” he said. “I don’t mind giving you a lift.”
“Actually, I could really do with thirty quid to get back to London,” she said without hesitation. “My bank has blocked my card and I need to sort that out.”
“We have banks here,” he said, laughing. His laughter, deep and gravelled, tickled her in the pits of her elbows despite a rising panic that he wouldn’t do what she needed.
“London doesn’t have everything exclusively.”
Mate, you don’t know the half of it. “I’ll get a new card on the spot. Best I go back. And I’ll be able to transfer the cash to you.”
“Dada, hurry up! D’animals are waiting for me! They’ll be hungry!” His daughter raged at them both.
“Get in and I’ll drop you at the station,” he offered. “What’s your name?” he asked as soon as she reached the passenger door.
“Rae,” she said. Good thing all her aliases were nicknames. It’d be hard to keep up otherwise.
“Lonán,” he said, his name with such a lilt it spawned a hundred questions and each one stuck in her throat. “The little one in the back is Saoirse.”
“Hi!”
Atarah took the passenger seat and secured herself. She’d left a note for Xiu in case he did decide to come back with some fucking food. The very thought made her stomach grumble loudly.
Saoirse burst out laughing. “Your tummy’s hungry!” she said through giggles, tapping Atarah on the shoulder. “Dada, can she have one of my bananas?”
Lonán sent her a wry smile. “We do as we are bid in the presence of her majesty.”
The yellow fruit invaded her vision and she had to control the urge to snatch it from the poor girl. “Thank you. You’ve been very kind to me this morning.”
The girl caught her gaze in the rearview mirror before she shrugged. “You looked unhappy. I don’t want anyone to be unhappy.”
The words cut through her almost as sharply as the knife had last night. Unhappy didn’t really cover how she felt.
“You’re a very sweet young lady,” Atarah said eventually. “Kindness is very rare in this world.”
Saoirse nodded s
agely. “You need to live here longer.”
Atarah laughed. “I’ll give it a go.”
Lonán cleared his throat. “Are you moving in permanently?”
“We’re seeing how things go,” she answered, focusing on the banana, rather than the redwood stubble that dotted his Adam’s apple. The car slowly billowed with the warm scent of leather and musk.
Atarah rubbed her damp palm on her knee and switched the banana into the drier hand to do the same with the left. Single parents had never done it for her, especially single fathers. The blame for her bizarre reaction to her new neighbour had to lay with her unbalanced emotions. It really wasn’t the time to feel sexual about anyone.
“Who’s we?” Saoirse piped up.
“Me and my brain,” she mumbled through the last bite of fruit. “We have to figure things out. What about you? When did you turn up?”
Saoirse answered before her father could reply. “After the bad man hurt me. Dada says it’s better here than Ireland with our nosy family.”
Atarah’s heart thundered in her chest and she didn’t dare look at Lonán. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched his knuckles turn white as he gripped the steering wheel. Jesus, what a thing for a child to say. “Anywhere you’re with your Dada is a good place to be,” Atarah offered into the tense silence.
“Saoirse…” Lonán began.
“No, Dada. My friend Theresa told me I can talk to anyone about the bad man. It will make me feel better.”
Atarah could feel the burn of tears in her throat again. She didn’t want to imagine what she’d been through to need a therapist at her age.
“Theresa probably meant me or your grandmother. Not anyone.”
“Rae isn’t anyone,” Saoirse protested. “She’s our new neighbour and you’re giving her money.”
Atarah lifted her hands in surrender. “Child’s logic. It’s fine. I can keep a secret.”
Lonán sent her a strange look, his eyes flashing with an unreadable emotion. “I’m sure you can.”
Whatever that’s supposed to mean, she thought, settling back into her seat, pinching the banana skin into a parcel. Saoirse demanded her favourite music and obligingly, Lonán flicked a finger over the system. To Atarah’s endless surprise, Beyoncé burst through the speakers.
