by Roz Watkins
I padded back downstairs, still half-expecting to see an intruder lurking in the shadows. But I’d seen enough burglaries – glasses smashed, bins upended, clothes strewn everywhere – to know this wasn’t one. I must have arrived just in time.
I took out my phone to call it in. And had a moment of doubt.
I returned to the kitchen, and noticed Mum’s little metal horse on the floor. It lived on the windowsill, and could have been knocked off by someone climbing through. I looked around with a forensic gaze, but could see nothing else out of place.
Something loomed at the window, visible in the corner of my eye.
I gasped and jumped back before spinning round to look. The neighbour’s cat perched on the sill and stared at me with dazzling green eyes.
I let out a huge sigh. ‘Alfie. Oh my God. Did you jump up onto the windowsill and knock the metal horse on the floor?’
Alfie blinked – a fluffy ball of tabby, admitting nothing.
I sank onto one of Mum’s wooden chairs. It was just the bloody cat. Mum must have left the window open. She’d been absentminded recently. I felt like a melodramatic idiot for charging around the house and garden with an offensive boot jack.
I tried to laugh at myself, wishing someone was there to share the story. High-flying detective terrified by tabby. Hannah would think it was hilarious. What I’d thought was the boiler room door closing must have been Alfie jumping off the windowsill back into the garden. Thank God I hadn’t called it in. I could do without the Pink Panther cracks.
I imagined myself telling Mum, and started to rehearse a comic tale. I felt a coldness inside. No matter how light-hearted I tried to be, she wasn’t going to find this funny. I pictured her face crumpling with anxiety. She’d understand it was the cat, but deep down she’d think it was something else.
I stood and paced the kitchen. I couldn’t tell her. It would be cruel. She wouldn’t feel safe here any more, and all because of the neighbour’s cat. I’d have to keep my mouth shut and pretend it had never happened.
Like someone twisting a knife, a little part of me pointed out that I wasn’t absolutely sure no one had been in the house, that I really should tell Mum and call it in – persuade them to take fingerprints, just in case. Was I being selfish by not telling her? Saving myself the trouble of coping with her if she got scared.
I felt the familiar tearing inside, my job tugging me one way, Mum and Gran the other. The job was like a new baby, demanding total commitment and unsociable hours, especially with the Hamilton case. I couldn’t bear to fail. I had to prove I was good enough for the opportunity I’d been given. If Mum got more anxious, how could I find the time to be with her? And we needed my salary. Without the money I contributed, Gran couldn’t have a private carer. It had been so upsetting for her when she’d had a different one each day, someone she didn’t even know, doing the most intimate and unspeakable things to her.
Alfie jumped down with an un-catlike thud and disappeared into his own garden. I closed the window, found the key in the kitchen drawer and locked it.
The front door clicked. ‘Meg, is that you?’
‘In the kitchen,’ I shouted.
She appeared and gave me a hug. She felt more solid these days – almost my size. She’d always been skinny when I was a child, seeming insignificant next to Dad’s bulk.
‘You left the window open, Mum. You need to stop doing that. I shut and locked it.’
‘Oh, did I? I’ve been a bit forgetful recently.’ She put her bag on the floor and leant against the kitchen counter. ‘I burnt the toast and opened it. I must have forgotten to shut it. I nipped to the garage but they’ve got no milk.’
‘Well, be careful, Mum. I worry about you. Are you alright? You don’t seem yourself at the moment. Are you anxious about something?’
‘Oh, I’m fine, Meg. Don’t fret about me.’ The skin of her face was greyer than I remembered.
Worry nagged at me. ‘I can ask Tracy to do some extra hours.’ I could manage. Just.
‘No, no.’ She turned away from me and fiddled with the kettle. ‘You mustn’t. I’m fine.’
I hesitated. I’d been so sure there was someone in the kitchen. Maybe it wasn’t fair to keep it from her. But, no, I’d been silly. It was only the cat. ‘I’ll nip up and see if Gran wants a word.’
Gran had obviously just woken up. It shocked me each time I saw her now – her face creased like an old apple and her scalp shining through a fuzz of hair, almost like a baby’s head. She’d been so proud of her hair, treating it to blue rinses and Silvikrin hairspray that Carrie and I had secretly mocked.
A cloying smell hung in the air, and a sick bowl nestled half under her bed. She levered herself up on the pillows and fixed me with her still-demanding eyes. ‘Got yourself a new boyfriend yet, Meg?’
‘Hello Gran, good to see you.’ She clearly hadn’t heard me charging around with the boot jack.
‘Better get a move on, all the decent ones’ll be gone. You’ll be on to the second round – divorcees, and they’re a menace with their ex-wives and spoilt brats. And if you want children…’
‘Come on Gran, you know that bit of my brain’s missing. I’m not bothered about having kids.’
‘Ach, you’re probably right. I sometimes wish I hadn’t bothered myself.’ I loved the way Gran came out with such un-grandma-like comments. Her mind was still sharp, although the tact-and-diplomacy-lobes had shrunk.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Most people spend their lives making themselves miserable doing work they hate, to make money for the sake of their kids, and then their kids grow up and do the same thing over again for their kids. I don’t see the point. Besides, I’m quite capable of making myself miserable all on my own, without doing it for the kids.’
‘Ah, well, you modern women, you’re right, you know. Who wants to depend on a man? There aren’t many good ones.’
She stared into the distance. Not that there was any distance in her life any more, stuck in this room, with nothing to look at that was further away than the TV. I couldn’t imagine knowing I’d never again look at the vastness of the sea or even the Peak District views I took for granted.
‘Anyway, how are you feeling? You look well.’ I could smell the lie as it slithered out of my mouth.
‘I’m not going doolally if that’s what you’re wondering. But my damn stomach does hurt and I can’t keep the painkillers down. If I was a dog, they’d have put me down long ago.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Your mum should…’
‘Gran?’
She didn’t reply, and sank lower into the bed. I hugged her, not too tight for fear her bones would crumble. ‘I’ll see you again soon, Gran.’
I crept out and padded downstairs to the kitchen.
Mum made tea and we sat together at the table. A memory from long ago popped into my head – the four of us having supper at our old house. Before Carrie got ill. I’d been a babbler. I’d ask ‘Why?’ until most adults were ready to bash my little blonde head against the table. Except Dad. He’d have answers for every question, and then he’d have some of his own for me. ‘Why do you think the sky’s blue?’ ‘How many stars are in the universe?’ (I guessed fifty, which was a big disappointment to him.) ‘How far away do you think the sun is?’ ‘How long do you think the light takes to get from that star to here?’ Mum and Carrie would sigh, roll their eyes and serve the sprouts.
‘Your dad makes the important decisions in this family,’ Mum used to say. ‘Like whether the universe is expanding and whether we should throw our hats in for string theory or loop quantum gravity. And I make the unimportant ones like what we have for supper.’
‘Here. I’ve got your brooch.’ I fished it out and pushed the velvet bag into her hand. ‘You can forget you ever lost it.’
She opened up the little box, and the brooch sat and sparkled.
‘It’s lovely,’ she said.
I took the box and had another look. ‘Did you know they made jewellery out of dead people�
�s ashes?’
‘Oh, that’s nice.’
‘Really? A bit ghoulish, isn’t it?’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t suggest it for your gran.’
I smiled, wondering if Gran’s ashes would come out light or dark, according to Grace Swift’s insane theory. ‘Mum, is she in a lot of pain? She said we’d have put her down if she was a dog.’
Mum stood and walked to the window. ‘I don’t think she really means that. She can be a bit incoherent.’
‘She was pretty coherent about my lack of a boyfriend. But I was serious, do you need more help looking after her?’
‘No.’ She knew the financial situation. ‘I’m okay. Tracy’s great. She bathes her… and everything. But some days it’s hard. Sometimes I have to force myself not to just shut the door and forget about her.’ She wandered back and sat at the breakfast bar with me. ‘Anyway, how are you?’
‘I’m on this new case. You’ll have seen it on the TV.’
‘I haven’t really been watching the TV. Let’s talk about something other than work.’
‘Haven’t you been following it at all? It’s the most dramatic thing to happen in Eldercliffe for about four hundred years. It’s normally all sheep down mineshafts round here.’
‘I know, love. I don’t like bad news.’
‘He was some kind of lawyer. His wife’s a GP just up the road. Are you at her practice? Kate Webster?’
‘No. I said let’s talk about something else.’
It wasn’t like her to get snappy. I sensed she was hiding something from me. I felt as if the world had lurched, like a ship. ‘Are you alright? Mum?’
‘I’m fine. I don’t know her. I’m at the other doctors’ surgery. I don’t know the name.’ She picked a piece of fluff off her cardigan.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. Never heard of her. Poor woman. You’re not working too hard, are you? You know what you can get like. Have you found time to see Hannah recently?’
I felt a stab of guilt. ‘I’ll see her at the weekend. But Mum—’
‘Could you nip out and get me some milk, love?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ The shop was only five minutes’ walk away, although half of this was spent plunging down a perilously steep set of steps to the main road. I sensed she was trying to get rid of me, but when Mum didn’t want to talk, there was little point in persisting. I grabbed one of her coats from the rack by the door, shoved a fiver in my pocket and let myself out the front.
The road was dimly lit and the houses were set back – all in their own lonely spaces, behind hedges and cherry trees, so the street-lamps cast long shadows onto their lawns. This area was a complete contrast to the tiny lanes, steps and alleyways of the old town a few minutes away. I walked in the direction of the main road, still feeling spooked by the Alfie-cat experience. I looked down at the cracked slabs of the pavement. When I was a child, someone had told me if you avoided the cracks, terrible things would never happen to you. I’d always avoided the cracks. So much for that theory.
I thought I heard the patter of footsteps behind me. I whipped my head round but there was no one there. Just the tree branches ruffling in the breeze. I pulled my coat tighter around me and increased my pace.
I reached the top of the steps which tumbled down towards the town centre. They were cut into the rocky hillside which separated the old town from the newer area where Mum lived. Their stone surfaces were worn, their edges curved and uneven. Ornate iron railings had apparently once graced both sides, but they’d been taken in the war to make something deadly, and never replaced.
I paused to curse my bad ankle before tackling the descent. A street lamp shone behind me, and my body cast a spindly, elongated shadow down the steps, my shadow-head almost touching the road far below.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I fished it out. Kate Webster. I touched the screen. Her voice blasted out, high pitched and frantic. ‘I found an email from him. Just now.’
‘Slow down, Kate, it’s okay. What have you found?’
‘I hadn’t checked my emails since before he died. Your lot have got my laptop. I just checked them on Beth’s. He sent one that morning saying…’ She tailed off.
I pressed the phone hard to my ear. Shadow-Meg did the same, her movements exaggerated and distorted by the shape of the steps. ‘What did the email say, Kate?’
I heard the footsteps behind me again. Coming up fast.
Chapter 11
Someone was behind me. I gasped and tried to spin round, but my foot slipped over the curved edge of the top step. My legs shot out from under me and I slammed onto my hip. A flash of adrenaline exploded in my stomach.
There was a burst of frenzied barking and snarling.
I was falling. I tried to grab onto the steps, but my fingers slipped over their smooth surfaces. I crashed all the way to the bottom and bashed my head against the final step with a sickening crack.
I lay crumpled and astonished. Pain stabbed into my ankle, hip, shoulder, and skull.
Something was careering down the steps. I wanted to scream. I couldn’t move. I shielded my head with my arms.
A wet tongue licked my face. I tried to lift my head but a jolt of pain shot through my neck and I sank back down. I heard panting and snuffling.
I lay on the pavement. My throat felt solid right down to my chest and a whooshing noise flooded my ears.
I groaned and levered myself into a sitting position. The world pitched. Moist breath warmed my ear. It was Mrs Smedley’s German Shepherd – Freddie, the escape artist. He licked my face three times, then shot off up the steps.
I tried to piece together what had happened. Someone had run up behind me, really close, then Freddie had appeared and done his wild-wolf impression, I’d fallen down the steps, and the person had run away.
I looked around, my gaze flitting back up the steps, panic just below the surface. I couldn’t see anyone. But what if they came back, now Freddie was gone? My breath came in sharp bursts.
I needed to be on my feet. I needed to be able to run. I hauled myself up and stood shakily with my legs apart trying to get my brain to work. A wave of dizziness came over me like a blanket of mist, and I sat back down on the bottom step.
‘Fuck,’ I said. ‘Fucking hell.’
I knew I should probably call the Station, but what would I say? Someone came up behind me and I fell down the steps, like an idiot? I didn’t even see their face. I’d never hear the end of it from Craig. My new name would be Eddie the Eagle. And besides, I needed to be sick. I had to get back to Mum’s.
I took a first tentative step. Everything seemed to be in working order, albeit painful, so I carried on and started climbing back up towards Mum’s house. One foot after another. My head throbbed and something wasn’t right in my hip either. About ten steps up, I paused for breath and glanced back down towards the road.
I gasped and collapsed onto the step. It was the flashback again, smashing itself into my consciousness like an attack from a vicious animal. First the feet, dangling. Dangling like feet weren’t supposed to dangle, level with my face. Everything wrong – the feet, the ladder, incongruous in the middle of her bedroom. My brain unable to make sense of it. Staring at the feet for an endless moment, a low cry already building in my throat, terrified to look anywhere but the feet. Then the point my gaze flipped up. Carrie’s head slumped forward. The shape of her skull through wisps of hair. Me screaming, climbing the ladder, scrabbling, pulling, sobbing. Then falling. Finally, always the falling.
Chapter 12
Hannah sniffed the air. ‘Ugh! Hospitals. You could have chosen somewhere more interesting for a mini-break. I spend half my life here.’ She wheeled herself up to my bed.
My head was mushy. ‘At least it’s wheelchair-friendly. Anyway, I’m not staying. I hate hospitals.’ They smelt of guilt and dejection. I forced those feelings away and attempted a smile. ‘Nice of you to visit me, Hannah.’
‘I was worried about you.’
She frowned at me. ‘I did have someone else to visit too.’
‘Good to know I’m such a priority in your life. Who were you visiting?’
‘It doesn’t matter. When are they discharging you?’
‘I don’t care what they do, I’m leaving today. I’ve missed a day of work already. I can’t believe I’ve been here last night and most of today. What a waste of time.’
‘What the hell have you been up to anyway?’ As if I’d done it deliberately.
‘I fell down some steps, and bashed my head.’ I swivelled to show the bump.
‘Jesus. How come?’
‘Someone ran up behind me.’ I hadn’t meant to say that.
‘Oh my God. Maybe it was a rapist or something. What did he look like?’
‘I didn’t see. Honestly, it was most likely just some idiot in a hurry. It gave me a fright, that’s all. And I fell down the steps.’
‘Why didn’t they help you then? If it was a normal person?’
She had a point. Something wasn’t right about the whole incident. But the thought of reporting it as suspicious filled me with exhaustion. I had no information. I’d seem pathetic. The last thing I needed now, with Craig hot on my tail, was to appear vulnerable. ‘I’m not saying anything to Work or to Mum about the person coming up behind me. It’ll only worry them. Don’t mention it, Hannah, I mean it.’
‘But it’s kind of scary. What if they’re after you?’
‘Stop it. Seriously.’ I remembered the flashback. It hovered in the back of my mind like a caged animal, scratching to be let out. I couldn’t let it out. I couldn’t go back to how I’d been in Manchester. I was over all that. ‘Anyway, who were you visiting?’
‘Oh, I met someone through that group. She campaigns for stuff for disabled people. She’s had pneumonia and I came to visit her. That’s all.’
‘Oh. You never mentioned her before.’
‘Why do you always have to be so negative?’
‘For Christ’s sake, Hannah, I wasn’t being negative.’
‘Your face says it all. Besides, I know your views. What was it you said about that group? The devout manipulating the disabled?’
