I began to trot to get the blood flowing again. Sodden, dripping, shivering uncontrollably, I stumbled and staggered my way back to Weaver Street. A man walking his dog crossed the street to avoid me.
The lights were still on at my house. Now I was so close I felt the last few dregs of energy begin to drain away. I collapsed on to the path and half—crawled to the front door. Unable to reach the bell, I battered feebly on the wood.
The light snapped on in the hall.
“Who is it?” Daniel called nervously.
“It’s me, let me in.” It came out a rusty croak that even I could barely hear. I dragged myself up as far as the letterbox and pushed it open.
“Open the bloody door!”
Then I collapsed. I was vaguely aware of falling into open space, hitting the floor and being dragged over the threshold into billowy clouds of warmth, the kind I thought I would never experience in this world again.
*
Fragments.
A blanket falling around my shoulders.
Hot sweet tea, stiff with brandy.
Gurgling bathwater.
Stepping gingerly into its shallows, slipping down into the heat of it with care, my head well above the surface, afraid of water touching my face.
The sting of soap on wounds.
Water flowing with streaks of red like ink.
Bed.
A hot-water bottle.
The weight of several duvets.
Sleep.
*
A tap was dripping somewhere inside my head. I turned my eyes inwards and saw it was dripping blood. The persistent sound moistened my dreams, quarrelled with my erratic heartbeat, drilled my teeth and nagged and nagged at me to wake up.
I dragged my eyes open. The room was filled with the grey light of a wintry dawn. The cold tap in the bath was dripping loudly, but instead of cursing it I welcomed it like a friend. Then the central heating began to crank up. Another old mate. The sounds of home.
Daniel sat slumped in a chair at the end of my bed, wrapped inside a quilt like a cocoon. I struggled to lift my head to tell him off for not getting a proper night’s rest in bed. But he beat me to it. His eyes shot open. I saw they were filled with sorrow and pity. And anger.
“What happened?”
“I fell in the river,” I whispered.
“How?”
“I slipped. It was an accident.”
“You chased a cat to the river and you fell in?”
I had to admit it didn’t sound that good.
“It wasn’t a cat.” He leant forward to hear more. “I don’t know who it was exactly.”
“Who?”
“Someone knocked over the dustbin to get me outside, then ran off, hoping I’d follow.”
“So you did? That was pretty stupid, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. I know.”
Daniel looked away. But I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I was grateful beyond words at the sight of him. Seeing him meant I was alive. There had been several times during the time I was in the river when I thought I would never see him again.
Still staring at the wall, he began to speak. “I’ve been thinking about what you said last night. About the bracelet and everything…”
I sank into the pillows, holding my breath.
“I didn’t kill Lara. And I’ve no idea who did. Do you believe me?”
I exhaled slowly. “Yes.”
The atmosphere cleared a little. Or maybe it was just the radiator beginning to warm the room. I sat up.
“How well do you know Harrison?”
He shrugged. “Not that well. He and Lara were friends — they knew each other from school.”
“Had they slept together?”
He took it on the chin. “I’d heard rumours about Lara’s reputation, but I didn’t grill her about previous boyfriends. It was none of my business. Why are you asking about Harrison?”
“I think he was our intruder last night.”
“That’s mad.”
“Think about it, Daniel. That pendant he wears is a pentagram.”
“So what?”
“That’s the pattern they found cut into Lara’s skin.” He caught his breath. “I’m sorry, love.”
“It’s all right. It can’t get any worse. But you can’t be serious about Harrison.”
“I am. He took a print of mine and I’m pretty sure he was hunting round the darkroom looking for the negative.”
“Harrison? He’s so laid back he’s horizontal. He couldn’t plan and execute a murder any more than he could pole vault. He was just interested in your darkroom — he is a photographer, remember.”
“That’s debatable.”
“As for the pentagram — surely that’s just coincidence. You see them around everywhere.”
I thought about it. Those pendants were available on any self-respecting market stall that sold jewellery, and the design itself was commonplace and easy to imitate. But that didn’t prove Harrison was innocent.
“Listen, Mum. We may never know who killed Lara.”
“That’s rubbish. We’ll find out. I won’t give up until we do. I’m getting closer all the time.”
“You’ve got to stop!”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you still saying you fell into the river accidentally? Somehow I don’t believe that.”
“Daniel…”
He pulled off his quilted cocoon and dropped it to the floor. “You have to stop, Mum. It’s gone too far. I don’t want to lose you as well.”
I felt as if I’d been punched in the stomach. “But you’re the one who wanted me to find out whatever I could.”
“Yes. And look what happened to you. You could have died.” He put his head in his hands. “Right at the start you said it was too dangerous and that we should leave it to the police. And that’s what we’re going to do.”
“Then we might wait forever.”
“Fair enough.”
“You can live with that, never knowing who murdered Lara?”
His face contorted. “I don’t know. I just know I couldn’t live with the guilt if you… if anything happened to you.”
“Come here.” Daniel knelt by the bed and let me hug him. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
“I mean it, Mum. You must stop now. I want you to promise me you won’t carry on.”
I breathed in his smell, testosterone and sweat, and arising from his clothes, base notes of paint and turps. He was a man now. One day soon I would have to let him go for good. And he’d have to let me go too.
In the meantime, he was right. He needed me. I was pretty much all he had by way of family.
“All right. I promise.”
“No more playing detective?”
“Nope.” I closed my eyes.
“I hope you’re not thinking of going into work today.”
My eyes shot open. “No. I wasn’t.”
“Great. That means we can just chill. I think we both need to. Hey, you could make your fantastic roast veggie lasagne.” He knew this was the only decent meal I could throw together with any competence. “If you’re feeling up to it, I mean. Don’t worry if you’re not. I can do it. And I’ll make pancakes —”
“Of course I’m up to it. That’s the good news.”
“What’s the bad news?”
“I won’t be going into work tomorrow, either.”
Eighteen
“What will you do?”
Daniel was sitting at the kitchen table, eating dry cereal straight from the packet.
“I don’t know yet. But we’ll manage.” I munched my toast without tasting a thing. “Somehow.”
“This is all my fault, isn’t it? You lost your job because of the time you spent with me in hospital.”
“Of course not.”
“Chasing up stuff about Lara in working hours, then. That’s why he sacked you, I know it is.”
“How many times — I wasn’t sacked, I resigned!” I poured
more tea from the pot with an unsteady hand, splashing some on to my empty plate. “Tony had me in his sights. He wanted to get rid of me, and the fact I didn’t have one hundred per cent attention on my work gave him the perfect excuse. It’s absolutely not your fault.”
He pushed the cereal packet away. It toppled over, spraying a fan of golden flakes across the table.
“Tell me the truth about last night.”
I buckled. I gave him a carefully edited version of events. I admitted I was pushed into the river, but I gave the impression I got out as soon as I could, leaving out my prolonged immersion, and especially the bit about being trapped under the lid of ice. I didn’t even want to think about that myself.
“You must tell the police.”
“Maybe.”
“Someone tried to kill you.” He took his glasses off, polished them on his grubby T-shirt and put them back on again. “It has to be the same person who murdered Lara.”
“I realise that.”
“Then go to the police. You’ve got vital information.”
“I didn’t see anything, just a figure in the distance. It could have been Harrison…” Daniel gave me a pained look. “Or anyone, I suppose.”
He stood up abruptly. “I’m going to ring them now.”
“No. You’re going back to bed. You look completely jiggered. I’ve got some things to sort out, then I’ll ring them.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart.”
Daniel’s shoulders slumped. He turned to go. But there was something I wanted to ask him, something that intrigued me.
“How long was I gone last night?”
“I’m not sure… about fifteen minutes.”
“You’re joking! It felt like I was in that water for a lifetime, an hour at least.”
“You wouldn’t have lasted an hour in an ice-cold river. I reckon you’d have been dead within five minutes.”
“No need to sound so calm and matter of fact about it.” I saw his hurt expression. “Sorry. That was unfair.”
“You have to face it, Mum. You nearly died. So tell the police what happened.”
“Message received and understood.”
When he’d gone, I swept up the spilled cereal, cleared the dishes away and washed up. I even wiped the cooker and mopped the floor, small tasks to try and mend the frayed fabric of my life.
I remembered the dustbin. Still in my dressing gown I went outside and cleaned up the mess. I tied up the refilled black bag and put a fresh one in the bin.
What now? Not having a job was a huge tear in the fabric, a hole that was going to take a long time to mend. But I couldn’t slop around in my nightclothes for hours just because I wasn’t going to work. I forced myself to pretend it was a normal day. In the shower I lifted my face to the hot liquid needles, not afraid of the water any more. A small victory. One step at a time.
I peeped into Daniel’s room. He was fast asleep, breathing normally. I hadn’t forgotten my promise. I was going to ring the police, I really was. But I sensed some resistance in me that I couldn’t entirely understand. Of course they needed to know about the attack. It almost certainly had a direct bearing on the Ramsey case. So why was I procrastinating? Was it something to do with getting so close, some desire to finish this thing myself? Once I told the police about it I would hand over all responsibility. But wasn’t that exactly what I promised Daniel I would do? I mentally squirmed, torn between instinct and common sense.
I decided to go shopping, a mindless activity that would help me think straight. And not my usual high-speed spin around the supermarket, but a leisurely stroll into town. I made a list — milk, cheese, fresh vegetables, pasta, toilet paper, tea. Ravenbridge had a fine Victorian covered market. I used to love roaming up and down the aisles, getting lost among the stalls. It was as intricate as a maze and full of surprises. I hadn’t had time to wander around there for ages. I’d go there, then return home armed with fresh produce and a bargain or two and cook a proper dinner. By then I would be clearer in my mind about what to do next, I was sure of it. I realised that I’d even stopped shaking. Hope was the thing. Hadn’t I learnt that last night? Never give up hope.
But I had given up, I reminded myself. I’d given up hope of finding Lara’s killer. Another hole in the weave, one that defied darning. But Daniel was right. I couldn’t go on acting like some latter-day Sherlock Holmes. It was time to stop. So how come I felt so little relief? The truth was, I was eaten up with frustration. I had been so close, I was sure of it.
I left Daniel a note, then I put a thick fleece over my leather jacket and zipped on my boots. I’d leave the car. I wanted to walk, to feel the slap of cold air on my face and the reassuring solidity of the ground under my feet.
I opened the front door. There was something on the doorstep.
A streak of matted brown fur, oozing a slick of blood and guts.
For several seconds I stared at it, uncomprehending. Then I saw what it was.
Hayley’s ferret.
*
A fresh fall of snow had obliterated all the prints across my lawn and across Rob and Denise’s too. The door of the empty cage hung open. The cardboard shoe box I was carrying was surprisingly light. I seemed to remember a weighty streak of muscle hanging from my outstretched arm when I rescued the ferret from the tree. But a lot of fluid and organs still lay congealed on my doorstep. I had only picked up what was left of the lifeless body.
Through the kitchen window I could see the top of Rob’s head as he bent over the sink. There was no sign of Hayley. It was gone nine o’clock. Denise would have taken her to school before she went on to work. I was glad of that. I worried for the child, recalling the raised voices from last night. If her parents were in conflict she was probably already upset, and then to find her beloved pet missing again this morning when she went to feed it must have broken her heart.
I approached the house. A low ramp had been built over the three steps that led up to the back door. I climbed it slowly. Now I could see Rob clearly. His wheelchair was sideways on to the sink where he was painstakingly doing the washing up. He was twisted from the hips at an awkward angle. His useless legs didn’t seem to belong to the powerful upper body. I tapped on the door. He looked up in surprise.
‘Come in’, he mouthed.
“Hi, Rob. How are things?”
“About the same. Can’t complain. I’m better off than that young girl who got herself killed anyhow.” He jerked a thumb behind him. “I’ve just been watching the local news. Seems like the police have no idea who did it.”
“It’s a bad business.” I paused, looking helplessly at the box.
“What have you got there?”
“That’s what —”
Just then, Hayley’s face peeped round the kitchen door. She looked pale and washed-out.
“Hayley… I didn’t expect… not at school today?”
She shook her head as she crept into the room.
“She woke up poorly,” said Rob. “Denise reckoned she’d better have the day off.”
Or maybe she had been woken by her parents shouting and her illness was due to exhaustion and misery. In any case, perhaps she hadn’t been out to see to the ferret yet, had no idea it was gone. I slid the box on to the worktop and stood in front of it.
“Dad, can I have a drink of water?” Hayley climbed onto Rob’s knee. He held her tenderly while he filled a glass from the tap.
“Back to bed now. I’ll be up in a while.”
Carrying her drink carefully she wandered out, almost wraith-like, not her normal bouncy self at all.
“How’s Denise?” I asked. “I haven’t seen her since… when?… Christmas Eve when she popped round with a card.”
Rob’s face, always pinched with pain nowadays, tightened further. “She’s fine. Did you want to speak to her? Only she’s gone to work. She’ll be home around six. In theory. Come back then.”
“No, I just…” I grabbed a tea towel and starte
d drying up. “I hear you’ve got the stair lift fitted at last.”
“Yep. That makes a big difference. It means I can sleep in my own bed and not in the front room anymore. Like today, I can go upstairs and see to Hayley when she needs something.”
“That’s great. Any news about adapting the kitchen?”
“News of a sort. The wrong sort. The council have turned down my application for a grant.”
“That’s terrible.”
“They say my case isn’t urgent enough. They’ve run out of money, more like.”
“Are you going to try again?”
“If I can be bothered.”
“What about your compensation claim?”
“About the same progress there as the council.” He dropped a mug into the soapy water. “It’s a bloody mess, Jude, that’s what it is.”
“I know.” I put a tentative hand on his shoulder. Rob once had his own window-cleaning business. He fallen off a ladder and broken his spine. The trouble was, he hadn’t got round to renewing his insurance because the premiums had shot up to a ridiculous amount. Now they had to rely on Denise’s job as a legal secretary while they waited to see if he would get any kind of compensation payout. I wanted to put my arms around him and tell him everything would be all right. But it would be a lie. We both knew that.
“Fancy a cup of tea?” I asked.
“Don’t you have to go to work?” he said, not quite able to hide his envy.
“Morning off. So what do you say?”
He dried his hands, which were red and raw-looking. Real men didn’t wear rubber gloves. “Why not?” Gripping the wheels, he swung the chair round.
“Let me —”
“No,” he said sharply. “I’ll do it.”
The kitchen was hopelessly inadequate for a disabled person, everything being too high, too spread out, too awkward. I watched him as he fetched the kettle, and holding it between his knees, trekked back to the sink to fill it. I didn’t try to help even though every movement was painfully slow. He put teabags into cups, fetched milk from the fridge, and when the kettle came to the boil with a bad-tempered screech he poured scalding water on them. He put the kettle down with a bang, his shoulders heaving.
“Rob… what’s wrong?”
“It’s Denise.”
If It Bleeds Page 16
