Up in the converted attic, a window in the gable wall was broken, an inexpertly fixed piece of plyboard keeping out the chill wind. All the furniture had been cleared out and the wide expanse of floorboards was patterned with dust. A leak in the roof had spread patches of damp across the plaster walls.
Daniela wondered if Auryn had emptied the other bedrooms or just this one, which they’d shared as kids. Back then, it’d made sense for her and Auryn, the youngest two, to share a room. They’d been so close in age. As time went on and they’d started wanting their own space, their father promised he would fix up the spare room for Auryn, but it remained as a junk room, with a battered futon shoved in one corner, until Auryn lost patience and moved down there anyway, carving out a neat little space among the clutter.
Daniela stepped into the centre of the room like a sleepwalker. Everything seemed unreal, like pictures in a faded book. Her bed had stood against one wall, with Auryn’s directly opposite, beneath the skylight. An empty wooden shelf was still fixed to the wall beside the window. Back in the day, it’d been laden with Auryn’s paperbacks and emergency supplies – a spare phone charger, AA batteries, and a pen-torch in case of power cuts. Prepared and paranoid, that was Auryn. Even after she’d moved to the spare room, she’d kept a stash of emergency supplies up here.
The floorboards were scratched where the heavy iron frame of Daniela’s bed had dragged. Daniela knelt and located a gap between two boards that was slightly larger than it should’ve been. A short plank that’d been removed and replaced so many times it’d worn smooth at the edges. Daniela used her fingernails to prise up the board.
Below was a musty space. It was a not-so-secret secret; a hidey-hole she and Auryn had used to conceal bits and pieces they considered valuable. As they’d got older, they’d used it less frequently. Daniela doubted anyone had lifted the board since she’d stashed something important there, seven years ago.
So, she was surprised to find a large, rectangular object, the size of a breeze block, wrapped tightly in plastic, taking up most of the room in the hole. Apparently at least one other family member recalled the hiding place.
Daniela reached past the plastic-wrapped object, flinching away when it brushed her arm. Whatever it was, it wasn’t hers, and she avoided touching it.
Right at the back of the concealed space, wedged behind a wooden support, so far that Daniela had to lie down flat to reach it, should’ve been a small bundle wrapped in cloth. At first, she couldn’t find it, and panicked. Had someone taken it? But then her fingers closed on the bundle. It was tucked further back than she’d thought.
Daniela drew it out gingerly. The cloth had once been a blue striped tea towel, but long years in damp conditions had turned it into a formless grey mush, coated in dust and rot. It smelled of decay.
Perching on her heels, Daniela unwrapped the old bundle. The last seven years concertinaed and suddenly she was a teenager again, sitting on the edge of her bed, folding the towel around a slim metal object. The memory returned with such clarity it made her flinch. She’d pictured returning here so often it was hard to believe this was real.
She knew it wasn’t smart to retrieve the object, but she couldn’t stop herself. For years she’d wondered whether it’d remained unfound, awaiting her return. She had to know.
She pulled away the friable cloth to reveal a flick-knife. Rust decorated the once shiny steel, but couldn’t obscure the shape of a snake, inlaid in black, along the dark red handle.
Along with the knife, concealed in the folds of the cloth, were four gold rings, tarnished and discoloured, with precious stones that no longer glittered.
The rings were what she’d come to the house for. Daniela had a rough idea how much they were worth. Not nearly as much as five thousand, but maybe enough. By now it should be safe to sell them. In her palm, they were cold enough to make her skin tingle. Here was another chunk of her past. She tucked them in the pocket of her jeans.
She started to rewrap the knife, but her gaze fell on the plastic-wrapped package in the hidey-hole.
What was Auryn hiding?
Curiosity won, and she lifted the package out. It hadn’t lain there long enough to collect dust. In the slightly better light, the blue polythene became translucent. Daniela whistled in surprise.
The package contained stacks of twenty-pound notes, bound so tightly they’d become a hard brick. Daniela weighed it in her hand. She couldn’t begin to estimate how much money was there.
What the hell was Auryn doing with this?
She hadn’t for a moment expected to find money in the house. She’d come back for what was hers, that was all. And yet, here it was, like a gift from God, left hidden for her in an empty house. Just when she needed it most.
How long would it be until Auryn came back to the house? How long before she checked the hidey-hole? It’d be days at least. Possibly longer. She might not discover the money was missing for weeks.
Daniela hesitated a moment more as she struggled with her conscience. Absently she pocketed the knife. Then she replaced the loose floorboard.
Cradling the plastic-wrapped money, Daniela went downstairs. She closed the attic door behind her.
Rather than clamber down the tree, she figured she could let herself out through the front door if she moved whatever was blocking it. She took her boots and the money and followed the stairs at the far end of the landing down to the flooded ground floor.
Halfway down, she stopped.
The only light came from the round window at the top of the stairs. It wasn’t really adequate to illuminate the hallway. But Daniela could see the shape that lay blocking the front door. It wasn’t sandbags.
4
Daniela took another step down the stairs. She’d thought Auryn had left the house days ago. If she’d believed otherwise, even for a moment, she would’ve searched the house properly. She never would’ve wasted time going up to her old room.
A little more light slipped through the upstairs window behind her. It didn’t improve the situation. All it did was let Daniela see her sister’s face.
Auryn had slumped against the door, falling sideways so her head rested against the wall. Her nose and mouth were underwater. It appeared that she’d let her hair grow out past her shoulders, normally worn short as a teenager. Loose strands stuck to her forehead and cheek. Her eyes were open. Auryn had always been the odd one out – a blonde-haired, blue-eyed anomaly among her dark-haired sisters.
Daniela dropped what she was holding and came down the stairs fast. She jumped down the last two steps before remembering she wasn’t wearing her boots. The shock of the cold water barely slowed her. She grabbed Auryn’s shoulders and dragged her upright.
Water flowed from Auryn’s slack mouth. Daniela stifled a cry. She shook Auryn by the shoulders as if the woman might suddenly snap out of this. Auryn’s head flopped forwards. She was a dead weight.
Daniela pressed a hand to Auryn’s neck. She held her breath, willing a pulse to flutter beneath her fingers. There was nothing. The skin was cold and waxy and lifeless. When Daniela moved her hand, the imprint of her fingertips remained indented on Auryn’s throat.
Daniela stumbled away and half fell against the doorway that led to the sitting room. Her feet sent waves bouncing off the walls. The reflections from the water gave the illusion of movement on Auryn’s face. As if at any moment she might blink and sit up. Auryn’s black vest billowed around her stomach. The flesh of her arms and face was the colour of dead fish belly.
Automatically Daniela glanced into the front room, where the phone always sat on the windowsill. It was disconnected, the cable wrapped around the handset.
She managed to get her mobile out of her pocket. With shaking hands, she dialled Stephanie’s number.
The line rang four times then went to voicemail.
‘Steph, I’m at the old house.’ Daniela’s voice sounded loud and panicky in the close confines of the waterlogged house. ‘Something’s happened to
Auryn.’
She tried to say more but the words jammed in her throat. Her eyes stung with tears. She shut the phone off and held it gripped tight in her hand.
Turning away, she stared into the front room. It was difficult to tell when the house had flooded. Water lapped the big oak dining table. The table was strewn with papers and magazines, their edges curling. Already the wallpaper was beginning to peel. The threadbare sofa was saturated, and a low coffee table was now an island. Several empty cups sat on the table. Some effort had been made here to move books and magazines to the higher bookcase shelves, and there was a conspicuous empty spot on an entertainment stand where a television and DVD player had been removed. A sodden cushion wallowed in the water like a half-sunk iceberg. The water had an oily sheen.
There was also a lot of rubbish. Cigarette ends and empty beer cans bobbed on the waves. A pair of whisky bottles nestled together in the corner. One was still half-full and rode low in the water.
Auryn … what happened to you?
Looking into the sitting room, Daniela’s gaze flitted from one irrelevant object to the next, searching for something solid. The dusty mirror above the fireplace reflected her pale, shocked face, almost unrecognisable. The semi-opaque glass made her look drowned. Daniela stared at the ornaments on the mantel, at scraps of paper and postcards, at the books on the shelves next to framed photographs that’d belonged to Dad. Some of the items were hers. A carved wooden bear brought back from a school trip. The shell casing from a Second World War mortar that she’d dug up in the woods. Small, meaningless things that she’d left behind without a thought, and which had long since vanished from her memory, yet remained here, awaiting her return.
Daniela took a few stumbling steps back to the stairs. Eddies of greasy water followed her. She sat down on the third step before her legs gave out. Her mind sloshed and tilted in her skull. Her jeans and socks were soaked with dirty water. She lifted her wet feet out of the flood.
Again, she tried Stephanie’s number. Listened to it ring.
Dad died here as well, Daniela remembered with a jolt. She raised her eyes to the upstairs landing where, three years ago, her father had stumbled, drunk, and tipped headfirst over the banisters. Broke his neck on impact then lay for twelve hours until the postman found him.
Is that what’d happened to Auryn as well? From where Daniela sat, she could see one of the empty bottles that bobbed about in the sitting room. Had Auryn fallen?
Her phone bipped as the call went to voicemail again. Daniela hung up and immediately redialled.
Closer to the water, the bad-drain smell was stronger. Daniela wondered whether the smell and the oily glaze had leaked out of Auryn. The thought made her stomach roil so badly she had to close her eyes.
Voicemail again. Daniela swore. It came out as a sob.
You don’t even know if Stephanie’s using the same number, Daniela realised. That hadn’t occurred to her. Likewise, it hadn’t occurred to her to call 999. Despite the years, she’d reached instinctively for Stephanie.
Daniela leant back against the stairs. Her arm brushed something solid and wrapped in plastic. The package of money. She picked it up and let it sit heavy on her lap.
She was about to redial when her phone burst into life, the ringtone loud enough to make her jump. Stephanie’s number appeared on the screen, so familiar even after all those years.
5
When the police arrived, Daniela was sat on the wall at the bottom of the front garden, her knees pulled up so her booted feet were clear of the water. She was shivering and red-eyed, not just from the cold.
She heard the police before she saw them. They’d commandeered a tractor – the best way of traversing the flooded roadways – from a local farmer. The steady chug-chug-chug was audible long before the vehicle popped into view.
Daniela didn’t recognise the thickset woman driving the tractor. Her wind-burned cheeks and earth-coloured clothes suggested she was either the farmer or the farmer’s wife. It stood to reason she wouldn’t trust the local bobbies to drive the vehicle themselves. Stephanie stood on the footplate, stony-faced, hanging on with both hands.
The tractor stopped in the flooded turning circle, and Stephanie jumped down with a splash. Daniela took one look at her sister’s face then dropped her gaze. She didn’t know what she’d hoped for. Sympathy? Forgiveness? Some human emotion, at least. But Stephanie could’ve been arriving at a train station for all the sentiment she showed. She started up the path with barely a glance at Daniela.
‘You’ll have to go around the back,’ Daniela called after her. ‘Front door’s blocked. I’ve opened the kitchen door.’
Daniela didn’t follow Stephanie. The idea of going inside again made her stomach churn. Instead, she remained on the wall, lit another cigarette, and watched the tractor perform a six-point turn. The farmer tipped her cap and set off back along the road. Daniela waited.
Within a few minutes, sloshing footsteps indicated Stephanie’s return. Daniela studied her cigarette, which had burned down to the filter. She cringed at having to face her sister.
‘Dani, what happened?’ Stephanie asked. There was a raw edge to her voice that Daniela had never heard before.
Daniela rubbed her eyes with her knuckles. ‘I told you on the phone,’ she said. ‘I found her like that.’
‘What were you doing here?’
‘I wanted to see the old house.’
‘What for?’
Daniela discarded her cigarette into the water, where it bobbed about with the dead leaves and twigs. ‘It’s still my home,’ she said. ‘It belongs to me, at least a little.’
‘So, you broke in.’ Not really a question.
‘I couldn’t get in the front, and the back door was locked. I climbed through the upstairs window. Look at the state of the place, for God’s sake. Of course, I went inside.’
Stephanie let the silence stretch. Daniela felt the police-stare burning the back of her neck, but didn’t look up. She was wise to that trick.
‘Where did you go when you got inside?’ Stephanie asked.
‘Through the junk room, down the stairs, into the hall. That’s when I saw Auryn.’
‘And then?’
‘I called you.’
‘Did you move her?’
‘No. I … I tried to sit her up. Before I realised.’
‘But did you move her? Is she still where you found her?’
‘I—’ Daniela couldn’t shift the memory of Auryn’s dead weight under her hands. ‘What the hell should I’ve done? She’s dead, isn’t she?’ Daniela rubbed her eyes again. Her hands were cold. ‘I knew I had to call someone.’
‘So, you called me.’
‘You’re the police. I figured it’d be quickest. I mean, if I’d called the control room I would’ve got put through to Hackett, and God knows how long it’d take them to get here with the bridge closed. Have you called anyone?’
Stephanie grunted, which could’ve meant anything. Daniela noted she wasn’t writing this down like she was supposed to. She wondered whether Stephanie was doing any of the things she should’ve. Shock was hitting her hard as well; Daniela could tell. There was a stricken look on Stephanie’s face. She had all the police training to deal with awful, stressful situations, but this had blindsided her.
‘I’ve called a doctor,’ Stephanie said. ‘They’ll be here soon.’
‘Is that Abrams?’ Doctor Abrams was the local GP and, by Daniela’s estimation, had to be a hundred years old.
‘Abrams is in Hackett. There’s a doctor in town who’s coming to examine the body.’
Daniela studied her hands again. The body. Already Auryn had ceased to be a person.
‘Did you go anywhere else in the house?’ Stephanie asked.
‘No. Wait, I went into the kitchen on the way out. To unlock the back door. Rather than climbing out through the window, y’know.’
‘You didn’t go back upstairs?’
‘No. Didn’t w
ant to track too much mud into the house.’ Daniela forced a smile. ‘What would Dad have said, eh?’
Stephanie didn’t answer.
Daniela took out her cigarettes. She didn’t want another yet, but she needed something to do with her hands. Talking with police officers made her uncomfortable. Talking with her sister, doubly so. Daniela focused on the packet and tried not to think about the hidey-hole in the bedroom.
‘You said Auryn had left,’ Daniela said. ‘She left a few days ago, you said. So, why was she here?’
Stephanie didn’t answer that either.
‘Hello?’ someone called. ‘Stephanie?’
Daniela looked up. A man had appeared at the top of the road. He was wrapped in a grey duffel coat and shapeless woollen hat, plus obligatory wellies. His young face was stamped with grief. Daniela froze.
‘I got here as fast as I could,’ the man said as he approached the gate. ‘My bloody car got stuck. I figured since it’s a four-by-four it should’ve been fine, but apparently not. Tilly’s going to drag it out with her tractor.’
His words spilled out in a rush, as if he had to keep his lips moving or his voice would seize. He went to Stephanie and touched her arm. With anyone else he might’ve gone in for a hug, but he knew Stephanie better than that.
‘Is it true?’ he asked. ‘What happened?’
Stephanie pulled away. ‘You’d better come inside,’ she said.
The man rubbed his face with both hands. He had to take a stabilising breath before he could focus on Daniela. When he did so, his eyes widened. ‘Daniela?’
‘Hi, Leo,’ Daniela said. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were still in Stonecrop.’
Leo McKearney tore his gaze away. ‘Why is she here?’ he asked Stephanie in a fierce whisper. ‘Did she—?’ He broke off as if afraid to say more while Daniela was in earshot.
‘I just got here,’ Daniela said. ‘I went into the house and found Auryn.’
Leo bit his lip. Then he straightened up and, despite the redness of his eyes, assumed a professional air. ‘I’d better see her,’ he said.
The Flood Page 4
