CHAPTER 40

December 1st

“I could only testify to what I saw,” mused Claire Hibbert, nursing the half-drunk cup of tea. It had seemed to restore her somewhat, made her braver.

Martha, too, was calmer, more rational. Her head still stung a little but she focused hard on the woman’s story, trying to memorise every last detail.

“And what I saw was Martin standing there – the oar stained with Jack Ball’s blood at his feet. Martin was just standing there, soaking wet, looking into the lake. I stopped running – I just didn’t know what to do – and then I realised Mr Calvert was behind me, shouting at me to go and get Mr Turnbull to telephone for an ambulance and for the police – I ran back to the house as fast as my legs could carry me and then I just waited with all the rest of the staff as the police came and the ambulance – all those flashing lights outside. We all wanted to see what was happening but Mr Turnbull sent a message that we were to stay indoors. A policeman came to talk to me, of course. And I told him what I saw but nothing more. What I told that policeman was what I repeated on the witness stand.”

“That you’d seen Martin with the murder weapon at his feet and that he was wet?” asked Martha.

“That’s all I saw,” repeated Claire with a sigh. “In court, they said such awful things – that Martin had been . . . interfering . . . with Laurence . . . that his interest in him was what they called ‘sinister’ and ‘perverse’, and that Jack Ball had been trying to protect the child from him . . . that Martin had killed Jack and then dragged Laurence into the water and held him under by the throat . . . but it was the other way round . . . it was Laurencewho hit Jack Ball with the oar on the temple . . . and it was Jack who strangled the boy while Martin tried to save him.” She looked directly at Martha. “I saw Martin, you see, when he got out of prison . . . just the once last May . . . soon before he died . . . and he told me what really happened.”

Claire shifted in her chair and for a split second glanced behind Martha, her eye catching something at the other end of the room before she looked back.

“Laurence was such a feisty little thing – no one knows what went on between himself and Uncle Jack in the boat, but Laurence might well have proved more than Jack could handle . . . And in the end he showed his mettle and fought back to defend his friend Martin. For all the good it did . . .”

As she told the tale, Claire’s voice grew stronger, more powerful somehow. As if it were a weight lifted off her entire being to tell another person.

Martha caught her glance yet again behind where she sat.

“There are so many ‘if only’s’, though,” she continued. If only Martin hadn’t gone down to the lake in the first place, if only Laurence had heeded his warning not to be alone with Jack Ball, if only Martin could have somehow got Ball to release his grip . . .”

“How ironic that a boy who loved to swim so much should die like that,” observed Martha.

“When it got to court they wouldn’t let Martin testify. He was never allowed to defend himself on the witness stand. And that lawyer that they got from London – it was like he wanted to lose. Like he didn’t really care about Martin. Like Martin said, there were forces working against him. Martin was sure he’d been what he called ‘fitted up’. I should have done something – said something about his character . . . about how he used to go to Laurence’s room only to tell ghost stories at night . . . about how they were friends . . .”

Martha leaned forward. “There was nothing more you could have done, Claire,” she said reassuringly. “You were young and afraid – they were clever people. And they wanted it sewn up neatly.”

“That’s what Martin said,” responded Claire, looking again past Martha and down toward the back of the room.

Something in the look made Martha take notice. Her heart began to beat quickly as she turned slightly to look in the same direction. Then she stopped herself. Something in her made her think that she didn’t want to look after all as a thought struck her out of the blue.

“Claire . . .” she said, “when you said Jack was back for Martin . . . what did you mean by that exactly?”

Claire’s stare didn’t budge from what she saw at the end of the room. That was answer enough for Martha. A chill ran the length of her spine. She stared intently at Claire’s face where a hint of a smile played.

“I never go back to the lake much now,” Claire said. “But I loved it down there. Loved how we’d hold hands and chat about our plans, or sit on the big rock down on the shore and skim stones. I often went back there over the years, even after I married Jim. Martin’s Place, I’ve always called it. I always think of him when I’m there . . .” Her eyes were still fixed on the back of the room.

“I knew he was sick . . . when I saw him last May he knew he didn’t have long. He had less than even he thought, as it turned out. And shortly afterwards, things started going missing around the kitchen – pudding bowls, soup ladles – and after a while I’d find them in the most unusual of places. He used to do that to tease me when we were young . . .”

The chill spread around the whole of Martha’s body and she felt the hairs on her arms begin to prickle as they stood on end.

“It was when I found the whisk in the pantry that I knew,” Claire said quietly and smiled again, her eyes still focused beyond Martha. “He did that once before . . .”

Martha felt her heart begin to race, felt a weakness run through her.

“He’s here, Claire, isn’t he?” she whispered, the question asked against her will.

The nod was barely perceptible.

Martha forced herself to turn in the chair, to peer into the gloom of the space behind her, terrified at the prospect of what she might see. There was nothing there of course. At first. But then Martha noticed, for a second, what looked like a mist in the corner. It was barely visible, but when she looked away, and looked back again, she was sure it was there. Her heart gave a great leap and she swung back to look again at Claire, her eyes filled with panic.

“It’s gone now,” Claire said, still staring at the space. Her gaze returned to Martha’s face. “After that, all the other strange things started happening around here – the smells, Tiger – all the staff were disturbed and then Donald Gifford said he’d sort it and that he’d contacted someone to see if they could help. It’s Gabriel, of course . . . though Donald didn’t say so.”

Martha leaped in her seat as there was a sudden crash. Then the kitchen door burst open.

Claire jumped to her feet. “Laura!” she exclaimed, shocked. The figure of a young girl, her hair damp, stood in the kitchen doorway. The sound of the storm grew louder from behind her, where she had left the back door open.

Martha looked back toward Claire. Wasn’t that the girl she said she’d left with Ruby? Martha suddenly grew numb.

“The child, Mrs Hibbert . . .” panted Laura.

“What about her?” gasped Martha, leaping to her feet.

“The door – she opened the sliding door somehow!” cried Laura. She was soaking wet, her hair limp on her shoulders.

“Is she okay?” Martha cried, taking a step toward the girl with the petrified eyes. Please, God, no – don’t let her say what I think she’s going to say . . .

“The door’s open, somehow,” Laura panted. “Mrs Hibbert, she’s gone!”

It was as if Martha had no control of her own body as she started running, past the girl, out into the passageway and toward the back door. She crossed the courtyard and rushed in through the open door of the cottage. When she burst into the bedroom where last she had seen her child asleep, however, her heart broke through the barrier at the sight of the empty bed, the ruffled covers, the dent in the mattress in the shape of Ruby’s little body, Hugo her bear.

A matter of minutes and Ruby had been asleep here . . . safe . . . and now the room was freezing cold, the curtains blowing wildly as the storm found its way in. The wind, of course, Martha thought. Somehow the wind had managed to open the lock or break the door or blow something through it – but how? It couldn’t have pulled apart those heavy curtains, nor broken the glass without leaving a trace somewhere in the room. The door was open but there was no damage – no shards of glass on the floor. There was a small crash as she stood there, as the bedside table lamp blew over in a strong gust of wind. All the while the rain beat its persistent tattoo on the windows.

Claire appeared at the door and behind her the terrified Laura.

“How did this happen?” yelled Martha, feeling a rage build up inside her.

“I don’t know – the door is always locked – there’s a small bolt. Always,” panted Claire. “What happened, Laura? Tell me exactly what happened.”

The girl was shaking as she spoke. “I went into the toilet – I’d only just checked her and she was sound asleep. I didn’t hear anything with the flush of the toilet . . . but then when I came out I felt the cold in the hallway, and I heard how loud the storm sounded. I wondered if maybe a window had somehow opened, or if a branch or something might have broken some glass . . . I never thought for a second . . . I followed the noise of the wind into this room . . . I couldn’t believe it . . . she was just gone . . . I rushed out and searched for her outside but there was no sign of her . . .”

“Someone at the party must have taken her,” tried Martha. Her head was working overtime – where could she be gone? Someone had to have opened the door. She crossed the room, walking around the beds and stepped over the threshold out onto the patio where she was instantly buffeted with a gust of wind and pelted with ice-cold rain. She didn’t feel it. She was paralysed by the panic that grew within her by the second.

She went back into the room and demanded of the girl, “Did you hear anything?”

“Nothing, I swear. But the sound of the storm was so loud I wouldn’t have. For a second I thought I heard a wee bell, like if someone had tassels on their clothes or something but then nothing.”

Martha caught Claire Hibbert’s eye and every ounce of colour drained from her face. Her body started to tremble uncontrollably. “Get Gabriel!” she hissed at Claire, before she turned and ran out into the night, into the storm, with no idea where she was going.

She heard Claire’s voice call her back but she couldn’t stay, couldn’t stand still. It was as if she was pulled out into the night. If he had Ruby . . . if what the girl had said was true . . .

Martha ran as quickly as she could across the patio at the back of the cottage, dodging fallen flowerpots, and then on, under a trellis shaped like an arch, bare and white against the darkness, like an arc of stripped bones. As she did, the sensor light on the cottage blinked off and she was plunged into complete darkness.

The dress was sodden now, clung to her body, soaked through in the matter of moments. It felt a ton weight, the wet velvet slowing her down as she ran. Her hair, too, was stuck to her head, to the sides of her face. The drops of rain were like hard pellets of ice hitting her skin. She had to keep running, had to find Ruby . . . but where?

In an instant she knew. Knew that reason was too much to hope for. Knew that it wasn’t a living soul that had made their way into that room and taken her daughter, or guided her, or forced her. Knew that there was one place that Jack Ball would take a child. The lake.

Martha ran even faster. She felt the ground grow soft beneath her feet, stumbled time and again as the kitten heels wedged themselves in the soft earth, feeling rage and frustration grow every time she had to pause to pull them out again. For a moment, she contemplated removing them, running barefoot, but her mind was clear enough to reject this as a poor notion. She pelted on, without a clue where she was going – except she knew that the lake was this way.

She had been running across open ground – soon, however, the space narrowed to a pathway lined on both sides with dark foliage. Martha almost froze with terror as she suddenly felt damp leaves stroke her arms as she ran. For a second, she was full sure that they weren’t leaves – that they were arms, reaching out to her in the dark. The mental image made her run faster, to escape them, to escape her own thoughts.

Suddenly, through the storm, she was sure that she heard a child’s voice. She stopped dead, her heart pounding against her ribcage with fear and the strenuous exertion. But the wind screamed, leaving only the crying of the gale. With a groan, she picked up the sodden skirts as best she could, and began to run again.

When eventually she felt the ground grow soft underneath her feet, when the bushes ahead of her parted and when she stepped onto the black shore of the lake, a gust of wind hit her, so strong that it almost knocked her off her feet. Martha stopped, her breath coming in great gulps, her chest burning. She was here, here at the lake. Where she was sure Ruby would be. She could see little. The night was black, the sky free from light pollution but filled with layer after layer of cloud spilling torrents of water from the sky. Martha was aware of the water ahead of her, the sound of the downpour hitting it with thick, relentless drops. The ground felt muddy underneath her. She felt her footing go in the soft earth and staggered as she tried to balance herself, all the time her eyes searching frantically, forcing them to grow more accustomed to the darkness, to see if there was any sign of her precious child.

And then she saw the shape move out of the corner of her eye. It frightened her. Despite the fact that she sought a living thing – oh God, please let her be alive, she thought – she was still surprised to see movement. She lost sight of it for a second while the wind blew more rain against her, but there – there it was again. A small pale shape moving out toward . . . no, into . . . the lake.

“Ruby!” screamed Martha, racing as fast as she could to reach her baby before the waves could. She could hear the lake in turmoil, seething and rushing. As she grew closer, the small pale shape – Ruby in her pale pink sleepsuit – became more distinct, as did the lake. And somehow, somehow, it seemed that Ruby was floating above the water. Walking, as if on it, but yet above it. If she were in the lake, then surely it would only take seconds for her to disappear. And as she grew closer, Martha realised that Ruby wasn’t floating above the surface, but walking along a small, dark jetty which Martha hadn’t made out before, the blackness of the structure indistinguishable against the high water that lashed at its supports. The jetty. Where it had all happened before.

Martha grew closer again and watched as Ruby stopped a few feet from the end of the jetty. A fierce gust of wind suddenly attacked from their right, from across the lake. It shoved Martha sideways, helpless against its strength. She screamed. If the gust could move her on the low shore, then surely that was it – Ruby would be lifted like a leaf out there on the water’s edge, and tossed into the water.

Yet she wasn’t. The child stood there, stock still, facing out into the water, as if she wondered why she could go no further.

Martha wanted to scream but instead hauled the dress up again and scrambled up the steps onto the wooden pier, felt the old and rotten wood creak dangerously under her feet. It was too dangerous to walk on, she surmised. With both eyes still firmly fixed on her child, Martha dropped to her knees and began to crawl along the feeble wooden structure. Her weight, made heavier by the bulk of the sodden velvet dress, might prove just too much for the wood beneath her. She couldn’t risk shouting at Ruby either, frightening her, knocking her off whatever balance she had achieved that had so far kept her from being cast into the seething water. Martha’s heart raced at a mile a minute. She longed to scream, to lunge for the child but her little girl was so calm as she stood there, even though the wind came in persistent gusts now, buffeting them both, threatening every second to blow one or both of them into the swirling waters. Martha couldn’t allow herself to think about that. Because that would be it. If Ruby slipped from the pier, if she fell in there, then she would never be seen again. She must reach her. She couldn’t lose her, it just wasn’t possible, yet here it was, so close . . .

Martha crawled on, slowly testing the beams with her hands, leaning her weight on them, before following with her knees. She had to suppress the urge to call out to Ruby. What if the little girl turned and lost her balance? Or got a fright and stepped forward?

She was almost there now . . . only feet away. Still Ruby never moved, never swayed. A terrible thought struck Martha. What if the spirit had done something to her already? What could he do? Her body seemed fine, but what if he was inside her head? Forcing thoughts into her little mind? Things that she would never forget? How on earth had he got her down here? How had he made a tiny child come all this way by herself?

“Ruby,” she whispered gently, unable to hold back from uttering her daughter’s name any longer. She manoeuvred herself gently around the side of the child, crawling past her, so that she was able to position herself directly to her front, between her and the edge of the jetty. That achieved, Martha knelt there, barely able to keep her eyes open against the rain which now lashed fully across her face, water dripping in streaming rivulets down her cheeks, her chin, her bare neck and chest and her exposed arms. It was like being showered with freezing pins. But at least she was there now. Between Ruby and the water. All she had to do was take her in her arms and they’d be safe, the two of them.

They were close enough that Martha could see her little features, could make out the small shape of her pale little face in the dark. It was mesmerised by something, her eyes glazed over as if she were sleepwalking. If she just raised a hand, Martha thought, then she could rub her hair – she was within touching distance now. Stay calm, she urged herself. Don’t make any sudden moves, don’t fall at the final hurdle . . .

“Mummy,” said Ruby suddenly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world that her mother should be there, that she herself should be out in the blackness of the night, in the worst storm of her short life. “Look!”

Martha’s body tingled as she watched Ruby’s fat little hand rise up in the darkness, glowing white in contrast to the blackness of the night. She became aware again of the sound of the lake behind her, roaring and gushing and gurgling, making unnatural noises as the wind tossed the water from side to side. Ruby was pointing at something behind Martha. Something that she could see, but that her mother couldn’t. Martha felt dizzy as she fixed her stare on the child’s eyes, unable to see what she was pointing at.

“Look, Mummy,” repeated Ruby, pointing out toward the water. “Kitty cat.”

It was then that Martha felt the tug from behind. At first she thought it was the water itself, splashing up over the end of the pier, but in an instant she knew it wasn’t. Knew she was being pulled, yanked over the edge of the wood like a ball of string. And there was nothing she could do to stop herself being pulled in. It was all happening in slow motion. Time slowed as her mouth opened, her eyes grew wide and her arms flailed helplessly, reaching out to steady herself. And failing. Martha’s eyes fixed on Ruby’s face as she fell backwards into the freezing cold belly of the lake. And as she fell, she watched the unnatural mist rise from nowhere and wrap itself around her child.

The last thing that Martha thought as she fell was: “He’s got her.”

Everything was somehow calm under the waves, still. It was pitch dark, of course. She didn’t know if her eyes were open or closed, if she were conscious or not. After she fell – was pulled – she could feel nothing. Not the icy waves around her, nor could she feel any movement. It was as if she were cocooned by the lake itself. As if that under the water, the storm couldn’t reach her.

Afterward, she had a vague memory – she must have dreamed it – of surfacing once again. She was far out now, too far to reach for the jetty, to try to get back to Ruby. But she could see her, which was odd as it was still so dark. She could see her still on the jetty, every one of her features as clear to Martha as if she held her in her arms. Her curls were dark from the rain, of course, but she looked as beautiful as she did after bath-time. Her skin was the colour of snow and drips of rain ran down it, her lips tinged with blue, but she was smiling. And she was completely still, and somehow she was safe. Because there was someone with her. Someone who had a light – no, someone who was a light. It was a young man, Martha saw. A skinny young man who was with Ruby, yet somehow around Ruby. Like a shield in some way. A boy with a smile who somehow made Martha know that Ruby was safe, that her baby was safe.

And in the distance she heard voices, shouting . . . someone calling her name, calling Ruby’s name. So that was all right then. With that, she sank back under the waves, back to the calm of the lake.

That unnatural light was down here, too. It was far away just now, but growing closer, and brighter. Lighting up the water around her, the long reeds and the green and brown weeds, the dust and silt from the forming a strange cloud around her as she sank toward the bottom, everything green in the mysterious illumination. And suddenly she wasn’t alone.

Martha felt the calmness leave her as she became suddenly aware of her body again, of the water which was seething, of the weeds that had curled around her foot. She tried to pull her leg away, tugged at them, succeeded in only tightening them and then she realised that the tightness in her chest was because she couldn’t breathe and she was desperate, desperate for air. Her eyes . . . they were open . . . felt as though they would pop from her head, as if her neck was gripped by a vice. My God, but she needed to breathe!

She looked upward, tried to propel herself to the surface . . . but she couldn’t, couldn’t get away from the grip around her ankle. She twisted again, hungry with desire to take a gulp of air. And what she saw then made everything seem to stop, made time stand still. The body – the huge, bloated, grey body that floated into her line of vision simply hung there, suspended before her eyes. Twenty stone if he were an ounce, Claire Hibbert had said. His face was scrunched into a grimace, the eyes closed, the dark hair floating gracefully above his head.

In that instant, Martha felt the panic explode in her again. She tried to scream as the man’s eyes suddenly opened and looked right at her, and the head turned slightly to reveal the scar in all its glory, the scar which slowly began to open before her eyes, filling the water with clouds of red as it did so, the gash coming apart from lip to temple, opening itself to reveal darkness underneath, spewing blood out into the turbulent water. And then in another instant the lake was plunged back into teeming darkness, the vision instantly gone, like it had been sucked away, somehow. Martha was surrounded once again by all-consuming darkness and the ice cold that pervaded every inch of her body. Without thinking, she finally opened her mouth and gave a great gasp, filling her lungs with the dark water of the lake.

CHAPTER 41

December 4th

Martha felt her limbs stir. At least she thought it was her own limbs. They didn’t feel quite attached to her body. Then, she heard the noises, an occasional beep from what felt like very far away, coming closer to her.

Then the voice. “Hello, there,” it said. It was a woman. She, too, sounded distant.

Martha stirred again, and opened her eyes very slowly. She was somewhere bright and warm. The room swam a little for a moment. She could make out the long strip light on the ceiling above her, then the curtains that hung either side of the bed.

A kindly face entered the picture, wearing a broad smile. “Well, good morning, Martha,” it said. “Glad to see you’ve come back to join us.”

The nurse bent over her, shining a small torch in each eye while holding her head steady with cold hands. The penlight stuffed back in her breast pocket, she reached over Martha’s head and then placed a hard, cold object in her ear for a few moments, removing it when it gave a quiet beep. The woman was a study in efficiency as she unwound a blood-pressure strap from a mobile monitor nearby and attached it to Martha’s arm. The sensation of the belt growing tight and then loosening again felt strange to Martha – her body still felt as though she were just a little outside it. The nurse’s face, however, seemed to indicate that everything was normal.

The nurse stepped lightly to the end of the bed where she unhooked a chart and began to write on it. Martha watched her intently and tried to sit up a little, although her body betrayed her when she did. Her mouth too – when she attempted to speak it felt and sounded as though cotton wool was stuffed against her tongue. She tried to clear her throat, grimaced as it hurt fiercely, and then tried again. “Take it easy, love,” the nurse said, her Scottish accent lilting but her tone serious. She replaced the chart and was at Martha’s side in an instant, holding her elbow and guiding her into a sitting position, deftly arranging pillows at her head for support.

Martha tried again. “Where’s Ruby? Where’s my child?” she managed to croak and looked at the nurse hopefully, praying that she sounded more intelligible aloud than she did in her own head.

The nurse – Karen, her name-badge read – smiled softly. “Your wee girl is absolutely fine,” she said. “She’s gone home with her daddy. But we had to hold on to you for a little while longer.”

Martha looked around her again, now that she had a better view of her surroundings. The curtains around the bed, bright green and decorated with rainbows, formed a small, private cubicle in what seemed to be a bigger ward. It was, of course, bright, clean and smelling of unmistakeable hospital odour.

The nurse picked up a plastic glass and jug from the locker beside the bed, and poured a little water before handing it to Martha, carefully maintaining a hold on it as she guided it to her lips. “Do you think you could drink this for me very slowly?” she asked.

Martha wasn’t sure. Her arms didn’t seem to be working very well. Nor did her lips come to think of it, but with Karen’s help she managed, forcing the water down her jagged throat.

“Good girl,” Karen crooned. “You’ve given us a wee bit of a fright, but everything’s fine today and you’ve had a good sleep. Your cut is healing nicely too by the looks of things – we popped a couple of paper stitches into it . . .”.

Martha watched her bend to get a closer look at her temple when suddenly it all flooded back in an instant. The cut on her head . . . the lake. Her body gave a start as the recollections flooded back in a rush. The lake . . . she had been in the lake . . . with that thing . . .

“There, there,” said Karen, almost absent-mindedly, satisfied with the appearance of the stitches on Martha’s temple. “Do you think you might be ready to see someone?”

Will must have brought Ruby back to see her, Martha thought, and nodded as enthusiastically as she was able. She longed suddenly to hold her, to smell her, to feel the comfort of having her child back with her.

Karen pushed the curtains back a little as she stepped from the room through a door at the end of the bed. Martha was almost disappointed when it re-opened moments later and only Sue stepped inside, carrying a cup with a hot drink in it.

“Christ, woman, I only went for a coffee – what did you have to wake up for?” she said, smiling, but with a tinge of concern in her voice. She sat down on the green padded chair beside the bed and placed the drink on the locker before reaching out and squeezing Martha’s hand.

Martha squeezed back.

“How are you feeling?” Sue asked.

Martha saw that her skin was pale, her eyes bloodshot with tiredness. She wanted to make a quip, to pay Sue some joking insult, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Instead, she rested back against the pillows that Karen had plumped for her and managed a weak smile.

“What happened?” she asked through her cotton mouth. “Drink,” she said, moving her hand slightly to indicate that she needed help with some more water. Sue obliged.

“You’re not fully operational just yet,” Sue said. “We were a bit worried about you for a while. You’ve been under a honeycomb blanket for the last couple of days, trying to warm you up again. I warned you about swimming after the August Bank Holiday, didn’t I?”

The joke was half-hearted, and Martha was struck by the sheen of tears in her friend’s eyes.

“Ruby just needed a little bit of warming up – she’s absolutely fine and she’s dying to see you when you’re able for her. But you need to rest a bit, they tell me.”

“She’s with Will?” mumbled Martha, seeking reassurance. She remembered suddenly the small, pale shape on the end of the wooden promontory, exposed to the wretched storm, yet unharmed.

Sue shook her head. “She’s back at the castle – at Mrs Hibbert’s – and no one is leaving her side for a second.” She paused. “Em . . . Dan’s there . . .”

“Dan?” said Martha. It was her clearest word yet.

Sue squeezed her hand hard. “You’re not to get all worked up, okay? It’s all fine. Will had to spend a bit of time in here too. He fished you out – proper Milk Tray Man stuff – jacket off, shoes off, into the drink with a great big dive. He was really brave. Found you in a couple of minutes – before it was . . . too late . . .” Sue swallowed before she could carry on. “And he got you back to shore. There were ambulances and all sorts – we were lucky that this place isn’t too far from Dubhglas.” She indicated her surroundings with a nod of her head. “It’s just a little village hospital, but they’re equipped for this sort of thing. I suppose lots of people get lost in the cold in the Highlands. Standard procedure, I expect.”

She squeezed Martha’s hand again and looked straight at her, before sitting back in the chair and taking a large swig of the drink she’d brought in. Martha could smell it was coffee after a moment and a craving hit her.

“Don’t suppose I could have some of that?” she mumbled, managing a faint smile.

Sue beamed before pulling the plastic lid off the cup and waving the drink in her direction to ensure that the aroma filled the space around the bed. Then she snatched it back. “Nope,” she grinned. “Hospital rations for you only, my dear. And lots and lots of lovely caffeine for me!”

Martha managed a grin. “How long have I been here?” she croaked. There was so much she needed to piece together – so many questions but she couldn’t think of them all right now. She felt a wave of weakness wash over her limbs and her lids felt suddenly heavy. Ridiculous . . . she had only just woken up.

Sue leaned over toward the bed. “Three nights in total,” she said quietly. “It was about three in the morning when we got you here and you’ve been pretty much out ever since – it’s Tuesday by the way. And it’s Will that we have to thank that you’re here at all. Not only did he rescue you, he knows CPR – and you needed it.”

Sue looked away from Martha, down at her hands where she held the cup, as if regaining her composure. She cleared her throat and paused a moment before feeling ready to look back into her friend’s face.

“Your dress is ruined, by the way . . .” she began to quip but as she looked at Martha’s face, she saw her eyes roll upward behind the heavy lids and her body relax against the pillow. She panicked for a moment, reached out a hand to press the ‘call’ button, but then looked again at Martha’s peaceful face as natural sleep overtook her.

Sue closed her eyes for a moment, breathed deep with relief and exhaustion, before gathering together her belongings and leaving her friend to sleep.

CHAPTER 42

December 5th

Bright morning sunshine gleamed in through the ward window as Martha woke again, gently roused by the bustle of a nurse. A more matronly lady than Karen, called Deborah, checked her vital signs in silence and, as she did, a care assistant arrived with a tray of tea and toast. Deborah encouraged Martha to eat and drink small amounts at a time. Martha devoured the snack in seconds, looking eagerly around for more, but Deborah had vanished to tend to something else and Martha was left with more of an appetite than she had woken with. When she saw Gabriel’s face peer through the glass panel on the door at her feet, her heart lifted, almost as much because she hoped he might have brought something to eat as anything else.

Sue followed close behind, a broad smile on her face and a cheery greeting of “Morning!” on her lips.

“Any food?” hissed Martha, pleased to hear that her voice sounded more like its usual self.

“Absolutely not!” retorted Gabriel sharply as he flounced on to the bedside chair. “We were warned you were nil by mouth, or whatever they call it.”

Martha’s eyes widened. “I’ve just had some tea and toast, for heaven’s sakes!” she protested as strongly as she could, catching Sue’s eye and grinning. She couldn’t help it. It felt so good to see the familiar, the people she loved. All she needed now were Will and Ruby.

Gabriel closed his eyes as if to block out the request and made a sweeping gesture with his palm. “Nothing,” he said. “I’m giving you nothing. You’ve swallowed about a ton of pond sludge so it would be a complete waste of a Mars Bar to give you one. And if I did, and you were sick . . .” He wrinkled his face in horror at the thought, leaving the sentence unfinished. He glanced around the cubicle with distaste, as though something disgusting might manifest at any second.

Sue sat on the end of the bed and Martha pulled her feet toward herself to allow her space.

“Feeling better after your snooze?” asked Sue. “You slept most of yesterday and all last night too.” Martha nodded. “Much. I’d feel better with a lot more grub, of course, but orders is orders.” She smiled. “How’s Ruby, can she come in yet?” she asked then, hopefully.

“All in good time,” said Sue. “The doctors want to give you a once-over now and they want any exertion kept to a minimum.”

Martha’s face fell.

“But,” added Sue sternly, “if you’re a very good girl, and do everything the nice doctors say, then there’s a chance they’ll release you later on today, on the proviso that you promise to rest when they do.”

Martha’s face lit up. She could go home, to Calderwood, to Will, and close the door behind them on all of this. She smiled. “That’s good news then, I suppose,” she said.

Sue nodded vehemently.

Deborah bustled past again and Martha called her, enthused by the news of her imminent release. “Excuse me,” she said. “but what time do you think the doctor might be here?”

“Soon, I’d imagine,” came the response and the nurse strode quietly from the room in her thick-soled shoes. The door gave a long creak as it closed behind her on its spring. Martha sighed, frustrated.

“I’m impatient now,” she muttered. “I hope the doctor’s not off on an emergency or something.”

Gabriel harrumphed. “A long emergency with a sand wedge,” he grunted.

“What sort of sandwich?” Martha asked, keeping her face serious for a moment before breaking into a grin. She awaited a pithy response and her face fell as none came. For the first time since he’d entered the room, Martha noted that Gabriel seemed distracted and on edge.

“Where’s Will today?” she asked, turning to Sue, who was staring into space. “I thought he might . . .”

Martha’s voice trailed off as she saw Sue look directly at Gabriel. There was a pause as something passed between them. And then Sue sighed.

“What?” asked Martha, her heart falling slightly.

“You can walk now, can’t you?” blurted Gabriel suddenly. “You’ve had a practice? Only I’m not nudging you out of here with my nose like you’re a bloody newborn foal . . .”

“Gabriel!” snapped Martha. “Stop trying to change the subject. What’s going on?”

He looked imploringly at Sue.

“Sue, will you tell me?” said Martha. “Will someone bloody tell me what all these looks are for?”

Sue gave Gabriel a slight nod and he pushed his bulk out of the chair.

“I’d best go get some coffees then,” he mumbled and left, without so much as a second glance at Martha.

Martha turned an accusing glare on Sue. “You’d better tell me what all this is about,” she warned.

Sue went and sat on the chair that Gabriel had just vacated. She leaned forward on the bed and fixed Martha with a serious stare. Martha felt very cold all of a sudden, even in the dull heat of the hospital room.

“Look,” Sue said, “there have been some developments . . . some things that you need to know before we go get Ruby and go home.”

Martha nodded, studying Sue’s face intently. “Okay,” she said. “Go on.”

Sue took a deep breath. “Firstly, with Dan.”

“What the hell was he doing here anyway?” demanded Martha, having the energy for the first time to address the issue that had seemed to drift into her sphere of consciousness over the past days only as soon there was no one left to question. “Who told him what had happened? Was it you? Will?”

Sue drummed her fingers lightly on the bed. A sure sign that she was impatient. Martha stopped speaking.

“He’s still here,” Sue said simply.

“Why?” asked Martha.

Sue sat back in the chair and then immediately forward again, as though she couldn’t get comfortable.

“It was Will’s idea to call him. You know, the way he wanted to keep him happy while he’s sniffing around for access? He just wanted to keep him informed, now that he’s in the picture.”

Martha nodded understandingly. “Of course. Will was right,” she agreed. “It would never do to drop it all into conversation casually at a later point. ‘By the way, Dan, your daughter spent last week on a rickety old jetty in a storm in freezing temperatures and was subsequently hospitalised with suspected hypothermia.’ Best be upfront and all that.”

“Something like that,” responded Sue. She was still subdued in her answers.

Martha’s heart fluttered a little as she realised that this wasn’t all that Sue had to tell her. “Go on,” she prompted.

“Well, all that stuff he told you about setting up by himself in business and breaking up with Paula and that . . .”

Martha took a moment to remind herself. Truth was, she hadn’t thought one jot about anything that Dan had said since all of this had happened. Why should she? Best to bury it all in the cold light of day and, besides, she had enough on her plate.

“I took it upon myself to ring that awful Polly woman that you used to be friendly with in London – still had her number from your hen night, would you believe?” Sue paused to make sure that Martha was with her and was rewarded with Martha’s puzzled face pulling itself into a deeper frown. “Why’d you do that?” she asked. She knew that Sue had little or no time for the London set. They were never real friends, Martha knew. Just acquaintances, work colleagues, wives of Dan’s friends, always treating Martha like an outsider, making her feel even more isolated with them than without.

“Well,” responded Sue, “it’s Dan, for heaven’s sake. I don’t believe a word he says and I wanted to check up on him. Anyway, the thing is, as I suspected, a lot of what he told you isn’t true . . .”

Martha wracked her brains in an attempt to remember exactly what he had told her. It was too much effort. She looked back at Sue for an explanation.

“Well, he’s out of work – that bit is true. But he didn’t resign. He got the sack from A&M . . .”

Martha’s eyes widened in shock. Dan? Getting the sack? But he was their model employee – he loved it there.

“Because his recreational drug habit got a bit out of hand,” Sue finished, pausing to let Martha take it in.

She gasped. “Dan? Drugs?” she spluttered. “Drugs?” she repeated, incredulous.

Sue nodded, with a grim expression on her face.

It did explain a couple of things though, thought Martha. He’d always liked to dabble a little behind her back – she knew that. And he’d looked so thin . . . and that cold he’d had when he’d called to Calderwood, the washed-out skin, the nervous disposition. “Of course,” she muttered under her breath. But to get fired? That was lax, even for Dan.

“So Paula kicked him out, right?” she concluded.

Sue grimaced. “Not exactly,” she said hesitantly. “Although he was, in Polly’s words, ‘totes unbearable’, he actually walked.”

Another shock. “He walked out on Paula? But she’s the bloody love of his life?” hissed Martha. This was almost too much to take in. “Why would he do that?”

Sue eyed her suspiciously. “Martha, be straight with me,” she stated. “I know you said you didn’t but do you have any feelings left for Dan at all? That night in Edinburgh before we came here? When you kissed him?” She had lowered her voice, looking behind her to make sure they were alone.

Martha sank back against her pillows and looked at Sue in shock. “Sue,” she protested, “I swear on my lifethat I don’t have feelings for Dan. Jesus, I’d even forgotten I did that the other night –”

“Good,” interrupted Sue bluntly. “Because if you did have feelings then what I’m going to tell you would hurt a lot. You’re sure?”

Martha traced an X shape over her chest. “Promise,” she said.

“Well, there’s no easy way to say this, but Paula’s pregnant. Due very soon. And Dan flitted when she was six months gone.”

The world tilted a little on its axis. So he’d done the same to Paula as he’d done to her. And not only that, had left Paula to come to Edinburgh in search of her. Of some sort of reunion. The words were hazy but Martha remembered how he’d announced he’d fight for her, in that restaurant in Edinburgh. And for a weak moment she’d fallen for it.

What about Paula then? His perfect woman. Babies weren’t his bag, he’d so memorably said. And there was no fear then of Queen Bitch deciding that she wanted any. But here she was, about to give birth to Dan’s child. How had that come about? What would it be? Oh God . . .

Martha looked at Sue with dawning comprehension, tinged with sadness. She felt her eyes well up with tears.

Sue frowned. “You promised,” she said sharply. “You promised you didn’t feel anything!”

“I don’t,” whimpered Martha. “It’s not Dan, it’s Ruby. She’s going to be a big sister, but that was something that I was going to make her. Me and Will. Not bloody Dan and Paula. He never wanted kids – neither did she. She used to call me a ‘breeder’ behind my back. She had such contempt for women who wanted children. Thought we were weak . . .”

Sue shrugged resignedly. “Well, she doesn’t now, clearly,” she said.

Martha blinked. She didn’t know what she felt about this news. It was massive. Paula, expecting a baby. And now Dan back in her life. And the baby would have to be too, somehow. It had been easy to cut Dan out – in practical terms anyway – but now, there were two babies to consider. Both Ruby and his unborn child. Half-siblings . . .

Martha sat forward, impatient, glancing to the door in frustration. “Where is this bloody doctor?” she said. “I need to get out of here. I need to talk to Will . . .”

She felt a leap of optimism as the door squeaked and opened but it was short-lived as Gabriel reappeared carrying two coffee cups.

“Have I missed much?” he quipped half-heartedly. “I nipped to the caff in the village. Can’t be doing with that hospital muck.”

Sue glared at him. “Did you take the car?” she demanded.

He looked sheepish for a moment. “It was a latte you wanted, wasn’t it?” he said, overriding the question.

“And where’s Martha’s?” Sue barked again as he held out one cup to her and kept the other for himself.

This time, his expression was genuinely blank. “Is she allowed one?” he shrieked in a high-pitched voice.

Both Martha and Sue hissed at him to be quiet.

He pulled his shoulders up to his ears and mouthed a ‘sorry’ before looking at Sue with a grave face. “Did you tell her?” he asked.

Martha coughed. “I am here, Gabriel,” she said flatly.

Another sheepish face. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Martha ignored him. Instead, she turned back to Sue. “I need to get out of here. I need to talk it all out with Will.”

There was another glance between Gabriel and Sue.

“That’s the thing,” said Sue cautiously.

“What’s the thing,” said Martha.

“It’s about Will,” Sue continued. “Something else happened that you need to know about . . .”

“Will’s gone,” blurted Gabriel suddenly.

Sue jumped to her feet. “Gabriel, what the fuck did you have to go and say that for?” she shouted.

“Gone?” Martha said, her voice high-pitched. “What do you mean – ‘gone’?”

Sue sank back on the edge of the chair and placed her hand on Martha’s foot, curling it around her toes in a gesture of comfort.

“Martha, I don’t know how else to say this but Dan told him.”

For a moment, Martha was blank. Dan told him what?

And then it dawned on her. About that night. That they’d kissed. Worse, that they’d talked. That Martha hadn’t batted him away when he suggested that they might be together again one day. That she’d flirted with him . . . Her cheeks suddenly burned a bright crimson, the heat spread to her chest, the tops of her arms and her back. She felt weak and looked at Sue with pleading eyes, begging to be told that it wasn’t true. But it was.

Sue nodded, almost imperceptibly, a look of uncomfortable sympathy on her face. She squeezed Martha’s foot again as Martha turned her stare to Gabriel who pursed his mouth in an attempt at empathy. But he offered no comfort this time.

“He’s gone back to Edinburgh?”

Sue nodded.

“When? When did he go?”

“This morning,” replied Sue. “He went out to see Ruby after breakfast – as I told you, she’s been staying in Mrs Hibbert’s while Will’s stayed holed up in the castle. Dan was out there with Ruby and when Will came back he just stormed upstairs and packed his bags. He’d saved your life, Martha, at risk to his own and then he found all that stuff out.”

“He rang me from the road,” added Gabriel softly, genuine kindness in his voice. “He told me everything . . .what Dan had said to him . . .”

Martha put her hands to her ears. “Don’t,” she said. “Please don’t tell me.”

She squeezed her eyes shut as more and more flashbacks from the night in Gaudi’s hit her. She couldn’t cry – it hadn’t sunk in enough for that. She couldn’t think beyond the fact that he was gone. That he had left. Because she had been stupid, done something so idiotic, but completely out of character. That stupid wine, those stupid antibiotics.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” she said aloud, as Sue rubbed her arm and Gabriel silently sipped his coffee, glancing at the ward door to see if, indeed, the doctor would finally arrive.

It was only after she had been checked over and released an hour later, and had walked from the hospital with Gabriel carrying her bag, and sat into the back of the car that Martha began to cry. It the prospect of seeing Ruby that made it sink home. Will was gone. And where he should have been at her side to bring them home as a family, suddenly she was completely alone again.

CHAPTER 43

December 8th

Martha sneaked quietly down the stairs in her stocking feet. Sue had been already sound asleep by the time she’d made it back up to the bedroom with the painkillers and the water. Martha bit her lip, feeling guilty as she thought of how pale and hunched-over her friend had been when she’d arrived. “I think I’ve done my back in,” she’d said, with a grimace, and pleaded to go to bed early. Martha couldn’t have been sure but she thought that Sue might still even be in her clothes under the duvet.

It was all her fault, of course. If she’d just grown a backbone and not begged Sue to drive all the way back from London – having only returned there three days previously – then she wouldn’t have hurt herself, hunched over the wheel trying to drive on icy treacherous roads. Martha could have kicked herself. She’d been wrong when she thought that she couldn’t feel any worse than she already did.

The afternoon had been hellish. A stilted, heartbreaking meeting with Will at Gabriel’s flat. It had been difficult enough to go back there after everything – after what had happened there and then at Dubhglas – without seeing Will’s stuff around the place, knowing that he was sleeping in the spare room and that his toothbrush in Gabriel’s bathroom wasn’t just a temporary measure. Martha had left the apartment reeling. She’d thought she could talk him round, explain to him what happened. She sank onto the bottom step of the stairs and closed her eyes as the realisation hit her again. Will wasn’t coming back.

It had been so odd to see him there in the first place, dressed in such familiar things – a checked shirt and jeans. But not once had he broken into a smile. Not for one second had he been anything but hard as nails with her. His words rang in her ears. “I don’t think that we should be together any more.” There was such a finality to them. Martha had pleaded and cried, begged, tried to explain herself over and over again, but Will had refused to listen to her. The tears came again at the bottom of the stairs in Calderwood as she remembered how the conversation had ended. Close to tears himself, he had asked her to leave. “There’s nowhere else to take this conversation,” he’d said. “You’ve hurt me so much,Martha. I’d have died for you and the whole thing was just a lie. I just can’t be around you right now. Please leave.”

She burned with shame as she’d made her way out the door without a goodbye. Dan had literally told him everything – and then some. Told him that she’d agreed to work with Dan again on whatever terms she chose, that she’d given him access to Ruby just like that, that she was thrilled he’d split up with Paula and that Dan’s overriding feeling after their night together was that a reconciliation was on the cards. That the marriage was to pick up, tentatively, where it left off. That some bonds were too strong to be broken, like that between a man and his wife, and that between a father and a daughter. She’d tried to interrupt, to explain to Will that this was typical Dan-style embellishment but in the long run she stayed silent. What point was there? Will was hard as nails when he wanted to be. And right now he had every right and her excuses sounded feeble. She leaned her head against the bannisters as the tears streamed silently down her face.

The babble of Ruby’s voice, engrossed in some game in the living room, did nothing to make Martha feel better, like it normally might. For a moment she sat there, feeling every ounce of energy and fight physically drain from her limbs. She couldn’t get up, she felt. She stayed where she was for a moment, eyes shut, with no clue how she was going to even stand, much less get on with putting Ruby to bed and then following herself – though she longed to pull the duvet around her ears hoping for dark, protective sleep to envelop her and stay with her until the following day. A lively squeal from the living room, however, indicated to Martha that this was some time away.

She glanced at her watch. It was almost eight o’clock. Way past bedtime, but Martha hadn’t had the energy to rouse her from a long snooze that afternoon when she returned from the bitter encounter with Will. And now she was paying the price, in every respect.

She was startled by the sound of the doorbell. Her heart leaped all the same. Will, she thought to herself, her chest starting to pound. Maybe he’d come to talk?

Martha somehow summoned the energy to stand up and padded across the hall in her stocking feet to the front door, fingers fumbling on the clasp of the lock. Her body thrilled as she pulled the door inwards, the thrill turning rapidly to anger as she saw who stood outside.

Dan looked exhausted, his skin grey, his face unshaven. His nose was red and his eyes watery.

A rage bubbled inside Martha as she looked at him, equipped now with an additional insight as to why he might look like that. “Dan,” she barked, “what do you want?”

He shuffled a little from foot to foot before whipping his right hand out from behind his back. In it was clasped the familiar form of Hugo, Ruby’s bear. Despite everything, Martha felt relieved. She hadn’t been able to find it anywhere, and Ruby wasn’t content with any substitutes. She’d resigned herself to the fact that Hugo would never be found – fuelling her sense that no good could happen to her.

“I picked this up by mistake when I was leaving the castle,” Dan said politely, taking a step forward as if to come inside.

Martha suddenly felt herself begin to shake. A combination of rage, discomfort and the sheer disappointment of it not being Will overcame her. Without realising it, she squared her shoulders and filled the doorframe as best she could, blocking his passage. He paused for a moment, confused, before taking a small step backwards, moving nonchalantly, trying to look as if he hadn’t intended coming in at all.

He was dressed in jeans and loafers and a black V-neck sweater which looked as if it had been washed at too high a temperature. Everything about him looked crumpled and dishevelled.

“You got back okay, then?” he said, casually.

A flash flood of rage coursed through Martha. How dare he, she thought.

“What have you done, Dan?” she asked, feeling the anger bubble up even more inside her as his smile diminished. “Are you so thick,” she continued in an icy tone, “that you went and said what you did to Will and expect me to be glad to see you? To invite you in when you just turn up on my doorstep?”

Dan frowned in response, his expression flickering from contrived confusion to a cold stare at his ex-wife.

“‘Thanks for going all the way up to the Highlands to look after our daughter’,” he responded sarcastically, speaking as though he were Martha. “‘Our daughter who I let fall in a freezing cold lake in the middle of December when I left her to party the night away with my boyfriend’.”

Martha’s face remained stony. “She didn’t fall in a lake, Dan,” she hissed. “She’s fine. She –”

“Was left unsupervised so that she could escape into a storm and nearly drown!”

Martha was momentarily silenced.

“I think that this could do real damage to you as sole custodian,” he hissed quietly, a sneer spreading over his features.

Martha squeezed her fists into a ball, dug her nails into her palms, and felt herself tremble all over.

“Why, Dan?” she replied in a low voice. “Do you want her, is that it? Do you want sole custody? Only it’s going to be awfully busy round at yours being a single dad of two kids in that case.” She watched for a reaction.

Dan blinked. “What do you mean?” he asked, trying to hold his combative tone.

Martha knew that she had him rattled. It was so easy to lapse into the old war games.

“When your baby comes along, Dan,” she said. “Yours and Paula’s. Only, that’s the thing, isn’t it? You don’t actually want custody, sole or otherwise, of anything, do you? You’ve run away again. I know everything. You’ve done a runner on Paula. Your Queen Bitch turned out to be a breeder, just like everyone else who’s let you down. So what do you do? Come running back to me? And you thought I’d take you? You thought some tapas and a trip down memory lane would solve everything?”

Martha’s chest rose and fell as she glared at her ex-husband. She was oblivious to everything else, her rage growing minute by minute, fuelled by tiredness, fear and Will’s desertion.

Dan’s hard expression, his sneer, suddenly softened into something approaching a smile.

“You see, that’s why I’m glad you’re here,” he responded. “I’ve just had a call from London. From the Portland, if you must know. Paula’s gone into labour, so I’ve really got to make tracks if I’m going to make it to her.” He paused for effect, watching Martha’s face with cruel intent as the words began to sink in. “I couldn’t leave Ruby without her bear for another night so I called here on my way – my car’s at the end of the drive. Don’t you see, Martha, I’ve got a second chance now. I got scared for a while, true. I ran away, as far as I could think to go which was here. But now I know Paula needs me. I know now, having taken care of Ruby over these last days, that this isn’t something I should run from. I should run to it. To being a father. To doing it right. And don’t think I’m going to leave Ruby out either – I’m going to be a proper dad to both my kids from now on. Take care of the two of them. Make sure they don’t come to any . . . harm . . .”

Martha reeled at the words, his patronising tone, at his barefaced cheek. “You don’t miss a bloody beat, do you?” she whispered as though winded.

“Look, I’m sorry if I got your hopes up,” he said quietly.

Martha watched, incredulous, as he raised a hand and gently rubbed it down her cheek. She didn’t flinch, was rendered immobile with shock. Her heart pounded so fiercely that she thought it might just stop altogether.

“Leave . . . Ruby . . . alone!” she wheezed, her eyes wide. For a second her concentration was disturbed as she thought she saw the hall light flicker on and off behind her but not for long. Dan’s hateful face soon filled her vision again to the exclusion of everything else.

“I just want to make sure that she’s safe,” he said in a too-quiet voice, infused with warning.

“I’m sure she’s safer here than with her druggy, deadbeat, unemployed dad,” Martha retaliated. “If I am to allow anyone else take care of her, Dan,” she said, the warning in her tone equalling his, “it certainly won’t be you, do you hear me? Who fails to provide as it is and now has another mouth to feed . . .”

Electricity crackled between them.

“The Portland’s pretty expensive, Dan, eh?” Martha continued, her voice barely audible. “You’d better hurry of course if you’re going to get back to the birth. To be there, this time. Best of luck to Paula. And to your baby, of course . . .”

She left the words hang, allowed their implications to swirl in the air and settle on Dan’s shoulders. Her arms and hands visibly shook. She tensed her body so that her knees didn’t betray her and cave in. She felt so weak, standing there. To support herself, she leaned against the doorframe to her left. She lifted her head, however, at the distant crunch of car tyres on gravel, the familiar sound of a large engine growling up the drive. This time it was for real. Martha gasped. It was Will. Finally. The Volvo became visible at the turn in the drive, bathing herself and Dan in its headlights as it approached, and then it came to a halt.

Martha waited, her nerves alive with anticipation of the sound of the engine cutting out, the door slamming, his footsteps on the gravel. She was again distracted by something from within – by a sound from the living room, a clinking sound. Ruby, she thought. No doubt she was doing something she shouldn’t. But it would be fine. In just moments, Will would be home to pick her up and cuddle her, to reassure her and calm her for bed.

Then the Volvo began to move again, to reverse awkwardly in the space at the top of the drive. Martha frowned. What was he doing? Was he going to reverse toward the front door? Maybe he wanted to bring equipment in?

She couldn’t hide her dismay as the nose of the big red car turned slowly and clumsily and headed back down the drive.

Martha gazed in disbelief as the night air grew silent, the engine noise growing fainter and fainter until she could hear it no more. Her jaw dropped in shock and she straightened immediately. Why would he do that? She stared in disbelief at the space where she had just seen Will turn and leave. Where was he gone?

And then it struck her. Did he think . . .? She looked at Dan in horror. Of course. Will had seen something that he didn’t want to see – Martha, casually leaning against the front door, deep in conversation with Dan of all people. Hugo being passed between them as if in some warped show of parental co-operation. Martha wanted to crumble. How could she explain now? She must call him. That was it, she had to phone him – had to get him to listen once and for all. She heard Ruby from inside – a sharp squeal followed by a longer note as she began to wail. Not now, Ruby, thought Martha, her irritation turning back to rage as she saw Dan shrug his shoulders and cough, a gesture that showed embarrassment, but not for himself. He was showing that he was embarrassed for her.

“Wow,” he said quietly.

Ruby’s wail grew louder and Martha half-turned to go back inside.

“That was awkward,” Dan said, raising his eyebrows. “Look, thanks for everything – for giving me a go at being a dad. I mean, I feel I’m ready now . . . it was just a couple of days and in very odd circumstances, but rest assured you’ll be hearing from me again.” He smiled, confidently, before taking a step backward.

Ruby’s wail turned to a scream just as Martha exploded. “Look, Dan, I wasn’t here to provide you with a practice run at being a parent. Now just leave – you’ve done enough damage for one night. Just fuck right off, would you? Just get lost, get out of here . . .”

Her voice trailed as the crying from inside grew more and more distressed. There was so much she needed to say to him, so much that she wanted to hurl at him, but Ruby was hurt. Without another word, Martha slammed the door in Dan’s face, her attention switching instantly to the persistent wailing from the living room, concern flooding through her. She heard his footsteps crunch away as she turned and paused to wipe a cobweb from her face before charging toward the living room and her distraught daughter.

CHAPTER 44

Martha’s emotions were a jumble as she crossed the hall. Fury at Dan, heartache at what Will had just done, concern but also irritation that Ruby had managed to hurt herself somehow right at this particular moment. She didn’t think that her tether had any give remaining.

Her irritation disappeared instantly, however, overtaken by concern, and then panic, as she stepped over the threshold of the living room onto the wooden floor and saw the blood.

Ruby’s face was distorted with pain but, much worse than that, it was smeared red, like a finger-painting exercise but this time it was her bloody fingerprints that dotted her cheeks, and her clothes, and her hair . . . It was everywhere – on her hands, the rag-doll on her lap, the couch beside her . . . dear God, where was it coming from? There was so much of it! How had she cut herself? And where was the cut? Martha knelt and plucked her into her arms as quickly as she could and searched her small body frantically for the injury, praying that it wasn’t somewhere that she couldn’t make it stop. But where was it? Where was the source of the blood?

Ruby screamed in pain, looking at her mother with tear-stained eyes, desperate for comfort, yet Martha couldn’t give it fully yet, couldn’t stop searching until she found the source of the bleeding. Suddenly, she spotted something on the floor behind Ruby glint in the light. She stopped in her search for a moment as she identified, if not the location of the cut, the cause of it. Her own hands now stained red from her daughter, Martha held Ruby close to her with one arm while she reached out and picked up the small, sharp nail scissors that she concluded had been the weapon. The one she had used to cut the thread in her coat before meeting Dan, all that time ago. But how had it ended up on the floor? She was vigilant about keeping it in the dish on the mantelpiece, high above Ruby’s reach, to avoid this exact scenario. Even if the toddler had climbed on something she couldn’t have reached it. So how had it ended up within her grasp? Had Sue moved it?

Martha’s mind raced to find a conclusion as she returned her attention back to the crying child. She tried soothing her this time, clucking and shushing and making soft noises which Ruby barely heard over her screams of shock and panic.

After a second, Martha suddenly recalled the noise she had heard when she’d stood at the front door. The metallic clink. Exactly how the nail scissors would sound as it hit the wooden floor. But that was ridiculous. How could it have hit the floor by itself? She knew for certain that she had left it in the pottery bowl – her eyes strayed to the mantel to check but the bowl was still where she had left it. The scissors couldn’t have fallen of its own volition. It would have had to be lifted out and dropped on the ground. And thinking back, Sue hadn’t even come in here on her arrival. She was in too much pain and after a brief exchange in the hallway had gone straight to bed.

It was impossible that the sharp implement could have got into Ruby’s hands. And yet it had.

For a second Martha grew calmer as she looked at Ruby’s wrists and neck, rubbing them with a spit-covered finger to ascertain that they were un-punctured, and they were. A second later, however, she froze completely, a sensation of prickling cold tracing its way along her cheeks. The overhead light flickered for a moment. And, at the same instant that she heard it ‘pop’ as it blew, she knew that she wasn’t alone.

It wasn’t just the living room lights either. She heard more distant ‘pops’ from the hallway, through to the kitchen. She had her back to the living-room door but knew by the darkness that engulfed her that they were all gone. All blown. Plunging the house into darkness.

Martha gripped Ruby tightly to her, the source of the bleeding now forgotten. It wasn’t the gravest danger, Martha realised. That, she knew instinctively, was whatever stood behind her in the doorway.

She froze, couldn’t have turned if she’d been paid a million pounds, knowing so clearly that there was something there.

Martha’s blood ran cold as she clutched her child and tried to stand, but her legs wouldn’t support her, her body was incapable of movement. It was no good. She had to see . . .

Slowly, Martha forced herself to turn around, her rational side trying to tell her that there was no one there, that she was overtired, an emotional wreck, and therefore just imagining things . . . it was nothing more than a tripped switch . . .

But no. She couldn’t lie to herself. She knew that there was someone there. The low noise that she heard proved it wasn’t her imagination. The breathing. In and out, in and out . . .

Martha trembled as she turned, still kneeling on the floor, her crying child encased in her arms, and forced her eyes to take in the doorway. To take in what stood there. A shadow. The shadow of a man. Martha’s body jerked involuntarily, spasmed with terror, as she took in the huge shape of something she recognised. Something she had seen before, that had terrified her. She was unable to tear her eyes away from the shape that was blacker than the darkness itself. At what she realised, beyond any reason, was the ghost of Jack Ball.

He was here, somehow. At Calderwood. Not in the murky waters of a lake, or in the ancient stones of a nightmare castle, not even in the mists of her addled imagination. But physically here. In her house. Her sanctuary. She whimpered, pulling Ruby even tighter to her. Burying the child’s head into the crook of her neck and shoulder so that she might not see it.

This was their home, where they were supposed to be safe, where Martha was supposed to keep Ruby safe. Her mouth attempted to form a word, to call Will’s name, but she suddenly remembered – how could she have forgotten – that there was no point. That Will wasn’t here. But Sue was . . . Sue was here. Martha opened her mouth to try to call her, but, like a scream in a nightmare, no sound came from her terrified throat. What little whisper she managed was instantly drowned by Ruby’s screams. Martha gazed at the figure that filled the doorway and realised that there was no one to help.

Jack Ball’s features were indistinguishable. Martha couldn’t tear her eyes away from him. How could this happen? What was he made of? Was he really there or was he a by-product of her imagination, something to do with the painkillers the hospital gave her maybe? Did they cause hallucinations when they wore off, perhaps? But what about the lights . . .

In a flash, the vision was gone. Martha found herself frozen with fear, immobile, still staring at the door where she had seen him, willing herself to get to her feet and fill that vacant space and pass through it. If she could just get out of the room, she thought . . . but then, what good would that do? Surely if he were in the dark water at Dubhglas Castle, and then in her cosy, safe living room at Calderwood, he could be anywhere?

Martha squeezed Ruby even tighter and staggered to her feet. The toddler’s tears had abated somewhat, but she was now struggling to be released, wriggling as hard as she could. Martha tried to restrain her. She couldn’t allow her loose in the room – who knew what other dangers were there? It became suddenly clear to her how the baby had managed to get hold of the scissors in the first place. A fresh wave of terror washed over her as she replayed the clinking noise she had heard in her mind. He had done it. Just as he had unlocked the sliding door at Dubhglas and released Ruby into the storm. He had been in here with her all along. Why was he here?

Alone with her child. Martha’s terror was replaced by desperation. What had he done, she wondered? And what else was he capable of doing?

Her answer came a second later as in the darkness she caught movement behind her, from the wall to the right of the fireplace. Was it a trick of the dark? Her tired, addled mind making the bookshelves look in the darkness like they were rocking back and forth somehow? Too late she realised that it was all too real. Martha screamed and twisted her body to cover Ruby’s as the shelves, floor to ceiling, packed tight with books, came crashing down on her, missing her head by inches but landing fully on her back. It wasn’t heavy enough to crush her but as books spilled off the shelves over her body like an insect swarm, she felt blow after blow as they bounced against her, sliding over her head, burying her. Her back ached where the shelves had impacted on her body, hunched in this position with Ruby screaming underneath her, the wriggling worse now, the cries of pain turning to terror as she was smothered by her mother.

Martha stayed where she was, raising her head, feeling the last of the books slide off her and on to the floor. Where was he gone? she wondered frantically.

She looked around her, tried to take in as much of the room as she could. She could see no dark shape in front of her – outlined against the window that overlooked the garden, for instance. But she couldn’t turn, couldn’t see what was behind. There was silence for a moment, an unnatural stillness broken then by Martha’s screams as crash after merciless crash came from around her. It was as if she were being shelled. Item after item, a glass dish here, a picture frame there, smashing around her head, each time missing, but getting closer and closer as her possessions, her trinkets rained down, flung by a force that she couldn’t see, that she didn’t want to see. She made herself as small as she could, curled into a tighter ball, folded her body as best she could around her daughter.

Finally, when Martha thought she could bear it no longer, it stopped as suddenly as it had begun. The room was filled by an eerie, electric silence. Martha squirmed in discomfort, still trapped under the bookcase. She stopped, feeling instinctively that she should lie still, like a hunted animal, like she was playing dead. She mustered every ounce of self-control that she could as the room was still, and stayed still for a long time. For too long. She had to get out.

With a sudden, adrenalin-fuelled roar she pushed as hard as she could and managed to crawl out from under the bookcase, Ruby still clutched to her, hearing it crash onto the floor behind her. She stood then, grappling to hold on to the squirming toddler. She tried to clutch Ruby closer to her again, stumbling in an attempt to regain her balance as she looked around, her eyes flickering frantically from one corner of the room to the next in case he was there, in case he was moving quickly, in case another missile would be launched at them. Ruby, terrified, with a final lurch half-wriggled, half-fell from Martha’s arms. Grabbing and grappling at her clothing and then the air, Martha screamed as Ruby freed herself and bolted for the door. Martha howled her name, assaulted with fresh fright as she heard a voice from the hallway.

Then she realised it was Sue.

Martha was stumbling over her belongings, strewn all over the floor, when Sue was hit full-force with Ruby’s fleeing body. The toddler howled in frustration as she was hoisted into her godmother’s arms. Martha leaned against the arm of the couch for support, her relief that someone was holding Ruby, keeping her safe, enormous.

“Martha, what the hell is going on?” Sue cried, her voice filled with panic. “All the lights are blown – I was asleep, but I heard an almighty crash . . . are you okay? Ruby . . .”

Her voice trailed off as she made out the dark markings on the child’s face, and she turned her to catch the faint light streaming in through the fanlight over the hall door. She gasped as she saw the streaks of blood, catching Ruby’s head in the palm of her hand as the toddler arched her back in temper, in another attempt to writhe free.

“Jesus!” she exclaimed. “Is this . . .? Is it blood?”

Martha felt winded suddenly, closed her eyes for a moment to catch her breath. “She got hold of a nail scissors but I think she’s okay,” she managed. “But, Sue, it’s Ball . . . he’s here . . . in this room . . . he knocked over the shelves . . .”

Martha’s sentence faded into silence as she opened her eyes again. Because she could see him again. In the hall behind Sue. This time, his silhouette framed in the same beam of light that shone faintly through the fanlight. She could make it out clearly, his hands on his hips, watching the scene play out, observing them so that he could make his next move. Why? But this time, somehow, Martha could see his face. It shouldn’t have been possible – the shaft of light was too faint – but she could clearly make out his hideous sneer, the mottled skin streaked with greys and purples. The scar, closed this time, vivid against the paleness of the cheek through which it sliced. He stared at them, silent, cold, lifeless yet filled with danger.

Martha pointed. “There!” she screamed. “He’s there, Sue!”

But of course by the time Sue turned to look he was gone. And at the same time Martha felt his breath close against her neck before she felt the sudden and painful smash of something hitting her full force at the base of her back.

Sue turned back just in time to see Martha’s legs buckling underneath her and the fragments of what had been a small, wooden footstool lying on the floor. The whole thing had happened in an instant. Sue’s instinct was to run to Martha but something stopped her and she reversed the decision in a split second. Instead she turned in the opposite direction and ran, gripping the wriggling child as hard as she could.

Through the agony and disbelief of what had just happened, Martha felt relief wash over her as she heard the jingle of keys from the hall table and then the front door slam. They were gone, at last. Safe. He mustn’t go after them, she thought and, instead of sinking to the floor as her body urged her, she grabbed the couch for support and turned her body as best she could to see behind her, to watch for the next attack.

It came as an ornamental lamp was knocked to the ground, the glass globe and the bulb it contained smashing into hundreds of tiny pieces on the wooden floor, exploding upwards. Martha’s hands flew to her face to defend her eyes and, in doing so, managed to unbalance herself. She instinctively took a step forward to regain her balance and in a second felt the sharp burning pain as the needles of broken bulb sank through her thin socks and into her foot. She cried out in pain, stepped backwards, was again unbalanced and instinctively brought the same foot down to prevent herself falling over but this time on yet more tiny pieces of glass. She screamed this time. As much in temper at the pain and frustration as anything else. Who did he think he was? Like Dan, how dare he invade the asylum that she had found in her home.

“What do you want from me?” she screamed at last.

An immediate, ominous stillness fell across the room.

Martha could feel her foot pulse as the blood continued to seep out. She could clearly detect the moist warmth spreading across the sole and it crossed her mind for a second to pray that the shards of glass could be removed easily. It was banished again as the stillness was broken by another shift in the darkness, this time in the alcove where her bookshelves had stood before falling, being knocked to the ground. He’s watching again, she thought. A part of her still petrified, yet relieved that he was here, with her, and not with Ruby. She constantly warned Will about this, she remembered. Don’t bring anything home with you, she remembered saying in the past. It was he who had told her that there was evidence of spirits attaching themselves to the living and travelling with them, covering great distances, going overseas, moving house. She hadn’t believed him. Yet here she was, the one who had brought someone – something – home. A physical threat. She had no idea what to do next as she fixed her eyes on the now-still darkness of the corner of the room. Was he even still there?

“What do you want from me?” Martha growled in a low voice. It trembled, she knew, but somehow, confronting him, communicating with him as if he were just another person made her feel braver.

“Why are you here?” she said, louder now. She held her injured foot an inch off the ground, to avoid pushing the glass in any further. She felt the sock adhere to her foot, made sticky with the blood that flowed from God knew how many wounds on the soft sole. Martha hissed, suddenly aware of the pain, which drove an anger to rise within her again.

“You have no right to be here!” she shouted, bellowing the words as loud as she could in a primal reaction to everything – the fear, the pain, the uncertainty.

Enough was enough.

“This is my home and you should just get back to where you belong, do you hear me?” she roared, her rage gathering momentum. “I know what you did, you know. What you did to Martin Pine, what you wanted to do to Laurence McKenzie. We all do. We found your photographs – we know what kind of man you were!”

She fell silent, hearing the reverberation of her own words in her ears. It all felt so strange, suddenly. The surroundings. This room where she had always been so comfortable now felt cavernous and unwelcoming, filled with places where things could hide. She suppressed a shiver that ran the length of her body, bitterly cold all of a sudden. And all the time the silence, as if he were biding his time . . .

How dare he, she thought again.

“The police know too,” she added, softer now.

For a brief moment she thought she felt the air grow thicker somehow. Her hair stood on end, as if some sort of electrical current had passed along the ground and up into her body. A reaction, she knew.

Keep him here.

“There are special places nowadays for people like you. You’d be on a list. And everyone would know exactly what you were capable of. Kids nowadays are warned about bullies and perverts like you!”

Her voice rang again around the room and she paused for breath, realising exactly what she was doing. Provoking, Will called it. Pushing spirit for a reaction. And not in a way that produced positive results either. Too late, she thought. She’d have to keep going, for Ruby’s sake. To give her and Sue time to get away. Sue would know what to do, would know to call Gabriel and get Ruby to A&E. In the meantime, however, what sort of reaction would greet her provocation?

The darkness seethed again in the alcove and Martha suppressed a whimper. Her bravery evaporated suddenly at the sight of the movement. It was like some deadly animal in the corner, waiting to pounce. He was so strong, she acknowledged. He had really hurt her. He was truly evil.

She took a deep breath and opened her mouth to continue. Make it sound good, she thought to herself. Don’t show him you’re scared.

“I’m not frightened of you,” she growled at the shape in the corner. “You think you’re the big tough guy but you’re not. You’re nothing but scum who hurts little children. Does that make you feel big? Does it?”

In retrospect, what happened next was indescribable but Martha could somehow remember every split second with terrifying clarity. It wasn’t any single thing but, as she provoked Jack Ball’s spirit, it felt as though she had ignited a nuclear explosion. Unable to distinguish whether it was in her head, or happening outside her body, Martha was suddenly filled with colour and sound, overwhelmed by a vision of his hideous face pressed up against hers. She felt everything then – electricity, pain, sorrow, regret, hatred, evil – the purest terror imaginable. It was as if all of the dead were suddenly more alive than they had ever been and Martha felt – no, Martha knew that she was not alone with Jack Ball in that room. And she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it was all real. That the room had gradually filled with other presences.

Her body burned suddenly as she felt them all around her – her mother, her grandmother, Henry, Lily, Laurence McKenzie, Martin Pine . . . shielding her on all sides . . . dark shapes, there, yet not there . . . somehow working together to keep her safe.

And when it was over, when everything was still again and the space where she stood, so alone, covered in blood, her own and Ruby’s, was nothing more than her own living room, Martha experienced a feeling like no other. The house around her was more empty than it had ever been but she herself felt somehow totally fulfilled. And safe.

There was no doubt in her mind that Jack Ball was finally gone. The atmosphere was completely empty of him, of anyone or anything. What’s more, she knew that he hadn’t gone of his own volition, but had been taken away forcibly. By spirits and souls who wanted to protect her. Shades that she herself had somehow summoned.

As Martha turned and limped from the room, her body aching and beyond exhaustion, she realised that she hadn’t thought it possible to feel so fearless, yet she understood implicitly that she had never felt more protected in her life. And that something had changed forever.

CHAPTER 45

And at the precise moment that Calderwood grew suddenly empty, that Jack Ball’s spirit was forcibly removed by those who wished to keep Martha safe, Gabriel McKenzie woke with a start in his apartment a couple of miles away. As before, he knew that he was not alone. That there was someone in his room with him. Yet this time, unlike the last, he felt no fear, just comfort, as he sat up in his bed and saw at the foot the vision of a boy. Gabriel smiled and sat completely upright, a sense of calm pervading every inch of his body. With the inner voice that was only heard by one other soul, Gabriel greeted his brother’s spirit with relief.

CHAPTER 46

December 15th

For the second time in only a matter of weeks, Martha stood nervously in a room with Gabriel. She looked at her surroundings for the tenth time since entering. It was hard to believe that she had last been in this place only a fortnight before. It felt like a lifetime since that night at the lake. She had tried to block it from her mind and was still shaken at having had to relive it earlier that day for the Dubhglas police. They wanted a statement, they’d told her when they phoned, but needed to speak to her in person, to verify that what had happened involved no foul play. Martha was grateful to Gabriel for making the day trip with her, but hadn’t expected him to suddenly announce a diversion to Dubhglas Castle while they were there.

Martha limped over to the window, her foot still throbbing from the procedure to remove all of the glass from the shattered lamp. She stood beside Gabriel and together they gazed out over the lawn, over the remaining stumps of the copse of apple trees and beyond – to the glimpses of the lake, now glinting in the winter sunshine between the trees.

“You’re sure that you feel nothing here?” Gabriel asked again.

Martha sighed, and turned her back to the window, looking instead at the grim surroundings of the bedroom. “I told you, Gabriel, I can’t feel anything here. Why would I? I never did before?”

Gabriel tutted impatiently, dismissing what she said with a wave of his hand. He was tired of her constant denials.

“You know damn well what I mean when I ask you if you can feel anything,” he said flatly. “Now I’ve brought you here for a reason. And you bloody well agreed to come. Can you feel any spirits here now? Any evil? Any sense of discomfort?”

Martha shrugged and shook her head. She wished Gabriel would stop asking her these things. Not because she didn’t know the answer, but because she did. As sure as she was standing there, she knew that there was no threat in that room. The same as now there was no threat – or presence – in Gabriel’s apartment. Or in Calderwood.

“And you’re sure that there’s nothing at home either?” he continued.

Martha rolled her eyes. “Why do you keep asking me this, Gabriel? You brought me here but you’ve refused to explain why! Isn’t it about time you told me what you’re at?”

Gabriel cut her off with a black look. “Stop your nonsense!” he barked, and she did, closing her mouth suddenly and looking at him in shock. It was a tone that he hadn’t used on her since they had first met. “You know as well I do that something’s changed in you,” he said. “Or something’s emerged that might always have been there. Angeline saw it in you and once she pointed it out then so did I. You knew, Martha. You knew that Martin Pine’s spirit was hanging round my flat, you knew exactly what was going on here the night of the storm but most of all you . . . you . . . were able to take care of yourself that night at Calderwood. The night that you say Jack Ball went away, that Laurence came back to me. You can deny it all you want, Martha, but I’m serious when I say that I think you’ve got the gift. And now, knowing what you managed to do when Ball invaded your home, who you managed to summon –”

“Shut up, Gabriel!” Martha snapped.

She’d had enough. All this talk of her having the same gift as he did, of being able to communicate with the dead. She didn’t want to hear any more of it. Most of all, she didn’t want to have it. She didn’t want to see what Gabriel saw, be burdened with the responsibility he carried. She didn’t want to have to attract more death into her life – into Ruby’s life – than she already had. Attract even more danger . . .

“It was Dan, you know,” said Gabriel quietly, interrupting her thoughts.

Martha decided to ignore him but then changed her mind. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“Dan,” he replied. “Who brought Ball with him. To your door. It wasn’t you. That’s what you’re worried about, isn’t it? That it was you? You that put yourself and Ruby in danger, that lined her up for that hideous spirit to hurt?”

Martha avoided his gaze. He was absolutely right, of course.

“Dan had something – some quality – which Ball liked and to which he attached himself,” said Gabriel. “Ball was a destructive spirit – he had no specific plan, no particular target, so get it out of your head that his sole aim was Ruby. He was, in death, as in life, a troublemaker. A violent, destructive . . . evil troublemaker. An opportunist.”

Gabriel watched Martha closely as she flinched, shrugged her shoulders slightly as if to shake off what he was saying to her.

“He came back here because Martin came back here. Because the events of 1963 were being replayed after death, somehow. Martin came to find me but he was here as well to keep an eye on things, to make sure that Ball didn’t get what he wanted – and what he wanted that night at the lake was to sort out some unfinished business. He wanted all the players back on set again. He needed to finish things off with Martin Pine and the only way to get Pine’s spirit down to the lake that night was to use bait. To use a lure. Martin vowed that he’d never allow Ball to hurt another child. Ball knew that somehow. Unfortunately the bait he used to test this vow happened to be the only child who had visited that place in a very long time. Ball wanted to finish what he started back in 1963, but you stopped him . . .”

“Pine stopped him. It was Pine who protected Ruby on the jetty – I saw him,” interjected Martha and regretted it instantly. Telling Gabriel that she had seen Martin Pine’s spirit surround and protect Ruby was just adding more fuel to his fire. Next thing he’d have her attending his spiritualist church, engaging in séances with bloody Angeline Broadhead. She wanted none of it. She just wanted this to be over. It was maybe one benefit to having Will out of her life – no more ghosts. But then again she’d have fought an army of ghosts if it meant having Will back. She scowled, her temper growing more foul by the second, and checked her watch again with an angry sigh.

“He presented as a mist,” Gabriel offered quietly. “Trying to summon attention. To get help, somehow. Laurence wanted help, too, but he couldn’t ask it of me. That’s why he went away. In case he brought Ball to my door.” Gabriel smiled from the corner of his mouth, focusing on a shaft of sunlight which came through the window and fell on a perfect square of faded wood on the floor.

“That’s where the filing cabinet was?” asked Martha tentatively.

Gabriel nodded, his expression one of disgust as he tapped the square of light with his foot. Sue had explained what she and Will had found in the room – the photographs, the camera marked with Ball’s initials in the bottom drawer. It was the police who had lifted up the dirty pink eiderdown covered in cat hair and found the remaining pictures. They were nothing like the ones in the upper drawer. At least thirty of them, unbearable, proof enough that Ball was a predator. It seemed more likely than ever that Pine was to receive his posthumous pardon.

“At least he’s gone now,” murmured Gabriel softly. “We both feel now that he’s not here any more . . .”

Martha tutted and shook her head. “We can’t miss the train back, Gabriel. I’ve got to get home to Ruby. I’m going to go and wait for the taxi,” she said and limped from the room without another word. She didn’t want to talk about it any more, to be the subject of his probing questions. Heaven knew life was tough enough at the moment as it was. It was so difficult returning to an empty home, night after night, lit now with fairy lights and a tree which had been half-heartedly erected to please Ruby. Martha couldn’t even think of Christmas, facing, as she was, into a future that didn’t include Will. There had been times over the past weeks when she thought her heart might break with sadness at their separation and regret at her own stupidity.

She made for the stairs, intent on leaving, once and for all, and hopefully never returning again. In her haste, she completely missed a small figure emerging from one of the rooms further down the passage, and crossing the corridor into the room that she had just left.

Gabriel let her go and turned back to the window. He sighed and leaned his forehead against the pane of glass. It was so impossibly beautiful, he thought, with the low sun turning everything he could see before him to gold. And it had concealed such horror and unhappiness. He couldn’t help, however, feel a frisson of gratitude and relief as he sensed Laurence once again nearby. He had missed his brother terribly.

What he wouldn’t miss, of course, was Will. It had been almost two weeks now that he’d been cluttering up his space. Moping about with a face like a miserable fish. Cluttering up the apartment with his equipment and his papers, working all hours of the night, sleeping till lunchtime. Gabriel decided that his first task on returning to Edinburgh was to sit him down and talk some sense into him. He was sick of Martha’s depressed state too. And he wanted his space back.

He was startled suddenly by the creak of the saddle-board behind him and he turned suddenly, a bolt of fear slicing through his body. The figure in the doorway was a shadow at first, but when she stepped into the light Claire Hibbert managed a weak smile.

“Sorry to startle you,” she said in that ever so soft voice of hers.

Gabriel took a deep breath. “That’s all right,” he replied.

“Your taxi will be here in a minute,” she said, nodding toward the open door of the bedroom. “I think it was wise of you to get the train up here today – I can feel frost in the air already. Such a cold night ahead. Too cold to be out on the roads.”

Gabriel dug his hands deep into his pockets. “I don’t suppose my godfather has come back yet?” he asked, tentatively.

Hibbert shook her head. “He’s been in and out of that police station these past weeks like he’s the sergeant,” she said. “Answering questions about his uncle, about Martin. About what he said in court . . .”

“I’m sorry to have missed him,” said Gabriel. “But I suppose if it means that Martin might achieve what he wanted to, then it can’t all have been in vain, can it?”

He realised that they were speaking in hushed tones, in case they were overheard, even though there was no one to hear them.

Claire nodded in agreement, her breath catching. “I’ll miss him,” she said, simply.

Not ‘I miss him’ or ‘I missed him’. Gabriel looked at her in surprise, although he knew, having spent weeks without Laurence, exactly what she meant.

“I’m glad I caught you – I wanted to give you this,” she said, suddenly, reaching in her pocket and extending her hand toward Gabriel.

He couldn’t make it out at first but after a moment recognised the item as something he had seen so many times. In particular, in the picture of his brother that looked down at him daily from his mantel in George’s Street. The picture that had been disturbed so often by the ghostly fingerprints of his ghostly intruder.

He reached out his hand and took the cold metal of Laurence’s swimming medal from Hibbert’s hand. He stared at it, everything else in the room fading for a moment. He felt the heavy weight of it in his hand, looked at the engraving of a swimmer in a swimming cap and goggles, represented to show one arm forming an upside-down ‘V’ in the water as he swam through wiggly lines, indicating waves. He turned it slowly over and ran his thumb over the words ‘Laurence McKenzie, 1st place, Lifesaving’ carved into the back and then with his other hand, ran the grubby red, white and blue striped ribbon through his fingers. He was silent for a moment, overcome by the irony of it all.

“He gave it to me to mind the night it all happened,” explained Hibbert. “I put it in my pocket and then forgot about it. I’ve always had it with me, not as a keepsake, you understand, but it’s somehow always been there. I want you to have it back now, for your mother to have it. She should have had it all these years. I hope that it will bring her some peace, perhaps.”

Gabriel closed his hand over the medal and pocketed it with a sniff. “Thank you very much for that, Hibbert,” he managed, dignified.

“I’d best be off then,” she said suddenly. “We’ll see you soon again, I hope?”

Gabriel nodded. “After Christmas, perhaps,” he offered. He needed some space away from here, he knew.

“The very best of the season to you, then,” said Claire. “We’ll see you in the spring.”

And before he could answer, she was gone, her small frame bustling out of the doorway and back to work.

The taxi was already there when he let himself out the front door, pulling it behind him and clutching his coat tight as he crossed over to the car.

The engine was running, the driver sitting patiently behind the wheel and a cloud of exhaust billowing out into the freezing air. Martha turned and smiled at Gabriel’s approach, trying to show remorse for having stormed out earlier on. He grinned back and watched her climb in behind the driver’s seat, then he turned and took a final look back at the building. Something about the moment seemed so significant, somehow. He wanted to memorise the place as it stood now, frozen in time, dark grey against the bluest of skies. His own breath came in clouds before him as he took it all in. He smelled the air, detected a hint of snow and shivered, regretting the absence of his gloves. He dug his hands deeper into his pockets instead, feeling again the cold metal and silk of Laurence’s medal on its ribbon.

Gabriel turned then and looked out over the view – the manicured flowerbeds, the distant trees and purple mountains. He inhaled the air deeply, feeling the hit at the back of his throat, then that it was time to get into the taxi and leave.

Had he not, however, taken one last look back at the Castle, he’d never have seen him sitting there, on the bench that was positioned under the library window overlooking the front of the house. His skinny legs were spread wide before him, a plume of smoke rising up into the air from the cigarette between thumb and forefinger. Gabriel paused to take in the vision before him, one that was at once familiar and startling. He looked so out of place, he thought. A thin young man in his shirt sleeves on such a freezing a day, puffing away to himself, having a break.

Martin Pine’s ghost raised its hand in a wave in Gabriel’s direction and then suddenly was gone, leaving Gabriel with his own hand raised in response. There was nothing left but a faint trace of smoke in the air which then dissolved – so faint that it might not ever have been there. And Gabriel felt a familiar sense of completion. A wave of emotion washed over him and then was gone, replaced by a sense of satisfaction, of something achieved.

He muttered aloud, “Good luck, mate.”

This time Martin Pine was truly gone for good.

CHAPTER 47

December 23rd

“So you didn’t dispose of it then,” said Gabriel, shutting the glove compartment with a bang.

Will didn’t respond to his satisfaction so Gabriel made sure to snap it open and shut a second and third time, with a loud cough for effect on the last bang.

It did the trick. Will turned his gaze slowly away from Calderwood’s front door and looked at Gabriel blankly. “What?” he asked in a voice that said he was still far away. Gabriel mimed slipping a ring onto the third finger of his left hand. Will looked back at the house, making a sound somewhere between a grunt and a cough. Gabriel leaned forward in the passenger seat to try to catch better sight of his face and also to try to regain his attention, but Will’s gaze was firmly fixed on the door of what had been his home.

“The ring,” Gabriel said loudly, giving the glove compartment door another loud bang for effect. Will swung his head around. “Ssssssh!” he hissed. “You’ll wake Ruby.”

Gabriel turned to look at the toddler asleep in her car-seat. She never stirred, her pacifier hanging limply, as always, from her lower lip and Hugo clutched loosely in her hands. Her cheeks were rosy red and her knitted hat was slightly askew from the struggle to get her into the seat in the first place. Gabriel rolled his eyes. “The Trumpet Voluntary wouldn’t wake that child,” he observed, and returned his glance to Will, a provocative twinkle in his eyes. “Speaking of which, I’d thought you might walk down the aisle to that . . .”

“Drop it, Gabriel,” said Will with a sigh. “It’s not going to happen.”

The radio, which Gabriel had tuned to a Christmas station, was the only sound in the car for a few moments as Will continued to stare at the facade of Calderwood. He blinked in surprise suddenly as his focus shifted and he noted the first flurries of snow finally begin to fall. It had threatened all day, another shower to top up the six inches that had fallen overnight.

Gabriel sat back in the passenger seat and looked straight ahead to the lamppost in the garden. “This is a lovely Christmas-card scene, William,” he said, “but I can’t feel my feet at the moment so any chance we could move it along a wee bit?”

Will sighed. “I suppose I should just take Ruby in,” he said.

Gabriel stayed facing straight ahead. “Oh no, Will, let’s hang on out here awhile staring into the freezing bushes, eh? I mean, my meeting at the Ghosts R Us offices is only in, oh, half an hour or so.” He paused to look at his watch. “Plenty of time to get from here to the other side of town. No rush. Even if we have to dig ourselves out.”

Will ignored the sarcasm and gave a sigh, turning the key to silence the ignition and removing it to pop it in his jacket pocket.

Gabriel gave him a sidelong glance. “Don’t worry, William,” he remarked drily. “I’m not going to drive off in the Volvo of all things. Wouldn’t add anything to the street cred of the new permanent medium for Ghosts Wanted to be seen scooting down the road in a tractor now, would it?”

Will still didn’t respond and Gabriel sat up in his seat, looking back again at Ruby.

“She loves you taking Ruby, you know,” he said suddenly, his tone kinder. He realised he wasn’t going to provoke Will into any banter today, despite his own happiness at being on his way to hand in his notice. The call had come by surprise the previous week and he’d needed little or no time to answer it. The new year would bring a new job and Gabriel relished the prospect.

“I always think it’s going to be . . . you know . . . the last time I hand her back,” said Will grimly, looking down at his hands.

“Jesus H, man,” said Gabriel, alarm in his voice. “You’ve only taken her to see Santa in Jenners. Keep it together, for heaven’s sake!” He waited for a response but got none. “The last time for what, though? The last time Martha lets you take Ruby or the last time you see Martha?” He left the thought hanging in the air, knowing that either and both scenarios were Will’s concern. He’d sensed a change in him over the last few days, a softening.

Another silence fell between them while a shelf of snow formed quickly on the base of the windscreen.

Gabriel was patient for at least half a minute before he tutted and opened the glove compartment once more. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, just go up to the door and give her this,” he barked, thrusting the box containing the diamond and sapphire ring toward Will.

Batting Gabriel’s hand away, Will turned and stepped from the car with a sigh. He closed his own door quietly and opened Ruby’s, focusing on getting the little girl out of the car-seat as gently as he could without disturbing her. She’d loved seeing Santa, had refused to relinquish her gift, the copy of Room on the Broom, until it had fallen from her hand as she nodded off in the car on the way home. It was the third time that Martha had permitted him to take her out. And every time he handed her back he felt a physical pain of separation.

He hoisted Ruby up as gently as he could on his shoulder and she snuggled in there, a little arm still wrapped around Hugo, the pacifier sucked securely back into her mouth. He bent awkwardly to retrieve her book from the floor of the car and straightened himself. Now came the hard part. Crunching across the gravel, ringing the front doorbell on the home that he had thought would be his and Martha’s to share. A home in which to start their own family . . .

Martha had been happy so far to let him take Ruby – it was Christmas after all – but as life went on who knew how long that would last? He was no blood relative of Ruby’s – Calderwood was the only thing that bound them. As time went on, Martha was sure to meet someone else who would replace him. And then there was the issue of Dan, of course, and his baby – Ruby’s half-brother – a boy called Alexander.

A pang of regret hit Will, then he pushed that away, reminding himself of how he had felt when Dan had blurted out what he had to say that day in Dubhglas. What a vile, vile individual, Will thought, remembering the relish with which he had told the tale. He was a creep, he knew. But a creep who Martha had been married to for a long time, had wanted to share the rest of her life with. And who she had said as much to only a few weeks ago.

He pressed his finger on the doorbell and heard it ring loudly inside. A moment later he heard a door open inside – the living-room door, he knew by the sound – and the click of the latch on the front door.

Martha’s heart gave the little leap it always did when she saw him. The split second of first seeing his face, him and Ruby together, when everything was normal, before it was replaced by the dread, the regret, the guilt – the plain misery of living without him. She longed to get Christmas over, to get into the penance of January.

She saw her daughter asleep on his shoulder and looked awkwardly at them for a moment, and then up at the sky where the whirls of snow were coming down thick and fast. She looked back at Will, watched thick flakes land on his coat and stick there, wondered whether or not to invite him in.

In the long run, it was he who gave her the answer. “You’d better take her,” he said. “I have to get Gabriel into town.”

Silently, Martha slid her arms around Ruby, feeling a small electric charge as she touched against Will’s hand as she took Ruby’s book from him. A deep pang of longing hit her.

“Oh yes, he’s finishing up with Ghosts R Us today, isn’t he?” she said.

Whatever about herself and Will, she wasn’t going to lose touch with Gabriel again. Then again, he was Will’s friend of course. Over time . . . she blocked the thought from her mind and pulled Ruby toward her, taking her awkwardly, herself and Will close to each other as they made the exchange.

Will didn’t answer, just made sure that Ruby was secure in Martha’s arms and stepped back with a long step. Martha was wearing Jo Malone’s Orange Blossom – her favourite perfume. He recoiled from the scent. In his mind’s eye he saw the bottle on the dressing table in their bedroom. Such little familiar things, he thought to himself and felt the pain fresh again.

Martha settled Ruby in her arms. The little girl grizzled a little, made to wake up and then thought better of it, nuzzling into her mum’s neck. That was it, thought Martha. Handover done, what next? She was always terrified at this point. Terrified that it would be the time that Will would say he couldn’t see them again, that he didn’t think it was a good idea for him to take Ruby. He didn’t have to keep in touch with her, Martha knew. But if it was the only way that she could still see him . . .

She longed to apologise for the hundredth time, to protest that she hadn’t been in her right mind, that Dan meant nothing to her and neither did anything she had told him. But she couldn’t. Couldn’t risk doing something that broke the fragile peace that had settled between them. She couldn’t allow him out of her life. Couldn’t risk that for a second.

“Would you –” she began.

“I’d like to see her again once Christmas is over –” he started at the same time.

Martha felt her stomach flutter faintly with habitual possibility and immediately quashed it. It didn’t do to hope when there was none. “Fine,” she said.

“I’ll drop you a text to arrange,” Will said in a businesslike fashion and without another word he turned his back and walked back across the gravel to the car.

In the passenger seat, she saw Gabriel crane his neck to catch her eye, frantically waving an envelope in his hand to which he pointed with exaggerated motion. His resignation letter, she knew, and allowed herself a smile. She’d helped him write it. No – she’d written it and emailed it to him to hand in. He made a gesture with his hand to indicate that he’d call her and turned away.

Martha stared at Will’s tall figure as he opened the driver’s door and climbed in. Please look back, she thought to herself. Please, just a glance, a wave – anything.

Nothing.

She saw him turn the key in the ignition, and leave without a backward glance. He drove slowly. The driveway was treacherous with the earlier snowfall and even in the few short moments of their exchange it had grown darker. Visibility was low with the thick snow that pelted down now. Taking a final look up into its mesmerising descent, Martha slowly and quietly went inside, closing the door behind her.

“Put it away, Gabriel,” said Will to his friend as they turned around the corner in the drive and he could no longer see Martha and Ruby’s shapes in the reflection of the rear-view mirror. He glanced back over his shoulder through the curtains of falling snow at the closed front door. His heart broke a little, as it always did. He turned on his headlamps and stared straight ahead.

Disappointed, Gabriel tossed the small box back into the glove compartment and had just managed to snap it shut again before he was flung forward in the seat. The car skidded slightly as the brakes were applied with force.

Martha laid Ruby in her cot, having first managed to extract her from her coat, hat and gloves. She sighed and made her way from the room back out onto the landing, turning to head into her own room and begin the nightly ritual of closing blinds and curtains, of blocking out the real world. Out there, she realised, people were finishing work for the Christmas holidays. Scores of merrymakers were filing into festive pubs, fathers and mothers were returning to their families to close their own blinds and curtains, to block out the world until the following morning. Christmas Eve, she thought with an inner groan. The day of the year that should most be filled with promise, yet here she was, alone, filled only with dread.

For a moment she thought she’d imagined it – the ring of the doorbell downstairs. She’d grown to hate the tone. That was one job to get done after Christmas, she thought. Get a new doorbell. Since that night it gave her the creeps, the only remnant of the encounter that still unnerved her. That in itself had been a huge source of surprise for her, the fact that Calderwood felt just as safe as it had beforehand. Once she’d tidied the living room, rearranged the furniture and given the walls a fresh colour as well as installing a brightly lit tree and some garlands, it had begun to feel like a sanctuary again. Martha felt safer here, in fact, than she had done beforehand. She wondered sometimes if there was a reason for that, if she had done something to incur protection?

She quickened her step down the stairs as the doorbell rang again. There was no mistaking it that time. Martha frowned. She wasn’t expecting anyone – her father wouldn’t arrive until the morning, weather permitting. The heavy snow made her nervous. If it stayed that heavy, then she and Ruby would spend Christmas alone and she wasn’t sure if she could cope with that. Unless of course he had taken pre-emptive action and come a day early? But surely he would have phoned?

Martha heard music come from outside as she crossed the hallway and frowned again. Surely not carol singers? As she neared the door, she recognised the tune as ‘Hark, the Herald Angels’ – her favourite – and was stunned to feel tears prick her eyes. It should make her feel so joyous. Martha blinked back a tear as she opened the latch and pulled the door toward her.

She couldn’t see him there at first. She peered out into the thick flakes of snow – like feathers drifting toward the ground. She looked out further to find the source of the music and was stunned by what she saw.

There, at the top of the driveway, Will’s Volvo was parked again, the driver’s door open, the engine still running, the radio blaring the carol. And out in the snow, a tall black shape becoming clearer as it stepped into the light spilling from the front door. It was Will.

He was before her in a single step, thrusting his hand in her direction, something clutched in his fist. Martha held out her hand to receive it.

“What did she forget now?” she asked, attempting a friendly smile. “Something vital, no doubt!”

She halted when whatever Will held in his hand wasn’t forthcoming. She looked at his face directly and was surprised to see how serious it was. Her stomach sank. What had he come to tell her now?

They stared at each other for a few moments, Martha’s eyes filled with fear and anxiety. Will’s searching her face in an attempt to find the right words. Eventually, they came.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

Martha turned her head to one side to hear him better. She wasn’t sure that he had said what she thought he did.

But she had.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, his voice growing more urgent now. “These last few weeks, Martha – they’ve been hell. Being without you . . . I can’t . . . I’ve realised . . . I’m not made for that. Please listen to me when I say that I was all the way down that drive, in that snow . . . with Gabriel nagging me about being late for his bloody meeting and suddenly, it just felt . . . wrong . . .”

He paused for breath and Martha stared at him in confusion, straining her ears to hear what he was saying against the music coming from the car which seemed to have grown in volume since Will had started to speak. He had noticed it too, it seemed. When he spoke again, he found that he had to shout over the choir from King’s College.

“If you’d seen Ruby’s face today – in the store – when she saw Santa . . . Will you turn that fucking radio down!” he hollered suddenly in the direction of the car, turning his back on Martha as he did so.

The response was immediate. The swelling of the carol deflated instantly and a chunky arm poked from the passenger window as it did, waving in acknowledgement. Will turned back to face Martha who had started to laugh at the scene. It was preposterous.

“Look, when I saw her today, I had a wonderful time – I always do,” Will went on. “She’s such great company. But I find when I’m with her . . . I’m always lonely.”

Martha tilted her head as he spoke, taking in his confused face, his flushed cheeks. He suddenly looked directly into her eyes.

“Because when I’m with her, I know that I should also be with you,” he said and looked away again, momentarily embarrassed.

Martha gasped, her stomach lurching at his words. “Will,” she began. She needed to stop him now. Whatever he was going to say would hurt her afresh, she realised. This was some sort of long goodbye. In the snow at Christmas time. She couldn’t bear it, she realised. Couldn’t listen to another word.

“I’m sorry, Martha,” he said again.

“What have you got to be sorry for?” she replied. “It was me . . . it was all my fault. And I’m so sorry, Will. I never meant to hurt you – never meant to do what I did. Dan means absolutely nothing to me – even less now, if that’s possible – you’ve got to believe me.”

She was silenced by Will reaching out and taking her hands in his, the bulk of the small box which he still gripped awkward between them. Martha didn’t even notice it. She was too anxious.

“I know,” he replied firmly. “I know that now . . . in fact, I knew that then – when Dan told me – but I couldn’t let myself believe it – it all hurt so much. I shouldn’t have run off on you like that, but I was so hurt. I thought I’d lost you that night in the lake – I was still in shock from what had happened and I just couldn’t deal with it, had to get away. But I’ve had so much time to think in Gabriel’s spare room and I realise that, yes, we still have some things to work out but I don’t want to be alone any more. Actually, that’s wrong – I don’t mind being alone – I can cope with that. What I can’t cope with is being without you.”

He paused, looking directly into her eyes. A movement behind him caught Martha’s eye and she saw Gabriel emerge from the car and stand to watch, silent, his black coat pulled around him and clouds of vapour dissipating into the air as he blew on his hands to keep warm.

And then she acknowledged the bulk of the small box being pushed into her hand as Will finally released it. She gasped slightly, unable to tear her eyes away from his face.

“I think I’m doing a really rubbish job of this,” mumbled Will, “but I’ve started so I’ll finish.”

He paused for a breath, looking at the box and then back at her face. “Open it,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper.

And she did, her expression softening, then turning to shock as she saw what was inside. Her eyes grew wide as she looked from Will to the ring and back again.

“Will you wear it?” he managed. He rolled his eyes at his clumsy turn of phrase but it was as much as he could manage through the tears that were forming in them.

In turn, a drop trickled down Martha’s face as she stared at him. Stared at his familiar features, at what she saw in his eyes – everything that they had been through, already the stuff of life and death, and everything that was yet to come. All the hope, the dreams . . . she was stunned into silence for a moment.

And as the snow drifted silently around them, and their closest friend watched from a little way down the drive, Martha looked around her for a moment and saw everything with clarity. This is how it’s meant to be, she said to herself all of a sudden as the scene before her, around her and ahead of her felt absolutely right.

Feeling the warmth as yet another tear trickled down her cheek, Martha looked back at Will and felt herself fill with love. And hope.

“I will,” she said.

If you enjoyed

The Dark Water by Helen Moorhouse

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The Dead Summer also published by Poolbeg?

Here’s a sneak preview of Chapter One

The Dead Summer

CHAPTER 1: The Dead Summer

28th May

It was a balmy evening in Martha Armstrong’s garden in London and she and five friends were drinking champagne.

“To Martha!” said Polly Humble and lifted her glass, insisting then in clinking it in turn against each of the five other glasses. It meant that she had to stand up out of her seat and lean over awkwardly to reach some of the others, but to Polly it had to be done this way or the toast hadn’t been done correctly at all.

“To Martha!” chorused the other five.

“On her great country adventure!” added Polly, who thought the whole thing a great lark indeed.

All six took sips of champagne. Polly pretended to shudder with delight and rolled her eyes to the sky. Fiona smacked her lips loudly and Sarah said “Mmmm . . .” in an exaggerated fashion.

Standing behind Fiona, Sue Brice made a face at Martha and stuck out her tongue at each of the people at the table. Martha looked downwards, trying to suppress a giggle but also feeling sad at the sham of it all.

It took Claire Smith, one of Martha’s ex-colleagues, to finally say what the others were thinking: “So, Martha, what does Dan think about all this?”

Sue opened her eyes wide at the question and cast a worried glance at Martha, who never flinched.

“Oh, I think he’s actually quite pleased, to be honest,” Martha said casually. “Me moving to the country gets the fly out of his ointment, the elephant out of his room so to speak.”

There was silence for a moment.

“And is Ruby all excited about packing her case and moving away with Mummy?” chirped Polly in an exaggeratedly high-pitched voice, as if she were talking to a child or an idiot.

Sue rolled her eyes, unseen by the group.

Martha fixed Polly with a stare. “She’s six months old,” she replied drily. “She can’t really tell the difference between moving to the country and next Tuesday fortnight.”

Polly looked sideways under her lashes at Fiona and Sarah. Martha observed the glance, thinking that they couldn’t wish to be gone any more than she wanted them to be.

“Are you sure that this is what you want to do?” asked Sue later when the others had gone and it was just the two of them left. She stood by the back door, smoking a cigarette out into the garden, while Martha shuffled about the kitchen making coffee for them both.

Martha stopped pouring milk into the two cups, picked up an envelope which had been tucked in beside the microwave and held it out to her friend.

“What’s this?” said Sue, opening the envelope and drawing out a document. “Oh.”

“Yup,” said Martha. “Decree Absolute. Arrived this morning.” She looked around her at the bare kitchen, all of the furniture sold or gone to Dan’s new home, save the white goods which were remaining for the new owners. She sighed and handed Sue her coffee. “Oh, Sue, you know as well as I do that there’s nothing left for me in the city.”

“Your friends –” offered Sue.

“Who?” Martha cut in. “Polly Humble? Fiona Oldham? Sarah James? They’re all wives and girlfriends of Dan’s friends, not mine. They only turned up tonight to tick the box, as it were. I know for a fact that Sarah had Dan and Paula to dinner when I was five months pregnant!”

Sue blew out a cloud of smoke. “Oh yeah, forgot about that, sorry,” she said apologetically.

“As for Claire . . .” continued Martha, sipping her own coffee and wandering over to join Sue in the doorway. “Well, she’s been a good old sort but I know tomorrow she’s just going to go into the office and get into a huddle with Liz and tell her that I’m storming off to the country and giving up my job because I’m all bitter and twisted about Dan. She’ll make it sound all juicy and then by next week I’ll be ‘Remember Martha?’ and pretty soon Claire will have moved on as well.”

Sue dropped the cigarette butt and ground it with her foot. “And you’re not at all bitter and twisted of course!” She picked up the butt between her forefinger and thumb. “What do you want me to do with this?”

“Oh, plant it somewhere and see if a ciggie-tree grows! I don’t actually care any more – it’s not my house, right?”

Sue smiled and flicked the butt out into the garden.

“Oh, sod this!” said Martha and turned back into the kitchen. She poured her coffee into the sink and opened the fridge. “This was for the new owners but, screw it, let’s have a proper drink.”

She took another chilled bottle of champagne out of the fridge and handed it to Sue who promptly ditched her own coffee and made her way back out into the dusky garden. Sue popped the cork and watched it bounce off the trellised wall and disappear into a flower-bed. She poured it into the two glasses Martha had set on the table.

“Of course I’m bitter and twisted!” said Martha. “I was with the same bloke for ten years for heaven’s sake – had it all, I thought – the wedding in the country manor, the big house in the suburbs, baby coming along two years later, like I’d planned it. Shame it wasn’t what Dan had planned in the slightest. His plans only extended to when he could next do the dirty with Paula Bloody Gooding!”

“Here,” said Sue, familiar with the routine of letting Martha rant since she had discovered her husband’s second relationship eight months previously. She topped up Martha’s glass and lit herself another cigarette. “To keep the midges away, of course,” she said, grinning at Martha.

Martha sipped her drink and inhaled Sue’s second-hand smoke deeply, wishing at that moment she had never given up. “You know what bugs me the most, Sue? It’s that he carried on with everything that we had planned and he’d have carried on forever if I hadn’t found out. If Tom Oakes hadn’t commiserated with me when he saw them at the Ad Awards, then I’d probably still be blissfully unaware my husband had a long-term girlfriend. It was only when he got caught that Dan actually grew the balls to admit that none of this was ‘his bag’.” She glanced back at the four-bedroomed terraced house that she had spent five years lovingly turning into a home for her family, then pointed at the window over the kitchen. “The only good thing that came out of that marriage is asleep in that room and her father doesn’t even want to know her. And I think that he loves Paula Gooding more than he ever loved me, and more than he’ll ever love Ruby, and that absolutely kills me. So yes – in answer to your question I think I am absolutely doing the right thing in selling up and getting out of Dodge. At least for six months or so to get my head straight, instead of just moping around here trying to . . . to catch a whiff of the nasty, leftover stink of my marriage.” There were tears in Martha’s eyes which she was trying her hardest to fight back. “You know what else kills me? That my little girl will never have a brother or sister who calls the same man ‘Daddy’, that she’ll always feel left out at nursery or at school when kids talk about their dads – and what does she do if, say, they’re making cards for Father’s Day?”

“Relax,” said Sue. “I don’t think they do that any more – there are plenty of kids like Ruby with no dad, or kids with two dads, or twenty ‘uncles’ or two mummies.”

“That’s true,” said Martha, comforted by this thought.

“Of course you’re doing the right thing,” said Sue reassuringly. “I’ll just miss you both so much. We’ve never lived more than ten miles apart since we were at university.” She rubbed Martha’s hand lightly with her own.

Martha drained her glass. “That’s another thing, Sue. I’ve got to do this writing thing as well, and everything in London is so tied up with the divorce that I can’t get down to it with a clear head. I mean, I’ve left my job to finally write the book I’ve been promising myself I’d write since I was a kid. I’ve got to give it a proper go, now that I can finance it with this . . .” she indicated the house which she would leave forever the following morning, “and with the maintenance, provided Mr Lover can remember to pay it. I’ve brought Ruby into a broken home – I have to be able to offer her the best, be a mum who is trying her hardest to fulfil her own potential if I’m to be any example to her. I can’t be someone who’s face down in a bottle of wine every night because I’m trying to blot out the thought of going to work in the morning. You know I hate advertising with a passion and this is my chance to get away, start afresh. My life’s just a great big bloody – toilet here in London.”

Sue smirked, recognising that a combination of champagne and tiredness was beginning to speak instead of Martha. “Albeit a very nice toilet with a new Audi and lovely clothes and tons of handbags and shoes!”

Martha grinned, glad that her friend was there to bring her back down to earth. “Okay, so it’s a gold-plated toilet with a thing that whirrs around to clean the seat for me!” she laughed. “But a toilet nonetheless, good madam! Seriously though, I’ve got to give this the best shot I can and if that means moving away then that’s what I’ve got to do.”

Sue nodded. “Pity Party over?”

Martha nodded. “Yes. Pity Party over. And please don’t use that phrase around me again. It’s going on the banned list along with ‘twenty-four seven’ and ‘do the math’. Oh, and another one – ‘so over it’!” She grinned. “I’m like totally so over that one!” she said, and the two laughed.

“To Martha and Ruby!” said Sue, raising her glass.

Martha followed suit.

“May your stint in the countryside be as fulfilling as you dream it can be,” continued Sue, addressing the trees and shrubs in the darkening garden. “And may you bloody well cheer up soon!”

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