Helen Hibbert pulled her coat closer to her neck. She didn’t think it would make much difference, but she felt like it was doing something positive to keep out the cold, damp and fog.
She had reached Harwich with plenty of time to spare, constantly checking her mirror in case those two coppers were following her. She hadn’t seen them or noticed any car that gave any indication of following. Although since her knowledge of that came exclusively from Hollywood movies, she wasn’t entirely sure.
And now she walked, the only person out, her heels clacking and crunching, echoing all around. Behind her were houses, flats. Both old and old-looking. In keeping with the local character. The land stopped the other side of her. She could make out shapes in the fog, lights over the water from the port. It looked like something from a science fiction film, a hulking, crash-landed mothership sitting ominous and indistinct in the mist.
She walked along the footpath towards the agreed spot. A lifeboat station was on her right, the runway positioned on the stony shingle beach. On the other side of her were landed wooden boats. Pulled in and piled up. The dark disguising the fact that most of them, holed and rotting, would never set sail again. Their final resting place. Their graveyard.
She kept walking, away from the houses and flats now, finding herself alone. The boats were now piled up on both sides. Her breath caught from something more than cold. The overhead street lights cast deep, dark shadows, providing perfect cover for muggers and rapists. She could see ahead to where the path was clear and open, where it rejoined the rest of the town and her assignation was to take place, but to get there she had to walk through this first.
She moved slowly, eyes darting, alert for any sudden movement, any attack, listening for changes in sound. She could hear only the white-noise drone of the waves breaking against the shingle beach. That and the beating of her own heart.
She tried to joke with herself, think of it as a final test to go through before starting her new life. Go into the darkness, come out in the light. Just her and the weird sister. How was that going to work? Would they get on? Have much in common? If Helen had been asked earlier, she would have said no. Definitely not. But now she wasn’t so sure. There had seemed to be a connection when they talked. Kindred spirits, and all that. And there was the money, too. That was probably what would keep them together.
She clutched her coat more tightly about her, kept a firm grip on her suitcase. Despite telling herself there was nothing to worry about, she wished she had something else to hold, something she could use as a weapon if she needed to.
And then she heard something. Or someone.
She turned. The sound came from her left. Movement, someone coming towards her. Helen froze. Then heard a voice.
‘Hello, Helen.’
She turned. It was Dee. Sliding out of the shadows.
Smiling.