The trees were bare. Fruit picked and leaves fallen.
I walked aimlessly, killing time, passing the barn where Peggy had been found. The police were long gone. A scrap of blue tape fluttered from a branch like a flag marking the place. Cheap flowers wrapped in cellophane leaned against the side of the building. They were all rotten save for one fresh bunch of roses.
I read the messages.
A good friend.
A wonderful neighbour.
A much-missed colleague.
There was nothing about being a loving wife.
I wondered if the roses were from Dave. I supposed that now he had nothing to hide. Lenny must know about him in the same way he’d known about Dad. I couldn’t think of a time when I’d seen Dave with any bruises or broken bones, but I remembered what had happened to the shop. Had Lenny got his revenge by breaking the window and wrecking the display?
Dave had been at the orchard when they had found the body. I thought of seeing him on TV, standing at the edges of the crowd. Had he been afraid that it was her? Had he been heartbroken? You never could tell with Dave.
A crow took off from the top of the barn, flapping noisily. It was after four. The light was fading.
I quickened my pace. It was creepy in the orchard with the trees creaking and the wind stirring their branches. Making my way to the wasteland, running across the open ground and then crawling into the den, I felt safe. Cool and calm.
Voices and sounds carried from the building site. The thrum of machinery. The clash of steel. Soon, they’d be packing up for the day. Men marching across the field, heavy boots tramping the ground. Taking the shortcut through the orchard to home.
The estate was getting closer, encroaching on my space, and it occurred to me that if it continued, if the contractors ever got their way and bought this piece of land, my den would be flattened. I imagined a house built smack bang on top of where I was sitting now.
Time passed. It was gone four. Would Rachel come? She had only been to the den twice. What if she couldn’t remember where it was?
I scrambled up the side and crawled through the bushes. Dark clouds scudded across a slate-coloured sky. Rain was coming. The wind grew stronger. It rattled the trees and crows flew out as if shaken from their perches.
The sounds of machinery, and men working, had stopped, but around me I could hear the skitter and scramble of creatures burrowing in the bushes.
Should I go home?
If only she’d come.
The air changed. There was movement and male voices. The builders were coming across the fields, their shadowy shapes sharpening as they came closer. I spotted sandy-haired Frank, surrounded by men all taller and wider than he was. They were laughing and joking. I saw Frank offer a sandwich, take a cigarette. A hand slapped him on the back. ‘Hey, Frankie.’ There was something about him. Ordinary and mesmerising. They loved him just like Debra did.
I stepped out of sight and the group moved on, their laughs and shouts lingering. I blew on my fingers to keep back the cold.
Where was Rachel?
Suddenly, she appeared at the edge of the orchard, dress catching on the brambles, face pale in the gloom. She stood a while, looking around like a hesitant deer.
I stepped forward. Raised my arm. Hey, Rachel, poised on my lips.
There was a sound. A low, tuneless whistle drifting from the fields.
A late builder on his way home – or doubling back.
A man. A low whistle.
A low whistle.
Stop. Rewind.
The wind picked up, chilling my bones.
The light slipped further into darkness.
That day. Peggy’s last day. It had been the same. The same slanting light, the same cold wind, the same birds imprisoned and struggling in the branches.
The same low whistle.
The watcher.
It was him. I was sure. And he was heading for Rachel. I held my breath.
A figure loomed, large and solid, coming from the building site, crossing the wasteland like a fairy-tale giant. Hefty steps that shook the ground. I relaxed. I was wrong – he was a saviour, not a threat.
Rachel was motionless. Her jacket, the colour of earth, her dress like green leaves, her hair a burnished vine. Rooted. Arms crossed against her chest. I thought of the slashes on her skin. Imagined the blood like resin oozing from the wounds. The damage she’d done. Why?
I held my breath.
Unsure.
Mr Wright stopped whistling.
He strode onwards, reached Rachel. Neither of them noticed me standing in the shadows, surrounded by the long grass. Spying again. Should I step forward, make my presence known?
He slid one hand around her arm.
A small movement.
It might have been a gesture of affection.
Only.
Rachel flinched.
Dread skidded all the way down my spine.
She stepped backwards, but he didn’t let her go.
I wanted to move, but my feet were anchored to the ground. I tried to call out, but my throat was dry and my tongue felt swollen.
He spoke so quietly, I barely heard him. I strained to make out what he said but the blood was rushing too loudly inside my head.
I quietened and the words came slithering on the breeze.
‘What are you doing here?’
Silence.
Clutching harder, he pulled Rachel towards him.
‘Did I give you permission to leave the house?’
‘No.’ A single word, full of fear.
‘So why are you here then?’
‘I came to find you.’
No. That wasn’t true. She’d come to find me. This was my fault. I needed to tell him that so she wouldn’t get the blame, but still I couldn’t move; it was as if one of my old woodland devils held me in its grip, just as Mr Wright held Rachel in his.
Releasing her arm, he turned as if to walk away, only he didn’t go; instead, he just stood there, looking at his hands.
Suddenly, he spun around. ‘I don’t believe you,’ he hissed. ‘You’ve never come to meet me before.’
‘But it’s true,’ said Rachel. ‘I wanted to see you.’
Sweat prickled beneath my arms. I could feel Rachel’s fear. It was living and breathing. As real as the empty trees and the dark sky and the cold wind. I didn’t know why I’d never seen it before.
Quick as a whip, he lifted his hand and slapped her face. I sucked in my breath. She staggered with the force of it while, with his other hand, he steadied her, like a father protecting his child.
He was talking again, fragments of his sentences shearing away like bits of bone; hard, sharp-edged words: punish, bad girl, just like your mother.
Your mother.
Not Charlotte. Your mother.
Rachel spoke, her words soft and frayed: ‘I don’t want to, please, not now, I don’t want to.’ She was crying, sobbing, pleading. He took her arm once again and she struggled to break free, but he wouldn’t let her go.
I had to do something. I had to help.
At last, I shook away my paralysis and broke the Devil’s spell.
Throwing myself from my hiding place, I raced headlong, across the space between us, straight into his hard, broad back. A battering ram. Enough to make him stagger. Surprised, he let her go and swung around to face me.
‘Run,’ I yelled to Rachel as he grabbed my wrist. ‘Run.’
A moment’s indecision and then she did. Hitching up her dress, turning and sprinting across the wasteland.
I was alone. With him. Pain stabbed through me as he tightened his grip.
‘You little bitch,’ he said. ‘I told you not to interfere.’
He was the Devil and he’d found me at last. But still, I sank my teeth into his hand. Yelping, he stepped backwards and I broke free, and set off running too, into the orchard, leading him away from Rachel.
On I went, through the lines of trees, stumbling across the stones and the roots. Behind me I could hear the heavy thud of his footsteps.
I tried to order my thoughts. I had to lead him away, find a telephone box. Call the police. Mum. Bob. Get to the cafe and tell Maggie.
But there were no telephone boxes here. No police either. There was only the orchard and the wasteland and the half-built estate. I was going in circles. I knew this place but panic had set in and I was lost.
I stopped, leaned against a tree, breathing hard, wiping the sweat that trickled from my brow. Where was he? I walked on slowly, getting my bearings. Now and then I imagined a footfall. I shivered and turned but there was no one there. I carried on, forcing myself to think.
The orchard became familiar. A tree with dead rot. A hollow. A crevice. I quickened my pace. The wasteland was closer than the exit.
Where was Rachel? Maybe she’d gone to the den, too shocked to go further.
Maybe she was hiding, waiting for me, knowing I’d come.
I slowed, catching my breath. A few more steps and I was out from the trees, crossing the wasteland, hoping I was right.
A hand grabbed my arm, yanking me back.
‘Got you,’ he wheezed in my ear.
I screamed.
Another hand went straight over my mouth, and then he was dragging me.
I tried to shake my head but I couldn’t move.
I tried clamping my teeth onto his hand, but my mouth wouldn’t open.
I tried anchoring myself with my feet, but he was too strong.
In the distance, I could see the uneven outline of the housing estate getting further away as he dragged me.
We stopped. He lay me down on the ground. His face was calm now. His lips moved. I couldn’t make out what he said, but he sounded just like he always had done. His words melodic, soft and soothing. Those dark eyes that Mum had so admired staring into mine. Only his expression was empty. His breath on my face, sweet and rotten, as his hands crept around my throat.
Time slowed. Images came and went. A bed covered in Mrs Wright’s clothes. No room to sleep. Rachel’s sadness. Her faraway looks. The scars on her arms. Her quiet, her ease – which turned out to be dread. Her fingers, skittering. Fiddling with her locket. Playing with her hair. Movements that betrayed her calm.
Hands about my throat. Thumbs digging in.
I was slipping. Falling. Fading.
A movement close by. Wood snapping. A badger or a fox.
A rushing of blood in my ears. His breath.
I concentrated on his bloated face so close to mine as he leaned over me. The look that slid from place to place now fixed firmly on me with one intention.
Uselessly, I summoned the last of my energy and pushed against his chest. But he was so huge. So huge. And as wide as he was tall.
My eyes were closing. My mind was shutting down. My body failing. I could only smell the sweat on his skin, only hear his breath rasping as he focused on his task.
And then something else.
A low growling. A creature in the shadow. It was a fiend. The Devil’s accomplice coming to finish me off.
Fingers loosening as the snarling grew fiercer. There was a curse, a yelp of pain. He jumped up and let me go. I gasped for breath, forced myself to sit upright as my vision cleared, and I saw that he was kicking out, not at a fiend, but at a dog. Nip – teeth fastened around his leg.
Somebody shouted my name and there, ahead of me, was Rachel, emerging from the bushes surrounding the den. I tried to yell at her, but my bruised voice failed. I tried to stand, but my strength had gone.
She stopped and she waited. Anger sparking, he headed straight for her, Nip yapping at his feet.
He didn’t see the penknife in her outstretched hand.
He didn’t see her aura, fierce and defiant.
He ran straight into the blade. Stopping, grabbing his belly with surprise, he stumbled, staggering forward a few feet more. One more step and then he collapsed, falling, crashing into the den.