“Yes,” she says, not wanting to admit to her uncertainty. “Sorry. I can’t think straight.”
“It’s understandable, pet.”
She taps in what she thinks are the right numbers and stares at the dog as she waits for the call to connect. Hundreds of miles away the landline sings its electronic tune. It’s a comforting sound to her as she imagines Paul stirring in bed, reaching for it. After the sixth ring, it’s answered, and she catches her breath with anticipation.
“Hello?” A woman’s voice, croaky with sleep.
“Paul?” Emily asks, even though it’s obvious it’s not him.
“Who?”
“Paul?”
The woman clears her voice. “There’s no Paul here.”
“Edie?”
“Who?”
It doesn’t sound much like Edie. But. “Is that you, Edie?”
“I think you’ve got the wrong number.”
“Sorry.”
She hangs up, embarrassed but also afraid. Was it a wrong number? Or is there another woman in her home? She’s never considered the possibility of Paul’s infidelity before. Not once. Until now.
She tries again, and though she does her best to redial accurately, she really has no idea whether she’s dialing the same number as before.
This time, there’s no answer and she doesn’t know what to do. How to put this right. She moves her leg and pain lances her ankle. She winces.
It’s moments like this that she wishes her mum was still alive. The home phone she had as a child is the only one Emily has ever been able to remember reliably. But it’s useless to her now.
If she keeps her leg very, very still, the pain ebbs. She shuts her eyes. When she next opens them, the fire is little more than embers, and somebody has dimmed the kitchen lights. She blinks. It all starts to come back to her.
“You’re awake.” Maggie is standing very close. Emily feels as if she is looming, blocking the light.
She props herself up. Her ankle pain reintroduces itself, crawling within the joint, shooting up her leg. Things around her swim before falling into focus. Her brow is sweaty. The dog has gone.
“What time is it?” she asks.
“Nearly midnight. You’ve been asleep for a while. I think we should move you to a proper bed so you can get some decent rest.”
At least it’s almost Saturday now. How long until Paul getshere? Ten hours? Eleven? She imagines his arrival. His face when he sees her. Her relief.
She scrabbles in her lap for the phone handset, remembering the calls she tried to make earlier, casting off a blanket that’s been placed over her. She can’t locate the handset but she has to know if Paul is okay and she has to know now.
“Please,” she catches Maggie’s sleeve. “I need to call the police.”
The barn door won’t open. Jayne tugs on it, rattles it, kicks it, curses herself for not bringing a key, but it doesn’t budge. She raps on the windows of the downstairs rooms. No response. All the motion is out here, in the storm.
The barn is stubbornly impenetrable. There’s no sign of life from inside. She throws a pebble at the upstairs windows and waits for the curtains to part in Ruth’s room, but nothing happens.
She needs to get inside. Every part of her feels wet and cold in a way that she knows is dangerous. It’s hard to know how long she’s been outside, but it’s too long. She’s pushed herself too far.
She chooses the kitchen window because it’s at the back of the house, as sheltered from the weather as possible. She takes her coat off, bracing herself for the rain to assault her even harder and wraps it carefully around her hand and forearm. She picks up a stone and is shivering even before she’s managed to break the glass and carefully bash away the shards remaining around the edges of the windowpane. It’s a noisy operation. If Ruth is inside, it should bring her to the kitchen.
Jayne slithers in through the gap. It’s not easy. She falls onto the kitchen counter and the soft edge of her hand misses a sharp piece of glass by millimeters. She carefully twists her body to avoid cutting herself again, to avoid the blood, and in the process fallsawkwardly off the counter and onto the floor, landing hard on the kitchen tiles.
