Yet, more and more, to my own despair, I’ve found myself questioning the truth of it.
Especially when I’m in Iris’s bedroom. I keep finding myself back up there, too. That much Ihavetold Nick about, because I promised him I would, but he thinks I’m there running lines, when what I’m really doing is watching Iris’s window, listening to the air, and standing in front of her mirror, holding her hairgrip, waiting for another glimpse of that face, which, in my very maddest moments, I think might actually have been hers: young, and bright, with rouged lips, dark hair, and a direct gaze that penetrates mine.
‘Will you take me up?’ Nick’s asked me. ‘I’d like to see it.’
‘Then I’ll take you,’ I’ve told him, but haven’t proposed a time, or said that it will have to be in daylight because I’m too afraid to return again at night.
So, how many secrets does that bring my tally up to?
I don’t attempt the sum.
I don’t actually want to know.
And I’ve got more, anyway.
Like, that banging I keep hearing in the house, but which I can’t find the source of, even though I’ve now scoured every one of the sets – from the library, to the station commander’s office, to my and Emma’s bedroom.
I can’t hear it,Ana said, when I mentioned it to her.
I can’t hear a thing, said Imogen, on the phone.
And, probably, I should ask someone else about it, but I can’t bring myself to.
Because what if I’ve been imagining it, too?
What if I’ve been imagining that bird?
It’s silent now, but I peer upwards into the pale, empty sky anyway, replaying how completely Rusty ignored its call when she was out with her wrangler. I’ve been agonising over her oblivion ever since, and the more I’ve agonised, the surer I’ve become that Rusty’s exemplary behaviour makes no sense. That bird’s screech is piercing.
Surely, Rusty’s ears should have pricked up for it, at the very least?
‘What are you looking at?’ asks Nick, bringing my attention back to earth.
I turn to him, and, seeing his frown, realise I’m worrying him.
Yet again.
‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘Fresh air.’
‘You sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘All right,’ he says, but he’s not convinced, and his frown doesn’t go.
He’s still worried.
So am I.
I’m beyond worried.
I just have no idea what to do about it.
So, for now, I do the only thing I can do. It’s the same thing I’ve been doing all week.
I do my level best to bury what I’m feeling – willing it, so hard, away – and keep putting one precarious foot in front of the other.
Unlike the rest of us, this won’t be Nick’s first visit to Heaton, or the Heaton Arms; he’s come in plenty on his research trips, and leads the way there, out of Doverley through an old servants’ gateway that he discovered a while ago – avoidingthe main entrance and any lurking reporters, since none of us want to be hounded the entire way to the village – then across a patchwork of icy fields, where a herd of hypothermic-looking cows are, thankfully, our only company.
