‘Edgar!’
‘Jesus, seriously?’
Lucy coughs. ‘I’m looking at his body right now.’
‘Fucking hell,’ she manages to reply.
‘Marie got here first, Anna. We didn’t find her in time. Let alone stop her. You’ve got to come.’
‘I’ll drive as fast as I can.’
‘I don’t know where Rachel is. I can’t find her. Jesus, fuck, there’s blood everywhere.’
‘I’m on my way.’
Every traffic light turns red against Anna. Every bus stops in front of her. Every turn she wants to make is blocked by cyclists, slow and wobbly, or impeded by aggressive courier riders, streamlined as sharks. Anna is tempted to get out and run.
This nightmare needs to end.
At last she’s arrived. She sharply pulls the car into the drive, nearly cutting up a cyclist as she does so. He pedals off, screaming obscenities.
The curtains are still drawn, the house shut off from scrutiny, its eyes closed. Anna carelessly parks the car at a diagonal angle and jumps out, not even stopping to slam the car doors shut. She rings the front doorbell, yelling Lucy’s name as she thumps on it repeatedly. There’s no answer. No sound from within. She runs round the side of the house to the back. Every curtain is closed, the house as inscrutable at its rear as at its front.
She peers through the patio doors at the kitchen within. It’s empty, dark, wine glasses still half full on the table. The bottle is tipped on its side – the wine leaking from it looks like blood on the white table. Anna shivers.
She tries the patio door handle but it doesn’t budge, locked tight. The windows are all closed, too. She picks up a loose piece of paving stone from the nearest flower bed, and wrapping her hand and arm in her top, she smashes the rock into the glass panel, hitting it again and again to clear the shattered glass out of the way. When she’s finished, she drops the rock and carefully reaches inside, feeling for the latch. Finally, the door opens.
There’s that familiar feeling. The one she had when she woke in the cell just a few nights ago, crushed with terror. It’s like a cold stream oozing from the house, a freezing lava of dread that will destroy everything in its flow. More than anything in the world, she wants to turn and run.
She’s got no choice.
She paces round the ground floor but sees no one, only smears of blood on the kitchen floor.
One step, the next. She’s up the stairs now, on the landing, facing a series of closed doors. Anna pushes open the first door she comes to, rushes in.
The room is dark, the curtains still shut. The air is thick and warm, a stale smell, unpleasant. A metallic undertone with which she’s only too familiar. Anna covers her nose with her hand instinctively, taking in shallow breaths through her mouth. She pulls open the curtains, flinging the window open too in order to get some air in.
Then she slowly turns round, knowing before she even looks what she’s going to find. Edgar is lying motionless on the bed, his head covered in blood.
Anna puts her fingers to his throat to see if there’s a pulse.
Nothing.
He’s gone. No one could survive that bad a head wound.
Nausea grips her by the throat, but she swallows it down. No time for that now. Where the hell is Lucy? She searches the other bedrooms, the loft, but the girl is nowhere to be found.
Back in the kitchen, there’s cold air blowing in through the broken pane of glass in the patio door, shards smashed all over the floor. The wine stain is drying on the table. Anna reaches over and sets the bottle upright. Birds are singing outside, a smell of woodsmoke. If it weren’t for all this, she could be in the country, on holiday somewhere green.
Woodsmoke.
Not again.
Anna rushes to the patio door to see a plume of grey smoke coming from the shed. There’s a crackling sound; it’s faint, but growing louder the more intently she listens.
She runs down to the bottom of the garden. Lucy is lying prone in front of the shed, blood coming from her head, but there’s no time to check on her. Anna grabs hold of the door handle. It’s hot, but she tightens her grasp, twists it. The door won’t budge. She takes a few steps back, braces herself and runs at it. It doesn’t give. She does it again, running at it with full force. This time, some of the flimsy wood shatters. Pulling at the broken panels, Anna makes a space big enough for her to push herself through.
The air is thick, hot, smoke stinging her eyes and sticking in her throat. She pulls her top up over her mouth and pushes further into the shed, blinking through the murk. It’s full of tools, rubbish, flames flickering out from the far corner.
