“What if my skin gets worse? I’m supposed to be resting,” I said, though I already felt so much better, and the opportunity was far too good to pass up. “He’ll know.”
“Do you want to see what he’s up to, or not?” Eugenie stood, unbuttoning her jacket. “Get your shoes on! Quick!”
Nick’s dark figure was just disappearing into the forest beyond Crowthorne House’s cemetery by the time we got to the gravel courtyard. We kept close to the hedges in case he turned around. The rain came harder as we followed him into the dense trees, following a soggy leaf-trodden pathway through the forest and out the other side. He opened a large black umbrella, and I noticed he was now wearing black leather gloves.
He looked like he could be going to a formal meeting, but then again, he always did. Nick’s life in Crowthorne House was a series of formal meetings, and soon my life would be, too.
“What’s he doing?” said Eugenie, holding the hood of her raincoat up over her face. “He’s jogging. Is that – is he running for abus?”
A red London city bus pulled up a few yards ahead of him, the few people waiting immediately clambering on to get out of the wet. Nick hurried and hopped on just as the last passenger finished presenting their card, shaking the excess rain off his umbrella as he did so.
Eugenie grabbed my hand, watching as Nick presented his phone to the reader and then trotted up the narrow staircase to the top floor.
“Now!” she hissed, pulling me along as we ran for it. We bowed our heads against the rain, concealed head-to-toe by our coats. My skin throbbed inside its bandages. The bus’s doors were closing as we leapt through, and Eugenie tapped her phone to the reader to pay. We bundled to the back seat of the bus, giggling like school kids, as it set off.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had this much fun,” I said, bowing my head in case Nick should come down the stairs and see me. “He’d hate to think I was following him.”
“That’s what makes it exciting,” said Eugenie with a wicked grin. “Sometimes you’ve just got to take the bull by the horns. Wherever he’s going, whatever he’s doing, we’re about to find out for sure.”
We travelled for 10 minutes or so, hindered by the thick London traffic and one-way systems. We passed a high street and then joined a long tree-lined residential road with grand-looking Victorian houses, almost as ostentatious as Crowthorne House, with wrought iron gates and manicured gardens.
As we passed a wide stone house with tall chimneys and multiple storeys, Eugenie sat back in her seat and closed her eyes.
“That place gives me shivers. It’s the Mill HillInfirmary, psychiatric hospital – more like a Victorian asylum if you ask me. It’s a grim place. My mum did a spell in there once and vowed she’d never lose her mind again. You didn’t hear that fromme,” she said, giving a shudder.
“I wish they’d had one in the Dales,” I said, remembering what I’d confessed to Nick about my mother with my father’s body. That was far too morbid and personal to ever reveal to Eugenie. “It would have been an improvement on our home life for my mother, I’m sure. I had to take care of her before she died. She treated me like her personal slave.”
I left out why, even though I knewwhyshe did it. She was bitter because I’d garnered my father’s affections, however toxic and sick they were, and she was jealous. Becoming her nursemaid was my punishment. The knocking of her stick against the floorboards became the bane of my existence.
“Well she can’t hurt you now,” said Eugenie, watching the rain-streaked windows. She grabbed my hand, her shrill voice turning into a whisper. “That’s him coming down the stairs! He’s getting off at the next stop!”
We bowed our heads and peered up only briefly to watch Nick walk away into the rain. Before the bus could pull away, we bustled by the passengers and hopped off. We were a fair way behind him now. He passed the remaining grounds of the infirmary and carried on down the street, stopping at three different crossings before turning right down another tree-lined avenue. The rain thinned as we approached a tall neo-gothic church on the corner; St Augustine’s. We watched Nick scale the steps, folding and buttoning his umbrella as he went.
Eugenie and I glanced at one another with raised eyebrows.
“Perhaps they meet in a central church because their business pertains to funerals?” Eugenie tried. “Maybe it’s not used as a church any more?”
“I doubt they’d ring bells at a church used as a makeshift office,” I said, pointing up at the swinging bells in the tower, ringing out a melodic pattern. “There’s a service on.”
We scaled the wet stone steps and entered the nave to find the first three aisles taken up by worshippers. I ducked down close to Eugenie, our raincoats dripping onto the cold stone floor, praying that Nick wouldn’t see us.
“He’s gone down the front,” whispered Eugenie. “He’s shaking someone’s hand. He’s sitting down next to someone else now.”
“Let’s take a seat at the back here and hope nobody bothers us,” I said, remembering all the services I sat in on back home, sometimes just to stave off my return to my mother.
The vicar encouraged everyone in the pews to stand. I watched Nick’s back, his coat now removed and laid gently over his seat. I couldn’t see very well from our distance away, but I noticed him whisper something to the person next to him. They were a fair bit shorter than Nick was, wearing a black scarf over their hair. My blood ran cold. It looked like a woman, petite, standing very close to him, but I couldn’t be sure. He whispered something else in her ear, before standing tall and holding the hymn pamphlet out before him.
Someone from the aisle handed me two hymn books, smiling encouragingly. I took them and handed one to Eugenie, before narrowing my focus once more on Nick.
“Why is he at a church service?” I whispered to Eugenie. “What’s this all about?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered back. “There’s a couple of men with him too. Perhaps it’s a courtesy to the people he’s doing business with.”
That somewhat made sense. I knew strange practises happened in business, but I’d never heard of investors or business partners or accountants going to church together as an exercise of good will.
“Maybe,” I said, watching as Nick read from his hymn book, lifting his head to sing in earnest. I wished I could make out the tones of his voice, deep and sombre, but they were lost in the sea of worshippers.
A scream broke out from the person beside him, guttural and pained. They fell to the ground. It sounded like a woman’s scream, but I couldn’t be certain. They didn’t sound well. Nick immediately dropped his hymn book and put his arm around them. Two other men joined him, bending down low to aid the person on the floor as they began to thrash. He looked concerned yet in control, gesturing to someone in the aisle – the woman who handed me the hymn books – for a glass of water.
