Amelia and Evie are in bed early, too, and are both sound asleep. Evie is curled up with that ugly china doll. I wonder how long she’ll stay in her bed before she finds her way into ours.
I instigate sex this time. It was something I never had to do until the depression hit. Since then we’re lucky if we make love once every few months. He seems surprised when I start kissing him and, at first, I think he’s going to move away, but he doesn’t. He pulls me into him and starts kissing me back, passionately, although his beard is scratching my face. I don’t protest, trying to stay in the moment, but I can’t push thoughts of him and Selena having secret bedroom chats completely out of my head.
Afterwards I fall asleep in his arms, feeling closer to him than I have for a long time.
I’m awoken by a shrill scream.Something’s happened to the girls.I sit up in bed, my heart racing. The air is still. Silent. Did I dream it? My eyes dart to Adrian’s side of the bed. It’s empty, the sheet creased and slightly damp, the duvet thrown back as though he left in a hurry. Where is he? My alarm clock shows 5.37a.m. and, through a crack in the curtains, the sky is still dark, the tips of the mountains disappearing into early-morning mist.
I fumble for my dressing-gown, which I’d thrown across the foot of the bed the night before. I pull it around myself as I hurry from the room. Across the landing, the door to the girls’ room is closed. I’m just about to go to it when I hear the scream again.
There’s no mistaking it this time. It sounds like my mother.
I race down the first flight of stairs, trying to quell my rising panic. My mother isn’t the type of woman to scream. I think about the guests ensconced in their rooms, knowing she must have woken them, too, and, despite the circumstances, I worry about upsetting them.
When I reach the top of the second flight of stairs I stop in my tracks. I blink, hoping my eyes are playing tricks on me but the image remains. The hallway below is shrouded in darkness but it looks as though Mum is crouched over a body, its limbs spread-eagled on the refurbished Victorian tiles. I can see the flash of a pale calf, a slim wrist. I can hear Mum groaning.
It doesn’t look like a child. The legs are too long.
It’s not one of the girls. Thank God.
‘Mum?’
Her head shoots up at the sound of my voice, her eyes wide with anguish and something else – fear. She holds up her hands as though she’s about to pray. They are coated with blood.
Part Two
AFTER
21
Just after
Mum stands up when she sees me approaching. There is blood on her trousers, on her jumper. Her expression is of utter despair. She’d looked like that before. After Natasha died.
And that’s when I see the white nightdress and the arc of blood above a pale blonde head.
My hand flies to my mouth. It’s Selena.
Her long limbs are spread-eagled on our restored Victorian tiles, but with one leg bent, her neck at an unnatural angle. Blood is tangled in the strands of her pale hair, and looks too red, unreal somehow, as though the girls have been busy with a paintbrush. I can see her bare foot, the purple polish on her toenails. That foot makes my eyes fill. So vulnerable, so familiar, with the soft fleshy sole and the elongated middle toe. I used to tease her about her middle toe being longer than all the others. She said it meant she was descended from a Roman princess. She was always coming out with stuff like that. It’s the sort of thing Evie would say.
I stifle a sob.
‘What happened?’ I run down the remainder of the stairs, almost slipping in my haste.
Mum stands up, speaking fast. ‘I don’t know. I heard a sound. Something woke me and I couldn’t get back to sleep. So I thought I’d get dressed and make a start. And I found her – I found her like this—’ She’s sobbing.
There is no pulse. It doesn’t matter how many times I push my fingertips into the flesh of her neck, the outcome is still the same.
She’s dead.
The horror hits me. My whole body breaks out in a sweat and my arms and legs tingle. Panic sits on my chest, obstructing my airways so that I can’t breathe. I reach for my inhaler but realize I’ve left it upstairs.
She’s dead.
I can’t breathe.
Despite telling myself to stay calm, that I don’t want to frighten Ruby or the girls, I scream. It’s involuntary, a reflex.
Mum’s already pulling herself together, wiping the blood from her hands on to her jumper. ‘I’m calling nine-nine-nine,’ she says, going into the office. I can hear her on the phone. I feel sick.
