‘Yes,’ says Leah.
‘You should have asked that a bit earlier,’ says Nelson. ‘Weeks earlier. Months earlier.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ says the neighbour.
‘I forgive you,’ says Nelson, wondering if he can forgive himself. He clicks open the car and puts the suitcase into the boot. Leah gets into the passenger seat. Nelson sits beside her and keys the postcode of the women’s refuge into the satnav. The neighbour is still watching from his front porch.
Tombland is silent. All the clapping has stopped. Tanya parks in front of the cathedral, which looms above them, a huge expanse of darkness. As Ruth looks up, a bird– or perhaps a bat– circles the tower. Another night bird calls. The Close is deserted, just a few lights shining in the houses around the green, but somehow it seems expectant, a darkened stage waiting for the curtain to rise. Ruth’s unease is starting to feel very much like fear. Also, where the hell is Nelson?
‘Right,’ says Tanya briskly. ‘Where’s this haunted house then?’
Ruth leads the way through the gateway. A fox saunters across the road, lord of all it surveys. Most of the shops are boarded up but there’s a light on the upper floor of Augustine Steward’s House.
‘Someone’s in,’ says Tanya.
But who? thinks Ruth. The information centre is in darkness, but Ruth remembers that there’s a bell for Janet’s flat. For a moment she has a vision of the Grey Lady herself gliding down to answer their summons. But, when the door opens, Janet is framed in the lopsided beams.
‘Ruth! What are you doing here?’
‘I had a text from you,’ says Ruth, feeling suddenly foolish. ‘It sounded like you were in danger.’
‘A text?’ says Janet. ‘I haven’t got my phone. I must have left it somewhere.’
‘Looks like someone’s found it,’ says Tanya. She shows Ruth’s phone to Janet.
‘“Help me”,’ reads Janet aloud. ‘Whatisthis?’
‘I don’t know,’ says Ruth. ‘But it sounded serious. I thought it was you.’
‘Is there anyone who has access to your phone?’ asks Tanya.
‘No,’ says Janet. ‘I’m completely on my own.’
Ruth shivers. She is grateful for Tanya’s slightly bored efficiency.
‘Well,’ she says, ‘while we’re here, we might as well have a look around.’
Nelson waits until Leah is booked into the refuge and then he checks his phone. Ten missed calls from Ruth and several text messages. The last one says, ‘Where are you??’ It’s very unlike Ruth to use two question marks. He calls her but the phone goes straight to voicemail. Then he sees that he has a voice message from Tanya. Nelson listens impatiently for a few minutes, sitting in his car outside the anonymous house on the outskirts of Norwich. Then he starts up the engine.
Janet brings a torch and a stout stick.
‘What’s that for?’ says Tanya.
‘Just in case,’ says Janet.
‘Just in case you’re charged with grievous bodily harm,’ says Tanya. But Janet still brings the stick.
They walk through the dark alleyway where the houses close overhead. Then they are in the space of grass. Ruth can smell the lilac. She remembers Janet showing her the hidden doorway while Kate picked flowers. She looks at the wall where the bricks form a rectangular shape and, just for the moment, she thinks she hears something. A scuffle followed by a faint whining sound. Has an animal got trapped in there?
‘Look!’ Tanya points.
In one of the higher windows Ruth sees a flickering, uncertain light. It’s not electric but something older and more elemental.
She’s often seen in the alley, walking through walls, opening doors that aren’t there. Sometimes you just see the light of her candle reflected in the windowpanes.
Judy is with her family, watchingThe Return of the King, the last of theThe Lord of the Ringsfilms. She read the books years ago and has rather lost track of the plot. There are more battles than she remembers, lots of aerial shots of horses galloping towards each other and orcs having their heads chopped off. But this is a rather sweet scene between one of the many bearded men and– unusually for Tolkien– a woman. They are waiting for news and waiting is now all that Judy does. She savours the moment of calm, Michael leaning against her and Miranda with her head on Maddie’s lap. Both younger children seem to want constant physical reassurance. Thing too, who is staring unnervingly at Judy. Does he know something? Cathbad always says that he has a psychic bond with the dog.
Judy remembers Clough saying, that morning on the beach: ‘He’ll pull through.’ For those few minutes, Clough’s certainty had carried her, the way the waves sometimes do when she’s bodyboarding with the kids. But as soon as he roared away in his smart Land Rover Discovery, the doubts and fears came flooding back. Everyone says that Cathbad is tough, immortal, etc, etc. But what if he isn’t?
