“Yes, it’s me. Please let us in, Dimity. We need a place to hide.” The door cracked open, and the darkness within was even deeper than the night outside. The police lights flared on the old woman’s pale skin, and in her wide eyes.
“Police?” she said, sounding bewildered.
“They’re looking for these two. This is Ilir’s wife and son. You know Ilir-Hannah’s help on the farm? Can we come in?” Zach turned to look at Bekim, in Rozafa’s arms, and saw that the child was fast asleep. His face was drawn and his mouth had dropped open, and his gums looked almost grayish. Zach had the sudden clear impression that the boy was not at all well. “We need to hide here. Just for a little while. They’re… very tired. They’ve been traveling for a long time.”
“Traveling?” Dimity said vaguely, and she stared at Rozafa in incomprehension. Rozafa accepted her scrutiny without blinking. Zach took a deep breath to quell his rising panic.
“Yes, traveling. They’ve just arrived from-”
“Ilir’s people? The Romany?” Dimity interrupted him suddenly. The old woman blinked, and her expression seemed to pull into focus, as if some essence of her had returned from elsewhere. The gaze she turned on Zach grew sharper.
“Yes, that’s right…”
“Come, come, come!” she said briskly, holding the door wider and ushering them in. “His people are my people, after all. My mother was a Gypsy, did I ever tell you that? Come in, come in, shut the door. This is a good place to hide…”
Zach was the last one in, and as he closed the door, he saw headlights, up on the village lane. They lanced towards the cottage, and he caught his breath. He could think of no reason why they should come to The Watch, and yet Hannah had hesitated when he suggested it, as if not entirely sure it was safe. Perhaps they had been seen, after all, fleeing across the fields. He grasped Dimity’s arm gently to get her attention.
“I think… I think someone’s coming down to the house… coming here,” he whispered anxiously. “We need to hide them. Where can we go? No-don’t!” he said, as Dimity reached for a light switch. “It’s late, better to pretend to be in bed.” The old woman clasped her hands tightly in front of her, an attitude almost like prayer. Their eyes were nothing more than faintly gleaming points in the dark. Dimity seemed caught in the grip of some impossible indecision. The police lights were still visible, sending eerie gray shadows careering around the walls. “Dimity?” Zach pressed. “They can’t be found. Please-they’ll be taken away if they’re found.”
“Taken away? No, no. Upstairs is the only place. If they come here I’ll turn them back. Go on upstairs, to the room on the left. The room on the left, you understand? The open door. On the left.” Just then, there was the sound of an engine outside the cottage, and headlights glared through the naked window.
“Make them put their ID cards through the letterbox before you open the door, Dimity! Go, go!” Zach hissed, propelling Rozafa towards the stairs. The Roma woman hurried up them on light feet, with Zach close behind. They shut themselves in a bedroom and crouched against the door, fighting to breathe silently, ears straining for any noise.
There was a knock at the door, and a long pause before Dimity answered. Muffled voices came up through the floor, but Zach couldn’t make out what was said. Beside him, Rozafa’s breathing grew steady and deep, and he wondered if she’d gone to sleep-surrendered all control of her situation and succumbed to exhaustion. Before long, there was another smooth growl of engine noise from outside, and then everything went silent. The air in the room was laden with peculiar scents: scents of mold and green plant life, paper, unwashed clothing; stale food of some kind; water, salt, soot, ammonia; another strong, chemical smell that Zach recognized at once. He could not imagine how that smell came to be in Dimity’s cottage. However impatient he felt, he knew they shouldn’t emerge until Dimity came to fetch them, just in case. He took out his phone and saw that he had a single bar of signal, now that he was upstairs. There was no missed call or text from Hannah, and he resisted the urge to call her until he knew the coast was clear. The silence stretched. Zach waited, and as he did so, he became aware of the touch of cold night air against his cheek. Puzzled, he turned to look for the source of the draft. Through the little window, the faint light of the sky was a patch of paler black, and he could see the broken pane of glass which was letting in the wind. It was the window he had stood beneath, and seen the curtains shifting within. The room to the left, Dimity had said. But Rozafa had led the way, and she wouldn’t have understood the instruction. Zach went peculiarly cold all over. They were in the room on the right. The room from which quiet, unidentified sounds had often come, during his visits to Dimity.
Without moving, Zach strained his eyes to see into the corners of the room. They were lost in shadow. He could just about make out dark, crowding shapes against the unlit walls. He could not shape them into furniture, could not work out what they were. He struggled to keep his breathing steady, as if some sleeping thing in the room might wake at the sound. He felt watched; he felt as though there was some awareness in that room with him, other than the huddled forms of Rozafa and her son. He thought he heard the sound of something breathing; a slow, moist exhalation. Against all common sense, he felt a rising panic, a need for light, for clarity; a need to flee from that room with its secrets and its cold, creeping air. His phone beeped and he jumped. A text from Hannah, glowing into his eyes and ruining what night vision he’d had. They’ve gone. On our way up to you. Rozafa said something he didn’t understand, her voice thin and tight with tension.
“It’s okay,” he whispered. “They’re coming up here to get you.” He could tell, in the woman’s silence, that she could not understand him. In the dim light from his phone her eyes shone above raw cheekbones. She stared at him in frustration for a moment, and then burst into French. “Vous parlez français?” Her accent was strange, but to Zach’s surprise he understood her, and he dug about in his distant schoolboy French for the words to reply.
“Hannah et Ilir… sont ici bientôt. Tout est bien.” All is well. The words had a visible effect on Rozafa. She slumped back against the wall, clasping one hand around his forearm and shutting her eyes.
“Merci,” she said, so quietly he hardly heard her. Zach nodded, and wished he had the language to ask if Bekim was all right, if there was anything he could do for the limp, gray little boy.
Stiffly, he got to his feet, glad that Rozafa could not see his deep unease. With gritted teeth, he put out a blind hand, fingers splayed, and felt along the wall for the light switch. The plaster was soft, slightly damp. It came off on his fingers as a fine powder. He couldn’t find the switch, and to his shame, he hardly dared take a step away from Rozafa to search farther afield. Then something brushed against his neck and he yelped out loud. Rozafa was on her feet in an instant with an answering cry of alarm, as Zach scrabbled to find what had touched him. It was the light switch-a wooden toggle at the end of a string. He tugged at it savagely, and light came on overhead, a single bulb so bright that they were temporarily blinded. Through watering eyes, Zach squinted around the little room. Slowly, things swam into focus, and he realized what all the many dark shapes were. His mouth hung open in shock, in utter disbelief; he was so stunned that thought abandoned him.
Still cradling Élodie in arms that felt boneless, not like her own, Dimity struggled out of the car when it pulled up at Dorchester hospital. It was a towering, crenellated building of redbrick walls and towers, built early in the previous century and taller even than the church spire in Blacknowle. Dimity felt it looming above her as she rushed along behind Charles. She felt the countless windows watching, recognizing the thing in her arms for what it was. The thing she had done. Dimity stumbled. Her knees crumpled and for a moment she thought she would fall. The strength had gone out of her; bones turned to sand and washed away. The thing she had done. Delphine was at her side, lifting her, helping her up.