“Yes. I saw you.”
He put the game down, in its crackle of Christmas paper. “No one else can see me.” His voice was quiet, almost a whisper. “Sometimes I think I’m not a separate person at all, as if Tom and I merge . . . and then split again.” He shook his head. “And there are times I can’t remember . . .”
“You’ll never guess what’s happened!” Paula had put the phone down and come in, her face flushed with sherry and brandy pudding.
“What?” Tom was there at once. He looked anxious, Sarah thought. In fact, he’d been edgy all day.
“Steve Tate’s run off!” Paula perched unsteadily on the arm of the sofa.
“Run off?” Tom said quietly.
“Well, it looks like it. He was supposed to be staying the night with some friend, but when his father woke up this morning there were these huge white letters painted all over the front of the post office. STEVE WAS HERE—that sort of thing. You’d think he’d . . . Well, anyway, he and his dad had had some sort of fight—between you and me, I think he helps himself pretty freely from the till. And he never went to the friend’s. Never turned up. So no one knows where he is.”
Slowly, Tom came over and stood by Simon, who glanced at him. They were so alike, Sarah thought.
“His dad must be worried stiff,” she said.
“Beside himself. Been phoning everywhere.”
Tom bit a fingernail. “Has he called the police?”
“And the coastguard.”
Sarah drank the warm Coke. “Is this the kid at the post office? The one . . .”
“Yes.” Tom frowned; she saw his mother knew nothing of how things were. “Him.”
“He seemed able to take care of himself.”
“Ah, but the cliffs are dangerous. And the old mine shafts.” Paula glanced at Tom, a swift, uneasy look, as if old memories had been opened. Sarah felt awkward. She drained the glass and put it down. “Well, thanks Paula. It’s been a lovely day. I haven’t tasted cooking like yours for years.”
Paula laughed. “Listen to you! You sound like an old woman! Get Sarah’s coat, Tom.”
As he went out, looking preoccupied, Sarah took a last look around. The cold shiver of fear that had crossed her soul so often in the last few months was back. She should have been ready for this. To go with Azrael. To die—that was the word and there was no point hiding from it. She’d had enough time to get used to it. But maybe time on its own wasn’t enough. Look at Tom. He should seem like a kid. But he didn’t. They were the same age.
There was a framed photograph on the table; an old, sepia image. She picked it up, interested. “My grandmother.” Paula collected the glasses. “Taken in about 1920.”
It showed a thin, anxious-looking woman in the loose clothes and cloche hat of the time—Sarah remembered them fondly. But there was something about the face that was familiar, and all at once she saw it, her fingers tightening on the frame. The woman’s left eye had a squint, so that she didn’t look at you directly.
“What was her name?” she breathed.
“Emmeline Rowney.”
Sarah’s breath smudged the glass. Emmeline. She had always wondered what had happened to that half-starved, tearful little waif. After a moment she asked, “Is she still alive?”
“Oh no, love. She’d be over a hundred! She died in London, just after the war.” Paula was watching curiously. Sarah put the photo down and as she opened her hand to let it go, the reflection of the cane scars, still fresh and red, crossed Emmeline’s face in the glass.
Tom walked her home. He was quiet the whole way, walking ahead on the narrow cliff path, brushing the gorse bushes. Far out at sea an oil tanker seemed still. The sea was hushed, its pounding and sloshing sounding hollow among the rocks. Above them the twilight was already dusted with stars, the long streak of the Milky Way breathtakingly clear. Sarah stared up at it, her breath misty.
“She did more than me.”
“Who?”
“Emmeline. She grew up. Scrawny little Emmeline.”
He wasn’t listening, twisting gorse spines off in his gloves. “Sarah . . .”
She pushed past, climbing the stile.
There was something he wanted to say, but it was probably sympathy and she didn’t want it. “What?” she asked, cold.
He shrugged, after a second. “Nothing.”
On the top of Newhaven Cove they crossed the plank bridge over the tiny Darkwater. Below, in the shadows of the rocks, a small red spark of fire burned. The tramp’s fire.
Sarah glared down at it. “Scrawny little Emmeline,” she muttered to herself.
He said good night to her at the front door of the Hall and waited in the shadows, hearing her climb the stairs. A light went on, then off. When he was sure Darkwater was silent he let himself in and crept down to the vaults.
As he came down the passage to the strong-room door a great terror seized him—maybe the door was open and Steve was waiting. But it wasn’t. It was just as he had left it, and that terrified him even more. He stood there, not touching it. The passage was lit by only one weak bulb, his breath condensed on the glistening stone walls, the bronze nails. It was bitterly cold. As cold as the mineshaft.
“You should have brought him some food.” Simon leaned accusingly against the wall, arms folded, wearing the sweater Tom had wanted for Christmas but hadn’t gotten.
“He never brought me any. Never came near.”
“Maybe he was scared. He may have thought you were dead.”
Tom snorted. “Him!”
“And maybe you’re scared of the same thing.”
“Rubbish!” Tom put his ear against the door. He heard nothing.
“He’ll be frozen.”
“Tough.”
“What if he is dead, Tom?”
“It never hurt you.”
Simon didn’t laugh. “Grow up. You can’t just leave him there.”
“Yes I can.”
Maybe he said it aloud, because there was a sudden faint scrabble at the door.
A whisper came through it. “Tom? Is that you, Tommy? Let me out, Tom, for God’s sake! Please, Tommy, please let me out!”
It terrified him, gave him a perverse, bitter pleasure. He turned and ran, back up the cellar steps. Simon was waiting at the top.
“Who are you?” Tom yelled. “My conscience? He’s put me through hell for years—you know that! Scared to go through the village in case he’s there, mocking, sniggering, calling after me in the street. Now let him taste how it feels! Let him lie there in the dark for three days with nothing to eat and no one knowing where he is! Let him lick the damp off the walls! He’s got it easy. He isn’t even hurt.”
“And then what?” Simon came and grabbed his arm. “What about when he gets out, when he tells everyone? What about when the police come around? What about Paula?”
“She’s who I’m thinking of!” Tom shoved past into the kitchens. “All she went through that time. He did that to her.”
“It’s stupid!” Simon raced after him. “It’s not for her, it’s for you. And this plan! What makes you think Sarah would ever . . .”
Tom whirled. “She won’t know. And you won’t tell her.”
“Me?” Simon yelled at his back as he stalked away. “I’m dead, remember!”
He didn’t want to hear. Racing down the drive under the dark trees he kept his mind off it as though it were a hot thought, a fire that would burn him. Christmas Day had seemed endless, drained of joy. All the time he’d been opening presents, eating, laughing, watching TV, it had all been poisoned by the thought of Steve in the cellar, freezing. It should have been a good thought, but it wasn’t. It was hateful. And worst of all, he didn’t know how to end it. How could he let Steve out now? He climbed down the cliff path in the dark. At the bottom the tramp sat up waiting for him, he and the dog both in an old sleeping bag.
“Well,” he said, wriggling back against the cliff face.