It is there that my memory fades out. The picture in my head of the hallway, the open door, the cold night beyond, bleaches out like an over-exposed photograph and there is nothing beyond. Did Angus find me, crying in the hallway? Did I manage to step outside, out into the moonlight? Did I see Jessica, walking up the hill to the stones?
There is nothing left of the memory, not even the faintest, tattered scrap.
Chapter Seventeen
I became aware of an insistent voice and eventually a hand shaking me awake.
"Maudie! Maudie-"
The shaking became more insistent.
Angus was bending over my bed, frowning. When I saw his face, I woke up properly. His skin looked grey and his face was tight, as if his features had been pulled together by an invisible hand.
"What's the matter?"
I struggled to sit up but the bedclothes weighed heavily on me. For once, the sun wasn't shining and, outside, I could hear the faint but insistent patter of raindrops. My bedroom looked grey.
"Maudie, Jessica's missing. She's not in her bed, and we can't find anywhere in the house or the garden. Do you have any idea where she might be?"
"No," I said automatically, not even remembering my panic of the night before. I was still clogged with sleep.
"Are you sure?"
A faint, creeping unease began to seep through me. I remembered what we'd planned and how I'd chickened out. I remembered the hallway, the open door, the blackness beyond. I opened my mouth to confess... and then shut it again.
Angus gave a quick, hard nod. "Alright, Maudie. Can you please get up and dressed as quickly as possible and come downstairs?"
I was already scrambling out of bed and reaching for my dressing gown. Angus paused in the doorway to my room.
"Try not to worry," he said, and managed a smile. I felt the first sharp pang of guilt. “I'm sure she hasn't gone far."
He left the room, leaving the door ajar. I pulled on my dressing gown. I looked at the door and was suddenly swamped by nausea. My stomach clenched and I ran for the bathroom, kicking the half open door wide open.
I vomited for some minutes. When I stood up, my legs felt wobbly. I washed my face, looking at my red eyes in the mirror. Then I went downstairs.
The kitchen seemed full of people when I walked in. In fact, there were five: Angus, Mr. and Mrs. McGaskill, the farmer from next door and a policeman. I stood in the doorway, hanging onto the frame, eyeing his dark blue uniform.
Angus walked quickly to stand beside me and put a hand on my shoulder. From the safety of his side, I looked at Jessica’s mother and flinched. She was pale, her skin almost greyish, rigid with the effort of keeping control. She had her hands clasped in front of her, so tightly her knuckles shone through, chips of bone under translucent skin. Mr. McGaskill looked more desiccated than normal.
"Now, don't worry, Maudie," said Angus. "This policeman just needs to ask you a few questions about Jessica. You don't have to worry; I'll be with you all the time. Just answer his questions as best you can."
The policeman seemed old to me, although he was probably only about thirty-five. He had a receding hairline and the sun had pinked the exposed skin of his forehead.
"Hello, Maudie," he said. "Now, you look like a clever girl, so you can probably tell we're all a bit worried about Jessica. It's not like her to run off, is it? Do you have any idea where she might be?"
My mouth was dry. I felt as if I'd been eating lumps of dry bread, a whole loaf of bread with no butter or jam or anything.
"I don't know," I said. My voice sounded like a mouse's voice - thin and wispy and edging on a squeak.
"You're not in trouble, Maudie. It's just that, well, we're trying to find Jessica. You can see her mum and dad are terribly worried. You want to try and find your friend, don't you?"
"Yes," I said. My hands were shaking and I clutched hold of my dressing gown belt.
"So can you tell us where you think she might be? Was she upset about anything?"
I shook my head and then, because some other response seemed called for, said 'I don't know."
"You've no idea? You girls didn't have some secret hiding place she might have gone to? No little hidey-hole?"
I shook my head again. I didn't want to; I knew I should have been telling them the truth, about the stones and our plans to go there last night, but something was making me say and do all the wrong things.
"Well," said the policeman, disappointed. My stomach rumbled, loud enough for us all to hear and I blushed.
Mrs. McGaskill got up from the table and walked over to me. She stalked across the room, her body held upright and rigid. I shrank back against the wall but she took no notice. She crouched down and held me by the shoulders, almost shaking me. I could feel her fingers digging into me and the tension that made the bones of her hands judder against me.
"Jane..." said Angus.
She took no notice. Her burning eyes were fixed upon my face. I was afraid.
"Maudie-" Her voice clogged and she cleared her throat and started again. "Maudie, if you know where she is, you must tell us. You know that, don't you? You must tell us."
Her nails were digging into my skin. I tried to say something, tried to speak. There was a lump in my throat too big to force words around. Instead I burst into tears.
"I don't know, I don't know," was all that I could say. "I don't know where she is."
I must have convinced them. It was, I suppose, literally the truth - I didn't know where she was. Mrs. McGaskill released me and stepped back, clenching her fists. Angus patted me as I sobbed into my hands. His palm kept connecting with my shoulder over and over again, as if he were doing it without thinking, without meaning to give comfort, more as if he’d forgotten what he was doing. It began to feel so strange that I managed to stop crying and moved away from him, my sobs tapering off into hiccups.
All of the sudden, the house seemed full of people in blue uniforms. I was sent up to my room and sat on the windowsill, biting my nails and watching people mill about in the front garden. I tried not to look at the window of Jessica's room, right next to mine, but it loomed there in my peripheral vision, black and empty.
There was a concerted movement in the small crowd below in the garden and they all began to walk out into the lane, spreading out until they were walking abreast of one another, in a straggling line. I saw Mrs. MacGaskill, her face rigid, walking slowly, her husband five steps behind her. I couldn’t see Angus.
The door creaked and made me jump. I swung round but there was no one in the open doorway. I was suddenly scared of being left on my own in the house. I looked fearfully again at the door to my bedroom. It didn't have a lock. Supposing - supposing someone had stolen Jessica from her room and now... now they were coming for me? Suddenly, my whole body felt cold. I looked for Angus in the disappearing search party and couldn't see him.
I'd never been frightened of being on my own before now. I'd spent hours and hours roaming the Lakeland countryside on my own. Now, quite suddenly, I was terrified.
It was then I heard the creak of a floorboard on the stairs. I froze. I tried to tell myself it was nothing, that I was imagining things. The creak came again - there were footsteps coming up the stairs. A dark figure loomed in the open doorway and I began to scream.
Angus rushed in. "Maudie, what's the matter?"
I managed to stop screaming by bringing my hands up to my mouth, pressing inwards so hard I could feel the sharp edges of my teeth against my palms.
"Maudie, what's wrong?"