‘Wait.’ Mark follows me across the hall. ‘What hotel was it? Where?’
I pull open the front door, feel more real as the fresh air hits my face. It’s sunny outside, only a few feet from where I am now, but still the light looks far away. ‘I don’t remember the name of the hotel.’
‘Yes, you do.’ He looks sad. ‘You will tell the police, won’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Everything? The name of the hotel?’
I nod, my heart tightening with the deception. I can’t.
‘Will you come back?’ he asks. ‘Please?’
‘Why?’
‘I want to talk to you again. You’re the only person who’s read the diary apart from me and the police.’
‘All right.’ At this point I will say anything I have to if it means I can leave. He smiles. There is a hardness in his eyes: not pleasure but determination.
I have no intention of ever returning to Corn Mill House.
I drive to Rawndesley, feeling shell-shocked from my encounter with Mark, needing to forget everything to do with him, with what’s happened. In the Save Venice Foundation’s office, I spend several hours trying and failing to sort out the mess that Salvo, Vittorio and the TV producer have, between them, created. Natasha Prentice-Nash doesn’t comment on my bruised face, nor does she thank me for coming in on a Tuesday or apologise for landing something on me that shouldn’t be part of my job purely because I’m the only person in the office with basic social skills. By five o’clock I can’t stand it any more, so I head for home.
There’s no one there when I get back. Looking up through the car window, I see that our lounge curtains are open. Normally at this time they’re closed, with the warm glow of the lamp behind them so that Zoe and Jake can watch whatever CBeebies has to offer without sunlight interfering with the picture.
I climb out of the car, dragging my handbag after me, and look up and down the street for Nick’s car. It’s not there. Even so, I shout out my family’s names as I let myself into the flat. I look at my watch: quarter to six. Maybe the children are still at nursery. Nick might have left work late. Not that he’s ever done that in all the years I’ve known him. It must be nice, I’ve often thought, to have a job like that.
A horrible possibility occurs to me. What if Nick’s forgotten he’s supposed to be picking up Zoe and Jake? No, he’d still be back by now. He’s never later than five thirty. All I want is to come home to my normal messy, noisy house, two boisterous children and a husband holding out a glass of wine. So where are they?
I run upstairs to the kitchen. My stomach twists with worry when I see there’s no note on the table. Nick always leaves a note; I’ve finally managed to drum it into him that I worry if I don’t know where he is. At first he said things like, ‘What’s there to worry about? I mean, I’m obviously somewhere, aren’t I?’ Zoe and Jake are obviously somewhere too; the problem is that it’s not at all obvious to me where that somewhere is, and that’s not good enough.
Where could they be?
As I turn to leave the room, to search all our other rooms and each of our many carpeted steps for the note Nick had bloody well better have left, I see a flash of colour at the edge of my vision. The work-surface on both sides of the sink is covered in pools of bright red, some small, some bigger. There are red smears all over the kitchen wall. Blood. Oh, no. No, please…
On the floor, light reflects off small pieces of something on the lino. Broken glass.
I leap up the stairs three at a time to get to the lounge. I grab the phone and am about to ring the police when I notice a scrap of paper on top of the television: ‘Gone to Mum and Dad’s for tea,’ Nick has written on it. ‘Back eight-ish. Was going to make spag puttanesca for kids’ tea, but smashed passata jar-will clear up later!’ I’ve pressed the nine button twice before the significance of Nick’s words reaches my brain. I throw the phone on to the sofa and run back to the kitchen, where I start to laugh like a maniac. Passata. Of course. All over the room. The police had a lucky escape; I would have been their most hysterical caller of the day.
I sit down at the table and cry for what seems like a long time, but I don’t care. I’ll cry for as long as I damn well want. In between sobs, I shout at myself for being a self-indulgent fool.
After a while I calm down and pour myself a glass of wine. I haven’t got the energy to clear up the mess. The soul-shaking terror has gone, but I can still feel the hole it blasted through me. Mark Bretherick must have felt the same, except for him the nightmare didn’t end. Instead, it became his life. Panic can’t last indefinitely. It must eventually have stopped, leaving only the horror-cold, without the distraction of frenzy, stretching on and on.
I shudder. The idea is unbearable. Thank God I don’t know what it feels like. Thank God nothing worse has happened to Zoe and Jake than Nick’s mum’s atrocious cooking.
I retrieve my handbag from the hall, pull out the two framed photographs and take them up to the lounge, stopping off at the kitchen to collect my wine on the way. Now that I know Nick and the children are safe, I’m relieved to be alone. I sit on the sofa and lay the photos out beside me. That low red brick wall, the cherry blossom tree, the stunted blue building with the white blinds… I know I’ve seen these things before, but where? A spark flares in my memory: I hear myself saying, ‘It’s a bit odd that they’ve painted the outside blue, isn’t it? It’s not exactly in keeping with the surroundings.’ Who was I speaking to? My mind cranks slowly into action, blunt and fuzzy after two days with no respite and almost no food, two days of fielding one shock after another.
‘It’s owned by BT. I think it’s a telephone exchange. I don’t mind the blue. At least it’s not grey.’ Nick. Nick said that. Suddenly, full knowledge floods in: it’s the owl sanctuary at Silsford Castle. The blue BT building is behind it, across a small field. We’ve been to the sanctuary twice with the children, once when Jake was a tiny baby and then again about three months ago. Our second visit was more controversial. Zoe wanted to adopt an owl and so did Jake, and they both cried for ten minutes when I said they would have to share. They demanded one each. Eventually Nick had a brainwave and explained solemnly that owls, like children, were better off with two parents. Zoe and Jake saw the logic of this: they had a mum and a dad, so it was only proper that Oscar the Tawny should too.
I pick up the photograph of Lucy Bretherick. The wall she’s sitting on is about twenty metres from Oscar’s cage. If that. I wrap my arms tightly round my body, trying to squeeze out the fear that’s starting to gnaw at me. I don’t know what any of this means. All I know is that the Brethericks seem to be coming closer all the time.
I run down the six steps to Nick’s and my bedroom, throw open the doors of my wardrobe and pull things off the top shelf until I see the black, unironed lump I’m looking for-a T-shirt with a doodle of an owl printed on it, in white. And underneath, in white cursive-style letters, ‘The Owl Sanctuary at Silsford Castle ’. Nothing ambiguous about that. Anyone who saw me wearing this T-shirt would know I’d been there.
This is what I was wearing when I caught the train to York on my way to Seddon Hall. It’s what I always wear if it’s summer and I’m travelling; it’s the only T-shirt I’ve got that’s not too smart to waste on a journey or too scruffy to leave the house.
I need to find out if the photographs of Geraldine and Lucy were taken before I went to Seddon Hall or after.
Brilliant, Sally. How are you going to do that, exactly? Ring Mark Bretherick and ask for more details about the pictures you stole from his house?
I run back to the lounge, pick up one of the wooden frames and start to dismantle it. Some people write dates on the back of their photos-that’s my only hope. Even as I’m prising open the little metal clasps, injuring my fingertips, I’m wondering why it matters. So what if these pictures were taken before the second of June last year? My brain is jammed; I can’t explain to myself why it’s important.