by Mark Edwards
‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I’m feeling a lot better. I’ll see you later, OK?’
I took the bus to Crouch End, sitting on the top deck. I could still feel the alcohol sloshing about in my system, and maybe it was this trace of drunkenness that made me feel a spark of optimism. Laura had called me Danny. She hadn’t called me Danny since we’d split up. Maybe, I thought, her brush with death would make her decide we were better together. That she needed me.
If she came back to me, if we were united again, I was convinced we would be able to recover from our experiences and fight anything else the world threw at us. We were a hundred times stronger together. In the days and weeks following our return to England, when everything at home had seemed so dismal, the two of us trapped in our own dark spaces inside our heads, barely communicating, I had lost sight of that. Laura had taken it further.
She said that looking at me reminded her of what had happened, that every time she saw my face she was jolted back in time. She could never hope to recover when she saw me every day.
‘But do you still love me?’ I had asked, in one of the final days before she left.
There had been a long silence. ‘Do you still love me?’
She looked at me searchingly and maybe I took a moment too long to say, ‘Of course. Always.’
I should have done everything I could to make her stay, to make it work. I should have convinced her that we were better together, that we could get through it if we were united. Instead, I had watched her walk out the door, barely protesting.
Now I allowed myself to hope, and as the bus rattled along the streets I tried to work out how best to play it. I decided I needed to give her time and space. I mustn’t pressure her. But if I could persuade her to come and see Dr Sauvage, either with me or on her own . . . I resolved to talk to Erin about it. Perhaps Laura would finally listen to her, now that Erin had saved her life.
Dr Sauvage’s house was a few streets from the bus stop. The brightness had faded and the sky above the terraced houses was colourless, like a picture in which the artist had forgotten to paint the sky. A child on a micro-scooter almost collided with me as I turned the corner onto Dr Sauvage’s street, making my heart jump.
As I approached her house, which was halfway along, it gradually dawned on me that something was wrong. At first, I thought the house looked a little strange, darker than usual, with someone in a yellow coat standing outside. As I got closer, my mouth fell open.
A dark grey blemish stretched across the facade of the house from the top windows, which had been boarded up, down to the front door. The windows on the ground floor were cracked and coated with some kind of black substance. A broken chair lay in the front garden and tiles had fallen from the roof. Yellow tape was strung around the whole house. The person in the yellow coat was a police officer, standing guard in a waterproof jacket.
He looked up as I approached.
‘What . . . happened?’
‘Can I ask who you are, sir?’
‘I’m one of Claudia Sauvage’s patients. I have an appointment now.’
The policeman, who was younger than me and looked cold and miserable, said, ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this but there was a fire here yesterday.’ He cleared his throat.
‘Oh my God.’ I forced out the words. ‘What caused it?’
The policeman looked up and down the street. ‘I’m very sorry, sir, but I can’t discuss that.’
‘Terrible business.’
I whirled round. An elderly man had strolled across the road and stood looking up at the house, shaking his head.
‘I live across the street,’ he said. ‘Can’t believe it—that poor couple. They’ll be missed dreadfully.’
It took a moment for this to register.
‘Missed?’ I said quietly.
The old man stared up at the burnt-out house. ‘Yes, both the Sauvages are dead. They were trapped upstairs. Nothing the fire brigade could do.’ He walked away, muttering, ‘Terrible business. Terrible.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
I stopped off at my flat, grabbed my laptop and went out. I didn’t want to be on my own at home. I needed to be around people, around the living. There was a coffee shop at the end of the road that also served greasy all-day breakfasts. Just what my body craved.
The first item on my list was to look up more information about what had happened to Dr Sauvage and her husband. My relationship with my therapist had been purely professional but that didn’t make her death any less shocking. She was only in her forties . . . and what a horrific and terrifying way to die. I wondered if her dogs, those snuffling pugs, had perished too?
The story was on the Evening Standard website, with a photo of the burnt-out house plus a snapshot of the smiling Sauvages, Claudia and Patrick, taken a few years ago. They had no children, which was something. There was no mention of the dogs.
Then I read the line at the end of the article.
Police are trying to ascertain whether the Sauvages were victims of arson and are expected to release more information in the coming days.
Arson? My God. Why would someone do that? I wondered if Dr Sauvage had made enemies. It was truly dreadful. And, feeling guilty for the selfish thought, I wondered who I was going to talk to now. Laura was too fragile and my therapist was gone. That only left one candidate: my best friend.
Jake and I arranged to meet the next day at Friends House, the Quaker place on Euston Road. He had a meeting at the offices of a record company who were based in a glittering new office block beside the station.
‘This is it,’ he told me on the phone. ‘I’m pretty certain they’re going to offer me a deal.’
‘That’s amazing.’
As soon as he gave me this news I almost cancelled. He was so excited and I didn’t want to bring him down. But I suspected that the moment he agreed to the deal he would go into orbit for a while. It was best to talk to him now while he was still within Earth’s gravitational field.
My CCTV equipment had arrived at lunchtime and I’d spent the early afternoon setting it up. The camera was positioned above the entrance to the front door of the flat. It was connected to an app on my phone and was triggered by movement. If anyone entered the flat the camera would start recording.
As I left the flat I looked up at the camera and smiled.
Friends House is the Quakers’ London base, with a café and meeting area that is open to the public. It was one of Jake’s favourite places to meet because of the relaxed vibe.
I arrived first, bought a coffee and carrot cake and took them to the back of the meeting area, where it was quiet and secluded. A few brave souls shivered outside in the courtyard, where a light dusting of snow that had fallen during the afternoon coated the tables and gathered on window sills.
While I waited, I texted Laura and asked how she was. I hesitated then sent another message before she replied, telling her I was going to talk to Jake about what happened. My therapist is dead, I typed. And I need to talk to someone. I hope you understand x.
Jake arrived wrapped in a chunky military-style coat, a long scarf wrapped around his neck. I had been right about him being ready for lift-off. Energy radiated off him as if he was a human microwave. He could barely keep still. He grabbed a large coffee and chatted up the Quaker girl at the counter.
‘Got her number,’ he grinned when he got back to the table. He sat down, his leg jerking back and forth, the worst case of restless leg syndrome I’d ever seen. ‘Hey, who was that Eastern European girl you were with the other night? She was well rude. Hot though. Don’t tell me you pulled her.’
‘She wasn’t that rude to you.’
He waved a hand. ‘Sorry, I’m turning into an egomaniac, aren’t I? I need you to tell me when I’m acting like a wanker, Dan.’
‘Keep you grounded, you mean. Down here where the mor
tals live.’
‘Hey, you’re a supersonic business dude. Apps sell a lot more than music these days. It should be me keeping you grounded. Instead, you’re still acting like the world is a funeral procession. Even though you’re pulling hot women like that . . . where was she from?’
‘Romania,’ I said.
He slapped the table. ‘Really? So is she your new girlfriend? Have you given up on Laura? That would break my heart. I’m still convinced the two of you are going to get back together at any moment. Remember, you promised I could be your best man. I’ve already got some great jokes lined up.’
I sipped my coffee. It had gone cold. I was tempted to ask Jake to hold the mug, thinking that the heat coming off him would make it drinkable again.
‘No, she’s not my girlfriend. But Romania . . . well, that’s what I want to talk to you about.’
He sat forward. ‘Surely you’re not finally going to tell me what went down with you and Laura in Europe?’
‘I don’t know. But . . . I want to tell you about everything that’s happened since.’
His phone rang. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Got to answer this.’
He wandered out into the frosty courtyard and I watched him talking animatedly. I was envious of him. Everything was going brilliantly, nothing tainted, no shadows clawing at the edges of his life. This moment—about to sign a record deal, with everything ahead of him, the promise of greatness—was probably as good as it would ever get. As he had said, I should be feeling like that too, had indeed felt like it when Laura and I set off on our trip. I wished I was back in that place, the magical garden where Jake stood now.
Seeing him striding about the courtyard, chatting away, a big smile on his handsome face, I realised that I couldn’t be envious of him. He’d worked so hard for this. I was proud of him.
He came back inside, his hair glistening with snowflakes. ‘That was my manager. Universal and Sony want to meet me now too. So that’s three of the big four.’ He rubbed his hands together.
‘You deserve it,’ I said.
‘Thanks, man. Though I haven’t signed anything yet.’
‘You will. You’re going to be a star. Soon the only glimpse of you I’ll get will be when you’re in the paper, hanging out with Taylor Swift and Rihanna.’
‘Hmm, I think I’d prefer Beyoncé. Anyway, you’re gonna be a big techie superstar. We’ll be going to the same parties. We’ll be . . . Shit, Dan, your face . . . You look like I just reminded you that you’ve got cancer or something. I’m sorry. You have my undivided attention.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Come on, then. Hit me with it. What’s going on?’
So I told him about the burglar returning my stuff and the fraudulent use of my debit card. I told him how my therapist’s house had burned down, leaving me halfway through my course of treatment with no one to talk to. I filled him in on the details of Laura’s suicide attempt, which made his mouth drop open, and how she’d apparently been seeing ghosts again.
‘I’m sure I saw someone watching her, too . . . and someone might have tried to push her under a Tube train. All this weird shit.’
‘Fucking hell,’ he said when I’d finished. ‘Have you been to the police?’
‘They think I either hallucinated the break-in, that I’m crazy, or that I’m a liar and a time-waster. Sometimes I think I am going crazy . . .’ I trailed off. I decided not to tell him about hallucinating the photos from the train. ‘It’s ever since Romania.’
I looked at him, my eyes stinging.
He didn’t say anything for a few moments, just stared at me. ‘And are you going to tell me what happened?’
‘I want to. I really need to talk to someone. That’s what I intended to do. But now, when it comes to it . . .’
‘Daniel. It’s me. You can talk to me about anything. I’m not going to go and blab to anyone about it. I promise. I know you think I’m a major gossip but I swear, hand on heart, I won’t tell. Whatever it is.’
I tore an empty sugar sachet to shreds, unable to meet his eye. ‘It’s so hard to talk about. Just getting the words out . . . Plus I’m afraid of burdening you with it.’
‘Burdening me? Come on. It can’t be that bad.’
I looked up him. ‘But it is.’
I started by telling him about the train journey, meeting Alina and Ion, the guards throwing us off, the creepy station in the middle of nowhere. He listened, enrapt, as I told him about the walk along the tracks, Alina going into the forest and disappearing. Laura and I going to look for her.
‘And then we found a house. In the middle of the forest.’
He stared at me, eyes wide, as I told him what happened next.
Chapter Twenty-Five
As we moved closer to the house, I could see grey shadows flickering in the upstairs windows, those jack-o’-lantern lights. Candles. Somebody was home.
There was a little boy inside me yelling at my adult self as we approached the place. This is a witch’s house, a witch who lures and eats the lost, who’ll fatten you and devour you, make bread from your bones. Run. Run as fast and far as you can, find a bed, get under the covers and hide there.
Laura touched my hand.
‘Daniel. Look.’
Laura was pointing at something and at first I thought my heart had leaped from my body and was lying there, twitching in the dead grass, but I somehow got hold of myself, forced my eyes to focus.
‘Alina’s other boot.’
I stooped and picked it up, turned back to Laura, cradling the boot like it was a kitten.
‘We should go, get help,’ I said.
My girlfriend set her jaw and, not answering me, walked up the path towards the house. I wavered. What was I—a boy or a man? Perhaps if I’d been here on my own I would have run, gone to seek help. But the need to stay with Laura, to not look like a coward, was even stronger.
The door was solid, fashioned from the oak trees that surrounded the house. I could sense those trees behind us, like they were watching, daring us to go inside. All the hair on the back of my neck stood to attention; ripples ran the length of my spine. Why was this house here, deep in the forest? I guessed it must have been the home of—what? A huntsman? A woodcutter? Some kind of ranger?
A witch?
The house had an ancient air about it, centuries old. It probably pre-dated the railway line we had walked along. The door had no number, no letterbox. I suppressed a hysterical giggle at the thought of a postman traipsing through the forest to deliver junk mail and fliers from pizza places.
Laura raised a fist to knock but I caught her wrist.
I somehow knew, as if I’d seen it in a dream, that the door would open if I pushed it. It did. It was stiff, heavy, but it swung open slowly, revealing a large open space.
I stepped inside, Laura following, holding on to my shirt.
The room reminded me of the entrance hall of a stately home. It was dark, lit only by the moonlight that penetrated from outside. No candles here. I waited for my eyes to adjust and soon saw that the darkness concealed very little. A couple of chests, a coat stand with a black jacket hanging from it. Doors stood closed in both corners and, directly in front of us, a stairway stretched up into more darkness.
Laura and I looked at each other. She looked more afraid now we were inside the house. If I had sensed a sickness about this place before we came inside, I felt it more keenly now. Terrible things had happened here. I knew that as clearly as I knew my own name. Laura had taken a few steps into the room but now moved back towards the exit, like she’d had second thoughts. Maybe it was the smell that did it: the room had a musty, damp odour, the cloying reek of mildew and rot. But there was another smell, a top note, that was worse. Years ago I had lived in a bedsit that had a vile stink. Eventually I found the source: the previous tenant had left glue traps beneath the cooker a
nd the fridge, and dead rats had been left rotting for weeks. That’s what this place smelled like. Rotting flesh. Death.
‘You want to go?’ I whispered to Laura.
She stared at me, the fear evident in her eyes now. A look that said this was a mistake. A look that asked what the fuck we were doing here. The door had drifted shut behind us and I had a horrible feeling that it was locked now, that we were trapped. That we would be trapped here forever.
Maybe we would have gone then, done what we should have in the first place: gone back through the trees, kept going along the railway tracks, sought help in town.
But then we heard the noise.
Jake’s mobile rang, jerking me back to the present moment.
‘Fuck, sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s the guy from the record company.’ He clearly felt anxious about answering the call.
‘It’s all right. Take it.’
‘I’m sorry, man. I’ll be right back.’
He stood up and walked away, saying ‘Uh-huh’ and ‘Right’ as he went.
I had torn a dozen more sugar sachets to shreds while talking and now I picked at the pieces; grains of white sugar were scattered across the tabletop.
I felt sick, wondering if I’d have the guts to tell Jake the rest of the story. If I would be able to tell him the truth about what had happened.
He reappeared at the table. He wore a sheepish expression. ‘Daniel, man, I’m really sorry. They’ve moved the meeting forward so the Executive VP of A&R can sit in.’ Seeing my blank expression he added, ‘He’s, like, the top dog.’
‘You have to go.’
‘Daniel, I really want to hear the rest of what happened. Why don’t we have a drink later? After my meeting.’
‘OK. Maybe.’
He bounced from foot to foot, agitated.
‘Go on,’ I said, forcing a smile. ‘I’ll call you later. Knock ’em dead.’
‘Thanks, Dan.’