Writ in Water

by Natasha Mostert

  Her mother stroked her gloves. ‘I understand you saw Barry recently?’

  ‘I saw him two weeks ago, yes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He looks well.’

  ‘He won’t wait around forever, Justine.’

  ‘I’m not expecting him to.’ She stubbed out the cigarette into a tea-stained saucer. ‘So, what’s up? Any particular reason you came out here?’ She didn’t actually add the words ‘except to spy on me’, but she hoped her tone of voice was clear enough.

  Patricia Callaway extracted her handbag from underneath her arm and opened it. ‘I brought you your mail.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have bothered. I told you to bin everything.’

  ‘That’s an extremely irresponsible way to react, Justine.’

  She could feel her face flush, and her teeth were suddenly on edge. But before she could respond, her mother continued: ‘For goodness’ sake, why on earth wouldn’t you want to check your post?’

  ‘There is actually a reason why I’m shut away here in the country, Mother. It’s called “getting away from it all”.’

  ‘But you don’t have email. And what about bills, business letters—’

  ‘Everything is paid by direct debit. If you’re worried that you’ll have to bail me out of jail, you can put the thought out of your head.’ She viciously pulled out the drawer of the table as far as the stop and shook out another cigarette from the pack.

  ‘People have been calling for you.’

  Justine looked up from the cigarette she was just about to light. ‘People?’

  Her mother made a vague gesture with her hand. ‘Friends. I don’t want to give out your new number—’

  ‘No, please don’t.’

  ‘—so I’ve asked them to write. Which is another reason you really should read your letters.’

  ‘OK, fine. Just leave the letters here on the desk.’

  Her mother glanced at her wristwatch. ‘I should go. I’m meeting the ladies for bridge at six.’

  As they walked toward the car, her mother asked casually, ‘Have you heard from your father at all?’

  ‘He was in Antigua, the last I heard.’

  ‘With that other girl? What’s her name again?’

  ‘Deborah. She seems to make him happy.’

  Her mother sniffed. ‘We’ll see for how long. Your father is not exactly a long-distance runner when it comes to relationships.’

  Which was true, Justine thought. And like father, like daughter. Short stamina and a low threshold for boredom were traits she seemed to have inherited from him. Along with his blue eyes and a tendency to burn in strong sun.

  At the car, her mother turned around and pecked her on the cheek. ‘Take care of yourself. When do you think you’ll be ready to return to London? Any time soon?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Justine opened the car door and watched her mother get in behind the wheel, pulling her legs into the car with one contained, ladylike movement. ‘I’ll let you know.’

  ‘You do that.’ Her mother started the engine and gave her a hard, tight smile. She pulled the door shut and reversed slowly. Giving a brief wave of her hand, she accelerated the car down the avenue of trees.

  Justine turned around and walked back into the house. From the hallway she was able to see through the open doorway of the library to where the stack of mail was waiting. Within those letters her life was waiting for her. Friends, colleagues. New opportunities for work.

  Reluctantly she walked over to the writing desk. Her mother had fastened the letters together with a thick elastic band. She picked up the stack of letters and riffled through the edges. There were quite a few letters from abroad: she recognised an American stamp, a German chancellor, and a couple of stamps of unknown origin. She had a good idea who had sent them. They were probably from foreign magazines, offering her assignments. But she was not up to it. She had lost her nerve. Sad, but true.

  She stared at the stack of letters irresolutely, slapping it against her palm. ‘Irresponsible’, her mother had called her behaviour. Well, probably. But it was her own damn business how she wanted to behave. She simply couldn’t face any of this.

  Letters in hand, she walked into the kitchen. She opened the door underneath the sink and pulled out the rubbish bin. Without further thought, she dropped the letters into the bin and closed the lid.

  • • •

  HER MOTHER’S VISIT had upset her. She felt restless. On a sudden impulse she decided to go into Ainstey even though it was already late afternoon. On one of her previous visits she had noticed a nice-looking little restaurant just opposite the library. It had tablecloths and candles and the flowers on the tables seemed fresh. Maybe she should treat herself to a decent meal.

  And maybe she should get some exercise while she was at it. Rain was predicted for tomorrow, but today was one of those lovely mild autumn days with blue skies and not a breath of wind. Instead of taking the MG, she would make her way to the village using the bicycle she had spotted hanging from a beam in one of the storage rooms.

  And here it was, an old Raleigh bicycle with the black paint flaking off its steel frame. The frigging thing was massively heavy. And the tyres were flat. By the time she managed to inflate the tyres and manoeuvre her way through boxes and trunks thick with dust, she had snagged her ankle on a broken wicker basket, her arms were tired, and her enthusiasm for the adventure was waning.

  But it would be utterly wimpish to give up now. She wiped her hand across her forehead and eased herself cautiously onto the scuffed leather saddle. It creaked lamentably but it felt not too bad. She might even end up enjoying it.

  ‘Enjoy’ was probably too strong a word, though. By the time she managed to pedal into Ainstey, her calf muscles were aching and her bum was decidedly the worse for wear. But what a sense of accomplishment. Now to find a place to leave the Raleigh.

  The fence in front of the library had ominous signs warning that any chained bicycles would be removed. For a moment she remembered the charmless librarian: his pale eyes and creepy behaviour. Violent death often has sex appeal, don’t you think? She remembered the tiny smile that had accompanied his words, the rings under his armpits, the thick, veined fingers. Ugh.

  But where to leave the bicycle? She looked down the street in the direction of the church. Bingo. She could see several bicycles chained to the fence already. Reverend Wyatt would probably not mind if she added her bike to the others.

  When she arrived at the church, she stopped and chained the Raleigh to one of the poles. On impulse, she walked up to the open doors of the church and glanced inside, half expecting to see Reverend Wyatt polishing the marble eyeballs of the Davenants, but the church was empty. Only a few candles burned deep in the shadows. She turned around and headed back.

  At least the restaurant looked as though it was going to live up to her expectations. It was only five o’clock, but they agreed to serve her dinner—that is, if madam wouldn’t mind a small delay; the kitchen was not quite ready. She shook her head. Madam wouldn’t mind at all.

  She ordered the cassoulet and a glass of chardonnay. She was given a table at the window and a newspaper. It was all very pleasant. For the first time since her meeting with Pascaline Buchanan she was starting to relax.

  By the time she had finished her leisurely dinner, which included a double cream raspberry compote, she was feeling so mellow that she actually regretted her argument with her mother. She left the restaurant feeling lazy after her meal.

  But she still had the trip back to Paradine Park to make. Her bicycle was the only one left and the church doors were shut tight. As she pushed the bicycle onto the road, all the streetlights suddenly switched on.

  She looked at her watch. It was half past six already. The proprietor of the hardware shop was still behind his counter, she noticed, but most of the other shops had closed for the day. The library, too, had its door shut.

  She cheered herself with the thought that whereas the trip into Ai
nstey was mostly uphill, once she left the main road it would be mostly downhill back to Paradine Park. And it would be much quieter as well. At the moment she was cautiously pedalling at the very edge of the road, wincing when cars passed her with only inches to spare. But the dirt road was coming up. She could see the sign for Paradine Park gleaming white in the dusk. The wheels of the bicycle sang as she turned into the dirt road.

  It was a lovely evening. A silver sickle of a moon was hooked into the velvet sky. She pedalled across a stone bridge and the water flowing silently beneath the bridge glimmered as though the heat of the day had entered the watery darkness and was now glowing from deep down below. A night bird chirred exuberantly and was answered by its mate. In the air was the smell of gently rotting fruit.

  But suddenly the bicycle swerved violently underneath her hands. She was taken by surprise and unable to control the movement. The front wheel skidded and she tumbled from the saddle, scraping her knee painfully in the process.

  Shit. She ran her hands over the wheel. The tube had come completely free of the rim. The Raleigh had spent too much time in the storage room.

  She straightened and brushed the dirt off her hands. She was almost exactly halfway between Ainstey and Paradine Park. She could still see the spire of the church in the gathering dusk, which meant she probably had another fifteen minutes or so to go.

  She started walking, pushing the bicycle along next to her. Her knee burned. The air, which had seemed so mild only a moment before, suddenly felt decidedly chilly. The birds were quiet.

  After walking for about ten minutes she stopped and glanced over her shoulder. It wasn’t that she had seen or heard anything—it was just a feeling, a suggestion of a shadow passing just outside the grasp of her consciousness. Her eyes travelled from the black patches underneath the trees to the other side of the track. She could see no one.

  She increased her pace. The bicycle dragged beside her. Her knee felt wobbly, like it was filled with something jellyish.

  Thank God. Paradine Park’s boundary wall loomed in the darkness. And there were the gates. Not long now and she’d be inside the house. Safe.

  On some level she knew she was being irrational, but the night air suddenly seemed full of noise. A twig cracking. Someone breathing hard?

  Unease was turning to outright fear. She needed to get out of the dark. She needed to get inside the house. Dropping the bicycle, she left it where it fell and started running up the avenue of trees. Her hair was plastered against her forehead and, despite the coolness of the night, her blouse clung to her body with sweat.

  The porch light was on. She stumbled up the steps, her fingers groping frantically inside her handbag for the keys. She could feel her shoulder blades hunching, her back becoming stiff with tension, but she did not look around to see what was behind her. She did not look around. She did not want to see what was coming toward her from the darkness.

  The door opened and she stumbled inside and slammed it shut. With trembling fingers she turned the key.

  She pushed back the thick curtains covering the windows next to the door and stared out into the garden.

  Everything was peaceful. The lawns were empty, the hedges motionless. The well-lit steps outside the door held nothing but a few dry leaves. Nothing stirred. It had all been her imagination.

  But then she heard the noise.

  Not outside the house.

  Inside.

  It came from the kitchen. Or did it?

  Fear spread through her thoughts like blood in water. She kicked off her shoes and walked on tiptoe to the swinging door.

  She placed her hand on the door and pushed it open softly. At the same time her hand reached for the light switch. Click.

  The kitchen looked exactly the way she had left it. Breadcrumbs on the table. A few unwashed cups and saucers in the sink. The logs and stacks of old newspaper peeping out from behind the green-and-white striped curtain. The tap dripping as usual. From where she stood she could see the back door was dead-bolted.

  Her heart was still hammering in her chest, but her fear was now mixed with anger. Anger at her own timidity. For God’s sake, she had braved war zones in Rwanda and Iraq. Once she had even endured a night in a prison cell in Guatemala. And now, here she was, scared of her own shadow, flinching at noises that did not exist. Stupid idiot. What the hell was wrong with her? Where was her nerve? But she knew very well where her nerve had gone. It had left her during a night of fire and death. She was a hollow woman.

  The kitchen was empty. For good measure she pulled the green-and-white curtain to one side, half expecting to find someone hiding behind it. But of course there was no one. And the darkroom was empty as well. But her heart was still racing and in the back of her mind was still the memory of the noise she had heard as she entered the house.

  Oh, for heaven’s sake. This was stupid. She grabbed a knife from the butcher’s block. It had a satisfying heft to it. The blade actually gleamed.

  It took her a full thirty minutes to check every room in the house. Every time she opened a cupboard or wardrobe, her throat closed. Every time she looked behind a door, she held the knife at the ready. But she opened every door and looked inside every cupboard. She checked under the beds in her room. She pulled away the shower curtain. As she marched from room to room, her heels striking angrily at the floor, she continued to switch on the lights. By the time she ended back in the kitchen again, every light in every room was burning and the house was lit up like Canary Wharf.

  As she stood there, slightly breathless and not quite sure what to do next, she noticed that the cupboard door underneath the sink was ajar. This was odd only because she always made sure to close it tightly because of the rubbish bin. She was concerned about odours. One of the little paranoias of the single woman.

  She walked over and pulled out the bin. It was half-filled with waste. An empty Kellogg’s Special K box. An empty can of tuna. A milk carton. Coffee grounds. Orange rinds. An empty whisky bottle, of course. Several teabags. As she stared at the odd assortment of rubbish, something in her mind nudged at her. She was missing something. What was it?

  The letters. The letters were gone.

  She looked again, actually reached in with her hand and rummaged through the assorted mess. No letters.

  They had to be in there. She pulled the bin all the way out and upended the rubbish onto the floor. The oil from the tuna can splattered the tiles, and there must have been more milk left in the carton than she had thought because it left a sour-smelling trail of white. Nice. The place was going to reek if she didn’t clean it immediately.

  No letters. She felt stupid and scared sitting on her heels, surrounded by rubbish.

  What should she do now, call the police? And tell them what? Someone had stolen her rubbish? That would impress them. And how did the intruder get in? Or, for that matter, leave? Every window was closed. All the doors were locked. There was no sign of a break-in anywhere.

  Oh God. Maybe she was a madwoman after all. What the hell had she done with those letters? She could swear she had dropped them in the bin.

  She got to her feet and looked out the window. With the light behind her, her face formed a pale outline against the glass pane. She blinked at her reflection; a woman staring at herself with a butcher’s knife clutched in her hand. She suddenly felt like weeping.

  You should leave this place.

  The words popped into her mind as clearly as if they were spoken out loud. For a while she stared at the ghostly image caught in the glass frame. Blurry eyes, mouth turned sadly down.

  She leaned forward and placed her fingertips against the cold glass. ‘I can’t,’ she told the face in the window. ‘I can’t leave this place. I have to find a wolf first.’

  TWENTY

  THE HANDWRITING was decisive. Adam Buchanan had used a fountain pen—the Watcher could see where a few stray drops of ink had spattered across the page, as though the man had needed to shake the pen impatiently to get th
e ink to flow.

  Dear Justine. You don’t know me, although maybe your heart already does…

  The Watcher felt nauseous. This wasn’t possible.

  During his visit to Paradine Park he had checked her rubbish as usual, not really anticipating anything of interest. The stack of letters was an unexpected treasure. He had been delighted. Until he opened the letter he now held in his hands.

  The paper seemed to burn the skin of his fingers. His forehead felt feverish. His tongue was dry. He had read the letter through so many times he knew it by heart. He was trying to come to terms with the reality of the contents, but his mind slipped every time it attempted to grasp the fact that Adam Buchanan had written to the woman who was now occupying his own mind to the exclusion of anything else.

  The Watcher felt disoriented. It was as though he had looked through a keyhole to discover that the world around him was a virtual world and that another, fantastical world was hidden behind a charmed door. A world where synchronicity and fate were conspiring to create a different reality; darkly wonderful, infinitely mysterious. A black-hued fairytale in which two figures were desperately searching for each other.

  What a wonderful place to explore.

  The only problem was, he was standing outside the door and the door was locked. He was stuck in the mundane world. Strange how that hurt. He didn’t think he had it in him to feel this strongly. He tried to identify the feeling he felt toward Adam Buchanan. Jealousy? An unfamiliar emotion.

  He fingered the letter. What was he going to do about this? Once again, he held the fate of this man in his hands.

  As far as he could see, he had two choices. One: send an anonymous tip to the police. He now knew where the fugitive was hiding out. The address was written at the top of the page, bold as you please. So let the police take care of Adam Buchanan.