‘Really?’ I could hardly believe that. ‘So why did you have that mobile then? If it wasn’t you, why did you have the phone that I got those bloody texts from?’
‘I found it,’ he muttered.
‘You must know how utterly lame that sounds.’ I was scathing.
I almost felt his shrug down the phone. ‘Maybe it does, but it’s true. It wasn’t me, you have to believe me. Someone must have planted it.’
‘What do you mean, planted? This isn’t Starsky and Hutch, you know, Alex. It’s real life.’ Though I wasn’t sure about that either.
‘It was in that box of stuff I picked up from the flat, Maggie, I swear. Fully charged and working. I thought it was yours. I mean, for all I know –’ He paused.
‘What?’
‘You put it there.’
‘Are you joking?’
‘Are you? If it wasn’t you, Mag, then someone means you no good.’
‘Well, I know that much, thanks, Alex. Of course it wasn’t bloody me.’
‘I thought you might –’
‘What?’
‘Be trying to, you know, punish me. Set me up.’
‘Why would I do that?’ To my dismay I found I was crying, silent tears slipping down my face, emotions buzzing round my head like angry hornets. I breathed a long, juddery sigh.
‘Why would I set you up? I love you, Alex.’
‘Loved.’
‘Love, loved, whatever. I’m not going to set you up. I’m more worried about what you’re trying to do to me.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Maggie,’ he howled, ‘I can’t come anywhere near you anyway. They’re talking about restraining orders now.’
There was a long silence broken only by Digby worrying at the lamb bone I’d chucked him earlier. ‘Alex,’ I whispered eventually, ‘I’m frightened. I don’t know what’s going on.’
‘Well, go home then,’ he said roughly. ‘Or are you with that bloke? He’ll look after you, won’t he?’
‘No.’ I stared out of the window at the darkening afternoon. Digby’s ears suddenly pricked up; he growled at a ghost. ‘Ssh, silly. No, I’m on my own.’
‘That’s a bit stupid, isn’t it?’
‘I just need some headspace. Headspace for a headcase.’ I was glad to hear Alex insisting it wasn’t him; but I was confused and scared, desperate to know who was after me – and underlying it all there was a terrible yearning sadness. Then I had a thought that hurled me out of my nostalgia.
‘Talking of headcases, how come you were wining and dining Fay the other day?’
He snorted. ‘Wining and dining? Hardly. I had a coffee with her. She said she had something to tell me.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know. She banged on about being famous and friendship, what a good friend you’ve been to her, and then halfway through her cappuccino her phone rang and she had to go. And that was that.’
I bit my lip. ‘Did you fancy her?’
‘You do sound a bit mad, actually, Mag. You want to –’
I jumped as someone tapped on the back door. ‘God, who’s that?’ I couldn’t see anyone through the frosted glass.
‘Who is that?’ Alex sounded worried.
‘I don’t know. Val, maybe. I’d better go. I’ll –’ I’ll what? Run screaming back into your arms? ‘I’ll talk to you sometime.’
‘Mag –’
This time I was sure the knock was at the front door. There was nothing left to say anyway, so I put the phone down and strode up the hall, plucking the door back to find no one there. Naked wisteria twigs tapped the glass like fossilised antennae; a breeze shivered through the trees and the few tenacious leaves left trembled gently. Digby shot out between my feet but I called him back uneasily, locking the doors before drawing every set of curtains in the cottage. I struggled with the broken blind in the kitchen for a bit, peering out into the gloom, wishing now that I’d had it fixed when I’d meant to. Tomorrow I’d go back to Greenwich, safely home to my father.
* * *
I tried to ring Bel, but God alone knew what time it was in Australia and she didn’t answer. I had a long bath and then lit the fire, and made some potato puree to go with the turbot, though I really wasn’t hungry. I took the plate into the sitting room and pushed the food around in front of a rerun of Parkinson until he introduced a simpering Renee to join the indomitable Billy Connolly. I pulled a face and put some Bach on instead, opening the bottle of wine I’d been trying to resist. I lay on the sofa nursing my glass, pondering my strange new life, until the final movement jogged to a close.
As I went to change the CD the muslin cloth caught on the belt of my jeans and slithered down from the piano. I untangled myself, and then, on a whim, I pulled the whole thing off, the swirling dust cloud making me cough. I ran a finger across the polished oak of the lid and then tentatively I opened it and, still standing there, played a note, and then one more. The wisteria tapped against the windowpane again as, slowly, very slowly, I sat down on the stool, and my fingers were cold and stiff but I slid up a scale and down again, and then I started to play. Instinctively I played Debussy’s Clair de Lune, and at first I was rusty, hitting the wrong notes as my fingers slowly unfurled after all these years, like they’d been clamped in tight cat claws – but after a while I began to feel like I’d never stopped.
The lights went off. My right hand shot out inadvertently in shock and hit the high keys as my gasp reverberated round the room – a gasp that sounded like the sea being sucked over shingle. And then it was silent and utterly dark as the piano notes died slowly.
I jumped up and rushed to the light-switch, kicking the wine bottle over and standing on Digby’s paw in the process so that he yelped piteously. The switch clicked back and forth ineffectually and I was trying to think, to think calmly about where the bloody fusebox was, when the lights flickered and came back on. I laughed shakily.
‘I think I’m losing it,’ I informed Digby weakly, but he just stared up at me with reproving eyes, before licking his sore paw sorrowfully. I thought for a second and then I rushed down the hall to the kitchen, grabbing the phone to see if Val had had a power-cut – I’d ask if I could go over there anyway. There was no dial tone. I shook the receiver a few times in growing disbelief – but there was no sign of life at all. The phone line was dead.
Frantically I looked around for my mobile: I’d plugged it in to charge, only I couldn’t for the life of me remember where, and then all the lights flickered, flickered and went out again. It was entirely dark now. A sob of terror pushed its way out of me a bit like in that crashing coach. I called Digby in a hoarse kind of whisper because I was suddenly quite sure we weren’t alone; and then I thought I heard a car door slam. It was probably over by the pub: I should go there too, I needed to get to people. Groping along the worktop, finally I found the drawer where the torch should be and actually there it was, the torch. My fingers were so clammy they kept sliding off the switch, but eventually I slid it on and for once it was working, thank God. And then there was a noise outside and I peered out of the kitchen window – and my heart stood still as if it might never beat again.
Silhouetted in the silvery moonlight but shrouded by the bowing trees, a tall figure was walking across the drive. Then the moon slid behind a cloud again and the shape was lost.
I dove back into the kitchen’s darkness, although the man had been walking away from me. I waited for a second until I could breathe a little more calmly. Flicking the feeble beam around the room, I finally spied my mobile on the breadbin. Snatching it from its socket, I grabbed my car-keys from the hook.
I opened the back door cautiously but by now there were only shadows dancing under the moon, which was full and squat over the far hill. Inching towards my car, Digby suddenly hurtled between my feet and disappeared across the lawn, barking ecstatically at the stars.
‘Come back! Oh, stupid dog,’ I swore softly. I’d call him again when I reached the car: now I could see the d
oor-handle glinting in the torch-light –it was only about twenty feet away – and then, behind it, I suddenly made out another vehicle, parked over by the barn. Alex’s old Land Rover.
There was no time to think any more, I just needed to escape before he returned.
Chapter Forty-Two
I heard Digby bark and I hesitated. No doubt he’d disappeared into the undergrowth beside the stream to sniff out the mice and pointy-snouted voles who lived there still. Wherever the dog was, though, he was oblivious to my increasingly anxious shouts. Clambering down the bank, I could hear him now – and then through the hedge I saw a police car come down the drive. Thank God! I began to scramble up again but my cardigan got caught on the barbed wire that edged the stream. I was actually trapped in the ditch.
The police car was already at the house. ‘Hey,’ I yelled fruitlessly, my voice snatched up by the wind that was beginning to bluster busily through the garden. I struggled frantically, holding the torch under my chin as the wire clawed into my arm.
‘I’m here!’ I couldn’t see the car any more but I heard it stop and a door open and slam. ‘Hey, I’m down here!’ I was shrieking now, finally pulling my arm free, leaving half a skein of wool behind me on the wire as the torch went spinning out of my grasp into the water. I scrambled up the bank as the policeman got back in his vehicle and the car pulled straight off: straight out of the bottom gate.
‘Come back!’ I started to run down the lawn but it was too late: they were truly gone. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ I swore now, panting and sweaty and furious, and then I heard Digby’s happy bark as a new set of headlights swept round the corner of the road, past the front gates, before the night fell like soot again, leaving only blackness behind.
And then I heard that car stop suddenly on the other side of the huge hedge and begin to reverse. I hurried toward the road.
Digby suddenly appeared now, bounding up towards the gate to check out this visitor, to greet them in his guileless way, and I heard his bark – and then he too disappeared from sight.
I started to sprint toward the car, hidden from view still by the hedge, the car that suddenly seemed like my salvation – when a shape swooped down through the night. I almost threw myself prostrate on the lawn. It flapped on up into the sky and I laughed shakily when I saw it was only the barn owl diving for his dinner.
A low whistle and a voice, an indistinguishable greeting as Digby barked again, his friendly kind of hello bark, the stupid mutt, and I was running now but I heard a car-door slam. I ran faster, I shouted ‘Wait for me’, but the car pulled off, and as I rounded the corner and saw the empty road, glimmering in the moonlight, I realised with a stony heart my dog had gone too.
An engine choked into life behind me. I turned to see Alex’s Land Rover pulling out of the far end of the drive, onto the village road. Hidden from his view on this side of the house, I fumbled now to switch my mobile on, sprinting to reach my own car, my bad foot really starting to throb. As I ran I felt the icy sweat of fear despite the cold night – but I could see my own car now and the phone was on, bleeping frantically with messages it had collected since it had died in the police’s keep.
I tried to phone 999 but the signal was so bad here I couldn’t get through, and then I dropped the phone. I stumbled as I bent to pick it up and nearly hit the floor, grazing my hand on the gravel, but I didn’t care. I reached the car and the door was unlocked – I always left the doors unlocked down here because I felt so safe, only now I felt the very opposite, quite terrified in fact, and my hand was shaking as I thrust the key into the ignition. I kept missing the slot because of the shake, and then finally it went in and I turned the key and –
Nothing. The engine made a half-hearted stutter and died completely. I turned the key again; my worst nightmare was coming true.
The cottage was still in darkness, but through the trees I could see the pub’s twinkling lights. I tried 999 again but there was still no reception. A single text envelope had popped up on the screen.
DID YOU GET MESSAGES? PLEASE TAKE CARE. LOVE YOUR FRIEND FAY XX
Oh Christ. Even Fay knew Alex was a nutter. I took a deep breath and slid back out of the car. My only option was to run to the pub for help.
My ears craned for sound as I walked as fast as I could towards the orchard, towards the small bridge that would lead me to the pub. All seemed quiet now: just my ragged breath and the old owl hooting all melancholy into the night, having devoured his prey. A sliver of laughter carried from the pub as the wind dropped again – the pub that seemed suddenly so very far away. Silence surrounded me here, though – so perhaps, please God –
Light arced across the garden, a greedy spoon of white catching me in its harsh beam. Bewildered by it, I crashed into a great naked rosebush, the bare branches snatching at me like Hansel’s bony fingers. I’d long celebrated my lack of neighbours, the solitude – but, God, I cursed it now.
The car was on the drive, heading straight for me: I’d finally been hunted down. I heard a noise – and then I realised it was me; I was actually whimpering with terror. The light swung back across the garden, holding me hard, the gap between me and my persecutor closing fast as the engine was gunned. I couldn’t outrun a car. I’d run back home. Turning, I went the other way. I could see the door. I pounded the ground – my bad foot was so sore now as I panted with fear, and then, behind me, the car churned up the gravel, skidding to a halt, pinioning me between it and the house. Alex was going to get me. It was too late to flee.
I turned again quickly. I had to face my hunter; I couldn’t stand unseeing, exposed. The car door swung open as the moon slid out from the fingers of cloud, an oily disc of moonshine that lit up everything.
‘Oh God,’ I laughed with relief, though I felt more like crying. ‘It’s you. Oh God, I’m so pleased to see you. I was so scared. Have you got Digby with you?’ I lifted my hand to my chest as if to still my beating heart and my hand was trembling, properly shaking, and I took a step towards him.
‘I’ve never been so glad to see anyone,’ I started to say, and then I caught his eye and my smile died. I stared at him and his smile met mine – a traitor’s smile. And now he took a measured step towards me as I reeled in shock like I’d been punched, gut-punched where it most hurt. Mortally punched.
‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ I said numbly. ‘It can’t be you.’
‘But it is me, Maggie.’ And that smile, it was a flat smile, a smile of utter malice. ‘Weren’t you expecting me?’
Chapter Forty-Three
In retrospect, perhaps it was all my own fault. I shouldn’t have rushed so; I should have stuck to my instincts, should have let my sore heart heal; let sleeping dogs snore and not enticed them to tell lies.
But of course I wasn’t thinking any of that right now. I was simply panicking as he marched me into my own house, grasping my upper arm as if he’d like to sink his fingertips right through it.
‘You’re hurting me,’ I pleaded. ‘What are you doing? You’re scaring me. Let me go.’
‘Just shut up and walk,’ he commanded, as I stumbled across the woven rug on the old slate floor.
‘But I can’t see properly, it’s so dark,’ I mumbled, scared now – really wholeheartedly terrified. His response was to push me forwards so I tripped again and went hurtling into the wall, banging my forehead on the corner of a picture-frame that swung wildly before me.
‘Ow.’ I clutched my head as I was propelled into the sitting room, still dark except for the fire now dying in the grate.
‘Light the candles,’ he ordered, gesturing to the old brass sticks on the mantelpiece. He pulled back the curtains to let in the moonlight and turned, his teeth bared in a triumphant kind of grin. ‘It’s dark because I cut the electric, babe. Clever, aren’t I?’
And it was now I realised the severity of the situation; that he really wasn’t messing around.
I took a deep breath and crossed the room, picking up the squashed box of
cook’s matches. The first three all fizzled out as I tried desperately to steady my hand, to hide this palpable fear. The only thing I knew with any clarity was that I must stay calm. I had to stay calm or he would win.
‘What’s wrong, Seb?’ I asked quietly as the first wick finally took, glancing back at him. ‘Why are you so very upset?’
‘You said you didn’t want to see me,’ Sebastian muttered, and his twisted grin died then, the grin I’d thought was charming. His voice was very strained, and his face was very pale in the moonlight that tumbled through the window now, two spots of high colour on his cheeks. ‘No one says that to me. Not when I – I love them.’ He clenched his fists. ‘I said I loved you, Maggie. That should have been enough.’
A small figure of Sebastian, an image from an edit all sped up, flitted through my head. What did this remind me of?
‘Enough?’ I repeated slowly, wracking my brain.
‘I would have stopped then.’
‘Stopped what?’ I asked, shaking my head in confusion. I had to handle him right …
‘I just needed some time,’ I implored, risking a tiny step towards him. ‘It wasn’t an insult to you, honestly. It’s just about where I am at the moment. A bit all over the place, you know. I didn’t want to mess it up. That’s all. Please, Seb …’ I reached out a hand to him.
‘Shut up,’ Seb snapped, and my thudding heart plummeted. ‘Just shut up and let me think.’ He turned his back on me and leaned his forehead against the window, staring blindly out into the dark garden.
‘I –’ I forced myself to say it, ‘I love you too.’
‘Not enough,’ he intoned. ‘It’s never enough. I thought – after a while, I thought you were going to be different.’
‘Different?’
‘I mean, I only chose you in the first place to punish you. And because I thought you’d be useful for my career. So it’s not your place to end it, is it, babe?’
‘Chose me?’ My stomach rolled over again. ‘To punish me? For what?’
Bad Friends Page 33