To her surprise he simply nodded and said, “Until tomorrow.”
Taking the opportunity while she could, she grabbed her bag and left. She had borrowed Tom’s bike again.
It was a beautiful evening, and a touch of the hot day’s light still tinged the sky. But, due to the late hour, she decided to cut through Oxpens Meadow, a park next to the river.
She used to have a friend who she played with during the summer holidays who lived just behind the park. She remembered the shape of the banks, the way the path curved more in some places than other, the bench set back from view, the angel statue that stood watch in the middle of the field. The angel’s hands reached down towards her feet in a cupped position, as if offering something to those below.
Her grandmother had always said she was a guardian angel, but Paige had read the plaque – she was a memorial, a symbol of the fallen soldiers from the Second World War. The plaque read “Lest We Forget”, and every November the angel’s hands were filled with paper poppies.
At that point the front tyre of Tom’s bike began to protest. Struggling to push on with the rapidly deflating tyre, Paige swung down and continued walking, pushing the bike.
A few metres along the path next to the river she heard a sound and stopped, expecting to see a dog come out of the reeds along the riverside. No dog appeared and so she continued, having to push hard on the handlebars as her bike stuttered along the grass.
Another noise and then running footsteps.
She froze as she felt a stranger’s arms enclose her. He was breathing hard in her ear as his forearm hooked her midriff. She quivered as she felt metal caressing her throat.
In a split-second decision, she rammed the bike backwards so that it hit her assailant in the leg. He cried out but kept hold of her, the knife at her neck beginning to make a mark.
With a whimper she made another bid for freedom, butting her hips backwards into his and thrusting her left elbow into his side.
Slightly knocked off balance, perhaps shocked by her retaliation, he responded by grabbing her elbow and pulling her backwards so that she fell to the ground.
The warm grass hit Paige in the back of the head with a jarring thud and she struggled to focus on the scene above her for a moment. She was expecting to feel his hands back on her but looking up she noticed that her attacker had paused.
It was only for a second, but as Paige’s dizzy head refocused, they locked eyes, and she saw the most bewildered look on his face. She had half-expected to recognise him, to understand who he was and why he had pushed a blade against her throat. But, even in the dark, she knew she’d never seen him before.
She couldn’t quite make out his features, except that he had facial hair poking over the top of a snood. His eyes were bright pinpricks in the shadow of his hoodie. He gawked at her for a millisecond longer before turning and running back along the river path and into a waiting van which promptly sped off.
Paige lay shaking against the grass, unable to take her eyes off the spot where the van had just pulled away, as if scared it would return. She willed her body to move, to run, to scream, to cry, but nothing happened. Fear held her there.
The first action she was able to coerce her body into taking was to put her hand up to her throat, and she began to sob as she felt hot, sticky blood coat her fingertips.
She could tell the wound wasn’t deep, but to feel the mark of her attack immediately made it real.
She heard another noise, the catalyst that finally jolted her body into attempting to get up, but the shock and adrenalin pumping through her sent her toppling backwards again.
The noise was a dog walker, running towards her calling, “Oh my- are you okay? Let’s get you up.”
The next thing she knew a hand was helping her up and an overly friendly corgi was jumping at her lower legs.
“What happened?” The dog walker asked, genuine concern in her voice.
“I don’t...” Paige mumbled, removing her blood-smeared hand from her throat and attempting to stand Tom’s bike back up, dropping it once before the dog walker stepped in and stabilised her.
“Let’s find a bench,” the dog walker said, placing a hand on her back and guiding her along the path. Once sat down, she convinced Paige to let her phone the police.
The rest of the evening continued in a blur. The police came. Crime scene photos were taken. Paige’s wound was cleaned and bandaged. Her mother and Tom were phoned.
The police officer took a statement and description from Paige, and despite Tom’s concerned questioning, the police officer shrugged, admitting that they were unlikely to catch the man.
Paige felt numb to their incompetence. She was too busy thinking about the confused look on the man’s face as he threw her to the floor. Did he think I was someone else? Paige thought. He wouldn’t have used a knife if he didn’t intend to take it further... so why did he run away?
After another twenty minutes of paperwork and formalities, she voiced these questions to the police officer who again shrugged and said there wasn’t anything more she could do.
ECKLAND WAS RAPTUROUS in his sympathy when Paige called to explain why she wouldn’t be coming to his house the following day, even going so far as to offer to pay for taxis there and back. Paige assured him she just needed to rest over the weekend and would be back on Monday. She decided that taking the bus would be sensible, at least initially.
Paige was shaken by the incident, but she was determined not to let it stop her from continuing her work with Eckland. The pay was generous and she was enjoying filling her time, even if the older couple had strange quirks.
The following Monday she headed to the bus stop and made her way to The Rectory.
“Paige!” Eckland said, performing her name like an operatic-style scale.
“Good morning, Professor Eckland,” Paige was used to his over the top greetings.
“I am glad to see you looking so well after the awful events the other night...” Eckland trailed off as he beckoned her in and up the stairs.
“I am hoping to put it behind me now.”
“And the police...?” Eckland enquired casually.
“They say they can’t do anything more, but they have put out an appeal for information on their website,” Paige said, sitting down at the desk.
“Oh, that is a shame.” Eckland mumbled, before closing the door.
CHAPTER FIVE
PAIGE WORKED ON THE Taming of the Shrew essay for most of the day, using her laptop to search for academic papers, editing Eckland’s haphazard referencing system and changing typos.
At 5pm, Eckland knocked on the door, barely pausing for a beat before striding in and declaring, “An early dinner, Paige, my dear! We must not allow you to go home so late again.”
Paige was pleased as the thought of going back after sunset again, even on the bus, had been weighing on her mind.
Arlene had prepared a huge beef roast, piles of mashed potatoes, gravy and vegetables as well as homemade Yorkshire puddings. The table was set with the usual red placemats trimmed with golden tassels, somewhat faded and stained with age, but clearly high quality. Paige noticed that this time it was set with four plates instead of three.
“We have company!” Arlene said keenly, gesturing for Paige to sit at the foot of the table.
“A friend of yours?” Paige said earnestly.
“No, Mr. Holmes is far too busy for dinner...” Arlene said, somewhat sadly. Arlene mentioned Conan Doyle’s detective more often than her own husband’s name. Perhaps she had finally broken the barrier between fiction and reality and had begun to lay a place for him at the table. Her reverie distracted her for a moment as she spooned mashed potatoes on her plate mindlessly, creating a mound that a rugby player would struggle to chow through.
Paige waited for her to break through the fog, wondering if it was impolite to ask just who they were expecting. Arlene eventually put the mashed potato back onto the table and turned to Paige, “Our son is comi
ng to dinner,” she beamed, offering the serving dish to her.
Paige realised she had never heard them mention a son, “Does he live nearby?” she asked.
“Um...” Arlene thought, rubbing the edge of the gold tasselled placemats nervously against her hands.
Paige could tell trying to recall the answer was distressing her, so she added, “I look forward to meeting him.”
Arlene brightened again, and said, “He teaches in the history department at the university.”
Paige heard the front door slam, and Eckland finally appeared, having wandered off earlier giving only his usual vague reasons.
“Ah, Paige!” He said, as if he’d forgotten that she was still there, “This is my son, Leo.”
Leo was surprisingly tall given both of his parents’ rather short statures and towered above Eckland as they entered the dining room together.
“Pleasure to meet you,” Leo said, extending his hand to Paige, who shook it awkwardly. Leo was clearly a similar age to Paige, or just a few years older, which Paige thought was odd considering how elderly the Ecklands were – in their late 70s or 80s.
“And you,” she replied.
“Are you a student at the university?” Leo asked, sitting down opposite Paige and helping himself to potatoes.
“No, I...” Paige didn’t really know how to qualify her job to him.
“Paige is my associate,” Eckland said.
“Associate,” Leo parroted back, giving Paige a wry smile. It seemed Leo was aware of his parents’ eccentricity.
“She is organising my papers for publication.”
“That must be... interesting,” Leo said, again with a hint of irony in his voice.
This time it wasn’t lost on Eckland, who loudly declared, “A noble job - he who is not a good servant will not be a good master!”
“Dad, I’m not sure Paige wants to be called your servant,” Leo said, ushering them to all start eating as he placed a Yorkshire pudding on his plate.
“I’m enjoying the work! I’m glad to be using my degree,” Paige said, trying to placate any tension from Eckland’s previous comment.
“What did you do before this?” Leo asked.
“A bit of this and a bit of that,” Paige said, somewhat ashamed to talk about her employment history in front of three university lecturers.
“Jack of all trades, master of none, except you have brains, Paige! And even after the unfortunate incident last week, you push on,” Eckland proclaimed.
“Incident?” Leo queried.
“I was attacked.” Paige said, going bright red as she gestured to the plaster on my neck and the bruises on her wrist.
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Leo said, honest empathy in his voice.
“Thank you. You also look like you’ve been in the wars,” Paige said, pointing to a gash, now healing over, that split the blonde hair on the right side of his head straight down the middle.
“Oh, this is nothing – I hit my head on a door, it’s an embarrassing story,” Leo brushed her comments aside just as he brushed his fingers through the hair on that side of his head, ruffling it so that it fell over the gash.
The rest of the dinner conversation was pleasant – Leo continued to mock his father’s ridiculous turns of phrase and his mother’s half-deluded stories about whichever TV character she was currently spending time with.
At 6, Paige made her excuses to go home, and Leo insisted on walking her up the road to the bus stop. Paige was hesitant, but Leo said he was heading the same way anyway.
“My house is just past the station,” he explained.
“Ah, I wasn’t sure if you were local - your mum couldn’t remember when I asked her,” Paige said, tentative about bringing up such a sensitive topic.
“Her mind isn’t what it used to be,” Leo agreed sadly, “She really is a brilliant scholar, but now she struggles to focus.”
“Was she in English, like your dad?”
“No, languages. She taught Latin, French, German – you name it. Her and dad have travelled the world a hundred times over.”
“Wow, what an amazing life they’ve had,” Paige remarked.
“Absolutely, my sister and I used to say they were like explorers. It made it easier to bear when they went away for weeks at a time when we were little,” He added.
“I can imagine that was hard. Does your sister live in Oxford too?”
“No, uh... she passed away,” Leo said.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”
“You didn’t know, it’s ok,” Leo said, “My parents have never really gotten over it, but they don’t really talk about her now. Dad likes to act as if she didn’t exist. Mum rereads her favourite book a lot – Sherlock Holmes. My sister was obsessed with crime novels as a kid.”
“Me too, I love Agatha Christie and P. D. James.”
Leo nodded, adding, “I’m more of a Stieg Larsson man myself,” they exchanged a warm smile and Leo quietly cleared his throat, “Listen, uh... I was wondering if you might like to get a drink sometime?”
Paige was stunned. Perhaps her recent break up had blinded her to the possibility of anyone else being interested in her, but she hadn’t thought that’s where this was leading.
“Look, Leo...”
“Just one drink,” Leo pushed playfully.
“I’ve just come out of a relationship and... I don’t know...” Paige was floundering now, but she could see that they were nearly at the bus stop.
“Just the one,” He held up his hands, “I promise, no expectations, just two people talking about books. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
“Yes, actually, it does,” Paige admitted.
“Friday night, 7pm in The Punter?”
“Ok,” she said.
“Sounds perfect,” Leo said. They had reached the bus stop. They said their goodbyes and Leo walked away just minutes before the bus arrived. Paige choose a window seat and could just make out his figure walking up the adjacent road.
She noticed got out her phone and opened Facebook to pass the journey.
Someone from school, Jess Evans, had had her baby. The post read, “Aiden Lewis Evans, born 06/06/19, our beautiful baby boy.” Paige rolled her eyes, remembering how 15-year-old Jess had teased Paige for wanting children, swearing she never would.
Another post showed a friend from university getting her Master’s in biology. Paige liked the post but was hit with a pang of jealousy; everyone seemed to be achieving great things, and her life was off the rails.
She scrolled a bit further and noticed a friend of her mother’s had shared a news article. The headline read “UNIVERSITY STUDENT KILLED IN OXPENS MEADOW.”
Heart thumping, she clicked to read the full story: “Ella Gold, 20, was found dead by two runners in Oxpens Meadow in the late evening on Friday 7th June. Her death has been described by the police as a ‘robbery gone wrong’, but her family are calling for further investigation.”
Paige felt sick – that was the night after she had been attacked in the very same park. She closed the tab, fingers shaking so much she could barely type and rang her mum.
CHAPTER SIX
PAIGE COULDN’T HELP but feel on edge after reading about Ella Gold’s death. She couldn’t shake the feeling that her attack and Ella’s were connected, but when she emailed the police officer who had recorded her statement, she simply replied that whilst they occurred in the same location, they couldn’t find a provable link between the two events.
That didn’t stop Paige from worrying. What if he had meant to kill her that night but hadn’t gotten the chance? Was she still in danger?
To her surprise, Tom and her mum were quite calm about the situation, “Lightning doesn’t strike twice, P,” Tom said, “This was a freak event, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Tom’s right, love,” her mum comforted, “You were just unlucky.”
Their nonchalance didn’t make Paige feel any safer, but she decided to
keep taking the bus to and from the Ecklands’ and continue with her life as best she could.
That Friday, Paige walked from the Ecklands’ to The Punter to meet Leo. Tom had agreed to pick her up from the pub after she was finished. It was a quaint little English pub with a fireplace, regulars sat at the bar laughing and sharing stories, and a beer garden in the back. Paige headed to the bar and found Leo already waiting for her with a whiskey in hand.
“What’s your poison?” He asked, getting his wallet out of his back pocket.
“That’s ok, I can get it,” Paige said, and then to the barman, “A pint of bitter, please.”
“I insist, you can get the next round,” Leo said, pushing a £5 note across the bar before Paige could argue.
“Ok, thank you,” she said, a small smile breaking across her lips.
The barman handed Paige her pint and handed Leo his change. “Beer garden?” Leo asked.
“That sounds nice.” Paige said.
The weather was beautiful again and the beer garden had a view of the river which was teeming with houseboats. One large blue houseboat with “Winifred” painted on the outside glided gently by as they sat down. The residents – an elderly couple in sun huts and mid-length shorts – were sat out on the deck, drinking white wine and admiring the view. Another elderly man was driving the boat at the front, waving at other drivers as they passed them. The water was still, except for when a boat passed through, and the sound of the ripples gently splashing against the sides of the boats and the riverbanks set the peaceful backdrop to the beer garden.
“I can understand your hesitance to come out with me,” Leo said, “My parents are a little unorthodox.”
“It honestly wasn’t that at all,” Paige said, “I just moved here from Cardiff to live with my mum. I was living with my boyfriend...” She felt oddly ashamed to talk about the break-up, as if it was somehow her fault that she had ended up living with her mum again.
“Boyfriend? Or ex-boyfriend?” Leo said, with the cheeky smile that he so often sported.
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