by S. J. Watson
Dedication
For Anna, Archie, Neil, and Olivia
and
in memory of Anzel Britz (1979–2020)
Epigraph
My life closed twice before its close—
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me
—Emily Dickinson
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Then
Prologue
Now
Then
Now
Then
Now
Then
Now
Then
Now
Then
Now
Then
Now
Then
Now
Then
Now
Then
Now
Then
Now
Tomorrow
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
About the Author
Also by SJ Watson
Copyright
About the Publisher
Then
Prologue
She runs across the moor, as hard and as fast as she can. The sliver of an old moon hangs above her and, somewhere far behind, the village lights shine anemic yellow. But she keeps her eyes fixed forward. She sees nothing but the road ahead and hears only the wheeze of her dry breath and the cawing of the gulls as they swoop and dive. There are no sounds of pursuit, no shouting, no howling of dogs. She is safe, she thinks. She can calm down, stop running and walk. It’s over.
But still she runs. She pushes herself harder, her limbs wheel, momentum carries her until she is on the edge of tumbling like a marionette, wires snipped, head over heels. A car flashes past on the horizon, and then it happens. Her body goes numb, as if she’s fallen into cotton wool. Her arms and legs circle in front of her but they look alien, they’re moving independently, she has no control. It’s like looking through the wrong end of a telescope.
She tries to draw breath, to blink herself back to reality, but it’s too late. Her body has rebelled. When she tries to stop running she finds she can’t.
Her foot hits something then. It registers only as an abstract pain, dull, like the dentist’s drill after the needle, but still she trips in slow motion as if falling through sludge. Her hands fly forward and she hits the cold ground, squeezing the breath from her lungs like air from a paper bag.
She lies still. She could rest, she thinks; forever, if need be. She sees herself as if from a distance, as if she’s in a documentary. She’s lying there in the dark, her eyes open, her lips blue. They’ll find her in the morning, frozen. It wouldn’t be so bad.
But no. She won’t die here, not like this. Energy rushes in, a shot of adrenaline, and she gets clumsily to her feet. She walks, putting one foot carefully in front of the other, over and over, until finally she reaches the junction. Her eyes dart. She shakes, though she doesn’t feel fear. She doesn’t feel anything. She puts her rucksack at her feet then holds out her hand, thumb up.
It’s early morning and the road isn’t busy. Cars pass infrequently, but eventually one stops. The driver winds down the window. It’s a man, of course, but beggars can’t be choosers.
“Where to, love?” he says, but she doesn’t know how to answer him, she hasn’t thought that far ahead. She imagines Bluff House; it’s as if it’s right in front of her, silhouetted against the pale sky, huge and looming with a solitary light shining in an upstairs room. She can never go back.
“Love?”
She shakes her head; she knows where she wants to end up, but not how to get there, and she has to choose somewhere before he drives off.
“Anywhere,” she says, before opening the door and climbing in. “Anywhere. Just . . . away.”
1
Evening Standard, 14 March 2011
News in brief
Mystery girl found on Deal beach
Oliver Johnson | No comments
Authorities are baffled by a mystery girl who was taken to the hospital last week after being found unconscious on the beach in Deal, Kent, by a passerby.
The teenager, who carried no identification but is believed to be around 15–18 years of age, was soaking wet and was admitted to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital in Margate, where she was found to be suffering from hypothermia. On regaining consciousness, she was unable to tell doctors her name, where she lives, or where she was born, and claims to have no knowledge of how she came to be in the seaside town.
She was described as extremely anxious, terrified of any new face, and reluctant to talk. Doctors have found no sign of injury and the police report notes that there is nothing to suggest foul play.
She remains in the hospital while doctors decide whether she requires any further treatment. The police are thought to be considering a public appeal for information if her condition does not improve.
She is described as 5 feet 7 inches tall and overweight, with shoulder-length brown hair. She was wearing a black jacket, a white vest, and blue jeans when found.
Now
2
I mustn’t fall asleep. I know that, it’s obvious. You hear the stories. People get trapped and eventually stop trying to escape. They succumb to exhaustion and close their eyes. The body shuts down. They die.
But what do I do to stay awake? That’s the question that spins in my head and won’t go away.
I’d just crested the hill when it happened. The dead thing lay in the road, leached of color and completely still, and even as I registered its presence I knew I had no chance of avoiding it. It was too late to do anything but slam my foot on the brake and hope for the best.
The car began to skid. I saw myself as an observer might, someone filming the incident for posterity. I wondered if I’d get out of this alive. I imagined the vehicle turning slowly in a balletic curve before plowing into a low stone wall with a sickening crunch. I saw the bonnet concertina, then a moment of perfect stillness and utter quiet before a fireball lights the scene from within.
I start to burn. My red flesh is eaten up by the inferno before a cool, sweet blackness washes over me. I know that when they find my body it’ll be twisted, unrecognizable. They’ll have to work out who I am from some clue—dental records perhaps, the chassis number of the car—but even then they’ll wonder who to tell. There’s no one, not really. A flatmate I barely know. An ex-boyfriend who I doubt would really care.
And Dan, I suppose, though his interest will be purely professional. If the papers pick up the story, he’ll tell them it’s such a shame. A real tragedy. A promising career, wonderful to work with, her next film was shaping up to be really something, taken from us too young. Blah, blah, blah.
Something like that, anyway. They’ll write it down and stick it on page seven, as long as nothing more interesting comes along. No better than I deserve.
But it didn’t happen like that, of course. The car turned through a quarter circle and lurched violently into a shallow ditch bordering the road. The seatbelt bit into my shoulder and the dashboard jerked toward me, then my teeth crunched painfully together as my head struck the steering wheel. Everything outside went black and for a second or two I heard a curious, high-pitched tinnitus. When I opened my eyes I saw double. Shit, I thought, the last thing I need is a concussion.
But a moment later everything cleared and I pulled myself together. The lights were dead, and though the engine started after a while, it was with an odd, grinding noise, accompanied by the caustic stench of burning rubber. The wheels spun.
I gave up and let the motor die. Silence rushed in; the moor swallowed me whole. The car’s in
terior was cramped and airless and I had to force myself to breathe.
Why here? The nearest town is miles back; the next, the one I’m heading for, miles ahead. I’ve seen no other traffic for half an hour at least and one thing I do know is there’ll be no phone signal.
I tried to look on the bright side. I was uninjured. Winded, but alive. My knuckles bled to white as I gripped the wheel; my skin burned with cold. I had to do something. I couldn’t walk all the way, but neither could I sit there forever. And whatever it was that had sent me spinning off the road was still out there.
My camera was on the passenger seat and I reached for it instinctively; I’m here to make a film, after all. I braced myself, then opened the door. The air outside was rotten, heavy with decay. My stomach roiled but I swallowed it down. I’ve smelled worse, after all, or at least as bad. Back when I made my first film, for example. Black Winter. Out there on the street I slept in garbage, lived amid the stink of rancid food, of open wounds and festering abscesses, of clothes that’d been worn so long they were fused with the putrefying flesh they were supposed to protect. Next to that this was nothing, just a dead animal bleeding into the pale snow.
Still, I wasted no time. I set the camera recording and began to film. It calmed me instantly. I had a purpose now. A curious detachment set in, one I’m used to, one that I first noticed when I lived with the girls on the street, shooting them for Black Winter. I become passive and invisible. I can zoom in and out, reframe as necessary, but my decisions are artistic, creative. I’m only recording, not part of the story. I’m not even there.
It was a sheep, its fleece matted and filthy. Something dark and gelatinous—blood, it must be, though in the dismal light it looked like oil—stained its upper quarter. I crouched down to frame it with the thin blade of the horizon in the background, the stars above. From this angle I could see its neck was twisted, the face blackened. Its torn lips spilled a bloody pink onto the ice; the eyes were glossy marbles. I began to shiver as I panned down the creature’s lower body to the source of the fuliginous stench: a gash in its side, from which its innards oozed, dark and steaming. It must have been dead when I hit it, but dimly I wondered whether it was me who split it open, me who visited upon it this final, horrific indignity.
I carried on filming, but my defenses were cracking. I was back in the middle of it all. My car was wrecked, the road iced over, and I knew soon the route might become impassable. My hands were numbed, my ears too, and I was standing over a body, a dead thing, bleeding, disgusting. Alone. I switched off my camera. I needed help, I thought, but who could I turn to?
I didn’t think. I left my luggage in the car. It was much tougher going than it looked. The snow wasn’t deep, but beneath the new fall it’d already frozen hard, and by the time I’d gone just a few yards I’d almost fallen twice.
“Shit,” I muttered under my breath, then a second later my ankle twisted beneath me, liquid pain shot up my leg, and I stumbled once more, this time landing in the wet snow. I knew straightaway that nothing was broken, but I also knew that I was defeated. I was going to have to wait it out. I hobbled back to the car.
That was an hour ago, maybe two. It’s hard to tell. The temperature has dropped farther; my breath mists the air then disappears. The car seems to be shrinking, hemming me in, but it’s too cold to open the window. I look up at the stars. I search for Betelgeuse, the belt of Orion, fiery Venus. I make promises. Let me get out of here and I’ll turn around and go straight back to London. Screw the channel, screw Dan, screw the film.
But I’ve no idea with whom I’m bargaining. Not God. Even if he exists, he gave up on me years ago. And in any case, there’s no reply, just the empty, spectral howl of the wind over the moor. The snow falls silently, no longer even melting on the windshield. My teeth begin to chatter. A car appears in the rearview mirror, but it doesn’t stop; I probably imagined it. I wonder how I’ll look when they find me. My lips frozen, ice in my hair, my face covered with frozen snot, but still hugging my camera like it’s the only thing that matters. She died for her art, they’ll say. Ha ha ha. My head tips forward as I begin the slide into the dark, into the soft, black nothing.
I catch myself in time. No, I tell myself. I didn’t make it through what I made it through, didn’t achieve what I’ve achieved, to die here. And in any case, this isn’t a war zone, or even the wilds of Alaska, where it’s forty below. This is the north of England. Not far from here, there’ll be teenagers queuing outside nightclubs, the girls wearing not much more than their makeup, a short skirt, heels, and a crop-top. The boys will be luckier, in T-shirts and jeans, but not much. I can see them, might have even been with them once, shivering not with the cold but with the anticipation of the night ahead. Eager for a drink and to dance, for the laughter and the lights, for the sickly sweet smell of dry ice and warm flesh pressed in tight. Cigarettes, vodka. Pills and powder.
No. I’m not going to freeze to death. I just have to stay awake, that’s all. I dig my nails into my palms, so hard I think I might draw blood, and then, in the rearview mirror, I see the light.
At first I think it’s my imagination again, but when I twist round to look over my shoulder I see I was right. There are headlights shining over the hill. Salvation. For a second I wonder if my bargaining worked, but as the vehicle itself appears I tell myself to drop the crap. It’s coincidence, nothing more.
The car approaches cautiously on the treacherous road and doesn’t slow. Almost too late I realize my own vehicle is in darkness, half off the road and easily missed. I have to move. I have to get out. It would be ironic if whoever’s driving were to have an accident, too, end up skidding along the same path, winding up in the same ditch. I need to flag it down.
I pick up my phone from the dash and get the door open. The cold brings with it a surge of energy and I manage not to stumble. I wave the phone’s lit screen as I shout, and this time I’m in luck. The car slows to a halt, then a tall figure steps out. I think instantly of the women I’d filmed on the streets, the strange vehicles pulling up in the gloom, mysterious figures inside who may or may not want to hurt you.
Well, I think as he approaches, let him try. “You okay there?”
His voice is muffled by the wind, but friendly. Though I can’t yet make out his face, my shoulders sag with relief.
“I just . . . not exactly.” My teeth chatter and I nod toward my stricken car. “Can you give me a hand?”
He steps forward and into the beam from his own headlights. “Broken down?”
He’s about thirty, I guess, and tall—very tall, definitely six foot plus—and rangy. He wears square, thick-framed glasses and his face is long, his features angular. Though warm, his smile seems somehow wary. He has the same build as Aidan—my friend from back then, from before—but also the same awkwardness. I remember how Aidan made me laugh and begin to relax. He seems innocent enough, though I know as much as anyone how deceptive looks can be. Those first few months in London taught me that, if nothing else.
“I came off the road,” I say. “There’s a sheep . . .”
He glances past me to where the creature lies in the middle of the road, a black shape on the ice just visible in the gloom.
“You hit it?”
I look back. The head lies angled toward us. Staring. Accusing. You did this, it says.
“No. It was already dead. I didn’t see it.”
Does he believe me? I can’t tell, but either way he holds out his hand.
“You want me to help?” he says. “I’m Gavin.”
3
It takes me a moment to place the name. Gavin. My assistant, Jess, had been looking for someone local to put up flyers for a meeting at the village hall to get the project up and running, and he ran the film club there and offered to help. We have a shared interest, at least.
“Alex.”
No sign of recognition; perhaps Jess didn’t mention my name.
“I suppose I’d better take a look. At the . . .”
He motions toward the dead sheep, seemingly reluctant to name it.
“Thanks.”
We approach together and, torch in hand, he crouches at the pitiful creature.
“Something hit it hard,” he says, his face twitching with discomfort. “It’d have been quick.”
I look down at the beast. A pool of blood spreads blackly from its hindquarters, staining the snow.
“We can’t leave it here.”
His head falls. “Suppose not.” He sighs. We kneel side by side and each grab two legs, then, together, we begin to pull. The thing is heavy but slides relatively easily over the ice. The viscera smudge the snow and a cloud of stink erupts. I hold my breath and glance at a grim-faced Gavin, who’s doing the same, but after a moment it’s done. We heave the body into the ditch.
“Right,” he says, standing up. “How’s your car?”
I step back over the creature’s smeared remains. I wonder what he thinks of me. That I’m helpless, just waiting to be rescued, clueless about the car to which I’ve entrusted my safety? I watch his face but can read none of that there. Only a willingness to help.
“Screwed, I think. I just need to ring the breakdown service. As soon as I get a signal. I’ll be fine.”
He shakes his head. “Look, I know a guy who’ll help.”
“He can fix it?”
“Or tow it. He’s got a Range Rover.”
A Range Rover? I think of the vehicle I thought I saw earlier. I could see nothing in the glare of the headlights: the driver was invisible and I couldn’t even tell what make of car it was. Something big, some kind of four-wheeler.
“He wasn’t here?” I say. “Your friend? About half an hour ago?”
Gavin laughs. “No. I just left him. Why?”
“There was another car,” I say. “It looked as though it was going to pull up, but then it drove off.”
“You’re sure?”