In fiction, if people want to hide out, they always move to a small village somewhere. Big mistake. One thing you can count on in a small village is that everyone will want to know your business. If you want anonymity, live in a big city. In a city, you can lose the old you like loose change down a drain. Change your name, change your clothes. Reappear as a different person. If you want to.
I close my laptop. What to do now? TV? A film? Maybe I should actually take Flo’s advice and have a long bath and chill. I’ve done precious little of that since getting here. I make my way up the narrow stairs and push open the bathroom door.
‘Ah.’
Now I remember that Flo has been using the bathroom as a darkroom again. I had to move some of the equipment when I nipped up to use the loo before dinner. She’s cleared some of it away, but that has really just involved dumping it in the bath. There are also two stacks of photos piled on top of the loo.
I pick up the first stack. These are the ones she took of the chapel and the graveyard. No sign of the burning girl. I place them to one side and reach for the second stack. My heart tumbles down the hill.
The first photo shows a derelict-looking building. The empty windows gaze out darkly, the roof is pitted with holes. You can tell, just from the pictures, this is a bad place. When did Flo take these? It must have been when she said that she and Wrigley were in the woods.
I start to work my way through the photos, from the exterior of the house to some obviously taken inside. I stare at the ruined rooms, the smashed-up furniture. Walls covered with graffiti. Pagan symbols. Evil eyes. Signs of Satanic worship.
I sit down heavily on the closed loo seat. What was Flo thinking, creeping around some deserted old building? I know what teenagers are like, but still, I’m angry. With Flo. With myself. I brought her here. This is on me too.
I flick through the rest of the photos. About halfway through, it looks like the negatives must have been exposed to the light. The photos are partially bleached out. The final picture is almost abstract. I can tell it has been taken from inside, looking out of an upstairs window. The woods are a dark ink blot. The fields a grey mass. At the edge is a slightly more distinct white streak. I squint at it. Something unfurls in my stomach.
I take the photo into my bedroom and grab my glasses from the bedside table. I slip them on and peer at it more closely. Not a trick of the light. A figure, standing between the woods and the house’s boundary wall. Almost spectral. But this figure isn’t a ghost. This person is very much alive.
And I know them.
FORTY-SEVEN
The sky is tracing-paper grey. It won’t get dark for another couple of hours. But the forest is already in night-time mode. The trees’ overhanging branches block out the light like a large leafy blanket. Flo flicks on the iPhone’s torch as she walks along the narrow path and wonders again just how sensible – or stupid – this is.
Of course, she tries to tell herself, she was probably in far more danger walking through Nottingham city centre than she is walking through the woods here. Potential rapists, murderers or muggers were more likely to be found in bustling metropolitan streets than in a field in the middle of nowhere, and yet, still … just because a place is pretty and quaint doesn’t mean that bad stuff doesn’t happen.
She thinks about the man at the window. Could he still be around, somewhere? No. He was probably just some chancer, checking for empty houses and unlocked doors, on the lookout for something to steal. And the picture? She had left it in the graveyard eventually, telling herself it was just a freaky coincidence. A vague similarity. Her mind was making too much of it. This bloody place was making everything seem weird and creepy.
She reaches the wooden bridge over the small stream, crosses it and is halfway over the stile when she pauses. She thought she heard something. Movement ahead. More rustling. A deer bursts out of the undergrowth and stops, startled.
‘Hey there.’
The deer stares at her with wide, glowing eyes and then, with flick of its tail, it’s off, bounding away through the fields. She waits and, sure enough, another three or four follow, fast, light hooves barely touching the ground.
She wonders what’s scared them. And then realizes it’s probably her. Sometimes you’re the predator. Sometimes the prey. Just depends on the perspective.
She hitches her other leg over the stile and looks around. The fields appear deserted, but she gets the feeling she’s not alone. Animals hide in the undergrowth. Hidden eyes peer from the leafy trees.
She shivers a little, wishing she’d worn her hoodie now, and traipses through the long grass towards the old house. The empty windows glower darkly. Except, in one upstairs window, lights flicker. She picks up her pace, jumping over the broken-down wall, holding out her phone to illuminate the old well, and skirting around it. She jogs up the stairs and reaches the master bedroom.
‘Wrigley?’
Through the half-open door she can see flames flickering off the walls. Oh God. Surely he hasn’t?
She bursts into the bedroom … and then she stops.
An array of candles has been arranged around the room. Wedged into old bottles and cans. Wrigley sits on a blanket spread out on the dirty floor. He’s laid out crisps, chocolate, a bottle of wine and two plastic cups.
He spreads his arms wide and she can sense the effort he is making in controlling the shaking.
‘Welcome!’
‘Wow! What romantic teen shit have you been watching?’
‘Glad to see you’re impressed.’
‘I am. It’s just –’
‘Too much?’
‘A bit.’
‘Right.’
He lowers his head.
She says hastily: ‘But I like it. I mean, no one has ever burnt a house down for me –’ She catches herself. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean –’
‘I know.’
She plonks herself down next to him. ‘So, are you going to pour me a drink?’
He tips some wine into one of the plastic cups and hands it to her.
She takes a swig. It’s bitter and warm, but she feels a slow heat spread through her. She takes another swig.
‘Don’t go mad.’
She wipes her mouth. ‘I’m fine.’
He pours a cup and takes a smaller sip himself. He pulls a face. ‘Not sure why people drink this stuff.’
‘To get drunk, usually.’
He smiles. ‘Yeah.’ The silver flecks in his eyes glint. He tips his cup up again, but a spasm jerks his hand, spilling wine down his chin and hoodie.
‘Shit!’ He wipes at it with his sleeve. ‘Fucking spasms. What a joke.’
‘Hey, it’s okay.’
‘No. It’s not. I wanted this to be right, and –’
She leans forward and presses her lips to his. He tastes of salt and sour wine. He hesitates and then he kisses her back hungrily, wrapping a hand around her neck, catching her hair. And this is different to before, in the bathroom. Or with other boys at parties, where it was all vodka and beer and spit. This feels real and urgent and, for the first time, she feels something other than a mild revulsion. Desire.
She lets him push her down on the blanket and, fleetingly, she thinks that her mum would kill her and are they going to go all the way, and did he have any protection? His hands run over her breasts, pushing up her vest top. She reaches down to fumble with his jeans. And then she hears a noise from downstairs. She sits up and pushes him away.