Frankie nods solemnly. There is a hole in his jacket where the pellet hit, no bigger than a penny. He winces when he touches it.
‘I’m calling the police.’
‘Stella. I know this kid. He’s not dangerous.’
‘I don’t mean to state the obvious, but he’s just shot you.’
There is a bike lying in the grass a metre or so away. Mickey must have cycled all the way up here in the inky twilight, all the way down those dark, leafy lanes. Why?
‘I’m not trying to hurt no one. Someone asked me to come up and give you this. They gave me twenty quid and told me to leave it on the door.’
He holds out an envelope, small and white. There is no writing on it.
‘I hid in your garden but then you got out the van and I ran for it. I didn’t mean to hit you, Frankie, I’m so sorry.’
His voice is becoming tarry and thick. He is about to cry. Good, I think. Good. Cry, you little shit. His eyes switch between Frankie and me, pleading.
‘An air rifle though? Why are you even carrying that thing?’
‘Mrs Dalton told me to. She said it was dangerous to be here. That I should protect myself.’
‘From me?’ I’m shocked.
‘No, from the other fella. Marco Nilsen. She said if he caught me he’d kill me.’
There is something here. A thickening as of strangers pressing close together, a feeling of feverish anticipation. It is almost tangible, like the smell of cordite or blood in the air, heavy and slow-moving.
I take the envelope from Mickey Tallack and tell him to go home.
‘Tell your friend Mrs Dalton to expect a visit from me very soon,’ I add as he climbs onto his bike. ‘Tell her I don’t like playing these sorts of stupid games.’
Inside the cottage it is cold, almost dank, and there is a smell like the water at the bottom of a ditch. The pendant light which hangs over the dining table is a glass globe in a delicate shade of rose-pink. As we walk into the room the light stutters once, twice. I can hear the bulb fizzing. In the hallway the telephone pings as though a storm is approaching.
Frankie takes off his top, inspecting his shoulder. There will be a bruise, he says, but there’s no blood. I turn the envelope over between shaking fingers.
‘It’s cold in here. Is there a window open?’
I shake my head. He is right, it is cold, dank and heavy like the chill of a cave.
‘I can smell the sea.’ Frankie walks to the back door and moves his hand over the frame. ‘No, more than that. It’s like the water at the bottom of a vase of old flowers. Something rotting.’
I move to the table. ‘I found a stone in my bed on my first night. Only small. A small speckled stone, still wet. Sometimes I find others, balanced on things. I see things out of the corner of my eye, just shadows, really. But there have been moments when those shadows have looked like figures, and faces.’
Frankie looks across the room at me, frowning. ‘Look. Whatever is happening here, it isn’t Mickey Tallack. He’s a good kid. Well – generally a good kid. He’s young and dumb and his family are – uh – feckless, I suppose is the word. Sounds to me like he just found a way to make some money. But he hasn’t been breaking into your house, I’d put money on it.’
I cross the room and open the back door. The night air is sharp. I feel as though it could blow me away like powder.
‘Who is Mrs Dalton?’ I ask, and just as quickly I remember. ‘It’s Penelope, isn’t it? Penelope Dalton. She lives in the house in town, the one with all the chickens. She’s been funny with me since I first saw her. Her mother-in-law has dementia, and I suppose she’s unhappy. It can’t be much of a life, waiting for someone to remember you.’
‘I know her.’ He chooses his words with care. ‘She’s eccentric, lonely. But not malicious. I’m certain this is a misunderstanding.’
I open the envelope carefully with a strange impending feeling. Not a letter, as I had first thought, but a page, lined and torn from an exercise book. The paper has a soft quality as though it has been folded and refolded over a long time. At the top, underlined:
Ellie
The writing is rounded, the dot over the ‘i’ a big comic love heart. It is girly and charming and at the same time so insufferably babyish it makes my teeth itch.
‘What is it?’ Frankie asks. I pass it to him.
‘Nothing. Numbers – phone numbers, by the looks of it. Don’t recognise any of them.’
However, a dread is forming in me, a vault of ice melting to reveal a terrible knowledge, fossilised. Something seismic, shifting. Frankie stares at the paper, smoothing his fingertips over the words. He is reading aloud.
‘“Mum and Dad”, “Laura” – who are these people? “Marcella”, “Claudia”? Do these names mean anything to you?’
I fill the kettle, trembling slightly. It is full dark out there now.
‘No. It’s just numbers,’ I repeat. ‘It doesn’t mean anything.’
‘Okay,’ Frankie says, passing it back to me. ‘Why don’t we call one?’
‘Are you mad?’ I laugh, but Frankie isn’t joking. He has taken a packet of frozen peas from the freezer – years old, by the looks of things – and wrapped them in a tea towel before pressing them to the welt on his shoulder. It is a livid red.
‘Call one, find out. Tell them who you are, ask if there is a reason you’ve been given their numbers. If not, then’ – he shrugs – ‘at least we know that Penny is just losing it.’
‘Okay,’ I say more quietly, looking at the numbers in that childish hand. The network of creases remind me of writing Mr Kennecker’s number in tiny digits and slipping it into my bra so Marco wouldn’t see. Hiding it. There is something there, isn’t there? Something about to drop into place like the spring on a mousetrap swiftly closing or mental locks tumbling.
‘Which one? I’m not calling “Mum and Dad” – I have a nasty feeling about this and I don’t want to upset them.’
‘Call Claudia. See the way her name’s been written there? It’s bigger than all the others, plus there’s a landline and a mobile. Call her and just ask.’
‘She’s going to think I’m a nutcase,’ I say, dialling. After a few rings I get a recorded message thanking me for calling Blades hairdressers in Falmouth, would I like to leave a message? Relieved, I hang up.
‘Well, that’s that.’
‘Call her mobile.’
Frankie is leaning forward. He has such a clarity about him; his warmth, his weight, the smell of him, like something solid and resinous.
I dial the mobile with shaking fingers and when Claudia picks up she sounds annoyed. I think I can hear a TV in the background. I’d been told when making cold calls that you need to say something of interest in the first five seconds so they don’t hang up. Once they hang up, you’ve lost them.
‘Claudia, my name is Stella and I have been given your number by someone who knew Ellie. Why do you think that is?’
I can almost hear the frown in her voice. ‘Sorry, what? Who is this?’
‘My name is Stella. I’ve been given your number by someone who knows Ellie.’