Chapter 1
Bridge Winterman, of course, blamed the weather on her husband. But then, they had been so used to fighting that he was in pole position to be held responsible for everything that went wrong, and she knew that he afforded her the same negative importance in his life. When she took a breath, and with it inhaled some sense, she did concede that Luke was probably less at fault than the idiot meteorologists who had failed to forecast the whole country would be plunged into a nuclear winter. How could they do that in this day and age with all the highfalutin technology at their disposal? Then again, in 1987, two years after she’d been born, one particular well-known weatherman had assured the British public that the rumour of a hurricane heading towards the UK was utter nonsense. A few hours later, the worst storm in three centuries began to batter the southern half of the country and more or less decimated it, so this wasn’t exactly a one-off situation.
Bridge cut out peripheral thoughts of infamous weathermen and Luke to concentrate on driving. All she could see through the windscreen was a sheet of white and those snowflakes flying towards her were starting to have a hypnotic effect on her. But stopping wasn’t an option, not when she was only five miles from her destination.
She’d suggested the meeting should take place at a country house hotel, near enough to the A1 but at the same time off the beaten track. She wasn’t sure if she’d picked the venue because it was grand enough to be a suitable place to begin the end of their divorce proceedings, or because of its awkward-to-get-to location. Either way, Bridge would be coming home from the Borders after spending three days viewing derelict properties for sale, Luke was at a convention on the east coast, and the hotel would be equidistant between them on the 23rd, the planets perfectly aligned for once in their busy schedules. The meeting would be brief, five minutes tops; just enough time for them each to sign a piece of paper, then swap them over to return to their respective solicitors. Then Bridge could go back to Derby and Luke could head home over the Pennines and they could both enjoy a merry Christmas. Job done.
The ‘negotiations’ to end their marriage cleanly had not gone smoothly so far. For almost five years they had spat and fought with each other to exit their union, raged over the phone, pinged off both frosty and heated emails full of recriminations, demanded statements, information, accounts, reports. At least neither of them was stupid enough to have employed solicitors to do the bulk of the battling for them or they would have been bankrupt long ago. But handling it all personally had long since taken its toll and now they were burnt out with it. The letters of intent had been Luke’s idea. ‘Look, Bridge, you have Ben in your life now and I have Carmen so let’s just end this for their sakes as well as ours and move on,’ he’d said in an email. ‘Get your solicitor to draft something to the effect that you agree to a no-fault divorce and then sign it. I’ll get my solicitor to do the same for me and then we’ll exchange them. If it makes you feel more secure, we’ll do it face to face so there’s no room for any more nonsense.’
She’d said yes. Even though she didn’t want to see him. And also, she did.
‘What the f—?’ She curbed the expletive as her eye took a screen grab of the satnav, which was now saying she had sixteen miles to travel; how the hell could it have shot up from reporting five after her car had barely crawled a hundred yards? There was absolutely no way that Bridge could go another sixteen miles in this, and five wasn’t looking good either. It appeared as if a god were emptying giant boxes of Persil over the earth. She was a competent driver but there was a breeze of anxiety blowing into her confidence now, making it flap as surely as the sign at the side of the road in the near distance was doing.
‘Hey, Siri,’ she said to her phone.
‘What’s up?’ Siri answered.
‘Where the buggery bollocks am I?’
Siri’s answer, to her surprise, was not, In the middle of nowhere, love. Two hours away from dying of hypothermia, so that’ll teach you for not driving a sensible car, but a reasoned and encouraging, ‘You are on the A7501, south-west of Whitby.’
‘Where’s the nearest town?’
‘I couldn’t find any matching places.’
‘Where’s the nearest village?’
‘I couldn’t find any matching places.’
Bridge growled impatiently. ‘Siri, I know you’re a thing that lives in a phone but help me out here. Where’s the nearest farm, stable, shelter…’
‘The closest one I see is Figgy Hollow in two miles to your left.’
Well that’s more like it, thought Bridge, drawing level with the flapping sign and making out the words ‘Figgy Hollow’ and a left-pointing arrow backing up what Siri said. She would be stupid if she didn’t go there and stay put until this infernal snow cleared, even if Figgy Hollow was one of those places inhabited by strange country folk who bred werewolves and married close relatives. There was bound to be a church and, in the absence of a hotel or a pub or something, she’d throw herself upon its mercy like Esmeralda seeking sanctuary in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
‘Make a U-turn where—’
‘Oh shut up, you annoying unreliable tart,’ Bridge spoke over the satnav voice as she swung a left. She had lost all confidence in her after getting the mileage wrong. ‘I’m ignoring you in favour of Siri so save your breath.’
The road was narrow, deserted; she kept crawling forwards until she was rewarded by the sight of buildings, which drew a weary sigh of relief from her: a small church, some cottages, the roofs thickly iced with snow and – deep joy – the Figgy Hollow Inn. She projected herself forwards in time ten minutes, sitting in front of a log fire defrosting the outside of her while a large brandy warmed up her insides.
The ignition on her Porsche cut out as soon as she braked near the ‘car park’ sign; it might as well have held up a limp hand and said, ‘No more, I need to rest.’ It was like a racehorse of the car world, lovely to look at, fine on a familiar course but throw in some hardship and it became a proper wet blanket. Bridge slipped on her suit jacket, opened the car door, trading the cosy warmth for a blast of Arctic wind and hurried across to the front door of the inn, only to find that it was locked. Oh, bloody marvellous, she said to herself, noticing that in the window stood a square of cardboard with the words, ‘Open for pre-booked reservations only. Christmas Day fully booked’ written on it. But one thing was for sure, she couldn’t sit here for two days waiting for someone to open up.
She peered in the window, hoping to see a cleaner vacuuming around or a barman polishing tables, but there was no one. She rapped on the glass in a vain attempt to summon somebody who might be hidden out of view – a cellarman perhaps, having a crafty indoor cigarette. No response. She banged hard on the door with the side of her fist. Still nothing. Pulling her jacket tight around her she stepped, but mostly slid, in her snow-unfriendly Jimmy Choo boots around the side of the building, almost falling over a large iron ring attached to a cellar access door in the ground, hidden by snow. She bent and pulled it, but it was firmly secured from the inside. There was a shed full of logs opposite and at the back of the property she found another door with an iron grille over it and a long, narrow window to its right. She tapped as hard as she dared on the glass, hoping against hope that someone was lurking in the back half of the building, but really she knew she was on the road to nowhere with all her efforts; the place felt empty as well as looked it.