Less than a mile along the way, Mary could see there was a problem in the shape of a rockfall ahead. The weight of snow on the hillside must have dislodged stones and boulders at the inconvenient point where the road narrowed to a single track. There was no way around the obstruction, she could tell that even from a long distance away. Jack’s attention was dragged to the scene framed by the windscreen when he felt the car slowing.
‘Oh, please tell me this isn’t happening,’ he said.
‘I’ll have to turn back,’ said Mary, stating the obvious. What else could they do? The road was completely blocked.
‘Goodness, the snow really is bad isn’t it,’ said Jack. He’d raised his head at various points and glanced at the weather but his mind was more on the presentation to Chikafuji; now he was seeing the white-out. ‘I think it would be sensible to pull in at the first place we can, Mary.’
Mary did another about-turn and headed for Tynehall yet again, even though they had no chance of making it that far. There had to be somewhere nearby. They were in Yorkshire, not an Arctic tundra, even if it did look like it. Then, in the midst of all the white in front of her, she spotted a wooden arrow-shaped sign coming up on the left, pointing across to a turning that wasn’t showing up on the satnav, with crude black lettering: Figgy Hollow 3/4 mile. She couldn’t remember seeing it on either of the two times she’d passed this spot before, but she hadn’t been looking for shelter then.
She hadn’t a clue what Figgy Hollow was: a local beauty spot, a farm; a hamlet with a welcoming hotel and a cosy log fire, she hoped, but in case there was nothing else around for miles, she took the risk and swung a right. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Another gem from her father’s book of sayings.
Chapter 3
Luke Palfreyman wished he was travelling in his trusty four-by-four instead of his boy-toy vintage DB5 Aston Martin, which didn’t perform at its best in snow, especially super-freak snow like this, which seemed to be heralding the birth of a new Ice Age. He, alas, was no James Bond, so the car didn’t suddenly project wings – or better still skis – to get him smoothly to his destination; instead he was stuck with driving it manually and praying it got him safely to where he needed to be. He’d spent the last couple of years trying to acquire the art of being reasonable and sensible – give or take buying a 1960s dream car – only to agree to head for a place in the arse end of nowhere just because his wife clicked her fingers. Or soon to be ex-wife, to give her the proper title. It wouldn’t be beyond credibility that Bridge had engineered this weather to inconvenience him further. Few things had ever run well for him where she was concerned; she was a walking jinx, quite the opposite to his present fiancée. Everything was so easy with Carmen, everything flowed, like a peaceful river, whereas Bridge was a whirlpool full of piranhas.
He could have replied to Bridge’s shouty text (STOP PRESS, DIVERT TO FIGGY HOLLOW INN. OFF THE A7501, SW OF WHITBY. ASK SIRI IF SATNAV CAN’T FIND IT) that they do this at another time, i.e. one less treacherous and more sensible, but he knew it meant a lot to Carmen to start off the new year with things moving forwards out of what had felt like an eternal impasse. As Bridge had foreseen, his TomTom hadn’t recognised the name Figgy Hollow, which was just plain weird and if Siri hadn’t helped him out, he would have put his substantial personal fortune on all this being Bridge playing more stupid games. She always could get under his skin more than anyone else ever could; like a sharp, thin splinter that managed to wiggle far enough in so that using tweezers to hoick it out was ineffectual and a serious incision was needed. He could feel his default setting these days of cool slipping by the second and, despite himself, he laughed aloud. There really was no one like Bridge on the planet. He looked up at the thick grey clouds through the windscreen, expecting to find her on a broomstick circling above like a malicious crow.
The snow had come from nowhere, impossible as that might have seemed in this day and age; yet it had happened. Luke had been half an hour into his journey when it started, drops of sleet falling onto his windscreen, smudging his vision. Within five minutes they’d turned to snow, within ten that snow was settling on the country’s grid of ungritted roads. He’d presumed, like everyone else had, it was only a few flurries that would quickly melt away, but those flakes kept on dropping, thicker and heavier and the traffic got slower and slower. It would have been the only sensible thing to do to rearrange the meeting, but he had to get this divorce properly underway. He didn’t want to go into a new year with this hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles, not when he planned to be remarried by late summer. He needed to pack up his old life with the old year and he had to see Bridge in person in order to do that and on both counts he was determined that nothing would stop him. Nothing.
* * *
Bridge lifted her glass to the optic, pressed upwards and stood until a double brandy had been delivered. There was definitely no one in the inn, she’d shouted loud ‘hello hello’s up the stairs and into the area behind the bar. She’d even stood at the top of the cellar steps and shouted down into the black silence and not even an echo of her voice had come back at her.
Someone must have been there recently though because the bar area was spick and span, the tabletops were gleaming and a faint smell of polish still hung in the air. There was an enormous fireplace, logs banked up on it ready to light, for the Christmas Day diners, no doubt. A large Christmas tree occupied one far corner of the room, thick green branches ready for their drape of tinsel; baubles and lights sat patiently in a cardboard box tucked underneath it, with packets of paper-chain strips, waiting to be constructed and tacked with drawing pins onto the picture rail. They were the sort Bridge remembered making at school, with a gum line at one end that tasted awful. Another memory flashed in her head: sitting on the floor putting such a chain together, in front of a fire fuelled with wood that they’d gathered illegally from the nearby park because they were too skint to buy it. She and Luke. He leaning over towards her, crushing the chain as they started kissing, tearing off each other’s clothes, then making love, which had given her bum major carpet burns. She shook her head to disengage those images, stamped the mini-film of chain-making in Joseph Street junior school back over them, sitting next to Michael Butler who used to pick his nose and wipe it on any available surface other than a handkerchief.
She sat down at a bar table next to the middle of three windows and took a swig of brandy before picking her phone out of her handbag to find she’d had two missed calls from Ben. She rang him, it didn’t connect the first time. She tried again.
‘Are you okay? Thank goodness,’ he said. ‘Where are you?’
‘I couldn’t get to where I was heading, so I’ve had to make a diversion. I’m in a pub, I’m safe, no need to worry.’
‘Is Luke there with you?’
‘Not yet. He’s on his way—’
‘What did you say? You cut out.’
‘HE’S ON HIS WAY I SHOULD IMAGINE.’
Luke would be here, she had absolutely no doubt about that. He was nothing if not reliable. Well, at least he was these days, by all accounts. Plus, she knew how much he wanted this divorce to go ahead. He’d drive through fire for it, never mind the new Siberia.