Never Alone

One last glance at Will. Then she turns on her heels and runs as best she can through the snow to the house.

  It takes her a few minutes to get the keys. Her hands are shaking so much as she rummages through the wooden bowl full of house keys, workshop keys, door keys and spare keys that she drops the fob when she finds it. It skitters under the kitchen table and she has to get down on one knee to retrieve it. Tess’s half-chewed rawhide bone is under there too.

  She runs back through her own footprints to the barn, pressing the key fob and seeing the welcoming flash of the indicator bulbs, bright against the snow. It’s dark now, and the wind has begun to stir again. A few flakes of snow drift in the sharp yellow glow of the security light; it’s impossible to tell if it’s new snow, or flakes lifted on the breeze.

  She will need to pull him clear of the car in order to back out without running him over.

  But Will isn’t there.

  She stares at the patch of concrete where he’d been lying just a few minutes ago. There is nothing, no trace of him, not even any blood on the floor. Immediately she spins around, looking into the dark corners of the barn, the yard, around the cottage. No sign of him.

  Sarah pulls open the car door, climbs in and presses the button to lock the doors behind her.

  The silence of the car envelops her. She can see her breath, clouding into the space.

  There is no sound, not even something as specific as a smell, but suddenly she is certain that Will is in the car with her.

  It’s like an electric shock; all of her senses alert, adrenaline flooding her. She holds her breath. There is nothing, no sound. She shuts her eyes tight – please God, no – and when she opens them again she twists in the seat and looks behind her.

  The back seat is empty, the footwells clear.

  He’s not there.

  Now she feels comforted by the familiarity of this space, cold as it is; and the car starts first time, as she knew it would. Safe. Reliable. Radio 4 comes on; it’s PM and suddenly she is in love with the voice of Eddie Mair.

  And then there is a sudden bang next to her, and Will at the passenger window, thumping on the glass with his bare hand, leaving a bloody smear on the glass.

  She screams, slams her foot down on the accelerator. The car lurches backwards and Will slips, falling into the snow.

  She has never tested this car on deep snow but it feels like a good time to try.

  The car backs out of the barn and crunches into the snow. She tries not to think of it backing up, stuffing into the exhaust. She glances out of the window. The snow reaches the bottom of the door. She spins the wheel and the car jerks ahead, spraying snow in wide white arcs around the yard. She cannot see him any more and she doesn’t want to waste any time looking. The tyres skid and then grip and then she is at the bottom of the drive, turning into the lane.

  Where is he? There is nothing, no trace; no dark shapes around the corner of the buildings.

  So far, so good; but the yard and the drive have been sheltered from the worst of the weather. Out here, in the lane, it’s deep; her car headlights pick out the beautiful white landscape like a feather duvet in front of her. She turns on the wipers as the snow crests the bonnet of the car and is thrown up on to the windscreen, blinding her for a second.

  She steers between the hedge on her left and the dark dotted line to her right which must be the top of the Buttons’ dry stone wall. It looks like embroidery, she thinks. Running stitch. Crawling forward, she sees a few rocks poking out of the snow, perpendicular to the wall. Blanket stitch.

  And then they disappear completely under the whiteness, and there is only the hedge to her left to guide her. The car’s headlights sometimes emerge from the drift and show her nothing but white. Most of the time they are under the snow. She creeps forward, marvelling that the car is still going.

  The hedge to her left drops away and disappears and Sarah feels panic rising. Either side of the narrow road is a deep ditch; the hedge has been her only guide to where it might be. Ahead of her she can see street-lights and buildings at the bottom of the hill. There is only another three hundred yards, maybe two, until the end of the lane and the junction with the Keighley Road. She tries to remember the lane, whether there are any bends. She must have driven this way a thousand times, more. But ahead of her, between the bonnet of the car and the street-lights in the distance, is nothing but white.

  It is this ditch, the one at the bottom of the lane, into which Jim drove the car. He took the corner too fast, only slightly over the alcohol limit but nevertheless not entirely sober, lost control and slammed into the wall at the bottom. Bounced off the airbag and hit the side of his head on the window.

  Blood on his face.

  It was forty minutes before they cut him out.

  The Land Rover dives nose-first into the snow and Sarah shrieks in panic, even though the car is barely going above a crawl. But it isn’t the ditch, it’s the dip in the road just before the junction, and the car rises again, briefly illuminating the snow-covered pole of the stop sign.

  The snow on the main road is compacted, banked up at the sides. Cars have been down here, and, judging from the deep ruts and the dark splodges of mud, tractors too. She pauses for a moment, looking left and right up the road as if waiting for a gap in the traffic. There is nothing coming. Nothing is moving.

  Where am I going to go?

  The answer comes to her as clearly as if someone had spoken it aloud: George. Sophie’s house.

  She turns left and, a few yards further on, right, into the driveway. There are tracks in the snow, footprints criss-crossing the snow, lights on in the house. She stops before she gets to the building because she can’t be certain where the pond is, sliding down from her seat into snow that, here, is just about shin-deep. Already she feels as though the nightmare is over; the snow is never as bad in the village, and, even if the phone lines here are down too, George’s mobile will work.

  She heads to the house and rings the doorbell.

  She waits, and rings again.

  There is no reply.

  George has gone to the pub, Sarah thinks, already knowing that this is unlikely. Sophie is missing; he cannot be anywhere but waiting for her to come back. Unless she has come back. Unless she’s back safe and sound, because the alternative – that she has been found, but that something terrible has happened to her – is too awful to think about.

  She trudges around the side of the house, through the wrought-iron gate, to the back garden. The topiary bushes look like iced Christmas puddings, the low wall and the gap in it showing her where the steps leading down to the lawn would be. In any case the snow here is not deep; there are no footprints, either. Sarah walks the length of the back of the house, past the patio doors which are in darkness, round to the glass structure that George thinks is an orangery because he’s put an orange tree in it, a squat little thing that regularly sheds its leaves and appears close to death, and which even when it’s revived produces flowers but never, even once, a fruit. Sarah has pointed out more than once that, whatever they are choosing to call their conservatory, this is Yorkshire.

  The double doors to the orangery are locked, but she digs through the snow beside the bay tree outside to find the terracotta plant pot upturned in its own saucer. Under this is the key.

  She finds it and it turns easily in the lock. The door opens and a waft of warm air hits her icy cheeks.

  ‘George?’

  There is no sound.

  She shuts the door behind her, stamps the snow off her boots, brushes it from the bottoms of the waterproof trousers. The door that leads into the kitchen is closed, but, when she tries it, it isn’t locked. There is a key hidden for this door too, in case of emergencies.

  She is standing in Sophie’s kitchen.

  Something is wrong.

  It’s not just the silence, not just the bad smell – not rotten food, not quite like that; it’s metallic, and foul, drifting on the warmth of the house. There is a phone handse
t on the kitchen counter. She presses buttons, even tries dialling 999 – but the phone is just as dead as hers was.

  The house, silent, warm, contemplative, waits for her next move.

  She doesn’t call out again.

  Instead she walks through the kitchen towards the door to the dining room. There is a light on somewhere in the house, the hallway probably, but here and in the next room it’s dark.

  She goes through the dining room and out into the hallway, which is lit by the heavy chandelier that hangs in the centre of the room. Around the curved wall the oak staircase sweeps dramatically to the first floor. The hall table, an elegant antique that George is fond of telling everyone cost over four grand, is lying on its side, letters and keys and flowers scattered across the tiled floor, a crystal vase smashed. Water from the vase has soaked into the edge of the Persian rug.

  Silence.

  The living room is in darkness. But even from a quick glance Sarah can see that everything is in order, from the cold, swept fireplace to the neat stack of glossy magazines on the coffee table. It’s as if Sophie has just stepped out for a minute.

  Upstairs, then.

  She keeps to the edge of the staircase, climbing gingerly as if at any moment she expects someone to appear.

  The smell gets worse with every step. And even though by following the smell she knows what she is going to find, it’s still enough of a shock to make her gasp out loud when she discovers George in the en-suite bathroom, slumped wet and fully clothed in the shower tray, his legs out across the slate floor, his head near the plughole. His cropped, greying hair is covered in blood.

  ‘George!’ Sarah says, rushing to him. He is cold. Stone cold. His face is turned to the wall. She edges around the shower screen and tugs at his shirt. He is heavy, inert, and there is no room to manoeuvre – it takes a minute or two of dragging until he suddenly flops dramatically on to his back.

  Sarah gasps and lets go. His face is unrecognisable, battered and swollen, his eyes blackened and closed.

  Sarah shrinks back against the bathtub, brings her knees up to her chest, both hands clamped across her face, sobbing. Her hands are wet with his blood, and now it’s all over her face and she can taste it as well as smell it.

  Just as she thinks this is it, she cannot take any more, there is a sound from the shower, a sudden, gasping cough.

  He’s alive. George is still alive.

  ‘George? George? Can you hear me?’

  He’s breathing, she thinks. She can hear it now, a wheeze in his chest. She grabs the grey towelling robe from the back of the bathroom door and covers him in it, trying to get some warmth back into him.

  There is a grumbling sound from the back of his throat, and then he whispers, ‘Sophie.’

  ‘It’s me, George. It’s Sarah. Where’s your phone? Where’s your mobile?’

  She sees, or thinks she sees, a slight shake of his head.

  ‘Your mobile, where is it?’

  ‘… took it…’

  ‘Someone took it? Who did this to you?’

  She already knows. What’s the point in asking?

  ‘… Sophie…’

  ‘I’m going to go and look…’

  ‘No… wait… don’t go…’

  She stops, takes a deep breath on his behalf, as if it will help him. Holding his hand, trying to bring some warmth back into it. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, her voice catching in a sob. ‘George, please, hold on…’

  He is trying to open his eyes. The effort it’s taking is exhausting to watch. The wheezing is getting worse – should she try and put him on his side? What if he’s bleeding, inside? What if his lungs are filling with blood?

  ‘I don’t know what to do…’

  His lips are moving. She gets close to him, close to his face, even though to look at him is terrifying her.

  ‘Spare,’ he says. ‘Phone. Drawer… bedroom.’

  She scrambles to her feet and runs to the bedroom. There is a walk-in wardrobe that’s the size of Sarah’s box room, and inside it are two chests of drawers. Both of them are in a mess; drawers have been pulled out, underwear and socks and tops and belts and scarves have been flung and discarded. Two of the drawers are upside down on the king-size bed. Nevertheless she searches, picking everything up and moving it to a pile by the door so she can see progress. She turns the drawers the right way and piles them up. It takes several minutes. At the end of it there is a pile of clothes and two sets of drawers, but no phone.

  In desperation she looks around the bedroom. There are matching nightstands on either side of the bed, a small drawer in each. She tugs out the one nearest to her, tips its contents on the bed. It must be George’s – cufflinks, a watch, a plastic case which looks as if it might be for a dental plate, a half-used blister pack of painkillers, a pair of nail scissors.

  The other side – Sophie’s side. Hers has even more in it, and the drawer jams – she tugs and pulls and tucks her hand inside to press down whatever it is that’s preventing the drawer from opening. One more yank and it flies free, everything spilling all over the place. Sarah sits down heavily on the bed. Among the crap scattered all over the floor at her feet is a small black mobile phone.

  She turns it on, holding her breath. It sparks into life. She whimpers with relief as the ‘no signal’ gives way to bars and a little, beautiful ‘4G’.

  She dials 999 and waits.

  It’s only a second, but that’s all it takes; she glances across at the pile of clothing by the door. Much of it has blood on it, probably George’s blood, from her own hands. But she sees Kitty’s scarf among the tangle of fabric; Kitty’s pale blue scarf with the sequinned border, more blood on it than just a smudge. And, looking down, she can see bloody marks where something has been dragged across the carpet. Not towards the bathroom, or from it – but towards the hallway. And on the doorframe, about a foot from the floor, a small, bloody handprint, as though someone has clutched at the door before being dragged away.

  ‘Emergency. Which service do you require?’

  From downstairs, Sarah hears footsteps and then a voice that turns her cold.

  ‘Sarah! Are you there, you crazy fucking bitch? I’ve got someone here who wants to talk to you…’

  There is a high-pitched wail that turns into a scream.

  ‘Mum! RUN!’

  It hurts worse when he hits her this time because she is expecting it, and she flinches.

  They are in the living room, which is now brightly lit. Sarah is sitting on the floor with her back to the sofa, opposite Kitty, who is slumped against the fireplace. Both of them are bound hand and foot with cable ties that are digging into Sarah’s wrists. She doesn’t mind. She can take anything, any pain, because Kitty is here and she is alive, and although her mouth is swollen, and her lip is bleeding a little from where he’s hit her, she is otherwise apparently unharmed.

  ‘Shut up,’ Will says, although neither of them has said anything.

  ‘You bastard, you piece of shit,’ Sarah hisses.

  He sits casually down on the sofa behind her, his legs either side of her, and grabs a handful of her hair.

  ‘I told you,’ he says, his voice so calm it’s terrifying, ‘that we should have done this the easy way. Now look at what a mess you’ve made, Sarah. This is all down to you. Isn’t it? ISN’T IT?’

  ‘Yes,’ she sobs. Her scalp is on fire as he tugs at her hair. ‘Please, let us go…’

  ‘All you have to do,’ he murmurs, his mouth close to her ear, ‘all you have to do is one simple little thing, and I’ll leave you both alone. Understand? It’s so easy, Sarah. So easy. Just tell me where she is.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she wails. ‘I don’t know where she is. Please, you have to let us go. This is all so wrong, Will.’

  ‘She doesn’t know!’ Kitty cries. ‘I told you, I told you she doesn’t… please!’

  ‘Shut up, you little bitch!’

  Abruptly he stands up and leaves the room. From where she’s
sitting, Sarah can’t see where he has gone. Kitty is facing the door.

  ‘Kitty,’ Sarah whispers. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Are you?’

  Sarah nods. And then he’s back, and in his hand is one of Sophie’s kitchen knives. He holds it to Kitty’s throat.

  ‘No!’ Sarah screams. ‘No no NO!’

  ‘You need to stop this right now. Stop it, and think about what you’re doing.’

  Sarah does not know where the voice comes from, but she’s heard it before. It’s her ‘mum’ voice, the one she uses when things have gone far enough, when someone has crossed the line, when the fun has suddenly become borderline dangerous, when people are overtired.

  Incredibly, it seems to have an effect on Will. He pauses for a moment, his right hand gripping Kitty’s hair, holding her head back, the knife poised against the beautiful pale skin of her throat. His hands are trembling. And, even though his face is twisted into a grimace, she can see that there are tears pouring down his cheeks.

  ‘Put the knife down.’

  He does not move.

  ‘Will. Put the knife down on the table.’

  Sarah watches as he reaches across to the coffee table, the blade pointing down as if he’s about to stab someone with it. He lowers it to the table.

  ‘That’s it. You can come back from this, Will. It’s going to be okay. Now let go of Kitty’s hair.’

  His fingers relax and he eases his hand free of Kitty’s scalp. Kitty whimpers with fear. Sarah looks at her steadily, trying to make eye contact, trying to reassure her. As if she knows what she’s doing. As if this is going to end well.

  ‘Sit down next to Kitty,’ she says. ‘Sit down and let’s talk about this properly. Let’s talk about Sophie and try to think where she might be.’

  Will sits, his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands. He lets out an agonised, desperate sob. Sarah lets him. Kitty’s eyes are screwed shut and she is shaking with fear.

  ‘Kitty, you need to calm down now. Everything’s going to be okay. Both of you.’

  Think, Sarah. She has no idea where she’s going with this, but all she can think of is George upstairs and the urgent need to finish this, to get it over with, so that they can get him to a hospital; so that she can find Aiden. And still, from somewhere, she can hear barking. ‘Where’s Tess?’ she says at last.