The Retreat

  He started to set up the pieces and she realised he thought she wanted a game.

  ‘Oh. I was just hoping to ask you a few questions,’ she said, introducing herself.

  ‘We can play while we talk,’ he said.

  ‘But I haven’t played in years.’

  ‘I’m sure it will come back to you. Ready?’

  ‘Oh, go on then.’

  Malcolm moved his first pawn and said, ‘So what did you want to talk to me about?’

  She asked him if he remembered Lily Marsh and her father’s death by drowning.

  ‘Of course. Dreadful, dreadful. They never found her, did they? I understood that she drowned too.’

  ‘Probably. The only other possibility is that someone took her. I know the police spoke to all the known sex offenders in the area . . .’

  Malcolm moved his knight. Was it Zara’s imagination or did his hand tremble as he lifted the piece? Perhaps she had imagined it, because his voice was steady. ‘And you’re wondering about the unknown ones? I was the librarian here for forty years. I must have heard things. Rumours. That’s what you’re thinking, yes?’

  ‘You read my mind.’

  ‘You’re looking in the wrong place.’

  Zara had been about to move another pawn. The rules had indeed come back to her, though she was still unsure what the horses – the knights – did. She paused, waiting to see what Malcolm said next.

  ‘Some people think she was taken by the Widow,’ he said.

  She stared at him, then laughed nervously. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘No one else has told you the story of our local witch?’ he asked.

  ’No. I’m not from round here.’

  ‘Ah. Well, people don’t talk about it so much any more. Not openly, anyway.’ He nodded at the board. It was her move. She moved her queen onto a central square and he captured it.

  ‘Bad move,’ he said.

  ‘You were telling me about this witch . . .’

  ‘Ah, yes. Well, people don’t talk about her these days. Except children. We had a children’s section at the library. It’s remarkable how many children’s books are about witches. The children loved drawing them too, black cats and cauldrons. Spiky trees, a hut in the woods.’

  Zara couldn’t see how this connected to what had happened to Lily. ‘Witches were just clever women that men couldn’t tame, weren’t they? Women who wouldn’t conform. We learned about it at school. I suppose they drowned witches round here?’

  ‘Surprisingly not. There were very few witch trials in Wales. A few cases in Flintshire. But most of that went on in England.’ He licked his lips. ‘In fact, I don’t really know when or how the legend started. The first mention of the Red Widow is in a testimony from the early nineteenth century. It’s still in the library if you’re interested. Fascinating stuff. According to legend—’

  ‘Malcolm! Are you going to introduce me to your young friend?’

  Another man had appeared at Malcolm’s shoulder. He was about seventy, completely bald, with hooded eyes. His lips curled back to reveal a set of crooked teeth.

  Malcolm’s shoulders were stiff with tension. Before speaking, he took a sip from his cup of tea. ‘This is Zara . . .’

  ‘Sullivan.’ She instantly regretted telling this man her surname. Ridiculous. But she felt like a girl breaking her mother’s golden rule. Never speak to strangers. Never tell them your name.

  ‘We’re in the middle of a game,’ Malcolm said.

  ‘Marvellous.’ The bald man reached over and moved one of Malcolm’s pieces on the board. ‘Checkmate.’

  Zara said, ‘Oh. Damn.’

  ‘You should give her more of a chance, Malcolm,’ the man said. ‘My dear, do you mind if I muscle in? I’ve been waiting to play Malcolm all afternoon.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Reluctantly, she got up. She handed Malcolm her card and noticed the bald man watching as Malcolm tucked it into the pocket of his tweed jacket.

  ‘Perhaps we could play another time.’

  As she left the chess club, she glanced over her shoulder. The bald man was watching her. And Malcolm had gone as white as the milk in his stone-cold tea.

  Chapter 12

  ‘Hang on,’ I said, when Zara had finished talking. ‘Did Malcolm Jones actually tell you anything useful?’

  ‘He was about to tell me about the Red Widow, before the bald guy, the one with the teeth like tombstones, interrupted us.’

  ‘Zara, I know I’m not at my sharpest today but I don’t get it. How are these children’s stories relevant?’

  She deflated. ‘I don’t know. It was the way he said “you’re looking in the wrong place” when I asked him about sex offenders. I’m sure he knows something. But when the bald guy came along, Malcolm clammed up.’

  We both fell silent. My headache had intensified and I was finding it hard to think straight.

  ‘So what do you want to do next?’ I asked.

  ‘I want to talk to Malcolm Jones again. I’m sure he knows something. Maybe he felt that he couldn’t tell me straight so he was going to wrap it up in an old story. People do that sometimes.’

  Across the pub, the other writers were getting up to go. I realised I was starving and the thought of dinner back at the retreat made my stomach growl.

  I was sceptical about Malcolm Jones and disappointed that Zara hadn’t discovered anything more concrete. But I figured it was worth letting her have one more day before giving up and accepting Lily was gone.

  ‘I’ll call you again tomorrow,’ I said.

  I headed over to join the other writers. On my way past the bar I spotted the painting that had caught my attention on my first visit here. The woman in red, beckoning onlookers into the trees. The Red Widow? Staring at the painting I felt a peculiar sensation, as if I were being pulled into the wood, the temperature around me dropping, and I was sure the woman in red whispered something to me, words spoken in another language. I took a step closer, raised a hand to touch the figure, convinced that she shrunk away from my fingers, sliding back into the wood, retreating as the trees formed a guard around her . . .

  ‘Lucas?’

  I jumped.

  ‘Are you all right?’ It was Karen. She turned her head to scrutinise the painting, which now looked perfectly normal. Nothing shifted, no one whispered. ‘Big fan of amateur art, are you? We’re about to head back to the retreat for dinner.’

  Outside, Karen fell into step beside me. To either side of us, trees formed black, jagged shapes against a bruised, purplish sky, just like in the painting. Winter was clinging on – but only just. A few steps ahead, Max and Suzi were deep in conversation.

  ‘How are you?’ I asked.

  ‘Not great, to be honest.’

  I waited for her to elaborate.

  ‘I know it’s stupid, that it was the dope making me hear things, but I feel uneasy in my room now. I didn’t sleep at all last night. I lay there with the covers over my head like some stupid kid, convinced there was someone outside the door, watching and listening.’

  I was going to tell her about the singing I’d heard but realised it would only make her more freaked out. I was sure that it had been Julia grieving in her daughter’s room, but Karen might not accept that simple explanation. I didn’t want her packing up and leaving. She was the only author here I really got along with.

  ‘Sometimes,’ she went on, ‘I’m convinced someone’s been in my room during the day. Like, things have been moved. Or there’s a strange smell in the air.’

  ‘What kind of smell?’

  ‘It sounds stupid, but . . . the smell of fear. A kind of sour, sweaty odour.’ She paused. ‘Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m sniffing out my own stress.’

  ‘That sounds . . . plausible.’

  She laughed. ‘I really do need to lay off the weed, don’t I?’

  ‘Maybe until you go home.’

  She sighed deeply and twisted her hands together. Then she said, ‘What if
it’s not the weed? What if the house really is haunted? In a way, I hope it is. I’d like it if a ghostly apparition appeared one night while we were eating dinner. A woman in white walking through the walls.’

  I had a flash from my dream: a trickle of blood running down the wallpaper. I shuddered, but Karen didn’t notice.

  ‘Yeah, if a ghost did appear,’ she said, ‘at least then it would prove I’m not going mad.’

  Entering the house, it was immediately clear that something was not right.

  Normally at this time, the place would be alive with the smell of cooking, the warm scent of meat or cheese, of herbs and spices, wafting from the kitchen. But the lights were out and there was no sign of Julia.

  Max stomped into the kitchen and turned on the light.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  He stared at the Aga as if food might magically appear. There were some dishes and cutlery in the sink, and a faint, sweet odour hanging in the air, but dinner definitely wasn’t on its way.

  ‘Where is she? I’m starving. If I’d known she wasn’t going to make us dinner I’d have got something in the pub.’

  Max was clearly one of those people who loses the plot when their blood sugar is low.

  ‘Calm down,’ I said. ‘Something must have happened.’

  ‘Do you think she’s okay?’ Suzi asked.

  Julia’s room was on the top floor of the house. Suzi and Karen went up to look for her while Max and I remained downstairs.

  ‘I wonder if any pizza places deliver out here,’ Max said.

  I wasn’t in the mood to humour him. ‘You’re unbelievably selfish.’

  ‘What? It’s part of what we pay for here. Meals provided. It’s in the contract . . .’

  ‘Oh, shut up. What if Julia’s had an accident? You’re going to feel pretty stupid if they find her lying unconscious in her room.’

  He grunted. ‘She’s probably gone out.’

  Perhaps it was because I was worried about Julia, and my head was still throbbing so I was irritable, but I snapped, ‘While we’re on the subject of you being a massive dickhead, what’s going on with you and Suzi? It’s obvious you fancy her.’

  He was speechless.

  ‘You’re married, aren’t you? Do you love your wife? Do you value your relationship? Maybe you should appreciate what you’ve got.’

  Max’s mouth was still flapping when Suzi and Karen reappeared. ‘She’s not up there,’ Suzi said.

  ‘Her room was kind of a mess,’ Karen added in a quiet voice.

  ‘Does anyone have her mobile number?’ I asked.

  We all looked at each other. The website only listed the landline number for the retreat.

  ‘I didn’t see her before I came to the pub,’ I said.

  ‘Me neither,’ Karen responded, and the others murmured in agreement.

  I went to the front window and peered into the darkness. Julia’s car was parked in its usual spot. Then I noticed something. ‘There’s light coming from the cottage.’

  ‘It looks like candlelight,’ Suzi said.

  She was right. The light was yellow and weak, flickering behind a downstairs window.

  ‘Come on then,’ Max said, heading for the front door.

  I stopped him. ‘No, you wait here. The last thing we want is for you to go charging in there complaining about your empty belly. One of the women should go.’

  ‘How sexist,’ Max protested.

  ‘Shut up, Max,’ said Karen. She and Suzi exchanged a glance. Karen had gone pale. ‘I don’t know if I feel brave enough to go,’ she said. ‘It’s creepy. What if she’s . . . dead or something? I couldn’t cope with finding her body.’

  ‘Dead? What makes you—’ I sighed. ‘All right. I’ll go.’

  As I crossed the garden, Karen’s words rang in my ears. What on earth made her think Julia might be dead? It was stupid. But by the time I reached the cottage I was bracing myself to find something awful. In my increasingly fevered imagination, Julia had committed suicide, unable to cope with the loss of her daughter any longer. I would find her hanging from a beam, or slumped on the floor with an empty bottle of pills beside her.

  I didn’t think I’d be able to cope with finding another dead body. Especially not Julia’s.

  ‘Julia?’ I said as I opened the front door. ‘Are you there?’

  No response.

  The candlelight was coming from the little dining room next to the kitchen. The door was shut. I tapped at it lightly and said her name again. Still no answer.

  I went in.

  It was almost dark in the room. Julia sat at the dining table. In front of her was a cake, covered with lit candles. She didn’t look up when I entered, just continued to stare at the cake. The yellow light touched the tear tracks on her cheeks.

  ‘Julia,’ I said. I was whispering. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘She was here,’ she said.

  ‘Who?’

  She lifted her face towards me. ‘Lily.’

  I didn’t know what to say. I pulled a chair out from the table, the scrape on the stone floor making me wince, and sat beside her. It was bitterly cold in the room but Julia seemed oblivious to it.

  ‘It’s her birthday today,’ she said. ‘She’s eleven. She was so looking forward to it – we promised when she turned eleven she could have her ears pierced.’

  I counted the eleven candles on the cake. It was round, with pink frosting. Lily’s name had been written on the surface in white icing.

  ‘She grew out of pink years ago,’ Julia said. ‘But it still makes me think of her. When she was little.’

  ‘What did you mean when you said she was here?’ I asked, still speaking quietly.

  She wasn’t looking at me any more; she stared at the cake, at the candles, the tiny flames reflected in her eyes. ‘I brought this cake over here because . . . I thought it would be private. Just me and her. I was going to light the candles, sing “Happy Birthday”, cut the cake. Just spend some time alone, thinking about her, you know?’

  I nodded.

  ‘I lit the candles then realised I didn’t have a knife. There aren’t any knives in the kitchen here so I went back to the house to get one. And when I got back, the candles had been blown out.’ She looked at me. There was yearning in that look. A yearning for it to be true. To be believed. But my first thought was that it must have been the wind.

  She read my mind. ‘There’s no wind in this room. No breeze. She was here. She came to blow out her candles.’

  ‘You mean . . .’ I could hardly bring myself to complete the sentence. ‘You mean her ghost?’

  It was as if I’d slapped her. ‘She’s not dead!’

  The sudden rise in volume, the raw emotion in her voice, made me flinch. As if I’d been slapped. And then she started to cry – great, rasping sobs, her whole body shaking as she twisted her hands together and whispered, between gasps, ‘She’s alive, she’s alive, she’s alive.’

  I put my arms around her. It was instinct, the need to comfort her. She was stiff at first and I almost pulled away, but then she relaxed, letting me hold her, and the trembling of her shoulders subsided as she pressed her face against my chest and I gently rubbed her back, shushing her and letting her cry.

  When she eventually lifted her head, the front of my sweater was wet.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t apologise.’

  She found a tissue and blew her nose, wiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands. ‘Oh God, I’m a mess. I’m such a mess. What must you think of me?’

  ‘I think you’re a mother who misses her daughter,’ I said. ‘That’s all.’

  She took a deep breath and gathered herself. She was embarrassed now, refusing to look me in the eye. She stood up, went to the sink and splashed some cold water on her face.

  She sat back down. ‘It probably was the wind. Or candles . . . sometimes candles go out on their own, don’t they?’

  ‘I think so.’

&
nbsp; To be honest, that seemed unlikely. The most likely explanation, surely, was that Julia had forgotten to light them in the first place, had simply imagined herself doing it. I did that sort of thing all the time. And Julia, in her heightened state of emotion, was more susceptible to confusion, to forgetting, than most.

  ‘Do you want to blow the candles out now? And sing “Happy Birthday”, like you planned?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

  I went to get up. ‘I’ll leave you in peace.’

  She grabbed my hand. ‘No, Lucas, please stay. It’s sad if it’s just me on my own.’ She laughed.

  ‘Okay.’

  She began singing and I joined in.

  ‘Happy birthday to you . . . Happy birthday, dear Lily . . .’

  Julia blew out the candles and cut three slices. Julia placed one in front of me and encouraged me to take a bite.

  ‘Mmm. It’s really nice.’

  Her slice remained uneaten in front of her, as did the third slice, which she placed on the opposite side of the table. Lily’s piece.

  I waited to see if Julia would mention singing in Lily’s room. I didn’t want to bring it up because it felt like an invasion of her privacy.

  ‘Oh God, I bet the others are moaning about not having any dinner, aren’t they?’ she said. ‘What shall I do?’

  ‘Let them eat cake?’

  That made her laugh.

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘I’ll drive into town, pick up a takeaway.’

  ‘Thank you, Lucas.’

  ‘Are you going to come back over to the house?’ I asked.

  She stayed in her seat. ‘I think I’ll stay here a while.’

  ‘Okay.’

  I backed out of the room, my eyes lingering on that uneaten third slice of birthday cake, on the extinguished candles. I thought about what Karen had said earlier about the house being haunted and the strange smell that hung in her room, but nothing – no number of strange occurrences – would make me believe in ghosts. I didn’t believe Lily had turned up to blow out her birthday candles. That didn’t make any sense. Julia must have forgotten to light the candles in the first place. It was the only logical explanation.

  Chapter 13