Bone by Bone (25 page)

Laura turned and walked back to the car. She and Autumn drove to Wolferton Place in silence. What had she expected, she wondered – absolution? Forgiveness? At least she'd told him. At least she'd finally been honest about what had really happened and how she'd felt.

AUTUMN

A
utumn lay in the bath and shivered, in spite of the heat. Her mum was mad, following Levi. Suppose he'd seen them? She cringed in shame and her cheeks burnt.

And then she thought about where he lived and what they'd seen. It didn't make sense. Levi had always seemed so… she couldn't quite put it into words… He was always neatly dressed, his hair in even corn rows, his shirts clean and ironed, his skin shone. He wasn't one of those kids who looked like a nerd, or who came to school with their trousers too short because they'd suddenly grown an inch overnight and there wasn't enough money for a new school uniform. He looked cool, in control. Powerful.

Without consciously thinking about it, she ran her fingers through her shorn hair. She thought of all the horrible things he'd done. The slugs. The name-calling. Pointing out her scuffed, beat-up shoes, laughing at her unfashionable skirt that she hadn't even realized wasn't fashionable and the jumper her mum had shrunk in the wash so her bony wrists stuck out. Her tortured bike. Her paintings. The message scrawled on their house. The humiliation. The isolation. The fear.

And none of that matched the image she had of him now, rotating and pivoting, as fluid as a dancer, in that broken-down house in a cold and lonely room. It made her feel uncomfortable. Sorry for him. And she couldn't feel sorry for him. She
hated
him. He
was
hateful. She remembered the texts. Way beyond
your shit shoes
,
your emo hair
– the pure, unadulterated violence of them. And the Facebook page. Her cheeks flared scarlet again, even thinking about it, and she slid beneath the surface of the water.

She felt the pressure of all those messages building up, clamouring, crawling, seething through the Internet and scuttling across the page. Like insects, buzzing and vibrating with skittish hate. She'd left her mobile in the car on purpose and then her mum had found it and kept it as
evidence
. But she wanted to look at Facebook again, to see if Levi and all the others were still posting messages. And the thing she couldn't even bring herself to think about or tell anyone about. The most shameful thing of all.

Is it still there too?

Could her mum have seen it? What if she had to return to school? What if her mum couldn't keep her home or couldn't find a new school for her to go to and she had to go back? And face all of it. All over again.

She poured a large glug of bubble bath into the water and swished it about with her hands until it frothed. Her mum had said she'd got the Internet running again. She'd search for her phone tonight, she thought, after her mum was in bed, and take a look at Facebook. Just to see. Just to check.

LAURA

T
here was one message on the answerphone. Laura waited until Autumn was in the bath before she played it. She sat on the bottom stair in the hall. It began to rain, a few drops pattering against the window and then a deluge. It was so loud, she had to play the message twice.

It was from a woman with a thick Bristolian accent but her tone, rather than sounding warm, was that of a petty official, her speech peppered with unnecessary jargon. She said she was from Social Services.

‘Myself and a colleague will be with you on Monday twelfth of November at 10.30 a.m. If that is not convenient, please call the office on the aforementioned number to rearrange our appointment.'

She wrote down the phone number, along with the time they would be coming on a pad by the phone. She pressed delete. She couldn't – she wouldn't – send Autumn back to school on Monday. She hadn't heard back from Mr George, so Autumn would be with her when Social Services arrived, which would not look good. And presumably this woman and her colleague would know about the court case. The interviews with the children – the witnesses to her crime – might even have been completed.

* * *

The rain beat against the skylight window in the attic. She'd loved the sound as a child: a reminder that she was back home after months in the Namibian desert. But now the noise no longer made her feel safe. She took deep breaths and tried to count them, but after two or three, her breathing sped up and she started thinking about Levi again, how he was terrorizing her daughter in such a calculated way. And yet she couldn't shake the image of him, alone in that run-down house, barely half a mile away from where they lived.

Unable to sleep, she rose to make herself a cup of tea. As she wrapped her dressing gown around her, she heard a sound. She wasn't sure what it was but after the previous night, she assumed the worst. She opened the bedroom door and listened. The house was still and silent around her. She tiptoed to the landing window but she could see little. The rain had eased and the clouds were beginning to clear. The noise had come from outside, she was sure. Perhaps it was Aaron, back to graffiti more Emily Dickinson on their house. That it had been Aaron – in spite of what Jacob had said – she was sure. She decided to phone the police immediately – and check on Autumn.

It was as she was walking downstairs that she heard a different noise. It was one so familiar that, for a moment, it was oddly comforting and then completely chilling. She stood motionless on the stairs, unable to believe what she'd just heard.

It was the back door opening.

The house was in darkness and she was standing at the top of it, the staircase spiralling downwards below her. She was wearing a thin white nightgown with a towelling bath robe. Her feet were bare. It was her lack of shoes that upset her more than her semi-nakedness: you couldn't run fast on soft Western soles. She had nothing she could use as a weapon. Her daughter was sleeping one floor below her. And someone had just broken into the kitchen.

It had to be Aaron.

As quickly as she could, Laura started down the stairs. She kept to the wall in case Aaron emerged from the kitchen and looked up and saw her through the banisters. Her instinct was to run to Autumn's bedroom. She forced herself to be careful, to tread gently so that the stairs wouldn't creak and give her away. She shouldn't jump to conclusions, she thought, trying to think logically. She didn't know for certain that it was Aaron – it could be a burglar. And if it was, it was better that he took what he wanted and left. Accidents happen when criminals are disturbed and feel trapped. Or find out that there is only a woman and a child alone in the house.

She was shaking by the time she reached the corner of the first flight. One more set of stairs and she would be on the same floor as Autumn. It was quiet below her. She wondered if she'd imagined the noise. It could have been her neighbour, or a fox knocking into a bin. She could feel a chill draught against the back of her neck from the landing window. She took another step and the wooden stair gave a shrill groan.

There was the unmistakable sound of someone moving about downstairs. Laura's heart started to race. She took the next few stairs quickly. As she reached the bottom, there was a much louder noise, a kind of squeak and a muffled thud, as if he or she were opening a cupboard in the kitchen or bumping into the chairs. So it was a burglar. Aaron wouldn't be looking through her cupboards. There was nothing of any worth in there, she thought. It wouldn't take whoever it was long to work that out. Her bike – and the mangled remains of Autumn's – were in the dining room, the TV and DVD player were in the sitting room. There was nothing valuable in the rest of the house – but then a burglar wouldn't know that.

At that moment, as she was poised on the bottom stair before the landing leading to Autumn's bedroom, the door swung open. Autumn stood in the entrance to her room, looking sleepy and confused, wearing her rose-patterned pyjamas. Laura froze, frightened that Autumn would come running towards her or speak. She held a finger to her lips and motioned for her to return to her bedroom. Autumn didn't move, but Laura saw the sleepiness vanish. She looked terrified.

She glanced over the banisters but she could see no movement in the stairwell or the hall. She darted across the landing, the elderly floorboards protesting. Autumn remained rigidly in place. Laura almost pushed her out of the way. Inside her bedroom, Laura held the handle down as far as it would go and slowly closed the door, then let the handle rise, millimetre by millimetre, until the door was soundlessly but firmly shut.

She turned to Autumn and hugged her tightly.

‘Is it a burglar? Will he hurt us?' Autumn's voice was rising.

Laura put her hand over her daughter's mouth. She held her fast. Autumn was trembling. She could feel her ribs, the ridges of her spine. She tried to think, but her mind was blank. It was as if part of her brain was missing.

She needed to phone the police but her mobile was plugged in to charge in the kitchen. There were two handsets in the house – one of them she'd left lying around somewhere – either the hall or the kitchen. Why couldn't she be the sort of person to put them back? She'd been using the one in her office so hopefully she'd left it there. But to get to it she'd have to cross the landing and go down a flight of stairs, where she'd be in the open if the man or men came up. They might hear her. She couldn't risk leaving Autumn on her own in her bedroom, but if she brought Autumn with her, the two of them would make even more noise.

There was a scraping sound from the kitchen and Autumn gripped her mother even more tightly.

‘Quick,' she whispered. ‘We have to hide.'

Still holding each other, they looked around Autumn's plain little bedroom. The row of stuffed toys at the end of the bed contemplated them, their flat, fake eyes gleaming in the blue light from Autumn's clock. There was a bookcase, a chest of drawers and a small desk against one wall, some boxes they still hadn't unpacked and the wardrobe she'd assembled last week. It was tiny, the perfect size to hang a child's dresses in. Laura didn't think she'd fit inside. And, in any case, thanks to her shoddy DIY skills, the door didn't quite close.

She seized the blanket from the bottom of Autumn's bed and rolled it up loosely. She pushed it lengthways under the duvet and shoved George the lion on top, leaving his wispy mane poking out. In the darkness, it might look as if a small child were in the bed. She grabbed Autumn's hand and they ran across the bedroom to the Wendy house. She helped Autumn in and squeezed through the narrow door after her.

The Wendy house was made of wood. Laura had bought it second-hand on eBay for Autumn after they'd moved to Bristol. It was intended for the garden and Laura had thought it would be a project for the two of them – to paint the house and varnish it, make window boxes and a little path and a miniature garden for the house. Autumn, as indecisive as Laura, hadn't been able to choose a colour scheme, and because Laura's priority was to create a design for the garden, she hadn't got around to it.

Inside the house was a toy oven and a sink that Vanessa had bought Autumn when she was four. Laura had planned to find a table and some chairs from a second-hand shop but, like so many things, she hadn't done it. It did mean that there was room for both of them in the house since it was relatively empty. The one item that Laura had made was two sets of curtains. She pulled them across both windows and shut the door. They huddled together in the far corner, their knees to their chests. Autumn was shaking. Laura put her arms around her and pulled her close. They could hear the wind rattling through the Scots pine outside the window.

There was a click and a whine as if the man who'd broken in was opening the door from the kitchen, followed by a creak as he started to climb up the stairs.

It had to be a burglar, one man on his own, she thought, listening to the footsteps. Surely Aaron would not risk breaking into her house? He had too much to lose if he were found out: his business, his reputation, his son… But if it
was
him, and not a burglar, she had no way of predicting what he might do.

‘Mum, I need to pee,' whispered Autumn, her voice rising.

Laura seized one of the toy pans from the top of the oven and helped Autumn pull down her pyjama bottoms and crouch over it. The child cried silently. The sound of her urine splashing into the plastic container was unbearably loud. Laura dug her nails into her palms to stop herself from telling her daughter to hurry. When she'd finished, Laura helped her up and moved the pan into one corner of the Wendy house.

They could hear the man taking one slow step after another. The stairs groaned as he gradually grew closer. Autumn whimpered and Laura put her hand over her mouth again. They waited. It felt as if hours were passing. Her left leg started to twitch and jump with cramp. Autumn's hot tears fell on her hand.

There was a loud crack, much louder than before. It came from the landing directly below them. She found she was praying, long-forgotten words from her childhood…

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us… Save my little girl…

There was the soft tread of the man climbing up the second flight of stairs. Towards her daughter's room. It seemed to take forever. Laura had her arms wrapped tightly around Autumn, her breath hot and wet against her palm, the smell of her hair in her nostrils.

There was another creak. Perhaps he'd head straight into the spare room – as a conventional burglar would do, looking for computer equipment or jewellery. But then the door to Autumn's bedroom started to open. One step. Two steps. He must be standing just inside the room, right by Autumn's bed, she thought.

What was he doing, leaning over her sleeping child? Why was he in the house?

Suppose he pulled back the duvet and realized that Autumn was not in the bed? Would he start looking through the rest of the bedroom? And what would he do when he found them? Their breathing sounded loud in the confined space of the Wendy house. Laura resisted the urge to lean forward and try and peek through the curtains. She buried her head in Autumn's hair. There was a long, slow creak. She couldn't tell if he had walked further into the room or was simply shifting his weight as he stood by her daughter's bed.

The alien blue light from the clock filtered through the cherry-patterned curtains in the toy house and strange shadows played across the walls: fragments of light and dark as the trees in the park tossed in the wind, splintering the light from the street lamp. Autumn's bedroom curtains were open a fraction – no doubt she'd been staring into the park as she so often was when Laura came to check on her.

She wasn't sure which direction he'd moved in, if he was now directly in front of the Wendy house or if he'd left the room. She allowed herself a fragment of hope. He was going to search each room for anything of value. Any moment now, he'd leave when he realized that there was nothing he wanted.

And then there came the sound that she'd been dreading since they'd been hiding. A ripping noise. The man was tearing back the sheet and duvet. There was a muffled howl and he kicked Autumn's bed. The wooden frame shook. They felt the tremor through the old floorboards. Whoever was in the room knew Autumn was not in her bed. Worse, they knew that she and Autumn knew there was an intruder in the house – only an adult, a mother, like Laura, would have thought to protect her child by hiding a stuffed lion in the bed. And then Laura realized that the man must have been searching – not for computers or gems – but specifically for her child. And right now, he was about to start hunting both of them.

Autumn put her hand on her mother's arm and whispered, ‘It's Levi.'

Levi?

‘Are you sure?' she mouthed back.

Autumn nodded. The room suddenly seemed to explode around them as the intruder kicked over Autumn's boxes of toys and flung open the wardrobe. It would explain the rage; she couldn't imagine Aaron losing control like that. Laura pushed the Wendy house door open by the smallest amount she could and peered through the crack. There was a dark silhouette in the centre of the room, shoulders heaving, smaller and thinner and narrower than a man's. A boy.

Laura crawled out of the small door. Her feet were numb with cold. Pins and needles shot through her toes and the arches of her feet. She hobbled towards him.

‘What the hell are you doing in my house? In my daughter's bedroom?'

Levi said nothing. He was wearing a grey hoodie and tracksuit bottoms and they were dark with rainwater.

‘I asked you a question.'

His breathing was loud and ragged. He still did not reply. Behind her she could hear Autumn clambering out of the Wendy house. She stood directly behind her mother. Levi gave a small smile when he saw Autumn emerge. A wave of heat prickled through Laura's scalp, flushing her cheeks: he was
enjoying
seeing how frightened her daughter was.