The Hidden Girl (2 page)

Hannah lifted the latch again, wondering why she’d shut the gate before entering. Then, as she closed it behind her, she knew.

She had dreamt about Tornley Hall every night for eight months. The dream had kept her going. The minute she crossed the threshold, reality would be waiting to pounce again.

Three minutes later Hannah’s first impressions of Tornley Hall did nothing to reassure her. The implications of buying a house that had stood empty for two-and-a-half years were becoming quickly apparent. After its third winter unoccupied, and with the previous owners’ furniture removed just yesterday, the inner hall was as unrecognizable as the garden. There was a strange odour, too; an unpalatable mixture of antiseptic, a sickly chemical flower-scent and, most unpleasant of all, foot-rot.

‘Kitchen’s in the back, thanks,’ Hannah said to the removal men, averting her eyes from the ghostly picture-frame marks and hairline plaster cracks that criss-crossed the walls. Now that the Horseborrows’ vast Oriental tapestry had been removed, the absence of a yard-long chunk of picture rail had been revealed.

Grown-up Will had disappeared again. Childish Will was back with a vengeance, and appeared to have gone into shock. The last few days had been so hectic, with working late in the studio, and packing up and cleaning the London flat, that he hadn’t shaved. The three-day stubble made his naturally tan skin look sallow.

‘We knew it would look crap when everything was gone,’ she said.

Will’s pissed-off expression told her that was an understatement.

She tried again. ‘Remember when we moved into the flat, and there was that massive burn hole in the carpet that they’d hidden with a rug?’

No reaction.

Giving up, she tried the sitting-room door. Houses always looked bad when you moved in. There was no time to sulk. They had too much to do.

The handle rattled uselessly in her hand.

‘This is locked. Will, can you see a key?’

They checked on the windowsills, in the understairs toilet and in the side-alcove with the stained-glass window at the back of the hall.

No key.

Will tried the door opposite. ‘Study’s locked too.’

‘That’s annoying.’

‘Where do you want this?’ asked a removal man, heaving a sofa through the front door with his partner.

‘Just here, please, for the moment.’ Hannah waited till the men had dumped it – a little unceremoniously, she thought – then mouthed to Will, ‘If we don’t find the keys, they’ll leave everything in the hall.’

That cheered him up.

Hannah peered through the sitting-room keyhole and saw nothing but black. She tried to look in from the garden, but the shutters were tightly closed on the three tall picture windows.

‘Dining room?’

‘I’ll go,’ Will said, grit in his voice.

‘I’ll try the kitchen,’ she said, trying to create the illusion of teamwork between the two of them – for herself, as much as the smirking removal men.

The sight in the kitchen stopped her in her tracks.

This room had taken centre-stage in her dreams since last summer. It ran along the back of the house, and also had picture windows overlooking the small back garden. On their previous visits, rails of shiny French copper pans had hung from the ceiling, and a grand pine dresser decorated with bright crockery had added cheer to the room. Flower watercolours and landscape oils had hung on the walls, gingham curtains at the windows. Cleared of these homely charms, the dank, bottle-green walls emerged like ghouls.

‘God, they really took everything,’ she said.

Will walked in. ‘Clue’s in the name.’

‘Hmm?’

‘House-clearance.’

‘Funny. No luck?’

‘Nope.’

When the search around the old, built-in cupboards proved fruitless, too, they tried the little scullery at the far end.

‘Oh, good. They remembered to leave it,’ Hannah said, opening a tall, old-fashioned fridge. ‘And look what Laurie’s left. That’s nice,’ she said, unconvinced. On a shelf was a plastic-wrapped tray of bright-green apples, a pint of milk, cheese, a sliced loaf, spread, a large tray of pasta bake bobbled with black olives, and a bottle of cava.

‘Coffee table?’ came a shout.

‘Hall . . .’ Will called back curtly. Hannah shot him a look. ‘ . . .
please
.’

‘I’ll see if I can catch Brian.’

Their estate agent’s phone, predictably, went to voicemail. Having managed to offload the keys onto Laurie on his way to the airport this morning, he’d be halfway to his brother’s wedding in Italy by now. Hannah turned and saw Will staring at the high Victorian wall ten yards behind the kitchen window. His hands were clasped behind his head.

‘What?’ Hannah asked, not really wanting an answer.

‘Nothing.’

She tried to think of something to humour him, then gave up. This was not the time. The balance between them was too off-kilter, like the old brass scales that had sat on the counter here on their previous house-viewings with Brian. There would be plenty of time to fix things later. What mattered was that they were finally in.

The countdown had started.

Two weeks – or thirteen-and-a-half days – to go.

Hannah pulled an A4 whiteboard and a red marker from her bag.
Two-week Countdown!
was written at the top. Underneath was a list.

Day 14: Saturday, REMOVAL DAY, the first entry said.

She crossed it out. That was one done, at least. She considered the entry for tomorrow. Day 13: Sunday, PAINT SITTING ROOM.

Not without the keys, they couldn’t.

Hannah scored out
SITTING ROOM
and replaced it with KITCHEN. They had to be practical. She scanned the putrid walls and wondered if one day was optimistic. A quick glance through the list of everything else they had to do told her it would have to suffice. They didn’t have a choice. They’d just have to do the best job they could. She started to turn.

‘So I was thinking that we should start on the kitch—’

She stopped.

Will had left the room so quietly she hadn’t heard him go.

Forty-five minutes later, gravel shot up as the removal men hurtled back to London, clearly eager to escape this rural hellhole with its tight horse-cart lanes and slow tractor drivers.

‘Right,’ Hannah said, shutting the front door. The hall was packed with the sitting-room and study furniture, including their sofas, four sets of Will’s record shelves and forty boxes of his vinyl. ‘Shall we get the bed made up first, and put up the bedroom curtains?’

Will surveyed their pile of belongings, faint menace in his eyes.

She knew if she put her arms round him he would soften; lean into her, and cheer up.

Instead, she picked up a rogue box of clothes to take upstairs.

Will took his jacket from the banister. ‘When I get back.’

‘From where?’

‘Snadesdon. I’m going to get some beer and milk, before the shop shuts.’

‘But Laurie’s left us a pint – and some cava.’

Will opened the door. ‘We’ll need more milk for tomorrow. You have the cava – I fancy a beer.’

Beer
. She said nothing. Tonight wasn’t the night to argue about it. ‘Want me to come?’

His expression softened a little. ‘No. Why don’t you see if the oven works, and put on that food that Laurie left. I won’t be long.’

‘OK.’

Will leant towards her. The movement was so unexpected Hannah recoiled.

‘It was just a kiss, Han.’

She touched his arm. ‘Sorry. I know. I’m just tired.’

‘OK. Right. I’ll be back in half an hour. If . . .’

‘. . . you don’t get lost.’

‘Yup.’

‘Good luck.’ She waited for him to smile, but he didn’t.

Will went to the car. Music pounded as the engine started, and he drove away.

Hannah wandered out to the garden, wincing at the pot of saccharine-sweet pink polyanthus that Laurie had left on the doorstep. They’d have to keep them, to be polite.

Will’s red rear lights streaked along the hedge, then disappeared up the lane. Why couldn’t he just be patient?

Hannah sniffed. The air was so fresh.

She took a deep breath, not quite believing they were finally here.

Phase One completed. Phase Two to begin tomorrow.

Tall weeds dipped and danced in the breeze along the edge of the front lawn before disappearing into the black night. How on earth would they cut these back in time for Barbara’s visit?

Hannah inhaled again, smelling rotting leaves and damp earth nurturing the first blossoms of spring. She stretched her arms up, to ease off the ache from moving boxes.

The temperature was dropping again, but the breeze was pleasant. She felt it reviving her after their long day. Hannah looked around. The depth of the darkness was astounding. It was that thick, berry blackness that you didn’t see in the city. Through the bare trees that bordered the far end of the garden she saw the distant glow of half a dozen houses and farms in Tornley. To her left she made out the slope-roofed garage that would become Will’s studio one day.

His mood had been difficult today. She reminded herself that he had worked all week and was exhausted. He was probably dreading the commute back to London on Monday, too. At least one of them didn’t have to worry about work any more. She could manage the decoration of Tornley Hall and just give him jobs to do in the evenings. That should take some pressure off.

Hannah decided to take Will over to the garage after dinner. It might encourage him to look beyond the cracks – to the future, and what this house would bring to their lives.

She let her head fall back and shut her eyes. This was idyllic. No sirens or buses; no voices from the fried-chicken shop on the corner; no drum and bass from passing cars, or taxi engines running outside the pub.

She swayed a little, and picked out the distant bray of an animal and a soft hiss, and wondered fancifully if it might come from the sea, across the marshes.

To her left, there was a rustle in the bushes.

Hannah opened her eyes.

There was a second rustle, this time further away.

‘Hello?’ she said, feeling silly. The nearest property must be fifty yards behind the high wall at the rear of the kitchen.

Hannah scanned the darkness. The rustling stopped. A rabbit, or a fox, probably. That would be part of the joy of this place. Nature right on their doorstep.

A stronger, colder wind buffeted the tall weeds. She picked one, and ran its spiky stem through her finger. Their schedule for Barbara coming was already tight. Only thirteen days from tomorrow to finish the whole house. Tidying the garden would steal at least one of those days, now.

Hannah imagined seeing this scruffy lawn through Barbara’s eyes.

You’ve taken on an awful lot here, Hannah. Maybe we should wait another few months?

She felt a flutter of panic and shook her head.

No. Not a single month more. She couldn’t bear it.

Hannah stamped her feet to shake off the day’s fatigue. Thinking about it, Day 14 wasn’t actually over yet.

She returned inside, picked up her marker pen, thought for a moment, then rewrote the first entry. Day 14: Saturday,
REMOVAL DAY
/START KITCHEN.

She found a box in the hall, and went to rip it open.

Just before she did so, however, she rattled the sitting-room door handle again, in case it was just stiff. Nothing happened.

This was so annoying. She put her nose to the keyhole and sniffed.

That was weird. She could swear she smelt petrol.

On his way out of Tornley, Will sped along the narrow Suffolk lane, turning the music up louder than he knew Hannah could bear. He opened the window, feeling as if he’d taken off a too-tight jumper, and let the pounding bass escape.

Yet another T-junction without signposts appeared ahead. His headlights illuminated a bald hedge beyond it. Cursing, he looked left, then right. Which way?

There was a crooked iron gate to the left, with a red rope tied to it. Something drifted into his memory about that gate, then out again. A flash of smooth thigh. Lights on a pickup truck. Music. To his right was just darkness. Already he was lost, five minutes from the house. How? It wasn’t as if anything round here ever changed.

He tried turning right, but a mile later the black silhouettes of the trees and hedges vanished into a navy sky, suggesting that he was nearly at the sea. After a six-point turn that nearly reversed him into a ditch, and five more miles of pitch-black roads, his headlights finally picked out a sign on the verge that said ‘Snadesdon’.

‘Thank you,’ he muttered.

A terrace of pink nineteenth-century cottages appeared next, as if conjured by magic and, suddenly, Will knew where he was. He swung into the village green, passed the shop, which – as he had guessed – had shut two hours ago, and parked by the Fox & Hounds. An old lad walking a Yorkshire terrier frowned at him. Nan Riley entered his thoughts. He turned the music down and gave the man a reassuring nod, receiving a raised walking stick in return. It wasn’t his fault, after all.

Will turned off the engine and surveyed Snadesdon.

Saturday night, and the place was already dead.

The uneasy feeling he’d had since this morning persisted.

He dropped his head onto the steering wheel.

What the fuck had he done?

The car clock changed. 7.11 p.m.

Forcing himself out of the car, Will ducked under the low doorway of the thatched pub. It must be eighteen years since he’d been in here, but the smell was depressingly familiar: horse leather and wood smoke. A fire roared at the far end, and a few faces looked up. The only noticeable change was the introduction of a blackboard, which offered ‘red’ or ‘white’ wine.

A woman turned round at the bar and held out a half-pint of lager. ‘Thought I was going to have to send out a search party.’

He hugged her through layers of fleece, and took it. ‘Cheers.’

He still never recognized her straight away. It was the extra weight, the glasses and the short-back-and-sides, which he suspected was the village hairdresser’s idea of a bob. Even though it was only eight months since Nan Riley’s funeral, he still expected to see teenage Laurie, with her long, shiny hair, skin-tight black jeans and coatings of purple eyeliner.