The Hidden Girl (9 page)

The front door banged. She took the tea to the hall. Dax held an armful of logs.

‘Oh, OK,’ she said.

Ignoring her again, he walked off into the sitting room.

This man was making her head spin.

Dax threw down the logs by the fireplace, peered up the chimney, banged it with a big fist, then chucked twigs onto the empty grate, followed by four logs.

As with the window, he wasn’t even asking her if it was OK.

‘Sorry, Dax, that chimney’s not been swept. It might go up . . .’

Dax pulled a grubby can from his boiler suit and poured a liberal amount of murky liquid onto the logs. He threw on a lighted match.

‘Listen, I don’t think—’

Fire exploded in the grand old Victorian fireplace. It was so startling to see a warm glow in this cold, bleak house that Hannah shut up. Even from twenty feet away she could feel heat pricking faintly at her frozen hands and face. The dank cream walls turned a pale, warm orange.

For the first time since they had arrived Tornley Hall suddenly looked homely and welcoming again.

She leant against the door. Dax kicked the logs with a hefty boot.

‘Thank you; that looks—’

‘Right!’ he cut across her.

He marched past with more logs and set a second fire in the small fireplace in the hall. It too exploded into life, adding a warmth to the heart of the house. Hannah shoved Will’s boxes of vinyl away, then crouched by it, transfixed.

Dax took his tea from the mantelpiece. His eyes flashed in the firelight. With his tangle of dark curls, he reminded her of some creature: a wild horse off the marshes. She was so used to office workers in the city being groomed and clean, to make themselves acceptable in others’ cramped company, that there was something strangely appealing about Dax’s honest work-grime.

Suddenly his eyes creased up, pushing the oil on his face into his crow’s feet.

‘What the hell do you call that?’ he roared, spitting out his tea.

‘Oh, sorry, it’s the only sugar I could find. It’s muscovado . . .’

Dax frowned. Before she could offer him something else, he tried the study door handle and, when it wouldn’t open, looked over and grabbed the key-ring from the sitting-room door. Without asking, he unlocked the study and walked in, cup in hand.

This was her house.

‘You need to fill them cracks,’ he said surveying the walls.

‘Yeah, I know,’ she said, walking in behind him. Thankfully the study was both intruder-free and as well maintained as the sitting room. It was cosy and small, with that window seat that she planned to cover in a remnant of material for Barbara’s visit. ‘I will. But right now I’m just trying to paint it quickly, so I can get these up when my husband gets home.’ She pointed to the four record shelf-units clogging up the hall.

Dax glanced sideways at them, as if he were eyeing up a secondhand car. He gulped his tea. ‘Where’s he, then?’

‘Stuck in London, in the snow.’

Dax shook his head with a scathing grin, as if London was the most ridiculous place on earth anyone could choose to go.

‘Right. Come on then,’ he said, marching out of the front door.

What now? She was starting to feel as if Dax owned Tornley Hall, not her.

He booted the snow out of his way as he headed past the study windows, down the right-hand side of the house, and stopped at a wooden door.

He yanked it open, revealing a stack of logs.

‘Oh,’ Hannah said. ‘Great.’ This wasn’t what she needed, but it would help.

Dax felt the wood. ‘Should be dry. If not, stick that on.’ He pulled out the can and shoved it at her. ‘Go up like a rocket.’

The can was sticky. ‘What is it?’

‘Sump oil – from the bike.’

‘Isn’t that dangerous?’

He looked astonished, as if she’d said something both stupid and funny, threw back the last of his tea and turned on his heel.

She sniffed the can’s strong oily odour, wondering if this is why the sitting room smelt of fuel. Had Olive and Peter used sump oil to start fires, too? Was that what people did here?

‘Right then. Jim at Thurrup, he’s the plumber – won’t get down till the snow’s gone, though. His car’s a piece of shit.’ Dax stuck the cup in her hand, as if she was his servant. ‘Thank you very much.’ And he walked off again.

‘Oh. Right. So, Dax, sorry, do I owe you for the logs you brought?’

He waved back. ‘We’ll sort it out.’

What did that mean? Was that a country thing?

She followed him to the truck.

‘So you really don’t think he’ll come back, then – the farm worker?’

‘No. He’ll be halfway to Norfolk now, thinking the coppers is after him. But . . .’ He reached into his truck, scribbled a number on a cigarette packet. ‘You have any bother, you ring.’ He thrust it into her hand. ‘Me and Bill will be round. Sort him out.’

The offer was so unexpected that Hannah forgave him his awkward manner. Dax jumped in his truck and revved off, without giving her the chance to thank him. He drove like he walked – no time wasted.

She scanned the garden, in case the vagrant was watching. The bare hedges and branches left nowhere to hide. She went round the side-alcove, double-checked the sitting-room window Dax had nailed shut, and the big square one opposite it, into the scullery. Both were secure. Just in case, she locked the garage doors, too.

Back inside, Hannah checked the upstairs rooms, the attic and the windows and doors, then made herself a sugary cup of tea for the shock and walked towards the sitting-room fire.

She needed to pull herself together. This was all distracting her from getting the house ready today. Dax was local. He must know what he was talking about. The man had run away, probably as scared as she was.

She was just sitting down when there was creak, then a sudden loud bang behind her.

‘Oh!’ Hannah exclaimed, jumping back up.

The hall beyond the doorway had fallen into gloom, with just the faint glow from the fire licking at the shadows.

Her heart thumped hard for the second time today. That hall light had been on a second ago.

Hannah tiptoed over, reached into the hall and found the switch. She pressed it and nothing happened. Swearing under her breath, she crossed to the study. That light worked, as did the one in the dining room. She examined the hall fitting in the dull mid-morning light from outside and saw misted glass.

‘For God’s sake, calm down,’ she said out loud. The light bulb had blown. That’s all.

She fetched a new one from the kitchen and stood on a chair to replace it. Light once again flooded the centre of the house. She was about to turn off the study light, then hesitated. The more rooms that looked as if they were occupied, even during the daytime, the less likely any more transient farm workers would be to mistake the house for an empty property.

Trying to relax, she returned to the sitting-room fire and sat down. What a weird, bloody morning. Clearly she’d been naive, thinking everything out here would be idyllic.

Behind her there was another creak, this time further away.

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Hannah muttered, jumping up to peer out the hall door.

The door into the kitchen was open, as she had left it. She checked round the hall once again, her eyes stopping at the little fire in the corner. Didn’t heat make houses expand? She wrapped the blanket more firmly round herself and returned to chuck another log on the sitting-room fire, then picked up her phone to tell Will what had happened.

Hannah’s finger froze over the keypad.

Was that a good idea? What would he do? Worry that she was out here on her own with a madman on the loose, and ring the police?

They couldn’t mess this up with Barbara. She couldn’t let her nerves spoil everything they’d dreamt about.

She had to trust Dax, and believe the man was long gone.

Hannah put down the phone and shifted a burning log with their old poker from London. It was a much grander, bigger fireplace than their little Edwardian one in the flat. A pleasant pine smell drifted off the wood, masking the lingering petrol smell in the room.

Dax was probably right. And if, by some remote chance, the vagrant did come back tonight, her new neighbours had promised to come straight round.

Hannah lowered her phone. She’d tell Will after Barbara had been. Once this was over. She was so behind now with the schedule that, when Will did finally get back, she’d need him focused on preparing for Barbara’s visit and nothing else.

Hannah looked up at the Horseborrows’ dusty old library to distract herself. What, for instance, were they going to do with this lot?

The books were crammed along wooden shelves that ran up to the high ceiling. She stood up and trailed a finger along one.

On the right side of the fireplace, underneath a large collection of dry-looking history and military tomes, was a row of old children’s books. She took one out and opened it. ‘To Olive Horseborrow, For Diligence, Fifth Year, 1934,’ the inscription said, in copperplate writing. How amazing. And how sad that she and Peter had no family to pass these books on to.

On the left side of the fireplace there were mainly old travel books.
Walking Through Inner Mongolia
.
A Vagabond Abroad
. Hannah opened
Swaziland on a Horse
, her fingers immediately darkening with dust. She leafed through the crisp-thin pages, fascinated by the old maps and old-fashioned fonts. Dried flowers and old postcards fell out; a handwritten receipt dated 1956, from an Ipswich bookshop.

Is that what Olive and Peter did? Worked abroad in far-off lands, and brought their wonderful tapestries and antiques back to this rural part of Suffolk? What work had they done?

Hannah sat down again, not wanting to leave the heat.

Suddenly there was a longer, much louder creak outside.

She spun round. What the hell was going on?

Picking up the poker in one hand and her phone in the other, she found Dax’s number and tiptoed out into the hall.

Once again, it was empty.

She waited, then kept going quietly, glancing into the dining room and then into the kitchen.

The old fridge door, from where she’d taken out the milk, had fallen open.

Shutting it firmly, she checked the kitchen clock. Right. Enough. There was no more time for shredded nerves. The man was gone. She had to get started. Hannah picked up her schedule for today. And then, from nowhere, she had the strangest feeling she was being watched.

She turned.

The scullery behind her was empty apart from the sink, the old fridge and wall-shelves and their own washing machine.

This was ridiculous. She had to calm down.

The doors were locked, the sitting-room window was nailed shut and the vagrant knew the house was occupied now. He was hardly going to stand outside in the freezing snow all day, waiting to steal back in. For all he knew, Dax was her husband – and she might be waiting right now for the police to arrive.

No, she had to focus.

She opened the fridge in the scullery and took out the last green apple for her breakfast.

As she did so, there was another creak beside her on the floor.

She looked down at the old linoleum, relieved. That creak had happened right in front of her, and there was clearly no one here. That’s all it was – the heat, waking up the chilly old house, and the wooden floors contracting.

Hannah bit into the apple.

Vaguely she noticed an odd taste, but ignored it.

She went to fetch the paint roller.

By four o’clock that afternoon, Will’s hangover had been replaced by fatigue and hunger. He threw on his jacket and walked out of the studios into the snow to find food. There was a light on in the King’s Head. That would do.

To his surprise, the pub was full. Will found himself ordering a pint again, and decided not to think about it. It had been an odd week. Stressful.

At the next table was a group of fashion students. One, a Japanese girl, was wearing what looked like a slit white cushion-pad on her head. He smiled, then recalled the Fox & Hounds with its huddle of desiccated faces.

Resentment gripped him that he’d had to leave London. Resentment at Hannah.

He turned on his phone and saw two more messages from her. They were broken and difficult to hear again. Something about a donkey she’d found in the snow, and how she wanted to call the RSPCA but was worried that, if the police became involved, Barbara might find out.

He deleted the message, annoyed. What was up with her? That wasn’t like Hannah. The first time he’d visited her flat in Holloway, he’d found her and her flatmate confronting the wanker next door who’d been hitting his wife. The guy was telling them to fuck off, while his wife hid inside. The atmosphere had changed when Will arrived, but he’d suspected Hannah didn’t need his help. She was fearless.

It’s what he’d liked about her from the start. She looked after herself. She wasn’t like his mum, a bottomless pit of neediness. Or the clingy girls who’d followed him and the lads around shit gigs in Camden pubs, pandering to them, even when they acted like the coked-up arses they were back then.

No. The Hannah from that time wouldn’t have thought twice about calling the RSPCA on some knob.

The pub door opened, with a blast of cold air. In the mirror, Will saw Clare shaking snow from her hat. To his surprise, she was with two Smart Yak producers. She must have started coming to the pub more since she’d split up from her boyfriend.

Hannah’s second message came to an abrupt halt in his ear: ‘. . . so can you . . . please, Will. My phone hardly . . . out here, and—’

Will saw Clare sit down with the producers, and decided to ring Hannah back later.

Right now, he wanted to go over there. Not because of the unexpected whisper of suggestion when Clare had taken off her coat earlier. He didn’t know where that had come from. He just wanted to sit and enjoy a rare afternoon pint in the pub before he returned to work, without Hannah controlling his every move.

He turned off his phone, waited to feel bad – and didn’t.

It was her idea to decorate the whole house in two weeks, not his. He’d told her that Barbara didn’t care what colour the walls were, but that had just caused more ‘discussions’ about him ‘being ridiculously naive and not being realistic about what they needed to do’.