In A Dark, Dark Wood Part 27

Carefully, stealthily, I peer out of the cubicle curtains. The corridor is empty the nurses' station is unmanned, they are all dealing with patients, and the matron has disappeared.

I slip out, closing Clare's curtains behind me, and then I almost run for the doors at the end of the ward, and stumble out into the lift lobby.

I press the b.u.t.tons, not once, but five, ten, fifteen times, pressing again and again, as if it will make the lifts come faster.

Then there's a sudden grating noise and a ping, and the farthest lift doors open. I half-walk, half-run inside, my heart thudding. A porter is in there pus.h.i.+ng a woman in a wheelchair and hissing Lady Gaga through his teeth. Please, please let me make it.

The lift b.u.mps to a halt and I stand back to let the porter and the woman out first, and then follow the signs to the main entrance. A bored-looking woman is sitting at the desk flicking through a copy of h.e.l.lo.

As I draw level with her, her phone starts to ring, and I cannot stop myself walking a little faster. Don't pick it up. Don't pick it up.

She picks it up. 'h.e.l.lo, reception desk?'

I am walking too fast, I know I am, but I can't stop myself. I must look like a patient. How can she not notice I'm wearing flip-flops, for Christ's sake? Normal people, visitors, don't wear flip-flops in November. Not with grey jogging bottoms and a blue knitted cardigan.

She is going to stop me, I know it. She's going to say something, ask me if I'm OK. The two ten-pound notes clutched in my fist are damp with sweat.

'Really?' the receptionist says sharply as I draw level. She winds the phone cord around one finger. 'Yes, yes all right. I'll keep an eye out.'

My heart is in my mouth. She knows. I can't bear it.

But she doesn't look up. She's nodding. Maybe it's not me they're talking about.

I'm almost at the door. There's a sign telling people to use the alcohol rub on entry and exit. Should I stop? Will someone notice more if I stop, or more if I don't?

I don't stop.

At the desk the woman is still talking and shaking her head.

I am in the revolving door. For a moment I have a brief, flas.h.i.+ng fantasy that it will stop mid-cycle, that I will be trapped in a triangle of air, with maybe just a sliver of a gap to the outside, enough to reach an arm out, but not escape.

But of course it doesn't happen. The door continues its smooth revolution.

The cold air hits me like a blessing.

I am free.

I am out of the hospital.

I have escaped.

29.

THE AIR IS cold in my face and I feel completely lost. This place is totally strange to me and I realise suddenly and piercingly that I was brought here unconscious and have no idea how I got here or how to get away.

I'm s.h.i.+vering after the heat of the hospital and there are flecks of snow on the breeze. I look up as if searching for a miracle, and one comes, in the form of a sign saying 'Taxis' and an arrow.

I walk slowly, s.h.i.+vering, round the corner of the building and there, at the sign saying 'Taxi queue starts here', is a single cab, light on. A man is inside, at least I think so, it's hard to see through the fog on the windows.

I limp closer the flip-flops are starting to chafe the inner side of my foot and knock on the window. It rolls down a crack and a cheerful brown face grins at me.

'What can I do you for, love?' he asks. He is a Sikh, his turban a smart black, with a pin in the centre with his taxi company's logo on. His accent is a disconcerting mix of Punjabi and Newcastle that momentarily makes me want to laugh.

'I ... I need to get to ...' I suddenly realise I have no idea where to go. Back to London?

No.

'I need to get to the Gla.s.s House,' I say. 'It's a cottage, a house, just outside Stanebridge. Do you know the village?'

He nods and puts down his paper. 'Aye, I know it. Hop in, love.'

But I don't. In spite of the cold, and the fact that I'm s.h.i.+vering hard now, I hesitate, my hand on the door handle.

'How much will it be, please? I've only got twenty pounds.'

'It's twenty-five normally,' he says, taking in my bruises, 'but for you I'll say twenty.'

Thank G.o.d. I manage a smile, though my face feels like it is frozen, and might crack with the effort.

'Th-thank you,' I say, not stammering now, but my teeth chattering with cold.

'Get in, love,' he opens the door behind him, 'or you'll freeze. Hop in, now.'

I get in.

The car is like a coc.o.o.n of warmth that folds around me. It smells of worn plastic and pine air freshener and old cigarettes, the smell of every taxi everywhere, and I want to curl into the soft warmth of its seats and go to sleep and never wake up.

My fingers as I try to buckle my belt are trembling, and I realise how tired I am, how weak my muscles are after my hospital stay.

'Sorry,' I say, as he glances back to make sure I'm buckled up. 'Sorry. I'm nearly there.'

'No worries, love. No hurry.'

And then the buckle closes with a rea.s.suring click and I sit back, feeling my body ache with tiredness.

The driver starts the engine. I close my eyes. I am away.

'Eh, love. Wake up, Miss.'

I open my eyes, confused and bleary. Where am I? Not at home. Not in the hospital.

It takes a minute before I realise that I'm in the back seat of the taxi, in my hospital clothes, and the car has stopped.

'We're here,' he says. 'But I can't get up to the house. The road's blocked.'

I blink, and wipe the condensation off the window. He's right. A road block has been put across the lane, two aluminium barriers lashed together with police tape.

'It's all right.' I rub the sleep out of the corners of my eyes and feel in my pocket for the money. 'Here you go, twenty, was that right?'

He takes the money, but says, 'Are you sure you'll be all right, love? Looks like the house is shut up.'

'I'll be fine.'

Will I? I have to be. There must be a way in. I imagine the police will have secured the property but I can't believe they will have turned it into Fort Knox, not out here. There's no one to come and disturb the scene.

The taxi driver's face is unhappy as I get out the car, and he watches me, the engine idling, as I edge round the barrier. I don't want him to. I can't bear him to see me stumbling up the rutted track in my pathetic flip-flops. Instead I stand with my hands on the barrier, trying not to s.h.i.+ver, and wave at him determinedly.

He winds down the window, his breath gusting white into the cold air.

'Are you sure you're all right? I can stay if you like, tek you back to Stanebridge if there's n.o.body about. I won't charge. It's on me way back anyway.'

'No thanks,' I say. I grit my teeth, trying not to let them chatter. 'I'm fine. Thanks. Goodbye, now.'

He nods, still unhappy, and then revs the engine and I watch as his car disappears into the falling dusk, the red tail-lights illuminating the falling snow.

Jesus, this drive is long. I had forgotten how long. I remember the run, when I met Clare halfway up, my legs tired and aching and my skin cold.

That was nothing to this. What has happened to my muscles in hospital? I'm not even halfway up and my legs are trembling with those muscle shakes that come after you've pushed yourself too hard and too fast. My feet in the hard plastic flip-flops are bleeding, but they're so numb I can't feel any pain, I only know what has happened from the smears of red that mingle with the flecks of snow.

The mud, at least, has frozen, so I'm not fighting against the cloying lumps sticking to my feet. But when I stumble into a particularly deep rut there's a crack, and my foot goes through the thin crust of ice into the freezing pool of muddy water beneath.

I gasp and make a kind of squeaking whimper as I pull my foot painfully out through the sharp ice. It is a thin, pathetic sound, like a mouse being caught by an owl.

I am so cold. I am so very, very cold.

Have I been very stupid?

But I have to carry on. I'm halfway. There's no sense in going back even if I could flag down someone on the road, where would I go? Back to the hospital and the waiting cuffs of Lamarr? I've run away, absconded. I have to see this through. There is no way back.

I force my feet, one in front of the other, my arms wrapped around myself for warmth, thanking G.o.d and Nina for the blue cardigan which is the only thing keeping me from hypothermia. The wind blows again, a low moaning howl through the trees, and I hear the snow shake and patter to the ground.

One more step.

And one more after that.

I cannot tell how close I am with the house empty, there's no glowing lights to guide me. I have no sense of how long I've been walking in this bitter cold. Only that I have to keep going because if I don't I will die.

One more step.

There are pictures in my head as I get closer. Flo, her face twisted with fear, the gun across her chest. Nina's horrified expression, her blood-stained hands as she tried to staunch the flow.

James. James lying in a pool of his own blood, dying.

I know now what he was trying to say, when he said te ... Leo?

It wasn't 'tell' it was 'text'. He was asking me why I'd brought him here. And why I'd let him die like this.

He came for me. He came because I asked him.

Did I ask him?

I'm no longer sure. Oh my G.o.d, I'm cold.

It's hard to keep things straight in my head.

I remember the texts Lamarr showed me on that printed paper and I'm no longer sure if I'm remembering them from when she showed me, or before that.

Did I ask James to come?

I didn't know that Clare was marrying James until she told me in the car. I didn't know. So why would I have texted him?

I must cling to that I must cling to what I'm sure of.

It must have been Flo. She was the only person who could have controlled all this who chose the guests, who picked the house, who knew about the gun.

She was in the house when the texts were sent.

She knew I'd gone for a run.

I think again of her strange intensity, of her huge, explosive, terrifying love for Clare. Is it possible that she thought she might lose Clare to James? That she couldn't bear for him to come between them? And what better person to pin the blame on than me, James's ex-girlfriend, Clare's best friend.

And then ... then she realised what she had done. That she'd destroyed her friend as well as her rival. That she had ruined Clare's life.

And she couldn't take it any more.

Oh my G.o.d I'm so cold. And so tired. There's a fallen tree by the side of the lane. I could sit on it, just for a minute, just to stop the shaking in my legs.

Step by laborious step I make my way to it, and sink down onto its rough, moss-covered side. I huddle my body down to my knees, breathing into my legs, desperately trying to conserve some warmth.

I shut my eyes.

I wish I could sleep.

No.

The voice comes from somewhere outside me. I know it's not real, and yet I hear it in my head.

No.

I want to sleep.

No.