The Hidden Girl Read online

  ‘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.

  CHAPTER TWO

  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 t
he 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.

  ‘Some signposts would help.’

  ‘Yeah, then the place would be full of your lot. Bloody Londoners.’

  A barman handed Laurie her change and gave Will a curious look.

  ‘Chris!’ Laurie said. ‘Meet Will, my cousin – your new regular. He’s just moved into Tornley Hall.’

  ‘Have you now? Hello!’ Chris said, shaking Will’s hand. ‘That explains it. My wife Gemma does your post. She was wondering why there were lights on in the old place.’

  Laurie frowned at Will and shook her head. ‘No, they just moved in today, Chris.’

  ‘Is that right? Oh, don’t tell Gemma that – she’ll think she’s seeing ghosts!’ he laughed.

  ‘That’ll just be the estate agent getting it ready,’ Laurie said. ‘Getting the electric back on and stuff, won’t it, Will?’

  Will sipped his beer. It tasted good. ‘Maybe.’

  He didn’t know and he didn’t care.

  He and Laurie found a booth, by the window. Will clinked his cousin’s glass. ‘Cheers for sorting out the keys this morning, missus.’

  ‘You’re welcome. So?’ She bounced on her seat. ‘Did you get my text?’

  He had. He’d read it in the service station on the way here, while Hannah was in the loo. ‘Yeah. What’s the big thing?’

  ‘I’ve been there before!’ Laurie squealed. ‘We both have!’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Tornley Hall!’

  Will sipped his beer. It was definitely taking the edge off. He shook his head. ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘You have!’ she said, her eyes widening behind her square black glasses. ‘I remembered as soon as I walked in. That massive hall with the black-and-white tiles. And the stained-glass window. Nan took us there!’ She waited for him to react. ‘We were about six or seven? Nan was probably collecting something for the WI – do you remember that we used to go round to people’s houses with her, around the villages, and get biscuits and juice?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Will, you wet your pants in the hall.’

  ‘Fuck off, Lor.’

  She giggled. ‘You did.’

  To his surprise, a vague memory did return of warm pee running down his leg onto a red rug, and him looking to Nan, ashamed. And someone – a woman – giving him a toffee and telling him not to cry.

  Laurie watched him closely. ‘Do you remember?’

  ‘I don’t know. I remember Nan taking me into this freezing old toilet and wiping my leg … and you being there, being a pain in the arse. No idea where it was, though.’

  Laurie banged his arm. ‘Oh my God, you’re right! It was there – I remember that. An old toilet covered in blue flowers? I couldn’t reach the handle. Is it still there?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Tornley Hall could have six toilets covered in blue flowers. He hadn’t noticed.

  ‘Isn’t that weird?’ Laurie babbled on. ‘Anyway, I can’t believe you’ve bought that place. I didn’t even know it was there. Can you imagine Nan’s face? She was always boasting about you at the post office: “My boy, up in London, mixing with the stars, you know … ” She’d have had a field day with this. And God, the garden’s amazing! I couldn’t get the kids out of it this morning. I’ll warn you, they’re going to ask you if they can have a trampoline on the lawn. We haven’t got room, and …’

  Will waited for Laurie to remember. One, two, three …

  ‘… and … anyway. So.’ On cue, Laurie’s cheerful expression disappeared. ‘So, no Hannah, then? Did she not fancy a drink?’

  She watched him with the unabashed affection that had made him uncomfortable as a teenager, but now made him grateful every time he saw her.

  He waited to feel guilty about not being honest with Hannah about where he was right now, but didn’t. She never stopped talking about that bloody house. He needed a break.

  ‘No. She wanted to get sorted. But she says hi. And thanks for the food.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ Laurie said, unconvincingly. Will had seen his cousin watching Hannah by his side at Nan Riley’s funeral: suspicious, a cat guarding her owner’s garden.

  ‘But, so yes. What an amazing house,’ she said, subdued.

  Will sipped his half-pint, wanting a proper one. He also wanted to tell her that Tornley Hall was a complete shithole, and he’d known the minute they arrived that he should never have let Hannah talk him into either the house or coming back here.

  ‘You don’t want to know how much the mortgage is, Lor. Needs a lot of work, too.’

  She nudged him. ‘You should get Ian over with his power-spray. He cleans everything with it. Fences, walls, bins, kids, me …’

  Will knocked back his half-pint, checking the bar clock and wondering how long he could push it, before he had to go back.

  Laurie scratched her nose under her glasses. He saw the words teetering on her lips.

  ‘No,’ he said, putting her out of her misery.

  ‘No, what?’

  ‘We haven’t heard anything.’

  ‘Oh, OK. And how’s Hannah?’

  Where would he start? ‘You know,’ he said. ‘Got her plans.’

  ‘Well, tell her if she needs any help …’

  He wondered, if Laurie did actually spend time with Hannah on her own, how long she’d be able to act polite.

  ‘How are the kids?’ Will asked, before he said something about Hannah that he’d regret.

  He saw the relief on Laurie’s face that she could now mention them without worrying. He forced himself to smile, as she reeled off the recent achievements and funny things said by Daniel, Caitlin and Sam. Then he did what he had done his whole life and summoned a song into his head, to drown it all out.

  CHAPTER THREE

  In the end Will stayed for one more drink, ignoring Laurie’s glance of disapproval as he ordered a full pint alongside her half. Later he found his way more easily along the dark lanes back to the bald hedge and the crooked gate with the red rope, and turned right.

  The ‘Tornley’ sign appeared, and he bore right again, past the terrace of three cottages. That was better. He knew where he was now.

  Will slowed down, scrabbling around in the side-pocket to find chewing gum to disguise the alcohol on his breath.

  Something moved to his right.

  He braked, tensing for a thud.

  A tall, lumbering figure ran towards him from the direction of Tornley Hall at a clumsy half-trot, wearing a black hoodie and tracksuit trousers, head bent forward.

  He waited for the runner to look up into his headlights and wave an acknowledgement that they’d seen each other, but they just kept going, diving into the long beam of the car’s headlights, then onto the verge, before disappearing.

  Wanker. They’d get hit out here, wearing that at night.

  Will turned the last bend. The illuminated gables of the old house appeared through the bare hedge. The ridiculousness of what he’d let Hannah do – buying this rundown old dump – hit him again.

  He drove up the drive, parked and entered the house.

  A pile of cracked air fresheners lay on the hall floor, as if they’d been chucked from upstairs. Behind their collective stink, he detected a new smell.

  She must be joking.

  Picking his way through all the crap in the hall, Will found Hannah up a ladder in the kitchen. She was running the roller over the dark-green walls, pushing white emulsion into cracks and over cobwebs.

&nb
sp; ‘What are you doing?’

  Her strokes travelled in all directions – out to the side, diagonally, then straight – as she covered the surface as fast as she could. She had found the radio in a box and had turned it up. It wasn’t even music she liked, just generic shit. There was a burnt smell. A dried-up tray of pasta sat on the hob, pitted with the carcasses of olives.

  ‘Why did you take so long?’ she shouted over the music.

  ‘Shop was shut – I had to drive to Thurrup,’ he lied, holding out the beers he’d persuaded the guy at the Fox to sell him. ‘Bumped into Laurie.’

  ‘How’s she?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Where’s the milk?’

  ‘They’d run out.’

  ‘Of milk? Really?’ She took a brush and sloshed paint around the yellowed light switch. It dripped onto a hastily laid dust-sheet below. ‘I’ve put the decorating schedule for next week on the worktop. Do you want to check it? I’ve tried to divide it up, so you can finish off the high bits like the ceilings in the evenings, and lift the heavy things into the rooms with me.’

  And, in that second, Will saw that this was never going to end.

  This house was not going to fix things, as she had promised. It was just going to fuel her obsession.

  ‘It’s eight-thirty,’ he said, wearily.

  ‘I know, but it just looks so bad, with all the Horseborrows’ furniture gone. And I didn’t even think about the garden – that’s going to add at least a day. We’ve only got thirteen days now, so I thought I might as well …’ Her words trailed off as she stretched to cover a missed patch.

  Will found a plate, and pointed at the burnt pasta.

  ‘Is this Lor’s?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s all right, if you take the top off.’

  His stomach rumbled through the gas of the beer. He sat down and surveyed this monstrous kitchen that he now owned. It must be as big as Mum’s whole flat in Salford. Their table looked like an island in an ocean of flagstone. He opened his third beer of the evening, promising himself it was a one-off, and excavated the pasta with a fork until he found some edible sauce.