فصل بیست و نهم

“Come on,” I said at last. “Up to bed, Rhiannon. You’re tired, I’m tired, we’ve both had too much to drink . . . We’ll talk about all this in the morning.” I’d ring Sandra and explain. Somehow. With my head aching from the beginnings of a hangover, and tiredness scratching at the back of my eyes, I could not quite think of the words, but they would come. They would have to. I couldn’t carry on like this, being blackmailed by Rhiannon.

For a moment, as I climbed the stairs, Rhiannon in front of me, I had an absurd mental picture of Sandra welcoming me with open arms, telling me I completed their family, telling me— But no. That was ridiculous, and I knew it. Even the most generous of women would take time to adjust to a long-lost stepchild turning up, and to find out this way, in these circumstances . . . well. I had no illusions how the conversation was likely to pan out. Difficult would be the best-case scenario.

Well, I had made my bed, and I would have to lie on it. I would almost certainly be sacked—I couldn’t really see any way around that. But I was fairly sure that Bill would not want to sue his estranged daughter, to whose mother he had paid just pennies in child support, before disappearing for good. It would not be a good look for Elincourt and Elincourt. No, it would be swept under the rug, and I’d be free to carry on. Alone.

And far away from Heatherbrae.

I hadn’t really thought about my room and where I was going to sleep until we got to the second-floor landing, and Rhiannon turned the handle on her graffitied bedroom door and flung her shoes in, with total unconcern.

“Good night,” she said, as if nothing had happened, as if the events of the night had been just another family row.

“Good night,” I said, and I took a deep breath and opened the door to the bedroom. The strange phone was hard in my pocket, and my necklace—the necklace I had feared Bill Elincourt might recognize—lay warm around my neck.

Inside, the door to the attic was shut and locked, as I had left it. I was about to grab my night things and take them downstairs to the sofa to try to catch a few hours before dawn when there was a sudden gust of wind, making the trees outside groan. The curtains flapped suddenly and wildly in the breeze, and the fresh pine-laden scent of a Scottish night filled the room.

The room was still painfully cold, just as it had been earlier that night, and suddenly I realized. The cold had never come from the attic—it must have been the window, open all along. Only before I had been so fixated on finding out the truth of what was behind the locked door that I hadn’t even glanced towards the curtains.

At least the chill was explained then. Nothing supernatural—just the cold night air.

But the problem was, I had not opened that window. I hadn’t even touched it since I slammed it shut a few nights before. And now, suddenly, my stomach was turning over and over in a way that made me feel very, very sick.

Turning, I ran out of the room and down the stairs, ignoring Rhiannon’s sleepy “What the fuck?” as I slammed the door behind me. Downstairs, my heart hammering in my chest, I opened Petra’s bedroom door, the wood shushing on the thick carpet, and waited for my eyes to get adjusted to the dim light.

She was there, quite asleep, her arms and legs flung out, and I felt my pulse rate calm, just a little, but I had to check on the others before I could relax.

Down the corridor then, to the door marked Princess Ellie and Queen Maddie.

It was shut, and I turned the handle very softly, pushing gently. It was pitch-black inside without the night-light, the blackout curtains shutting out even the moonlight, and I cursed myself for forgetting to switch it on, but when my eyes got used to the darkness, I could hear the faint sound of snores, and I felt my breath coming a little more easily. Thank God. Thank God they were okay.

I tiptoed across the thick carpet and felt along the wall for the lead to the night-light, followed it back to the switch, and then I switched it on. And there they were, Ellie scrunched into a tight little ball as though trying to hide from something, Maddie scooched down under the duvet so that I could see nothing except her shape beneath the covers.

My panic calmed as I turned back to the door, laughing at myself for my paranoia.

And then . . . I stopped.

It was ridiculous, I knew that, but I just had to check, I had to see . . .

I tiptoed across the carpet and drew back the cover. To find . . .

. . . a pillow, pushed into the curved shape of a sleeping child.

My heart began to race sickeningly hard.

The first thing I did was check under the bed. Then all the cupboards in the room.

“Maddie,” I whispered, as loud as I dared, not wanting to wake Ellie but hearing the panicked urgency in my own voice. “Maddie?” But there was no answering sound, not even a stifled giggle. Just nothing. Nothing.

I ran out of the room.

“Maddie?” I called louder this time. I rattled the handle of the bathroom, but it was unlocked, and when the door swung open I saw its emptiness, the moonlight streaming across the bare tiles.

“Maddie?”

Nothing in Sandra and Bill’s bedroom either, just the unruffled smoothness of the bed, the moonlit expanse of carpet, the white columns of the open curtains standing sentinel either side of the tall windows. I flung open the closets, but the faint illumination of the automatic lights showed nothing but neat rows of suits and racks of high heels.

“What is it?” Rhiannon’s sleepy voice came from upstairs. “What the fuck’s going on?” “It’s Maddie,” I called up, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. “She’s not in bed. Can you look upstairs? Maddie!” Petra was stirring now, woken by my increasingly loud calls, and I heard her crotchety grumble, preparatory to a full-on wail, but I didn’t stop to comfort her. I had to find Maddie. Had she come downstairs to find me when I was with Jack? The thought gave me an unpleasant lurch, followed by another, even more unpleasant.

Had she— Oh God. Had she possibly followed me? I had left the back door unlocked. Could she have gone looking for me in the grounds?

Horrible visions ran through my mind. The pond. The stream. Even the road.

Ignoring Petra, I ran down the stairs, shoved my feet into the first pair of Wellingtons I found at the back door, and ran out into the moonlight.

The cobbled yard was empty.

“Maddie!” I called, full-throated, desperate now, hearing my voice echo from the stone walls of the stables and back to the house. “Maaaddie? Where are you?” There was no answer, and I had a sudden, even more horrible thought, worse than the forest clearing, with the treacherously muddy pond.

The poison garden.

The poison garden left unlocked and unguarded by Jack Grant.

It had already killed one little girl.

Dear God, I prayed, as I began to sprint towards the back of the house, towards the path down through the shrubbery, my feet slipping in the too-big Wellingtons. Please let it not claim another.

But as I rounded the corner of the house, I found her.

She was lying crumpled facedown below my bedroom window, sprawled across the cobblestones in her nightdress, the white cotton soaked through and through with blood, so much blood I would never have imagined her small body could hold it all.

It ran across the cobbles like treacle, thick and sticky, slicking my knees as I knelt in it, clinging to my fingers as I picked her up, cradling her, feeling the birdlike fragility of her little bones, begging her, pleading with her to be okay.

But of course it was impossible.

She would never be okay again. Nothing would.

She was quite, quite dead.