Into the Water(54)
‘Mrs Townsend—’
‘Another thing I should mention,’ she continued, permitting no interruption, ‘is that there was some history between Lena Abbott and Mark Henderson.’
‘History?’
‘A couple of things. First, that her behaviour could at times be inappropriate.’
‘In what way?’
‘She flirts. Not just with Mark either. It seems she’s been taught that it’s the best way to get what she wants. Many of the girls do it, but in Lena’s case Mark seemed to feel that it went too far. She made remarks, touched him …’
‘Touched him?’
‘On the arm – nothing outrageous. She stood too close, as the song goes. I had to speak to her about it.’ She seemed to flinch slightly at the memory. ‘She was reprimanded, though of course she didn’t take it seriously. I think she said something along the lines of He wishes.’ I laughed at that, and she frowned at me. ‘It really isn’t a laughing matter, Detective. These things can be terribly damaging.’
‘Yes, of course. I know. I’m sorry.’
‘Yes. Well.’ She pursed her lips again, every inch the school marm. ‘Her mother didn’t take it seriously, either. Which is hardly surprising.’ She coloured, an angry flush of red appearing at her neck, her voice rising. ‘Hardly surprising at all. All that flirting, the endless batting of lashes and tossing of hair, that insistent, tiresome expression of sexual availability – where do you imagine Lena learned that?’ She took a deep breath and exhaled, pushing her hair from her eyes. ‘The second thing,’ she said, calmer now, more measured, ‘was an incident in the spring. Not flirting this time, but aggression. Mark had to send Lena out of his class because she was being aggressive and quite abusive, using foul language during a discussion about a text they were studying.’ She glanced down at her notes. ‘Lolita, I believe it was.’ She raised an eyebrow.
‘Well, that’s … interesting,’ I said.
‘Quite. It might even suggest where she got the idea for these accusations,’ Helen said, which wasn’t what I’d been thinking at all.
In the evening, I drove out to my temporary cottage. It looked much lonelier with dusk looming, the bright birches behind it now ghostly, the chuckle of the river not so much cheerful as menacing. The banks of the river and the hillside opposite were deserted. No one to hear you scream. When I’d come past on my run I’d seen a peaceful idyll. Now I was thinking more along the lines of the desolate cabin of a hundred horror films.
I unlocked the door and took a quick look around, trying, as I did, not to look for blood on the walls. But the place was tidy, with the astringent smell of some sort of citrusy cleaning product, the fireplace swept, a pile of chopped wood neatly arranged at its side. There wasn’t much to it, it was more of a cabin than a cottage really: just two rooms – a living room with a galley kitchen leading off it, and a bedroom with a small double bed, a pile of clean sheets and a blanket folded on the mattress.
I opened the windows and the door to get rid of the artificial lemon smell, opened one of the beers I’d bought at the Co-op on the way down, and sat on the front step, watching the bracken on the hill opposite turn bronze to gold with the sinking sun. As the shadows lengthened, I felt solitude morph into loneliness, and I reached for my phone, not certain who I was going to call. Then I realized – of course – no signal. I hauled myself to my feet and wandered about, waving the phone in the air – nothing, nothing, nothing, until I walked right down to the river’s edge where a couple of bars appeared. I stood there a while, the water just about lapping my toes, watching the black river run past, quick and shallow. I kept thinking I could hear someone laughing, but it was just the water, sliding nimbly over the rocks.
I took ages to fall asleep and when I woke suddenly, feverishly hot, it was to inky darkness, the kind of deep black that makes it impossible to see your hand in front of your face. Something had woken me, I felt sure: a sound? Yes, a cough.
I reached for my phone, knocking it off the little bedside table, the clatter as it fell to the floor startlingly loud in the silence. I scrabbled around for it, gripped suddenly by fear, sure that if I turned on the light it would reveal someone standing there in the room. In the trees behind the cottage I could hear an owl hooting, and then again: someone coughing. My heart was beating too fast, I was stupidly afraid to pull back the curtain above my bed, just in case there was a face on the other side of the glass, looking back at me.
Whose face was I expecting? Anne Ward’s? Her husband’s? Ridiculous. Muttering reassurances to myself, I turned on the light and flung back the curtains. Nothing and no one. Obviously. I slipped out of bed, pulled on tracksuit bottoms and a sweatshirt and went through to the kitchen. I considered making a cup of tea, but thought better of it when I discovered a half-empty bottle of Talisker in the kitchen cupboard. I poured myself a couple of fingers’ worth and drank it quickly. I slipped on my trainers, put my phone in my pocket, grabbed a torch from the counter and unlocked the front door.
The batteries in the torch must have been low. The beam was weak, reaching no more than six or seven feet in front of me. Beyond that was perfect obscurity. I angled the torch downwards to light up the ground in front of my feet, and walked out into the night.
The grass was heavy with dew. Within a few steps my trainers and tracksuit bottoms were soaked through. I walked slowly all the way around the cottage, watching the torchlight dancing off the silvery bark of the beech trees, a cohort of pale ghosts. The air felt soft and cool, and there was a kiss of rain in the breeze. I heard the owl again, and the low chatter of the river, and the rhythmic croak of a toad. I finished my circuit of the cottage and started walking towards the river bank. Then the croaking suddenly stopped, and again, I heard that coughing sound. It wasn’t nearby at all, it was coming from the hillside, somewhere across the river, and it didn’t sound so much like a cough this time either. More of a bleat. A sheep.