The Darkness(65)

‘Do you think they’d let me use the phone at the front desk?’ asked his wife.

‘It’s a bit late to ring them now, isn’t it? She may have dropped off in front of the TV.’

In the end, they set off home a little earlier than planned, just after eleven. The three-course dinner was over by then, and to be honest it had been a bit underwhelming. The main course, which was lamb, had been bland at best. After dinner, people had piled on to the dance floor. To begin with, the DJ had played popular oldies, but then he moved on to more recent chart hits, which weren’t really the couple’s sort of thing, although they still liked to think of themselves as young; after all, they weren’t middle-aged yet.

They rode home in silence, the rain streaming down the taxi’s windows. The truth was they weren’t really party people; they were too fond of their creature comforts at home, and the evening had tired them out, though they hadn’t drunk much, just a glass of red wine with dinner.

As they got out of the taxi, the wife remarked that she hoped their daughter was asleep so they could both crawl straight into bed.

They climbed the stairs unhurriedly and opened the door instead of ringing the bell, for fear of disturbing the child.

But she wasn’t asleep, as it turned out. She came running to greet them, threw her arms around them and hugged them unusually tightly. To their surprise, she seemed wide awake; they’d have expected her to be nodding off by now.

‘You’re full of beans,’ said her father, smiling at her.

‘I’m so glad you’re home,’ said the little girl. There was an odd look in her eye; something was wrong, though it was hard to define what it was.

The babysitter emerged from the sitting room and smiled sweetly at them.

‘How did it go?’ asked the mother.

‘Really well,’ the babysitter replied, ‘Your daughter’s such a good girl. We watched two videos.’

‘Thanks so much for coming; I don’t know what we’d have done without you.’

The father took his wallet from his jacket, counted out some notes and handed them to her. ‘Is that right?’

She counted the money herself, then nodded. ‘Yes, perfect.’

After she’d left, the father turned to their daughter.

‘Aren’t you tired, sweetheart?’

‘Yes, maybe a little. But could we watch just a bit more?’

Her father shook his head, saying kindly, ‘Sorry, it’s awfully late.’

‘Oh, please. I don’t want to go to bed yet,’ said the little girl, sounding on the verge of tears.

‘OK, OK.’ He ushered her into the sitting room. The TV schedule was over for the evening, but he turned on the video machine and inserted a new cassette.

Then he joined her on the sofa and they waited for the film to begin.

‘Didn’t you have a nice time together?’ he asked, warily.

‘Yes … yes, it was fine,’ she said, not very convincingly.

‘She was … kind to you, wasn’t she?’

‘Yes,’ answered the child. ‘Yes, they were both kind.’

Her father was wrong-footed. ‘What do you mean both?’ he asked.

‘There were two of them.’

Turning round to look at her, he asked again, gently: ‘What do you mean by them?’

‘There were two of them.’

‘Did one of her friends come round?’

There was a brief pause before the girl answered. Seeing the fear in her eyes, he gave an involuntary shiver.

‘No. But it was kind of weird, Daddy …’