The Woman Next Door(45)
But she had never experienced a feeling as intoxicating as that moment in the early morning when she’d clicked the door to Laurie’s flat in Crouch End and walked down the deserted street, bag slung over her shoulder and a lightness in her step.
She remembered a fox had slunk onto the pavement before her, all furry angles and sharp musk. She’d gazed into its golden eyes. It felt as though the world belonged to the two of them: wild, free spirits on the move.
Glancing up, she recognizes the name on the sign.
‘Hester?’ Her voice seems loud and unnatural in the small space.
‘Yes?’ says Hester.
Melissa takes a deep in-breath. ‘I think we’re nearly there. We have to take the next turning.’
They pass cottages whose thatched brows seem to glower at them in disapproval. Melissa gets the strange sensation that they will never leave these narrow roads. They will simply make endless circles, the three of them, forever. Two women and a dead man.
She chews her lips, trying to focus.
The light has come at last but the misty rain in the air gives everything a hazy look. They might as well be looking through Hester’s net curtains.
Eventually they spot a narrow country lane they must have missed the first time and Hester slows so they can peer at the sign. Fittingly called Watery Lane, it is lined with such dense tree coverage that it has an ominous, tunnel-like look. It seems like it will suck them inside and simply close over, never letting them out again.
Melissa feels a stab of hot fear as Hester turns the van down the lane.
It soon narrows to a single track. City driver that she is, she begins to fret about cars coming the other way, even at this hour. And could a country house have such an inhospitable and narrow road leading to it? It’s all hopeless. They will never find this well. And even if they do, they will never get Jamie’s body into it. She might as well find the nearest police station and get it all over with.
‘Oh Melissa, are you all right?’ Hester’s voice is shrill. Flustered, Melissa raises her hand to her face and finds it damp. She must have been crying again, or maybe it’s just the tiredness making her eyes so watery. Everything feels ever more blurred. It’s raining quite hard now and the windscreen wipers on this old pile of junk are only smearing the wetness around rather than clearing her view. Outside is an Impressionist painting of green and brown smudges.
‘Yeah,’ she sighs. ‘I’m okay, I’m just—’, then, ‘oh, stop here!’
The car slows to a crawl and the two women peer at the battered sign in the shape of an arrow at the side of the road.
Sca ow H ll and River, it says in long-rotted letters, like a gap-toothed smile.
Adrenaline thrills through Melissa once again and she is suddenly more alert than she has felt since Fleet. It looks as though they are almost there.
Melissa looks at Hester, who meets her gaze with wide eyes that somehow convey excitement more than fear.
Why is she helping her?
Mark used to joke that Hester had a crush on Melissa, which was silly and untrue, she was certain. He’d come up behind her, whispering in her ear, until she couldn’t stop herself from collapsing into giggles and batting him away.
‘Just imagine, you could strip off those thick tights and find the wonders beneath,’ he’d say, and put on a high-pitched, old-lady voice in the throes of passion. ‘Oh Melissa! Melissa! Go down on me!’ Melissa had ended up squealing in horror and chasing him around the kitchen, slapping him with a tea towel.
But despite what Mark says, Melissa believes this assessment of Hester was off the mark. She is essentially a bit of a lonely, odd old fish and she genuinely likes to be helpful. If there had been something a little cloying and unwelcome about her constant offers to help, maybe that was Melissa’s fault.
Yet she is a strange little woman. A bag of nerves about driving on a motorway, but she can walk into a room and see a man with his skull caved in before calmly emptying her freezer of cool packs to keep him fresh. Horror rises in Melissa’s chest again. She longs for coffee. She longs for it to be over.
The silence hangs between them as the road widens again. They pass fields of rapeseed flowers that blaze violent-yellow in the dishwater light. Another sign directs them to ‘The House’ and ‘RIVER’. As they drive down a rutted road that causes the van’s suspension to groan and protest, she believes she can almost feel the thump and slide of Jamie’s wrapped body moving around in the back.
Soon they reach a small, picturesque gatehouse with turrets and leaded windows that seem to eye them beadily. Engine humming, they sit in silence and look at the tall wrought-iron gates next to the gatehouse, which bar the entrance to a gravel driveway sweeping into the distance. It curves through some trees and the house can just be seen: a pale stone mansion criss-crossed with scaffolding. It looks oddly cowed and lonely despite obvious recent attempts at repair.
‘Did your husband ever say how he got to where that picture was taken?’ says Melissa now. Her mouth is dry and her tongue clicks unpleasantly against the roof of her mouth.
Hester shakes her head.
Panic begins to hum inside Melissa again. Something is very wrong about all this.
The Forgotten Dorset website had given the strong impression that this place was a ruin. There was no mention of scaffolding, which suggests people are doing the place up. There was no mention of fucking gates.