The Turn of the Key(21)

I shrugged back, ruffled the back of Maddie’s hair, and turned towards the car.

I had stowed my luggage in the back seat, and was just walking around the opposite side of the car to climb into the front passenger seat when something hit me like a small, dark hurricane. Arms wrapped around my waist, a hard little skull digging into my lower ribs.

Wriggling round in the fierce embrace I saw, to my surprise, that it was Maddie. Maybe I had won her over after all?

“Maddie!” I said, but she did not answer. I was unsure of what to do, but in the end I bent down to give her a little hug back. “Thank you for showing me your lovely house. Goodbye.”

I hoped that the last word might make her let go, but she only tightened her grip, squeezing me uncomfortably tight, making my breath come short.

“Don’t—” I heard her whimper into my still-damp top, though I couldn’t make out the second word. Don’t go?

“I have to,” I whispered back. “But I hope I’ll be able to come back very soon.”

That was the truth, all right. God, I hoped so.

But Maddie was shaking her head, her dark hair swishing against her knobbly spine. I felt the heat of her breath through my top. There was something strangely intimate and uncomfortable about the whole thing, something I could not put my finger on, and all of a sudden I very much wanted her to let go, but mindful of Sandra’s presence, I did not prize Maddie’s fingers away. Instead, I smiled and tightened my arms around her momentarily, returning her hug. As I did, she made a little sound, almost a whimper.

“Maddie? Is something wrong?”

“Don’t come here,” she whispered, still refusing to look at me. “It’s not safe.”

“It’s not safe?” I gave a little laugh. “Maddie, what do you mean?”

“It’s not safe,” she repeated, with a little angry sob, shaking her head harder so that her words were almost lost. “They wouldn’t like it.”

“Who wouldn’t like it?”

But with that, she tore herself away, and then she was running barefoot across the grass, shouting something over her shoulder.

“Maddie!” I called after her. “Maddie, wait!”

“Don’t worry,” Sandra said with a laugh. She came round to my side of the car. It was plain that she had not seen anything apart from Maddie’s sudden hug and her subsequent flight. “That’s Maddie, I’m afraid. Just let her go, she’ll be back for lunch. But she must have liked you—I’m not sure she’s ever voluntarily hugged a stranger before!”

“Thank you,” I said, rather unsettled, and I let Sandra see me into the car and slam the door shut.

It was only as we began to wind slowly down the drive, while I kept one eye out for a fleeting child among the trees, that I found myself replaying Maddie’s final remark, wondering if she had really said what I thought I’d heard.

For the thing she had called over her shoulder seemed almost too preposterous to be true—and yet the more I brooded over it, the more I was sure of what I’d heard.

The ghosts, she had sobbed. The ghosts wouldn’t like it.





“Well, seems it’s goodbye for now,” Jack said. He stood at the barrier to the station, holding my bag in one hand, his other outstretched. I took it and shook it. There was oil deeply ground in around the nails from yesterday, but his skin was clean and warm, and the odd intimacy of the contact gave me a little shiver I couldn’t explain.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, a little awkwardly, and then, with a feeling that I might as well because I’d regret it if I didn’t, I added, a little rashly, “Sorry I didn’t get to meet Bill. Or . . . or Jean.”

“Jean?” Jack said, looking a little puzzled. “She’s not about much in the day. Goes home to her dad.”

“Is she . . . is she young, then?”

“No!” He gave that grin again, the sides of his mouth curving into an expression of such beguiling amusement that I felt my own mouth curve in helpless sympathy, even though I didn’t really understand the joke. “She’s fifty if she’s a day, maybe more, though I’d never dare ask her age. No, she’s a—what’s the word. A carer. Her father lives down in the village; he has Alzheimer’s, I think. He can’t be left alone for more than an hour or two. She comes up in the morning before he’s awake and then again first thing in the afternoon. Does the dishes and that.”

“Oh!” I felt my face flush, and I smiled, absurdly, and gave a little laugh. “Oh, I see. I thought . . . never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

I did not have time to analyze the relief I felt, but it gave me a strange sense of being off-balance, struck by something I had not expected to encounter.

“Well, good to meet you, Rowan.”

“Good to meet you too—Jack.” The name came off my tongue a little awkwardly, and I blushed again. Up the valley I heard the sound of the approaching train. “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.” He held out the case, and I took it, still echoing his curving, beguiling smile, and began to walk to the platform, giving myself a stern injunction not to look back. When at last the train had drawn in and I had climbed aboard and settled myself in a carriage, I did risk one last glance out the window, to where he had been standing. But he was gone. And so, as the train pulled out of the station, my last glimpse of Carn Bridge was of an empty platform, crisply clean and sun-soaked, awaiting my return.