The Visitors(62)

Cora’s face dropped. ‘Why would you want me to do that, dear?’

Mindful that David was still in the kitchen, Holly pulled the door to behind her and dropped her voice lower.

‘I want to put my old life behind me, Cora. Some of the people I knew in Manchester weren’t good for me and I like living here with you. I want to make a complete fresh start, that’s all.’

It was the right thing to say. Cora smiled back at her.

‘Consider it done.’ She nodded. ‘I shall make sure I don’t drop you in it in future.’

‘Thank you,’ Holly said and blew out a long breath. ‘I’ll just dial 141 and see if it registered the number they called from.

A disconnected robotic voice informed her that the caller had withheld their number.

She replaced the receiver.

‘Is your phone number ex-directory, Cora?’ she asked, trying hard to keep her voice level.

‘Oh no, I don’t think so. I don’t really see the point in keeping it private, otherwise why have a phone line in the first place?’

‘Perhaps you ought to think about it. You’d get fewer nuisance sales calls that way,’ Holly said, wondering how long she could keep the panic from her face. ‘I’m just going to sort out some bits in my bedroom. I won’t be long.’

Upstairs, she went straight to the bathroom, worried she was about to throw up. She hung over the toilet bowl but she wasn’t sick, just had the feeling she might be.

She splashed water over her hot cheeks and stood for a moment until the feeling receded, then crossed the landing into the cool privacy of her bedroom.

When she lay on her bed, her insides felt as if they were turning to liquid.

Who had called Cora’s landline? The words unpaid bill sounded like one of the debt collection agencies, which seemed feasible on the one hand; after all, there were about a dozen of them after her back in Manchester. She had all their ignored communications in the bag she’d stuffed under the bed.

On the other hand, it didn’t make any sense for a debt collection agency to refuse to tell Cora their company name but then disclose that Holly had an unpaid bill. That didn’t follow at all and didn’t conform to strict data protection practices.

So then – she bit her lip – who was it who had called? Who knew she lived here? If they had this phone number, they probably had the address, too. She’d heard Cora give her own name, so it wouldn’t be difficult to trace her through the electoral roll.

She had a sudden urge, and before she could talk herself out of it, she’d rummaged at the back of her underwear drawer and grabbed the bottle of wine hidden there. It was unchilled and cheap, but that didn’t matter. It would help, and that was what counted.

She picked up a glass from the floor, glugged back the inch of water in there and half filled it with wine, which she gulped down in one. She refilled the glass, taking another few sips, then put it on the bedside table before lying back on the bed again.

She covered her face with her hands.

She felt like crying but was too tense to even try. It felt like every muscle in her body had pulled taut enough to snap.





Chapter Forty-Nine





Holly





She’d drifted off a while, lying on the bed. The wine had helped to calm her down but the sick feeling in her stomach had got worse, if anything.

She sat up abruptly at the sound of a voice at the bottom of the stairs and baulked at the sting of reflux at the back of her throat.

‘Goodbye, Holly,’ David called up.

She sprang up off the bed and rushed to the door, calling to him far too brightly.

‘Bye, David! Let me know about the cinema times.’

Sometimes he irritated her. He was odd – everybody thought so – and she still hadn’t got to the bottom of what had happened to him, or indeed what was behind Nick Brown’s rather vague warning.

But, as she’d discovered all those years ago at school with Markus, outsiders usually found and understood each other.

David had an air about him that tempted her to put her trust in him, in a similar way that she had trusted Markus in the early days.

Was it really too much to think that she might be able to confide in him about her fears?

A sinking feeling inside told her it would be a bit like letting the genie out of the bottle. If she told him she was afraid someone had tracked her down, she’d be forced to tell him why someone might be looking for her.

And David was probably clueless enough to mention it to Cora.

She was trapped by her own secrets.

Still, it seemed like the best plan, even though she had another one simmering on the back burner. A contingency plan of sorts.

David seemed dependable, and she didn’t really have that much choice in terms of finding someone trustworthy enough to talk to.

If she took things steady and didn’t rush, he could prove to be a very useful friend indeed.



* * *



Holly had always been a low-energy person, but after six weeks at Geraldine and Brendan’s, she barely recognised herself.

She’d adopted Geraldine’s suggested schedule of gym training and swimming, utilising their basement fitness suite. She’d also, for the last week, been getting up an hour earlier than her usual seven-thirty daily rise and taking a twenty-minute run around the grounds.