The Visitors(74)

Hour after hour, the glowing red digits had marched relentlessly onwards, and ironically, the more she fretted over getting up for work, the more sleep completely evaded her.

As she’d watched from the window, clouds had drifted across the moon like a cliché, and the figure had seemed to disappear before her very eyes. Yes, she’d looked away, but only for a second or two.

Now, in the cold light of day, she knew she’d managed to get herself in such a state, she really couldn’t be certain that she hadn’t imagined the whole thing.

Maybe nobody had ever been out there watching… except in her head.

Logic told Holly that it was very early days for someone to have found out where she worked, where she lived. It wasn’t as if Manchester was on the doorstep; it was over eighty miles further north.

At work, she’d been careful to study every customer’s face as they’d entered the shop, and no one had ever looked remotely familiar to her, apart from some of the regulars she was now getting to know.

Why did this have to happen? Things at work were going better than she could ever have imagined. Since Emily had left, Holly had been undisputed top dog in terms of sales.

Emily.

Holly shuddered at the thought of her previous threat, and then it hit her… She’d assumed the figure watching her last night had been a man, but what if it wasn’t? What if it had been Emily, come to seek revenge for having resigned from Kellington’s – something she’d made clear she considered Holly’s fault.

Thanks to Martyn spilling the beans yesterday, Holly knew that Emily was quite capable of scheming someone else’s demise. She’d certainly had no trouble getting rid of poor Lynette.

Holly had been telling herself that the woman she’d seen walking away from the shop window yesterday and the mystery phone call to the house both had perfectly logical explanations.

But what if her instincts had been spot on, and it was in fact Emily Beech who’d been watching her as she worked? She could have obtained Holly’s address from Kellington’s records and traced Cora’s landline from that.

Likewise, the figure could easily have been Geraldine. Or someone sent by her. Geraldine had more than enough financial clout to pay some violent numbskull to track Holly down.

But if that was the case, why hadn’t something awful already happened to her? Perhaps Geraldine was just waiting for the right moment.

Holly didn’t know how long she could cope living constantly on her nerves, waiting for something to happen.

Last night she’d had a few glasses of wine again to help her sleep. She knew that if she didn’t watch it, she could find herself with a drink problem like before. But it seemed at the moment that booze was the only thing that could keep her frayed nerves at bay.

On the surface, most of the people around her seemed supportive and kind. But Holly knew only too well that under their benign everyday masks, people could turn out to be truly monstrous.



* * *



The night of their family dinner, as Geraldine had insisted on referring to it, Brendan had got up time and time again to refresh their glasses.

Holly’s head had felt woozy, but she knew there was no point in protesting that she’d rather have a coffee. She’d learned a while ago that what she wanted simply didn’t count at Medlock Hall.

Brendan had brought her yet another glass of champagne.

‘Now, this is the Pol Roger 2008 and it’s not cheap, so don’t spill a drop,’ he’d instructed her with mock sternness before breaking into a grin. ‘Go on then, taste it.’

She’d taken a tentative sip while he watched. ‘It’s good,’ she said, feeling a little queasy.

‘It’s good!’ he had mimicked, then turned to Geraldine, laughing loudly. ‘Well, that’s reassuring to know, at nearly seventy quid a bottle.’

His wife had managed a weak smile but didn’t chortle back as she usually might. Holly noticed through bleary eyes that Geraldine’s previously perfectly made-up face had become a little smudged and her earlier soft expression had now turned brittle.

Brendan had sat down with his own glass and quietened down at last. Thank God, she’d thought, the stories had finally stopped.

Geraldine and Brendan had looked at each other and then back at her.

Holly clamped her hand across her mouth… had she actually said that out loud?

As her employers watched her, they seemed to be moving very slowly away from her. Further and further they slid, until Holly had barely been able to distinguish their individual features any more.

Her fingers had still been wrapped around the delicate stem of the crystal champagne flute, but now she seemed completely incapable of lifting it to her mouth. It had felt like she was no longer sitting, but floating in mid-air.

She’d smiled, finding the incapacity quite funny, until a sick dizziness hit and her head lolled back against the soft, buttery leather.

George Michael’s ‘Careless Whisper’ sounded like a distant echo. The whole room softened like melting wax around her, and then the walls began to spin closer and closer, pulling her around with them.

Holly had fought the extreme tiredness but simply could not stop her eyelids from closing.

Looking back, she realised that must have been the moment she finally passed out.



* * *