The Things You Didn't See(76)

‘I can imagine the farm is very demanding.’ She thought of the case studies Clive had told her about, how the stress Scott Falater was under had caused his sleep to be disturbed, though the jury didn’t believe him. ‘Were you experiencing any pressure, something that caused you to sleepwalk?’

‘No more than usual,’ he said defensively. ‘The Waitrose order for the chickens hasn’t been so good – seems people have got it in their heads that they shouldn’t eat chooks on account of this bird flu nonsense. I told ’em, my birds ain’t sick. See?’

He pointed at a rooster, high in the rafters, its plumage an obscene red, orange feathers ruffling, orange claws clinging to the beam. It was watching the clutch of nervous hens, who scrabbled in the straw below. He was boss here.

‘Were you worried about orders being down?’

‘Nah – we’d bounce back. People worry about factory birds, but they sure suck up organic, which, being a small farm, we can provide. Allus have been, though they didn’t have a fancy name for it afore.’

Free-roaming chickens were something Holly was discovering first-hand, as they pecked around her feet, watched by the vigilant rooster. ‘What about your financial worries?’

‘My solicitor keeps bangin’ on about that, but we get by. We’re not rich, course.’ Hector shooed the chickens away, and threw his rake onto a pile of straw. ‘We have food in the larder and fire in the grate, so it’s not so bad. Any cross words we had over the farm didn’t make any difference how I felt about Maya. So, don’t go tryin’ to make out I was angry with her, ’cos I wasn’t.’

His eyes looked moist and his breath plumed in the cold air like a feather, then he looked at Holly with such steely force in his eyes that she felt herself jolted in the gut. The weary man shook his head. He was on the verge of tears.

‘You should go on inside to see Cassandra. You’re supposed to be her friend, ain’t you? Happen she needs you more an me.’

Holly turned to leave. Hector needed a moment, and she was glad to be getting out of the barn. The acrid smell of chicken mess was making her nostrils itch.

Holly knocked at the farmhouse door, but couldn’t make Cassandra hear. Tentatively, she opened the door and called her name. As soon as she stepped within the farmhouse walls, she could hear panicky sobs echoing down the hallway. Hesitating no longer, she followed the sound up the stairs and into the main bedroom.

Cassandra lay in a foetal position inside the wardrobe, weeping hysterically.

‘Cass!’

Holly tried to reach for her, but she didn’t seem to hear. Cass had a confused look, as though she was drunk, and she was wobbling too.

‘Cass, what’s wrong?’

She shook her head, but her eyes began to focus as if she was becoming aware of her surroundings again. She rubbed her eyes, confusion replaced by fear, then she pulled her top down, exposing her collarbone. ‘I was shot!’ she said, as though it had just happened.

It was an old scar, white where the skin had been stitched. Holly shivered. ‘Did you see who shot you, Cass?’

‘No,’ she said, groggily. ‘I was asleep. But Ash admitted it was him.’

Once she’d settled Cass on the sofa in the front room with a glass of water and a blanket over her legs, Holly sat beside her. She wanted to help this woman, who was so distressed that she sensed it as utter black despair.

‘How did you end up falling asleep in the wardrobe?’

‘The rats . . .’ Cass tailed off, looking around in confusion.

‘Were you having a nightmare?’

‘Mm,’ she said, which Holly took as a yes. ‘It’s being here, thinking about Mum, I suppose. Then I fell asleep and woke up here.’

Holly took her shaking hand, and they sat together like that for some time. Holly thought of the ghostly figure who had approached them in the barn that Halloween, the white gauzy image that could have been a child in a nightdress.

‘You’re a sleepwalker, aren’t you, Cass?’

‘No.’ She looked down at her fingernails, which Holly could see were torn and bleeding. ‘I sleep like a baby.’





36

Holly

Holly should have driven straight to the hospital to start her shift at 7 p.m., but instead she drove home. After seeing Cassandra at the farm, and the scar on her chest, she simply couldn’t bring herself to go in. She called Jon, and said she was sick. ‘Food poisoning,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’ And she was sick – sick with guilt.

She lay on her bed and curled around herself, moaning gently as the forgotten memory returned.

Twenty years too late, she realised that what she, Jamie and Carl had seen that night wasn’t a ghost at all, but a sleepwalking girl. She’d wondered what had happened after Jamie fired his gun, and now she knew: Jamie had shot Cass, and Ash had taken the blame.

It couldn’t go on: Jamie had to take responsibility. She opened up her laptop, determined to reach her brother one way or another.

After that Halloween, other than when he was at school, Jamie mostly stayed in his room. Their dad was worried about him, he kept telling him to go out and get some fresh air, but to no avail. Holly too had hung around the house, waiting for Jamie to appear, yet whenever he did actually make it to the kitchen, he’d grab a sandwich or a drink and then disappear again. It was the start of a pattern that didn’t end until the family relocated to California. As if the distance from Suffolk absolved Jamie of his guilt.