In a Dark, Dark Wood(42)

She straightened up, rubbing her back and we all stared out of the window at the black lowering trees and the white snow. It didn’t look pretty. It looked stark and unforgiving. But I didn’t say that. Instead I asked the question that had been nagging at me.

‘Flo, I meant to ask, the footprints going out to the garage this morning – was that you?’

‘Footprints?’ Flo looked puzzled. ‘What time?’

‘Early. They were there when I got back from my run at about eightish. Maybe before, I didn’t look going out.’

‘It wasn’t me. Where did you say they were?’

‘Between the garage and the side door of the house.’

Flo frowned.

‘No … it definitely wasn’t me. How odd.’ She bit her lip for a moment and then said, ‘Look, if you don’t mind, I might just lock up now – that way we won’t forget later.’

‘What do you mean? You think it could have been someone else? Someone from outside?’

Flo’s cheerful face looked suddenly uncomfortable. ‘Well, my aunt had a lot of trouble when she built this place – there were a lot of planning objections, local people didn’t like the fact that it was a second home for a start, and there were quite a lot of complaints about the style of the build and the site.’

‘Don’t tell me,’ Tom drawled. ‘Native American ancient burial ground, right?’

Flo hit him with a paper towel and cracked a smile through her worry. ‘Nothing like that. The only thing buried round here are sheep as far as I know. But this is a protected area – I’m not sure if it’s actually in the national park, but it’s near as makes no odds. It got through because it was extending an existing building – an old croft-type place. But people said it wasn’t in the spirit of the original … Anyway, to cut a long story short it burnt down halfway through construction and I think it was pretty much accepted that it was arson, although nothing was ever proved.’

‘Jesus!’ Tom looked horrified. He glanced out of the window as though expecting to see flaming torches coming up the hill at any moment.

‘I mean it was fine!’ Flo reassured us. ‘It was mid-build so the place was empty, and actually it worked out really well for my aunt because the insurance was very good, so she ended up with a higher-spec build. And according to the original plans she had to keep a bit of the original croft in place, but that burnt to the ground so it meant she didn’t have to bother with that any more. Overall I’d say they did her a favour. But, you know, it kind of affected how she feels about the neighbours.’

‘Are there any neighbours?’ Tom wanted to know.

‘Oh yes. There’s a little cluster of houses about a mile through the forest that way.’ She pointed. ‘And a farm down the valley.’

‘You know—’ I was thinking aloud ‘—what really creeps me out isn’t the footprints – or not as such. It’s the fact that if it hadn’t have been for the snow, we’d never have known.’

We looked out, contemplating the unbroken white carpet across the path to the forest. My own steps from the run that morning had been filled in, and now you would never have known a human foot had passed. For a long moment we all stood in silence, thinking about that fact, thinking about all the times we could have been observed, completely unaware.

Flo walked to the window to try the latch. It was firmly locked.

‘Good!’ she said brightly. ‘I’m going to check the back door, and then I think we should stop all this gloomy talk and have another drink.’

‘Hear, hear,’ Tom said soberly. He picked up my empty glass and this time, when he poured me a double, I didn’t complain.





18


WHEN I WENT up to change for dinner, I found Nina sitting on the bed, her head in her hands. She looked up as I came in, and her face was grey and pinched, her expression so different from her usual wry sarcasm that I did a double-take.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yeah.’ She pushed her dark glossy hair back from her face and stood up. ‘I’m just … ugh, I’m so fed up of being here. It feels like we’re back in school and I’m remembering everything I hated about myself back then. It’s like we’ve slipped back ten years, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t know.’ I sat down on my own bed and pondered her words. Although I’d had very similar thoughts last night, in the light of day they felt unfair. The Clare I remembered from school wouldn’t have put up with Flo for a second – or not unless she had some powerful motive. She would have nodded along with Flo’s dumber remarks, stringing her along into saying something painfully weird, at which point she would have stood back, pointed and laughed. I’d seen none of that cruelty this weekend. Instead I’d been impressed by her tolerance. It was clear that Flo was a damaged person in some way – and I admired Clare’s compassion in trying to help her. I didn’t know if I could have put up with Flo for ten days, let alone ten years. Clare was obviously a bigger and a better person than I’d given her credit for.

‘I think Clare’s changed a lot, actually,’ I said. ‘She seems a lot more …’ I stopped, searching for the right word. Maybe there wasn’t one. ‘She just seems kinder, I guess.’