Whiteout(90)

"I saw it!" Sophie cried.

They trudged on. Two seconds later, it came back into view, and this time it stayed. Craig felt a rush of relief, and realized that for a few moments back there he really had thought he was going to die and take Sophie with him.

When they came closer to the light, he saw that it was the one over the back door. They had walked around in a circle, and now they were back where they had started.





6:15 AM

MIRANDA lay still for a long time. She was terrified that Daisy would return, but unable to do anything about it. In her mind, Daisy came stomping into the room in her motorcycle boots, knelt on the floor, and looked under the bed. Miranda could see Daisy's brutish face—the shaved skull and the broken nose and the dark eyes that looked bruised by the black eyeliner. The vision of that face was so scary that sometimes Miranda just squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she could, until she saw fireworks on the back of her eyelids.

In the end it was the thought of Tom that made her move. Somehow she had to protect her eleven-year-old son. But how? There was nothing she could do alone. She would be willing to put her body between the gang and the children, but it would be pointless: she would be thrown aside like a sack of potatoes. Civilized people were no good at violence, that was what made them civilized.

The answer was the same as before. She had to find a phone and get help.

That meant she had to go to the guest cottage. She had to crawl out from under the bed, leave the bedroom, and creep downstairs, hoping she would not be heard by the gang in the kitchen, praying that one of them would not step into the hall and see her. She needed to grab a coat and boots, for she was barefoot and naked but for a cotton nightdress, and she knew she could not go three yards, dressed as she was, in a blizzard with the snow two feet deep. Then she had to make her way around the house, staying well away from the windows, to the cottage, and get the phone she had left in her handbag on the floor by the door.

She tried to summon her nerve. What was she frightened of? The tension, she thought: the strain was petrifying. But it would not be for long. Half a minute to go down the stairs; a minute to put on coat and boots; two minutes, perhaps three, to tramp through the snow to the cottage. Less than five minutes, that was all.

She began to feel resentful. How dare they make her scared to walk around her own father's house? Indignation gave her courage.

Shaking, she slid out from under the bed. The bedroom door was open. She peeped out, saw that all was clear, and stepped onto the landing. She could hear voices from the kitchen. She looked down.

There was a hat stand at the foot of the stairs. Most of the family's coats and boots were kept in a walk-in closet in the boot lobby by the back door, but Daddy always left his in the hall, and she could see his old blue anorak hanging from the stand, and below it the leather-lined rubber boots that kept his feet warm while he walked Nellie. They should be enough to keep her from freezing to death while she plowed through the snow to the cottage. It would take her only a few seconds to slip them on and sneak out through the front door.

If she had the guts.

She started to tiptoe down the stairs.

The voices from the kitchen became louder. There was an argument going on. She heard Nigel say, "Well, bloody well look again, then!" Did that mean someone was going to search the house? She turned and ran back, going up the stairs two at a time. As she reached the landing, she heard heavy boots in the hall—Daisy.

It was no good hiding under the bed again. If Daisy was being sent back for a second search, she was bound to look harder this time. Miranda stepped into her father's bedroom. There was one place she could hide: the attic. When she was ten years old, she had made it her den. All the children had, at different times. The door of the suit cupboard stood open.

She heard Daisy's steps on the landing.

She fell to her knees, crawled inside, and opened the low door that led to the attic. Then she turned and closed the cupboard door behind her. She backed into the attic and closed the low door.

She realized immediately that she had made an error that might be fatal. Daisy had searched the house a quarter of an hour or so ago. She must have seen the door of the suit cupboard standing open. Would she now remember that, and realize that someone must have closed it subsequently? And would she be smart enough to guess why?

Miranda heard footsteps in the dressing room. She held her breath as Daisy walked to the bathroom and back. She heard the sound of cupboard doors being flung open. She bit her thumb to keep from screaming with fear. There was a brushing sound as Daisy rummaged among suits and shirts. The low door was hard to see, unless you got down on your knees and looked under the hanging clothes. Would Daisy be so thorough?

There was a long moment of quiet.

Then Daisy's footsteps receded through the bedroom.

Miranda felt so relieved that she wanted to cry. She stopped herself: she had to be brave. What was happening in the kitchen? She remembered the hole in the floor. She crawled slowly across to take a look.

* * *

HUGO looked so pathetic that Kit almost felt sorry for him. He was a short man, and pudgy. He had fatty breasts with hairy nipples and a belly that hung over his genitals. The thin legs below his round body made him look like an ill-designed doll. He seemed all the more tragic by contrast with his usual self. He was normally poised and self-assured, dressed in natty suits that flattered his figure, and he flirted with the confidence of a matinee idol. Now he looked foolish and mortified.