Bone by Bone (23 page)

Before she'd gone to bed, Laura had double-checked that the garden gate, the doors and windows were locked. She tried not to think about the alarm, now simply a dead, white plastic box stuck on the wall in the hall.

There was another crash from outside the house. Laura automatically looked towards the landing window but, in the darkness and from this height, she could see nothing save the stars and a moon-rimmed grey cloud. It sounded like the garden gate, swinging open and beating against the wall. It had been locked though, she was sure of it. Perhaps it was the neighbour's, she thought. She felt her heart turn to ice.

She crept downstairs and peered in at Autumn. She was asleep. She could hear her breathing; it was fast and slightly nasal. Looking down at her daughter in the dark, she remembered the feel of Autumn's soft skin just after she'd been born, her baby hair, as downy as a fledgling's, the gentle dip of her fontanelle where her cranium had not yet fused; how noisy she was, like a hedgehog snuffling in its sleep.

She tiptoed through the rest of the house. She took the last steps down into the kitchen without turning the light on, hands balanced on the wall on either side of her, as if they were closing in on her and she had to push them away. She stood in the entrance to the kitchen and looked out towards the garden. She could see nothing. She waited until her eyes adjusted and the trees and the shrubs and the fence at the back became cut-out silhouettes against the dark of the sky. She decided it was too much of a risk to open the door to the garden but it didn't look as if there'd been a break-in and she couldn't hear or see any movement.

She started to shiver and, after a while, she crept slowly back upstairs and climbed into bed.

Friday 9th November

LAURA

S
he slept fitfully, half listening for any noise. Early, before her alarm went off and Autumn woke, she rose. She went downstairs and opened the kitchen door. A thin, milky-yellow light spilt over the horizon. Venus shone brightly to the east. The first birds were beginning to sing. During the night, thanks to the freakish wind, all the leaves from the ash tree next door had blown down and the entire garden was covered with dead brown drifts, as thick as snow. She walked through the freezing garden, the leaves crunching beneath her feet.

The garden gate was shut and locked. She rattled it to make sure. As far as she could tell, it hadn't been damaged. It must have been next door's, crashing open and closed in the wind. She felt as if she'd suddenly grown lighter, as if a steel weight had slipped from her shoulders. She turned to go back inside the house and that was when she saw it.

In the feeble dawn, part of the wall of the house was illuminated. She recognized the colour of the paint. It was scarlet-red, exactly the same shade of spray-paint that had been used on Autumn's bike and to scrawl
Bitch,
again and again, across Ruth's garden. On the wall between the kitchen door and the window someone had written:

Bone by Bone

Laura froze. She heard Aaron's voice, so quiet it was barely more than a whisper
It's the best place to see the stars in the city.

He had wanted to walk home through the nature reserve so that he could watch Jupiter's raging red-eye from Narroways' hill. And she had given him the key code to the garden door. And now he had let himself in, painted on her house and left, locking the gate behind him.

The police arrived half an hour later. Laura, who didn't want to wake Autumn, was waiting for them at the door. A young woman and a middle-aged man got out of the police car and came over to the house. The woman, small and stocky in her tight black trousers, introduced herself as PC Rachel Emery and her companion as PC Sebastien Jones.

She led them downstairs to the kitchen. PC Emery had a heart-shaped face and she inclined her head towards Laura as she listened. When she took her hat off, she looked younger, more vulnerable. She had creamy skin and freckles and brown hair which had recently been highlighted and was now pulled back from her face in a low ponytail. On her left hand was an engagement ring; a single diamond dug into the flesh, as if her fingers were a little swollen. Laura, looking at the woman's plain face and her soft body, realized that she had no faith in PC Emery's ability to protect her or her daughter. PC Jones stood a little behind her, as if distancing himself from the proceedings.

‘So, let me see if I've understood this correctly,' said PC Emery. ‘There has been no break-in. You think someone let themselves into the garden from the lane behind the house, using the key code on the garden door, and then left again, locking the gate behind them.'

‘Have you checked if anything is missing?' asked PC Jones. ‘Bikes, the TV, the DVD player, camera equipment, your laptop – anything valuable?'

He had a doughy face, fleshy bags under his eyes, which were of an indeterminate colour. His grey hair was cropped closely at the sides of his head and stood straight upright from his crown, bristly, like a scrubbing brush.

‘No!' said Laura. ‘I know who did this. And he didn't come here to steal anything. It was a computer repair man. He was in our house – to fix my laptop – about ten days ago. I gave him the key code so he could let himself out the back.'

He and PC Emery exchanged a look, as if they were suddenly unsure what or who they were dealing with; as if Laura's claim that it was a break-in was a lie.

She took them outside.

‘It's a line from a poem by Emily Dickinson,' Laura said to the police officers as the three of them stood and looked at the words, each letter in garish red smudged across the white wall.

‘A literate vandal?' said PC Jones.

She shook her head. ‘I told you. The computer guy. He hacked into my laptop after he'd fixed it. So he knows that I wrote my dissertation on Dickinson.'

They don't believe me
, she thought, her face starting to burn.

PC Jones coughed and looked down at his feet. PC Emery was examining Laura carefully.

Still standing outside, staring at the defaced wall, her feet numb with cold, Laura quoted:

There is a pain – so utter –

It swallows substance up –

Then covers the Abyss with Trance –

So Memory can step

Around – across – upon it –

As one within a Swoon –

Goes safely – where an open eye –

Would drop Him – Bone by Bone.

When she stopped, they both stared at her and she felt a surge of embarrassment. It used to be so natural to quote poetry when she was a teenager at university and now, here she was, in her thirties, her feet bare, sounding like a Victorian lunatic. She still couldn't tell what colour PC Jones's eyes were.

‘It was the poem on the first page of my essay. It's about death. And rage. Violence, grief, pain. Pain above all else. Pain beyond measure. A pain that is impossible to endure. The body can't deal with suffering on that scale so it closes down, goes into a trance… She – Emily Dickinson – had nervous breakdowns.'

She tucked one foot behind her calf, trying to warm her toes.

PC Jones stared up at the scarlet letters. ‘Could be a line from a rap lyric. A graffiti artist's tag. Or a threat from someone who's never read a line of poetry in his life.'

‘No! I told you who did it. He's trying to scare us.'

The dawn light picked out the warm chestnut streaks in PC Emery's hair. She walked towards Laura and took her arm. ‘Let's go inside, shall we? You could do with a cup of tea to warm you up.'

Later that day, Laura found herself in Autumn's room. She wasn't quite sure what she was doing there. She thought she might lie down for a moment, stretch out on Autumn's bed, inhale her daughter's scent. She was bone tired.

Autumn had risen late that morning, well after the police had left. Laura didn't tell her about the break-in. She'd been lethargic and uncommunicative, silently eating a bowl of Frosties. At least she was eating, Laura thought. She'd made her a cup of hot Ribena and put CBBC on and now Autumn was sitting in front of the TV, still in her pyjamas.

Laura thought she should change the sheets – it had been ages since she'd last done it – when she remembered Autumn had stuck one picture back on the wall. She walked over to look at it. It was of a girl. She had grey eyes and long brown hair in plaits. She was smiling and she had a gap in her teeth. On her knee was a baby. The child was gurgling, open-mouthed. She had the same pale-grey eyes and light-brown hair as her big sister.

Autumn and her imaginary little sister, Emily. Autumn had told her about her once. She used to draw pictures of Emily all the time. Laura had hoped Autumn had stopped wishing for a sister or a brother. Maybe because she was feeling so vulnerable, she'd started thinking about Emily again.

It wasn't too late, Laura thought. She could meet someone. It was still possible.

The phone rang. Laura ran down the stairs and into her office.

‘Laura! I've been trying to reach you.'

She had an image of Matt, snow-clad Himalayas in the background, five stunning athletes flanking him as he strode down the mountain. He must be ringing because he couldn't get through on Skype, she thought, but it was too early for his call with Autumn – and it was not like Matt to waste money using the satellite phone unless it was an emergency.

‘What's the matter? Where are you?' she asked.

‘That's the problem. We're stuck.'

‘What? Where?'

‘In Simikot. Our connecting flight to Kathmandu has been cancelled. I've been going spare. Someone phoned and cancelled our seat reservations. I gave our PA hell, but she's no idea who did it. There are flights leaving, but not many and they're all booked. There isn't another one until Saturday night and even then there aren't enough seats for all of us.'

Laura looked down the narrow length of the garden. The dead brown ash leaves that had shrouded the strawberry tree had blown away and the berries had all turned scarlet. She did a swift mental calculation. If Matt and his crew couldn't fly out of Simikot until Saturday, it meant they wouldn't be able to leave Kathmandu until Sunday. Then they'd have to reach India and from there fly to London via Amsterdam or Paris before driving back to Bristol.

‘Tuesday,' said Matt. ‘It means the earliest I could be home won't be until Tuesday but I'll probably need to give those seats to the athletes and catch a later flight. I can't believe how much money we're losing – booking all the new tickets plus excess baggage. The athletes' agents are saying we need to pay them for the extra time,' he said. ‘And I'm sorry, it means another few more days until I can see Autumn. I can't think who could have done this to me.'

‘I can,' said Laura. ‘Your schedule was on my laptop.'

‘So?' said Matt.

She could picture him clearly now, dishevelled, sun-burnt, running his hand impatiently through his windswept hair. Laura started from the beginning, explaining what had happened. She told him about Aaron sitting in their house, drinking red wine and resetting her password, how he had threatened her at the gates of the school playground, about Autumn's mangled bike, the lost photos, the infected emails, the pornographic virus, the copied essay, the boy who had attacked Autumn in the nature reserve, the vandalized garden, Autumn's shorn hair, how her bank cards had been stopped, the alarm disabled. She didn't care how much the call would cost Matt or his company or the BBC, whoever would foot the phone bill and the use of the satellite phone – or what he would think of her. He had to know what was happening to his daughter.

‘He actually let himself into the garden and wrote
Bone by Bone
on the wall of your house?' said Matt. ‘Jesus. Is Autumn okay?'

She stared straight ahead at the grey clouds drifting past, the branches of the trees shaking, stark against the white sky.

‘She will be. I've taken her out of school.'

There was a pause and she could tell he was debating whether to argue with her. He took a breath and said, ‘Tell her I'm sorry I can't Skype her tonight and give her a bear hug from me. You were right – I mean, about her travelling to London. I'll come to Bristol as soon as I get back and stick around. Take her out for the day. Maybe to the zoo? She'd like that, wouldn't she?'

As soon as she'd hung up, the phone rang again, startling her.

‘Laura.' Jacob said it tersely, as if she were a bank manager or a sales person, someone he had no desire to speak to. ‘I changed my mind after you spoke to me. I thought about how frightened you must feel. So I Googled him. Aaron Jablonski. I found his mobile number.'

‘Oh.' She wanted to feel relief – Jacob had decided to help her – but his tone was so ominous, her whole body tensed.

‘I don't think you've been completely honest with me,' said Jacob.

She was stunned. Of all the people who might turn against her, she'd never considered Jacob to be one of them.

‘Aaron tells me you assaulted Levi. You knocked him down and he cut his head open! Laura, how could you? He's a child.'

‘I didn't—'

‘Aaron showed me the photographs of the bruises and the gash on his cheek.'

There was a heavy crack and boom of thunder, alarmingly close, and a fresh squall of rain. Laura said nothing. Was she going to have to defend herself to Jacob too?

Yes
, she thought, squeezing her eyes tightly together and rubbing her sore wrist.
Yes, I have to. He's the only friend I've got
.

She took a breath and was about to explain when Jacob cut across her.

He said that he'd made an appointment to speak to Aaron last night. He'd been surprised to find that the address he'd given him was for a flat on the main road through Filton, in an impoverished, run-down area. The apartment was above a place that sold reptiles; next door was a sex shop called My Only Vice. Both establishments had their windows blacked out.

‘I own a house in Montpelier,' said Aaron bitterly, when Jacob had stepped out of his Land Rover and introduced himself. ‘My bloody ex-wife still lives there. I'd rather have come to you,' he'd added. ‘It's not a fit place to receive a client.'

Inside it was dark. Damp bloomed on the walls. A pile of dirty laundry, including a school uniform, was heaped in one corner and there was a tower of take-away cartons next to the sink.

Levi was there, in the dismal sitting room on his own, watching TV with the lights turned off. He barely looked up when his father and Jacob arrived. Perhaps because it was dark, and since Jacob was wearing jeans and a jumper, Levi didn't recognize him at first.

They sat down at a greasy table behind the sofa.

‘Let's see your laptop then,' said Aaron.

‘I haven't come about a computer,' said Jacob.

Aaron's whole demeanour changed then, said Jacob. He couldn't explain it, he didn't move a muscle, but Jacob had the impression that he was suddenly different. Laura could imagine it: Aaron sitting opposite Jacob in his waistcoat and shirt, neatness sprung from this den of mess, watchful, his martial-arts-honed body poised.

Jacob explained that he'd come because he was Laura's friend and her daughter, Autumn, was being bullied by Levi. At that point Levi had spun around and pointed at him.

‘That's him, that's the soldier I was telling you about, Dad.'

‘Is that true?' asked Aaron. ‘Are you the man Laura hired to beat my son?'

Jacob shook his head. He said that Laura had asked him to talk to Levi but that he hadn't touched him. Aaron turned the TV off and switched on the lights and then sat back down at the table. Jacob had been about to go on to say that Aaron was now cyber-bullying Laura when Aaron interrupted.