The Hidden Girl (4 page)

And here they were.

Something on the window caught Hannah’s eye.

Was that a stain?

She leant over some boxes to check the glass. It was.

The stain was quite big, almost the size of a football. It ran from the turquoise belly of the peacock down the grey background glass towards the windowsill.

She sighed. Was everything in Tornley Hall going to have to be fixed?

Hannah licked her finger and reached out to rub it, hoping it was dust.

The stain moved.

‘Oh!’ Startled, Hannah tripped backwards. She fell over a box and landed awkwardly on the arm of the sofa, deflecting onto the floor with a thud.

What was that?

She pulled herself up and ran her finger over the same spot on the window. She was not imagining it – the stain had completely disappeared.

Curious, Hannah flung open the front door, ran into the dark night, crossed in front of the shuttered sitting room and turned right, onto the overgrown side-lawn that ran down to the lane.

She arrived at the odd six-foot square exterior alcove that nestled between the protruding back walls of the front sitting room and the rear scullery. Its sole architectural purpose appeared to be to allow extra light through side-windows into both rooms, and through the peacock window into the central hall.

Hannah checked the peacock’s belly again.

No stain here, either.

She touched the glass to check for liquid or dust, but her finger returned with the normal oily residue of unwashed windows.

‘Han?’

She jumped. Will stood behind her. ‘What happened?’

‘Oh, nothing, I just tripped. I thought I saw a stain on the window, and . . .’

His shoulders dropped, and she knew it had been a mistake.

‘It must have been a shadow. A cat or something . . .’

If Will’s momentum was broken, he might not start again. And there were only twelve days from tomorrow.

Will leant towards the peacock window, releasing the scent of sweet perspiration and white spirit. Automatically she sidestepped, willing him to return upstairs.

‘Right,’ Will said. ‘I’m done.’

‘But it’s only about half-nine.’

‘Han! It’s eleven.’

Was it? She checked her watch, amazed at how fast time had flown.

He sniffed under one arm. ‘I’m going to have a shower and look out some clothes.’

‘I’ll find them,’ she conceded, forcing herself to remember his 7.30 a.m. train. Back in the house, she washed out the paintbrushes and tidied around, as Will locked up and headed for the shower. Upstairs, in the hall, she opened the boxes marked ‘Clothes’ and took out items for Will.

One box caught her eye as she was sifting through them.

‘SECOND BEDROOM,’ it said in red marker pen.

That’s all.

Second bedroom.

Hannah opened the door of the bedroom next to theirs, kicked the box inside it and slammed it shut.

She didn’t want to think about that right now.

There was whistling from the shower down the hall, then it turned off.

Damn.

Hannah bashed into the wall in her haste to run into their bedroom. There she flung Will’s clothes on the chair, stripped off and climbed into bed without cleaning her teeth. It was surprisingly cold. She wrapped the duvet around her and turned over. A minute later, Will came in. She heard him sorting through his clothes, and lay still.

The duvet was pulled back and Will climbed in. He smelt of lemon shower gel, and she could tell from the brush of cotton on her leg that he’d found pyjama trousers. She knew her naked skin must smell sour and clammy from the day’s exertions, and her hair unwashed.

That was fine.

Anything that kept him away.

Will exhaled heavily as he settled himself in the bed and turned off the lamp.

‘Bloody hell, it’s cold,’ he said.

She stayed still as he turned over, gave a long yawn and laid his freezing hand on her back, as he always did. She tensed, unable to move away in bed.

His fingers rested in the gaps between her vertebrae. They flexed a little, checking for a response; a twitch of her muscles, or a deeper breath.

He never gave up.

After a second, Will tapped her spine gently – playing back, she suspected, the track inside his head he was working on with Jeremiah. The rhythm changed and she guessed that he’d reached the bridge of the song.

Her eyes tightly shut, Hannah transported herself, as she did every night, to her world of paint-shades and curtains and rugs and table lamps and furniture layouts. She propped up the schedule mentally in her mind and trod the well-worn path of visualizing the decoration of each room in Tornley Hall.

She imagined Barbara’s response to each one when it was finished, and then to the whole house.

Perfect! A perfect family home, Hannah!

The tapping on her back slowed. Will’s hand grew heavier. A small snore came from behind.

She breathed deeper, knowing that, with the motion of her rising ribs, Will’s hand would gradually slip away.

When it did, she turned about-face and smelt toothpaste on his breath, and coffee on her own. She brushed his hair softly from his face, so as not to wake him. Her finger halted at what she thought was a grey hair, then realized it was white paint. Would they ever become parents before one of them really did turn grey?

Cold air blew into the small gap between their bodies, and she shivered. Will had started the boiler, but the bedroom was still freezing. What would the bills be like on a house this big? It was a concern now that she wasn’t working – and a subject they should probably avoid when talking to Barbara.

Hannah turned and backed into the length of Will’s body to find warmth.

She re-established her decorating schedule in her mind and ran through it till sleep came, as it always did, and stole her away from the fear that she could never face – that all of this could yet be for nothing.

When Hannah woke on Monday morning, the pocket of chill in the bed had returned. Will’s space was empty, just the crease in his pillow left.

She peered at the clock.

09.54 a.m. – what?

Hannah sat upright. Why hadn’t he set the alarm? A muscle in her shoulder twinged and she rubbed it. That action, in turn, stung her forefinger. An angry paintbrush blister had appeared on the end. Sucking it, she went to throw off the duvet – then stopped.

If Will wasn’t here, there was no need to jump out of bed.

She could stay in the warm for a few minutes, without him hoping it was going to lead to something. She stretched out her stiff arms and surveyed the cracked Victorian ceiling rose above.

Now that she’d thrown out the sickly air fresheners she suspected Brian had brought to disguise the weird smell in the house, there was a faint scent of old-fashioned perfume in this room. Lavender? Lilac? She tried to recall the previous layout of the room. Her eyes roamed from wall to wall. There had definitely been a high, single bed on this side, which had seemed odd for an adult. An elegant green-velvet chaise longue opposite. A kidney-bean-shaped dressing table in the bay window, with a gilt hairbrush and mirror set. It had clearly been the elderly sister’s bedroom. The one next door was surely the brother’s, with its extendable metal bed and drip-stand, presumably abandoned when he was taken to the nursing home.

Who had died first, Hannah wondered, Peter or Olive Horseborrow?

Had Olive died in this room?

She yawned, checking whether Will had left her one of his notes to say ‘Bye x’.

His bedside table was empty, as was the dressing table. Thinking about it, there hadn’t been a note for a while.

With a shove, she threw back the covers.

‘Oh!’ Hannah exclaimed.

Her skin felt as if it had been doused in iced water. Jumping up, she ran to the door, grabbed Will’s bathrobe and flung it on. She touched the radiator and found surly cold metal. Why was the heating not on?

In the bathroom across the hall she switched on the shower and stood shivering, hand out, surveying the plain white suite and walls. According to Brian, all the plumbing and electrics had been redone ten years ago. This was one room then, at least, that would do as it was for Barbara’s visit.

She waited, but the water didn’t heat up.

Not the boiler, on top of everything else, please.

Holding the robe around her, Hannah went downstairs, checked another unresponsive radiator in the hall and was turning towards the kitchen when there was movement at the window.

Shocked, she walked towards it.

No way.

It was early March, and the garden of Tornley Hall was completely white. Thick snow fell heavily from an opaque sky. Apart from a few stubborn brown patches in the flower beds and gravel, the garden was nearly covered.

This could not be happening.

Hannah rushed to the kitchen and turned on the radio to a news channel.

‘High pressure over Scandinavia and cold winds from Russia have clashed with weather systems from the Atlantic, leading to snow overnight in many parts of Britain . . .’ said a voice of doom.

No! Snow would ruin everything.

Fighting back panic, Hannah opened the boiler cover. A light flickered. She pressed one button, then another. There was a rumble and the boiler burst back into life. At least that was working.

She grabbed her mobile from the worktop and rang Will’s number.

‘Have you seen this?’ she said when Will picked up.

A pause. ‘What?’

‘Snow!’

A longer pause. ‘Yeah. It was starting when I got to Woodbridge.’

It was only just after 10 a.m. and yet already he sounded tired. She felt guilty about the four-hour-plus daily round commute he was now going to have to do, in order for them to be far enough out of London to afford a house like this. It would only be for a year, she reminded herself, till the studio was built and Will could work from home.

‘Really? You don’t sound worried. You realize if this goes on, it’s going to mess everything up?’

Another pause. A chair creaking. ‘How?’

‘Because I won’t be able to do stuff! I won’t be able to cut the grass and get rid of the weeds. Or get to Ipswich if I need more paint. Can you come back? This afternoon?’

‘Er, no.’ Will sounded bemused at the thought.

‘Will!’

‘Han. It’s a stupid question . . .’

He drifted off again. She knew he’d be adjusting some tiny piece of reverb on the Mac, his phone jammed against his shoulder. She knew it was a stupid question. They needed the money from Jeremiah’s record company to pay for the increased mortgage payments for the next few months.

A guitar strummed in the background. She heard Will’s studio assistant, Matt, chatting in his goofball, mockney voice to someone she guessed was Jeremiah. A mobile rang. Familiar London sounds. Life sounds.

Hannah walked to the window. The high Victorian wall rose steeply behind the small rear garden. Snow was forming a soft ridge along the top. How far away was the nearest human being right now?

There was a crackle. Will’s voice started to break up.

‘I’ll try to . . . back earlier this evening . . . not this afternoon. Listen . . . going . . . a session now, so . . . talk later.’

‘OK, but when you say earlier, can you at least make it . . .’ Hannah started. She knew what he was like: when he became immersed in a job, he could work all night and lose track of time.

The phone died. She checked. One bar of signal. Then nothing. Cursing, she returned to the table, where it strengthened to two bars, and tried again. Will’s phone went straight to message.

‘Will!’ she said, knowing it was too late. When he turned off his phone, that meant he’d be working for hours now.

She put down her phone. If she wasn’t bringing in a salary any more, she could hardly argue.

Back in the two-bar zone, Hannah’s phone beeped.

Two voice messages arrived in her in-box. The first was an unfamiliar voice.

‘Hello, Mrs Riley. I’m very sorry, but our engineer will not be able to get to you today, due to poor road conditions on the A12. We’ll arrange another appointment when we know more.’

The engineer.
With all the decorating this weekend, she’d completely forgotten that they’d arranged the broadband installation for today. Now there’d be no landline, or wi-fi or TV, for another day at least. Hannah told herself to remain positive. She could manage. The second message was from the estate agent.

‘Hi, Mrs Riley, this is Janet. Sorry, I’ve had no luck getting hold of Brian about those keys. We’re expecting him back from Italy today, though, if the airport isn’t closed, so I’ll ring you as soon as we hear. Apologies again. All the best.’

Hannah examined her schedule, forcing herself to think practically.

Day 12: Monday, SITTING ROOM, she’d rewritten optimistically last night. If they still couldn’t unlock the door, she’d just have to paint another guest bedroom today.

She went to score out SITTING ROOM. Before she could write a word, however, there was a loud clanking noise.

The boiler had definitely died this time. You didn’t have to be a plumber to tell that. The dials had settled at zero, and the pilot light was out. Hannah jabbed uselessly at the button as before and then, when that didn’t work, at all the others.

The intense cold crept inside Will’s towelling robe.

Hannah grabbed her marker pen.

EMERGENCY PLUMBER, she wrote at the top of her schedule.
PRIORITY
.

She’d just have to get on with it. It was that or a panic attack.

With no phone book evident in the house, she sat in the two-bar-signal area of the kitchen and typed in ‘Emergency plumber, Thurrup’ to her phone’s search engine. The Internet symbol ticked round interminably, then froze. Then the phone signal disappeared altogether, forcing her to move again. This would take all day. For a second she had the brilliant idea of asking Laurie and Ian for a plumber in Thurrup.

Then she remembered.

Laurie’s number was on Will’s mobile, not hers.

‘Bloody hell!’ Hannah shouted. She texted Will asking for Laurie’s number, wondering how long it would be before he saw the message. She watched the snow drift across the garden, starting to realize how cut off she was out here. She hadn’t even considered this type of scenario when they visited in late summer. At home in Shepherd’s Bush the snow would have little effect on anything. She’d just pop round to a phone box or the Internet cafe. Here, she was a quarter of a mile from Tornley; five miles from Snadesdon and nine from Thurrup. And even then she wouldn’t risk cycling in this weather.