The Hidden Girl (8 page)

It sounded so ridiculous she almost laughed.

The woman glanced over to the field. ‘Escaped, has he?’

‘No. No, it’s just that last night I found him outside, in the field.’

‘Got out of his shelter.’

It was presented as a statement, not a question. Hannah held her nerve.

‘Yeah. No. Sorry – no, he didn’t escape. He was braying really loudly last night, and it woke me up. I found him outside, with a lot of snow on him. I was a bit worried, so I put him in our garage overnight. I wasn’t sure if there’d been a mix-up and no one knew he was outside, or something.’

The woman squinted at the distant field. The dogs pushed behind her, brushing Hannah’s legs. ‘Where is he?’

‘In my garage,’ Hannah repeated, wishing the woman would put down the rifle. ‘At Tornley Hall – the thing is . . . I’ve worked in hot countries, and I’m pretty sure that donkeys aren’t very good in cold weather. I think they need shelter. I just wanted to check that someone knew, and that, um . . .’

How much more bloody diplomatic could she be? To her dismay, Hannah heard the farmer swearing under her breath.

‘Sorry?’

The woman pointed the rifle downwards. ‘You can’t walk onto farmland and take animals. The police’ll have you for that.’

Damn. This was exactly what she didn’t want.

‘Oh. No. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do anything to upset anyone. I just – it was late, and cold, and I didn’t know what else to do.’

She couldn’t believe the words she was hearing come out of her own mouth.

The woman softened a tiny amount. ‘It’s all right. Just put him back, please.’

Hannah bit her tongue. So much for her negotiation-skills training. This woman was walking all over her.

The farmer watched Hannah with expressionless pale-blue eyes lost in pockets of loose skin.

Hannah forced herself to remember Barbara, and why they’d come to Tornley. She couldn’t damage their chances for this. She pointed to a barn. ‘I mean, could he go in there, maybe – till the snow’s gone?’

The woman banged her gun down. Hannah jumped.

‘That shelter’s fine. My sons built it. And, as I say, you don’t just walk onto land and take livestock, or tell people what to do with theirs.’

‘No. No, I didn’t meant to . . . Sorry – I’ve just come from London, so . . .’ She knew she sounded pathetic.

The farmer stood her ground, unflinching.

‘OK. I’ll put him back,’ Hannah said. ‘No problem – you’re probably right.’

She waved goodbye, but the woman didn’t react.

Disgusted with herself, Hannah returned to the field. If Jane and her other TSO colleagues could see her now, they’d never speak to her again. She put her head down as a fresh flurry started, and climbed back onto the crop ridges.

Behind her came a shout. ‘Take the road, please, not my field!’

The thought of Jane and her uncompromising brown eyes finally galvanized Hannah. She kept her head down and pretended she hadn’t heard; partly because she wasn’t used to giving in to bullies, and partly because if she tried to navigate her way back to Tornley Hall by the unsignposted roads, she knew she’d end up in Ipswich.

Hoping the farmer wasn’t allowed to shoot her for trespassing, she continued the way she came.

Midway across the field she allowed herself a glance back, and saw a second tall figure in a dark jacket, boots and a woollen hat arriving beside the farmer. Her son? The farmer was pointing towards Hannah.

Hannah quickened her step. She’d have to stay away from them. It was too risky. The last thing they wanted Barbara to discover next Friday was that Will and Hannah had fallen out with the gun-wielding madwoman next door, and that Hannah had been arrested for donkey-rustling.

She pulled out her phone to tell Will what was going on.

When he didn’t answer she left another message.

This was becoming annoying. Where was he?

Back at Tornley Hall, Hannah fetched the donkey’s coat, took it out to the garage, then led the animal shamefully back to its pitiful shelter. The donkey fixed its woeful eyes beyond her, and blinked with long lashes as the snow fell into them, as if accepting its fate.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, rubbing the donkey’s head. ‘I just can’t get involved right now, but I promise that when this is all over, I’ll have your back, OK?’

Her mobile buzzed.

‘Brian’ popped up on the screen.

‘Yes!’ Hannah hissed. A text appeared:
H/clearance ppl shd have put keys back in cupboard under scullery sink. Brian.

Hannah ran back to the house, trying to put the donkey out of her mind. Under the scullery sink was a cupboard they’d checked previously. She now saw, however, that inside it was a small box, painted the same green as the walls, with no handle. They’d missed it. She prised it open with her fingernails.

Two silver keys appeared, along with a bunch of old-fashioned brown ones, one of which she guessed belonged to the attic.

She took them to the sitting room. The first silver key turned in the lock straight away.

Yes!

Hannah’s mind flew to her schedule. This was fantastic. She could start painting the sitting room today after all, with the duck-egg blue. She opened the door, fired up again.

The room lay in shadow. The diesel smell was even stronger inside. The only light came through an old cream blind on the square rear window that led out to the side-alcove.

Hannah opened the first of the three sets of wooden shutters on the grand picture windows. Blue-tinged light rushed in, along with the great view of the lawn. Exhilarated, she turned to take in the dramatic effect.

Her eyes flew to the shelves on either side of the fireplace.

No!

There were books. Everywhere. The house-clearance people hadn’t taken them.

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Hannah yelled. Her plans were being thwarted at every turn. Every space on every shelf was packed, right to the ceiling, with volumes piled horizontally on top of upright ones.

Ironically, in the gloom she could already see that the rest of this room was in better condition than the others, with smooth, papered walls, that stunning Victorian silver fireplace and the polished wooden floor. But it would take her hours to clear all these books before she could paint.

Over by the side-window there was also a pile of black rubbish bags that the house-clearance people had left.

Frustrated, she started to open the second set of shutters.

In her peripheral vision a black bin bag moved.

At first it was a rustle of plastic, like a spider or a mouse, then all the bags seemed to rise up right on top of each other.

Hannah’s heart dropped through her stomach.

Someone was in here.

Forcing her legs to move, she ran to the door, almost horizontal in her attempt to stop the intruder catching her. Breathless with fear, she swung round into the hall and slammed the sitting-room door shut so hard behind her that the handle nearly came off. Fumbling, she turned the key back in the lock.

Hannah jammed her feet into Will’s trainers by the front door and ran out into the snowy garden. The driveway looked a mile long.

Was he behind her?

Shaking, she stumbled through the snow blizzard towards the lane.

How did he get in there?

She reached the oak trees, and kept going. Panicked thoughts flew at her.

If she hid in the bushes, he’d see her footprints in the snow and find her.

The house next door was shut up.

No cars came down this lane.

Tornley was a quarter of a mile away.

If he came for her, she couldn’t get away.

Hannah tripped, steadied herself and kept going, trying to remember what to do.

First rule in a dangerous situation: alert someone.

She grabbed for her phone as she reached the gate.

A growling noise came out of nowhere.

With a gasp, she jumped sideways into the bushes, waiting for a hand on her back.

Then she realized it was a car. After forty-eight hours of near-silence, the engine cut through the garden like a chainsaw.

A red pickup truck with huge, broad tyres swung through the gate and skidded to a stop, sending snow and gravel into her legs.

The door flew open.

A man jumped out.

Hannah was so shocked, it took her a second to recognize him.

Dax.

He was still wearing an oily boiler suit and black gloves. If he was cold, he didn’t show it.

‘Aye-aye. Bit chilly for gardening, in’t it?’ He had that bemused expression on his face.

Hannah stood up and walked out of the bush. Her knee stung. It was bleeding.

‘Right,’ Dax said, marching away. ‘Let’s see this boiler.’

She found her voice. ‘No! Don’t! There’s someone in there. In the house.’

He halted.

‘They’ve broken in. There’s someone in the sitting room.’

Dax gave her a quizzical look.

‘Please, it’s not funny,’ she said brushing off snow. ‘I just unlocked the sitting room and there was someone in there.’

‘Who’s that then?’

‘I didn’t see. He was lying on the floor under bin bags, and when I walked in he stood up, and I ran.’

Dax glanced down at Will’s size-eleven trainers and back at her face. He shrugged. ‘Vagrant, most like.’

‘A vagrant?’

He marched towards the house. ‘Get ’em, round here. Pain in the bloody arse. Where is he?’

‘No!’ Hannah called, following him. ‘No, Dax. Please. I locked him in. We need to call the police.’

Dax snorted. ‘You’ll be waiting all day then. Police don’t waste time on that lot. Too many of ’em.’ He turned sharp left through the front door and, to Hannah’s horror, unlocked the sitting-room door and walked straight in.

How did he even know where the sitting room was?

She crept behind him, trying to focus in the half-gloom.

To her astonishment, the sitting room was empty. Dax was already pushing back the rest of the shutters. On the floor was what she now saw was just one black bin bag, and a brown blanket. There was an apple core and two empty crisp packets, and a dusty black T-shirt and some rolled-up socks. With a fright she saw the red blanket by the window. She spun around.

Where was the man?

‘Yup. Vagrant,’ Dax nodded, poking his finger at the side-window. To her shock, the cream blind had been pulled up. The window opened straight out into the exterior alcove. There was no catch on it. A thought hit her and she felt sick. Had the man been in the house last night whilst she slept?

‘Come through here,’ Dax said, pointing.

‘Seriously?’ she said, trying to gather her thoughts. ‘Oh my God. When you say vagrant, you mean a homeless person? Isn’t that a bit weird – I mean, in the middle of nowhere?’

Too late she realized how rude it was to call Tornley – Dax’s home – ‘nowhere’.

‘No. Foreigner most like; come yesterday morning, get a head-start on the seasonal work. They come around now, the early ones – get the land ready for planting. Bet he wasn’t expecting snow, though!’ Dax chortled. He pulled a hammer out of his toolbelt, then a nail.

Hannah picked up the crisp packets and dirty socks, trying not to breathe. ‘But don’t the farmers give them accommodation?’

He nodded. ‘If they come here legal with the agency, they do. They got caravans for ’em. Some don’t want to pay rent, though. Or they’s illegal. Old Samuel had two in his tyre-shed, summer gone. Buggers had a bloody gas stove and all. Could’ve gone up.’

Hannah looked at the red blanket and recalled the crisp packets in the garage. Had farm workers been sleeping in there, too? Before she realized what Dax was doing, he nailed the window shut.

‘Oh . . .’ Hannah started. But it was too late. Dax pulled out another nail and did the other side, then stood back.

She tempered her dismay at the nail-holes in the original Victorian wood with the knowledge that at least the intruder was locked out.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Actually that might explain it – there was stuff in the garage, too.’

Dax nodded. ‘That’ll be it. House’s been empty two . . . three . . . year, right? Probably been a few of them ’ere. This one won’t be back. Knows you’re ’ere now. Probably gave him the fright of his bloody life!’

‘Really?’

‘Oh yeah. That type don’t want trouble with the police.’ Dax put his hammer back in his belt. ‘Right.’ He clapped his hands together. ‘Boiler.’ He marched off towards the kitchen, as if it was completely normal to find someone in your house, and he now had better things to do.

‘Dax, do you know Tornley Hall?’ Hannah called. Nervously she peeked into the dining room and the understairs toilet.

Dax ignored her. In the kitchen he opened the boiler, twiddled a knob and pulled his overall sleeves up to his elbows. He had those big, solid forearms of men who work with their hands, not at a computer like the men she knew in London. Dax stood back.

‘Can you fix it?’

He made a face. ‘If I was a plumber, I might.’

‘Oh. You’re not?’

Dax ignored her and stalked off again, with that full-power energy of a man who works outdoors.

She traipsed behind, to see his big boots disappear out the front door, leaving a trail of muddy prints behind.

‘Put the kettle on, then,’ he shouted. ‘Milk, two sugars.’

Knowing that, right now, she’d do just about anything to be reassured that the intruder wasn’t coming back, and to be warm again, Hannah did what he graciously asked. As she waited for the kettle to boil, she rang Will to tell him what had happened.

His phone went straight to voicemail again.

He must have woken early in the studio and started work. She prayed he’d find a way to return this afternoon.

Hannah looked at the phone, wondering if she should ring the police, despite what Dax said.

Barbara came to mind again. What would Barbara say if she knew Will and Hannah had had a break-in, three days after moving in? It wasn’t exactly the safe, perfect family home environment she was expecting.

She put down the phone.

If she reported it as a crime, would Barbara stumble on the police report if she did a home check on Tornley Hall in the next few weeks? Would it be concealment, if Hannah didn’t tell her? Hannah turned to make tea, frustrated. In fifteen years in London she’d never seen a gun or had a break-in. Here, she’d experienced both within three days.