as I passed her, and I managed one back – but it was just my face going through the motions. Something – out of nowhere – had spoiled my mood: some hidden concern, intruding to cast its shadow. Now, of all times. I could almost taste my disappointment.
That, and something else: something much more bitter on the back of my tongue.
Just before I got to the lifts I glanced over my shoulder one more time: I couldn’t help it. Beyond the cleaner in her splash of sunshine, and the signs announcing Paediatric Wards, the corridor lay in dingy silence. A hospital thoroughfare like any other.
Of course. But it still took an effort to turn my back on it again; and a still greater one to stop thinking of all that darkness between myself and Sandra’s cheery smile.
Through the rest of the afternoon it kept on coming back: that queasy, churned-up feeling in my stomach. Sometimes so acute that I even began to wonder – hopefully – if it wasn’t just something I’d eaten. Or some other easy explanation I could cope with.
But as I trailed round Sainsbury’s, trying to focus my mind on budget and bargains, I couldn’t out-think the other possibility. I prevaricated for ages over which washing powder to go for; read and re-read each label in turn; but it didn’t help. Words just failed to sink in: my head was far too full of grimmer matters.
I knew I was … sensitive to certain things around me: I’d found that out before. A common gift, apparently – but in my case strong enough to give me revelations: dreams and nightmares; and the awareness – sometimes – of presences not seen.
It wasn’t a gift I’d ever wanted. After … the last time … I’d studiously ignored it: tried to school it out of my head. And as time had passed, I’d even started to forget it – and put my occasional flashes of insight down to female intuition. Or whatever.
But what I’d felt this afternoon had been something more than that.
So the hospital’s got ghosts. So what? It’s an old enough building … I made for a mental shrug, and – as usual – plumped for the Persil.
By the time I got off the bus at the bottom of my road, I was feeling better. Still a bit delicate – the prospect of cooking tea aroused no enthusiasm at all – but my leaden mood had lifted somewhat. Maybe it was just tiredness, after all: things had been pretty hectic of late. I reckoned I could do with an early night.
I let myself in, and lugged the two full carriers through to the kitchen; not bothering with lights, although the place was awash with winter dusk. I was back on home ground now: familiar territory, made more intimate by shadow. Here even the dimness had its comforts. But I liked the way the glow from the fridge spilled out around me as I loaded the shelves.
I checked the kettle and clicked it on, then wandered back into the hall. The house was quiet: Nick wouldn’t be back until late. I was just shrugging out of my coat when I noticed the footprints.
Smeared grey footprints, on my freshly-hoovered carpet: leading upstairs, and out of sight.
For what seemed like a minute I studied them in silence – but that silence was full of all the sounds I’d just been making, coming back to me in waves: the rattle of the lock, the opening door; my tired little sigh, and footsteps through to the kitchen. Each mundane noise magnified a hundredfold by the knowledge that someone else had heard them too: that someone was in here with me.
Nick, I thought, and opened my mouth to say it. But the dusky air flowed in and dried it up. My throat as well. Suddenly I couldn’t even croak.
Because I knew it wasn’t Nick, of course; knew before the thought had barely formed. A stranger’s boots had made those marks. And even as I stared upstairs – and strained my singing ears against the hush – a fist of foreboding closed inside me.
A burglar. Still here. I’ve surprised him. Upstairs.
My eyes flicked to the phone on the wall. The overfull pinboard beside it seemed almost insultingly cheerful.
So how fast could I grab it and dial 999? Faster than a shadow could come racing down the stairs towards me? And how long after that would a police car turn up? How many minutes?
A minute’s a long time in rape. A very long time.
I took a quiet, cautious step back towards the door – the one I’d closed so noisily behind me. All my attention was on the motionless murk at the top of the stairs; but as I passed the doorway to the front room, something just grazed the corner of my eye – and clicked in my mind a moment later. My head snapped round.
A woman was sitting on the sofa, hunched uncomfortably forward: watching me from the dimness with cold, dark eyes.
I rode the bitter wave of adrenaline, and just stood there staring back. She looked about my age: her face pale and taut. The eyes stayed steady; but they couldn’t belie the wariness – and hostility – in her expression.
After an awful pause – a dozen painful heartbeats – she opened her mouth and said: ‘Rachel.’
I swallowed. ‘… What?’
‘You’ve no need to worry. Listen …’ Her voice was low, and carefully emphatic. There was an accent there, but my mind was still too slippery with shock to grasp it.
I wavered; her obvious edginess was hardly reassuring. Whoever she was. I made to ask the obvious. She cut me off.
‘Just sit down a minute, why don’t you?’ She was rising even as she said it. Shabby donkey-jacket, I noted; worn black jeans. And for all her attempts at a conciliatory tone, she was still watching with eyes as intent and unforgiving as a beggar’s.
‘All right …’ I’ murmured meekly, glancing down – then made a lunge for the front door. The lock, which Nick was always promising to oil, seemed to stiffen under my frantic fingers – stiffen and jam. I was still fumbling with the sodding thing when she grasped my collar, hauled me back hard, and sent me lurching off into the breakfast room. I turned around, teetering – and found she was pointing a gun at me. A pistol, held out at arm’s length. The face behind was livid.
‘Sit down,’ she hissed; and now I caught it right enough. Her accent – thick enough to slice.
Sit doyne.
Oh … shit shit shit.
I took a helpless step backward – and once more had that spine-tingling feeling of somebody behind me: close enough to kiss my neck. I spun around. And this time there really was.
She was watching from the kitchen doorway; I’d been in and out and missed her in the dusk. All the time I’d been filling the fridge, she’d been one of the shadows behind me, muffled in her long black greatcoat – her face masked with gloom beneath the brim of her hat. But the hat was in her hands now, her close-cropped head uncovered, and her face stood out as bleakly as a newly-risen moon.
‘Hello, Rachel,’ said Razoxane softly. ‘Welcome home.’
I might have fainted then – but my body refused to opt for such a cop-out.
Razoxane straightened up from her slouch against the door-jamb: smiling thinly. I flinched, and swallowed a moan, but couldn’t step back: not with that gun behind me. All I could do was gawp.
She hadn’t changed a bit. From the state of her clothes she hadn’t changed those, either. Maybe she looked a little paler; and thinner, to judge by the hang of her scarecrow coat; but still not a day over twenty-five or so. And the smile was all Razoxane: all razor. It cut me to the quick.
My hand crept up to cover my mouth. I made a small, scared sound behind it. No point protesting I was seeing things, hallucinating horrors; still less in wondering how she’d got here – because here she was before me.
Flesh