guess I should have been prepared for this. They cannot have expected ever to see me again. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’
‘Not at all,’ Miss Luca hurries to say. ‘I come by here a lot, to go out with the dog, you know.’ She points at the Jeep. I don’t see a dog. ‘Your parents were always so friendly. We had tea together sometimes, when I came back from my walks. I am so sorry for your loss. We all miss them very greatly. We were sad not to see you at the funeral.’
She is looking at me with that smile and that probing expression of hers. Making me as speechless as I was all those years ago, when I went to see her after that night, just for a few sessions. There wasn’t any time for more: Oliver and I moved away almost instantly. I had to get out of here, and he already had a place at university to train as a nurse.
Miss Luca’s eyes are still just as sharp as back then. As if her mind is going a hundred miles a minute behind the disbelieving expression she is trying to hide under a friendly smile. ‘How have you been, then?’ she prompts. ‘I cannot believe you are back, really, Ms Wilson. It is such a pleasure to see you again!’
I can’t believe how old she’s grown. If Kaitlin’s got fat, Miss Luca has turned into paper. You cannot see it in her face, because of all the makeup. But there are the wrinkles on her throat, on the backs of her hands, her skin like blotting paper. It feels like all you’d need to do is run a finger along her throat to take off the skin. But she still looks so collected. Nothing could unsettle her, not Miss Luca.
For a moment, I wonder what I must look like to her. Would she have recognised me if she had not known I was back? The person I am now cannot have anything to do with the young woman she knew. If you’d told that young woman her story would turn into mine, she’d have laughed at you. It’s up to me what my story is, she’d have said, then grinned and hopped onto her bike without a helmet to pick up her two best friends. That is how people must remember me here: a young woman, strong-willed, stars in her eyes, dreamer and troublemaker. Her and her two friends, the three inseparables: Anna and Teo and me.
One of whom the police suspected.
It is that thought which helps take me back to the present. It is a godsend that Miss Luca came straight by. I have so many questions, all warring in my head, not knowing where to start. Perhaps that is why the first I blurt out is: ‘Did you see the chimes?’
Her brow furrows for a split second. ‘Pardon?’
I take a deep breath. The chimes suddenly returned. As if someone’s watching me. ‘Just, on your walks through the woods, recently, I wondered whether …’ This is silly. I fiddle once more with the grocery bags. They are growing heavy. ‘Oh, never mind. I’m glad you came by! How have you been?’
‘Oh,’ she says with a laugh. ‘You know us. Life moves slowly out here. Nothing much new, I suppose. Even after such a long time, really! Gosh, let me think … Well, you’re back, for one. And Teo Dündar, of course.’
I am about to ask her about that, about him, when something flashes in the corner of my eye. My head shoots around.
Miss Luca’s brow furrows again. She takes a step towards me. ‘Ms Wilson? Are you all right?’
I look for the movement but can’t spot anything. ‘Yes. Sorry. You were saying …’
She takes another step closer. ‘I was surprised to hear that you were back. Happy, though. Did you ever approach any of my colleagues in London?’
There is something very urgent to her question. Like finding an old book in the attic, one you loved as a child, as badly as you loved your cat and your parents and the stars, and suddenly realising you never finished it. ‘Yes,’ I lie. My eyes are still searching the trees. The corner of my mouth twitches upwards. ‘Thank you so much for your recommendations.’
A leash is dangling from her right hand, but still no sign of a dog. ‘Not to worry. Just because I never heard from you again. Professional interest, you see. It is hard to contain.’
She laughs again, but it still sounds urgent.
‘I trained as a florist,’ I say, on my way to working up the nerve to ask, I know it’s a little out of the blue, but did you know it wasn’t a stranger at all who attacked me nineteen years ago? Oh, and who’s the alcoholic who lives on the High Street and stole Jacob Mason’s name, eyes and grin? And what about Teoman Dündar? Since when has he been back? ‘All the wildflowers here, that’s what made me think it would be good. I wanted to care for something.’
‘How lovely,’ she answers. ‘Mark and Sue mentioned it, actually.’
Again I open my mouth to ask her at least one of those questions. I could start with Jacob.
A cracking sound. It came from the woods to our left, the trees separating our grounds from the Kenzies’.
‘Kaitlin mentioned you were looking for work?’
I take a step down the stairs. The chimes are singing in the wind. The bags are turning to lead in my hands. Miss Luca does not seem to have heard the noise, the noise in the woods. She is looking only at my face. ‘You know, I would love to invite you over for tea before you leave again, Ms Wilson. Kaitlin said you might not be here to stay? I’m so curious about how you have been, and we were all so sad to see you go, back then, you know. Sad that we didn’t get to see you again.’
‘Yes!’ I say, perhaps a little too quickly. ‘Yes, I’d love that. I’d love to talk to you. You know. About things. About things that happened. Here.’
She is observing me closely as I try to tear my eyes away from the woods. ‘Right.’
‘Just because being here,’ I say, struggling to get the words out, ‘it … it brings things back.’
She nods, slowly. Looking down. It gives me pause. It’s as if she can’t look me in the eye for a moment.
‘I am so happy to hear you have chosen to come back to this house,’ Miss Luca says. ‘It looked sad with nobody living in it. Besides, it means that you must have come a long way. Being able to live here. After everything.’
There. I see it again. The flash of a movement. A silhouette, making its way through the forest, moving from trunk to trunk.
The chimes are singing, right next to my face.
It is the white silhouette. From the top window.
‘Wait!’ I shout. ‘Stop!’
Even as Miss Luca flinches, the silhouette stops.
Then it turns around and runs.
Without thinking twice, I drop the grocery bags where I stand and run after it. Miss Luca calls my name, shocked, but I pay her no heed. All I can think about is the chimes, and the doorbell that rang in the night, and how I woke up with traces of sweat like fingers on my skin.
Twigs crack beneath my feet as I dash towards the tree line. Even before I’ve reached the first row of trunks, I’m out of breath. I don’t work out. I keep running. The silhouette isn’t so far off that I can’t still see it, white like a ghost in the frosted woods. ‘Stop!’ I call again. Why would a person run if they were only here on a walk? Why would anyone run from a stranger calling for them? And if it isn’t a stranger, then …
I speed up. My lungs are burning. I know I used to be faster than this. I remember I could run from this porch all the way to the Kenzies’, all the way through the forest, all the way without any trouble whatsoever. I remember only last year, I could run from our flat to the river and back, I could …
That was three years ago, actually. Maybe it would have been better not to make fun of Kaitlin and Miss Luca.
The silhouette seems to be getting away. With every ounce of willpower I possess, I try and speed up even more. Frost crunches under my soles. Branches break. I’m getting closer.