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‘Steph, I’m at the old house.’ Daniela’s voice sounded loud and panicky in the close confines of the waterlogged house. ‘Something’s happened to Auryn.’
She tried to say more but the words jammed in her throat. Her eyes stung with tears. She shut the phone off and held it gripped tight in her hand.
Turning away, she stared into the front room. It was difficult to tell when the house had flooded. Water lapped the big oak dining table. The table was strewn with papers and magazines, their edges curling. Already the wallpaper was beginning to peel. The threadbare sofa was saturated, and a low coffee table was now an island. Several empty cups sat on the table. Some effort had been made here to move books and magazines to the higher bookcase shelves, and there was a conspicuous empty spot on an entertainment stand where a television and DVD player had been removed. A sodden cushion wallowed in the water like a half-sunk iceberg. The water had an oily sheen.
There was also a lot of rubbish. Cigarette ends and empty beer cans bobbed on the waves. A pair of whisky bottles nestled together in the corner. One was still half-full and rode low in the water.
Auryn … what happened to you?
Looking into the sitting room, Daniela’s gaze flitted from one irrelevant object to the next, searching for something solid. The dusty mirror above the fireplace reflected her pale, shocked face, almost unrecognisable. The semi-opaque glass made her look drowned. Daniela stared at the ornaments on the mantel, at scraps of paper and postcards, at the books on the shelves next to framed photographs that’d belonged to Dad. Some of the items were hers. A carved wooden bear brought back from a school trip. The shell casing from a Second World War mortar that she’d dug up in the woods. Small, meaningless things that she’d left behind without a thought, and which had long since vanished from her memory, yet remained here, awaiting her return.
Daniela took a few stumbling steps back to the stairs. Eddies of greasy water followed her. She sat down on the third step before her legs gave out. Her mind sloshed and tilted in her skull. Her jeans and socks were soaked with dirty water. She lifted her wet feet out of the flood.
Again, she tried Stephanie’s number. Listened to it ring.
Dad died here as well, Daniela remembered with a jolt. She raised her eyes to the upstairs landing where, three years ago, her father had stumbled, drunk, and tipped headfirst over the banisters. Broke his neck on impact then lay for twelve hours until the postman found him.
Is that what’d happened to Auryn as well? From where Daniela sat, she could see one of the empty bottles that bobbed about in the sitting room. Had Auryn fallen?
Her phone bipped as the call went to voicemail again. Daniela hung up and immediately redialled.
Closer to the water, the bad-drain smell was stronger. Daniela wondered whether the smell and the oily glaze had leaked out of Auryn. The thought made her stomach roil so badly she had to close her eyes.
Voicemail again. Daniela swore. It came out as a sob.
You don’t even know if Stephanie’s using the same number, Daniela realised. That hadn’t occurred to her. Likewise, it hadn’t occurred to her to call 999. Despite the years, she’d reached instinctively for Stephanie.
Daniela leant back against the stairs. Her arm brushed something solid and wrapped in plastic. The package of money. She picked it up and let it sit heavy on her lap.
She was about to redial when her phone burst into life, the ringtone loud enough to make her jump. Stephanie’s number appeared on the screen, so familiar even after all those years.
5 (#ulink_777cf2b4-0e8d-50b9-83d5-4299d4249e5d)
When the police arrived, Daniela was sat on the wall at the bottom of the front garden, her knees pulled up so her booted feet were clear of the water. She was shivering and red-eyed, not just from the cold.
She heard the police before she saw them. They’d commandeered a tractor – the best way of traversing the flooded roadways – from a local farmer. The steady chug-chug-chug was audible long before the vehicle popped into view.
Daniela didn’t recognise the thickset woman driving the tractor. Her wind-burned cheeks and earth-coloured clothes suggested she was either the farmer or the farmer’s wife. It stood to reason she wouldn’t trust the local bobbies to drive the vehicle themselves. Stephanie stood on the footplate, stony-faced, hanging on with both hands.
The tractor stopped in the flooded turning circle, and Stephanie jumped down with a splash. Daniela took one look at her sister’s face then dropped her gaze. She didn’t know what she’d hoped for. Sympathy? Forgiveness? Some human emotion, at least. But Stephanie could’ve been arriving at a train station for all the sentiment she showed. She started up the path with barely a glance at Daniela.
‘You’ll have to go around the back,’ Daniela called after her. ‘Front door’s blocked. I’ve opened the kitchen door.’
Daniela didn’t follow Stephanie. The idea of going inside again made her stomach churn. Instead, she remained on the wall, lit another cigarette, and watched the tractor perform a six-point turn. The farmer tipped her cap and set off back along the road. Daniela waited.
Within a few minutes, sloshing footsteps indicated Stephanie’s return. Daniela studied her cigarette, which had burned down to the filter. She cringed at having to face her sister.
‘Dani, what happened?’ Stephanie asked. There was a raw edge to her voice that Daniela had never heard before.
Daniela rubbed her eyes with her knuckles. ‘I told you on the phone,’ she said. ‘I found her like that.’
‘What were you doing here?’
‘I wanted to see the old house.’
‘What for?’
Daniela discarded her cigarette into the water, where it bobbed about with the dead leaves and twigs. ‘It’s still my home,’ she said. ‘It belongs to me, at least a little.’
‘So, you broke in.’ Not really a question.
‘I couldn’t get in the front, and the back door was locked. I climbed through the upstairs window. Look at the state of the place, for God’s sake. Of course, I went inside.’
Stephanie let the silence stretch. Daniela felt the police-stare burning the back of her neck, but didn’t look up. She was wise to that trick.
‘Where did you go when you got inside?’ Stephanie asked.
‘Through the junk room, down the stairs, into the hall. That’s when I saw Auryn.’
‘And then?’
‘I called you.’
‘Did you move her?’
‘No. I … I tried to sit her up. Before I realised.’
‘But did you move her? Is she still where you found her?’
‘I—’ Daniela couldn’t shift the memory of Auryn’s dead weight under her hands. ‘What the hell should I’ve done? She’s dead, isn’t she?’ Daniela rubbed her eyes again. Her hands were cold. ‘I knew I had to call someone.’
‘So, you called me.’
‘You’re the police. I figured it’d be quickest. I mean, if I’d called the control room I would’ve got put through to Hackett, and God knows how long it’d take them to get here with the bridge closed. Have you called anyone?’
Stephanie grunted, which could’ve meant anything. Daniela noted she wasn’t writing this down like she was supposed to. She wondered whether Stephanie was doing any of the things she should’ve. Shock was hitting her hard as well; Daniela could tell. There was a stricken look on Stephanie’s face. She had all the police training to deal with awful, stressful situations, but this had blindsided her.
‘I’ve called a doctor,’ Stephanie said. ‘They’ll be here soon.’
‘Is that Abrams?’ Doctor Abrams was the local GP and, by Daniela’s estimation, had to be a hundred years old.
‘Abrams is in Hackett. There’s a doctor in town who’s coming to examine the body.’
Daniela studied her hands again. The body. Already Auryn had ceased to be a person.
‘Did you go anywhere else in the house?’ Stephanie asked.
‘No. Wait, I went into the kitchen on the way out. To unlock the back door. Rather than climbing out through the window, y’know.’
‘You didn’t go back upstairs?’
‘No. Didn’t want to track too much mud into the house.’ Daniela forced a smile. ‘What would Dad have said, eh?’
Stephanie didn’t answer.
Daniela took out her cigarettes. She didn’t want another yet, but she needed something to do with her hands. Talking with police officers made her uncomfortable. Talking with her sister, doubly so. Daniela focused on the packet and tried not to think about the hidey-hole in the bedroom.
‘You said Auryn had left,’ Daniela said. ‘She left a few days ago, you said. So, why was she here?’
Stephanie didn’t answer that either.
‘Hello?’ someone called. ‘Stephanie?’
Daniela looked up. A man had appeared at the top of the road. He was wrapped in a grey duffel coat and shapeless woollen hat, plus obligatory wellies. His young face was stamped with grief. Daniela froze.
‘I got here as fast as I could,’ the man said as he approached the gate. ‘My bloody car got stuck. I figured since it’s a four-by-four it should’ve been fine, but apparently not. Tilly’s going to drag it out with her tractor.’
His words spilled out in a rush, as if he had to keep his lips moving or his voice would seize. He went to Stephanie and touched her arm. With anyone else he might’ve gone in for a hug, but he knew Stephanie better than that.
‘Is it true?’ he asked. ‘What happened?’
Stephanie pulled away. ‘You’d better come inside,’ she said.
The man rubbed his face with both hands. He had to take a stabilising breath before he could focus on Daniela. When he did so, his eyes widened. ‘Daniela?’
‘Hi, Leo,’ Daniela said. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were still in Stonecrop.’
Leo McKearney tore his gaze away. ‘Why is she here?’ he asked Stephanie in a fierce whisper. ‘Did she—?’ He broke off as if afraid to say more while Daniela was in earshot.
‘I just got here,’ Daniela said. ‘I went into the house and found Auryn.’
Leo bit his lip. Then he straightened up and, despite the redness of his eyes, assumed a professional air. ‘I’d better see her,’ he said.
As he waded up the path, Daniela turned to Stephanie. ‘D’you think that’s a good idea?’ she asked quietly. ‘Him and Auryn …’
‘We need a doctor to certify death,’ Stephanie said. ‘He’s the only one in town.’
‘He’s a doctor?’
‘Junior doctor at Dewar’s Hospital in Hackett.’ Stephanie fixed Daniela with a look. ‘Don’t move. I’ll be right back.’
‘Sure,’ Daniela said, staring at the water again. The nub of the cigarette she’d dropped had sunk below the surface and hung suspended, turning gently in the currents Leo McKearney made as he waded past.
This was the closest Daniela had been to home in seven years, yet she’d never felt further away.
6 (#ulink_ba324c4b-f4b7-5432-8215-d629708d851a)
June 2010
‘I need money.’
Daniela’s father didn’t look up from whatever the hell he was reading. An old newspaper, folded and refolded, the printed columns of stocks and shares marked with fingerprints and pencil scribbles. Whenever Daniela came up to the study, her dad was poring over financial papers. It was all he seemed to care about these days.
Absently, her father reached for his wallet. Daniela watched his hands as he thumbed through the notes. The hands and wallet looked like they were made of the same leather. The wallet always contained money. Once a week, her dad went into Hackett and withdrew his pension from the post office, plus anything additional he needed from his savings. Daniela didn’t know how much was in the savings, but it had to be substantial, left over from when her dad had co-owned the antiques shop in Stonecrop.
Her father counted off twenty pounds and laid it on the desk. It was far more than Daniela needed but she wasn’t complaining. She scooped up the notes.
‘Thanks,’ she muttered.
Her dad turned over the newspaper and didn’t look up.
In the past twelve months, there’d been a scattering, as if a sudden wind had driven everyone from the old house, although in truth it’d started years earlier, when their mum left. When she’d walked out it was like she left the front door open, and let the cold wind in.
Over time, the atmosphere became fragile, friable. Dad refused to let them speak of their mother, until she was nothing but a ghost in their memories.
Franklyn, twenty-six years old and the eldest of the four sisters, was next to move out permanently, but her absence was less jarring, because over the years she’d become an erratic presence. Likewise, it was no surprise when Stephanie started to talk about moving out. She’d completed her probationary period with the constabulary, and was anxious to live closer to the station in Hackett. Plus, Stephanie and their father were too similar. They’d always butted heads.
The real sign of the end was when Auryn announced she was leaving. She was the easy-going one, who rarely reacted to the shouted voices in the house. If the atmosphere became too toxic, she would hide away with her books in the spare room that was now hers. She was due to leave for university at the end of the summer. They’d planned a party and everything. So, it took everyone by surprise when she said – in her quiet, non-confrontational way – that she’d be leaving early, at the end of June, now her exams were finished.
‘We wanna get moved in and acclimatise to Newcastle before term starts,’ was her excuse.
Stephanie said it was presumptuous, going there before the exam results were in. ‘What’s your back-up plan if you don’t get the grades you need?’ she’d asked.
Auryn had shrugged. ‘We’re still leaving.’
It was understandable. Moving into her own place with her boyfriend had to be better than remaining at home. But the real reason for leaving early was obvious: if the sisters stayed under the same roof much longer, they’d go crazy. There was too much bad feeling in the house.
Now Daniela faced the probability that by autumn she’d be alone with their father.
She was aware of a change; aware of the increased tension when her father was home, conscious of her sisters spending as much time as possible away from the house, but she had her own problems. For years she’d been desperate to leave Stonecrop. The perfect time to do so would’ve been after her A levels last year. She’d got a conditional offer for Sheffield university, so long as her results were good enough. It turned out they weren’t. Then laziness or apathy had stopped her going through clearing. She’d told herself that taking a year out was a smart move. She could work, save up some money, then apply to university the following summer.
And yet, somehow she hadn’t got around to that either. Summer was almost there, she’d wasted a year scratching around doing odd jobs, and she still didn’t know what she wanted from her life. She only knew she didn’t want to live it in Stonecrop.
It was far past time to get out. All her friends had already gone. Auryn would be the last of them. Auryn and Leo, of course.
Those were the thoughts that bounced through Daniela’s brain as she trudged along the footpath away from the old house. She was sick of having no plan. Today her father had been fine, albeit uncommunicative, but Daniela’s right shoulder still tingled from the slap she hadn’t quite avoided the day before. It’d been aimed at her face, the culmination of some petty argument that’d escalated out of proportion, but she was faster than her old man now, and it’d caught her a glancing blow on the tip of the shoulder instead. It shouldn’t have hurt, but still she felt it, like a phantom echo.
Even on a summer day, Stonecrop was grey and sheltered, the clouds close enough to touch. The few shadows below the trees were broad and fuzzy-edged. Headache weather; like a storm that refused to break. It’d been like that for weeks. Daniela walked quickly with hands in pockets. Her leather jacket – a hand-me-down from Franklyn, which was too wide in the shoulders and always smelled like smoke – kept out the intermittent breeze.
She knew every inch of the woodlands. Whenever the atmosphere in the house became too oppressive, she’d take to the outdoors, walking for hours, crossing and recrossing her path, trying to lose herself. Sometimes she’d bring her MP3 player with her; other times she let the white noise of nature fill her head instead.
The woods enfolded the village like protective arms. To the south there was nothing but trees as far as Briarsfield, while to the north, the forest petered out into farmland, bisected by the Clynebade, which diverged around Stonecrop as if around an inconvenient stone. A break in the trees allowed a partial view to the north over low-lying fields and hedgerows. If Daniela had been minded to climb a tree, she could’ve seen Winterbridge Farm in the distance.
Some people found the trees eerie, especially when the light was poor, and Daniela sort of understood that. The woods were rife with half heard noises and flickering movements. But the trees were the one part of Stonecrop Daniela liked, because, if she put her head down, she could pretend her world wasn’t limited to this tiny village, hemmed in by rivers. She could imagine walking in any direction for miles and seeing nothing but trees.
The path led her in a sweeping loop to the banks of the Bade. Flowering garlic perfumed the air. At this time of the year, the woods and the riverbanks were carpeted with wild garlic and fading bluebells, unfurling ferns and bramble tangles. The well-worn paths were trampled streaks of brown through the green.
In a muddy hollow beside the river stood a ruined building. It’d once been the home of a wealthy businessman, back in the early twentieth century, but was now little more than a brick shell, the rotted timbers of its first floor having collapsed, the slates of the roof missing, likely adorning the roof of some other property by now. Above the door a carved stone lintel read, Kirk Cottage.
