The Devil’s Dice

I thought I heard the patter of footsteps behind me. I whipped my head round but there was no one there. Just the tree branches ruffling in the breeze. I pulled my coat tighter around me and increased my pace.

I reached the top of the steps which tumbled down towards the town centre. They were cut into the rocky hillside which separated the old town from the newer area where Mum lived. Their stone surfaces were worn, their edges curved and uneven. Ornate iron railings had apparently once graced both sides, but they’d been taken in the war to make something deadly, and never replaced.

I paused to curse my bad ankle before tackling the descent. A street lamp shone behind me, and my body cast a spindly, elongated shadow down the steps, my shadow-head almost touching the road far below.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. I fished it out. Kate Webster. I touched the screen. Her voice blasted out, high pitched and frantic. ‘I found an email from him. Just now.’

‘Slow down, Kate, it’s okay. What have you found?’

‘I hadn’t checked my emails since before he died. Your lot have got my laptop. I just checked them on Beth’s. He sent one that morning saying…’ She tailed off.

I pressed the phone hard to my ear. Shadow-Meg did the same, her movements exaggerated and distorted by the shape of the steps. ‘What did the email say, Kate?’

I heard the footsteps behind me again. Coming up fast.

Chapter 11

Someone was behind me. I gasped and tried to spin round, but my foot slipped over the curved edge of the top step. My legs shot out from under me and I slammed onto my hip. A flash of adrenaline exploded in my stomach.

There was a burst of frenzied barking and snarling.

I was falling. I tried to grab onto the steps, but my fingers slipped over their smooth surfaces. I crashed all the way to the bottom and bashed my head against the final step with a sickening crack.

I lay crumpled and astonished. Pain stabbed into my ankle, hip, shoulder, and skull.

Something was careering down the steps. I wanted to scream. I couldn’t move. I shielded my head with my arms.

A wet tongue licked my face. I tried to lift my head but a jolt of pain shot through my neck and I sank back down. I heard panting and snuffling.

I lay on the pavement. My throat felt solid right down to my chest and a whooshing noise flooded my ears.

I groaned and levered myself into a sitting position. The world pitched. Moist breath warmed my ear. It was Mrs Smedley’s German Shepherd – Freddie, the escape artist. He licked my face three times, then shot off up the steps.

I tried to piece together what had happened. Someone had run up behind me, really close, then Freddie had appeared and done his wild-wolf impression, I’d fallen down the steps, and the person had run away.

I looked around, my gaze flitting back up the steps, panic just below the surface. I couldn’t see anyone. But what if they came back, now Freddie was gone? My breath came in sharp bursts.

I needed to be on my feet. I needed to be able to run. I hauled myself up and stood shakily with my legs apart trying to get my brain to work. A wave of dizziness came over me like a blanket of mist, and I sat back down on the bottom step.

‘Fuck,’ I said. ‘Fucking hell.’

I knew I should probably call the Station, but what would I say? Someone came up behind me and I fell down the steps, like an idiot? I didn’t even see their face. I’d never hear the end of it from Craig. My new name would be Eddie the Eagle. And besides, I needed to be sick. I had to get back to Mum’s.

I took a first tentative step. Everything seemed to be in working order, albeit painful, so I carried on and started climbing back up towards Mum’s house. One foot after another. My head throbbed and something wasn’t right in my hip either. About ten steps up, I paused for breath and glanced back down towards the road.

I gasped and collapsed onto the step. It was the flashback again, smashing itself into my consciousness like an attack from a vicious animal. First the feet, dangling. Dangling like feet weren’t supposed to dangle, level with my face. Everything wrong – the feet, the ladder, incongruous in the middle of her bedroom. My brain unable to make sense of it. Staring at the feet for an endless moment, a low cry already building in my throat, terrified to look anywhere but the feet. Then the point my gaze flipped up. Carrie’s head slumped forward. The shape of her skull through wisps of hair. Me screaming, climbing the ladder, scrabbling, pulling, sobbing. Then falling. Finally, always the falling.

Chapter 12

Hannah sniffed the air. ‘Ugh! Hospitals. You could have chosen somewhere more interesting for a mini-break. I spend half my life here.’ She wheeled herself up to my bed.

My head was mushy. ‘At least it’s wheelchair-friendly. Anyway, I’m not staying. I hate hospitals.’ They smelt of guilt and dejection. I forced those feelings away and attempted a smile. ‘Nice of you to visit me, Hannah.’

‘I was worried about you.’ She frowned at me. ‘I did have someone else to visit too.’

‘Good to know I’m such a priority in your life. Who were you visiting?’

‘It doesn’t matter. When are they discharging you?’

‘I don’t care what they do, I’m leaving today. I’ve missed a day of work already. I can’t believe I’ve been here last night and most of today. What a waste of time.’

‘What the hell have you been up to anyway?’ As if I’d done it deliberately.

‘I fell down some steps, and bashed my head.’ I swivelled to show the bump.

‘Jesus. How come?’

‘Someone ran up behind me.’ I hadn’t meant to say that.

‘Oh my God. Maybe it was a rapist or something. What did he look like?’

‘I didn’t see. Honestly, it was most likely just some idiot in a hurry. It gave me a fright, that’s all. And I fell down the steps.’

‘Why didn’t they help you then? If it was a normal person?’

She had a point. Something wasn’t right about the whole incident. But the thought of reporting it as suspicious filled me with exhaustion. I had no information. I’d seem pathetic. The last thing I needed now, with Craig hot on my tail, was to appear vulnerable. ‘I’m not saying anything to Work or to Mum about the person coming up behind me. It’ll only worry them. Don’t mention it, Hannah, I mean it.’

‘But it’s kind of scary. What if they’re after you?’

‘Stop it. Seriously.’ I remembered the flashback. It hovered in the back of my mind like a caged animal, scratching to be let out. I couldn’t let it out. I couldn’t go back to how I’d been in Manchester. I was over all that. ‘Anyway, who were you visiting?’

‘Oh, I met someone through that group. She campaigns for stuff for disabled people. She’s had pneumonia and I came to visit her. That’s all.’

‘Oh. You never mentioned her before.’

‘Why do you always have to be so negative?’

‘For Christ’s sake, Hannah, I wasn’t being negative.’

‘Your face says it all. Besides, I know your views. What was it you said about that group? The devout manipulating the disabled?’

That did sound like me. I kept my voice even. ‘Look, I don’t want to argue. Let’s not talk about it. It’s not worth falling out over.’

‘Okay. I know you don’t like that group. But they’re only trying to stand up for vulnerable people and unborn babies who have no voice.’ Hannah swallowed. ‘Nowadays most people would abort a baby like me with Spina Bifida.’

God, I didn’t have the energy today. I shifted on my pillows. ‘I’m not sure that’s true, or a good way of looking at it. You’re—’

‘They showed us pictures of babies at the age they can still kill them.’

‘They’re bloody manipulating you, Hannah, can’t you see it? Did they show photos of babies screaming after their twentieth operation too?’

Hannah shifted her chair back an inch.

I reached for her hand. ‘I’m sorry. I just wish they wouldn’t show that stuff.’

‘They’re trying to make things better.’

I pulled my hand away. I couldn’t understand why Hannah had been sucked in by them, but I didn’t want to repeat the argument.

‘Just forget it,’ Hannah said. ‘You’re right. I did have lots of operations on my spine but I can’t remember. My baby photos would have been more at home in The Lancet than in a family album.’

‘Oh Hannah, I didn’t mean you. Of course I don’t think you should have been aborted.’ I looked over at Hannah, so lovely and full of life. I’d never admitted to her that being paralysed was one of my worst fears; that it woke me sweating in the night, tangled in sheets and gasping for breath; that I probably would abort a baby like her if I ever had to make that terrible choice.

Hannah looked up and I followed her eyes. Jai, striding towards us.

His voice sounded like he was being lightly strangled. ‘Meg, what happened? They say you bashed your head.’

‘I’m okay. It’s no big deal.’

‘I was leaving anyway,’ Hannah kissed me, somewhat frostily, and did a kind of wheelchair handbrake-turn before gliding away.

Jai sat on the chair by my bedside. ‘Seriously, are you alright?’

‘I’m fine. How’s it going with the Hamilton case?’

‘Oh, there’s a suicide note. Richard’s wrapping it up. You don’t need to be involved.’

I sat up, with some difficulty. My brain chugged. I’d forgotten. Just before I fell. The call from Kate Webster. ‘An email,’ I said hesitantly.

‘Yes, an email. All fairly clear cut.’

No, it wasn’t. I was sure it wasn’t clear cut. ‘What did the email say?’

‘It was the usual stuff. Sorry, sorry, you’re better off without me and all that.’

‘How do we know someone hadn’t hacked his account? It just doesn’t have the feel of a suicide to me.’

‘He’d been behaving strangely, acting depressed, saying he was cursed. Richard’s happy with suicide.’

‘Come on, Jai.’ I could feel my brain clarifying. ‘One, have you ever tried to get cyanide? You can’t pick it up from Asda. Two, cyanide’s not a nice way to die—’

‘I thought they put it in those pills for spies.’

‘It’s quick, not nice. And C—’

‘You were doing one, two, three, not A, B, C.’

‘Give me a break. I’ve had a head injury. Three, have you seen where he lives? He could have just chucked himself off that cliff any time. Why bother with cyanide-infused cake?’

‘Trying to make it look unclear so it’s an open verdict and the wife gets the life insurance?’

‘Why the email then?’

‘You make a persuasive case for a woman recently bashed on the head, but it’s Richard you need to convince, not me. And he’s not expecting you in till Monday.’

I sank back on my pillows. What I hadn’t said to Jai was – four, Mark Hamilton is a nice man with lots of dogs and cats, and he had an argument with his brother who is now dead, and I cannot let him think his brother committed suicide if it’s not true. No one should have to go through that.

‘I’ll go in tomorrow,’ I said. ‘And persuade Richard.’

‘Be careful, alright?’ He reached out and touched my arm. I instinctively pulled away and Jai withdrew his hand as if he’d touched a hot stove. I wanted to say sorry, I didn’t mean to pull away, but the moment was gone.

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