‘How can it be me? I’m here.’ He looked in the direction of the voice. Rob was sitting on the sofa, his face covered with an intricate map of white scars.
‘They managed to patch you up,’ said Alex.
Rob looked confused and then Alex became aware of the voice screaming in the telephone. He’d let the receiver drop and as he looked down at it now he could hear the desperate screaming, ‘She’s in the house! She’s in the house!’
She was in the house. What did that mean? She was in the house. He felt the sensation again of someone walking past behind him, a swift flitting movement. He looked back out to the hallway, nothing there. And then he heard the stair creak and when he turned again Rob and Will were backing into the corner on the far side of the room, looking afraid, becoming children.
‘She’s in the house,’ said Rob. ‘She’s always been here.’
‘Who?’ They covered their mouths and Alex said, ‘Wait here,’ and climbed the stairs then, emerging in the doorway to his room. The glowing of the streetlights was in there too now, not as bright but well enough to see.
Someone was on the bed with her back to him, someone familiar somehow. He walked closer, realizing that someone else was in the bed too and that she was straddling his chest. He couldn’t see what she was doing at first but as he got closer he realized her hands were covering the sleeper’s mouth, obscuring his face.
Her own face was hidden too, her hair hanging down, and even as he got closer he couldn’t see it. The person under her began to struggle, buckling helplessly, and Alex tried to shout now but couldn’t, like there was no air in his lungs.
He got closer, bending down, trying to look at her face, until his head was almost touching hers and still he couldn’t see. He reached out and touched her hair and made to brush it back but as his hand moved a sense of dread started to well up inside him. And then without warning she turned quickly and her face was against his, cold, a sickening scream.
‘Alex!’ He woke violently, sweat-drenched and sprang automatically from the bed, lunging for the light. He fell back onto the edge of the bed, momentarily blinded, his heart punching at his chest, his breath catching in his lungs like he’d been running hard. He felt sick at the realism of the dream, too disconcerted even to reason it through in his mind.
He thought of the final shout then, the shout that had woken him just before he’d seen her face. It seemed likely it was part of the dream and yet it had seemed external. The confusion was enough to make him go over to the window and look down into the street below, emptiness, the black windows of the offices opposite.
He let the curtain go again quickly and turned away. He couldn’t go on like this. He had to leave this house, this town, to at least make some initial steps in the direction of leaving himself behind, forging a new existence. He didn’t know whether he could escape or not but he knew that as long as he stayed here the past would keep pulling him in like quicksand.
He walked out onto the landing, a relentless ice-water drip shuddering down his spine, and he walked through the house turning the lights on as he went, another shudder as he came to each doorway, each room, each turn. The place was empty, he knew that.
He made his way back upstairs then, sensing someone in the kitchen behind him, telling himself he’d just been in there and it was empty, counter-reason arguing that it often seemed to be the kitchen, as if some force, some presence resided there, the thing Luke had picked up on perhaps. He chastised himself, reminding himself of the truth.
He was a man riddled with guilt, that was all, his thoughts made cancerous by his knowledge of a girl’s death and the indirect part he’d played in it. That’s what it was, guilt, remorse, feelings he’d nurtured and made his own beyond all reason, seeking even to acquire more of it wherever he could.
The time would come when he’d finally have to face those demons for what they were and deal with them, his word to the others no longer worth the torment that came with keeping the secrets he held. And if things continued as they were, he’d soon be the only one left to hurt from revealing those secrets anyway.
10
It wasn’t far from the tube station, the church set back from the street in a narrow recess, people milling around outside in suits and black ties. A handful of guys who looked like journalists themselves were standing in a huddle, talking in low voices.
Alex stood nearby, none of the others appearing to notice him, certainly not paying him any attention. He was eager to hear what they were talking about, how they thought of Rob, who he’d become in the ten years since they’d known each other.
There were five of them, but two, a young guy and another who looked close to retirement, said nothing, listening instead to the other three who were talking conspiratorially.
As Alex came within earshot one of them said, ‘Who was the Dutch guy? Maybe it was him.’