I use the drive to Devon to push my anger aside. There’s hardly anyone on the road, just a lone traveller or two, like me. I drive fast, but not faster than I should. Come to the cottage, Layla had said, which means she’s already there, waiting. When did she arrive? Did she go there as soon as she’d posted the last little doll to me?
It’s just gone three in the morning when I arrive in St Mary’s. I had expected to see a light on in the cottage but it’s in darkness. It doesn’t mean anything, I tell myself, it doesn’t mean she isn’t there. But there is a sense of foreboding as I get out of the car which increases when I see the garden. Even in the darkness I can see that the flowers Thomas so carefully planted are dead, as are the ones in the window-boxes. Another omen. Even to my desperate eye, the cottage looks deserted.
No one opens the front door at the sound of the gate scraping on the ground, no one comes running down the stairs in answer to my heavy knock. It’s then that I realise I don’t have my keys. I’d believed so completely that Layla would be waiting for me that it hadn’t mattered.
I take off my jumper, wrap it round my fist and punch a hole in the kitchen window, snap off the remaining glass and use the light from my mobile to look around the room. Everything looks just as it did last time I was here. I stick my head inside, listen. There’s nothing to tell me anyone is there.
I don’t want to believe I’ve been brought all the way here for nothing. I check my phone for emails – Layla might have been delayed, she might be on her way. But there’s nothing from her, so I send a message.
I’m here, at the cottage.
Where are you?
I’m here
Where?
IN SIMONSBRIDGE
FORTY-NINE
Layla
I won. Finally, I won. But it’s a hollow victory. The fight took too much out of me. It was bitter and bloody and now I’m scared I’m going to disappear again, this time forever. I can feel myself getting weaker by the minute. I wait for the voice to tell me what I should do but it remains silent. I’m on my own.
Ellen is here, though. Finn might have chosen me but Ellen is still here. And there’s not enough room for both of us. She needs to disappear.
So I give Finn what he’s been waiting for, a time and a place. I tell him to come to the cottage and I watch him leave. I watch him leave Ellen to come to me.
I am not at the cottage, of course. I am close by, waiting to explain to Ellen why she has to go. It’s not going to be easy because she won’t understand. Of course she won’t, the voice says, suddenly appearing again. All those years ago, you made a bargain with her. You told her that if she could get Finn to love her, she could have him. You told her that as long as she looked after him, you would stay away, you would never come back. So she made herself perfect and got him to love her, she looked after him and cherished him. And how did you repay her? You came back.
But that was Finn’s fault, I tell the voice. If he hadn’t decided to marry Ellen, none of this would have happened. Besides, he never loved her, not really, not as he loved me. Ellen knows that. She’ll understand.
And the voice laughs.
FIFTY
Finn
I stare at the message on my phone. Simonsbridge? What is she doing in Simonsbridge? And if she’s in Simonsbridge, why did she make me come to St Mary’s? The truth stares me in the face. She needed me out of the way.
For what? To speak to Ellen? It’s normal, Ellen is her sister, they have things to talk about. But why banish me to St Mary’s, a three-hour drive away? I feel horribly apprehensive. What if there’s some darker purpose in luring me so far away from Simonsbridge?
The image of the doll with the smashed head looms in my mind. I need to get back. I drive faster this time. Layla will have guessed I’m on my way, that I’d drive straight back. My driving borders on the dangerous and I’m conscious that I’m putting my own life at risk. But I’d be a fool to think Layla will be waiting for me in the kitchen, chatting to Ellen over a cup of tea. I shouldn’t have left Ellen alone. I need to call her, warn her.
I pull over, call her mobile. It goes straight to voicemail. I leave a message, asking her if Layla is there, asking her to call me urgently. I send her a text, asking the same things. I wait a couple of minutes in case she replies; then, conscious that I’m wasting time, I drive on.
My worry increases with each mile I drive. I pull in again, call Ellen’s mobile, leave the same message, trying not to yell with frustration at not being able to get hold of her. I stop for a third time; there’s still no response from her. Then, about twenty minutes from the house, my phone beeps, telling me an email has come in. Please let it be Ellen, I pray silently, as I pull to a stop, even though I know she would call or text, not send an email. If it’s from Layla, is it to tell me that she’s on her way to St Mary’s, to wait for her there?
YOU SHOULD HAVE GOT RID OF HER
Dread seeps into my pores. My fingers fumble on my phone as I try Ellen’s number again. Come on, Ellen, answer your phone, please answer your phone! But she doesn’t pick up so I leave a message – if you can, get out of the house. Take your car and drive as far away as you can. Don’t stay in Simonsbridge, don’t trust Layla.
I ram the car into gear and drive as fast as I can towards the house. The street is quiet. There is no unfamiliar car parked in the road, no cars in our drive. Ellen’s car has gone and there’s no sign of her coming out of the house.
Leaping out of the car, I run to the front door and let myself in.
‘Ellen!’ I shout. ‘Are you there?’ I check the kitchen and sitting room. Both are empty, as is her study. I take the stairs two at a time. The bedroom is exactly as I last saw it – the pile of Russian dolls is still on the bed, the shirt she was wearing is still on the floor – except that she’s no longer sitting on the bed. I check the spare bedroom next door; it’s empty. As I turn to go along the landing, I see a lone Russian doll standing halfway along, in the middle of the floor. I pick it up, noting only that it’s exactly like all the others that have appeared over the last few weeks. I check the bedroom at the other end of the house, and the bathroom. Both are empty and there’s no sign of a struggle.
I go back down to the hall, my feet pounding on the stairs. I stand a moment. The only place I haven’t checked is my office. Please let her be there, please let me find her sitting at my desk, unharmed. Unharmed. Am I mad to think that Layla would harm her? Maybe, possibly. But who knows what Layla could do? I should never have trusted her.
My office is empty and there’s no one hiding in the garden. I go back to the house, into the kitchen. I sit down at the table, trying to think what I should do. Where is Ellen? Is she with Layla? Have the two of them been together in this all the time? Have they been stringing me along in some kind of revenge game? Revenge for what? I don’t know, I don’t know. My mind feels as if it’s spiralling out of control.
The other possibility is that Layla has taken Ellen somewhere. But where? Does she even exist? Or is it only someone pretending to be her? My mind goes back to Ruby – where has she been for the last ten days? I reach under the table, searching for Peggy, desperately needing comfort. But she isn’t there.
Like Ellen, she has disappeared.
FIFTY-ONE
Layla