“I’m not coming back, if that’s what you mean,” Ezra said. He looked out of the window at the falling snow. “I’ve done my bit by Harding. My life is elsewhere now, and I need to get on with it, not keep looking back here.”
“I can understand that,” Hal said. There was a heaviness around her heart, but also, as she thought of the leap her mother had made, and Ezra too after his twin had disappeared, a kind of hope. If they could leave everything, start anew in another place, another country even in Ezra’s case, perhaps she could too?
“Well . . . good-bye,” she said again, and fumbled with the door handle. As she dragged her case across the slushy tarmac, she did not look back.
Inside the station, everything was strangely quiet. There were few staff, and even fewer passengers, barring a couple of students sleeping on rucksacks, covered with coats. A train was standing at one of the platforms, but the lights were switched off.
Hal frowned, puzzled, but it was only when she turned to look at the departure board that her stomach turned over.
Canceled. Canceled. Canceled.
Train after train. London. Exeter. Plymouth. Nothing was running.
“Excuse me—” She ran panting across the slippery forecourt, and touched one of the station attendants on the arm. “What’s going on? Why are all the trains canceled?”
“Ent you heard?” the man said, rather astonished. “Heavy snow up the coast. There’s been a blockage on the line near Plymouth. Can’t no trains get through until it’s cleared, which won’t be today.”
“But—” Hal felt her face grow even paler. “But—but you don’t understand. I don’t have anywhere to go. I have to get back.”
“Ent no trains leaving today,” the man repeated firmly, shaking his head. “And probably not tomorrow neither.”
“Shit.”
Before she had realized what she was going to do, Hal had picked up her heavy case and was slipping and sliding back across the wet tiles to the entrance of the station, where Ezra had dropped her off.
“Ezra!” she cried. The snow was barely slush, but it was enough to bind in the wheels of her case, slowing her down.
“Ezra, wait!”
But his car was no longer there.
For a minute she just stood, staring into the falling snow, fighting off the panic that was threatening to overwhelm her. What could she do? Phone Harding? But he and Abel would have already left, more than likely, going the opposite way.
There was little point in getting out her purse—she knew what it contained, which was a few pound coins and an expired bus pass.
She was alone, without any money, in a strange town, and the temperature was dropping. What could she do?
Without quite knowing why, Hal found herself crouching down, balancing on the tips of her toes as she wrapped her arms around herself and pressed her face to her knees, making herself as small as possible, as if trying to keep every particle of warmth she still had left in her shivering body, as if to physically contain the fear that was suddenly growing and growing inside her.
She was still crouched there in the snow, gripping the handle of her case as though it was the only thing that could keep her safe, when a car horn beeped loudly, making her jump to her feet and almost lose her balance in the snow.
It had grown very dark—too dark to perceive anything more than a dazzle of headlights and the growl of an engine.
And so it was with a flood of relief almost overwhelming in its warmth and physicality that she heard the sound of an electric window and Ezra’s laconic voice saying, “What the hell are you doing crouched in the snow like the little match girl?”
“Ezra!” Hal stumbled through the slush, her feet slipping, towards the car. “Oh, Ezra, I’m so glad to see you—what are you doing here?”
“I had to turn the car to head back to the road. More to the point, though, what are you doing?”
“The line’s closed. No trains are running. I thought I was stranded.”
“Hmm . . .” She could see his face now in the light from the dashboard, brow furrowed, thinking. “That is a problem . . . you’d better hop in.”
“But where will you take me?”
“We’ll figure it out. I can drop you at Plymouth, maybe, if the track from there is okay. Or . . . you live in Brighton, don’t you?”
Hal nodded.
“It’s not a million miles out of my way, if the worst comes to it.”
“Really?” Hal felt a hot wave of relief wash over her. “But—but I can’t ask you to do that, Ezra. And I don’t have any money for petrol.”
He only shook his head.
“Just get in, would you? It’s perishing out here. And we need to get going.”
CHAPTER 43
* * *
Ezra drove in silence for the most part, the snow growing heavier and heavier as they made their slow way north. Soon the deep-sunk single-track country lanes were covered with white, and Ezra slowed to a crawl as he rounded the tight bends, making only slightly better time on the main roads, where lorries had already carved dark tracks.
As they approached Bodmin Moor, the snow grew thicker, and condensation began to mist the inside of the windscreen in spite of the heaters. Up ahead, the traffic slowed, drivers dropping their speed as the visibility grew poorer and the slush began to build up at the sides of the road. Ezra started to tap his fingers on the steering wheel, and Hal shot a sideways look at him. He was frowning deeply, his dark eyebrows knitted, and his eyes flickered from the windscreen, spattered with falling snow, to the speedometer, hovering around thirty, to the clock, and then back to the windscreen.
At last, without warning, he pulled into the left-hand lane and began to indicate.
“Are we stopping?” Hal asked, surprised. It was gone six. They had been driving for almost three hours. Ezra nodded.
“Yes, I think so. My eyes are getting tired. I think we’d better stop for coffee . . . maybe a bite to eat. Hopefully it’ll be better going by the time we start again. At least they’ll probably have salted the roads.”
The slip road was dusted with white, crossed with the tracks of motorists who had made the same decision, and he drove slowly, parking the car in an empty space near the service station. Hal got out, stretching her legs, and looked up in wonderment at the dark sky above, the flakes spiraling down. In Brighton, snow rarely settled, and she could not remember the last time they had had a fall this heavy.
“Come on.” Ezra hunched his shoulders into his jacket. “Don’t stand there, you’ll freeze. Let’s get inside.”
? ? ?
THE SERVICE STATION WAS QUIET, full of empty tables covered in the debris of the day, and they didn’t have to queue. Hal tried to pay for the coffee, but Ezra shook his head and pushed his credit card across the counter.
“Don’t be silly. You don’t have to be a—” He stopped, suddenly awkward.
“What?” Hal asked, feeling defensive.
Ezra carried the coffees to an empty table before he answered.
“You’re young,” he said at last. “And broke. Young people shouldn’t pay for drinks. I firmly believe that.”
Hal laughed, but took the cup he proffered.
“You’re not offended?” he asked, sipping at his black Americano. Hal shook her head.
“No. I am young, and broke. I can’t be offended at the truth.”
“Thank God for proper coffee after Mrs. Warren’s muck,” Ezra said with a lopsided, rather dry smile. They sipped in silence, and then he said, “I just wanted to say I . . . I wouldn’t blame you. If you had known.”
Hal’s heart seemed to slow and still inside her, and she put down her cappuccino.
“What . . . what do you mean?” she said at last.
“Forget it,” Ezra said. He swallowed another gulp of his coffee. Hal saw the muscles in his throat move beneath his stubble. “It’s none of my business. I just meant . . .” He stopped, drank again, and then said, “If you had known, about . . . about your mother not being . . . I wouldn’t have blamed you . . . for not saying something straightaway.”