She kept watch by the simple expedient of parking her car at a big new garden centre about three quarters of a mile away, and walking up to Quire House each day, going openly through the gates in the wake of ordinary visitors. It was easy to step off the main drive and take the footpath that wound through the trees. Quire had not yet entered the world of CCTV cameras, and if anyone had challenged her, Donna would have assumed the mien of a rather thick visitor, apologetic at having missed the ‘Private’ sign. But no one did.
She watched the cottage from the concealment of the trees, which was tedious, but had to be done. There was a brief alleviation of the tedium quite early on when she was able to let the large inquisitive cat into the cottage and unwrap food from the fridge for him. It only took a few moments and although it was a small incident Donna thought it would unnerve Weston. On the fourth day her patience was rewarded more substantially. Shortly before four o’clock Antonia set off across the park, carrying a large envelope. Donna waited to make sure she was not coming straight back, and then slipped into the cottage, the rope looped around her waist under her anorak.
She was wearing gloves, of course, and she had tied her hair under a scarf and then drawn up the hood of her anorak. You had only to watch a TV crime programme to know how very precise forensic science was nowadays, a single hair could be enough to identify a suspect, and she did not intend to be caught.
It was easy to pull out a kitchen chair, stand on it and tie the rope to one of the old ceiling beams near the door. Fashioning the noose was the best part of all; it looked amazingly real and startlingly sinister. She got down from the chair and dusted the seat, even though she was wearing cheap mass-produced trainers which were unlikely to be traceable. Then she returned the chair to its place. Yes, the rope looked all right, and the time of day was a bonus: it was nicely dark–that oddly macabre dusk-light you got at this time of year. She had closed the curtains so Weston would come into an unlit room.
Donna moved the rope back and forth experimentally. It was tied quite tightly to the beam and the movement pulled on the old ceiling timbers, making them creak softly. It was quite a spooky sound, and it brought a forgotten memory with it: the memory of how the kitchen joists had always creaked in just that way when someone walked across the floor of the bedroom directly overhead, and of how Don, before that last summer, sometimes pretended the cottage was haunted and made up scary stories about ghosts. There was definitely something in the far corner of the kitchen, near the door, he used to say. You had only to go in there to feel it. Occasionally he sounded perfectly serious about this, but Donna knew the cottage was not haunted, of course. Even so, it was still quite eerie to stand down here and hear the ceiling beams creak as the rope swayed gently back and forth…
You did not abandon a plan you had spent months putting together and years polishing, but nor did you close your mind against an improvement. Donna gave a final look round the room, checked she had locked the garden door, pocketed the key and went quickly out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
It was a bit of a gamble to hide in the cottage when Weston came in and saw the noose, but Donna did not think it was much of one. She thought Weston would be so frightened when the rope began to move–apparently of its own accord, but really, of course, from the pressure on the joists overhead–that she would not search the cottage by herself.