After a while she managed to shine her torch onto her wristwatch. She felt as if she had lived through several hours, but incredibly it was only just on half past two. She must drive back to Charity Cottage, hoping not to be seen, and slip up to her bedroom. She had no exact idea how long it would take her mother and father to die, but if the room was airtight they could not last very long. Say two days. That meant she would have to delay the inevitable police search for at least that time. Could she lay false trails by saying they might have driven over to the other side of Amberwood? Yes, she could.
The shaking had stopped, and she stood up and placed the flat of her hands against the steel doors, pressing her ear to the surface. The doors remained immoveable, and there was no sound whatsoever from beyond them. I’m not sorry for what I’ve just done, said Donna silently to the two people imprisoned in the kiln room. You deserved this for trying to separate me from Don.
She picked up the torch and retraced her steps along the underground rooms and back up the stone steps. It was still only twenty minutes to three. By three o’clock she was back at the cottage, careful to park the car exactly where it had been parked all morning so it did not look as if it had been driven anywhere. She looked out of the kitchen window, and saw that Don was in the same place, sprawled on the grass, either listening to the Walkman, or asleep. Donna went into her bedroom; the curtains were drawn against the afternoon sunshine. She rumpled the bed so it would look as if she had been lying down with her headache.
At quarter past four she went downstairs, and saw it was clouding over. By half past it was starting to rain, and Don came in from the garden. They had a cup of tea, and by five o’clock they began to wonder what had happened to their parents, and what they had better do about looking for them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
‘Was it just for that–for a bizarre fuck–that I did what I did that day at Twygrist?’
In the enclosed confines of the car parked outside the night club, Donna’s angry words lay on the air like acid, and the car seemed to seethe with violent emotions.
‘Was it just for a bizarre fuck…’ ‘Don’t pretend. You know perfectly well what I did…What I did…WHAT I DID…’ The words seemed to burn into the darkness, and the echoes sizzled and spun around Donna’s head, along with the knowledge that he had not known, that if only she had not said that…
But horrified comprehension flared in Don’s eyes, in a voice of such loathing that Donna flinched, he said, ‘Oh Christ, Donna, you killed them, didn’t you? You shut them into that room. You’re a murderess.’
He turned away from her, slumping down in the passenger seat, not looking at anything, and after a moment Donna switched on the car’s ignition.
They were almost home when he said, ‘You’re a monster, Donna.’ He half turned in his seat and stared at her. ‘What makes you think I won’t tell the police?’
‘What makes you think they’d believe you?’ said Donna at once. ‘I covered my tracks very well, Don. No one suspected the truth then, and no one would suspect it now. A tragic accident, that was the verdict.’ As he hesitated, she said in a softer voice, ‘Our parents were going to separate us–you knew that. And I couldn’t bear it. So I killed them. I did it for us. For you.’
‘That’s the really monstrous part,’ said Don. ‘That’s the part I don’t think I can bear,’ and although Donna had not taken her eyes off the road she knew he was looking at her. She took one hand off the steering wheel and reached for him, but he brushed her away angrily.
‘Get off me. I can’t stand you touching me.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘I’m not.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know.’
When they reached the flat he went blindly into his own bedroom, and banged the door against her. Donna heard him flinging open cupboards and drawers.
It was after two a.m. when he left the flat, not speaking to her, simply walking straight through the door and slamming it behind him. Donna flew to the window and watched him walk along the road, his shoulders hunched against the thin drizzling rain that had started to fall, his head down.
She had absolutely no idea where he would go, and although once she would have followed him, tonight she did not dare. She could only hope he would come home in the morning.