“It was only the storm,” Anna soothed.
But Ryan shook his head and strode out into the hallway to shove his feet back into his damp boots.
Anna sprang up after him.
“Where are you going? It’s blowing a gale out there!”
He said nothing and continued to lace up the boots with short, sharp movements.
“I’ll be back shortly.”
“Stuff that,” she said roundly. “I’m coming with you.”
*
Alice didn’t have to look over her shoulder to know they were gaining on her. She could feel their proximity in every cell and nerve ending of her body, which was vibrating with fear. She was shaking with fatigue and her feet were starting to drag against the wet ground, scuffing against the turf leading up to the foot of the bridge. Just a bit further.
Her knees buckled as she reached the entrance to the long, gracefully arched bridge and she groped for the handrail to prevent a fall, but it was inevitable.
She hit the ground hard, grazing the palms of her hands and twisting her ankle with a painful crunch.
Alice cried out and tried to drag herself back up, but the delay cost her precious seconds she couldn’t afford.
A pair of strong hands hauled her upward and she opened her mouth to scream. The sound echoed around the trees, penetrating the stormy sky until a hard hand clamped over her mouth to silence her.
“Shut up,” they ground out, wrestling with her as she fought to break free. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
The plastic bag swayed with the movement of their bodies as they grappled on the narrow bridge and Alice kicked out her legs, clawing at the hand blocking her nose and mouth. She tried to bite at the skin but the pressure was so tight she could hardly move her jaw.
She couldn’t breathe and her nostrils flared as she sucked thin streams of air through her nose.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” they repeated, but a knee drove into Alice’s back so that her spine arched forward and she was pushed toward the edge of the railing. She could hear their harsh breathing in her ear, could feel their spittle against her skin, and her mind began to shut down. In a final surge, she reared up and twisted against the hands which held her like iron rods but her body was exhausted and succumbing to shock.
“I’m sorry. I don’t have any other choice.”
Alice’s heart leapt into her throat and then she found she was floating, falling, suspended in mid-air for endless seconds before the ground rose up to meet her in the valley far below.
Through the darkness, the lone figure on the bridge heard the distant sound of heavy impact and shuddered.
Pity.
Looking up at the outline of the house they saw lights glimmering in its uppermost windows and hoped fortune had been on their side. The rain would wash away their footprints. What else was there for the police to find?
Only then did they realise Alice had taken the plastic bag with her and it lay scattered in the depths of the valley beside the broken shell of what had once been a person.
*
Ryan ran out into the night and was immediately bathed in a shower of rain.
“Which way?” Anna joined him, blinking through the heavy fall of water.
“Let’s take the path,” he called to her above the rainfall and pointed toward their usual walkway through the trees.
They jogged across the saturated ground, their boots sinking into thick mud as they made their way through the gathering darkness. The trees provided some shelter, allowing them to take stock of their surroundings until they reached the iron bridge connecting the two sides of the valley. The outline of the house could be seen on the other side, glorious in all weather and impervious to the petty follies of mortal man.
“I can’t see anyone,” Anna said, shivering slightly as the rain turned colder and night descended. “Are you sure you heard something?”
Ryan’s hair was matted to his head and gleamed black, even in the half-light of the solar-powered lamps lining the bridge at their feet. To either side, there was a sheer drop into the gorge beneath which was, by now, cloaked in darkness.
He lifted his hands in mute appeal but there was nothing to find and nobody to save.
“Maybe I was wrong,” he said. “Perhaps it was the thunder, after all.”
“Let’s check up at the house,” she suggested. Another person might have complained about the conditions and gone home at the earliest opportunity, but not Anna.
They climbed the stone steps that Alice had run down only minutes before, until they connected with the driveway and the main entrance to the house. They didn’t see the plain black leather bag hidden among the shrubs, nor the tail lights of the car as it rounded the furthermost edge of the driveway and sped out into the night.
CHAPTER 13
Monday 15th August
Sleep eluded Ryan for most of the night.
Dark dreams filled with faces from the past had chased sleep away until, finally, he gave up altogether and left Anna to slumber peacefully. The storm had died sometime during the early hours, leaving a blank canvas for the new day. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky when Ryan stepped out onto the patio with a mug of steaming coffee and waited for the sun to rise.
If he had been the sort of person to find celestial meaning in the ordinary world, Ryan might have said it was a spiritual experience to stand quietly and watch Nature in all her illustrious glory. The grass was coated with a layer of fresh dew and the trees were a patchwork of green and brown. The scent of lavender and magnolias filled the morning air and he breathed deeply, finding peace in the solitude.
Slowly, the sky began to change before his eyes, melting from darkest midnight to cardinal blue, then into a sweeping lilac as the sun’s rays spread over the horizon.
The birds awakened and their song became a cacophony, their cries shrieking through his quiet repose and reminding him of the voice he had heard the night before, raised in terror. He’d asked himself time and again whether he’d misheard or whether it could have been the storm that had let out that piercing, animalistic cry, but he had a nagging feeling it had been human.
In fact, he was sure of it.
The weather conditions had prevented a search last night and it had taken several irate attempts to ring the old-fashioned brass bell before the doors to the main house had opened. They’d been informed by Cragside’s short-tempered mistress that everyone had returned home for the evening and they might think of doing the same themselves. It seemed Cassandra Gilbert had now caught whatever virus her husband had recently suffered and wasn’t best pleased to have been woken up by her cottage tenants, especially when there appeared to be no emergency to warrant it.
But Ryan felt that itch again, the irrepressible feeling that something was very badly wrong.
He took a long gulp of coffee and looked up at the sky one last time before resigning himself to whatever the day might bring.