‘About an hour after you.’
‘And you haven’t heard anything from him since at all?’
Lyn shook her head. ‘He probably got thoroughly pissed off looking and went down to the Swan.’
Joss gave a faint smile. ‘I wish I believed that.’ She glanced at Janet. ‘I can’t go till I know he’s safe. I’m going after him. Watch the children, Lyn. Don’t let them out of your sight.’ She reached over and planted a kiss on Ned’s head then she turned and ran out of the door.
‘Joss!’ Janet called after her. ‘Wait. I’ll come with you!’
‘No. Stay and watch with Lyn. Don’t leave the boys.’ The words floated over her shoulder as she took the stairs two at a time and disappeared.
Lyn looked at Janet and pursed her lips. ‘She needs a rest badly.’
Janet nodded. ‘It will be good for her to have a bit of a break. This house is getting to her.’ She glanced round with a shudder. ‘Do you think there really is something here?’ Her voice had dropped to a whisper.
Lyn smiled. ‘Of course not. Simon says it’s a touch of post-natal depression. He seems to think she’s doing too much. He obviously doesn’t realise who does all the work round here. If anyone needs a rest it’s me.’ Her voice was tart. She laid Ned in his cot and tucked the blanket over him.
‘You’re going to leave him up here on his own?’ Janet stood back out of the way as Lyn whisked round the room, tidying powder and nappies into neat piles.
‘I’ll put on the baby alarm. He’ll be all right. If he cries we’ll hear him, and Tom Tom can come downstairs for his tea now. She’ll probably be hours, then she’ll be even more worn out when she gets back.’ Lyn gave a deep sigh. ‘It’s not easy to work for your own sister, Janet –’ she paused. ‘Adopted sister, I should say. We are not allowed to forget our station.’ She banged a drawer shut.
Janet frowned. ‘You know, I think you do her an injustice if I may say so. She loves you like a sister.’ She gave a sudden snort. ‘I should know. I’ve got three and we all fight like cat and dog half the time. But that doesn’t mean we don’t love each other dearly. All for one and one for all if anyone comes between us. Don’t underestimate the strain all this has been on her, Lyn. Finding her family and this house have been an enormous emotional shock. You and your parents are probably doubly precious to her. You are there for her, and always have been. Her real mother is something out of a dream which has, I suspect some pretty nightmarish qualities.’
Besides, there is something frightening about this house. She stopped herself saying it out loud in time. ‘Come on. Let’s feed this young man, then when Joss comes back we can pop them all in the car and I’ll take them back to the farm for a few days.’
She glanced back through the door into Ned’s bedroom. He was lying in his cot gurgling happily. She could see his arms waving in the air. Air which had grown suddenly strangely cold.
The beam of torch light was very thin as Joss ran across the lawn towards the gate. To her right the black water of the lake reflected the frosty starlight, glittering between the darker patches which was where the water lilies, soggy and submerged with the heavy autumn rains barely broke the still surface. As she walked silently through the frosted grass a squawk and sudden rush of wings and water showed where she had disturbed a roosting duck.
The gate was swollen and hard to open. Pushing it with all her strength she let herself out into the lane and stopped, flashing the torch in front of her. The hedges, newly slashed by a hedge trimmer, showed raw torn spikes of white wood. In the distance an owl gave a series of sharp quick cries as it floated on silent wings over the field.
She swallowed, gripping the torch more tightly. Luke would have assumed that she would go down the lane as far as the footpath towards the cliffs and then follow it across the short rabbit cropped turf to where the land dropped sharply towards the beach. It was one of her favourite walks, easy to manage, even with the buggy, and led round in a wide circle either back to the house or if one took another path across the newly planted winter wheat to the back of the farm. The whole walk was, she supposed, about three miles. She shivered. It was bitterly cold and the night seemed very quiet. Gritting her teeth she began to walk briskly forward, shining the torch to right and to left into the hedges and down into the deep ditches which lined the lane.
‘Luke!’ Her voice was thin and lacked strength in the immensity of the silence. ‘Luke, are you there?’ He could have fallen, twisted his ankle – or worse. He could be anywhere along the route. She stopped, shining the torch down into the ditch where it widened between the angle of two fields. Drainage pipes deep beneath the black newly ploughed soil were pouring water beneath the mat of nettles and bramble making the ditch sound like a fiercely running river. As she walked slowly on, the torch light picking out the coral pink berries of a spindle bush at the corner of the lane, she heard the indignant metallic shout of a disturbed moorhen on its roost.
‘Luke!’
Her boots were uncomfortable on the frosted ridges of the lane. ‘Luke, where are you?’
She swung round suddenly, flashing the torch behind her. Her heart had started thumping wildly. But there was nothing there.
How far from the house would he – it – travel? She swallowed, standing still for a moment, listening carefully.
‘Luke?’ It came out as a whisper now.