Her voicemail triggers.
“Hi, it’s me. I’m obviously doing something very cool and exciting, which is why I can’t answer your call. Leave me a message and I may or may not get back to you. After the tone… Ciao.”
I turn to Ruiz.
“Any ideas?”
“She could be working?”
Directory assistance patches me through to the pharmacy. A woman answers. Busy. Flustered.
“Is Emily Martinez working today?” I ask.
The woman sighs. Disgusted. “She didn’t show up for work; left us short-handed.”
“Did she call?”
“No. Are you a friend of hers?”
“More of an acquaintance.”
“Well, if you see her, tell her she’s fired.”
Idiot! Stupid, stupid girl!
I dropped the phone. My hands were so cold that I couldn’t close my fingers. And instead of catching it, I stuck out my foot and kicked it into a puddle. The screen is cracked. Nothing lights up.
I’ve broken it. Shit! Shit! Shit!
I hold the button down. Nothing. I slap the handset against the palm of my hand. It’s dead.
How are they going to find me now?
I look around, trying to get my bearings. The fog has lifted and below me, through the trees, half a mile from here, there is a plowed field streaked with snow. An electricity pylon rises from the mud and ice, strung with power cables. Power cables lead to places where people live. They thread towns together.
I head down from the ridge, climbing over rocks and weaving between trees. The going is slow because I don’t want to fall. There is wood everywhere, dead limbs and branches scattered over the ground.
A misty rain has started falling. Droplets cling to the shoulders of the overcoat like glass beads sewn onto the wool. My feet have stopped being numb. Now they’re burning and itchy.
The field had seemed nearer. I can’t see it any more. All the trees look the same. I panic for a moment, thinking I’ve lost my bearings and have been walking in circles. But I’m still heading down the slope.
The man called Joe said the police were coming. He sounded nice. He told me to keep moving, to stay warm.
The trees grow thinner. The field is in front of me. I can see the electricity pylon and a line of distant trees that could be a road. Hope flares in my chest. A road will lead to a house or a farm.
There’s a fallen tree. I clamber onto the log and use a branch to balance as I climb the fence. My overcoat is too long. I take it off and throw it over, jumping after it.
Instead of being muddy, the ground is hard. Frozen. The rain is heavier now, hitting my cheeks like grains of sand kicked up by the wind. The sky has grown darker and the temperature is dropping.
Crossing the field, leaping between plowed ruts, I reach the pylon and I stand for a while, wrapped in the overcoat, trying to get my bearings. I look up at the metal spars and beams, the hammered rivets. The electricity cables sweep over my head, descending and then rising to another pylon and then another.
I don’t like being in the open. George could be watching me from the ridge. Veering away from the pylon, I head towards the line of trees and climb another fence to a narrow farm track, dotted with puddles. I can see tire treads in the mud.
Peering into the gloom, I look beyond the curve in the road and can make out the angled roofline of a house or a barn just visible against the sky. I want to run, but the air has become like water and I feel like a greased swimmer, crossing the Channel.
Everything hurts. Walking. Breathing. Swallowing. I follow the road past the bend and come to an old mailbox and then a house in the middle of an overgrown orchard.
I try the gate. The latch is stiff. Rusted in place. Working it back and forth, I scrape my knuckles, but manage to slide it open. The hinges groan in protest. Weeds grow along the path. The nettles sting my legs where my jeans are torn.
I look up at the windows for a sign of life. The house frowns back at me. Rusting bits of machinery are strewn on the porch-the door of a refrigerator, a mangle, something charred with wires sticking out the top.
The front door is boarded up with cheap plywood. I feel like crying. I look back towards the road and wonder if I should keep walking or try to get inside and stay warm. There could be blankets. Maybe I could light a fire.
Hooking my fingers around the plywood, I work it back and forth, pulling nails from the rotten wood. Cursing my useless hands. When the gap is big enough, I crawl through on my hands and knees, sitting for a moment until my eyes adjust to the darkness.
The house is old and smells of mildew and damp. The rooms are empty except for broken ceiling panels and odd bits of discarded furniture. I can’t find any blankets and I don’t have any matches to start a fire.
A red Formica table has been left behind in the kitchen. At the sink I turn on the tap. The handle spins aimlessly. Dry. I’m thirsty.
Through the dirt-streaked window I notice a barn. It has a pitched roof but no walls. Round bales of straw or hay are stacked up to the roof. There must be a farmhouse nearby.
I unbolt the kitchen door and go outside. There’s a water tank with a tap on the side. I turn it on and let the water run for a few seconds. The water is sweet. I can smell it. I scoop it up by the handful, lifting it to my mouth. Nothing has ever tasted so good.
43
Ruiz is standing in the front garden, peering through a window. He cups his hands against the glass, letting his eyes adjust.
“Can you see anything?”
“Something is broken on the kitchen floor,” he says.
“What is it?”
“A vase or maybe a plate.”
“Accidental?”
“Maybe.”
Dale Hadley is waiting in the car. Ruiz walks back to the main door. “Do you know the difference between reasonable suspicion and probable cause?”
“Not really.”
“Reasonable suspicion is where a reasonable person suspects that a crime has been committed or is in the process of being committed. Probable cause is when a reasonable person believes that a crime is being committed or about to be committed. You see the difference?”
“Sort of.”
“Good. Explain it to me later.”
Pivoting on one foot, he hammers the lock with the heel of his boot. Wood splinters. The door swings open, banging on its hinges. He moves through the open-plan living room, yelling Emily’s name. Broken crockery litters the kitchen floor. Thrown, not dropped.
Ruiz searches downstairs and I take upstairs. Emily’s room is on the right side of the landing. Her bed is unmade and clothes are spilling from drawers. It contrasts starkly with the rest of the house, which is ordered and neat.
The untidiness is probably teenage-induced-I have one of them at home-although Emily didn’t strike me as being as sullen and disorganized as Charlie. Pages have been torn from one of her schoolbooks. A train timetable lies in the wastepaper bin.
Opening the topmost drawer, I see a picture frame resting upside down beneath a folder. It’s a woman’s portrait. Pretty and smiling, she has long hair and familiar eyes: Emily’s mother.
