Grace began to get up, and Emma went across to the kitchen top, returning with a tupperware box full of cupcakes. ‘Here, take these. I always make far too many.’
Millie snatched the box gleefully before Grace could say anything, and they laughed.
‘Thank you,’ Grace said, following Emma along the hallway. ‘Now… are you sure…’
‘Grace! Go and have some fun. Millie will be fine with me.’
‘Well, I owe you one.’ As Grace started down the path, she glanced to her right, to see next door’s chimney puffing away. Emma stood on the step behind her and followed her gaze.
‘Have you met Jack yet?’
Grace shook her head.
‘You’ll be lucky if you do. We hardly ever see him. His chimney goes almost twenty-four hours but he never switches his lights on. You only come across him when he’s feeding his birds.’
Something clicked in Grace’s mind. ‘Oh – is that where the noise is coming from? I’ve heard a few screeches, it’s pretty unnerving at night.’
‘Thought the spirits were out, did you? No, it’s just the owls next door. Jack’s obsessed with them – people round here call him Feathery Jack. I think he’s got two at the moment, though he’s had up to half a dozen. Not just owls either, he takes everything from kestrels to crows. We only know this because sometimes the birds are out in the front garden when you go past. Carl says he’s meant to have licences for them, but it looks like he’s tending injured ones back to health, so no one’s going to report him.’
‘I haven’t seen him or the birds.’ Grace surveyed the cottage with its smoking chimney. In London her neighbours had included two accountants and an aspiring model. How times had changed.
‘Don’t worry, he’s harmless enough,’ Emma reassured her.
Grace turned and smiled. ‘Thanks again, Emma. I’ll see you soon.’ Then she headed home. So the screeches were from owls that lived two doors away. There had been no need for all the anxiety about unknown noises. She had to stop worrying about everything and loosen up a bit. It was nearly Christmas. She was making progress. There was no reason to feel as apprehensive as she did.
17
‘What an incredible afternoon,’ Annabel said, coming into the lounge and flinging herself onto a chair. She ran her fingers through her damp hair. ‘It’s snowing,’ she explained as she noticed Grace glaring at her. ‘Ben says it’s meant to get bad after Christmas – we might be stranded,’ she added, sounding absolutely fine about that.
Grace could barely resist the urge to run over and pull her sister’s hair, as she would have done when they were younger. In the past three days, she had barely seen Annabel. While Grace had put on old clothes and begun sorting through the cupboards and drawers, listening to endless crappy Christmas music blaring from the radio and wishing away the time, Annabel had been out every day. First of all she’d gone to Leeds to ‘finish my Christmas shopping’, returning with copious Harvey Nichols bags in the boot of her car. Next, Ben had fulfilled his promise and taken her roving over the moors; then yesterday evening Annabel had announced that they were going out again. Grace was still feeling slightly disgruntled that neither of them had thought to invite her and Millie.
Annabel began to waffle on about their visit to Whitby, saying she was still full of their famous fish and chips, and describing a severed hand that Ben had shown her in the local museum. ‘It’s called the Hand of Glory,’ she said, ‘though it’s more gory than glory. It’s an actual hand that’s been pickled to preserve it – and there are all sorts of legends around it to do with paralysing people or sending them to sleep. It’s pretty grim.’
Grace decided never to go near that museum if she could help it, while Annabel continued talking. ‘This place is fascinating, you know. All over the moors there are these tall stone crosses with different names, like Fat Betty and Old Ralph. I thought they were gravestones at first, but apparently there are different reasons for them – memorials, religious crosses and way markers – in many cases I don’t think it’s even known for certain. And we went to this little pub in the middle of nowhere with a “ghost chair” in the corner – it’s cursed, supposedly, so that anyone who sits in it will die soon afterwards.’
‘For God’s sake…’ Grace said, not wanting to hear any more.
‘I know, it’s brilliant!’ Annabel cried, misreading Grace’s mood completely. ‘And then, to top everything off, it began to snow when we were coming home, and it’s taken us ages to get back. The snow is incredible in the dark, you can’t see anything, it’s like jumping into the white noise on the TV. I don’t even know how Ben managed to stay on the road, it’s utterly disorientating. He was telling me about one of the locals who got caught in a blizzard and tried to walk home, and got lost. He collapsed and died in the snow, and when they found him he was only a few metres from his front door. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t just seen what it’s like with my own eyes.’ She leapt up. ‘We’re really cut off, aren’t we,’ she said, with a visible shiver. ‘Have we got everything we need?’
Grace went over to the window and peered outside. The porch light cast a short dome of illumination over the garden, which was white with the snow that fell thickly. Beyond that, there was nothing to see except blackness. She pictured Millie upstairs. What had she brought her to?
A flash of movement caught her eye. Something was out there. She squinted, looking harder, but now she couldn’t see anything. Perhaps the ceaseless fall of the snow was playing tricks on her vision.
But then a figure came into view just beyond the low garden wall. A man wearing a padded jacket and gloves, his head down, a thick scarf around his neck. He pushed at the gate a few times as though the latch was stuck, but finally freed it. As he hurried down the path, he lifted his head, causing Grace to cry out in amazement.
She rushed into the hallway and flung open the door. ‘James! What the hell are you doing here?’ She threw herself into his embrace, feeling absolutely safe as he wrapped his strong arms around her.
‘What a welcome!’ James stepped back, his face glowing.
Grace heard Annabel behind her. ‘Well, well, well… look what the cat dragged in.’ When she looked around, Annabel was smiling.
‘Happy Christmas, Grace!’ James said.
‘Did you know about this?’ Grace demanded, grinning at Annabel.
‘She invited me,’ James confirmed, as Grace looked from one to the other.
‘I don’t believe it.’ Grace hugged James again. While she kept telling herself that things would work out, with James here she felt more confident about being right.
Grace and James had been best mates since university, and beyond, until James had headed off to Switzerland to work in a bank. His departure had been hasty. She vividly recalled the night James had introduced her to Adam in a bar as a friend of a friend. The way he’d watched them as they’d hit it off.
It was as though she had never known her best friend. She realised he’d never had a girlfriend that she could remember, only a few one-night stands. Why hadn’t he said something much, much earlier? she admonished him. He’d been too scared of rejection, he’d admitted. Instead he’d hoped to see something in her face one day that meant she had discovered her own feelings for him. After that, he’d buried his face in his hands.
Once James was in Switzerland they had never spoken about it again. Neither of them wanted to risk saying or doing anything that might finally sever their bond.
Nevertheless, it was all history as far as Grace was concerned. James had come to France in the aftermath of Adam’s disappearance. He had held her tightly while she sobbed herself to sleep. Taken her out to try and distract her. And shown her a picture of his new Swiss girlfriend – ‘taken from a magazine,’ Annabel suggested slyly behind his back. However, later on they had visited Grace, and James had looked very proud as he’d put his arm around Natasha and introduced them.
‘I’m surprised you made it through the snow,’ Annabel was saying to James, as Grace tuned back in to the conversation.
‘You’re telling me!’ James said as he took off his coat and shoes. ‘Where the hell is this, Grace? The drive here
