exhausted, she knew she would sleep the night.
Except she woke up three hours later, sweating, Annabel motionless beside her in the dark. The answer she’d been searching for earlier was right in front of her. She knew exactly what was troubling her about the cellar.
24
Grace crept downstairs, hoping she wouldn’t wake James. There was no way this could wait till morning: she needed to look in the cellar right now.
Luckily James had left the TV on, so the flickering light filtered through the living-room door and flashed in staccato bursts on the passage walls. But as she got further towards the back of the cottage, it became gloomier, the light dwindling to nothing. She ran her hands over the cellar door until she found the handle and pulled it open, hearing it creak. Then she made her careful way down the steps, engulfed in blackness, knowing that once she reached the bottom she could switch the light on.
She was jittery, jumping at every slight noise or rustle, feeling her way along the wall, nearly retreating in panic as something soft brushed against her hand, until she realised it was her dressing-gown cord. ‘Stop working yourself up,’ she scolded herself in a whisper.
When she reached the bottom, she felt along the wall, and flicked the light switch.
The change from total darkness to the stark white light of a bare bulb was utterly disorientating. Grace closed her eyes for a moment, making a conscious effort to slow her breathing, and then opened them again, squinting.
Everything was as she remembered, including the bitter cold. She headed straight for the box of Adam’s personal effects – the one she knew he had brought with him from London. She began taking things out, quickly and carefully, piling them on a nearby shelf.
She didn’t have to dig down far until she found what she was looking for.
His passport. She opened the small purple booklet, to double-check, and there was his picture, the one that Grace had always laughingly told him looked like a police mug shot.
She stared at Adam’s handsome face. A rush of tenderness weakened her legs, and she held on to a shelf to stop them buckling. This was evidence, surely, that he hadn’t intended to run away? Or at least it made it less likely. But if that were so, then other possibilities, some unbearable, edged closer to being true.
Her mind swirling, she whirled around.
James was standing silently behind her.
She squealed with fright. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ she shrieked.
‘What the hell are
She shook the passport at him. ‘They asked me to find this last year, when they were suggesting that Adam had done a runner – and I couldn’t. But I didn’t know the bloody cellar existed then, did I? It suddenly dawned on me that I never checked the boxes he put here. Perhaps the police will take his absence more seriously now – though I somehow doubt it.’ She dropped her arm despondently.
‘Grace,’ James began to rub his bare arms as he stood there in T-shirt and boxer shorts, ‘come upstairs and we’ll talk about this. It’s freezing down here.’
He held out a hand. She went across and took it, and he began to lead her towards the stairs. ‘Hang on,’ she said, ‘we have to turn the light off.’
He waited as she flicked the switch, then they edged slowly back up in the darkness. Once in the corridor, Grace dropped his hand and closed the door gently, trying to stop it from creaking.
James followed her down the hallway, but when she began to climb the stairs, heading back to bed, he said, ‘Grace, wait a minute.’
She tried to look at him, though she could barely make out his face.
‘Come and sit with me for a moment.’
She went into the lounge with him. He pulled her onto the sofa and unzipped his sleeping bag, covering them both with it.
‘Lean on me for a while. Let yourself relax.’
Grace did as he bid, and felt her eyes grow heavy. The next thing she knew she had woken up with James asleep next to her, his arm still around her. Quietly, she disentangled herself and got up. James stirred briefly as she kissed his forehead and whispered ‘Night’, before tiptoeing from the room. Out in the hallway, the grandfather clock greeted her with its steady tick. The thought of it stopping sent her hurrying upstairs without looking to see what the time was, falling gratefully into bed next to Annabel.
Grace was woken again what felt like five minutes later, to the sound of Millie crying. Grey light was beginning to poke through the curtains, but inside the cottage it was dim. She found Millie sitting up cuddling Mr Pink, and Grace only needed one look at her wide-eyed tear-streaked face to know that Millie wouldn’t be settled back to sleep. She lifted her little girl out of the cot, trying to stave off her own tiredness by blinking hard and rubbing her eyes. They began to play together on the floor by the cot, but after a while Millie grew restless. Grace picked her up and tiptoed downstairs to get breakfast, trying not to wake James.
‘What time is it?’ James asked from the depths of the sofa.
‘Too early,’ Grace muttered, then walked back out to check the grandfather clock, only registering the silence as she did so.
‘The clock’s stopped,’ she said in bewilderment. The hands were pointing to just past three.
‘It must be stuck, I’ll look at it later,’ James mumbled sleepily.
‘Thanks.’ Grace went over to her mobile phone on the tabletop. ‘It’s nearly eight o’clock,’ she said, surprised. Then she pulled back the curtain and looked out. ‘And I think you could say that we’re snowed in.’
She heard the sofa’s springs creak as James pushed himself up, then he was behind her, peering through the window. ‘Bloody hell!’
The garden had disappeared. It looked as though someone had laid a sparkling white blanket from the level of the low garden wall right up to the cottage. Only the tips of the taller hedges poked through, and the bare trellis arch midway along the path.
‘I’ll have to dig us out,’ James declared. ‘We have got a spade somewhere?’
‘I… I don’t know,’ Grace said. ‘I didn’t think about it -’
James made a noise of exasperation.
‘Do we actually need to go outside?’ Grace queried. ‘Unless you’re going to shovel your way right over the top of the moors, I think it’s safe to say we’re stuck.’
In reply, James threw himself onto a chair.
‘What’s the problem?’ Grace asked, amused. ‘You’re always talking about how much you love the snow.’
‘Yes, because in Switzerland I can ski on it,’ James grumbled. ‘It’s completely different.’
‘You could take Millie sledging instead…’
‘Well, we can’t do anything much until we can get down the path.’ James began to pull on his jeans and a jumper. ‘I’ll search around and see what I can find.’
‘Be my guest.’ Grace felt annoyed as she carried Millie across to the kitchen area and sat her in the high chair. James always had to make big issues out of little problems. Adam would have found it the perfect excuse to cuddle up in front of the television. She briefly wondered whether Ben would be shovelling snow right now.
Daylight had finally conquered the night by the time Annabel appeared downstairs. ‘What’s that noise?’ she asked, tuning in to a recurring scraping sound.
Grace went across to the window and pulled back the curtain. ‘James found a shovel, so he’s clearing the path. I’m not sure why, but he obviously thinks it’s important.’
