But it wasn’t Debbie. ’Course it wasn’t.
She tapped on the screen and didn’t recognise the number. Maybe it was someone from the company, checking she’d grabbed the sounds, or a recorded message that she might have been mis-sold PPI Insurance. She hoped it was that. Something innocuous.
It was around then that the smell of Pob flooded the room so intensely that she had to walk to the window to open it as wide as possible. It really is weird the way the mind works, in the deepest ditch of the night. Conjuring smells that aren’t there. Or are probably not there.
She gazed out at the rolling black hills, took a breath and spoke to her reflection.
Grow up, Rachel.
She clicked the message on. It was ironic, because what she heard made her feel the exact opposite of grown up. She heard a voice that raced through the phone line in a tone that instantly sucked a decade and a half from her life.
‘Rach? Rachel Wasson …’
Her jaw dropped at the message.
‘It’s me, Jo Finch. I got your number from your mum. Erm … listen, you’ve got to get back to Menham as soon as you can. No excuses this time because …’ A sniffle into the phone, a gulping in of air for the next part. ‘Steph’s dead.’
Rachel put her hand on the window sill, surprised at how dreamlike this felt. Maybe it was a dream. Maybe she’d turn round and spot herself dribbling into the pillow of that hefty, concave bed, waiting to roll off. But then the voice came again, and she knew she was awake.
‘So for once, Rach, you call me back. Anytime. Wake me up if you have to.’
The phone clicked off and Rachel stared at it for a long moment. The first thing she thought was, oh, look. The smells gone. And it had. Pob’s scent had vanished as quickly as it came. But then it would be gone, she thought. Because her trusty little messenger of death had delivered his latest portent and was slinking back to his ghostly basket. Until next time.
It took her half an hour and a tiny bottle of gin from the mini bar before she called Jo back. And since this was the first time they’d spoken in years, she rehearsed what she’d say. She actually wrote it down on a Post-it note. She’d planned to start with, ‘Hi, it’s Rachel. Sorry it’s after midnight but you did say call straight away. And I’m sorry for not phoning in years.’ But as soon as she said ‘Hi, it’s Rachel,’ Jo gasped and then crumbled into quiet sobs on the other end of the line. Rachel sat there listening to the whimpering for a few seconds, then she asked the real question that had been wriggling through her mind for the past thirty minutes.
‘How did she die?’
And through the sniffing, all Jo could say was, ‘It’s come back. I think it’s come back for us.’
CHAPTER FOUR
Wren pulled the car into the new Hunter Family Homestead, which was a cosmic leap away from the ASBO central townhouse they’d only just moved away from. No longer did coming home mean locking up the car under the gaze of abusive, crotch-grabbing hoodies. No longer did Matt have to partake in the morning bin bag ritual of trudging across a lawn filled with discarded beer cans, condoms and Ginster’s bloody pasties wrappers, fuzzed with morning dew.
Their old house had been bought up as a buy-to-let and he had occasional pangs of guilt for the students the landlord planned to pack in there. He kept telling himself that students like nightclubs and love cheap kebabs. Who knows, maybe they find regular local knifings of anthropological interest. He tried not to think about that.
They’d stumbled across this Edwardian semi on Rightmove one night. Scrolled onto the less expensive parts of Chesham, Buckinghamshire. It was an estate prone to manure smells from the farms and surprisingly frequent power cuts but he’d take cow shit and occasional darkness over amphetamine-fuelled gangs any day of the week.
The place was thirty per cent smaller than the last house but it was four hundred per cent more homely. Plus it was just a nine minute and fifty-three-second bike ride from the Tube station for work.
They’d lived here for four weeks.
As they pulled in he spotted the really ironic part. They now lived a brick throw from an old Anglican church, lit with a yellowed floodlight. For years now he’d rejected the church and his own, ancient ordination, and now he stared at one every time he brushed his teeth. But, so what? So what if the bell ringing and congregational singing sometimes filtered out the TV, or woke them up whenever he and Wren attempted a really lazy Sunday. There was a funny quirk in it being close. The presence of church, so near.
Standing here tonight, feeling the late breeze come up over the hill as he looked up at their new house, he was even tipsy enough to ignore that little voice of panic that sometimes said, ‘BIG mortgage this, isn’t it? Been a bit AMBITIOUS, haven’t you?’
Then he’d drop-kick that thought with another: this place is perfect.
Amelia, his youngest, was the one that shifted the mood, bless her. She was sitting in the back seat with her tiny chin buried into her chest. He saw her staring up at her new bedroom window.
Matt popped the door. ‘Out you get, Midget. It’s light years past your bedtime.’
‘I want to sleep with you and Mummy tonight.’
Wren crouched by the car. Her voice soft. ‘Amelia. We’ve been through this.’
‘I won’t snore.’ She looked at Matt. ‘Daddy? What do you think? Can I stay with you two?’
‘You have a room,’ he tapped a finger at himself, ‘with an amazing paint job, remember?’
She tried to smile but her eyes were on her bedroom, which always made her
