She sat on the bed.
Click, click, click.
She thought of something. She could push her chest of drawers against the door. They did that in films all the time. But as she pushed up from the bed she saw that the handle was doing that thing it always did but somehow she’d forgotten in all the hullaballoo. That you had to push this door shut hard with the hip, until you heard it click. It was the only way to truly close it. But she hadn’t done that. Now it had bounced in and out of the latch again. It was opening slowly. Hinges doing what they wanted to do.
‘Lee!’ she called out. ‘Lee. Lee’ But then very soon the word Lee changed to the word God.
Or rather to the words, Oh, God. Oh God, Oh God. A hyperventilation more than anything else.
She slipped clean off the bed in shock and heard how loud the bang was as her bulk hit the floorboards and shook the cabinet. Even then, in the midst of this, she’d noticed that she had always been horribly bigger than she ever wanted to be.
She spoke in a desperate whisper. ‘Holly … Holly, I’m sorry.’
But soon all she needed to see was through the gaping, opening door.
click, click, Click, Click, CLICK, CLICK!
A very tall black rabbit, made of pure shadow, was swaying from left to right on its hind legs. And it quickly walked across the landing toward her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Couches smell of tears and cider, chocolate wrapper on the floor.
Drunk man snoring, face a cushion, room lit up with flashing pictures.
Rabbit nods and opens claws.
Up above them, she is stirring. Splashing water on her face.
Rabbit slides along the shadows, banisters of branch and lace.
Now she shouts so loudly for him. Calls his name, ‘come up to bed’.
She is scared and needs his presence. Rabbit climbs the stair instead.
Moves across the skinny landing, sniffing carpet, sensing skin.
Sees a light beneath the door. Sucks her scent on everything.
Bedroom door clicks slowly open, now she shouts his name again.
Rabbit once in deep black corners, sees the world and breathes it in.
Slowly rising, hind legs thriving, front paws spring and don’t come down.
Rabbit strides on two legs smiling. Grabs her scream and makes it drown.
click
PART TWOTHERE ARE SUCH THINGS
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
It was late afternoon when Matt pulled his car into a rain-pounded Bennington Road in Menham, and he saw a narrow street lined with skinny, pink-bricked houses. Each front garden was just about big enough for a preschool dwarf to sit in, cross-legged, at a push.
It took him a while to park. Mainly because three police cars were hogging the kerb already. All of them were perched outside number 122, which Larry had said was Jo Finch’s house. Larry’s car was directly outside of it.
He had to head halfway up the street to find a space and pulled up near a bus stop advertising holidays in Butlins. ‘It’s even better than you think!’ it said, which for some reason made him chuckle. He killed the engine. The thunk-thunk heartbeat of the windscreen wipers came to a sudden stop. Then he pulled up his coat collar and stepped out into the rain.
The air had that wet concrete smell that he didn’t like and as he headed down the street he heard the low drone of an easyJet plane crossing the sky overhead. There were people up there right now. Businessmen and families, biting open packets of bread buns on their laps. Oblivious to the mad and macabre world of Menham, South London far below.
There was a cafe just up the street from Jo’s house and Matt felt his tongue buzz as he sniffed a burger sizzling on the air. Maybe he could grab one after. The closer he got to the house, the more he noticed the tracksuited locals who had gathered on the pavement opposite. They stood there hollow-cheeked as they sucked on cigarettes, looking bored and cold. Which suggested they’d been standing there for a long time with little to excite them. They perked up when he slowed at Jo’s door and he could feel their eyes on him as he turned and tapped his knuckles against 122.
Almost instantly, the door opened. A bald policeman with rosy cheeks leant out. ‘Are you selling something?’
‘I’m here to see DC Larry Forbes.’
He looked confused and ran his eyes up and down him. ‘You’re the vicar?’
‘Ex-vicar.’ He nodded. ‘Very, very ex.’
‘Bit young to be a priest aren’t—’
‘It’s raining … and I’m too young to die of hypothermia.’
‘Oh. Two ticks.’ The policeman leant back and whispered to somebody unseen then turned back to Matt. ‘Wait.’ The door closed just as the rain kicked up a gear.
He stepped back to squint up at the top windows, as drops from the heavens whizzed by his face. He used to do that as a kid. Look up at the rain and pretend that the earth was racing through hyperspace. Everything from the outside of the house looked normal enough. Nothing broken or out of place. No creepy rabbit demon striding across, with Jo slung over their shoulders and a dutiful white dog in tow.
No little girl holding the rabbit’s hand.
A man’s voice came from across the street. ‘What’s the deal?’
Matt turned. ‘Pardon?’ Rain machine-gunned off his shoulders.
‘Three police cars, and now you make it four?’ The thin man in a hoodie nodded toward the house. ‘Who’s dead? The woman?’
Another one said, ‘It’s our street. We have a right to know.’
Thunder started to roll like a distant kettle drum.
‘You’ll all be dead of flu if you don’t get inside,’ he called back.
The door rattled open again and he turned to see Larry who looked at him and said, ‘Nice swim?’
‘Move,’ Matt pushed past
