The car door clicked open and she slipped inside, pulse hammering. Then she cranked the engine and slammed that foot down hard, whacking the door locks down with her elbow. She wheel-spinned up the street not looking back until she got far enough not to resist. Just before she turned the corner she glanced into the rear-view mirror and saw the dog in the distance. It hadn’t moved. It was still looking. But as she stared at it, it turned to the right and trotted towards the grass. It nuzzled at the fence, with the rainbow on it, and found the loose section. Then it pulled at it with its teeth and suddenly scraped itself through. The white, unwagging tail vanished inside.
It was about then that she thought she smelt the vague whiff of her dead cat, Pob. Floating in the car, to inform her of impending doom. And she had a full memory of Debbie sitting in this very passenger seat, at the beginning, before it all went sour. That June day when Debbie clunked in her belt and got her summer dress caught. When they untangled it together and she suddenly said, ‘I like you, Rach.’ The day Rachel had shivered in a good way.
But that seat had been empty for a long time and the sun was now too wet to shine. And she could hear the dog barking, even from here. So she drove on.
Perhaps, she thought, this was a breakdown. Perhaps this is how they start. Or maybe tonight she really would be talking to her sister for real. Whatever the case, she turned the stereo on very loud as she drove back to Barley Street. Just so that she might not have to listen to the sound of herself crying all the way home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
As Menham sat in darkness outside, Matt sat alone with Rachel Wasson in the dining room of 29 Barley Street. Waiting in the designated chairs, as instructed. She looked pale, and her short black hair seemed wet. He whispered to her, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’
She tapped her glasses in place. ‘It’s not really a question of want, is it?’
Just then the dining room door creaked open and Bob and Joyce came through with an air of exaggerated seriousness. There was a regality to their walking, chins up in the air, locked and loaded for a jaunt into the netherworld. If Matt had seen this behaviour under any other circumstances he’d have found it all hilariously pompous, but for now he just sat still in the creaking wooden chair, feeling the tension twist in his chest – not just because of this entire situation, but because according to Larry’s latest text message there was still no sign of Jo or Lee.
Ominous. That’s how he felt about Jo Finch right now. Pretty bloody ominous.
He and Rachel sat around a dark, oval table in the shuffling silence, watching Joyce revolve around it a few times, the lavender reek of her perfume following a second behind. When she finally stopped she folded herself into a seat and looked off at something invisible in the air. Like a cat spotting a piece of its own fur, floating. Finlay, Mary Wasson’s actual cat, was in the corner of the room, curled up in a ball inside a grubby-looking basket. Its fur rose and fell gently as it snoozed.
Matt looked over at Rachel and gave her one more escape-if-you-want nod, but she’d already closed her eyes.
Bob was distracted by something. He was looking at the pot plant in the corner, the leaves of which had browned and dried. He grabbed it and headed out of the room with it under his arm.
‘What’s wrong with the plant?’ Matt asked.
‘It’s not freshly picked. That’s a problem.’
‘For who?’
‘For the spirits. They seem to like fresh plants and fruit,’ Bob said. ‘And no, I’m not sure why.’
‘Allergies maybe,’ Matt said.
‘Maybe.’ Bob pushed through the door, to ditch the plant.
The plant wasn’t the only thing that had been removed from this room. There was a faded space where the mirror used to hang. That had been taken out, along with a glass decanter and some serving glasses. Bob had said they could be dangerous if they shattered during the seance. But for some reason, the animal pictures remained. Spirits seem to like them, he said. A regular bunch of David Attenboroughs.
The clock remained. An antique wooden box clock on the sideboard, with a low constant click that felt slower than it should be. Like space between the seconds was a little bit longer here.
Footsteps suddenly rattled on the stairs as Mary Wasson finally headed down. After an awkward cup of tea with her earlier, she’d told him how ecstatic she was about the impending seance: clapping her hands like a performing seal and bobbing on her feet. She seemed a little swivel-eyed even then. Ever since, she’d been up in her room, ‘preparing’ for it. Whatever that meant. Now, she finally appeared in the doorway and that question was answered.
It was utterly bizarre.
She was seance-ready, face made up, lank hair curled and pinned. Lips pink and clumsily wiped with lipstick that looked more like marker pen. She was wearing some sort of evening dress, two decades out of fashion, and she had dangling earrings with teddy bears on each ear. Rachel put a hand across her mouth when she saw her mum’s outfit but Mary didn’t seem to notice. She just sat down in the chair next to Joyce and straightened her necklace.
‘Want to look pretty for my girl,’ she said.
The girl who had wrapped the stereo cord around her neck and stepped off the window sill – in the
