‘You need a lift?’
‘No, it’s fine. I’ll see you back at the house, yeah?’
‘You okay, Frances? You’re sweating.’
‘It’s hot,’ I snap, feeling my pulse rocket. Why won’t he leave? ‘Off you go, see you in a bit.’
‘Frances—’
Samantha’s car; I am sure I hear it now. I can’t help looking back along the road for that glint of sunlight on chrome. William moves his hand over mine and squeezes. It’s painful and when I try to snatch it back, he pins it down tighter.
‘Why don’t you get in the car?’
‘Wh-what?’
‘You heard me.’
We stare at each other. Weirdly, I don’t feel threatened by him. His gaze is blank and void of interest. He may as well be telling me about the weather. I look back down the road again, desperately.
He sighs, switching off the engine. ‘If you’re going to run, I’ll catch you. I’m faster than you think. There’s a lot of things about me you don’t know, Frances. So come on round and get in the car.’
There is a bright, pulsing light in my vision. It’s fear, manifesting itself. Rising, rising, like the panic in my chest and throat, rising to the crown of my skull. You are not my William, I want to say, thinking about the man who curled his arms around me in bed late last night. He is a good man. William’s grip on my hand tightens to a shimmering pain. My heart thumps giddily, drumming out a beat, over and over, run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run. And maybe I could. Up and over the stile, through the field. How long till he catches up with me, though, me with my smoker’s lungs and decades of pills and powders and cheap bottles of wine?
I walk slow and stiff to the passenger side and open the door as he watches me indifferently through the windscreen with his soft gaze. My glance drifts over the back seat as I climb in. William’s car is, like the man himself, always neat and squared away. His glovebox contains only a roadmap and a torch. He keeps high-visibility vests and emergency supplies in the boot in case we should ever break down and get stranded, despite the fact that the furthest we’ve ever driven is to Devon. I’m always teasing him about it.
On the back seat is a large leather bag I recognise. It’s Samantha’s. The zip has been pulled roughly open and the contents lie scattered in the footwell and across the seat itself; lip balm, lighters, keys. It makes me think of those dead bodies again, the items that were found in their pockets and recorded for identification. I feel something twist inside me, a sharp pain followed by a wave of dizziness. I grope for the door handle because now that frantic percussion, that run rabbit, run rabbit, run, has amplified and grown huge, filling me with fear. My stomach is knotted and slick as William pulls away from the side of the road and turns back towards Thorn House. I turn to face him in my seat and he looks over at me, brow furrowed.
‘Frances,’ he says. ‘Seat belt.’
I pull my seat belt across me with hands that won’t keep still, feeling tears swell in my eyes. I catch sight of Samantha’s bag in the back seat again and can’t help thinking: Unknown female, 50–55: lip balm, lighters, keys. It turns me cold and silent. What has happened to her? Where is she? And how much does William know?
We drive in silence, windows rolled down. The breeze flutters my shirt sleeves and tickles my skin. The radio is playing too loudly for us to speak and I’m afraid to reach out and turn it down. My hand is still throbbing, red marks on the skin to match William’s grip. I rub at it with my other hand to massage some feeling back in. About halfway back towards Thorn House, I see Samantha’s car. William slows down as we pass it. It has been driven off the road and parked in front of a wooden gate, hazard lights flashing. There is a handwritten sign on the windscreen reading Broke Down – Gone For Help. It’s William’s writing.
My stomach falls. ‘William? You’re scaring me. What happened to Samantha? Is she okay?’
‘Me scaring you?’ He grins, and looks at me sidelong. ‘You’re Frances Thorn, you aren’t scared of anything.’
‘Jesus Christ, William, this isn’t funny!’
‘No, you’re right. It’s not.’
He lowers the volume on the radio with his left hand and I recoil from it when I see the dried blood on his fingers. ‘What happened to your hand?’
‘Huh? Oh, it’s not mine.’
There is blood on the tips of his fingers and more spattered on the cuff of his sweatshirt. I twist my T-shirt in my fists, suddenly feeling violently sick.
‘What’s happened? Where’s Samantha?’
‘I said I’ll show you. Calm down. You’ll still get to play Girl Guides with your new little friend.’
His voice, the flat, idleness of it, as if we were rowing down a sunlit stream on a hazy day, frightens me the most. There’s no urgency. He’s not afraid. He’s almost happy. My blood runs cold as he looks back at the road again, humming along to a song on the radio. I once lived with a Russian girl who told me someone had tried to kidnap her from the small village where she lived. ‘Don’t get in the car,’ she told me in her slurred, heavy voice. Her lips tasted like snow. ‘If they get you in the car you are dead. Better to die on the street than see what they have planned for you somewhere quiet and private where people do not hear the screaming.’
But I did it, didn’t I? I got in the car. Stupid Frances. But William wouldn’t hurt me. I look towards the blood on William’s fingertips again, and I don’t know any more. My heart keeps sending me the same message. Runrabbitrunrabbit. We’re nearly at Thorn House and
