In her imagination, Matt was currently watching his mother trying to explain to a very confused paramedic that no, she wasn’t suffering a heart attack. Hopefully this was developing into a predictable mother/son argument, but it was equally likely that Matt was just about now realising that he’d abandoned his post and thinking that he should get back. Dennie couldn’t risk it.
As she left the shed her foot caught on the edge of the rag rug and pulled it slightly to one side, and a gleam of metal from underneath caught her eye. It was a hinge, in the floor. Why would anyone put a—
Trapdoor.
She so desperately wanted to pull the rug away and open whatever was concealed beneath, but for the first time in weeks Sabrina’s voice was screaming in her head he’scominghe’scominghe’scoming just like that time with the car crash, so she straightened the rug as best she could and slipped out of the door, around the corner, and off to her own plot without running and without looking back.
No voice shouted. Nobody stopped her. No pursuing footsteps or a heavy hand on her shoulder.
When she got to her shed she slumped in her chair, exhausted and slightly nauseous from the adrenaline while Viggo, who had been safely tied up, fussed over her. ‘Put the kettle on would you?’ she said. ‘There’s a good boy. I think we might just have got away with it.’
* * *
‘Are you sure?’ Everett’s face was buried in his hands. He and Ardwyn were at the big kitchen table while Matt had not yet been invited to sit.
‘Pretty sure. She was sitting outside her shed talking to that stupid dog like always.’
‘How sure is pretty sure?’
‘I don’t know.’ Matt shrugged. ‘Like, ninety per cent? I don’t get what the problem is. I was gone for like, three minutes, max. There’s no way anybody could have gotten in without me seeing.’
Ardwyn sighed. ‘She played you, Matt. That ambulance wasn’t a coincidence. She knew exactly what button to press and she pressed it.’
‘But she didn’t find anything even if she did get in. Everything was still there when I got back.’
Everett slowly drew his hands down over his face like he was wiping it with a towel and stared at Ardwyn with eyes that looked utterly hollow and exhausted. ‘Well, that’s that, then.’
‘Don’t you dare say “I told you so”,’ Ardwyn said. ‘As you’ve already pointed out, this was inevitable – it’s just come a little quicker than we would have liked. I don’t think we can rely on people dismissing her as a senile old woman for very much longer. She needs a lesson in boundaries, just like Mr Turner.’
‘What?’ said Matt. ‘Do her dog?’
‘No. That will attract the police. She’ll need an accident. Something that can be blamed on her own stupid self.’
‘Burn her shed,’ said Everett. ‘She can’t spy on us if she’s got nowhere to spy on us from.’
Ardwyn nodded. ‘Agreed. Matt, make it happen. And do it from the inside, don’t just go flinging a lot of petrol around and then lighting a match. The investigators can tell that kind of thing.’
‘And what if she’s in there at the time?’
‘So much the better. Still an accident, but with more tragic results.’
‘And the dog?’
‘Take Gar with you,’ said Everett. ‘He could do with something to let off a bit of steam.’
7
3.07
THAT IS THE TIME IN THE MORNING OF THE 14TH OF November 2007, when Sarah calls Dennie and in the flat, calm tones of someone who has gone through shock and out the other side into something resembling waking catatonia, tells Dennie that she’s just killed her husband.
Dennie says, ‘Wait there. Don’t do anything.’
Sarah gives an odd little laugh and hangs up.
Dennie throws on some clothes and drives to Sarah’s house. It’s close enough that she could make the journey on foot, but even in a place as quiet as Dodbury she doesn’t like the idea of going out alone in the early hours. That two-minute drive is stretched out into hours by the chaotic turbulence of her mind. Is Sarah hurt? Is Colin actually dead or just badly injured? Will the house be surrounded by ambulances and police cars?
But the house is dark and quiet, unremarkable in its safe suburban street. The first thing she notices as she pulls the car into the Nearys’ drive and the security light goes on is that one of the front door panels has a splintered crack running down it. Sarah will tell her that it’s because Colin came home from a drinking session with his mates having forgotten his keys, and she didn’t wake up quickly enough to let him in, so he started doing it himself. A few days later Dennie will be back with Brian’s old hand-sander, some wood-filler and a pot of paint to clear this up. There is a bigger mess to be cleared up first, however.
The lights are on in the kitchen around the back so she knocks on the back door and Sarah lets her in. Her eyes are glassy and unfocussed. She has bruises on her cheekbone, a black eye and a split lip, and a trickle of blood has dripped off the end of her chin onto the pink flannel of her pyjama top in a single ruby-red spot. Her belly swells with the tell-tale bump of Josh’s new baby brother or sister. Dennie folds her into a hug to which she does not react, and for the first few moments is so concerned about her friend’s condition that, amazingly, she fails to notice the body on the kitchen floor.
‘Jesus Christ,’ she breathes. She checks for respiration or a pulse, and finds neither. The only blood she can see is from his nose,
