I know what you are, and I think you do too.
Her stomach dropped away in a sickening lurch. The card wasn’t signed, and there were no other words on it—not even a little printed image of some flowers in the corner like most of the other cards. She snapped the card off the wreath and stood up, bile pressing at the back of her throat.
“Hev? What’s wrong?”
She shook her head, unable to respond. Somewhere very distantly, a dog was barking, over and over.
I know what you are.
Someone out there—someone who knew all about her mother and the Red Wolf—was playing with her.
CHAPTER29
THE WAKE WAS nightmarish. A dark backroom in a pub, platters of sandwiches and cocktail sausages—far more than necessary for the meager crowd—and glasses of sour red wine. Heather found that she couldn’t focus on any of the faces, or follow the threads of any conversations; instead, she kept returning to the card, and its bitter little message: I know what you are.
Nikki checked in on her periodically, appearing with a paper plate loaded with cheese or a glass of coke, inserting herself into conversations that looked too painful or awkward, and Heather caught her eye more than once, surprised and touched by her friend’s thoughtful actions. However, when an old man she dimly recognized as a neighbor of her mother’s took hold of her arm and squeezed it, Nikki was on the far side of the room, having some sort of quiet argument with her aunt.
“Very sad to hear about yer mum, very sad.” The old man squeezed her arm again, as if for emphasis. He had big blunt fingers, with fingernails that had been cut too close to the quick. “Do you know why she did it?”
I know what you are. Heather shook his hand off, but he didn’t take the hint. Instead he continued to peer up at her. There were flakes of dried skin on the tops of his cheeks, and the capillaries on the bridge of his nose had burst long ago.
“You mean, do I know why she threw herself from the top of a cliff?” Her jaw felt stiff and her stomach was rolling again. She swallowed down the rest of her drink, and put the glass on a nearby table, with more force than was strictly necessary. “Tell me, do you really think that’s a reasonable question to ask someone at a wake? A grieving daughter, no less.”
“Well, I …” The man frowned dramatically. “There’s no need to be like that about it.”
“Isn’t there? No need to be annoyed that you want me to drag out all my pain and misery for you to examine, my mother’s pain and misery, just for your morbid curiosity?”
“That’s not …”
“Yes, it is. God, I am so glad I got away from this shit hole when I had the chance. Can you believe I actually feel sorry for my mum, existing in this shower of vultures?’ Her voice had risen, and she could see Nikki making her way across the room, her eyes wide. “Actually, sod this. I’ll leave you to it.”
Stepping out into the fresh air wasn’t the relief she expected it to be. Instead, she felt hunted, exposed. She briefly thought about calling Ben Parker, sure that hearing his voice—warm and kind—would heal her somehow, but she was tearful, and the idea that she would sleep with him and then cry over the phone to him the next day was mortifying. There was a bus stop nearby with a bus just pulling up, so she jumped onto it without looking at the destination. It was only when she sat down, crashing slightly too heavily into the seat next to a startled looking teenager, that she realized the glass of wine she’d downed had gone to her head. A second later her phone pinged with a message from Nikki.
Where did you go? Are you alright?x
Heather looked at it for a long time before slipping the phone back into her pocket. She got off the bus when she caught sight of another pub, a peeling and battered sign painted with a red lion. It was a murky little place, with sticky floors and a handful of stunted old men in corners nursing pints of bitter. The landlady, who was short and brassy, gave her a pinched look as she came in, but didn’t hesitate to pour the drink she ordered. Heather took her glass and a packet of potato chips, and set up at a small round table as far from the wide screen TV as possible, recognizing it as a beacon for men who enjoyed standing in groups making sudden loud honking and hooting noises at some sports related nonsense.
The rum was good and dark. With each sip she felt the sharp edges of her shock grow a little fuzzy, although she still couldn’t help returning to the strange bouquet of wildflowers, and the note in the bathroom cabinet, with its little flurry of starling feathers as it fell into the sink. Then there was the trapped bird, flying around the landing crashing into walls, and the figure she thought she had seen standing on the edge of her mother’s property—except hadn’t Lillian seen it, too? She had asked about gentlemen callers, after all.
She downed the rest of the rum and ordered a coke. Her stomach was too empty for any more alcohol.
Perhaps the note in the cabinet really was
