Heather nodded and peered at the electronic map. They drove for another hour or so, trundling up and down roads boxed in with trees and low stone walls, until it was completely dark. There were very few lights out here, and more than once Heather found herself staring out into the night, at the yawning blackness of the fields.
“When I was a kid,” she said, “I used to imagine how scary it would be to suddenly be transported somewhere like this. If you were just at home, watching television in your pajamas, and then suddenly you were in the middle of a field at night, no idea where you were, no way to contact home. Cold and alone, no idea what might be in the woods. I used to imagine that a lot.”
“Do we take the next left? No wait, I’ve got it …” Nikki nodded toward the windscreen. “There it is, look. There’s the entrance.”
Their headlights caught it—a flash of white in the night. It was a big shiny board, advertising the Fiddler’s Mill Spa Complex in an ostentatious green font. Underneath it was a big stylized acorn with the words Oak Leaf written through it, and beyond the sign they could make out a long, smooth road, helpfully lit with discrete lamps. Somewhere out in the dark, up a gradually sloping hill, Fiddler’s Mill House lurked. Heather squinted at the windscreen, thinking it would be possible to see lights in its windows perhaps, but the glow from the car cast everything beyond the road into a blank kind of darkness.
“Our cottage should be left of here,” Heather leaned back. “It’s a little way from the big house.”
Dutifully they turned left, and after about twenty minutes of driving through more fields and trees, they came to another signpost, discreetly lit with a softly glowing lamp. It displayed directions to five holiday properties, each of which had been given their own name: Herne, Titania, Puck, Woden, and Frig.
“We’re staying in Herne, apparently.”
They drove on, following a narrow country road that seemed to hug the edges of a sprawling field, until a cottage loomed up in their headlights, box-shaped and oddly inert looking. Heather retrieved the keys from the lock box by the side of the front door, and together they brought their stuff in; suitcases, a bag of food and drink. Inside, all was cozy and neutral, and Heather found that she was oddly relieved. This was a place designed to be inoffensive, palatable to any holiday maker—no personality required. There were biscuit-colored sofas, deep red rugs, and discreet modern lighting, hidden among the beams that crossed the ceiling. No chance here, she told herself, of coming across sheets of paper from the notebook your mother used for her suicide note, no danger of some innocuous object rousing some long-forgotten trauma. Whatever was haunting her in Balesford could stay there.
Someone had thoughtfully left a small pile of the day’s newspapers on the central table along with a pair of empty wine glasses, a bottle of wine, and a box of posh biscuits. Nikki went to the small open kitchen and began unpacking food, while Heather searched for a corkscrew.
“This isn’t so bad,” Heather said as they were ensconced on the sofa, sipping from glasses of wine. Nikki had her legs tucked under her, one of the local newspapers spread on her lap. “I could easily put up with four days of this.” She slipped her phone out of her pocket. No messages from Ben Parker, but then, there was no phone signal either. She resolved to text him the next time she saw some stable bars on the screen, just to see how he was—it might not make any difference to how he felt about her, but it could ease some of her own guilt.
“What’s your plan?”
“Hmm? Oh, eat a lot of crap, sleep a lot.”
“How is that different from usual?”
“Ha ha ha.” Heather swirled the wine in her glass. “So. This is the place my mum ran to when she was a teenager. Maybe I’ll never understand what she did, but perhaps I can get a bit closer to understanding her.” It was also the place where she met a man who she maintained a bond with for the rest of her life, despite what and who he turned out to be. She remembered what Pamela Whittaker had said about the land soaking up memories, keeping them to itself. She remembered Anna’s face, how it had crumpled in on itself when she thought of her missing baby. There was something bad here, and the land remembered, deep in its bones. She had to find out what it was. What did she have to lose, at this point? “I’ll have a look around tomorrow.”
Nikki lifted the paper from her lap and turned it to show Heather the front page. There was a photograph there, blown up slightly too big so that the edges of the woman’s smiling face were blurred, and across the top the headline screamed “LATEST VICTIM OF THE RED WOLF?”
“Whatever you say, we’re in his territory now, Hev. Be careful with your snooping, yeah?”
Heather raised her glass. “I’ll drink to that.”
CHAPTER34
BEFORE
COLLEEN’S CAMPERVAN WAS set back from the main crowd of tents and vans, and as Michael drove toward it, he noted that the windows were all filled with brittle yellow light—she wasn’t alone tonight. Getting out of his van, he quickly looked himself over in the wing mirror, pushing his hair out of his face impatiently. The shower at the B&B had been cramped and tiny, and he had worn the soap down to a nub. He was more careful than he’d ever been these days, but it never hurt to check again—flecks of blood had a habit of finding the places that you missed with the flannel.
Satisfied, he went up to the campervan, opening the door onto their small, patchouli smelling living space. Three women looked up at him, clearly startled;
