Anna jumped off the slide and ran to her. She sat for a while with her grandmother at one of the parents' tables in the playground and chattered to her, while Liz tried to relax with her drink. She must get in touch with her own parents; they were supposed to be coming to stay. She hoped they were, because she'd just put off Barbara Mason, an old friend who'd written asking if she could take up an open invitation.
Anna was back at the slide now, crying 'Watch me, Granny!' as she ran up the ladder two rungs at a time, pushing away Isobel's hand as she tried to help her up the first rungs, and shouting 'Beep-beep' when Isobel waited anxiously to catch her at the bottom of the slide.
Shortly, the children crowded out of the nursery, having finished their meal, and Isobel returned to her gin. Spike's father emerged from the bar, Scotch in hand. 'They haven't let them out already, have they?' he complained.
Anna was trying patiently to show Spike how to ride a tricycle, and for once he didn't look quite so morose; he was pushing the pedals and realizing he was in control. 'He's fine. He's enjoying himself,' Liz said.
'That'll be the day.' His father strode irritably toward the playground. 'What's he up to now? He'll be running the babies over, he's that clumsy.'
Liz jumped up and grabbed his arm. 'It's all right, leave him alone. Anna's looking after him. And Maggie's there – she'll make sure there are no accidents.'
He looked amused by her vehemence; she could have hit him. 'True enough, that's her job. If anything happens, it's her responsibility.' Having found someone else to blame for his son's failings, he strolled back to the bar.
Liz wouldn't have minded another drink, but Isobel was leaning confidentially across the table, gesturing her to sit down. 'Elizabeth, I hope you won't mind my saying this, but I wonder if you oughtn't to care less for other people's children and more for your own.'
Liz controlled herself. 'What makes you think I don't care for her?'
'Well, since you ask, letting her play nursemaid, for one thing. She's too young – and besides, it's such a temptation. Children have dreadful things done to them these days, you've only to read the papers. I'm not saying that Anna would do anything like that, not if she's brought up correctly. But even she could copy things she's heard about or read.'
Anna was running toward them now, having entrusted Spike to Maggie, and seeing her, Liz felt her anger fade. If Isobel regarded Anna as she seemed to, then that was Isobel's loss. Anna scampered past them and into the bar. 'Hit me with an orange juice, Jimmy,' she cried, in imitation of some film.
'My God, another Lolita.' He uncapped the bottle and poured with a flourish. 'Are you going to pay me as well?'
'Certainly not,' Isobel said. Before Liz knew what she intended, Isobel had marched into the bar, thrust a coin at Jimmy and taken Anna by the arm. 'You shouldn't be in here at all, nor speaking to grown-ups like that.'
Jimmy's face betrayed his feelings. 'And I'll have no dumb insolence from you,' Isobel said. 'Did I hear you were studying to be a teacher? God help your class.'
Liz followed her angrily into the bar, on the verge of losing control. 'That's enough, Isobel. Anna's with me. Drink up, Anna, and then we must be going.'
Isobel turned her back on them. 'Well, of course she isn't my child.' That annoyed Liz less than the sympathetic grimace Isobel earned from the old couple in one corner of the bar. 'Goodbye then, Anna,' Isobel said, and to nobody in particular, 'Next time I shall ring up in advance to make sure I'm welcome.'
'Oh, for God's sake, Isobel,' Liz hissed, following her into the deserted foyer, 'don't be so bloody stupid,' but Isobel stalked off to her car and drove away.
Liz had another lager, and after a while her hands stopped twitching with frustration. If Alan was in as bad a mood as she assumed, there'd be no point in hurrying home. Still, she had said they'd be home for lunch. She finished her drink and winking at Jimmy, hurried Anna down to the beach. It was the quickest route, since the coast road was so winding.
Just now the beach was almost deserted. Bare strips of sand and pebbles stretched away for miles in both directions, walled in by sea and cliffs. The enormous sky was empty except for the white-hot sun. 'Do try not to show off in front of Granny Knight so much,' Liz said, but Anna was already chasing off along the beach.
Liz felt edgy, trying to keep pace with the child, and before long her feet were aching on the pebbles. As she passed beneath the churchyard, she found herself glancing up nervously at the precarious graves. She was glad when she reached the path to the top of the cliff, a quarter of a mile before the scar where Seaview had once been.
Anna went scrambling up ahead of her toward the pillbox. Beyond the cliff-edge, Liz could hear the bleating of the goats. When she reached the top she saw that they were beyond the pillbox, huddled just outside the hedge at the end of her garden. Anna was among them, chatting to them as usual, no doubt.
It was the way Anna was standing so still that told Liz something was wrong. She was staring into the grass at the foot of the hedge. Now she was backing away, almost falling over one of the kids as she went. Both she and the kid cried out, and Liz could hardly tell which cry was which. She ran to the child and hugged her, but that didn't stop Anna trembling. As the child clutched her mother's dress, burying her face in it, Liz stared into the undergrowth, afraid to see.
In the glaring sunlight everything was so intense that at first she could make out only an explosion of colours and textures beneath the spiky green grass: white, glistening red, and hectic swarming black. Someone had dumped an old rug there, ruined by tomato ketchup and covered with flies. It must be a rug, for she could see the legs at the corners: a rug that someone had used to carry offal to dump beneath the hedge – her hedge. But one of the kids was missing, and Liz knew what that meant even before she saw its head, still attached to the disembowelled body by what remained of the neck. A bluebottle was crawling over one bulging eye.
Anna fled crying toward the house, and Liz watched her go. As for herself, she thought she would be sick. She stumbled toward the gate, trying not to breathe until she was well away from the hedge, and saw Alan staring down at Anna from his workroom. The next moment he had vanished, presumably to open the back door. In the midst of her horror, Liz felt inexplicably uneasy because she hadn't had time to see his face.
Eight
The rain came hissing toward the house as though the sea itself were breaking over the top of the cliff. As the grass of the lawn whipped back and forth, the whole of the garden seemed to be shuddering. Rain lashed the kitchen window, but Liz could see the hedge at the end of the garden all too well. The blackened hedge was tossing like an animal in pain, and she could hardly bear to look. As the black stain of a thundercloud sped towards her, engulfing the sky, she felt somehow as if a darker stain had seeped into the fabric of the house.
The mutilated animal had been so close; it might just as well have been inside the house. No wonder the house felt soiled and all at once a good deal smaller – though perhaps it felt so only to Liz. Last night Anna had sobbed for hours and insisted on sleeping with Liz, while Alan slept in the spare bedroom on the top floor, but at least that seemed to be the end of it; today she was just rainy-day restless, as far as Liz could tell, except that she refused to be on her own for any length of time.
As for Alan, the incident had made him more withdrawn. He seemed unable to work. Instead he'd been wandering about the house all day, looking for thoughts. She could hear his slow footsteps on the stairs. Anna had been helping make coffee, but now she hurried into her playroom, the only room on the ground floor that didn't overlook the back garden. Liz was staring out at the hedge again as Alan came into the kitchen.
'I wish you'd seen who did it,' she couldn't help saying.
'Don't you think I do too, for Christ's sake? It would make life a lot easier. You make it sound as if I didn't want to see.'
'It's only that you must have been so close when it happened. It just seems strange that you didn't hear anything.'
'Do you know what the most boring thing in the world is? Telling the same story twice. You heard what I told the police. Anyway, you know I like music when I'm working – or even,' he added bitterly, 'when I can't work. I
