He saw Liz's expression and came quickly over to her. 'My God, what's wrong?'
It would take too long to describe what she'd seen. 'There's someone down there,' she said, pointing to the steps, though her hand was shaking almost as much as her mouth. 'I think he's the one who killed the goat.'
'Is he, by Christ? Well, we'll soon find out.' Before she realized what he meant to do, he disappeared into the pillbox.
She hadn't wanted him to go down. There was only one way in or out, and he could have guarded that while she called the police. He'd strode into the pillbox as if he was eager for violence, and now she was afraid of what might happen, down there in the dark. Suppose he couldn't see the creature until it was too late? Suppose it was ready for him – waiting for him? Wind tugged at the grass, sand hissed at the edge of the cliff, the cries of children drifted along from the Britannia Hotel. It was only half a mile away, and so was Jane's house in the other direction, but somehow that only made her feel all the more alone.
She told Anna to wait where she was, a hundred yards away, then she hurried alongside the pillbox, trying to see through the gunports. But she could see nothing, and worse still, she couldn't hear Alan; her ears were full of the ominous roar of the sea. She wavered between the gun- ports, afraid to cry out a warning in case it distracted him. What had she sent him down there to confront? She couldn't even reach the gunport of the cell where she had seen the figure crouching in the dark, for the bushes were too thick.
She was still wavering outside the pillbox and straining her ears when she heard movement on the steps. She glanced nervously at Anna to make sure the child was far enough away to be in no danger. But it was Alan on the steps. He stood shaking his feet dry, and gazed oddly at Liz. 'Come on, let's go down and finish the wine if it hasn't been pinched,' he said. 'There's nobody in there. Nobody at all.'
Eleven
Coming home from the hotel on Tuesday, Liz stayed on the road, away from the beach, and made Anna hold her hand round the succession of blind corners. Grasshoppers buzzed like static in the untrimmed verges, cows plodded after one another through the fields; a procession of clouds passed along the horizon, so slowly that they looked pasted on the blue sky. It was the kind of day when Liz normally liked to go exploring with her family, to villages that only the locals seemed to know, or to drive through the Broads, to cruise through the changing landscape, woodland and marshes, herons and windmills and lone houses among the trees; she often wished she could bear to travel by water. But she didn't want to see Alan, nor to go home.
After leaving the pillbox, he'd spent hours trying to persuade her that she'd imagined what she'd seen. She would have been only too glad to believe that herself. She had been on edge, admittedly; after seeing the dead goat under the hedge, it was no wonder she'd been expecting something even worse. Could she really have distinguished so much in the dark? Alan had found nothing, and that was enough to make her agree not to call the police yet again. The trouble was that everything he said only succeeded in making her feel more alarmed – because he seemed to blame Anna.
She couldn't understand him. Did he blame the child for what Liz had seen in the pillbox? For the bloody face she'd seen on the window? For her nervousness? Perhaps he didn't know himself; perhaps he was trying to conceal what he felt. But that didn't make it any less unpleasant. Just now Liz felt she didn't want to know him.
At least he was likely to stay out of her way while she made cakes for tomorrow's afternoon tea. Jane was coming, Rebecca, Gail, if she could get away from the hotel – and Alex, heaven help them all. Every second Wednesday they met in a different house. Rebecca's was untidy and welcoming, no doubt just as it would have been if it were full of the children she could never have; Alex's was spotless as a show house, and as cold – no wonder her photographer husband went away so often, and for so long. Gail's cottage was like an annexe to the hotel, the phone always calling her back to the desk. And Jane's was even untidier than Rebecca's, strewn with bits of food and Georgie's nappies, a house out of control. The last tea had been at Jane's, and Jane had invited Alex, which was the only reason Liz had invited her now.
They were home now. In the sunlight, the hedge and the pillbox looked as innocent as everything else – which meant that nothing seemed innocent at all. Alan was in the long room, replaying his cassette of the Nigerian documentary. At least Anna wouldn't go pestering him, not while the claw was there – when was he going to take it to London? – and no doubt he would leave them alone, as he was busy. 'We're home,' Liz called, and ushered Anna through to the kitchen. 'Would you like to play in the back garden?' she said to the child.
'No, I don't want to. I don't like it.'
'Don't you, darling?' Liz did her best to sound casual. 'Why not?'
'There's a man out there.'
'Oh, I don't think there is.' The garden was as it should be – paths, flower borders, grass – and she could see nobody beyond the hedge. She opened the back door. 'There isn't, look. There's nobody.'
'He's lying down where you can't see him.'
Liz hoped that the child hadn't seen her clench her fists. She stared along the side of the house, then strolled carelessly to a point on the lawn from which she could see through the hedge. She could see nobody, but that was no longer reassuring. 'I can't see anyone,' she said, 'but you can stay in and help me, if you'd rather.'
For a while they made cakes. Anna chopped up fruit carefully, proud that her mother let her use the big knife. Liz smiled to herself as she watched the child, but she was also watching the garden. Everything seemed too intense: flowers bobbed and shook their heads at her, the hedge shuddered in the breeze. She wished she could see beyond the hedge.
She had just put a batch of scones in the oven when Alan came in. 'Have you nearly finished?' he said. 'I've got something to show you.'
He led her to the long room, after she'd made sure that Anna went into her playroom. 'Sit down and watch this,' Alan said. 'You'll see why in a bit.'
It was the Nigerian documentary. Theatre groups performed in dusty car parks, singers toured shops made out of corrugated metal and tried to sell their records; crowds poured into a mosque and as many gathered outside; camels lined up in a market, women balancing gourds on their heads marched by. After a while Liz had to break off watching to take out the scones, and that was a relief; the way she felt now, the film seemed a jumble of images, too much to take in, especially when she didn't know what Alan meant her to see. As she sat down again, he restarted the cassette. 'What am I supposed to be looking for?' she said.
'You'll know when you see it.' Nevertheless he was frowning. The cassette ran on – priests and card games in market-places, women with gorgon hair, hundreds of fishermen plunging into a river to net a multitude of fish – and then it was over. 'Just let me run it again,' he said.
'What exactly are you trying to find?'
'I wanted you to see without me having to tell you. Well, all right,' he said reluctantly, 'you can look for it too. I remembered I'd seen a shot of a kind of bright red man. I thought it was near the beginning, but I could have been mistaken. I'm sure he's what you thought you saw in the pillbox. You must have got the idea from the film.'
She could have glimpsed it on Sunday, while she was trying to read. It was the kind of peripheral glimpse her imagination might have seized upon and produced when she was searching the pillbox. She wanted to believe that, she wanted to be reassured, but as he ran the tape back and forth, muttering to himself, she was simply becoming more nervous. Crowds scampered into the mosque then scurried out backwards, fishermen were flung out of the river as though the fish were fighting back. On the mantelpiece the metal claw jerked as the light caught it. Why couldn't he find what he'd seen? What if it wasn't on the tape after all? She was peering desperately at the screen, wanting to plead with him to stop the parade of images, when the doorbell rang.
Before Liz could get up, Anna had run to the door. 'Hello, Anna,' Liz heard. 'Is your father in?'
It was Isobel. Today she wore a tailor-made mauve suit: jacket, blouse and slacks. She strode into the long room and nodded briefly to Liz, then she saw that Alan was running the cassette. 'I hope I haven't interrupted you at work,' she said.
He turned off the sound. 'No, not really. Don't worry.'
