‘Hello, Steven.’
Steven’s heart jerked in his chest.
He dropped his arm and looked around.
It took him a couple of turns. Then, in the blackness a few yards down the hill, he saw the vague form of Jonas Holly sitting on the stone steps that led from his garden gate into the lane.
‘What are you doing?’ The fright made him blunt.
‘Waiting for you,’ said Jonas Holly.
Steven’s neck prickled like a dog’s. He didn’t want to ask why. Not here in the darkness between the towering hedges that made the lane feel like a funnel.
During the silence, Mr Holly just sat there, forearms on his knees, hands clasped loosely in front of him. Steven wondered how long he’d been there. Wondered whether he’d watched him and Em walk up the hill. He didn’t like that idea.
‘I wanted to ask you something.’
Again, Steven gave him no encouragement.
‘Why did you put the money on Lucy’s grave?’
The question took Steven by surprise.
‘What money?’ he stalled.
‘This money,’ said Mr Holly, and leaned to one side until Steven heard the chink of coins and the rustle of notes coming out of his pocket. ‘Sixty-two pounds thirty.’
Steven was quiet again. The dark let him be so, when in daylight he would have felt compelled to answer immediately.
Mr Holly said nothing for a long while. And when he did speak again, it was not about the money.
‘People hurt children, you know,’ he said softly.
Steven’s heart began to beat hard. ‘I know.’
He started to edge down the hill until he was level with the policeman. Another few yards and he’d be beyond him, and then he could run if he had to. He thought he might have to, however stupid that would look.
‘Of course you do,’ said Mr Holly, nodding his head slowly. ‘We
‘I have to get home now, Mr Holly,’ said Steven. He took the few paces that meant he was past the gate.
The man crossed the distance between them silently and with disturbing speed.
Steven retreated but found the sharp hedge at his back. He flinched at the contact he knew was coming. ‘What do you
Jonas Holly stopped, as if aware for the first time that Steven might be scared. He stood still and spoke softly. ‘Are you in trouble, Steven? Do you owe someone money?’
Steven was confused. His mind had to catch up.
Mr Holly seemed to take his silence as an admission. ‘Is it drugs? If someone’s threatening you I can help you; that’s my job.’
Steven said nothing. Mr Holly was the last person in the world he would go to for help.
As if reading that thought, the policeman continued, ‘I know I let people down before, but it won’t happen again. If you’re in danger, Steven—’
‘No! I’m
‘Then why leave the money there?’
‘Because it’s
Steven held his breath.
Jonas Holly stood absolutely motionless, arms at his sides. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I have to go home now.’
‘What do you
Steven tried to edge around him and Mr Holly grabbed his arm in an iron grip. ‘
Steven hitched in a breath of shock. The voice was Mr Holly’s, but
He started to shake. Brief seconds ago he’d felt like a man. Now he felt like a man about to die, without refuge or defence, a crab without a shell, scuttling in a bucket and with nothing to protect him from the looming threat that Mr Holly had suddenly become.
Shame burned Steven’s eyes. If Em could see him now – so small and frightened – she would never kiss him again. In the dark, Steven could not see the man’s eyes – only the faint twin glimmers where he knew his eyes to be. He couldn’t even pretend to be brave under that invisible gaze.
‘It’s
‘Why would she do that?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t
‘When did she give it to you?’
Steven’s voice cracked. ‘I have to
‘
Steven was scared but suddenly he was angry too. Angry that Mr Holly had stolen his joy over the kiss. Angry that he’d murdered his wife, when she’d been so kind and pretty and funny. So angry that for one terrible second he lost all sense of self-preservation …
‘The night you killed her.’
The darkness between the two of them became a slow vacuum that sucked the last of the bravado out of Steven, the tears from his eyes, the scream from his lips, the anger from his belly; he felt them all being extracted by the silent black shape before him, leaving him filled only with numb terror.
Right now, if Mr Holly had told him to stay there while he went to fetch a knife to kill him with, Steven would have sat down in the road and waited. Snivelling.
Instead Jonas let go of Steven’s arm.
He took a slow step backwards.
He tilted his head at the escape route down the hill.
‘You can run now,’ he said.
So Steven did.
31
ELIZABETH RICE HAD JUST got out of the shower when her phone rang. It was Reynolds.
‘There’s someone downstairs who wants to talk to the police. I’ve just got out of the shower, so would you mind, Elizabeth?’
Rice was getting pretty sick of those four words.
‘Sure,’ she said tightly.
Her hair was still dripping, so she wrapped it in a towel and piled it on her head, then pulled on a skirt, shirt and low, practical heels and was about to leave her room. Then she thought that there was an outside chance – about 0.5 per cent, but a chance none the less – that the person downstairs might be a handsome young farmer, so she quickly applied mascara and a swipe of lipstick. It was only on her way down the rickety staircase that she remembered the towel. She was about to take it off, but then wondered at her own optimism, when she’d long ago noticed that any phrase containing the words ‘handsome’, ‘young’ and ‘farmer’ was a kind of triple oxymoron, held together only by expectations nurtured by a Mills & Boon adolescence.
Her dimmed mood and wet towel were both vindicated when she saw that the visitor was not even a man
