Hannah was opening the oatcakes when her mobile rang in the hallway.
The clock said ten-thirty. Yes! Only Will would ring this late.
She rushed to pick it up. Maybe he was even on his way home. Outside, the donkey brayed again.
Hannah peered into the dark garden, furious with the farmer. The donkey would have to wait for a few minutes. She answered the call.
‘Where the hell are you?’ she barked into the phone.
There was a little laugh, then she heard a female voice with a familiar, faint Jamaican accent. ‘Hannah?’
Hannah’s mouth dropped open.
‘Barbara!’ she said, in a tone so high-pitched it was almost a squeak. ‘Hi! How are you?’
She heard herself adopt what Will called her ‘Barbara voice’ – the one that made him pull faces like the Queen and dance around with flappy hands – whenever she spoke to Barbara on the phone. He was probably right, but she didn’t care. With Barbara, Hannah had one goal: to transmit that all was well. ‘We are calm, unshakable, steady, reliable, collected, patient and pleasant!’ the voice said. ‘We are ready!’
‘Oh, I’m fine. I’m sorry to ring so late, Hannah. I’ve got to be in court tomorrow, and I wanted to catch you about the visit next week. How’s it all going?’ Barbara’s voice was warm and friendly.
‘It’s brilliant, thanks!’ Hannah tried to think how sharp she’d sounded when she’d answered. ‘Sorry about that, by the way. I was just waiting for Will to ring.’
‘Oh, don’t worry. Now listen, I won’t keep you on, but how’s the house?’
‘Oh, it’s fantastic, thanks. We love it,’ Hannah said cheerfully.
The donkey brayed, and she walked into the kitchen to escape it. ‘The space is incredible. And we’ve met a few neighbours – Bill and Dax, and the local farmer – so it’s really friendly. And quiet. And Will’s cousin Laurie – you know, our family-support person – has been over with the kids, so. . .’
Translation: we have created the perfect family setting.
She checked if there was anything she’d forgotten that might tick a box on the list she imagined Barbara carried around with her.
‘Oh . . . so glad. I’m dying to . . . But listen, Hannah. Oh, it’s . . . bad line. Do you . . . a landline yet?’
Hannah froze. The signal was going. She rushed around to find a better one.
‘Sorry, Barbara. No. The engineer’s booked for this week,’ she lied.
Translation: I’m organized, committed, ready.
Then Hannah bit her lip. No, he wasn’t. What if Barbara rang again this week and there was still no landline? What was she getting herself into here?
‘Well, listen, don’t worry. It was two things . . . wanted . . . a detail on Will’s form. Is he there – he’s not stuck . . . in the snow . . . he?’
The signal was going again. Panic erupted in Hannah’s chest. She hadn’t expected to speak to Barbara till next week. Her mind flailed around, trying to form the story Barbara would want to hear, without her having to lie again. If Hannah said Will was stuck in London, what did that say? That Hannah was stranded in Tornley with no food or car? Barbara might question how remote the new house was.
She screwed up her face. ‘Barbara, actually he’s not. I’m sorry. He’s, um, popped over to see Laurie, his cousin, and the kids . . .’
Translation: because he LOVES kids.
‘.
. . in Thurrup. He won’t be back till a bit later. Sorry. Is it important?’
‘Oh, that’s good he’s there. I thought he might be stuck in London in this terrible snow?’
A flush started on Hannah’s neck.
‘No! No, he thought it might be bad . . .’
Translation: Will’s such a responsible, caring husband.
‘.
. . so he decided to work from home this week because of the snow. That’s the great thing about being self-employed: he can do some stuff from here on the laptop, so no. It’s all fine.’
There was a pause. ‘Oh, OK, well, that’s great, Hannah – so . . . got Internet? So if I . . . to email you something?’
Hannah grabbed her hair and squeezed it. Idiot! There’d be no Internet without a landline.
‘Um, no. No. He’s just working on his laptop. Without the Internet. So, I’m . . .’
Shut up before you say something even more stupid!
‘Listen, Hannah, you’re breaking . . . bit. Don’t worry. I just . . . on . . . form. I’ll text him. Could you just . . . Will to text . . .’
‘Yes, of course,’ Hannah squeaked, not trusting herself to say any more. The donkey brayed and she shut the kitchen door.
Barbara cut out, then returned.
‘. . . other thing, I’ll . . . come on Thursday next week now, not Friday. Staff training’s . . . moved . . . OK for you . . . Will? Otherwise we’ll have to . . . at another day and . . .’
No!
Hannah leant her forehead against the lumpy white wall. A whole day gone out of her decorating schedule. One day less to find someone to fix the boiler, too.
‘Sure,’ she forced herself to say. ‘That’ll be fine.’
‘Great!’ Barbara’s voice became more distorted. Then, in the middle of it, Hannah heard three words. ‘Hopefully, might . . . news.’
She drew breath. ‘Sorry, what was that, Barbara?’
There was a crackling, a groan, then silence.
‘No!’ Hannah shouted.
She rang Barbara straight back and went straight to voicemail. She tried once more, then stopped. More than two missed messages on Barbara’s phone at this time of night might look strange.
Desperate.
Then Hannah went cold – what if Barbara had given up on Hannah’s crap phone signal and was, right this minute, ringing Will?
WILL! URGENT – DO NOT ANSWER PHONE TILL U SPEAK 2 ME!!!
She tapped the message frantically into her phone and searched the house for a signal strong enough to send it.
Hopefully, might . . . news.
What did that mean? Was this it?
And now she’d told Barbara a stupid lie. Why?
The donkey was braying repeatedly outside again, as it had been on Monday night.
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ Hannah grabbed her coat, lowered her head into the snow and strode towards the field.
Idiot!
She’d lied to Barbara for no good reason. If Barbara found out, it could ruin everything.
The donkey was once again standing miserably in its pathetic shelter. Hannah remembered the farmer’s aggressive behaviour in the field earlier today and checked that no one was around before she led it away.
Quickly she took it back to the garage, realizing she’d run out of carrots.
‘Hang on.’
She went to the main lawn and reached with her bare hands into the freezing snow, cursing Farmer Nasty, till she found two handfuls of stubby winter grass and ripped it out by the roots. Why was Will not answering his bloody phone? She must have left six messages this week that he hadn’t replied to.
As Hannah stood up, a tall shape loomed behind her.
‘Oh!’ she gasped, spinning around.
It was a tall pillar, around four-foot high.
She stood back. What the hell was that?
At first she thought it was a small tree or rogue gatepost covered in snow, yet as she shone the torch up and down, she saw that it was smooth. Even odder, at the bottom of the pillar were two mounds.
Hannah stood back. It was so smooth it looked handmade. Could snow fall in this way? She searched the darkness.
Nothing moved.
She shone the torch, again right from the bottom to the top.
Then she saw a ridge. A thick line circling the pillar, about six inches from the top. Snow bulged above it. The flat top itself, she now realized, was slightly curved. Lying across it was a black twig. It looked as if it had been carefully placed. Almost like a . . .
Hannah stepped back with the torch and surveyed the whole shape. From the round balls at the bottom to the tip of what she now saw might be not be a pillar, but a shaft.
‘Oh, my God!’ She half-laughed, bewildered. ‘You are not serious?’ she shouted towards Farmer Nasty’s field.
WILL! URGENT – DO NOT ANSWER PHONE TILL U SPEAK 2 ME!!!
Will sat at the top of the snow-covered stairs up to Clare’s second-floor flat, reading Hannah’s message. A light was on inside the flat.
He hadn’t yet decided whether to go inside.
His walk, earlier, had taken him through the snow blizzard from their old flat back to the King’s Head. The pull of a pint had proved too strong. He’d added in a whisky chaser for the cold. There had been no one there this afternoon, so he’d dried off by the fire and read a paper, chatted to the barman for a while, made a phone call to the record company about Jeremiah, eaten and watched the news on the pub’s television. He’d meant to have one pint. Somehow it had crept up to six again. Or seven, maybe. He wasn’t sure.
He hadn’t even meant to come back to Clare’s. He’d just walked back out into the freezing cold and realized that, despite sitting by the fire, his jeans and coat were still slightly damp and he wanted to go somewhere warm. Somewhere comfortable and easy.
And then Hannah’s text message had arrived and he’d sat down, not caring that the step was wet.
URGENT
.
He didn’t want to speak to her. He didn’t want to speak to her, because he didn’t know what he wanted to say. It looked as if something had happened, though. Something bad.
Drunkenly he fumbled her mobile number.
‘What’s up?’ he said, when she answered.
‘Oh, thank God. Is that you? Hang on,’ Hannah replied. The line was bad again. He heard a door open, then a crunching sound. ‘I’m just walking down to the end of the lane to see if I can get a better signal.’
That new hyper-tone that he couldn’t stand was in her voice again. He had to stop himself ending the call. There were more footsteps.
‘Can you hear me better?’ she said, after a second.
‘A bit. What’s up?’
She hesitated. ‘You sound pissed. You’re slurring.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Yes, you are. Has Barbara rung?’
From the balcony, Will watched the distant lights of central London. Days without speaking properly, and the first thing Hannah wanted to talk about was Barbara.
‘No,’ he said wearily.
He heard her breathing deepen as she walked down the lane.
‘Well, listen to me – it’s important, if she does ring, you’ve got to lie.’
‘About what?’
More crunching.
‘Can you hear me better now? I’m in the lane heading towards the village – in case I’m never seen again.’ She laughed, but he didn’t want to join in.
‘It’s OK.’
‘Right, listen,’ she continued. ‘I’ve cocked up. She just rang, and I said that you were over at Laurie’s – in Thurrup.’
This new lack of integrity in Hannah’s words itched at him like a rough wool jumper on skin. ‘Why? What was the point in saying that?’
The signal went again. Crackling. Hannah reappeared. ‘Lost you there – what?’
When had she become so small-minded? He felt a pang of loss for the Hannah who had been passionate about exposing the truth. Whose world used to be big and bold, and who used to race across it.
‘Why did you tell her that, Han?’
‘Because I didn’t want her to think that you were stuck in London.’
‘I am stuck in London.’
‘I know – but I don’t want her to think that we’ve moved somewhere really cut-off, and that I couldn’t get food or to the hospital if we had an emergency.’
He clenched his fist and put it behind his head, to stop himself punching the wall. ‘Han, half the fucking country’s cut-off. Barbara’s probably cut-off. You’ve got to stop this.’
‘Stop what?’
His words flew. He couldn’t stop them. ‘Trying to make out to her that we’re something we’re not. She likes us. She approved us. But she’s not stupid. Start lying to her, and she’s going to think there’s something wrong with you.’
‘Oh, shut up, Will,’ she retorted. ‘That’s so naive. And annoying. One of the reasons she rang was because you messed up on some bloody form. What does that say about us? “They’re a bit unreliable. Maybe they don’t want to do this enough.” And I don’t need you to shout at me – I know it was stupid. But I’ve done it now, so you’ve got to turn your phone off in case she rings.’
What he wanted to do was throw his phone off the fucking balcony. Instead he bit back his anger. ‘I won’t answer it.’
‘No! You’ve got to turn it off. If her phone connects with your phone, she might find out that your signal is coming from London.’
He laughed in disbelief. ‘How exactly would she do that?’
‘I don’t know. People can track phone signals.’
‘Who can?’
‘Just people.’
‘Maybe if they’re in fucking MI6. Han!’
‘You don’t know,’ she pleaded. ‘Please. Just do it. For me.’
He held his phone four inches from the wall, imagining smashing it.
‘When are you coming back?’ she asked after a second. He heard her trying to get a grip, to sound more reasonable, to get what she wanted from him again. ‘You know there’s hardly any food or any heating? And Barbara’s coming on Thursday now, so can you tell Laurie; and I’ll need help with the decorating – oh, and she says she might have news.’
He leant against the wall unsteadily. ‘What news?’
‘I don’t know. She just said “news”.’
He sighed. This was going to send Hannah over the edge.
‘Well, it’s probably nothing.’
‘WILL!’ The attempt to sound reasonable was short-lived. ‘She said NEWS. So please, just do what I’m asking – I need you to get back and help me sort out the boiler and the painting, and to cut the garden and—’
He couldn’t deal with this.
A helicopter droned loudly into the sky. Will thought his head would explode. He didn’t mean to do it, but he cut across her. ‘No.’
A pause.
‘No, what?’ she asked. ‘What are you talking about? I’m doing everything by myself here, and you’re swanning round getting pissed, by the sound of it. Which is good, because that always works well for you, doesn’t it, Will?’
Sirens appeared on the road below. Will walked to the railing and watched police and ambulances driving slowly along the snowy road, lights flashing. The helicopter followed them.