'Will you be ... ?' I couldn't finish the question.
'Please. He'd never hurt you.'
My eyes were accustomed to the lack of light and now I could see his, the pupils as large as they could be, full of suppressed fear and pleading with me to do as he asked. I stood up and felt the damp as my knees left the carpet. I held down a sob so as not to panic him. As I turned back, my eyes moved over the window. One of the panes was broken and icy air was rushing through it. And then I saw them, the footprints in the snow, only just visible, leading to the wood.
My mobile had no signal so I had to use the landline downstairs. I called an ambulance in a state of unreality, everything seeming to float around me, the calm voice at the other end of the line, the furniture, the floor. The operator confirmed that an ambulance would be sent at once but the snow was making the roads very difficult to pass, especially as far out as we were. I begged her to do everything she could, hoping against hope that there was something.
I don't remember leaving the house or how I got down the terrace steps. What I will never forget is how long it took to cross the lawn, which seemed to stretch even as I ran, following the traces of Lucas's weaving footsteps, in time to the beat in my ears. The snow whipped into my face and the air took my breath away but my inhaler was in the car. I tried to think about what I might find in the wood. For a second I wondered whether Danny would be with him then realised there was only one set of prints. Was it Lucas who had the gun? Was that what Greg had meant about him not hurting me? I was afraid for myself then, for just a moment. I had never told Greg about Lucas's attack on me; he was wrong to think he would never hurt me. If he was wild with grief, he didn't have control.
But these thoughts were crowded out of my head by images of Greg in pain, lying alone on the top floor, still bleeding. I realised I hadn't even switched on the light: he was there in darkness, on his own in that terrible house. When I reached the edge of the wood, a violent spasm went across my stomach. Vomit rose in my throat and I was sick until there was nothing left to come up. I dry-heaved then, feeling the muscle contracting. Fear swept over me again and the fresh sweat on my forehead seemed suddenly to freeze but I knew I had to go in.
I stumbled over and over again as I picked my way through the undergrowth. I took off my shoes and ran in my stockinged feet, hardly feeling the brambles and fallen branches as they cut me. Although it had been dark in the house, outside it was still dusk and the bare branches overhead allowed the little light there was to reach down to ground-level. The branches clattered in the wind but the sound was only background noise to the pulse of the place, the pounding of my heart and my laboured breathing.
Just before I reached the clearing I stopped. If Lucas was going to be anywhere, he would be here. I stumbled forward and quickly scanned round. I couldn't see him. 'Lucas!' I startled a rook. It flew out in front of me with a great beating of wings. I screamed at the shock of it.
The river slipped darkly past, its surface broken by the wind, black as the Styx. I stepped towards it. At the edges, where the water pooled, there was ice.
Then I saw him. Caught in a bank of reeds a couple of metres away, face down, with ice in his hair.
As I ran back my mind separated itself from my body and I could observe myself from the outside. I was on automatic pilot, running, stumbling blindly, falling in the snow. I had dropped my shoes somewhere in the wood and I could hardly feel my feet now. My hands were numb, too, from the freezing water. I had tried to pull Lucas on to the bank but he was waterlogged and too heavy. I had had no choice but to leave him where he was. At least I hadn't been able to see his face, reproaching me for leaving him there in the clearing as the night shut down around him.
I wasn't sure how long I had been gone from Greg; perhaps twenty minutes, perhaps longer. It seemed like hours. The house loomed in front of me, light now spilling from almost every window. It looked like an ocean-going liner alone on an empty sea. I didn't want to think what the atmosphere inside would be. I imagined laughter echoing around the hall, high and shrieking like the call of carrion eaters. A celebration, like Lucas's party but in negative, with Patrick and the house marking their victory over him, their enemy's son brought down at last.
There was no ambulance waiting on the drive, no safe blue light to herald the intervention of the real world into this waking nightmare.
The front door was still open. I ran in and across the hall to the bottom of the stairs. Numb as my feet were, I could feel the rubble of the ceiling under them and I skidded on it, sending it spinning across the floor. It was as cold inside as out; any heat there may have been had fled through the door's yawning maw.
When I reached the study I turned on the light. Greg was in the same position but what I hadn't seen in the gloom before was the carpet. Spreading out from the lower part of his body was a bloodstain about a foot and a half across. Even from the door I could see that the carpet was not merely covered but soaked with it. I closed my eyes to help suppress the gasp that rose in my throat.
I knelt beside him again. His eyes were closed and he hadn't moved in response to my return. A terrible fear gripped me. I put my hand on his shoulder and softly called his name.
His eyelids flickered and then opened. A small smile came to his lips. 'Hello,' he said.
'I called the ambulance. It's coming.'
He moved his head slightly. 'Lucas.'
I hesitated. The words seemed too monumental to speak normally. 'Lucas is dead.' Finally the tears started, flooding down my cheeks, the heat of them magnified by the coldness of my skin. The pressure was building in my chest. I wanted to howl with the misery of it, Lucas's body in that black, icy water and Greg here, bleeding and bleeding, barely even conscious any more.
His eyes were closed again and I couldn't tell whether it was because he was struggling to take in the news or because he was slipping back. I took the hand that wasn't trapped under his body. It was cold as a stone. How long had he been lying here before I came, the air rushing in through the broken window? His coat was some protection but not nearly enough. I saw that he was shivering. 'You're so cold, darling,' I said. 'I need to get you warm again.'
'Don't go now,' he said, his eyes opening wide again.
'I'll only be a second.' I bent down so that my face was next to his on the carpet and kissed him very gently. His lips, too, were freezing. I stood up and ran to the front of the house, praying that, although I hadn't heard it, the ambulance would be pulling up, help coming. The drive was empty except for our cars, even now being covered by the snow. The wind was making a drift over the front-wheel arch of Greg's, swallowing it.
The sheets on my old bed wouldn't be enough to keep him warm; I ran down the landing to Lucas's room, gathered up his duvet and ran back as fast as I could. I dragged over one of the armchairs and sat down on the carpet in front of it. I couldn't move him for fear of causing him more pain or making the bleeding worse but I lifted his head so that it rested on my thighs and so that I could see his beautiful face. The move, although very slight, caused pain to rip through him and he took a ragged in-breath. 'You're OK,' I said. 'You're OK now.'
'The ambulance?'
'It's coming, sweetheart. It's coming.' I smoothed the hair back from his head and the stroking seemed to soothe him. He closed his eyes. 'Don't go to sleep, Greg. I need you to talk to me. Don't leave me here on my own in the dark. You need to keep me company until the ambulance comes.'
'I'm not sleeping,' he said, the sound low in his throat. I could feel the effort it was taking for him to talk.
'Tell me what happened. I need to know.'
'Lucas rang me. As I was coming up the motorway. He was crying.' He coughed and winced again. 'He said Danny was going mad and I had to come here. I nearly didn't but he sounded so scared, Jo.'
'When I got here, I heard shouting, terrible shouting, so I ran up here as fast as I could. Danny had a gun.'
'Danny? He was here?'
'Yes.' With huge effort he lifted his arm and reached for my hand. Usually it was my hands that needed warming; over the last couple of months I had made a nuisance of myself sliding them under his jumper and warming them on his skin. He'd pretended to hate it and we'd had play fights that almost always ended in bed. I squeezed his fingers now and rubbed them with mine, trying to keep the circulation going in them.
'I thought Danny was threatening Lucas. I tried talking to him but he handed the gun to Lucas.'
'What?'
'It was a set-up, Jo. They got me here so that Lucas could kill me.' His eyes looked up at me, wide and full of anguish. I wondered whether the excessive blood loss was making him delusional.
'I don't understand.'
'Danny wanted Lucas to kill me. He was talking to him all the time, trying to poison him. He said that I had stolen you and that the only way for him to get you back was to kill me. While 1 was alive, you would never go back to him.'
'And Lucas was listening to him? He did this?'
'He was lost. You shouldn't blame him for what he did. He'd been pushed too far. Danny was inside his head.'
'Lucas shot you.'
'But he lost his nerve. Danny was goading and goading. In the end, Lucas pulled the trigger. But he didn't aim for my chest. At first I didn't feel anything. I fell over. I know it's pretty bad. Will you look?'
Without changing position, I reached out my free hand and gently folded back the duvet and then the material of the coat where the wound was. I felt my gorge rising. All of his right hip and the top part of his leg was a mass of blood and torn flesh, the fabric of the suit I had watched him put on earlier that day now mingled with scraps of his skin and muscle and clots of congealing blood. My tears started flowing again.
'How do I look?' he asked. 'Do you still fancy me?'
'I will always fancy you. I love you. I love you so much.' 'I love you,' he said. 'Don't forget. Ever.'
'I won't be able to forget. You'll be around to show me.'
'Do you think the ambulance is coming, Jo?' he said, closing his eyes again.
'Greg, don't sleep. You need to tell me what happened next. Come on.' I shook his shoulder a little and felt guilty as the movement travelled down his body and hurt him. His eyes opened again. 'What happened, after Lucas shot you?'
He looked dazed for a moment, as if I were speaking to him from a place very far away. Then he seemed to focus again. 'He turned on Danny. Like he'd suddenly woken up and realised. Danny didn't give up, though. He went on and on. He said we'd been sleeping together behind Lucas's back for months. I'd made him look like a fool and he should be a man and finish the job.'
'But why?'
'Because he wanted Lucas. He needed him. He wanted you out of the picture. While you and Lucas were still friends, Lucas wouldn't be his. If Lucas killed me, your friendship would be over for ever.' He tried to move, to make himself more comfortable, but the pain was too great.
The words swam in my head and wouldn't settle. And yet it made awful sense.
'But Lucas couldn't shoot me again. He was crying and sobbing, saying sorry over and over again. And Danny was going on and on and on. But then he said to him, "What's the matter, Lucas? Why can't you kill him? He stole Joanna, just like Patrick stole your mother. Aren't you your father's son?"'
'Oh God.'
'Lucas lost it. He turned the gun on Danny. He told him to get out of the house and never come back. If he did, he would shoot him. He meant it. Danny ran, Jo.' The effort of talking had tired him and he closed his eyes again. 'Lucas said sorry,' said Greg so quietly that I had to bend my ear closer to hear him. 'He said sorry.'
My tears were dripping off my face and on to his but they didn't make him open his eyes now or reach up to sweep them away or touch me. His features were settling. 'Greg. Greg. Wake up.'
'Can you hear the ambulance, Jo?' he asked. 'Can you hear it?'
For a mad, wonderful moment, I thought that he had heard it and I strained my ears for the sounds of a vehicle, for a motor or doors slamming or quick feet on the staircase. There was nothing. Nothing at all. And then I realised that something had changed. The wind had dropped almost to nothing and besides that the beating in my head, the horrible pounding rhythm that had accompanied me so often at the house, had ceased. There was complete quiet. The drums in my ears had fallen silent at last. Their absence was so profound it was almost a sound in itself. Even at the very beginning of our year, the house had seemed fraught, at times so overwrought that it had been almost impossible to breathe the air. And as I had come to know it, I had understood that that atmosphere was malicious, intending harm and revelling in every hurt that it brewed within its walls. Now it felt only empty.
As the silence wove around us, I thought about who I could call and I realised I was alone. The group was finished for ever. That many-headed entity that had absorbed us, protected us, entertained us, made us feel a part of something larger than ourselves, and finally threatened to destroy us, was slain. Martha was away. Rachel, of course, was lost to me for ever. Michael, too, had barely been in contact since the party, his time swallowed by long hours at the bank and his relationship. Danny was gone; I hoped I never found out where. And Lucas was dead.
I looked down at Greg as he lay in my arms. It was just us now. In the harsh light from the bulb overhead, his skin was pale and, when I touched my fingers against his cheek, it was too cold. I reached round for a cushion from the chair and, lifting his head as gently as possible, I put the pillow beneath it and moved my legs away so that I could stand. The discomfort registered on his face but he said nothing. Careful not to put any pressure on his wound, I tucked the duvet in around him, moving his arms so that they were covered. I drew the curtains and switched on the desk lamp; its mellow light made the room feel warmer immediately. The fireplace had been used over the winter: there was ash in the grate and a small amount of coal and kindling in the scuttle. Using the poker, I swept back the ashes and set a fire. It took at once and the sound was like another life in the room, a positive presence. It would be enough to last us, I hoped, until the ambulance finally got through.