Chapter Seventy-One
Jane sits back and appraises Daisy across the kitchen table. “He tried to kill you?”
Daisy nods.
“So then you… what, you came home?”
Daisy nods again. She says, “I tried to find Hugo, I really did, but I couldn’t be in those woods anymore, not with Jasper close by, so I walked and walked and walked, for miles it felt like. And then I called Stuart.”
Stuart throws a small look at Jane. “I came and collected her. We drove around for ages looking for Hugo, but when it started to get dark, we came back to London. It was…” His fingers fiddle with the side of his plate.
“It was a tough call. I just hoped, I really hoped, that someone would find him. And bring him home.”
“But why didn’t you tell me that first day? When I brought Hugo back? Why didn’t you say that Daisy was home?”
“Because I didn’t know who the fuck you were. You could have had something to do with Jasper. I don’t know. I just wanted you to go away and leave us to it.”
Jane turns her eyes back to Daisy. “So what happened? Where’s Annie? Did she tell you anything? Where’s Allen? Did you find him? I mean… what is going on? And why are we not calling the police?”
She sees Daisy and Stuart exchange a look. She sees them nod at each other. And then they wordlessly lead her from the kitchen and toward the outhouse.
Jane grips the handle of the knife inside her shoulder bag as she follows the pair out into the garden.
She stands well back from the outhouse and watches, her breath held, as Stuart unlocks the padlock.
Her heart is pumping blood so hard she can hear it pulsing in her ears.
Every muscle in her body is taut, ready for the impact of attack, of violence, and somewhere deep down inside herself, she hears a tiny voice saying, Oh well, you had a good ride. It was fun while it lasted.
But then she thinks about her dogs, her stepchildren, and she shouts down the tiny voice. She stares hard as the door opens, and then she gasps, sharply, audibly, when she sees, slumped on the floor of the terrible room, the tiny, birdlike remains of Annie Black.