Chapter 16 #2
I stared at the collapsed roofline. Half the house had given in to entropy.
The ivy-clad roofline now only made up half the silhouette, the other half having broken and tumbled so that the upper rooms were open to the sky and the cottage was surrounded by shattered tiles and broken timber beams. Isobel’s room and the roof above it still seemed to be intact but now lacking the protection of the rest of the building.
‘At least the walls are still standing, so she’s not under a load of rubble.
She must be all right, but look at the state of the place.
It looks like it secretly wants to be a bungalow,’ I said weakly.
‘What it’s going to be is a two-storeyed timber and glass eco house,’ Ross said tersely.
‘Whether it wants to be or not. But you see?’ His expressive face was distorted with a kind of horrified impatience.
‘Isobel needs to leave. The place isn’t safe, and I daren’t go in without a witness, just in case, even if it’s only to drag a body clear of the wreckage. ’
There was a slow pause into which the outstretched branches dripped and the birds cawed ominously. ‘Well, thanks for that image,’ I said briskly.
‘Oh, I’m pretty sure she’s still alive. When I came by early this morning there was a light on at the back there. The roof must have gone in the night. There was quite a bit of wind,’ he added, almost as a question.
I shook my head. I’d gone to sleep with earplugs in because of Don and Tony beginning an all-night We Are Not Your Kind marathon. The combination of silicon plugs and Slipknot had been enough to block out anything less than Ragnarok.
Overhead the birds had settled into a rhythmic call and had begun to flutter into the treetops like huge black flags. The bright streak of a magpie hurtled past, making me jump and put my hands in front of my face in alarm.
‘We’d better go in,’ I said, glancing up at the host of avian threat perching above us. ‘Do you think it’s safe?’
Ross ran his eyes over the cottage. ‘As safe as it can be,’ he said. ‘I reckon everything that was going to come down has done it now and it’s probably sound enough until the next storm comes through.’
I hesitated, but the crowd of birds was blossoming on the trees like dreadful growths as they flew in and settled. Inside definitely looked preferable to outside, so we stepped over the threshold, squeezing through the split door into the hallway, where we were met by Isobel.
Ah, there you are. The birds said you were out there.
She turned and led the way into that cramped room at the back of the house. It didn’t appear to have suffered too badly from the storm that had wrecked the rest of the place, although there was a smear down one wall running from the ceiling to the floor, as though water had got in.
‘Seriously, Isobel,’ Ross said as we went in. ‘You need to get out. This place isn’t structurally sound any more.’
It wasn’t exactly Fort Knox to begin with.
‘Balls,’ Tilly said and the three of us looked at her. ‘Balls!’ she said again and I realised she’d seen the black velvet bag that contained the crow diamonds. ‘Balls please.’
Isobel handed her the bag and the old tray and Tilly tipped the stones out with the most amount of noise possible, while saying, ‘Bump, bump, bump,’ in a worryingly inexact way. The diamonds rattled onto the silver, a thousand dowries bouncing and scattering the light.
‘You really do need to get out of here, Isobel,’ I said gently, over the sound of scattergun counting. ‘Ross needs the house back and it’s truly not a safe place to live.’
Isobel was still for a moment, her eyes going to the window, to the trees beyond, bearing their load of black birds like overripe fruit.
But where could I go?
Clang, clang. ‘Three, four, nine, seven.’
Then Ross sighed. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I could give you the shed until the cabin house is ready. It’s got gas, I can hitch up a solar panel, we already have a water tank for the tea. It won’t be great, but it would do until we can get the little house liveable.’
A moment of scribbling.
That is very kind of you. Can I think about it?
He almost slumped with relief. ‘Of course.’ Then, with a little more animation, ‘The birds will be fine down at that end of the wood and the men will leave you alone.’
Men?
‘My workmen. They use the shed as a sort of HQ at the moment, but we can move that into the transporter units while we’re sorting those out. I can spare a couple of people to get started there while the rest are beginning on this place.’
Isobel’s eyes came up from the paper, rested for a moment on me and then went to Tilly, who was now lying on Brass, thumb in her mouth, rolling the black diamonds around like marbles.
There was a curious expression gathered between Isobel’s greying hair and her silent mouth, something that made me shiver almost as much as the birds beyond the window.
I don’t like men.
A premonition prickled in the air. I had the urge to gather Tilly close to me and whisper, Me neither, but I didn’t.
‘But I’m all right?’ Ross asked eventually, sounding a little bit sheepish.
Isobel shook herself.
Of course you are. You’re not a threat, you are a good man.
She stared at the paper for a moment and then added:
Probably.
Another moment of deep thought and she turned the paper over and wrote:
Please go now. I have to think about what to do. And this place might not be safe for the child.
‘Bit late to worry about that now,’ I muttered, side-eyeing the streaks of damp running down the wall and bundling Tilly up, despite her wails that she was ‘Playing!’ and enforced abandonment of her ‘balls’.
Ross and I found ourselves standing outside the derelict cottage, with a tantrumming toddler and an attitude of confusion.
‘At least she didn’t say no to the shed,’ Ross muttered. ‘Although I must admit that I could have thought of something rather better to call it. Perhaps I should have asked if she’d like to stay in the site office. Shed sounds rather basic, doesn’t it?’
‘It is rather basic though.’ I picked Tilly up and tried to engage her interest in the birds currently wheeling through the tiny window of sky visible between the tree branches above our heads.
‘I know,’ he said sadly. ‘But it’s all I’ve got. We can have the containers made liveable in a couple of weeks but she needs to be out of here before I can do anything.’ He dropped his face into his hands. ‘I’m stuck.’
Tilly stopped yelling and gazed at Ross. ‘Pee bo?’ she asked cautiously.
He opened two fingers and peeped out at her between them. ‘I think pee bo rather sums up how I’m feeling just now, Tilly.’
She giggled with delight and I was just relieved that the tantrum appeared to be over.
I was about to suggest that we head back to our cars, when a noise further into the wood made me startle.
It was a crack, as though a large branch had been trodden on by a considerable weight and it make saliva flood into my mouth and my face became taut, as though my skin wanted to creep away from me and hide.
‘What’s that?’ I spun around, trying to see where the noise had come from. ‘Who’s there?’
Ross put a hand on my arm. ‘It’s probably a deer or a rabbit or something.’
I was backing away, Tilly enveloped in my coat, and a peculiar feeling as though my vision were greying out at the edges beginning to settle over me. ‘It might not be!’ My voice was shrill.
Ross glanced over at the direction the sound had come from, then at my face. ‘Let’s go over here,’ he said, tugging at my sleeve so I had to follow him, back along the mossy path and out towards the road. ‘Now, what’s up, Libby?’
The shock had made me weak. I broke and blurted out everything, about thinking I saw David before the text message had arrived, the way that the dreadful feelings of being followed, being scrutinised had all come flooding back.
My very real fear that he might have found me and be lying in wait to try to snatch his daughter.
My hold on Tilly tightened until she squeaked.
‘You think he might have followed you here?’ Ross was biting the side of a nail again. ‘Why, though? Why not wait until you got to the hostel and confront you there?’
‘I don’t know!’ I almost shouted the words, which increased the cacophony from overhead as the birds seemed annoyed by my tone of voice.
‘I don’t know,’ I repeated. ‘We’re not dealing with someone who thinks the way you and I do, Ross.
David is sick. He’s got some paranoid delusions or something, thoughts that make him convinced that I’m a danger to Tilly or that I’m up to something – I don’t know.
I can’t even guess at his thought processes. ’
‘Do you need to move out?’ The nail got a sturdy scrutinisation. ‘Are you safe at the hostel?’
I sighed and rearranged Tilly onto my other hip. ‘I don’t know. Yes, I think so. We’ve got code-locked doors and nobody will let a random man in. They’ve all got their reasons for being there and none of them are good, so… yes. I think we’re safe.’
‘Safe,’ echoed Tilly, putting her head down on my neck. It reminded me why I was here, why I was doing any of this. To keep her safe. Above the trees the birds whirled like solid smoke, their sour cries echoing down to us like the sounds of linen tearing. I closed my eyes.
‘Okay, just, you know. If you feel threatened or anything, you can come and hide out at my place.’ Ross spoke very quickly. ‘And I’m not saying that because I want to save you or anything, it’s just that… I really like you, Libby, and I don’t think you should be frightened.’
I opened my eyes, and he was looking at me.
It was an earnest look, almost beseeching, and I felt that tightening in my stomach again.
I really did fancy Ross Ventriss – oh dear Lord.
And now he was trying to be kind to me? To cover my confusion I juggled Tilly again, causing her thumb to pop out of her mouth with a dribble of saliva on my collar.