Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Kieran had begun to think the voice had gone for good.
Two whole days had passed without it – no strange murmurs just as he was falling asleep, no sardonic asides pin-pricking his thoughts. Bliss. Maybe the long hours at his laptop had scrambled his grey matter. Or perhaps this was simply what village life did to people.
He was sitting at the kitchen table, wrestling a clothing website into something presentable for one of Alison’s friends, when the cursor froze. Faint as breath, the voice was there again.
You’ve been sulking.
Kieran’s shoulders tightened. He looked around the empty kitchen. Only Prom, sprawled on the windowsill, twitched an ear.
‘Right,’ Kieran muttered. ‘That’s enough. Either I need more sleep or less coffee.’
Prom opened one eye, as if unimpressed by either suggestion.
The voice said no more, but the air felt different. Faintly humming, as though something unseen had leaned in to listen. Kieran rubbed the back of his neck, trying to shake it off.
Lisa appeared in the doorway a few minutes later, wearing his favourite sweatshirt. The one she’d ‘borrowed’ because she was cold last night. ‘Morning,’ she chirped, far too cheerfully for Kieran’s current mood.
‘Morning,’ he said, staring at the screen as though fonts and layout options might rescue him.
She opened the fridge. ‘You’re out of oat milk,’ she said.
‘Then use normal milk.’
‘You know it upsets my stomach.’
‘Then maybe go buy some,’ he said evenly, knowing full well that oat milk didn’t feature on the shelves of Janette’s shop.
Her head snapped up. ‘You’re in a mood.’
‘I’m working.’
‘You’re always working. It’s boring.’
Kieran closed the laptop with a quiet click. ‘Lisa, we agreed you’d stay a few nights. Don’t you need to get back to work?’ As far as he knew, Lisa still worked as a freelance personal trainer/yoga coach/lifestyle guru.
‘I cancelled my bookings for a month to rediscover our connection, but you’re on another planet most of the time,’ Lisa pouted.
Kieran refrained from pointing out that Lisa inhabited her own planet, where oat milk was a basic human right and everyone else an inconvenient asteroid.
‘You don’t want me here,’ she said flatly, tugging the sleeves of his sweatshirt over her hands.
He hesitated. ‘It’s not that. It’s just—’
‘You’ve met someone,’ she cut in.
‘What? No.’
‘You have.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘The woman from the pub. Beth.’
His stomach tightened at the sound of her name. ‘Lisa, please don’t start.’
‘You’ve always had a type,’ she said bitterly. ‘Quiet, complicated ones who need fixing. You love a project.’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘Neither is you kicking me out because you’ve found someone else to moon over.’
‘Lisa,’ he said again, softer this time. ‘It’s not like that.’
She turned sharply, grabbed her coat from the chair and stormed out. The door slammed hard enough to make Prom jump.
Silence fell, heavy and accusing.
Prom padded across the table and brushed Kieran’s arm with his tail.
‘Don’t you start,’ Kieran said, scratching the cat’s head anyway. Prom purred, low and oddly knowing.
By lunchtime, Kieran had given up pretending to work.
The light rain had eased off, and the cottage walls were closing in.
He pulled on his jacket and headed out. He had no idea where Lisa was – perhaps browsing in Alison’s boutique or sipping coffee at A Bit of Crumpet, where Jo provided a variety of non-dairy milk options.
Cranley village smelled fresh. Kieran inhaled lungfuls of air, keen to eliminate the dampness that still pervaded the cottage.
He waved at Peggy, welcoming an elderly customer at her salon.
Further along, Sam was unloading something from his car, but Kieran scuttled past. He didn’t want conversation: just some headspace free of Lisa’s chatter and the voice that niggled at him.
He passed the boutique and nodded to Alison, who was rearranging a window display of colourful scarves and shiny sandals. She waved, cheerful as ever, but his attention had already shifted.
Beth was walking on the other side of the street. And she wasn’t alone.
A tall man with messy hair and the kind of easy confidence Kieran instantly distrusted was beside her. He was talking animatedly. She was listening, expression guarded, arms folded tight across her chest.
Luke. It had to be.
Kieran had never met him, but he’d heard enough from Beth and others – the estranged husband who’d done a runner to some island on a vague quest of self-discovery. Seeing him now was oddly jarring, as if a character from a story had stepped into the real world.
Beth laughed at something Luke said, though it sounded forced even from across the street.
Kieran’s chest tightened in a way he didn’t want to examine. He told himself to keep walking. He managed a few steps.
Beth reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear. Luke leaned closer: too close.
Something – jealousy, protectiveness, sheer stupidity – flared hot under Kieran’s ribs.
Go on, the voice whispered faintly. Say something.
He froze, looking around, heart thudding. No one was near. Just the sound of a car passing and the giggles of two young women walking in front of him.
‘No,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Not this time.’
He shoved his hands in his pockets and strode off down the lane, ignoring the faint laughter that might have been Luke’s, the voice’s, or both.
The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. Kieran went home, made tea, stared at his laptop until the words on the screen stopped making sense. The voice didn’t return and neither did Lisa, though every now and then Prom would look up sharply, as if hearing something Kieran couldn’t.
He gave up at six, having texted Lisa and received no reply, and wandered into the village. The Jekyll and Hyde glowed warmly through another downpour, golden light spilling onto the wet pavement. He hadn’t planned to go in, but his feet seemed to decide for him.
Inside, the air was thick with the smell of beer and chips and the low hum of conversation. Ed was behind the bar, chatting with a customer, but there was tension beneath his smile. Kieran caught a few words about Ed’s mum not recognising the pub and felt a pang of sympathy.
‘All right, mate?’ Ed asked, pouring a pint.
‘Yeah,’ Kieran said, though he wasn’t sure it was true. ‘Is Beth about?’
‘Downstairs, maybe. Or she might have popped out. Sorry: Mum had an episode earlier, so it’s been a bit stressful.’
Kieran nodded, hesitated, then pushed through the side door that led to the basement.
The air down there was cooler, tinged with the faint metallic tang of old machinery. There was no sign of Beth. A pinball machine sat in the corner, its lights blinking lazily like a half-asleep eye.
He stared at it for a moment. Something about it made his skin prickle – not with fear, exactly, but awareness. As if there was a connection between it and the voice he kept hearing.
‘You’re losing it, mate,’ he murmured.
The machine gave a faint ping.
Kieran jumped. ‘Bloody hell!’ He stepped back, heart hammering, and half-laughed at himself. ‘Right, enough of that.’
When he returned upstairs, Beth wasn’t around. The place had quietened: a few locals lingering over pints, Angela chatting softly with Ed.
Then he heard raised voices from the doorway. Beth’s, and a man’s.
‘Luke, don’t—’
The door slammed. The sound cut through the pub like a gunshot.
Beth came in and stood just inside, pale and breathing hard, her phone clutched tight. Rain glittered on her hair. For a moment, she looked as if she might faint.
Kieran crossed to her without thinking. ‘You all right?’ he asked quietly.
She looked up, startled, as though she hadn’t realised anyone was watching. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, though her voice trembled.
‘You don’t look fine.’
Beth gave a shaky laugh. ‘That obvious?’
‘Only to the observant,’ he said.
Something in her expression softened. The tension in her shoulders eased a fraction.
‘Come on,’ he said gently. ‘Let’s sit down.’
She hesitated, then nodded. He guided her to the corner table furthest from the door and fetched drinks – white wine for her, whisky for him.
‘Thanks,’ she murmured, fingers curling round the glass.
‘You don’t have to talk about it,’ he said, ‘but… If you want to, I’m listening.’
Beth stared into the wine. ‘He says he wants to talk. That he can’t stop thinking about me.’
Kieran’s jaw tightened. ‘Right.’
‘He turned up outside the pub tonight. I thought I was imagining it.’ She gave a helpless little shrug. ‘I don’t know what I’m meant to do.’
‘You don’t owe him anything,’ Kieran said quietly.
‘Maybe not. But it’s hard to unlove someone when you once did.’
He understood that far too well.
They sat in silence for a while, the low murmur of the pub wrapping around them. Rain streaked the windows, and a gust of wind rattled the door.
Beth took a sip of wine, her hand still trembling slightly. ‘Sorry. You probably didn’t come here to play counsellor.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said. ‘I’ve had worse evenings.’
‘Really?’
‘Well, there was that time Prom brought in a dead mouse and dropped it on my keyboard mid-Zoom chat.’
She laughed – properly this time – and some of the colour returned to her face. ‘Thanks,’ she said softly.
Kieran met her eyes and managed a small smile. ‘Anytime.’
He wanted to ask Beth about the pinball machine, but that didn’t seem appropriate right now. And whatever happened with Luke … that was Beth’s decision. Even if the thought of them getting back together hurt.