Chapter 18
ALEX
There was someone in the room with her when Alex started to wake up again.
Someone murmuring a lullaby. Autumnal sunlight was pouring like liquid gold through the gap in the curtains again and she could clearly hear a woman singing softly though she couldn’t make out the words.
It was a tune she almost remembered but couldn’t place.
The events of last night rushed back to her and she sat up sharply. Too sharply, as it turned out. Pain slammed into the side of her head and her vision swam, the light too bright, the shadows too pronounced. Just for a moment.
A little girl was standing at the foot of the bed, holding a rag doll. Behind her stood a woman with the same long dark hair and blue eyes. Both of them stared back at Alex without saying a word, the woman glaring, the little girl curious, perhaps startled by the sudden awakening.
Alex flopped back down on the pillows and tried to stop her head pounding. When she looked again, only the little girl was still there. The woman, who must have been her mother from their shared features, had vanished.
‘You look sick,’ the child said in a solemn, serious voice. ‘I’ll fetch Granny. She’ll put you right.’
And then she was gone too. Alex could hear her voice ringing out through the hall. She was probably hanging over the bannisters, which had to be dangerous.
What was a child even doing here?
Wildewood Hall was no place for children. Wildewood Hall was no place for anyone.
Alex hauled herself up out of bed and padded to the door of her room. Sure enough, the girl was leaning precariously over the balustrade to call down into the hall below.
‘Hey, get back from there,’ Alex said, suddenly alarmed at what might happen. ‘You’ll fall.’
Startled, the child turned, staring at her. ‘No, I won’t. Not here. Anyway, you were the one who fell, not me.’
‘Maeve!’ Nick Walker’s voice barked from the foot of the stairs. ‘What are you doing up there?’
‘I was watching her to see if she was going to wake up. She woke up. Tell Granny.’
‘Get down here and tell her yourself. You aren’t meant to be up there, young lady, and you know it.’
And while he was clearly trying to be stern and commanding, there was a gentleness to his voice that Alex hadn’t heard before.
No, she had, she realised. She’d heard it last night. When he’d found her.
Chastened, the little girl pulled back from the abyss, and descended the stairs two at a time, hopping from one to the next. At the bottom turn she launched herself into the air and Nick had to dive forward to catch her. Which he did, effortlessly.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, laughing as he spun her to safety.
‘You’re so grumpy today, Daddy. But I’m glad you aren’t beardy anymore.’
Daddy, Alex thought with a groan. Of course. She was the little girl in the photo. Nick set Maeve down carefully and she ran off. Then he looked up at Alex, where she leaned over the bannister to watch them.
And seeing him face-on shocked her. Underneath the once-overgrown facial hair was a face so chiselled and handsome it wouldn’t look out of place on one of the mock Grecian statues in the gardens outside, or in one of those beautiful portraits on the walls. Blaise Chambers had nothing on him.
All she could do was stare.
Something snagged her memory about the painting, something she’d meant to do. Hadn’t she taken it down? One glance over her shoulder told her it was back on the wall. Someone had hung it up again.
Then there was movement below and she turned back, forgetting about the painting again.
Nick made his way up to her in a rather more traditional manner than his daughter had descended. He seemed wary, as if expecting something else dramatic from her.
She didn’t blame him. Nick had found her at the foot of the stairs.
Just like he’d found his dead wife.
‘Should you be up?’ he asked, solicitously enough. ‘How are you feeling? Patricia said not to wake you. I’m sorry, Maeve shouldn’t have been up here.’
‘No, she didn’t wake me. It was the woman singing.’
He gave her a puzzled look. ‘The woman?’
‘Yeah, the woman with Maeve. With the long hair the same c—’ Alex swayed on her feet and, before she knew what was happening, Nick caught her arm, steadying her.
‘Yeah, you definitely shouldn’t be up yet. You could still have a concussion. Let’s get Patricia to give you another look, eh?’
‘Patricia?’ she echoed as Nick tried to steer her back towards the bedroom.
‘Dr Neary. She came up last night when you fell. I called her in. Look, I’ll get her. She’s just down in the kitchen. Won’t be a minute.’
Alex sat down on the edge of the bed, counted fingers, answered questions and admitted that she had a splitting headache but no blurred vision or dizziness.
Nor was she confused. She saw Nick frown when she said that and tried to ignore it.
No doubt he’d say different but she wasn’t sure why.
That wobble on the landing maybe. But that had just been tiredness.
Hadn’t it?
‘Really, I’m fine. I just… I don’t know what happened. I thought… I thought I heard something downstairs but when I went down there was nothing. I was going back up when… there was someone on the stairs. Was it you?’
Nick stared at her and slowly shook his head.
‘Oh.’ She didn’t know what to say to that.
‘I heard you fall and came running – no one else was here.’
‘I thought I saw…’ Alex trailed off. She really didn’t want to say any more.
Patricia glanced at Nick and something passed between them, something Alex wasn’t sure how to interpret.
A spear of a sensation very like fear pushed its way up under her solar plexus, stealing her breath. She must have turned pale and the doctor didn’t miss it.
‘Now, you’re going to need to rest,’ said Patricia.
‘Doctor’s orders, my dear, so no arguing.
A day in bed at least. Maybe two. And then you can ease back into things.
No screens, no internet, none of that. Any relapse and you get Nick to ring me, understand?
I’m away a couple of days but if it’s an emergency I can be back up in no time.
Nick can look after you and Maeve.’ It struck Alex that Dr Neary, Patricia, must also be ‘Granny’.
Alex started to protest, but Patricia glared at her. ‘No arguments.’
Nick’s face was frozen. Had he been about to argue as well? Alex wondered. He glanced at Patricia, who took out her phone and checked her messages, clearly signalling an end to the discussion. Great. Now not only was Alex the enemy, she was his patient as well.
‘All right,’ he said, his voice subdued. ‘But Maeve…’
‘I can’t take her with me, Nick. You know that. And the childminder’s on holidays. I know you were going to stay at mine but… well, it’ll have to be here after all.’
He swallowed hard. Alex watched the column of his throat work, his Adam’s apple clearly visible now he’d shaved.
‘I’d forgotten with all that’s been going on.
Yeah, I promised, didn’t I?’ He didn’t exactly sound delighted about the prospect of time with his daughter all of a sudden and Alex suddenly felt like she was overhearing something intensely private.
‘Yeah,’ he said at last, his tone subdued.
‘I’ll keep her here with me. She’ll be no trouble. ’
Had Alex imagined the emphasis on she, as if Maeve wasn’t the one he was worried about?
But the older woman smiled ruefully. ‘She never is, the pet. And she’s missed you something terrible.’