Syd Moore
The Drowning Pool

Dedication

For my boys Sean and Riley. And for Liz, undoubtedly causing havoc in the heavens.

I am hugely indebted to Kate Bradley, without whom The Drowning Pool would have never seen the light of day. I would also like to add to the long list of people I owe thank yous: Keshini Naidoo and the incredible team at Avon; Father Kenneth Havey, for his advice on the Robert Eden extracts; Cherry Sandover, for her introduction; Ian Platts for his; Clair Johnston for her research into Sarah Moore; Simon Fowler for his excellent photography; Harriett Gilbert, Jonathan Myerson and my tutors on the Masters in Creative Writing at City University, and the esteemed writing group that developed from it; Steph Roche for her unstinting support and late night chats; my friends and family, especially my dad for ensuring I always strive to do better and my mum, for keeping the faith.

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Extract from White’s Directory of Essex 1848

George Gifford, A Dialogue Concerning Witches and Witchcraftes 1593

Chapter One

The night it happened Rob, a friend of Sharon’s, was…

Chapter Two

That June was one of the hottest we’d had for…

Chapter Three

Looking back, all the signs were there. Human beings have…

Chapter Four

When I woke I was moody and morose. Though I…

Chapter Five

My computer screen flicked on. I fingered the scrap of…

Chapter Six

It’s difficult in retrospect to try and describe how I…

Chapter Seven

As it was, on the Thursday, nothing happened. I psyched…

Chapter Eight

The storm was on everyone’s lips that day. When I…

Chapter Nine

The conversation with Marie had been pretty sobering. Inside it…

Chapter Ten

I’d forgotten that this weekend was the annual Leigh folk…

Chapter Eleven

The Old Town was packed. Sunday was the less traditional…

Chapter Twelve

The holidays stretched before me like a lazy cat. Although…

Chapter Thirteen

The Records Office was an odd-looking modernist structure set in…

Chapter Fourteen

The other day I found the book I had been…

Chapter Fifteen

Sharon’s untimely collapse that night proved fortunate, at least for…

Chapter Sixteen

My head was beginning to ache as I put down…

Chapter Seventeen

I was woken at ten by a text from Martha.

Chapter Eighteen

I arrived in good time for my appointment, hoping to…

Chapter Nineteen

When I got home I was knackered but there was…

Chapter Twenty

The view over the town square was awe inspiring. Andrew…

Chapter Twenty-One

Tobias Fitch was propped up on his bed. The stroke…

Chapter Twenty-Two

We said our thank yous to Claudia and Laurens, refusing…

Chapter Twenty-Three

It was only later, when we sat back at the…

Chapter Twenty-Four

I suppose the first thing that alerted me to the…

Chapter Twenty-Five

Puzzles have never been my strong point. Even when I…

A Note to the Reader

Read On

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Extract from White’s Directory of Essex 1848

LEIGH, a small ancient town, port, and fishing station, with a custom house and coast-guard, is mostly situated at the foot of a woody acclivity, on the north shore of Hadleigh Bay, or Leigh Roads, opposite the east point of Canvey Island, in the estuary of the busy Thames, 4 miles West of Southend, 5 miles South West of Rochford, and 39 miles East of London. The houses extended along the beach are generally small, but there are several neat mansions, with sylvan pleasure grounds, on the acclivity, which rises to considerable height, and affords, from various stations, extensive prospects of the Thames, and the numerous vessels constantly flitting to and fro upon its expansive bosom. The trade consists chiefly in the shrimp, oyster, and winkle fishery … Besides great quantities of oysters in the season, nearly a thousand gallons of shrimps are sent weekly to London. The boundary stone, marking the extent of the jurisdiction of the Lord Mayor of London, as a conservator of the Thames, is about 1½ mile east of Leigh, on a stone bank, a little below high water mark, and it is annually visited in form by the Corporation. Lady Olivia Bernard Sparrow is lady of the manor of Leigh, or Lee, which was held by Ralph Peverall at the Domesday Survey, and afterwards by the Rochford, Bohon, Boteler, Bullen, Rich, and Bernard families. Three copious springs supply the inhabitants with pure water, and the parish contains 1271 inhabitants, and 2331 acres of land, including a long narrow island, called Leigh Marsh, between which and Canvey Island, are the oyster layings. A fair for pedlery etc., is held in the town on the second Tuesday in May.

The Church (St. Clement) is a large ancient structure, near the crown of the hill, and has a lofty ivy-mantled tower, containing five bells. It has a nave, aisles, and chancel, in the perpendicular style, and the latter is embellished with two painted windows, carved oak stalls etc., and contains several handsome monuments. The nave is neatly fitted up, and has a good organ, given by the present incumbent. The rectory … is in the patronage of the Bishop of London, and incumbency of the Rev. Robert Eden, who is also rural dean, and has erected a handsome Rectory House in the Elizabethan style. The tithes were commuted in 1847. The Wesleyans have a chapel here, and in the town is a large Free School, attended by about 170 children, and supported by Lady O.B. Sparrow, who established it about 16 years ago, for the gratuitous education of children of this parish and Hadleigh, in accordance with the principles of the Church of England.

George Gifford, A Dialogue Concerning Witches and Witchcraftes 1593

‘Truly we dwell in a bad countrey, I think even the worst in England … These witches, these evill favoured old witches doe trouble me … they lame men and kill their cattle, yea they destroy both men and children. They say there is scarce any towne or village in all this shire, but there is one or two witches at the least in it.’

Chapter One

The night it happened Rob, a friend of Sharon’s, was down by the railway tracks walking his dog. He said the lights and the shrieking freaked the terrier and started it barking. I don’t remember hearing it. But he heard us. ‘You were making enough noise,’ Rob said, ‘to wake the dead.’

Which is kind of funny as that was exactly what we were doing.

Though, to be honest, we were so hammered none of us noticed the mist or a slip of shadow darting between us. We just wanted to carry on boozing. I used to think if they ever made a film of my life, that’s what they’d call it. Though obviously now it’d have a very different title. Drag Me to Hell could be a contender.

Just shows you how much has changed.

Sitting here by the window, the chill kiss of autumn is on my cheek. Watching the dried lemon sunlight slanting across the room, summer feels like another world away. It’s pretty difficult to get my head round what happened. But that’s where this comes in: getting it out of my brain and onto paper, where it can be nicely controlled, explained and edited. To make sense of it before it dissipates and I forget it altogether. That’s what they told me would happen.

Yet the making sense of it irks me so. Can one actually make sense of the senseless? Certain things happened because of bad luck, plain and simple: wrong person, wrong time, wrong confidence, misplaced trust. Call it chaos theory, the butterfly effect, or my personal favourite the shit happens model. You can’t explain it because, from time to time, bad things happen just because they do.

I guess quite a lot of it comes under that heading.

But then there are those other experiences that can’t be categorized or rationalized either. Yes, shit happens but weird stuff does too. Good weird stuff. Coincidences or what Jung called synchronicities – two or more events seemingly unrelated that happen together in a meaningful manner. I know that happens. Doesn’t mean it’s easy to make sense of though. You’ll see what I mean.

‘You’ll forget’. That’s what they said. Makes me laugh. As if I’d ever forget this. Sure, there’s a massive part I want to blot out as quickly as possible. Believe me, I’ve got stuff up here that would scare the crap out of the general population. But there’s another part I want to keep. A part that’s so jaw-droppingly amazing that it blows your mind if you think it through.

Not that I can yet. Not being so close to it. I have to protect what’s left of my sanity (and many would say that was debatable before all this happened). So I’ll be getting through it bit by bit. Jotting it down. Before it goes.

I’m rambling.

Come on, Sarah. Get straight. Start at the beginning.

Put it all in. Who was there?

I think there were four of us:

First there’s Martha. She’s lovely. A highly skilled landscape gardener. Mum of two, partial to Spanish reds and the odd recreational drug. Big house, nice husband. Fairly content but misses the rave scene.

Then Corinne, who I met in the park – my Alfie was playing with her Ewan. We started chatting and that was the beginning of some serious binge drinking that commenced with the chilli vodka she’d brought back from Moscow, went on to red wine and never really stopped.

Corinne is some kind of hot-shot in local government. The Grace Kelly of our circle. She brings to parochial politics what the American movie star conferred on pug-faced Prince Rainier: glamour, darling. Corinne is blessed with unspeakably good taste in clothes, a sleek platinum bob, supermodel looks and the drinking capacity of a Millwall fan. Lucky cow. That evening she had managed to palm off her boys, Ewan and Jack, on her renegade husband and was well up for enjoying a rare moment of liberty. I think it was she who suggested the castle. She was desperate for a session.

So was the only childfree one of us, Ms Sharon Casey. She and Corinne had been friends for decades. Sharon did something that earned her a lot of dough in the city though I was never sure what. Corinne hinted it was to do with telecommunications but was hazy on the details. I think it involved deals, hospitality and a great deal of stress. That night Sharon had become newly single. I think she’d been dumped though she never said specifically; you could tell something was up. She was on a mission.

And that was it, I think. Oh, apart from me. My name is Sarah Grey, and that is a very important part of the puzzle.

It had started with a quiet drink in the local pub. Third round down and we were getting lairy. Sharon, drunk as a skunk when she turned up, waltzed past our table wearing a massive ‘birthday girl’ medallion. It wasn’t her birthday. Corinne reckoned the staff were giving our table some filthy looks, but for a while we just carried on. We were enjoying ourselves.

Back then, I got so much pleasure from the fuzzy softening that inebriation brought. We all did. It really bugged me when people started going off about it being a prop or insinuating you were running away from things. Of course we were. Life was hard. Being a mother was hard. Being a widow was harder. In the constant juggle of life, work and family, was it too much to ask for a couple of hours of solace and fun? That’s what the wine fairy was bringing that night and to be honest, none of us gave a toss about what the bar staff thought. It was a pub for God’s sake.

It was only when Sharon knocked into a couple of regulars and smashed a glass that we finally did the sensible thing – slurred out some abuse loudly, hit the toilets, grabbed aforesaid sloshed mate and left.

Outside the air felt balmy and there was a buzz on the Broadway. Groups of women were roaming the street in short dresses and sandals. A lot of the older guys were wearing light-coloured linens. A bunch of EMO kids hanging out by the library gardens had thrown off their black hoodies and were larking about on the benches. It was one of those early summer evenings that nobody wanted to end.

So we’re standing there and one of us, I can’t remember who (oh God, has it started?). It was probably Corinne, she’s the organized one. Yes, Corinne suggested we get some bottles from the offy and walk up to the castle. It’s not the kind of thing we would usually do, but like I said, there was something in the air. The sun hadn’t yet sunk beyond Hadleigh Downs so there was still enough natural light to navigate the footpath.

I made a slight detour to my house, which was on the way, and grabbed a blanket while the others bought wine and plastic cups. Within forty-five minutes we were sat on the bushy grass in the shadow of Hadleigh Castle. Well, I use the term ‘castle’ but that’s an exaggeration. It’s been around since the thirteenth century but it’s little more than a ruin: one and a half towers and an assortment of old stones.

As dusk ebbed into night I could just make out, to my left, the tiny white specks of boarded fishermen’s cottages that speckled the dark slopes of Leigh, from the jagged tooth tower of St Clements church at the crest of the hill down to the cockle sheds on the waterfront. Scores of miniature boats nestled in the cradle of the bay.

Around us the hawthorns of Hadleigh whispered in the breeze, like softly crashing waves.

Corinne suggested we build a fire. Her husband, Pat, is into that survival rubbish and she gets dragged out to wooded places in the rain. Pat thinks it’s character building for the boys but he can’t deal with them on his own, so he bribes Corinne to accompany them with vouchers for The Sanctuary. Consequently, she has deliciously smooth skin and a talent for coaxing fire out of the most stubborn wood fragments and twigs.

As the last of twilight disappeared she did herself proud, which was perfect timing because the moon was on the rise now and the air had chilled. There were no clouds and, away from the fug of orange streetlights, out there on the hunchbacked hill, the icy light of the summer constellations was clear and bright. Moon-shadows were everywhere.

The tide had come in around the marsh of Two Tree Island and the gentle ‘ting ting’ of moored boats drifted up to us from Benfleet Creek. Across the estuary the pinprick lights of North Kent villages blinked like hundreds of tiny nervous eyes.

I remember Sharon saying how much she loved the view. Apart from the industrial plant on Canvey Island. ‘That’s a bloody eyesore,’ she said.

Martha threw a fag butt into the fire and said, ‘I like it. It’s a contrast. Industry versus Romance.’

‘It’s ugly,’ Sharon answered. ‘This place is a Constable painting. Then you see that. It’s horrid.’

People always got this wrong. True, Constable captured the castle in oils. I saw a sketch of it at the Tate. But it wasn’t one of his romantic idylls. Painted after his wife’s death, he had picked out browns the colour of crumbling leaves, livid raven blacks, dismal ash greys. The castle, a skeletal ruin, was desolate and alone. And the sky was strange. If you looked at it closely you could see Constable’s brushstrokes were all over the place. The air was turbulent, full of dark storm clouds pregnant with terrible power.

Like something was in them. Waiting to come through.

I sensed that when I first saw the picture and I just know Constable felt it too.

Back then, in the 1820s, she would have been young and beautiful. She used to wander there often to escape the town. Maybe they met. Perhaps her story moved, horrified him?

So Sharon blah blahs about the rural prettiness being scarred and Martha’s on about nature versus industrialization, then I say something about how the biggest chimney, which has a ball of gas burning above it, reminds me of Mordor. The Eye of Sauron, to be precise. ‘I kind of like its otherworldliness,’ I said.

And Sharon went, ‘Ooh. Hark at you, Mrs Spooky.’ And everybody laughed. I don’t know why. I never do generally. ‘I don’t mean it frightens me.’ I knew I sounded like a petulant teen – the wine had fired my blood. ‘There’s plenty of other things round here that do.’

Sharon must have heard my indignant tone cos she got straight in and pacified me with platitudes. ‘Yeah. Yeah,’ she said. ‘I know. Not all the local history’s quaint.’ She shot a look at Corinne. ‘Isn’t this place meant to have something to do with some old Earl’s murder?’

We all looked at Corinne, who shrugged. Though not related, Sharon and Corinne’s families were inextricably intertwined in the way that happens when generations are content to live in the same place for a good length of time. Corinne came from a very old Leigh family so we automatically deferred to her on local matters.

‘Probably,’ she said. ‘I know a mysterious lead coffin was set down on Leigh beach around that time. Some locals had it that it was a murdered nobleman. My dad always said inside it was the body of Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, who had been killed by Richard II’s men in Calais. He was strangled with a sheet so violently that his head was severed. The coffin was whisked up to the castle. The next day it had vanished.’

‘How awfully sinister,’ said Martha, and took a long swig of her wine.

Sharon coughed on her fag and told everyone the St Clements steps creeped her out. This was the steep pathway that connected the Old Town on the seafront to the newer part of town higher up. ‘I always feel like I’m going to have a heart attack when I get to the top. And people have done: they used to try to bring the coffins up by a different route, which wasn’t at such a sharp angle. But then some posh bloke built a new house and closed that road off as he wanted a bigger garden.’

‘The Reverend Robert Eden actually,’ said Corinne. ‘And it wasn’t exactly a house. He built a new rectory as the old one was falling down. It houses the library now.’

‘Right,’ said Sharon, completely disinterested. ‘Anyway, everyone in the Old Town had to start using the steps to get the bodies to the church but it was so steep a few of the pallbearers started popping their clogs at their mates’ funerals. Imagine that! My neighbour swears blind Church Hill is haunted.’ She spoke the last words in a Vincent Price style and punctuated the sentence with a wicked cackle.

We all looked at Corinne again. This time she smiled. ‘Perhaps it is. For such a small place, the town has lots of stories. There was Princess Beatrice way back in the thirteenth century. Daughter of Henry III. Obviously she was meant to marry well. Henry had arranged for her to marry a Spanish count but she fell in love with a young man, Ralph de Binley, and ran away to Leigh to elope. Someone found out about it and they caught the couple on Strand Wharf. Ralph was sent to Colchester, accused of murder, but managed to escape back here where he was banished from England never to return. Some say, on clear nights, you can see Beatrice out on the wharf, waiting for her lover, pacing up and down, crying her eyes out.’

I didn’t want melancholy tales on a drinking night and was about to make some kind of glib comment to lighten the tone, but Sharon got in before me. She must have still been raw from being dumped.

‘Pass me the bucket. That’s not spooky. I thought we were doing scary.’

Corinne looked put out again so I grabbed the wine and refilled her. She fixed her grey eyes on me like a cat noticing a wounded pigeon for the first time. Her eyes widened and she paused theatrically, then said, ‘Aha, well if you want a scary story,’ her fingers made a kind of flourishing gesture in my direction, ‘look no further than our namesake here, Sarah Grey.’

I groaned and rolled my eyes. I shared my name with a local character and the pub named after her. There was lots of mileage in this one.

‘The other Sarah Grey,’ Corinne grinned and poked me in the ribs, ‘was a right old witch. Have you heard the tale, Sarah?’

Of course I had. I couldn’t move around the town without someone making a lewd comment about me doing favours for sailors.

But Sharon piped up that she didn’t know the whole story and Martha wanted the gory details, so Corinne drew us closer to the fire and asked if we were sitting comfortably.

‘Then I’ll begin,’ she whispered in a proper storyteller’s voice. ‘What we know is this – Sarah Grey was a nineteenth-century sea-witch who made her living from the pennies sailors threw her for a good wind. She would sit on the edge of Bell Wharf conjuring blessings for those that would pay. Until the captain of The Smack came along. Now he was a zealous man.’

‘What’s zealous?’ asked Sharon and hiccupped. Everyone ignored her.

‘A fervent Christian, he would have nothing to do with witchcraft so he forbade his crew to give her money.’ Corinne licked her lips and lowered her voice further. ‘It was a calm and sunny day when they set sail from the wharf.

‘But as they steered into the estuary, a strong wind came out of nowhere and lashed the boat. The sailors tried desperately to bring the sails down but the wind had entangled them and The Smack was tossed about the waves like a …’ she paused to find a simile.

‘Plastic duck?’ Sharon offered unhelpfully.

‘They didn’t have plastic back then,’ said Martha, opening another bottle of wine. ‘Like a cork perhaps?’

Corinne was irritated. We had broken her rhythm. ‘OK, OK. The Smack was tossed around like a cork.’

‘A cork’s quite small though,’ I said mildly. ‘And a ship’s quite big …’

‘Do you want to hear this or not?’ she snapped.

We muttered apologies and tried to focus.

Corinne cleared her throat and continued. ‘So they’re in this massive storm. One of the crew started shouting, “It’s the witch! It’s the witch!” Suddenly the captain picked up an axe and hit the mast. The sailors watched him thinking he had gone completely mad but when, on the third stroke the mast fell, the wind immediately dropped. When the boat eventually managed to limp home to Bell Wharf, do you know what they found? There, on the side, was the body of Sarah Grey, three axe wounds to her head.’

We made approving noises and raised our eyebrows.

‘That made me shiver,’ said Sharon.

‘Well,’ said Martha. ‘It is a bit cold. You know, Corinne, I’ve heard another ending. Deano’s cousin told me that, yes, the captain had forbidden his men to give her money, so Sarah Grey put a curse on them. The wind came up when they went out to sea and they couldn’t get the mast down but, then he says, every member of the crew but the captain perished. When the captain finally made it back to the shore he swore vengeance on Sarah Grey. The next day her headless body was found floating in Doom Pond, the ducking pond.’

I sniffed. ‘The ducking pond?’

‘Where they used to dunk scolds. Most old villages used to have one: if a woman argued or quarrelled with her husband or neighbours, she’d be strapped into the “ducking stool” and dunked in the water.’

A small piece of wood exploded in the fire, sending sparks over Martha. We all jumped.

Martha brushed them off her jeans and laughed. ‘Is that someone telling me I’m right or that I’m wrong?’

‘I suppose that’s quite likely to be true,’ Corinne said. ‘Who knows? It’s a shame about Doom Pond.’

A relative newcomer to the town I’d failed to notice the pond and asked her where it was.

Corinne’s voice became doleful. ‘Underneath those horrid mock-Tudor flats in Leigh Road.’

We all went ‘Ah!’ and nodded.

I said that I had looked at a flat there.

‘What was it like?’ asked Sharon. ‘Never been inside one of them.’

I thought back. God, it had been horrible. Not the interior or the layout but the atmosphere. There was a sharp sense of misery lurking in the corners. It had hit me as soon as I’d walked through the door. But I was still raw then. I reckoned it was just the similarity to my flat back in London and the emotional wreckage that had surrounded me there. But I simply said, ‘It was too small. Smart enough, good finish.’

Anyway, Corinne was off again so we returned to her pretty face flickering in the firelight. ‘Before the flats there was a supermarket on the site. My friend’s mum used to work there. She said the shelves were wonky. You used to put the tins on one end and they’d slide down the other and onto the floor. Then one day she went to work and it had gone. The whole place had slid into the pond.’

Martha shifted her weight from the left buttock to the right. ‘So, is that why they call it Doom Pond?’

Corinne shook her head. ‘Nah. It used to be referred to locally as the Drowning Pool.’

A flurry of unseen wings took off somewhere in the darkness.

‘Really?’ Goose bumps appeared across the bare flesh of my arms. The name sent a shudder right through me. ‘Why the Drowning Pool? What else happened there, apart from dunking scolds? Blimey, did they actually drown people?’

Corinne shrugged. ‘I guess it must have had something to do with local witches.’

‘Local witches?’ The casual comment intrigued me. ‘You say that as if they were commonplace.’

Corinne’s eyes flitted across Martha and Sharon then back to me. ‘Sarah, this part of the country is riddled with folklore. I know you wouldn’t think it now but Essex was once known as “Witch County”. The village of Canewdon is meant to be the most haunted place in England. And there was the wise-man and sorcerer Cunning Murrell in Hadleigh.’

Sharon straightened herself. ‘So did he get done then? For being a witch?’

‘No,’ said Corinne. ‘He was actually quite well-respected by the community, although he obviously still had a fearsome reputation.’

Martha leant forward and threw a couple of twigs on the fire. ‘So witches got subjected to all sorts of ill treatment yet Mr Murrell’s skills were, er, more appreciated?’

Corinne opened her mouth to reply but Sharon was in there immediately. ‘Because, my dear Martha, he was in possession of a cock.’

I sniggered. Martha laughed and poked the fire. ‘You’re about right there.’

‘So,’ I said, steering the conversation back to the pond topic. ‘Why the “Drowning Pool”? You said because of the witches. What have they got to do with the pond?’

‘Oh right,’ Corinne nodded and took a sip of her wine. You could see she was enjoying the limelight. ‘They used to “swim” them there: the witches would get tied up, sometimes right thumb to left toe, other times they were bound to a chair, then they would be thrown in the pond. If they sank and drowned they were innocent, if they floated, they were a witch, and would be dragged off to the gallows to be hanged.’

Martha said, ‘Talk about a no-win situation. Poor women.’

I sent up a silent prayer of thanks that I hadn’t bought that flat.

‘So,’ said Corinne, anxious to go easy on the tragedy and high on spooky. ‘That’s why locals say it was haunted. By the restless souls of the witches and innocents drowned there.’

‘And Sarah Grey,’ said Sharon sadly.

I went, ‘Wooo.’

But nobody laughed this time.

Martha started talking about a ghost in the cemetery and we all crowded in. The stories picked up and whirled on and on into the midnight hour, with wine flowing, the girls howling and the fire roaring.

I now understand, as I’m writing it down, that what we were doing, without realizing it, was creating some kind of séance. We stirred things up, opening a rift. Things got channelled down.

But that’s all come with the benefit of hindsight. If only I’d had a clue at the time. Things were, of course, happening but nothing really registered until the girl on fire.

But I need a drink before I start that one.

Chapter Two

That June was one of the hottest we’d had for years, which, on the plus side, meant that Alfie and I were able to spend a good deal of time down in the Old Town, a cobbled strip of nostalgia severed from the rest of the town by the Shoebury to Fenchurch Street train line. We liked it down there, crabbing, paddling and building sandcastles on the beach. Although Alfie was too young to miss his father, back then Josh’s absence still stung like a fresh wound, so I tended to overcompensate with painstakingly organized ‘constructed play’ and serious quality time. But it was fun. Alfie was now four, a lovely boy with his dad’s well-humoured outlook and a steady stream of gobbledegook that made me smile even on bad days.

On the down side, the heat-frayed tempers amongst students and staff at the private school where I taught Music and Media Studies. A few miles into the hinterland, surrounded by acres of carefully landscaped gardens, St John’s had been one of the county’s few remaining stately homes. It was converted from a family residence into a hospital during the First World War. In 1947 it became a private secondary school. Since then its buildings had encroached onto the lawns in a steady but haphazard and entirely unsympathetic manner. The block in which I worked was a 1980s concrete square that, rather surprisingly, managed to churn out excellent academic results and was in the process of expanding over the chrysanthemum gardens with another inappropriate modern glass structure.

Despite the new build however, the recession was eating into the public consciousness and the economy’s jaws were contracting. As a consequence our day students were being pulled out left, right and centre.

My boss was Andrew McWhittard. A forty-year-old unmarried, bitter Scot with a malevolent mouth. Tall and lean with a smother of thick black hair, he caused quite a stir amongst the female support staff when he arrived to head up the team. The honeymoon lasted two weeks, by which point he had revealed himself to be an HR robot – built without a humour chip and programmed only to repeat St John’s corporate policy. Personally, I found him arrogant in the extreme. When we were first introduced he gave me this look like he couldn’t believe someone with my accent could possibly work in a private school.

You live and learn.

McWhittard was a bully at the best of times and of late had started reminding us that pupils meant jobs, and the loss of them did not bode well for our employment prospects. He loved the fear that generated amongst us, you could tell.

A couple of administrators had gone on maternity leave and had not been replaced. The unspoken suggestion was that we absorb the admin ourselves. I only taught three days a week but my paperwork increased substantially and what with the marking, exams, reports, open days and parents’ evenings, June is the cruellest month of all.

Plus I had this other thing; one of my eyelids had started to droop. It wasn’t immediately obvious to anyone else and, at first, even I assumed it was down to tiredness. But after a week without wine and five nights of unbroken sleep, it was still there, so I booked an appointment with the doctor. The receptionist told me the earliest they could see me was Friday morning before school so I took that slot.

So you see, I had a lot on my mind. Which is why it took me a while to tune into Alfie’s strange mutterings.

Like I said, he was a born chatterbox – even before he formed words he’d sit in the living room with his Action men, soldiers, firemen and teddies and act out stories, giving them different voices and roles. The ground floor of our 1930s villa was open plan with large French doors leading out onto the garden. The design meant I could potter around with the vacuum cleaner or do the washing up with one ear on the radio and the other on my son. Though recently Alfie had taken to setting his toys out in the garden instead of staying indoors.

It was the Monday before my visit to the doctor’s that it first occurred to me to question why. My initial thought was that Alfie wanted to enjoy the sunshine. But then that was such an adult custom: I remembered the bleaching hot summer Saturdays of my childhood, sat on the sofa with my sister, Charlotte, or Lottie as she preferred, watching children’s TV, oblivious to the gloom of the room. How many times had Mum flung back the curtains and berated us for staying in on such a beautiful day? How many times had we shrugged and carried on regardless?

All kids love playing outside but they don’t make the connection when the sunshine appears. It takes many more years to wise up to the fickle nature of our very British weather. You certainly don’t get it when you’re four.

So, I peeled off my Marigolds and went to stand by the French doors. Alfie was sitting on the grass by our old iron garden furniture. He had lined up his puppets to face the chairs, and was engrossed in ‘doing a show’. It was a few minutes before he became aware of my presence, then, when he did, I was formally instructed to take a seat and join the audience.

There were four chairs, two either side of the table. I fetched my mug of coffee and was about to sit on the chair to the left when he shouted, ‘No, no, no. Mummy, no!’

It’s not unusual for kids to fuss over little things, they all have their own idiosyncrasies, so I let Alfie grab my skirt and guide me to the farther chair.

‘Sorry, Alfie.’ I grinned and leant over to put my mug on the table, but he was up again.

‘No, Mummy. Not there!’ A little toss of his golden locks told me he was cross now. He frowned, took my free hand and led me to the other side of the table. ‘You sit there.’

‘You sure, sir?’ I said gravely.

‘Not that one,’ he said, indicating the chair which I had so rudely stretched across. ‘The burning girl is there.’

He rubbed his nose and went back to the puppets.

‘Sorry.’ I laughed, indulging him. I had wondered if he’d develop any imaginary friends and secretly had hoped that he would. Lottie once befriended an imaginary giant called Hoggy who ate cars and ended up emigrating to Australia. As a kid I was absolutely enthralled by her Hoggy stories. Later they proved hugely amusing to an array of boyfriends.

‘What’s her name?’ I asked Alfie. He was concentrating hard on pulling Mr Punch over his right hand and ignored me.

I reached over and tapped playfully on his head. ‘Hello? Hello? Is there anyone there?’

Alfie wriggled away.

‘What’s your friend’s name, Alfie?’

He turned his back on the irritation. ‘Dunno.’

I was getting nowhere so contented myself with observing him. He was funny and sweet and growing up so quickly. It was in these quiet moments that I missed Josh. The reminder that there was no one else to share my fond smile was painful.

Widowhood is a lonely place.

After a few more tries Alfie mastered the puppet and spun round. ‘That’s the way to do it!’ he squeaked in a pretty good imitation. Then, glancing at the empty chair, his face puffed out and his shoulders fell. He snatched the puppet off his hand and threw it on the floor. ‘Look what you done!’ Alfie jabbed his podgy index finger at the iron seat. ‘You made her go! Mummy!’

He looked so cute when he was angry, with his fluffy blond hair and dimples, it was all I could do not to sweep him up in my arms and kiss him all over his beautiful scowling face. Instead I stuck out my bottom lip and apologized profusely, promising a special chocolate ice cream by way of recompense. This seemed to do the trick and I thought no more of the incident till later on Thursday night.

I’d cleared away the remnants of our pizza and was finishing up the last glass of a mellow rioja when I turned my attention to coaxing Alfie upstairs. He was resisting going to bed, unable to see the sense in sleeping when the sun was still up. No amount of explaining could persuade him that it was, in fact, bedtime.

So far he’d tried all the usual techniques: the protestations (‘Not fair’), the distraction method (‘Do robots go to heaven?’), the bare-faced lying (‘But it’s my birthday’) and the outright imperative (‘Story first!’). But he was pale and tired so brute force was necessary.

He was by the French doors, and as I lifted him, he stuck out his hand and caught one of the handles. As I tried to step away he hung on to them, preventing me from going any further.

‘No, Mummy. Not yet. Girl’s sick. See.’ With his free hand he pointed into the garden. It was empty but for a spiral of mosquitoes above the rusting barbecue.

I was getting annoyed now – it had been a hard day at school. My neck hurt and I wanted to slip into the bath and soothe my aching muscles. ‘There’s no one there, honey. Come on, it really is time for bed.’

‘But the girl.’ His grip tightened. ‘The girl is on fire.’

There was something plaintive in his voice and when I looked into his face, two little creases stitched across his forehead. I prised his fingers off the handle one by one and opened the doors. ‘Look.’

In the garden a faint smell of wood smoke lingered and I wondered briefly if it had been the whiff of the neighbour’s barbecue that had sparked his fantasy. ‘There’s no one out here, Alf.’

He wasn’t convinced. ‘Will you call the fire brigade, Mummy?’

The penny dropped. All kids love fire engines and Alfie was no exception.

‘Oh yes, of course, darling. I’ll call them right after you’ve had your bath.’

He shook his head. ‘No, now.’

‘OK. I’ll call them now. Then will you come upstairs?’

He put his fingers on my chin and looked into my eyes. I poked my tongue out. He smiled. ‘Yes. But now.’

After a quick call to ‘Fireman Sam’ (no one) at the Leigh fire station, he submitted and within an hour was tucked up in bed and dozing peacefully, leaving me exhausted. In fact an intense weariness came over me as I looked in the mirror and stripped my face of make-up and suddenly it was all I could manage to crawl into bed with my book.

I remember it well. I remember everything about that evening – the dappled sunshine that caught the shadows of the eucalyptus in the front garden, the aroma of lavender oil on my pillow, the fresh linen smell of my sheets and the pale amber glow in the room.

It was the night that I had my first dream.

It opened in the usual way that dreams do, with familiar places and people: Alfie and me on the sand. Corinne, Ewan and Jack were there too. And John, a rare breed of colleague and friend. We were at a picnic or something. Then I was on Strand Wharf, just along from the beach, my feet caked in clay the colour of charcoal. There was a scream and a young girl ran from one of the fishermen’s cottages. She was making a strange noise, like the hungry cry of a seagull or the wail of a dying cat. When I looked at her again, flames were leaping up her pinafore. They licked onto her ringletted tresses and about her face. Filled with horror, I ran to her. I had a canvas bag in my hand, which I used to beat at the flames. But the fire wouldn’t go out. It got worse, blustering up against me, enveloping the girl. Searing pain crept over my fingers but her dreadful cries forced me on quicker.

Then abruptly I was awake, covered in sweat, panting in the lemon sunlight that seeped through the blinds.

It took me a few seconds to work out where I was. I could have sworn the smell of burnt flesh lingered in my nostrils.

The nightmare had unsettled me but you didn’t have to be a genius to work out what had inspired it.

I sank back into my pillow and steadied my breathing.

The clock showed that it was early morning, but the nightmare had been vivid and I realized that it would soon be time to get up. I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep anyway. Having missed my bath the previous night, I ran a tub full of water, laced it with lavender salts and gratefully sank in.

Fifteen minutes into the soak, as I reached for the soap, something caught my attention on the fleshy mound of skin beneath my right thumb and above my wrist: a crescent-shaped welt.

My fingertips traced it lightly. It was raw. A burn.

I paused, disorientated. I couldn’t remember hurting myself. But then again I had polished off that bottle of red. Bad Sarah.

Relinquishing the warmth of the water, I stepped out of the tub and rummaged under the sink for some antiseptic ointment.

A squirt of Savlon softened the pain.

Alfie toddled into the bathroom and had a wee as I was bandaging it.

‘Watcha done?’ He had an acute interest in injuries.

‘Mummy hurt her hand last night.’

He closed the toilet seat with a loud crack. ‘How?’

‘I think I burnt it while I was cooking the pizzas.’

Alfie stuck the tips of his fingers under the cold tap. ‘Like the girl in the garden.’

That stopped me in my tracks. Something bitter in the pit of my stomach uncoiled. ‘Now listen, Alf, I want you to stop talking about that. It’s not very nice, you know.’ I shivered.

He looked at me with wide eyes. ‘But …’

I held up a finger. ‘No buts. Now come on. Let’s go and have a nice big breakfast. Then I’ve got to get you to nursery early – I’ve got to go to see the doctor today.’

Alfie reached out and stroked my bandage. ‘About your burn?’

‘No,’ I hesitated. ‘Yes, about Mummy’s burn.’

‘Poor Mummy,’ he said, and kissed me. He could be such a darling at times.

Doctor Cook’s surgery, situated in the right wing of his grand Georgian home, lacked the cleanliness of most GP’s but his reputation was one of kindness and benevolence. Plus he’d come with Corinne’s recommendation, having been her family’s doctor since time began. So I’d picked him over the more contemporary surgery up the road.

The family from which the doctor was descended was one of the oldest in Leigh, well-respected and valued, often spoken of in hushed tones: back in the day when the place was significant enough to have its own mayor quite a few of the family passed through that role apparently elevating their reputation and wealth. The family seat itself was now something of a tourist spot, shrouded by lines of cedar trees and set back in sprawling but well-kept gardens. Locals were able to enter it and marvel at the baroque interiors and lush furnishings but only as patients.

In fact, Doctor Cook was a bit of a local celebrity – not only an excellent GP and an active and well-respected councillor whose name featured frequently in many of the local papers. There was also a tinge of gossip linked to his past: an absent wife or some domestic scandal. I couldn’t remember which and was very curious to meet him. Thus far my experience had been limited to his junior partner, as the senior doctor was booked up for weeks in advance, so I was somewhat surprised to be ushered into the head honcho’s consulting room.

Cook turned out to be older than I had imagined, in his late sixties. He had an old-school bedside manner and a taste for natty bow ties. However, he exuded gentleness and I was glad I’d got him for the appointment. I had assumed I’d be in and out like a shot with some reassuring platitudes about the thirty-something ageing process and instructions to come back if the droopy lid got worse. But Doctor Cook was thorough. After an extensive inspection of both eyes and ears, he had me up on the couch, examining my arms and legs and listening to my chest.

After I’d got dressed and sat down in the leather chair by his desk, he asked, ‘So Ms Grey, have you noticed any changes in your character lately?’

It totally threw me.

‘I, um, well …’ Blood rushed to my face. ‘Not really. I’m a bit stressed at work, but …’

The doctor took off his spectacles and relaxed into his chair. ‘And what is that, my dear?’ His voice was rich and low with a hint of a hard upper-class accent.

‘I teach. At St John’s.’

Under bushy grey eyebrows his eyes glittered, very blue and piercing. I had the strangest feeling that he was looking right into me. ‘And that’s,’ he paused to find the right word, ‘manageable?’

‘Well, yes. My boss is a bit of a nightmare but, you know, that’s education for you.’

‘Is it?’ he said, rhetorically, and picked up my bulging brown wad of medical notes. ‘I see here that you’ve been on anti-depressants for a while.’

I gulped hard as if I’d been caught out. ‘That’s right. I lost my husband about three years ago.’ Two years, ten months and four days, to be precise.

Usually I held back on details like this. It had a peculiar effect on people, often stopping conversations. Women floundered, not knowing whether to ask for more details, worried that they may upset me or appear morbid. Men coloured, the more predator-like practically licked their lips and stepped closer. A few people physically recoiled when I told them, as if my status was contagious. Once, the thought of telling them that Josh had run off did cross my mind. But that was such a disservice to his memory I could never get the words out.

‘You’re a widow?’

‘Yes.’ I held his gaze.

‘I’m sorry to hear that. Children?’

An image of Alfie toddling into his nursery flew into my mind. ‘One, a boy. He’s four.’

‘Mm.’ Doctor Cook appeared to mull it over. He nodded. ‘Difficult. Are you coping?’

I kept my voice steady. ‘I have family locally who help out a great deal and good friends. Sorry, Doctor, but is this relevant?’

He pushed his chair back and faced me. ‘Well, my dear. In a way. I’d like you to consider coming off the tablets. Do you think you could?’ His eyebrows twitched into his forehead.

This was a surprising turn of events.

My feet hadn’t touched the ground since Josh’s accident. Then there had been so much to organize with the move back to Essex, finding a house in Leigh, starting the teaching job, sorting out a nursery. I’d started taking the pills when my body had been on autopilot and my head became frazzled with grief. Things were calmer now, it was true.

‘I don’t know. Why?’

‘Well, it might help us get a clearer picture.’

I cleared my throat. ‘A clearer picture of what?’

Cook leant towards me and assumed a kindly smile as he spoke. ‘I’d like to refer you to a neurologist. It’s nothing to worry about.’

I laughed, shocked. ‘In my book a neurologist is something to worry about.’

‘Yes, I quite see. Well, you’re on two tablets a day. Stop taking the 10mg. I think the 20mg tablet alone will work just as well.’ He tapped his desk. ‘It’s probably nothing, but I’m not sure that your eyelid has drooped as you’ve suggested.’

A small rush of heat spread over my palms. ‘Really? What is it?’

‘I’m not too sure, and that’s why I’d like to refer you. You have a weakness in your left side and I’m wondering if, perhaps, it’s your left eye that has swollen rather than the right lid that has drooped. I’d like to check, that’s all.’

‘Check? What would you be looking for?’

Cook looked away to his computer and jabbed at a couple of keys. ‘It could be that there is something behind the eyeball that is pressing against it and pushing it out. I don’t know.’

A wave of sweat broke out above my top lip. ‘A tumour?’ I blenched.

He continued to talk to his computer screen. ‘Let’s not leap to conclusions. This is why we have specialists and dotty old GPs like me aren’t allowed to make such diagnoses.’ He pushed his chair back and swung it to face me. ‘But it would be helpful if you came off the tablets so that we might be able to monitor your progress, as it were, chemical free. Reduce your dose by 10mg please.’

Suddenly I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.

I got to my feet shakily and held out my hand. ‘Thank you, Doctor. I shall. I guess I’ll be hearing from you.’

I tried to calm myself by repeating his words – there was nothing to worry about – but already unwelcome images had begun to crowd my head: Alfie alone, Alfie crying, Alfie orphaned. My throat tightened.

‘Do you want me to take a look at this while you’re here?’ He was examining my amateur attempt at a bandage. ‘What have you done?’

My head was still reeling. ‘Oh,’ I said absently, as he came round the side of the desk and began unwinding the fabric, ‘a burn.’

I mustn’t die. Alfie could not lose two parents. To lose one was bad enough. It couldn’t happen.

Doctor Cook was looking at me. ‘… perfectly well,’ he was saying, finishing his sentence with a grin.

I got a grip and spoke. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘I said, whatever it was, it’s healed perfectly now.’ He released my hand.

I looked down: the skin was smooth and pink. There was no sign of the burn.

I picked up my bag and staggered out without saying goodbye.

Later, after Alfie had gone to bed, I phoned Corinne. She couldn’t come over, as it was her au pair’s night off, so we opened our own bottles of wine and sat in separate houses, chewing the fat.

She was a down-to-earth woman. She had to be. Her son Jack was precocious, astonishingly so. Learning his alphabet at three and reading Enid Blyton on his own by five. Now, at eight years old, he was studying GCSE text books.

At the other end of the scale Ewan was a hyperactive four-year-old. Pat worked in sales and was often away for several weeks at a time, while Corinne managed the house, the bulk of the childcare and a full-time senior job in local government. Help was supplied by a network of relations and a stream of au pairs that trudged in and then promptly out of her home when they discovered the bright lights of London, too close to Leigh to resist for long. The girls (Ilana, Tia, Cesca, Vilette, Sofia, Anna and most recently Giselle, in the twenty-six months since I’d moved here) seemed like they were on a constant rotation from Europe to Leigh to London then back to Europe. Corinne coped with it all, remaining optimistic in the face of constant chaos and disruption. She was a good friend to have around in times of crisis.

So, first I told her about the doctor. She was concerned and then, when she detected hysteria in my voice, incredibly reassuring.

‘That’s what Doctor Cook is like,’ she said. ‘Why do you think he’s got such a massive patient list? Because he’s really good. Leaves no stone unturned. It’s probably routine.’ I noticed her pronounced Essex twang was softened by the drawn-out vowel sounds she used when she was calming Ewan. It worked on me too.

‘Do you think so?’ My voice sounded high and girlish compared to hers.

‘Of course! Sarah, remember back when we were talking about your school’s maypole dance being cancelled?’

‘Yes?’ I couldn’t see where this was going.

‘And you were banging on about what a litigious society we live in and doing your nut about health and safety?’

‘Oh yes.’ The incident had got under my skin for some reason. It had been a tradition at the school for as long as the place had stood but this year, my manager, McWhittard, or McBastard as we oh so wittily called him behind his back, had been appointed manager for Health and Safety. I don’t know who had made that decision and hoped that they regretted it now as McBastard had embraced his additional responsibilities with the zeal of a new convert. So far this year, several events had succumbed to his stringent application of risk assessment; the maypole dance being the latest victim. McBastard insisted we would need to sink a concrete base into the sports field in order to conform to new European safety standards. He’d also confided in John that he didn’t approve of the ‘pagan connotations’. Gerry the caretaker had started running a book on McBastard’s next reforms. I’d got £20 riding on the Halloween party being cancelled but hoped secretly I wouldn’t win.

Corinne coughed and continued. ‘Well, imagine if your McBastard went to Doctor Cook and he didn’t spot what was wrong with him. Do you think he’d sue?’

I nodded so vigorously I almost dropped the phone. ‘Oh he’d sue all right, and screw the NHS for all he could get.’

‘Right. Well, that’s why the good doctor has to cover everything. He can’t leave himself open for people like that to take advantage. Not that someone like you would, of course. But he doesn’t know you, does he? He’s making sure he’s doing the right thing. I really don’t think you should worry about it and he did tell you not to. Just forget it.’

Reassured, I said, ‘Do you think so?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘OK. I’ll try not to think about it then. But there is another thing I wanted to talk to you about.’ I swapped the phone into my left hand so that I could inspect the skin where the burn had been.

‘What’s that?’

There was an irritation behind Corinne’s drawl that made me hesitate.

‘I had this dream, last night …’

A distant wail started somewhere in the depths of her house.

‘Hang on.’ The phone muffled. ‘Gi-selle? Oh bugger. I forgot: she’s gone to the Billet. Fancies one of the fishermen.’

I smiled. A couple of previous au pairs had fallen for Londoners and moved up to be with them. The Crooked Billet was a popular pub in the Old Town. ‘At least he’s local.’

‘Yeah, I suppose.’ Corinne sounded as flustered as she ever got. ‘Look, it’s Ewan. I’ll have to call you back.’

I hung up and went to replenish my glass.

In the kitchen it was quiet. The CD had finished playing and whilst we’d been drinking and talking darkness had crept in through the open French doors. I sat down at the table and lit a scented candle.

Something cracked on the window. A sting of adrenalin shot through me.

I put down my glass and crept towards the window. Despite the heat, by the door there was a pool of cool air just outside. Something little and white gleamed on the decking. I picked it up.

A cockleshell.

For a moment I was confused, then remembering Alfie’s room was right above, I wondered if he’d left it on his windowsill. Or perhaps a seagull had dropped it.

I turned it over in my hand. Curious. It was wet.

Crack. Another sound came from behind me. This time in the living room, softer than before. I spun around and stared into the gloom. Nothing moved.

My heart was hammering.

I wished for Josh’s reassuring presence but knowing he wasn’t there I made an effort to bring myself under control. ‘Don’t be silly,’ I whispered aloud. ‘It’s an old house with its own creaks and groans.’

I forced myself to walk to the centre of the room where the noise had come from. A gasp escaped me as I saw, there on the carpet, another shadowy shape. This was larger and darker. A pine cone.

The sound of my mobile ringing made me jump. When I answered it, Corinne’s gravelly voice brought me back to my senses. ‘Sorry, Sarah. Another nightmare. He’s fine now.’ Then, hearing my breathy pants, ‘You all right, chick?’

It was right on the tip of my tongue to tell her about my dream but in that instant I knew what she would say, and somehow right then, Corinne’s dismissive but sensible advice was the last thing I wanted to hear. She’d done enough for one night and she had more than a handful in Ewan.

My voice was scratchy and dry but I managed a squeak. ‘Yes, sorry. Hayfever.’

‘Quite bad this year I’ve heard. Rachel’s had it awful and she’s even had these injection things that are meant to clear it up for years, poor thing …’ And she was off and into the night, chatting about our mutual friends, oblivious to my silence.

When we’d said goodbye I went around the house and locked up carefully. I crept to my room and turned on the television, the radio and both of my night lights.

As I sank under the duvet and closed my eyes against the light, I couldn’t shift the feeling that I was waiting for something.

It would take another seven nights for me to find out what that was.

Chapter Three

Looking back, all the signs were there. Human beings have a tendency to forget what they can’t explain: the misplaced key, left on the sideboard but found in the lock; the lost treasured trinket, carefully tracked and then suddenly gone; the darkening shadow in the hot glare of day. But they’re alarm bells.

Would it have all turned out differently if I had paid heed? I think not. The chain of events that would carry me across seas, to foreign shores and through time, had already been set in motion.

But I didn’t know that then.

In fact, as I contemplated the past week from the end of my summer garden, things seemed so obvious and straightforward. To my mind they were almost bordering on the mundane. But then I had cosseted myself in the flower-boat, one of my favourite places to be: a hammock strung between an apple tree and the fence post, beside an ancient pink rose bush. Alfie christened it the flower-boat as I’d fashioned it from a faded tarpaulin with a swirl of daffodils and gerbera printed upon it. In its saggy hug, when the sun sank and the jasmine that wound itself around the fence scented the air, it was impossible to feel anxious. I had even fixed a shelf into the lower branches of the apple tree so that we could reach toys, drinks and magazines as we gently rocked. The scent of floribunda and ripening apple fruit, the faint gurgle of traffic and life that wafted along on the breeze, couldn’t help but soothe the nerves.

It must have been Alfie who had left the shell and the cone about the house; there were only two people who lived here, after all – me and him. And I hadn’t done it. It is the kind of thing that kids do. My attention had been drawn to them as the house creaked that darkened Friday night. The seasonal heat had surely disorientated a winged insect, which had flown into the window, hence the cracking sound. The groan of a floorboard, contracting as it cooled in the night air, had alerted me to the cone.

The burn was more of a puzzle. But I’m scatty at the best of times and in the rush to get dressed, pop Alfie to nursery and scoop up my lesson plans, it was quite possible that I’d simply imagined the scar, a residual phantasm created by the dramatic dream.

I’d tell the neurologist.

I took my anti-depressant, minus 10mg.

All too soon the week’s mundanities had me.

I don’t like using the term ‘roller coaster of a ride’. Whenever I see it on the back of books it makes my bottom tighten. So without using crappy marketing-speak, let me tell you the week that followed was so frenzied it was easy to forget about the cockleshell and pine cone incident.

St John’s was busy. It was the last week of lessons and the students weren’t interested in their work. Not that they had much at that point in the academic year. I was half inclined to let them do as they pleased, but the college executive herded us in to the Grand Hall at 8.30 a.m. Monday morning and instructed us that this was no time to let standards slip. According to the management, this week was the perfect time to introduce students to next year’s curriculum.

McBastard suggested that if we wanted to relax a bit we could carry out summative assessments in the form of quizzes. ‘Party on, dude,’ said John, in a rare moment of rebellion. The management made him stay behind.

They were like that at St John’s.

I’d come out of the music business, which doesn’t have the reputation of a caring profession, and thought that perhaps teaching might be a less stressful, more wholesome career. Ha ha ha.

On the Tuesday I sneaked Twister in to my Textual Analysis lesson. The kids were enjoying it until McBastard caught us and hauled me into his office. If that sort of thing continued, he growled at the floor, I could end up on the Sex Offenders Register.

I laughed.

He fixed his strange brown eyes on me. Ambers and reds swirled within them like fiery lava.

‘This is serious,’ he said. ‘You should be careful.’

I frowned and shifted on the stool where I was sitting in front of his desk. ‘What do you mean?’

McBastard leant back and clasped his bony hands in a prayer-like fashion.

Malevolence glittered beyond his volcanic eyes, anger preparing to erupt.

‘You need to keep your job.’ He stayed motionless, hard, like a statue.

I wasn’t absolutely sure what he was trying to say and told him so.

Finally he spat out, ‘A woman in your position.’

It took me off guard.

‘Yes? What exactly is that?’ My eyebrows had raised and I’d assumed an expression of confusion.

Thin white lips pushed themselves into an arrangement that almost resembled a smile. ‘A single mother, after all.’

Reading my puzzlement he seemed about to say more but stopped. ‘You’d better toddle along to your class.’ Then he dismissed me by spinning his chair round and staring out of the window.

Gawping at the back of his head, I was shocked into silence, as his meaning dawned.

It was true, I needed to earn money and I couldn’t afford to lose my job. But I didn’t need reminding that whether I stayed in it or not was largely up to him. The shit had used this opportunity to warn me: fall in line or fuck off.

I quivered at my impotence in the face of such barefaced blackmail but with great self-control I thanked him and ‘toddled’ back to my students.

The following day McBastard stalked me like a wolf. Thankfully there wasn’t much I could screw up: end of year shows, graduation ceremonies, leaving lunches and then on Thursday, a trip to Wimbledon.

On Friday the school was shut to students and staff were subjected to what the management term a Development Day, but what we call Degenerate Day on account of the stupefaction factor – the programme comprised policy talks and lectures.

I took my place at the back of the staff room between John and Sue, who was pregnant and perpetually pissed off that she couldn’t smoke or drink.

‘Do we know how long this will be?’ I squeezed into the cramped makeshift seating.

John grimaced. ‘They confiscated my shoelaces on the way in.’

‘I can’t fucking believe it,’ said Sue, sucking on a biro. ‘There’s so much else I could be doing. Don’t they realize we have all this end of year admin to tie up?’

‘Oh, they realize all right,’ said John.

One of the management posse had positioned himself right in front of the coffee machine, cutting off our lifeline to the one thing that might keep us conscious. He clapped his hands to get our attention.

Not a good start.

His name was Harvey. Apparently he’d been doing this for three years now and had got a lot of positive feedback.

‘Inadequate,’ John whispered. ‘Needs to self-reinforce.’

Harvey launched into a ‘discussion’ of why students should be called customers. He got some audience interaction going with a show of hands – who was for it? McBastard. Who was against it? The plebs voted unanimously. Then he did this sickly smile and said: ‘Well, I’m afraid these days anyone with that way of thinking is completely out of sync with new models of educational theory. It may have been OK thirty years ago but now the terminology is inconsistent with new approaches to learning and changes in funding.’

Harvey continued to bellow: in order to survive in the new market place, every single one of us had to commit ourselves to ‘rethink, reset and reframe’. Just then a ball of paper arced over from the back and got Harvey right on the chin.

McBastard leapt to his feet. ‘Who did that? Come on now!’

Everyone looked at the floor.

Harvey ploughed on.

The room calmed down and we started settling in for a nap, when he repeated his point that we ‘needed to change or become history’.

This was the last straw for the History ‘facilitator’, a quiet guy called Edwin with hair like a toilet brush. He leapt to his feet and shrieked something sarcastic about that not being so terrible as we could learn from history, if ‘learn’ was still a permissible verb, given current educational thinking.

If he’d been more popular there might have been a revolt at this point, but Edwin was a bit of a dick so no one joined in.

Harvey looked embarrassed and back-pedalled to qualify ‘history’.

John bobbed his head in Edwin’s direction, mouthed ‘wanker’ and supplied a pertinent hand gesture.

‘Good point,’ I sighed. ‘I bet he’s added at least another five minutes on.’

He had.

Time slowed.

John fell asleep. Sue’s biro leaked over her chin and onto her polo neck.

I watched McBastard out of the corner of my eye.

For two hours and seven minutes he didn’t once take those fireball eyes off me.

After lunch things worsened. But at 4.30 there was a serious breach of health and safety when the entire staff (plebs) of the Humanities and Arts Department stampeded to the Red Lion.

There was no way I was missing out on a much needed dose of medicine. Luckily I’d got the bus into work this morning so didn’t have to worry about the car.

A quick call to Corinne resulted in Giselle agreeing to pick up Alfie and babysit. Thank God for the empathy of fellow mum friends. Adversity unites.

My pass for the night acquired, I joined the last of the stragglers beating a path to the local.

John was in fine form. The day had supplied him with plenty of ammunition. Especially Harvey’s utterly absurd suggestion that, to help us memorize what we learnt from the session, we could make up our own raps. A natural mime with a wicked sense of humour, his impression of Harvey’s twitches, stammers and idiosyncrasies was cruel, excruciating and magnificently funny.

A charismatic teacher with a background in media law, the students, I mean, customers, loved John. You could understand why when you saw him in this context, holding court; engrossed and animated. His curly brown hair tumbled down past his ears, lending him a naturally cheeky quality that was muted somewhat by serious blue eyes, a clean-shaven face and an insistence on wearing a suit. God knows why he accepted a fifth of what he could be earning, working harder than he would in a small law firm. I liked his intelligence and respected his mind. He’d almost become a good friend.

Later, as the conversation waterfalled into pockets of twos and threes, we found ourselves together.

‘You all right then, Ms Grey?’

I paused and took a slug from my glass. ‘D’you know what? It’s not been the greatest of weeks.’

‘It’s always like this,’ he said. ‘End of term. Shit to do. Shit to teach.’

It wasn’t work, I told him, and was about to relay my medical experience when I remembered that he was a colleague and much as I liked him, there was the possibility that, well-oiled and talkative, he might mention it to one of HR. That might kick-start a sequence of events that I couldn’t afford right now. Not with McBastard on the prowl.

‘What is it then?’ He looked concerned and I felt a bit daft looking at him with my mouth open, so I told him about the cockleshell instead.

‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘You sound like my sister. Marie’s nuts, obsessed with crystals and weirdies and things that go bump in the night. She’s on her own too. Out in California now. Do you know what I reckon?’ He slurred the last part of the question so I had to ask him to repeat it.

‘That,’ he wagged an unsteady finger at me, ‘women on their own tend to imagine stuff. I’m not being sexist here but when you’re living with someone, you talk to them, you know, you share stuff. You talk things through. You don’t let things run away with you. Do you know what I mean?’

As unwilling as I was to let the poke go unchallenged I did know exactly what he was getting at. Especially after that night. But I didn’t think it was a gender thing so instead I said, ‘Are you inferring that us independent ladies become hysterical without a rational male mind, Doctor Freud?’

‘Yes of course, dear,’ he said, and made a big thing of patting my hand. Then Nancy, one of the administrators, swung our way. ‘What are you two talking about?’ Her beady eyes strayed over John.

‘Nothing,’ we chimed together.

She looked at us sceptically but didn’t move. ‘Whatever.’ Her voice always sounded thin and discordant.

John started doing his impressions thing again and having heard it all once, I got up and staggered over to Sue. The subject there was giving up fags so when, inevitably, everyone got up to go for a smoke, I went too.

Outside Edwin was hailing a cab for Leigh, and realizing I was more wrecked than anticipated and that it was only half ten, I joined him. Twenty minutes later I’d paid Giselle and had seen her off in a cab of her own.

Alfie was snoring lightly so I jumped into the shower, ran the water lukewarm and lathered one of my favourite exotic gels over my sticky body. It felt good. In fact, I felt good. Considering the day I’d had, this was something of a miracle.

I closed my eyes and let my mind drift. My hands took the lather and soaped my breasts. I turned the hot tap up and killed the cold, soaked my hair in the shower spray and let the shampoo’s foam glide over my midriff and drip down my thighs.

The hot water ran out. I squealed as a prickly blast of cold hit my belly and reached out to turn it off, cursing the immersion heater. I stepped out of the cubicle and grabbed the nearest towel.

Wrapping it around my body, I felt the weight of the last week enveloping me. I dried myself then cleared the steam from the mirror to apply some face serum.

That’s when I saw it.

As I looked in the mirror I saw my face, but hovering over it there was another – the same shape, but with a firmer chin. Locks of hair blocked out my own wet brown wisps – hers was a darker shade and thicker. But it was the eyes that held me – vivid green, bright, almond shaped – that fixed onto mine. Compelling me to hold her gaze.

My mouth, reflected in the mirror, froze open in shock, and morphed into two thin pink closed lips.

The vision held, then blurred.

I blinked and it had gone.

The air was steaming up the mirror once more. I steadied my breath and rubbed the condensation away. My reflection stared back: pale, crumpled and very, very tired.

I was still tipsy. I had to get a grip; my imagination was running away with itself, playing tricks on me.

‘Pull yourself together,’ I instructed my reflection. ‘You just need a good night’s sleep.’ I took my own advice and pushed the fear to the very back of my mind.

Flinging on my pyjamas I shuffled out of the bathroom as quickly as my tired legs could manage, dragged my body to my fluffy bed and pulled my duvet tight around me.

It wouldn’t register consciously then, but just before I sank into oblivion, I saw a small cloud of my breath.

Despite the warmth outside, my bedroom was as cold as a crypt.

Chapter Four

When I woke I was moody and morose. Though I tried to perk myself up when I roused Alfie, I never really got rid of that shirty, melancholy the whole weekend. In fact it got worse.

I had a slight reprieve late Saturday morning (less of the melancholy, more of the shirtiness) when my sister, Lottie, and nephew, Thomas, turned up for a picnic at Leigh beach. Thomas was eight months older than Alfie and the boys got on very well together.

The sun was nearing its noon zenith when they arrived. My hangover had slowed me so I was still half dressed. Lottie made it clear that she wanted to spend no time inside. A true sun-worshipper, she insisted we packed a picnic lunch and got down to the beach as soon as possible. I tried not to sulk but my older sister’s assumed authority and unassailable competence always brought out the child in me. Lottie had always been more organized, more academic and wittier than anyone else. Leaving college with a first-class degree in English, and with an outstanding final term as an award-winning editor of the college mag, she dashed everyone’s expectations by turning her back on a promising career in journalism and established her own theatre company, which she ran for several years before a BBC head-hunter netted her. She gave up working for the BBC when she was pregnant with Thomas and now worked as a freelance consultant. In her spare time she was writing a trilogy of children’s books for a US publisher.

I examined her from beneath my mat of stringy uncombed fringe. In immaculate Capri pants and oversized black sunglasses, she resembled a sexy sixties siren.

‘Come on, Sarah. I want to get down to the beach before one. Let’s make the most of the sunshine.’ She swished her curtain of shiny black hair and winked. ‘Chop chop.’

I fingered my pyjama bottoms gingerly and told her to keep her hair on, then stomped upstairs while she made sandwiches for the four of us.

Outdoors the full impact of last night’s two (or was it three?) bottles of wine kicked in. My tongue was so absurdly dry I downed a litre bottle of water in ten minutes.

We wandered down the Broadway keeping one eye on the boys and another on the windows of the boutique shops and bursting cafés, stopping at the greengrocer’s that sold Alfie’s favourite ice creams, a soft, local recipe introduced to the area by a family of Italian ice-cream makers. We fetched the two 99’s and two colas and then went across the road into The Library Gardens.

Situated by St Clements church, off the main street, and right at the top of the hill the library gardens weren’t the geographical centre of town yet the small park felt like the heart of Leigh. A place where the different communities that existed in the town converged and relaxed: the lower gardens provided a meeting place for teenage gangs and novice smokers. The upper ground, with its compact playground area, had fostered many a friendship amongst young families. The actual gardens were the perfect place for old timers to take in the views across the estuary and down into the Old Town. There were lots of benches dotted around to do just that.

I told Lottie I could do with a rest so we took a seat between the herb garden and the red-brick walls of the Victorian rectory, now the library.

The sun was so strong now it scorched the skin on the crown of my head. The others had sun hats but I, of course, had forgotten mine so wrapped my scarf around my head.

‘You look like a bag lady,’ said Lottie. I made a face and stretched across her to adjust Alfie’s ice-cream-stained shirt.

This corner of the park had an aromatic garden for the blind. The air was thick with the citrus tang of catnip and meaty wafts of purple sage and rosemary. On other days I’d sit here with pleasure, but now the pungent earthy reek made me feel like I was roasting.

I suggested we move on so Lottie led the way through the park down into the Old Town.

It was almost high tide and the modest scrap of Leigh beach was crammed. Day-trippers and locals filled every square metre of sand with towels, blankets, buckets, spades, sandcastles, lilos and rapidly reddening flesh.

We made the decision to walk east along the towpath to the larger and less crowded beach at Chalkwell and saw off a mutiny from Thomas and Alfie with the shameless promise of more ice cream. I know you’re not meant to bribe kids but honestly, sometimes, it’s the only way. Plus Lottie was making sounds that she wanted to talk. Proper grown-up talk.

Her husband, David, had piled up some ludicrous debt and, although it was a dead cert their marriage would survive, Lottie was livid and bandying around words like ‘divorce’ and ‘separation’.

They say usually the thing that attracts you to your lover is what irritates the hell out of you in the end. I remembered how Lottie loved David’s easy generosity when she met him. Now look at the pair of them.

I’d never know if it would have gone that way with Josh for two reasons. Firstly, I’ve realized I’m not like other people so I’m not sure any of those generalizations really apply to me. Granted, physically, I look fairly human: two arms, two legs, average build, height, weight. Mousy hair, which I dye, sometimes auburn, occasionally red, currently brown. But psychologically and sociologically I really have no idea what makes other people tick. I don’t follow The X-Factor or Strictly Come Dancing. In fact, I don’t watch TV. I didn’t get excited about my son’s first tooth, first word, first wet bed or bad dream. I don’t drink modestly and I don’t wear widow’s weeds. I achieved ten GCSE’s, five ‘A’ Levels, and have a good degree in music and education yet the majority of people think I’m thick on account of my estuarine accent. My IQ plunges with each dropped consonant.

Secondly, when the number 73 lost control at Newington Green and mangled Josh and his bike into its back left wheel, it robbed me of the chance to find all that stuff out.

I was so warped with shock at the time I never really got that it was game over. I kept wanting to turn around and ask him, ‘Can you believe this is happening? I mean, can you?’

So when they told us later that he didn’t feel anything, I just stared at them with my mouth open. They wanted a reaction but I couldn’t get it going so the policeman added, ‘It would have been too quick. He wouldn’t have had time to realize what was happening. He wouldn’t have felt a thing.’

And I did this weird thing, apparently, so his mum, Margaret, said. I don’t think she’s ever forgiven me for it. I said, ‘Easy come, easy go.’

That’s when Margaret started hitting me and, by all accounts, the police had to intervene.

I don’t remember it, and I know it must have seemed heartless, but I can understand what I meant. Josh was easy: persistently mild and laid back. I have this enduring image of him, hunched over his laptop with headphones on. His straw-like gingery hair jutting out at odd angles, Paul Newman blue eyes closed, head nodding, mouth creeping into a dopey grin. Not stoned. Just happy. He loved his tunes, the pitches, chords, non-sequential effects, banging rhythms. Most of it bored me, but I used to make the right noises as if I totally loved his creations. He didn’t care anyway. If we’d been on the Titanic he would have packed me and Alfie off in a lifeboat and happily joined the orchestra. Nothing fazed Josh. And that’s what I liked about him when I first met him. Everyone at Stealth Records, where I used to work, used to flap like seals on speed if a taxi didn’t arrive on time or if a press release missed its deadline. But it was impossible to get a rise out of Josh. He’d just shrug and come out with some kind of non sequitur, giving the impression of confusion and/or low IQ, so the executives mostly left him alone.

He never said much. Even when we were married he wasn’t verbally expressive. But he’d write messages on Post-it notes and leave them around the flat and sometimes in my desk at work for me to find.

I loved it that he hadn’t got sucked into the utterly manic culture of Stealth, especially as, when I started, I got landed with a massive campaign and spent my first year spinning in a PR tiz. But on Friday afternoons, after the marketing meeting, I’d sneak off down to the studio and watch Josh work, not listening or paying much attention to the music but basking in the calm he radiated.

He was in constant demand for engineering even though, truth be told, he wasn’t the best. Josh was simply cool. He was cool in life and he was cool at the end. I was glad he felt nothing.

I didn’t either for the first week.

Then the rage and frustration came.

The pain was my connection for a long time. He had given it to me. It was all that was left attaching me to him, along with his name, the care of our son and an insurance policy that eventually paid off the mortgage on our flat.

I tried to keep things normal for Alfie but it was hard to live there with the constant expectation Josh would wheel his bike through the front door.

One day I found a Post-it in my jumper drawer. He must have hidden it months before. It read ‘I don’t tell you enough that I love you’.

It killed me.

I mean, it really, truly finished me off. The old Sarah died that day.

After the sobbing and puking and screaming I knew I couldn’t remain in the husk of my old life.

Josh had moved on and so must I.

So that was that.

I left the flat that night and returned to Essex to stay with my mum. The next day I put the flat on the market. Three months later Alfie and I moved into the house in Leigh-on-Sea.

For the most part it pleased me to live in Leigh. There was a sense of community, tradition. People knew each other and soon started to recognize me and Alfie. It was nice, different to London, although sometimes, I’ve got to say, I missed the cynicism, the illegal twenty-four-hour off-licences and the anonymity. Down here you couldn’t mention someone’s name without being overheard by their wife/husband/cousin/sister/brother-in-law/mum/best friend (delete as appropriate).

But the up side was that the grocer called you by your first name when he handed over your change, on Thursdays the Rag and Bone man drove down the street, the butcher saved you lardons on a Saturday, and the library would phone you to let you know that book you were discussing had arrived.

No, at that point in time, I didn’t mind Leigh at all.

We reached the beach and as I came out of my thoughts I heard Lottie saying ‘And then the credit card! Honestly, Sarah, I could have killed him.’

Remembering herself she apologized. ‘I’m sorry. Metaphorical and all that.’

I was used to it. ‘It’s OK,’ I said. But I was pleased when, once we’d set out the blanket and the picnic, Lottie took the boys off to get their sugary rewards.

Determined to enjoy a moment to myself I removed my sandals, rolled up my trousers and sauntered down to the sea.

The noise levels were more subdued here than at Leigh. The lazy rhythmic lap of the waves frothed about my ankles, warm and inviting. Out on the grey horizon a large transport tanker crept towards the North Sea.

I closed my eyes, lifted my head to the sun and breathed the salty air in deeply. The tension in my body started to dissipate.

‘Sarah.’

It was a low whisper, close to my ear. I opened my eyes and turned around. A quick scan of the beach revealed no one that I knew. I stood alone in the surf. On the beach I saw our blanket was empty. Lottie and the boys were still on their ice-cream expedition.

‘Sarah.’

A woman’s voice.

This time it seemed to come from my left but there were only two children determinedly building a wall against the encroaching tide. The voice was much older.

‘Sarah.’

Something drew my eyes down to look at the sand.

I froze.

Caught in the high beam of the one o’clock sun, my shadow barely stretched before me – a fat compact dwarf-like outline.

But beside it there was another shadow – the long blackened haze of a woman’s shape.

As I stared transfixed, small strands of shadow hair wisped out of what looked like a bonnet and fluttered in the breeze.

And then it came to me, like a forgotten memory or a dream, swamping me, taking me down.

Running aimlessly through a garden: hurtling, staggering, losing my footing in the loose earth, sprawling, staggering, rushing towards … no, no, not going towards, but running from something or someone. My sobs choke me and I feel the desperate strangling claustrophobia of misery, of utter desolation, entrapment. There is no hope. Then out of the garden up to the road. Slowing to an unsteady walk. Vision blurred. Panting. Wet face.

Clouds roll in over the heavens. Grey sky. Buildings the colour of slate give way to reveal the water surrounded by rushes. It is waiting for me, the Drowning Pool, my saviour, my haven. Take me.

Through the reeds, I descend deeper into the water’s embrace. Then from behind, a shout. ‘Sarah!’ A middle-aged man in an ochre jacket. Father. Panic, thrashing into the pool. No! I step backwards. Away. Wading further into the centre.

Take me.

The heavy drag of wet fabric makes me stumble. Water-drenched, my skirt billows out beneath me in the shallows.

My doom.

A foot catches the floating cloth and I am under, gulping the pond into my lungs, filling them, losing myself in the pool’s murky depths.

Take me to him.

Down, deeper into the blackness of death, swirling, searching for welcoming numbness.

Then suddenly fingers around the back of my neck, gripping my dress. Hands about my waist, heaving, lifting, bearing me through the water. Staggering, falling, up again. On the grass. The hardness of the road, mud under my head. Coughing water, air. Two faces above, father and another, a woman full of tears: Mother. Oh, Mother. Look what has become of me.

Beyond them, a crowd.

A woman in a black bonnet has stopped to stare. She nudges her gentleman companion. ‘Who is it there?’

A voice loud and booming. ‘’Tis the Sutton girl in the Drowning Pool.’

The woman clucks. ‘It wouldn’t take her, see. She floats.’

‘No, the water will not take her sort.’ A large man now, white beard, shabby frock coat. Fierce. ‘She cannot drown herself.’ He makes the sign of the cross.

Spittle on my feet.

‘Witch.’

‘Sarah!’ The voice cut through the scene like a blast of cold air. Familiar, shrill – Lottie.

‘Deaf as a bloody post. What are you doing? Standing there like a zombie? Your jeans are soaked.’ She was holding an ice cream to me. ‘I thought I may as well get one for us too.’

The sun was burning my back. The cheerful sound of beach pandemonium hit me again.

I was back.

The sea lapped at my knees.

The children to my left had retreated, their sea wall long defeated by the tide.

‘What’s up?’ Lottie grimaced at my stricken expression. ‘Did the tide creep up on you? Have you got a cossie underneath that? If not I think I’ve got a spare pair of shorts somewhere. Come on.’ Her sturdy ankles sank into the sand as she returned to the blanket.

I tumbled forwards out of the sea and sat down. My shadow mimicked me but it was alone.

What had just happened?

I touched the centre of my chest, lightly. It rose and fell in a super-quick rhythm. There was some pain but not of a physical kind. I had known this misery when I first lost Josh: I was cloaked in gloom, the feeling had followed me back from the dream.

What on earth was I doing to myself?

It must have been brought on by my earlier musings about Josh. I cursed and kicked up the sand with my foot.

I’d heard a phrase used once to describe this sort of thing. What was it called? Oh yes – a waking dream.

That must have been it.

Perhaps I still had a lot of alcohol in my system. I had certainly been knocking it back last night. The natural balance of my brain must be off. A sudden surge of the wrong chemical had churned up some morbid hallucination.

‘It’s the booze,’ I thought.

‘It’s the tumour,’ an inner demon said.

Or perhaps it was a side effect of cutting back the medication?

I’d seen a woman at Stealth Records come straight off lithium and go completely hat stand. One day she was striding through the atrium in a neat Chanel two-piece, barking orders at her p.a., the next she was barefoot and wandering the corridors. She went on sick leave and never came back.

I wasn’t going to go that way.

My hands were trembling so I clenched them tightly and took a deep breath in, held it, then blew out slowly. After several repetitions the shakes started to subside.

With some effort I took a step forwards. Plastering a bright smile onto my face, I returned to Lottie and the boys.

Alfie and Thomas were a way away. They had built a sandcastle and were using it as a backdrop to some as yet unwritten Spiderman episode featuring lots of explosions.

I sat down next to Lottie and licked my ice cream, trying to settle my nerves and ignore the aftershocks of the incident.

‘Sorry, Sarah. Couldn’t find the shorts. Must have left them at home.’ Lottie dabbed her hands with a wet wipe and offered me the pack.

‘No thanks.’ My cone trembled. ‘In a minute.’

‘What’s up, Sarah?’ Lottie’s smile was encouraging.

I contemplated her open, oval face, the dark glossy locks that curved around it, the slightly Roman line of her nose and her big loud mouth. A sensible and rather noble older sister, Charlotte Rose was a good woman. Strong too. Her broad shoulders had taken much of the burden when our dad died.

I took a breath. Now was the time. ‘I might have a brain tumour.’

The smile melted down her face.

‘But then again, I might not.’ I told her why.

She didn’t take it very well, so after I recounted most of what Doctor Cook had said, I omitted the hallucinations bit. ‘So what’s next? When do you get the hospital appointment?’ Lottie’s eyebrows knitted together. There she went – organizing, reorganizing, taking charge, planning, trying to contain her alarm.

I couldn’t remember. ‘I guess it’ll come in the post.’

‘Yes, but when?’

‘Soon.’

My big sister sighed and gazed out into the estuary. The tide had turned and some of the children were picking over the rock pools with buckets and fishing nets. Alfie and Thomas had abandoned their Spiderman game and were crouching over a dead crab. ‘Well, will you let me know?’

I nodded.

‘Have you told Mum?’

I shook my head. ‘No. There’s no point worrying her at this stage.’

‘OK.’ Lottie leant over, grabbed my free hand and rubbed it. ‘You know it’s probably nothing. Like the doctor said. But I’m glad you’re taking it seriously. I understand that you don’t want to tell Mum now but if something does …’ she trailed off and sent me this small, mournful smile. ‘You’ll be fine, I’m sure.’

I stuffed the remnants of the cone into my mouth and tried hard not to cry.

Lottie and Thomas came back to the house to clean up. After tea I opened a bottle of Spanish wine. I shared half of it with Lottie before David arrived to pick up his clan. He had a sheepish air about him, perhaps guessing that Lottie had confided in me. I did my best to be bright and jolly. Then Alfie chucked a hissy fit about Thomas packing up, and demanded his cousin stay for a sleepover. But it was gone seven so once Lottie and co. had beaten a hasty exit I plopped him briefly in the bath then sang him to sleep.

It was still early evening for me, and after the day I’d had, I didn’t want to be alone. I composed a message requesting company then texted Martha, Sharon and Corinne. I added John as an afterthought though the chances of him being allowed out were remote.

Downstairs I threw back the French doors and breathed in jasmine-soaked air. Though the dusky shadow of the house covered most of the back garden, the furthermost part was alight with the amber pink luminosity of high summer. The flower-boat swayed seductively in the soft evening breeze, lifting my spirits a little, which was just as well as at that moment my phone beeped several times: Martha was feeling the same as me but was also stranded in her home with kids and no babysitter. Corinne was in London and Sharon was on an internet date. Nothing from John, but then he didn’t monitor his phone religiously like the rest of us.

I grabbed the wine off the kitchen table and optimistically took two glasses to the hammock. There was something so comforting about its gentle rock that I soon let my eyes close. The worries of the day slipped far away.

About half-past ten I was woken into a moonlit garden by the bleep of the mobile in the pocket of my jeans. One text from a private gym offering me a membership trial. And one missed call: private number.

I dialled my voicemail. ‘You have one new message. Last message left at 12.01 a.m.’

Strange that it had only just notified me of the call almost twenty-two hours later. Although with the cliffs and the beach, the signal in these parts was quite often intermittent.

As I listened, I could hear hissing interference like choppy waves lurching high and low, similar to when someone has accidentally misdialled you and you can hear the sound of the phone jogging around in a jacket or handbag. Then there was a crashing sound and a bang. The roaring sound rose abruptly and then just before it cut out I heard a woman’s voice, muffled against the sibilant white noise.

‘Help me,’ she pleaded.

The tone was desperate, the texture of her voice rough and rasping. I mentally filed through a list of people who could have dialled my number at midnight last night. All my Leigh chicks were accounted for. Who had I left in the pub? Nancy? No, the voice was older. Sue? Pregnant Sue! But why would she phone me?

A thought flashed. Of course – check the call log. And that’s when I saw it. The last missed call at 12.01 yesterday night had been dialled from 01702 785471 – my own landline.

It didn’t make sense. I was home then. I’d got the cab around ten thirty, got rid of Giselle and had passed out by 11.15.

I played it again.

This time the voice was clearer, more disturbing.

‘Help me.’

I shivered.

The garden was in complete darkness now but I must have left a light on in the kitchen because I could see the phone sitting on the wall.

An uncomfortable thought was starting to form at the back of my mind but I managed to contain it and dropped out of the hammock.

I walked up the garden path towards the phone.

A crack on the windowpane stopped me rock still.

I eased my breathing and strained my ears.

Somewhere in the distance a dog barked in warning.

A flutter of panic hit.

I didn’t want to look at the decking by the window. And yet I couldn’t help myself. Something was drawing me to the French doors.

Even though I kind of knew it would be there my eyes widened with shock as they absorbed the small, white, gleaming cockleshell.

I hugged myself, too frightened now to move closer. A strangled whistle sound wheezed in my throat.

The temperature had dropped to cold, almost frosty.

About the French doors the air began to crackle.

Draughts stirred, lifting and billowing the curtains at their sides.

A darkness beside them was thickening and warping. Something was coming, swirling into being – a shape, a dark mass.

Then I saw it clearly – the murky shade of a woman in a long gown, discarnate, shadowed with blacks and greys. I had the impression of dark curls snaking around the palest of faces like seaweed clinging to a corpse, a marbled neck and stained cotton dress. But it was just that – a notion. I didn’t see them with my eyes but with my mind, like my imagination was filling the contours within the depth of blackness.

There was the acrid smell of muddy sulphur and an unbearable feeling of loss.

For a long second it hovered there like a storm cloud.

Then a heartbeat later it was gone.

Chapter Five

My computer screen flicked on. I fingered the scrap of paper in my hand. It read ‘Marie143’ in John’s looping handwriting.

When I drove into St John’s on Monday morning, he had been leaning against the wall, waiting for me. As soon as he spotted my red VW Beetle he nipped over and held the door open for me.

I watched his face wrinkle with concern. ‘I left my phone at the pub. Nancy brought it in this morning. I just got your messages. You sounded weird. What’s going on? You OK?’

Good question. What was going on? Was I OK? Were things happening because of something going wrong in my brain? Or was this stuff external?

I hadn’t been able to come to a conclusion on Sunday. Which was an improvement on Saturday when I had been simply ‘weird’ as John had correctly suggested. The seeming physical nature of whatever had manifested seemed very real and I was certain that something supernatural had turned its gaze on me.

Martha was alarmed, of course. It was all over her face when she arrived late on Saturday night. She came over as soon as her husband, Deano, got home, on the off chance that I was still up for company.

I had left a rather hysterical message on John’s phone and was just calming myself down, trying to get a grip on what I’d just seen, so her timing was perfect.

Martha could be counted on for good solid comfort. Her green fingers tended our social circle’s gardens and house-plants when we went away, while her gentle manner and nurturing aura had us all calling on her for a shoulder to cry on whenever things got tough. There was something indescribably soft about her, without any drippy overtone, that made you feel safe in her company.

Ever practical she sat me down around the large pine kitchen table and made us a cup of tea while I gasped and spluttered through what had happened in the garden, climaxing with the revelation of the phone message.

I know I sounded quite crazy as when I looked up Martha’s face was crossed by heavy lines of strain. Her honey-sweet voice told me that in her opinion I was probably just overdoing things.

‘You know, darling,’ she soothed, ‘you have really been through the wringer these past few years. Life’s not easy and I know being a widow with a young child must seem an awful lot to cope with. Do you not think that perhaps your brain is creating an outlet for you?’

She was being rational and I would have loved to believe her, but there was no denying something peculiar was happening. Something that went beyond psychological stress, even perhaps beyond mental illness or the possibility that my brain was rewiring itself around a blockage.

The quiet lull of her voice, the reason in her argument, the relief of her physical presence served to pacify me a bit. Even her suggestion that I might want to see a counsellor was acceptable although wide of the mark, but then she added, almost as an afterthought: ‘Of course you want to keep the memory of Josh alive, it’s a completely natural impulse, but this way,’ she shrugged limply, ‘just seems so negative, Sarah.’

‘What are you talking about?’ The words exploded out of my mouth without thought or care. ‘How dare you?’

Martha took in my expression and started to backtrack. ‘God, I’m sorry, Sarah. I know it’s a touchy subject.’

But I was on my feet, walking up and down the kitchen, hands gesturing to the ceiling with outrage and exasperation. ‘You think this thing is my husband?’

‘Well, I …’ Martha’s eyebrows knitted together. She shrank into her chair.

‘That’s bloody ridiculous.’

Martha relaxed a little. ‘I’m glad to hear it, Sarah, really I am. I know you’ve not been yourself lately.’

I stopped pacing, rested my knuckles on the table and took a deep breath. ‘This has nothing to do with Josh. Nothing.’ I tried to speak in a controlled voice. ‘This thing, Martha, is female.’

She had her mouth open as if she was going to speak but then closed it. A small sigh escaped her. ‘Really?’

I knew she was trying to help but she sounded so insincere, I realized that it was pointless talking to her, and rather than offend her again with another exasperated tut or sigh I answered her with a small shrug.

She cocked her head to one side and held my gaze. ‘Have you ever read Stephen King?’

OK, I thought, now she’s getting it and replied, ‘Maybe. Yes, when I was a teenager. I’m not reading anything like that now and before you suggest it, Martha, no I’m not letting my imagination run away with me.’

She smiled and stretched her hand to me across the table. ‘Honey, I wouldn’t dream of patronizing you like that. What I was going to say is I once remember reading an interview with him, where he said something that had quite an impact on me.’

‘Go on.’

‘We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones.’

Exhaustion fell across me.

She must have seen it because she asked if I wanted to go to bed.

I nodded.

Martha got to her feet pretty damn quickly.

At the front door, she paused and held out a little green pill. ‘Valium. Get some sleep, Sarah. Call me in the morning if you need to talk. You’re not alone.’

‘I know. That’s the problem,’ I said and closed the door.

The next morning I woke up with a sentence going round my head. It was a phrase Sharon had used to describe coming off the anti-depressants she’d taken once when she was younger. It was a hard time and she said she weirded out a bit. ‘Until you get balanced again …’ she told me, ‘… it can be just like a bad trip.’

Having had a few early forays into recreational drugs during my twenties this made sense. Once, in the bath, coming down from something or other, I was convinced I could hear voices in the water pipes begging me to release them from their watery prison. By the time Josh found me I’d scratched the paintwork off the u-bend and was searching for a hammer.

I entertained the idea of a flashback. The incident by the French doors had been, it was fair to say, rather trippy. And with regard to the mobile, there was a possibility that I could have sent the message to myself while I was half asleep or sleepwalking. Though it seemed unlikely.

In the afternoon I summoned the courage to listen to the message again and tried dialling into it but it was gone. I wasn’t sure if I had failed to save it or perhaps Martha may have deleted it in a well-meaning attempt to help. That would be just like her. The possibility rather put me out – I hadn’t given her permission to tamper with my phone. I would certainly speak to her about it when I next saw her. It was frustrating. Now I only had my memory of it to go from and it was becoming hazier the more I tried to concentrate on its recall.

By evening I had a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach and by nightfall I was edgy as hell. I didn’t want to admit it at the time, but I was getting scared. I think part of me knew what was going to happen.

The dreary sameness of Monday morning felt like something of a reprieve. In fact I’d go as far as to say that I was almost pleased to be going into St John’s. The students were gone and we had a week of administrative duties to sort before we were allowed to bugger off on summer leave.

As I turned into the drive and clocked the grey steel girders of the new music block extension with its vaulted see-through roof, the absolute soullnessness of the place suddenly heartened me. There’s a first time for everything. Nothing organic stirred here. Thank God.

A break from restless spirits was required.

I needed to get in and get my head down. Work would absorb me and for a while I could feel almost normal.

The last thing I wanted to do was talk it over again. So when John fired up I told him just that. But the silly sod wouldn’t leave me alone.

‘Sarah? ARE YOU OK?’

I locked the door of the car and picked up my bag and started marching to the entrance. It had rained the previous night and the air was damp and verdant.

‘I’m not really sure if I am OK, to be honest. If I told you what happened, you’d just think I’m mad and to be honest, I’m starting to wonder about that myself.’

He nipped ahead and turned to face me, blocking my path. ‘Hey, slow down. Do you want to talk about it? I’m going to go into the research room and do some marking, if you want somewhere private to chat.’

‘Actually, I don’t, John. I’m sorry about calling you on Saturday night. I had a bit of a fright – a missed call from some woman asking for help. I thought it might be Sue? What with the pregnancy and everything. Is she OK?’

John nodded. ‘I just saw her in the staff room. She’s fine. Everyone’s fine. Are you fine?’

‘Please forget it.’

He was scuttling alongside me. ‘Was it another cockleshell?’

I shook my head and scowled knowing that I would appear either rude or irritable or probably both.

‘Thank God for that. Solitary female hysteria.’ My eyes met his, which crinkled warmly. ‘Joke,’ he added.

But I wasn’t in the mood. ‘I’m going to the staff room.’

‘Well, come and find me if you’re bored. You sure you’re OK? Don’t worry about drinking too much, if that’s what you’re thinking. An early death might save you from the horrors of new education models.’ And he bounced off.

I turned into the staff room and made for the coffee machine. I was being too hard on him I ruminated, now regretful, as I set my load down on the side. He was just trying to help.

I fumbled in my bag for my purse, finally scooping out a handful of coins, which promptly scattered across the ledge that the machine perched on.

I cursed and picked up a twenty-pence piece. It went into the coin slot and straight out of the return. ‘Fuck.’

‘Having one of those days are we?’

McBastard stood beside me. A half smile curled his lips, suggestive of glee at my blinding incompetence.

As there were no students present in school that week, we were permitted to wear jeans. McBastard’s grey chinos had been swapped for dark denim that caught across the hips and tailored down over his long legs, fleshing him out for a change. To my surprise I saw he was wearing a t-shirt with a logo of a cool band that I had once publicized. Was the robot becoming human?

‘Let’s say I’ve had better mornings.’ Struggling with the coin slot, I glanced at him in time to see his volcano eyes fix on me. He looked away immediately, embarrassed to be caught staring. Could he tell something strange was happening to me? Was I dragging around an aura of weirdness?

The coins returned once more. I was starting to feel self-conscious.

McBastard coughed. ‘Here, let me.’ He retrieved the money and this time, his efforts produced a coffee. His fingertips brushed against my palm as he handed over my change.

Without thanking him I scrambled my stuff together hastily and made towards the desks at the far side of the room.

‘Sarah!’ he called after me. I turned and met his stare. The openness of his face had melted away. ‘I need your course review. Tomorrow at the latest, please.’

I answered him with a grunt and sat down, spreading my papers over the wooden top, noting with bewilderment that my hand was tingling where he had touched me.

At lunch John found me in the canteen mauling a stale beef sandwich and trying to put the horrors of the weekend out of my mind.

He wedged his butt along the pine bench next to mine. ‘Have you seen Sue?’ He was trying to make conversation.

I informed him she had an ante-natal appointment at the hospital but didn’t expand. I wasn’t in the mood for conversation.

John poked a dried-up triangle of something pizza-like on his plate. The food, which was below average at the best of times, was virtually inedible once the students, sorry customers, had departed.

He forced himself to bite the cheesy triangle and winced. ‘Good night on Friday, wasn’t it?’ he said, through a mouthful of dried bread.

My mind went straight to the phone call, the haunting watery words, the strangulated tone of the woman. With some effort, I focused on the Red Lion hours.

‘I was quite drunk. Any gossip?’ I did my best to engage.

‘One of Finance got chucked out for doing coke in the loo.’

‘Oh, who?’

‘Tina Worten.’

John took another bite and we munched in silence until he put down his crust and said, ‘You’re a bit pissed off with me, aren’t you? What is it? The hysterical woman reference? I was being silly. I thought we had that kind of relationship. I’m sorry. Is that why you phoned me Saturday night? To be hysterical? I was only concerned because I didn’t realize you were joking.’

I stared at him blankly. I had phoned him when I was upset Saturday night, hoping he might be up. But when the call went to his voicemail I left some garbled message for him to call me. It hadn’t occurred to me that he would assume the call was a prank, although part of me was mighty relieved that he might.

‘Now you’re pissed off with me for not getting it. I understand. But can we just go back to being normal? I won’t mention it again.’

I wondered briefly if I should go with the prank call idea. It certainly made me feel better. Better than him thinking I was mad.

‘Sorry, John. Something happened on Saturday night but I don’t want to go into it.’

‘Something else? I’m here if you need to talk.’

‘I have to try and work a few things out in my head first.’

‘And you think I’ll think you’re hysterical.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Shit, don’t punish me for something stupid I said when I was pissed.’

‘I’m not. Honestly. I’m just not sure what’s going on and …’ I faltered.

‘You’re under a lot of stress, Sarah. We all are. It’s the end of term and we all need a good rest. I’m sure you’ll be back on form by September. Give yourself a break. Go away. Have some fun.’

I balked at the mention of September. The idea that this might escalate, that I might return to school with the current situation unresolved was terrifying.

‘Oh God.’ I hadn’t meant to say it aloud.

John’s eyes narrowed. ‘Is it something else? I’m getting the sense that you don’t want to talk to me.’

‘You got it, Columbo.’

He ignored my barb and continued. ‘OK, you may not want to talk to me, but how do you feel about talking to my sister? I spoke to her over the weekend. She’s a little left of centre but I mentioned your cockleshell thing and she said she’d heard of that kind of thing happening.’

His sister. ‘Oh yes, the one into “weirdies” and stuff.’ The thought was appealing however. ‘But you said she was in California?’

‘She is. You know the wonders of technology can reach out across the miles. Do you have Skype on your trendy new internet?’

I nodded.

He wrote her handle on a piece of paper. ‘I’ll send her an email this afternoon and let her know you may call. Do it. She won’t think you’re nutsville, which everyone knows you are anyway. Give her a try. Seriously, it might just be worth talking to someone. If not to put the whole thing to rest, at least to let off steam at someone who’s odder than your good self.’

That night I settled Alfie early. It took a while as he was agitated and didn’t want to be on his own but eventually his tired little body won over his restless mind and he fell asleep. and I was able to go downstairs and have a little me-time.

The living room was dark, the windows onto the street were still open and yet hardly any noise drifted in. There was no hum of traffic or doors slamming, only the calm of Monday evening hibernation.

I dug into my pocket and pulled out John’s sister’s details. ‘Put it to rest,’ he had said.

He was right. I wasn’t passive by nature. Well, there was no time like the present.

In the kitchen I set up my laptop, pressed the on button and poured myself a glass of red as the Skype loaded onto my home page.

I took a sip and entered Marie’s details into the contact box.

The woman who popped up seconds later on the video stream had John’s easy eyes, his pronounced chin, which suited him more than her, and his heavily textured voice softened by a slight East Coast twang. She was lean, with a healthy tan, and in her mid-to late thirties.

‘Hi,’ I said.

She grinned at me, her image pixellating slightly as the information whizzed through the modem. ‘Sarah?’

In the smaller video screen to the bottom right of the monitor I could see an image of myself disintegrating into little blocks and reintegrating again.

‘Yes, hi. You’re Marie?’

She nodded, a big, shaggy mane of mahogany hair tumbling about her shoulders as she did so. ‘John said you might phone sometime. I didn’t think it would be so soon. You OK?’

‘You look like John,’ I said, changing the subject. It was odd having a face-to-face conversation with someone you would probably never meet in the flesh.

‘Yes, we’re related.’ She tossed her head back as she laughed. Same gesture as John. I wondered briefly what their parents were like.

I raised my eyebrows and shook my head. ‘Of course. Sorry. This is a bit weird isn’t it?’

She leant closer to the screen as if scrutinizing my image. ‘You mean Skyping or your situation?’

I hadn’t expected her to bring it up so soon. ‘Well, er, both really.’

She grinned again showing good, strong teeth. ‘Not in California, honey, believe me!’ I think she winked but it could have been a time delay on the screen. ‘Do you fancy a cup of chamomile?’ she asked.

‘I think I might have a glass of red if it’s not too early for you?’ I raised my glass to the screen and laughed. She saw it and nodded. ‘Normally I’d join you but it’s not yet noon here, honey. The neighbours would talk.’

There was a lot of John’s comfortable easiness about her, which made me relax more than I’d anticipated.

‘Gimme forty seconds,’ she said, ‘and I’ll be all yours.’

‘OK.’

Marie had a pleasant living room. Behind the empty wicker chair on screen there was a white stucco arch that led out onto what looked to be a wooden deck furnished with tropical plants. The room was full of bright late morning sunlight and crammed with bookshelves and more plants. Pictures on either side of the walls spoke of a love of contemporary art and esoteric objects. I was trying to place one of the paintings when Marie’s torso filled the screen. A porcelain mug bearing a picture of a cat came into view followed by her shoulders and head.

‘Right,’ she took a sip of tea. ‘Fire away. It started with a cockleshell? Am I right?’

I bit my lip, unsure of whether to mention my appointment with Doctor Cook. Marie read the slight pause as hesitation. ‘Hey, honestly you don’t need to tell me everything. I’m just assuming that as you called you needed some advice.’

‘No. It’s not that. It’s just— Oh, never mind …’ and I started at the beginning.

Several minutes later I reached the Saturday night climax. ‘I can’t describe it. I’m pretty sure it was female and human, or had been once upon a time. Long gown, black hair …’ I was speaking quickly, gabbling. ‘But I got this awful feeling of tragedy. You know I’ve felt that before. I’ve been through loss. But this was kind of saturating. Overwhelming. Like drowning. Like the feeling I came back with from the Drowning Pool. That’s what this is about.’

At this point I realized I must have sounded insane as Marie’s eyes widened and her eyebrows rose virtually up into her hairline. She shuddered and moved back momentarily from the webcam.

I stopped. My shoulders were aching with tension so I too sat back into my chair with a small sigh. My breath vaporized in front of me. Instinctively I thought of smoke and reached for my cigarette packet. ‘Oh God. Sorry. This sounds so nuts, I know.’

Marie looked sort of frozen and for a second I thought I’d lost the connection, and then I saw her breathe in. ‘It’s OK,’ she said, with a tremor to her voice that had been absent before. I guessed she wanted to stop and get away from her brother’s mental mate as soon as possible. I cursed myself and took a cigarette from the pack.

‘Marie. I can’t believe I’m telling you all this.’ I paused and pulled on the fag. ‘Perhaps I am ill?’

‘Sarah, it’s OK …’ Marie had leant forward and was looking intently into the screen. Her voice was purposefully gentle but I could make out worry lines streaking across a forehead that had had clearly lost some of its ruddiness.

‘I can tell from your face that you must think I’m crazy. I don’t blame you. I shouldn’t have …’ I shivered involuntarily. The room had grown cold. Very cold.

She broke in. ‘Sarah, listen – I believe you.’

But I wasn’t listening. ‘… Skyped you. Perhaps I am nuts. Saturday night just felt real.’ And then her words sank in.

On the computer her head nodded.

‘You believe me?’

Her face was filling the screen now so it was easy to see her swallow and hesitate.

‘Why?’ I said, fixing onto the whites of her eyes.

She paused and then in a very slow voice she said, ‘Because I can see her. She’s standing behind you.’

Chapter Six

It’s difficult in retrospect to try and describe how I felt at that moment. You always imagine you’re going to behave in a certain way then when bad things happen, you can surprise yourself. I had thought I’d be one to run screaming from the house. Maybe stopping to get Alfie first.

But I didn’t.

My body seemed to react to what Marie was saying before my brain processed the words. I had been about to light the cigarette but as realization dawned, my right hand froze mid-air, gripping the lighter tightly. My left, which had been idling on my lap, clutched the arm of the chair. Across my back and down my arms, goose bumps crawled. I stared back at Marie, utterly petrified.

She was easing herself back into her chair. ‘I’m not getting any sense of antagonism from her, Sarah.’ Her movements were controlled and tense but she smiled. ‘I can see her outline. It’s like she’s wearing an old dress. Victorian? I can’t tell. She keeps fading out. Now she’s like a shadow.’

I kept my eyes firmly on her face and avoided the smaller rectangular image in the lower right-hand corner, the one that showed me in situ. This was weird and getting weirder by the second.

When my voice came it was high. ‘How can you tell all this?’

Marie said carefully, ‘I don’t know. I just do. Can’t you see her?’

Fuck, no. ‘I’m not looking.’

‘I think she wants you to. She’s coming towards you, Sarah.’

My breath was coming quick and fast.

‘I really think you should turn and face her. Be quick. I’m not sure she’s going to hold together much longer.’

I was burning up with fear. ‘I don’t think I can do that.’

‘I think it’s important to try, Sarah,’ she said. ‘This is happening for a reason, right? Please.’

I let out a small sob, took a deep breath, and then slowly forced my eyes down to the screen, only to see the vague black shadow at my shoulder dissolve.

The air came out of me and I turned around. There was nothing in the kitchen but a fly beating its wings against the window. My nose tingled as if thawing out after an icy blast. I sniffed, the room temperature was back to normal, and faced the screen.

Marie had moved closer. ‘She’s gone, right?’

I nodded, unable to speak.

‘Geez. That was … well, that was freaky.’ Marie sat back into her chair and took a sip from her mug. ‘I suggest you have a good glug of that red wine you’ve got there. You look pale.’

‘It’s a shock,’ I said, finding my voice. The wine tasted bitter, of hawthorns and mud, but I drank it down anyway.

‘OK?’

‘Better.’

Marie cradled her tea. After a few moments she spoke. ‘Has anything like this happened to you before?’

I shook my head. ‘Never. There was a time after my husband’s death when I really wanted something to happen, but it never did.’ I took another gulp as a thought hit me. ‘Oh God. Do you think that’s where this has come from? Have I conjured this up because I want Josh back?’

But Marie spoke firmly. ‘No, no way. I think this has more to do with your present circumstances.’ Her eyes held my gaze. ‘Do you ever sense your husband around you?’

I thought for a moment then replied sadly. ‘No.’ I was going to say more but it seemed pointless. The question could be answered with a simple word. Wherever Josh was, he wasn’t here in Leigh with me and Alfie. This I knew with a painful certainty.

Marie nodded then frowned. ‘Any idea why a cockleshell? Or a pine cone?’

I hadn’t thought about it. ‘We’re by the sea. Have you been to Leigh?’

‘Many moons ago. Is there a cockle industry?’

‘It’s a working fishing town. Down in the Old Town there’s a lane full of cockle sheds. Part of the beach outside of the Crooked Billet pub is completely made from the shells.’

‘So our visitor may be trying to let us know there’s a connection with that area. And the pine cone? Are there pine trees anywhere down there?’

The main part of the Old Town comprised small fishermen’s cottages, cobbled streets, pubs, cafés and boatyards. There was scarcely any vegetation down there at all. ‘No. I don’t think so.’

‘Hmm. Pine cones. The cedar is the tree of life. Did you know that? It’s bound to be a symbolic gesture. We just have to work out what it represents,’ Marie ruminated. I took another sip of wine. She cleared her voice. ‘Do you want to know what I think?’

I wasn’t sure I did at that point but I answered her yes.

She looked up away from the screen, gathering her thoughts. ‘She’s disturbed, this being.’ She took a moment then continued. ‘I think that she’s here because of you.’

At this I balked. ‘Hey, I haven’t invited her in. I didn’t do anything to wish this on myself or my child! Don’t say that.’

Marie held a hand up. ‘Not knowingly you haven’t, but sometimes when manifestations occur it can be the slightest thing that activates them: a change in hormone levels, puberty in adolescents, arguments. Have you had any work done on the house recently? Held a séance?’

I shook my head vigorously. ‘No, no. None of those things. And I wouldn’t meddle with the occult. That’s not my bag.’

Marie finished her tea and put her mug on the desk. ‘Well, she’s after something, Sarah, and whatever it is, it’s connected to you.’

I poured myself another glass of wine and considered it. ‘Is it possible that I’m imagining this? That maybe there is something going on with my brain and you’re picking it up? Like a shared delusion? Could I be projecting this?’

Her eyes softened and despite the distance her sympathy touched me. ‘Anything is possible, honey. I think you should go back to the doc and tell him what’s been going on. Carefully, though. Even if this thing is a symptom, it’s symbolizing something. You need to find out what and understand it. You know, I have friends who come to me when they’re sick. They want me to tell them not to heed the recommendations of their doctors and to give them herbs and chants that can cure them instead. My advice to them is the same to you – do everything – mix the conventional with the unconventional. It’s all there for a reason. And whatever’s going on with you, it’s there for a reason too.’

‘OK, I’ll make an appointment. But what do you suggest I do about …’ I tried to find the right word, ‘… the manifestation?’

Marie cocked her head. ‘Well, if you want, we could try it again? See if she comes through? Then you could ask her what she wants.’

I shuddered violently and took another gulp of wine. It wasn’t what I wanted. But nor did the alternative appeal – waiting around for something else to happen.

Marie coughed. ‘I’ve got to work tomorrow and Wednesday but I could dial in on Thursday?’

That sounded far enough away for me to acquire a backbone so I agreed.

‘But email me if you need to before.’

I told her I would.

‘Oh yes, one more thing,’ she said, reaching for her mouse to terminate the session. ‘Imagine yourself and your son in brilliant and vivid spheres of blue – once in the morning and once in the evening. That’ll protect you. Not that I think she’s harmful. But it might make you feel more secure, yeah?’

I nodded then sat there for twenty minutes after she signed off doing just that. Then, when I could not concentrate any more, I took my wine and sat outside on the deck. I hadn’t been out there since Saturday night and I was jumpy. But the night was balmy and the wine was calming my pulse.

Things were happening.

I couldn’t escape that.

Although my instinct was to bury my head in Leigh sand and pretend things were OK, I knew that soon I would have to face my fears. Once you acknowledge that something is going to happen you take away much of its dreadful power. As I sat there on the hot June night I experienced something akin to relief.

I didn’t know it then but I was taking my first step of the journey.

I had no idea just how much it would change everything.

Chapter Seven

As it was, on the Thursday, nothing happened. I psyched myself up, visualizing blue spheres at every conscious moment, but after an hour of talking and waiting and even a couple of jokes, Marie called it a day. Under her eyes were puffy bags. Her job obviously wore her out. I hadn’t asked her what it was she did. It seemed to be an intrusion – our relationship wasn’t conventional. It was another layer in this weird surreal world in which I’d found myself and in which she now found herself, too. Sure, she’d explained how she’d got into this stuff (a chance meeting with some kind of East Coast guru, followed up by workshops, crystals and then a channelling group), but I didn’t probe further. I had told her what I believed were the necessary details from my life. Nothing more, nothing less. Not because I didn’t like her or trust her. I did. But because it seemed irrelevant to my present situation. And at the back of my mind I had a strong sense that we were being watched.

Nevertheless on Thursday Marie appeared relieved the ‘entity’, as she called it, hadn’t materialized.

Cradling the same cat mug she’d drunk from on Monday she shrugged. ‘Most mediums I’ve talked to say time operates entirely differently on the spirit plane. You can’t force these things and I would strongly advise that you don’t. In my somewhat limited experience invocations, séances, Ouija boards and such tend to attract rather the wrong type of entity. I’m presuming here that you don’t want more turning up at your house.’

‘Or garden,’ I added. ‘No thanks. So what now?’

She shrugged. ‘Play it by ear. See how you go. Tune in over the weekend. I’m around most of the time. You never know, this might be the extent of it. Could be a blip in the space-time continuum, or something.’ She laughed.

‘Could just be my brain,’ I said, without mirth.

‘Oh yeah.’ Her face grew larger on the screen. ‘You seen your doc yet?’

‘Tomorrow, before work’ I told her. ‘Way things are going though, I might not mention it.’

‘Do what you need to,’ she said, and waved goodbye.

I did end up telling Doctor Cook some of the incidents. It was hard not to. He had such an accomplished bedside manner and for a doctor’s surgery his was one of the nicest I’d been in. Once upon a time it must have been the formal dining room of the house. It was dominated, on its northerly wall, by an impressive marble fireplace adorned with grapevines and pheasants. A bit more rural than you’d connect with Leigh but nevertheless, it had charm.

Behind Doctor Cook’s desk, double windows opened onto a large, rambling back garden. Flowerbeds to each side of the lawn burst with roses, hollyhocks, sweet peas and other plants I couldn’t name. Their cheerful scent mercifully overpowered the more clinical smell of the room.

Further back, behind a rickety glasshouse, stood a magnificent cedar so aged and heavy that its lower limbs were supported by wooden posts. Belted around its trunk was a large wooden bench. It must have been the perfect place to sit in summer evenings, which I mentioned to Doctor Cook, in a futile attempt to evade the reason for my appointment.

‘Yes,’ he smiled, crinkling his eyes. Today he had on a red bow tie with pale pink stripes and a white waistcoat that made him look like he’d be quite at home in a barber shop quartet. ‘I built the seat myself, many years ago when I was far younger and far more confident with my DIY skills than I really should have been.’

I glanced at it again. It was sagging on its left side. ‘Looks all right to me.’

‘The tree needs constant attention but it’s worth it.’ He tilted his chin up signalling a change of subject. ‘Now, how are you coming along, Ms Grey?’

I had decided to couch my worries as a question about medicinal dosage and told him that since I’d reduced my anti-depressants I had seen a few weird things. He tried to get me to elaborate but I managed to make the events sound fairly innocuous. I didn’t want him locking me up.

‘My temperature has been fluctuating quite wildly and sometimes I’m seeing shadows or I think I’m seeing shadows.’

‘Hm.’ He frowned. ‘Have you been sleeping well?’

Several times over the past ten days I had woken up throughout the night in a knot of sheets, covered in perspiration. ‘Not really.’

‘That may have more to do with it than the medication but these things tend to be interrelated. I can write you a prescription for sleeping pills if you think that might help? We all need sleep. Very good for one’s mental health.’

I hesitated then shook my head. Lately Alfie hadn’t been going through the night either. I needed to sleep lightly enough to respond to his cries.

‘Well, why don’t you see how it goes and come back to me in a couple of weeks if things haven’t improved?’

His lack of insistence was comforting.

‘Have you had your referral from the hospital yet, my dear?’

‘It would be a letter, wouldn’t it? No, I’ve not had it.’

He tutted. ‘I think that needs to be our priority at the moment. Let me just check with Janice to make sure she sent the request through, although I imagine it’s more likely to be a delay at the other end.’ He was nimble on his feet and out of the door within seconds, leaving me on my own.

I sat back into the chair and studied the heavy framed painting hanging over the fireplace. It was a landscape of the Old Town looking up over the fishermen’s sheds to Belton Hills. In the distance you could see the crumbling tower of Hadleigh Castle pointing its bony finger up at the sky. Beyond it, to the west, the artist had depicted a glorious sunset full of ambers and lilacs. It was a delightful pastoral verging on the saccharine. There was a signature in the corner. I got up, about to inspect it more closely. As I passed the French doors something cracked on the lower pane. I stopped for a moment then turned my face to the sound.

The doors had been wedged open by ruddy clay bricks. Rolling away from them on the patio was a small brown pine cone.

I did a double take and drew my breath in sharply. It was identical to the cone I’d found in my living room; same length, identical pattern.

For a moment the world stilled.

Then the door between the consultation room and the hallway flew open.

If Doctor Cook was surprised by my position he didn’t let on. His tone was concerned. ‘Is everything all right, my dear?’

I pointed to the pine cone. We both noticed the tremble to my hand. ‘That cone. It just dropped against the window.’

Doctor Cook stepped behind the desk. ‘It’s from the cedar tree,’ he said, and sat down expectantly.

But I couldn’t move. ‘From the cedar?’ I repeated uncertainly. ‘But the tree is all the way down there, at the bottom of the garden.’

Clouds passed over the sun throwing the garden into gloom. An intense feeling of unease flooded me.

Doctor Cook’s brow creased. ‘There’s a pair of mischievous magpies who call it home. They’re constantly stealing things and dropping them en route back to the tree.’

I took a last look at the pine cone and shivered.

He spoke gently. ‘Sit down. Are you sure you won’t take a prescription? If you don’t mind me saying, you look like you could do with a rest.’

‘No. No, thank you.’ I went to the chair and picked up my jacket.

‘The referral is well under way. You should be contacted very shortly. Now do take some time to relax.’ He stood to see me out.

‘Yes. I will.’ I turned at the door to send him a quick smile of thanks but he was looking away from me out of the window.

I kept my head down at work, reluctant to interact with anyone. I’m not good at small talk at the best of times and today I needed some solitude so I could bury myself in the course review – an analysis of the previous year’s strengths, weaknesses, retention, achievement and success rates. It wasn’t my favourite part of the job but within an hour the statistical overload had blocked out the morning’s incident and by the time Sue popped in to see if I fancied coffee I had more or less convinced myself that sometimes coincidences were just that.

It was Sue’s last day before she went on maternity leave and she was determined to have a single glass of wine to celebrate. So after work a bunch of us headed down to the Red Lion to toast her. I was irritated by the appearance of McBastard, nearly an hour later, and even more alarmed when he sauntered over to the table where John and I sat.

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