No Longer Safe(26)

Karen eventually appeared in the doorway with a sleepy Melanie tucked into her breast. Karen seemed fraught, her sleeves rolled up, barely looking at me.

‘Thanks for the drink. I’m shattered. G’night.’

I beckoned her inside, but I was too late. She’d gone.





Chapter 15




The front door knocker rapped just as I was thinking of having an early night. The others wouldn’t be back this soon. I answered it. A firework ignited inside my chest. It was Stuart.

‘Hello again…’ I said. I thought he was just being polite earlier, when he said he’d come back; I didn’t expect to see him again.

‘I wondered how the patient was getting on.’

I waved him into the warm. ‘I didn’t even come down with pneumonia,’ I said. ‘But, I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t turned up when you did.’ He followed me into the kitchen. ‘Thank you again, for getting me back here safely.’ I held up a mug in one hand and an empty wine glass in the other. ‘Which one?’

‘Actually – I came over to see if you fancied the local pub,’ he said.

There was a tiny flash between us. ‘I’d love to.’ The blanket of tiredness that had been wrapped tightly around me slid to the floor.

Stuart looked pleased with himself. I scribbled a note and left it under the sugar bowl on the kitchen table.

A khaki Land Rover was parked where Karen’s 2CV had been. It looked like an old army-style model with thick tread on the tyres and a spare wheel clipped onto the bonnet. We bundled inside and chugged down the track, onto the lane. It was a bumpy ride, the clanks and thuds made it noisy, but made me laugh, too. It was like being thrown around on the mechanical bull at the funfair. I was glad of the seatbelt.

The Cart and Horses was surprisingly busy. There must have been dozens of landowners, farmers and holidaymakers from little hamlets, tucked away from the main roads. This wasn’t simply a rustic country pub; it looked as though it acted as a kind of community centre. There was a group of men in tweed caps playing chess, another playing Trivial Pursuit and a game of darts was well underway at the far side. Best of all, it had a raging log fire. I expected to see Mark and Jodie, but they must have gone somewhere else.

I was going to stick to apple juice because of all the painkillers I’d had during the day – then thought what the hell – and chose a brandy instead. Stuart had the same and we swilled the drinks around in our glasses in unison. We had the whole cavernous hearth to ourselves, so I took off my boots and put my feet up on a padded stool. No one batted an eyelid.

I felt a shiver of emancipation. No one knew me here; I was just another tourist-stranger. I could even afford to reinvent myself a little – try out a bolder Alice; one who wasn’t frightened to close her eyes at night for fear of reliving the trauma she’d been through in September.

‘It’s my birthday, tomorrow,’ I announced.

‘Ah – so that’s why you’re on holiday at this time of year. Doing anything special?’

‘Very low key, I think,’ I said. I was anticipating the contrary, but didn’t want to get my hopes up. Karen wouldn’t make a point of highlighting my birthday then forget all about it, would she? I swiftly shunted the conversation on to other subjects. ‘So what brought you to this particular area? Do you know people here? Have you been here before?’

‘No,’ he said simply. ‘I came across it browsing online. I wanted somewhere remote and quiet – mainly to try birdwatching.’ I didn’t tell him about my mother’s interest in wild birds; I didn’t want to bring my parents into the discussion, just in case I let slip that I hadn’t yet left home.

Stuart asked what I did for a living. I skipped the bit about being an administrator. ‘I’m starting a teacher-training course soon.’

‘Ah.’ He looked pleased. ‘I’m in teaching too.’

He told me he lived on his own in a crescent of Georgian houses near Edinburgh railway station and worked at the University as a lecturer in Classics and Archaeology.

‘It’s revision week for students right now, followed by exam week, so I’ve been able to sneak away. I usually spend this period with my brother or take off somewhere warm, but I fancied a change.’

He was probably in his forties and dressed like a TV ‘lord of the manor’, but he was affable and charming. More to the point, he was disarming. It made me realise that even though we were all getting on at the cottage, I found myself walking on eggshells a lot of the time, partly because Melanie wasn’t yet stable, but also because Mark was so changeable. It was a relief to let my guard down a little.