The Girl Below(94)

At the mention of the coat, Peggy’s eyebrows—or at least the tattoos of them—shot up. She put a shaky finger to her lips. “Sshhhhhh. Not now.” She glanced at Pippa, whose back was turned, and gave me a stern look. “Not in front of her.”

I was too busy the rest of the day to think anything more about it. Pippa had me doing odd chores in the kitchen and laundry, and by the time the sky was darkening and she suggested that I go for a walk round the village, I confessed I was too tired to do anything but eat and go to bed. Caleb hadn’t come home yet, but I convinced myself this was a good thing.

For once I nodded off without any trouble, but I was still jet lagged and had set my bedtime too early. I woke several hours later in the dead of night with the sense that I’d already had my quota of sleep. For a few minutes I lay on the platform, listening for strange sounds, but only the ever-present chorus of cicadas could be heard. We were too high up to hear the sea, though I sometimes caught the tang of salt in the air, and I suddenly longed for a swim. The night was balmy, and I didn’t see why I couldn’t go then, when no chores had to be done and everyone else was asleep, so I pulled off my bedclothes with the idea of rummaging in my suitcase for a swimsuit. I had packed a bikini too, but thought the one-piece more modest night attire, and put it on under shorts and a T-shirt. For a towel, I took the one I’d used that evening after a shower.

I climbed down the ladder, slid my feet into sandals, and set off across the pebbled floor, wary this time of the obstacles I’d tripped on the night before. The door to the courtyard was ajar, and I slipped through the gap and closed it behind me in an easy, fluid movement, trying, I supposed, to be stealthy.

I was preoccupied with thoughts of my swim, so it was a shock to realize that I was in our old garden, its features set out gloomily in front of me, like the pieces of an abandoned chess game. Despite the warm night, the air of melancholy sent a chill through me, and I wanted to turn back immediately.

But I remembered the child in the bunker—and I hesitated, standing my ground.

Something had changed from the night before. A few moments passed before I figured out what it was, why the scene looked so forsaken. For a start, it was gloomier. No light spilled from the flat, and the moon was completely obscured by cloud. Rain was in the air—or at least the tension of it—and I recalled that the night after the party had signaled the end of my Wendy tent. I had woken the next morning to find it floating in a pool of mud—salvageable, only we hadn’t bothered. It had stayed outside for weeks, browning and rotting, and we had simply thrown it away.

With less light, it was harder to make out the air-raid shelter, and I had taken a few steps down the path before I realized the hatch was in fact closed. Next to it, a dozen rusted bolts lay helter-skelter along the path. I went over to them, to the hatch, and tested the metal surface warily with my foot. Bending down, I listened for the child but heard nothing, only my own tight breaths, high up in my chest, anxiety escalating.

The men had been and gone.

They had come out into the garden, put the hatch in place, and stumbled back inside. It was the right night, but I had arrived too late—perhaps by only a few minutes, or longer, by a few hours. I remembered the geranium plants, and went over to see if they were still wet. Sure enough, their leaves had been recently sprayed by a phantom Jean Luc, meaning my tardiness had been a matter of minutes.

Why was I here if the hatch was closed? It didn’t make sense. I went back to the air-raid shelter and banged on the plate with my fists. “Wake up!” I yelled to whoever was down there, and lay down on the hatch to listen.

No one answered, but even if they had, the hatch was too heavy for me to lift. The first fat drops of promised rain landed on my bare forearms. I didn’t remember London ever having rain like this, so tropical in pelt, so warm on my skin, and within seconds of the deluge beginning the garden started to flood. Water pooled on the lowest flagstones and ran along the patio in furious rivulets, surged into the narrow slit between the concrete path and iron hatch. Before long, my clothes were soaked through, my feet submerged, and I imagined water cascading down the steps of the bunker and flooding the chamber below.

Whoever was down there would drown—if it wasn’t already too late.

I felt angry, helpless, sick to the very bottom of my soul, but also glad that the poor wretch down there wasn’t me. For although I was soaked through, the instant I chose to I could leave this horrific scene and return to midsummer Greece. Only then did it occur to me that perhaps I couldn’t, that perhaps I’d left my return until too late. For if I’d arrived in the garden a few minutes after the men had closed the hatch, then it was all about to dissolve—with me in it.