Beneath the Shadows Read online

  ‘Don’t bother, if I thinks of anyone I’ll send ’em round. Yer do right gettin’ on with it before the snow comes.’

  ‘Okay, thanks.’ Grace turned to discover the man behind her was studying her. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, discomfited by his scrutiny. He said nothing but pulled the door open for her, the bell jangling again at her exit.

  There was a low stone wall in front of the shop, and a large black dog lay on the ground in front of it, impervious to the cold, wet pavement. The dog had been resting its head on its paws, but at the sound of Grace’s footsteps its ears twitched and its head swung around, two coal-black eyes regarding her solemnly.

  Grace usually loved dogs, but this one troubled her, reminding her too much of the black hound of her recent nightmare. Before she could move on, the dog sprang to its feet in excitement and began to nose around her legs, then jumped up to try to sniff Millie’s shoes. Grace expected Millie to squirm and turn away, but instead she bent over to peer curiously down at the creature. Grace was trying to ward the dog off with one hand, hissing, ‘No! Down!’, when she heard the cowbell ring again.

  ‘Bess, away!’ came a stern male command, and the dog instantly obeyed.

  Grace took a deep breath in an attempt to recompose herself. The man from the shop was bending over, picking up the dog’s lead, then he straightened. He was tall and lean, with features that were chiselled to the point of hollowed. Grace was sure she had never seen him before in her life – but at the same time there was something slightly familiar about him. As their eyes locked, the intensity of his stare left her unsteady for a moment, and she took a small step backwards to regain her balance. His eyes were a deep brown, a few tired lines cutting thin grooves from each corner, before they were absorbed into the paleness of his face.

  He ran a hand over his short dark hair. ‘You’re looking for a handyman?’

  Grace almost started. His voice was surprisingly soft and low, with just a hint of a northern accent – a similar cadence to Adam’s.

  ‘I’ve done quite a bit of that kind of work,’ he continued. ‘I might be interested in the job.’

  ‘Okay,’ Grace replied, thinking fast. He had taken her by surprise, but this was too good an opportunity to pass up. ‘Well then… if you’re free on Sunday, perhaps you could come over and I’ll show you what I’m thinking of, and we can have a chat about it. I’m open to suggestions, to be honest.’

  ‘Great,’ he replied, though his expression remained serious. ‘What time?’

  ‘Around one?’ she asked. ‘Millie takes a nap then,’ she indicated her daughter, who had begun to squirm in her arms, ‘so we’ll have a proper chance to talk.’

  ‘Fine. I’m Ben, by the way.’ He held out a hand.

  ‘Grace.’ She met his grasp, finding his skin warm despite the chill of the morning. ‘Do you have a number I can call you on if I need to change the time?’

  ‘Sure.’ He watched as she got out her mobile phone, then pulled his own from his pocket. ‘What’s your number?’ he asked. As she reeled it off, he dialled it, and the little screen on Grace’s phone lit up. ‘There you go,’ he said.

  She stored the number. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘See you on Sunday then.’ He began to turn away.

  ‘I haven’t told you that I’m at Hawthorn Cottage… in Roseby…’ she said quickly.

  ‘So I heard,’ he answered, gesturing to the shop. ‘I know where Hawthorn Cottage is. I’ll see you then.’

  He set off down the lane, the dog trotting behind him. Grace watched them walk away until they reached a battered black Land Rover. The dog jumped in next to its owner, and moments later the vehicle roared by, the rise and fall of the road soon taking it out of sight.

  The return trip to Roseby took about fifteen minutes. Grace drove cautiously along the empty road, the deserted moors spreading out on either side. Approaching the village from this direction, the journey was a stark contrast to the country lanes they had driven through yesterday. Then, at least there had been trees, and patches of grass, and the occasional farmhouse, but here on the moor top it was flat, brown and barren.

  She glanced behind her as she neared the crest of the hill that would take them down into the village. Millie had fallen asleep in her seat, her head lolling awkwardly against her chest. Taking the opportunity of a moment to herself, Grace pulled up at the side of the road and switched off the engine. She looked out across the wild expanse and tried to breathe it in, allow her mind to stop, flex itself, unfurl, rather than chase itself in ever-decreasing circles full of unbidden thoughts.

  And yet, she found herself back twelve months, sitting in the cottage answering endless questions about Adam, probing questions designed to find some explanation of his mental health or his circumstances that might have led him to make an abrupt departure from his life. She told them everything; she had nothing to hide. He was happy to have moved here. He was starting work as a supply teacher the following week. He knew the area, yes, from visits to his grandparents and an extended stay here in his teens after his mother died, but he hadn’t lived here for almost fifteen years.

  But had he ever wandered off before? they persisted. Did he have any history of mental illness? Depression?

  She had tried to explain Adam to them. That he often sang loudly and out-of-tune in the shower. That he was fanatical about cricket. That he could quote his favourite Tarantino movies verbatim. That he was always the one offering support to troubled friends, never the one in crisis himself. But whatever she said, the questions kept on coming. And when they found out he had no family left alive to speak of, their doubts had intensified.

  The night Adam had gone, Grace had been surrounded by strangers: police, mostly, along with a few locals wanting to help out. Her parents were on their way from France but wouldn’t arrive until the next day. Annabel was getting hold of a car and would be there as soon as she could, but had a five-hour road trip from London ahead of her. There had been a sudden flare of hope that they could find Adam via his mobile signal, until she told them that she had already tried the number, and had found the phone ringing in the pocket of Millie’s pram.

  When her interrogation had finally ended, Grace had briefly gone out into the pitch-black night and stood with Millie held tight in her arms, surrounded by strobing torchlights, listening to Adam’s name echoing away through different voices, praying that one of them would hear a response. But each call was carried off on the bitter wind to be met with silence. Later she had watched as the search parties returned, shoulders slack, heads bowed. Nothing had explained why Millie had been left alone on the doorstep with no sign of her daddy. Not then, and not since.

  Grace’s mother and father had arrived twenty-four hours later, pulling their daughter into their arms and letting her sob her helplessness out on them. Grace had seen the horror and confusion on their faces as they watched the police coming in and out of the cottage. But with her family there, Grace had at least felt anchored to the world again. Her parents had stayed by her side throughout the ensuing fortnight as she faced the media, asking for information, then waited for answers that never came. They had helped her search for Adam’s passport when the police requested it. To Grace’s alarm, none of them could find it, but the police had put out an alert, and there was no record of it being used.

  As Christmas grew closer, with no news, Grace’s parents had grown more eager to leave every day. They had insisted upon taking Grace and Millie too; under no circumstances would they leave them by themselves in such a remote part of the world, the antithesis of their beloved, bright and sunny South of France. At the time, Grace had been too upset to do anything but acquiesce, and she was thankful for their steady, guiding hands over the last twelve months. But if she was ever going to get on with her life, she had to take those first wobbly steps back out on her own. So here she was.

  Grace jumped as a car flew past them, shattering the silence. Her reverie was broken. The moors lay in front of her, bleak and brown
under a heavy grey sky. Stop letting your memories run riot, she chided herself. Just keep busy, get things done. She needed distraction, and was glad that Annabel was coming up this weekend, under the pretext of helping out, even though she knew Annabel was likely to prove useless on that score.

  She started the engine again. Halfway down the steep hill that led into the village, they passed an imposing two-storey stone house, perched at a point where it could survey the dwellings below, like a patrician parent hovering over its children. After that there was a patch of bare grass, beyond which the remains of a dilapidated row of terraced cottages could be seen in the distance. At the lowest dip in the road stood the whitewashed pub, after which they crossed a small bridge, making their way up the next incline towards Hawthorn Cottage.

  She stopped the car outside her gate, observing the Land Rover parked up ahead of them. Then she spotted someone standing at her front door. As she watched, the woman moved to the front window, cupped her hands around her eyes and peered through.

  Grace got slowly out of the car, wondering why she should be the one feeling uncomfortable at catching someone else snooping around her home. This woman looked totally out of place in an area where the dress-code was mostly denim, flannel checks and tweed. She wore baggy fisherman’s trousers and a shapeless stripy jumper, teamed with a beanie in rainbow colours.

  As Grace closed the car door, the woman turned, and with absolutely no embarrassment said, ‘Oh, hello! I thought this place looked occupied.’ She noted Grace’s confusion and laughed. ‘Sorry, let me introduce myself. I’m Claire, Meredith’s daughter.’ She pointed back the way Grace had just come, towards the big house sitting on the hillside. ‘Mum saw the car here, and I’ve been sent round to check it out, make sure you’re not a squatter. You must be Grace.’

  Grace returned the friendly smile. ‘Yes, I am,’ she replied. ‘Pleased to meet you. I didn’t know Meredith had a daughter. I’m looking forward to seeing her again – to say thank you. She’s done a terrific job of minding the place.’

  The woman came forward and held out a hand. As she got closer, Grace saw that Claire’s eyebrow was pierced through with a small hoop, and her nose sported a ruby gem. One ear had two rings through it, whereas the other one had five, becoming gradually smaller as they ascended her ear.

  ‘Nice to meet you too,’ Claire said. ‘And Meredith hasn’t got one daughter, there are four of us, for her sins. And she can’t get rid of us either – as one moves out, another one moves back in for some reason or other. I’m the latest refugee. Mind you, Mum loves it. She wouldn’t know what to do with herself in that big old house if one or other of us wasn’t in need of a hand.’ Her eyes flickered towards the car. ‘Is that your daughter in there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Claire glanced through the window at the sleeping child. ‘Ah, she is lovely, Grace, you must be so proud.’ She remained still for a moment, as though lost in thought, then bent down to retie the laces of one walking boot. As she straightened she continued, ‘Anyway, I think Mum has decided to adopt you as one of us now that you’re back – so she’s sent me here with an invitation to lunch tomorrow. Would you like to join us?’

  Grace hesitated for a moment, which Claire took as a sign that she needed encouragement. ‘Please come along, Grace. You’d be very welcome. Mum’s had a bit of a rough time lately – I don’t know if you heard but our dad passed away a few months ago. It was unexpected, he had a massive stroke and never recovered… and… well, you know…’

  Claire trailed off uneasily. Grace understood, as she had grown used to this in the last year. People no longer talked casually of disaster or loss in her presence. Yet she was also set apart by Adam’s unexplained disappearance. No one knew quite how to deal with that – including Grace herself.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Claire,’ she replied. ‘I didn’t know about your dad.’ She remembered Meredith’s husband: he had been in the search party for Adam last year. In particular she recalled his sorrowful eyes, which had conveyed such a depth of compassion that it had reached her through the confused fog of that terrible night.

  Grace was unsure what to say next. She often thought that after the last year she should be able to tackle difficult subjects with ease, but if anything it had made her hesitation worse. She was too aware of what harm a casual slip of the tongue or a careless remark could do to an injured spirit. She’d lost count of the times she’d fielded insensitive questions about Adam’s disappearance from well-meaning family or friends. In the end she smiled. ‘I’d love to come for lunch… I was only uncertain because my sister will be here this weekend.’

  ‘Oh, no problem,’ Claire replied, ‘bring her along too. Come about midday – we’ll see you then.’ And she walked away down the hill with a wave.

  As Grace watched her go, she felt the first spots of rain sting her face. Then she saw Claire move tight against the side of the lane, as a small red hatchback swung into view, bouncing across the bridge. Claire glared after the car, and Grace grimaced. She could always trust her sister to make an entrance.

  5

  The next day, Grace woke up to a weak sunshine pushing its way in through the curtains. For once the other side of the bed was not an empty hollow. Rather, it contained a person snoring softly, dressed in a silky nightie, wearing a pink eye mask and with bright pink earplugs stuffed into her ears. Grace had laughed at Annabel as she’d set about blocking the world out the night before. ‘We’re not next to the motorway here, you know. There’s nothing out there!’

  ‘I know, but I can’t sleep without them now.’

  Sharing a bed reminded Grace of their childhood. The pillow fights; the pinching and tickling; the risqué novels they had read in whispers by torchlight. The last time Annabel had slept in Grace’s bed had been a year ago, when Grace had woken to reality with a painful throb in her chest, on the morning after Adam had disappeared.

  She jerked back to the present as she heard Millie stirring, and went to get her. By the time she had made Millie’s cereal, Annabel was coming down the stairs. Grace looked around the kitchen doorway to see her sister standing by the window, bleary-eyed.

  ‘Morning,’ Annabel trilled. ‘I was completely disorientated when I woke up.’ She glanced out of the window again. ‘It’s so dismal, isn’t it? I couldn’t believe it when I was driving here yesterday. It’s one long stretch of mud and dead bracken. I’m not sure this place even qualifies as a hamlet – you just live on the road to somewhere else.’

  The unflinching assessment bothered Grace. But before she could work out why, Annabel flung herself into a chair, saying, ‘So, what excitement have you got planned for us today then?’

  ‘I thought we could take a look in the attic, see if there’s anything up there.’

  Annabel didn’t make any attempt to hide the roll of her eyes.

  ‘Then we could go for a walk…’

  At this, Annabel threw her head back dramatically, sighing at the ceiling.

  ‘… or not,’ Grace continued dryly. ‘Whatever, we’ll have to be back in time for lunch at Meredith’s. And tonight, we could walk down to the local pub.’

  ‘That sounds more like it,’ Annabel said eagerly. ‘What do we do with Millie, though?’

  ‘We’ll take her with us. If I get her ready for bed then she’ll sleep in her pushchair. It’s only a short walk from here.’

  ‘I didn’t notice a pub when I drove in.’

  ‘Then you didn’t look hard enough!’ Grace replied. ‘Anyway, come on through here, have some breakfast and then we’ll make a start on the attic.’

  Annabel followed Grace into the kitchen, where Millie was smearing food over the tray of her high chair.

  ‘Morning, Millie,’ Annabel said, ruffling her niece’s hair gently.

  Millie’s head swung up in alarm, then she looked at Grace, her face beginning to crumple. Grace was astonished as Millie usually loved her Auntie Annabel. However, after a reassuring glance from her mother, Millie for
got her fears, snatched up her spoon and began her favourite pastime of beating her breakfast into submission.

  Annabel stared long and hard at Millie, then at Grace. As her mouth opened, Grace held her hands up. ‘I know what you’re going to say. She is a serious little thing. I’m working on it.’ She tried to sound as casual as she could, even though Millie’s sombre little face regularly plagued her thoughts. She had begun to observe other children of a similar age, and those kids always appeared to be babbling and laughing – or, if upset, they were more animated about it. They seemed to demand that the world bowed before them, whereas Millie was often troubled by anything new – strangers, places, toys, you name it. Grace’s mother had reassured her that it was probably a phase, but despite this, Grace had noticed her talking to Millie with extra care and precision, watching as she played quietly, and she knew her mother was questioning her own diagnosis. And Grace couldn’t help but wonder if Millie’s nervousness might be related to her daddy’s disappearance. What had Millie seen? Again, her mother had consoled her. ‘She was only a few weeks old. She’d hardly be aware of it.’ Grace prayed she was right.

  ‘Hey, daydreamer,’ Annabel said, bringing Grace back to the room. ‘I wasn’t going to say that actually, I was going to ask if she ever eats anything – every time I see her there’s food in front of her that’s going anywhere but her mouth.’

  Grace smiled as she handed a plate of toast to Annabel, then gently took the spoon from Millie, dipped it in the Weetabix and pushed a dollop into Millie’s mouth before she could object. Millie looked taken aback and duly swallowed it, then opened her mouth for more.

  ‘She’s not great at feeding herself yet,’ Grace explained, taking a seat at the table and continuing to offer cereal to Millie.

  Annabel studied Millie for a moment then cast a long, appraising look in Grace’s direction. ‘I can’t believe you live here,’ she said, gesturing around her. ‘It’s so…’ Grace watched her search for the right words ‘… not you!’