Pop Goes the Weasel - [5]

But something wasn’t right. Something wouldn’t let him relax. Something was…

Drip. There it was. A sound. A slow but steady sound, disturbing the quiet, drumming out an insistent warning.

Drip. Where was it coming from? His eyes flicked nervously this way and that.

Something was dripping in the far corner of the room. Was it a leak? Shrugging off his irritation, he dragged himself to his feet. It was worth checking out – might be some copper piping in it for him.

He hurried over, then stopped in his tracks. It wasn’t a leak. It wasn’t water. It was blood. Drip, drip, dripping through the ceiling. Spinning, he hurried away – none of my fucking business – but as he reached the kitchen, he slowed. Perhaps he was being too hasty. He was armed after all and there was no sign of movement upstairs. Anything could have happened. Someone could have topped themselves, could have been mugged, killed, whatever. But there might be spoils in it for a scavenger and that was something that couldn’t be ignored.

A moment’s hesitation, then the thief turned and crossed the room, edging past the thick pool of congealing blood into the hallway. He darted his head out, crowbar raised to strike at the first sign of danger.

But there was no one there. Cautiously, he stepped out and began to climb the stairs.

Creak. Creak. Creak.

Every step announced his presence and he swore quietly under his breath. If there was anyone up there, they would know he was coming. He gripped the crowbar a little tighter as he crested the staircase. Better to be safe than sorry so he darted his head into the bathroom and the back bedroom – only an amateur gets attacked from behind.

Satisfied he was safe from ambush, he turned to face the front bedroom. Whatever had happened, whatever it was, it was in there. The thief took a deep breath, then stepped inside the darkened room.

6

She dived further and further down, the brackish water filling her ears and nostrils. She was far below the surface now and already running out of breath, but she didn’t waver. Strange lights illuminated the lake bed, rendering it diaphanous and beautiful, tempting her deeper still.

Now she was clawing her way through the thick weeds that clung to the bottom. Visibility was poor, the going hard, her lungs were bursting. They said he was here, so where was he? There was a rusting pram, an old shopping trolley, even an oil drum, but no sign of…

Suddenly she knew she’d been tricked. He wasn’t here. She turned to make for the surface. But she didn’t move. She craned her head round to see that her left leg was stuck in the weeds. She kicked with all her might, but the weeds wouldn’t yield. She was beginning to feel faint now, couldn’t hold out much longer, but she forced herself to relax, letting her body drift to the bottom. Better to try and disentangle herself calmly than kick herself into an even bigger mess. Forcing her head down, she dug through the offending weeds, tugging hard. Then she stopped. And screamed – her last ounce of breath escaping from her mouth. It wasn’t weeds holding her under. It was a human hand.

Gasping, Charlie sat bolt upright in bed. She cast around her wildly, trying to process the weird disjunction between the weeds she’d been swallowed by and the homely bedroom she now found herself in. She ran her hands over her body, convinced her pyjamas should be wringing wet, but she was bone dry, except for a sheen of sweat on her brow. As her breathing began to slow she realized it was just a nightmare, just a stupid bloody nightmare.

Forcing herself to keep calm, she turned to look at Steve. He’d always been a heavy sleeper and she was pleased to see him snoring softly beside her. Slipping quietly out of her side of the bed, she picked up her dressing gown and tiptoed out of the room.

Crossing the landing, she headed for the stairs. She hurried past the door to the second bedroom, then scolded herself for doing so. When they’d first learned they were expecting, Steve and Charlie had discussed the changes they’d make to that room – replacing the double bed with a cot and nursing chair, covering the white walls with cheery yellow wallpaper, putting thick rugs on the hardwood floor – but of course all that excitement had come to nothing.

Their baby had died inside Charlie during her incarceration with Mark. By the time they got her to the hospital, she already knew, but had still hoped that the doctors would confound her worst fears. They hadn’t. Steve had cried when she’d told him. The first time Charlie had ever seen him cry, though not the last. There were times in the intervening months when Charlie thought she was on top of things, that she could somehow process the awfulness of it all, but then she would find herself hesitating to go into the second bedroom, scared to see the imprint of the nursery they had imagined together, and then she knew that the wounds were still raw.

She headed downstairs to the kitchen and flipped the kettle on. Recently she’d been dreaming a lot. As her return to work had drawn closer, her anxiety had found its release in nightmares. She had kept these to herself, keen not to give Steve further ammunition.