Metaphorically. Literally, I saw Nickie Sage, looming large in the rearview mirror. She was shuffling across the car park, achingly slowly, her face pink under a big floppy hat. She reached the back of my car and leaned against it, and I could hear her laboured breathing through the open window.
“Nickie.” I got out of the car. “Are you all right?” She didn’t respond. “Nickie?” Up close, she looked like she might be on her last legs.
“I need a lift,” she gasped. “Been on my feet for hours.”
I helped her into the car. Her clothes were soaked with sweat. “Where on earth have you been, Nickie? What have you been doing?”
“Walking,” she wheezed. “Up by the Wards’ cottage. Listening to the river.”
“You do realize that the river runs right past your own front door, don’t you?”
She shook her head. “Not the same river. You think it’s all the same, but it changes. It has a different spirit up there. Sometimes you need to travel to hear its voice.”
I turned left just before the bridge towards the square. “Up here, yes?” She nodded, still gulping for air. “Perhaps you should get someone to give you a lift next time you feel like travelling.”
She leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes. “You volunteering? I didn’t imagine you’d be sticking around.”
We sat in the car for a bit when we reached her flat. I didn’t have the heart to make her get out and walk upstairs straightaway, so instead I listened while she told me why I should stay in Beckford, why it would be good for Lena to stay by the water, why I’d never hear my sister’s voice if I left.
“I don’t believe in all that stuff, Nickie,” I said.
“Of course you do,” she said crossly.
“OK.” I wasn’t going to argue. “So. You were up by the Wards’ cottage? That’s the place where Erin Morgan is staying, right? You didn’t see her, did you?”
“I did. She’d been out running around somewhere. Then she was running off somewhere else, probably to bark up the wrong tree. Banging on about Helen Townsend, when I told her it wasn’t Helen she should be bothering with. No one listens to me. Lauren, I said, not Helen. But no one ever listens.”
She gave me the Townsends’ address. The address and a warning: “If the old man thinks you know something, he’ll hurt you. You’ve got to be smart.” I didn’t tell her about the bracelet, or that it was she, not Erin, who was barking up the wrong tree.
ERIN
Helen kept looking up at the window, as though she was expecting someone to appear.
“You’re expecting Sean back, are you?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “No. Why would he be coming back? He’s in Newcastle, talking to the brass about the Henderson mess. Surely you knew that?”
“He didn’t tell me,” I said. “It must have slipped his mind.” She raised her eyebrows in an expression of disbelief. “He can be absent-minded, can’t he?” I went on. Her eyebrows rose farther still. “I mean, not that it affects his work or anything, but sometimes—”
“Do stop talking,” she snapped.
She was impossible to read, veering from polite to exasperated, timid to aggressive; angry one minute and frightened the next. It was making me very nervous. This small, mousey, unimpressive woman sitting opposite me was frightening me because I had no idea what she was going to do next—offer me another cuppa or come at me with the knife.
She pushed her chair back suddenly, its feet screeching against the tiles, got to her feet and went to the window. “He’s been gone ages,” she said quietly.
“Who has? Patrick?”
She ignored me. “He walks in the mornings, but not usually for so long. He’s not well. I . . .”
“Do you want to go and look for him?” I asked. “I could come with you if you like.”
“He goes up to that cottage almost every day,” she said, talking as though I wasn’t there, as though she couldn’t hear me. “I don’t know why. That’s where Sean used to take her. That’s where they . . . Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. I’m not even sure what
the right thing is anymore.” She’d balled her right hand into a fist, a red bloom blossoming on her pristine white bandage.
“I was so happy when Nel Abbott died,” she said. “We all were. It was such a relief. But short-lived. Short-lived. Because now I can’t help wondering if it’s caused us even more trouble.” She turned, finally, to look at me. “Why are you here? And please don’t lie, because I’m not in the mood today.” She raised her hand to her face, and as she wiped her mouth, bright blood smeared over her lips.
I reached into my pocket for my phone and pulled it out. “I think maybe it’s time I left,” I said, getting slowly to my feet. “I came here to talk to Sean, but since he’s not here . . .”