Читать книгу I Dare You - Sam Carrington - Страница 27

Saturday 13th July

The two of them fell into an awkward silence, both standing motionless outside Billy Cawley’s run-down bungalow, neither looking the other in the eye. Anna lowered her chin, balling her hands up inside her hoody pockets. They’d all been so close, once. Muriel and Tina were best friends – they’d both been young mothers, as were their mothers before them, so they had a lot in common. That’s why Anna had always called her ‘Auntie’ Tina. It was a thing they did back then – the mothers’ good friends were always known to their kids’ friends as Auntie. It was inevitable Anna and Jonie would also be best friends. Obvious to the mothers, anyway. In reality, they weren’t destined to be close. They’d been too different: the balance was never right. But as their parents spent so much time together, they’d both taken it as something that just had to be.

‘I haven’t seen Muriel out and about in a while. She well?’ Tina broke the silence first.

Anna gave a shrug. ‘She’s okay, I guess.’ She didn’t want to give anything away – not just yet. Anna needed to delve a bit more before mentioning the doll’s head and Muriel’s strange behaviour since. She wondered if Tina and Muriel still spoke. After Jonie went missing their relationship had faltered – so her mum had told her once after one too many sherries. Muriel had never talked about what happened, how things had been in Mapledon afterwards, and Anna had never wanted to bring it up herself, so the memories faded. The aftermath had been bad, affecting the whole community – she knew that – but couldn’t recall any specific repercussions.

But she knew everything had changed when Jonie Hayes was taken.

‘Maybe we should all get together for a coffee while you’re here?’ Tina said.

Anna raised her eyebrows. She hadn’t been expecting that. Tina’s sudden invite felt forced, like it’d been offered out of necessity. Tina wanted something, she could tell. Had she also been targeted with a doll’s head on her door and now wanted, or needed, to talk to her old friend about it? They might not be close anymore, but maybe their shared past – the inexplicable thing that had happened – was more than enough to break down the barriers that had been built during the subsequent years.

‘Yeah, sure. Pop over tomorrow morning. If you aren’t going to church that is. Mum will be thrilled to see you,’ Anna said, although her sentiments may well have been exaggerated. Who knew if Muriel would be thrilled? God only knew what had been going on here over the years Anna had been away.

Tina snorted. ‘I don’t go to church anymore, haven’t done since …’ She shook her head. ‘There is no God. I’ll be over at ten.’ Tina gave a curt nod and walked off, back down the cul-de-sac. Anna watched her disappear around the corner before returning her attention to the bungalow. There was a reason Tina wanted to have this ‘get-together’ – the obvious one being Billy Cawley’s release. But a prickling on the back of Anna’s neck told her there was more to it than that.

Reassured for the moment that Billy Cawley had not returned to live in the bungalow in Blackstone Close, Anna turned her back on it and walked on. She wished she’d turned her back on it thirty years ago, too. Before the chain reaction of events following that game had become fatal. It seemed Anna’s life had been filled with what ifs and if onlys.

The church came into sight almost immediately once she’d joined the main street – its limestone-rendered tower visible through the trees. She’d walk as far as the church, checking the outside of every house as she went, then return to her mum’s via the road that branched off to the left, near the village hall. That way, she’d have done a circuit of Mapledon. Her hopes of finding something ‘out of place’ were fading, though. It might be that a more direct approach would be necessary – asking outright if anyone had experienced something out of the ordinary over the past few days. Anna thought Robert, at Brook Cottage Store, might be a good person to ask. For now, she’d continue the walk. If nothing else, it was keeping her out of her mother’s hair for a bit longer.

As Anna reached the top of the village and approached the church, she spotted a woman coming out of the wooden-gated entrance. She didn’t recognise her, although she didn’t look much different in age to Anna. Someone she went to school with? She kept her attention on the figure for a few seconds too long, garnering a strange look in response.

‘Hi,’ Anna said, deciding it would make the moment less awkward now she’d been caught staring.

‘All right?’ The woman gave a quick, tight smile, hesitating at the church gate as though she didn’t know quite what to do. Anna took her indecision and obvious discomfort as a sign of guilt. Had she stolen something from the church? Maybe she wasn’t from around here at all, was some kind of chancer. Anna took a few steps towards her. The woman didn’t have anything with her, not even a bag. Her T-shirt was tight-fitting – so no stolen goods could be squirrelled away beneath it. She had various tattoos on both arms, a piercing under her bottom lip. As she looked at her face, Anna noted her eyes were red as though she’d been crying, and she suddenly felt appalled at herself for jumping to conclusions. Clearly she was upset – had probably just visited a grave.

‘Sorry, didn’t mean to stare – just thought I recognised you,’ Anna lied.

‘No. I doubt that,’ the woman said. She made no attempt to move past Anna. She took it as a signal to continue.

‘Not many people come to Mapledon,’ Anna said. ‘Not if they want to leave again.’ She gave a laugh, hoping this woman would take her comment as the joke she intended. Well, an almost-joke. There might well be a grain of truth in her statement.

The woman smiled – it appeared to be a genuine one. ‘Yeah, I heard that about this place.’ She reached a hand forwards. ‘Lizzie Brenfield,’ she said.

‘Well, hello, Lizzie.’ Anna took her hand, shaking it gently before releasing it. ‘I’m Anna. I’m the one that got away.’ She smiled before adding, ‘Although I appear to have been dragged back.’

Lizzie cocked her head to one side. ‘Well, that makes two of us.’