Thorn in the Flesh (5 page)

Nicky stopped talking and peered down next to the sofa. ‘We never really got that stain out, did we?’

Kate smiled. ‘No, not really. Not that it matters. That’s what magazine racks are for.’

‘Of course.’

The two women drifted together through the downstairs floor of the house, Kate taking the lead. Once Nicky had begun to remember the small history of each room, it was as if a slow tide of their shared past was flowing, steady as light, between them.

In the study where Kate prepared her lectures and seminars and marked assignments, Nicky reminded her of how she’d laughed at Kate’s rigorous filing system, how the two of them had puzzled over the computer, how Kate, once she’d learnt its mysteries, had spent several fruitless evenings trying to teach her friend the basics of the Internet. The hum of memory made the combination of the stark black furnishings with the white walls seem a little warmer and Kate was able to switch on the computer and check her email. While Outlook flared into life, her mouth felt dry and she longed for a drink to soothe her throat, but the kitchen was still too distant. She checked her messages, but found nothing there to make her muscles tense again, nothing to make her pause. Not that there ever had been. All the threats she’d received had come by post. Even so, when, with a quick smile at her friend, she powered down the screen, the window frame behind the computer reminded her of bars. She shook the thought away.

The scent of polish in the bathroom seemed sharper, more imposing, mixed as it was with undertones of lemon cleaner. Around her everything sparkled as if it had only just been created and Kate smiled her thanks at Nicky again as she rearranged the shampoo bottles on the shelf above the bath and folded the face-cloth into impossible quarters.

The silence around them seemed to take on a deeper meaning and she wondered if she would be able to leave the bathroom’s temporary safety and walk into the kitchen at all or whether she might be suspended here like someone about to step off solid ground into bright air, not knowing what might be beneath.

‘I remember,’ Nicky said, slowly, as if she were forcing the words out to fill the sense of cool space, ‘I remember when David bathed the twins here, one night when we were later leaving than we’d thought. At least, he started off giving them a bath, but then a bumble bee flew out from behind the curtain, and I had to finish the job. The girls weren’t afraid at all, they were more mesmerised by it than anything. You’d never realised my husband had a fear of bumble bees before that night, did you?’

Kate reached out and touched Nicky’s shoulder. Under her brief grasp, her friend’s bones felt fragile.

‘No,’ she said. ‘No, I hadn’t. I think I can go into the kitchen now. I think I have to.’

Standing just inside the kitchen door, Kate shut her eyes and swallowed once before opening them again. Her gaze ranged round the everyday scene in front of her, taking in the cupboards, the sink and the work surfaces, but skittering over the table, the chair where her attacker had been waiting and the knives. At the corner of her vision, she could almost believe the shadow of him had been imprinted there, for always, and she had to breathe evenly for a minute or so until the pounding of her heart had eased.

‘It was here,’ she said, turning a little towards Nicky. ‘It was here he was waiting for me. It was here I think I was most afraid.’

‘I know, I know. You don’t have to …’

‘No, please,’ Kate interrupted and took three more steps forward. ‘I think I do.’

She paced her slow way round the table, brushing against the silver coolness of the sink as she did so. Not daring to touch the pale oak table but understanding she had to see, she walked round it twice and then stood for a while at the back door, gazing out into the garden. She wasn’t seeing it however; her mind was filled with swift and jagged pictures layering themselves over and over each other: the young man; his eyes; his hands; the knife.

With a sudden wrenching movement, her own hands were scrabbling at the door, the key, the urge to get out, to escape, mastering all her resolve.

‘Kate?’

‘It’s - all - right,’ her voice broke from her lips, staccato, rising. ‘It’s - just - the - key.’

And then she was through, out into the morning stillness of the garden, the sunlight filtering through the trees and casting mottled brightness onto the small pond at the side. She breathed in greenness and the heady scent of new-mown grass. Early tulips danced in soft yellow round the rockery.

‘Kate? Are you okay?’ And Nicky beside her now, concern etched onto her delicate face.

‘Yes. I just wanted to get out for a while. See the garden.’

‘I haven’t done anything to it since you’ve been staying at ours. David mowed the lawn, kept the weeds down but that’s all.’

Kate smiled. In the garden, the atmosphere didn’t carry quite so much the shadow of a trap or a warning. ‘I’ll thank him when I next see him. It’s not much more than what I do myself out here.’

‘I don’t think that’s true.’

‘Perhaps only on some days then.’

Taking Nicky’s arm, Kate began to walk the long strip of garden she called her own. It seemed more like home than the house itself. The two women strolled past the plum trees, skirted the rockery where Kate knelt down for a few minutes to check on the progress of some of the alpines. They didn’t appear to have come to any harm. At the back gate, she stared out into the woods beyond, bordering the Charterhouse School and wondered. Out here, the birdsong and the slight touch of the breeze eased away the tension in her limbs. Perhaps it was time.

‘I think I can face upstairs now,’ she said.

On the way up, Kate closed her mind off. Nicky was in front of her, a fact which she’d thought would make this easier. On the landing, she headed left to the first of the two spare rooms, although her original plan had been to turn right. Nicky turned back and followed her.

‘I’ve never quite decided what to do with this one, have I?’ she said, gazing round at what would have been known in another era as a boxroom. The name was fitting in that one wall was lined with black, plastic crates filled with papers and objects Kate couldn’t bring herself to destroy: old course notes; essays; a 1950s’ tea-set given to her by her mother when she’d turned eighteen. The air smelled of memories.

‘Everyone needs a storage space,’ Nicky said. ‘And you don’t have much of a loft.’

Ten seconds later, the lemon softness of the guest room spun Kate into a deeper comfort. She smiled round at the pale walls, the yellow duvet with its daffodil motif, the Van Gogh sunflowers print on the wall above the bed. A sunshine room, for early morning. And only one more room to go.

She took one shaky breath. Then she turned her steps towards the main bedroom, her bedroom, and the scene of her last experience here. When she arrived there, she was almost running. Under her fingers, the door handle was cold. She pushed the door open and strode inside.

Nothing.

She felt nothing.

‘Kate?’

She shook her head. ‘I’m all right. I don’t feel anything.’

And it was true. She gazed around and saw only the plush carpet, the plain light green duvet, her wardrobe, her dressing table, the open door to the ensuite bathroom, itself a lighter shade of green. On the wall next to her bed was a slight rust-brown stain, missed even by the kindness of Nicky. In wonder, she walked the length of the room, reached out and touched it. It must be my blood, she thought. How odd it is that I feel nothing.

‘I’m sorry, Kate, I didn’t think to …’

Nicky was beside her. Kate hadn’t even heard her approach.

‘It’s all right,’ she said again, drawing her finger away and feeling the strange roughness against her skin. ‘It’s as if it happened to someone else, not to me. I can’t see what took place here.’

Nicky didn’t reply but gripped her shoulder.

Downstairs in the kitchen, her friend made tea. For herself only. Kate drank water, chilled straight from the fridge.

‘You’ll stay, Nicky, won’t you? Just for tonight?’

‘Of course. Try to stop me.’

In the morning, when her friend waved goodbye at the bottom of the path, Kate felt as if something inside her had been twisted into an impossible emptiness.

She shook the feeling away. It was irrelevant. She was back where she lived again, by herself in the place she couldn’t quite call home. If she was in danger, and there was nothing to tell her she wasn’t, then at least Nicky and her family would be safe.

For now, she had other matters to attend to, with completely different layers of importance.

Chapter Seven

It took her two more days to make the call and, when at last she did, the phone felt clammy and hot against her fingers.

The conversation with her departmental professor lasted five minutes and was filled with expressions of concern on his part, and words of determination on hers. All the while they were speaking, Kate held his card in her hand, turning round and round its picture of two blue and white boats on the sea with, in the distance, a haze of shoreline.

When at last she ended the call, she’d arranged to return to her post the following Monday, when she’d already scheduled two post-exam seminars with some of her final year students. Professor Dickinson’s secretary would notify them of her return and, not for the first time, she acknowledged her gratitude that this semester, because of the exams, she had no planned lectures.

After next Monday, she and the professor would assess how it was going, how, she supposed, she was handling it, whatever “it” might be. Such a small word encompassing so much. “Handling” too was his word, not hers. It was not something Kate would say.

Placing the phone back on its base, she stretched, feeling the tingle of her muscles, then walked to the living room, sat down and stared out of the window. However, she saw nothing. After a while, she picked up the letter, post-marked London, which she’d read, devoured almost, only after Nicky had left two days ago.

Its message was no different to the ones she’d already received. She would put it with the others, in the lockable drawer of her office cabinet, where no-one else would see. She would never read it again.

She had no need; she already knew all the words. She wondered again whether she should have told the police about the messages. Four times, perhaps five, it had been on her tongue to say it, but each time she’d drawn back from what seemed like a cliff-edge. Beyond that cliff was only the distant roar of an impossible sea and, buried somewhere in the horizon, the unclaimed memory of her past.

No, she couldn’t visit it again or, at least, not yet. She wasn’t ready for the consequences.

She would have to be, and soon. She had less than a week to make her other, unimaginable call before work wrapped itself around her once more. After that time, the familiar framework of her old life would hem her in and she didn’t know then whether she would ever have the courage to do it. Or perhaps, on thinking it through, it was best after all that way; perhaps she would leave her past alone.

That night she dreamt of windmills; great swathes of them like vast black monsters across the landscape, pulsating with a deeper darkness. The ground too seemed to undulate beneath her feet. The sky was light, but fading as if it might be evening, with no sun. She wanted to run, but each time she swung round to try to find a path out from the field where she stood, another dark monster confronted her and then another and another. She could sense her breath coming in short bursts and could hear the wild beat of her own heart. Each windmill was larger than the one before it and, as she darted her gaze here and here, the sails began to turn, faster and faster until they filled up the whole sky. They were wrapping themselves around her body; she could feel the rough coldness of the slats against her skin. Fighting them off in vain, her hands felt like small, useless birds trying to push back a mountain. They were suffocating her, she couldn’t breathe.

And then suddenly she was awake, a stifled cry in her throat and her hands lashing out at the sheets as she struggled upright in her bed. While the dream still clung to her senses, she thought – one breath, two – someone was there with her, someone deadly, but when her trembling fingers switched on the bedside light, nobody was there. She was alone.

In the morning, she chastised herself for her own foolishness but, even then, didn’t sit down to breakfast until the house had been searched and the reassurance of being alone recovered.

The same dream came for four nights, but on the last night it was different. On the last night, as she turned to run from the pulsating, strange windmills, a figure stood in front of her. Taller than she, his eyes were blue and for a wild moment she thought of the young man and wanted to scream. But it was not him. The knowledge of this one lived far deeper in the secret layers of her history. When she reached out her hand to grasp him, he was gone. She woke then, her face wet with tears.

On the Sunday, the day before she was due to return to work, she had lunch with Nicky and her family. In spite of the fact that it had been Nicky’s birthday during the week and therefore she should have been relaxing, her friend was determined to cook.

‘How’s it going?’ David asked as Nicky was out of the room and the twins were engrossed near the window playing what seemed to be a complicated dressing-up game involving a handful of their mother’s old silk scarves and two pairs of child’s boots. They were giggling together, oblivious to the adults. ‘You’re okay about the alarm and everything?’

‘Yes, it’s working perfectly. Thank you for arranging it. It makes me feel very safe.’

‘Good, I’m glad.’ David was silent for a moment or two before speaking again. He glanced for a second at his daughters, still giggling on the carpet. ‘Kate, while Nicky’s in the kitchen, I wanted to ask you: are the police being helpful? Have they been back to you at all?’

Kate put down her glass of wine, watching until the liquid inside was still.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But there’s nothing they’ve been able to do. The prints they were able to get were all smudged. I think he must have wiped everything before he left, or as much as possible. So they haven’t got a lot of evidence apart from what they expected to have. Not only that, but the description I gave wasn’t as helpful as they would have wished for.’

She stopped and looked away, swallowing down bile before continuing, ‘It was good of the police sergeant – she’s a woman, specially trained for what she does – to come to see me again. Even though there wasn’t any news, she looked at my locks and alarm system and reassured me they were all first-class. As I knew they would be, of course.’

David nodded. ‘That’s good. I hope they …’

He trailed off and Kate could see his lips were tight and his hands clenched. The sudden knowledge of his anger on her behalf sent a shock of warmth through her stomach and she felt like crying.

She finished the sentence for him in a whisper, ‘… they catch him? Yes, perhaps, but a large part of me wants to forget it, David. That’s all. A part of me doesn’t want to relive what happened again, under any circumstances. Or even think about it. Does that mean I’m a coward?’

He smiled at her then. ‘No, you’ve always been anything but.’

The arrival of Nicky and the announcement that lunch was beyond ready meant the conversation was over. While David carved the chicken, only slightly burnt at the edges, and her friend began the long and ultimately thankless task of persuading Louise to keep still at table, Kate watched as Charlotte played with a magic glow-ball, her eyes widening as the toy seemed to disappear and reappear.

‘Auntie Katie?’ Louise said from across the table.

‘Yes?’

‘What’s
ellydence
?’

‘What’s what?’ Nicky chipped in, hands still holding her daughter down in her chair. ‘That’s a funny word, isn’t it?’

Kate was already there.

‘Yes,’ she said, surprised both at her own calmness and at how much children could pick up on. ‘Yes, it is a funny word. But it’s evidence, not
ellydence
. And it means something you can see and touch and know it’s there. Like your sister’s magic ball, see?’

Both girls laughed and Charlotte took the red and orange ball and began to chew it. Nicky deftly removed the object and, after a quick frown at her husband, the conversation moved on. The twins asked nothing else and Kate felt a shiver of relief across her shoulders.

After lunch and the ritual of helping David stack the dishwasher, she didn’t stay long. She had preparations to make for the next day. At the door, Nicky hugged her tightly, as if she’d never let her go and Kate could feel the tremble in her arms and smell the floral echo of her friend’s perfume.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said as she left. ‘I’ll be all right.’

She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt.

***

It was good to be in her office again. The Linguistics Department was small, nothing but a shared space in a corner of an old 1960s’ concrete building inhabited by the Sociology and Philosophy Departments but, still, it was hers. A place with no memories of pain and with objects – papers, linguistics books, an old blue paperweight – that were truly hers, not belonging to those she loved, no matter how kind they were. Her first seminar was at 10am, but Kate had arrived early, at 8.15. She’d wanted to get here before anyone else. She needed her return to be as unnoticed as possible. Sitting at her beige-coloured desk, she stared out of the window for a moment before leafing through the outstanding post while she waited for the computer to hum into life. Nothing much there of direct importance: a new leaflet giving advice on how to deal with students with mental health difficulties; an invitation to a retirement party for someone she hadn’t heard of; three new directives for the department, none of which she had any objections to. Good. She was glad nothing urgent had happened while she’d been away. Her students had coped with the onset of exams, or someone else had helped in any crises. Possibly Professor Dickinson. She would have to catch up with him as soon as possible, just in case.

Of course, he would do that anyway. Given the circumstances. Brushing her hand across her eyes, she leaned forward to click the Start menu on screen when a shiver passed over the back of her neck. Outside, in the corridor, she heard a distant squeak, as if someone’s shoe had hit an unsteady floorboard.

Had someone been watching her?

She swung round in her chair. ‘Hello? Who’s that? Who’s there?’

No reply. In three strides, she was at the door, flinging it open. She looked right towards the department reception area, where someone was most likely to have entered, and then immediately left, along the corridor towards the other offices. Nobody. She was being stupid. Nobody was here but herself. It was only 8.25am. The secretary and the professor wouldn’t be arriving until 8.30am. No need for them to be any earlier; she’d said she’d be in at 9am. Still, the quiver in her flesh refused to ease itself and so she walked down to the reception area, built in an L-shape between the outside world and the academic staff.

Nobody there. Of course not. Only empty desks, old posters and the usual overflowing in-trays. Nothing to worry about. It had been the wind, nothing more.

On the short walk back to her office, she hummed a Mozart aria under her breath and told herself once again not to be oversensitive. She was in no danger here.

It was only when she was pushing open her office door that the blank envelope caught her eyes. It was lying in the space between the bottom of the door and the threshold, half-hidden under a piece of loose carpet.

She couldn’t tell if it had been there when she walked out of the office towards Reception or if it had only been put there now, on her walk back. Sweat clung to her skin and clothes, as she turned round wildly to confront her enemy, fight him off if necessary.

Still no-one.

Her throat as dry as an autumn leaf, she picked up the envelope, turning it over to look at the front. No postmark, not even her name on it this time. How long had it been there and who had delivered it? She must keep calm; perhaps it wasn’t what she thought, perhaps it was only a student wanting to see her. Sometimes they left notes like this, though on the whole email was their preferred mode of communication.

She had to open it.

Stumbling into the room, fingers scrabbling at the envelope, she couldn’t seem to get a grip on it. The seal was stuck fast. She stared around for a letter opener, saw it at the edge of the desk, grabbed it and …

‘Kate?’

‘What?’

When she turned, staggering back against her chair, what she saw in the doorway wasn’t a young man with blue eyes threatening her very existence, but a familiar figure, tall, grey-haired, slightly stooping, eyes blinking and benign.

‘Professor Dickinson,’ Kate could hear the hysteria of relief, the near-laughter in her voice. ‘Andrew. It’s you.’

‘Yes, of course. My dear, it’s so good to see you. I’d thought you were arriving later. If I’d known you’d be here now, then of course I would have come to meet you.’

‘No, please. I’m fine. Really I am.’ As she spoke, Kate dropped the letter behind her, out of sight. No matter how kind he was, she couldn’t tell him about it. She simply couldn’t. Frowning, she turned back to see Professor Dickinson’s eyes following her action, but he said nothing about it. Instead he shook his head and gave her an uncertain half-smile.

‘That’s not really true, is it?’ he said, glancing once at the desk and then upwards at her. ‘But I’m glad you’re here, back with us, Kate. Why don’t we go to my office and we can have a chat? The chairs are much more comfortable there, you know. Privilege of rank.’

In his office, Kate waited as the professor tutted, moved two large stacks of paper across the desk and tried to close his briefcase. She smiled. Professor Dickinson’s briefcase was brown and shabby, and the clasp didn’t work, although it displayed some evidence of attempted repairs carried out unsuccessfully in the past. It was rumoured in the department that he’d bought it from a high-class London store in the days when academics’ salaries had stretched that far, but since then any aura of elegance and history had long since drifted away. Now the case held within its dark leather walls an assortment of old essay papers, notes on a book about Chomsky that the professor had once promised to write and torn pictures of his three grandchildren, when all of them were still under six. They were much older now.