He offered to drive her back to Balesford, but she refused; the idea of another entirely silent car journey with him was too much. Instead she called for a cab and stood out by the bagel shop waiting for it. When it came, she gave the driver her mother’s address, and then sat in the back seat, peering out at the rain-smeared streets as they went. When they passed an off licence with all its lights still on, she got the cab to stop and nipped inside, returning to the car with a two-litre bottle of vodka and a packet of paracetamol.

If she had to go back to her mum’s house, it wasn’t going to be sober.

Later, a few vodkas into the night and feeling both sick and very tired, Heather was curled up on her mother’s sofa with Pamela Whittaker’s album on her lap. Whether it was the alcohol or the effects of a very rough couple of days, Heather was finding each image more unsettling than the last – and there were so many of them. Pamela might have regretted her time at Fiddler’s Mill, but it had certainly inspired her; there were photographs and images packed in so thickly that in some places Heather found several images hidden under another, crammed in like grisly pressed leaves.

The forest featured a lot, as did the big old house, and the sky at sunrise or sunset. There were fewer photographs of the other people at the commune, but each of these Heather scrutinized carefully, scanning every face for something familiar. Each time she failed to find anything she felt the tension thrumming through her lessen a little.

And then she turned a page a little too quickly, and several photographs slid out, fanning across her leg as though they were eager for her to see them. One of them caught her eye immediately.

It was her mother. Painfully young, and dressed in a bulky winter coat that came right up to her chin, but it was her all right. It was a shot of a crowd, gathered around a smoky fire, and there were lots of other people crowding close to the camera, but there was no mistaking her really – the only thing Heather didn’t recognize was the carefree expression on her face; her whole face lit up with the idea of freedom. And in the background, on the top of a hill, the big house lurked. She had been at Fiddler’s Mill. There was no avoiding it.

‘I have to go there.’ The idea had a finality to it that both frightened and excited her. ‘I have to see this place.’

32

Before

The blood had turned his sleeve into a sodden red mass.

Michael found his eyes drawn to it again and again, taking his attention from the road often enough that eventually he pulled over, parking the van in a little gravel layby.