The door was unlocked to the outside. I walked through it. Closed it quietly. The sky was cloudless and punctured with bright dots of light. A shaft of moonlight reflected on the mirrored surface of the pool and there was an imperceptible breeze which ruffled the water enough to shimmer the light. Everything was quiet. There was only the sound of the waves breaking gently on the shoreline below. I breathed the air in, soft and warm, salty with the hint of drying seaweed.

The table was covered in glasses, cigarette ends, and mostly empty platters of food, the blue cheese dip, half-eaten, the surface beginning to crust.

And there was the knife.

It lay quietly in the middle of the carnage. The moonlight bounced off the metal like it did the surface of the pool. I reached out. My hand moved slowly through the air. I watched my fingers stroke it as if they belonged to someone else. Saw them clasp the handle. I imagined Eleanor’s hand on it. Touching where mine did. I could feel her smoothness. Like silk. Perfumed and soft. I could smell her then, her scent around me, her perfume, hairspray, the creams she rubbed into her face and hands, the way she’d looked at me when she told me to unpack the shopping.

I lifted the knife and tilted it. Caught the moon so it flashed. Pressed the blade flat against my cheek. I felt something then. Someone – or something – watching. I dropped my hand with the knife so it hung at my side and turned around. But there was nobody there. Nobody on the terrace. The living room was empty. No faces at any of the windows. I squinted and scanned the house.

Then I saw it. The raven. Perched on the edge of the roof. Black eyes fixed on me. But it couldn’t be real, could it? Ravens didn’t come out at night. I laid the knife back on the table. Took a couple of steps closer to the house. Blinked twice. Looked again. Squinted into the darkness.

Nothing there.

I took a step backwards and my foot brushed against something which made a light metallic sound. I bent down. It was difficult to see. My fingers patted the paving stones in search of what I’d kicked. Then my hand touched something. I picked it up and shifted position so the moonlight fell over my hand. It was Eleanor’s bracelet. I stared at it, at the rubies which looked like drops of black blood on the fine chain. So beautiful. The most beautiful piece of jewellery I’d ever seen.

I laid it on the table beside the knife then looked out over the sea, my body swaying slightly in time with the rolling waves.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Angie

August 1986

She’d never seen anything like it.