my head – the four of us having supper at our old house. Before Carrie got ill. I’d been a babbler. I’d ask ‘Why?’ until most adults were ready to bash my little blonde head against the table. Except Dad. He’d have answers for every question, and then he’d have some of his own for me. ‘Why do you think the sky’s blue?’ ‘How many stars are in the universe?’ (I guessed fifty, which was a big disappointment to him.) ‘How far away do you think the sun is?’ ‘How long do you think the light takes to get from that star to here?’ Mum and Carrie would sigh, roll their eyes and serve the sprouts.
‘Your dad makes the important decisions in this family,’ Mum used to say. ‘Like whether the universe is expanding and whether we should throw our hats in for string theory or loop quantum gravity. And I make the unimportant ones like what we have for supper.’
‘Here. I’ve got your brooch.’ I fished it out and pushed the velvet bag into her hand. ‘You can forget you ever lost it.’
She opened up the little box, and the brooch sat and sparkled.
‘It’s lovely,’ she said.
I took the box and had another look. ‘Did you know they made jewellery out of dead people’s ashes?’
‘Oh, that’s nice.’
‘Really? A bit ghoulish, isn’t it?’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t suggest it for your gran.’
I smiled, wondering if Gran’s ashes would come out light or dark, according to Grace Swift’s insane theory. ‘Mum, is she in a lot of pain? She said we’d have put her down if she was a dog.’
Mum stood and walked to the window. ‘I don’t think she really means that. She can be a bit incoherent.’
‘She was pretty coherent about my lack of a boyfriend. But I was serious, do you need more help looking after her?’
‘No.’ She knew the financial situation. ‘I’m okay. Tracy’s great. She bathes her… and everything. But some days it’s hard. Sometimes I have to force myself not to just shut the door and forget about her.’ She wandered back and sat at the breakfast bar with me. ‘Anyway, how are you?’
‘I’m on this new case. You’ll have seen it on the TV.’
‘I haven’t really been watching the TV. Let’s talk about something other than work.’
‘Haven’t you been following it at all? It’s the most dramatic thing to happen in Eldercliffe for about four hundred years. It’s normally all sheep down mineshafts round here.’
‘I know, love. I don’t like bad news.’
‘He was some kind of lawyer. His wife’s a GP just up the road. Are you at her practice? Kate Webster?’
‘No. I said let’s talk about something else.’
It wasn’t like her to get snappy. I sensed she was hiding something from me. I felt as if the world had lurched, like a ship. ‘Are you alright? Mum?’
‘I’m fine. I don’t know her. I’m at the other doctors’ surgery. I don’t know the name.’ She picked a piece of fluff off her cardigan.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. Never heard of her. Poor woman. You’re not working too hard, are you? You know what you can get like. Have you found time to see Hannah recently?’
I felt a stab of guilt. ‘I’ll see her at the weekend. But Mum—’
‘Could you nip out and get me some milk, love?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ The shop was only five minutes’ walk away, although half of this was spent plunging down a perilously steep set of steps to the main road. I sensed she was trying to get rid of me, but when Mum didn’t want to talk, there was little point in persisting. I grabbed one of her coats from the rack by the door, shoved a fiver in my pocket and let myself out the front.
The road was dimly lit and the houses were set back – all in their own lonely spaces, behind hedges and cherry trees, so the street-lamps cast long shadows onto their lawns. This area was a complete contrast to the tiny lanes, steps and alleyways of the old town a few minutes away. I walked in the direction of the main road, still feeling spooked by the Alfie-cat experience. I looked down at the cracked slabs of the pavement. When I was a child, someone had told me if you avoided the cracks, terrible things would never happen to you. I’d always avoided the cracks. So much for that theory.
I thought I heard the patter of footsteps behind me. I whipped my head round but there was no one there. Just the tree branches ruffling in the breeze. I pulled my coat tighter around me and increased my pace.
I reached the top of the steps which tumbled down towards the town centre. They were cut into the rocky hillside which separated the old town from the newer area where Mum lived. Their stone surfaces were worn, their edges curved and uneven. Ornate iron railings had apparently once graced both sides, but they’d been taken in the war to make something deadly, and never replaced.
I paused to curse my bad ankle before tackling the descent. A street lamp shone behind me, and my body cast a spindly, elongated shadow down the steps, my shadow-head almost touching the road far below.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I fished it out. Kate Webster. I touched the screen. Her voice blasted out, high pitched and frantic. ‘I found an email from him. Just now.’
‘Slow down, Kate, it’s okay. What have you found?’
‘I hadn’t checked my emails since before he died. Your lot have got my laptop. I just checked them on Beth’s. He sent one that morning saying…’ She tailed off.
I pressed the phone hard to my ear. Shadow-Meg did the same, her movements exaggerated and distorted by the shape of the steps. ‘What did the email say, Kate?’
I heard the footsteps behind me again. Coming up fast.
Someone was behind me. I gasped and tried to spin round, but my foot slipped over the curved edge of the top step. My legs shot out from under me and I slammed onto my hip. A flash of adrenaline exploded in my stomach.
There was a burst of frenzied barking and snarling.
I was falling. I tried to grab onto the steps, but my fingers slipped over their smooth surfaces. I crashed all the way to the bottom and bashed my head against the final step with a sickening crack.
I lay crumpled and astonished. Pain stabbed into my ankle, hip, shoulder, and skull.
Something was careering down the steps. I wanted to scream. I couldn’t move. I shielded my head with my arms.
A wet tongue licked my face. I tried to lift my head but a jolt of pain shot through my neck and I sank back down. I heard panting and snuffling.
I lay on the pavement. My throat felt solid right down to my chest and a whooshing noise flooded my ears.
I groaned and levered
