that. No, she’d said, I never see her. Never see her?
Harry was slowing the car. He switched the headlights on to full beam and turned off the road. They were driving across the open moor now, along the faintest hint of a farm track. Ahead of them seemed to be … nothing.
‘She says someone comes into the flat,’ he continued, slowing to a crawl as the car began to bump and jolt over the uneven ground. ‘Someone moves things around, especially Hayley’s old toys.’
They’d reached a small open area of land. Harry switched off the engine and headlights. The sudden absence of noise was startling, the disappearance of light even more so. At her side, Harry became little more than silhouette and shadow, and yet, for some reason, it was even harder to look at him.
‘Gillian and Tom are my patients for a reason,’ said Evi. ‘They both have problems.’
He was moving – impossible not to catch her breath – but he only reached up to the car roof and unlocked it. The soft leather folded back and the night, shimmering with wood smoke and gunpowder, wrapped itself around her like a cool blanket. Above Evi’s head, the sky was the colour of damsons and the stars seemed to have moved a light year or two closer to earth.
‘Tell me when you get cold,’ he said, settling back into his seat. A second of silence and then: ‘What if I’ve heard her?’
She risked a proper look. ‘What?’ He was leaning back in his seat, hands behind his head, staring at the sky. Whatever he was about to tell her, it was something he wasn’t comfortable talking about.
The night air felt damp in Evi’s nostrils; rain wasn’t far away. A volley of violet stars hurled themselves into the sky, distracting them both for a second.
‘Your eyes are that colour,’ said Harry. ‘And, yes, I’ve heard voices too. Eerie disembodied voices, coming from nowhere.’
And he hadn’t thought to mention it. ‘When?’ she asked, pushing herself a little more upright in the seat. ‘Where?’
‘When I’ve been alone,’ he said. ‘Only in Heptonclough, though. Only in and around the church. I’ll bet Tom doesn’t hear his voices at school, does he?’
Evi leaned back again. ‘I need to think about that one,’ she said. ‘What are we doing up here, exactly?’
‘I found this spot a couple of weeks ago,’ said Harry, as he leaned forward to switch on the cassette player. It started to hiss as he pressed the Play button. ‘We’re about twenty yards from the edge of Morrell Tor, the highest spot on the moor. I promised myself I’d drive up here and watch the fireworks.’
He was nuts. And she had to stop smiling, she was just encouraging him. ‘You’re three days too early,’ she pointed out.
He turned to her, his arm sliding along the back of her seat. He was inches away. She could smell the beer he’d drunk at the Fletcher’s. ‘In three days I couldn’t have been sure of having you with me,’ he said. ‘Do you dance?’
‘Do I what?’
‘Dance. You know, move your body in time to music. I chose this track specially.’
Evi listened for a second. ‘Dancing In The Dark,’ she said in a soft voice. ‘My mum used to play this. Where are you …?’
Harry had climbed out of the car and was walking round the front of the bonnet. He held open her door and offered his hand.
Evi shook her head. Definitely nuts. ‘I can’t dance, Harry. You’ve seen me. I can barely walk by myself.’
As though he hadn’t heard, he reached across her to turn up the volume. Then he’d taken her by both arms and was lifting her out of the car. Evi opened her mouth to tell him it wouldn’t work, she hadn’t danced in years, they’d both end up sprawled on the ground, but with his arm wrapped tightly around her waist, she found she could walk quite easily across the few remaining feet of farm track and on to the rock of the Tor. He took her right hand in his, his other arm stayed round her waist to hold her up. His jacket wasn’t fastened. His hand felt like ice. Holding her tightly against him, he began to move.
The old-fashioned cassette player seemed to distort the music somehow, making the drumbeat louder, more insistent than she remembered. And it was ridiculously loud, they’d be able to hear it in the town … but impossible to worry about that, to think