hurt, but all she got back was more of the soothing tones.
‘Come on, Ellie. You know it wasn’t like that. You were so sad, and I made you feel better. I know I did. And I can make you feel better again. Remember what it was like? Remember the burning feeling of our flesh as our bodies touched? What are you scared of? Nobody will know - just you and me.’
Ellie’s forced calm had dissolved, and terror ripped through her. What if Max finds out? He will never, ever forgive me. But she couldn’t say that, because then she knew she would have lost. She took a breath, and forced her voice into an even tone.
‘I’m not scared. I just want this to stop. I’m going to hang up now, and turn my phone off. Then I’m going to close all the blinds so you can’t watch me. I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you, or lead you on. But don’t call again.’
Ellie disconnected, and very deliberately held her phone up so that if he was watching he would see that she was switching it off. With her head down so she didn’t risk making eye contact with him wherever he was hiding in the dark garden, she strode briskly towards the windows and closed the blinds.
Immediately, the house phone began to ring. She marched across the kitchen and switched it off. She could still hear it ringing upstairs, so picked up her iPod remote, selected a Coldplay album and set the volume so it was loud enough to be heard in the back garden.
Her display of bravado was short-lived though, and tears of despair were seeping from the corners of her eyes as she grabbed a handful of garlic and crushed the life out of it with the side of a very sharp knife.
2
Indicating left, Leo Harris swung her Audi Cabriolet from the main road onto the high street of Little Melham. Most people thought she was mad having a soft top and living in Manchester, but tonight the Cheshire air was warm and muggy and it was great to have the roof down. The drive from her home had only taken about half an hour, and once out of the city traffic and into the countryside the wind in her hair felt good after the stuffy heat of town. Rain was threatening again though, and the dark sky belied the fact that it was a summer evening. It had been stormy off and on all day, and it suited her mood. The odd flash of distant lightning against a black and turbulent sky was almost a mirror of her emotions.
As she drove slowly through the village she looked at the pretty shop fronts, noticing the new wine bar with its aluminium tables and chairs outside on the wide pavement, a line of huge planters separating customers from pedestrians. There was even a trendy looking restaurant squashed between the greengrocer’s and the baker’s, and she glimpsed high backed dark red chairs and white tablecloths through the soft light in the window.
A perfect place to live.
Smiling at the irony of her thoughts, she turned off the main street and down the lane towards the house.
As she saw the open gates ahead, her foot jerked off the accelerator. An automatic reflex. Fighting the compulsion to turn the car around and go home, her foot found its way back to the pedal, and the car moved steadily forward. She hoped that the driver of a lone car parked in the lay-by down the lane hadn’t noticed this strange behaviour. She turned into the bottom of the drive and stopped.
A chilling thought struck her. The first time she had arrived here by car had been twenty-two years ago. She had been with her father, and they had stopped in almost this exact position. She remembered feeling as if she’d been crying for days, but it had only been a few hours. Her father had tried to talk to her but she had refused to acknowledge what he was saying, and in the end he’d left her out here in the car while he went into the house alone.
She remembered that her weeping had finally subsided into occasional hiccupping sobs. That was when she’d heard the scream. She had never heard anything like it in her young life, but it sounded as if somebody’s soul was being ripped from their body. It went on and on.