hit the button and wait for the tour to load. Another button pops up: ‘Play Tour’. I click on it. The kitchen appears first, and I see what I’ve already seen in the photograph, then a bit more as the camera does a 360-degree turn to reveal the rest of the room. Then another turn, then another. The spinning effect makes me feel dizzy, as if I’m on a roundabout that won’t stop. I close my eyes, needing a break. I’m so tired. Travelling to Cambridge and back in a day nearly every Friday is doing me no good; it’s not the physical effort that’s draining, it’s the secrecy. I have to move on, let it go.
I open my eyes and see a mass of red. At first I don’t know what I’m looking at, and then . . . Oh, God. It can’t be. Oh, fuck, oh, God. Blood. A woman lying face down in the middle of the room, and blood, a lake of it, all over the beige carpet. For a second, in my panic, I mistake the blood for my own. I look down at myself. No blood. Of course not – it’s not my carpet, not my house. It’s 11 Bentley Grove. The lounge, spinning. The fireplace, the framed map above it, the door open to the hall . . .
The dead woman, face down in a sea of red. As if all the blood inside her has been squeezed out, every drop of it . . .
I make a noise that might be a scream. I try to call Kit’s name, but it doesn’t work. Where’s the phone? Not on its base. Where’s my BlackBerry? Should I ring 999? Panting, I reach out for something, I’m not sure what. I can’t take my eyes off the screen. The blood is still turning, the dead woman slowly turning. She must be dead; it must be her blood. Red around the outside, almost black in the middle. Black-red, thick as tar. Make it stop spinning.
I stand up, knock my chair over. It falls to the floor with a thud. I back away from my desk, wanting only to escape. Out, out! a voice in my head screams. I’m stumbling in the wrong direction, nowhere near the door. Don’t look. Stop looking. I can’t help it. My back hits the wall; something hard presses into my skin. I hear a crash, step on something that crunches. Pain pricks the soles of my feet. I look down and see broken glass. Blood. Mine, this time.
Somehow, I get myself out of the room and close the door. Better; now there’s a barrier between it and me. Kit. I need Kit. I walk into our bedroom, switch on the light and burst into tears. How dare he be asleep? ‘Kit!’
He groans. Blinks. ‘Light off,’ he mumbles, groggy with sleep. ‘Fuck’s going on? Time is it?’
I stand there crying, my feet bleeding onto the white rug.
‘Con?’ Kit hauls himself up into a sitting position and rubs his eyes. ‘What’s wrong? What’s happened?’
‘She’s dead,’ I tell him.
‘Who’s dead?’ He’s alert now. He reaches under the bed for his glasses, puts them on.
‘I don’t know! A woman,’ I sob. ‘On the computer.’
‘What woman? What are you talking about?’ He throws back the covers, gets out of bed. ‘Your . . . what have you done to your feet? They’re bleeding.’
‘I don’t know.’ It’s the best I can do. ‘I did a virtual . . .’ I’m having trouble breathing and speaking at the same time.
‘Just tell me if everybody’s okay. Your sister, Benji . . .’
‘What?’ My sister? ‘It’s nothing to do with them, it’s a woman. I can’t see her face.’
‘You’re white as a sheet, Con. Did you have a nightmare?’
‘On my laptop. She’s there now,’ I sob. ‘She’s dead. She must be. We should call the police.’
‘Sweetheart, there’s no dead woman on your laptop,’ Kit says. I hear the impatience beneath the reassurance. ‘You had a bad dream.’
‘Go and look!’ I scream at him. ‘It’s not a dream. Go in there and see it for yourself!’
He looks down at my feet again, at the trail of blood on the rug and the floorboards – a dotted red line leading to the bedroom door. ‘What happened to you?’ he asks. I wonder how guilty I look. ‘What’s going on?’ The concerned tone has gone; his voice is hard with suspicion. Without waiting to hear my answer, he heads for the spare room.