Nell began to wish she had taken the number of the taxi driver who had collected her from the station. Still, it would be easy enough to call one of the enquiry numbers and find it – or if not, there would be a local firm who would come out. But if Michael was in the house … Yes, but his car was not here.
She stepped back into the tree tunnel, intending to return to the front of the house, but she had only gone a few steps when a dark figure appeared at the other end. Nell gasped, then drew a shaky breath of relief, because it must be Michael – he must have been out here all along. She was about to call out and go towards him when an alarm bell sounded in her mind. If this was Michael he would have called out. Her heart skittered unevenly, and she backed away, going towards the rear of the house again, desperately trying not to stumble on the uneven path, but reaching the corner safely. She risked looking back. The figure was still there, a black silhouette, featureless, almost two-dimensional, as if it had been cut out of the darkness and pasted on to the night. He was coming towards her.
Nell sent a despairing look at the dark house, then felt for her phone. But she would not be able to key in a number in this dimness, and she dared not stay here for long enough to make the call anyway – he was coming down the pathway towards her – she could hear his soft, light footsteps. If she could hide somewhere, she could use the phone, though. How quickly would the police get out here? And where could she hide that would be safe? Would there be an unlocked door into the house? But it would be almost impossible to locate a door in this darkness.
The walled garden was barely twenty yards away – she could see the glint of the black wrought-iron gates. If she could get in there she might be able to hide, or even climb over a wall. Nell thought she was so pumped with adrenalin she could probably scale the north face of the Eiger at the moment. She took a deep breath and, trying to keep to the shadows, ran towards the gate.
He came after her at once, as if he had known all along what she would do, and she heard him call out. But his voice was indistinct, and Nell could not tell what he said. It was not Michael’s voice, though; Nell would have known Michael’s voice if all the tempests of hell had raged and the skies had been rent asunder.
The wrought-iron gate was closed, but the latch clicked up easily. The door swung open with a squeak of sound; as Nell stepped inside, the walled garden seemed to envelop her with a scent of wet grass and the tang of box. She went towards the concealment of the tangled vines growing against the old wall and crouched down. But as she reached for her phone, he was framed in the gateway, turning his head this way and that, looking for her. Nell’s hand had closed over the phone, but she hesitated. He could not fail to hear her make the call, and he would be on her long before help could get here. She pressed back into a thick mat of ivy, willing him to decide she was not here, praying he would go away.
She thought he called out again, and for the first time a tiny doubt brushed her mind, because his voice was hesitant, almost whispering. Or was that a ruse? For the first time she spared a thought to wonder who the man was – was he simply a chance intruder? Whoever he was, Nell was not going to risk letting him know where she was. She remained motionless, hardly daring to breathe.
The man seemed to hesitate, then stepped forward. If he closes the gate we’ll be shut in together, thought Nell in horror. But he left the gate open and began to move around the edges of the garden. Nell, keeping her eyes fixed on him, edged away. If she could keep to the wall, she might manage to work her way back to the open gate and get out.
It was like a macabre game of hide-and-seek. Several times she thought the man whispered something, but she could not hear what he said.
She was about halfway round; the man was a good fifteen yards behind her, and she was trying to decide if she dare risk a quick sprint across the grass to the gate, when the gate itself swung closed. The man shot round to stare at it, but Nell thought it had only been the wind that had closed it.
Or had it? Because there were other sounds in the garden now; stealthy movements. Footsteps – not as light as the lone man’s had been, but still the footsteps of someone who did not want to attract attention. Nell had no idea if she could trust this new arrival sufficiently to shout for help. Or supposing it was Michael? Hope surged up, because perhaps Michael had realized the arrangements to meet at the pub had gone wrong, and so he had come out here. But wouldn’t she have heard his car or seen its lights?
Now there were more than one set of footsteps, and the garden seemed to be filling up with shadows – shadows that were not quite solid but not entirely transparent. Nell shrank back, a kind of disbelieving comprehension starting to unfold in her mind.
Stephen Gilmore had fled to this house all those years ago, and on a night in 1917 – a night about which a young German soldier had never afterwards spoken – four men had followed him to execute him. Had they cornered him in this very garden? Was this a weird, incredible replay of that long-ago event? It was the wildest idea in the world, and once Nell would have rejected it out of hand. But tonight, in the shadowy old garden, she believed it completely. It was Stephen who had followed her through the grounds of his old family home, whispering to her as they went – whispering and treading furtively because he had not wanted Hugbert and the soldiers to know where he was. Had he been trying to warn her? Or ask for her help?