She walked through to the kitchen, which had a gas cooker and a small round dining table below a window looking out onto the back garden, where white poplars and birch trees were swaying gently in the wind. A gingham cloth still covered the table where they used to eat together, back when everything had been so much easier and more carefree, with the mild summer sun shining in through the casement windows. On the right a wood-panelled hallway linked the kitchen to the living room. Jasmin briefly put her head through the door. The green, floral-patterned sofa Jørgen hadn’t wanted to part with was still standing on the walnut floorboards in front of the French windows that opened out onto the veranda, from where a set of steps descended to the garden and the path that led through the woods and down to the beach.
It began to drizzle, the rain pattering gently against the window. Goosebumps crawled over Jasmin’s body. In her mind’s eye, she saw a harsh white light – a blinding flash – and with it came memories she would prefer to suppress, locked away in a box deep in her subconscious.
Squealing tyres. The figure in the headlights, close, far too close. The driving rain that obscured her view, the drumming of the water on the windscreen.
Water like blood flowing over the ground. Blood mingling with the rain and soaking the soil.
Her own scream reverberating in her ears.
Then the impact.
‘Mummy?’
Jasmin gave a start.
Paul was standing in front of her. ‘I’ve found the vacuum cleaner,’ he explained, looking at her with wide eyes. ‘It’s red and enormous.’
‘You’ve . . .’ It took her a few seconds to gather herself, to organise her thoughts. Breathe, she told herself. ‘Thanks, honey.’ She glanced over at the window again, at the tops of the birch trees swaying back and forth. ‘Do you want to have a look at the back garden with Bonnie? But don’t go any further than the trees at the bottom so I can see you, OK?’ She opened the door to the veranda, and Paul and Bonnie bounded through it.
Her son’s gleeful laughter rang back to her as she watched him go. You have to be there for him. It’s the only thing that matters. Trying to recover your memories here, to remember everything you’ve forgotten – all that is important, no doubt, but it’s not the priority.
The priority is to get back to your old self.
That’s the only way you can be there for Paul in the way he deserves.
And once you’ve managed it . . .
No. She didn’t want to think about Jørgen now.
She found the vacuum cleaner where she remembered leaving it, inside a storage cupboard next to the kitchen. A fat spider crawled out of the nozzle as she dragged it towards the hallway, but it still worked just fine. An hour later the ground floor looked presentable, and Jasmin went back and forth several times from the car to the house as she unloaded their bags and suitcases. Bonnie sat at the bottom of the stairs and watched her, while Paul had found a stick in the garden and was duelling with an invisible foe by the front door.
She brought in her bag of documents last of all, before climbing the steep staircase and casting a glance into the bedroom. The curtain was slightly open, as if somebody had been standing there a few seconds ago and looking out of the window.
It’ll be all right.
It has to be.
The tap in the bathroom produced a thick, gurgling flow of reddish-brown liquid. The pressure was good, but that was all. She left it running for a few minutes until the rust was flushed out of the pipes, leaving nothing but clear water that stubbornly refused to warm up.
‘Would you do me a favour and unpack your bag? Your things are in here.’ The room Paul would be sleeping in was south-facing, overlooking the garden, and lay directly opposite her own. ‘I’m going to pop down to the cellar to look at the heating.’
And hopefully not at the spiders, she thought.
The plank door to the cellar gave a squeak as she lifted the simple metal hook that kept it locked from the hallway. Jasmin groped for the light switch, but when she found it, the bulb momentarily flooded the room with light before going out again. The cellar stairs fell steeply away before her – and down at the bottom . . .
For a moment, she felt certain she’d seen something looking up at her during that fraction of a second. Something scuttling over the floor on all fours. But not an animal.
‘Oh, Jesus,’ she whispered. In the kitchen, she found a box of matches and candles – always a good idea to keep that sort of thing on hand out here, she heard Jørgen’s voice echo through her mind – and a sharp knife.
The staircase creaked as she descended. It sounded like the rattle of a dying man. Houses this close to the water shouldn’t have a cellar, one of the neighbours had told her – but nobody cared about that on the island.
In this place, you just have to get by. Nature doesn’t care about you. It merely exists.
There were shovels, spades, a pickaxe, all leaning against the wall. A green gun cabinet gave a rusty squeak when Jasmin put her hand on the door. Inside it lay an old hunting gun – a pump-action shotgun. Her heart was pounding. The hot water tank loomed out of the darkness like an oversized magician’s top hat – a magician who had been playing some very odd tricks down here.
Beside it, she found the boiler. The large switch controlling the power supply to the gas burner was turned off.
Of course it is. Jørgen always remembered things like that. Or was it the caretaker?
Jasmin flicked it to the ‘On’ position and the burner rumbled back to life. So much for that. On a shelf covered in cobwebs, she found a handful of fuses for the box in the hall, as well as a torch with no batteries.
She would have to head into the village first thing in the morning to pick up the other supplies. That was no bad thing, since it would bring her among other people. Exactly what you need.
Right?
Right?
Jasmin swung her candle around. A draught caused the flame to flicker. She had never liked this dank, mouldy old cellar. In the corner she saw a rowing boat propped upright against the wall, its red hull gleaming in the candlelight like fresh blood. Somewhere in the darkness, she could hear the rustle and crackle of leaves that must have been blown in by the wind.
The door in the far corner was slightly ajar.
That never happened.
That door had always been kept locked – she’d insisted on it.
Jasmin felt her pulse quicken and a shiver ran up her back, as if the temperature had suddenly dropped by several degrees.
She took a few steps backwards.
Through the gap in the door, she saw an eye peering in. Silver-edged, with a pupil that held a red gleam.
She blinked: it was gone.
Jasmin whirled around and sprinted up the stairs. She slammed the wooden door shut behind her and threaded the metal hook through the catch, before dragging a cabinet from its usual spot against the wall and pushing it in front of the door. The shoes stored inside it clunked around noisily.
Her hands were trembling.
There wasn’t anything down there. It was just your imagination mixing things up, after everything you’ve been through.
‘I’ve found it,’ said Paul behind her. Jasmin gave a low cry and spun around to face him. ‘Upstairs . . . there’s a broken window,’ he explained with a somewhat guilty expression.
Jasmin blinked. ‘What did you find?’