Belinda Bauer - The Facts of Life and Death

Twice, submerged branches knocked them off their feet, but Mummy kept hold of Ruby’s hand so hard that it hurt, and they always stuck together.

Once Ruby turned around and saw Daddy was closer, so she didn’t turn around again.

The water was terrifying – the dark and the depth and the strength of it – but the idea of Daddy seeing them was even worse.

They passed The Retreat. The temptation to run into their home and cuddle up there in their warm beds was huge, but Ruby knew that Daddy would reach the house soon, and she didn’t want to be there when he did.

So they waded past the place where the front gate probably still was, and instead went through the narrow gap between the noisy, swaying rhododendrons, to the Peppercombe pathway.

It was a waterfall of muddy water, shot through with debris washed out of the forest. The first part of the path was cut through thick undergrowth, and was slow going, with debris and brambles trying to stop them, trying to hold them there for Daddy to find. Mummy went ahead to deflect the worst of the muck, but Ruby was scratched and caught by a hundred thorns and prickles, and smacked by sticks and branches being washed down the path.

Twenty feet up – above the worst of the brambles – they turned to look down at The Retreat.

Ruby’s fingers gripped her mother’s leg. Daddy had reached the front gate already. He was so close! They were almost straight over his head! For a terrible second she thought he was going to look up and see them and start up the path behind them. If that happened, he would catch them for sure.

But he didn’t look up, and even if he had, he’d never have seen them against the dark forest. He went through the gateway – moving much faster through the black seawater than they had – and disappeared into the house.

Without saying a word, Mummy led them upwards again.

Ruby slipped and fell to her knees, but Mummy was there to pull her up again. Harvey didn’t like the rough ride. He squealed and scrabbled to be free.

‘Shh, Harvey,’ said Ruby. ‘Good boy.’

It didn’t help.

Ruby fixed her eyes on where Mummy was placing her feet, and followed in her footsteps.

John Trick searched The Retreat. It didn’t take long because the ground floor was flooded and the upstairs was only three rooms big. Even so, he opened the wardrobes, just in case they were hiding in there.

The house was empty. Alison had called him for help and he’d told her he was coming home, and then the fucking bitch had fucked off somewhere else.

Tim Braund’s, most likely. She’d probably used this as an excuse to go whoring.

When he caught her, he’d make her suffer.

He’d make her see what she’d done to him.

He glared through the bedroom window. From there he could usually see the lights in the little white cottages closer to the sea, but under the murderous sky, the homes on the square were only vague blobs of grey in the inky sea.

He looked until his eyes ached, but he could see no sign of his wife and her bastard child.

He would just have to go out there and hunt them down.

John Trick was three steps down the stairwell when he came back up and went into Ruby’s bedroom. Her window was tiny and overgrown and was hard to see out of at the best of times, so he didn’t expect much.

And he didn’t get much.

The forest raged and loomed and flailed at The Retreat, and he wouldn’t have seen a white elephant standing ten yards into the trees, it was that dense.

He almost turned away, and then he blinked and looked again.

Nothing. Nothing.

There!

What was that?

John Trick squinted.

Through the trees and the rain – about halfway up the Peppercombe pathway – a red light flickered.

Harvey didn’t like being in the pony backpack.

It hadn’t been too bad the first time, because that journey had been gentle and he’d just eaten a whole lot of Bugsy Supreme, which had made him sleepy.

But this journey was not gentle. It was wet and it was cold and it was noisy and bumpy, and after one sudden drop that left him frantic and on his back, he decided that the snare around his neck had to go.

He started to claw at the zip. It didn’t take him long to get one front paw through the tiny gap he managed to make, but then things came to a halt.

Having one paw and his head out of the bag was even more unbalancing, and Harvey twisted his head and tried to chew his way out of the backpack.

He chewed on the pony’s ear and then on the loop for hanging the backpack on a hook, and then on the pony’s other ear.

Finally Harvey chewed on the LED light that Ruby had got free off the front of Pony & Rider.

All you had to do was press the button on the back.

It was only a matter of time.

THE HOUSE WAS haunted and draughty and smelly and hung off a cliff, but when Ruby reached it, it felt like stepping into a safe haven.

But the moment she followed Mummy inside, a pulsing red light bounced off the walls.

Mummy cried, ‘Ruby! Oh my God! Turn it off!’ She rushed over and spun Ruby round and felt for the switch on what Ruby realized must be her LED light. Harvey bit Mummy and both of them squealed.

Ruby dropped the pack off her shoulders and found the little plastic button and the room went black.

‘How long was it on for?’ cried Mummy. ‘How long was it on for?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know! What if Daddy saw it?’

Mummy hurried to the glassless window. The floor there was always creaky and Mummy gasped and held the wall for support. Ruby ran over to join her.

Below them was The Retreat, still surrounded by shiny black water.

As they watched, Daddy came out of the front door and waded down the garden path, moving fast , as if he knew where he was going.

Ruby and Mummy held their breath.

Daddy went swiftly to the gate – and then turned and waded towards the Peppercombe path.

Mummy clutched Ruby’s hand. ‘He knows we’re here!’ She looked around the bare room and her voice cracked in desperation. ‘We have to hide! There’s nowhere to hide!’

‘I know where,’ said Ruby.

Calvin Bridge drove down the hill to Limeburn.

The normally dark, eerie lane was now treacherous too. Twice he had to steer around fallen branches, and once a branch crashed down into the ditch right beside them.

‘Shit!’ shouted King, and Calvin would have seconded it, but his mouth was too dry from fear.

They looked at each other, but Kirsty King wasn’t the type to go back, and Calvin wasn’t the type to go back if she wasn’t going back.

So he went on.

They passed the little car park where visitors parked and swung round the final corner down to the village.

‘Jesus Christ,’ said King in amazement. ‘Is that the sea?’

The flagstone in the hearth weighed a ton. Even with Ruby and Mummy trying to move it together. Their fingers could barely get purchase, and risked being squashed every time they lost their grip and dropped the huge slate. It wasn’t a job to do in the dark.

And Ruby didn’t even know what they’d find underneath.

Bare earth? Floorboards? A hole that was big but not big enough? Or a hole already occupied… ?

She didn’t have time to care. For now, she needed Adam’s ghost story to be true more than she’d ever needed anything in her life. Their lives depended on it. So she knelt and grunted alongside Mummy, while Harvey – free at last – twitched his nose at the edges of the stone, as if that would help.