Mo Hayder - Poppet

Melanie appears to be oblivious. She smiles and engages. She laughs at his stupid jokes and compliments Patience’s cooking. It’s only when the evening moves on and they get into the bedroom that he knows he hasn’t got away with it. Instead of coming to bed she stands at the window, staring outside. There is no moon tonight and no stars, the world seems sealed shut by the clouds. The bean trellises and the potting shed are just visible in the pale electric light from the kitchen windows; beyond that almost nothing.

AJ comes to her and touches her shoulder tentatively. ‘Mel?’

‘You told me you came home to walk Stewart.’

‘I know – I’m sorry – I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ He puts a hand on the window frame so he can lean forward and look into her face. It is stony and controlled. ‘Melanie, I was so stupid. I don’t usually lie – that was crazy of me. I was … I’m embarrassed to say why I lied.’

‘You can always try.’

‘I was at some stupid home-brew shop in town. They’d just got some special handles for my old screw press – difficult to find. I didn’t want to miss out. Cider, you know, it can take over a man’s life.’

Melanie turns her eyes to him. She studies his face shrewdly, not finding any humour. A part of him inside wants to shrink.

Liar, liar, pants on fire .

‘Melanie? You think I’m a hairy old hobbit already.’

‘Did I say that?’

‘Well, no – but in case you’d noticed the … you know … hairy hobbit inclinations – I sort of didn’t want to reinforce that image. That – stereotype.’

‘I don’t see stereotypes. I just see people.’

‘And so should we all. That’s what’s so good about you.’ He gives a sheepish smile. ‘I’m sorry? Am I forgiven?’

‘I don’t think I can remember one relationship I had where my boyfriend didn’t lie to me.’

‘Jonathan, you mean?’

He’s jumped in too fast. He waits for her to react, but instead of fury she nods. Admitting it.

‘It nearly destroyed me – being lied to. I know I’ve told lies too – the whole thing with Isaac’s tribunal – so I can’t really complain, but when it happens to me …?’ She clenches her fists helplessly. ‘Somehow I’ve got this weak spot about it. I don’t know why. Maybe my dad and his cancer – Mum never told me he was dying, she lied – said he was coming out of hospital, and of course …’ She shrugs. ‘Well, he never did.’

The part of AJ that felt like shrinking now gives up and shrivels into a tight ball. It pulls up its knees and wraps its hands round its ears and rocks back and forward. ‘I tell you what.’ He clears his throat. ‘How about we make a deal? If I promise never to lie to you again, will you promise not to notice my hairy-hobbit, real-ale, tree-hugging proclivities?’

There’s a long silence. And then, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, Melanie smiles. ‘Oh, AJ,’ she says sorrowfully. ‘Can’t you see – it doesn’t matter to me? It’s you I’m interested in. Not what you wear or drink or eat. I’m only interested in you .’

FLEA FOLLOWS CAFFERY in her car – she can hear her pulse thumping away in her ears. She’s always half wondered where Caffery lives. She’s expecting a slick apartment on the Bristol Docks, one of the recycled metal-and-glass ecohouses. Instead he drives out into the Mendips, along country lanes, past barren, frost-blasted fields, finally slowing in the ghostly village of Priddy; a place she’s only driven through, never stopped in. The Priddy Circles – the famous ancient earthwork enclosures – are somewhere out in the darkness to her left. On her right there’s a drenched and dirty plastic children’s climbing frame in the local pub garden, a solitary beer glass on the top of the slide, half full of rainwater.

She’s expecting some villa or secret golf course or driveway to open itself up and is surprised when he indicates and turns left into a bedraggled cinder driveway that leads to a thatched cottage.

This is karst land, and in the headlights it is easy to make out the depressions and scars of sinkholes in the limestone caused by acid rain and the porous nature of the bedrock. It’s poor land, prone to flooding, colonized by sedge grasses that can’t be eaten by livestock. It’s dangerous too – apt to open up and swallow a man who doesn’t take care where he places his feet. This is not at all what she imagined. She should be relieved; instead she’s set off balance. Once again Caffery has walked all over her expectations and prejudices.

She climbs out of the Clio, pulling on her fleece, and stares at the bowed white walls, deep-set mullioned windows and grey thatch. ‘What’s this?’

He slams his car door. ‘This?’ He eyes the place. ‘This is where I live.’

It looks so small, so rundown, domesticated. So romantic. Lots of tiny comforting windows instead of what she expected: vast glass walls with water and city lights reflected in them. The biggest threat here, she decides, is how familiar it all feels.

‘What?’ he says across the car roof. ‘What is it?’

‘Nothing.’

‘It’s a rental.’

‘Oh,’ she says noncommittally. ‘It’s lovely. Where’s the coffee?

He slaps the top of the roof twice. Beckons. ‘Come on. Let’s do it.’

They go into the cottage. Inside she’s in for another surprise. It looks a lot like her place, with boxes everywhere and piles of notes and paper files. An iPad charging – propped on the skirting board in the hallway under the radiator. The staircase is in the living room; once it must have been walled off, now it’s got open banisters. A sweater is looped over the crevice of the bottom post. She wants to stare at the sweater – suck up the clues it can give her about him. But she can’t let her interest in him be that naked, so she settles for surreptitious glances, taking in everything from the empty flight bag at the bottom of the stairs to the almost-empty bottle of expensive Scotch on the windowsill. It’s like being a camera. Click, and she’s committed everything to memory for later analysis. Click, store. Click, store.

She goes into the kitchen where he is pulling milk out of the fridge. There’s a metal espresso pot bubbling on the hob. ‘So are you moving?’ she asks.

‘No – I haven’t unpacked yet.’

‘How long have you been here?’

‘I dunno. Two years?’

‘Two years and you haven’t unpacked?’ She isn’t sure whether that impresses the hell out of her or makes her incredibly sad. ‘Has to be some kind of record.’

He looks at her now. Blinks as if the comment has made him realize how stupid she is. ‘It’s not a record,’ he says levelly. ‘It’s the problem. When you don’t finish something it’s what happens. You never settle. Not ever.’

He says it so decisively she knows what he’s talking about. His brother – years ago – never found. Her own parents, whose bodies never came back after the accident. Lost for ever. Jacqui Kitson too – still wondering where Misty is. It’s his attempt to chasten her. To remind her why they’re here. She waits while he makes coffee, not speaking, because she can’t think of anything sensible to say. When he hands her the cup, she gives a brief smile and sips politely. ‘Nice,’ she says. ‘Very nice.’

‘Thank you.’

‘In fact it’s lovely – but it’s not going to make me change my mind. I still can’t do it.’

‘Can’t or won’t?’

‘Both. Please – I’m just starting to be able to deal with life again – I can’t turn back now. And I’ve given you the other reasons.’

‘Yes – and they’re all surmountable. Sit down. It’s my turn.’