Mo Hayder - Poppet

AJ lowers his head and touches a finger to his forehead. ‘I’ll be going,’ he says, his voice tight. He turns hurriedly for the door. ‘Have a lovely day, Gabriella, you look wonderful.’

‘AJ?’

‘What?’

‘Be careful, AJ. Be careful. We all love you.’

ACONSULTANCY TEAM FROM the Trust is busily reviewing care procedures at Beechway and several of the security staff have been suspended pending investigation. Some of the patients have been moved to a secure intensive-therapy unit outside Bath.

Beechway is already getting back on its feet – but AJ isn’t.

A hole. That’s what Gabriella called it. She couldn’t have described it any better if she tried. As he drives home that day, slowly down the windy lanes, he pictures himself as a carcass. A grey shell, dressed in a tired suit, driving a beat-up old Astra with mismatched tyres.

AJ and Patience are now sure Melanie poisoned Stewart. AJ found a packet of rat poison in the cellar that had been opened. But Melanie poisoned more than just animals – she poisoned minds. He wouldn’t have her back if his life depended on it – he’d rather be dead. What he would have back, however, in the blink of an eye, is the peace of mind he had before she arrived. He’d guarded that for a million hours and he only let it go to her with reluctance. He thought he was getting into an adult relationship – he hadn’t realized that he was the only mature person in it. Melanie has cracked him open in the place he’d healed so well and hard – and now he’s got an open wound that won’t go away.

‘AJ, will you stop this?’ For his breakfast Patience has made fried pumpkin fingers and an omelette with handfuls of dried mushrooms and cheese. She throws the plate down impatiently. ‘I’m getting tired. You chose the wrong one – I tried to tell you, but you didn’t listen.’

‘I’m not missing her. I’m just …’ He shakes his head, staring down at the omelette. He can’t eat. It is insanity. All insanity. ‘I’m just tired.’

‘And I’m tired too. I’m tired of you and I’m tired of our damned dog – who thinks I’m named after my nature – which I’m not.’

‘We all know that.’

‘Well, tell the dog that, will you?’

AJ draws his hands down his face. Stewart is in the corner – not in his usual place next to the Aga, but by the back door, his eyes hopeful.

‘I’ve walked him and walked him – and look at the animal’s face. The dog won’t be told.’

AJ sighs. He pushes back his chair, leaving the omelette untouched. ‘Come on,’ he tells Stewart. ‘Let’s go.’

He pulls his fleece and walking boots on and opens the back door. He ignores Patience’s outrage – to scorn her food offerings is to dice with death. The omelette will probably end up in his bed, under his pillow maybe. So what? Life is different now. He’s ready to be taken wherever the tide goes.

‘Come on, mate. Let’s do it.’

The daylight is filtered through a cloying mist. It hangs low on every field. AJ hasn’t brought Stewart’s lead and the dog is half ecstatic with joy. He runs, nose down across the garden, stops and puts his head up to check this isn’t a trick, that he’s actually being allowed to do this.

‘It’s OK.’ AJ waves a hand. ‘Just let me know where you are.’

Stewart runs on ahead – and it’s no surprise the direction he takes. He crosses the field and makes a beeline to the stile which leads into the forest. AJ pulls his fleece closer around him and sets out to follow. Stewart seems to have an inbuilt safety instinct, because now that AJ isn’t yelling at him and chasing him to come back, he doesn’t head for the hills. He actually stops and waits for AJ to acknowledge him and his position, waits for him to cover enough ground, before he races off again.

Nothing much in the woods has changed – everything is a little damper, a little colder. His trousers are covered in drops of melting frost where he brushes against hedges and stiles. The trees have lost a few more leaves; otherwise it’s exactly as it was a week ago – including Stewart’s trajectory, which, unsurprisingly, leads them back into the wooded crest of land where Old Man Athey’s orchard is. They pass the rusting disused skip and move down the path.

Last time AJ was here he was nervous. This time weariness and sadness weigh down and muffle his fear. His hands and face are cold, but apart from that he feels very little. He trudges along obligingly until they enter the clearing.

Only now does Stewart hesitate. He hovers at the edge of the clearing, a line of fur rising like a brush along his spine. The old walking yew is there – bone-white. Stewart stares at it, but he doesn’t back off.

‘Jesus, Stewart. If this is a prolonged dating game – I mean, if this is you on the hunt for some skirt you haven’t got the cojones to face up to alone, then I’m going to have a sense-of-humour failure. And it’s going to happen pretty soon.’ He checks his watch. ‘Like in about twenty seconds.’

The dog trots forward. AJ lowers his hand and watches him. Stewart has his head low, his ears pinned back. AJ’s never seen his dog like this before.

He follows, squelching heavily through the wet leaves. Now he sees the core of the tree has rotted, hollowing out the centre to a deep black cave. It should be dead, but it isn’t. Stewart has ducked inside. AJ pulls his phone out and checks the signal – nothing – so he switches the phone light on, rests his hand on the arch at the entrance and shines the light inside.

It’s an amazing, natural cave. There are crenellations and smooth, wavelike formations, polished and glowing. It goes back and back and back. He wonders where he’s seen this before, then remembers – it’s the dream – the recurring dream that seems to be linked to not being able to breathe. The dream of an all-consuming creature. Something that means life and death. Something that has no end and no beginning.

Stop it, he tells himself. Stop it.

He takes long slow breaths until the tightness in his ribs goes away. He opens his eyes and finds his sight has adjusted – there’s enough light in here to see. He turns the phone off and pockets it. Crouches to get through the opening. Stewart is running around inside, busily sniffing every nook and cranny. Someone has been here – there are things on the floor AJ doesn’t want to look at too closely. It smells too – like Beechway on a bad day.

‘Hey,’ AJ hisses. ‘What’s in here? Doggy Viagra or something?’

Stewart ignores him and heads further into the bole. Now AJ notices there’s another arched entrance. You wouldn’t see it if you weren’t a damned dog. AJ follows, fighting off cobwebs. He has to get down on his hands and commando crawl to get through the next gap, and when he’s through his eyes won’t adjust to the light at all. He needs the phone again. He clicks it on and shines it around.

They are in a second natural bole. An interconnecting chamber in the skeleton tree. The phone light falls on an odd tree stump in the centre of the ground. It hasn’t grown there, it’s been placed. Centrally – almost symbolically. He is about to move towards it when he realizes his route is impeded by a wire.

‘Ah.’ He is brought up short. ‘That’s interesting.’

He shines the light along the length of the wire. It is tough and relatively wide bore. It originates in an eyebolt embedded in the underside of the tree and extends across the opening to the tree stump. Moving closer, AJ sees its lower extremity is attached to what appears – unless he has completely lost touch with reality – to be a small doorway, cut out of the trunk with a hacksaw.

His dream. Alice in Wonderland. A hole he can fall down. A hole that opens into heaven.