Sarah Pearse - The Sanatorium

Stopping to stretch on the promenade above the beach, she’d spotted Will by the wall, smoke coiling around him, suspended in the salty still of the air.

He was barbecuing—fish, peppers, chicken that smelled like cumin and coriander.

Elin felt his eyes on her right away. A minute or so later, he called over, made a joke. Something clichéd. Looks like I’ve got it easier than you. She’d laughed, and they’d started talking.

She was attracted to him immediately. There was an unusual complexity about his appearance, something that had simultaneously intimidated and excited her.

Scruffy blond-brown hair, black Scandinavian-style glasses, a short-sleeved navy chevron shirt buttoned up to the neck.

Not her usual type.

It made sense when he told her what he did—an architect. He told her details, eyes lighting up as he spoke—he was a design director, his special interests were mixed-use developments, waterfront regeneration.

He pointed out the new restaurant/housing complex along the seafront—a gleaming, grounded, white cruise liner of a building that she knew had been feted, won awards. He shared that he liked peanut butter and museums, surfing and Coke. What struck her was how easy it was. There was none of the usual awkwardness you got with strangers.

Elin knew it was because Will was completely at ease with himself. She didn’t have to second-guess—he was an open book, and so she, in turn, opened up to him in a way she hadn’t for a long time.

They exchanged numbers; he called her that night, then the next. No angst. No game playing. He asked her questions: demanding questions about policing, the politics of the force, her experiences.

Elin soon got the sense that he didn’t see her the way she had always seen herself. The effect was almost dizzying; it made her want to live up to what he saw in her, or what he thought he saw.

With him, she did new things: galleries, museums, underground wine bars off the quayside in Exeter. They talked art, music, ideas . Bought coffee-table books and actually read them. Planned weekends away with minimal fuss.

None of which she was used to. Her life had, up until this point, been resolutely uncultured: Saturday nights watching TV, reading trashy magazines. Curries. The pub.

But she should have known it couldn’t last, that the real Elin would come out eventually. The loner. The introvert. The one who found it easier to run than give her hand away.

It made her angry, in a way, how loosely she’d held it all, those few months where everything worked . If she’d known it was all so finely balanced, so close to crashing down, she’d have held it closer, tighter.

Within weeks, everything changed: it all came together, a perfect maelstrom. Her mother’s treatment stopped working. She got a new boss, a challenging case.

Under pressure, she defaulted—closed up, refused to confide what she was feeling. Almost immediately she felt something shift in their relationship. Who she had become, it wasn’t enough for him, didn’t make sense.

The boundaries she’d put on the relationship, boundaries he’d seemed happy with at first—the fact that she needed her space, her independence, certain evenings where she simply just wanted to be —were no longer working.

Elin felt him subtly testing her, like a child probing a wobbly tooth—a work night out, a holiday with his friends. More nights staying over at his.

She sensed that if he couldn’t get what he always had from her, then he wanted something else to put in its place—another part of her she hadn’t offered up before. Commitment. Certainty.

Will wanted their lives to mix, merge, become enmeshed.

It came to a head six months ago. In their favorite Thai spot, he asked what she thought about moving out of their respective places, finding somewhere together.

We’ve been together over two years, Elin, it isn’t unreasonable.

She put him off, gave excuses, but she knows his patience won’t last forever. She has to make a decision. Time is running out.

“Els . . .”

She turns, sucks in her breath.

Isaac.

Isaac’s here.

7

Adele scrabbles forward on her knees, fear surging through her.

The grip on her ankle slackens. She hears a grunt, frantic rustling—no words of apology, nothing to indicate that it was an accident.

Someone had been lurking in the darkness. Waiting to trip her up.

Questions crowd her head, but she pushes them aside. She has to get away. Escape.

Hauling herself forward, Adele pulls herself to her feet, starting to run. She doesn’t dare turn back. Her eyes rake over the inky black of the landscape around her.

Think, Adele, think .

Going back to the hotel won’t work. She’ll have to dig out her pass when she gets to the door—it’ll take too long. Her attacker will catch up.

The forest.

If she can get into the trees, the darkness of the tree canopy, then maybe she’ll lose them. Running as fast as she can up the small incline leading to the tree line, Adele hears footsteps behind her.

She might have the advantage here: she knows this path—she’s walked here in the summer. The trail winds lazily up through the forest, over streams that gush down the hillside, bringing the glacier meltwater down the valley.

Several tracks lead off the main one. Mountain bike paths in the summer.

She’ll divert, head onto one of them. Try to lose her attacker that way.

Adele runs up the path, adrenaline pumping, boots sloughing through the snow. Within minutes, her chest is heaving, her breathing fast, erratic, but she’s losing them, she can tell. She can’t hear them anymore.

Twenty yards on, she puts her plan into action. She darts left, tucks in behind a small cluster of firs, plunging into shadow. Sweat trickles down her back inside her coat. She hardly dares to breathe.

What if her attacker makes out her footprints in the snow? She might lead them directly to her. . . . She can only hope that the inconsistent snow cover, piled up in drifts around rocks and fallen branches, has acted as a foil.

Finally, she hears them go past, the soft, steady thuds of someone running, kicking up snow. She decides to double back on herself, and sprints across the path, diving onto the small track on the right. She glances behind her to try to see where her pursuer is, but her eyes just find more trees, snow. The forest is too dense.

Pushing aside branches with her arms, Adele moves slowly, carefully through the trees. She freezes. A sudden movement on the left. Her eyes flicker toward it.

Relief floods through her as a marmot springs out of a mound of snow. Twitching its fur, dislodging a few white flakes, it pauses, looking at her, then darts off between the trees.

Another movement. Another sound.

This time: a muffled cough.

Shit. They’ve found her.

Her mind races.

The hut . . . the one the hotel uses for storage. She’s sure it’s just below, parallel with this path. If she can make it a few yards farther, she could hide there. It might be locked, but there’s a chance.

More sounds. Breathing.

Keep calm , she tells herself. You’re close now.

Adele inches backward.

Silence.

She decides to make her move.

She walks slowly downhill, her eyes scouring the gaps between the trees for the hut, but there’s nothing there. Only more forest. More snow.

Adele curses softly under her breath. She’s come too high, hasn’t she? Too far up the first path. This is a different track entirely. . . .

Tears sting her eyes. It’s the snow. That’s why she’s made the mistake. It’s filled in all the usual landmarks; the familiar rocks, tree stumps, clearings. She’ll have to go back onto the main path. Back the way she came.