Nicola Cornick - House Of Shadows - Discover the thrilling untold story of the Winter Queen

She took her phone and went outside to try to get a better signal. She rang Guy’s mobile number but there was no reply. She could not get him on their landline either. He had not called her to find out what had happened or make sure she was OK. The knowledge that he didn’t care seemed unable to hurt her. Nothing penetrated the numbness and isolation that wrapped around her like a shroud.

She thought about ringing her grandparents but she didn’t want to worry them about nothing. She knew that if Ben had been with them he would have been in touch long before now. It was such a strange, frustrating, suspended place in which to find herself, one minute eaten up by worry, the next so furious with her brother she wanted to scream at him. In the end, since no one else seemed to be doing anything she thought the best thing she could do would be to go out and search the woods herself. She needed to be out in the fresh air again. She needed to be active. Claustrophobia pressed down on her. She felt sick. She pulled on her thin fleece jacket and went out, leaving Bonnie, who seemed disinclined for yet another walk, snoring on the sofa.

It was a bright day with a clear blue sky. Holly didn’t really know where to start so she set off down the track to the village, turning right over the bridge, past a bus stop where a girl stood, her long blonde hair blowing in the wind. She looked to be about nineteen, tall, too thin, wrapped in a long stripy scarf, smoking a cigarette and looking bored. She turned her head briefly as Holly walked past and nodded a hello, then dropped the cigarette and ground it out beneath her shoe.

The crumbling estate wall rose on Holly’s left and behind it was the old coach yard. This was where the majority of the building work was taking place, and Holly could hear the whine and bleep of a mechanical digger.

A hundred yards further on was the car park and courtyard where Fran had her deli café and tearoom. A dozen cars were parked in the cobbled yard and an ice cream sign swung by the shop door. Holly thought about dropping in but then she remembered Fran wasn’t back until the morning. She felt odd and disoriented. She had already been into the deli once that day, only a few hours ago, and yet it felt like it had happened weeks ago. She was so tired.

There was a small flyer on the telegraph pole by the side of the road. A dog named Lucky had gone missing and his owners were offering a reward for his safe return. Looking at the sad little furry face, Holly thought she could make up posters of Ben and stick them up about the place. It might jog the memories of people who could have seen him out and about in the woods. After all, he could have gone out for some fresh air and felt ill, or fallen over and knocked himself unconscious, or any number of other accidents. He could have a broken ankle and be unable to hop home. She knew the police had said they had searched the woods in the close vicinity but she suspected it had been a cursory search at best.

Although the sun was warm she felt cold. It took her aback to find the place so busy with bank holiday tourists. For some reason she had expected it to be quiet. She strolled along the path towards the wood, following several groups of visitors, families with children dragging their heels, couples hand in hand. Holly saw them all as though she was looking through one of her pieces of engraved glass, clear but slightly distorted. They ambled with no intent, admiring the view over the Downs where the weathercock pierced the sky and the dreamy curve of the hills broadened to fill the horizon. Holly felt shockingly lonely.

Her phone rang.

‘Hol?’ It was Guy. He sounded hung over. ‘What’s going on? Why the seven thousand calls? What gives?’

‘Ben’s still missing,’ Holly said bluntly. ‘He hasn’t come back since last night.’

‘What?’ Guy sounded puzzled, affronted even. ‘Well where is he?’

‘I don’t know,’ Holly said. ‘That’s the point. No one knows. Tasha says—’ She stopped abruptly but it was too late.

‘He’s got another woman,’ Guy finished. There was glee in his tone. ‘Good for him.’

‘I’m sure she’s wrong,’ Holly said.

Guy ignored that. ‘Are you heading back then?’ He said. ‘If Tasha’s been to pick up the kid—’

‘No,’ Holly said. ‘I’m staying here until Ben turns up.’

There was a silence. ‘What?’ Guy said. ‘Why on earth would you want to hang around?’

‘In case something’s happened to him,’ Holly said. ‘I wondered if you wanted to come down?’ She could hear the plea in her voice and hated herself for it. Whatever Tasha had said, she wasn’t normally so needy, but today it felt as though all her defences had been stripped away. It wasn’t that she particularly wanted Guy, she realised, just company and comfort. She wanted to share the burden of Ben’s disappearance. It was horrible feeling so alone.

She thought she heard Guy swear. ‘Hol,’ he said. ‘You’re over-reacting. Your brother’s not a child. He can take care of himself. For God’s sake come back—’

‘I’m worried,’ Holly said flatly. ‘I know something isn’t right.’

This time Guy definitely did swear. ‘For fuck’s sake, Holly! You’re not his keeper!’

‘Forget it,’ Holly said swiftly. ‘Forget I asked you to come down. And don’t expect me back either.’ She snapped the phone shut, cutting off Guy’s spluttering.

The brief flash of anger had lifted her spirits but they fell again immediately. She felt lost as soon as she stepped into the woods. The canopy of trees closed overhead, shutting her into green darkness. In all directions paths veered off and criss-crossed, losing themselves. She went two hundred yards along one and stopped, realising that she hadn’t even put her walking boots on. She felt tears of frustration and anger well up in her throat. She made her way back down to the road feeling shaky and upset.

What was she trying to do? She was one person trying to prove a point in the face of what seemed like massive indifference. No one else seemed to think that there was anything wrong and it was frightening to be wavering on the edge of believing it herself, thinking she was mad or deluded.

A wedding had just finished at the church by the little stone bridge. As the clock on the tower struck quarter to four, the church door opened and the wedding party spilled out into the churchyard, laughing and talking. Holly paused by the gate. A sudden breeze was plastering the bride’s veil against her lipstick and snatching at the guests’ coats like a demanding child. It picked up the confetti and whirled it around Holly’s head like blossom, and it tugged the bouquet from the bride’s hands, bowling it along the ground to land at Holly’s feet.

Holly bent slowly to pick it up. It was a posy of pink rosebuds, scentless.

Suddenly the wedding guests were all around her and the bride had come hurrying down the flagstone path towards her, laughing.

‘Thank you so much! I don’t know what I’d have done for the photographs otherwise!’

Holly handed the bouquet over, smiling. Her face felt a little stiff, as though it would not bend in the right places. No one seemed to have noticed though. They were all wrapped up in happiness. They didn’t know how out of touch she felt, how cut off. They went back towards the church door, where the photographer tried to arrange them in the neat rows required for the official pictures. At the same time she was aware of a sharp pain lodged beneath her breastbone. She did not begrudge these people their happiness but it made her loneliness feel suddenly unbearably acute.

‘Are you OK?’

Holly blinked. She was not the only onlooker. A man was standing to the side of the lych gate. Youngish, thirty-two or three – she was bad at guessing ages. She felt a flash of recognition, sharp and sure, as though she knew him, but as he came closer she realised that he was a stranger.