Barbara Erskine - Hiding From the Light

It was as she glanced at her watch and realised that she would have to leave to catch the agent before he closed that the panic started and the image of the young woman who had glared at her in the lane returned with full force. That woman did not want her to buy the cottage. Why?

Will Fortingale was just about to go home. His secretary had already left and he was tidying away the papers on his desk when Emma opened the door and came in. He smiled at her wearily. ‘What did you think?’

‘I love it.’ She put the keys down on the desk.

‘You do?’ His eyes brightened perceptibly. ‘Of course, it’s been empty for a long time. It needs a lot doing to it. The last owner ran the nursery but they didn’t live in the house. They’ve got a place up in Bradfield. I think they let the house from time to time to holiday makers, but otherwise it’s been empty as you probably realised.’ He paused, sizing her up with a quick glance from beneath his eyelashes. Re-assessing her. Well-heeled, but no fool. ‘They would probably take a lower offer. It’s been on the market a while.’

‘Who was Liza?’

He was taken aback by the question. ‘I’ve no idea. Some old biddy who lived there, I suppose. The Simpsons might know. That’s the current owners.’ He glanced at his watch, torn between wanting to hang on to a potential customer and wanting to lock up and go home.

Emma smiled at him anxiously. ‘I’m prepared to put in an offer. Today. Now. You said no one else is interested? But I saw a woman up there watching me.’ She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, still embroiled in her inner turmoil. Her hands were shaking. This was madness but she could feel waves of real panic constricting her chest.

Will Fortingale laughed. ‘Probably a nosy neighbour. To be honest no one has been up there to look for a couple of weeks. There was a flurry of interest after the ad in Country Life , but that fizzled out.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s got too much land for a weekend cottage and not enough for a viable business.’ Glancing at her, he raised an eyebrow. ‘I presume you want it for the former?’

‘No.’ Emma spoke without thinking. ‘I’d live there permanently –’ She stopped abruptly. That was nonsense. Complete nonsense. How could she live there? Of course it would be a weekend cottage. If that.

She found herself groping for one of the chairs in front of Will’s desk. Sitting down, she rubbed her face with her hands. Piers would never agree. She couldn’t do this. Not without talking to him. It was madness. Complete madness.

‘Are you all right?’ Will was watching her carefully. He had recognised some of her feelings at once; he’d seen it all before. The falling in love with a house, the longing, the day-dream-could-happen syndrome. Sitting there opposite him she was within seconds of making some fantasy come true. Usually people hesitated at this point, back-pedalled a bit, played for time. Either they would offer a sum so ludicrously low that there was no chance of it being accepted and their face would be saved, or they would disappear without trace – the dream confronted, acknowledged and rejected as impractical.

He walked round to the front of the desk. ‘Can I get you a glass of water?’ Her face was pasty and white.

She nodded, clenching her hands together and waited as he disappeared into the cupboard at the back of the office which served as a kitchenette and reappeared with a glass and some bottled water.

She drank it greedily and put the empty glass down on his desk. The voice in her head had returned, no longer seductive. This time it was insistent.

You’ve got to buy it, Emma. You’ve got to. We’ve waited too long for this chance. Buy it, Emma!

She took a deep breath. ‘I have to have it. I can’t explain it. It’s completely stupid.’ The anguish in her voice was real. What about her job? She loved her job. But did she really enjoy working in the City? Was that going to be her whole life, forever? Until she retired? Was that what she really wanted? Had that voice been her inner self speaking? An inner self who wanted to opt out, to return to that golden time when she was a child, before her father died, when life was full of certainty.

And what about Piers?

She looked near to tears and in spite of himself Will bit his lip in sympathy. ‘Why not sleep on it, Miss Dickson? No one else has made an offer.’ There he was again, telling her! What was the matter with him? ‘You could safely take a day or two to think about it. Maybe go and see it again? Maybe bring someone for a second opinion?’ He paused. He did quite badly want her out of the office, he realised suddenly. She was making him feel extremely uncomfortable. Anxiety – even fear – was coming off her in waves.

She was sitting with her eyes shut and for a moment he didn’t think she had heard him until he realised that she was staring at him again. ‘What sort of offer will they accept?’

He hesitated, toying with the idea of inflating the price, but something made him hold back. He shook his head remorsefully. ‘They’d accept fifty K under the asking price. To get rid of it quickly.’

‘All right.’ Her voice was tightly controlled. ‘I’ll go for it.’ She could afford it. She had her savings and her father’s trust money and he would have approved of this, she was sure of it. He had always been an enthusiast.

‘But you’ll want a survey?’ Will couldn’t cope with this spontaneity. It didn’t fit the norm.

‘No.’ Shaking her head she stood up. She went and stood by the window, gazing out into the street. The empty shop across the road where she had passed her unexpected coffee break that morning was deserted, the front door padlocked. She turned back to Will. ‘Ring them. Now. Check they’ll accept it.’ Her knuckles were white on the edge of his desk. ‘And a deposit. They’ll want a deposit –’

‘Not before Monday, Miss Dickson.’ Will found himself seriously worried now. ‘Honestly. If you want it, it’s yours.’ He reached into the file to find the phone number. Glancing up, he indicated the chair. ‘Please, sit down again while I phone them.’ He smiled at her. ‘Relax. I’m sure there won’t be a problem.’

Saturday lunchtime

‘I suggest we do the interviews upstairs.’ Colin, having taken the tray back to the coffee shop, was adjusting the lens on his camera. ‘The wall up there would be a good background. The herringbone brickwork or whatever it is.’

Joe Thomson, their sound man, had joined them at lunchtime with his daughter Alice who was going to act as production assistant. Joe at forty-two was balding, very tall and thin. His daughter had inherited his height and build. At eighteen she was already as tall as her father. With short cropped hair and studs in eyebrows and nose she appeared far more confident and outgoing than in fact she was. This was her first assignment – a gap job before going up to university. Half of her was determined she would not blow it. The other half was scared stiff.

Colin and Mark had been in Manningtree for two days now, staying at a bed and breakfast in Brook Street, and Joe and Alice had joined them after driving down from London. The first day had been wasted for Colin and Mark when the expected key had not been forthcoming and Stan Barker, the owner, had proved extraordinarily elusive. They had only run him to earth that first evening at the pub, so their first visit to the shop had been perhaps appropriately after dark. The atmosphere had been suitably sinister.

After the visit Mark had slept uneasily and woken early. The second night he had been shocked awake by the sound of someone screaming. Splashing his face in cold water he had stood for several minutes in the bathroom of the bed and breakfast, staring into the mirror before he had tiptoed back to his bedroom. The sound had been part of his dream, he knew that. And yet, somehow it had come from outside him. He climbed back into bed and sat there, with the table light on, huddled beneath the bedcovers fighting sleep. When at last he had dozed off he dreamed he was running down a dark road and there were people chasing him. He could hear them shouting, baying like hounds and growing closer all the time. He was still running, out of breath and drenched in sweat, when his alarm clock woke him.