Contents
About the Book
About the Author
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Acknowledgements
Copyright
A plane falls out of the sky. A woman is murdered. Four people all have something to hide.
Jim is a retired police officer and worried father. His beloved daughter has disappeared and he knows something is wrong.
Tom has woken up to the news that his wife was on the plane, and he must break the news to their only son.
Cecilia had packed up and left her family. Now she has survived a tragedy, and sees no way out.
Freya is struggling to cope with the loss of her father. But as she delves into his past, she may not like what she finds.
Falling is an exceptional debut psychological thriller by a former police psychologist.
Emma Kavanagh was born and raised in South Wales. After graduating with a PhD in Psychology from Cardiff University, she spent many years working as a police and military psychologist, training firearms officers, command staff and military personnel throughout the UK and Europe. Now she is lucky enough to be able to write for a living. She lives in South Wales with her husband and young son.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Epub ISBN: 9781448184569
Version 1.0
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Published by Century 2014
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Copyright © Emma Kavanagh 2014
Emma Kavanagh has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by
Century
Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk
The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781780892023
For my Mum and Dad, who told me that I could.
For Matthew, who made me believe it.
And for Daniel, so that he may know
that all things are possible.
A SHRIEKING OF wind, screeching of metal as the plane ripped itself apart, the wicked cold tearing at her throat. Cecilia Williams gripped the seat, fingers burning with pain. She tried to close her mouth, but the sound prised it open, stealing her breath. A giant’s hand pinned her to the bulkhead, tumbling, tumbling, so that she couldn’t remember which was the floor and which was the ceiling.
She couldn’t see the people. Just black night air where there should have been a plane, space where there should have been seats. She squeezed her eyes shut. If she leaned this way, then it could almost be like she was sleeping.
They nearly hadn’t taken off at all. It had been touch and go. The air had thickened days ago, grey clouds massing as temperatures plummeted far below the March average. Then the snow, thick and bulbous. It came down in thick flurries, wrapping itself around Cardiff airport, climbing into mountainous drifts. Flights cancelled one after the other. There had been no reason to believe that this one would be any different. Except that it would be, because it had to be. Cecilia had sat in the crew room, sipping harsh black coffee, beads of sweat breaking out beneath her blunt-cut fringe as a potted ficus wilted and slowly began to die in the fierce heat charging from the radiators. She had pulled at the turquoise polyester jacket, letting it drop to the floor beside her. She hated that uniform. Saw the other flight attendants looking at the crumpled pile. Drank her coffee. She wouldn’t wear it again.
‘Gonna cancel it, you think?’ The co-pilot looked at her, running knuckled fingers through curtained hair. Concentration-camp thin, all teeth and nostrils. He was new, coming in as she was going out. Cecilia didn’t know his name, didn’t really see the point in learning it, not now. She had handed her notice in. This would be her final flight. She stared out of the window, watched the falling snow. She didn’t answer.
‘They’ll cancel,’ the co-pilot mumbled, almost like he was whispering a prayer. ‘They’ll cancel.’
The pilot, Oliver Blake, glanced up at him, then back down. Staring at the ground. Jaw tight.
Made everyone tetchy, a night like this.
The plane kept tumbling, over, over. Seemed to be no end to it. There were things she should be doing as the wind whipped past her, the ground rushing closer. Her arms wanted to fold themselves over her head, mouth to scream brace. But she couldn’t move her arms and she couldn’t move her mouth and the rest of her just didn’t care. It would be over soon, anyway.
They had waited in the crew room, roll-on cases lining the wall in a chain gang. Cecilia’s at the end, bigger than the rest. She blew on her coffee. Her graduation certificate. She hadn’t brought it. It was in a frame, displayed in the study that they used to hang laundry. She should have brought it. But then the interview wasn’t for another month. Ground crew. She would be based out of London again, if she got the job. There would be a lot of applicants, would always be a lot of applicants for a job like that. But she had worked there before, and she knew people, and hopefully that would be enough. It didn’t really matter about the certificate; she would have to speak to Tom again. Eventually.
‘We’ll never fly tonight. No chance.’ The co-pilot was working his jaw, teeth grinding against the hum of the heating.
Cecilia had never thought she would want to go back to the chaos and the London smog and the pillar-box-red uniforms. Never thought that at thirty years old she would pack up her life, walk out on her husband, her almost-three-year-old son. Something stuck in her throat, choking her almost. She had looked out of the window at the snow and tried not to think about that.
She wondered if Tom knew that she had left, if he had found the closet door hanging open, all of her most prized belongings gone. She should have left a note. Should have done that at least.
Then the crew room phone rang, and they all looked up. Oliver pushed himself to his feet, trudging as though through a snowdrift.
Watching. Waiting.
He hung up the phone, turning back.
‘We’re on.’
She hadn’t kissed her son goodbye. She should have kissed him goodbye.
Then it was all hurry, hurry, hurry. She had grabbed her bags, a quick slick of lipstick even though her fingers were shaking, pulled her skirt straight, then click, clack, click, out into the terminal. Passengers’ heads bobbed up like meerkats, the whisper running through the terminal in a bow wave behind them. Cecilia raised her chin and looked straight ahead.
Suddenly there was no time. It was a narrow window. There was more snow coming in. We go now or we don’t go. And Cecilia very much wanted to go.
‘Hello, hi, welcome, straight to the back, please.’ A pasted smile, gesturing with French-tipped nails along the line of the plane. She bit her lip as they shuffled their way in, buffeting one against the other with their thick anoraks, all clumsy in heavy gloves. ‘If you could move out of the aisle, please.’ Smiling, smiling. ‘Let me help you with that.’ She moved alongside the Jude Law man with his Armani shirt, open at the collar, reached up to angle the carry-on luggage into the overhead bin, not looking at the thin-lipped, flat-eyed woman who stood beside him.
Then the doors were shut and they were moving, and all eyes were on her as she pirouetted through the safety briefing. Smiling. Always smiling.
Trying not to smell the smoke rising from the bridges that she had burnt behind her.
They were taxiing, building pressure pinning her to her seat. Cecilia turned her head, watching pinprick lights against the dark night sky. Sighing. She had straightened her hair three times today. Teasing the fringe that curled from the damp of the snow, pulling at it with fingers that trembled, ever so slightly, knowing that it would do no good. But doing it anyway, because it was better than thinking. Anything was better than that. Then the lift. Littered lights giving way to black sea. A turn, climbing, climbing.
Cecilia leaned back in her seat. Was staring off into space when her gaze was pulled by the sense of being stared at. The little girl was three, four maybe. Chocolate streaked across the tip of her nose, solemn jaw moving up and down. She was twisted around in her chair watching the flight attendant. She was beautiful. Dark eyes. Like Ben’s.
Cecilia looked away.
They were climbing, up through clouds. The plane shimmied, but she was looking at her reflection again, where the mascara had smudged. And now she was thinking about Ben’s smell, his velvet skin, the way he slept with his mouth ever so slightly open, snoring a little boy snore. She felt sick.
A murmur rippled through the cabin, washing up at her feet, and she glanced up, looking because she was waiting for something, anything, so that she didn’t have to think about the little boy she had left behind. The girl had turned around, curling into her mother as they leafed through the pages of a book. But there were others, glancing back at her. Cecilia tugged her shirt straight. An attractive girl, maybe twenty, maybe a little more, looking at her, overlarge hoop earrings swinging, and it was like she wanted to say something, but she didn’t and, biting her lip, she dropped her gaze back into her lap where her hands twisted one inside the other.
Then the plane bucked. The murmur replaced with a ‘whoa’ of riders on a roller-coaster. Cecilia flung out her hand, bracing herself against the window.
‘It’s only crosswinds. Nothing to worry about.’ Her words were lost in the groaning of engines. But she said them again, whispering to herself.
The engines whirred, singing in an unfamiliar key. The girl with the hoop earrings was looking at her again, eyes wide, willing her to say something. Another buck. A high-pitched whining she hadn’t heard before. There was nothing beyond the windows. A sea of grey cotton breaking into darkness.
The engine was straining, a dog pulling at its leash, and now they seemed to be tilting, not climbing now but pointing upwards, steep, steeper than she had ever seen it. A solitary bottle of Dr Pepper had shaken itself loose from somewhere. It rolled down the aisle, rattling, bouncing, all eyes watching as it drifted to a stop at her feet. Then the chaos of noise vanished into a deafening silence.
And she knew.
She hadn’t said goodbye to her son. She had stood on the threshold, where the murky blue glow of Ben’s Toy Story nightlight met the darkness of the hallway, and watched him sleep with his arms thrown up over his head, the way he had slept ever since he was a tiny baby. And she had turned and walked away.
Someone screamed. Then they were falling.
TOM’S FEET SKATED on black ice and for a moment he hung in the air, shoes scrabbling for purchase on the steep incline. He slid, past gluttonous wheelie bins, through the puddle of yellow light that spilled from the street lamp, back into the darkness of the alleyway, a narrow artery littered with used syringes and disco balls of silver foil, air choked with the spiky scent of urine and rot. Then ice gave way to glistening tarmac, feet settling on to solid ground again.
The heroin-thin figure was just ahead, plunging through banked-up snow, skin blue on drug-tracked arms. Callum Alun Jones had been out of prison for a little over a month. The iced wind pulled at his breath, throwing it back towards Tom, dousing him in sweet alcohol, the musk of cigarettes. This time Callum’s victim had been eighty-seven years old – a survivor of the Normandy campaign, an English teacher. A tremulously thin man with a shock of white hair who had buried his wife and his youngest daughter within a year of one another, and who had spent the last six months clinging grimly to a life that had all but defeated him. He’d been sleeping when Callum had broken into his tiny terraced house, had woken suddenly, roused by something that he couldn’t identify. Had found the drug addict in his kitchen, seen Callum’s rats-tail fingers closing around his dead wife’s wedding ring, and then the fists that rained down on him until everything turned red. The man had woken in the hospital two days later, face grey and eyes empty, finally defeated.
Tom had held the old man’s hand as he wept, and had thought that there were days when this was the worst job in the world. He had been in the force for fifteen years. Eight in uniform, pounding pavements in the lashing rain, drainpipe drizzles plopping from the rim of his helmet on to his fluorescent jacket. Then CID. A detective, just like his father. He tried not to think about that. His mother said that was why he had never gone for promotion, why sitting at detective constable was enough for him. Not because he didn’t think he was capable of reaching the dizzying heights of detective chief inspector, but because if he did then he would truly be his father’s son. And anything was better than that.
Fifteen years. Fifteen years in which Tom had seen more than a dozen dead bodies, smelled death more times than he would have thought possible. He remembered the last time he had arrested Callum Jones, spared a moment as he danced through patches of ice to wonder how long it would be until he was arresting him again. A never-ending carousel.
Tom breathed in the bitter cold air, skidding on ice-rink tarmac. Thought of his son that morning, eyes still heavy with sleep. No idea that his mother had gone.
‘You’re going to go to Grandma’s today. Okay, Ben?’
His son had studied him, the light from the rising sun throwing shadows on to a face creased into a little-boy frown. Then a smile that could break your heart. ‘’Kay, Daddy.’ Baby-fat fingers reaching up carefully, hovering over the slick aubergine skin. ‘Show Gaga my owie.’ Clumsy, the fingers brushed the bruise, and his rosebud lips pulled down, face creased. ‘Ow, Daddy.’
‘I know, bud. You’re okay. Gaga will kiss it better.’ And he’d tucked the toddler’s windmilling arms into thick padded sleeves, and tried not to think about what would come next. Watching his son’s chubby fingers spreading themselves wide, the frown as he examined them, like he’d never seen them before. Suddenly fascinating. Tried to ignore the words that circled his head, vultures above a carcass. Your mother has left us. She’s not coming back.
Callum was inches ahead now, running ragged on the steep incline. Tom dug his feet hard into the slush, gritting his teeth, the cold whipping at his lungs as he ran. He could see Callum’s arms, pumping back and forth beneath his T-shirt. Callum’s girlfriend had stood there on the doorstep of their council flat, biting her lower lip as she cradled her track-covered arms and tried to disappear into the flocked wallpaper. She had watched as her boyfriend – the one who loved her and who had beaten her hard enough to kill the drug-addled baby growing inside her – pushed past the arresting officers and into the snow-bound night.
They were plunging down the hill, the cold catching at Tom’s throat, running so fast it seemed that they were falling. Sound of cars, getting louder, and then the alleyway opened up, spitting them on to the curve of a main road, traffic thin and moving slowly in the slush. Past the skeleton of a phone box, all jagged glass edges, glittering in orange street lighting. The snow was thinner here, mounds thinning into furrows of slush. Callum raced onwards, not glancing left or right, past the wide-eyed shop windows where late shoppers peered over displays, out into the road, an almost terminal slip in the car-tracked snow, then regaining his balance and diving on past the Co-op. Tom veered around slush, breathing easy, compact body primed by years of running.
A beam of light and the slam of a car door.
Tom glanced sideways at his partner, Dan. ‘Took your time.’
‘Got fucking lost. Ended up in a bastard funeral procession.’
‘At least you’re clearly not the Grim Reaper. Not got the figure for it.’
‘Whatever, skinny arse. You going to catch this little shit, or what?’
‘Shall we?’
Tom had woken that morning to the sound of the front door. It always stuck in the cold. It had pulled him from a dream into a moment of disorientation, and he lay blinking into the darkness. Then the growl of an engine, settling back into a steady grumble, swaddled in snow. He wondered distantly just where it was that Cecilia was going this early in the morning. She wasn’t due to fly until that night. The rhythm of the engine climbed, wheels crunching on the snow. But then did it really matter when you came right down to it? He listened to the car until he could hear it no more, then lay for a while in the silence. He didn’t know what made him get up. How it was that he just suddenly knew. He pushed back the duvet, bare feet on thick carpet, and padded down the hall, to the room that had become known as Cecilia’s room. He pushed the door, that feeling in his stomach of treading where he wasn’t supposed to go. Snapped on the light. The curtains were closed. The bed was made, duvet pulled tight across the box frame. He stood there for a moment. It looked like a guest room again. The book was gone. The one she had been reading, the one whose title he had never bothered to learn. And the picture of Ben in its knotted silver frame that had sat on the bedside table. That was gone too. He crossed the room, slowly pulled open the wardrobe door. Ran his fingers over the few clothes that remained. They smelled of his wife. He stood there, staring at the gaping hole, the naked metal hangers. And knew. His marriage was over.
He had gone back to bed, footsteps slow. She was supposed to watch Ben today. That was what she had said. But it was probably for the best, after yesterday. He hadn’t been able to sleep, though, had stared at the ceiling for an hour, maybe more. The bedroom door had creaked, a little after six, and Tom had listened to the tread of little-boy feet on carpet, hiding a smile as a soft voice whispered, ‘’Kay, Daddy. Back to sleep. I stay here now.’ The heart-stopping warmth of his son creeping under the duvet, huddling against him. Tom cuddled him in, painfully aware that it didn’t even occur to Ben to wonder where his mother was.
Callum turned sharply, into the road, past the primary school – closed, thank God – then a sharp left into the alleyway that snaked by the steepled building. Snow climbed into peaks, hiding the detritus that lay beneath. But it was dark. That was why he didn’t see the leaking downpipe and the lake of ice that had spread out across the narrow alleyway.
In fairness, Tom didn’t see it either. What he saw was Callum’s legs stretched in a giant leap over a protruding bank of snow, sailing through the air in a balletic moment of elegance that Tom doubted his sad little life had ever seen before. Then that moment when everything goes wrong, as his right foot made contact with the ground, expecting a solid surface, somewhere safe to land, arms windmilling as his body realised before his brain did that there was no safety here and that the solid ground had warped into a sheet of ice. Then his left foot, landing because it had no choice, desperately trying to make the situation better but only making it worse. And then both feet giving up the game, as they slid out from under him and he dropped like a stone, skinny arse landing on the frozen ground with a sickening thud.
Tom skidded to a halt, keeping his feet on firm ground, before reaching out, hands encompassing the bone-thin wrists. ‘Come on.’ He hoisted him up. ‘Callum Alun Jones, I am arresting you for assault and burglary . . .’
‘Little fucker, little fucker, little fucker . . .’ Tom didn’t look round, didn’t need to, to know that Dan was skidding, arms flailing wildly from a body more designed for rugby than slalom. ‘Stand still, you little shit. I swear to God, I’m going to . . .’ then a pause, as ice and breathlessness tore his partner’s words from his mouth.
Tom snapped handcuffs on to the addict’s wrists, the narrow figure writhing as Tom read him his rights, kicking out at Tom’s shins.
‘Fuck you, wanker.’ Callum’s voice sounded like sandpaper.
Tom wrapped him in a tight grasp. ‘Yeah, yeah.’
Callum twisted, pulling his head back. Tom should have seen it coming. He’d been here often enough. Shouldn’t have come as a surprise. But he was off his game today, not paying the attention he should, and the gob of murky fluid hit him square in the face.
‘Little shit.’ Dan grabbed hold of Callum, pushing his shoulder into the ground. ‘Fucking little shit.’
Tom wiped his face with his sleeve. ‘Forget it, mate. He’s a twat.’ Pulling him bodily to his feet. ‘Come on, wide boy. Walk.’
Snow had begun to fall again in thick flakes, and in spite of himself Tom wondered if Cecilia would be flying today. Took a second to reflect on the irony of running away from your husband and son only to be grounded by a late spring snowfall. The wind had whipped up, bitterly cold, swirling torrents of snow into miniature tornadoes. They walked slowly, heads down. Callum had stopped struggling, was trudging beside them now, cuffed hands folded behind his back as he muttered to himself about his human rights. It would be a tough night to fly.
They were in the car, Callum tucked into the back, shivering wildly without the adrenalin to keep him warm.
Dan turned the key, the engine sparking to life. ‘Bloody weather.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Supposed to be like this for a while.’
‘So they say.’
‘You, ah, you hear about Madeleine?’
Tom watched the snow tumbling by his window. ‘Yeah.’
‘May, the baby’s due.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Said she’ll be sticking around in CID with us. They’ve got her doing light duties.’ Dan eased the car out on to the slick roadway. ‘You guys talk much now?’
Since he had told her he was leaving her. Since he had broken her heart and his own in the process.
‘A bit. Not much.’ Tom reached, twisting the volume button until another voice drowned out Dan and the memory of what could have been. The newsreader’s tone was serious. Tom was going to change the channel, his hand moving, but then something fluttered at his subconscious, so that his hand hung in mid-air, stayed by something that he didn’t recognise. Then the words.
Aeroplane crash.
IT WAS THE darkness. That was his first warning that there was something wrong.
Jim had pulled up outside his daughter’s house, driving carefully, muttering to himself. Ridiculous weather. Cold would decimate his daffodils, yellow trumpet heads bowing under the weight of the snow. He had pushed open the car door, carefully hoisting the plate from the passenger seat. Had ducked his head, pulling his chin in to the neck of his thick jacket. Snowflakes crept down the back of his neck. He knew that Libby wouldn’t be home. She would be at work, was afternoons today, but it would be here for her when she returned. She’s too skinny, that girl. Esther had been making cookies, narrow arms fearsome as she pounded together sugar and butter. I swear she’s disappearing.
Jim had hurried down the path, thinking that it was slick, that perhaps he would salt it before he left. Had swerved to one side, to where the snow was thicker, the grip firmer, because that was the last thing he needed now, falling in the snow like some decrepit. Breaking a damn hip. Thirty years on the police force and winding up a snow-bound corpse on a housing estate, delivering pork chops to his youngest. It was unsettling enough, this retirement thing, without the indignity of that. That was when he had realised that there was no line of light creeping its way between the closed curtains. He had stopped, right there in the snow. Had frowned.
It wasn’t like Libby.
Libby hated the darkness, always had, even when she was a little girl; needed the reassurance of knowing that there was life there, no monsters under the bed. Would leave the living room light on day and night, even though he had nagged her about wasting electricity, teasing her that no police officer should be afraid of the dark, even an unwarranted Police Community Support Officer, a bobby on the beat with a scant eight months on the force. But not tonight. Tonight the house was black.
He slipped the key into the lock, pushing open the door, and slowly reached, flicking on the light.
The room was as it should be. Everything in its place. The cat blinked at him, curled into the sofa with its plumped cushions. A tiny creature, white and black, little pink nose and two black smudges across its eyes that gave the impression of a boxer down on his luck. With a long stretch it jumped down, letting loose a miaow too big for its little body; began weaving its way around Jim’s legs.
‘Hey, Charlie.’
Jim crouched down, scanning the room as the cat curled itself into him. It was tidy, everything tucked away as it always was. Apart from the coat, flung across the arm of the sofa. Jim’s pulse quickened.
Miaow.
Libby’s work coat. The one she had worn when she came home on her first day in uniform. A Police Community Support Officer. Almost like her daddy. There was a plan – there was always a plan. Serve her time, learn everything there was to learn, and when they started recruiting again, apply to be a police constable. Then, when she had gained enough experience, start the climb, to sergeant, then inspector, then super. Just like her daddy. He reached down, fingering the lapel of the coat.
Miaow.
Jim pushed himself up. The kitchen door was closed. She never closed the door, because then the cat couldn’t get to its food, and she doted on that damn cat, ever since she’d found it curled up in the brambles that ran alongside the railway tracks, a tiny, shivering bundle of fur. Bringing it home and letting it eat her out of house and home, sleeping on her bed and following her around like they were joined at the hip. He eased the handle down, snapping on the light.
The surfaces had been wiped down, chairs tucked snug beneath the kitchen table, floor mopped. The cat’s bowl was empty. Charlie ran to it, pushing his head against it. A look back at Jim, a loud miaow.
Jim stood there for a moment, trying to identify the unease. A quick look up, eye caught by movement beyond the window, but it was just the falling snow. He slid the bowl on to the kitchen table. The cat was twisting around him, knotting itself around his legs.
‘All right. Let’s get you some food.’
Jim crouched down, levering open the narrow cupboard that stood alongside the fridge. He would ring her, just to check, and she’d laugh at him, would say that he was getting soft in his old age. But he would ring anyway. After all, he was a father. That was what you did.
Then the cat leapt at him, tiny frame landing on his folded knees. Light, hardly any weight at all, but enough to startle him. Jim swayed, knocked off balance, grabbing at the side of the cupboard to save himself. To stop himself from falling.
‘Charlie!’
He laughed, insides fizzing from the almost fall. Was just thinking about how quickly everything could change. He let go of the cupboard. Then he saw the blood.
FREYA MOVED THE paint across the thick paper, quick strokes, flick, flick, before it dried and became unwieldy. Sunflower yellow. She swirled the brush in greying water, a quick shake, then a swipe of ochre. The light in the kitchen was warm, the colour of corn. Not ideal for painting, but she didn’t mind. She allowed the brush to trace the curve. She liked it like this, the warmth from the oven, the rippling Beethoven, her mother’s movements unselfconscious, for a little while at least.
‘That’s beautiful.’
Freya glanced up, smiled. Her mother was in her off-duty clothes today, loose jeans, a jumper that hung so that it disguised her hips, her narrow frame. Her long, narrow hands – her paws, she called them – naked, her wedding ring sitting waiting in the little cup on the windowsill. The barest touch of make-up. Just enough so I don’t scare the postman. A laugh like dancing raindrops and then a quick turn away from the mirror. She rarely looked at herself for longer than she had to.
‘Thank you.’ Freya looked back down, scanning the page.
‘Although . . .’ a sizzle as ice-white onions hit hot oil, ‘surely you must be able to find something more interesting to paint.’
‘I like painting you, Mum.’ Freya let the brush sit loose in her fingers, the rough grain from years of moments like these scratching against her skin. Her mother was beautiful, so Freya had always thought at least. Slim, and warm as fresh-baked bread.
They had the same nose, her mother and her. The same little upturn at the end. The same eyes, fir-tree green. That was where the resemblance ended, at least as far as Freya was concerned. Where her mother was narrow and delicate, Freya was tall and curved. You get that from your father’s side. She had her father’s cheekbones. And sometimes, just occasionally, her father’s temper.
Her mother tipped minced beef into the pan, little red curls screeching with the heat. Freya loved these rare moments. The house quiet and warm, the snow a silent marching army beyond the windows. Low music and the sweet smell of onions. She surveyed the page. She didn’t paint much, not any more, time so often gobbled up by research for the psychology PhD that she had nearly finished, and by her friends. But they were all locked up tight by the snow now. She wondered if for them too it came as a relief, a moment to breathe and stop and just paint.
‘I wonder if your father’s taken off yet?’ Her mother was leaning, looking out into the snow. ‘It’s an awful night to fly.’
‘I know.’ Freya dabbed at the ochre, soft, soft, just feathering the edges.
‘He probably hasn’t. I mean, they’ve been grounding flights all week.’ Her mother glanced at the clock. ‘I expect we’ll hear from him soon.’
‘What time are Grandma and Grampa coming?’ The trip had been planned for months, a pilgrimage to Cowbridge from St Ives. Freya’s mother had suggested that they postpone it, just by a week or so, given the weather, the problems that would inevitably follow. But her grandmother had scoffed. They had plans, she had said. They would be coming. Even though the traffic would be bad and Gramps’ driving awful and her grandmother would complain about every stop from Polperro to Cardiff. Then they would arrive and the house would pulse with an unspecified tension, her father’s teeth gritted, her mother’s voice climbing an octave with each passing day.
Freya’s mother looked at the clock again. ‘They called. About an hour ago. I thought it was your father, actually, you know, saying he was coming home. But it wasn’t. Grandma said they were around about Bristol.’ She glanced across her shoulder at Freya, a small smile. ‘Said the way your grandfather is driving they should be here by Christmas.’
Freya grinned, brushing hair from her face with the back of her hand. Liquid sunshine, her mother called it, when she stroked her daughter’s hair, forgetting for a moment that she wasn’t a child any more, twenty-three years slipping away in the blink of an eye. Freya had always thought it was more the colour of buttered popcorn, a burnished yellow flecked with hints of brown. A colour caught her eye, a flash of red paint, and she grimaced. She should have worn an apron. Now her skinny jeans were speckled with measle spots.
‘So you never told me . . .’
‘Huh?’ Freya wasn’t looking at her mother, scratching at the paint with her nail.
‘Last night. How did it go?’
‘Oh. You know.’
‘You know, good?’
‘Well, yeah. I mean, yeah, it was okay. It was just a couple of us. Zoe and Rena and a couple of others. But it was nice. We had a laugh.’
‘And Luke?’
Freya looked up from the paint, fixing her mother with a level stare, lips twitching with an almost smile.
‘I’m just saying. Was he there?’
‘Yes, Mum.’
‘He seems like a nice boy.’
Freya laughed, leaning back in the chair. ‘Mum. He’s thirty-two.’
Her mother smiled, sweeping the meat around the pan. ‘Love, believe me, when you’re my age, that will make him a boy.’
Freya shook her head. ‘Because you’re that old?’
Her mother sighed heavily, looking out of the window into the snow. ‘Feels like it some days.’ She shook her head, glancing back at Freya. ‘So are you interested in him?’
Freya dipped the brush back into the jar. The colours were a little too dark, and she sprinkled water across the painting, sunshine through the rain. Could feel her cheeks flushing. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’
‘Well, you’ll meet somebody. Give it time.’ Another sigh. ‘I do hope your father isn’t flying in this.’
Freya looked up. Her mother was staring out of the window again, fingering the petals of the tumbledown lilies that Freya’s father bought her every Friday. Flowers for my flower. But they were browning now, pink petals curling inwards, turning sepia at the edges. The sickly-sweet smell jarred against the cooking meat.
‘You were late in last night.’ Freya said.
Her mother didn’t turn, looked down, spoon scraping at the bottom of the pan. ‘I know. Got caught up. Talking. You know how it is.’
The kitchen door creaked open, grinding against the tiles. Richard’s hair was damp, dark, brushed back from his angled-cheekboned face. Long enough that it had grown into loose curls. Baby-bird dark eyes, narrow frame hidden in an Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt, lean muscled arms bare. A man’s body for such a little boy. Her brother was beautiful. Not just a big sister’s love; he was genuinely beautiful, with his chocolate-brown eyes, long dark lashes, his tall, strong frame and his wide mouth that looked made for smiling.
‘Hey, kiddo.’
He looked tired, drawn. Freya pushed a kitchen chair back and he slumped down into it.
‘You okay?’ Freya asked.
‘Yeah. Didn’t sleep very well last night.’
Freya watched him, resisting the urge to reach out and smooth down the hair that stuck out at odd angles. He’s seventeen now. Can’t keep treating him like a child. Even though he was her baby brother, ever since the day they brought him home from the hospital, buried within white wool, his dark eyes watching her like they knew, even then, that she would always protect him.
‘Where’s Dad?’ Richard asked.
‘He’s working. Glasgow.’ Her mother glanced up at the snow again, as if by the force of her gaze she could make it stop. ‘Unless he’s been cancelled. He hasn’t called, though.’
‘Is he back tonight?’ asked Freya.
‘Ah . . . tomorrow? Evening, I think. But with this weather . . . we’ll just have to see.’ She stirred the pan, metal spoon scratching against the stainless-steel rim. ‘Maybe he hasn’t taken off. He probably hasn’t. They wouldn’t let him fly in this. He’ll probably call soon.’
Richard nodded, his long, narrow fingers reaching for the television remote. There was a burst of sound, and Freya looked over her shoulder at the television, blinking to remember that there was a world outside.
And there it was. Fire and metal and snow.
And Freya knew.
THE PAIN SWALLOWED her, not just her left arm, which seemed to belong in its entirety to someone else, but climbing towards her shoulder, radiating around her back, her neck. Hands shook, knees begged to be allowed to fold, and the cold snow looked so inviting.
‘Away, now.’
The girl tried to struggle, but didn’t try very hard, so weak she could barely stand. ‘My mother.’ She clawed at Cecilia’s blouse, charred black. So young, a teenager, but just barely. ‘Please. My mum.’
It was hard to make out her words, gobbled down in amongst the growl of fire, creaking metal. Acrid smoke scraped at her throat. The battered aft section of the turboprop jutted out from a bed of trees, vertical stabiliser reaching up into the grey sky. Sparking electrical arcs crackled, melting the snow down to bare earth.
Cecilia wrapped the girl in her good arm, pulling her bodily down the sloping ground, away from the trees and the burning carcass of the plane. ‘Come on.’ Wading through the deep snow, to where the smoke is lighter, and they can breathe. Pulling her, because she still wants to turn back.
There were others, gathered in a knot in the snow. Her throat searing from the shouting. Everybody off. Get away from the plane. Leave everything. Everybody off. And when they wouldn’t move, frozen in their seats, not dead yet but feeling like it, dragging them bodily from the sparking wreckage, the pain gripping her arm threatening to drown her. Screaming at them, get away, get back. She pushed them down the hill into the field, away from the trees, out into the wide expanse of snow where there is no shelter and no warmth, and where they will have so little time, but what else can she do? Dragging them together, cursing British reserve, because now it may be only body heat that will keep them alive.
‘Just wait. They’ll come. Just wait here.’ Having no idea whether she was lying or not.
Moving all the time, because there’s a role to play, an explanation for why she has survived. And if she keeps moving, then she won’t have time to think about baby-soft skin, and the scrape of brick against her bare back, and the sensation of falling.
‘Can you keep her with you?’
The woman wasn’t looking at Cecilia, arms wrapped around her knees, staring at the wreckage of the plane.
‘Hey.’ Cecilia nudged the woman with her foot, only then realising that her leg was bleeding. ‘I need you to watch her.’
The woman looked up at her, like she didn’t understand what she was saying, then looked at the young girl, who was crying now, back at Cecilia. Nodded. Reached up a hand, pulled the girl down to her side, and wrapped her arms around her, sighing like it was a relief.
Cecilia looked down the hill, a gentle curve peppered with copses of trees. And there, where the mountainside gave way to the village, an orange glow and flashing blue lights and the distant wail of sirens.
There was a roaring in her ears, and they were falling again; the scream of metal, the plane breaking in two. She stared at the lights, and then turned away, just couldn’t look at it any more. All that death. Seemed like there was no room in her head for it. Turning back to her little group, the ones who had survived.
It took Cecilia a moment to make out the figure in the snow. It wasn’t that far away, a couple of hundred yards maybe. For a moment, she thought it was a snow bank, mounded beneath a solitary oak. Then she saw it move, realised it wasn’t.
‘Wait here.’
She plunged through the snow, towards the mound. The old woman had curled in on herself, tucked together like a snail, knees pulled to her chest, shoulders dropped low, wrapped in snow. Cecilia sank to her knees beside her. The woman was staring upwards, towards the naked branches of the tree hanging protectively over her, her breath shallow, face an inner-city grey.
‘Hello. I’m Cecilia.’ She watched her, waiting for movement, for something. ‘What’s your name?’
Blue lips, slightly parted, breathing like she’d run a marathon. It was like there was a time delay between them. After a few more seconds, she turned, movement awkward. ‘Mrs Collins.’ A moment, and she thought about this some more. ‘Maisie.’
‘Are you hurt, Maisie?’
‘I . . . I don’t know. I’m so cold. Very cold.’
Cecilia took hold of the old lady’s hand, fingers blue, stiff. A deep red trickle seeped its way beneath tightly bound grey curls, staining them crimson, blusher scarecrow red on death-white cheeks.
‘Are they coming? Is someone coming to get us?’
‘Yes. We just have to wait.’
‘I don’t know, love.’ The words were little more than a whisper. ‘It’s awful cold.’
‘Where were you heading?’ Cecilia forced a smile into her voice.
The old woman nodded, snow falling from her. ‘Glasgow. My daughter.’ Teeth clenched, words squeezed from between them, a whistle on the inhale. ‘Moved there when she got married. Stupid man. Always knew it wouldn’t last.’ A cough, body shuddering so that the snow shifted around her. ‘Can’t tell them, though, can you? Got to let them find out themselves. Two little girls now. Ernie loves them.’ Looking up at Cecilia, and then straining, trying to move her head. ‘Ernie. I forgot. Where is he?’
Cecilia didn’t bother looking around, just folded the old woman’s hand tighter into her own. ‘He’ll be around here somewhere.’
Another cough, and what might have passed for a laugh if you were gullible. ‘Always wandering off. Nuisance man. Never stays put.’
‘So, how long you going for?’ asked Cecilia. ‘To your daughter’s, I mean.’ The ashen face was draining, skin melting into snow, and she had stopped looking at Cecilia, was gazing upwards again, somewhere above her head. ‘Be lovely for you to see her.’ Cecilia jiggled the old woman’s hand in her own, sliding her fingers down her wrist. Smiling. Always smiling.
‘Mmmm . . . suppose.’
Cecilia had come home late on Sunday. Had thought that Ben would already be in bed. Instead she had found him in the kitchen with Tom, small hands thick with azure-blue paint. ‘Look, Mummy.’ He had waved towards the blue handprints on the stark white paper laid out across the kitchen table. ‘I did it, look.’ She had known that she should smile, clap her hands. But her head was still too full of the phone call. Heather’s voice. Did you hear? They found Eddie dead. Tragic. Just tragic. But then of course, Heather didn’t know. Why would she know? Cecilia had never told her. Cecilia had never told anyone. And anyway, you had to say something nice, didn’t you, when someone died? Even if they had wandering hands and eyes that seemed to be already dead. So she hadn’t smiled at her son when he waved his paint-covered fingers at her, pointing at his work with his little chest puffed out. Instead she had looked at the paint, and the spread newspaper, and the little fingers that surely wouldn’t come clean without a bath, when all she wanted to do was curl up into a ball and cry tumbling tears of relief. So she had shaken her head. Had sighed. Had watched her son’s smile falter and fade away.
‘Be lovely,’ Cecilia said to Maisie. ‘You’ll have a great time.’
The old woman didn’t answer.
‘Maisie? Come on. Maisie?’
‘YOUR DAUGHTER’S HOW old? Twenty-five?’ The man-child detective gave him a look, the kind you give a kid who has mixed up her words. ‘Yeah. That’s not something we’d be getting involved in.’ A ping, and he pulled a phone from his pocket, scrolling down the screen with his thumb. His shirt was creased, tie pulled loose, knot too tight, hanging askew. He hadn’t polished his shoes. Didn’t look like he had ever polished his shoes.