“I hear you’re digging into Helen’s disappearance.” The humour had gone from Merv’s eyes.
“Yes, I am. Do you think Niall killed Helen? Is that what everyone thinks?”
He shrugged. The little dog barked, breaking the tension.
“Do you want to take him? Might be company for you until his owner’s found.”
The dog was watching her, panting, and she nodded. Why not?
But as she drove away, the dog sitting proudly in the back seat, questions began to fill her head. If the dog belonged to the man inthe homestead then why had it run away? Could . . . could the man have fallen? Claire’s heart began to pound. Was he still out there, inside, too hurt to call out? Trapped and injured and expecting her help.
Guilt swamped her. The other night all she had wanted to do was get away from the place, and it hadn’t occurred to her that the man might need her help, that she was running from an injured man and not a ghost.
“Damn it,” she muttered to herself, and pressed down hard on the accelerator.
He was coming closer. She heard him throwing aside hay and tools and empty crates, anything in his way. Helen reached through the gap in the wall, fingers like claws in the earth, and pulled herself through. A moment later she was on her feet and running towards the homestead. There were people there. She could get help. Someone would help her.
The water had receded some more, leaving a line of newly formed crusts over the mud around the edge of the moat. It was still too deep for Claire to wade across despite her gumboots, but she could see the bottom now and from the feel of the sun scorching her back, it wouldn’t be long before it had dried up enough.
She shaded her eyes and squinted up the slope towards the homestead. The barns and other buildings that must once have encircled the main house were long gone, either rotted into the mud or dismantled before the water covered them. In daylight the homestead had lost its poignancy and looked forlorn, with one wall leaning dangerously, the boards buckled and warped, and the window frames empty dark squares staring inwards.
“Hello!”
The word seemed to stop, as if it came up against something solid. No echo, no carry. She called again. There was still no real sense that anyone who might be in the structure would be able to hear her, or that she could hear them. Especially if they were injured and unable to answer loudly.
She should have gone back for Merv. But she admitted that she wasn’t sure enough to risk making a fool of herself – the amnesiac who imagined ghostly voices. Claire would just love for that rumour to begin to circulate.
Cautiously she stepped closer, her gumboots sinking into the mud with an evil squelching sound. The heat of the sun stung her skin and perspiration dripped down her back. Everything was so still, the air wavering like steam from a kettle, but it was an uncomfortable tranquillity. And the sense of being watched was back, and with it a feeling of menace.
Ignoring her unease, Claire focused her gaze on the ground leading up to the homestead. No footprints that she could see, nothing to show that anyone had ever walked or crawled up there. Not even the little dog.
And yet they must have. She had proof in the photo.
“Hello! Are you all right?”
Again that odd sense that her voice had not carried as far as it should have.
Claire began to make her way around the edge of the moat, grimacing as her boots sank in the sucking mud. Finally she found a shallow causeway that looked crossable. Slowly, gingerly, she walked out into the warm water, feeling her gumboots begin to fill, but she plodded on. When one of her boots sank into the mud and stuck fast, she cursed, tugging at it and balancing on her other leg. All of a sudden it came free with a horrible sucking sound, and she lost her balance, staggering forwards. Before she could stop herself she fell, landing on the ground on the other side of the moat.
But where she expected to land on rock-hard earth her hands touched grass. Soft, sweet, green grass.
She thought she must have passed out.
Slowly she lifted her gaze from the grass – so green it hurt her eyes – and up the slope that was stretching in front of her. There was a long sweep of garden. An orchard to her left and borders of perennials. Lavender grew around her in big untrimmed shrubs, the spikes heavy with bees.
Horses stood in a railed yard, their tails swishing at the flies, and a couple of men were unloading a wagon, while a girl with a white apron was carrying a bucket awkwardly towards the rear of the house.
Still stunned, lying frozen upon the grass, Claire stared up at the homestead. A moment ago it had been a ruin but now curtains fluttered from the open windows and smoke rose from the chimneys and a door banged shut as someone strode across the verandah.
Claire shook her head. No. It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t true.
A man was striding down the front steps. He was dark haired and wearing a brown jacket, riding breeches and boots. He moved with such an air of authority that Claire knew who it was without seeing his face.
Niall McEwen.
A moment ago she had been too frozen to move, but now she dug her fingers harder into the soft green grass beneath her and pushed herself up. The scent of the lavender, the sounds of life about her, the utter impossibility of it all, made her head spin as if she were drunk. Claire swayed, trying to catch her breath, trying to keep her grip on the shifting reality about her, as she stood waist deep in lavender.
Just as Niall McEwen turned his head in her direction.
