“Fuck, Sam! What the hell are you doing?”
His eyes have a feverish luster, his jaw speckled with beard growth. The chair creaks beneath him as he leans back.
“What time is it?”
“Coming up to eleven.”
“Can’t sleep?”
His voice is croaky and damaged sounding. I shake my head, explaining about the tapping coming from Bert and Mary’s house. He smiles, but there is not much humor in it.
“I’ve just been speaking to Bert outside. Maybe five, ten minutes ago. He’s fine. I’m sure Mary’s fine. Do you want me to come with you?”
“Are you sure? There was definitely someone tapping on the wall.”
“I’m positive. We just talked right out front. Bert’s worried about the graffiti out there. Have you seen it? All the stuff aboutwitches? He said it feels like a threat. He was asking if he should call the police.”
“What did you tell him?”
Sam lights a cigarette, waving out the match with a flick of his hand.
“I said wait till the morning. Things always look different in daylight.”
My heart rate is slowing now, just a fraction. Maybe I’m being stupid. Overreacting. Sam gives me another of those barely touching smiles as I turn to the sink and fill a glass with water.
“Morse code.” He laughs softly. “Were you a girl guide, Mina?”
“No,” I say sulkily. “But I recognize an SOS when I hear one.”
“It’s probably the pipes, hon. These houses aren’t old but they’re badly built. Most postwar estates were designed for efficiency, not longevity. Sit down. Have a drink.”
“Can’t you sleep, either?”
“Not sure I’ll ever sleep again. I feel like I’ve taken a load of speed.” His leg is jittering under the table as he knocks the tip of his cigarette against the ashtray.
“Brandy?”
He tilts the bottle toward me. I shake my head and he pours himself a large measure into a plastic beaker. I gulp my glass of water down, almost breathless with thirst.
“Where have you been?”
“Walking. Down into the valley and past the stone circle. Almost made it as far as the coast. I had so much adrenaline feels like I could have kept on going right into the sea.”
His gaze drops and he rubs the pad of his thumb against the tabletop, fidgety and anxious.
“Alice was right. I did abandon Maggie.” He takes a sip of his drink. His expression is of a man in shock, pulled from the twistedwreckage of something. “She had measles, but we thought she’d brush it off, the way kids do. Only Maggie got sicker and sicker, couldn’t eat, couldn’t drink. They put her in an adult bed on an adult ward. It made her look so small, like a little doll. In the bed beside her an old man was coughing till blood came out his mouth in a mist. I tried to draw the curtain and my hands were shaking so badly I couldn’t manage it. I remember saying to the nurse, ‘How long till we get out of here,’ and she said, ‘As long as it takes.’”
I wait. I can hear him gathering his breath, the way the tears threaten, rising in his throat.
“I told Carla—that’s my ex-wife, Maggie’s mum—‘I can’t do this. I can’t watch her die.’ She said, ‘Running away won’t stop it happening, Sam.’ She thought I was a coward and she was right. The last thing I said to her was ‘Call me when it’s over.’ That’s the last thing my little girl ever heard her father say. ‘Call me when it’s over.’ Jesus Christ.”
His voice is shimmering, but doesn’t break. There are no tears but his mouth works silently for a moment as if warding them off. I reach out and take his hand.
“Sam, is there any chance you told Alice about Maggie, even in passing? Any chance she saw the picture of her you keep in your wallet? ‘Hair like autumn leaves,’ Alice said. Remember what you told me about cold-reading, Sam. It’s clever, but it’s still a trick.”
“No.” He’s shaking his head, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “No, it was her, it was Maggie. The thing about the shoes squeaking? I hear it every night. Every single night.” Now his voice does break, his breathing heaves ragged.
“Sam.” I reach out a hand and touch his own, his skin warm and dry. “Sam, it’s all right, it’s all right.”