Warhol's Prophecy (32 page)

‘And if she
does
call you back, what do you think she’s going to say? “Everything’s all right, Adam. Sorry I wouldn’t speak to you. Tell you what, let’s go ahead and
have
that affair.” Is
that
what you want her to say?’

He didn’t speak.

‘Let it go, Adam,’ Caroline said quietly. ‘I don’t normally give advice, and if you told me to mind my own business I wouldn’t blame you, but for
your
sake forget about Hailey.’

‘It’s not that easy.’

‘Oh, come on, you’d only known her for a couple of weeks. It’s not like you were life-long friends, is it?’

Walker looked at her, his eyes narrowing slightly, and Caroline saw something behind those eyes.

Something like rage.

It vanished as rapidly as it had appeared.

A smile again creased his features.

‘You’re right,’ he said finally, slipping from the stool. ‘But when you see her again, tell her I said hello and tell her I understand.’ He put down the mug. ‘Thanks for the coffee.’

‘Adam, wait. I was just about to have some lunch. Nothing fancy: something out of the microwave. If you’d like to join me . . .’ She allowed the sentence to trail off.

‘Thanks,’ he said, still smiling. ‘But I’ve taken up enough of your time. Besides, I’m stopping you working, aren’t I?’

‘Any excuse is welcome.’ She grinned.

‘How’s the new book coming along?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘No, you’re wrong. I
do
want to know. I really respect what you do. And, by the way, I finished your other book. I thought they were both excellent.’

‘Thanks very much. Why don’t you tell me how brilliant I am over lunch?’ She pointed towards the microwave.

They laughed and Walker sat down again.

4.07
P.M.

Hailey glanced at the dashboard clock as she drove, guiding the Astra with one hand, holding the mobile phone with the other.

She finished her conversation with Nicholas Barber, confirming their meeting for the following day. The local MP seemed a little less pretentious and self-important than some she had encountered, but nevertheless Hailey wasn’t relishing the meeting. Still, she reasoned, it couldn’t be any worse than her encounter with Water-hole.

They were to meet for lunch the following day to discuss final details of the charity concert that Barber was to attend.

He said his secretary would be on hand to take notes. Hailey assured him this would be unnecessary, but, despite her protestations, he insisted. She thanked him for his time and switched off the mobile, swinging the Astra around a corner.

Up ahead she could see her home.

There was over an hour before she had to pick Becky up. The little girl was playing a game of rounders after school. Hailey decided she had time to shower and change before she set out.

She was pleased with the way preparations for the charity gig were progressing. Jim Marsh too was delighted with her work.

Even Rob had been asking her about it. His interest seemed genuine, too, she mused.

They had gone through too much during the past year for everything to return to normal soon, but they were making more progress, she felt. They had agreed to suspend their Relate counselling sessions for a time.

Just see how things go.

Hailey smiled to herself.

And there’d been no further calls from Adam Walker.

No calls. No flowers.

No contact.

Just as well.

She had been stupid. She knew that. But at least things hadn’t got out of hand.

Not quite.

She shuddered when she thought how easily the pair of them could have become involved.

How easily
she
could have become involved with this man whom she hardly knew, but felt she understood so well. And who understood her.

Better to have ended it when she did.

She brought the car to a halt outside the house and sat behind the wheel for a moment, glancing up at the sky – at the dark clouds gathering.

With a sigh she slid from behind the wheel, picked up her briefcase and headed for the front door, fumbling in her jacket pocket for her keys.

Rob had called her at work that afternoon to say that he’d be coming home late. Something about having to meet a customer for a drink. He and Frank Burnside were going along to meet the man together.

When she had asked him what time he’d be back, it had taken a supreme effort not to ask him if it was really Burnside whom he was going with. If it was really a customer he was meeting.

The spectre of Sandy Bennett still remained, like the dying vestiges of a bad dream.

In the end she hadn’t asked. He promised her he’d be home around seven, and she’d believed him.

Perhaps she’d ring the pub later.

Just in case.

Hailey selected the front door key from the others on her chain and pushed it into the lock, then stepped into the hall.

Silence.

She frowned.

Why wasn’t the alarm going off?

She crossed to the key-pad and opened its plastic flap.

She had set it when she left that morning – she was sure she had.

Perhaps there was some kind of fault.

She’d check it now and call the maintenance firm if necessary.

She pressed the reset keys.

Nothing.

She glanced up.

The sensor that normally flickered red in the top right-hand corner of the ceiling was dead.

The alarm wasn’t working.

She wandered into the kitchen to retrieve the alarm-system maintenance firm’s business card from the notice-board.

As she stepped into the room she felt a draught. It was coming from the window over the sink.

Hailey swallowed hard as she moved closer.

The window was slightly ajar.

And in that split second she knew why. Just as she knew why the alarm wasn’t working. The realization set her heart hammering.

Whoever had broken into their house had disabled the alarm first.

F
OR INTERMINABLE SECONDS
, Hailey stood motionless in the centre of the kitchen.

The silence seemed to crowd in on her until the only thing she could hear was the rushing of blood in her ears.

She swallowed hard and looked around.

There didn’t appear to be anything missing. And if someone had broken into the house, they had been very careful. Even the crockery on the draining board close to the open window didn’t seem to have been disturbed.

Hailey moved back into the hall.

She glanced across at the phone.

Call the police. Do it now!

Instead she passed through into the sitting room, the breath now catching in her throat.

What if the intruder was still inside the house?

Intruder?

Even the
word
frightened her.

There was so much to steal.

TV. Video. Stereo.

She pushed open the sitting-room door.

It was as neat and tidy as it had been when she’d left earlier in the day.

The television still occupied its usual position in one corner of the room. The VCR was still beneath it. Untouched.

Hailey took a couple of steps inside the room, glancing round to make an inventory of their other possessions.

Nothing was missing.

Except . . .

There was something, but she couldn’t quite work out what it was.

Something was missing, but . . .

She noticed some mud on the carpet close to the sofa.

Brought in on the shoes of the intruder?

She looked around the room again.

Call the police. For Christ’s sake, call the police!

Someone had definitely been inside the room, and yet it remained undisturbed.

She spun round, passed through the hall and began climbing the stairs, cursing every creaky one.

Slowly she made her way towards the landing, ears alert for the slightest sound from above.

If the intruder was still inside the house . . .

Above her, a floorboard groaned protestingly.

Didn’t it?

She froze, straining her ears.

Outside, the wind was gathering ferocity as it swept around the house.

Perhaps it hadn’t been a floorboard she’d heard. It must be some trick of that violent wind.

Of her mind?

Hailey waited a moment longer, then began to climb the last few steps to the landing.

When she reached it, she stopped again. She glanced at the four firmly closed doors that confronted her.

More mud on the carpet close to one of the guest rooms.

She remained motionless.

Hailey was having trouble controlling her own breathing now.

Which room first?

She crossed to the guest room which had mud trodden into the carpet outside it.

She waited a moment, then pushed the door open.

It swung back on its hinges and she peered in.

Everything in its place. Untouched.

Nothing stolen.

She quickly checked the second guest room.

Also nothing missing.

Hailey moved towards the master bedroom she and Rob slept in, moving as quietly as she could across the groaning floorboards of the landing.

She pushed the door gently and stepped inside.

More mud inside this room, trodden into the thick-pile carpet.

Hailey tried to swallow, but her throat was dry.

Then she saw the heads.

O
NE ON EACH
pillow.

Hailey moved further round the room, eyes riveted on the double bed.

She put her hand on the wall, as if to support herself, as she approached the bed.

The heads had been propped up carefully so that, as Hailey advanced towards them, their sightless eyes held her in an unblinking gaze.

One with flowing black hair; the other with long blonde hair.

Had she been able to think straight, she may well have realized which of Becky’s dolls they had been taken from. As it was, all she could do was stare down at them.

For fleeting seconds she wondered if this was some kind of bizarre joke perpetrated by Becky herself, but the thought disappeared almost instantly.

This was no joke.

There was real malice in this act.

Becky would never have . . .

Becky?

Hailey turned and ran into her daughter’s room.

Like the other rooms in the house, it appeared relatively undisturbed. Apart from the toys.

Three of her dolls heads had been removed. Pulled free. Two of them were now in Hailey’s own bed. The third, she saw immediately, lay on the pillow of her daughter’s bed.

Three tiny plastic bodies lay together on the floor close by.

Hailey picked one up and it made a mechanical crying sound.

She dropped the doll and sat down on the edge of Becky’s bed.

Now what?

She sat trembling for what seemed like a long time, her heart hammering inside her chest.

Now
will you call the police?

Hailey sat a moment longer, then wandered back into her own bedroom. She retrieved the two dolls’ heads and returned to Becky’s room, where she carefully restored the small mannequins to their correct appearance by replacing the heads of each. The blank eyes gazed at her as if they were wondering what she was doing. When all three were repaired, Hailey replaced the dolls in their usual position.

Everything in its place.

The fear she had felt before had been replaced by a kind of foreboding as she moved around the house in a trance-like state.

She had already made up her mind she wouldn’t tell Rob what she’d found today.

She would tell him that the burglar alarm needed fixing. That was all.

And there was certainly no need for the police.

Hailey changed into jeans and a T-shirt, stepped into ankle boots, and made her way back downstairs.

The dried mud on the landing and in the bedroom would brush off later.

No need for Rob to know.