Skin

73

Dawn, and Flea had drifted at last to the narrow lanes around her home. She drove steadily, eyes bloodshot, dull, the smell of the quarry still in her nostrils. A mist had come down, a grey, wreathing mist, making the twists and bends in the lanes treacherous. About half a mile from the house a hairpin bend came up fast. She slammed her foot down, wrenching the Focus to the left. The wheels flared out under her, the steering-wheel jerked in her hands, but she held it steady as the car careened around the corner of the narrow country lane, the wheels locking, going into a sideways slide. The tyres screeched, a tree hurtled towards the car. The impact, when it came, shot her forward against her seat-belt and sent pain through her ribs. The airbag inflated, slamming her head back, pushing her jaws together so fast she bit her tongue.

A moment of shock, then the airbag deflated. Her head fell down on to her chest with a jolt.

She sat for a moment, waiting for her ears to stop ringing from the airbag. Blood was welling in her mouth, under her tongue. She held it for a while between pursed lips as she did a mental check of her limbs, her trunk, moving her concentration down her body, along her arms and legs. Her knee hurt – she’d banged it against the steering-column – and her sternum ached where she’d strained against the seatbelt, but she could feel her toes. Could wiggle them.

She opened the door and spat the blood on to the tarmac. Moving creakily, she released the seatbelt, pushed the door open as far as it would go and got out gingerly, not putting too much strain on her chest. The car was tight up against the tree. She had to squeeze herself against it and shuffle backwards.

It was a quiet lane, full of elderflowers and new poppies. Mingling with the mist was the acid smell of crushed cow parsley where the car had flattened the hedgerow. Dew from the overhanging tree had splattered across the windscreen. She walked around the car, inspecting the damage. When she got to the front and saw what had happened she let all her breath out at once. Somehow, maybe more by luck than judgement, she’d got it right.

She went back to the boot, opened it and pulled out the bin liner containing Misty’s handbag, phone, sandals and coat. The paint can she’d put in the back had tipped but not spilled so she used her Swiss army knife to lever the lid off and let it trickle out across the boot.

One last look at the car. The headlight that had hit Misty was buried in the tree-trunk, the front wheels had been driven sideways and back towards the passenger seat, snapping the axle out of line. The engine bay and the firewall would have cracked too. The car was a write-off. Earlier she’d cleaned the whole thing with a rag soaked in petrol, stripping away grease and fingerprints, lifting hairs and fibres. She’d taken two long hours over it, and she was confident. No one would be forensicating this car anyway. They’d have no reason to, as long as she reported she’d been driving it. All the evidence linking Thom and her to Misty Kitson was going to end up in a breaker’s yard. The remainder of the petrol was in a small flask in the bin liner.

With the bag over her shoulder, Flea pushed through the hedgerow and set off up through the dewy fields. The sun filtered down through the early-morning haze and, as she climbed, vague ghost shapes to her left and right slowly revealed themselves as stiles and trees. By the time she got to the top of Charmy Down, the old airfield, she had walked straight out of the mist and could see the disused mast ahead of her, glinting in the sun. The remains of her previous fire were still there. A flat circle of blackened grass, dew clinging to it, giving it a greyish pall. She put the bag on the circle, pulled out a flask, tipped the petrol on to the bagged belongings and phone and threw a match on to it.

Having retreated a few yards she sat, waiting for the fire to catch. Beyond, the sky in the east was streaked with dirty pinks and browns. In the valley the mist swirled. The neighbouring hills – places she’d known all her life – rose like dark islands above it. Solsbury Hill was half a mile off and, far away where the gap in the hills led out to Frome and Warminster, another line of smoke, like a finger, rose up into the blue sky.

She kept her eyes on that fire. Her body was aching from everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, and there was a tingling in her fingers that she thought came from the cold of the quarry. But watching that distant fire gave her a kind of peace she couldn’t explain. She linked her fingers round her ankles and leant forward, gazing at it.

Look after yourself…

It was OK. OK to save herself like this. To do the wrong thing for the right reason. Sometimes all you can do is simply to continue moving forward. Making the choices that keep you alive.

Her own fire made a small whooshing sound and a flame shot up. It dropped, then shot up again, and more joined it, crackling, burning green, orange, blue. A line of silky black smoke guttered and rose into the sky, answering the fire on the neighbouring hill.

The fire of a man she had never met in her life.