Thin Air

Chapter Forty-Four

Inside the Voxter kitchen Polly thought she was melting at the edges. She decided she must look as Eleanor had done when she’d sat on the deck, the last night of her life, when the mist had eaten into her and made her slowly disappear. If Eleanor had come inside then, after sharing those silly stories about Marcus, everything would have been well. Her friend would still be alive. The malicious man from the hotel would still be alive. And Polly wouldn’t be here in this strange house by the sea, hardly able to breathe, a knife at her throat.

She thought again that this was like being in the middle of a terrible nightmare and soon she would wake up and everything would be well. As the arm tightened around her throat, she began to slip into unconsciousness and the events of the evening drifted through her mind, very slowly, like shadows in the fog. She watched the action as if from a great height, as if she was Eleanor filming it in a wide-angle shot for her show.

The five of them had walked along the cliff towards the boat club. Ian had been striding out ahead of them, as if he wanted to pretend they weren’t there, that he was quite alone. Marcus had been strangely silent. Polly had turned to him. ‘Is anything wrong?’ She’d been frightened that he might tell her the relationship was over and that he preferred Eleanor’s mother. Because deep down Polly knew that Eleanor had been telling her the truth about the affair. Behind them Lowrie and Caroline were quiet too, as if Marcus’s mood was contagious.

Then the scene in her head shifted to the boat club, and the tone was quite different. Here everything was music and partying. It had felt as if the whole room was celebrating Eleanor’s death, that Polly was the only person there sad that she’d gone. And then she’d seen the girl dancing. Peerie Lizzie, who couldn’t be a ghost, because Polly had heard her singing. She’d been captured as if in a spotlight, as if the camera had zoomed in on her and all around her the scene was blurred. Polly had followed her out into the night and the fog had come down. For a moment she had thought seeing the girl had been a warning, a premonition. Perhaps Polly would drown too, like Elizabeth Geldard, and her body would be washed up on the shore. And nobody would care. Not even Marcus.

At the worst point of the panic, when she was remembering the night of Eleanor’s disappearance, Polly’s phone had rung and a sensible voice at the other end had come to her rescue. ‘Don’t you dare try to find your way back along the top of the cliff. Not in this weather. Walk back along the track to the boat club and we’ll come along and pick you up in the car. It might take you a while but that’s the safest thing.’

And now, as the life was being squeezed from her and the point of the sharp knife was pricking her skin, she relived her relief as the car drew up. Lowrie’s father George had leaned across and opened the door for her, and she remembered that first time they’d danced together, the strength in his arms as he’d almost swung her off her feet, the tingle of excitement when the music had stopped.

‘Come along in out of the cold,’ he’d said. ‘You must be frozen. Grusche says I’m to take you back to Voxter. She has some soup on the stove for all of you. She’ll let the others know, and you can have some supper with us before you go back to Sletts.’

But when they’d arrived back at Voxter there was no sign of the others. There was just Grusche in the kitchen wearing a strange white nightdress, with a hand-knitted shawl tied around her shoulders. And George disappeared, saying something about needing to get to his bed. And suddenly Grusche was standing behind her, muttering about Eleanor and Lowrie, and the arms that had gained their strength through lifting sheep and kneading dough were holding her as if she were in a vice, and Polly began to scream and at last everything went black.

She regained consciousness briefly and thought she saw a figure at the window. Perhaps it was Peerie Lizzie coming to fetch her into the water. But when the door opened, it wasn’t Lizzie standing inside, but the detective with the wild black hair. Polly had thought that sometimes he looked haunted too.

He walked up to Grusche and his voice was gentle, as if he was talking to a child. ‘This won’t do now, will it? You don’t really want to hurt Polly. What has she ever done to you?’

Polly felt the grip on her neck relax a little.

Then an inside door was opened. George stood there. ‘Woman, let that lass go!’ His voice was as clear as a foghorn and roused Polly completely. Grusche turned to face him. Polly felt the movement of Grusche’s body against her shoulders and again a slight release of tension.

‘It was for Lowrie,’ Grusche said.

‘Was it?’ This was the detective again. ‘You’ve always been honest. That class you did with Fran. The final assessment. She said your art was uncompromising, truthful. Didn’t she?’ He paused briefly and when he spoke again his voice was easy, conversational. ‘So let’s be honest now, shall we? This was about you. About not wanting to end up a lonely woman. Needing Lowrie and Caroline for company and conversation. I know about loneliness. I can understand that. But it has to end here.’ He held out his hand. There was a moment of hesitation, a sudden tightening of the hold on Polly’s neck, then Grusche reached out, twisted her wrist so that the handle was facing the detective and dropped the knife into his palm. Polly saw that his skin was dark, as if he’d been in the sun, and his hand was bony like Marcus’s.

Then Willow Reeves was there, wrapping Polly up in a blanket and asking if she was all right, or if they should get Oscar Charlie, the rescue helicopter, to take her to hospital. Saying they’d take her back to her friends in Sletts. Polly turned for a moment and saw Grusche staring at her with eyes that were still full of hatred.