In the Still of the Night

‘I hope to God not.’ But he sounded uneasy.

Harriet rang for a taxi and left a few minutes later. Sean stood at the window to watch her drive away; he wanted to be quite sure there were no other vehicles around. But the long, dark street was quite empty.

Sean made himself a stiff drink and was about to drink it when he heard a sound from the bedroom where Annie was sleeping.

He hurried in there, but she hadn’t moved, she was still lying curled up in a foetal position under the dark blue duvet he had covered her with a while ago. He could see her hands half under her pillowed cheek, the feathery strands of pale hair hiding her eyes. She looked like a child.

The faint sounds he’d heard were coming from her. He bent to listen, tentatively brushed some of the hair away to show him her face.

Her eyes were closed, but there were tears stealing out from under the bruised-looking lids.

She was crying in her sleep. Her lips moved; he just heard the name.

‘Johnny …’ she sobbed. ‘Oh, Johnny.’

Sean straightened and walked out, his face stiff and cold.

Who the hell was the guy? Well, it wouldn’t be hard to find out. Hadn’t she said he worked for a crime magazine? It should be simple to run a check on him.

In her dream Annie was lost in the forest, running between the trees. But it wasn’t spring in her dream. It was high summer. Under the trees the green ferns whispered and swayed as she ran through them, she felt the caress of their smooth cool fronds against her bare skin.

Bare. She looked down at herself and gave a gasp of shock. She was naked.

The light filtering down through the canopy of leaves high above had a greenish tinge with sudden piercing rays of gold in it that dappled her skin and made her look like a forest animal, clothed to match her surroundings, as the deer she had once seen in a wild-life park, their smooth coats dappled to be invisible among the shadows of an English wood.

And, like the deer, she was hunted.

She heard the panting, the running of feet behind her, coming closer. Closer. Panic rose inside her. She ran on, looking over her shoulder, and with another shock recognised Johnny.

She stopped still and he caught up with her. He was laughing, then they were on the ground among the ferns, and she opened her legs, groaning with need, and shut her eyes as he sank into her like rain soaking into the earth, natural, life-giving, necessary.

When she opened them again they were in his grandmother’s house, on the hearth rug, lying sated and sweating in front of the fire, still trembling after making love. Although she didn’t look round, she knew the forest trees were crowding in around the window to watch them, but it wasn’t frightening, or even strange – she felt they were friendly.

Johnny looked sadly at her. ‘Why did you do it, Annie?’

‘I’m sorry, Johnny,’ she sobbed, guilt overwhelming her. ‘I didn’t want to kill your baby. They made me.’

‘You didn’t have to give in to them. You could have refused.’

‘I was scared of them. I was much younger then, Johnny.’

‘When I was much younger than you my father used to beat my mother up all the time. I used to listen to her sobbing afterwards, and hate him. She was smaller than you. Her hair was like yours, fair and very fine, like feathers. She had big blue eyes like yours. She was helpless. My father was a big man, and enjoyed hurting people. But I stopped him. I made sure he never touched her again.’

‘But you’re strong, Johnny. I’m not. I’m weak.’

‘I know that now. A pity, Annie.’ There were tears in his eyes. He looked at her with such sadness. ‘Oh, such a pity. You’re like my mother; she was weak and helpless. But I took care of her, and I’ll look after you, too, don’t worry.’

Annie woke up abruptly, in the dark, and lay there trembling. Some of her dream still echoed in her head. She tried to remember all of it, but couldn’t be sure she was remembering what she had dreamt, or what Johnny had actually said to her, in the house in front of the fire, after they made love.

But then everything that had ever happened between them seemed dreamlike. She could almost believe she had imagined it all, or that their love had been just a dream.

Maybe she was still dreaming?

Maybe she had never woken up. Was she still asleep, but dreaming that she was awake? She couldn’t even remember what had happened before she went to sleep, what had happened last night.

At that instant Derek’s face swooped at her out of the dark and she gave a smothered cry, her hand at her mouth.

Derek. Derek was dead. Had been killed, murdered – how could she think about making love with Johnny, how could she think about dreams, about happiness, when something so terrible had happened?