The Hunger Trace Read online

  * * *

  The keepers and volunteers sat in David’s old office while Maggie, alone, explained the proposed changes to the park. Scattered rectangles of livid red stood out from the faded carpet, where she had removed the cases of stuffed animals.

  She told them of the plan to reduce the stock to those species which were native – or had been native – to Britain. Talks were underway with the local university and the Nature Conservation Committee to captive-breed several species, including red squirrel, with a view to re-introducing them into wild habitats. She was particularly keen to obtain a herd of red deer, and she planned to buy another ten acres of woodland. She had hired a consultant zoologist, and spoken to conservation groups who had urged her to purchase vulnerable wolf cubs from fur farms in Romania. Fewer species meant more space for those that remained. Deer in, miniature zebu and wallabies out. She would also require staff to undertake training. Some of the volunteers looked at each other when she said that, some just groaned.

  ‘Why are we getting rid a the zebu, anyway? I love those little buggers,’ said Yvonne, a quiet sixty-year-old volunteer for whom Maggie felt great affection.

  ‘I love them, too, Yvonne. But they’re used to a tropical climate, and the cold is making them sick. It’s cruel.’

  She couldn’t hear what the staff were muttering, but she could guess. Visitor numbers had further slackened as the cold weather began. People were beginning to think that her obsessions would destroy the park. She had heard the keepers talking about ‘the spirit of the place.’ More ghosts.

  When Philip got up to leave with the others, she called him back.

  ‘I can’t really stay,’ Philip said. ‘The wife is picking me up, and I don’t like to keep her waiting.’

  ‘You didn’t say much in the meeting.’

  Philip looked down at his hands. He did not wear his cap indoors, and Maggie noticed the lustre of his oiled hair, the surprising thickness of the strands.

  ‘I needed a little support, there,’ she said, trying to smile.

  Philip coughed.

  ‘What’s up, Phil?’ Maggie said.

  ‘I shan’t be doing the training. I will understand if that means you have to terminate my contract.’

  ‘Oh, Phil. Surely you’ve not taken it personally. I know how skilled you are.’

  ‘It’s not a personal thing, but I’m not going back to school.’

  ‘Look, Philip. Firstly, nobody is terminating any contracts. You should see this training as an opportunity.’

  Philip shook his head. ‘I’m sixty-seven years old. I’m weary.’

  ‘I’m doing it. It won’t cost you anything. I’m paying for it.’

  He looked up sharply. They held each other’s gaze.

  ‘Philip, if there’s something you need to say to me, then feel free. We’ve always been very open. If you think I don’t understand, or that I’m not from around here . . .’

  ‘I’ve never said anything of that sort. When someone comes to this part of the world, they can either shut themselves off from people, or they can get involved in the community. When you first got here, I saw you as someone who’d fit right in. Someone who’d get involved in the village.’

  ‘I do get involved.’

  ‘She doesn’t count,’ Philip said, with a sudden burst of anger. The fury immediately dissipated, and he sighed.

  ‘I see. It’s Louisa you have a problem with. I know Louisa is difficult sometimes, but she is a good person. I spend time with her because she knew my husband better than anyone. Better than I did.’ Maggie thought of Louisa’s current retreat from their friendship.

  ‘Oh, that’s true,’ said Philip.

  ‘I know she was in love with him, if that’s what you mean.’

  Philip frowned in confusion, his skin stretching over the thick ridges of his forehead. ‘In love with him? She sabotaged him at every bloody step. She’s got nothing but bitterness, that woman. She tried to snatch this place, which is ours – yours – from under your feet. Don’t you remember? You should have heard the things she said about you, and all.’

  ‘I can imagine what she said about me in the early days, thank you.’

  Philip tried to reclaim his composure. Maggie had never seen him like this. He dropped his hands by his sides. ‘There are a lot of good people in this village,’ he said.

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘People who respect you. People who really like you.’ Philip paused, seemed to deliberate. ‘Richie Foxton—’

  Maggie laughed suddenly, and then stopped when she saw the dismay on Philip’s face.

  ‘Oh I see,’ Philip said. He turned to leave. ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘Philip, I didn’t mean – Richie is a great guy.’

  ‘When David died,’ Philip said, turning back to her, ‘you said that you had wanted to start a family with him. There’s no reason why you can’t move on, eventually.’

  ‘I’ve put all of my energies into this park,’ Maggie said.

  ‘Believe it or not, I want what’s best for you. And there’s a lot I could say now, but I’ll settle for this: you continue to keep the company you’re keeping, and you’ll end up with nothing. No park, no family, nothing.’

  He cut the air in front of him with a chopping motion. Maggie thought again of the ironic timing of Philip’s attack on Louisa. He wasn’t to know. She reached out to him, and took his hand. She looked down and saw the difference in colour between their skin – his raw pink flesh beneath the net of callouses, her own fingers light brown. ‘Okay,’ she said, to calm him. ‘Okay.’

  * * *

  A few hours later, Christopher stepped halfway into the office, covering his body with the door like a shower curtain. ‘I’m going out for a mammoth, erm, session,’ Christopher said.

  ‘Well, it’s probably healthier than being on the internet all day,’ Maggie said.

  ‘You don’t know anything,’ Christopher said.

  ‘It’s a majority view,’ Maggie said with a smile. ‘Who are you going out with?’

  ‘Erm. I’m going to call on Louisa Smedley,’ Christopher said.

  ‘Oh,’ Maggie said. She frowned. ‘Have you seen her recently?’

  ‘No. I mean, erm, erm, what’s it to you?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Will you tell her I said hello?’

  ‘I’m not making any promises,’ Christopher said, sliding out.

  Maggie stood at the window, and waited for Christopher to come into sight. The light from the house gave his clothes a purple hue as he leaned forward into the wind. She could hear him swearing, and knew his curses were probably for her.

  They had once been part of a family. He had always loved to hear the story of how Maggie and David met. He would ask questions about the drunken woman they had carried to the taxi (‘Was she completely inebriated? Did she lose bladder control, at all?). Mostly he would just listen, enraptured, his laughter fading into an open-mouthed smile. ‘It’s like in days of, erm, yore,’ he once said. ‘With all those deer prancing around in the background. The squire and the, erm, buxom wench.’ After a pause he said, ‘I like true love.’

  Maggie went back to the computer. The graph line of the park’s income dipped across the years. Looking at the dates, she recognised that a landmark had slyly passed: she had now known Christopher longer than she had known David. She turned back to the window, but his shape had already melded with the dark. Maggie sighed. She saw the light of Louisa’s cottage twitching behind the waving branches. Maybe her neighbour could restore the boy to his former self.

  Louisa was back into the habit of turning off the lights when she saw a figure approaching from the big house. She did so now, then poured herself a drink and sat in the dark. He banged loudly on the door, rhythmically and unceasingly for nearly a minute. ‘Come on, erm, Louisa. We’re the two biggest loons this side of Christendom,’ he shouted. ‘Let’s return to the theatre of war, and repeat our former glories. Erm, in the pub, I mean.’ He was more persiste
nt than his stepmother, but she could feel the darkness and the silence begin to threaten him. After a while longer, he said, ‘Erm. Erm. Bye.’

  When she was sure he had gone she licked her thumb, picked up her glass of whisky and then froze, noticing the gesture for the first time. She threw the glass across the room. The contents spattered on the wall and the floor but the glass itself lodged between a cushion and the seat of the armchair, still intact.

  The card lay on the table in front of her. She thought of the man appearing at the window of her van, gesturing for her to roll down the window with the rotation of his closed fist. The same movement as turning a spit. She thought of his tie and the lining of his suit, the muscles of his jaw like stones beneath the skin. She thought of Maggie’s hands in his hair.

  ‘Pull yourself together,’ Louisa muttered. She retrieved the glass, poured another drink and dialled the number, unsure of what she was about to say.

  ‘Yep,’ the voice said.

  ‘Do you see Maggie Bryant?’ Louisa said.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Maggie Green.’

  A silence. ‘I don’t give out such information.’

  ‘Do you know what I’m talking about?’

  ‘Look. Best thing to do in a situation such as this, is talk to the person in question. I provide a service, but I don’t ever knowingly provide that service to someone in a relationship unless it’s with the consent of partner.’

  ‘It’s not like that. I just want to know if she pays you, like it says on your card, or if you’re seeing her because you like her.’

  ‘You’re the woman from the van, aren’t you?’

  She wanted him to remember. She wanted her face to appear in his imagination.

  ‘Yes, it’s me,’ she said.

  He was quiet for a moment. ‘I shouldn’t really be having this conversation, to be honest.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘There have been . . . There’s been a few incidents in the past.’

  ‘What kind of incidents? Are you accusing me of stalking you?’

  ‘Well, you are. Anyway, that’s not the point. I’ve had a few conflicts of opinion with folk who don’t approve of what I do, that’s all.’

  ‘What, you mean religious people?’

  He laughed. ‘Husbands, mainly. Unsurprisingly. I’ve been given some very specific legal advice concerning such matters.’

  Louisa heard an undertone of curiosity in his voice. ‘You’re not how I expected, on the phone,’ she said.

  ‘How did you expect me to be? How am I meant to speak to someone who follows me around?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Well. You need to think on what you’ve been doing the past few . . . however long. Think on whether you’re behaving properly.’

  ‘Oh, says you.’

  ‘I know what I’m doing. I’m square with it. I go into it with my eyes wide open.’

  ‘That’s too much information,’ she said.

  ‘Aye. It probably is. According to the advice of my solicitor, I should have hung up by now.’

  ‘But you haven’t.’ Louisa said.

  She heard the dial tone.

  ‘Bastard,’ she said. She counted to one hundred, aware of a growing sense of excitement. Then she dialled 141 and called again.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘I was talking to you,’ she said.

  ‘You were talking at me. Drinking at me, too, I reckon. Look—’

  ‘Are you scared of me, or something?’ she said.

  ‘No. I’m not. But I can’t do this all night.’

  ‘Got appointments, have you?’

  ‘Aye, I have actually. Do you want one?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, immediately.

  Momentarily, he seemed taken aback. But not for long. ‘Do you want to go out? I can do Notts, Leeds or Sheffield if you don’t want to stay local.’

  Louisa tried not to think too hard about what she was saying. ‘I don’t want to go out.’

  ‘You want me to call round? Where do you live?’

  ‘Drum Hill, in Detton.’

  Silence. ‘Oh. You’re the neighbour,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out.’

  ‘I’m very clever,’ she said.

  ‘What about—’

  ‘Leave your car at the bottom of the hill,’ Louisa said. ‘I’ll collect you. Can you do tomorrow?’

  ‘No. I’m busy all weekend. Are you free Monday?’

  She didn’t need to check. ‘Yes. Seven-thirty onwards.’

  ‘Fine. It’s one-fifty an hour, four hundred for a stop-over. What’s your name?’

  ‘Louisa. You won’t be stopping over.’

  ‘You never know.’

  She put the phone down as soon as it occurred to her to do so.

  Maggie woke at 3 a.m., on hearing something smash downstairs. Still tense after the break-ins, and disturbed by the rebel spirit of the park staff, she put on a jumper and crept halfway down the stairs. From there she saw Christopher pissing up against the radiator in the hall. He whistled, stumbled slightly, and began walking upstairs.

  ‘Oh hi,’ he said, raising his hand briefly. ‘I’ve had an absolute, erm, skinful.’

  Maggie caught the sugary chemical smell from a good distance away.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she said. ‘Did you see Louisa?’

  ‘No. She was, erm, hiding in her lair. I had to go on my own, but that’s okay. I’m a lone, erm, erm, wolf,’ he said. Then he howled, and laughed like David. He walked past her, stepped into the bathroom, flushed the toilet and went to his bedroom, supporting himself by leaning against the wall. Maggie could see the dust collecting on the sleeve of his jacket.

  She went to her own bedroom and laughed for a moment with her head in her hands. But she found she could not sleep for worrying. What would happen to Christopher if he carried on like this? With Louisa retreating, Maggie resolved that she would have to deal with him alone. She turned on her bedside lamp, and opened her laptop. She had recalled the bedroom of a school-friend who had a poster of the actor Michael Praed, dressed in Robin Hood gear, kneeling before a giant antlered spirit. The TV series had first aired in the 1980s, and it was not so difficult to find online. Maggie promptly ordered the box set.

  She fell asleep with the deercam open, the grey light beaming into her face until the battery ran down, leaving the room in darkness.

  FOURTEEN

  Adam spent Monday morning in the rain, sawing overhanging branches from the beeches that lined the tenth fairway. When he switched off the brushcutter, the sounds of the golf course remained muted outside his ear defenders. All he could hear was the fierce roar of his own blood.

  As he bagged the branches, the thought of his evening appointment reared again. This woman, Louisa, was different. He recalled the feeling he had in his car, as it dawned on him that he was being followed: the double-take as he looked in his rear-view mirror and realised that the kidney-coloured van had been there yesterday, and the day before. The shock had been visceral, almost exhilarating.

  He could smell the petrol fumes from the brushcutter now, and the soaked mulch of crushed nettles. These past few days, his senses had sharpened. He saw his surroundings as though for the first time. He marvelled at the crimson colour of the two-stroke fuel as he filled his machine for tomorrow, and at the bristling of the long grass which seemed blue beneath the cloudy sky. The rain came down on his ear defenders in tiny clicks. He removed them, and the world flooded in. He was done for the day.

  Adam tried to tell himself that his Golf GTi did not look so out of place in the car park of the country club, though he was the only man covered in grass cuttings. He sat with the door open and brushed down his trousers, swapped his toe-capped boots for trainers. He smoked a cigarette.

  Much of Adam’s business came by word-of-mouth but this Louisa, he suspected, had not arrived at his name by the usual route. It seemed strange tha
t she wanted to meet at her house, but did not want the neighbour to know. He recalled the smell of her vehicle as he closed the door of his own. He thought of her staring ahead on the hill as he spoke to her through the window of her van. Her quick glance in his direction. The vulnerability of that glance. He felt a strange pressure in his skull.

  The roads home were narrow, bordered by dry-stone walls. The tarmac was uneven, and rainwater had begun to settle in the dips. The day after he realised she was following him he had secretly observed her movements, pretending that he hadn’t noticed. She had waited outside the gym and followed him home. At one set of traffic lights, she had come to a stop only a few yards behind him, in the next lane. He had seen her face quite clearly – the strong jaw, and the light eyes like a husky.

  He checked his mirrors now, and saw the fields and the golf course unravelling behind him. For a moment he thought he saw a flash of red, and squinted, but it was just a golf bag. When he looked back at the road he saw that the bend had come upon him too quickly and, just beyond it, a herd of sheep was crossing from one field to another. He locked the brakes, then tried to pump them, but aquaplaned off to the right through a big puddle, the road disappearing from view, replaced by the spinning green of the land, as the car took a wooden gate off its hinges and smacked against a stone wall. On impact, the passenger airbag inflated, but – inexplicably – not his own and he was thrown sideways, banging his head slightly against the window.

  In the stillness, Adam took a huge breath, released the pressure on the pedals and looked at the powdery white balloon filling the other side of his car. He cast a glance in his mirrors, but there was nobody on the road behind. ‘Get it together, lad,’ he said to himself, rubbing his neck. He opened the door, stepped down into the mud and looked at the crumpled nose of his Golf. The wall had bent his left front wheel on its side.