He looked down to where she hid by the side of their bed, her eyes full of fear. Her legs were tented to hide the child from view, her arms wrapped around her knees, and her hands cradling the small head to shut out the sight of him standing there. Sitting like that on the floor she reminded him of a drawing he’d seen by a German artist of a woman cradling a dead child, and he remembered learning about the artist’s husband, that he too was a doctor.
As he raised the mallet from his side, her eyes pleaded with him, but any notion to change his mind passed as he noticed the suitcases on their bed, packed with everything she was taking.
He tried to smile for her, but his face was full of sadness at what she had brought them to. She would get her wish to leave him. He was granting her that, just not in the way she had hoped. She would be leaving behind her suitcases. Leaving behind clothing and shoes, trinkets and adornments, all the things she felt necessary for her new life which she wouldn’t need any longer.
And when that too was all gone, every physical reminder swept away, he would be left with only the memory of her – a scent of sweet jasmine and of soft lavender – that would become part of the air he breathed. Become part of the house forever.
Chapter One
Martha King shivered as she looked through her binoculars at the face of the man getting out of the car. She shivered not from the cold air blasting under the collar of her coat, but from seeing that face again. No matter how many times she had seen him over the last two weeks, the shock didn’t seem to lessen. It was uncanny how his features hadn’t seemed to change, how he didn’t seem to age. The house he was entering seemed to have stood timelessly too. The front door, the same dark green; the heavy curtains, with the same curved swags. Nothing altered. Nothing changed, except the height of the hedges grown above the stone wall wrapping the property nice and neat, private and safe from prying eyes.
And the woman, of course. She was a change.
Martha thought the house would lay empty forever, would never have a light on inside or a car on its driveway again. Watching and waiting and for it then to happen had tested her sanity and given her a false hope that the lights on inside the house were from before. And then cruel reality reminded her it was the present. Her memories were fading on so many other things, like paper drawings bleached from the sun – she had difficulty seeing them clearly. Yet here, they were painfully vivid. She had been kindled by those memories when she saw the new couple arrive. Rooted to the spot, stuck in a trance, just seeing, disbelieving; a silence in her ears as her eyes took their fill, before a sound intruded. Her laugh, as she was carried over the threshold. The sound of such joy shocked Martha’s ears awake, shocked her that such a sound could be allowed after what happened. As if regard for the past was all forgotten.
They’d been ensconced in their new home for over two weeks now, and Martha was there every day watching. Casually passing by, or stopping outside to stand and stare as if looking up at something of interest in the sky. On the odd day when rain was predicted, she took shelter in a spot under a tree in the field behind the house, and used her binoculars. Or she would go in the car, as she had today, parking it down the street to wait out the rain. If anyone noticed her, and so far not a single soul seemed to have, she was ready with her answer – she was a birdwatcher, a lover of nature, and spring was the best time to spot wildlife – and be ready to show her copy of Collins Complete Guide to British Wildlife from the library. For now, though, she was invisible. Just an old lady pottering about with her shopping bag containing a thermos, sandwiches, binoculars and library book, minding her own business.
A pattern had emerged over the last few days. Each morning he would step out of the house at seven thirty, wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase, get into his car and drive