As she bent lower to peer under the car, the prickly darkness closed in. She could see at once that the brakes would be useless. She hadn't used the car since Rebecca had told her about Jane, and now she remembered driving furiously home from The Stone Shop, too angry and distressed even to look at Anna. Had she driven over a bump in the road too violently? If so, it was a miracle they hadn't had an accident on the way home.
Anna was gazing at the pool of fluid, and the corners of her mouth began to droop. This was her fault too, Liz thought – not that that was any help. 'Does that mean I can't go?' Anna said miserably.
'Not at all. We'll get you there.' Liz was thinking fast: she'd intended to drive Anna to London and put her on the direct train from Euston; now they'd have to take the train from the village to Norwich, then another from Norwich to Euston. Good God, she'd be away all day. She slammed the garage door into its groove and grabbed the suitcase. 'We'll have to hurry,' she said.
By the time they were halfway to the village, she was panting. Anna kept running ahead to the next curve, glancing back. 'Go on,' Liz cried. The day was already hot; the hedges looked dusty as her throat was becoming; the baking air seemed to cling to her, an additional weight that was imperceptible but enervating. A couple of families passed her on their way to the beach; the adults smiled sympathetically, the children stared. What time was the train? At least she hadn't heard it. Surely that meant it hadn't gone.
The village was crowded. Old folk ambled, fanning themselves with hats or newspapers, slowing down their progress. Birds fluttered back and forth under the roof of the bus shed, cottages blazed like sheets in a detergent ad. At least there was no train at the station. The tiny booking hall was deserted; the ticket window was a frame from which the painting had been removed, glass over brown board; the hall smelled like an attic, dust and old wood. Perhaps you had to pay on the train. If not, they could pay at Norwich.
She sat and watched the crowds and tried not to think how long she'd be away while Alan might be trying to contact her. His faded display had gone from the window of the post office, someone else's bright new books had moved in. Now and then she heard an engine, but it was always a barge on the waterways. Shouldn't she accompany Anna all the way, rather than putting her on the train at Euston? It was a long way for a six-year-old to travel on her own.
Anna was growing restless, marching up and down the platform. 'Isn't it coming yet? How long will it be?' She sounded afraid that Liz would change her mind and take her back home. There was chugging in the distance, along the brownish railway lines – but it must have been another barge, because the sound was drifting away. Liz was growing as fidgety as Anna; she didn't like being away from the phone for so long. She was beginning to wonder if it was such a good idea to send Anna away after all.
Anna was plucking at the long sleeves of her blouse. 'I'm so hot, mummy. Can I go and get a drink?'
'Better not, in case the train comes.' The nearest shop for lemonade was the post office, and all at once she was afraid of losing Anna in the crowd. Passers-by were gazing at her as if she were some kind of tourist attraction, a wax figure on a disused station. She felt like wax – melting wax. Three youths in denim stared at her for a while before swaggering toward the beach. 'Don't miss your bus,' one shouted, which she thought especially pointless.
She went to the end of the platform and stared along the tracks. She'd never seen them looking so disused. Surely the train ought to be here by now. Suppose it had been cancelled? These trains sometimes were. If only there were someone to ask… Then she heard footsteps in the booking hall, three steps on the hollow boards; three were all it took to cross the hall. She turned as he emerged onto the sunlit platform. It was Jimmy.
'What do you think you're waiting for?' he said.
'Would a train be too much to hope for?'
'I'm afraid it would,' he said, and her innards lurched. 'Surely you heard? There's an unofficial strike to try and stop them closing the line. No trains until further notice.'
'Oh no,' Liz said, more for Anna's sake than because of any disappointment of her own.
'Where were you wanting to go?'
'I wasn't going anywhere. I was sending Anna to stay with my parents,' Liz said, hugging the child in a bid to console her. 'We'd been getting on each other's nerves, hadn't we, Anna? Something had to be done. We'll just have to get on with each other, that's all.'
It sounded false even to her, especially since Anna had pulled away. 'What brings you to the village?' Liz said, for the sake of something to say.
'Mostly keeping out of the way. Mrs Marshall's in a foul mood. She's had a cancellation for the next seven days, and she's got no chance of filling it now.'
'Perhaps I'll call in and commiserate later.' For a moment, until she realized what she was thinking, Liz thought of taking up the cancelled booking, just to get them out of the house. Was she mad? No – she was letting Anna confuse her again, that was all. It was Anna's fault, just like everything else. Why had she let the child get to her so badly? What tales would Anna have told her parents about her? Anna could just stay with her, where she belonged – and she'd better behave herself; she'd made Liz waste enough time as it was. Liz took Anna's elbow and the case, and strode toward the road. She wasn't going to be distracted again. She still had to decide how to retrieve the claw.
Thirty-nine
The jeep lurched to a stop. The forest was closing in, and so was the thick moist green twilight beneath the trees. 'We shall have to walk from here,' Isaac said.
Alan stared about him in the desperate hope that the lurch of the jeep might have woken him up. Of course it was an absurd hope. He was already wide awake, and neurotically alert. He wasn't dreaming, though the forest resembled a dream. It resembled the forest he had dreamed of, which suggested that he was close to the dreadful thing he had been told he must do.
How could he distinguish this place from any other part of the forest? He and Isaac had been in here for so long that it seemed strange to think of the open sky, of any sky that wasn't composed of countless overlays of green. Nothing distinguished this place: great sweaty limbs of trees reached up through the green twilight to the green ceiling, young trees grew in the spaces between them, thin stalks tipped with a few pale leaves. Yet he felt as if this place led to his dream, as if one of the paths between the trees led there – as if this place had been the start of his dream, which he couldn't remember. As he sat there in the passenger seat his body was stiffening, his innards felt like bile.
Isaac took the pistol from under the dashboard and thrust it into his belt, then he came round the jeep to Alan. His eyes were sympathetic and encouraging. 'Come on,' he said, clasping Alan's shoulder for a moment. 'Perhaps we haven't far to go now.'
Of course that was what Alan feared. Isaac laid one hand on the pistol. 'I will help you all I can.'
Even if he was undertaking to kill the Leopard Man, that still left the worst for Alan. Perhaps the chief in the village of beehive huts had been wrong after all, yet it seemed horribly logicaclass="underline" cannibals ate their victims in order to ingest their power, therefore in order to consume the power of a cannibal cult for ever one would have to… He swallowed, choking, desperate to believe he was dreaming, but the last time he'd slept was last night in the jeep, baboons swinging down from the dark overhead to scratch and scream at the windows, huge shadows lumbering past beyond the reach of the headlights. It wasn't a dream, nor could he tame what was happening to him by thinking how he might write about it one day; that no longer worked. It was happening now, and it was all he could do for Liz and Anna. Though his legs felt heavy as concrete, he climbed out of the jeep. 'All right,' he said through his stiff cumbersome lips.