Liz left her clothes in the bathroom – she must cut her nails when she could find a pair of scissors, she was snagging them on her clothes – and eased open the bathroom door. Anna hadn't moved. Liz switched off the bathroom light and closed the door to shut off the gurgling monologue of the plumbing; then she groped toward the bed. She hadn't quite reached it – she'd misjudged her distance in the dark, and the fog blocked out any light from the window – when she smelled blood.
She would have backed away toward the bathroom, but she couldn't remember which way to go: not straight backwards, certainly. She reached out one shaking hand for the bed, through the darkness that stank of stale blood, and touched something soft. A blanket – Anna beneath a blanket? But then the soft object shifted under her hand, and her fingers touched its eyes, its encrusted sticky cheek, its teeth.
She recoiled, spastic with horror, and collided with the bed. Now she knew where she was; she could see the strip of light from the corridor at the foot of the outer door. She staggered towards it, wrenched at the handle. Then she remembered the bolt. In the strange room she couldn't locate the light-switch.
Her fingernails were in the way, she couldn't grasp the bolt. Then she had it, and the next moment the door was wide open. Light flooded in from the corridor – not enough light. She jerked the switch for the bedroom light, and Anna started screaming.
By God, she was screaming, not at the thing in the dark, but at Liz. Though Liz couldn't believe it, the room was empty. Nothing under the bed, nothing in the bathroom either, when she threw open the door. 'Stay there,' she snarled at Anna, who looked ready to run out of the room. The intruder had felt too solid to have been imaginary. Locked doors meant nothing; it could come to her whenever it was dark. Perhaps it was still watching her; someone was – her neck was prickling. She whirled round. Gail was staring at her from the corridor.
However must she look, naked and ranging about the room like an animal in its cage? Still, there was no need for Gail to watch her quite so disapprovingly. She must have come upstairs to spy on her, otherwise she couldn't have got here so quickly. She was trying to look as if little was wrong. 'Liz,' she said, 'I think it would be a good idea if I found you some room in the cottage.'
So that was it. She wanted an excuse to observe Liz more closely, to take Anna from her or call someone who would. 'No thank you,' Liz said, though she was shaking. 'We'll stay here for tonight.' Before Gail could protest, she'd closed the door in her face and slammed the bolt home.
There was silence in the corridor while Gail considered what to do. Eventually Liz heard her footsteps retreating. She grinned savagely, triumphantly. Behind her Anna whimpered, 'I don't want to stay here any more.'
Liz turned slowly, enjoying herself. When Anna saw her grin, she flinched against the pillows. 'You're going to get what you've asked for,' Liz said.
Forty-five
Anna lay in bed for hours before she dared to move. She could hear the band downstairs, but it sounded as if it was miles away. It might as well be, like everything else in the hotel. Nobody cared what mummy might do to her, not even Gail, who could, see how mummy had changed. Nobody cared what happened to Anna; she was only a child. She began to sob, but managed to choke the sound back before it got out; it might wake mummy, who was sitting in the chair that she'd pushed against the locked door. The thought of waiting until she was sure that mummy was asleep made her eyes sting with a yearning for sleep, but she mustn't sleep, not yet. There was still one person who could save her, who would come and take her away.
The band fell silent at last. She heard people singing along with it: 'Good Night Ladies.' Because of her lack of sleep she thought for a moment that they were singing to mummy and her, and perhaps mummy thought so too, for her nodding head jerked up from her chest, her eyes widening and glaring at Anna. Anna hid her shivering under the bedclothes and peered through her eyelashes, praying that mummy couldn't see her watching.
Car doors slammed, cars shrank into the fog. Grownups came upstairs, talking quietly. Mummy's eyes glinted slyly at the sound of the people; Anna saw her listening until they'd gone into their rooms. Now mummy's head was leaning sideways, lower and lower each time, eyelids drooping. Her hands plucked at her handbag, which she'd taken off the chair to make room for her, then they relaxed. She was asleep.
More than anything else, Anna wanted to sleep too. She sobbed with her hand over her mouth; she didn't dare go to sleep – she didn't know what mummy might do to her if she did. What had mummy meant to do before? Anna had heard someone creeping toward her in the dark, and then mummy had thrown open the bedroom door and switched on the light, because Gail had been outside. It must have been mummy who'd been creeping up on her, but she hadn't been able to do what she'd meant to do, because of Gail. But then she'd locked Gail out, and Gail had gone away and left Anna all alone with the stranger Gail thought was mummy. Gail didn't really care what happened to Anna.
Someone did. Auntie Barbara might have, which was why mummy had stopped her from coming to stay. Daddy might, Anna was no longer sure, but he seemed to have gone away for ever. Rebecca did, but mummy had made sure that Rebecca didn't know what she was doing to Anna. But there was someone who knew, or at least suspected, and cared. No wonder mummy didn't like her. If Anna could let Granny Knight know what was happening, she'd come at once.
But now that it came to letting her know, Anna was terrified to move. If she tried to phone, mummy would wake, mummy would see what she was trying to do. Couldn't she just lie here while mummy was asleep, and hope that everything would have changed when the sun came up in the morning? But the thought of lying there all night terrified her too, for she was so tired that she might fall asleep, might be asleep when mummy woke.
Just then one of mummy's hands moved sleepily, its long nails scraping the air. Anna shuddered, imagining what those nails might do when mummy woke. That was enough to start her inching across the bed toward the phone.
It was on mummy's side of the bed, and it seemed hours away. Anna edged across under the bedclothes, holding herself and her breath still after each tiny movement. Each time she moved, the chill of the new patch of sheet made her shiver. Once the bed creaked, and she froze, biting her tongue so hard that she almost cried out. But mummy hadn't stirred, and so eventually Anna moved again, still sobbing silently.
When she reached the far side of the bed at last, she inched herself into a sitting position against the pillow. Now she could stretch out her arm for the phone. She had to do it; but how much noise would the phone make? It would ring and wake mummy; she knew it would. She was back in the small dark grubby place again – she'd never left it really – and the phone was beyond it, out of her reach. Whether she just lay there or lifted the phone, it all came to the same thing: mummy would hurt her, hurt her terribly, far more than the bruises that were stinging her arms.
The pain and the hopelessness made her reach out suddenly for the phone. After all, if it came to the same thing in the end, it didn't matter what she did. She reached out more quickly than she meant to, and the bed creaked loudly. She buried her face in the pillow; she could already feel mummy's nails raking her back. It was a long time before she could look.
Mummy hadn't moved. Anna reached out again, this time more stealthily. Her fingers stretched further and further, over the Bible on the bedside table. She had to lean out of the bed, and she was terrified in case it creaked again. Then, at last, her hand closed on the receiver.
She held onto it for a very long time, telling herself that she was making sure she wouldn't drop it, while her skin prickled, her armpits turned clammy, uncomfortable, unbearable. She had to move her arm, to pull away the sticky patch of pyjama from her armpit. She lifted the receiver, and the phone rang.