She faltered for a moment as the car started, then she ran faster. She was still making very little noise. The car would herd the child towards her. She ran a few steps, then she halted, for even her stealthy movements were making it difficult for her to hear. So was the car, and she had to strain her ears for a frustratingly long time before she was sure that she could no longer hear Anna.
Was the child standing still, waiting for the car to pass? Or was she tiptoeing? She might tiptoe past Liz in the fog. Liz stood in the middle of the road and glared around her. The child wouldn't escape her this time. Liz would have to dodge out of the way when she saw the car's lights, but they wouldn't see her. The car was approaching too slowly to take her unawares.
It was the fog that made it seem so. Suddenly the smouldering beams of the headlights found her, splayed past her, lit up a movement on the verge to her left. She spun round, lurching that way to give Anna no chance to escape. But it wasn't Anna, it was a protruding clump of hedge.
Her mistake, and her rage at it, blinded her for a moment. Suddenly she was slithering on the wet road, but she didn't realize how badly she'd lost her balance until she fell. The tarmac hit her like a mallet as big as she was. She tried to suck in a breath that would help her throw herself out of the path of the car, but the car was coming too fast. Liz couldn't believe what was happening. As she raised herself on her hands to hurl herself aside, the front of the car rammed into her chest, smashing her backward on the road.
Fog poured into her body, and she was somewhere else, high in the grey air or across the invisible fields, hearing the belated screech of the brakes, the distant slam of car doors, voices that ebbed and surged, clear then muffled, then clear again. 'Oh my God,' Isobel was saying over and over like an evangelical record that had got stuck. 'Oh my God.'
Liz wished she could see Isobel's face, because for the first time in her life Isobel sounded as if she cared about her. All the same, she was glad to be so far from her own body, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to bear the growing pain. The whole front of her body was turning into pain. Hands touched her, she didn't know whose. 'You'll have to get to a phone,' Alan said in his new voice. 'I don't feel up to driving.'
Isobel had regained control of herself. 'You can't leave her on the road, not in this weather.'
Silence, grey: perhaps Liz had drifted away. 'If we're going to move her at all,' Alan said, 'you might as well drive her to the hospital.'
Metal noises, the hatchback being lifted, the back seat folded down. Liz was floating – no, hands were lifting her. It felt as if her pain had made her soar into the air. When they laid her down, nothing beneath her felt solid. 'You're coming too,' Isobel said, suddenly alarmed and startlingly close.
'I must get Anna. There she is.' Footsteps were running away. When he shouted Anna's name, the footsteps quickened. 'She must be heading for Derek and Jane's,' he said.
^ 4 I can't let you go by yourself, not the way you are.'
'I'm all right. Just let me take care of myself for a change. You get Liz to the hospital,' he said more gently. 'I can deal with things here, don't worry.'
Liz heard him running after Anna, then hood's door slammed. She could imagine Isobel shaking her head sadly, blaming Liz for his stubbornness. It didn't matter: Liz was floating away from her pain, and she didn't want to come back. Wait – wasn't there a reason why Anna shouldn't go to Jane's cottage, why she oughtn't to be there with Alan? The car started gently, and her pain surged up. She couldn't have stayed even if she'd wanted to. She was floating away where there were no more thoughts.
Fifty-two
Anna closed her eyes, which were smarting with the fog, and clung to the signpost, though the wood oozed like a snail in her hand. The ground squelched under her feet, mud was seeping into her shoes. Fog drifted toward her and away, making her feel as if she were swaying. She wanted to run and never to stop, but she couldn't go on until her heart slowed down. Besides, she wasn't sure what she had just heard.
She couldn't think, she couldn't plan. Her heart felt as if it was thumping her to pieces. Daddy had almost caught her, and then mummy had. When the car with daddy in it – if he was still in it – had started after her, she'd taken to the grass verge, sobbing inside herself and shaking as she'd tried to creep along. She'd been abreast of mummy before she'd seen her; the fog had parted and shown her mummy a few steps away, glaring about, looking for her. Anna had wanted to scream and give up, but she hadn't been able to; her feet on their aching ankles were still moving, smuggling her past in the fog. The fog had closed before mummy had seen her, and she'd stumbled as far as the signpost and was clinging there when she'd heard the sound.
It had something to do with the car. She'd heard a thud, and the car had stopped. Now Granny Knight was crying, 'Oh my God,' over and over. Perhaps the car had gone off the road and crashed into something; perhaps that was what the voices were muttering about now – but Anna couldn't tell whose voices, or even how many. It wouldn't help her if the car had crashed; it would only mean that Granny Knight, who might still be on her side, would be left behind by mummy and daddy while they hunted Anna in the fog.
She heaved herself away from the spongy signpost and began to run. She was weeping as the glare of the fog stung her eyes, weeping with hopelessness. She couldn't head for the village, and it was too far to the hotel. She could only run toward Jane's.
They'd heard her. The muttering stopped, and daddy shouted her name. She ran faster, taking to the verge to make less noise. She could hear daddy running to the signpost, coming after her along the coast road. She could hear the car. It was heading for the village.
So Granny Knight didn't care what happened to her. Mummy and daddy must have said something to her, to make her believe they weren't going to hurt her. Anna had no breath left to scream, and in any case, Granny Knight wouldn't believe her screams. The car dwindled into the fog and then, suddenly, between two painful heartbeats, it was gone. All Anna could hear now were daddy's feet padding quickly after her.
She couldn't hear mummy. She fled along the verge, terrified in case mummy had sneaked ahead of her and was waiting to pounce. Dripping grass-blades slashed at her, fog oozed back along the slimy hedges; underfoot the grass was slippery as polish. Whenever she slipped, she felt as if she were at the edge of the cliff, falling toward the sea she couldn't hear.
Daddy had stopped shouting her name. The fog made it impossible for her to tell whether or not he was catching up with her; his footsteps sounded closer than her own. He'd stopped shouting so that he could hear her better. He was going to catch her. All he had to do was run faster than she was running, along the road.
She dodged, sobbing, off the grass verge, towards the edge of the cliff. She had no idea how close it was. She felt she must be near Jane's by now, but perhaps that was just wishful thinking. The fog dragged over the grass, which looked coated with it; blades nodded, as if the passing of the fog had forced them down. The road had vanished, and the fog seemed to be spinning around her now; there was nothing to hold her sense of direction. She shouldn't have left the road, because now she couldn't hear daddy any more – or anyone else who might be coming for her. Was someone watching her, just at the edge of her eye? When she turned there was nothing but a fading glimpse of red.