‘It’s fine. There are others.’ I wave vaguely in Foxglove’s direction although I don’t admit they’re empty.
‘I’d better take my boots off,’ she says, as she steps over the threshold. ‘They’re filthy.’
I laugh, ‘Sure. I’ll put the kettle on,’ then remember the instant-boiling-water tap. As I go to close the door behind her I look out onto the dark night. There is no comforting glow from any of the other cabins and the mass of trees makes me feel even more claustrophobic, their dark bristly branches adding to the gloomy, unsettled feeling I’ve had since I was attacked last night, maybe even before that. The darkness seems to stretch into infinity but … Is it my imagination or is there a movement over there by the trees?
‘Nobody knows you’re here?’ I clarify, as I close the door.
She takes off her bobble hat and shakes out her hair. ‘No. I haven’t told anyone.’ She follows me through the living room into the kitchen. ‘This is lovely,’ she exclaims, looking around. ‘Very plush.’
‘They’ve been decorated beautifully.’
I offer her tea, which she accepts. ‘White, no sugar.’
‘How’s your leg?’ I ask, when I notice her limping across the kitchen to take a mug from me. She’d seemed in a lot of pain earlier when I saw her at the stones. I’ve read about Olivia’s injuries after the crash. I know she still has metal pins in her left leg.
She grimaces in response. ‘It’s a lot better than it used to be. It helps to use it as much as I can. I find it stiffens up the more I sit around. But, you know, it could have been a lot worse. If Katie, Tamzin and Sally were abducted then my leg being trapped could have actually saved me.’ She gives a self-deprecating laugh. ‘So of course that means I’ve also got survivor’s guilt on top of everything else.’ Her tone is deliberately light but I can see the emotions she’s unable to hide.
‘I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine,’ I say sincerely.
She shrugs. ‘It is what it is.’
We go into the living room. ‘I’ve tried to light the fire,’ I say, when I notice her shivering, ‘but I’m useless at getting it to catch.’
‘I can do it, if you like. We have one at home.’
She places her mug on the rustic oak coffee-table and bends down in front of the grate. Within minutes she has the fire roaring and stands back with a satisfied look on her face.
‘You make it seem so easy. I don’t know what I do wrong.’
‘Make sure to light the paper,’ she says. ‘Not just the wood.’ She moves to the sofa, picks up her mug and leans back, stretching out her legs. I’ve already got my mobile phone and stand set up on the coffee-table. She sips her tea and watches me over the rim of her mug as I click on the app and begin recording.
‘So,’ I say, taking a seat on the chair by the patio doors. ‘Thanks for agreeing to this. I was a bit worried you might change your mind.’ I tuck my feet underneath me. I want Olivia to feel relaxed, to forget she’s being recorded. As though we’re just two people having a chat.
‘I still can’t believe I’m here,’ she says, gazing around. ‘But … It’s silly, really.’
‘No, go on. What were you going to say?’
She warms her hands on her mug. Her fingernails are bitten down. ‘Everyone always tells me what to do. My mother, Wesley. I know it’s because they have my best interests at heart but it’s almost like they think I stayed eighteen after the accident. I’m a grown woman. I have a voice!’
‘Of course you do,’ I say. I imagine this is her way of pushing back, against Wesley in particular. To rebel.
‘What can you remember about the night of the accident?’ I begin gently, wanting to ease our way into it.
She blows on her tea, then says wistfully, ‘We were all so excited about going out. We got together every Saturday but there was a new club in the next town and we wanted to try it out.’ She swallows. ‘It had been a good night. Mostly. Tamzin got too drunk, but she often did. And she and Katie had a bit of a row. I was with Sally at the bar but when they came out of the toilets, both with faces like thunder, Sally said, “Oh, no, not again.” They rowed a lot. They were best friends but they were also like sisters.’
‘What did they row about?’
‘No idea. Probably something trivial. Tamzin often acted like a bit of a dick when she was pissed. She’d probably made some comment to Katie about what she was wearing or her lack of a boyfriend.’ Olivia sips her tea. ‘And then driving back it started to rain really heavily.’ Her eyes glaze over as though she’s seeing the empty Devil’s Corridor in front of her, like I imagine it would have been the night she drove home. ‘One of the girls screamed that someone was in the road. I swerved and the car turned over. I blacked out and when I came to they were gone.’
I nod, not wanting to speak, to break the spell. I already know most of this, of course, but this is for the listeners.
‘And then I lay there for a while, hurt, unable to move and that’s when I saw someone hurrying towards the car, appearing out of the rain. I screamed thinking it was the person I’d seen in the road but it was Ralph. It was just Ralph. I knew him a bit. I’d seen him around the town and we’d always say hello to him when we passed him. He once helped Katie find her cat. I wasn’t scared of him. And in that moment I knew I had to trust him because what choice did I have?’ She laughs mirthlessly and crosses her ankles. One of her woolly socks has bagged away from the toe area so that it looks like she has one long foot.
‘And what did Ralph do?’
‘He rang for an ambulance, then got into the passenger seat with me while we waited for them to arrive. I was crying quite hysterically and he tried to calm me down by reassuring me that my friends had probably gone to get help but I knew – I knew that didn’t seem right because Katie had a mobile, but I thought maybe her battery had died, or maybe it had broken in the crash. So I let myself be convinced. And, if I’m honest, I was more concerned with myself at that moment. My leg was trapped, crushed. I knew I’d have to be cut free. I worried I’d never walk again.’
‘That’s understandable. So you’re sure Ralph wasn’t the figure you saw in the road?’
‘I’m not sure, no. But Ralph assured me that he wasn’t. He’d been in the woods, tending some animal – I think a fox, Ralph was animal mad – when he heard the sound of, as he put it, exploding metal. It had taken him ten minutes or so to reach me.’
I hesitate. She catches my expression and frowns. ‘What is it?’
I explain about the photos found in Ralph’s caravan, describing them. ‘I think they must have been taken in the days or weeks before your accident. You were filling up your Peugeot 205 and you were wearing winter clothes. You said you thought you were being followed? I think it might have been Ralph. If he was following you, it could have been him in the road. He could have been the one to cause the crash.’
‘But …’ She stares at me in confusion as though trying to reorder everything she’d thought she knew all these years. ‘No, that’s not right. I told the police at the time. The man who was following me drove a white van. And the man had a scar.’