There’s no sign of Peter. Not that I can really see: the fog seems thicker up here. I look over the bridge and it’s almost as if I’m floating on a cloud. I can’t see the gorge beneath me. I can hardly make out Elspeth’s house from here, either. The comforting lights at the windows and the figures of other people have been blocked out by the weather.
I text Peter’s new number. I’m at the edge of the bridge where the cars come in. Where are you?
I wait with the phone in my hand for his reply but there’s nothing.
Then I see a text from Courtney. Are you mental? Don’t meet Peter in the dark. Get him to go to the house. Xx
She’s right, this is a stupid idea. I was lulled into thinking it was okay because it’s not that late and the bridge isn’t too far away. But with the fog and the silence, well, it’s eerie up here. I feel like I’m a million miles from civilization. The fog is all-consuming, wrapping around me, like cotton wool. I can only see a few inches in front of me. Maybe Peter didn’t mean the bridge, maybe he meant somewhere else like – I trip and my phone shoots out of my hand. I hear it land with a crack on the pavement. Shit. Shit. I crouch on my hands and knees. Where’s it gone? I can’t see it. Has it gone over the side?
‘Peter!’ I shout. My voice is tinged with panic and disappears into the ether. ‘Where are you?’ There’s no answer and I freeze, my heart in my throat, as I realize that Peter isn’t coming. Was it even Peter who texted me? It could have been anyone. It could have been Kathryn. I stand up, blindly trying to reach for something to cling to. ‘Who’s there?’ My heart beats faster and I walk through the fog, towards where I know the entrance is.
I think of my mum. Is she watching over me? She’d be furious that I’ve put myself in this position. Oh, Mum, I’m sorry.
The rising fog mingles with the dark night, turning everything opaque. I can barely see yet I know someone else is on the suspension bridge with me.
I can hear them breathing.
How foolish I’ve been.
Nobody will come to my rescue. It’s too late at night – even vehicles have stopped driving across the bridge due to the weather.
Someone calls my name. I turn, but I’m disoriented and I can’t tell which direction the voice is coming from. I just know I’ve been lured here. I need to find a way off this bridge as quickly as I can. I let go of the railings, stumbling in panic, my breath quickening.
Don’t lose it. I must stay calm. I need to get out of this situation alive.
Suicide. That’s what they’ll say it was. Just like the other girls.
I hear a laugh. It sounds manic. Taunting.
And then a figure steps out of the fog, clamping a hand across my mouth before I’ve had the chance to scream.
Part Two
* * *
26
Willow, March 2019
There’s something going on in this house. They try to hide it from me, but it’s evident in the whispered discussions I hear them all having with each other. The old woman, the cold fish of a daughter and that cook from the kitchen. They do it when they think I’m not listening. Not that I am listening. I couldn’t give two hoots what they’re wittering on about to each other. This is a short-term thing for me. Just to get some cash before I decide what I really want to do with my life.
It was Arlo who told me about the job. It was advertised in the local newspaper at the end of February. I think it was mainly because he was fed up with me dossing down with him in his manky bedsit in Weston-super-Mare while I did the odd shift at the local café. ‘Willow,’ he’d say, putting on that serious big-brother expression whenever he was about to give me a lecture, ‘You need to have direction,’ as though he had some high-flying career when really he was driftwood, the same as me. He must have been moaning about me to one of his mates down the pub because they told him that a friend of a friend had seen this job advertised. Something like that, anyway. Arlo tends to waffle on a bit and I was only half listening because I was in the middle of watching reruns of Line of Duty on Netflix. Anyway, I decided to go for it. A live-in position, in a grand house with my own bedroom away from my brother’s stinky feet and foetid flat, is a plus point. And the money was really good for a carer role.
I’m apparently younger than their previous employees. This was told to me rather sniffily by the daughter, Kathryn, at the interview, as though youth is something to be embarrassed by. I’m twenty, love, I wanted to say. I’m hardly a child. And I have experience of caring for people. I was training to be a nurse at one point. I did the first year at university and everything. And I’m telling you, training to be a nurse is hardcore. They should be getting big salaries for what they have to put up with, honestly – all those long night shifts and bedpans and cleaning old men’s private parts. Yes, I did it all and I’m not embarrassed to say I couldn’t hack it – although, of course, I omitted to say that at the interview. I didn’t want them to think I couldn’t stick at things. I just went on about a bereavement and lack of money forcing me to leave, which was a bit of a white lie, but it got me the job.