Coming Home

Chapter Thirty-nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty-one (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty-two (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty-three (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty-four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty-five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty-six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty-seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty-eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty-nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifty (#litres_trial_promo)

Two Years Later (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

About The Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Other Books By (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter One (#ulink_50ca1a47-e23c-5aed-979e-ecb602830809)

The lay-by was small and muddy, with only one other car parked at the far end. Spray and grit from the road had all but obscured the car’s numberplate and left the paintwork a nondescript khaki grey. Even the bushes lining the lay-by’s boundary were a dull brackish brown.

Unscrewing the lid from the Thermos I poured myself a cupful of sludge-coloured coffee. It had the sickly aroma that only flask coffee has, but I closed my eyes and savoured the comforting warmth. It had been a long drive north towards Oxfordshire and the break was very welcome. When I opened my eyes again I stared wearily out at the lay-by through the rain-speckled windscreen, rolling my shoulders back to ease the tension several hours of driving had left in my arms and neck. I sipped at the insipid drink, realising that same lack of colour reflected my life of late. It had been far too easy to languish in a rut of my own making. This journey hadn’t come a moment too soon.

But as I peered out at the leaden sky I felt a pang of jittery nerves, uncertain whether I had made the right decision. The bubbly excitement I’d felt when I set out had gradually evaporated with the passing of the miles, leaving me feeling like a condemned woman awaiting the executioner’s block. I gave myself a mental shake, pushing aside the shivery premonition that I should simply turn the car around and head back the way I’d come. I swallowed the last of the coffee. It was probably the chill that had begun to steal up from the foot well and whisper across my shoulders since turning off the ignition that was causing my poor mood, or maybe it was simply the bleakness of the weather.

I started the engine again and left it running so that heat crept gradually back through my veins. A lorry sped past, throwing up sheets of filthy spray. The car rocked with a whoomp that made me tighten my grip on the plastic cup as I fixed it back onto the Thermos and glanced round to check that all was well. The car was loaded to the ceiling with everything I had ever owned that hadn’t been donated to charity or condemned to a skip. Boxes, suitcases, pot plants, bedding, bags and everything that had survived my ruthless cull from twenty-five years of accumulation lay behind me.

A plaintive mewing came from the seat beside me where the pet carrier containing my travelling companion, Mitsy the tabby cat, was sitting. I poked my fingers through the wire mesh and stroked what I could reach of her face, and she rubbed her furry cheek against my fingers with a purr. The touch of her warm body brought new confidence flooding into me. I could hardly believe I’d ever considered leaving her behind. Several times in the last few hours I think I might have turned back if not for her constant and uncomplaining company. Mitsy watched with huge soulful eyes as I withdrew my fingers and fumbled the road atlas open on the dashboard with renewed resolve.

‘Looks like we’ve got a fair way to go yet.’ I surveyed the map, following the route with my finger; tutting with irritation when I realised the A road I wanted went off over the page. I searched for the continuation of the route. ‘I knew I should have got a sat nav,’ I told Mitsy with a rueful grin.

When I looked up again, I realised that the rain had turned thin and sleety-looking, almost like snow and was driving hard against the windscreen at an angle. ‘Time to go.’ I slipped the atlas down beside my seat and turned the windscreen wipers on.

Nosing my car back onto the main road, heater humming, side lights on and wipers swishing back and forth, I found that the traffic had thinned out considerably. It was just as well, I thought, as the sleet was thickening into small flakes of snow and increasing in ferocity. Already the grubby grass verge was becoming blanketed in ice crystals, and the fields and woods that flashed by were speckled with white.

Half an hour later, the world outside the car had become a white blur. Thinking I might find a country pub in which to find shelter, I left the main road and took a smaller B road that wound between high hedges, which gave partial protection from the billowing snow. With headlights and wipers full on now, I inched forwards, hoping nothing would come careering from the opposite direction, but it seemed that all other traffic had already found refuge; I had the road worryingly to myself.

Minutes stretched into what seemed like hours. My doubts returned with a vengeance and I realised I was perspiring with anxiety, despite the cold outside. I came at last to a crossroads, but the open space exposed me completely to the elements and my car shuddered beneath the onslaught of heavily falling snow. The tyres slipped and slid as they fought to gain traction on the snow-covered road. The flakes that fell against the windscreen were huge, obscuring the signposts, disguising the countryside and distorting my sense of direction.

Trying not to panic, I leaned forwards, hands tightly gripping the steering wheel, I looked at all the different directions on offer. Nothing seemed to have any bearing on the map I had studied back in the lay-by. Eventually I guided the protesting car left, down what looked like the wider of the turnings. I hadn’t got very far before I began to doubt my choice. The drifting snow was collecting in ditches on either side of the road, making it almost impassable; certainly too narrow to risk a three-point turn. For better or for worse it seemed I was stuck with my decision.

I came eventually to a stone bridge, which, if I hadn’t been lost in a snowstorm, might have been quite pretty. Directly after passing over the bridge the road began to climb quite steeply and the car’s wheels spun and whirred as I inched forwards.

‘This isn’t good,’ I told Mitsy through gritted teeth. ‘Not good at all.’

Despite the muffled slowness of my progress up the hill, it seemed to me that everything inside the claustrophobic confines of my car was gradually gathering momentum. By degrees everything intensified. The white noise that had started in my head spread into the car itself. I had the headlights full on, windscreen wipers battling away, the heater blasting a clear patch on the inside of the windscreen. The engine whined and protested as it laboured up the steep incline.

Desperation grew within me; if I could have thrust the car forward by sheer willpower alone, then we might have won through, but just below the summit the car faltered and began to slide backwards down the hill. I floored the accelerator in a desperate attempt to regain control but the wheels spun, the engine shrieked indignantly, the car lurched sideways as it continued its downhill slide, and after a few terrifying moments of gathering speed we slewed to an abrupt halt with one back wheel jammed against a sapling at the side of the snow-covered lane.

For a moment I sat there, frozen with shock. The car was at such an angle that I felt I was hanging backwards and to one side in my seat. Reaching forward, I killed the ignition and a sudden deathly silence ensued. Giant snowflakes fell softly against the windscreen, and then I heard a sharp crack followed by the tearing, grating sound of metal ripping wood.

Looking over my shoulder, I realised with horror that the spindly snow-covered tree that had stopped my car’s descent was splintering under the weight of the loaded vehicle. At any second it could give way completely and the car would continue its backward slide towards the bridge I’d crossed at the bottom of the hill, or worse, plunge towards the swollen river itself.

Mitsy broke the silence by howling piteously beside me. The couple of long heartfelt yowls from deep in her stomach jolted me back into action. I shifted carefully in the precariously wedged car, unclipped my seat belt and reached round for my coat, which was on top of the pile of possessions on the back seat, but the car groaned and trembled with the movement and I turned quickly back and sat very still, my hands clasped in my lap. The car stopped moving.

After a moment I resolved to try again, and inched my fingers towards my mobile phone, which was on the seat beside the cat box, but my shaking hands only succeeded in nudging it onto the floor, where it fell with a clunk and slid under the seat out of reach. Holding my breath, and very carefully so as not to upset the balance of the car, I reached sideways with my left hand and lifted the handle of the pet carrier, easing it over onto my lap. The change in weight caused the car to tremble and creak, but it didn’t move. With my other hand I tried slowly pushing open the driver’s door. It seemed incredibly heavy, as the angle of the car meant I had to push upwards and out at the same time.

With the carrier lodged between the steering wheel and my chest, I shoved harder at the door, using all the strength in my arm and shoulder. For a moment I thought I wasn’t going to be able to move it, but then it swung back; the car bucked against the tree with the sudden movement and immediately snow rushed in, stinging the right side of my face, my arm and leg. The tree creaked against the metal of the car, protesting and cracking under the weight and suddenly it gave way altogether and the car broke free.

For a split second the car seemed to teeter in mid-air. With a mighty heave, I dragged the plastic carrier off my chest and made a desperate leap from the vehicle just as the door swung down again. The crushing weight smacked heavily against my temple as I dived for safety, knocking me half senseless as I landed awkwardly in cold, deep snow. Somewhere in my befuddled brain, I was vaguely aware that the car was teetering backwards. It part-slid, part-rolled away from me down the hill, snapping small trees and twigs from the hedgerow as it went. I watched, stunned, as it slewed sideways, missing the narrow bridge, and launched itself backwards with a last suicidal plunge into the fast-flowing river below.

Chapter Two (#ulink_a7f50470-b731-5283-ae98-27b0eb8d35fb)

Full consciousness returned with the realisation that I was huddled in deep snow on the verge of an empty road with what sounded like a cat’s plaintive mewing ringing in my ears. My head hurt. Looking down, I saw that I was clad in jeans, which were wet through from lying in the snow, and I could barely feel my legs. Shivering uncontrollably in a soggy, snow-saturated sweater, a mixture of bewilderment and fright flooded through me; I had absolutely no idea who I was or how I had come to be here.

My mind felt sluggish and my stomach tightened involuntarily with fear as I sat up and stared round me, blinking through snowflakes that were landing thick and fast on my hair, face and lashes. Reaching up to brush the cold wetness from the long hair fringing my face, my hands came away sticky with red, clotting blood. So this body was injured, I thought numbly, but why, how? What was I doing way out here freezing slowly to death in the snow?

A cat miaowed again somewhere nearby. Looking round I saw a plastic pet carrier lying nearby. So I hadn’t imagined the sound; there really was a cat. But what had I been doing out in the middle of nowhere in such weather and with a cat in a box?

Blinking away the moisture that was collecting on my lashes, I peered round me through the billowing snow, looking for any possessions that might belong to me, but apart from the partially buried cat box the freshly fallen snow was empty of clues.

Snow beat against me, freezing on my face as I struggled unsteadily to my feet. I knew I had to get moving. Straining my eyes through the blizzard, I felt a momentary rush of hope. Could that be a cluster of buildings? I wasn’t sure, but…yes, wasn’t that smoke wreathing from a chimney in the distance? Drawing in a cold raggedy breath I swallowed hard, trying not to cry. Maybe the cat and I—whoever I was—were saved.

It was eerily silent in the snow; sort of muffled as if I had plugs in my ears and couldn’t clear them by shaking my head. Taking a deep icy breath, I tried to pull myself together. I couldn’t leave the cat to freeze, so I fumbled to pick up the carrier and started gingerly up the hill, slipping and sliding in inadequate boots until I reached a footpath, ankle-deep in snow.

Soon I could no longer feel my toes. My head was swimming, my breath coming in short gasps, clouding the air in front of me as the snow continued to batter me; little pinpricks of icy cold stinging my cheeks, eyes and hands like tiny bullets. Every so often an overhanging twig would snatch at me, unloading a torrent of fresh snow down my neck and adding to my misery. My nose was running, my eyes smarting and I was shivering so violently that my teeth were no longer chattering but crunched together in a permanent grimace. Every step was a challenge now, every breath an agony, and the weight of the cat seemed to be wrenching my arms from their sockets, creating a dull ache across my back.

And then, whilst trying to shift the weight of the carrier slightly, my frozen feet shot from under me and I pitched sideways into the snow, landing with a crash on my right side. The cat box rolled away from me into a bank of deep snow on the edge of the field. It hadn’t gone far, but I was too cold and too exhausted to do more than drag myself to where it lay on its side in the thick snow and hunch my body over it.

Snow hammered against my back. I simply didn’t have the strength to go on. I ran an icy finger along the mesh of the cage and I felt a wet nose press against me. I wondered vaguely if I should try to undo the catch on the carrier to let the animal go free; maybe then it would have a better chance of survival than it had trapped here with me. But I didn’t seem to have control of my hands any more and it was just too much trouble when all I wanted to do was rest my aching head on the pillow of cold white softness and sleep…