Decay Inevitable

Elisabeth was moving better now. She had taken a battering, but there was no lasting damage. She felt better once they had stolen some fresh clothing from a washing line; the blood on her own shirt had stiffened to a dark red crust. She looked good in the new clothes. Her pallor might almost have been of her own design. Her beauty was fragile, non-committal. Brittle as porcelain.

They were covering around eight to ten miles a day now, Will estimated. They shied away from people, choosing to make their way across country. It was slower, but it meant they were guaranteed passage without scrutiny. The only people they had to dodge were farmers in tractors ploughing their fields or heavy-coated figures taking dogs for a walk.

Good luck paid them a visit when Sadie found a gulley partially shielded by trees. At the bottom ran a disused railway line, great tufts of weed sprouting between the sleepers. It was a joy to walk along the gravel, hidden from view; it created a pocket of silence. It gave them direction and purpose. Occasionally, if they did hear someone approaching, they could clear the track in seconds for the shade of the boughs that dogged the line.

“How far will the line take us, do you think?” Sadie asked.

“It would be nice if it took us to the front door of Sloe Heath,” Will said. “But I doubt it will. Let’s take advantage of it though. Try to walk a bit further than usual today.”

They talked little, but the further they went along the tracks, the more Will’s thoughts turned to what he might find at Sloe Heath. He had no contact name and no understanding of what kind of facility it was. Presumably he wouldn’t be allowed to just walk in and start hunting around for clues. He wondered too if he would see any of the men that had broken into his and Cat’s flat. His palms itched. He hoped so.

Sadie was slowing them down with a series of games. First she had been playing hide and seek, which distressed Elisabeth, and now she was walking along the line, arms outstretched, pretending to be a tightrope walker. Irritated, Will barked at her to catch them up and stop fooling. His charity towards her was lessening by the minute.

“I knew it was a bad idea, bringing you along,” he snapped.

“Will,” Elisabeth said, in a voice that he recognised from their past. It was her stop it now or we’ll have an argument voice.

“Well, it was. We’ve got enough to worry about without playing mum and dad too.”

“Pretend I’m not here,” Sadie retorted. “I don’t need a nanny.”

“What were you doing back there, anyway?” Will stared at her. “What were you doing hiding in that old farmhouse? Where are you from?”

“Never mind.”

“No, come on,” Will persisted. “I want to know. You could be a missing person for all we know. The police could be trying to find you. Which wouldn’t be helpful, let me tell you.”

“What difference would it make? The police are after you anyway. They think you killed your wife.”

Elisabeth stepped between them. “We aren’t getting anywhere. Why don’t we talk while we walk?”

“Elisabeth, she could be, I don’t know, she could be helping them out.”

Elisabeth frowned. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“She might be on their side. She might be – oh, I don’t know.” Will stalked away, angry with his inarticulacy and the lunatic thought that Sadie might somehow be plotting against him. If he was going to do something for Cat, it wasn’t going to happen with his head full of wool. Elisabeth caught up with him.

“What is wrong with you, Will? She’s just a girl. What does it matter where she’s from? If she doesn’t want to talk, she shouldn’t have to. She’s with us. Friends. Let her feel secure for a while. At least until we get where we’re going.”

Will’s eyes were fixed on the horizon, where perspective made the tracks vanish. “I’m sorry, Eli. I’m not myself. I can’t stop it. I feel as though I’m being hollowed out, chipped away. I just want to get there and find out what it is I have to find out.”

Elisabeth rubbed his arm. “You’re harder than this,” she said.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Ten days ago I was sitting in an armchair, wearing a pair of sheepskin slippers, while Catriona read out crossword clues. We were drinking tea. We were being a couple, in any of the million dull ways people are couples. Like we were a couple once. Just getting on with things, quietly.”

Eli pressed her forehead against his shoulder. “I wonder if we should have had children,” she said. “I mean, obviously, considering what happened between us, it was better we didn’t. But I wonder if you’d be better with Sadie if you had kids.”

Will couldn’t speak for a while. Cool wind swept down from the top of the gulley, spiced with burnt wood smells. Bonfire smells. It would be darkening within the hour.

“Go and talk to her,” Eli said. “She might offer some information about herself before too long. It could be that she just needs to get to know us first. Feel happy around us.”