Page 59 of Breaking the Dark

Jessica sighs and casts her gaze around. She needs a way to find out who this girl really is. She says, “What school are you at?”

“Oh, just a tiny place, near the coast in Suffolk.”

“What’s it called?”

“Truscott House.”

Jessica nods. “Shall I call them?”

“What for?”

“Ask to speak to you. See what they say. Then you’d know if you’re real or not. Yes?”

Belle’s eyes grow wide. “Oh,” she says. “Yes. Why not?”

“What’s the number?”

“No idea.”

“Oh, okay, let me google it.”

She goes to take her phone from her pocket, but then Belle says, “There’s literally no service out here at all.”

Jessica sighs. “I’ll have to do it when I get back to the village. You could come with me if you want? Apparently, they serve a cream tea at my hotel from two. I’ve been wanting to have one. I mean, what even is a cream tea?” She hits Belle with what she hopes is an agenda-free smile.

Belle returns the smile. “It’s just tea from a pot, with some cakes and sandwiches on the side.”

“Tea from a pot! I’ve been here for three days and not one damn person has given me tea from a pot. I must say I’m a little disappointed.”

“Life’s too short for teapots,” says Belle with a smile. Then she looks behind her in the direction of the house. “I mean, it sounds nice, but I kind of don’t really go into the village.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t really know. It’s just, I get to the gate and then…something always happens. Or sometimes I don’t even get to the gate at all. I think maybe I might be a bit agoraphobic?”

Jessica frowns at hearing that word again. “Really? But what about when you leave for school?”

“I’m not really sure. I suppose I just get in a car and go. But when it comes to me just, you know, leaving, it never quite happens.”

“Well, let’s test that, shall we?” She gestures to Belle with a nod of her head.

Belle nods back and guides her toward the driveway and the pair of rusty gates.

“How do they open?”

“There’s a button,” Belle replies. “Just under that little bush.”

Jessica locates it and presses it. The rusty gates begin slowly to come apart. Belle instructs the dogs to stay, with the strange tongue clicks, and then starts to walk toward the gap. Jessica stands and watches. All seems normal, all seems fine. And then suddenly the blue sky turns black with storm clouds and rain begins to fall, so hard and so immediate that they are both soaked to the skin within seconds.

“Oh my God,” says Belle, turning up the collar of her coat and dashing back in the direction of the house.

“Hold on!” Jessica calls out. “Just wait! It’s only rain!”

“I hate the rain!” Belle calls back. “We’ll go another time.”

“No!” Jessica yells and then she feels it coming, the diesel and the grossness and she knows she should resist it, but she also knows that she wants to go home, and she can’t go home until she’s made progress on this case, and she knows that this here now, this crazy rain-drenched moment, this is her chance to make progress on the case, and so she allows herself to fill up with the sensation and then she races back to Belle. It takes her a second to scoop her up, she feels light as air in her arms, and then another second to swoop through the air, through the hard, lashing rain and through the tall rusty gates and then come to a halt on the soft grassy verge across the lane, where she gently unhooks her arm from around Belle and lowers her to the ground.

Belle stares up at her breathlessly. “What was that?” she asks in awe.

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