Page 83 of A Face in the Crowd
‘What do you mean?’
‘I could still buy it.’
I turn to take him in, but Ben is transfixed by the house. His grip on my wrist is loose and I could probably pull clear if I wanted.
‘We could live here,’ he says.
‘You died,’ I reply. ‘People would see you. They’d know.’
A shrug. An annoying damn shrug. ‘I’m not stupid. I know that, but I never stopped thinking about buying it for you. It’s what you always wanted.’
I say nothing. There’s no reason to point out that there’s a difference between whatIwanted and whathedid.
Ben lets go of my wrist and takes a few steps towards the side of the house. He turns back and looks at me as if to say,Are you coming?
‘Will you let me go?’ I ask, glancing to the way his sleeve is still dangling across his hand. ‘We can go our own ways. I promise I’ll never tell anyone about you.’
Ben doesn’t acknowledge what I’ve said. He nods towards the side of the house. ‘Come on.’
He takes a step away, but I don’t move.
‘Luce?’
‘Please let me go?’
‘Come and look first.’
I want to leave but he raises his sleeve just enough to show me the blade. I wouldn’t get far and it doesn’t feel like I have much of a choice. He was never violent with me when we were together. There was never anything physical, though I’ve realised in the years since how I cowered from him. How I avoided confrontation. How I wasscaredof him. That, perhaps, deep down, I always realised he was capable of something awful.
Ben waits for me to get in front of him and I follow the path around towards the back of the house. There are more towering hedges here, dousing the lengthy garden in shadow. There is so much more land than I imagined.
‘Where?’ I ask.
‘Inside.’
I turn back to the house and shiver from the cold. There’s a large wooden plank across the back door, but the hook is empty. On the ground next to it sits the broken remains of a thick padlock.
‘I’d like to go,’ I say.
Ben moves quickly across to me and pushes the tip of the knife into my side. ‘Inside,’ he repeats, more firmly this time.
‘Ben…’
‘Inside.’
I do as I’m told once more, pushing open the back door and moving into the house. Dust immediately catches in my nose as the freshness of the air outside is replaced by throat-clogging mustiness. Ben is directly behind me as I move into what turns out to be a kitchen. The windows have been covered with paper and the only light comes through a patch that has been peeled away. It takes a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the murk, in which time Ben has closed the door behind us.
The tiles on the floor are cracked and the fridge door hangs open. There is a bottle of washing-up liquid in the windowsill and crusty old dishes in the sink.
‘It needs a bit of work in here,’ Ben says. ‘New fridge and freezer, obviously. I’d probably rip out the cooker, but there’s a lot of room for something more modern. The piping seems solid, though. It’s got central heating, which I didn’t expect.’
He’s perched on the corner of a unit, speaking with his hands as if an estate agent trying to close a deal.
‘We could knock this wall through,’ he says, pointing to an area behind me. I turn to look where he means. ‘There’s a pantry through there,’ he adds, ‘but it could easily be converted into an integrated dining room along with this kitchen.’
Almost through expectation, I poke my head into the room beyond, which is a large cupboard filled with tins of food that are covered with dust. Aside from footprints in the dust, it doesn’t feel as if anyone’s lived here –properlylived here – in a long while. Ben’s clearly spent time here, though. I guess he was only using Jade’s flat to keep half an eye on me. It would explain why there was barely anything there.
He’s in another of the doorways and beckons me through into a hallway and then a living room. The wooden floorboards creak ominously as I head inside – and this room does seem more lived in. There is a sleeping bag on the floor, next to a large rucksack. The walls are lined with bookcases and there’s a rocking chair in the corner.
