Page 140 of The Love Letter

‘Come on, Lu,’ Kurt encouraged. ‘It’s just a little poteen. It’ll warm you.’

With his torch now on the floor, and her own lowered by her side, her eyes adjusted to the shadows and traced a path to the door. ‘Sorry, I’m not good with hard liquor.’ She forced a shaky laugh, and angled her body to where the door stood open, but he had her cornered. ‘What are you doing here?’

He retrieved his torch and his teeth looked suddenly sharp and white as the beam flashed briefly across his face. ‘I told you – I was real worried about you. And I could ask you the same question. Just what are you doing in an abandoned house in the middle of the night?’

‘It’s a long story. Why don’t we head back outside and I’ll explain when we get to the hotel?’

‘You’re searching for something you think is here, right?’ Kurt shone his torch across the uprooted floorboards. ‘Buried treasure?’

‘Yes, that’s it, but I haven’t found any yet. It could be under any of them.’ Joanna indicated the floorboards.

‘Fine, then why don’t I help you? And then we’re out of here and back to the nearest fire before you catch your death.’

Joanna turned exit strategies over in her mind. He was too tall, too broad, for her to physically take him on. All she had on her side was that he wouldn’t see it coming. ‘Okay . . . I’ll continue at my end, you can start over there.’ She nodded to the far end of the room, away from where the rusted tin lay in its hiding place close to her feet.

‘Then we’ll meet in the goddamned middle,’ he laughed.

As he bent down to pull up floorboards, she bent too and surreptitiously nudged the tin further under the still-remaining boards.

‘I have sweet FA so far. You find anything yet?’ he called.

‘No. Let’s leave it and head back,’ she shouted to him, trying to make herself heard above the screaming wind. The house felt as though it was being shaken at its very foundations by the battering it was taking.

‘Nah, we’re here now, might as well see it through. I’m done on my side, I’ll help you on yours.’

‘No, I’m almost done too—’

But he was already at her side, rummaging amongst the broken floorboards. He emerged with the tin, his eyes slanted in a knowing look.

‘Well, looky here, Jo,’ he crowed. His large hands gripped the tin and popped open the lid with little effort. An envelope fluttered out and onto the floor.

‘Wait . . .’ she said.

‘I’ll keep it safe for you, Jo.’

‘No, I . . .’

With mounting horror, she realised that he had used her real name. She watched as Kurt tucked the letter into a pocket of his waterproof, zipping it shut.

‘Well, that was easier than expected.’ He smirked and moved towards her. She stumbled back, struggling not to trip over the holes in the floor. ‘Let’s stop playing, Jo,’ he said, his voice holding no trace of its former American warmth.

In the near darkness, his features were carved in shadow, his body solid and forbidding. She found her footing, her body tense, her heart beating rapidly.

‘What game is it?’ She smiled at him as confidently as she could. ‘Here, I found something else too. Look down there.’ She pointed her torch into the space beneath the floorboards. As he turned from her to follow the beam, Joanna launched her full weight onto him, her hands shoving him forward.

With a grunt of surprise, he lost his footing and stumbled, but his fall was broken by the wall. Recovering himself, he turned back to her, and she rammed a punishing knee into his crotch.

‘Aargh! You bitch!’ he groaned, doubling over.

She ran towards the door, realising she’d dropped her torch and was unable to see anything, when he caught her ankle and sent her down. As she hesitated to recover her bearings, a pair of arms grabbed her from behind, tightening in a vice-like grip around her waist. Kicking and screaming, she was dragged along until one hard shove sent her toppling down some stairs into the darkness below.

Simon stood outside the cottage, still nauseated from what he’d discovered upstairs. The wind was wailing like a banshee in his ears, the rain driving into his face.

‘Joanna, for God’s sake, where are you?’ he screamed into the wind.

Above its wailing came another sound. A woman was screaming in terror or agony, he couldn’t decipher which. As the moon appeared from behind a fast scudding cloud, Simon glanced at the big house out alone in the estuary, the tops of waves around it frothing and dancing with wind-whipped foam. The screaming was coming from inside the house. Seeing that the water in front of him was too deep to wade across, he raced back to his car and turned on the engine.

Joanna came to with a moan of pain, revived by the rain splattering on her face. Her brain felt wrapped in thick fog and through her blurred vision the moon above her was a shifting, snowy sky-island. She raised herself up, forcing her brain to recover her bearings. She realised she was lying outside the front door of the house. She breathed in and felt an excruciating pain in her left-hand side as she did so. A cry escaped her as she fell back on the rough gravel, another dizzy spell threatening to rob her of consciousness. Immediately, hands grabbed her under the shoulders and someone began to drag her across the gravel.