Silent, The Boy (2)

Two Years Earlier, Lucy

In a daze, she started the walk back to the House.
Dad and Katie Whittaker and their son, a little boy with brown eyes and a dimple under their chin.
Dad and Katie Whittaker and their son, a little boy with brown eyes and a dimple under their chin.
Dad and Katie Whittaker and their son, a little boy with brown eyes and a dimple under their chin.

The words spun round and round, like a train speeding along track. Was the dark haired woman from the music room Katie Whittaker, the former wife of Dad's cousin and best friend? If so, she could understand why her adoptive parents – Mum's brother and his wife – had prevented Arthur or Terence Harlesden from remaining in touch with her.  There'd been a long list of grievances over the years, hadn't there? Her adoptive parents hated Dad because he'd cheated on Mum, not just once but on other occasions.

She stopped suddenly.  The sense of someone watching again.  
But no one there.

She hurried on.
Dad and Katie.
Katie and Dad.

Stopped once more.
Silence.
She broke into a sprint.

Footsteps again. Snapping branches.
Movement, obscured by the afternoon sunshine.
A figure stood by a tree, watching her.
A stationery figure in a light blue anorak, staring directly at her, like a crow perched on a fence.  

For a second or two, she thought of Ash, always wearing blue.  But Ash was miles away in bed in Yorkshire, sleeping off a hangover. The figure remained still, like the silence around her.  

Blue, blue, blue.  

The next second, the figure had gone.

She ran as fast as she could.  

A car approached then.