Thursday, 10 November
Isla knelt in the snow, and zoomed in the lens of her camera for a close-up shot of Nomad. The husky’s eyes were velvet-black. White fur bled into grey.
‘You’re absolutely gorgeous,’ she said, rising and ruffling the dog’s head, as his tail swished to and fro. She brushed snow from her knees, aware the minibus was waiting for her. The other guests from Camp Arctic, all wrapped in snowsuits, seemed to scowl at her from the iced-over windows. They’d been on a husky ride, and clearly wanted to head back. Isla hadn’t joined them on the ride, instead taking pictures of the dogs, and the surrounding countryside and wildlife.
Earlier she’d spent time with Sami people, learning about their culture and history, while sitting in a tepee around an open fire eating game soup. It had briefly helped to free her mind.
Snow began to tumble from the pale sky, flakes stinging her cold cheeks.
‘Please come now,’ the minibus driver called, pulling his white, woolly bobble hat further down over his ears and stomping snow with heavy boots.
‘Coming – sorry.’ Isla tucked her camera away, and hurried towards him, almost slipping over. She climbed aboard, sensing a hostile environment. ‘Sorry for holding you all up,’ she said, as a young man looked at her from the back seat. ‘Sorry,’ she said again, scrambling into a seat, as they set off.
The woman next to her finally smiled. ‘Did you have a good day?’ she asked, her American accent strong. ‘Beautiful here, isn’t it?’
Isla nodded and smiled back. ‘Yes, yes it is.’
The minibus’s temperature gauge registered minus-seventeen Celsius, and the windscreen wipers, despite whipping across the glass at speed, were no match for the falling snow. Out of the front window, she could just make out the road stretching ahead of them, chalk-white.
Back at the hotel, the reception buzzed with people leaving and arriving. Cases were everywhere, and a suffocating feeling of chaos replaced her earlier sense of wellbeing. Jittery, she pushed through the throng, and headed past the reception desk.
‘How was your day?’ the red-headed woman called to her, smiling, before turning back to her computer screen.
‘Good, thanks.’ She itched to open the door that led to the sanctuary of her room.
‘What are your plans for your stay?’
Isla placed her hand on the doorknob. ‘I’m going to the Aurora Sky Station tomorrow night.’
‘You’ll enjoy that.’ The woman’s eyes were still fixed on the screen in front of her. ‘Make sure you wear thermals.’
Please stop talking. ‘I will.’
Isla eased open the door and stepped into the corridor, the woman’s voice trailing after her: ‘The weather conditions are looking good for the Northern Lights, so you might be lucky.’
Isla spent the next few hours jotting down the string of things she’d done and seen that day, before heading for the restaurant, where she sat alone. She ate herring-three-ways, and drank two glasses of wine, while writing up more notes, and somehow managed to block out any unwanted thoughts.
It was around ten o’clock that she returned to her room. But despite the day being full, tiring her to the point of exhaustion, she couldn’t sleep. Her brain whirred, and Carl Jeffery darted into her head like a phantom. She couldn’t switch off.
At midnight the wind got up. She squeezed her eyes shut, listening as it howled and whistled, ebbing and flowing outside her window like a roaring waterfall. She imagined snowflakes twisting and turning in the black night, whipping up like a tornado. It must have lasted an hour before silence resumed.
Her brain finally began to close down, and she was in a place between asleep and awake, when there was a tapping sound on her window. Her eyes shot open, her body drenched with sweat as her mind tumbled back to that terrible night.
Six years ago
Isla’s eyes sprang open. It was the tapping sound again.
Carl had laughed the day before. Said she worried too much. That the sound was nothing more than a tree branch moving in the light breeze, brushing against her ground-floor window. Or perhaps she was imagining it. That’s what he’d said too.
But this was the second night it had woken her, and last night she’d felt sure someone was out there in the darkness. Just like Bronwyn had mentioned. It couldn’t be her imagination.
She threw back her duvet, too hot in the Australian climate anyway, got out of bed and padded to the window. Hands shaking, she eased open the blind.
Thank God. Maybe Carl had been right – that the nearby tree, silhouetted against the night sky, was the culprit. But, as she peered closer, a full moon brightening the area, she knew the branches couldn’t reach her window. And, as she peered closer to the window, she saw a movement. Someone was out there, standing twenty feet away, where the hostel grounds morphed with the neighbouring forest. A place she’d spent so much time taking photographs of the wildlife.
She squinted into the darkness, trying to make out the figure. He was standing so still. A hat pulled low over his forehead and a scarf wrapped around his face, despite the heat of the night. She closed the blind and rushed back to bed. It was all very well travelling to India, New Zealand and Australia alone, independent, but what happened now? What happened when fear crept in?
She’d already decided that she would go home, that she’d had enough. The last six weeks had been great with Carl; she liked him, but it was nothing serious. And Bronwyn’s death still played heavy on her mind – especially as there was an ongoing inquiry. The police no longer believed it was suicide. The thought had made her uneasy.
Her final trip to Canada could wait. She’d already booked her flight home and would be leaving in a few days.
The tapping stopped, but it was several hours before she drifted into a doze, and it was almost eight o’clock when the chattering laughter of a kookaburra startled her, and the sun’s rays burned through the blind. She forced herself to get out of bed and into the shower, and was lost in the bliss of the soapy water, when the knock came on the door of her room.
‘Are you ready, Isla?’ It was Carl. He hadn’t really been the same since she’d told him she was going back to England. That she missed her family. Said he thought she might stay. Be with him for ever.
She turned off the water, wrapped her towel around herself, and raced to open the door.
‘Not ready yet?’ he said, coming into the room. ‘I thought we’d agreed eight.’
She smiled, as he perched on her bed. ‘You OK?’ she asked.
‘Yep, just thought you’d be ready.’
The truth was, apart from knowing he worked and lived in Sydney, she knew little about him. They’d never really got to the place where they told each other their life histories, mainly having fun – and great sex.
‘Sorry. I did say eight.’ She stepped towards him, bent down and kissed his lips. He smelt of sun cream, and the musky, distinctive aftershave he always wore. ‘Give me five minutes. I’ll be right with you.’
Carl dragged his fingers through his hair as he watched Isla dash around, putting on her pants and bra, a pair of khaki-coloured shorts and an orange vest T-shirt. She tied her hair into a ponytail, and slapped sun cream onto her face, shoulders and arms.
‘Ta da! Ready,’ she said with a bright smile, putting on sunglasses and grabbing her camera. But he didn’t smile. He was acting odd. She hated seeing him this way.
He’d promised to take her to the Blue Mountains, as she desperately wanted to go before she returned to England. ‘I know a great place,’ he’d said. ‘You’ll get some great shots of the Three Sisters.’
Outside the hostel, the sun burnt down from a clear blue sky at around thirty degrees, despite it still being early. They climbed into Carl’s truck, and he stepped down on the throttle, and sped along the highway. Should she tell him she’d seen someone outside the window? But then he’d been dismissive before.
‘I heard it again,’ she said finally, her voice small.
He changed gear, his shirtsleeves hugging his muscular forearms, the tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock of the indicator seeming loud, as he slowed to swerve round a corner.
‘Sorry, what?’ he said, as though he didn’t understand, looking at her from the corner of his eyes.
She leant back, the headrest vibrating under her head, as he sped up again along the straight, lonely road. She turned to look at him. He seemed relaxed, one hand on the steering wheel; the other fiddling with the CD player, finger jabbing through tracks until he reached Aerosmith’s ‘I Don’t Want to Miss a Tthing’.
They continued for some way, before Isla tried once more. ‘Someone tapped on my window.’ Why had her voice taken on a timid tone? She wasn’t timid. She had never been timid. Was it Carl? Was he making her uneasy?
He twisted to look her way. ‘Isla, you couldn’t have.’ He smiled. ‘Who the hell would tap on your window in the night? It’s like I said before – a tree, I reckon.’
‘There is a tree outside. I looked.’
‘There you go then.’
‘Except it’s too far away from the window.’
He gave a grim laugh. ‘You’ve been watching too many thrillers.’
‘No,’ she said, the makings of a foggy headache nagging at her temples. ‘I never watch thrillers.’ She sighed. ‘Carl, there was someone out there,’ she continued. ‘Or at least I think there was.’
‘You think. Can you hear yourself, Isla?’ He took both hands from the wheel and threw them in the air in a shrug. He turned to face her. ‘There’s nobody out there, Isla,’ he said. ‘You’ve got an overactive imagination.’
He pulled off the road, tyres bouncing over bumpy ground, and screeched to a stop in a clearing. ‘There’s a great place to take photographs through there.’ He pointed towards some eucalyptus bushes.
She would have to let things go for now.
They got out and made their way through the bushes to an area that looked out over the Three Sisters. The sheer drop below made her stomach leap.
‘Don’t go near the edge,’ Carl whispered, standing so close she could feel his warm breath on her neck. ‘I wouldn’t want to lose you.’
‘It’s absolutely stunning,’ she said, pulling out her camera, and snapping pictures of the sun glinting off the mountain range giving it a magical purple and blue tinge. She turned and crouched beside a redback spider scurrying across a web, and zoomed in her camera lens.
‘Jesus, Isla, keep back from him,’ Carl said, placing a hand on her shoulder and squeezing. ‘He’ll kill ya as soon as look at ya.’
She rose once more, and tucked a straying hair behind her ear. ‘Everything is so amazing,’ she said, but she was feeling unsettled. ‘Thanks for bringing me here.’
‘Pleasure.’ He scuffed the undergrowth with his boot. ‘And, yeah, it is pretty awesome. A great country, even if I do say so myself.’
‘Are you from Sydney originally?’ she said. It was the first time she’d asked.
‘Melbourne,’ he said, crossing his arms over his broad chest.
‘Do your parents live there?’
He shook his head. ‘Not any more – Dad died a while back, now. I’ve got a younger sister, but when Mum left, she only stayed with me and Dad for a few years, before being taken into foster care.’
‘I’m sorry. You must miss him.’ Her dad had tried so hard not to cry at the airport, when she first set off on her travels, and she had tried too.
‘He wasn’t a good ’un, Isla.’ Carl’s expression darkened. ‘Let’s leave it at that.’
‘Sure, sorry.’ She raised her camera and aimed it at his face. ‘Can I take a photo of you to show my mum? I’ve told her all about you.’
He grabbed her wrist. ‘Hey, that hurts,’ she cried, as he jerked it downwards.
‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ he said, those dark haunting eyes that had won her over now cold. He was barely recognisable.
‘OK,’ she said, as he released her. She pushed her camera into her rucksack. ‘Is everything all right? You’re acting really weird.’
His face flashed red. ‘We should get back.’
‘But we’ve only just got here. I thought we’d take a walk. Maybe see Wentworth Falls.’
‘Wentworth Falls is miles from here,’ he said, taking off, without looking back.
She followed to find him sitting behind the wheel of his truck, the engine running. She climbed in beside him, and before she could clip her seatbelt, he reversed out of the clearing at speed. Tyres skidding on dry earth. She wanted to ask again if he was OK. Had she done something wrong? Was it because she was leaving? But it was as though her throat had tightened around her words, and she couldn’t speak, afraid of how he might react.
That evening they went to a restaurant near the hostel. Carl, in front of the waiters, was back to his charming self, as though nothing had happened earlier, but Isla’s stomach felt too knotted to eat. They talked and drank wine, as Carl ate pasta. He told her more about how he’d travelled Australia over the last couple of years, been to Canberra, Brisbane and Perth. ‘Everyone should see the Great Barrier Reef, Isla. Dive down there among the amazing fish, see the corals. You need to see more of this wonderful country,’ he said, not for the first time. ‘You should stay with me. We could travel together.’ He leant forward, taking her hand. ‘I’d really like that.’
‘I can’t,’ she said, pulling away. ‘I’m homesick as hell.’ And now, on top of everything else, she couldn’t get out of her head the way he’d looked at her earlier, spoken to her. It was time to head back to the UK. Begin a new chapter in her life.
That night she told him again she had to leave, her head resting against his back. His muscles tensed as she spoke, and he exhaled a long breath, making her uneasy.
‘We can keep in touch. I don’t want to lose you from my life,’ she said, but it was far from the truth. It was over.
He left her room around eleven, and she curled like a question mark on the bed, hugging her teddy bear, her eyes open, thinking about home.
As she drifted into a fitful sleep, a nightmare latched on to her subconscious. She was falling fast, grasping at the still, hot air as she tumbled from the Blue Mountains. She woke with a gasp, sweating, the sheets twisted beneath her. There was no doubting that she’d made the right decision to leave as soon as possible.
At around 4 a.m. the tapping on her window began again. At first she lay still, trying to ignore it, hoping it would stop. But a sudden sound, as though fingernails were scraping the windowpane, made her shoot upright.
She pulled back her duvet, heart banging against her ribcage, and moved towards the window. She eased open the blind, hands shaking, and let out a strangled scream.
A man stood so close that her reflection morphed with his image. He wore a green beanie hat. A scarf covered his face. She fumbled the blind closed, raced across the room and turned on the light. She checked the door was locked and pressed her body against it, holding her chest, her breathing erratic.
She grabbed her mobile phone from her bedside cabinet, and tapped in 000.
‘Someone’s out there,’ she cried, as the phone was answered.
‘Try to keep calm, love.’ A woman on the other end. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Isla Johnson.’
‘And where’s there, Isla?’
‘Bristol Hostel. There’s someone outside. You have to help me.’
A rap on the door. ‘Isla!’ Thank God. Carl. ‘Are you OK in there?’ he called. ‘I heard you scream.’
She raced to open up, fumbling with the lock. Did I scream?
‘Carl?’ As she opened the door, her phone slipped through her fingers and clattered to the floor. He was wearing a green beanie, a scarf draped around his neck. There was a thick rope in his hand. Her body froze. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘I can’t let you go, Isla,’ he whispered, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. ‘You can’t leave me.’
She went to scream, but he covered her mouth, grabbed her, and slammed her so hard onto the bed that the cheap mattress creaked, and the metal frame bounced on the floorboards. Stars danced in her head, as she fought back panic and pain.
‘Please, Carl, stop,’ she attempted through his heavy, sweaty hand. But his eyes were wild as he wrapped the rope around her slim neck.
He was unreachable.
Now
Tap, tap, tap.
Isla leapt out of bed, darted across to the window and, beating down the fear that someone would be standing behind the glass, yanked back the curtain. A branch, heavy with snow, swayed back and forth in the wind. Tap, tap, tap.
‘Thank God,’ she whispered, closing the curtains. She hugged her chest, her heartbeat strong under her fingers. ‘Get a grip, Isla,’ she muttered, rushing back to bed and covering her head with the duvet.