The Hidden Girl by Louise Millar Read Free Book Online Page B

into bed fully clothed, too cold to undress. Under the duvet, she smelt the salty odour of her own body again. It reminded her of those press trips she ran to precarious places, when social niceties quickly disappeared among the journalists she looked after, as they lived in hot tents or ramshackle hotels, in pursuit of a story. Maybe it was a good thing Will wasn’t here. It must be three days since she’d showered.
    Hannah watched the snow outside the window. Was it only eight months since she’d stopped doing the press trips? It felt like eight years.
    She suspected the skills she’d needed to run a foreign press trip under pressure were already out of date, her hard-earned network of contacts quickly fading. How long would it be before she forgot the basics? Would she still know the best time during a period of political unrest to shift up to armoured transport; or how to track down and protect locals who wanted to speak to the foreign press; or when – and when not – to bribe police when they were stopped on the road? Would she remember all the little tricks she’d learnt from Jane about how to secure a dodgy hotel door with a triangle of wood, and when to produce a bottle of whisky for her group after a tough day?
    The reward had been to read their campaigning stories in the newspapers back home and know that she’d helped to make it possible.
    It had been the best job of her life.
    Now it was gone.
    Without even the low murmur of a radiator, the bedroom was completely silent, apart from the soft thud of snow on glass. In fact, now Hannah thought about it, she’d hardly heard a sound all day – not a car, or even a plane – and, apart from Dax and Bill in Tornley, she hadn’t seen another soul.
    The setting was idyllic here, but the isolation was going to take some getting used to.
    Hannah picked up her phone, suddenly wanting to hear another voice. The clock said 1.08 a.m. She listened to the messages she’d received earlier, from Mum and Dad in Johannesburg, wanting to know how the house-move had gone. She heard the concern in their voices that they were not there to help her and Will. She wished they were here, too. She’d had a bad feeling from the start that the endless delay in completing on their London flat would cause the move to clash with her parents’ annual trip to visit her brother in South Africa.
    There was another quick call from Jane, who was at a conference in New York, checking she was OK and telling her they were all missing her, back at the TSO office.
    Nothing, however, from Brian about the keys, or from Will.
    Hannah rolled over, hoping the studio sofa wouldn’t do Will’s back in again. She needed him fit for decorating. She imagined him right now, lost in one of his late-night sessions, that intense concentration on his face as he listened to playback, his long tanned arm pushing the faders up and down. Will never looked as at home anywhere as he did in that studio. She thought about how far he’d come. How proud she was of him.
    Snow flew faster past the bedroom window. She didn’t want to think what would happen if he couldn’t get home tomorrow either.
    Yawning, Hannah went to shut the curtains, then stopped. Walking along the lane today in thick snow had reminded her how it felt when nature took charge, when there was no option to travel underground, regardless of the storms or blizzards above. Here, nature ruled your days, and it had felt strangely restful, handing over that responsibility.
    Hannah burrowed into the warm. No, Mother Nature and she had not been on good terms for a long time. It would be a relief to make peace again; to fall back into the rhythms of the seasons and the natural cycle of the day. And to start with, tonight, she would sleep with the curtains open, now that there was no light pollution to keep her awake. It would be nice to wake gently with the dawn, instead of being rudely prodded by the alarm.
    Turning over, Hannah summoned the decorating