The Shadows in the Street by Susan Hill Page B

sweatshirt, and one shoe from a black patent pair Marie wore.
    Mia had woken and was looking round, her face bewildered, and the wind blew at them across the field and cut round their heads.
    ‘OK,’ Abi said, ‘OK …’
    She ploughed her way back across the field, collected the buggy and went through the broken gate into the lane. Mia had started to cry.
    Abi walked fast, to get warm, to get away, and to help herself think about what she ought to do.

Sixteen
    Marley had his head out of the stable and began to toss it about and whinny with anticipation when Stacey drew up. She thought he knew Saturday and Sunday the minute dawn broke, though it was light later in the mornings now, the long days when they had started their ride at five and six o’clock were over. Still, she liked to be at the stables as early as she could, stretching the weekend out.
    Marley was a sure-footed, Coloured horse, the easiest Stacey had ever owned. The livery stables were three miles outside Lafferton on the Starly side so she could ride for a couple of hours without hitting much traffic, across the hill track and out onto the moor. But the weekends were sometimes a problem up there because of the mountain bikers and scramblers, and today she had heard on the early local news about a rally, so she took Marley along the road and through the gate that led towards the canal towpath. They might meet dog walkers and runners, sometimes other riders, but never noisy bikes. Not that Marley was bothered – he was that rare thing, the genuinely bomb-proof horse.
    There was no one on the path. Here the canal broadened out and flowed through the fields between pollarded willows. There was a thin mist floating over the water. With luck, Stacey thought, the sun would break through and it would be a fantastic day. She leaned forward to pat Marley’s neck.
    Marley was always keen to get going, but once out he was never wound up, never over-energetic, happy to canter if she pushed him but otherwise just to amble. He was ambling when she saw it. At first, she couldn’t tell what it was – a bundle of clothes or rubbish caught up in the roots of a tree maybe – but she kicked the horse on to go nearer. It looked odd.
    He wouldn’t go nearer. He stopped dead and tossed his head slightly. Stacey kicked. He wasn’t a horse that just stopped. He never did that.
    ‘Come on, come on, boy, what are you playing at? Walk on.’
    It took a lot to get him to move. She could feel him, torn between reluctance, the desire to stand his ground, and his usual willingness to do as he was asked.
    ‘Walk on, Marley.’
    After a moment or two, he walked.
    From where she was, sixteen hands above the dark water, Stacey had a view but not a full view. She waited, looked around, saw no one, no walker, no runner, not even a random dog.
    She didn’t want to go closer, didn’t want to find out, didn’t want to get off the safety of the horse’s back. But she knew she had to. She couldn’t just go. She knew she couldn’t.
    She slid to the ground and went slowly closer, hanging onto Marley’s reins, not because Marley would ever bolt away, but for her own reassurance. Because she knew, she said afterwards, she knew all along really, she didn’t think it was a bundle of old clothes from the first second.
    She knew.
    Thank God for mobile phones, though her hands were shaking so much she could hardly dial. The police were there in ten, maybe less, she heard the screaming tyres, saw them jump the stile and come running, and by then she was sitting on the ground, her head between her knees and the reins hooked over her arm, Marley’s reins, her lifeline to the great, steady, warm, breathing safety of her horse, who was cropping the grass beside her.
    The body of Chantelle Buckley had caught in the tree roots and the water flowed on round it and away, as if it was somehow abandoning her. She had been strangled and there were cuts about her face, though at first the cuts mingled