The wind in the trees roared like a raging sea and with that, and the cold, Marnie kept waking up. In the early morning the storm abated and she fell into a deep sleep at last, waking only with the first signs of light at eight o’clock. She climbed out of her sleeping bag feeling grubby and disgusting, ready to sell her soul for a decent shower. Instead, she stripped off her clothes and exposed her shrinking, goose-pimpled flesh to a cold sponge-down in the kitchen and dried herself on a blanket. She’d forgotten about towels. It was a luxury to climb into the car and put the heater on. She listened to the morning news programme as she left the house but there was nothing fresh about Anita’s murder, just a statement that the police were pursuing several lines of enquiry. She clicked off the radio. It felt strange and scary hearing that, when you were one of the lines of enquiry being pursued. Despite having thought of nothing else in her waking moments she still hadn’t decided what to do.
