Whiteout - Ken Follett [91]
“Like, where?”
“How about that attic you showed me earlier?”
Craig was thrilled. They would be completely alone, and no one would disturb them. “Brilliant,” he said, and he stood up.
They put on coats and boots, and Sophie pulled on a pink woolly hat with a bobble. It made her look cute and innocent. “A bundle of joy,” Craig said.
“What is?”
“You are.”
She smiled. Earlier, she would have called him “so boring” for saying something like that. Their relationship had changed. Maybe it was the vodka. But Craig thought the turning point had come in the bathroom, when they had dealt with Tom together. Perhaps Tom, by being a helpless child, had forced them to act like adults. After that, it was hard to revert to being sulky and cool.
Craig would never have guessed that the way to a girl’s heart might be cleaning up puke.
He opened the barn door. A cold wind blew a flurry of snow over them like confetti. Craig stepped out quickly, held the door for Sophie, then closed it.
Steepfall looked impossibly romantic. Snow covered the steeply sloping roof, lay in great mounds on the windowsills, and filled the courtyard to the depth of a foot. The lanterns on the surrounding walls had halos of golden light filled with dancing snowflakes. Snow encrusted a wheelbarrow, a stack of firewood, and a garden hose, transforming them into ice sculptures.
Sophie’s eyes were wide. “It’s a Christmas card,” she said.
Craig took her hand. They crossed the courtyard with high steps, like wading birds. They rounded the corner of the house and came to the back door. Craig brushed a layer of snow off the top of a trash can. He stood on it and heaved himself up onto the low roof of the boot lobby.
He looked back. Sophie was hesitating. “Here!” he hissed. He held out his hand.
She grasped it and pulled herself up onto the can. With his other hand, Craig grabbed the edge of the sloping roof, to steady himself, then helped her up beside him. For a moment they lay side by side in the snow, like lovers in bed. Then Craig got to his feet.
He stepped onto the ledge that ran below the loft door, kicked off most of the snow, and opened the big door. Then he returned to Sophie.
She got to her hands and knees but, when she tried to stand, her rubber boots slipped and she fell. She looked scared.
“Hold on to me,” Craig said, and pulled her to her feet. What they were doing was not very dangerous, and she was making more of it than she should, but he did not mind, for it gave him a chance to be strong and protective.
Still holding her hand, Craig stood on the ledge. She stepped up beside him and grabbed him around the waist. He would have liked to linger there, with her clinging to him so hard; but he went on, walking sideways along the ledge to the open door, then helped her inside.
He closed the door behind them and turned on the light. This was perfect, Craig thought excitedly. They were alone, in the middle of the night, and nobody would come in to disturb them. They could do anything they liked.
He lay down and looked through the hole in the floor into the kitchen. A single light burned over the door to the boot room. Nellie lay in front of the Aga, head up, ears cocked, listening: she knew he was there. “Go back to sleep,” he murmured. Whether she heard him or not, the dog put her head down and closed her eyes.
Sophie was sitting on the old couch, shivering. “My feet are freezing.”
“You’ve got snow in your boots.” He knelt in front of her and pulled her Wellingtons off. Her socks were soaked. He took those off, too. Her small white feet felt as if they had been in the fridge. He tried to warm them with his hands. Then, inspired, he unbuttoned his coat, lifted his sweater, and pressed the soles of her feet to his bare chest.
She said, “Oh, my God, that feels so good.”
She had often said that to him in his fantasies, he reflected; but not in quite the same circumstances.
2 A.M.
TONI sat in the control room, watching the monitors.
Steve and the guards had related everything that had happened, from when the “repair crew” entered the Great