Midnight is a Lonely Place (44 page)

Safely downstairs he subsided into one of the deep armchairs beside his sleeping father. He realised suddenly that he was shaking again. A sheen of sweat iced his skin as the pain, which had seemed dulled upstairs, swept up his leg and took hold of him again. He lay back and closed his eyes, fighting to remain conscious.

‘I’ll check the fuses.’ Diana’s voice reached him through the roar in his ears. She groped in his pocket for the matchbox, paused for a moment to rest a gentle hand on Roger’s head, then she had gone.

Greg had allowed himself to slide away into the spinning kaleidoscope of pain, settling deeper into something approaching sleep when he felt a glass being pushed into his hand. ‘Brandy.’ The voice was crisp and commanding. ‘Come on, Greg. I’m sorry, but I need you awake.’

He opened his lips obediently and felt the fire on his tongue. For one more minute he resisted, then, choking, he felt himself propelled into full consciousness.

‘There are no trips out and I’ve tried all the fuses. Nothing works.’

Opening his eyes he realised the room was full of candlelight. He was still disorientated. ‘Did you smell the perfume?’

‘What perfume?’ She sounded irritated. ‘Did you hear me, Greg? The electricity is off. All of it. And I can’t find out what’s wrong.’ Her voice rose slightly and he realised that it was fear that he could hear. Desperately he took a grip on himself and swigged another mouthful of the brandy. Fire shot through his veins this time, and he felt his head clearing rapidly. ‘It’s the wind and the snow,’ he said as steadily as he could. ‘You know we are always being cut off when the weather’s bad. We’ve got the fire, and the Aga and candles. There’s nothing to worry about.’

‘No.’ She didn’t sound convinced. ‘What happened upstairs, Greg, it wasn’t Allie, was it.’ She sat down on the arm of the chair beside him. He could feel her trembling as she leaned against his shoulder. He reached for her hand and pressed it gently. ‘No. It wasn’t Allie.’

‘Then who –?’

He shook his head. ‘The wind? An earth tremor? Perhaps the shelves were under too much stress. Perhaps it was the cats. Where are they? Those two are quite capable of knocking a million books when they play scatty cats round the house.’

‘When they were young, perhaps.’ She sniffed. ‘Not now. Not for ages. Normally they are here, by the fire.’ Suddenly her eyes filled with tears. ‘I haven’t seen them since Allie came back.’

Greg frowned. Now that he noticed, their absence was a tangible thing. He took it for granted that one or the other or both would always be there, in the chair where he was sitting now, or on the sofa with his father, or on the rocking chair beside the Aga. The room without them was unfurnished; empty. Threatening. ‘I expect they’ve gone out before the weather worsens,’ he said, trying to comfort. ‘They won’t have gone far, not when it’s like this. They’re soft little buggers, for all they like to think they’re so tough.’

‘Oh Greg!’ A sob escaped her in spite of all her efforts to sound calm. ‘What’s happening? The car; the cats; Allie; Bill – I can’t bear it.’

He put his arm around her. ‘Just a sequence of strange coincidences,’ he said as firmly as he could. ‘And some bastard out there who will be behind bars before much longer if Paddy and Kate have anything to do with it.’

‘They will get through?’ It was a plea.

‘Of course they will get through.’ He wished he felt as positive as he sounded.

L

Sleet hit the side of the dune, lodging in the crevices of sand, standing a moment, half snow, half ice, then melting into the cracks and crannies. A further lump of sand fell away, and behind it the black peat, spongy, sweet, no longer encased in its jacket of airtight clay and meeting daylight for the first time in nearly two thousand years, began to wash in a black streak down the face of the excavation.

Deep down the great golden torc, symbol of Nion’s royal blood, settled further into the subsoil. Torn from its silver companion by its weight and accepted by whichever gods there were in that black underworld, it would never again see the light of the sun.

Far above, the sea was meek, restless, the waves brown from the sandbanks which the storm had chewed over and rearranged in the night. Overhead a skein of geese, flying low and fast, sent their ringing bugle cries out into the wind where they were lost.

Another high tide, another storm and the dune would be gone, the peat and the clay mingling in the churning depths of the North Sea, its secret hidden forever. Another slice of soft black soil peeled off and slid away and the air, corroding, acid, insidious, touched the arm which lay there cushioned on what had once been a raft of flowering rushes. Around the humerus, loose where once it had clung tightly, lay the twisted semi-circle of a priestly arm-ring.

‘Come on, through here.’ Patrick turned and gave Kate his hand. They were both panting now, exhausted from the scramble through the tangled, wet undergrowth.

‘You are sure you know where this short cut goes?’ Kate climbed after him, hearing her jacket rip once again on a trailing bramble as she levered herself up the slippery bank to stand beside him in a clearing.

‘Of course. Greg and I used to come this way all the time. It doesn’t go anywhere near the lane; it cuts off the whole corner and comes out just below the Farnboroughs’ place.’ Patrick looked round. It was quite dark in the clearing; the trees, glistening with sleet, hung low above their heads and they could hear the hiss of rain on the leaves of a holm oak. The air smelled of wet earth and beech mast and rotting leaves.

Kate shivered. She glanced at Patrick again. He had slung the gun across his back; in his hand was a stout staff which he had pulled from a thicket as they dived into the woods. Both gave her comfort. She glanced behind her again. Not for the first time she had the feeling that they were being watched. Her fist tightened on her own stick. Not as long as Paddy’s, but just as sturdy, she held it in front of her as she looked from side to side into the shadows.

Patrick saw her glance. ‘There’s no one around.’ He did not sound very confident. ‘If there were we’d hear the birds go up. Pheasants. Pigeon. They make a hell of a din if they are disturbed – you heard when we set them off. And there are magpies down here. They would all let us know if there was anyone around – or anything.’

She nodded. ‘I wish we had a dog with us all the same.’

Patrick nodded. He grinned. ‘A detachment of paras wouldn’t go amiss either. Come on. It can’t be much further. Once we’re on the road we’ll feel better.’

So, he was feeling it too. Kate looked behind her again. There was no sign of the way they had come. The tangle of brambles and dead brown grasses and nettles had closed without leaving any sign of where they had forced their way through. She felt a moment of panic. ‘Which way?’

‘Upwards. The road is quite a lot higher than Redall. It’s uphill all the way, I’m afraid. We’re bound to hit the road somewhere between Welsly Cross and the Farnboroughs’. We can’t get lost.’

‘No?’ she grinned wanly. ‘I hope those aren’t famous last words.’

He was about to set off again when he stopped. He gave her a long look, his thin face drooping with exhaustion. ‘You look absolutely whacked.’

She smiled. ‘So do you.’

‘It will all be over soon, won’t it?’

‘Of course it will.’ Trying to reassure him did nothing for her own confidence. She glanced up at the sky. Where she could see it, between the interlaced branches of the thicket, it was growing increasingly black. ‘We ought to get on.’

‘I know. It was an excuse to get my breath back.’ He hitched the gun higher onto his shoulder then he turned and led the way with more bravado than confidence up the high slippery bank which led out of the thicket and, he hoped, towards the north.

Ten minutes later he stopped. ‘There ought to be some kind of path. But I suppose it could be overgrown.’ He sounded doubtful.

‘Have you got a compass?’ It was the sort of thing all boys in the country festooned themselves with as far as she could remember.

He shook his head. ‘I know this path like the back of my hand.’

She refrained from comment.

He bit his lip. ‘It’s getting so dark.’

‘I know. There’s more snow on the way. You can smell it.’

He smiled. ‘And to think Greg thought you were Lady Muck from the town. You know more about the country than he does in many ways.’

‘I can believe it –’ She broke off as she saw a movement out of the corner of her eye. She spun round, staring into the shadows of the trees. ‘What was that?’ she whispered.

‘Where?’ He swung the gun off his shoulder.

‘I thought I saw something move.’

They stared in silence for a moment, side by side.

‘Probably a rabbit or a deer,’ Patrick said softly.

He slipped the safety catch off the gun with a barely perceptible click.

She strained her eyes into the distance, trying to penetrate the murky depths of the scrub. There it was again, a shadow against the shadows, upright. Human. ‘There.’ Her whisper was scarcely audible. Inside her warm jacket she could feel her skin growing cold. ‘There is someone there.’

‘What shall we do?’ Patrick’s voice rose in panic and she was reminded suddenly that he was only a schoolboy and that he was probably far more scared than she was. If that were possible.

‘I don’t know. He must have seen us.’

‘Do you think he’s got a gun?’

She shook her head. ‘I doubt it. We’d know by now.’

‘Shall I shoot at him; try and scare him off?’

‘I don’t know.’ She had started to shake again. ‘Supposing it makes him angry?’

‘If it does and he comes at us, at least we’ll see who he is. And I can shoot him for real.’ She saw Patrick’s finger curling round the trigger.

She had only taken her eyes off the shadow for a second. Now as she looked back it had moved closer. It was tall; dark. To her horror she saw that it was moving quite swiftly, seeming to have no problem with the rough, tangled undergrowth. ‘Yes. Go on, shoot.’ She could hear her voice shaking with fear.

The report from the gun was colossal. It reverberated through the woods, echoing from the trees, temporarily deafening her. A pheasant rose shrieking into the sky, followed by a pair of pigeons, their wings smacking loudly. Patrick lowered the gun cautiously, feeling in his pocket for his cartridges. ‘Where is he now? Did I hit him?’ To his chagrin he didn’t know whether or not he had aimed at the shadowy figure. He had been too frightened to think.

‘I can’t see.’ She stared into the trees, forcing her eyes to focus into the darkest corners. There was nothing there.

With shaking hands Patrick reloaded the gun. ‘If I’ve killed someone I’ll go to prison.’

‘Not if he murdered Bill, you won’t.’ She touched his shoulder reassuringly. ‘I don’t know if it was anyone. It could have been a shadow.’

‘Should we check?’

She hesitated then she shook her head. ‘Let’s get onto the road and fetch the police. They can look.’

Slowly, more nervously now, they began to make their way forward again. Minutes later Paddy stopped so suddenly Kate cannoned into him. ‘Look.’ He pointed ahead.

She followed his finger and caught her breath. He was there again. On the rabbit track in front of them. Beside her Patrick raised his gun. She saw the barrel wavering as he felt for the safety catch and slid it back.

She stared at it. It was no more than a shadow; she could see no features – no face at all, just a silhouette. But it was a man.

He had disappeared before Patrick could move his finger to the trigger. ‘Where is he?’ He was frozen, the gun to his shoulder.

‘Gone.’ Kate could feel herself trembling. ‘He vanished as I was watching. Paddy, keep the gun at the ready. Let’s walk on slowly.’

She stepped forward, so close to Patrick he could feel her jacket brushing against his arm.

‘One shouldn’t walk with a loaded gun,’ he whispered.

‘This is an emergency. Just don’t trip up.’ They were there already; where it had been standing. She looked down. There were no footprints in the mud.

‘Marcus?’ She breathed the name out loud.

Patrick lowered the gun. ‘I don’t like this, Kate. And we should have been at the road by now.’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘We’re lost.’

‘How big are these woods?’ She was still scouring the ground for signs of footprints. She could see rabbit here and there, where it was soft, and the deep, sharply-cut slots of a deer, but none that had been made by a man.

‘Hundreds of acres. The other side they’re conifer plantations. They go for miles.’ He shivered visibly.

‘Can you find your way back to Redall?’ She glanced at him. The boy was near to tears.

He shook his head. ‘I don’t know where we are.’

‘Right.’ It sounded confident. ‘Let’s think. Your original plan of following the rising ground sounds a sensible one. We can’t stay out here all day; we’ve got to keep moving. Let’s do that. Let’s move only upwards, then, if as you say, we cross the road we’ll be fine.’ She was trying to picture the map in her head. The sea would be to the east; the estuary to the south. That left only two directions: north where the road ran east-west towards the coast, or due west where presumably the woods spread out until they reached the bleak, agricultural prairie lands east of Colchester and south of the soft wooded folds of the Stour valley.