Darkside

Even when it had an entire green-vinyl sofa to stretch out on, and a boy stroking its armpit, the memory was right there, right underneath, all ready to burst through the skin, tear open old wounds and make them bleed afresh. And it wasn’t just the wounds. It was the memory of the trembling, pissing terror every time a human approached and a hand reached out, in case it held not titbits but sudden sharp and selfish pain.

Jonas was dizzy with the fear of the remembering dog. He had no idea why; he just was.

He swayed atop the icy stile, sucked air into his lungs as if he’d just missed drowning, and squeezed his eyes shut.

He wouldn’t cry. He mustn’t cry. He was not allowed to cry.

For some reason which escaped him, that thought made his eyes burn even harder and his throat felt filled with a balloon with the effort it took to keep from tears.

It was Lucy. He knew it was all about Lucy, this new tearful streak. He tried to tell himself it was understandable – that facing the loss of someone he loved so much was sure to make him weak and vulnerable – but something in him found it merely pathetic and he hated himself because of it.

He opened his eyes and blinked at the monochromatic haloes around the stars above him and the streetlights below him. He made no effort to clear his vision – blurred was nice for now. Even blurred, he knew the shape of the village. He knew the light that was the pub and the light over the bus stop. A hundred feet below him he knew the yellow blob of Linda Cobb’s kitchen, and the absence of light that was Margaret Priddy’s home.

One light sparkled in isolation across the coombe – separate from the others. Jonas focused on it and breathed steadily. Slowly, slowly, the cobwebs faded around the single light and he saw it was a yellowish, un-curtained window across the way, only just visible above the rough silhouette of a hedge, which cut it off at the sill.

He looked down towards the village and took his bearings, then looked back up at that single pale window.

And felt his heart miss a beat.

From here.

From this place alone.

From atop the stile outside the Trewell home, Jonas Holly could see directly into his own bathroom.

Twelve Days

When it finally made up its mind, the snow came with a vengeance.

The first flakes wandered down from the black velvet sky like little stars that had lost their way, and within minutes the galaxies themselves were raining down on Exmoor. Without a breath of breeze to divert or delay them, a million billion points of fractured light poured from the heavens, to be finally reunited under the moon in a brilliant carpet of silent white.

* * *

Marvel woke up with a cat staring into his eyes from a distance of about three inches. He flinched and it dug its claws into his chest, keeping him just where it wanted him.

‘Get off,’ he suggested, but the enormously fluffy grey ball merely blinked its orange eyes and looked contemptuous. It did withdraw its claws a little, but was certainly not going anywhere soon.

Marvel turned his head with a wince to find he was asleep on Joy Springer’s hairy kitchen sofa and couldn’t feel his legs. Because of the cat, he couldn’t immediately see them either, which only added to the surreal feeling that his legs could be absolutely anywhere. He reached down and touched his thigh. Or what he assumed was his thigh – he had no sensation in the slab his finger felt through the cloth of his suit trousers.

The light was oddly muted, as if someone had put a pale veil over the windows while he slept. It added to the air of strangeness that waking up without his legs was giving him.

It had been a late night at the mobile unit. Late and smelling of Calor gas. He’d kept his team up past their bedtimes, laying out a strategy for the two inquiries; being the swan while wanting a drink. Luckily Reynolds was on the ball. Him and his fucking little notebook, thought Marvel sourly.

Then he had come back to the farm to find that although he’d given Joy Springer money for a bottle of whiskey, she’d instead bought two bottles of Cinzano, which he hadn’t even known they made any more.

‘Get off!’ he shouted into the cat’s face and – after a rebellious beat – it rose slowly, dug in its claws in farewell, and sauntered down his body with its tail in the air, so that Marvel could see from its puckered arse exactly what it thought of him.

Marvel struggled to his elbows and looked down at his legs, which – in their paralysis – seemed to be completely separate from his hips. He actually had to lean down and pull his own feet to the floor so that he could sit up. He noticed he’d removed his shoes, even though Joy Springer’s couch looked as if it had been retrieved from a tip. So did his shoes; they had been wet and dried so often in the past fortnight that the leather was going stiff. How hard could it be to buy wellington fucking boots?

He looked at his watch. Eight thirty-five am.

Bollocks.