knowledge. He cleared his throat loudly, then realising how frightening that might be if Kate were on her own in there, he called out nervously. ‘Kate, are you there?’ He knocked on the door and jumped himself at the loudness of the hollow sound he made. ‘Kate, it’s Patrick.’
He crept across the hall and pushed the living room door open. The room was empty save for a figure lying on the sofa, covered by a rug. He felt a rush of relief. She was asleep. That explained it. He had crept right into the room before he realised that the feet and legs hanging over the arm of the sofa were those of a man.
‘Greg?’ He moved closer. The air in the room was stale and faintly unpleasant. It was very hot in there. Glancing at the stove he registered that it was glowing with heat. ‘Greg?’ He pulled the corner of the blanket away from the man’s face and gave a small cry of horror. The flesh of Bill’s face was discoloured and puffy; his eyes, half open beneath flaccid lids, were glassy and dim. A small stream of saliva had run from the corner of his mouth onto the pillow where it had dried in a sticky trail amidst the black crusts of blood. He was very obviously dead. Patrick reared back, repelled, swung away from the body and vomited onto the floor. ‘Oh God! Oh God – oh God – oh God!’ He leaned over and vomited again. Groping in the pocket of his jeans for something to wipe his mouth on, his fingers encountered the oily rag which he had used earlier to wipe the dipstick on the Volvo as he checked the engine for his father. He brought it to his face, mopping his mouth and his brow and his eyes, leaving a smear of dark oil across his cheeks. His eyes on the body he backed away from it towards the door. Where was Kate? He reached the hall and slammed the door shut, leaning against it. He felt desperately cold and shivery despite the heat in the house, and his legs were shaking violently. For a moment he thought they were going to collapse under him. He sat down on the bottom step of the stairs and took a deep breath, followed by another. Then he half turned, screwing his neck round so he could gaze up into the darkness of the upper landing. ‘Kate?’ His voice was husky, barely a whisper. ‘Kate, are you up there?’
Somehow he hauled himself to his feet and he began to climb. Above him a door slammed again. ‘Kate?’ His voice wavered unsteadily. ‘Kate, it’s Patrick.’ He could hear the wind more clearly up here. It was howling around the windows and behind it, a deep, subliminal beat, was the roar and crash of the sea. He reached the landing, straining his eyes into the darkness as he scrabbled along the wall for a light switch. He found it and flipped it on. Both bedroom doors were wide open. The air up here was ice cold in contrast to the fug downstairs. He frowned. In some recess of his mind he was registering that heat rises. It should be hotter up here, unless a window was open somewhere.
‘Kate?’ He tiptoed towards her bedroom door. Then he stopped. As the shock of what he had seen downstairs wore off a little his brain had begun to function again and the significance of what he had seen dawned on him. No fall could have caused the injuries he had seen on Bill’s head and face. The man had been beaten to death. Bill had been murdered and the murderer was wandering round in the dark, perhaps up here now. He thought about the sound of the slamming door. Both doors on the landing were open. He swallowed, tasting once more the sharp, bitter flood of bile in the back of his throat. Kate. What had happened to Kate?
Taking a deep breath he flung wide the door to her bedroom and stared in. The light was on. The room was empty. He looked round, his hand clutching the door handle so tightly that his finger joints cracked. Apart from the bed which had been stripped of its blankets, the room seemed undisturbed. Peaceful. It was full of the scent of some unidentifiable perfume – not Kate’s. He sniffed, puzzled. It was pleasant. Nice even, but it disturbed him. He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stirring, like the hackles of a dog. He didn’t like it. He turned away from the door and went across the landing to the other room. The light showed it to be empty with only a few stacked suitcases and cardboard boxes piled near the window on the far side of the floor. There was no sign of Kate. The windows in both rooms, he noticed suddenly, were tightly shut. So which door had he heard banging, and why the cold? He shuddered.
The kitchen. He hadn’t checked the kitchen. ‘Kate!’ Suddenly he found his voice again. ‘Kate, where are you?’ Taking the short flight of stairs two at a time he threw himself at the kitchen door. The room was empty. He stared round frantically. She had to be here. Please God, let her be here somewhere.
But there was nowhere for her to hide, nowhere else she could be. On the table in the middle of the room he noticed suddenly the bottle of Scotch they had given her. It lay on its side, empty. The lid, he found after a moment’s hunting, was on the floor in the middle of another patch of damp wet earth; a cautious sniff told him the damp was whisky.
‘Oh God! Kate! Greg!’ He glanced round wildly, then turning on his heel, he ran to the front door and tore it open. All he could think about was getting home as fast as possible. Dad would know what to do. Dad would somehow make it all right.
Outside, the darkness was opaque, wet, like the bottom of the sea. He could see nothing, hear nothing but the wind. He was searching frantically for his bicycle when he heard the door bang behind him. Terrified he looked round. The bicycle wasn’t there. He couldn’t find it. It was gone.
For a moment in blind panic he thought of taking the Land Rover. He had driven it before, on the track. He ran towards it, scrabbling at the door handle and, dragging it open, looked inside. There were no keys in the ignition. With a sob of frustration he slammed the door and looked round again.
Where was his bike? It must be here. Desperately he ran a few steps up the track and suddenly he saw it, right in front of him. He couldn’t stop in time and he had fallen over it before he knew what was happening. It bruised his shins, and he felt the warm trickle of blood down his leg, but he ignored it, dragging the machine upright, fumbling numbly for the pedal. It was only when he was once more on the track through the trees, his face streaming with rain and tears that he realised he had left his oilskin where it had fallen on the bathroom floor in the cottage.
XLII
Half-way back along the track the back tyre of Patrick’s bicycle punctured. The machine ploughed deep into the mud and stopped. Panting, Patrick tried desperately to force it on, then, giving up, he dismounted and let out a string of expletives. It was impossible to ride with a flat tyre when the track was in this state. He was nearly in tears. Around him the woods seemed to be closing in. He grabbed the front lamp and slid it off its bracket, directing it around him in a long sweep. The trees hung over him, Arthur Rackham fingers clawed, ready to snatch at his flesh, their trunks twisted into leering faces, sleet dripping from their boughs like acid, trying to eat away his face.
With a sob he hurled the bicycle away from him and began to run, his boots slipping and sliding, his body pouring with sweat, the cycle lamp, clutched in his hand, illuminating the puddles, throwing blinding reflections from the black, treacly mud, sparkling from the sleet crystals which had caught in the undergrowth. After a hundred yards or so he had to stop, doubled up with an agonising stitch in his side. He put his hand to his hip, gasping. It was then he saw a figure in the shadows.
He froze, the stitch vanishing as though by magic. Slowly he straightened. He fought the urge to switch off the torch. Whoever it was would have seen where he was by now anyway. Slowly he swept the light around in an arc, playing it on the slick black of the branches, seeing the shadows shrink back and regroup just beyond the reach of the beam. He was holding his breath. If it was Kate or Greg they would have come forward at once when they saw him. The picture of Bill’s battered, dead face swam up before his eyes and he thought for a moment he was going to black out. He took several steps backwards, feeling twigs and thorns tearing at his jersey, but he felt safer with the narrow trunk of a spruce at his back, solid between his shoulderblades. At least no one could get him from behind. Under the tree the smell of resin was clean and sharp and strong. It cleared his head a little. Once again he swept the torch round. There was no one there. No one in sight. He crouched lower trying to steady his breathing which sounded deafening in his ears.
He wasn’t sure how long he stayed there. Perhaps five minutes, perhaps much longer, but suddenly he realised that he was shivering violently. The sleet was soaking into his thick sweater and he was ice cold. There was no sign of any movement in the trees. Whoever it was had long gone. Cautiously, he forced his cramped legs to move, crawling out of his hiding place and straightening up. He swept the rapidly-dimming lamp round once more. Nothing. He looked left and right up the track, seeing it disappear into the distance and he felt a sudden moment of total terror. Which way was home? In his panic he had lost his bearings completely. He closed his eyes. Idiot. Nerd. Keep calm. He knew this track like the palm of his own hand. Look for a landmark; he had always prided himself that he could recognise any tree in the wood.
