Midnight is a Lonely Place

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.

‘Come on. We can’t get lost, Paddy. Not here. This is hardly uncharted country. We’re just getting tired and cold.’

‘And frightened,’ he put in. She wished he hadn’t.

‘All right, and frightened.’

‘You think it’s Marcus, don’t you.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. I don’t want to think any more. Let’s save our strength for walking.’

He hesitated, about to say something, then he changed his mind. Breaking the gun he lowered it to his side. ‘OK. Lay on Macduff. Which way would you say is up?’

She glanced round. ‘Straight on up this rabbit track. Shall I go first?’ It was only wide enough for them to go in single file. She saw him hesitate, and knew he was longing to say yes, but chivalry or male pride, or the possession of the gun or a bit of all three won and he shook his head. ‘I’ll go. You can protect my rear.’ The giggle he gave was a little hysterical.

Two minutes later he stopped with a gasp of terror. The shadow on the track was barely ten feet in front of them. A swirl of icy wind swept round it, whipping leaves and soil off the ground, howling up through the branches of the trees, gaining in strength until it rose to a scream as the hatred and anger hit them like a tangible force. Kate heard Patrick cry out and she saw him reel to one side, the gun flying into the air. For a moment she couldn’t breathe. She could feel a constriction round her throat. Her feet refused to move. She wanted to run, to run faster than she had ever run in her life before but she couldn’t take even the first step. There was an enormous bang somewhere inside her head and suddenly everything went black.

LI

Fat, confident, unsuspecting, the priests died like sheep, their throats cut like butter, their indignant, protesting whimpers still on their lips as they fell. So much for the power of their gods! He wiped his knife on a fold of his cloak and sheathed it with a triumphant smile. That was the end of the matter. The Britons, the whore, all dead, all gone to Hades and perdition. No one would know. The land would not tell. The men of the Trinovantes, who would give an arm each for a reason to fall on Rome, would never find reason for rebellion from him. This small drama would die as it had flourished on the edge of the mud. If men had disappeared, it would be assumed that the gods had called for more than one sacrifice; they were greedy these British gods; they lapped blood like dogs in the arena.

He folded his arms and stared out across the marsh, towards the eastern sky. It was clear now of cloud. The sun shone cold and hazy, clean like the blade of his knife, the light incising the wind. The heaviness of salt was in the air, overshadowing the flat, sallow smell of mud, cleansing it, purifying it with the incense of the northern seas. His eyes flicked down at the rushes which grew at the marsh’s edge; they were green, the ends tipped with spiky, iridescent flowers. Nothing disturbed them. There was no sign that anyone had passed that way at all. He flexed the muscles of his fingers slowly, staring down at his hand. Four lives, snuffed out like flames, as though they had never been. And no one would ever know.

It was the sound of a shot which awoke her. Loud, close, exploding in her brain. Then silence. A long long silence where she floundered painfully in nothingness. A shot. It couldn’t have been a shot. Who would be shooting? The sound must have been in her head. A part of the nightmare. A part of the pain. Giving up the struggle to make sense of nonsense Cissy slept again.

‘Mummy!’

A cry this time, floating into her head like a dream. ‘Mummy, I’m hurting. Help me.’

The sound spun round and round, and finally lodged in some part of her brain which was capable of a reaction. Cissy forced her eyes open with a groan. ‘Susie?’ She tried to move. There was a tight band around her ribs, preventing her from breathing properly. ‘Susie?’

‘Mummy.’ The word was followed by a sob.

The sound cut through the last of Cissy’s confusion. Christ! She’d crashed the car. She lifted her head with difficulty and stared round, trying to make sense of a world upside down. No, not upside down. On its side. The car was on its side and she was hanging from her seat belt. She looked down. Red. Blood. An awful lot of blood. Dear God, had Sue been wearing a seat belt at all? The child was below her, huddled in the well in front of the passenger seat.

‘Are you all right?’ Somehow she managed to make her voice work calmly in spite of the pain in her ribs which was, she realised, excruciating.

‘We’ve crashed!’ The reply was couched in the tone of a complaint.

‘I can see that, darling.’ Cissy bit her lip, trying to keep herself under control. ‘Darling, I don’t see how I can move. Are you hurt? Try and move each one of your arms and legs in turn. See if they’re all right.’ Her eyes were heavy. She wanted to close them, to slide away from the pain.

‘They’re OK.’

‘And your head. Does that hurt?’

Sue moved it from side to side experimentally and her eyes filled with tears. ‘Yes.’

‘And your neck?’

‘Yes.’

‘But not so badly you can’t move.’

‘No.’

‘Is there any way you can climb out?’ The windscreen had gone, she realised hazily. That was why it was so cold. She was shaking now, her whole body shuddering in tight, agonised spasms. ‘If I undo my seat belt I’m going