Midnight is a Lonely Place

distances.’

‘No, I think he’s right. Look.’ Pete slowed the Land Rover down in the middle of the road and stopped. They peered out into the darkness. A track led down steeply into the trees on their right, the features of the route flattened and hidden by the snow. Nearby was a notice, the message obliterated. They could see a car, almost hidden under the snow, parked close in beneath the trees.

‘Private road to Redall Bay?’ Pete glanced at Jon. ‘Want to take a shufty?’

Jon let himself out onto the slippery tarmac with its coating of impacted ice and snow and slid across to the notice. Brushing off the snow with his sleeve he peered at it. ‘Private R-d to Red- -ay. The words, blistered and worn were just visible. He walked over to the other car. Pushing the snow from the windscreen he peered in. ‘Europ-car.’ He could just read the sticker on the windscreen.

‘That’s it.’ He climbed back in. ‘And that must be Anne’s car. She must have hired it at the airport. She got this far safely, anyway. What are we going to do? Try and drive?’

Pete screwed up his face. ‘Ron said it was a bastard of a track even when the weather’s all right. I can’t think why folks put themselves through such sweat. Why not get someone to come in and flatten it for them and tip a load of tar? It wouldn’t cost the earth and they’d save a few axles.’ He pulled the Land Rover into the side of the road. ‘I vote we walk.’

‘All right by me.’

Jon grinned at him. His relief when Pete had enthusiastically volunteered to join in the expedition, had been so overwhelming it had surprised him. He had not realised how much he had been dreading the thought of braving a long walk from the pub through the darkness alone. He did not believe in Kate’s story about a ghost for one minute, but the incredible loneliness of the night, the snow, the silence, the wind, were all a bit unnerving.

Tucking the Land Rover in under the fir trees next to the red Fiesta, they reached into the back for the canvas holdall – Jon’s – and a plastic carrier containing four cans of lager, donated by Ron as a farewell gesture. They locked up and stood looking down the path.

‘Ready?’ Pete grinned at his companion.

‘Ready.’

Jon forced himself to smile back, but suddenly he had begun to shiver.

LXI

They were there again. Nightmare voices. Hatred and anger, forcing her from her bed, until she stood, listening, in the centre of the room. Listening to something far away. The sea. The sea was the danger now. She could hear the roar of the waves, see the walls of spume crashing across the dunes.

Tell them. Tell them my story.

Claudia was the stronger now. Her voice rising above his in the howl of the wind.

Tell them. Tell them. Let the people judge.

Then he was there. Marcus. His voice the louder. Hatred. Anger.

‘No!’

Spinning round slowly, Alison raised her hands to her head and clutched at her hair. They were fighting; fighting inside her; fighting for the last of her strength.

The grave. She must go to the grave.

She must save it from the water.

She must die.

Die with the bitch whore in the clay.

Live.

Die.

The door opened quietly and she walked out onto the landing, her bare feet warm on the thin carpet. Turning towards the stairs, she began to walk down, seeing nothing but the vision in her head. In the dark at the bottom of the stairs her fingers went unerringly to the latch on the inside of the door, though it was pitch dark there, without lights. The door opened and she stepped into the living room. Silently she moved between the sleeping figures towards the hall.

By the fire Paddy stirred uncomfortably in his chair, but, worn out, he did not open his eyes, even when the cold draught from the open front door stirred the logs into flame in the hearth.

Still barefoot she stood on the doorstep staring sightlessly out into the snow. Something made her pause – in her sleep some inner guardian directed her to step into boots and jacket – then she was gone, closing the door softly behind her.

In the living room the others slept on.

LXII

Their boots sliding in the snow, Jon and Pete tramped slowly down the track. Pete’s cheerful patter had finally died away and apart from the occasional heartfelt curse as he slipped in the hardening ruts, he had fallen silent. Jon stopped every now and then to stare gloomily ahead. The snow had lessened now, and he could see clearly all round them. The moon, high above the clouds cast a flat, white radiance across the woods. He was sure they were lost.

The track they had been following seemed suddenly to have petered out and they had been forced for the past twenty minutes or so to follow what could have been a rabbit path through the undergrowth. Whatever it was it was narrow and full of brambles, and the thick snow had on several occasions piled in over the top of his boots.

Behind him Pete cursed again. Jon grinned. Stopping, he turned. ‘Can’t be far now.’

‘No? I reckon this place of yours is like some kind of Brigadoon. It only appears every hundred years or so.’

‘Please God, you’re wrong.’ Jon’s reply was heartfelt. He shuddered as a gust of wind tore at his clothes.

A hundred yards further on the woods began to change. The thick oak and hawthorn copse became more sparse. The air grew if anything colder and, turning a bend in the track Jon and Pete found themselves at the edge of the dunes.

Narrowing his eyes against the wind, Jon stared round. ‘Now where?’

‘I can hear the sea.’ Pete cupped his hand around his ear. ‘Just over that sand. Bloody hell, it’s close.’

They scrambled up to the top of the dune and found themselves overlooking the beach. Huge lines of angry breakers creamed up the shore, crashing onto the sand, and over the water they could see racing towards them the brown, bellying clouds which carried the snow.

‘Another five minutes and we’ll have a white-out.’ Jon turned to Pete, worried. ‘Which way do you think?’

‘Left.’ Pete spoke unhesitatingly. ‘You said the farmhouse looked over the estuary. We’ve come too far to the east. We’ve got to the sea for real here.’ Turning he began to tramp along in the lee of the dune. ‘Come on. We’ll get some shelter down here. God help us when that lot hits land.’

It seemed like hours before they saw the cottage looming before them in the darkness. Eyes screwed up against the snow Pete grabbed at Jon’s arm and pointed. ‘Found the bugger!’

Jon grinned with relief. At last. Thank God. Kate.

Hurrying now with new energy the two men fought their way up the dunes and across the snow covered garden, ever aware of the crash of mighty waters behind them. The tide, as the forecast had warned, was going to rise and rise.

Ducking round towards the front door they found themselves sheltered at last from the wind. ‘I hope to God she’s there.’ Jon didn’t like the look of the dark windows. The cottage felt empty. Even from here he was pretty sure that they would find no fire; no one at home. And who could blame her? If he was living here, within spitting distance of the North Sea and he had heard a forecast like the one they were broadcasting today he would have packed and moved out on the spot.