He’d even heard some people calling the northern section the Seaton Viaduct, arguing that they couldn’t call that bit the Harringworth Viaduct like everyone called the rest of it, seeing as Harringworth was over the border in Northants and this bit was in Rutland. He could see their point, but took great pleasure in annoying both camps by only ever referring to it under its official, neutral name: the Welland Viaduct. With the River Welland forming the border between the two counties, it seemed to Sean to be the only logical moniker.
‘They’ll be knackered by the time we get home,’ Ciara said. ‘Should make for a quieter day than the last couple.’
‘Fingers crossed. I was half thinking about washing the car, but I think I might give that a miss if it’s going to stay like this. I might just sit with my hands and feet in the warm water instead. Girls, not too far please!’
Millie and Mia slowed down and waited for their parents to catch up, the morning mist thick, making it difficult to see more than a hundred yards at best. The last thing they needed was for one of them to disappear out of sight or, worse, tread in dog shit. It would be just their luck to find the one fresh steaming turd that hadn’t yet frozen solid.
Sean glanced at his watch. They’d been walking around for almost half an hour. ‘Shall we get back?’ he asked, fully expecting Ciara to give him a look and tell him something about her VO2 max or heart rate variability.
‘Good idea,’ she replied, her lips almost the colour of a Smurf.
‘Girls, come on. We’re going to head back to the car. Your mum’s about to turn into a block of ice.’
‘How? I’m boiling!’ Mia, the eldest, called.
‘Yeah, well, you’re practically mummified and you haven’t stopped running about all morning. Spare a thought for us crusty old dudes over here.’
‘Ugh, Dad. Don’t use words like that, pur-lease.’
‘Don’t tell me “dude” has gone out of fashion now.’
‘Only in, like, nineteen forty-six. No, I mean “crusty”. It’s revolting.’
Sean looked at Ciara as they shared a sympathetic look. ‘She’s nine, right? I mean, I didn’t just blink and lose ten years?’
‘Nope. She’s nine. Scariest thing is, Millie’ll be next. And sooner, probably, as she’ll copy her sister.’
Sean sighed. ‘Great. Can’t wait.’
To their credit, the girls both waited by the gate at the edge of the meadow, leading onto the B672. They’d parked just on the other side of the road, in a makeshift parking area under the arches of the viaduct. There were usually a few dog walkers or families parked up, but the weather and ridiculously early hour meant the Taylors had been, and still were, the first car there. Sean felt pretty sure it’d be a good hour or two before anyone else bothered, either.
The four of them crossed the road — the girls choosing to run — and made their way onto the parking area. The girls carried on running, weaving in and out of the arches, chasing each other like a pair of wailing banshees.
‘Come on, girls. In the car,’ Sean called, unlocking the family’s Vauxhall Meriva. ‘Whack the heater on, love. Bloody windscreen’s started to freeze again already.’
Before he could call over to Millie and Mia again, he was stopped dead in his tracks by an ear-piercing, blood-curdling scream. Without hesitation, he sprinted towards it. A few seconds later, he saw both his daughters and realised they were safe. They hadn’t screamed because they were hurt. They’d screamed because of what they’d seen.
Both girls were rooted to the spot, staring with horror at the wall of one of the arches. As Sean followed their eyes, his own blood turned cold. Propped against the wall, as blue-grey as the paintwork on their car, eyes cloudy and frozen with a layer of frost, was the dead body of a man.
2
Caroline Hills sat down at her desk and opened her email inbox. She was glad she’d just had a few days off, because she was feeling tired enough as it was.
If she’d thought the exhaustion from chemotherapy had been bad, nothing could have prepared her for how absolutely bloody knackered she was following the hysterectomy. The six weeks off work had been hellish from a psychological point of view, but physically she knew they’d been necessary. The doctors had told her how much energy the recovery would take, but she’d presumed they were just being overly cautious. That was until she’d realised that even making a cup of tea had felt like running five circuits of Rutland Water.
If she was honest with herself, she struggled to remember the last time she’d had any real energy. The family’s move to Rutland had been intended to re-energise and invigorate them all, but the timing couldn’t have been worse. She just hoped they were now through the worst of it and that things would start to look up for them all.
Her recovery from the operation meant Christmas at home was a given, and it had the added benefit that Mark’d had to do all of the cooking and preparations. Still, Christmas seemed a long time ago now, and it wouldn’t be long before they were looking forward to their summer holiday. Based on the arctic conditions she’d experienced that morning, though, summer seemed a whole lot further away than it really was.
Everything looked so bleak in the winter, and she found it hard to even visualise what things looked like in July. Just walking through her frozen back garden to the compost heap earlier that morning, it seemed impossible to even imagine she’d be sitting out in the sun just a matter of weeks later.
