The Ghosts of Sleath (42 page)

T
HE SUN DREW VAPOURS
of steam from the earth, its glare hard, unrelenting, even at that early hour, and the rutted, grassy track had lost its firmness, the surface slippery and full of shallow puddles. Ash’s clothes were damp, his shirt heavy on his back.

He walked as if still in a daze, no longer looking back, the collapsed building by now lost in the distance. Bird calls came from the woods around him and occasionally there was the rustle of some foraging creature in the undergrowth. Not a single cloud blemished the sky that morning and, even looking away from the sun, its azure hurt the eye.

He wiped a hand across his cheek, smudging the dirt there with his own tears, and his mind fought to subdue the images from the nightmare. His foot slipped in the mud, but he recovered and kept walking.

When he had come to some time before, he had found himself lying by the side of the track under the cover of trees. He vaguely remembered having been dragged there by Phelan during the night to escape from the worst of the storm, the Irishman talking to him, telling him something, the words difficult to recall. Something about being too late again … but at least some were saved … and now it was finished, it was over … It made no sense to him, but maybe it would when
the ache had left his head and his thoughts had settled. He wondered why Phelan had left him.

His shirt and trousers already beginning to stiffen as they dried, he went on. At times his steps were uncertain, his mind confused, and when visions of Grace finally overwhelmed him, he dropped to his knees, and clawed his fingers into the moist earth. He wept.

The front door of the Lodge House was still open and for a wild, irrational moment, he wondered if he would find Grace inside. It was a madness, and he did not even pause outside the gate; she was gone, lost to him forever, and the time of madness had gone too. He turned into the narrow road that led to the village.

The tower of St Giles’ rose above the treetops, but he averted his gaze. Only when he reached the lychgate and the sharp
kaa
of a crow startled him did he look through the opening at the old church. The carrion crow was perched on a headstone not far from the porch, its dagger-like bill stabbing at the air in short, jerky movements. It became still, its black eye observing the observer.

Then it was gone, powerful thrusts of its wings taking it high over the tower, its cry becoming remote, a faint echo without resonance and of no significance.

Ash went on, descending the hill, passing the silent school. When he walked by Ellen Preddle’s cottage, tucked in between its neighbours, he noticed a small upstairs window was broken. He did not stop, even though he glimpsed a shadowy figure watching him from behind a lace curtain in a window on the ground floor. He gave no thought at all to the equipment left inside the cottage. The village was very still and very quiet, his own soft footsteps the only sound to be heard. Windows in other houses were broken too, and the wall outside one was smoked black, its door open wide as if its occupants had fled.

He reached the deserted High Street, where thin wisps of steam rose from the roadway, the sun, although not yet high, beating hard on its surface, drying the night’s dampness. Here and there were other open doors, broken windows, and there was no traffic, nothing passing through. On the empty village green the stocks and whipping post seemed strangely isolated, relics of a bygone age, of no relevance here anymore.

A column of smoke from beyond the nearest buildings rose listlessly into the air, but only the birds gave Sleath any semblance of real life, and even their chitter seemed chastened.

Ash continued his journey and had no interest in the pick-up truck that had wrecked the entrance of the Black Boar Inn, the sign above hanging loose from its bracket; nor did he as much as glance at the yellow plastic duck that drifted through the mist rising from the murky pond. His concern was only for his car parked at the edge of the green, for as he drew near he could see something was wrong.

His footsteps slowed when the damage became clear. All along one side the metal was scraped and bent, the wing itself completely buckled, the nearside wheel beneath twisted, its tyre flat. He was conscious of the skid marks that veered across the road and continued over the grass to the pond’s edge, but he gave them no thought; nor did he linger to examine the harm done to the Ford - the twisted wheel told him all he needed to know.

Ash made for the bridge at the end of the village, never once looking round, concentrating only on the road ahead.

He crossed the stone bridge, the millhouse on his left quiet, dormant, another defunct memento of a distant era. He began to climb the hill that led away from Sleath.

Sweat ran down his neck and he could feel its clammy coolness on his back; his breathing became laboured, his steps more wearied. But he did not rest. He wiped his eyes with trembling fingers, his mind gradually growing numbed to the events of the night, the memories becoming dulled. The trauma was still with him, and perhaps it always would be, but for the
moment all that concerned him was to get as far away from Sleath as possible.

A car passed him, heading towards the village, its two occupants staring curiously as they went by. Another car a few minutes later. And then a police car, its siren silent, but its speed urgent. The policewoman in the passenger seat craned her head to watch the lone figure, but the vehicle did not reduce its speed. It disappeared around a bend in the road and soon even the sound of its engine was gone. Two more vehicles went by, and then an ambulance, with its siren shattering the quietness of the country lane. Its blare lasted some time before it, too, faded. Ash trudged on, putting distance between himself and the village, his head aching, the muscles of his legs stiff after the ascent of the hill. Trees closed over the lane and the air became cooler.

His eyes were downcast, seeing only the sunlight-dappled ground before him, and when the sound of yet another vehicle approached he did not look up. He heard the car slow down, its tyres crackling on the road’s surface, but still he ignored it. The car drew to a halt, and Kate had to call his name before he came to a standstill.

‘David?’

Slowly he turned and looked at Kate McCarrick.

‘What is it, David? What’s wrong?’

He waited there, his chest heaving, unable to respond, and it was Kate who had to leave the Renault to go to him.

She touched his arm carefully, alarmed at his state. ‘You look dreadful,’ was all she could say. Then, in a rush: ‘I tried to reach you last night, but the fog stopped me. Did you know the phones were out of order all evening? I stayed the night in a hotel so that I could be here first thing. Oh God, David, what’s happened? You look so …’ She could only shake her head.

‘Get me away from here, Kate,’ he said, slowly, deliberately.

‘But-’

‘Just get me away.’

‘All right, David. Of course.’

Without another word he walked away from her, going round to the other side of the car and climbing into the passenger seat. She quickly joined him and restarted the engine.

‘Do you want me to take you back to Sleath?’ she asked.

‘No!’

She flinched, then stared into his face. He looked so haggard, more tired than she had ever seen him. And his eyes seemed distant, as though his thoughts were on something that had nothing to do with the here and now. She wondered how he had become so dirty, not just his clothes, but his face and hands too. Even his hair was thick with caked dust. And was that dried blood on his shirt?

‘Just drive, Kate,’ he said, looking straight ahead. ‘Turn the car round and drive.’

By reversing onto the grass verge, almost touching the trees there, she soon manoeuvred the Renault so that it faced the opposite direction. As they headed away from Sleath another ambulance raced by, its siren deafening them for a few seconds. Kate resisted asking Ash if he knew where the ambulance was going, wary of his grimness.

Ash leaned back and closed his eyes while Kate talked. She was saying something about Seamus Phelan, her words not penetrating, making no sense, no sense at all. Lockerbie … Aberfan … it meant nothing to him. Sunlight played on the windscreen, leaves overhead casting patterned shadows; the blazing ball of the sun seemed to be following them through the trees, always level, never shrinking or changing course.

Up ahead a narrow, hump-backed bridge came into view and Kate slowed the car in case another vehicle might be approaching from the other direction. The change in speed caused Ash to open his eyes again, and as he did so he caught sight of a small figure standing by the roadside.

He started to say something to Kate, but she was concentrating on the road ahead and the car had passed the boy in an instant. Ash wheeled round, his elbow resting over the back
of the seat, his eyes searching the lane behind through the rear window.

The boy had moved to the centre of the lane and was watching the car. Watching Ash.

He wore a three-buttoned jacket, tight even on his slight figure, and short trousers that reached past his knees. And Ash recognized the boy he had thought he’d run down on his way to Sleath, the day he had almost lost control of his car when speeding across the bridge.

The one who had appeared to him in his bedroom at the inn.

The same little boy who had stood among the other ghosts at the entrance to Lockwood Hall’s secret chamber.

The one Grace had called Timmy.

Who had died in place of her all those years ago.

And even as Ash watched, the apparition began to fade.

The car rose over the bridge, descending the other side, so that the boy was out of view. But even if they stopped and went back, Ash knew the lane behind them would be empty.

He turned and faced the front. Once more he closed his eyes.